Odd... there aren't that many social structures I think are worth building, and I don't have morale problems. Unfortunately, your trick doesn't help in my case, because I always have my military queues full (you can never have too many constructors), but there's no social product equivelent.

How about a buncha of semi-expensive social projects that add a tiny bonus to various stats, have no maintenance, and you can build as many of them as you want. The high price and tiny bonus given would keep it from being unbalanced, and it would allow you to specialize a planet over a long period of time, and keep you from having an empty social project queue.

~SDC~

ta eroq, my only gripe with just not spending the money (it's been suggested as an option) is that if I have one planet producing a wonder that I consider to be important and 15 planets that aren't building anything in the social queue, but they all have something in the military queue, I have to set aside 16 times the social production that I'm actually going to use. I won't be spending the money, but even if I'm financing my production to 100%, I'm still giving up much more than I'm using for social production.

Having a MoO2-style "trade product" (to avoid confusion with "trade goods") doesn't help this either.

My preferences are for shifting the money to other planets with the appropriate type of product (again, the *MONEY*, not the production, which avoids the abuse potential), or in a reasonable second place, splitting the unused money to finance the other product categories at the same planet. Both of these are simple changes that shouldn't throw a monkey-wrench into the AI, don't radically alter the game balance, and don't change the UI, so there's no change in micromanagement.

Next choice would be spending sliders on a per-Govenor basis. Not at all interested in per-planet basis.

Finally, just don't spend the money. Most of the other suggestions are worse than this in my opinion.

Acutally popup, I agree with your suggestion (well, mostly ) and was commenting on the suggestions that others have put forward (and pre-empting other ones).

Although shifting funding from those that aren't using it to those that are seems a logical, stable and hands-free way to solve the problem, it *would* make it a bit tricky to keep track of and predict who'll get what. I suspect that the only way to tell if it works well is to actually build a version and play it... is there still a beta-team for testing changes in the release version?

Personally, I prefer the 'just don't spend' option, but that's just because I'm in league with the Gnomes of Zurich

~SDC~

Popup Target - I understand the problem you state above but I don’t see why it would still be a problem with this slightly alternate way of dealing with it. Set it up where either Queue’s production slider 100% is a percentage of the # projects not the # of worlds . . so in your scenario
“one planet producing a wonder that I consider to be important and 15 planets that aren't building anything in the social queue, but they all have something in the military queue”

The 100% mark with the social projects will only include that one world so you can’t put too much money in it, (100% = 100% of that one world). And the 100% mark with the military projects will only include the 15 worlds (100% = 100% of those 15 worlds). If you set the slider up to 100% the worlds in question will only be the ones get 100% funding, the worlds not producing will get none.
Is that more understandable? It is easy to get turned around talking about this

“Having a MoO2-style "trade product" (to avoid confusion with "trade goods") doesn't help this either”

Really, it is not the same . .
Think of trade goods as finished product and trade product as parts or “generic components”.
You would have 2 trade products one that could be used in military projects and one for social projects. These products can be traded or used elsewhere with a small fee (thus making using them right away and locally always better). And stock pilling will have its own diminishing return fee or loss (but still quite useful if needed in smaller stock piles). But the interesting part would be to SEE that mechanism working as real visible trade ships that are vulnerable. And note this would ONLY be a supplemental boon and not unbalancing because you have to get it all of it working and balanced in a game to make a $ profit in either trade or production bonus by redistribution and it is easily lost by pirating, war, or poor management. And since you can only loose this production now it would be a creative way to allow the industrious get that lost bit back thus expanding the strategic part of the game.

ta eroq, I see what you mean by "trade product" now. It would be doable saying that project X can contain no more than Y% generic parts (or parts manufactured elsewhere and imported), and while on the surface I don't see much of an issue with that, I think that longterm it would cause problems, since I don't see it as a simple change, since the AI would have to understand it, the game would have to track the effects, and show them as well. Then the UI would have to be expanded. I don't dislike it, I just don't think it's realistic to shoehorn into the existing game.

