Economic bugs in 1.0X.009

Reproducing the known issues

from GalCiv2 Forums

To date, the developers have not paid much attention to the outstanding bugs in the economic model. I'm using "economic" rather broadly, to incorporate all the issues around the player's taxing, spending, manufacturing, bonuses, etc. 1.0X.009 took a few steps forward (social prodution bonuses, starbase research bonuses) but left the other issues untouched. In the hopes of drawing some attention from the devs to this part of the game, I've tried to re-verify all the known problems in 1.0X.009 and provide exact steps on how to reproduce them.

For what it's worth, as a fellow software developer, my guess is that Stardock does not have a written spec of how the economic model is supposed to work, just an in-game implementation of it. They obviously do not have systematic testing to confirm that it's working as designed in every build. What I cannot understand is why the developers are not paying more attention to these issues - for the most part, they've ignored these problem reports on the forums. I encorage others to add their known economic bugs to this thread, in the hopes of getting enough critical mass to attract the devs attention.



Bug 1: Social spending is charged when no build item is selected

The manual states on p. 30 says

Social Production, represented by hammers, is spent on projects.If you have no projects queued, the number above the hammers will be in parenthesis. In this case, the hammers are not drawing bc from your treasury.

Military production behaves as described. Social production does not. If you do not select a social project, the social production does not appear in parenthesis and is charged as spending.

Reproduce: Start a new game. Set socal rate to 100% and spending to 100%. Select nothing to build on your homeworld. The F4 screen will report total expenses of 1 maintenance + 26 social. Your homeworld will report 26 social production, and total spending of 27.

Edit3: Nastavnik pointed out this thead where Frogboy says this was by design, and was changed after the manual was completed. Apparently there is no way to avoid wasting social production.

Edit5: Frogboy confirmed later in this thread that this behavior is by design and the manual is wrong.



Bug 2: Only half of displayed research bonus is applied

A research production bonus does not supply as many bonus beakers as the equivalent production bonus does shields. It appears that 50% of the indicated bonus is being applied.

Reproduce: Start a new game choosing a 10% military production bonus, and no other production or research bonuses. Pick the technologist party for +20% research. Set military rate to 100% and spending to 100%. Select a starship to build on your homeworld. Confirm that the game shows Military +10% on the F6 statistics screen, and another +10% production on the homeworld details screen, for a total of +20% military production. Your homeworld is now producing 28 shields. 28 = Floor(24 * 1.2) so that is the expected value.

Now set research rate to 100%. Confirm that the game shows Research +20% on the F6 statistics screen. Your homeworld is now producing 26 beakers. 26 = Floor(24 * 1.1). You are only getting credit for half of the research bonus indicated by the game.

Edit5: Frogboy stated later in this thread that this behavior is by design. The empire-wide research bonus is not supposed to be applied at the displayed value.



Bug 3: Government production bonuses are not applied

Advanced government types state that they give bonuses to Economy, Production, and Research. After switching to an advanced government type, the economic bonus is observed in-game but the research and production are not observed.

Reproduce: Start a new game and play until you have researched one or more new government technologies (Interstellar Republic, Star Democracy, Star Federation). With your government set to Imperial, write down the observed Taxes, Military, Social and Research values from the F4 screen and from your homeworld. Now switch to governments to Republic, which should provide +25% economy, +25% production, +25% research. Compare the F4 and homeworld values to the ones written down previously. Taxes has received a new bonus (the +25%) but the other numbers have not changed. Repeat with Democracy and Federation, and observe that each time the economic bonus is applied, but not the production and research bonus.

Edit5: Frogboy stated later in this thread that governments are only supposed to give economic bonuses. Apparently this is a text bug in the change government screen.



Bug 4: Virtual Reality Center gives lower morale bonus than Zero G Sports Arena

A Virtual Reality Center provides +40% morale, replacing the Zero G Sports Arena which provided +55% morale, despite the expensive upgrade cost. Moreover, once the player has researched the Virtual Reality Centers technology, they are no longer able to build any of the better Zero G Sports Arena buildings on any of their planets.

Reproduce: Open \GalCiv2\Data\English\PlanetImprovements.xml. Compare lines 882 and 906.



