Fwurg

[Mercury]

Currently population growth is rather slow. I have written some rules that allow a slightly faster growth cycle, though growth is no longer a free lunch. I also wrote up a population characteristic 'aquatic' for species who naturally live underwater, such as Mon Calamari and Selkath.

The idea behind population growth is you grow by one or two percent every 10 turns - if your population crosses the 1 billion mark (and you would thus additional production bonuses on your world) you have to pay some taxes to improve the infrastructure on your planet to support the grown population (other growth is free).

High Fecundity no longer provides a 1% bonus but only a 0.5% bonus, due to the growth being more often, but races with this ability pay 30% less for their population growth, so they can more easily afford the large growth.

I'm curious to hear opinions and idea's.

http://fwurg.xs4all.nl/dokuwiki/user:admin:population

[Sundarian Federation]

I happy with the changes, not only do they make having population more useful, the growth is also a lot faster which makes population and the racial boni more important during the course of the game.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

First off, I would like the population rules to change. Under the current rules any growth is negligible because it just takes to long. I think that the current proposal, though it has quicker growth, seriously prohibits any Player from having any population growth.

Population is nice in that it provides a production bonus up to +15 with the right racial specials. Tertiary zones also provide a +15 bonus (albeit on a single product only), but they do take up a zone. So population has the 'no zone' and 'multiple goods' privilege over Tertiary zones.

On a Medium planet (without natural life) this would mean that you have to pay 2000 for a +15 bonus from a tertiary zone. So, if your population increases over the billion mark, you pay 850 (2850 PGC-2000 zone cost) for the 'no zone' and 'multiple goods' privilege.

If said planet would have Natural Life (highly likely), a zone would cost 1000 , so in comparison you have to pay 1850 for the 'no zone' and 'multiple goods' privilege.


Of course, one could offset this with the High Fecundity (or Aquatic, assume High Fecundity for now). This would mean that the first situation would net you 15 , as the tertiary zone would cost 2000 , while the billion mark PGC would cost you 1995 .

Should Natural Life be available you still pay 1995 as PGC, while a tertiary zone would cost you only 1000 , that would mean paying 995 for the 'no zone' and 'multiple goods' privilege.


Unfortunately, if you have the High Fecundity racial special, the actual economic utility of your race would've been decreased due to having a +10 bonus at most.

Then there is the problem of having to pay the PGC in a single go. No player controlled world can pay 2850 (or 1995 with a single helping of High Fecundity) in a single go. This means that player controlled worlds have no population growth unless someone else will lend them the money to finance their own growth -- effectively making a player controlled world dependant on others for their own population growth.

In my opinion such the PGC effectively prohibits me from playing a culture and race geared (only slightly to be honest; having 3x High Fecundity would be a real focus -- and negate ANY economic value of the race) towards population growth. Any growth is unaffordable unless I beg for money. And the growth WILL stop in turn 20 for me, as I'll reach the 10 to 11 billion mark on the Veolian race (if these rules apply retroactively, which I assume since we have not processed any population growth).

I do see the merit of having some form of investment into a growing population, but 150 per zone appears to me as being excessively high -- especially since (to me) the 'no zone' privilege appears more desirable on small worlds, where the PGC is very low.

To end this post with some constructive words: I would suggest dividing the Population Growth Cost by 10, netting a 15 investment per zone on the world. (I don't have any actually useful ideas at the moment.)

EDIT: Usefule idea? Another option would be to have an actual population upkeep, i.e., pay X(:tax) for the population you have -- over time this would accumulate into the PGC, but would keep it affordable.

Though I still don't really like the direct coupling between economy and population size. If the system as currently proposed is put in place, I'll either go for as little population as possible to have more biomass available (the economic route), or take as much High Fecundity necessary to get to the 10% of PGC level to keep with my original idea (the roleplay route).

(I much prefer the roleplay route, alhtough roleplay does not appear to have much actual impact other than aggravating players . Not intended as offensive to the admin, just stating my generaly displeasure with the lack of roleplaying players.)

[Mercury]

I don't think the comparison to a Tertiary Zone holds up exactly, because they use up a zone on that world which influences total production. A medium planet with 1 tertiary zone (and 18 regular zones of that type) gains 270 production, but a medium planet with 10 tertiary zones (and 9 regular zones) gains 1350. By comparison, a planet with 1 billion population gains a maximum of 285 production, while a planet with 10 billion population gains 2850 production.

