1% military production = enough? ("social fund transfer"-syndrome)

I'm not sure the way it exactly works, but if you set military production to 1% and use overflow from social production to build ships you won't get nearly as much military production as you would get if you set the military slider higher and the social slider lower. You're losing a certain amount in the process. I don't know if has to do with bonuses or what.

This is very noticiable in planets with a lot of production. You can make a test: pick your best factory-planet, fix research at say 60%, clean the social building queue and compare the military production you get with military social 1%/39% and 39%/1%.

I like your a idea about separate sliders for each planet, but then i'm a micro management maniac that likes to control every thing, and i'm sure other people wouldn't like to have so many sliders to play with... a pity, but i don't think they will do something like that.

Anyway, i still set military to 1% sometimes when i just don't want any more ships apart from the occasional constructor, and i have a lot to build on planets or i want to go research like crazy.

Sorry, my english is terrible.

You make a good point, Zartax, but I find myself leaving at least a little more in the military spending, especially when I'm at war. I believe your technique works well--and I use it--when you're not at war, or at least not actively at war (say, you already have what fleet you need at the moment).

The thing is that many of my planets are upgrading some building or another, or constructing a building that's not essential at the moment (say, an approval or economic building), that I don't need immediately but would like to see finished in a foreseeable future. If I need to build ships at the same time, I like to assign a minimum military production strength. This may be in between 10% and 50%, depending on my needs.

Then again, most if not all of my planets have starports, which means military production is not wasted (even if some may argue that tiles are).

I, for one, would not like to empty my building queue when my Galactic Achievement or Super Project is halfway. I'll just have that particular planet focus on the military.

To answer your question: I generally do not consider 1% to be enough. I find my military production too fickle when the ratio is this low. But the spillovers have encouraged me to lower my military rating to about 10-20% peacetime and 20%-50% wartime.

Sorry, my english is terrible.

You could've fooled me.

True about the bonuses. The difference in production come from bonuses to either social or miliary production. Wether the military production bonus applies to the transfered production, I don't know. Someone else who has a clue?

I'm also a CONTROL freak. Not really a micromanagement freak. I believe that the planetary sliders would grant more control and less micromanagement.

Oh, and your english is more that adequate.


Tarbo: Well, since I have, say 4 starports out of 12-15 possible, the build queue removal is really a non-issue. These planets are more or less specialized on production. This is my way of controling bias towards social of military. The number of planets with starports. Most Super Projects or Achievements are built on planets without a starport, and in the rare case they are built where there is a starport the planet has so much production they are finished within 5 turns or so anyway, wich is affordable.

The only scenario when I can imagine that this is a drawback is when you really, really need a ship, can't afford to buy it and have a half-finished building in the queue, but that happens sooo rarly. And the choice of increasing mil.prod. will set all my other planets down in production and thus creating a "waste" more than this single half-finished building. Set back 10 planets 2 turns or one planet, say 8 turns. The latter choice is better by far when put into perspective.

How much production are you losing on average over 10 turns on a percentage basis with not doing this vs doing this as you've described. I'm curious as to how it plays out over 10 turns. I'm curious because... what you do at the beginning effects the next 100 turns for sure, and the 20 turns the next 120 turns, and on and on.

I was under the impression that if you're actual spending if you don't have any mil production ships quered and no social projects underway that all of that money goes back to taxiation? If you have a mil production project then it gets the social bonus if there's no social project, if you have both then they work like normal gettin the % shown in the national level. In order to grow the economy i.e. the population I generally keep my overall morale level about 75-85% this means my income taxes are usually about 25-35%. In order to limit the amount of excess spending I control the actual output on a national level keep it at about 85-90%. I keep trying to keep the income tax on the lower end of 25% or lower still if possible in order to keep population growth rates up, more ppl means more taxes in the end and a lower tax rate means high morale which means high groth rate which means more taxes. The reason I try to keep production at 85-90% is that if you keep it lower you're wasting a lot of potential production and if you go higher you have no excess for emergencies and it's harder to keep it in check. I also like to try to keep expanding the treasury about 1%-5% per year of actual total income, tax, trade, tourism, and whatever else you're skimming from the galaxy. So if you take in 100 BC try to keep bringing in 1-5 BC's for 500 BC 5-25, and for every 1000BC 10-50 BC's per turn. As you get more and more ahead of the other civs or if you are preparing for war I'll double that so it'll be about 100-200 BC's per turn extra so that you can build up a good war bond base before you end up shooting. Also if you end up needing ships faster or research done faster then just up your production output. Also consider on your research worlds using that focus thing to up the production on those worlds, that is if you specialize research on certain worlds like I do. At least on your research capital do it. I also keep the spread of the big 3 at about 15-25% military, 25-35% social, and 35-55% research, though I play on the "slow research level". If you're running out of money to buys stuff with your problem is probably with your tax level, if you're taxation level is keeping your morale under 80% on average then you're taxing too high. Some of your worlds will be lower morale when you first colonize them, I usually spend the money to buy either the morale thing right away if it's under 60% or a factory if it's just low but the rest of the empire isn't under heavy taxiation or wartime taxiation, if you don't get a morale booster early then you're missing out on a large fueler of taxes for your empire. Consider for a moment that every million people you got paying taxes pays not just this turn but the next turn, so if you dont have a good growth rate then it hurts not only your taxes collected tomorrow but the next day and over and over again. So you should try to get taxes as low as possible so you don't need to worry about buying anything you want to buy especially things that will help you make more money in the long run.

