PBW PvK Proportions Game #2

[Alneyan]

A destroyed planet gives an asteroid belt (of the same size as the planet), that could then be converted back into a planet. Only a Black Hole Creator can fully destroy planets (or anything else for this matter, wormholes notwithstanding).

[csebal]

Well, not all is lost then i guess.. one can always recover from the loss of his planets... Then again, it'll surely take a lot of time to build that cultural center again

[Fyron]

anyone know if it just adds 3% each year, or if it is a compound interest and how fractions are considered?

In a normal resources game, the 3% is always added linearly to the planet value. 3% goes to 6%. 100% goes to 103%. 167% goes to 170%.

[PvK]

Thanks Fyron and Alneyan for that answer.

[PvK]

csebal said:
Well, my point was, that you esentially nerfed the sh*t out of planet improvement facilities, by increasing their cost dramatically, it would be 'unfair' to leave easy to access, and extremely cheap system wide planet improving tech in the game for those who go with a certain racial tech area.

By the same kind of reasoning, any unique racial ability is 'unfair', and they all have unique abilities. The real question is whether it is unbalanced. If I turn the Nature Shrine down to 1-2% instead of max 3%, I don't think it's unbalanced at all. Even at 3%, it only looks unbalanced to me if you are in a game with peace for the first 250 turns or so, and against players who won't gang up on you to take your extra-valuable planets. In other words, even as it was, it wasn't unbalanced, it was just a pretty strong very long-term strategy that required Religious racial tech. Temporal players can also try a long-term superiority strategy with, say, temporal space yards. Psychics could try a long-term intel dominance strategy with their unique psychic intel abilities. Organics can try a long-term superiority strat with their replicant centers. Crystallines can try one by making a ringworld out of one star in a trinary system and filling it with crystalline solar generators. Anyone can try an early game blitz strategy against any of those, and will have a 1500-racial point advantage, and be able to concentrate on weapons of conquest rather than long-range investments.

With the increased price, building multiple improvement buildings is most probably out of question, you'll be happy, if you manage to build just one, so the fact, that the nature shrines do not stack is not that big of a disadvantage.

Yes, this is a good point. I needed to review the numbers. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Im not saying they should cost the same as regular tech facilities, but compared to the price of a simple value improvement plant I, even the nature shrine III can be considered 'free'.

If a 4-year investment by a strong colony can be considered 'free' from a certain perspective, then I suppose so.

FFS, the value impro plant III is more expensive than the arcology (with arcology being 350k iirc)

Good observation. Question is, of course, how long should it take to build a Value Improvement Plant? What is a Value Improvement Plant, really, anyway? How desirable is it for players to be able to simply ADD value to any planet in a linear fashion (since it lets them essentially change the map)? Etc.

and even the arcologies have a build time, thats beyond reasonable (see my previous post about the 100-150 turn barrier).

Then again, im not the average proportions user, in my own games, i always mod your mod to some extent, for example by increasing the pop growth rate somewhat, modifying various building stats (recently, i've completely readjusted the colonial facilities of 3.0 to fit my taste, changed the way research facilities are spread on the tech tree, etc...)

Maybe i should stop posting stuff like that. Simply because my opinion is rather alone on the thread - havent seen too many Posts arguing with what i said - , and i feel it may be influencing you in a way, other Users of the mod may not like.

Lets just say, i'll stick to bug reporting, and will try not to come up with suggestions on how to make the mod better for my taste
...

Ya it sounds like you prefer a slightly faster pace than the design parameters of Proportions, which I can certainly understand. Good to know.

Your comments and observations have been quite helpful. Thanks, and please let me know if you have any further feedback!

PvK

[csebal]

If a 4-year investment by a strong colony can be considered 'free' from a certain perspective, then I suppose so.

Compared to the regular facility, which takes 40+ years to build for a lesser effect? Well, compared to that, a system wide facility that 'only' takes 4 years to build is virtually free. Thats how i meant it.

Good observation. Question is, of course, how long should it take to build a Value Improvement Plant? What is a Value Improvement Plant, really, anyway? How desirable is it for players to be able to simply ADD value to any planet in a linear fashion (since it lets them essentially change the map)? Etc.

As the planet value adds to the effect of EVERY resource generator on that planet, i think the value improvement facilities are quite valuable.

and even the arcologies have a build time, thats beyond reasonable (see my previous post about the 100-150 turn barrier).