Bug 5: Stock Market gives lower economic bonus than Banking Center

A Stock Market provides +15% economic bonus (and +10% morale, +5% influence), replacing the Banking Center which provided +24% economic bonus (and no morale or influence bonuses), despite an expensive upgrade cost. Moreover, one the player has researched the Galactic Stock Exchanges technology, they are no longer able to build the superior Banking Center buildings on any of their planets.

Although the player gets additional morale and influence bonuses from a stock market, these are much smaller than the bonuses provided from the dedicated buildings of those types. The player is better served by combining Banking Centers with morale and influence buildings, than by "upgrading" to Stock Markets.

Reproduce: Open \GalCiv2\Data\English\PlanetImprovements.xml. Compare lines 956 and 979.



Bug 6: Text description of morale improvments is incorrect

Morale bonuses, resources, buildings and trade good all state that they provide an x% morale boost (15%, 40%, etc.). Any given planet will not, in fact, improve by x% after building/acquiring the indicated bonus. If fBaseMorale = (100% - unhappiness due to population), then a planetary improvement will improve a planet's morale by fBaseMorale * x%. An empire-wide improvement will improve it by (fBaseMorale * x%) ^ 0.75.

Morale improvement text descriptions should accurately describe the amount of bonus given to the player for building the improvement. If the developers find it difficult to succinctly explain this in in-game text, perhaps they can ponder what benefits such a complicated formula for morale is providing to players.

Edit5: Frogboy stated later in this thread that this behavior is by design. There is supposed to be no straightforward relationship between the displayed +x% morale value and the actual morale improvement it will yield.



(Edit: Added the problem reported by marioflag)

Bug 7: Population Growth bonus has no effect

The population growth racial ability, trade good and bonuses have no effect in the game. Population appears to grow at a constant rate whether these bonuses are present or not.

Reproduce: Start a new game with no population bonus. Confirm that none appears on the F6 statistics screen. Leave everything else at the default settings and hit the turn button 10 times, writing down the population of your homeworld on each turn. Start a second game with a 70% racial population growth bonus. Confirm that it's shown as 70% on the F6 statistics screen. Again, click the turn button 10 times and write down the population of your homeworld on each turn. Here are the observed values in game:

Turn 1Turn 2Turn 3 Turn 4Turn 5Turn 6Turn 7Turn 8Turn 9Turn 10
0% bonus5.0B5.13B5.25B5.38B5.48B5.58B5.68B5.78B5.88B5.98B
70% bonus5.0B5.13B5.25B5.38B5.48B5.58B5.68B5.78B5.88B5.98B

The Population Growth bonus has no observable effect.



(Edit2: Added the problem reported by defimus below)

Bug 8: Text description of starbase research bonus is missing

On the planet detail screen, the research bonus supplied by starbases is missing. Only the prodution bonus is displayed. The research bonus from starbases appears to be calculated correctly, it is just not displayed to the player.

Reproduce: Start a new game with no research bonus. Confirm that none appears on the F6 statistics screen. Set research rate to 100% and spending to 100%. Set the research target to Basic Logistics - you do NOT want to research anything that will give you an empire-wide research bonus. Complete the following build plan:

  • Turn 1: Buy Basic Lab. Buy constructor. Homeworld research = 29.
  • Turn 2: Buy Basic Lab. Use constructor for economic starbase adjacent to homeworld. Buy another constructor. Homeword research = 34.
  • Turn 3: Use constructor to add Starbase Factory (+3% miltary, social, research). Homeworld research = 35.

Note that research is, correctly calculated as floor((24+5+5) * 1.03) = 35. On the planet details screen, the starbase bonus reads "Production +3%". It should also say "Research +3%" to reflect the bonus being applied.



(Edit4: Added the following problems reported by skam240 below)

Bug 9: Debt is capped at -2000BC

If you buy a large ticket item or a mass upgrade, and the resultant cost would take you below -2000BC, it will be capped at -2000BC. This thread discusses the problem. It also contains a post by Frogboy stating that this behavior is by design. So it's noted here mostly as an unintuitive way to save yourself tens of thousands of BCs late in the game.