AAAARGH!

Please paragraph that Dan.

There is a fair bit of loss, to the point where I put social high until I finish all my projects if I'm not at war, then when I'm at war I can turn social off and jack up military, and use the money I've saved to rush buy any extras I need.

Oh, Chu, if you hadn't had mentioned your English I (and I'm fairly sure everyone) would have taken you for a native speaker

Dan, I think you are missing the point here. I don't worry about wasting BC. BC I have plenty of. The waste I talk about is having factories standing empty, not producing anything which in the long run loose me many turns in building that economy, war machine whatever. For full efficiency, everything should be working 100% all the time. Putting % in mil.prod. will remove that same amount on all planets without a starport, reducing efficiency.

Oh, and please listen to Marcathonas about the paragraphs.


Marcathonas: I can see the strategy in that but why not just put some ships in the queue and when your social project is finished the ships will start to build automaticly. Why even bother with the military slider? Doesn't the slider force you to syncronize the finishing time of your planets to not loose production when cranking the military slider up?

There are always going to be a few marginal planets where I'm not going to see the need to build a starport. I might put a factory on them initially to speed along the filling of the few tiles they have to offer, but in theory when that's done I'll probably plant a research lab in its place, meaning there are very few shields or hammers to be wasted anyway.

In practise however, a little waste is better than waiting eons every time your labs get an upgrade. Of course I would prefer that the unused shields and hammers go toward something useful, even if it's not on the scale of building a ship, but the problem is that if that can be made to work for marginal planets it can be made to work for the manufacturing capital. For example, if you tie up a marginal planet making ship components to be sent elsewhere (thus speeding up military production everywhere else) there's nothing to stop you doing that large-scale, thus creating the flat-packed-ship phenomenon that was intrinsic to MoO3.

I've never played MoO3 so I don't know what that phenomenon is.

Anyway, I'm not talking about some backwater class 4 planet here. I'm talking about the class 15 economic powerhouse or the class 13 research planet that will take 50-100% longer to build just because I plan to build a ship on another planet. Thats just not ok in an effective empire. You need everything working at maximum, all the time. Therefore a loss of production is not ok, especially if it can be avoided.

Ex:

Say a planet who is going to be an economy based planet will get fully developed in 30 turns on 66% social spending. When fully developed it will produce 150 BC a turn, net. So, on avarage during the building process it produce 75 BC a turn (50% of 150). The next 30 turns it will produce 150 BC since it is fully developed.

75*30 + 150*30 = 6750 BC over 60 turns.

Now, put military spending to 33%, reducing social spending to 33% (leaving research as it is). This will cut social production speed in half. To fully develop the planet will now take 60 turns. During the development the planet will produce 75 BC on avarage, same as above.

75*60 = 4500 BC

6750 - 4500 = 2250 (!)

So, when doing like I propose, you will get 2250 BC more in your bankaccount from ONE planet, over the course of 60 turns. If this where a reseatch planet that would equal several techs! For ONE planet! And all this WITHOUT sacrificing ship production since that can be achieved via social production transfer.

I never put my military spending slider to anything but 1% and by the looks of it I'm making a fortune in the process.

Tarbo: Well, since I have, say 4 starports out of 12-15 possible, the build queue removal is really a non-issue. These planets are more or less specialized on production. This is my way of controling bias towards social of military. The number of planets with starports. Most Super Projects or Achievements are built on planets without a starport,

It seems to me that you then have 2 kinds of industry worlds, one that doesn't have a starport and one that does. That seems unusual to me, my main industry worlds also generally build ships.

In theory your strategy sounds great, empty social queue, when you need to build ships, but my industry worlds generally seem to need to both build social projects (either brand new improvements or upgrading improvements) and build ships at the same time.

Particularly in the early game, where you need to both crank out colony ships quick and upgrade factories/build new factories at the same time. So this strategy would be inapplicable at this phase.

I agree though at a certain stage, the need for ships building becomes very much less urgent , roughly at the point where all planets and resources are taken and built, and the AI isn't yet threatening to attack if you dont have a strong military... Even then I can always build trade ships for example.

At such a point, what you do makes quite a bit of sense.

Still by using only EITHER the social production OR the military production of the colony, there's an opportunity cost.
Sometimes you need to do both.

