Population growth, food, water.

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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truepurple
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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#31 Post by truepurple »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:20 pm Complications are the colonisation and migration mechanics.

And the main problem would be re-introduction of (even forced) exponential growth/snow-balling.

Could be amended by allowing by tech which slows population growth.

But on a certain level that means your are always in the situation that your planets are all almost full of people. Sounds almost one could get rid of the population meter/would probably need a complete rework of population based bonus.
The team is already working on governmental stuff, part of those settings would include laws that encourage or discourage baby making AKA growth(but still not completely preventable). And yeah, growth would be mildly exponential depending on what growth numbers we use, which is why you need to expand at the rate and way your population needs and not just as much as possible and have the planet containers fill neatly to the top.

I am fine with the citizens sorting themselves out automatically and moving to less crowded worlds of their species that are available. Maybe temporarily moved (on their own) people don't produce as much.

Keep in mind all colonization, outposts and ships will require some population too. And that your population will be more unhappy if you get too many of them killed which can have an effect on production and science, and even growth..

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#32 Post by Ophiuchus »

truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:30 pmgrowth would be relatively exponential
If you start the master you will see that we are working to get rid of that kind of growth in the game.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#33 Post by truepurple »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:36 pm
truepurple wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:30 pmgrowth would be relatively exponential
If you start the master you will see that we are working to get rid of that kind of growth in the game.
I edited my post to specify mildly exponential, and very dependent on what kind of growth we are talking about, plus controls over growth rate we can earn.

How are you getting ride of this "explonential growth"? Really the "target population" is it's own kind of exponential growth rate, you grow as fast as you can colonize planets, and the more planets you control the more colonization you can do with better tech that allows more planets to be colonized and existing colonized planets to be fuller which means faster growth, all of which fill up extra fast when empty and no population needed for colonizing, all very "exponential". The only difference is, mine you go at the rate of your people, and essentially you have a time limit playing depending on size of galaxy and number of habitable planets. But if that time limit is ten thousand turns or something before you run out of space or resources, who cares? You can win and start a new game well before then. Especially if one of those win conditions is growing to a certain size with a certain average happiness.

You got to be specific here. What is the problem you see in my idea and do you possibly see a way to overcome the problem you see? Otherwise you might as well have said "We are working to get ride of (insert random word, like "green" or " gas") in the game"

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#34 Post by truepurple »

OK here is a simplified version for food. water and population movement.

Every planet you control produces so much water each turn which gets combined as a total water value that gets automatically distributed according to need and averaged out if there is not enough, aside from the planet that it comes from which will get full needs met before distributing it elsewhere. Perhaps those closer to the source will get more of their needs met then those further away. No need or ability to control where it goes, just the ability to get access to more to meet needs with outposts and colony's. The effects of not having enough will be mild at first but with increasing severe effects with a limit cap on how bad the effects can get.

Excess food and water is lost till you research and build storage tanks.

Water is available at a set rate, that only changes on special events (like droughts) but doesn't run out by use except for water from asteroids which will run out on use. The amount of water a planet produces will be semi-independent from its type. Like water planet may not have any more usable water than a desert planet (but maybe desert planets tend to have less water on average) The amount of water each planet produces randomly vary via RNG, Like Planet A might produce 10b water per turn and planet c might produce 5b water per turn, larger and nicer planets tend to produce more water per turn.

Each planet can sustain so many crops, how many... the pattern can be discussed. Each crop grown demands X amount of water and Y amount of labor which gets subtracted from the labor pool in exchange for producing Z amount of food. If water is in short supply or labor is priority needed for construction(a option to set for each planet on or off as to whether to favor crops or labor/water), no more than is necessary for peoples needs will be grown.

Special crops can be found on various planets and spread to other planets of that type. Special crops use less water, and/or produce more food and/or help people work harder thus you get more labor, or are scientifically useful and stimulate intelligence and you get more research or make people happy etc. Each planet can only have one special crop, each special crop type can only grow on it's planet type, if you terraform the planet, you lose that special crop on the planet. But special crops spread through your planets automatically and the new planet type after terraforming might have a special crop that is now compatible with it that will spread to it. GMO crop techology can also be developed that improves the performance of base crop but special crops will always be better and override any GMO tech crop which will still be considered base.

