How many FOP should a tile be worth?

[Yitzi]

As the subject line says: How many FOP do you feel a tile should be worth?  (For balance, this should be the same across different terraforming strategies, except for the modifiers listed below.)  Of course, this depends a lot on your tech level and how much you put into it, so here are the modifiers:

1. Basic value, for cheap terraforming at low tech.
2. How many extra former-turns for +1 FOP?  This assumes 20-mineral formers (30 with clean); more or less would be treated as more or less accordingly.
3. At what tech levels should it increase, and by how much?  (e.g. +1 at AEE, or +2 at Ecological Engineering/Environmental Economics).  As in the second example, this doesn't have to be a single tech, but they should all be in the same rough vicinity (early game, midgame, late game, etc.)
4. How many minerals' worth of ecodamage for +1 FOP (assuming all tech-appropriate ecological facilities)?  Note that this will become irrelevant after hybrid forests, but that doesn't have to be so early.
5. Anything else you want to adjust for.

Also, nutrients are a special case because they can feed specialists, which later in the game makes them worth more than the others.  Therefore, FOP here means the equivalent of minerals or energy; nutrients can then be adjusted based on the specialists available.
Finally, crawled spaces are, for these purposes, considered to be worth the amount brought in by the crawler plus the energy production of one specialist.

A balanced game should roughly follow something of this formula, so that should help a lot in figuring out how best to make things work.

[testdummy653]

I don't understand why this needs to be changed for balancing purposes.

[Yitzi]

A perfect example is comparing farm/solar with a small amount of advanced terraforming to hybrid forest or a lot of advanced terraforming.  Farm/solar is quite clearly inferior in such a circumstance, i.e. unbalanced.  Different people might have different opinions on whether that means farm/solar should be improved or its competitors should be nerfed; as long as things roughly follow a formula of the form found in the OP, however, it will be (roughly) balanced.

[ete]

I'm not sure that there is a non-extremely complex or subjective formula which would accurately express this, given that each resource is quite distinct and there's so much diversity in squares (e.g. Farm/Solar working well compared to forest on high altitude rainy squares (which are pretty rare in most starting positions, leading to it being generally weak), and the interaction between various bonuses and improvements).

It seems perhaps more useful to go through all the possible combinations of improvements/bonuses/intrinsic properties in a spreadsheet which also outputs former turns, and see if anything looks like it should be changed.

[testdummy653]

I think of former actions like the unit design workshop. Things become obsolete. Solar/Farm become obsolete when tree farming and hybrid forest are developed. Farm/Solar can return to usefulness with condensers and mirrors. Late game fungus (with the right Secret Projects) can be more useful than Forests.

For me it would be really unbalanced if only one faction or two factions can utilized forests. This is not the case. Why fix or balance something thats not broke?

[Yitzi]

I'm not sure that there is a non-extremely complex or subjective formula which would accurately express this, given that each resource is quite distinct and there's so much diversity in squares (e.g. Farm/Solar working well compared to forest on high altitude rainy squares (which are pretty rare in most starting positions, leading to it being generally weak), and the interaction between various bonuses and improvements).

There is that, to some extent, which is part of why it can be somewhat rough, but we can restrict to moderately common squares (say, nothing starting over 2000 feet, and they can't start as rainy, rolling, and over 1000 feet), and assume that farm/solar will be used toward the higher end of that.  Bonuses are rare enough to largely be discounted; if something is only worth using on a bonus, it probably needs a boost.

It seems perhaps more useful to go through all the possible combinations of improvements/bonuses/intrinsic properties in a spreadsheet which also outputs former turns, and see if anything looks like it should be changed.

Just compare farm/solar with a moderate amount of condensers/mirrors/raising land to a mix of boreholes and forests that has the same former-time cost, and it should be fairly clear that something needs changing.

I think of former actions like the unit design workshop. Things become obsolete. Solar/Farm become obsolete when tree farming and hybrid forest are developed. Farm/Solar can return to usefulness with condensers and mirrors.

Except that it really doesn't unless you do a lot of raising land as well.  Putting solars (as we're looking at farm/solar, not at "crawl nutrients and build energy parks", i.e. having both in one square) means that condensers have to be rare (as you can't have a condenser and solar in the same square), which means that you're only getting 3 nutrients per square.  There's 0 or 1 minerals per square (depending on if it's flat or rolling), so to match a forest's 3/2/2 you need 3-4 energy per square (before Free Market), which can't really be done with only mirrors, so you need to raise land substantially. 
Of course once you're doing that, you're spending so much former time that the forests could likewise have boreholes; putting a borehole in every fourth square raises the forest former-time cost from 4 per tile to 9 per tile, which is comparable or a bit less to what you need to match just forests.  And of course with a borehole in every fourth square, you need even more former work to match it, as you'll need 4-5 energy per square.

