Warning to wide players: Unity costs are now multiplied

[Aquilegia]

Base cost:
2% per system
20% per planet

Current situation:

Suppose you have 5 colonies & 50 systems. Costs are x2 from colonies and x2 from systems, giving a total increase in unity costs of x4

If you now add an extra colony, that colony does not only increase your unity cost by 20%, but by a total 40% (!!), since your amount of systems doubles the cost for each additional planet.

Same goes if you'd wish to add an extra system, not just a mere 2% increase in costs, but a nasty 4%

Just imagine having 100 systems and 10 colonies: Costs are x3 (colonies) x3 (systems) giving a total cost of x9. Each additional colony costs 60% more base unity.

50 systems, 5 colonies = x4 cost
100 systems, 10 colonies = x9 cost
150 systems, 15 colonies = x16 cost
200 systems, 20 colonies = x25 cost
450 systems, 45 colonies = x100 cost

Problem:

This increased the costs for additional planets in the later game exponentially, having both many systems and many planets will make late-game unity gain effectively zero in bigger galaxies, or very slow in smaller ones.

"Solutions/Results":

- Stockpile unity (don't spend) with many planets (for high net unity production), then release a load of vassals to reduce costs and buy all the traditions.
- Go with the easier vassals civic, and keep down number of planets.
- Stay medium size, until 2300/2350 when you've bought all traditions.
- Stay small in number of planets or number of systems to avoid multiplicative costs.
- Just ignore unity and maybe even tear down all unity buildings once you've gotten 3-4 tradition trees, depending on when you get too big.
- Mandatory expanders (like the genocide guys) will probably get in trouble if they focus too much on unity gain.

Extra note:

- Science costs don't get multiplied.

 

[Seb_Jean]

Didn't see that much change. PRobably because I pwas playing IP with the traditionnal feat so I had a lot of unity. Since I rarely play wide and mostly play spiritualist, I can live with it.

 

[Scuzz]

Are you saying the modifiers are multiplicative instead of additive?

I'm pretty sure that 50 systems and 5 colonies (ie 6 planets) should just triple your costs, unless you've got that expansion tradition when it should be 250%.

 

[Matt516]

Stockpile unity (don't spend) with many planets (for high net unity production), then release a load of vassals to reduce costs and buy all the traditions.

It bothers me that this exploit exists - though I'm not really sure what a good solution would be.

 

[Aquilegia]

Didn't see that much change. PRobably because I pwas playing IP with the traditionnal feat so I had a lot of unity. Since I rarely play wide and mostly play spiritualist, I can live with it.

Yes, having fast unity production early/mid game will help a lot, since you'll have more time to unlock traditions before you grow too large.

 

[Aquilegia]

Are you saying the modifiers are multiplicative instead of additive?

I'm pretty sure that 50 systems and 5 colonies (ie 6 planets) should just triple your costs, unless you've got that expansion tradition when it should be 250%.

Yes. Costs should be ~9k instead of 13k if it wasn't multiplicative.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

If unity costs were multiplicative, then 50 systems would increase your cost by 1.02^50, or 2.69x, and if you had 5 colonies that would increase your costs by 2.49 times. They are still additive.

 

[Seb_Jean]

Yes, having fast unity production early/mid game will help a lot, since you'll have more time to unlock traditions before you grow too large.

Exactly. If you play wide, you must expect to pay a lot of unity. Logical as it's harder to keep united a large empire.

 

[Aquilegia]

If unity costs were multiplicative, then 50 systems would increase your cost by 1.02^50, or 2.69x, and if you had 5 colonies that would increase your costs by 2.49 times. They are still additive.

The unity cost modifier planets is additive.. The unity cost modifier for systems are additive too.. But these two modifiers get multiplied, instead of added, resulting in that planets costs more if you have more systems, and systems cost more if you have more planets.

 

[Bobylein]

Yes.

That certainly seems like it it's multiplicative instead of additive, It should be 9218 Unity if my limited math is right.

wonder if it's an intended change...

Edit: Oops just saw that someone already posted that above me

 

[Aquilegia]

Exactly. If you play wide, you must expect to pay a lot of unity. Logical as it's harder to keep united a large empire.

There's a difference between wide making unity slow and costly and wide/(or normal in a bigger sized galaxy!) making unity costs prohibitively high in the later game. Also the current system of multiplication promotes cheese.

 

[Qilue]

I assumed it worked like compound interest.

2 planets - 1.00 x 1.20 = 1.20
3 planets - 1.20 x 1.20 = 1.44
4 planets - 1.44 x 1.20 = 1.73
5 planets - 1.73 x 1.20 = 2.07
and so on.

 

[ecrurudesby]

Are these mechanics affected by the size of the galaxy? Does controlling 100 systems in a 200 system galaxy affect Unity (and research) as much as in a 1000 system galaxy?

 

[Scuzz]

Yes. Costs should be ~9k instead of 13k if it wasn't multiplicative.

2,763*3.27 = 9035
2,763*1.15*2*2.12 = 13,472

Damn, looks like you're right.
Here's the formula from the defines file

tradition cost = ( base_cost + ( ( cost_tradition * num_traditions )^traditions_exponential ) + cost_pop*num_pops ) * ( 1 + cost_planet*num_planets )

EDIT: I don't think the game is using this formula, because I can't figure out how to massage the numbers past 10000, and that's before taking the expansionist trait that lowers planet penalties by 20% into account.

 

[Aquilegia]

I assumed it worked like compound interest.

2 planets - 1.00 x 1.20 = 1.20
3 planets - 1.20 x 1.20 = 1.44
4 planets - 1.44 x 1.20 = 1.73
5 planets - 1.73 x 1.20 = 2.07
and so on.

With only 1 system
1 planets = 1.0 x (base cost + number of traditions modifier)
2 planets = 1.2
3 planets = 1.4
4 planets = 1.6

With ~50 systems:
1 planets = 2.0
2 planets = 2.4
3 planets = 2.8
4 planets = 3.2

 

[Bouchart]

Is it still possible to get your Unity cost so high that it rolls over?

 

[Tom D.]

Is it still possible to get your Unity cost so high that it rolls over?

I think I saw a thread on that not too long before Apocalypse came out, the number is somewhere in the million(s) if I recall correctly. My guess would be that it's still possible, but I'm not sure though. At least I don't see how the new update would prevent it.

 

[domein]

I have this problem as well, my empire of 500 systems and 100 colonies barely has 2 tradition trees unlocked, and next tradition is 800 months away.
+20% from colony is way too high.

 

[Alblaka]

Given this runs contra to how Science scaling costs work, I'm inclined to think this might be a bug/oversight rather then a design feature.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Given this runs contra to how Science scaling costs work, I'm inclined to think this might be a bug/oversight rather then a design feature.

I doubt this, it is more likely a soft check and balance for snowballing. It is a interesting debuff though. It makes you want to choose when to go wide. After one perk, 2, 4? My second game played as a DE in MP. I had over 25 planets and a 3rd of the galaxy under my belt. I decided to explode (6 planets to 25 in 12 years) after my 3rd perk. Tradation advancement was slow but not broken/unbearable when this was achieved.