A new way to manage empire spending sliders
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My ideal empire has have slave planets building starships, other core planets doing research, and frontier planets building up their infrastructure. I can't do that. If I want a ship, it's either get every planet building other ships, waste a chunk of every planet's industry, or buy it outright and waste money.
First, there needs to be something set up that spilts spending on each planet based on what jobs it can do. REALLY. If the Mil/Soc/Res ratio is 2/4/4, and there's nothing in the social queue, it should go 1/3 military, 2/3 research. If there's no ship, but a building available, it should go half and half into the other two. It will fix all the wasted production, and it doesn't need any extra buttons of UI changes. And the reasoning behind those if/thens shouldn't be that hard to put in.
I originally was thinking of a way to link build queues and governors and sliders and everything, but I just thought of something simpler. (I'll write up that original idea if I can just get it to make sense in my head
)
Abstract: Run the whole economy through the current global slider, but focused to the most appropriate planets. The goal is to manage spending in terms of maximizing the empire's production of ships and research, and putting social spending on newer planets where it is needed, automatically or through the use of "economic governors". Give warnings on the slider screen if all governor requests cannot be fulfilled.
An economic governor does even less than a build queue - all he does is wave his hand in the air and say "gimme money" (mil governor asks for mil funding, research for research, social for social.) For a given funding type, there are different infrastructures that use it most efficiently. Shipyards and manufacturing go with military, labs go with research. Social would normally go with manufacturing, but given that it should ideally go to planets with less buildings, I'll ignore manufacturing capability when assigning social money. (In theory, you could automatically assign social spending to those with the least industry, but I'm not sure how that would work in practice, so I'll leave it out for now and think about it.)
A certain class of funding goes to planets in the following order:
Governor-tagged, high infrastructure
Governor-tagged, low infrastructure
No gov, high infrastructure
No gov, low infrastructure
The money trickles down like water in a stack of jugs. The second level doesn't start filling up until the first level's full. If there's a tie, the money's split evenly.
Example: 20% military spending, 20% social, 60% research.
You have 5 colonies - 1 with a basic lab, 1 with a basic shipyard, 3 with nothing. Equal in every other way.
No governors are turned on.
The AI looks for the best place to put its military cash, finds the shipyard planet. The colonies are equal (take 20% each), so the fit's perfect. Every cent of military money goes there, and noone else builds ships.
Next, it does social. No governors, and social spending isn't affected by infrastructure, so it does nothing.
Then, it does research. It finds 1 planet with a lab, and 1/3 of the research money fits there, so it puts it there.
Final step - the leftovers. We've got 20% social and 40% research left, and three planets doing nothing. So, we just set them to do 1/3 social and 2/3 research.
This gives the best productivity for the current improvements. (Assuming I understand the economics right, but even if the numbers aren't right, I think the idea is.)Also, you don't have to worry about the military and research planets being left behind on the social side.
Example: 50% research, 50% social.
You have 2 colonies - A with a lab, B with nothing. Equal in every other way.
No governors.
Initially, the AI will go full research in A and full social in B. Eventually, B will build a lab. At this time, their research efficiencies will be the same, so both planets will get a 50/50 spending rate. B will be slightly ahead of A in the build queue by now, and it might have more manufacturing capacity (or get it soon). In this case, B could end up building an advanced lab before A. If this happens, then B will get 100% of research spending, and A will get 100% social. This will give it a chance to catch up on the social side of things. Throughout the whole process, the research money is being put where it can make the most difference, and the two colonies will stay in balance. (Same for military, only it should be coded to swap production once a ship build's finished, so you don't end up with half-finished ships everywhere.)
The good thing is, there's already sorted planet lists for top military and social spending planets. (We don't need it for research cause we know what it's researching.) By looking at the top military list, we can see all the planets that are getting _any_ military funds - once we see one that's getting 0, we know everyone below it is getting the same. So, we can manage all ship production from a few major worlds.
There are some other issues here. You might want ships built on a specific planet for whatever reason. Or, if you've got two planets (one with shipyards for hp, one with fusion plant for manufacturing), you might have a reason to prefer a a few strong ships over more weak ships, or vice versa. That's where governors come in.
Like I said, an economic governor just puts his hand up for a certain color of money. He doesn't handle what gets built (ships or buildings), that the job of you and the build queues. But you can easily set up a build queue of all the buildings you want on every planet, and another one for military planets. Or you can add shipyards to each military planet as you go. The governors are there to demand money from the economy, but not from you. If you've set military to 0, then no money will go to military, no matter what the governors say. All you have to remember is to put the governors on the right places. If you've got 10 equal planets and you want 10% military, just set one governor and you can manage all your ships from one planet (and lose lots of rounding downs). If you're worried about its economy, switch to a different planet, or just get some military improvements built, turn the governor off, and the ai will figure it out automatically, like before. Having "military capacity" and "research capacity"
lists in the planet lists could also be helpful here.
