So, there's a slider at game setup that determines how much science is required for technologies (also affects traditions). It goes from .25 to 5.0. I've played games at both extremes.
On my 5.0 gameplay it took five times as much research to get a technology. That doesn't mean you have 1/5th as many technologies, because starting technologies are cheaper than end-game technologies, and as I spread out wide and population grew that increased my research as well. I had every Tradition and every non-repeatable tech by 2500. But one of the struggles in this game was getting the tech to upgrade my buildings so that I could provide jobs to my people. Population growth was proportionally faster than tech.
With my .25 gameplay it took 1/4th as much research as normal to get a technology. I was getting repeatables after a century. This game my population was much more of a limiting factor than any other game. I started out with 2 planets and the early game was a struggle just to stay alive. But once I got a bunch of habitats and ringworlds, my population bloomed and I was producing 5k energy a month after buying 2k minerals a month (I didn't have any miners, as minerals were costing .29 on the market and it was cheaper to buy them than mine them).
Anyway, what I'm thinking is that perhaps population growth should be dependent upon the tech slider. If research is sped up, then population should grow faster. If it's slowed down, then population should grow slower.
Right now base population growth is 3. I think it could change to 1 + 2 / tech_slider. This would give us the following values:
On my 5.0 gameplay it took five times as much research to get a technology. That doesn't mean you have 1/5th as many technologies, because starting technologies are cheaper than end-game technologies, and as I spread out wide and population grew that increased my research as well. I had every Tradition and every non-repeatable tech by 2500. But one of the struggles in this game was getting the tech to upgrade my buildings so that I could provide jobs to my people. Population growth was proportionally faster than tech.
With my .25 gameplay it took 1/4th as much research as normal to get a technology. I was getting repeatables after a century. This game my population was much more of a limiting factor than any other game. I started out with 2 planets and the early game was a struggle just to stay alive. But once I got a bunch of habitats and ringworlds, my population bloomed and I was producing 5k energy a month after buying 2k minerals a month (I didn't have any miners, as minerals were costing .29 on the market and it was cheaper to buy them than mine them).
Anyway, what I'm thinking is that perhaps population growth should be dependent upon the tech slider. If research is sped up, then population should grow faster. If it's slowed down, then population should grow slower.
Right now base population growth is 3. I think it could change to 1 + 2 / tech_slider. This would give us the following values:
- tech_slider of .25 = 9 pop growth
- tech_slider of .75 = 3.67 pop growth
- tech_slider of 2.0 = 2 pop growth
- tech_slider of 5.0 = 1.4 pop growth.
