Great job on the article Theoden! You have entirely too much time on your hands
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Havent got to play any since this weekned and its doubtful I will get to put any time in until this next weekend
. Ive got an agreement with my wife not to play much during the week cause she gets annoyed when I stay up late thumbing through tech trees and the like
. Oh well, such is life.
Anywho,
Friend Gerakken, yes the Yor are generally a nuisance in most games, but they are the only Incredible AI in Wiley's, which means they will beat up on the other AIs. That could make them very powerful if he doesn't keep an eye on them.
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Thats basically what I was going for. The Yor have never been more than filler in my other games and Ive never seen one of their ships past battleship as a result. So I basically wanted to ensure that they would be one of if not the most powerful AI in late game. I had the others set to genuis (which doesnt seem to be much diff than Intelligent by the way) and so that meant setting the Yor to the vaunted "incredible". Make no mistake about it, I plan on monitoring their progress closely. I want them succed at least at first but I also want to make sure they are still managable by the time I start fielding my navy. I dont like an easy game, but I hate losing even more
. I havent lost one yet and I plan to keep it that way. I figure that as long as they are at war with 2 or 3 others, things should be good.
I never put too much faith in population growth bonuses... In my last game I experimented with population levels. I found that in the later stages, I could take 75% of the population off the planet and all it would do is reduce the planet's income by about 10%. Is it different in the early stages before economic% bonuses trigger the income cap?
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I understand your reservations Downie. One thing to remember though is that it doesnt just affect you income but your research, prodution, and influence as well. Defense too for that matter since its hard to conquer a planet with a huge pop. Another thing to consider is the other factors involved in calculating these numbers. Namely the quality of the planet in question. I believe that all of these stats get a boost based on a PQ modifier. This translates into the following statement: "removing population from a high PQ planet will have a much greater affect on res, prod, tax, and infl. than removing the population from a low PQ planet." While Ive never taken the time to run the tests and see how big a difference it is, It certainly seems to work this way in practice. For instance, Ive never lost the battle for 99% of the trade goods since using this pick. If I remember and get time, I'll try to run some tests as you described to see If I can tell just how much affect it has. Especially on planets of different PQ. However Ive learned to take every figure Ive seen in this game with a grain of salt. By that i mean its hard to know when you seeing the affect of a change since numbers get updated strangely. Im not confident that #'s related to planet income and spending are even displayed correctly even when they are updated. But I will try and see.
right now im seeing a formula along the lines of
prod = X * population * PQ.
Where X is a "Unit of production/(PQ)(POP)". Some base number set by stardock.
Then it factors in the planetary improvements and finally uses the "Cap rules" to get a final number. These cap rules will probably make end game calculations of these figure rather pointless in that you should be getting like 500 prod units but the rules give you 200. Thus, removing a bunch of pop means you get less stringent cap rules and so you only go down to like 180. As a result early and mid game is where you would see the biggest difference. In practice, that is indeed where I notice the biggest difference. This is very important though as having an early game edge leads to a bigger and bigger edge as the game progresses cause you grab more planets, tech faster, and build more wonders.
Clear as mud?
Stardock Forums
. 
. Ive got an agreement with my wife not to play much during the week cause she gets annoyed when I stay up late thumbing through tech trees and the like 
. I havent lost one yet and I plan to keep it that way. I figure that as long as they are at war with 2 or 3 others, things should be good.