Late game fungus (with the right Secret Projects) can be more useful than Forests.

True, but even that is weaker than crawling nutrients and supporting a whole lot of transcendi.

For me it would be really unbalanced if only one faction or two factions can utilized forests.

That's because you're only looking at balance between players, whereas I'm considering balance between strategies.

[ete]

Discounting bonuses from this will lose important context, the bonuses are very often key determining factors about which improvement to build and will produce a significant amount of extra resources especially in earlygame, and they're not *that* rare.

hm, I'm actually pretty okay with solar's current power at high altitudes at least, energy parks are already pretty great (and with EM's trick for raising land, it's not too former turn intensive). Farms may not be that good in the early game except in rareish situations (like Jungle and rainy Nutrient bonuses), but combined with other Nutrient boosts they are amazing crawling for specialist feeding. Forests should be and are the staple which you're going to want on a lot of your land, and that seems fine. Trying to make forming work with zero forests seems silly. All the other enhancements have significant uses, though they're going to be on less squares, and players who use all the enhancements smartly are going to come out ahead.

Basically: Forests are the standard all round decent cheap option, all others have key but much more specialized uses. Trying to make the specialist-use improvements able to effectively entirely replace the all round decent one is unnecessary and seems likely to unbalance the game in other ways.

The real issue is the AI does not appropriately terraform and fails to use the staple all round good option, fixing that rather than trying to rebalance the game around what the AI likes doing would be more productive.

[Yitzi]

Discounting bonuses from this will lose important context, the bonuses are very often key determining factors about which improvement to build and will produce a significant amount of extra resources especially in earlygame, and they're not *that* rare.

Firstly, there isn't really that much impact from bonuses on what to build except in the early game (when they help in terms of resource restrictions); most improvements don't give a percentage increase, and therefore +2 minerals is +2 minerals no matter what's under it.

hm, I'm actually pretty okay with solar's current power at high altitudes at least, energy parks are already pretty great (and with EM's trick for raising land, it's not too former turn intensive). Farms may not be that good in the early game except in rareish situations (like Jungle and rainy Nutrient bonuses), but combined with other Nutrient boosts they are amazing crawling for specialist feeding.

Yes, solars have their strengths, and farms have their strengths, but farm/solar (the combination on a single tile) is underpowered if you feel (like me) that it's not meant to occur only in the early game.

Forests should be and are the staple which you're going to want on a lot of your land, and that seems fine. Trying to make forming work with zero forests seems silly.

It can be done, by using condensers to make squares into rainy, but certainly before condensers it's a good choice for arid squares, and maybe even moist/flat.  But for forests to be the best choice even for a rolling/rainy square seems fairly absurd. 

Basically: Forests are the standard all round decent cheap option, all others have key but much more specialized uses.

So what is the use of a square with both farm and solar after hybrid forests?

[Earthmichael]

Firstly, there isn't really that much impact from bonuses on what to build except in the early game (when they help in terms of resource restrictions); most improvements don't give a percentage increase, and therefore +2 minerals is +2 minerals no matter what's under it.

That is simply not true!  A rocky square with a +2 mineral special is golden!  It can be mined/road to produce 7 minerals, which is huge in the early game.

If you have a map with poor average terrain, forest is your salvation; it can turn any non-rocky square into something halfway decent.

Opportunities in the early game come up for rainy/solar, but it really depends on the map.  Some of the maps I have been playing lately must have been generated with some really harsh terrain setting, with extremely few rainy squares (just on the side of mountains), and bad terrain in general.  This includes Cage Match, WFOS, LMS, etc. On those maps, forest is your friend.  Even still, there are a few good spots for farming/solar.  But most maps have some rainy/rolling squares with 1000+ elevation that can be turned into 3/1/2+, which I would say is generally more useful that a forest even with a tree farm.

Also, the value of various FOPS vary based on the terrain and tech level.  In the early game, when there are relatively few drone suppression techs, you want enough food to grow to some reasonable level, but after that, the base does not need any more food.  So for some bases with insufficient food around, farming must be a priority; with other bases that already have a few rainy squares accessible, you don't need to farm.  However, I tend to farm/solar those rainy squares that I am using anyway, to get the most out of them.  The last thing you want to do is plant a forest on a rainy/rolling square at that stage of the game!  But the early game seem to me to thrive on minerals, so you make enough food to harvest as many forests as you can.  Your mine rocky squares of course, and send your supply crawlers there.

In the late game, food and energy are king.  Food (with sats), allow you to get more people, which allow you to get specialists and sat resouces, once you have harvested the worthwhile squares.  And energy has some huge multipliers available!  So in this case, you terraform for maximum food, and maximum energy while you are at it.  So forests give way to farm/condensor/enricher/solar/mirror, etc., depend on what is appropriate for each square.

