FreeOrion

This was covered in Nightfish's proposal for universe generation, but technically it's a separate issue, so if we pass NF's bit then this will be separate.

The question is: Should population caps and/or growth be dictated by planetary size or environment, and if so, how fast, exactly, should it grow? What scale should we use for populations? (we settled on hard numbers with verbal descriptors for a system, but we need to actually come up with those numbers now). What scale should we use for modifiers -- both EP and other modifiers (planetary specials, tech, anything).

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Planet size and environment should definitely have an impact on pop size and growth. There are some very interesting decisions to be made in this area, and a lot of room for modding. I'd like to see many of the options here left user selectable.

For example I've always thought it would be cool to have a relatively small number of planets that can be really exploited (ones that are very close in environment to the race's homeworld) and that on others the pop caps are quite low and with slow growth, so that the lesser planets (these being the great majority) serve more as outposts and forward deployment centers. Of course this is a departure from the 4x norm and probably not desireable to many, hence the desire for a lot of user control over these variables.

So I guess my point is that this discussion should be as much (or more) to identify the key variables on which the system should operate as it is to determine what default values we want to use for those variables.

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Programming Lead

Population caps should be dictated by planet size and environment. Population growth should be dictated by environment and race stats, but not planet size, I don't see how planet size can effect pop growth.

How fast should population grow? Well, just dont make it grow too slow. Maybe a noticable increase over 3 turns. So every 3 turns population increases by one population unit, assuming that pop growth stats are set to normal. However, if each turn represents 1 year, then population should grow by X amount/percent per turn/year.


I think if we have it like Moo2 it would be great. 1/10 and 23/30 is very easy to understand. I don't like 50, 000, 000/600, 000, 000, that sux.

Also do planets increase in size exponential:
Very Small-1 to 5 (range=5)
Small-6 to 15 (range=10)
Medium-16 to 30 (range=15)
Large-31 to 50 (range=20)
Very Large-51 to 75 (range=25)
Gaia-76 to 105 (range=30)

or linear:
Very Small-1 to 5 (range=5)
Small-6 to 10 (range=5)
Medium-11 to 15 (range=5)
Large-16 to 20 (range=5)
Very Large-21 to 25 (range=5)
Gaia-26 to 30 (range=5)


We can modify by percentage or by number.
Percentage-exponential: Increase by %20
Very Small-max 5 +%20 =6
Small-max 15 +%20 =18
Medium-max 30 +%20 =36
Large-max 50 +%20 =60
Very Large-max 75 +%20 =90
Gaia-max 105 +%20 =126

Modifying by percentage, for planet sizes that increase exponentially, results in the same effect of modification regardless of planet size.
Percentage-linear: Increase by %20
Very Small-max 5 +%20 =6
Small-max 10 +%20 =12
Medium-max 15 +%20 =18
Large-max 20 +%20 =24
Very Large-max 25 +%20 =30
Gaia-max 30 +%20 =36

Modifying by percentage, for planet sizes that increase linear, results in the same effect of modification regardless of planet size.
Number-exponential: Increase by 2
Very Small-max 5 +2 =7
Small-max 15 +2 =17
Medium-max 30 +2 =32
Large-max 50 +2 =52
Very Large-max 75 +2 =77
Gaia-max 105 +2 =107

Modifying by number, for planet sizes that increase exponentially, results in larger planets being less affected by small increases, while smaller planets are affected more by large increases.
Number-linear: Increase by 2
Very Small-max 5 +2 =7
Small-max 10 +2 =12
Medium-max 15 +2 =17
Large-max 20 +2 =22
Very Large-max 25 +2 =27
Gaia-max 30 +2 =32

Modifying by number, for planet sizes that increase linear, results in the same effect of modification regardless of planet size.
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So if you are going to have planet sizes that increase exponentially, then percentage is the best choice for the modifier.

If you are going to have planet sizes that increase linear, then number or percentage is the best choice for the modifier.

I think this is a good place to bring up my Biosphere idea.