Then again, im not the average proportions user, in my own games, i always mod your mod to some extent, for example by increasing the pop growth rate somewhat, modifying various building stats (recently, i've completely readjusted the colonial facilities of 3.0 to fit my taste, changed the way research facilities are spread on the tech tree, etc...)

Maybe i should stop posting stuff like that. Simply because my opinion is rather alone on the thread - havent seen too many Posts arguing with what i said - , and i feel it may be influencing you in a way, other Users of the mod may not like.

Lets just say, i'll stick to bug reporting, and will try not to come up with suggestions on how to make the mod better for my taste
...

Ya it sounds like you prefer a slightly faster pace than the design parameters of Proportions, which I can certainly understand. Good to know.

Well, in singleplayer, i'm quite happy with the original pace, as i have all time of the world to play, and can run turns as fast i prefer.

In multiplayer games however, i found the proportions pace to be somewhat sluggish.. with turns only coming once a day - a year can pass by the time you build an arcology with the current constr. yard / facility stats. Even if it 'only' takes 100 turns to build, thats an average of 3 months, considering a one turn / day game speed.

This can - but again, this is rather subjective - make one feel like a snail, trying to reach the top of Everest.

Your comments and observations have been quite helpful. Thanks, and please let me know if you have any further feedback!

PvK

I'll certainly do. I may not agree with every change made, but all-in-one, i like your mod. Talking about it: any news about the final Version?

[PvK]

csebal said:

Compared to the regular facility, which takes 40+ years to build for a lesser effect? Well, compared to that, a system wide facility that 'only' takes 4 years to build is virtually free. Thats how i meant it.

I understand, and sympathize a little. I was just stating the counterpoint.

As the planet value adds to the effect of EVERY resource generator on that planet, i think the value improvement facilities are quite valuable.

Sure they're very valueable from the point of view of a player wanting to have one for themself. From the point of the mod designer, or of a player thinking about the type of game he wants to play, though, I think it can be desirable to limit the most powerful effects, particularly ones which don't make a lot of sense and/or which remove interesting limits which would otherwise need to be worked around. That's one of the main design themes of Proportions mod: find the things which are seem more powerful than they should be and that remove interesting choices from the game by offering ways around otherwise-interesting problems. If you can cheaply change the atmosphere of planets, or raise the value of all planets to maximum, then once that is done, the map is much less interesting because planets which were once uniquely valuable are now just average.

Well, in singleplayer, i'm quite happy with the original pace, as i have all time of the world to play, and can run turns as fast i prefer.

In multiplayer games however, i found the proportions pace to be somewhat sluggish.. with turns only coming once a day - a year can pass by the time you build an arcology with the current constr. yard / facility stats. Even if it 'only' takes 100 turns to build, thats an average of 3 months, considering a one turn / day game speed.

This can - but again, this is rather subjective - make one feel like a snail, trying to reach the top of Everest.

In Proportions multi-player, the goal should be something more like dominating the valley below Everest, because it will be 200 years before you have the technology to survive on top of Everest. There are still plenty of things to do that can be done on a shorter time scale. Maybe I should specify some victory conditions for these games, so people aren't stuck thinking they are supposed to turn the entire quadrant into utopias before getting down to business?

I'll certainly do. I may not agree with every change made, but all-in-one, i like your mod. Talking about it: any news about the final Version?

I'm sorry about the delay. I was supposed to get to finish it on Monday, but have had a steady stream of unexpected people wanting me to do unexpected major tasks immediately. I am now thinking Friday.

PvK

[Captain Kwok]

Is it me, or is the "code" font extremely small even using the larger shrapnel font? I can hardly read the items!

***

Edit: I just realized I was responding to a post for changes in Version 3.0 - not noticing that was about 100 Posts ago. Geez.

[PvK]

Heh. Actually, the browser (or OS?) Version and/or settings seem to have very different ideas about font sizes on this Version of the forum software.

On my IE6/Win98SE box, all the text is rather small.

On my IE6/WinXP box at work (where I think I have the font size turned up somewhere), it actually looks about like it used to. Then again, maybe it looks like it used to look at home, while it used to look big at work.

PvK

[csebal]

We'll see how the new game runs. I'm sure it'll be full of action, but i'll miss having really developed worlds, as building something for two - real life - years will probably not be an option when you have possible enemies - aka allies - around you.

To repeat myself: we'll see what happens.