No, of course not, the idea is simply to slow down expansion by making the player pay maintenance for his colonies. To avoid favoring large planets even more than they already are, I thought basing these maintenance costs on pop instead of colonies would be the better approach.Geoff the Medio wrote:This makes no sense to me. What is the purpose of population-dependent influence cost for planets? To make players have lower total population?Vezzra wrote:...the first implementation TheSilentOne has provided so far has a costs-per-colony factor. I'd rather see a pop based factor instead of that.
As I already mentioned in other replies, I've reconsidered my position after some mulling over what you said here:
I'm probably getting old, but it took me some time to realize what you're suggesting here (and thereby also understanding what Morlic probably was trying to get at). Instead of nerfing the flat boni and putting all the emphasis on the pop-dependent boni, and then addressing the issue of making small planets not too worthless by basing empire influence costs primarily on pop like I suggested, do it exactly the other way round: introduce more pop-independent flat boni (which will bring back the small planets into business) and base empire influence costs on colonies (or, given the current consensus on system based influence costs, make colony based IP costs an additional factor) to counter-balance the grab-every-planet-you-can-approach favored by this (which is what Morlic argued). To address the current unbalanced, overpowered NAI and AA techs, we need to rebalance them, and probably move them in the tech tree.It seems like the real issue that needs to be addressed is that there are too many large population-dependent bonuses to resource output, particularly in the later stages of the tech tree. Why not just change a bunch of them to reasonable-sized population-independent (but generally location-specific) bonuses.
If we get the balance between pop-based and flat boni right (flat boni lower, but faster available because pop-independent, pop-based boni higher but slower available because dependent on pop, which has to grow first), this will provide the player with two options: either colonize as much as you can and go for the flat boni to make the most out of your many colonies, or concentrate your colonization efforts on a few large (more valuable) planets and go for the pop-based boni. The first will give you more resource output in less time, so short term you're going to have the higher resource output. Long term you'll have the higher influence maintenance costs per PP/RP produced, which means lower resource output.
The second will give you less resource output for a longer time, so short term you're going to have the lesser resource output. Long term you'll have the lower influence maintenance costs per PP/RP produced, which means higher resource output.
The first option will give you a head start in the crucrial early game, but might cost you in the long run, the second will leave you behind in that critical stage, but might pay off in the long run. Which option is the better will very likely depend on the situation you find yourself at game start. If you have enough larger planets within reach, option 2 might be more viable, if you only have smaller planets in the near vicinity, option 1 might better suit you. I have to admit, I really like that idea.
Getting the balance right so that this actually works won't be easy. Especially when adding new techs/specials/whatever that provides resource output boosts, we need to keep the whole picture in mind. Adding a new few new flat boosts without also adding some new pop-based ones (or vice-versa) will then very likely tip the scales to much in favor of one option. Still, I think it's worth it, we should pursue this approach.
However, I'm not at all sure that this will go well together with this other suggestion you brought up, "Spending PP on Industry Meter Growth". IMO that will impact the flat-boni many colonies approach too strongly to keep it a viable option.