In the mid game, things are variable.  You have some energy multiplying techs.  You have some specialists.  You have some food improvements.  You probably have a decent number of terraformers.  So you have to weight it out: what does that base really need, and what is the best use of the underlying terrain at that stage.

But I believe that things are not unbalanced, that everything has its uses depending upon the underlying terrain, and that this varies based on the state of the game.  Again, I consider this part of the richness of the strategy, to make the most out of your land based on the terrain and the tech you have, and what your base needs most.

[Yitzi]

That is simply not true!  A rocky square with a +2 mineral special is golden!  It can be mined/road to produce 7 minerals, which is huge in the early game.

Ok, I wasn't aware that the actual rule for the effect of roads (in squares with mines) is "+33% to minerals" rather than the stated +1 to minerals.  So that's three cases where bonuses change the effectiveness of a particular improvement type: Nutrients boost enrichers, nutrients boost condensers, and minerals boost mine/road.

If you have a map with poor average terrain, forest is your salvation; it can turn any non-rocky square into something halfway decent.

Opportunities in the early game come up for rainy/solar, but it really depends on the map.

Yes, it definitely depends on the map.  What I want is that even after the early game, farm/solar should be worthwhile in fairly good squares (say, before you work on it it has 2 of: nutrient bonus, rainy, rolling, over 1000 feet, over 2000 feet).

But most maps have some rainy/rolling squares with 1000+ elevation that can be turned into 3/1/2+, which I would say is generally more useful that a forest even with a tree farm.

Yes, but it becomes weaker at hybrid forest.  But I'd like to see it be enough for it to be rainy/rolling OR rainy/1000+ elevation OR moist/rolling/1000+ elevation, without needing all three (a fairly rare occurrence to happen naturally) to make farm/solar be worth it.

Also, the value of various FOPS vary based on the terrain and tech level.

True to some extent, but overall it seems to be fairly close to even until nutrients pull ahead.  Minerals might be worth more than energy in the early game, but you'd still rather have 2 energy than 1 minerals.

In the early game, when there are relatively few drone suppression techs, you want enough food to grow to some reasonable level, but after that, the base does not need any more food.

Well, it can usually use it (citizens being capable of producing more than 2 energy+minerals), but it becomes fairly weak.  But that situation will begin to lift as early as Planetary Networks; by the time you have research hospitals, food is close to being worth as much as the others, and it only grows from there.

But the early game seem to me to thrive on minerals

Yes, until the energy-increasing stuff comes along.

So forests give way to farm/condensor/enricher/solar/mirror, etc., depend on what is appropriate for each square.

Which in an unmodded game is always farm/condenser/enricher; the condenser is worth 2 extra nutrients; putting that into specialists, plus the specialist from being able to crawl the space rather than work it (since it's all nutrients) is worth far more than focusing on energy could give you.  (Possible exception: If commerce is a huge thing for you.  But it'd have to be really big.)

In the mid game, things are variable.  You have some energy multiplying techs.  You have some specialists.  You have some food improvements.  You probably have a decent number of terraformers.  So you have to weight it out: what does that base really need, and what is the best use of the underlying terrain at that stage.

And the answer is always going to be either "crawl nutrients" or "crawl energy" or "forests and spend the extra former time on rivers and boreholes."

that everything has its uses depending upon the underlying terrain, and that this varies based on the state of the game.

So I ask you: Describe a type of underlying terrain where in the midgame (say you've got AEE, engineers, and hybrid forests, but no satellites), it is worth using squares with both farm and solar.

[Earthmichael]

You want to speculate on a game where someone researches Planetary Economics before Orbital Spaceflight?

It just does not happen in real games.  I would go so far as to say that anyone who beelined to Planetary Economics would almost certainly lose the game to the player who went for Orbital Spaceflight, assuming they had a balanced start.

Similarly, once would certainly be able to raise land before Hybrid Forest, and even build condensors on or nearby, since condensors affect nearby squares.  So if we have a rainy/rolling square raised to 3000+ feet, it certainly has options that rival or exceed Hybrid forest, and even more so once soil enrichers become available.

But my main point earlier is that solar/farm can be quite useful in the early game.  By the time Hybrid Forest becomes available, we are in the mid-game, and to me it is fine for the balance to shift a bit.  But even in the mid-game, farm/collector is still a viable option as long as you raise the land to 3000+ feet, which is something that you might want to do anyway for other strategic reasons.  In the late game, farm/collector is still viable, though some might to forgo the energy and crawl as you suggest, but I rarely every do that.  In the late game, I would rather develop remote lands and send crawlers to them via magtubes rather than crawl the squares that I can easily collect.