Additionally, that tertiary zone takes up a production spot. A medium planet with 1 tertiary zone also loses at least 100 potential production as that zone cannot be used for industry. With 10 tertiary zones, that's a potential production loss of at least 1000 - a world with 10 tertiary zones doesn't even make sense economically. A planet with 10 billion population has no such limitations and you could even start stacking more population than that (up to 19 billion on a single medium sized planet in fact).

All in all, population provides a better boost both in actual quantity and in potential production. I feel it is fair that you pay a higher price for this. If you are unable to pay the amount in 1 turn, you could ask other players for aid, or you could take up a loan with the Ministry of Finance. The infrastructure is already there.

The 30% cost reduction for High Fecundity takes the fact that you have one less production bonus into account. You have 33% less production and a 30% lower price.

Now looking at your system, I do see where you are coming from. Your homeworld is very varied in its zone composition and your racial bonuses are unfocussed, so the current total production bonus you'd gain from your main population is +15 / billion only. 2850 for +15 production is indeed very expensive.

However, that issue is one of specialist vs generalist strategy. As a generalist, you can easily construct tax set 7 with minimal, mutual dependencies to get the goods you need. A specialist nation would be much more dependent on international trade and would need to have bigger trade fleets, for example.

The current population system favours specialists over generalists: if your population is focussed on one thing on a planet also focussed on that one thing, you can maximise your bonus. The prices are calculated with this maximum in mind and the prices are set along those levels.

That being said, I am open to looking for solutions.

For one, changing the population system to allow easy generalist strategies is not very easy. I might add a "+1 to all raw materials" racial main characteristic or a "+1 to X products of your choice", but this wouldn't solve the underlying problem that a species with +15 on one product on a planet with all zones of that product will still get a higher boost than a species with +5 on three products with a third of the zones devoted to each product.

That would require a much more massive overhaul of the population system - perhaps assigning population to individual zones and allowing variation within a population. That would mean much more bookkeeping though.

Alternatively, population could provide a general bonus and we'd lose all the racial characteristics altogether (or replace them all with non-production related features like natural flight and aquatic). Either solution would be a major overhaul though and that's certainly not one I would consider unless more players feel the population system needs a serious rework.

I might have a better alternative though which might help solve your problem, though I'd want other peoples opinions on it:

What if you can assign your additional population to other planets? You'd still have to pay, but you could assign your new population to a different moon or planet where you wouldn't go over the 1 billion barrier (of if you did, it might be cheaper)

In either case, if you move your population back to your planet later, you'd still have to pay, so you couldn't place your growth on the moon and then quickly transport it back to pay less but still get the full bonus.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I agree that the tertiary zone comparison doesn't hold up for all situations. I was trying to find at least some comparison -- it is difficult to do so because every facet of the system is structured in a different way (not a bad thing by the way). I think there are two points on which a comparison still has some merit though.

I have thought about it, and currently I'm just trying to get a feel for the reasoning behind the proposal (points 1, 2 and 3). Then I have a bit of a rant in point 4, everyone is free to ignore this as 'Brend being unreasonable'. And I list my options in point 5.


1) What you say about the tertiary worlds influencing the production total of the world is correct -- but following this vein of reasoning: why doesn't a tertiary zone on a large planet cost more than a tertiary zone on a medium planet. Is the population benefit of not taking up a zone on a large world that much more than on a medium world?

2) If the PGC is an infrastructure payment (please correct me if this is not true), why isn't the Flying Racial ability taken into account? It seems to me that if it gives a very interesting boost on zone production based on infrastructure demands, but this does not hold for other infrastructure? And in the same area: why is natural life not taken into account (it gives a zone construction discount of 50%)? If I have missed something and this has nothing to do with each other, please explain this.

3) Is there a reason that this payment must be made in whole in a single turn? Any zone construction is done by accumulating enough to construct the zone. Why can't the amount of resources required for construction of the requisite infrastructure improvements for population growth can be spread out (it seems to me that requiring the investment in a single turn is contrary to the idea of resources-as-flow)?