Biosphere hensforth refreed to as Bio would be a changable numerical quality of a plant that determins maximum population. Bio is a reprentation of the planets "carrying Capacity", it reflects the maximum sustainable abuse that the ecology of a planet can support. In many ways Bio can be though of as "farm" but is flexible enough term to be aplied to many alien races who's physiology and nutritional/energy/living conditions are far beyond what we might call farming. Population growth is linked only to Biosphere and the mathamatical formulas for such is a independent of this Bioshpere idea.

Bio would also be race specific so a conquring race would not benifit from the Bio of the previous owner, they would have to alter the planet to their liking. This prevents one from imediatly benifiting from the conquest, a period will be required to "tame" the new aquisition.

The maximum amount of Bio that a planet can have is produced by multipling planet size by a race specific environmental Preference number that comes from a table for that race, the "EP factor". For example lets say that Humans on a Desert planet have an EP factor of 2 so on a size 8 desert planet the maximum Human Bio is 18. But the Darlocks have a preference of 4 for Deserts so the same planet can hold 32 Darlock Bio. Many races will ofcorse have preference factors of zero for a number of planet types.

Most planets will start with no Bio and a few will have native Bio. The colonizing civalization will automaticaly "plant" its Bio on the new planet and the Bio will expand naturaly, probably at an expidential rate with faster growth if the EP factor is high (it takes longer to cultivate Dune then it would a more earth like planet). The natural incresse can also be accelerated by applying some of ones resorses to "planting". Undesirable types of Bio (Native or that of another Race) can be replaced in a similar but more expensive mannor. Without intervention the Bio with the highest EP for the particular environment will replace the weaker Bio and eventualy eliminate it. This opens up the potential of introducing your Bio to an oponents planet to create an ecological "infestation" weakening that planets industry and paving the way for your own conquest and colonization.

Terraforming would now be the changing of a planets base type say from Desert to Tundra and would be a seperate and much more expensive process reserved for mid to late game. When these projects are completed the EP rating for the planets Bio is imediatly readjusted and if nessary their is a die off, things continue from that point under normal rules.

Bio also serves as a way to represent polution and over taxing of the environment by overpopulation. Each unit of polution your industries produce is combined with the planets population to yeild a total "Bio Burden" this represents how much your taxing the environment. If the Burden is less then the Bio then everything is good and the Bio can expand normaly. If the Burden exceeds Bio then the Bio starts to shrink. If it comes to the point ware population is exceeding Bio then population will be lost. Under this system streatching a planets population and industrial capacity to maximum can damage the planet and force a slowdown, more is not nessisarily best anymore.

My proposal is hidden in the public review thread's link

I do like the idea of "Bio" It adds a lot of individuality to your race without it seeming too "artificial" However as far as planet growth is concerned. It should be sometihng like

{1 - [(max pop) - (current pop)] / (max pop) }

Thus as the planet approched its maximum size its growth would slow down. And optimal growth would be achieved at half the planets max pop. This is a simple model used by many 4X games. And of course we could introduce and (M) before the eqaution for the environment. i.e. Hostile would be .5 normal would be 1 and Gaia would be 2.

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Aquitaine is my Hero....

How can the max population of a planet affect population growth?

Is a race gonna breed faster if there is more room for them too live.

Yep. Earthlings grow based on the amount of natural resources availiable. Which is one of the reasons families from the old south typically had 6 or more children. And if you look at any exponentially growing system, a colony of ants for example, the more resources (food) they have availible the faster they will grow. Then eventually they will reach a happy medium for their environment. Of crazilly enough 67% of the environmental capcity. Of course the formula I have above is just a generic "tried-and-true" growth formula. If we want true "exponential growth" We could use, P(new) = P(old)(e^rt) Where the r could be based on the environmental preferences of the race and planet.

But we will naturally be having geometric growth anyway because as we get more planets our empire population will grow faster.


As for Units of population, 23/30 etc. is great. There is no reason to call it "dense" or "sparse" or any nebulous term like that.

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Aquitaine is my Hero....

Are you talking about natural resources, such as wood, oil, gas and coal, such things do indeed run out, but could be considered part of the environment.

Also, by the time a race is ready for the stars, don't you think that they would automatically start replenishing such resources.

