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Playing with numbers in GalCiv II in-depth

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Playing with numbers in GalCiv II in-depth

Danger..boring..boring..

from JoeUser Forums

So how exactly does/should production work? Here's how it will work in v1.1 which will seem pretty much the same to people who aren't really into the numbers but will be a major improvement to people who follow stats.

On your planets you build factories and research labs.  These factories and labs produce industrial units and technology units.

Your spend rate determines what % of your factories and research are to be funded. In addition, the 3 sliders funnel that funding in to military, research, and social production.

What affects production?

You also have a number of bonuses that come into play:

1) Special tiles will add a bonus to the given factory or lab's production level.

2) Starbases can assist factories and labs by cranking up their production by a %.

3) Planetary bonuses (from events) can increase research or manufacturing.

4) Your civilization ability in research, social production, and military production can have an impact as well.

Half of your bonuses (2, 3, 4) you are not charged for. You simply get them for free. Yay.

The code: (for those interested)

CalcCommerce().  This function looks at your factories and multiplies that by any special buildings (like a manufacturing capital). It then takes into account things like whether there's a United Planets issue involved (like the galactic prison).

CalcTechnologyProduction().  This function looks at the total value of the labs and other research providing buildings, multiplies that by any buildings that increase research production by a % (like a technology capital) and puts it together.

CalcResearchProductionBonus(). This function looks at CalcTechnologyProduction() and then returns how much bonus research you get from your ability, whether the planet has rings (10% bonus),  whether there's some other event in action, etc.

CalcProductionBonus(). Same as ResearchProductionBonus except it looks at industry related bonuses.

Sins of the past

Galactic Civilizations II's system was a carry over from the original game (2003) in which the various abilities, values, etc. were morphed based on play testing.  And in the case of things like morale which generates your approval rating, your morale ability is literally added to your approval rating at a rate of Morale Ability to the .90 power. Why? Because from play testing that was the most fun in how the various buildings and abilities worked.

But sticking with production and research, which is the real nuts and bolts, the idea here is to streamline this so that the mechanics are straight forward and easy to understand.  I also want to add tool tips that spell out this stuff if there's time.  If you have the non-English version of Galactic Civilizations II you may want to switch to the English version for 1.1 until the new text is translated.

Real world examples

So for spread sheet gurus, what can we expect in the terms of numbers? In the game I'm in I have two planets: Haven and Vizzard II.

My spend rate is 100%. And all my money is going into research. Haven is my capital and has 3 labs. The planet has a 12% research bonus due to an event. I have a bunch of starbases around it that double my factories and lab production. What should it look like?

I'm only charged for half the bonus production (so half the starbases, half the planet, and half the ability). So even though I'm getting 134 research per week from Haven, I'm only being charged for 94 of it. Yay. The other 40 of it is "free".  Where did that number come from? Well, the base production on Haven is 54 (24 + 30).  My total research is 134. 134 - 54 is 80.  So 40 of that extra research is free and the other 40 I'm charged for.  The original 54 I'm charged for so 54 + 40 = 94.

To the average player, this is a bunch of either "who cares" or "This is so complicated".  The system isn't really designed to be spread sheeted this way and in GalCiv 1, few people did.  But enough people had a huge outcry that they couldn't just spreadsheet this stuff that we ended up in a situation where we needed to be able to put this stuff together in a way that people could understand.

Eventually I get something like this:

If this all looks confusing and such, don't worry about it.  It should look confusing and complicated to most people.  But to people who really get into the numbers, this is what I think many of them were looking for. Very clean, straight forward economics, albeit with a lot of modifiers involved but at least it's knowable.

Where things get really a pain in the rear is when you deal with the new social wastage elimination.  Should unused social production get to get all those nice military bonuses? That is, if I've got say 50 social production going but I'm not building anything, should that 50ip's get all the bonus modifiers and become say 100 military production? 

After a weekend of playing it both ways, I decided on no.  That social production is transferred to your total military production on the planet but it doesn't get all the bonuses. There has to be something to benefit the player who runs their economy well, otherwise we might as well just get rid of the economic system entirely and just have it a be a mindless grind of cranking out ships.

The other tough question is whether your base social production should get bonuses and all that good stuff and then have that magnified amount be transferred over to your military.  Again, after playing it for awhile, it just seemed incredibly cheesy that a player could see their ships get cranked out really fast because they had picked a high social production value. It also seemed counter intuitive.

Here's how I tried to game the system with a 2% Military and a 98% social:

So what Haven ended up getting in terms of military production was 1 from its base and 2 (rounds up on bonuses) on the bonus for a total of 3 natural military production from the 2% ratio.  Then the 52 from the base output from social spending is transffered over for a total of 56 military spending.

You can imagine some of the cheesy scenarios I went through though.  In one case, I had something like 300 military production because I got the bonuses from the social production and then that production got re-bonused when it was transferred over.  And at that point the entire game mechanic starts to fall apart.

