Goodbye to mass colony rush?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Changed with the patch:
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"Population growth fixed dramatically. This is going to have a significant game play result that we're still having to fix in the AI. Before, on a class 10 planet with a morale of 70 your population would increase at 20% per turn. Now is would change at 3%.

The "population growth ability bug" wasn't a bug but rather a problem with having populations in billions rather than millions. The population growth was previously capped at 200 million per turn. 20% of say 1 billion (or
higher) reached that cap. So all those bonuses meant nothing.

New change with the patch:
Now, at 3%, if you have a population of 1 billion then you're looking at an increase of 30 million per turn X your population bonus. If your morale is 100%, that gets doubled again.

Here's the thing: If you drain a population down to only a few billion, it'll take you a very long time to recover. Say goodbye to mass colony rush. You'll need to be very careful or else you could end up with a vast empire of tiny populations producing no money while smaller empires grow beyond you and conquer your weak but large empire.

Population Growth = CurrentMorale X Government Level X PlanetQuality Factory X GrowthFactor."
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WIll this be popular? I enjoyed grabbing planets. It is what I normally expect in 4x games? Expand, expand.

If expansion becomes too much of a loser, and all I am doing is tweaking my planets, a lot of fun goes out the window.
Am I missing something? Is it just my taste?

How about an option for which system to use?

I guess I could stay with the old patch but I would miss out on the other goodies.

10,204 views 31 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It does have a distinct impact, but it doesn't eliminate the colony rush. More that it slows it down, which a lot of people think is a good thing.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thats a good post and an interesting point.

Gonna have to pay more attention to that.

But I am glad for the patch, dag it fixes a huge laundry list of stuff.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This seems a bit like the distance from palace/number of cities limitations seen in Civ4. It's a very, very good thing.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I love this change. It means that it makes more sense to scout planets than do a mad rush. I hate it when my game is determined by whether I happened to move my initial colony ship in the right direction or not.

Plus, it will make me think about how many people I load onto a colony ship. (Low PQ planet? Load up only a few million to claim the planet - like an expeditionary force - and reinforce later when your home planet has the population available. High PQ planet? Maybe I want to load up a full boat to really get that planet built up and defended.)

Also, it will make morale and pop growth much more relevant. I don't even think about projects like Aphrodesiacs or the "Frisky" race option now. That may change after this update.

This will also make you think about building constructors much earlier than you used to - the resources are going to be better targets in teh very early game than they were.

One other thought - restraining yourself from grabbing a planet before an enemy reaches it will be a tough, but possibly wise, move. Defending planets may not be the afterthought it is now if that popultion doesn't just bounce right back after every unsucessful attack...
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
wow, this is a good change, this wasnt in 1.4b was it? cuz if it was and i didnt notice im an ass
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think it's been in since 1.1 beta 3.

You will see AI's routinely send colony ships with 50, or less. I adopted the same strategy and while it takes a long time to establish additional tax bases, you still get to colony rush. Those 2500bc anomalies become sooooo much more important and the AI's don't make an effort to build additional survey ships, just scouts.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, this would seem to me to put a damper on invasions as well. You'd be limited on how many and how fast you can produce troops to take other planets. I guess you can use some of the invasion techniques that damage the planets and give you a boost. But I dont like to damage planets. Hmm, will also have to see how this works. But to be honest doesnt sound like something I'm going to like. It already took me forever to build up invasion forces.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, this would seem to me to put a damper on invasions as well. You'd be limited on how many and how fast you can produce troops to take other planets.


Bingo. I've found border worlds the easiest to conquer because your influence hopefully has some of them unhappy and available to join your invasion forces. Basically my advanced troop transports with 4 modules are very rare. I'll build two module versions and keep them off to a "safe" area so the population can regenerate...then build more. That way I have an initial invasion fleet and can immediately build another one (spread out between my larger planets). That's usually enough to take one civilization...or if you play with tons of habitable planets, a system or two.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Remember, while it's harder to create the invasion force, the defenders are growing very slowly as well. Prior to this change, I was usually happy enough if an invasion failed, because the population would be back up before another transport made it to that planet. That isn't the case any more.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I love the change as mentioned it makes invasions a lot more costly. Normally if I lost 80% of my invasion fleet I didnt worry as my race didnt seem to understand birth control so We Can Make More!

Now with the new system losing THAT many troops hurts a heck of lot more and forces me to protect those ships more agressively. Also this means that hitting AI transports is also a lot more valuable too as even if they take one of my planets its lightly defended now and thier launching world is probably also lightly defended too for a few turns.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It really depends, you just need to be better at managing that sort of thing and keeping the population happy so they get the 75% bonus and the 100% morale bonus's. Also it helps to get a pop growth ability.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have not played the beta yet or the New 1.1, but the whole point of the colony rush was to beat the AI. And the Common AI Tactic is to fill Colonizers with 30 Population and send it off. Hopefully they fixed this for 1.1, be very painful to have 100 AI worlds with 30 Population never Growing. LOL.

And would seem that if this is still the case, the AI on the better Difficuties will STILL rush just like before, and you will have to do the same thing just to counter them again. You can't get rid of the Colony rush... But if they did pull it off.. Alrighty.