(Allowing the accruement of resources would alleviate a lot of the problems I see with the current proposal -- it would effectively spread out any requisite payments over a longer period, making it a form of upkeep. I don't see a loan from the Ministry of Finance as viable because that would only increase the cost of population growth; from my calculations it doesn't appear as if an extra billion (even if giving a +15 production bonus on your main product) is going to increase your revenue stream with 100 per turn.)


4) [Warning: statement 4 is a rant] My racial bonuses are unfocussed because I find this to be a logical distribution for any naturally evolved race. I don't see how a race (and that race's technology) would evolve focused on doing one thing very well. It appears that such considerations are somewhat ignored at the moment, since a lot of things seem to be based on the perfectly thought out economic powerhouse. Though this might just be my own interpretation, I don't feel like playing a specialist because that is how the economic system is modelled...


5) I have thought about it some more over dinner, and I've determined my initial apprehension with regards to the current proposal: it takes away my roleplaying freedom. Previously, although population growth was really slow, it was something of a given. It was also a factor of little consequence (in part due to the slowness). Which allowed us to do things like start the Procreation Summit. No single party will gain an enormous benefit from this research, while it provided a nice way to work together; it was something mostly done from a roleplaying perspective.


With the population growth gaining such a strong economic link I see a few options for myself (in random order):

1. accept big losses on each population growth due to borrowing money costing money,
2. refactor to having a specialist economy since this is what's expected by the economic system's cost/benefit ratio,
3. accept that my population will not be growing and ignore the cultural impact of this,
4. spend more time on calculating and projecting my economy (so as to have enough money when I hit turn 30 -- I'm not going to make 20: there is little chance of someone borrowing me 980 ), leaving less time for roleplay,
5. or refactor to 3x High Fecundity and forget any economic benefit from my population at all (and still pay 10% PGC); any other non-production racial characteristic has to be ignored since they're going to make sure I end up with option A.

Now don't misunderstand me: I DO like having a population with growth that is actually noticeable. But I don't like how the current proposal changes my population from being the core of my faction to just being another entry of upkeep for which I need to account in my economic calculations (that are taking up enough time already, thank you very much). I like the fact that population does add a custom flavour to every faction, but I don't really like how they have turned into (not only through the proposed change by the way) just another economic asset that has to be optimized.

[Mercury]

1) What you say about the tertiary worlds influencing the production total of the world is correct -- but following this vein of reasoning: why doesn't a tertiary zone on a large planet cost more than a tertiary zone on a medium planet. Is the population benefit of not taking up a zone on a large world that much more than on a medium world?

The price of tertiary zones is the same on large planets as it is on small because the cost of the zone are balanced out against the cost of improving other zones on the planet. That is, there is a tipping point where constructing a regular zone is more profitable than constructing a tertiary zone or vice versa. Though sometimes it is more profitable, it depends on the situation and you can balance things out. The price was determined for a fair balance on medium and large planets and tertiary zones don't work on moons and small planets. Additionally, though an argument could be made for a variable cost for tertiary zones but it would make it the only zone with a variable cost.

Population on the other hand is a sprinkled on bonus on the planet. You don't sacrifice area, you simply improve your world. I believe a better comparison than tertiary zones would be terraformation, which notably does have different prices for different sized planets.

2) If the PGC is an infrastructure payment (please correct me if this is not true), why isn't the Flying Racial ability taken into account? It seems to me that if it gives a very interesting boost on zone production based on infrastructure demands, but this does not hold for other infrastructure? And in the same area: why is natural life not taken into account (it gives a zone construction discount of 50%)? If I have missed something and this has nothing to do with each other, please explain this.

The Flying Racial should get a cost reduction on PGC, this is correct (was on the todo list, but I notice its not on the wiki. It should have been).

Natural Life is already taken into account in the population growth rate. Planets which support people going outside double the base growth rate (from 1% to 2%). To also add a cost reduction for it would be excessive.

Currently the prices already take natural life into account. When building a basic zone on a world with natural life, 1000 buys you 1 zone with a 100 base production. That's 10 per production capacity. The PGC is set at exactly that level. If anything, the cost should be double for worlds without natural life, but I decided that the cost were high enough already during the design process.

3) Is there a reason that this payment must be made in whole in a single turn? Any zone construction is done by accumulating enough to construct the zone. Why can't the amount of resources required for construction of the requisite infrastructure improvements for population growth can be spread out (it seems to me that requiring the investment in a single turn is contrary to the idea of resources-as-flow)?

