Universal Macro Constants

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Bigjoe5
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#16 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:If you are suggesting that influence generated on a high infrastructure planet would in some cases function differently from infrastructure generated on a high population planet -- that's not going to work, any more than certain species RP is more effective for shield techs. There's no distinguishing one PP/influencePoint/RP from another once it is produced.
No - I'm suggesting that players that research in the Biology category would get different techs than players who research in the Construction category, and that these techs would use the same resources to produce significantly different effects.

eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:I don`t see why infrastructure and population should *just* influence resource production.
I'm not saying that. Up till this post that is all you have described it doing. I'm trying to find out in concrete terms how you propose they actually be different.
That's because it's all that was immediately relevant to the discussion. I don't see a particular reason to assume the most boring scenario for any aspects of the topic that I didn't explicitly address.

eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:Population could do stuff related to troops or espionage as well,
Like what? Espionage seems a stretch. You could tie ground troop numbers to population. Not super-compelling, but a possibility.
OK, here are some examples:

1. Planets with higher populations could be easier to infiltrate, and anti-espionage projects would be more expensive on such planets.

2. Planets with higher populations could have a higher max troops meter and/or generate more troops when they riot or rebel. In the case of a ground invasion, the opinion of the species on the planet would be more significant than on planets with a lower population.

3. Enslaved planets with high population could be more effective than enslaved planets with high infrastructure, but also more apt to revolt.

4. Breeding particular types of space monsters may require sacrificing a large amount of population.
eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:...and infrastructure could do stuff related to PP allocation on a particular planet, for example.
I'm strongly against added another layer that limits how many PP you can spend per turn. If Geoff can countenance throwing out the current per part/building PP limit system, then we should discuss replacing it with a per planet limit, probably based on infrastructure.
Yeah, that suggestion was meant to replace the current PP per turn thing, which I've never found terribly compelling.
eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:Players with high population should be able do interesting stuff that players with only high infrastructure can`t do, and vice versa, allowing them to use their resources in very different ways.
Yeah, you keep making such, vague statements. But with the exception of the PP allocation, you don't seem to be able to list any of these different, interesting things. EDIT: and while PP allocation may be a justification for the infrastructure meter, it certainly isn't' a justification for infrastructure mirroring population in production boosting.
In addition to what I mentioned above, players who research through totally different branches of the tech tree are bound to get unique stuff that's not in the other branch. Infrastructure mirroring population for production boosting is what provides enough redundancy between the two branches that it won't be advantageous to research both. I posted a sample tech tree a while ago that has ample unique content in the Construction and Biology categories.

If having a single tech increase production based on the greater of population and infrastructure is awkward, we could take a different approach: techs (or at least buildings) which increase resource production based on infrastructure could have side effects that decrease target population, and techs or buildings which increase resource production based on population could decrease target infrastructure. This would allow a player to most efficiently increase resource production by focusing either on infrastructure or population, but trying to increase both and increase resource production based on both would be less efficient, and have diminishing returns. This still provides a means of trading off between construction and bio, without the awkward mechanics that are currently in place, and without Infrastructure mirroring Population too directly.
Last edited by Bigjoe5 on Mon Jul 30, 2012 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#17 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Bigjoe5 wrote:2. Planets with higher populations could have a higher max troops meter and/or generate more troops when they riot or rebel.
I'm fond of this idea.
Bigjoe5 wrote:...techs (or at least buildings) which increase resource production based on infrastructure could have side effects that decrease target population, and techs or buildings which increase resource production based on population could decrease target infrastructure.
Any penalty effects decrease would need to be restricted to buildings, or be associated with something the player can control or turn on or off, and not have any unavoidable penalties to existing content. Techs unlocking a new focus that has some penalties if chosen is fine, but not introducing a new penalty to an existing focus, or applying a penalty to a player's own planets without the player specifically choosing to do so.

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Vezzra
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#18 Post by Vezzra »

Ok, I've been following this discussion until now, and (like eleazar), I still have my doubts about these formulas that calculate bonus values by using the max of a pair of values based on population and infrastructure.

My first question is: Aren't fancy formulas like that exactly the thing we're trying to avoid in favor of simple, straightforward ones?

