This sprawl penalty is getting under my skin. I understand we need some means to explain how we keep this empire under control but I don't like how the cost is determined nor that I cannot assign people to just take care of it. No government could ever run so inefficiently and not collapse under its own weight. No amount of sprawl penalty will ever stop tech rushing unless research is fixed; I have a proposal floating on the forums but some are starting and have already said the same, its too efficient by job.
TL;DR At the end I explain how this reigns in the tech rush
I agree we should charge for systems however I do not agree we should charge for pops, districts, and colonies, as three items. We can account for them in districts and buildings to represent how large of a society we have to manage.
What am I trying to do
With unity effectively being how I get my empire to do things then perhaps its time it pays for sprawl as well. I am going simple simple simple. When you don't produce sufficient unity to pay your sprawl cost you will never get a new tradition, if you stay negative long enough to deplete your banked unity you effectively stop your empire. The benefit is the player doesn't see a sprawl penalty all the time but more importantly it means the game is easier to balance.
Simplest Sprawl in the world.
Unity is expended to manage your planets and systems. The simplest approach is to look at unity producing jobs. Rulers usually have base six and specialist base four; these values set costs to come. These costs are easily something that can be tweaked.
Districts + Buildings = Planet_Sprawl. A starting planet is 15 districts and four buildings on average. We allow the capital building to provide a planet use only unity offset of 10. We have two rulers with base six each but with modifiers they can add up to 12 to 18. So they will contribute some of their unity to start.
Systems, each adjacent system to the sector capital is one point. Each system not adjacent is two. I would go higher for more distant systems but we don't have management control over systems. Every colony is one point paid by the empire.
With unity as your one great currency you will always have to pay to keep your sprawl at zero otherwise you cannot hire anyone, you cannot take a tradition, nor can you run an expensive edict. So to expand you need to always be building new unity producing jobs. With the current formulae of tradition costs being 300 + (traditions * 8)^1.8 they get expensive quickly and that formulae is easy to tweak to increase costs.
What happens when you don't pay for it.
What happens when you go below zero unity production per turn? You start taking from stored unity. When that reaches zero no edicts, including ones that don't cost unity, function. Research cannot complete, you can still work to completion but after that points are lost and you are forever waiting. You should never reach this point, you should be able to fire leaders, turn off unity costing edicts, and more, to get a positive income. However you need real income to get traditions.
The key here is there is no penalty ever on the screen. Edicts always have a set cost, traditions always have a set costs, and research always has a set cost. The penalty is your empire will stop.
Combine this with the proposals I am others have made to reduce research production. Those proposals take the 4/4/4 down to 2/2/2 per base research job and seriously reduce the bonuses gained empire wide, by leader, and trade. Right now in the current game tech rushes work because research jobs are the most efficient and bonuses that stack from empire, edict, trade, leaders, tech, and stored research, can all combine to double your research if not triple it. I have had games where when researching a tech I had over one hundred percent bonus plus stored research and I wasn't to mid game!
TL;DR At the end I explain how this reigns in the tech rush
I agree we should charge for systems however I do not agree we should charge for pops, districts, and colonies, as three items. We can account for them in districts and buildings to represent how large of a society we have to manage.
What am I trying to do
With unity effectively being how I get my empire to do things then perhaps its time it pays for sprawl as well. I am going simple simple simple. When you don't produce sufficient unity to pay your sprawl cost you will never get a new tradition, if you stay negative long enough to deplete your banked unity you effectively stop your empire. The benefit is the player doesn't see a sprawl penalty all the time but more importantly it means the game is easier to balance.
Simplest Sprawl in the world.
Unity is expended to manage your planets and systems. The simplest approach is to look at unity producing jobs. Rulers usually have base six and specialist base four; these values set costs to come. These costs are easily something that can be tweaked.
Districts + Buildings = Planet_Sprawl. A starting planet is 15 districts and four buildings on average. We allow the capital building to provide a planet use only unity offset of 10. We have two rulers with base six each but with modifiers they can add up to 12 to 18. So they will contribute some of their unity to start.
Systems, each adjacent system to the sector capital is one point. Each system not adjacent is two. I would go higher for more distant systems but we don't have management control over systems. Every colony is one point paid by the empire.
With unity as your one great currency you will always have to pay to keep your sprawl at zero otherwise you cannot hire anyone, you cannot take a tradition, nor can you run an expensive edict. So to expand you need to always be building new unity producing jobs. With the current formulae of tradition costs being 300 + (traditions * 8)^1.8 they get expensive quickly and that formulae is easy to tweak to increase costs.
What happens when you don't pay for it.
What happens when you go below zero unity production per turn? You start taking from stored unity. When that reaches zero no edicts, including ones that don't cost unity, function. Research cannot complete, you can still work to completion but after that points are lost and you are forever waiting. You should never reach this point, you should be able to fire leaders, turn off unity costing edicts, and more, to get a positive income. However you need real income to get traditions.
The key here is there is no penalty ever on the screen. Edicts always have a set cost, traditions always have a set costs, and research always has a set cost. The penalty is your empire will stop.
Combine this with the proposals I am others have made to reduce research production. Those proposals take the 4/4/4 down to 2/2/2 per base research job and seriously reduce the bonuses gained empire wide, by leader, and trade. Right now in the current game tech rushes work because research jobs are the most efficient and bonuses that stack from empire, edict, trade, leaders, tech, and stored research, can all combine to double your research if not triple it. I have had games where when researching a tech I had over one hundred percent bonus plus stored research and I wasn't to mid game!
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