Reproduce: Play the game until you are low on cash. Purchase an item that would take your treasury below -2000BC, such as a Trade Good. After the purchase, you will have the Trade Good, but your treasury will remain at -2000BC. You will have been credited the difference between the purchase price and -2000BC for free.



Bug 10: Secret Police Center project gives lower morale improvement than Entertainment Network

The Secret Police Center super project has a cost of 600 and provides a morale boost of +20% on the planet where it is built. The Entertainment Network is available at the start of the game, and provides a bonus of +25% at a cost of 55. The Secret Police Center is also more expensive and less powerful than the Multimedia Center (+30%/100), Extreme Stadium (+45%/250), Zero G Sports Arena (+55%/400) and Virtual Reality Center (+40%/500).

The player would be better off building any standard morale improvemnt building in the game rather than Secret Police Center project.

Reproduce: Open \GalCiv2\Data\English\PlanetImprovements.xml. Compare lines 710 and 812.
32,465 views 63 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Very insightful m8

Morten
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nice post.

I had noticed the social production costs when nothing was being built. It's painful to watch your homeword and a couple of other manufacturing planets with nothing left to build burn up so much of your cash -- but you have to leave spending at a certain level or nothing gets built on your other planets. Extremely painful. I almost wish there was a spending slider on each planet that could be used to power down some of the manufacturing planets.

I had not paid close enough attention to not getting the other bonuses as I've always been distracted.
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, thank you. i didn't notice anything about research before your post.But i would add another ability which in the game doesn't appear to have any effect: POPULATION GROWTH. I was playing with Torians and while they have 30% population growth bonus it didn't applied in my games.U can simply reproduce it by playing with torians
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've seen most of these as well--and they are huge! While I am able to forgive Stardock a great deal due to its teriffic attitude (I''ve seen no other developer as honest in acknowledging faults) and obvious effort in updating the game, I find it simply inexplicable that such huge gameplay bugs (that surely must have been seen by beta testers,) not only are still in the game, but, despite multiple posts, have been unaddressed on these forums by the devs, who are generally active posters.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I really like this post. I hope it doesn't just get swept under the rug. I think the greatest downfall of GalCIV is that the basics of production, economy, moral etc. are unclear. I know there is a system, but it is not explained in deapth anywhere, so it is hard to know exactly what to do. And then when people like drank spend time to figure it out, they are just left in a state of confusion.

I have had my own wonders about the game. For example, I built tones of these markets on a planet, but they seemed to be worthless imporvements. In fact, I can't hardly see any economy bonus having any significant benefit. I am sure I am just missing something, but I will never know because it isn't explained anywhere, and everyone is just speculating about how it really works.

I loved Gal Civ I, but I eventually returned to Civ III becaues I at least undertood this game in deapth. I could see how trade effected production and science, it was 100% clear and it always worked. I never broke out the calculator and got a different result that what the game was showing. Morale and population were also very clear. Everything was clear. But for example, in Gal Civ you change your tax rate and the results go all over the place. I know it is because more taxes mean more people skip out on there taxes etc. but what the hell is the formula for this. I don't want to be left in wonder as to how the game works. It just becomes frustrating unless I push the "I believe" button and go on with life.

Please developers, give us an encyclopedia or something. And make sure that all the math is right in the game. People like me sometimes get too frustrated about these small things and quit playing. Even though the game is great, I will always remember the anoying things. And since word of mouth is important, I will say "Oh it is a nice game BUT...."
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for making this post. I hope they fix all of these in the next release, as they don't seem super complicated but all affect gameplay (the XML ones are ridiculously easy to fix).
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Excellent post - best bug report I've seen on the forum.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It is probable that most of these are bugs, though some may be intended (such as paying for social production, whether used ior not--though it is a bad rule if so), but I wish the devs would address them either way. Clearly, GC2s' worst fault is that the economy (as broadly defined in the OP) is just not transparent. The comparison with Civ3 above is apt (and applies to Civ4 as well). Once all the rules were understood (and almost all the rules were set out somewhere in the manual or Civlilopedia, though they could be hard to find at first), all the calculations for production, income, pop growth, happiness, etc., were able to be correctly calculated and the player could undertand the exact effect of his or her decisions and how the various factors interrelated. This is simply not true in GC2 . I suspect that that is partly by design even if all bugs were corrected. It is not a design decision I agree with, however.