Ships with radars can take samples of a crop to spread it to the rest of your nation without having to make a colony or outpost.

People will migrate to nearest acceptable planet if conditions are bad, if there is no room left or some issue is making them sufficiently unhappy on a planet. Migrants take time to travel to their new planet, still eat and drink but do not produce labor, distance between planets effects travel time.

Outpost still require people, but can be used to get water from a planet as well as steady access to special crops for respreading to your kingdom.

Many ships require some people too.

Death of people of sufficient quantity gives temporary negative morale which effects production, science, and growth.

So most of this will be automatic, and not optional automatic. Decisions about colonys and outposts to set up and finding special crops will be the players main decisions along with other basic but not repetitive decisions.

None of this would be any more complicated or difficult to understand than any of the existing stuff in the game.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#35 Post by Oberlus »

For species that doesn't use any form of food and/or water...

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#36 Post by truepurple »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:22 am For species that doesn't use any form of food and/or water...
Are you asking what about species that don't use food or water? I have some ideas. It's mostly just the Replicon species, right? If not, this could still apply to other Lith species or whatever as well. So bots require energy resource. Each controlled system produces X amount of energy per turn added to a pool that goes anywhere and is consumed by the bots. The energy comes from the star in the system, so is dependent on they type of star but can vary a bit even with same star type by random chance. This means controlling more than one planet/asteroid in a system does not give any more energy. Also certain special stars can provide bonus's like with the special crops, but only to the bots living in that system.

Like with food and water, energy is not stored normally, but battery technology can be learned for building batteries to store excess energy.

In order for a outpost to be sufficient for getting energy from a system, a solar collector must be built on it. A colony can manage without a solar collector built but the bots labor will produce the energy and subtract from production, like farmers for organic(and automatically only do so if necessary). Colony's can also build solar collectors to free up labor.

Events like solar flares and spots can sometimes disrupt energy supply, so it's good to have more than enough to power your people, though batteries can help deal with this too.

Bots don't get happy or sad, use production to increase population (which subtracts from production of other things. This can be turned on and off as needed) and never get over populated. As far as migration goes, maybe that can be the one manual thing unique to bots, not sure. Otherwise it could be that bots simply can't reproduce in a location once max limit is reached, no migration at all. (population still used for ships and colony production though)

Bots do not count towards population size and happiness victory, but if you start with bot species and gain other organic species in your nation, it is theoretically possible to still win this way, though more difficult.

As far as the Laenfa, they could need food, or they could just need water, but more of it. Or they could use energy as well as water, gaining local specials from stars. Maybe not strictly needing the energy, but still gaining the benefit since if they don't require food, they also can't benefit from special crops. How to do that can be tested and discussed, but there are plenty of options.
Last edited by truepurple on Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#37 Post by Oberlus »

I use question marks when I make questions.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#38 Post by truepurple »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:08 pm I use question marks when I make questions.
Great, but since your post was barely half a sentence, as a question was my only way to take it.

So whether a question or a criticism or whatever, I still addressed it either way, the rest is just semantics.

Sorry if I offended you by suggesting you were being decent about things and working with me by asking questions rather than just thoughtlessly criticizing and insulting.

Also we could use food and water and the rest with Replicons too. I mean the general idea of rejecting food and water is "not needing realism", right? (not that "realism" is the main point, again it's about players challenged with scarcity) So if you don't care about realism then Replicons needing food and water shouldn't be a issue for you either. Though I like the idea of them having their own unique system like I explained in my previous post.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#39 Post by Oberlus »

truepurple wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:16 pm the general idea of rejecting food and water is "not needing realism", right?
No. My general rejection comes from it requiring many repetitive actions and not adding anything to tactic or strategy.
I loved MoO2, but it was a pain in the ass to have to add to every new planet the automated factories, the research labs, the fighter garrison, the hidroponic farms, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Despite I loving to play huge galaxies and building up huge fleets, the sheer amount of repetitive actions required to optimize the outcome of each planet was utterly tiresome and not fun nor challenging.
But I've given up with you getting the idea.

