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Join Date 03/2006

1.1 Population System Query

A mathmatical query about the new Beta 1.1 population system, in the list of whats new it says:

Here's the thing: If you drain a population down to only a few billion, it'll take you a very long time to recover. Say goodbye to mass colony rush. You'll need to be very careful or else you could end up with a vast empire of tiny populations producing no money while smaller empires grow beyond you and conquer your weak but large empire.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but if I've understood correctly this isn't so because whether you split you population or not you end up with the same total population growth.

For example, consider a world with 4 billion inhabitants and 5% population growth, after n turns it's population will be:

4 * (1.05^n)

However, instead consider two worlds each with 2 billion inhabitants. Assuming both worlds have 5% population growth, EACH world's population at n turns is defined by:

2 * (1.05^n)

However there are two worlds, so your population total for BOTH worlds after n turns is:

2 * 2 * (1.05^n) =
4 * (1.05^n)

i.e. it makes no difference to your total galactic population growth (and hence your tax revenue growth) whether you split a population across two worlds or not.

Of course the usual advantages / disadvantages for splitting a population apply, but these have always come out in favour of colonizing as many planets as fast as possible in the past and I imagine that'll be the case in 1.1 as well. Slowing down population growth does mean that it's not quite so absolutely essential to do well in the colony rush, but it doesn't give any penalties to rushing.

Of course an extra bonus to splitting a population is that now population growth is slower you need all you can get, and splitting a population across two worlds incours less overpopulation penalty to morale (and hence to population growth).

So as I see it, unless something else is going on, the new population rules don't make the colony rush any less important than it was before

Thanks

Tom

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There's only two factors that makes the original statement true:

1) You can't afford to let people stay on colonyships, because every turn they are on there, they don't grow. Before, with the fast growth rate, this is not really a problem, now it is somewhat more serious, although still not that big of a deal.

2) The maintenance cost of new colonies. Before when you colonize a planet, in a few turns it will produce way more than the maintenance value. Now it takes much longer. So you will be 'paying' for those colonies more so than before.

Both of these factors serve to slow down the rush, but at a really insignificant rate, because anyone can see that it is still much more useful to grab planets and wait a while instead of not doing so, and let the AI take them. The change to population just makes the pop growth ability useful, or even overpowered, but otherwise, has no significant impact on how the game is played.

If the intention was to slow down the colony rush, all that is really needed is to increase the cost of the colony modules. I've modded this in, and have been happy with the result. With each colony ship costing 2500+ BC, you just can't afford to buy a lot, and building them takes much longer as well, thus significantly slowly down the rushing. If you think about it, the initial colony is a farm, a factory, and a research center in one, but the cost of the colony module that made it is nowhere near the result.

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Kalin:

Agreed on both points

The second point could be crucial, if a planet has a fixed maintenance cost to be overcome then having lots of planets with full maintenance cost but low tax incomes would indeed be a big economic disadvantage. Especially with slower population growth, because it has to be suffered for longer. I've not looked into how maintenance is calculated.

The dev's post suggested that the population growth rate was reduced in order to solve the super land grab that people complain about: "Say goodbye to mass colony rush". As I say, perhaps I've misunderstood, but it seems that the devs are saying that if you split your big fast growing population you'll end up with a few small slow growing populations. Which is what you might expect, but not actually true.

Yes, increasing the cost of the colony module seems like a much better solution. It means in order to colonise quickly you need to get the economy right on the home planet. It also means that it's worth building scouts (which are now much cheaper than colony ships) and finding the best planets to colonise, rather than spamming colony ships. I'll have to try modding it to do that

edit: thinking about it, point 2) could be crucial

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i.e. it makes no difference to your total galactic population growth (and hence your tax revenue growth) whether you split a population across two worlds or not.

Well, yes and no. Let's apply some real numbers to see where the difference is:

On a world of 4 billion, a 5% growth rate means you gain 200 million per turn. I forget where the cap is, but I think 200 million is it. For the purposes of my post, let us assume that it is. This means no matter how many people you world can hold, the growth rate is going to be capped at 200 million. If the max population of this world is 10 billion, it will take you 30 turns to reach the max population.

Now, let's say you 'split' the 4 billion to 2 planets, both of which can hit 10 billion. A 5% growth rate on 2 billion people means you will have 100 million new colonists the first turn but since that is not the cap the numbers will change slightly until you hit 4 billion (at which point 5% will be our theoretical cap of 200 million per turn). However, in order to hit 4 billion on these worlds, you will need almost 20 (since I'm lazy and don't want to do the math each turn adding a small new amount to the total growth) turns in order to hit 4 billion colonists on the planet. Then, from there, you will take another 30 turns to reach the limit.

While your tax revenue will be the same regardless of splitting the population or not, your population on each world will be low for some time, and thus require fewer troops to conquer when the enemy comes a-rolling in.

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Ofcourse one solution is as follows:

Each new planet will have a time when the colonizers are "terraforming" the planet more suitable for human (alien) life. During this time the population growth is halved and the colony maintenance is raised a lot. The time might be dependant on how much population there is on the planet. What does this accomplish?

