xMrLuckyx xMrLuckyx

Yet Another Economy Post

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Yet Another Economy Post

from GalCiv2 Forums
First, I like the economy model in GCII. Its basic innovation is decoupling spending from income and that is a great thing. I do think it has a fundamental flaw however and I would like someone to point out why I'm wrong. Allow me to explain the way I think spending works:

Spending: Industrial Capacity.

This slider controls at what base efficiency your factories and labs run. Straightforward. Multiply this percentage by the structures base value to get its theoretical maximum production for that turn. (Leaving aside bonuses, a big caveat admittedly.)

Spending Distribution:

These three sliders don't distribute spending as one might assume from the description, but rather, activate capacity. If I set research to 50% I am not distributing 50% of my spending to my labs but rather I am using 50% of my labs theoretical maximum for that turn. If I set military to 30% and social to 20%, I am not distributing 50% of my spending to my factories but using 50% of the factories capacity. I am also dividing it 60/40 between military and social.

Now it's obvious from this that the social and military sliders must be linked. They draw from the same capacity pool and their total cannot exceed 100%. However labs draw from a different capacity pool, there is no inherent link between their percentages and the sliders should not be linked.

To illustrate: I have 10 apples and 10 oranges and 3 friends to distribute them amongst. Two of my friends only like apples and the other only likes oranges. I proclaim that I shall distribute 100% of my fruit. I decide that shall divide the apples 50/50 between my apple loving friends and all the oranges shall go to my third friend. That is a correct implementation of 100% utilization of my two disparate capacities.

However GCII rules would say: 50% of your apples to the first friend plus 50% of your apples to the second friend equal 100% of your capacity thus friend three receives nothing. Or, 100% of your oranges to your third friend equal 100% of your capacity and thus your first two friends get nothing. However this is comparing apples to oranges and is an incorrect implementation of 100% utilization.

Basically, if I have one pool, total utilization cannot exceed 100%. If I have two pools, the 100% limitation loses meaning. 100% of what exactly? It's a complete mathematical non sequitur, like saying the total of the three sliders cannot exceed blue. What does that mean?!? If I have two pools, each separate pool cannot exceed 100%. Thus military/social sliders should be linked with the sum being 100% and the research slider should disappear completely. Spending: Industrial Capacity would then properly control how much of my capacity was activated and Spending Distribution would properly allocate my factory spending between military and social. Since lab output has only one destination: research, no slider is required.

I would love someone to explain where I'm wrong, because this isn't a good/bad question, it's a right/wrong question. At least for this feature. As I said at the top, on the whole I think the economic model is very much ahead of any others.

Mr. Lucky
economics
69,395 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree that it’s probably not going to change. These are the rules for which the game is balanced and it’s likely too much effort to change it now. The game is fun, the new patch sounds great and I’ll keep on playing.

It’s worth noting that the GCI economic ; the clear parent of the GCII ; did allow for ‘full’ funding of manufacturing and research. There were only industrial points and if you set your research to 50% you got the full 50%. Military and social split the other 50%. No industrial point capacity was ever unused unless you set the global spending slider to less then 100%. The system was fully balanced and more or less unexploitable. It had the twin virtues of working and making perfect sense. By decoupling research points from manufacturing points, but choosing not to decouple the research slider, the result is a system that works but makes little sense.

Again, it’s Frogboy’s world and I’m just livin’ in it, but I would love to hear why this is the design they went with. It didn’t just grow organically; specific choices were made to get from the GCI way to here.

It’s a long shot, but that why I am:

Mr. Lucky
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree that it’s probably not going to change. These are the rules for which the game is balanced and it’s likely too much effort to change it now. The game is fun, the new patch sounds great and I’ll keep on playing.

It’s worth noting that the GCI economic ; the clear parent of the GCII ; did allow for ‘full’ funding of manufacturing and research. There were only industrial points and if you set your research to 50% you got the full 50%. Military and social split the other 50%. No industrial point capacity was ever unused unless you set the global spending slider to less then 100%. The system was fully balanced and more or less unexploitable. It had the twin virtues of working and making perfect sense. By decoupling research points from manufacturing points, but choosing not to decouple the research slider, the result is a system that works but makes little sense.

Again, it’s Frogboy’s world and I’m just livin’ in it, but I would love to hear why this is the design they went with. It didn’t just grow organically; specific choices were made to get from the GCI way to here.

It’s a long shot, but that why I am:

Mr. Lucky
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
it could not really screw the balance because the AI can make exactly the same
you and the AI get, in the worst case, faster research and faster social production (and you pay more money for it)
so what? if its equal for all its fine for me (and it would start to make sense as mentioned above)
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
The linked sliders made sense for GC1, because your base produciton and research capacity came from how much of your funded population was assigned to the task, and the factories and labs did % bonuses on top of that.

In GC2, the production comes directly from the factories, the research directly from the labs, and population has no effect. As has been pointed out, 1M citizens are as productive in GC2 as 10B citizens, so saying that the linking is because of staffing isn't realistic. Saying it is for game balance is at least realistic, even though I still disagree. After all, how hard would it be to fully fund everything if the amount you were allowed to spend suddenly doubled?

I believe that at one time, population was going to play a role in production and research, as each improvement would require a certain amount of population to run at full capacity. There were stil elements in the XML describing the improvments that listed the required population at the start of beta. For all I know, they're still there.

Having said that I disagree with the status quo, I'll also say that I don't view this as a gamebreaking issue, more of an annoyance that bothers me whenever I notice it.
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
I find your lack of civility disturbing


What lack of civility? I'm stating the facts as I see them. The game would blow big time if you could have 100% construction and 100% manufacturing running at the same time. It's you who is reading too much into my post. You just liek every other joe that thinks they can come on the board, post a bunch fo crap and the game will magically change to reflect their point of view.

Do you understand how the game mechanisms work?


Of course I understand, I win this game don't I?

A choice must still be made between funding research and funding military/social manufacturing.


What choice? You would still have the option to run 100% research capacity. That coupled with selling the tech you get from your over researchign would mean infinate loop essentially. Money isn't a limiting factor as it can be obtained in various ways.

At present, funding 100% research and 100% production would be overpowered


Thank you

You will apologize to the original poster immediately.


How about you go to hell? My analogy stands, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Meaning he wants to have all the capacity and he wants to run at full capacity all the time. I don't like that idea and I think ti would ruin the game as it is. If you don't like the idea I don't liek the idea, tough luck for you.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
it could not really screw the balance because the AI can make exactly the same
you and the AI get, in the worst case, faster research and faster social production (and you pay more money for it)
so what? if its equal for all its fine for me (and it would start to make sense as mentioned above)


True, but the AI hardly values research in the current version. It seems the AI planets are littered with embassies and farms, at the expense of research and even factories. Its not uncommon for me to scrap half the buildings on a planet I've taken. One of these days I'll have to try the mega-population strategy the AI keeps playing and see how that works.