My vets maps games illustrate this.  By the end of most games, I still have many farm/solar squares working.  But the Morgan "Market Forces" map is not as well suited to this situation.  I have only a few farm/solar squares on the Market Forces map.

[testdummy653]

That's because you're only looking at balance between players, whereas I'm considering balance between strategies.

Not every strategy is good. Just because one strategy doesn't work with the game, doesn't mean the game needs to be changed to make the strategy work.

Plus I think you underestimate the power of fungus.

[ete]

What testdummy said. I don't see a reason for farm/solar to remain available as a primary strategy on all maps at all stages of the game, it's already handy in specific situations but generally not a staple. That seems fine.

And fungus is kinda a different issue, it's not insanely good until Manifold Harmonics (without that, it's only pretty good even with all the techs, not amazing because you've got other great options), at which point there's all sorts of insanely good SPs flying around (cloning vats, telepathic matrix, almost transendence) so it seems like less relevant.

[Yitzi]

You want to speculate on a game where someone researches Planetary Economics before Orbital Spaceflight?

Or on a game where satellites have been nerfed so that you can no longer get the most powerful satellite as early as Orbital Spaceflight.  Or after orbital defense pods are available and you can't really keep satellites up easily.

Similarly, once would certainly be able to raise land before Hybrid Forest, and even build condensors on or nearby, since condensors affect nearby squares.  So if we have a rainy/rolling square raised to 3000+ feet, it certainly has options that rival or exceed Hybrid forest

After running the calculations, I agree.  So I suppose it does work, though only if you raise land a lot (and use a substantial number of mirrors and condensers).  In particular, forest/borehole is worth 2.25/3/3 per square and takes 9 former-turns per square, whereas rainy/rolling/3000+ with good condenser and mirror placement and enrichers will probably give around 4/.05/6 per square and take a bit over 30 former-turns (and 25-50 energy) per square.  So it does become viable when you've got a lot of formers (for comparison, the step from forests to forest/borehole takes 4 former-turns per FOP increase; this takes around 10.)

However, this only lasts until hab domes; after that, it's usually even better to just crawl nutrients (and once you get transcendi or can keep resource satellites up, it's definitely better to crawl nutrients.)  Although I wonder if the best answer there might be just to have some lategame tech allow crawlers to get all three resource types just like a worker...

Even so, I think that condensers should probably be nerfed to work like the datalinks say, as 6 nutrients per square without any resource bonuses is a bit much.

But my main point earlier is that solar/farm can be quite useful in the early game.  By the time Hybrid Forest becomes available, we are in the mid-game, and to me it is fine for the balance to shift a bit.

Whereas I feel it's fine for the balance to shift a bit, but not for it to become close to monolithic.

But even in the mid-game, farm/collector is still a viable option as long as you raise the land to 3000+ feet

Actually, it generally won't be without condensers and mirrors, but point taken.

In the late game, farm/collector is still viable, though some might to forgo the energy and crawl as you suggest, but I rarely every do that.  In the late game, I would rather develop remote lands and send crawlers to them via magtubes rather than crawl the squares that I can easily collect.

Why not do both?  It's only 30 minerals per square (which is next to nothing in the late game), and that way you can replace the solar collectors with condensers everywhere, giving you 3 extra engineers or transcendi per square (assuming hydroponics labs), which is worth far more than you could possibly hope to get from that solar collector.  As things stand, and if you can keep satellites up, nothing competes with crawling nutrients in the late game; even fungus with Manifold Harmonics and playing as the Gaians with Eudaimonic is only worth it if a specialist's output (5-6 energy by this point) is worth less than .66 minerals and 1.33 energy (pretty much impossible unless you really don't care about tech at that point).

Not every strategy is good. Just because one strategy doesn't work with the game, doesn't mean the game needs to be changed to make the strategy work.

True, but if a strategy as clearly intended to work as farm/solar doesn't work, that probably indicates more.  (Of course, now Earthmichael has shown that it actually does work, though it still requires a fairly high amount of former time.)

Plus I think you underestimate the power of fungus.

I don't think so.  Even when playing as the Gaians, fungus doesn't match the effectiveness of non-tree-farm forests until Centauri Genetics or advanced specialists; it doesn't match tree farms until Centauri Genetics and advanced specialists, and it doesn't match hybrid forests until Temporal Mechanics or the Manifold Harmonics, by which point crawling nutrients is way better in most situations.

If anything, fungus needs a bit of a boost; as a late-game project, the Manifold Harmonics should actually be fairly strong.

[Earthmichael]

If you want to slightly nerf the late game supremacy of Nutrients, then you could cap the maximum number of useable sats to some high number, say 24.  This would allow one to work every square of a city with sat support, but would limit the pure Nutrient strategy.  Or one could possibly change sats to not give resources for specialists, but not being a modder myself, I am not sure that is implementable.