Consider different spending rates for this situation:
4 colonies - A & B are equal military powerhouses, C has only shipyard, D empty
Calculating Mil/Soc/Res spending out of 100bc
Mil gov on A & B, social gov on D.
50/50/0 -> A & B: 25 mil, C & D: 25 soc
(Same scenario like with the two labs.)
Mil gov on A & B, social gov on D.
70/20/10 -> A & B: 25 mil, C: 20 mil, 5 res, D: 20 soc, 5res
(D spends all the social, C spends the remaining military, the research is split evenly.)
Mil gov on A & B, social gov on C.
70/20/10 -> A & B: 25 mil, C: 20 soc, 5 mil, D: 15 mil, 10 res
(C gets all the social cause we told it so, but it also get as much remaining military as
possible, cause it's still got room, and it's better to build ships than D.)
Even if you do unexpected things, it can still manage something half-decent.
Mil gov on A & B, research gov on C, social gov on D.
75/0/25 - A & B: 25 mil, C: 25 res, D: 25 mil.
Now, the resources aren't being used properly. Even if D had a lab, this'd happen. The lesson is, keep an eye on which governors are turned on.
Going back to the two research colonies with 50/50 spending - without governors, they'll automatically keep a rough pace with each other. If you want to force one, you can set a governor to research and the other will automatically go social. If you want them both social, you could set both governors on social, but you'll still get 50/50 spending on each colony. (There could be a warning message on the slider screen if you haven't assigned enough resources to give all governors full spending.) Of course, if you really want all your colonies on social spending, not research, just set the slider to 100% and your problem's solved.
If there's not enough money to keep all the governors happy and you still go ahead, it'll split the money using the same logic as non-governed planets. If one's better, it'll get all the money. Otherwise, even split.
Example. A: military planet, B: military planet - same buildings, but with slaves
Both mil governors on
50 mil, 50 soc: B gets military funding, A gets social.
If A gets an improvement that makes it better to build than B, the production switches. If you want more or less ships than that, change the global sliders. These are the same results you'd get if both governors were off.
The logic still works with 2 planets or 20. If you get you governors mixed up, you could just wipe them all, and see what the ai does. You could check out the planets with the best production capacities from the list and tweak governors as much as you want. Remember, the point isn't to have a governor on every world. The point is to have a few specialist worlds for ships and research, and a few new colonies to bump up. And though ungoverened worlds will often get out of step (like the two labs), the ungoverned worlds as a whole will be even more productive than before.
So, um, yeah. Is that unambiguous enough? Has the light bulb gone off? Is it codable with the way things are programmed now? Lemme know what ya think!
First, there needs to be something set up that spilts spending on each planet based on what jobs it can do. REALLY. If the Mil/Soc/Res ratio is 2/4/4, and there's nothing in the social queue, it should go 1/3 military, 2/3 research. If there's no ship, but a building available, it should go half and half into the other two. It will fix all the wasted production, and it doesn't need any extra buttons of UI changes. And the reasoning behind those if/thens shouldn't be that hard to put in.
I originally was thinking of a way to link build queues and governors and sliders and everything, but I just thought of something simpler. (I'll write up that original idea if I can just get it to make sense in my head
)Abstract: Run the whole economy through the current global slider, but focused to the most appropriate planets. The goal is to manage spending in terms of maximizing the empire's production of ships and research, and putting social spending on newer planets where it is needed, automatically or through the use of "economic governors". Give warnings on the slider screen if all governor requests cannot be fulfilled.
An economic governor does even less than a build queue - all he does is wave his hand in the air and say "gimme money" (mil governor asks for mil funding, research for research, social for social.) For a given funding type, there are different infrastructures that use it most efficiently. Shipyards and manufacturing go with military, labs go with research. Social would normally go with manufacturing, but given that it should ideally go to planets with less buildings, I'll ignore manufacturing capability when assigning social money. (In theory, you could automatically assign social spending to those with the least industry, but I'm not sure how that would work in practice, so I'll leave it out for now and think about it.)
A certain class of funding goes to planets in the following order:
Governor-tagged, high infrastructure
Governor-tagged, low infrastructure
No gov, high infrastructure
No gov, low infrastructure
The money trickles down like water in a stack of jugs. The second level doesn't start filling up until the first level's full. If there's a tie, the money's split evenly.
Example: 20% military spending, 20% social, 60% research.
You have 5 colonies - 1 with a basic lab, 1 with a basic shipyard, 3 with nothing. Equal in every other way.
No governors are turned on.
The AI looks for the best place to put its military cash, finds the shipyard planet. The colonies are equal (take 20% each), so the fit's perfect. Every cent of military money goes there, and noone else builds ships.
Next, it does social. No governors, and social spending isn't affected by infrastructure, so it does nothing.
Then, it does research. It finds 1 planet with a lab, and 1/3 of the research money fits there, so it puts it there.
Final step - the leftovers. We've got 20% social and 40% research left, and three planets doing nothing. So, we just set them to do 1/3 social and 2/3 research.
