Centralization

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Grummel7
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Centralization

#1 Post by Grummel7 »

In my opinion, Centralization as it it now, is hardly ever worth keeping for more than a few turns at the beginning and sometimes not even then:
  1. Every colony that is in another system costs 0.5*jumps-to-capital Influence, up to a maximum of 4.
  2. Colonies not supply connected cost 4, independent of the distance, on top of the 1 point they cost without.
  3. Capital supply is reduced by 2, which may trigger point 2.
  4. Colony buildings are more expensive.
And the only thing you get is a small increase in research and production at the capital, plus, if that PR is merged, a discount on bureaucracy.

The last change was done by Geoff in January. @Geoff: Do you still think this was necessary?

My idea of making it a useful option for smaller empires would be: Revert that change and remove the supply penalty. Hey, everyone should deliver to the capital, why should they take away the means to do that?

Please note that unless you already have Interstellar Infrastructure or Sentient Automation, you cannot keep Centralization, Bureaucracy and Technocracy at the same time.

wobbly
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Re: Centralization

#2 Post by wobbly »

I used it to around turn 12 in current MP, that's probably around normal for me.
Grummel7 wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 6:51 pm My idea of making it a useful option for smaller empires would be: Revert that change and remove the supply penalty. Hey, everyone should deliver to the capital, why should they take away the means to do that?
The problem with how it was before was that the bonus was bigger then a 2nd colony, creating a situation that actively discouraged you from putting down the 1st colony ship. The design of it is really hard to balance as the bonus isn't growing, but the penalty is. That means if its balanced for turn 10 or 20, its too strong on turn 1. If its balanced for turn 1 its too weak by turn 10 or 20.

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Grummel7
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Re: Centralization

#3 Post by Grummel7 »

wobbly wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 3:32 am I used it to around turn 12 in current MP, that's probably around normal for me.
Grummel7 wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 6:51 pm My idea of making it a useful option for smaller empires would be: Revert that change and remove the supply penalty. Hey, everyone should deliver to the capital, why should they take away the means to do that?
The problem with how it was before was that the bonus was bigger then a 2nd colony, creating a situation that actively discouraged you from putting down the 1st colony ship. The design of it is really hard to balance as the bonus isn't growing, but the penalty is. That means if its balanced for turn 10 or 20, its too strong on turn 1. If its balanced for turn 1 its too weak by turn 10 or 20.
I don't really get your point. You argue it is either too strong for turn 1 or too weak after turn 10, but then you mention that currently you do use it around 12.

When speaking about balancing, you have to compare various strategies. Applying Centralization in turn 1 gives you some nice bonuses, unless you build a colony (ship), but it is a dead-end street. Sooner or later you have to replace it by Planetary Infrastructure for getting more slots. Alternative is to apply PI first so you get the extra slots and policies more quickly. And once you have the extra slots, you have a bunch useful policies to chose from.

A new colony never gets you much, but you have to start it to get a bigger colony later. And in most cases, when you set the new colony to influence focus, it does not cost you anything. Except, that is, when it is disconnected from the capital, which is why I want to remove the supply penalty.

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Re: Centralization

#4 Post by wobbly »

Grummel7 wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:08 pm I don't really get your point. You argue it is either too strong for turn 1 or too weak after turn 10, but then you mention that currently you do use it around 12.
Keeping it till turn 12 when its already adopted is different to adopting it on turn 10.
Grummel7 wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:08 pm When speaking about balancing, you have to compare various strategies. Applying Centralization in turn 1 gives you some nice bonuses, unless you build a colony (ship), but it is a dead-end street. Sooner or later you have to replace it by Planetary Infrastructure for getting more slots. Alternative is to apply PI first so you get the extra slots and policies more quickly. And once you have the extra slots, you have a bunch useful policies to chose from.
Ok lets look at the various starting strategies. You have 2 turns of production while you research physical brain, then all your production points are spent on the history analyzer for the next 8-10 turns depending on starting species. You'll notice I only listed 1 strategy and it didn't involve building a colony ship, you have no PP to do so, unless you want to deliberately nerf your start.
Grummel7 wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:08 pm A new colony never gets you much, but you have to start it to get a bigger colony later. And in most cases, when you set the new colony to influence focus, it does not cost you anything. Except, that is, when it is disconnected from the capital, which is why I want to remove the supply penalty.
I can probably get behind removing the supply penalty. It tends to just reward good luck anyway. If you have a habitable planet within close enough range it ends up providing the supply link and the penalty becomes meaningless. My issue with how it was before was that the bonus was bigger then a full grown colony. If we assume an average race such as humans and average sized terran planets, centralization was more then 1 fully grown industry focused planet + 1 fully grown research focused planet. At least till you get bonuses like liberty and NAI. If losing 2 supply meant not colonizing a planet then you didn't.