I'm not sure I follow the first paragraph, because I'm not sure what you're addressing and/or suggesting. You can look at it one of two ways. Either the money gets split up evenly (with varying production limits taken into account) per planet, then split between the three areas of production, or it gets split between the three areas of production first, then split up between the planets. (B) assumes the first, (H) assumes the second. In either case, you wind up with a certain amount of funding for each of the three production areas on every planet, with 0 being a possible amount. So at one point or another, you're redistributing the funding if you're trying to get the social project built faster without punishing your whole economy. Where are we miscommunicating?

To everyone. Remember, the more we change the way it works, the less likely we are go get it.

The per-Govenor sliders is the most drastic change I'd consider feasible, and even that is pushing the envelope.

The other three ideas I mentioned have no UI, so there would be no change in micromanagement at worst, maybe even making it better. They'd be a simple matter of changing the calculation of how much is spent.

Hmmm... Now that I'm thinking about it, even though I still like (H) better, I think I'm changing my vote for (B) for programming reasons. (H) complicates the slider code. Take the following example:

10 planets, each with 30 points of production, with the three queue sliders all set equally. Three planets have something in the military queue but not the social queue, three have it the other way around. Under the current system, this would mean that 100% funding would cost 300BC.

Start off the main funding slider at 0%, and it corresponds to 0BC. As you slide it up, everything procedes quite normally. At 60%, you're using a total of 180BC for production. Here's where things get weird, though, since we can't spend any more on military or social, as those queues are already fully funded where they have anything in them. So now, the BCs per percent drop from 3BC to 1BC, so by the time we've pushed the slider up to 100%, we're only funding at 220BC, which is counterintuitive.

Plan (B) on the other hand, maintains the even spending throughout the slider range. However, since it shifts spending between categories, I'd like a display telling me the effective split, so I know when I can turn down the research slider but maintain a real 34% research funding.

Blan (B) also gives you the ability to focus a planet on nothing but research, by having nothing in the military or social queue. That would let you focus your research efforts on those planets that got a research special event, though that might cause some imbalance if things like the Cryogenicly Frozen Precursor Event are in play, as it grants a 100% research bonus to that planet (one of the reasons I don't like that event). At least I think it's planet-specific.

My take on the situation is that you've allocate the budget at Empire level, and it is spent at a planetary level.

This means that each planet draws it's share from the allocated resources. If no project is allocated then it can't draw from those resources. So H.

If you overbudget in a particular area (so your empire allocates more than it plans to spend), it's lost to admin costs (painting ships/lamposts/new stationery) as no department leader EVER has a surplus.

If necessary show tax income & expenditure by area on the economy screen so that you can see if you've got the balance wrong across the Empire.

Planetary production penalties applied by class / population could/should limit the effectiveness of trying to lump everything onto one or two planets.

Moving cash back the coffers, to research, or distributing it amongst the other queues fails to punish bad budgeting.

Allowing the hoarding of production is unbalancing and unrealistic (I'll get be able to start the Galactic Exchange soon, start hoardiing now. Don't now how to make it, but I'll start now anyway).

Individual sliders for each planet/govenor would mean localised budgeting rather than Empire level and is contrary to the idea of running an Empire rather than a coalition of planets. You're not ruling the I-League after all.

Either (B) or (C)

Moving over standard production points rather than free ones or dumping it into tech would be a good solution

Popup Target - I know that version would be a larger change then needed right now (really an add-on), though hardly a imposable change (the changes in the UI would be very minor if any, no new UI elements needed, and the AI changes should not be bad either just some added commodities simular to money and influence points, and it is now ok to not build everywhere all of the time). . I see it as unlikely to be done at this point but worth saying because it may give ideas to those in charge for this or other add-ons or fixes in this or other areas.

I guess we agree on the second part? Though I didn't quite follow your statement either.

DarkeSoul, I'm against any movement of production points. That opens things up for large amounts of abuse. By only moving the money that finances the production, it prevents abuse.

