The effect of two races on a planet.

[oleg]

There is an interesting trick especially usefull in Proportions:

First, remember that population in Proportions is very "heavy" and reproduce 10 times slower. Starliners and colony ships move just 1 pop. unit for example. Thus, when you create a colony, it has 1 population. 10 turns later it will have 2 population due to the way SEIV assign pop. an integer value. It should be 1.1 but its rounded up to 2. Now, suppose you have another race. It is very usefull to mix them up - if you have 1, for example human and 1 Phong, every 10 turns you will get a new human and new phong ! Compare situations when 1) you have human planet with 2 humans and phong planet with 2 phongs - next year you have 3 humans and 3 phongs. 2) you mix them up - 2 planets each with 1 human and 1 phong. Next turn you have planets with 2 humans and 2 phongs - double population growth !!!
It is almost cheating I think, and is just another reason beside helping AI why I scaled up population 10 times in my Proportions games !

[Fyron]

That "trick" is a bug exploit.

[tbontob]

Interesting Oleg

I had heard about getting double population in a standard game, but didn't know how it worked in Proportions, having never played it.

Not sure if your advice is for proportions or a standard game or both.

So, let's take the proportions mod.

Nomally, it would be.

1 human populatates a planet at turn 1.
1.1 humans at turn 2
1.2 humans at turn 3
.
.
.
.
.
.
1.9 humans at turn 10
2 humans at turn 11

It is rounded up to the next one-tenth of a integer rather than a full integer as in a normal game.

But more important, are you saying that by adding another race in Proportions, it changes the way it calculates population growth and each race is rounded up a full integer rather than one ten-tenth of an integer.

In other words, in Proportions with a human and a Phong, both will increase by a full integer each turn rather than by one-tenth of an integer?

[Fyron]

You can not have fractional population with integer math. You get 2 pop after 1 turn in the normal game, not after 10 turns. It rounds up. You only get that 1 pop after 10 turns in Proportions because in Proportions, reproduction only happens at month .1, instead of every month.

[oleg]

It certainly happens in unmodded SE as well but is of almost no importance. The key is "reproduction check frequency" in settings.txt. Normally it is 1 and after 10 turns (1 year) rounding up the population numbers will be of minor importance. In Proportions, however, it will take 10 times longer - 100 turns !

[Ward]

Lets assume we drop one (1) pop of a different race on a planet and

1) The new population now exceeds the planet's limit (which was reduced).
2) The number of facilities now exceeds the planet's limit.
3) The amount in cargo now exceeds the cargo limit.

What happens on the next turn?

I am guessing, but would think the excess population and cargo would be lost. But not the extra facilities.

You could have noticed that when you capture a planet with many troops your storage is overoaded(1000 kt of 200 kt). This happends to me quite often.

[dogscoff]

Not sure if your advice is for proportions or a standard game or both.

Both in theory, although this effect is exaggerated in proportions by the importance and relatively slow growth of population. In the standard game it's usually insignificant becasue population is so cheap anyway.

Nomally, it would be.

1 human populatates a planet at turn 1.
1.1 humans at turn 2
1.2 humans at turn 3
.
.
.
.
.
.
1.9 humans at turn 10
2 humans at turn 11

It is rounded up to the next one-tenth of a integer rather than a full integer as in a normal game.

But more important, are you saying that by adding another race in Proportions, it changes the way it calculates population growth and each race is rounded up a full integer rather than one ten-tenth of an integer.

No.
Put it this way: Because of integer maths, the lowest population growth a planet can have (ignoring population decline or zero growth) is 1 million per growth period. However, if you have multiple races on a planet, you get at least 1 million per race per growth period.

So in any game it goes according to the following table, the only difference is that in proportions, each growth period is ten turns and in the standard game it is every turn.

code:

---

                Planet with 1 race.   Planet with 2 races.   Planet with 3 races. 

Start:             1 million             2x 1 million           3x 1 million

Growth period 1:   1m + 1m =2m.       2m + one of each =4m   3m + 3 of each =6m

Growth period 2:   2m + 1m =3m.       4m + one of each =6m   6m + 3 of each =9m

Growth period 3:   3m + 1m =4m.       6m + one of each =8m   9m + 3 of each =12m

---

And so on for 4 races, 5 races etc.

The above model is complicated further in the real game by varying population growth rates (ie according to happiness and cloning facilities etc) but that only makes a difference when the "natural" growth rate (ie if you only had one race on there) would exceed 1 per growth period.

If you have enough population and high enough growth rate on a planet to be producing more than one person per growth period "naturally", and you introduce a second race, you will get no bonus population- the natural growth is split between the two populations. However, if your natural growth is 2 per period and you have 3 races, you will get 3 growth instead of 2.

[ March 25, 2003, 11:59: Message edited by: dogscoff ]