Proposal for elimination of Population

[Krikkitone]

Population can still be used for:
1. United races votes.

This could mean one of two things
1. your government is a democracy and planets that are more populated should get more attention.
I think development works fine for this...more development=bigger ability to affect peoples votes

2. a "Galactic Senate"
I think your "Galactic Senate" vote should be something you win in diplomacy (ie sign a Treaty with the "Senate" so that you get 100 votes.... Threaten to go to war with someone unless they vote your way, etc.
You could also base it on
# Planets
# Systems
Total "Development"

Population should really be unnecessary

2. Different races with different special abilities and racial bonuses. If you conquered a race of merchants you probably want them to migrate to your economy world, not your manufacturing capital.

Planets will only have ONE race on them. ONLY ONE.
Each planet would have a 'Race designation'
So I have
Economy world-Race A
Manufacturing World-Race A
New Conquest-Merchant Race

I would specifically designate the 'changing of the race' by some mechanism

Economy world-Merchant Race
Manufacturing World-Race A
New Conquest-Merchant Race

Doing so would have to take time and effort... probably more time and effort the higher the development level of the Economy world was. (and possibly less time and effort the higher the Development level of the 'New Conquest' World was)

[muxec]

Having several races on the same planet was one of my favorite features in MOO2

[Krikkitone]

Having several races on the same planet was one of my favorite features in MOO2

The problem with that is the balancing.

Right now the population on a planet does not have a particular 'job'
And it doesn't really matter... you shift what the planet is making by shifting the planet's focus.

But if you had a world with a high research race and a high food race, you would want the research race doing research and the Food race making food. adding Lots of complication, since right now we can't do that.

Instead, you put the Food race on a Food Focused world and the Research race on a Research Focused World. No need for more than one race/world

[Schmoopy]

Without a population statistic, it allows more room to breathe when it comes to fluff.

If you had a race of sentient rockworms that are, say, 5 kilometers long, weigh 5 million tonnes and consume granite, you'd realistically only be able to have a few thousand of them per planet. This would put them at a significant disadvantage when it comes to planetary invasions or intergalactic senate hearings.

I support eliminating population as main statistic, however, I'd still like to be able to see the population of each of my worlds for the sake of watching my empire grow.

[Josh]

The more krikkit has to say, the better this idea looks.

To be honest, I was never really sure what construction did anyway.

[Bigjoe5]

I am opposed to this idea because I believe it should be possible to kill off an enemy planet's population with biological weaponry and then colonize it for yourself, with the same construction meter and whatever buildings were on the planet before.

[Geoff the Medio]

To be honest, I was never really sure what construction did anyway.

Construction is a general development level of a planet. It represents underlying infrastructure that lets a planet support actual resource producing activities. This is modelled in game by making construction affect how quickly resource meters grow after their max is increased above their current level.

There are also some minor other influences from construction, where an effect from a building or tech might only act on planets with at least a certain minimum construction (infrastructure) level, but that's not really very important.

I'd be perfectly happy getting rid of construction. I don't see any reason we couldn't just have all resource meters grow by 1 unit per turn, up to their max value.

Or, we could have various techs or buildings or specials or whatever that have the effect of increasing the current meter of anything they act on (still limited by the max meter value). The base level of increase would be +1 / turn, but you could research "Infrastructure Flexibility" that would have the effect of giving (something like) +1 / turn to all current meters, making them grow that much faster.

Either way, it'd simplify and clarify how fast resource meters grow, and would get rid of the vague and confusing "construction" meter, and the need to show it in the GUI.

I am opposed to this idea because I believe it should be possible to kill off an enemy planet's population with biological weaponry and then colonize it for yourself, with the same construction meter and whatever buildings were on the planet before.

I'm inclined to agree, although would replace "construction meter" with "resource meters", whether or not the previous discussion of this post is implemented.

[Krikkitone]

To be honest, I was never really sure what construction did anyway.

Construction is a general development level of a planet. It represents underlying infrastructure that lets a planet support actual resource producing activities. This is modelled in game by making construction affect how quickly resource meters grow after their max is increased above their current level.

I'd be perfectly happy getting rid of construction. I don't see any reason we couldn't just have all resource meters grow by 1 unit per turn, up to their max value.

Or, we could have various techs or buildings or specials or whatever that have the effect of increasing the current meter of anything they act on (still limited by the max meter value). The base level of increase would be +1 / turn, but you could research "Infrastructure Flexibility" that would have the effect of giving (something like) +1 / turn to all current meters, making them grow that much faster.

Either way, it'd simplify and clarify how fast resource meters grow, and would get rid of the vague and confusing "construction" meter, and the need to show it in the GUI.

