Population growth model and terrain rebalance/nerfs

[Hans Lemurson]

I really liked constant pop rows in CivEvo, but every civ there is guaranteed to have early access to some grassland, or food resource tiles.
In SMAC the faction that would start close to a lot of rainy terrain would dominate the game, so increasing cost of pop growth limits this runaway effect, I didn't think about it.
So not so sure about it anymore, but I'd still be curious about testing it in smac, at worst it would work fine on maps with dense cloud at least.

I too think that C-Evo did a good job of limiting the potency of ICS.
-Growth cost is constant, so larger developed cities grow population faster than small ones
-No free resources from city center.  If you don't provide the city with any farmland, it simply will not grow.
-Cities can't contribute gold/science to the empire until they complete a building

More cities were always better, but they were much slower to pay off and so you had to be smart about when and where you founded them.

You're right though that Planet's uneven rainfall could define the "winners" and "losers" a little sooner than we'd like.  C-Evo's terrain distribution was a little more even-handed.

[Nexii]

I too think that C-Evo did a good job of limiting the potency of ICS.
-Growth cost is constant, so larger developed cities grow population faster than small ones
-No free resources from city center.  If you don't provide the city with any farmland, it simply will not grow.
-Cities can't contribute gold/science to the empire until they complete a building

More cities were always better, but they were much slower to pay off and so you had to be smart about when and where you founded them.

You're right though that Planet's uneven rainfall could define the "winners" and "losers" a little sooner than we'd like.  C-Evo's terrain distribution was a little more even-handed.

Yea I tried similar modding, nerfing down the city tile production. Found you were too much at the mercy of the terrain. I'm not convinced ICS is all that overpowering in AC anyways, between B-drones and commerce effects. Some of it I'd say is overcosted facilities, reducing cost and maintenance encourages vertical development. Can also try with colony pod module costing more.

After putting borehole & condensor at Advanced Ecological Engineering, I found that sea tiles really dominated in SMAX. 3/0/3 and easily going to 4/0/4 with aquafarm and thermocline. Though it's a good point that they are a terrain equalizer. I kind of like the idea of sea being good for nutrients. It's just a little too good compared to solar on land...

[Nexii]

What's strange with the satellite bug is putting the techs back to default doesn't seem to fix the crashing once Orbital Spaceflight is discovered. There seems to be something more going on somewhere.

[Hagen0]

Vanilla forests are too good in the early game, late game with tree farms and hybrid forest they are arguably weaker than advanced terraforming. If you remove the utility of forests in the early game they simply are not an option anymore since the Condenser/Boreholes will now be even more superior since you'd need to replace you existing terraforming on top of the gigantic opportunity cost of building the forest facilities.

I like the suggestions in the OP. However, mechanics like pop booming, satellites, +2 Economy make Smac what it is. Pop booming is clearly stupid but removing it will remove some of what make Smac a unique game. I see two options, nerf/remove all the overpowered options and what you get will be quite similar to the gameplay of Civ3 or Civ4, say, with some unique flavour. This is not bad, those are good games. If you want to keep Smac's unique gameplay you will have to accept that the economy of the leading human player in SP or MP will go off through the stratosphere at some point.

[Nexii]

Yea for a similar reason I was less concerned with fungus being overpowered. Because you'd have to redo all your terraforming. Although 6 turns per tile is fast.

One aspect to Forests is their upgrade facility doesn't really come at a sunk cost like upgrading Farm/Solar. Or Thermocline/Trunkline on sea. Tree Farm is worth it for the ECON/PSYCH alone. Hybrid Forest maybe less so, but still, the ecodamage reduction is helpful.

Myself I'm all for pop booming and satellites etc. Some of these things I just think didn't require quite enough tech was all. Part of the problem is external to economic growth, 50% of the tech tree or more is conquer techs that weren't all that efficient in providing a military advantage. A lot of the time those flashy military upgrades weren't worth the extra cost. Exceptions being the needlejet and copter chassis. So beelines to the economic techs then became the optimal way to play.

I think it was mentioned the advanced terraforming should be toned down a bit in productivity. I suppose another option would be to make it pollute a lot more. It's a fine line though, which if crossed means Green economics is necessary and +2 ECON isn't a strategy anymore.

[Hagen0]

One aspect to Forests is their upgrade facility doesn't really come at a sunk cost like upgrading Farm/Solar. Or Thermocline/Trunkline on sea. Tree Farm is worth it for the ECON/PSYCH alone. Hybrid Forest maybe less so, but still, the ecodamage reduction is helpful.

You think so? 12 rows is a lot. Building them definitely put me behind vs my advanced terraforming rival in one of the few pbems I played. However, that was with 5 row crawlers. Since formers and colony pods are also more expensive in the mod maybe the trade-off is different.

[Nexii]

It's close, I think T-hawk said they were marginally not worth it if you aren't running Forests. I had them at 10/2 and crawlers at 50. Just because I was simplifying most facilities to cost multiples of 5, for some reason. I may revisit the facility costing. I've also been modding to make ecodamage relevant, so thats a consideration too.

[Tayta Malikai]

Anecdotally, Tree Farms become a lot less OP when they don't come at the same tech that lifts the energy cap. At B6 and no other changes, I never bother to build them. Though maybe I should anyway just for the energy bonuses :V

[Hagen0]

It's close, I think T-hawk said they were marginally not worth it if you aren't running Forests. I had them at 10/2 and crawlers at 50. Just because I was simplifying most facilities to cost multiples of 5, for some reason. I may revisit the facility costing. I've also been modding to make ecodamage relevant, so thats a consideration too.

