The flaw in GalCiv2's economy (LONG)

Alex Drew

Join Date 11/2003

The flaw in GalCiv2's economy (LONG)

Because of the layout of the economy screen, it's impossible to use your entire empire at once

I think the way in which you manage the economy in GalCiv 2 could be done better. I don't want to change the rules or make the game more complex and I can understand that, for example, the civilization capital on the home planet generates 24 technology points (24TP) and that I need to spend 24 billion credits (24BC) per turn to get those points. The problem is that there's no way to do that and run the empire at the same time.

Let me explain what I mean. On the economy screen you have a number of sliders representing your economic policy. The first one is tax rate, no problems there. The second is industrial capacity. The obvious thing to think here is that the percentage slider represents how much of your factory and lab capacity you're using by spending credits. So back to that initial colony on turn one, I want to spend the full 24 BC and get as much research done as possible. Obviously I push the slider up to 100%. What am I now spending on research? 8BC. I'm only getting 8TP as well.

The problem is the sliders directly beneath industrial capacity that represent spending distribution. It's useful to have these and I'm not disputing that. With the sliders you can put more money towards social production and research relative to fleet spending (which is precisely what you'd want to do in times of peace), or vice versa. The problem is that because of the interface it's impossible to run your factories and labs at full capacity at the same time. Try this one while you read this. Start a standard game of GalCiv2. You don't need to make any decisions, just mess about with the sliders. It's probably easier to see this in action if you choose a race with no bonuses to research or either form of production.

You should be looking at a one planet empire. Your planet should have only the civilization capital and a starport. Select a ship for the port to build so that you are spending on your military budget, doesn't matter which one. Let me just highlight this next point.

You don't need to select a social project because the game will still charge you for your social production even if you're building nothing on the planet. This can be a significant drain on your resources and is probably a bug since you aren't charged for ships you aren't building but you are charged for improvements you aren't building.

Right. Now you're being charged for research, military production, and social production. Your civilization capital has 24 manufacturing points (24MP) and 24TP (theoretically). Go to the economy manager. Here you can see how much you're spending on TP and MP. Increase manufacturing capacity to full. You should be charged 48BC (plus one for colony maintenance). You will be charged 24BC. Assuming you haven't moved the spending distribution sliders you should be getting 34% of your military capacity, 33% of your social capacity, and 33% of your research capacity. So 67% of your factories (in the form of the civ capital) and 33% of your labs are being used.

Social and military are balanced, which is to say you can't get more than 24 "hammers and shields" out of a 24MP factory. However, you run into more problems if you aren't building a ship at a planet. I mentioned you don't get charged for ships you aren't building. Well you don't get the other half of your factory back either. For example, if your spending is 30% mil, 30% soc, and 40% tech, you're missing out on a total of 70% of your factories on non-ship building planets. You miss out on 70% if you're only building ships at a planet too, but the game is kind enough to still charge you the other 30%.

Is this really what the design team had in mind? You can only ever spend 50% of your capacity at most, divided between labs and factories. Feel free to move the sliders about. I can get 60% labs and 40% factories, all labs and no factories. I can even get 0% labs and 108% factories through some strange phantom credits popping up here and there. (That last one had the sliders in right, right, left, from top to bottom. Not sure why, but military spending and production went to 14BC.)

I can think of a whole series of different ways to deal with these issues. The laziest thing to do is just say "Yes you can only use 50% of your empire's potential. There's absolutely no reason for this but it's not changing." Marginally less lazy would be to change the capacity slider so the maximum level reads "50%" or invent a story involving the uncertainty principle to explain why the more accurately you fill a factory with workers, the less full labs become. That's the bit that I don't get.

I think the best option is to change the sliders around. The sliders you might have on the economy window are:
Tax rate (unchanged)
Research capacity (how much of your empire's lab capacity are you using)
Manufacturing capacity (how much of your empire's factory capacity are you using)
Military/Social divider.
This last one would allow you to choose, of your factory output, how much goes into ships or improvements. i.e. all the way to the left, all ships, all the way to the right, all improvements, etc. I think you'd still have all the options you have now, with the added ability of being able to use your entire empire.

Another option would be to leave the sliders where they are and change the way they work. For example, your spending capacity is at 0%. All three sliders below are at 0%. Your spending capacity is at 100%. All three sliders below are at 100%.Your spending capacity is at 50%. You can move the sliders below to the maximum of them each being half full on average. I think this idea is much more complex than the previous idea and wouldn't recommend it.

I think I've made my point here. I have other things I'd like to learn more of about the game, such as how spending differs when you have more potential MP than TP or vice versa, what happens to research spending when one of your planets has the brain pods special (also known as the pain pods special to good civilizations) and you choose to make use of them, how to boost social production on newly colonised worlds without resorting to throwing trillions of credits at them or implementing changes to the entire empire (I know about emphasizing social production but it doesn't really help in many cases), and why the core colony ship has a completely redundant extra colony pod, but I'm sure I'll figure those out myself. I think that the idea I've written here could make the game better for everyone who plays it, not just appeal to my personal taste. I realise that there could be balance issues, but the extra productivity would still have to be paid for and the MP or TP capacity of buildings could just be changed if things get too fast.