In extreme cases there will probably be some slight round off error. It's unavoidable when you're taking 50% of 3 (for instance).  But you get the idea.

Damned if you do and...

What's ironic about all this work on streamlining this is that you will have more people who like the fuzzy stuff and argue the game has no "soul".

We could have just used flavor text on the abilities and saved ourselves a lot of trouble and had one group be happier with things like:

Military Production Ability:

( ) Basic
( ) Industrious
( ) Magnificient

And let the user "imagine" what those values meant other than "something really cool".

Master of Orion 2 had a bit of both. "Fantastic Traders" instead of Trade Bonuses.  And "Charismatic" instead of a set Diplomatic Ability.

I think if there's a Galactic Civilizations III that you'll see the abilities evolve into something that has elements of this.  It's important to note that Galactic Civilizations preceded Master of Orion in terms of a public release (original OS/2 version) so when someone thinks that GalCiv is really a "MOO clone" they don't realize how far back the game goes.

My view on this kind of thing is that games have to evolve over time and good games integrate features from proven successes. Otherwise, the game designer's just being obtuse IMO.

85,785 views 71 replies
Reply #51 from Stardock Forums Top
Moo3 was built around the concept of killing Micro. When you said you wanted the Death of Micro, I was pointing out, that game already exists, and your side never supported it. Its the perfect macro 4x but as you said you Are not on its side, even though it bent over backwards for the anti-manage my Economy crowd. Don't want to run your Economy in Moo3? Let the Governors do it, just hit the turn button, create some ships. You win!


That's not what I said at all. I said I was not on the side of micro in MoO3. The Macro actually worked pretty well, but other bugs and 'features' ruined the game for many. Of course the learning curve to get into the macro to make it work in a manner you wanted wasn't very friendly either, but my point was that if you wanted to micro every little detail about your planets individually you could do it in MoO3. You seem to have rejected that, whether its because you didn't like MoO3 for other reasons or because it was too tedious to do it on a planetary level I don't know. Further MoO3 in its current form is much different from even its 1.25 form, but thats an aside.

Those who micro in a TBS manage their Economy, when one wants Macro on Economy, they want it so simple it takes care of itself where they spend small amounts of time actually Managing their Economy.


Again you have no clue what *this* marcoer wants, I don't care if the economy is simple or complex, I merely want tools (or a system) in which I do not have to make redunant and boring tweeks every turn to every planet. Currently the system in GC2 is set up this way (no planetary sliders), this forces you to change your normal power strats, but I really don't see why that matters.

I'm just advocating that if we transfer Social to Military it reduces waste BUT at the same time reduces your ability to Manage their Economy because it will be displayed wrong. If it is displayed wrong, we wont be able to get accurate numbers and the end result will be guessing.


Displayed wrong? I'm not sure I agree that it will display incorrectly, but we'll have to see, I won't be able to get the beta so if you get it let me know how it is displayed incorrectly. I'm guessing that if it can be displyed correctly (and why wouldn't it be?) then SD will get it displayed correctly, even if its not on the first pass.

I'm just advocating that if we transfer Social to Military it reduces waste BUT at the same time reduces your ability to Manage their Economy because it will be displayed wrong. If it is displayed wrong, we wont be able to get accurate numbers and the end result will be guessing.


Err... I really don't follow you anymore. Are you for individual planetary sliders or not? The social to mil only helps the issue, regardless of whether you can figure out how much of it is actually moving over (since its only the raw amount without any bonuses applied). Where is the added difficulty here? The main issue before was that when you had a planet that no longer needed social production it hurt your ability to either build mil on that planet, or you had to slow down your social on other planets. You realize that in GC1 (and 2 to some extent) the optimal econ management was to run your sliders at 100% on whatever you were producing at that time right? This was a somewhat senseless chore and I don't think it was what Brad intendted anyway, but it turned out to be the most effective way to run your economy. With the new planet dynamics this is no longer necessarilly the case, but you have to adjust the way in which you build up your planets to find the new optimum method. Moving soc to mil just cleans up the system so that there is no longer the wasted production when there is no social for an individual planet.

This was never my arguement, and I'm not sure I agree with it either. I'm just advocating to reduce waste but not at the expense of the rest of the Gameplay on the Economy. I have said they could make Social like Military, no ships in the queue means no money taken from your treasury. If Social worked the exact same way, it wouldn't cost you nothing, wouldn't harm how someone could manage the economy, and it wouldn't fluctuate the Treasury since the money was never taken in the first place, nor make displaying where funds are going a nightmare.


Fair enough, I couldn't tell if you were pro or con the decoupleing movement, but you seem to agree that it doesn't matter. Social working the same way as mil isn't ideal though, as you still lose that extra production capacity when you don't have a social project. Seriously if your only complaint is that you won't be able to figure out exactly how much production you will get on your military then I really think you've got an incredibly poor arguement. I would hope though that excess production is either not charged or carried over.