That's intriguing. Where did he say that?

[Nexii]

It's in the speed run details over in the AAR forum. For awhile the fastest run did use them, but a recent faster run did not

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I am little late to the party. Just saw this thread hanging there. Interesting thoughts you have here, dino. I agree with bvanevery, though, that they are just a thoughts until thoroughly tested.

1) *Make rows of nutrients required to grow a pop constant, may be adjustable in the ini, I'd suggest 3 rows.

That definitely encourages having bigger bases. The bigger they are the faster they grow as to the mid game nutrient surplus is proportional to base size (times quality of the land, of course). I'm afraid it will be too much of the effect, though. Some jungle base size 5 with +2 nutrient surplus per working tile grows in 3 turns! And them faster and faster. It seems a bit excessive. Some actually want the game to last. Besides, players would just hit other obstacles like drones, pop-limit facilities, etc. Meaning your super fast growth won't work anyway due to other mechanisms.

Unable to grow people would turn excess nutrients into minerals (forest, mine), which is completely fine but that actually demises the initial idea of fast growing. It turns out to be unneeded.

[lolada]

Trouble with forests is that i find them too strong now again in wtp - and they are too strong in vanilla. I think it was good to nerf their build time. The thing is that they are generally good improvement with 1-2-1 yiled for many tiles so you end up with lots of them.

Farms are only good if you can turn tiles into 2-1-x or 3-1-x.. where 2-1-1 is kind of barelly any good. You end up with moderate amount of these. Now once you get Tree Farms forests turn into 2-2-1 and smart thing to do is to remove almost all of 2-1-x tiles and you end up with very few farms. Then there's little point planning to build Condensers and Echellon mirrors; in the end its forest almost everything strat. These adv. terraforming improvements are AOE, but since there's so few tiles around in farms/solars there's really no good places to build them.

Sometimes, terrain is good green rainy, rolling so one can place a Condensers and/or Mirror, but in  general the best strat is to forest vast amounts of land. Food is too important.

I would consider removing Food yield from Tree Farms and placing it on Hybrid Forests. That makes farms/solars much more valuable.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

With access to some rainy tile rocky mine is more mineral effective than forest.
rainy farm + forest = 1.25 minerals/worker + 0.5 extra energy/worker
2 rainy farms + rocky mine = 1.67 minerals/worker

What would you replace TF bonus nutrient - energy?

[lolada]

I was hoping you would come with some interesting idea 

I am pretty sure that Tree forests being 2-2-1 kills lots of farms for the good frome the game. Only farms that stay are 2-1-3 or 2-1-4.. or 3+-1-x which are rare. So in order to balance terraforming there needs to be more good farms or forests can't be that good (2-2-1) so early.

For example, Soil enricher is great but it comes late so its irrelevant. Condensers/Mirros help but they also come late and are situational, unless you get Weather Paradigm.

- So one solution would be to unlock Condenser earlier or in same time as Tree forests. So one can build them and 3-1-x tiles are comparable to 2-2-1 from farms. If they come later farms are gone already. That sounds good unless i am somehow badly wrong. When are Condensers unlocked?

Its about design i guess - i would like to see rolling tiles turned to rains and farm/mined.. with ocassional Condenser and Mirror, and those arid areas maybe forested. This way one could leave Tree farms 2-2-1 but they do need to come into game late enough to allow some better farm terraforming.

- Another option is just to give them energy... what else  - then it it is 1-2-2 tile which is pretty interesting.. 1-2-3 with +2 ECO. But you need to get food to work those forests - so farms and coast is important. That also looks good.

Hybrid forests can have nutrients. These facilities are great anyway since they boost eco and psych and both are great.

Mines are good - they are great source of minerals when minerals are needed and drones are a problem.
Boreholes are also zz when you can build forests - i didn't build even one they just do little for lots of eco dmg.

So this is my Spartan game, this is how my terraforming ended up. Lots of forests and I am actually removing 2-1-x farm and there's no way I am going to remove forests and search for places to build Condensers at this point. Formers actually die in this time period.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I was hoping you would come with some interesting idea 

I am pretty sure that Tree forests being 2-2-1 kills lots of farms for the good frome the game. Only farms that stay are 2-1-3 or 2-1-4.. or 3+-1-x which are rare. So in order to balance terraforming there needs to be more good farms or forests can't be that good (2-2-1) so early.

Try out recent wtp nutrient model. It gives +2 to farm making forest less competitive to farm+solar. It is still pretty good on arid/flat tiles especially with HF later on.

But even in vanilla they are not used everywhere just probably at 20-40% worst tiles. Nutrients are very important and forest will never be comparable to farming. More nutrients = bigger bases = more of everything. Initially forest is not even self sustaining. With TF it is but it is not enough at this point in game. HF makes forest bases grow but this is still too slow at this point in time with condensers+enrichers. Forest bases will always be behind in population and, therefore, behind in all other resources. The fact that they produce decent amount of minerals and energy is a temporary trade-off. It would be quite useful if one can quickly switch farms for growth to forests for minerals but it is impossible. Bases are stuck with their land improvement type for long.

With the above in mind we should not compare yield of one forest tile to one farm+solar tile. We should compare yield of one forest tile to about two farm+solar tiles. 👆