Stuff for tall empires.

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

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Oberlus
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Stuff for tall empires.

#1 Post by Oberlus »

WIP


Tall (vs Wide) means bigger production centers (bigger population, bigger output boosts) rather than many production centers.

- Democracy (government social policy) rises population (+50%?) and number-based influence (N per colony instead of N^0.5).
So bigger output from planets but less planets for the same IP output. Super tall.

- Overpopulation (economic or social policy) rises population (+B*HabSize) and influence upkeep (-M IP), and lowers stability (-S).

In games like MoO2 or Civ series, tall invest production into enlarging planets/cities instead of building more colonies, and tall planets/cities need extra facilities to reach 100% production (like pollution in MoO2 and corruption or discontent in Civ). All those buildings are quite repetitive (micromanagement), so forbidden in FO.
We need some non-repetitive way to soak PP and increase population:

- Subterranean Habitation unlocks Underground Cities (or whatever): PP output is reduced until enough PP are invested (count saved in a special I guess), target pop gradually raised until investment is done; de-adopting the policy removes the pop bonus (the special) and the investment is lost. Also rises influence upkeep (-1 IP per planet).
Empires with many planets of low production will find this less interesting, since it takes a big chunk of empire's PP output for quite a while. Tall empires will get the bonus sooner and have more return if coupled with percentage boosts.

- Orbital Habitation unlocks Orbital Cities policy and Orbital City special hull: policy is required to allow an effect of special hull (speed 0) that rises the population (+X*HabSize) of the owned planets in system (no more than 1 orbital cities per owned planet in system; can be shot down; they also rise influence upkeep, + #owned orbital cities in empire (so #^2), and this effect remains when the policy is de-adopted or the hulls self-destruct when the policy is not adopted, whatever is better for gameplay; I considered the idea of putting the population on the ships, but I don’t know if that is possible and allows to get the empire’s various bonuses to output without changes in backend, at least ships can’t have foci AFAIK).

Making some techs to help tall empires is possible:

- Thread about changing pop bonuses to better differentiate tall vs wide: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11786
This needs a review with policies in mind: is balance OK? Turn some bonuses into policies?...

- A research-focused RP boost (from a new tech or probably better repurposed), techy/telepathy fluffed, mid game, RP bonus grows exponential with population (+X*pop^1.5 RP), rises number-based influence upkeep by a percentage (+50% ?).



Abaddoni subterranean needs rework to fit with this.
- One extra policy slot for them to be able to adopt a government policy apart from the subterranean one? Lame, because having extra slots is not about subterranean stuff but about socioeconomic flexibility.
- A different bonus from the trait: +1*HabSize in all environments, unlocks Subterranean Habitation and halfs the PP investment needed for the Undergroun Cities policy.


New trait aquatic? +2*HabSize in ocean, +1*HabSize in terran and swamp, -1*HabSize in all other environments. Can have it species with preference terran, ocean or swamp only? Aquatic species in subterranean oceans of barren worlds...
Good for tall strategies that invest on terraforming.

New trait aerial? (aerial as in living in the air, not being able to fly; makes sense for Sly) If we can find an interesting effect, not just another flavor of Aquatic.


Older thread about Tall vs Wide:
- viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11756
There are ideas there that could be good, I need to review the thread again. TBD.

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LienRag
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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#2 Post by LienRag »

I like the Aquatic trait, but it's a bit redundant with preferences for Environment : Ocean (though I admit it works slightly differently).

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#3 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 8:10 pm I like the Aquatic trait, but it's a bit redundant with preferences for Environment : Ocean
Right. If all species that live in Ocean worlds are aquatic, that will be quite boring. I don't like it. Back to the sandbox.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#4 Post by Krikkitone »

An issue is “wide strategy” involves a specific managed PP per planet (colony ship/military), with penalties (stability/influence) and competition that would give you a reason Not to do them.
Having a “Colonize the planet I’m already on” type option for tall strategy should both a cost and ongoing penalties.

So a building that…boosts its planet but imposes ongoing imperial costs. The benefits should be better on high pop planets, the penalties should be more severe the bigger your empire is. (since it is meant for tall empires). A series of the buildings could work to match a tall strategy with larger and larger wide empires

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#5 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 12:30 am Right. If all species that live in Ocean worlds are aquatic, that will be quite boring. I don't like it. Back to the sandbox.
Aerial is more interesting. It concerns all Environments that have an atmosphere, may work differently than many boni (they probably won't benefit from Subterranean Habitations), may also make the Environment less important (as long as there is an atmosphere)...