No I understand the motivation behind macro very well. Its the 'death of micro' and not making Micro better, more enjoyable and funner. You said you wanted the "death of micro" you offered no improvements at all. Your motivation is that you are too lazy to deal with the Economy at all. So you say it shouldn't be in the game at all.


Again, you don't understand at all, but your arguement is getting so weak that you are grasping for straws it would seem. Death of micro isn't what you think it is, its more Death of needless micro, which planetary sliders would bring. I understand fully well that you want to be able to spend hours a turn on your 20 planets making sure not a single BC is wasted. I'm telling you its a fools chase anyway, it adds nothing substantive to the game other than giving already anal people another outlet for being anal. I'm actually pretty anal about this stuff, which is why I hate games where you *have* to do it to remain competative with the AI (or other players). Its boring, its senseless, and it offers no advantage, *especially* in a SP game. I'm not offering improvements because I don't think the system needs improvments, at least not on the scale you are talking about. But you're not talking about mere improvements either, you're talking about a complete overhaul (assuming you still want those planetary sliders). An improvement is shuttleing soc to mil, an improvement is balanceing that so that you can't 'game' the system by abusing bonuses when you do so, an improvement is not wasting over production. I'm for all of those things, but since Brad is already doing them what more should I suggest?

But, to some people managing an Empire or City or Planet like SimCities, Civilizations and 4x games it is a critical part of the game that is enjoyable. So you suggest it should just be killed off completely is already been proven wrong. Not only do the anti-macroers hate 4x complexity, and find it unejoyable to manage an empire, they simply won't support a game that makes it easy for them like Moo3.


Well the short answer is 'go play
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
We could have just used flavor text on the abilities and saved ourselves a lot of trouble and had one group be happier with things like:

Military Production Ability:

( ) Basic
( ) Industrious
( ) Magnificient

And let the user "imagine" what those values meant other than "something really cool".


If the game is popular, this doesn't lead to imagining, but to people reverse-engineering the system and figuring out how it works. We saw that in Civ3 which had some fairly opaque mechanisms that people (including me) eventually figured out. And the result is that there were some major bugs buried in the hidden formulas, which meant the game was less playable once people figured out how it really worked.

You're better off publishing everything from the beginning so flaws are more likely to be found and fixed. IMHO.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well the quick answer is that you focus too much on research right? The dynamics in this game make having more balance in your empire if not your planets a better choice than focusing too much on one side or the other. It could also be that you have too much econ, which sounds strange, but in that case you should start buying ships/building rather than wasting time building them. The reason it's a bogus arguement is that effectively it doesn't change anything about the game. If you decouple so that you can spend more all that you get is the ability to build faster (total research+production). So now its a question of pace, if you don't tweek down the building capacities then you speed up the game, if you tweek down the building capacities then you havn't actually changed anything. That said I don't really care if they do decouple them, but like you said I'd rather they do it in GC3 or an expansion so that they don't have to spend the time rebalancing the AIs to work under the new system.


It's not that I focus too much in research, it's that I specialize my planets well. Large worlds for econ, medium research worlds for research, and a few manufacturing centers (usually planets with shipyard bonus). Since I don't take advantage of the AI and buy everything they have (I have lots of money, but doing that makes the game way too easy) I end up putting up more research centers. I have a perfectly well oiled manufacturing machine completely capable of pumping out fleets to smash the AI down if I need to, it's just not anywhere near my researching side that basically has to compete with all the other AIs put together (since they still trade among themselves). I think I have a very well balanced system in place.

With that said, it annoys me when I have to switch my research worlds all to military and then go back and focus into research, since those worlds usually only have like 30 pp (production points), the research value that now comes out of that is near minimum when compared to the several hundreds rp (research points) that I use to get a turn. As you can see, that world itself doesn't actually ever produce any ships, what it does is give me several hundred BC of income by stopping its research, such is why I get massive amounts of income.

What I'm in disagreement with, is that decoupling these two would change the pace of the game. I don't think this is the case at all because in the end, it's all about how many BC you have. There's no way I could speed up the game unless I find some new source of income. It's not like I'm going to always be at 100% research and 100% manufacturing, there's no way that I can afford to, at least not with the current setup. However, I do expect to be able to say fund 10-20% more research if I'm getting extra income when I'm using 100% manufacturing. This is why there doesn't need to by any change in the actual capacity of the buildings. Basically, if you can afford it, spend more, if you can't spend less.

The way the system is set up now, the 'spending' slider is basically a limiter to be used in some sort of drastic emergency (economic bust events?). Any good player would plan out their empire so that they can spend 100% at all times, because building more than what you can spend would be the ultimate form of waste. But if you keep a factory spending and a lab spending, you have to adjust how much your labs gets and how much your factories gets. It makes the system more dynamic and flexible. There won't be a set "oh, I have to keep my spending on 100%" because if you do so, you hurt yourself by focusing in too much econ, and not enough in production.