My second question refers to what should be achieved by these formulas: avoid the need to mirror them in the biology and construction tech tree, because they give boni that a player should have regardless on which tech tree he decides to focus - but just to a certain extend. Some of these techs would give you better results if you focus on bio techs (boost to pop), other would give you better results if you focus in construction techs (boost to infrastructure). So that by choosing which tech tree you're going to focus on will still make difference in regard even to these boni. Did I understand the intentions behind this system correctly so far?

If yes, then I wonder if that isn't already achieved simple by having better stats for either pop or infrastructure, depending on which tech tree you choose to focus on. Because choosing one of the tech trees will just give you better stats for pop/infra, you won't end up having only one or the other. Consequently a player focusing on bio techs will get better results from techs that base their bonus values on population, and not so good ones from techs that base their bonus values on infrastructure - but he will get a bonus either way. And it will be the other way round for a player that focuses on construction techs. The fancy formulas would only modify this distinction to a certain degree, but not introduce an effect that isn't already there.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious...?

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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#19 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Vezzra wrote:If yes, then I wonder if that isn't already achieved simple by having better stats for either pop or infrastructure, depending on which tech tree you choose to focus on. Because choosing one of the tech trees will just give you better stats for pop/infra, you won't end up having only one or the other. Consequently a player focusing on bio techs will get better results from techs that base their bonus values on population, and not so good ones from techs that base their bonus values on infrastructure - but he will get a bonus either way. And it will be the other way round for a player that focuses on construction techs. The fancy formulas would only modify this distinction to a certain degree, but not introduce an effect that isn't already there.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious...?
As it is now, there's very diminishing returns on researching to increase both population and infrastructure, because you can only ever get the greater bonus for each tech - the only advantage would be that you would get the full bonus from techs that favour one over the other in all cases. If they're totally separate, then there's still a large motivation to research the other tree - you can basically double your resource production.
Vezzra wrote:My first question is: Aren't fancy formulas like that exactly the thing we're trying to avoid in favor of simple, straightforward ones?
Yes, which is why I suggested this:
Bigjoe5 wrote:If having a single tech increase production based on the greater of population and infrastructure is awkward, we could take a different approach: techs (or at least buildings) which increase resource production based on infrastructure could have side effects that decrease target population, and techs or buildings which increase resource production based on population could decrease target infrastructure. This would allow a player to most efficiently increase resource production by focusing either on infrastructure or population, but trying to increase both and increase resource production based on both would be less efficient, and have diminishing returns. This still provides a means of trading off between construction and bio, without the awkward mechanics that are currently in place, and without Infrastructure mirroring Population too directly.
If you need to take a hit to infrastructure to take full advantage of population based bonuses and vice versa, for instance by using particular buildings or foci that gave a particular penalty associated with them, that still introduces diminishing returns, but in a more elegant way.
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Krikkitone
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#20 Post by Krikkitone »

Regarding Infrastructure v. Population

Looking at 3 options

Maximum Infrastructure
Benefit: per infrastructure bonuses + (greater of infra+pop) bonuses

Maximum Population
Benefit: per pop bonuses + (greater of infra+pop) bonuses

Maximum Infrastructure and Maximum Population
Benefit: per infra + per pop + (greater of the two) bonuses
Cost: extra research to get max pop and max infrastructure


So if you need
More of extra research to get both high Infrastructure AND high Population
then you should get
Less bonuses in the "overlap" category (greater of the two)
and
More bonuses in the just population or just infrastructure

... since all three should probably be good options (Pop focus, Infra focus, or Balanced... ie a good amount of both)

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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#21 Post by em3 »

Krikkitone wrote:... since all three should probably be good options (Pop focus, Infra focus, or Balanced... ie a good amount of both)
Exactly.
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#22 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Krikkitone wrote:... since all three should probably be good options (Pop focus, Infra focus, or Balanced... ie a good amount of both)
That's what I'm trying to avoid. What I'm trying to do is force the player to make a significant large-scale strategic decision with the tech tree that will vastly alter the techs that are available to players who make different choices.
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#23 Post by em3 »

Why? I still don't understand why do you hate the golden mean? Why a civilization can not be "jack of all trades, ace of none"? What gain do you see in subtracting from possible choices available to player?
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eleazar
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#24 Post by eleazar »

Bigjoe5 wrote:1. Planets with higher populations could be easier to infiltrate, and anti-espionage projects would be more expensive on such planets.

