Balancing Race Construction

[TerranC]

Originally posted by PvK:
Oh, I should add a reply to Geo's later Posts on this thread.

The two 200-planet empires at war, one Emotionless. If the Emotionless one loses any number of planets or ships, it will keep on producing and constructing normally with the remaining planets. If the non-Emotionless one ever has a setback and loses a fair number of planets and/or ships, it will be vulnerable to having ALL of its remaining planets go to rioting and produce and construct nothing. That's pretty valuable (unless you always win ).

PvK

But what about Urban Pacification centers, Temporal Vacation Facility, Fate shrine, and medical labs which keep the populace happy? Large troop garrisons? Home Fleets? Or just happiness bonuses?

[PvK]

They don't do it fast enough to prevent the riots from Lasting at least a few turns. The side-effect of empire-wide riots for even a few turns in a large empire at war can be very important to the outcome of the war. If the losses continue frequently enough, the riots won't clear, or not enough to help.

PvK

[Cheeze]

I have to add something on this. In a PBW where the top player (who had about as many ships as we had combined, and most of them in the dreadnought/baseship range), my ally and I staged a surprise attack. We targeted his spaceports (that player and I had a partnership treaty) and as many valuable planets as possible from our borders. Anything we couldn't take, we glassed.

Basically, between cutting our treaties with this player AND the damage we caused did severely cut his income, but it was the rioting that reduced his own ability to produce anything. Even after two turns of comparatively unopposed strikes, he still had enough firepower to hit us back hard and he had more than enough planets to sustain his forces. It was the rioting which removed his ability to build ships and keep current ships fighting.

Would we have won if his population was emotionless? Probably. But the emotionless trait would have allowed him to stay strong and counter-attack, and he might have disrupted our happiness. Our attack plan relied on rioting his population first and foremost.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by PvK:
They don't do it fast enough to prevent the riots from Lasting at least a few turns. The side-effect of empire-wide riots for even a few turns in a large empire at war can be very important to the outcome of the war. If the losses continue frequently enough, the riots won't clear, or not enough to help.

PvK

Yes they do. Stick 140 or more small troops on a planet. It will probably never riot again.

[spoon]

After considering the input from others (and the extra play experience) I think I'd suggest these numbers for the advanced traits:

Advanced Power Conservation: 500
Mechanoids: 250
Lucky: 250
Natural Merchants: 750
Propulsion Experts: 1000
Ancient Race: 1000
Advanced Storage: 1500
Hardy Industrialist: 1000
Psychic: 1500
Religious: 1500
Temporal: 1500
Crystallurgy: 1250
Organic: 1500
Emotionless: 1800

[ December 28, 2002, 06:22: Message edited by: spoon ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
They don't do it fast enough to prevent the riots from Lasting at least a few turns. The side-effect of empire-wide riots for even a few turns in a large empire at war can be very important to the outcome of the war. If the losses continue frequently enough, the riots won't clear, or not enough to help.

PvK

Yes they do. Stick 140 or more small troops on a planet. It will probably never riot again.

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Troops maybe, although I think you can still see a temporary hit that will be signifigant, and say 150 small troops x 200 planets = 30,000 small troops, which is a lot of resources and construction time and planetary cargo room, which an Emotionless race could be devoting to other things.

PvK

[LostCommander]

How can you tell that troops make pop happy (other than through observation) and how can you change it? Thanks

[PvK]

SE4/Data/Happiness.txt

For each happiness type, the line:

Our Troops on Planet := -2

Set to 0 to remove the effect. As you can see, the only compromise is to halve the effect, so it's not possible to just make it a minor effect.

PvK

[Fyron]

Originally posted by PvK:

quote:

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Yes they do. Stick 140 or more small troops on a planet. It will probably never riot again.

Troops maybe, although I think you can still see a temporary hit that will be signifigant, and say 150 small troops x 200 planets = 30,000 small troops, which is a lot of resources and construction time and planetary cargo room, which an Emotionless race could be devoting to other things.

PvK[/QB]

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Only takes 4 or 5 turns to build enough on most planets. Same build rate as a high-tech BB.