This gives the best productivity for the current improvements. (Assuming I understand the economics right, but even if the numbers aren't right, I think the idea is.)Also, you don't have to worry about the military and research planets being left behind on the social side.
Example: 50% research, 50% social.
You have 2 colonies - A with a lab, B with nothing. Equal in every other way.
No governors.
Initially, the AI will go full research in A and full social in B. Eventually, B will build a lab. At this time, their research efficiencies will be the same, so both planets will get a 50/50 spending rate. B will be slightly ahead of A in the build queue by now, and it might have more manufacturing capacity (or get it soon). In this case, B could end up building an advanced lab before A. If this happens, then B will get 100% of research spending, and A will get 100% social. This will give it a chance to catch up on the social side of things. Throughout the whole process, the research money is being put where it can make the most difference, and the two colonies will stay in balance. (Same for military, only it should be coded to swap production once a ship build's finished, so you don't end up with half-finished ships everywhere.)
The good thing is, there's already sorted planet lists for top military and social spending planets. (We don't need it for research cause we know what it's researching.) By looking at the top military list, we can see all the planets that are getting _any_ military funds - once we see one that's getting 0, we know everyone below it is getting the same. So, we can manage all ship production from a few major worlds.
There are some other issues here. You might want ships built on a specific planet for whatever reason. Or, if you've got two planets (one with shipyards for hp, one with fusion plant for manufacturing), you might have a reason to prefer a a few strong ships over more weak ships, or vice versa. That's where governors come in.
Like I said, an economic governor just puts his hand up for a certain color of money. He doesn't handle what gets built (ships or buildings), that the job of you and the build queues. But you can easily set up a build queue of all the buildings you want on every planet, and another one for military planets. Or you can add shipyards to each military planet as you go. The governors are there to demand money from the economy, but not from you. If you've set military to 0, then no money will go to military, no matter what the governors say. All you have to remember is to put the governors on the right places. If you've got 10 equal planets and you want 10% military, just set one governor and you can manage all your ships from one planet (and lose lots of rounding downs). If you're worried about its economy, switch to a different planet, or just get some military improvements built, turn the governor off, and the ai will figure it out automatically, like before. Having "military capacity" and "research capacity"
lists in the planet lists could also be helpful here.
Consider different spending rates for this situation:
4 colonies - A & B are equal military powerhouses, C has only shipyard, D empty
Calculating Mil/Soc/Res spending out of 100bc
Mil gov on A & B, social gov on D.
50/50/0 -> A & B: 25 mil, C & D: 25 soc
(Same scenario like with the two labs.)
Mil gov on A & B, social gov on D.
70/20/10 -> A & B: 25 mil, C: 20 mil, 5 res, D: 20 soc, 5res
(D spends all the social, C spends the remaining military, the research is split evenly.)
Mil gov on A & B, social gov on C.
70/20/10 -> A & B: 25 mil, C: 20 soc, 5 mil, D: 15 mil, 10 res
(C gets all the social cause we told it so, but it also get as much remaining military as
possible, cause it's still got room, and it's better to build ships than D.)
Even if you do unexpected things, it can still manage something half-decent.
Mil gov on A & B, research gov on C, social gov on D.
75/0/25 - A & B: 25 mil, C: 25 res, D: 25 mil.
Now, the resources aren't being used properly. Even if D had a lab, this'd happen. The lesson is, keep an eye on which governors are turned on.
Going back to the two research colonies with 50/50 spending - without governors, they'll automatically keep a rough pace with each other. If you want to force one, you can set a governor to research and the other will automatically go social. If you want them both social, you could set both governors on social, but you'll still get 50/50 spending on each colony. (There could be a warning message on the slider screen if you haven't assigned enough resources to give all governors full spending.) Of course, if you really want all your colonies on social spending, not research, just set the slider to 100% and your problem's solved.
If there's not enough money to keep all the governors happy and you still go ahead, it'll split the money using the same logic as non-governed planets. If one's better, it'll get all the money. Otherwise, even split.
Example. A: military planet, B: military planet - same buildings, but with slaves
Both mil governors on
50 mil, 50 soc: B gets military funding, A gets social.
If A gets an improvement that makes it better to build than B, the production switches. If you want more or less ships than that, change the global sliders. These are the same results you'd get if both governors were off.
The logic still works with 2 planets or 20. If you get you governors mixed up, you could just wipe them all, and see what the ai does. You could check out the planets with the best production capacities from the list and tweak governors as much as you want. Remember, the point isn't to have a governor on every world. The point is to have a few specialist worlds for ships and research, and a few new colonies to bump up. And though ungoverened worlds will often get out of step (like the two labs), the ungoverned worlds as a whole will be even more productive than before.
So, um, yeah. Is that unambiguous enough? Has the light bulb gone off? Is it codable with the way things are programmed now? Lemme know what ya think!
, and two for social (A & C). So, the sliders could be inverse-linked: If you've set empire-wide military spending at a certain level, then start bumping down A's mil spending, B's would automatically go up.