Why is this list important?
Because social production above and beyond the amount necessary to complete a building is not conserved, nor is it refunded. It is *wasted*. Wasted turns of production add up (and gnaw on the fragile minds of gamers who take pleasure in discovering how to play a game well).
This is in contrast to Research Production, which is conserved, and applied to the next project. Thus, if you want to play efficiently, it behooves you to micro-manage your social production in the early game such that it will be a factor of the build-point cost of the improvement you're currently building. That's a complicated sentence, here's how it works:
Let's say you're building a factory. It takes 75 build points to build. You don't want to waste your production building over 75 on the turn its completed. Thus you want your social production at this planet to be EXACTLY 1, 5, 15, 25, or 75. (You could, of course, set it to 50 the first turn, and 25 the next, but this turn-by-turn micromanagement is likely to exceed the patience of even the hard-core gamer).
Why is Social Production not conserved in the same manner that Research Production is?
A darn good question....
Are military (ship) build points conserved in the manner that research points are?
They don't appear to be, no. That said, you *can* at least see the build point cost in the ship construction screen. A colony ship, for example, cost 101 build points at the beginning of my last game, and a constructor 144. Good numbers to set such military production to would be 26 and 18(or 36), respectively.
If the build point costs of these improvements aren't listed anywhere, how did you find them?
I set my spending rate to a level so low that my homeworld was producing only 1 social build point per turn, then checked to see how many turns it would take to finish each of the listed improvements.
Why aren't the build point costs listed anywhere, as they are for ships?
Another good question.
Would it be helpful if such costs were listed in-game?
Sure would. Almost as helpful as if they were to simply conserve build-points in the manner of research production so that we players don't feel compelled to micromanage to this extent.
Until they are, however, please take the time in your games to measure the build point cost of higher tech structures. Simply set a planets spending to 1 social production, and check the number of weeks it will take to complete the various structures. I'll check back on this post to add the results to the list.
So what are the build point costs already?
Advanced Marketing Center..............60
Basic Farming.....................................50
Basic Lab.............................................40
Embassy..............................................60
Entertainment Network......................55
Factory...................................................75
Manufacturing Capitol......................500
Xeno Lab...............................................60