I do like the idea of Meter increase being a fixed rate.
Or possibly dependent on the max Meter value (Meters increase by 1% of their max value per turn, or whatever is decided for that)

[Bigjoe5]

Maybe what construction could do is, while extending supply lines like it does now, is give a bonus to all the other resource meters = construction / 10.

That way we can give more general bonuses that aren't linked to population, but rather represent the planets overall infrastructure development level, like the construction meter is supposed to.

[Geoff the Medio]

Maybe what construction could do is, while extending supply lines like it does now, is give a bonus to all the other resource meters = construction / 10.

That way we can give more general bonuses that aren't linked to population, but rather represent the planets overall infrastructure development level, like the construction meter is supposed to.

That doesn't really make sense. Giving a bonus to a resource meter will just increase that resource meter, which still gets multiplied by population to produce resources.

Also, if we want to give a general bonus, we can just give +X to all resource meters. There's no need for a whole extra meter just to do that.

[Bigjoe5]

That doesn't really make sense. Giving a bonus to a resource meter will just increase that resource meter, which still gets multiplied by population to produce resources.

Yes, that was the point.

Also, if we want to give a general bonus, we can just give +X to all resource meters. There's no need for a whole extra meter just to do that.

Yes, we could, but think of this in context of the tech tree. Does it make more sense to say that a given construction tech gives +X to all resource meters, or +X to the construction meter?

It's not really a big deal, since it doesn't do much (and at the moment, it doesn't do what we're discussing anyway), so you can get rid of it if you want, as long as there's a way to determine supply length (population seems the logical choice).

[Geoff the Medio]

Giving a bonus to a resource meter will just increase that resource meter, which still gets multiplied by population to produce resources.

Yes, that was the point.

Then how will that help "give more general bonuses that aren't linked to population" ?

Also, if we want to give a general bonus, we can just give +X to all resource meters. There's no need for a whole extra meter just to do that.

Yes, we could, but think of this in context of the tech tree. Does it make more sense to say that a given construction tech gives +X to all resource meters, or +X to the construction meter?

There doesn't have to be a construction category. Really, there probably shouldn't be... It's purpose is unclear and regardless of whether there is a construction meter, there's probably a better category for infrastructure techs (perhaps including terraforming and non-planetary infrastructure stuff).

...as long as there's a way to determine supply length (population seems the logical choice).

I'm not keen on using population (unless it's reformulated into the new infrastructure as suggested above, which I still don't like) since, for example, a huge population on a pre-industrial planet wouldn't be shipping many supplies to other systems.

[Krikkitone]

Actually, in terms of Supply routes, then I'd probably stick with the "Infrastructure".

although it would be Size Dependent (so a Small world would need less Infrastructure than a Large one to support a given 'supply range'.)

[Bigjoe5]

Then how will that help "give more general bonuses that aren't linked to population" ?

I meant conceptually, not mechanistically. Obviously anything that affects a resource meter is going to have the bonus linked to population. I was just distinguishing it from the other type of general bonus: an increase in population itself.

There doesn't have to be a construction category. Really, there probably shouldn't be... It's purpose is unclear and regardless of whether there is a construction meter, there's probably a better category for infrastructure techs (perhaps including terraforming and non-planetary infrastructure stuff).

Functionally, if there is no construction meter, the techs currently in the construction category will no longer increase that meter - they will have a different function, therefore could go in one of the other categories related to that function. Conceptually, however, having something like orbital infrastructure in the growth category just because it (potentially) increases population doesn't make much sense at all.
Why not make construction a category entirely of Theoretical Prerequisites with applications in all the other categories? That way there's no confusion with the tech's purpose, and also no cognitive dissonance when Transcendental Architecture is in Learning just because it leads to the Singularity of Transcendence.

I'm not keen on using population (unless it's reformulated into the new infrastructure as suggested above, which I still don't like) since, for example, a huge population on a pre-industrial planet wouldn't be shipping many supplies to other systems.

In that case, maybe the industry meter could do it?

[Krikkitone]

Actually, the way I would handle the "Construction Meter Bonuses" is have them increase
"Max/Optimum Development/Population/Infrastructure Levels"... Better housing fits well into the Infrastructure Category.
So 'Construction' would be all the techs that made a world develop more or faster

"Growth" Techs would then be more involved with food... possibly rename that category to "Environment" techs





I don't think Industry would be good for Supply routes.... (unless Industry is being used to build Freighters/Starports)

The Level should just depend on how economically 'big' the world was, rather than a particular 'quality' of it like Industry focus.

If we want a 'special' attribute of a world that boosts Supply Range, there should be a building, otherwise just a direct dependence on something that automatically grows (ie 'Development/Population/Infrastructure')