(Allowing the accruement of resources would alleviate a lot of the problems I see with the current proposal -- it would effectively spread out any requisite payments over a longer period, making it a form of upkeep. I don't see a loan from the Ministry of Finance as viable because that would only increase the cost of population growth; from my calculations it doesn't appear as if an extra billion (even if giving a +15 production bonus on your main product) is going to increase your revenue stream with 100 per turn.)

I am not opposed to allowing payment over multiple turns, but in that case I'd like to require that payment is done at the time of the population growth or things get confusing. My main worry is that I'll end up with something like the population growth of turn 10 being paid off in turn 20 - does the turn 20 growth apply? If I say no, I have an upset player.

4) [Warning: statement 4 is a rant] My racial bonuses are unfocussed because I find this to be a logical distribution for any naturally evolved race. I don't see how a race (and that race's technology) would evolve focused on doing one thing very well. It appears that such considerations are somewhat ignored at the moment, since a lot of things seem to be based on the perfectly thought out economic powerhouse. Though this might just be my own interpretation, I don't feel like playing a specialist because that is how the economic system is modelled...

I don't require players be specialist. The tax system supports generalists (and in fact, all players follow a generalist strategy). The population system is simply specialist oriented.

However, when I model values of choices after a suboptimal strategy (say, I assume your +15 production per billion over the entire planet as the baseline), I am creating a monstrosity that is open to excessive abuse. If I price the PGC at 285 instead of 2850, people will complain that population is the only thing that matters since you get 1 production for 1 tax while a zone even with a Jackpot Special, on Goldilocks with full terraformation and a corporation only gets 0.7 production for 1 tax.

--

The fact of the matter is that population growth is exponential while most of the game is linear. Every time you get an additional billion population, you get a bonus on production, a bonus which is essentially unlimited and completely free.

When the growth was very slow, this meant you might get a small free lunch every year or two at the very best. Currently listed growth rates are much higher and its compound interest.

Like the chessboard with grains of rice, it doesn't look like a lot at first, but compound interest adds up very quickly. So like it or not, population growth at the current rate cannot be a free lunch, or it would risk breaking the game.

Now, that all being said, I agree with you on one thing:

The current population model is too specialist oriented. It promotes min-maxing your race(s) rather than making some that are fun and interesting to play. Unfortunately, changing that requires a rework of the entire population system, which means bio costs will need to be looked at, racial mains need to be redesigned and all players would have to adapt their systems because of the change. It'll also have consequences for the new population technologies that are waiting to be posted on Monday (when the turn reports have been approved and the research is done)

I normally design models not just to make the system interesting to play but to allow interesting roleplay options as well. I thought I did that by providing racial Main Characteristics, however I think I missed a few points here and there which lead to the problems you are now experiencing.

I do not believe a fix can be found in significantly lowering the cost of population growth - that causes its own problems as explained above.

Rather, a fix should be found in the way population interacts with resources. I will work on an alternative for that, but as mentioned this would have consequences and before I make such a move, I want to hear from other players to see if they share the view that population is rather specialisation focussed at the moment and that this is a problem.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

3) Is there a reason that this payment must be made in whole in a single turn? Any zone construction is done by accumulating enough to construct the zone. Why can't the amount of resources required for construction of the requisite infrastructure improvements for population growth can be spread out (it seems to me that requiring the investment in a single turn is contrary to the idea of resources-as-flow)?

(Allowing the accruement of resources would alleviate a lot of the problems I see with the current proposal -- it would effectively spread out any requisite payments over a longer period, making it a form of upkeep. I don't see a loan from the Ministry of Finance as viable because that would only increase the cost of population growth; from my calculations it doesn't appear as if an extra billion (even if giving a +15 production bonus on your main product) is going to increase your revenue stream with 100 per turn.)

I am not opposed to allowing payment over multiple turns, but in that case I'd like to require that payment is done at the time of the population growth or things get confusing. My main worry is that I'll end up with something like the population growth of turn 10 being paid off in turn 20 - does the turn 20 growth apply? If I say no, I have an upset player.

I, of course, intended this as a way to invest before your population grows. Paying infrastructure upgrades after the population grows is nonsense, if you're not done with the infrastructural upgrading, no growth happens.

But I'll keep silent now. Let's give the other players a chance to voice their opinion!