BTW, this also segues into GC2s second worst fault--lack of a feature comparable to the Civilopedia, coupled with an overly simplistic (though well written) manual. As mentioned in several of the new reviews, the tech tree is hard to navigate given the opaque nature of the information currently provided.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
OK. I started up some games to actually look at the numbers and not only do the bonuses not work, it appears that some of the selected abilities do not appear.

(Now, forgive me for leaving out percentage signs) As the Terrans with Industrial party, I was supposed to have Social +20 and Diplomacy +10, but when viewing the stats screen, got +30 and +15, respectively. Not only that, but my military and social productions didn't work out. Instead of getting +20 social, I'd get +30 when all the hammers were filled out (sliding spending to 100, and all of it to social). Same thing for military production, I'd get +10 more than I should. As said previously by initial poster, my research bonus was half; instead of getting +20, I got +10.

I then started as Thalians. By default, they have a +40 Loyalty, +20 Social and +20 Military. I selected Industrialists for an additional +20 social and military each. When I went to the stats screen, the Loyalty +40 was not there. Instead, it seemed that it bumped up Social to +60 (instead of 40), Military to +50 (instead of 40) and created a brand new Economics +10.

I'm wondering if Industrialists is broken. I haven't tried other parties. But I think I'll hold off until the next patch, hoping that the abilities I pick on start up are the ones that show up and that the bonuses are applied correctly. Now, I'm not a math major but I can add and multiply. If there is some other factor that modifies things behind the scenes, I'd like to know about it. I hadn't noticed before because I just assumed everything was correct -- I hadn't paid attention. But now that I've checked, I must admit it bugs me.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It is probable that most of these are bugs, though some may be intended (such as paying for social production, whether used ior not--though it is a bad rule if so), but I wish the devs would address them either way.


I agree. I'd be perfectly happy if Frogboy responded to all 7 items on the list with "that's the way it is, get over it". I'd either get over it or play a different game, but at least the issue has been resolved. But I'm very frustrated that we can't get any kind of comment from the dev team on what seem like obvious and serious gameplay problems.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great post! I've noticed one more.

In the 1.0X patch, economic starbases are suppose to now provide a research planetary bonus as well. Indeed when you upgrade the starbase, it does say +X% miltiary, social, and research bonus. However, when you click on a planet within the sector of the starbase, and click on the details button, and look under the "starbase bonuses" section, it only shows military and social bonuses being applied, not the research bonuses as outlined in the 1.0X patch readme.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Now I am just irritated. How could all these stupid little things have been overlooked. It is like all the bonuses should be re-named as "false sense of accomplishment factor". Very annoying. Keep the complaints comming, these are truly must fix items. Hope you are listening Stardock.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The best part is we know full well that the devs read all these posts, because they will respond to the most inconsequential or random posts sometimes. Their unwilling ness to comment on reasonabl requests for clarification of important core gameplay issues is mystifying. Only thing I can think of is they don't know what their response is going to be on this stuff yet, so there is an internal nix on responses to this stuff until they have a unified answer.

Very frustrating, nonetheless.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very good post.

In regards to the problems with Virtual Reality Centers and Stock Markets, I assume that we could simply edit the PlanetImprovements.xml file to change these until Startdock makes a fix? I would probably changed VRCs to have something like a 70% morale bonus and the Stock Market to keep the influence and morale bonuses, but boost economic bonus to 30% (a slight increase over the banking center, but the morale and influence bonuses probably make it worthwhile for the upgrade costs.

I agree these all need to be addressed, as it does make it more difficult to enjoy the game when you realize that decisions you made were probably wrong as a result of some bug making the results greatly different from what the game led you to expect.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great post. Man I thought some of this stuff was fixed in 1.0X, guess not. Makes me pretty upset since me and others have been very annoyed by #1 since the first few hours of the games release. ANd come on, they didn't fix the VRC bug? Come on, that should take I dunno 10 seconds for a programmer to fix.