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Grummel7
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Re: Centralization

#5 Post by Grummel7 »

wobbly wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 2:26 pm Keeping it till turn 12 when its already adopted is different to adopting it on turn 10.
Sorry, I overlooked the "to" in your statement
wobbly wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 2:26 pm Ok lets look at the various starting strategies. You have 2 turns of production while you research physical brain, then all your production points are spent on the history analyzer for the next 8-10 turns depending on starting species. You'll notice I only listed 1 strategy and it didn't involve building a colony ship, you have no PP to do so, unless you want to deliberately nerf your start.
Well, I remember cases with lucky Scylior, where I actually delayed to history analyzer in favor of colonies, but I admit that that's a rare case. The main question is not whether you want build an early colony, but whether to spend the IP for just a few turns or rather go for infrastructure first. Combined with the question whether to start with propaganda or go for liberty in turn 3. If you start with centralization and liberty, it will take considerably more time to reach technocracy.
wobbly wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 2:26 pm I can probably get behind removing the supply penalty. It tends to just reward good luck anyway. If you have a habitable planet within close enough range it ends up providing the supply link and the penalty becomes meaningless. My issue with how it was before was that the bonus was bigger then a full grown colony. If we assume an average race such as humans and average sized terran planets, centralization was more then 1 fully grown industry focused planet + 1 fully grown research focused planet. At least till you get bonuses like liberty and NAI. If losing 2 supply meant not colonizing a planet then you didn't.
I wonder which before you are talking of. I once complained about it being to strong myself, but many things were different back then. In March 21, the bonus was reduced from 0.2 / pop to 0.1 / pop. Then in January, the research bonus was reduced to 0.06 / pop and the Influence penalties were increased. I'd like to revert the second one, especially the increased influence penalties, because they force you to remove it pretty quickly, once your empire starts growing.

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Re: Centralization

#6 Post by wobbly »

Grummel7 wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 4:41 pm
wobbly wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 2:26 pm I can probably get behind removing the supply penalty. It tends to just reward good luck anyway. If you have a habitable planet within close enough range it ends up providing the supply link and the penalty becomes meaningless. My issue with how it was before was that the bonus was bigger then a full grown colony. If we assume an average race such as humans and average sized terran planets, centralization was more then 1 fully grown industry focused planet + 1 fully grown research focused planet. At least till you get bonuses like liberty and NAI. If losing 2 supply meant not colonizing a planet then you didn't.
I wonder which before you are talking of. I once complained about it being to strong myself, but many things were different back then. In March 21, the bonus was reduced from 0.2 / pop to 0.1 / pop. Then in January, the research bonus was reduced to 0.06 / pop and the Influence penalties were increased. I'd like to revert the second one, especially the increased influence penalties, because they force you to remove it pretty quickly, once your empire starts growing.
18th MP, which seems to be december last year

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LienRag
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Re: Centralization

#7 Post by LienRag »

Grummel7 wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 4:41 pm they force you to remove it pretty quickly, once your empire starts growing.
Yeah, I think that is the point of this Policy, it's something you do instead of growing more colonies.
You're not supposed to have your spacecake and eat it too...

It could be less of a no-brainer (start with Centralization, remove it as soon as you find a Planet a bit too far to colonize with it), though.
It would be nice to have real strategic thinking about Empire shapes, and we don't really have that as of now.

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Grummel7
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Re: Centralization

#8 Post by Grummel7 »

LienRag wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 7:27 pm Yeah, I think that is the point of this Policy, it's something you do instead of growing more colonies.
You're not supposed to have your spacecake and eat it too...

It could be less of a no-brainer (start with Centralization, remove it as soon as you find a Planet a bit too far to colonize with it), though.
It would be nice to have real strategic thinking about Empire shapes, and we don't really have that as of now.
Well, the way the policy is now, it's as you say, but that does not mean it's the idea behind this policy. I would like it to be less of a no-brainer.

It's really tricky, though, because you get the bonus from the start, when you apply it immediately, but at that point you have hardly any information about your environment. So you apply Centralization in turn one, then in turn 2 your scout find a nice planet for your first colony, but it would cost you a fortune of influence to settle it, while you keep C. applied. Perhaps we should also unlock C. with The Physical Brain?