My two cents:

Military Project set at None: down the drain since it should never happen - build a constructor at least!

Social Project set at None: Change the name of None to Gold and let the planet make some extra cash. Cash management is tough in this game and it would provide some extra options for the player, is typical in other games of this ilk (like Civ), and isn't that much extra complexity/micromanagement.

Option 2 for Special Project set at None: Change the name of None to Morale and let the planet get a moral boost THAT DOESN'T CAUSE POP GROWTH. That way in an emergency you can prop up the planet's morale by sacrificing social production or later in the game get a planet to steady state on morale and not have to worry about it anymore - if you don't want it to build anything social, that is.

Brad, could you give us your thoughts which way you're leaning on this? Which ideas are definitely out and which look promising? It would help the discussion here if you'd do this.

Also, a guess about when this will be put into a patch would be greatly appreciated. A ballpark ETA would be sweet.

My suggestion:

Create moo2 style "catch all" builds that contribute to some aspect of the empire or planet:

Housing: Increase population
Research: Go directly toward research (maybe not 1:1)
Economy: Go directly back into the economy (not 1:1)
Intelligence: Contrinute directly to espionage
Propoganda: Increase local influence

Regards,

Artuk


~SDC~

The safest and simplest solution to this problem is just to have the money drop back into your treasury. Or better yet just not have it be applied at all if there is no soc/mil project on that planet.

Distributing the points into other projects in-system or across an empire will make having a very heavily built up planet less valuable. And having any kind of "buy back" scheme is a waste of time, since players will just circumvent it to gain an advantage.

I like option (I) (production is converted to money which goes back to the federal coffers). It has the ability to distribute the IUs across the empire (via the spend rate slider) but, unlike option (H), option (I) gives you the ability to simply save up your money for the future which, in my opinion, is realistic and won't kill game balance.

Option (B) is a close second.

Please ... OH PLEASE, do not add more sliders, buttons, do nads, gizmos, etc. The simplicity of the game is WONDERFUL!

I'm hoping Brad will soon chime into this conversation as well. This topic is really the only glaring thing that I've noticed about GalCiv and I spotted it very early on. It makes me wonder if (1) the developers have been playing this game in such a way that this issue somehow went unnoticed or (2) they truly have some reason for having it the way it is. No, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, just genuinely curious.

Ooops, didn't realise this thread is here. Left a post that has a bit about this subject at about #279 or #280 in the 'Suggestions' thread that has been stickied.

Damian

~SDC~

To all,

I didn't check very closely this but when I set my military production to nothing, my production bar seems to increase and in my last game I kept the military production to nothing for quite a while on several planets and then when decided to choose something the number of turns was pretty low, "next month" for a constructor is the only example I remind...

Did so experience the same ? Or was it only due to my settings of production and the quality of my planet ?

m not sure that I should have posted this here ... :notsure:

I just read through most of this thread, and there were some great ideas for this tough problem.

I definately agree that something needs to be done, as the current economic model actually penalises you for having lots of planets, when you are trying to beat someone to a trade good. I can never beat the minor races to aphrodisiacs (and a couple of the other starting goods) because they only have a couple of systems and can thus afford to have each system producing at maximum. On a good start up, I can expect to have 10+ planets, so my best planet is only getting 1/10th or worse of the funding that I provide to social production.

I think the simplist and most effective method, in terms of programming and ease of use for the player is this:

Simply dont use any money on a planet that isnt producing anything. This would apply to social and military queues.

The beauty of this method, is that it is intuitive as this is what most new players assume is happening anyway. Also, it is less open to abuse as you cant supercharge production by transferring to other planets as suggested before. You would still be limited by the maximum production limits for each planet.

It would involve no extra micromanagement, as your planet would simply stop spending money when you reach the end of your build queue.

This way you are rewarded for having lots of planets (for population, thus tax revenue), and the player wont feel compelled to churn out constructors on every planet constantly to get maximum value from their military queue (this would also alleviate some of the starbase upgrade micromanagement).