The only problem, as I have pointed out, would be to rework the AI to handle this. And as much as I would love to see it happens, I believe a stable AI should come first.
Reply #54 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Death to micro I say -ubertaco


When you said you wanted the Death of Micro, I was pointing out, that game already exists, and your side never supported it. -me


That's not what I said at all. -ubertaco


I think you are very confused. You see, if you wrote "Death to Micro" in a post and I quote you as saying that, then it is exactly what you said.

The Macro actually worked pretty well


Not according to those who hated how the Macro would constantly override the Micro they did. It was literally impossible for you to Micro, the point of Micro is to control that aspect by yourself. Your person changes being applied to every single planet. But, the Macro would override it on many things.

but my point was that if you wanted to micro every little detail about your planets individually you could do it in MoO3.


Thats shows how ignorant you are, you were never able to fully micro in Moo3, thats why the base Market hated it.

Further MoO3 in its current form is much different from even its 1.25 form, but thats an aside.
Moo3 has a 5.4 out of 10 Average Consumer Review. And it is mostly because people are upset it is more a Ship Pumping Empire, your Governors manage the rest, and if you try to manage things yourself it usually get altered anyways. Defeating the purpose of trying to Micro.

I'm guessing that if it can be displyed correctly (and why wouldn't it be?) then SD will get it displayed correctly, even if its not on the first pass.
Ignorance once again? I explained it about 20 times in multiple examples. If you haven't caught on, I suggest you go play some Micro games like Moo2 and exercise that muscle in your skull.

Err... I really don't follow you anymore.

And thats why your simply a Troll in my book. I gave about 20 examples of things that would cause problems. But, you dont understand them still. Its not my job to make you understand a complex issue.

Are you for individual planetary sliders or not?

This is why you need medication. I never said this ever. I never said I wanted Research split from the sliders either. If you think I have said I wanted individual planetary sliders, I hope you go in search for it and quote it. Perhaps that search will keep you busy forever because you wont find it.

Moving soc to mil just cleans up the system so that there is no longer the wasted production when there is no social for an individual planet.
So we should move all the Military into Social when there isn't a Ship being built now too? Your arguement here is again weak. No Buildings being built or Ships being built should have costs being taken out of the Treasury. Since they have Military like that already, why not Social?

Seriously if your only complaint is that you won't be able to figure out exactly how much production you will get on your military then I really think you've got an incredibly poor arguement.
Only a Troll would suggest that we go back to the Dark Ages of not knowing what goes where when we can only Manage an Empire with just blind faith.

But you're not talking about mere improvements either, you're talking about a complete overhaul (assuming you still want those planetary sliders).
You are once again embarrasing yourself with blatant ignorance. I never said anything about Planetary Sliders or the de-coupling.

Death of micro isn't what you think it is
I think you need mental health. Death is a strong word, and most certainly should not be used in a way that means to improve upon something else.

It wasn't the macro crowd who hated MoO3, it was the micro crowd.


Maybe your right, but then why does Moo3 have an overwhelming 5.4 Average Consumer Score? Are there too few in the Macro crowd who didn't hate Moo3 to give it a good Consumer Review score? Are you saying that the Macro crowd is so puny to the Micro crowd that Developers really shouldn't spend more than 10% of their budgets to cater to them? Thank you for proving my point on Micro.

Though MoO3 isn't a great example as there were other sever issues with it beyond the macro/micro debate. Look at Civ4 though, they revamped alot of the system to get rid of the tedious micro that was in Civ3, I think Civ4 is a great game, and so do alot of other people, but it moved away from micro in many ways.


Moo3 worst issue was the inability to Micro, and only the uninformed wouldn't know that. Civ4 has a ton of new Micro elements. More Buildings to build, more special units like the heroes, and double the amount of improvements for your workers to build. More resources to use, more trade resources to divy up in Diplomacy, and much more complex Research tech tree. Seems like double the amount of Micro from Civ3 to me. The great Macro things you probably are thinking about was creating stacks of units, automate workers, or emphasize in city view. These are good features, I admit that, but they are improvements not a complete destruction of Micromanagment. You can still micro the worker by unautomating, you can unemphasize your cities or emphasize them onto another resource, you can unstack or restack units.

Now you're mixing two different elements. Units (which GC has with constructors and freighters) and economy.


If you can't comprehend that Units that Improve your Economy are an important part of Micromanagement, then I welcome this ignorance and hope that those wanting to create the appearance of 'Micro' make it into visual representations in the form of Units. This seems to quell the anti-Micro outrage from the 10% who play 4x games.

