Public Review: Population Cap, Growth, and Migration for v.2

Past public reviews and discussions.
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drek
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Public Review: Population Cap, Growth, and Migration for v.2

#1 Post by drek »

Thrills and chills,

These population related items are now up for review for inclusion in the v.2 requirements:

Population Cap
1: Nightfish’s static cap. View the numbers and explanation at http://www.drektopia.com/NFGalaxy2.htm under the heading “Population Numbers”

2: My revision of the static cap. View the table of numbers and commentary at http://www.artclusta.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=34, about 75% down the page. It's the post with the big white block in the midst of it.

3: A dynamic cap, for example Impaler’s Bio. Read the details here: http://www.artclusta.com/bb/viewtopic.p ... c&start=15
Note that there are some areas of this system that would have to be changed in order to fit it with features that have already been passed: specifically the EP table would be scrapped in favor of the EP wheel.

Growth
1: Nightfish’s simple linear growth:
Population growth: Population grows by 1/10 of a population unit per turn. This is not dependant on current population. Growth is linear for reasons of gameplay. Population growth can not be increased by through industry or excess food, though lack of food causes population to decrease.
Starvation: Insufficient food causes population growth to become negative. Per lacking unit of food per turn, 2/10 of a population unit dies.
2: Powercrazy’s Moo2ish formula: NewPop = CurrPop * [(MaxPop-CurrPop) / MaxPop] * X
where X = the Race specific growth rate

Migration
1: No Migration at all

2: Special expensive Migration only. (a specific, costly industrial project to shuffle population off a planet)

3: Automated Migration, either:
A: Tyreth’s migration paths (defined from point A to point B)
B: Moo3 style Migration (population moves automatically to planets with high appeal. A player set flag vastly increases the appeal of a planet, allowing the player to shape migration.)

Moo2 style colonist shuffling is also technically a possibility, but is not up for review because it clashes with the spirit of prior design decisions—ie, that there be no singular unit of population for the user to manipulate.

A related tangent issue—should colony pods be allowed to bolster a pre-existing colony’s population?

If there’s any big mistakes I’ve made (leaving out a system from the population growth design thread, misrepresenting a system) send a message to “Drekmonger” (not "Drek") and I’ll edit this post asap.

have fun,
dm

jbarcz1
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#2 Post by jbarcz1 »

For the moment, I'm voting for powercrazy's growth formula, and tyreth's migration system, with the stipulation that migration paths should have some reasonable maintenance cost (to reflect the cost of keeping up the transports and maintaining the routes)

I'll chime in on the population cap once I've had a chance to review the three proposals.


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utilae
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#3 Post by utilae »

Pop Cap: Dynamic cap, Impalers Bio.
Growth: Powercrazy's Moo2ish growth.
Migration: 3a, Tyresths one

OceanMachine
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#4 Post by OceanMachine »

My vote is for Drek's #2 pop cap and PC's growth formula.

Could we get a bit more clarification with Tyreth's migration model? In particular:

1. Are there limits to how many targets you can set for outgoing migration from a particular planet?

2. Are there limits to how many incoming migration paths a single planet can have?

3. Are there any costs associated with setting migration paths?

4. What sort of factors are used to determine the volume of poplulation migrating across a given path?

Right now I'm favoring 1 or 3b (tied to morale/stability, once we have them) for migration..
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Tyreth
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#5 Post by Tyreth »

To tell you the truth, I hadn't thought about it in too much detail.
OceanMachine wrote: Could we get a bit more clarification with Tyreth's migration model? In particular:

1. Are there limits to how many targets you can set for outgoing migration from a particular planet?
Probably one.
2. Are there limits to how many incoming migration paths a single planet can have?
I would say no limit.
3. Are there any costs associated with setting migration paths?
Sounds like a reasonable idea. It could go either way (free or cost), depends what people think is more appropriate.
4. What sort of factors are used to determine the volume of poplulation migrating across a given path?
I was thinking one of two options. It depends if we want migration to be a smaller or bigger part of the game. If smaller, I'd say a fixed amount for the whole game, based on distance. Maybe one colonist leaves a turn, or every two turns, and it travels along the migration path at a fixed speed.

If we want to make it a bigger part - something to have technology influence - then in the future could have a small wheel to set how many colonists a turn can migrate (if you have the tech to allow more than one), and the time it takes increased by some tech.

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#6 Post by PowerCrazy »

1.Impalers Bio idea is neat so i'd "vote" for that one.
2.My Growth formula ;)
3.A limited non-player controlled migration specifically for the purposes of augmenting terran and higher planets.
OR No migration.
Aquitaine is my Hero.... ;)

Tyreth
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#7 Post by Tyreth »

For those interested, using PC's population formula, assuming X = 1 and a population cap of 15, here's the growth rate for a given population unit:

Code: Select all

1: 0.93...
2: 1.73...
3: 2.4
4: 2.93...
5: 3.33...
6: 3.6
7: 3.73...
8: 3.73...
9: 3.6
10: 3.3...
11: 2.93...
12: 2.4
13: 1.73...
14: 0.93...
15: 0
1. I like drek's revision of NF's static population cap.
2. Undecided. I think I prefer NF's static growth, though I'd like to implement some in game modifiers that will result in a slowing of the growth with more population, rather than through the use of a formula. I don't like the formula mostly because it makes migration beneficial, and turning it in to a necessary chore.
so
3. I like my migratory paths regardless of what is decided in (2). If PC's formula is chosen, then I vote for my paths OR no migration at all.