I agree with Admiral Rom; GalCiv is wonderful because it is a game of simplicity. Simply not spending money on an empty queue is the most natural choice. It is what I always assumed was happening.

~SDC~

Yep, makes the most sense to me. Production capacity shouldn't automagically upgrade just because some other planet's idle. Let the unused bc's head straight to the treasury (or contribute to balancing the budget)

~SDC~

I like lots of these ideas, but perhaps we need the social equivalent of Constructors?

Research into a certain social technology could give you the ability to increase population AND morale. The technology would prevent overcrowding from lowering morale, resulting in happier tax-payers. Morale would slowly deteriorate if you resumed social construction. It could be an ongoing project or be built in units of "happy tax-payers".

You could call it "Social Optimization" or "Shiny, Happy People" or "Bread and Circuses" or "We'll Let You Play Galactic Civilizations Every Time You Have Unprotected Sex".

No UI change; affects individual planets; provides a measurable return on investment.

End transmission.

~SDC~

I don't read Admiral Rom's suggestion as sending money back to the treasury, simply as not drawing from the budget.

The difference is that the budget is split between those planets that are producing rather than boosting your balance.

This is the most realistic way of doing it, but could lead to all planets paying for a rush prodction on one planet.

Putting the money in the treasury (by default or through a MoO style 'trade' project) allows you to save money on all but the planet to buy the remaining production.

Both ideas have the potential to affect the balance of the game quite drastically. By using the first option at least an individual planet's maximum production would limit the effect, and additional penalties could be applied to enhance it.

No, that's not what he was saying, I don't think.

Let's say your income is 100bc, and you have two planets. Planet A is using 20bc, and planet B is using 80bc, out of which, 40bc is social. Ignoring all other factors, under normal circumstances, you'd have a balanced budget with nothing going to the treasury. There'd be 100bc in, x for mil, and y for social, where x + y = 100bc out. With Rom's suggestion, if you don't have a social project on B, 40bc won't be spent. Thus, you'd have 100bc in, and 60bc out (the original minus the missing social project). That'd equate to 40bc into the treasury. I'd probably add a penalty to account for keeping the factories alive and people hired (but not working), and let maybe 36bc go back to the budget.

Note that in the late game, you probably can't max your spending slider, so those 36bc wouldn't actually equate to cash--they'd just let you up spending for the other planets. Even in the extreme case where you stop production at a bunch of places to rush produce from one particular planet, you'd be limited by the "one item per turn" rush production limit. That plus the penalty of rush buying, plus a possible penalty for conserving production would make that strategy unattractive except for in emergency circumstances.

As for affecting game balance, it'd affect current game strategies...doesn't necessarily affect balance, assuming the AI can take advantage of it too.

~SDC~

Actually, re-reading it, I guess you could take it either way, and put the y amount all to planet A. The problem with that is what do you do if planet A can't use all that extra spending (for example, the spending slider was maxed to begin with)?

~SDC~

Geoelectric: "Actually, re-reading it, I guess you could take it either way, and put the y amount all to planet A. The problem with that is what do you do if planet A can't use all that extra spending (for example, the spending slider was maxed to begin with)? "

Thats what I meant as a limit to rush building. If all your planets stopped building so that you were basically saving all your money to put into one planet, you would be limited on how much production you could churn out by the max production limits for the planet.

After reading your responses, I must admit that I hadnt thought about the buying straight out option, by getting leases etc. I guess by my method that sort of purchasing would be open to abuse, but I think you could remedy that by not letting "wonders" or trade goods be purchased (similar to the way it worked in Civ3... you couldnt rush build a wonder).

This would still leave people being able to one shot purchase a dreadnought on a small planet if every other planet was saving money (example used above). However, the base cost for a ship like that is still pretty steep, and to be in that situation anyway I would have to assume you have a fairly vast empire. Therefore I dont think it would be too much of a big deal.

This seems to be about the only flaw I can think of in the system I suggested, but I cant think of a simpler method which doesnt have any extra micromanagement.