Civ has moved towards macro with trade since Civ3, I think most people liked that change.
What do you mean by this? You need a city by any tradable goods, you have to research 3-4 times more things to get the thing to place on the resource, you then have to establish a road between the other nation, and then you can trade those resources with them. More Micro only you dont know it because its fun. hahaha

You think Micro means Tedius or maybe Boring. Thats not what Micro means. Micro-Economics doesn't mean Boring or Tedius Economics lmao. You think because its Fun and Micro it isn't any longer Micro? Get a clue. Micro means the ability to manage your own Economy in a TBS, rather its in the form of tax sliders, population unit production, production sliders, units, planets, cities, worker improvements, city improvements, land improvements. ect ect ect.

Again, why do you assume you won't be able to tell where funds are going?


I guess you never read any of my dozen or so examples. Pitty you are too lazy not only to manage your own Economy in a 4x, but also too lazy to actually read any of the dozens of examples I posted with my link about the problems that will happen if you hide the numbers under another.

Currently you can't tell either until you look at your planets to see which ones don't have social and thus are wasting funds. In the new system you won't have this waste, and you will be able to calculate how much social gets transfered pretty easilly on your own if its not spelled out directly in the game.


YES you will have this waste still, and It'll be worse because you wont be able to see it, ontop of which you would increase Micromanagement of the Sliders 20 fold. I explained this in several examples that you have failed and refuse to become familiar with. Not only will you continue to have waste at high levels, you wont be able to see it, AND you would increase Micromanagement because of the guessing game with the sliders.
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have a question. In understand the mechanics mentioned above for the most part. What I'm confused is the ratings you get upon discovering techs. +10 military, +10 social. What do these values represent and where do they filter in to the equation? Do you spend credits on these values? Are they Galaxy wide?
For example.
Lets say I have a planet with 100 social production, (between capital and other buildings) and I have my spending set at 100% with 100% going into social (so military and research are set at 0).
Where does this +10 come in. Please assist!


On a side note, could someone also please explain the miniaturization value. What effect does that have on components?

Pleas assist, thank you.
Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On a side note, could someone also please explain the miniaturization value. What effect does that have on components?


None. It makes your hulls X% bigger in size.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alfonse,

So you mean a miniaturization of +10, means you're hull can carry 10% more?

Also any ideas about the pluses to things like social and military production?

Thx
Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
have a question. In understand the mechanics mentioned above for the most part. What I'm confused is the ratings you get upon discovering techs. +10 military, +10 social. What do these values represent and where do they filter in to the equation? Do you spend credits on these values? Are they Galaxy wide?
For example.
Lets say I have a planet with 100 social production, (between capital and other buildings) and I have my spending set at 100% with 100% going into social (so military and research are set at 0).
Where does this +10 come in. Please assist!


In v1.0X, the ratings you recieve is a direct percentage bonus for all except morale and research. For example, in your case, if you have 100 base pp (production point) from your factories, with 100% spending, and 100% into social, and you suddenly gain +10 social, asuming no outside factors (such as starbase, planet bonus, etc) you will instead produce 110 social, and will be charged for it fully, thus using 110BC, even if you weren't building a single building. This is the same for +10 for military (although you don't get charged when not building anything) and most others except research and morale. Research, however, you don't pay for, however you only get half of the bonus. A +10 research bonus on a similiar setup for research will yield 105 research, but will only cost you 100BC (you get research bonuses for free). Morale doesn't have a cost, but you only get 80% of its benefits. So a +10 morale bonus means a 8% bonus. This applies to the base morale of your planet, which is determined by how much people is on it.

In v1.1, Social, Military, and Research works exactly the same way. A +10 ratings would give a +10% bonus to your base production, but you are only charged half. So in your setup, you would produce 110 social, but will be charged 105BC, same for military and research. Further, if you are not producing any social project, than the base social will be transfered over to military to help construction. So in this case, Military has recieve an exrta 100 production that you will be charged for if you build ships. If, however, you are not building anything, then you won't be charged for any of it. Morale, has also changed a little for the better, and has become 90% of it's listed benefit. So a +10 morale means a 9% bonus instead of it's 8%. A little confusing, but I hope that helps.


On a side note, could someone also please explain the miniaturization value. What effect does that have on components?

Pleas assist, thank you.


A +10 miniturization affects the number of spaces that you have on a hull. So a tiny with 16 hull would only gain 1 space for a total of 17, but a huge with 80 spaces would gain 8 spaces for a total of 88. However, keep in mind that certain components (weapons, defenses, engines) scale up in size when your hull space increases. Although this scale up is never as much as the actually miniturization increase itself, the net effect is that you don't REALLY have 10% more space. Maybe 7-8% more.
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Someone brings MOO3 into this. Well MOO3's macro sucked. My own governors were my worst enemy, and did more damage to my empire than all the incompetent A.I. oppponents combined could.
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There's way too much discussion on this forum for something that is fundamentally simple. Let's take MOO3 out of this. Let's break down the discussion into the two essential questions:

1. Should we be able to use all capacity? In other words, should research and industry be decoupled?
2. Should planet-level management be allowed?