No need anyways. In FreeOrion all that "tend to your population and deal with scarcity" thingy is conveyed by a few techs that just increase (target) population. Having a greater (target) population means you are tending to them. No need to make it individually on each planet and setting individual lines of (water/energy/minerals) supply between individual planets. If you know how to do it for one planet, you know how to do it for all your planets. And when you have a hundred planets, not having to care about all that boring stuff is just blessing.
(not that "realism" is the main point, again it's about players challenged with scarcity) So if you don't care about realism then Replicons needing food and water shouldn't be a issue for you either
One thing is not being realistic and another is not making sense. So yes, it'd be much better to have dedicated systems for thenourishment of species that do not consume water or crops.
Replicons are not the only ones, there are many robotic and lithic species, also self-sustaining and phototrophic. One would need to develop systems that make sense for each of these. All that would imply many more stuff to care about than currently, in a certainly not challenging manner (maybe it is challenging for you to build farms, solar collectors, stone grinders or whatever on each fo your planets, for me it is just repetitive).

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#40 Post by Krikkitone »

I think the basic idea is this:

As population of a world approaches “ideal population”, population growth does not slow down… instead you get other penalties on the planet.
ie
-resources consumed for life support (less production)
-instability due to reduced living conditions (less stability/influence)

-population growth would only be reduced in a “starving” type condition….which would probably also involve full scale revolt of an otherwise unproductive world.

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#41 Post by truepurple »

Krikkitone wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 1:13 am I think the basic idea is this:
With my idea they migrate over to nearest acceptable planet. This means you don't have to worry about anything except collecting new resources for your people when they need them.

Do you mean if no planets are acceptable for them?

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#42 Post by LienRag »

Krikkitone wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 1:13 am I think the basic idea is this:

As population of a world approaches “ideal population”, population growth does not slow down… instead you get other penalties on the planet.
ie
-resources consumed for life support (less production)
-instability due to reduced living conditions (less stability/influence)

-population growth would only be reduced in a “starving” type condition….which would probably also involve full scale revolt of an otherwise unproductive world.
I wonder if that could be introduced as an "Malthusian Hypothesis Policy" ?
What would be the benefits ? Easier repression ?

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Re: Population growth, food, water.

#43 Post by truepurple »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:07 pm
(not that "realism" is the main point, again it's about players challenged with scarcity) So if you don't care about realism then Replicons needing food and water shouldn't be a issue for you either
One thing is not being realistic and another is not making sense. So yes, it'd be much better to have dedicated systems for thenourishment of species that do not consume water or crops.
Replicons are not the only ones, there are many robotic and lithic species, also self-sustaining and phototrophic. One would need to develop systems that make sense for each of these. All that would imply many more stuff to care about than currently, in a certainly not challenging manner (maybe it is challenging for you to build farms, solar collectors, stone grinders or whatever on each fo your planets, for me it is just repetitive).

Whether something "makes sense" to someone is a function of whether they find it realistic! Maybe by "making sense" you mean degree of realism, but it's all very unrealistic regardless, you just have favorites as far as what unrealism you are willing to overlook. You're just playing word games.

Each metabolism type could have it's own system, except phototropic can share with robotic, maybe with the twist that they can't save the energy but some benefit to compensate.. Certainly it would be absurd to say each race would need it's own system, to insist on such a thing saying we need that level of realism in the game after everything you've already said before would be very hypocritical of you, Orelus.

Oberlus, if you had to choose between my system or the current race assigning system, neither existed and we could just pop it into place, which would you choose and why? That other race system where you make ships to make colonys of difference races in the perfect place, system is a shit ton of micromanaging and hassle. I think independent races should be removed from the game, and if you conquer another players race, you can't spread that race as you like, at least with the current system.

But if we use my idea, including the automatic population migration, this means you CAN'T choose what race goes where, which will save alot of micromanaging, thus those issues wouldn't be a problem so they could stay in. Population of different races could even sort themselves out according to best planets.

Also I'd eliminate planet focus.

So my idea reduces micromanaging compared to the current system and would give players a interesting challenge for more game fun. It's also simpler since even figuring out what species to put where is sometimes a tough complicated choice that you can't reverse.That's a win win all around.

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