Please respond and tell me what you think, and finally, thank you for reading.

P.S. I see the new patch is doing something about the unused social spending and it may be that this is all entirely redundant. If so, well done to Stardock and thanks again for reading.

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This post nails it.

I'm convinced Stardock did not intend for the behavior it has now. Reading through Draginol's tutorial, the documentation: none of them state the truth explicitly, which is that even with infinite money you cannot have your labs and your factories producing at full capacity at the same time. This is stated nowhere in any official documentation I could find---most of it is preoccupied with explaining that buildings are fueled by money and won't produce otherwise. Some wiki's get it, but they assume it's a feature. I don't think it is: I think it's an ascended bug.

If you look at the sliders and play around a bit you can suss out the mathematical relationships embodied; somewhere deep in galciv2's code there's something like this:

0< military_slider_value <100

0< social_slider_value <100

0< labs_slider_value <100

military_slider_value+social_slider_value+labs_slider_value (must = ) 100 //(this would be appropriate if the resources controlled by the slider were fungible. They're not; while it's true that a BC is a BC is a BC, the slider also controls building usage. And a lab is not the same thing as a factory.

0 < spending_slider_value < 100

military_allocation = military_slider_value * spending_slider_value * factory_capacity

social_allocation = military_slider_value * spending_slider_value * factory_capacity

research_allocation = research_slider_value * spending*slider_value * labs_capacity

It's a crying shame because now that I've typed it all out I'm realizing how easy this would be to fix.

Here's what it ought to be:

0< military_slider_value <100

0< social_slider_value <100

0< labs_slider_value <100

military_slider_value+social_slider_value (must <= ) 100 //Note the omission of labs_slider_value, and note also the change from = to <=

0 < spending_slider_value < 100

military_allocation = military_slider_value * spending_slider_value * factory_capacity

social_allocation = military_slider_value * spending_slider_value * factory_capacity

research_allocation = research_slider_value * spending*slider_value * labs_capacity

All that needs to be fixed is to decouple the labs slider from the social/mil sliders. The social/mil sliders should stay coupled.

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

I'm convinced Stardock did not intend for the behavior it has now. Reading through Draginol's tutorial, the documentation: none of them state the truth explicitly, which is that even with infinite money you cannot have your labs and your factories producing at full capacity at the same time. This is stated nowhere in any official documentation I could find---most of it is preoccupied with explaining that buildings are fueled by money and won't produce otherwise. Some wiki's get it, but they assume it's a feature. I don't think it is: I think it's an ascended bug.

I find this hard to believe, because 1) it was the same in GalCiv 1, 2) if it wasn't intentional for GalCiv 2, the devs would have fixed it during the beta (you can't not notice something like this), and 3) the devs wouldn't do it again in GalCiv 3 (just look at the "production wheel").

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There were no labs or factories in GalCiv1---at least not as limits on production. They just provided bonuses.

This is a problem that only looks like a problem if you look at it from all sides. Hell, look how much text people have had to devote just to explaining how it works! While I also found it unlikely that this would get through the beta, I've come to the conclusion that

Of things that would be classified "a problem" in the beta, this is the kind most likely to get through
I find it even more implausible that the design intent was to force the player to constantly waste a large part of their production capacity

I don't think they are doing it again in Gal Civ III. GCIII seems to be using the GC1 model of fungible units of production that are enhanced by buildings, rather than the GC2 model of buildings as the basic driver of production, fueled by money.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

Quoting invalidusername86,

reply 28

There were no labs or factories in GalCiv1---at least not as limits on production. They just provided bonuses.

You're contradicting yourself. Either there were labs and factories in GalCiv 1, or there weren't. What their purpose was is immaterial for this. I know for a fact, that there were labs and factories.

Quoting invalidusername86,

reply 28

This is a problem that only looks like a problem if you look at it from all sides.

Why? You said, that the inability to run both production and research at 100% at the same time is a bug. If that is the case, then it should have been obvious from the start, that it doesn't work as intended.

Quoting invalidusername86,

reply 28

I find it even more implausible that the design intent was to force the player to constantly waste a large part of their production capacity

GalCiv 1 was all about wasted production. You had to pay for production even if you didn't build anything. If your production (or free bonus production, or your income) was higher than a certain times your planet's PQ (I completely forgot the values), then part of that production gets wasted. Do you still find it that hard to believe?
As for GalCiv 2, it is much better at preventing waste, because none of the above applies anymore (plus there is also much more free production).

Quoting invalidusername86,

reply 28

I don't think they are doing it again in Gal Civ III.

The Production Wheel prevents you from having 100% production, research, and wealth at the same time. So, yes, they are doing it again. The underlying mechanics are obviously influenced by GalCiv 1, but they seem much more simpler and transparent. Anyhow, the Alpha is coming out today, so we'll see soon enough how it works.

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