2. Planets with higher populations could have a higher max troops meter and/or generate more troops when they riot or rebel. In the case of a ground invasion, the opinion of the species on the planet would be more significant than on planets with a lower population.

3. Enslaved planets with high population could be more effective than enslaved planets with high infrastructure, but also more apt to revolt.

4. Breeding particular types of space monsters may require sacrificing a large amount of population.
OK, these are reasonable to good ideas with the exception of 3. And they are ideas we could do anyway, without a infrastructure meter, duplicate production boosters or big bio/con dichotomies. None of this makes the "either/or best of" production boosting compelling, especially since infrastructure only has one distinctive (pp allocation) which requires a big change, and kinda undermines your Population/infrastructure either/or dichotomy.

:arrow: If high infrastructure is required to build things fast, then high population -> high PP is not going to be a viable path to strong industry. Which is fine as long as pop/infra aren't supposed to be equally good (and mutually exclusive) means to the goal of high production, and separated into two mutually exclusive branches of the tree.

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:Players with high population should be able do interesting stuff that players with only high infrastructure can`t do, and vice versa, allowing them to use their resources in very different ways.
Yeah, you keep making such, vague statements. But with the exception of the PP allocation, you don't seem to be able to list any of these different, interesting things. EDIT: and while PP allocation may be a justification for the infrastructure meter, it certainly isn't' a justification for infrastructure mirroring population in production boosting.
In addition to what I mentioned above, players who research through totally different branches of the tech tree are bound to get unique stuff that's not in the other branch.
Of course researching different branches will get you access to unique stuff. That's what happens when your tree isn't stupid. It is not a unique property of any of your ideas/plans that i've questioned in this tread.
Bigjoe5 wrote:Infrastructure mirroring population for production boosting is what provides enough redundancy between the two branches that it won't be advantageous to research both.
Putting aside the idea that we should work hard to keep players from researching two branches, which i don't necessarily agree with, if you want an extreme dichotomy, putting redundancy in both branches is not the way to do it. That makes both branches more the same. You either:
  • a) Allow one branch to be better at boosting certain types of production than the other, or
    b) Put the techs that boost production (directly and indirectly) into other branches of the tree not involved in this dichotomy.
Bigjoe5 wrote:If having a single tech increase production based on the greater of population and infrastructure is awkward, we could take a different approach: techs (or at least buildings) which increase resource production based on infrastructure could have side effects that decrease target population, and techs or buildings which increase resource production based on population could decrease target infrastructure. This would allow a player to most efficiently increase resource production by focusing either on infrastructure or population, but trying to increase both and increase resource production based on both would be less efficient, and have diminishing returns. This still provides a means of trading off between construction and bio, without the awkward mechanics that are currently in place, and without Infrastructure mirroring Population too directly.
Please give a more concrete example. I don't see how this would help much.

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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#25 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:...players who research through totally different branches of the tech tree are bound to get unique stuff that's not in the other branch.
Of course researching different branches will get you access to unique stuff. That's what happens when your tree isn't stupid. It is not a unique property of any of your ideas/plans that i've questioned in this tread.
Yes, but nobody else seems to have a plan to actually get the player to make any significant decisions between different tech branches. "Unique stuff" loses an aspect of meaning when everyone has the same stuff.

eleazar wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:If having a single tech increase production based on the greater of population and infrastructure is awkward, we could take a different approach: techs (or at least buildings) which increase resource production based on infrastructure could have side effects that decrease target population, and techs or buildings which increase resource production based on population could decrease target infrastructure. This would allow a player to most efficiently increase resource production by focusing either on infrastructure or population, but trying to increase both and increase resource production based on both would be less efficient, and have diminishing returns. This still provides a means of trading off between construction and bio, without the awkward mechanics that are currently in place, and without Infrastructure mirroring Population too directly.
Please give a more concrete example. I don't see how this would help much.
Help what much? It completely gets rid of the whole "greater of population or infrastructure" thing. Here's a hypothetical example:

Heavy Mining: Increases industry by the value of current Infrastructure, cuts Population by 1/4.
Some Other Tech: Increases industry by the value of current Population, cuts Infrastructure by 1/4.