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! So in turn 1 it could be even less then now, but then you actually have a reason to place that colony ship. And you can keep it for a while until you cannot bear the influence cost or find other policies more useful.

E.g.:
Bonus is 0.06 PP and 0.04 RP / pop times number of populated planets.
Influence cost on colonies it 0.2 (jumps to capital + 1), limited to 2, so even local colonies have a cost.
Remove the supply penalty.
Perhaps also lower the stability requirement, so that all species have a chance to use it.

Only problem I see with it is that you would be even more screwed than now if you cannot find a planets to colonise.

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Re: Centralization

#9 Post by wobbly »

If the aim is to make the policy viable later in the game. "centralized around regional admins" would probably scale more easily then "centralized around the capital".

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Oberlus
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Re: Centralization

#10 Post by Oberlus »

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! :D
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.

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Re: Centralization

#11 Post by Oberlus »

wobbly wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:27 am If the aim is to make the policy viable later in the game. "centralized around regional admins" would probably scale more easily then "centralized around the capital".
+1

Either IRAs are actualy something specific to Centralization (and then you get no bonuses from IRAs when there is no Centralization policy adopted), or IRAs are something incompatible with Centralization, not unlocked by centralization, and not necessary for policies that depend or are very related to Centralization.

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Grummel7
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Re: Centralization

#12 Post by Grummel7 »

Oberlus wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:47 am - Unlock it after getting your second populated planet (colonization or invasion).
Can we script that?

Of course we could implement it by having it unlocked from the start, but giving no bonus without a colony. Someone may still use because of species likes, but that won't break anything.
Oberlus wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:49 am Either IRAs are actualy something specific to Centralization (and then you get no bonuses from IRAs when there is no Centralization policy adopted), or IRAs are something incompatible with Centralization, not unlocked by centralization, and not necessary for policies that depend or are very related to Centralization.
Hm, why not unlock them by Bureaucracy? Makes a lot more sense indeed.

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Re: Centralization

#13 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:47 am 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).
- Add a stability malus based on distance to capital.
Interesting...

Oberlus wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:47 am - Remove the influence cost on colonies. Or at least nerf it a lot, 0.2 per jump away tops. But I prefer removing, and...
Well, if you remove this cost, you remove any balance that this Policy could have.
The Stability malus is not enough to compensate for the boni Centralization provides.


Anyway, one of the problem with Centralization being a no-brainer is the 20 IP we get at start; without it you had a few turns before deciding to go for Centralization or wait for Planet Infrastructure, which left enough time to see your surroundings and provided for situations where early expansion was more interesting than Centralization.
I've always said that Imperial Palace bonus to Influence should be at least +5 and not +3, that would allow to keep the starting value to 0 for IP as it is for RP and PP.

The other problem of course is the lack of early Economic Policies that could compete with Centralization.
Especially ones with quickly-scaling costs, where it could be interesting to adopt them early (when they're cheap) even if they don't provide any immediate bonus.

Like for example a "Eco-urbanism" that provide +2 Stability to all planets of the same type than the Imperial one, and whose cost is 5*square (number of populated planets).

Even better maybe, a "Interlingua Infrastructure" that would provide a +0.2 production to Production-focused planets of all species that are integrated in the Empire at the moment the Policy is adopted, with a similar 3*square (number of populated planets) adoption cost.
So you adopt it early for cheap but it applies to a limited set of planets, or wait later for better boni but at a much higher cost.

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Re: Centralization

#14 Post by Ophiuchus »

Something inspired a bit by the stuff for tall empires thread. (And completely ignoring the current policy)

Thought about centralization and empire layout. In a centralized empire all power goes through the capital and if the link to the capital is severed, it falls apart behind that cut.
A decentralized empire needs more infrastructure (e.g. outposts) in many places to reach the same connectivity, but is much more robust in case links are severed.

So how about making centralization increase supply on the capital, maybe boosting supply on capital-supply-network supplied colonies and/or outposts, and reducing supply on all colonies/outposts which are not capital-supply-network supplied?

(note if we go for such a centralisation policy, we could also keep the current/modified policy, just rename it)

edit: just read part of the oberlus last post and he seems to had similar ideas
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Re: Centralization

#15 Post by Oberlus »

Grummel7 wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 12:10 pm
Oberlus wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:47 am - Unlock it after getting your second populated planet (colonization or invasion).
Can we script that?
Good question... Can policies be unlocked in an effect?

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