Spending distribution - A game breaker

or Why I'm not buying this game

It has been reported since 2006 how the spending sliders force you to do All-X strategies. That is, unless you enjoy wasting resources.

There have been lots of posts about this, so I won't repeat the arguments. A search for sliders problem will turn up lots.

I'll suggest my solution, even though I'd be surprised to see it included. Stardock seems to be listening, so I'll give it a shot anyway.

I think two changes would completely solve the problems:

Civilization-wide spending sliders

None of these are linked, they just replace the current civ-wide spending slider. Reduces micromanagement by allowing you to quickly decrease spending on any of the three areas.
Planet-wide spending sliders

Here the manufacturing sliders must be linked, though obviously separate from the research slider. Allows you to build what you want on a planet without affecting your entire civilization.

I haven't really checked, but I guess the game isn't moddable enough to be able to implement this myself?

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Hi!

I think two changes would completely solve the problems:

... and you'll be able to win ANY game on ANY settings, because the AI would be totaly lost.

Don't you think, that the 3+ years since the "problem" was reported, mean that there's no easy solution?

BR, Iztok

P.S.

All big problems
have simple, easy implementable, understandable to everyone solutions,
that of course don't work.
Me, around 1990

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All-X strategies do mean that your economy is efficient and less wasteful, but these strategies mean that your spending is mainly on one thing, and if you have to then change your focus to something else well then you're not really All-Xing anymore.

An economy which gives you a bit of everything you need may be wasteful, but it allows you to progress militarily and technologically at a reasonable rate. And, you can set the rate of either to suit your needs without having to build a whole new lot of infrastructure first.

More than that, you can control planetary economy by demolishing infrastructure you don't need at the moment, or by not building ships there for a while. The first of those measures means you save maintenance and don't have so much spending, the second means that spending gets refunded because it isn't used. Both are measures that can save you money to use elsewhere, and make your sliders more effective. But to some, the concept of not building, or tearing down buildings, is a little difficult to grasp.

Think on it this way, if you're going to make a breakthrough which changes a lot of ship designs, you're going to need some cash to upgrade your existing hulls. So telling the shipyards to stop building can give you bcs that you need. When you actually have a new design, you immediately have idle starports ready to build that design, and cash to upgrade the obsolete ships.

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There is no waste. Although the game may mislead you to think that there is one. Yes, you, in theory, can spend 100% of your population for each of the two types of spending, resulting in a total of 200%. But the thing is — there's no way you could get more than a 100% of your population. So effectively there is no waste, since you don't have the other 100% in the first place. There is a reason the game was designed that way. And that is to give you more manageable economy — otherwise you won't be able to put more than 50% of your economy in each slider.

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