The adoption cost is 2+#popcenters.
To keep the bonus at all time you need to do one of these:
- Add another RegAd (which must be at 5+ hops from any previous RegAd) every ten turns. That's quite fast and (I think) too hard to achieve in common situations.
- De-adopt the policy once you lose the bonus and re-adopt it next turn. In this case you'll have 10*#RegAd turns before having to build another RegAd or do the de-adopt&re-adopt again.
Assuming you have 10 popcenters per RegAd, and add a new RegAd every 20 turns (later 30 or 40):
1. Adopt policy at turn 10 when you have 5 popcenters, costs 7 IP.
2. Build your first RegAd at turn 20, stability bonus stays.
3. De-adopt policy at turn 30 and re-adopt it at turn 31 for 22 IP. Bonus remains until turn 51
4. Build second RegAd at turn 40. Bonus until turn 61.
5. Build thirds Reg Ad at turn 60. Bonus until turn 71.
6. De-adopt at 70 and re-adopt at 71 for 42 IP. Bonus until 131.
7. Fourth RegAd at turn 80 and fifth at
8. Sixth RegAd at turn 140. Bonus until 161.
9. De-adopt at 160 and re-adopt at 161 for 72 IP. Bonus until 231.
10. Eight RegAd at turn 170 and Ninth at 210. Bonus until 251.
11. Tenth RegAd at turn 250. Bonus until 261.
12. De-adopt and re-adopt at 261 for 112 IP. Bonus until 371.
At that point, the total cost of that +5 stability is 250 IP.
Maybe this is affordable and can be a good way to have that +5 stability for the whole game, and more affordable to get it only when you need that extra stability and other policies won't help.
And one could use those turns in between de-adopt and re-adopt to do focus changes.
None of this is micromanagement, but it feels kinda boring, adopt, de-adopt, re-adopt...
On the other hand, that's only needed every few tens of turns, and it kinda feels quite bureaucratic
And the effects themselves do make sense: the bureaucracy is rigid and makes difficult to change procedures; the bureaucracy is boring but predictable, discourages favoritisms, etc.
At start I thought it made little sense that de-adopt/re-adopt thingy, but now I think it does: bureaucracy is rigid and loses efficiency with time, to change well-established bureaucratic processes needs to undertake a costly process ans do needs influence investment.
Anyways, although I'm not sure I prefer to remove the de-adopt&re-adopt mechanic (I guess it's better to playtest it several times), does anyone have an idea how to make this more "fun" or at least remove the need to de-adopt&re-adopt to make it effective during time?
I can think of:
- giving a stability bonus based on ratio #RegAd/#PopCenters,
- slowing down meter change.
Some remarks on pros and cons of bureaucracy (not sure how accurate/actual these are):
https://vittana.org/20-advantages-and-d ... ureaucracy