I bet people will have to to 50 Population Colonizers just to keep up with the AI now. In that case SAD.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
50 population colonizers is not a good tactic. Still put 500 on each, but build colonizers from the home world. It has a large enough population base to replenish those lost colonists. Little 50 pop planets take much longer to mature than 500 pop planets.

The new colony rush strategy seems to be buy first 2-3 colony ships, grab best planets in area, build up homeworld production, churn out colonies until out of planets. Its still a rush, but a slower one that doesn't leapfrog. At a certain point in the first year, you will suddenly be inundated with swarms of AI colony ships. You need to get as many good planets as you can before that happens.

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, it is now necessary to load up fewer colonists. (but not as low as 50) The new release is dramaticall diffrenebt fro the original in that population is now a major factor. Where you used to be able to win with lots of 5 population planets you now need to build up huge populations to get your economy working well.

The upside is that the lower population is somewhat easier to control and if you can weather the deficits it all turns out about the same.

The colony rush is still the biggest factor. There are palyers that can win the game with a dozen different startegies but no position is more powerful than having the largest empire at the end of a couple of game years. The key is getting to that point without putting yourself so deep in a hole that you can't dig out.

In the late betas I found that even at the higher difficulties it is still possible to do basically all the same things I always did to win but it is harder and takes more planning. It seems to take me twice as long to get where I want to be.

None of this detracts from the enjoyment of the game for me.

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like this. It gives you some nice play styles. If you reduce your colony rush, you'll dominate eraly game because of your massive economy, but later on you'll be stuck with only a few planets. Of course, this is less of an issue in Gigantic size maps, since there are so many planets.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Eh, I keep my Approval rating at 100% in the start and expand like nuts. I play on painful and my population is always way ahead of the other races. Of course I go with Moral bonus and the frisky bonus as my main bonuses to my custom race, "The Gerbils!", so I have little problem sending 500m colonists to anywhere.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've played the betas, mostly at crippling. This definitely effects the game and in a good way. I still colony rush, putting 500 on most of my colony ships. On Huge with 7 AIs, common habitable and stars, abundant planets I end up with 15-20 planets (out of a total of 110-120) after the initial rush. I buy a scout or two so I'm not wasting colony ship turns in no mans land. Keep your morale in the green. You have to watch it when you have those 4000-5000 troop transposrts. You may actually have to alternate your large planets ship builds, going from troops to constructs to warship to troops instead of mindlessly clicking troop, troop, troop.

You will find yourself not sending any troops from your low pop planets. It just hurts too much. Those planets are for constructor factories to get the economy starbases in your production areas so those big planets can turn out the invasion teams.

I was skeptical at first but after playing with the new population and morale emphasis I've found the game much more challenging strategically and therefore more enjoyable.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
All of this sounds like it will slow down the game more. While I don't want to play a game in
a night (I like large galaxies), some civ games can make getting to the interesting stuff a long wait.

One good thing is I think they quickened up the research slightly.

I play with researched set on the highest and I still find it too slow. But that's me, I guess.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It makes Farming more attractive. In my first 1.1 game, I have Earth cranking out a Colony ship every 4 turns. It's got a farming bonus tile. Later, I hope to crank out transports at the same speed.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Farming only increases the max cap right? It doesn't increase growth rate, or does it?

Personally I still colony rush, but I only fill the colonly ships with population which will still keep my home planet at 4 billion or more.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
nother gimp trick, i you build a bunch of transports, with one transport module and fill them, and then upgrade them to have multiple transport modules, they remain full.....
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
THat's a bug and a cheat in my book and I don't need or want to use it. However, if you enjoy playing that way, have at it.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Slowing the game down is good - what I want is a 'skip the first few years' option. I'd rather take over a civ with a few planets and the low-end tech already done than have to nursemaid through 'Hyperdrive Plus' and 'Life Support'.

Strategist, *you're* the guy that liked that rule! A typical Sid Meier half-measure.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have an answer for BaninLance's question.

Lets say you have your transports geared to carry 3000 Billion people. If you load that transport up at a low quality planet, odds are that the planet only has 5000 Billionpeople. So after loading the transport, you have 2000 Billion people left to regenerate 3000 Billion people. I know its some form of exponential formula for pop growth, so it will take a while, since the population has to more then double

Now, lets say you have a planet with 24 000 billiion people, and you load the same transport. After loading, you have 21 000 B. poeple. It wont take nearly as long to regenerate those losses.

The net result is that I would probably try to set up a decent (pq 12 or better) planet to have a high population and a good factory output, and have it stockpile transports. I would use that planet to generate invasions or repopulate other planets.

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Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am beginning to doubt the value of the colony rush in the recent betas. having played just about every 4x game since the original civ this came as quite a surprise.

I won a game yesterday, masochist lvl, huge map i think and I started the game stuck in the top corner with only 2 systems next to me. I didnt go out of that corner till well into the game.
Maybe it just was an unusually nice place to be, I built 6 economy starbases which were able to boost prod and research for ALL my planets