Suppose before either of these bonuses are applied, a particular planet has a population of 20 and an infrastructure of 20. If he uses Heavy Mining, he'll have a population of 15 and infrastructure of 20, for a total bonus of 20 to industry. If he uses both, he has a population of 15 and an infrastructure of 15, so his bonus is 30. Researching the second tech gave him half the value he got from the first tech, so why would he research Some Other Tech, when he could keep researching techs based on Infrastructure for a full return on investment? And then, why would he research Biology for Population-boosting techs, when he could be spending that PP in the Construction tree for Infrastructure-boosting techs? Ideally he wouldn't, because it would be dumb to do so, and therefore the player will need to make an interesting and long-lasting strategic decision about which branch to research.
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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#26 Post by Krikkitone »

The issue appears to be making a Significant Choice between Boosting Construction and Boosting Infrastructure (OR both).

So for that to be there

1. One must not be clearly better
ie you must be ABLE to win the game only boosting one of the 2
Benefits from one must not be better than benefits from another

2. The benefits should be different

So Looking at a few possible strategies

Player has a Pop tech and a Construction tech available

A. Research neither
Benefit=0
Cost=0

B. Research Pop
Benefit=benefits from Pop
Cost=Research

C. Research Infrastructure
Benefit=Benefits from Infrastructure
Cost=Research

D. Research Both
Benefit=Benefits from Both
Cost=Lots of research

Now the point is How to manage the benefits from pop v. infrastructure
Some of those benefits will be unique (And can be part of the uniqueness... your path of more troops or more defense or something like that)
Some will be of the same type (+0.1 industry per infrastructure +0.15 industry per pop)

So if you want a "path" then have Techs that increase per Pop benefits in Population boosting tech trees, and techs that increase per Infra benefits in Infra boosting tech trees.

Techs in other trees can be balanced (+0.1 per pop and +0.1 per Infrastucture)

That can solve the "diminishing returns" problem. (Pop boosting tech level 2 is more expensive than infrastructure booster level 1... but the Pop boost is worth more to me.. because I have researched Pop benefit techs)

So Construction Tree
...AutoLabs +0.1 Res per Infrastructure
Bio Tree
...Neural boosters +0.1 Res per Population
Science Tree (Intelligent networks)
... +1 Res per planet
or
.... +0.05 Res per pop +0.05 Res per Infra
or
... +10% Research (this is good since it doesn't balance out Population and Infrastructure... one still gets 2x or 3x the benefit of the other)

While something like Heavy Mining= +Ind per Infra, -% of population Might be an Interesting Building or Government Policy. I don't think it would be necessary.

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Re: Universal Macro Constants

#27 Post by eleazar »

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:Please give a more concrete example. I don't see how this would help much.
Help what much? It completely gets rid of the whole "greater of population or infrastructure" thing. Here's a hypothetical example:

Heavy Mining: Increases industry by the value of current Infrastructure, cuts Population by 1/4.
Some Other Tech: Increases industry by the value of current Population, cuts Infrastructure by 1/4.
OK, i see what you mean now.
Yes, i agree that is better than the current implementation.

Though i share Geoff's concern about having a negative effect applied from merely researching a tech, and not something more control-able and revoke-able like placing a building or selecting a focus.

EDIT: And it while such an increase/decrease pattern works for something like "Heavy Mining", i wonder it it could be extended to two whole branches without being extremely arbitrary.

Bigjoe5 wrote:
eleazar wrote:Of course researching different branches will get you access to unique stuff. That's what happens when your tree isn't stupid. It is not a unique property of any of your ideas/plans that i've questioned in this tread.
Yes, but nobody else seems to have a plan to actually get the player to make any significant decisions between different tech branches.
At this point i see no gain in doing more than giving the player multiple tech avenues to explore. My edits and additions to the tech tree have moved it in the direction more/longer independent branches, and cut down on excessive cross-branching prerequisites (more could probably be done). IMHO it is premature to try to refine the structure of the tree. Most techs will be added, removed, and revised (probably several times) before 1.0. Trying to maintain a specific, clever shape to the tree through all that only makes for more work. That's also why i spend little effort on the fluff text, experience has taught me not to expect the shape of the tree, or the individual tech to last.


Also i think this is a rather important point from my previous post that wasn't addressed. It seems to be a big flaw in your scheme:
eleazar wrote: :arrow: If high infrastructure is required to build things fast, then high population -> high PP is not going to be a viable path to strong industry. Which is fine as long as pop/infra aren't supposed to be equally good (and mutually exclusive) means to the goal of high production, and separated into two mutually exclusive branches of the tree.

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