1. I advocate decoupling. Coupling holds back planet-level specialization. Let's say you have a research heavy, industry light planet. 300 RP vs. 30 IP. Why should I be forced to cut research to zero in order to use all 30 IP? Essentially, that's what I have to do to upgrade my planets in a reasonable amount of time when a new tech comes along. Coupling punishes me for trying to specialize my planets, which was the whole point of making tile-based improvements available.

Decouping does not speed up the game. You are still constrained by income and treasury.

2. Planet-level management should not be allowed! We don't need 2 hour turns, and we don't need to be punished for not taking 2 hour turns when the AI can run an algorithm to do it in seconds.

If there's any other essential questions, they should be identified and discussed separately. A "the system should change" vs. "the system should not change" gets us nowhere.
Reply #61 from Stardock Forums Top
I think you are very confused. You see, if you wrote "Death to Micro" in a post and I quote you as saying that, then it is exactly what you said.


And you obviously missed the context in which you misquoted me. Further I already explained the 'Death to Micro' comment, its a matter of degree, its a matter of what you want to call micro. I've been quite clear in the kind of micro I do not wish to see.

Though you are the one who is compeltely confused. You say you are not for decoupleing the sliders or for planetary sliders, so what 'micro' are you actually supporting? You have a bug up your butt about the way in which the production will be displayed, that's it! I'm asking you how you can possibly know how it will be displayed until after it comes out. I'm asking you what difference it will possibly make. Seriouly, through all your petty insults it becomes clear that you are the one who hasn't thought this through, much less understands what the coming changes will mean.

Moo3 worst issue was the inability to Micro, and only the uninformed wouldn't know that. Civ4 has a ton of new Micro elements. More Buildings to build, more special units like the heroes, and double the amount of improvements for your workers to build. More resources to use, more trade resources to divy up in Diplomacy, and much more complex Research tech tree. Seems like double the amount of Micro from Civ3 to me. The great Macro things you probably are thinking about was creating stacks of units, automate workers, or emphasize in city view. These are good features, I admit that, but they are improvements not a complete destruction of Micromanagment.


My god you are dense. Micro has nothing to do with tech trees or improvements, and everything to do with how you control the research and construction of those items. In Civ3 it paid to constantly tweek down your research and manage your city tiles on a near per turn basis to gain maximum efficiency. In Civ4 you no longer need to perform these tedious chores since the production and research now carries over. Sure there will be times when you want to go in and specifically change around the tiles in a city, but for the most part this is not something that now needs to be done every turn. Further if you think you couldn't micro compeltely in MoO3 (other than planetary buildings) you are the one who is uninformed. Indeed the issues were that the micro was a royal pain in the a$$ to do. I'm not getting into the whole governer bit, either you accepted it and figured it out, or you rejected it and never bothered to learn it. Sufice it to say that for those who bothered to learn it it worked exactly as they understood it too, and you had more input into it than you might have thought.

What do you mean by this? You need a city by any tradable goods, you have to research 3-4 times more things to get the thing to place on the resource, you then have to establish a road between the other nation, and then you can trade those resources with them. More Micro only you dont know it because its fun. hahaha


Again, you have no idea what mirco means to the vast majority of people. In civ2 you had caravans you had to manually move to a destination. In 3 and 4 trade and trade routes are handled automatically. I'm not talking about resources either, which are handled via diplomacy, but the income you get through connecting your cities to each other and to other civs. More options does not mean more micro by definition. More micro, means having to perfrom repetative and tedious tasks which could otherwise be handled by a different game mechanic. Again, this has nothing to do with using your constructors or workers, and everything to do with having to fight elements like corruption or spillover waste.

Which gets back to your only complaint. That is that social spending should not go to military because you won't be able to figure out how much of it is going to go there. As a game mechanism they can go either way, it doesn't really matter, but it seems more people want them to send extra social into military rather than back to the bank.

YES you will have this waste still, and It'll be worse because you wont be able to see it, ontop of which you would increase Micromanagement of the Sliders 20 fold. I explained this in several examples that you have failed and refuse to become familiar with. Not only will you continue to have waste at high levels, you wont be able to see it, AND you would increase Micromanagement because of the guessing game with the sliders.


What waste? There will be no waste. The only thing that can get wasted is BC, and with this there is no wasted BC. You lose some potential bonuses, but even if the BC were simply returned there would still be no waste. And how is it worse for micro? You won't have to play with sliders any more than you currently do (besides which you don't seem to understand that optimal play has you move sliders to 100% and 0% anyway). You keep on saying you have dozens of examples of this 'waste' all I see is someone whineing about the fact that they won't be able to figure out where their BC is going, even though from the description provided by Brad it would seem completely trivial to see where its going.