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#8 Post by OceanMachine »

I would like to add to my vote that I would strongly oppose a result that combines PC's growth formula and either the #2 or #3a migration systems. I don't have much problem with any of them on their own, but combined together it sounds like a micromanagment mess. It could prove rather difficult to play-balance the costs associated with migration through different phases of the game. A cost that would provide a good balance early in the game would likely be trivial later in the game, and I don't think it would make sense to players that migration costs keep going up over time as their increased tech/wealth makes everything else cheaper. I think any efforts to resolve this are either going to feel arbitrary and wrong to players or leave open some exploits or both.

So while I still vote PC's formula with migration 3b, I'd rather lose out altogether than get a compromise solution that puts PC's formula with 2 or 3a.
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Nightfish
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#9 Post by Nightfish »

Population Numbers: Well, obviously I like my Population Numbers best or I wouldn't have proposed them. It doesn't really make sense to me to have a lot of environments but only 3 steps in how much my race likes them. I don't think the "I have to memorize it all" argument counts for much as population cap would be displayed right next to the planet's environment.

Growth: I'm completely indifferent about growth itself but I agree with oceanmachine that micromanagement should not give players an advantage here. What I'd like to add about population growth is, that I wouldn't want us "producing" population like MoO2 did by turning industry into people.

Migration: I don't really see why we would need migration at all. Least appealing to me is a system where colonists decide where to go on their own. If we want to have colonists moving from A to B then I'd favor a simple "pick up colonist and dump him elsewhere" system. That's because I only have to go through that routine once and I'm done with it. If we go with migration I'll have to turn it on once and off again when I'm done migrating.

drekmonger
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#10 Post by drekmonger »

My votes:

Population Cap: mine. Whichever level gradition is chosen (mine or NFs) should also carry over to the economic side.

Growth: either is fine with me, with the cavet that these growth functions should be for v.2 only. For when the game becomes more sophisticated and playtested we should reserve the right to modify the growth formula.

Migration: Oceanmachine made a good point re: the cost of migration becoming trival in late game. I like the idea of emergancy migration, but am going to vote for No Migration.

Perhaps for certain types of events (a star going nova, a doomsday comet racing towards a planet) a total planet Exodus could be enabled as a special industrial project....but that's something for a later version.

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Re: Public Review: Population Cap, Growth, and Migration for

#11 Post by tzlaine »

Pop cap: I vote for the drekian simplified static caps, #2.

Growth: PC's formula, #2.

Migration: Special migration, #2. I would also like to see this be used only in the case of some natural disaster, perhaps available additionally as a racial pick. I would also like to allow additional colonists to be shifted from one colony to anther using a colony ship, though. In essence, it should be expensive to force migration, and not widely available.

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#12 Post by tsev »

Population Cap
I like Nightfish's-not-overly-simplified pop cap. Drek's is a little too simplified for my taste. Impaler's is a bit too complex, and I don't think users would really see enough of the complexity to make it worthwhile. Too much is going on behind the scenes there.

Growth
I like PowerCrazy's growth model. NF's is too simple and doesn't account for the realistic fallof of growth as the cap is reached or race-specific growth rates.....my race of rabbit-people will grow faster than you silly humans!

Migration
I vote for no migration, however I did like tzlaine's post above where he said it would be nice to move colonists between colonies with colony ships. If we DO decide on migration, I like Tyreth's point-to-point method.
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Aquitaine
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#13 Post by Aquitaine »

First off, it's only fair to state my bias. I don't like migration. The only time I want to go so far down into Empire management that I'm moving people around is if I'm evacuating them, and that's evacuation, not migration. I like the sense of urgency it brings. "The Sakkra fleet will arrive in three months. Everyone to their ships!" It should be expensive and not desireable, but preferable to losing people. Especially if we use population as a counter for any kind of 'score' in the game.

Cap: I prefer NF's numbers. I like Drek's a lot, too, but we can always re-simplify later; this will be something that will be tremendously easy to mod, I think, so choosing either NF or Drek does not preclude including a different one at a later time, and as Drek pointed out, as we introduce more complex systems, we'll probably have to do that anyway.

Cap: Ultimately, growth is going to be affected by more factors than just starvation, so I think we ought to be using a formula with a little more breathing room than static growth. So, PC's formula on this one.

Migration: No migration EXCEPT when you evacuate a planet. I'm against the whole notion of picking up and dropping population units where you need them (especially as this is a huge micromanagement/imbalance issue in MOO2). However, I am all for making your population the heart of your empire. You should care as much -- or more -- about your population than you do about most of your star systems. So I think that, if you evacuate a world (through some mechanism to be determined), then the population should go into a pool similar to the 'population boom' special on MOO2, where if your pool has enough people in it, it affects population growth in nearby star systems. This is kind of like automatic migration, but only under very specific circumstances.

This is skirting the edge of a whole new proposal, though, so I may need to eat my own dog food and shut my trap. :) Hopefully it fall under 'Special expensive migration only." Otherwise, I definitely vote #1.
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drekmonger
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#14 Post by drekmonger »

Regarding forced population migration (option #2), the idea is that it's option for evacuations. The actual method was barely touched on in the design thread--I was assuming a system close to what Aquitaine described.

Just a brief note on why my population caps are set up the way they are: when NF and I where trying to design an EP wheel that made sense, we both had difficulty positioning planets such that the enviromental opposite was directly opposite on the wheel. (for example it would make sense for Tundra to be opposite Inferno) My solution was to ignore the concept of opposites--rather than measure the degree of suck, if it always sucks just as much to live on a "bad" planet. As a happy accident, my population cap table is simplier, but that's not the core intention.
Last edited by drekmonger on Thu Jul 17, 2003 6:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

tsev
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#15 Post by tsev »

I'll second Aquitaine's notion of "Evacuation" as opposed to "migration"
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