#3 is new to me I saw the +25% econ bonus and assumed I was getting the others as well, man. About stock markets I remember Stardock people saying that since you get 30% total bonuses compared to banking centers 24% it was superior. Sadly even if you avoid researching stock markets, once you invade someone, boom it pops up, ugh.

None of these bugs are game breaking, but what makes it unacceptable is that they are extremely easy to fix and that people in this forum have been talking about them since the release of the game.

If I don't care about the Metaverse, can I change the xml files myself? At least I can fix #4 and #5 right away.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For the social spending thing, I think I saw a post by Frogboy stating that this is ths way it is supposed to be and the decision fot the change was made after the manuel was finished.

For the rest I agree with everyone, good documented post

I guess I'll be adapting my strategy until the fixes are applied.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If I don't care about the Metaverse, can I change the xml files myself? At least I can fix #4 and #5 right away.


You may want to check out Sabre Cherry's mod . He's made a bunch of XML changes that fix #4, #5 and a bunch of other annoyances. As you note, you can't submit to the metaverse with modified XML, but you can certainly play a sandbox game.

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, I faintly remember another post by frogboy in a thread that was asking for sliders for the 3 productions but I can't find it. I will always regard paying for worthless social podcution to be a bug. Either that or it's just lazy programming. Frogboys response in that above link just does not make any sense at all. The system currently in place makes for lots of micromanagement as whenever my planets are not using social I have to go to each one and prioritize either military or research and lower my total social spending, then when I get a new tech I have to pump social spending back up.

drank: Thanks for the link, the author just bumped that thread at the same time, heh.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
About my post with the Terrans...I forgot about the starting techs. Terrans start out with +10 Social and +5 diplomacy due to a couple of their techs. Geez. Of course, never read them because of how the science screen is. You have to go to "More" to click on them, then to "Less" to see the description.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Men there are in my opinion other factors which needs to be explained.COURAGE.What is courage in game?In planetary invasion i don't see any courage factor.LOYALTY.it can easily explained what is loyalty but how it influences the game?And probably the most important; i have created some thread about it but are totally unanswered: what about ADVANTAGE FACTOR and how it can be calculated based on a level of soldiering, tech tree,courage(perhaps) and invasion tactic?i hope to find an answer.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I will always regard paying for worthless social podcution to be a bug.


I agree. As it stands now, I look at social production 'bonuses' (such as those when creating a custom race) as more an end-game tax than anything. Social production bonuses may help in the early game, but are severly penalizing in the late game when you have moved the majority of your production on your fully developed worlds to military to support a large war. Assuming you have younger planets you are still trying to develop (like those recently acquired from the AI after the AI implemented their typical scorched earth strategy), social production bonuses do as much harm as good since you need to leave the social slider at a reasonable level. This is then basically a tax on any developed planet.

I guess if you were going for an influence or tech victory that may not be as much of a problem, but I am guessing the majority of players prefer going for military victories. As such military production bonuses are vastly superior to social production bonuses without the ability to 'turn off' social production costs on a per-planet basis as you can with military production costs.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here's a link to a relavent forum thread:

Link

The developer says in the thread that it's a feature not a bug. However this feature essentially just gives you free money. The basic summary is that if you make a large purchace everything that would drop you below -2000 is free. So if you have zero dollars and make a 10k purchase you only go to -2k. Seems more like a really neat exploit.

Frogboy suggests that eventually this will be based on difficulty where higher difficulty wont have the cap. Free money, however, seems more like god mode than easy.

Edit: Also, good call on this forum post. It's nice from a players perspective to have all the econ issues listed in one place so we know about them and can play around them until there's a fix. For instance, it would probably be a good idea, given the evidence above, not to create a race with a population bonus
Edit2: I was just thinking. It would be really nice if stardock posted and updated a more rigorous "known issues" page where they listed everything they know about that is wrong with the game and what they intend to do about it (maybe prioritize them as well). They could also list popular issues of contention such as the social spending issue above and explain them. This would solve alot of reduntant posts and would help out people new to the forums (it took me forever to find out that the social spending issue was considered a feature)