DESIGN: Population growth & caps

Past public reviews and discussions.
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Nightfish
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#61 Post by Nightfish »

Yea, well, I'm sure you got my point anyway, right? :wink:

Nightfish
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Re: Ouch.

#62 Post by Nightfish »

PK wrote:If u guys want to do a looooong remebered game, then MP is the most important thing. Why ? Cos playin AI at home is borin in a longer run. There is no ESCAPE from this. Playing humans is never ending fun and that is why u should make this game from MP as a base, not SP as a base.
This is your personal opinion. You prefer MP, others prefer SP.

I'd prefer to use neither SP nor MP as a base but work out something that works very well with both system.

Tyreth
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#63 Post by Tyreth »

Please don't "shout".

Both MP and SP will be done from the beginning. Lovers of either should not worry.

Nightfish
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#64 Post by Nightfish »

Watch what you're saying and how you say it, PK.

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utilae
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Re: NO MOO3!!!

#65 Post by utilae »

tyreth wrote:
utilae wrote: Migration is bad, but the best way would be to have migration be automatic. Yet maybe you could say what planets are not migration destinations. A toggle between 'people can migrate to this planet' and 'people can't migrate to this planet', by default set to 'people can migrate to this planet'.
I'd rather have it the other way. Setting that 'people cannot migrate from this planet' rather than 'people can migrate to this planet'.

What's the problem with having migration paths? All that it would be: on a planet you hit a button or press a key. A line is drawn from the mouse cursor to that planet. You then select a destination planet and that's it - the colonists will migrate from the planet you selected to the new one.
No problem, but since there may already be lines between stars, and you have to draw lines for migration, what effect will that have. I supose you don't need to have migration paths showing all the time.

krum
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#66 Post by krum »

drek wrote:I don't see the utility of automatic random migration. It might be realistic, but how does it effect gameplay?
I don't want it because it is realistic, we all know realism isn't a factor.

Btw, what do you mean "random"? I'm talking about migration from planets with higher to planets with lower density. Or bigger population to smaller populations, depends what you want.

I for one would use that a lot, doesn't having about the same pop density in all planets sound useful? I wanted to have that when I played MoO 2 or 1. Or the same number of population. Just to develop them at an equal pase. Or bigger - more important - planets faster.

Bastian-Bux
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#67 Post by Bastian-Bux »

Hi all, sorry for my long silence, had some busy weeks at my former job. Now I have "holidays" so soon will start throwing in some usfull bits again (after some real relaxing). :)

Impaler
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#68 Post by Impaler »

In response to Tyreth's question "what dose Bio add to the game"

Because Bio is specific to each race it will not be possible to imediatly and fully expolit concoured territory even if you wipe out the conquored population and leave infastructure intact. The planet will still be covered with enemy Bio which is usless to your race. It will be atleast as difficult to asimilate a well developed enemy world as it would be to develop your own colony from scratch. The other major effect it adds is the "infestation" aspect that I described. Basicly this will make it easier to steal a planet from your oponent if that planet is more desirable for you then it is for your oponent. Conversly you are discouraged from colonizing planets just because they are valuable to your oponent and want to block him. This should have an overall balancing effect on the game and reduce "snowballing" in which I use my strength to hamper the natural growth in my enemy. I see these as being the main game play effects. Also I feel Bioshpere is asteticaly pleasing, its simple yet broad and can cover anything we want to imagine for an alien races physiological or mental requirements. Some folks have been discussing food in addition to Bio, this is completly unessary as food is a part of a planets Biosphere as are things like open space, air, water, soil, weather, sunlight. Bio is an amalgamation of every natural process that an organism is involved in. This is the guiding principle under which I envisioned the idea.

One other thing I would like to respond to, theres was some very good (but too brief) discusion of how human population growth is based a great deal on wealth and standard of living. This is definatly true and perhaps we should consider working it into the system in some way perhaps by factoring wealth and standard of living as polution which would result in a decresse in growth rate or even a reduction in population. The declining populations of Europe can be though of as working in this way, a high standard of living in a densly populated area equals high stress. High enough that polution control measures are becoming very important.

PowerCrazy
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#69 Post by PowerCrazy »

Well NF, FO won't be as unbalanced as MoO2 was, because if i or anybody else sees an unbalanced feature i.e. able to move colonists from planet to planet, then that person will speak up and hopefully people will realize its not a good idea. I'm as at home with SP or MP, i want them both to be fun. But to achieve that we have to think about what kind of game play impact all of these features will have.