You can't afford to colonize too many planets before your economy can handle it. If you send little population to every new colony to take the planets. You will have to pay a lot for each colony and for a long time too, because the terraforming time is dependant on the size of the population. If you send a lot of population to the new colonies, your home planet will take a serious hit. As it is now, it doesn't really matter on which planet your population is. Actually because of the square root of taxes, it is kind of good to spread out your population. But with the new system, you will have a large portion of your population not growing fast. Maybe make the terraforming even linear, to add noice to the decision making. IE it doesn't end at given turn, but advances steadily to the goal of being as good a planet as your homeplanet.

At the moment it really doesn't matter on which planet your population is, as long as you don't have economy boosters on some of the planets. With this system, it _does_ matter that you have as much as possible population on your main planet to grow the population fast enough. On the other hand you want to have a lot of population on other planets to terraform them faster. But then you will take a growth hit. If you colonize too fast, your economy can't handle it. Too slow and you are in big problems in the end game. Now you just rush, with the new system you need to think what to do. Sounds fun to me.

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Large populations are essential for troops for invasions. However, I have noticed that I can take a single ship with 1B troops and take a planet of 10B with minimum casualties now with 1.1. This is with no extra soldiering ability, or any additional techs beyond planetary invasion.

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Draknost:

Definitely, by splitting you'll end up with two worlds with lower population on each, but the total is the same

Also agreed, you end up with some relatively undefended planets although the benefits of land grabbing probably outweigh that in the early game (when no one has planetary invasion researched, much less the resources to do it).

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I actually don't like the fact that the "colony rush" has been nerfed. It was fun to expand as fast as you wanted. It made finding as many planets as possible early in the game a game in and of itself. If you didn't want to do that, using occasional planets and stars takes that down quite well.

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*Deleted* double post

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Ahh Link explains planetary maintenance, so yes splitting your population too much doesn't reduce your tax income it'll just cripple you with planet maintenance costs. Makes sense.

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(double post)

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The tax income is being worked on so that planets with higher population will give you more money.

With the increased number of habitable planets on Abundant, colony rush has been nerfed on a big map, you do run out of money. You have to pause and give your population time to catch up. Still even before the patch I would pause at about a dozen worlds to build up some industry base, otehrwise I would be terribly unpreapared in case of a war.

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Yeah and I won't be able to drain 2B people off of a 5B world anymore when my transport planets are low on people. Becuase if I suck too many people off, it'll take even longer to grow.

It's mainly the growth rate that is going to hurt the colony rush. Pre-1.1 beta, you could go to 100% spending and keep that and just when you hit about 500-1.5k BC left you start to get close to breaking even. After 1.1 beta, you're gonna have to either stop colonizing or get some cash some other way.

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It costs about 10X times as much to buy a colony ship than to build it. Since your tax base will grow much slower in v1.1, it makes more sense to take the time to build the colony ships and save your money sense it will take much longer to get into the black with 100% spending rate.

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I'm really, really enjoying the economy and population changes in 1.1.

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

It costs about 10X times as much to buy a colony ship than to build

Thank you.

Other than grabbing some high PQ plum planet, I never buy a colony ship. Furthermore on anything up to a medium map I build them all on my home planet. I do buy factories to turn out constructors. Up to tough, you can outcolonize the AI without buying colony ships.

... but buying colony ships is fine if it is working for you. We all have our pet strategies

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For example, consider a world with 4 billion inhabitants and 5% population growth, after n turns it's population will be:

4 * (1.05^n)

However, instead consider two worlds each with 2 billion inhabitants. Assuming both worlds have 5% population growth, EACH world's population at n turns is defined by:

2 * (1.05^n)

However there are two worlds, so your population total for BOTH worlds after n turns is:

2 * 2 * (1.05^n) =
4 * (1.05^n)

i.e. it makes no difference to your total galactic population growth (and hence your tax revenue growth) whether you split a population across two worlds or not.

Well, that works as long as you don't reach the pop growth cap limit : 200 millions per planet

And don't forget you get an extra pop growth with 100% morale on a planet

And yes, it doesn't make any difference to tax growth IF the tax income is linear with the population

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Splitting population gives you way more tax revenue, because tax grows with the square root of the population. So splitting your population across 4 planets (evenly) gives you 4X the upkeep costs, but also 2X the tax revenue. Since tax revenue is generally greater than upkeep (at least, with +econ and +growth picks), splitting your population typically gives you more money... or without +econ picks, at least it doesn't hurt you very much.

In my opinion:

Colony modules (and troop modules) are way too cheap.
Invading troops have way too much of an advantage - if an enemy troop transport hits my planet, no matter how high the population (normally 5B or 9B or 10B cap), I either lose or just barely, barely survive.
Population growth bonuses seem broken - I don't think +70% growth gives +70%... it feels more like +200%.

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Splitting population gives you way more tax revenue, because tax grows with the square root of the population.

Well, not sure if it will be still the case in the final 1.1 patch

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