Proportions and Facilities

[Aub]

As much as I am in love with the Proportions, I hate the way facilities are handled in it.

Just think about it: in the original SEIV, you would develop a planet in a certain way, but this development was very limited: after you put 20 or 25 facilities in there (less if you cannot breathe the atmosphere), you are pretty much done. Those facitiles could be queued up from the start, and the planet could be left alone for some time.

When you research a new type of facilites, you make adjustments, but that does not happen that often.

This all means: very little micro-management! (Hip-hip-hurray!) I can concentrate on building ships and military operations without sacrificing my production or research capacity.

Now, the bad news is that in Proportions it's not that simple at all. You cannot queue in a cultural center form the start: it will take forever to finish. You have to gradually add lower-level cities, and then you choose the right times to upgrade them. Add to it the hardcoded limitation of upgrading only to the latest, and you get a real nightmare. When do I advance my research, what city level do I build first on a new colony - so that it will finish in a reasonable time, and would then upgrade in a reasonable time... oh, all these decisions are now really important! And that means micro-management rules...

I knew all theis for some time now, but I didn't want ot post because I didn't have solutions to propose. Now I feel I have some.

The goal in Proportions in simple here: to have a really powerful Homeworld, and to have colony worlds that can be made quite powerful in time but start very weak and almost never reach the homeworld power.

Now: how about, instead of having more advanced facilities on the homeworld, just having more of them?

Let's say, a homeworld has 500 "big cities" (clicks with reality, too!). A big city can be built in 1 year on average (with the future avanced technology ), so it takes 500 years to build up a comparable planet -- fair enough, isn't it?

A world with non-breathable atmosphere can have a limit of 50 facilities or so - so they would cap up quicker. The numbers can be played with, and we still can have different city types - just not that many, two or three. That way, upgrading does not become a nightmare. And a planet could still be filled up with research centers in just several years. I leave the details to the reader (more specifically, to PvK )

Ok, that's just an idea, all input is welcome. I just think that, given the nature of upgrades in SEIV, playing with the number of facilities versus their level is a more promising way. Don't you think so?

Aub

[Suicide Junkie]

One potential problem with the Large number of facility slots you are proposing is that you can only build one facility per turn max.

That means it will still take at least 500 turns to fill any breathable planet with even the cheapest facilities.

[PvK]

I love all feedback, but in this case, my reply may sound like a bunch of counter-arguments. But, here's my first take on this.

1) The thing that really stands out to me is that I have the opposite experience as a player. I seem to spend much more time micro-managing planet development in the standard game than I do in Proportions games. One reason is simply that I can generate colonies more quickly, but also, in the standard game, most facilities are built in a single turn, while in Proportions, each one usually takes at least a few turns, and sometimes a few years. So I only have to consider maybe 2-3 empty construction queues per turn, while in my standard games, I often have dozens to think about each turn.

2) It may be because I'm so familiar with the facility values in Proportions, and have set up some spreadsheets as I designed and balanced them, but to me the facility choices don't seem all that complicated. The range of choices is very great, and offers a huge range between cheap and fast versus long-term facilities that are more compact. It almost always makes sense to fill up slots with the cheapest ones, and only then start investing in larger ones.

3) Maybe there's a way, but offhand I think it might not be possible to give the homeworld 500 facility slots, without giving all breathable planets 500 facility slots. Also, going back to my reaction #1 above, this sounds like much more micromanagement, rather than less. And the view of what is on each planet sounds like it would get to be a nightmare, since there is no "compressed view" offered for planets.

So in sum, I guess I think maybe you aren't identifying your issue accurately. Maybe you are just confused about what your construction and upgrade options are, rather than having a micromanagement issue?

PvK

[oleg]

I agree. Aub' idea is very interesting but I personally have less micromanagement with Proportions : it takes long time to build advanced facilities and planet can be left alone for years. Besides, there is no need to colonize as many planets as possible as in normal SE IV. Half a dozen of breathable planets is all what you need for whole game, really !

[ October 07, 2002, 00:44: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Fyron]

Sure there is a reason to colonize them: to keep others from doing so.

[PvK]

Another reason would be to set up a military base, with defenses and facilties to resupply, repair, and refit ships, store units, etc. In this way, you can move towards taking other player's developed colonies, and also expand the area over which you can operate your fleet in strength, particularly since more powerful ships in Proportions have serious tradeoffs between speed and range.

But I think oleg was referring to the planets that you try to develop to be as productive as possible, in which case it can make sense to concentrate on only a few at a time.

PvK