1. I advocate decoupling. Coupling holds back planet-level specialization. Let's say you have a research heavy, industry light planet. 300 RP vs. 30 IP. Why should I be forced to cut research to zero in order to use all 30 IP? Essentially, that's what I have to do to upgrade my planets in a reasonable amount of time when a new tech comes along. Coupling punishes me for trying to specialize my planets, which was the whole point of making tile-based improvements available.


Well it may punish you for specialization, but so what? If you understand the game mechanism then you understand that specialization may not always be optimal. I don't buy this arguement at all becuase it is in the form of "I like X, therefore everyone should like X". So you will say is the counter arguement, but unfortunately for you, the counter arguement is already accepted. Further we seem to agree that decoupling doesn't really change much of anything, other than that there will now be a new 'best' strategy. My point here is that if all you do is change the 'best' strategy without adding anything new then why waste the time redoing the AI to learn the new system when the current system works perfectly well? This would not be a simple cosmetic change after all.
Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ubertaco, calm down. There's no need for ad hominem attacks.

Specialization matters. There's a whole host of strategic decisions that planetary specialization opens up, that a generic planet structure doesn't support. The one I will focus on is geography.

1. Where do you put your centers of population? In other words, where do you fill your transports, where do your trade routes originate, and where do your taxpayers live? There's key military aspects, since population affects your land defense and where your transports launch from, and you need to try to defend freighters on trade routes from these planets. Also, you need to keep these planets outside of foreign influence to keep morale and taxes high.

2. Where do you put your research centers? These are planets with lower population (lower ground defense), and less industry (need to pull in naval defense from elsewhere). These are key soft targets, and placement of these planets out of enemy range is a key strategic decision.

3. Where do you put your industrial centers? These are ship producers. Military power radiates from here. Poor placement means it takes twice as long to get reinforcements to contested battlegrounds. Good placement means you can more easily intercept an encroaching force before they get to your soft targets.

Geographic considerations alone add significant depth to the game. This depth is muted without planetary specialization. I firmly believe that tile-based improvements and bonuses were added in GCII to add this depth. Punishing planetary specialization takes away from this.
Reply #63 from Stardock Forums Top
ubertaco, calm down. There's no need for ad hominem attacks.


Sorry, where did I attack you? I merely reply to people in the tone in which they reply to me. The first part of my reply was not directed at you at all.

Specialization matters. There's a whole host of strategic decisions that planetary specialization opens up, that a generic planet structure doesn't support. The one I will focus on is geography.


Of course it matters, but the difference is that it doesn't make as much sense to completely specialize. The problem is really only with heavy tech vs. production planets anyway. I'm simply pointing out to you that the optimal economy under this system is not heavy specialized worlds, though you still may do it based off of bonus tiles on planets.

Your strategic considerations are of course true, but they mislead you into thinking that any other system (other than individual sliders) would make a bit of difference. If you decouple you still cannot spend your cash as you wish unless your budget supports it. Making a 100% industry planet and a 100% research planet will be exactly the same as it is now. When you need to fund military your reasearch planet will still not produce, this doesn't matter whether the sliders are coupled or not.

Indeed its like I've said all along, decoupleing does nothing to the game, other than force the AI to have its code changed. It doesn't really help the player at all.

The difference between GC1 and GC2 isn't that you can or should specialize, its that you cannot simply build *everything* *everywhere*. In GC1 you essentially set up your governer build list then sat back and funded mil/soc as needed. In GC2 you have to plan how you want to lay out your planets based on how much room they have. That means not every planet gets morale centers, not every planet gets influance centers, not every planet gets factories, ...

It doesn't mean you don't still have manufacturing or research or money planets, it just means you set them up differently.
Reply #64 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ubertaco, I know that the first part of your reply wasn't directed at me. I was speaking up on behalf of others. Even if someone is being "dense", there's no need to take that tone.

Decoupling does make a difference. The comparison isn't between a 100% industry planet vs. a 100% research planet. A real-world research heavy planet would be 80% research and 20% industry. In the current system, research has to be dialed down to 20% just to use 15% of industry. This has enormous impact on the viability of a specialization strategy; industry heavy planets upgrade much more quickly than research ones, and research is hampered over an extended period of time.

The current system rewards a 50/50 setup. Planets can upgrade in a reasonable amount of time. Right now, the only reason you would specialize is if there are significant planetary or tile-based bonuses to encourage you to do so. Geography isn't a consideration at all.
Reply #65 from JoeUser Forums Top
i am understanding now that a higher population will give more revenue for a plant. Will it also give more production or research also?
Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ubertaco, I know that the first part of your reply wasn't directed at me. I was speaking up on behalf of others. Even if someone is being "dense", there's no need to take that tone.


