Some comments on Proportions Mod

[oleg]

I've played Proportions since SE IV Gold come out and enjoy it immensely. Most likely, it will be my most favorable SE IV mod for a time being and beyond till full Gold compatible Bab5 mod comes out. I praised Proportions several times on this forum (check my previous Posts if in doubt) but now I want to raise a critisism. IMHO, it is absolutely nessecary to double the population growth and half the population mass. Colonization modules can either keep its cargo capacity or have it reduced - it has not much effect on game dynamics, IMHO. When I made these changes, my games become much more lovely and less stagnant. Homeworld still keeps its utmost importance for whole game, but colony world development becomes much more important and interesting. There are many more interesting options in merchandise fleet design and composition. Example: small transport can carry one poupulation and has an incencitive to actually build few. Starliner is still important, since after cargo refinement it can hold extra population. I also tried further steps from Proportions to standard SE IV but found that much less fun then simple change I mentioned above.

I also increased research costs for metropolis and made cities require constraction+industry. I introduced two lower cultural facilities "town" and "outpost", cheaper but with reduced production/research output. Actually, it was previosly suggested here and I just tried to model those ideas myself. These changes made colonies development more interesting and "realistic" . It should also help AI to construct "developd world" providing research.txt and facilty_construction.txt files are optimized to make AI build cultural facilities with reasonable speed.


P.S. This post has been dictated by my wife who is an avid fan of proportions and does not necessary reflects my opinions.

[ 28 April 2002: Message edited by: oleg ]

[ 28 April 2002: Message edited by: oleg ]

[ 28 April 2002: Message edited by: oleg ]