And are you saying that in the old south that they had heaps of children, just to control as manyresources as possible, that doesn't sound right.

Don't know if it's a good idea or not, but we at very least ought to put Impaler's Bio thingy up for public review when the time comes (should be soon). Impaler: can you make some hard numbers for your system? It would be useful to have actual forumlas to use in-game and details on how to come up with an EP factor given an racial EP preference and planet enviroment.

NF's ideas obviously have merit as well. ( http://www.drektopia.com/NFGalaxy2.htm for details) I wouldn't mind a simple system like his at all, although I'd go a step futher and make it even simpler:

Code:

         
             Good EP  Ok EP  Bad EP  Gaian
Planetoid       8       4      2      10
Small          16       8      4      20
Average        20       12     6      25
Large          25       16     8      30
Massive        30       20     10     35
Growth Rate    100%     80%    50%    100%

Cap could futher be modifed by planetary specials like "Habitable Moons".
Growth rate is just a scale on whatever growth system we use; I otherwise really have no notions for what to do in that department.

The big idea here is that there are only three (or four if you count Gaian) planet enviroments you need to worry about colonizing. On the EP wheel, if the planet's enviroment is equal to your own it's a "Good" world. If the planet's enviroment is one away from your world it's "Ok"--if it's two or more away then the world is "Bad" to live on.

http://www.drektopia.com/EPwheel.gif <--the slightly outdated wheel, or see NF's galaxy document for his notions of the wheel.

I'm thinking, for human terran dwellers for example, it would suck just as hard to live on a Toxic world as it would to set up shop on a Radiated or Barren world. It's just that some of these worlds would be closer to your own on the EP Wheel for when it comes time to start terraforming.

We might also have an Tolerant race pick that makes worlds up to two slots away on the wheel "OK" and an Intolerate race pick that makes no worlds "OK"--every world is either good or bad. (just thinking out loud, race picks most likely won't be in v.2) For example, radiation eatin' critters might be intolerate--they only do well on Radiated planets.

Sorry to spam, one more semi-important thing:

Mutliple races per planet. Right now would be the time to decide this feature's final fate, since it matters greatly to how we handle population cap.

I really like multple races per planet, but have recently been swayed to the dark side of force by Nightfish's arguements. Unless there's some huge public outcry married to innovated ideas on how to handle multiple races, I suspect that feature is nixed for versions v.2 up through v1.0.

In other words, it's probably safe to assume one race per planet when coming up for ideas for population cap and growth--otherwise I'd be advocating a population cap based entirely on planet size.

Just bringing this up cause Impaler's description of bio seemed to assume otherwise.

Well not exactly to control as many resources as possible. More of, there was no limit in sight. Food was abundant, as well as wealth. So lets all celebrate and have a bunch of kids. Also the infant mortallity rate was quite high. So having lots of kids was an evolutionary insurance policy. And as far as natural resources are concerned. Anything in the environment that could be used would be considered in a decsion to have kids. If I'm a multi-millionaire, I'm prolly more inclined to have a large family, then if i couldn't afford more.

And i say no multiple races per planet, Too complicated for not much benefit.

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Aquitaine is my Hero....

I supose, thats true, but makes us humans look like like some kind of plague, spreading to consume the environment, heh.

That Bio thing sounds cool, it should take into account resources (oil, coal, gas, wood) and food, such as vegetation and animals, etc. Also would these resources replenish automatically or should we have environmental techs?

Also, about the multiple races, no, that sucks. No mandate races as well (like Moo3), thats too complex, I mean why don't they have the ability to expand and destroy, etc.

<Agent Smith>

You're like a VIRUS.

</Agent Smith>

We can put the biosphere bit up for review if all ya'lls wants ta.

Aquitaine (whose grandparents hail from the south!)

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

well, up for review alongside NF's population cap anyway. And maybe my simplier population cap. So, so far it would be:

* a dynamically growing cap that can be reduced by excessive industry, ie Bio

*a static cap with lots of enviroment types

*a static cap with just three enviroment classes

plus whatever growth systems people think up....PC's formula and NF's formula so far.