Like I said, I respond in the same manner in which I am addressed. You can say that its better to be the 'bigger man' or whatever, but what the heck... this is the internet after all

Decoupling does make a difference. The comparison isn't between a 100% industry planet vs. a 100% research planet. A real-world research heavy planet would be 80% research and 20% industry. In the current system, research has to be dialed down to 20% just to use 15% of industry. This has enormous impact on the viability of a specialization strategy; industry heavy planets upgrade much more quickly than research ones, and research is hampered over an extended period of time.


Decoupleing does nothing to address this issue though. The only thing that addresses this issue is individual planetary sliders, which I think you agree are unwanted in the game.

For example assume you have equal amounts of production and research in your empire (though not necessarilly on individual planets). If you set your sliders to 50/50 coupled, it is the same thing as 100/100 (assuming tweeked down capacities) decoupled. In either system having a planet with a large imbalance leads to less efficient spending of both production and research. Balancing your planets will allow you to gain in efficiency (assuming your economy can handle it), but may not be optimal depending on the other strategic choices you outlined.

Again though, there is no extra waste, there is no extra advantage, there is no benefit in decoupleing.
Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The current system rewards a 50/50 setup.


Actually, I've found that my industrial capital is better at research than anything but the most intensive tech planets. By building all those factories and the industrial capital, and then focusing the planet on research (no research buildings built, of course), I can get a planet that has about 80's in industry and 50's or so in research.

I imagine that this strategy becomes more powerful with the beta, since this planet won't be wasting vast sums of money on social spending.
Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, I've found that my industrial capital is better at research than anything but the most intensive tech planets. By building all those factories and the industrial capital, and then focusing the planet on research (no research buildings built, of course), I can get a planet that has about 80's in industry and 50's or so in research.

I imagine that this strategy becomes more powerful with the beta, since this planet won't be wasting vast sums of money on social spending.


Yeah, I've been doing this in the latest beta, research centers are a waste of money and time now... factory planets can upgrade themselves and will outproduce most research planets until very late in the game. Now that I don't waste trillions into social spending, all my "research" planets are filled with factories. I've set up a traditional 'research' planet just to compare and it only comes out a bit ahead after several years of building and upgrading (when compared to a factory-research planet of the same size) because the needed factories take up valuable slots and the build time for the research centers with a few factories is ridiculous. Only when you've reached the end game, with a ton of excess money to buy/upgrade everything including those factories into research center will it really shine. This is very odd, because for most of the game the factory-research planets will produce a ton more research, and especially odd considering my factory-research centers can pump out ships like no tommorow when I need it to as well (normally they don't build ships). Going with this method, I don't even need to research down the 'research' buildings path at all. They should seriously take a look at this, something seems really off here.
Reply #69 from Stardock Forums Top
Perhaps they should just make the focus add 50% to the capacity of whatever you are focusing on, and reduce the other by 75%. That way you cannot overshoot your research capacity with factories.

So if you have 100 production and 10 research with sliders set 50/50 (so 50 production and 5 research) when you focus on research you wind up with 7.5 research and a reduction to your production of either 3 or the whopping 37, depending on how its implemented.
Reply #70 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Now that I don't waste trillions into social spending, all my "research" planets are filled with factories. I've set up a traditional 'research' planet just to compare and it only comes out a bit ahead after several years of building and upgrading

I started playing the game with the latest beta. In my second game I used the same strategie. It works.
The economic system is not allright at all. There is no logic. Deficit spending on one side - uselessness of money on the other (if you don't use it to upgrade your "industrial" science wonders). The only argument for the current economic system could be the (realistic) necessity to reallocate people (as written before). But the game doesn't consider this in an adequate manner.
Reply #71 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yep you can reallocate your industry directly into research in the beta through focusing, but this reallocation loses any bonuses, so you are spending 1BC for every 1 Research. But the important thing is that you can run your factories at 100% capacity (by using 0% research), and then reallocate this into research without any loss in capacity. A slight waste on a manufacturing capital but anywhere else its extremely effective. If I run my empires at 0% research I basically have double capacity and can beat the computer easily. If I run at 25/25/50 then the specialising works much more sensibly. So if you consider this a cheat (which it is) then leave your sliders at 25/25/50 and don't ever touch them, even at the start!

Focusing in general seems to be a way to make planets run at 100% capacity even though it seems designed that most buildings run at 50% capacity (or if you dont touch the sliders at all then research buildings always run at 33% capacity!). I mean really though the sliders should start at 100% spending and 25/25/50 allocation for a beginner. The default settings are not very good at all.

Even without the focusing cheat it still seems the best strategy to run at 0% research just so all your buildings work at 100% capacity. Then do your research through espionage,trading and conquest (especially at the hard difficulties where the computers quickly have lots of techs to sell!). But I really believe the game was meant to be played at 25/25/50 and going off this setting just spoils it.