Centralization's current fluff:
"Logistics of the whole empire are focused into boosting the capital's production, by diverting there most of the social and material resources. This causes some resentment in the colonies, which increases [[metertype METER_INFLUENCE]] costs."
I like the fluff, I don't like the effects associated to it (makes no sense to me).
You can't divert anything to your Capital when there is no where to take from.
I suggest unlocking Centralization (and Confederation, another story) when you get your first colony.
"Centralization is something you do instead of growing more colonies"
At start, we have other stuff to do instead of growing more colonies: Command Center, Auto. History Analyzer, troops (to invade natives later), outposts to get monter nests, warships for whatever.
Let's make Centralization something you do to empower your Capital at the expense of having slower growth/development and less stability in the colonies. And something better for small/compact empires than for wide empires.
Grummel7 wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 8:05 am
Another idea just occurred to me, and I think this one makes a lot of sense, fluff and game wise: The bonus of Centralization could grow with the number of colonies!
I'm so glad you thought of that!
Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:16 am
Centralization loses relevance too soon. Making it capital-pop-based, or
number-of-supply-connected-colonies-flat, or supply-connected-pop-based, would be good.
I thought I had already suggested that, several times, and that it never got any support. But I think I never posted a well-formed suggestion, 'cause I can't find it.
Summing up, I'm in favor of these effects for Centralization:
- Unlock it after getting your second populated planet (colonization or invasion).
- Give a +1 supply bonus to Capital, and a -1 or -2 supply malus to any other planet (right, almost the opposite we have now).
- Give a bonus to capital based on number and distance of owned colonies. I haven't thought properly about this, but something like +constat/jumps per each owned supply-connected colony (there is probably a way to calculate it in a single operation for all colonies at once).
- Remove the influence cost on colonies. Or at least nerf it a lot, 0.2 per jump away tops. But I prefer removing, and...
- Add a stability malus based on distance to capital.
The current stability bonus based on distance to capital or IRAs that we have now, I would change it too. I think I would remove it completely (but leave the stability malus from supply-disconnection, solving that is almost the only thing that Confederation does now), and have something else, some other policy, that adds a bonus to proximity to IRAs/Capital... I guess all this part and the last bullet of my suggestion needs more thought.