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#6 Post by Oberlus »

Krikkitone wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 1:11 pm An issue is “wide strategy” involves a specific managed PP per planet (colony ship/military), with penalties (stability/influence) and competition that would give you a reason Not to do them.
Having a “Colonize the planet I’m already on” type option for tall strategy should both a cost and ongoing penalties.

So a building that…boosts its planet but imposes ongoing imperial costs. The benefits should be better on high pop planets, the penalties should be more severe the bigger your empire is. (since it is meant for tall empires). A series of the buildings could work to match a tall strategy with larger and larger wide empires
+1

I think I've considered all this points in the OP's suggestion (but tweaks and additions are welcome):

Democracy boosts population (percentage, so better for bigger planets or empires that invest more on rising population) but makes number-based IP upkeep skyrocket:
- Non-democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^1.5
- Democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^2
At some point N=x total population gain from democracy doesn't compensate.
This doesn't take up PP but drastically reduces maximum number of planets.

Orbital Cities would be a nice way to soak PP into enlarging colonies, but the extra IP upkeep per orb. city makes it harder to pull out on wide empires.

Same for Underground Cities. No one commented on the idea about making it automatic but letting it actually consume PPs from each planet. I hope it's good.

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#7 Post by wobbly »

Does it make sense to switch the limit on no. of metropoles to total population instead of no. of colonies? Maybe make the biege goo a bit harder to invade at start (this is probably needed either way). This would make a lot of small planets count less and make big planets (including Raagh) more useful.

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#8 Post by Oberlus »

Very good idea, I think.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#9 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 11:46 pmDemocracy boosts population (percentage, so better for bigger planets or empires that invest more on rising population) but makes number-based IP upkeep skyrocket:
- Non-democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^1.5
- Democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^2
A policy like this is probably fine, but not called "Democracy".

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#10 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:18 am Does it make sense to switch the limit on no. of metropoles to total population instead of no. of colonies?
this certainly incentives getting more population over more planets. so i think the idea is good, but i couldnt put into convincing numbers

i would probably need a population curves from a game.

with current content: as long as there are growth techs, pop can be rising tall, afterwards only wide is an option

a sketch:
for the first metropole 5 pop outside of metropoles (that is about the current balancing)
for the second metropole 10 pop outside of metropoles - so 15 in whole; a well populated planet/homeworld is probably possible to use after invasion as metropole
for the third metropole 15 pop outside of metropoles - so 30 in whole,
...
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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#11 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 11:46 pmboosts population (percentage, so better for bigger planets or empires that invest more on rising population) but makes number-based IP upkeep skyrocket:
- Non-democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^1.5
- Democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^2
did you mean max-pop and/or population growth?

for max-pop: yeah, that looks a good tall option

for population growth: such a pop-growth-based empire could sell highly populated planets for non-growers (or do this as a service on their planets). i like that idea
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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#12 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:44 am
Oberlus wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 11:46 pmDemocracy boosts population (percentage, so better for bigger planets or empires that invest more on rising population) but makes number-based IP upkeep skyrocket:
- Non-democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^1.5
- Democratic total IP upkeep: c*N^2
A policy like this is probably fine, but not called "Democracy".
I agree. I stopped liking this idea (giving this effect the name Democracy) a couple of week ago. I need time to get to something.

Also, c*N^2 is too much.
Could we have a a weirder exponent in the influence colony upkeep, pleaaaaaase? Like this:

Code: Select all

                )^(0.5 + 0.25*(Statistic If condition = EmpireHasAdoptedPolicy empire = Source.Owner name = "PLC_INSERT_POLICY_NAME")))
(code untested, maybe wrong, but you get the idea)
https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... macros#L27
Mathematically, it can be expressed in different ways, hopefully one of them acceptable for documentation:
sqrt( N * sqrt(N) )
N^0.75
sqrt(N) * sqrt(sqrt(N)
N^0.25 * N^0.5

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#13 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:31 am did you mean max-pop and/or population growth?
Target Population.
The idea is, yes, to be able to have more population but fewer planets.

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#14 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:32 amCould we have a a weirder exponent
Nothing fundamentally against it, but probably a similar result can be achieved more understandably with something like a filter on what planets count... like the additional cost only comes from populated planets, not outposts, or those not set to influence or somesuch... and then keep the somewhat-simpler-to-express formula.

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Re: Stuff for tall empires.

#15 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:37 am
Oberlus wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:32 amCould we have a a weirder exponent
Nothing fundamentally against it, but probably a similar result can be achieved more understandably with something like a filter on what planets count... like the additional cost only comes from populated planets, not outposts, or those not set to influence or somesuch... and then keep the somewhat-simpler-to-express formula.
Alright, I'll try that way.

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