For example. I want a race called the GODS. They have a +1000% bonus to EVERYTHING. and are immune to any constricting effects we try to put on the game. Should we allow players the option of haveing this race in there? I'd say No (short of modding the game files). Because obvioulsy they would not make a fun game (well maybe once). Same with population moving. If we have it and it allows some kind of advantage, in MP people WILL use it, and it WILL slow down the pace of the game. So simply don't put it in. Each planet grows at its own rate that is a combination of food availible, race stats, and EP. OR, if you HAVE to have migration, then Gaia and Terran planets will get most of the migration because thats where people want to live (making those planets even mroe valuable).
Aquitaine is my Hero.... ;)

drek
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#70 Post by drek »

This is basically NF's linear growth (the system I think will probably work out best) plus some details.

Growth

Colonized planets gain 1 population point every 5 turns. The number of turns required to raise a population point is modified by the following factors:

+0 Turns Good EP
+2 Turns OK EP (1 slot away from good on the wheel)
+5 Turns Bad EP (2 or more slots away from good on the wheel)
+3 Turns Outpost Population (1 population point on the world currently)
+2 Turns Sparse Population (2-3 population points)
+5 Turns Capped Population (Population is already at the cap)
-1 Turn Ample food stockpile (if planet possesses food stockpile > population)
-1 Turn Large food stockpile (food stockpiled > population *3) In addition to the ample food stockpile for a total of -2
+1 Turns Major Focus=Research
+0-3 Turns at Random. Turns required will be raised by 1d4-1. (to break up patterns, so the system doesn't run like clockwork)

If a point of population is lost (due to famine or any other event) the counter is reset to 0. Regardless of modifiers, growth always takes at least one turn to complete.

Plenty of factors can be added in the future, including:
-2 Turns Fast Growth race pick
+2 Turns Slow Growth race pick
-1 Turn Growth enhancing facility (upgrades via technology to -2 then -3)
+1 Turn Each Research building (on the theory that there's only going to be a few reserach buildings on each planet)

Impaler
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#71 Post by Impaler »

That realy dose not sound good to me, its very complex and will be hard for people to follow. Their is also the question of what happens if the criteria change before the turn count down is done.

But most fundimentaly I think linear growth is horibly unrealistic.

though we haven't worked out the adsact formula yet some variation on PowerCrazy's sugjestion is definatly the best system. Its simple straitforward and logical. Infact similar equations are used to describe real life animal populations. Their are only 3 inputs, current pop, max pop and a racial growth factor.

Nightfish
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#72 Post by Nightfish »

Two "fyi"s here:

First of all we could really care less if linear growth is realistic or not, exponential pop growth makes no sense for a game.

Second: My system was not supposed to include a few dozen modifiers to something as minor as pop growth. Mine is a lot simpler, just so we're clear here :wink:

Impaler
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#73 Post by Impaler »

Well thats what this thread is for, lets discuss LINEAR vs EXPONENTIAL (and not get dragged off topic for 3 pages on migration when the basics are undesided)

I say exponential, its the system Moo has used ever since the original. Its realistic (which I think is a benifit), its easy for the player to get a feel for it. Ofcorse we will have some modifiers like polution and the growth will slowdown when it reaches full, maximum growth is achived at the half full level.

Nightfish
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#74 Post by Nightfish »

Exponential growth is what MoO used all along? Now that comes as a surprise... when I played MoO2 a few minutes ago all my colonies grew at a rate of about +100k per turn... no matter how many people were on it. That seems like linear growth to me...

Tyreth
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#75 Post by Tyreth »

I prefer linear - it's easier to understand at a glance.

More importantly, population does not necessarily grow exponentially. Populations often stay at roughly the same size in order to live properly within their environment. Sometimes population blossoms like crazy. Depends on a great deal of factors. So it's not worth bothering trying to make a "realistic" exponential growth system.

Linear growth is easier to comprehend in my opinion and makes the game easier to balance, since the expected growth rate can be anticipated more actively. Not to mention, exponential growth would help make the rich richer quicker. Something we want to avoid - just like the technology snowball that meant once you jumped ahead you stayed ahead.

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