[PvK]

Originally posted by Aub:
...
But this way upgrading feels more like a bonus feature, not something essential for survival of your species. You see, the way it is now, *everything* needs to be done through upgrades. If you plan to build a Metropolis, building a Minor City and then upgrading it wins hands down - it cuts the cost of the Metropolis in half!

Simply changing this line in settings may however destroy game balance. If this change is to be done in Proportions, higher level facility costs need to be reduced, as now there will be no way to get them at half-cost by playing the upgrade game.

PvK, what do you think of this?

I think I still support my original math when designing the facilities to balance against the problem you are describing, which I don't think exists, even though it might appear to, without benefit of spreadsheet.

Let's take the example you list above. Yes, Minor City means you can upgrade to Metropolis for half of the cost of building a new Metropolis. But that does not mean doing so is more efficient than not using upgrades (unless the victory condition of your game is "the one with the biggest city, wins" ).

So, say you have a planet with a constant construction rate of 2000x3, and you want to do intensive development that will maximize production over the next 30 or so turns. Plan A is to build a Minor City and upgrade to Metropolis. Plan B is to build two Minor Cities and then a City.

Plan A spends 15,000x3 resources over 8 turns building a minor city, and then 50,000x3 over 25 turns upgrading it to a metropolis. The result after 35 turns is 65,000x3 spent, with 8,525 produced while the Minor City was there, and 2,300 produced by the Metropolis, with 1,150 production/turn attained.

Plan A TOTAL: 184,175 in the hole, which will be paid off by itself in 160 turns (after turn 35).

Plan B spends 15,000x3 resources over 8 turns twice in a row, and then 25,000x3 over 13 turns building a City. This takes 29 turns (4 less than Plan A). After 35 turns, the result is 30,000x3 spent on the two minor cities, the first of which has produced 9,315, the second has produced 6,555. The City cost 25,000 x 3 and has produced 2550. Total production/turn attained is 1,115 (only 35 less than the Metropolis).

Plan B TOTAL: 146,580 in the hole, which will be paid off by itself in 132 turns (after turn 35).

Both plans suffer in efficiency comparison to just building ordinary industrial facilities as in the standard game. The only exceptions (I think) are if you are trying to compress as much into as little space as possible. That only pays off in the very long-term, as in, hundreds and hundreds of turns, assuming you are going to sit and develop your own local systems, instead of spreading and colonizing and conquering the quadrant.

So, the standard set tactic of sprawl and conquer still pays off, but the rate of payoff is a couple of orders of magnitude (or more) slower, and there are less efficient alternatives in intensive development, so a small isolationist or neutral can continue to develop as well. Also, of course, a larger empire is more difficult to protect, etc.

PvK