My problem is even if I focus only on social production , my big industry worlds are in a constant state of development (maybe your research is slower ?), so if I use your strategy, when I build ships, I'm not doing any social projects.

It's unclear to me that focusing on ship building alone (then switching back to social projects alone) is definitely superior to building both factory improvements and ships at the same time.

I have been using 1% for a while now. It works for me and allows me to control spending very very carefully.

You don't get bonuses on transferred production. I can't remember exactly, but I think you lose ALL the bonuses, both racial and from buildings/economy starbases. I quite often use the 1% thing 'cos it's convenient but if I'm after efficiency I won't. Production is never wasted for me because I always build ships on every planet. I can always find a use for extra constructors and troop ships!

You only get the straight production amount xferred between military and social.

So if your planet has 200 production with a 33% starbase bonus set 50% military and 50% social you get total production of 133 military and 133 social for a total of 266. But you only pay (in BCs) for 1/2 of your bonus production, so you get 266 but pay 233. If you have no buildings to build, that 100 will transfer from social to military, but the bonus will not, so you would get 233 military production and pay 216. So there is some loss from xferring that should be avoided if possible. But it's not always possible.

It seems to me that you then have 2 kinds of industry worlds, one that doesn't have a starport and one that does. That seems unusual to me, my main industry worlds also generally build ships.

Actually, no. I only have one kind of industry world, and thats the one with the starport. The other are either economy or research, or some of both. But they still loose lots of resource if I increase the mil. spending slider. See #9.

In theory your strategy sounds great, empty social queue, when you need to build ships, but my industry worlds generally seem to need to both build social projects (either brand new improvements or upgrading improvements) and build ships at the same time. Particularly in the early game, where you need to both crank out colony ships quick and upgrade factories/build new factories at the same time. So this strategy would be inapplicable at this phase. ... Still by using only EITHER the social production OR the military production of the colony, there's an opportunity cost.

Do you need to PRODUCE both at the same time, or do you just need both end results? Is there a difference between building one, then the other at full speed compared to building both simultaneously at half the speed?

Ex: First lines is my strategy and the others yours. x is producing, - is idling, - Ship -; - Factory - is end product finished.

Soc: xxxxxxxx - Ship - ---------------------- xxxxxxxxx - Ship - --------------------- xxxxxxxx - Ship -
Mil: -------------------- xxxxxxxx - Factory - ------------------- xxxxxxxxx - Factory - -----------------

Soc: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - Ship - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - Ship - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mil: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - Factory - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - Factory - xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sometimes you need to do both. My problem is even if I focus only on social production , my big industry worlds are in a constant state of development (maybe your research is slower ?), so if I use your strategy, when I build ships, I'm not doing any social projects. It's unclear to me that focusing on ship building alone (then switching back to social projects alone) is definitely superior to building both factory improvements and ships at the same time.

The benefit is not on the industrial worlds since they do use both types of production. The benefit is on the other worlds, where putting funds in military production is just circulating money instead of putting it to use. Here you need ALL funds to go to social development, especially in early game.

Haasen:

Ok, thats what I was afraid of. I went into my game, did some quick calculations:

"Lost social production" is the one spent on military into nothingness which gets refunded.
"Social production bonus" I set to 1.25 (25%)
"Gained military production bonus" is all production that I previously lost because of bonuses not applying to transferred production.

I put the sliders to 30% soc, 30% mil.

(lost social production)*(Social production bonus) - (gained military production bonus) = -37.25

All in all I'm loosing 37.25 total production every turn by having it transferred. Comparing this to the gain in #9 which is (in my current game):

2250 over 60 turns times planets with no starport = (2250/60)*5 = 187.5 per turn
=> net gain / turn = 187.5 - 37.25 = 150.25

This is disregarding the fact that "gained military production bonus" is low in early game when industrial planets are developing.

So, roughly, I have gained 150.25*60 = 9015 BC and/or research points over the course of 60 turns during early-mid game in my particular game. Roughly calculated.

Edit: Oh, just noticed. When havning the slider at 1% and focusing on military at a planetary level, you get bonuses. So just focus when building ships and you will still get at least some of the bonus, making the benefit even larger.

I will admit I'm a starport fanatic. Almost all my planets that aren't an econ or research capital have a starport and are making constructors. So I leave my military at around 10-20% and use focus on planets that are either research or warship focused.

Starports are cheap to make and it takes me a while to fill up all the squares on my planets (i also always research neutrality early for the extra squares).

I also tend to flip flop my research between social, military and environmental so I change my sliders quite a bit. My research usually stays at 45%. When I'm reaseaching some social improvements, my sliders are 45%/10%, when I have one or two upgrades waiting, I switch to 10%/45% and research military. When I hit a new sweet spot in ship design, I switch back (45%/10%) and produce ships while research diplomacy or influence techs. Rinse, repeat.