Conquering primitives - cutting off your nose to spite your face

[djvandebrake]

"General, ground forces have taken their capital. It's over sir. We have won!"
"As I knew we would. They could hardly stand against us with those weapons - small bits of lead propelled by chemical explosions? Absurd!"
"The civilian administrators are coming in to set up the local provisional government, sir. What should we do next?"
"Simple. Destroy all the farms and factories. Wipe out all of their infrastructure."
"Sir? Everything?"
"Everything."

I'm not sure if this is a bug, or a poor design choice, but when invading a primitive world you destroy all the buildings. Farms, factories, power plants. You set up a handful of city and agricultural districts and have a basic capitol. And a LOT of unemployed pops. Suddenly the society that was self supporting before needs food and consumer goods imported, or the people starve.

Now, I realize sometimes things get damaged in warfare. But that's what devastation represents. When I take a planet with little devastation, especially when using a general that specifically has reduced collateral damage, there should be things left standing. Absolutely primitive farms and factories should be replaced over time but there is no reason for an invader to destroy them outright, leaving most of the populace with nothing to do but agitate resistance and put a strain on the invader's own resource production.

Perhaps this is something that could be looked at? Let people keep the inferior buildings until they can be replaced over time, or reduce the initial population of primitive planets. Or both, since the "inferior" buildings are actually somewhat superior.

 

[Everstill]

I think the problem is the amount of Disctrict you get then...?

Their main building turn into your planetary capital, right?

Then their factories should turn into mining districts, their power plant into generator district and farm into farm district.

This is not happening? They should increase the amount to have parity to the amount of jobs their primitive buildings gave.

 

[djvandebrake]

The way it is currently set up they start with no districts, but a set of buildings that provide housing and jobs. When you conquer them, they lose all but the capital building (it becomes a reassembled ship so you have to upgrade to planetary administration), and gain 3 city and two agricultural districts.

(Below, assuming an industrial civilization, primitive buildings depend on tech level)

Before conquest:
- Primitive factory: 2 primitive laborer jobs (creates CG)
- Primitive mines: 2 primitive miner jobs
- Primitive power plant: 2 primitive technician jobs
- Primitive farms: 10 primitive farmer jobs
- Primitive capital: 2 primitive bureaucrat jobs, 2 primitive warrior jobs, 2 primitive researcher jobs, 2 primitive priest jobs, 5 housing, 25 amenities
- Urban dwellings: 24 housing
- TOTAL: 29 housing, 25 amenities, 24 jobs

After conquest:
- Reassembled ship shelter: 3 housing, 3 amenity, 2 colonist jobs
- 3x City District: 15 housing, 3 clerk jobs
- 2x Agricultural District: 4 housing, 2 farmer jobs
- TOTAL: 22 housing, 0 amenities, 7 jobs

Now, I get that a building that provides 8 jobs, 25 amenities, and 5 housing is a bit OP, as is a building that provides 24 housing. But there has got to be a better way to balance this than wiping them out and screwing over the conquerer.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

I believe this was true for machine empires too. I don't think that buildings etc. should be destroyed when ownership changes. It's working by design, but it's poor design. Infrastructure should be retained unless devastation damages it.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I don't see anything wrong - in theory - with retaining the primitve farms, factories, mines, and power plants and then allowing those to be upgraded for say 75% of the cost of a new building of the same general type, but the "modern" basic version of it.
The amenities loss is staggering as it stands though, but can be worked with if you put some infrastructure work into place.

Even losing 7 housing isn't insurmountable - that's basically "build another district"; although the job losses would still be a bit painful. (18 jobs as opposed to 24).

 

[wormasc]

I don't really think losing most of the primative structures is unreasonable since like, their technology is not really going to be up to the standards you want, plus you can like, immediately resettle half the population to your other planets with basically no penalty since culture shock is per planet now.

Also like, in general conquering places is usually costly in the short term with the goal of it being a gain in the long term, especially with primative planets

 

[djvandebrake]

The technology might not be up to standards but it is better than nothing. And resettling might not be an option if it is early game, I only have my homeworld, and it is mostly already full as well.

Honestly, I think they could keep the buildings and stay balanced if they changed it as follows:
- Primitive factory: 2 primitive laborer jobs
- Primitive mines: 2 housing, 2 primitive miner jobs, -1 Available Mining District (like a tile blocker)
- Primitive power plant: 2 housing, 2 primitive technician jobs, -1 Available Generator District
- Primitive farms: 4 housing, 6 primitive farmer jobs (increase output from 3 food to 5 food each), -2 Available Agricultural Districts)
- Primitive capital: 2 primitive bureaucrat jobs (increase output from 3 amenities to 6 amenities each), 2 primitve warrior jobs, 2 primitive researcher jobs, 2 primitive priest jobs (increase from 2 amenities to 4 amenities), 3 housing (down from 5), 7 amenities
- Urban centers (instead of urban dwelling): 18 housing, 4 primitive clerk jobs (new job that provides 2 amenities each), -4 Available Districts

Primitive jobs are still inferior to regular ones, most of your amenities come from jobs rather than buildings and you lose very few on conquest, you lose fewer jobs on upgrading, and with the tile blocker effect you still have a lot of incentive to replace those buildings with the normal districts... you just don't have to do it all at once on taking over.

 

[Maethendias]

im more concerned that my devouring swarm cant bombard the planet of those primitives (and here i wanted to rp the raiding stance )

 

[AlanC9]

I suppose this came about because districts aren't upgraded the way mines and farms used to be, so they wanted some way to make primitives be primitive.

 

[MightyFox]

I suppose this came about because districts aren't upgraded the way mines and farms used to be, so they wanted some way to make primitives be primitive.

Primitives don't use land for farms and mines? The actual output of primitive civilizations is irrelevant, so I don't understand why they can't just use the districts they have and build their primitive buildings in the buildings tab. When you take the planet, you just take over the pops, the jobs, and upgrade the buildings. Balance wise, I suppose you could argue it would make conquering the primitives a far better option than the other methods of enslav- er... I mean, annexing them, but at least the results would make practical sense.

 

[Star Foth]

I always get the criminal underground event chain asking for unemployment benefits on a previously fully employed primitive planet. Feels odd to me that they lose their jobs converted or not so I agree with the idea that the buildings should stick around until you want to demolish and replace them rather than converting to smaller numbers of jobs/districts.

 

[AlanC9]

Primitives don't use land for farms and mines? The actual output of primitive civilizations is irrelevant, so I don't understand why they can't just use the districts they have and build their primitive buildings in the buildings tab. When you take the planet, you just take over the pops, the jobs, and upgrade the buildings. Balance wise, I suppose you could argue it would make conquering the primitives a far better option than the other methods of enslav- er... I mean, annexing them, but at least the results would make practical sense.

My guess was that they were trying to avoid changing the result from pre-Le Guin. In earlier versions all the resource buildings are crappy, and you have to upgrade them one at a time. But now a district is just a district, and an ex-primitive mine district would be just as productive as any other, Mineral Purification Plants excepted.

Edit: I'm getting different behavior in the beta. Now a primitive world (Early Space Age, if it matters) gets 4 City , 1 Generator, 2 Mining , and 2 Agriculture Districts. The primitive buildings didn't go away, but nobody was allowed to work in them.