New Facility Idea- What's your opinion ?

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, Dogscoff, taking your idea a step further...

How about if the space on a planet is a single resource pool? You can build industrial facilities to support your empire, and use a certain amount of space, you can build housing for population, and use a certain amont of space, or you can store cargo -- troops, WPs, satellites, etc. -- and use that same space! This means that the 'cargo facility' would go out the window, of course. You'd get extra cargo space by NOT building facilities.

Combined with the 'labor' resource rules discussed in another thread this would make empire management very interesting. You'd have to balance industry with the population needed to operate it. If you over-develop a world it gets harder to defend it. And if you over-defend a world it gets harder to develop. And with no clear boundary on population you can have over-populated worlds, too. What next, birth control policies? Certainly there would be expansionist pressures on empires with a lot of over-populatd planets.

[ July 04, 2002, 21:00: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[geoschmo]

Guys, really. If you want all that, just play Outpost. Don't you think there is enough to keep track of as it is with SEIV?

Geo

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Guys, really. If you want all that, just play Outpost. Don't you think there is enough to keep track of as it is with SEIV?

Geo

Well, if the AI managed ships better there wouldn't be so much to keep track of. But anyway, I don't like a 'pure' war game. I want a simulation that includes the possibility of armed conflict. SimCity is nice but too simplistic. The previous generations of 4X games were just plain to simplistic. MOO 3 seems to be moving in the right direction. I'm really looking forward to it even if it has been reduced a lot from the ambitious original design.

So, yes, I think it's worthwhile to discuss how to flesh out the infrastructure underlying your empire.

[Spuzzum]

Same here, Baron -- conflict and armed battles are fun and all, but for me the thrill of playing space games is the chance to be an evil or not-so-evil overlord, controlling my population with an iron or fleshy fist and being forced to negotiate and fight off the threat of those hideous or not-so-hideous aliens.

Food for thought: some of the most entertaining competitive games of all time, like M.U.L.E., featured no combat at all. ;-)

[jimbob]

Well, this isn't quite the same, but I was thinking of having a racial trait of "subterranian" (as seen in MOO2) that costs 2000 to 2500 points. You can't actually have more population, but you could simulate it by having "larger" facilities (reaching deep into the ground) that produce more resources/intel/research because they house more workers. These facilities would say produce 50% more than the typical facilities at each level. Thus you would have 50% more facilities (kind of).

I didn't actually execute this mod because there are just so many buildings that would need to be added to the game, and quite frankly, I like being married But maybe some one else would like to run with it?

Cheers,

[Suicide Junkie]

There's not a whole lot of difference between that and the racial trait "Advanced Storage", ISTM.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by jimbob:
Well, this isn't quite the same, but I was thinking of having a racial trait of "subterranian" (as seen in MOO2) that costs 2000 to 2500 points. You can't actually have more population, but you could simulate it by having "larger" facilities (reaching deep into the ground) that produce more resources/intel/research because they house more workers. These facilities would say produce 50% more than the typical facilities at each level. Thus you would have 50% more facilities (kind of).

I didn't actually execute this mod because there are just so many buildings that would need to be added to the game, and quite frankly, I like being married But maybe some one else would like to run with it?

Cheers,

If a population expansion power were available that gave a percentage increase you could do this with a much smaller mod. Just create a 'Subterranean Levels' Facility that increases population by X percent and all production by X percent. Since all those 'planet wide' abilities are only effective once, there's no need to control how many get built. No reason to build more than one.

But, I think the main reason MM might not want to make a population storage ability is just that it might reduce the value of 'Advanced Storage Techniques'.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
But, I think the main reason MM might not want to make a population storage ability is just that it might reduce the value of 'Advanced Storage Techniques'.

Wouldn't a person choose to still use AST with the population storage, since it gives 4 more facility slots that are able to make your homeworld from 4.8 billion to 9.6 billion?

[Baron Munchausen]

Oh sure, many people would like it anyway because you'd have more to begin with and could still add the facilities to increase it. I'm just speculating. I don't really know why MM hasn't added this fairly simple ability. If enough people request it he probably will.

[dogscoff]

How about if the space on a planet is a single resource pool?

Good idea. Very good idea.

Guys, really. If you want all that, just play Outpost. Don't you think there is enough to keep track of as it is with SEIV?

Well, we already have to manage population, facility construction and unit storage. All I'm suggesting is a more flexible way of implementing it. I don't think it would create much extra micromanagement for the player, but it would open up a whole new swathe of possible strategies and playstyles.