Growth = bad?

[Rustwork]

i have been focusing on growth alot more lately, and it has given me a distinct advantage. i build entertainment very earlier. usually a factory or two and then entertainment. i try to keep as many colonies at 100% as i can. so far i've only played the AI as high as challenging. my growth rate soars on the graphs compared to other races. my economy follows the same curve.
i want to know how much population adds, compared to more improvements. for example: i'm at 5bil, a farm will take me to 9bil. should i build another lab or market instead.
optimizing a balance between all the elements in this game is what to me is the most challenging.
as for morale. keep it as high as you can early in the game. grow planets quick. just like cities in civ. later when the planets are maxed, demand more taxes and merely keep them satisfied.

[Gufnork]

A farm + entertainment center gives you more income than 2 markets. They provide no research or production so it's not comparable to labs or factories.

I play just like you, entertainment center is the first thing I build after factories on all my planets and I generally have a very low tax rate in the beginning.

[tetley]

In the beta I have been playing as Neutral, and I don't even need entertainment centers. If I can grab a yellow starbase, harmony crystals, & ultra spices, I can be at 69% tax and 98% approval quite often, even when the population is hovering around 9 billion. Rather than distract myself with ent. ctrs, I'd rather focus on researching Xeno Ethics and Extreme Entertainment, get the global morale bonuses. In fact, the few times I have built a Zero-G stadium, I didn't find them very effective. I built one on a 100% approval bonus square once and got a whopping 3% morale from it. This is all on Crippling.

[Hansolo88]

So this then begs the question, when, if ever, to build market-type buildings? I think they are still useful, for the reason that they provide a percent bonus to tax income rather than a flat amount. I'll use a completely hypothetical example with made-up numbers to illustrate my point, so don't think this is meant to represent absolute game reality:

Say you have a planet producing 50 bc. Say you have the option of building a farm/entertainment center complex, yielding you another 50 bc, or 2 market buildings, each of which increase the tax revenue of the planet by 20%.

So at first, adding the farm/entertainment comlpex is a simple choice: 50bc vs. 40% of 50, or 20 bc for the markets. Second time around, it becomes 50 bc vs. 40% of 100, or 40 bc; farm/entertainment complex still a better deal. However, third time around, it becomes 50 bc from a third farm/entertainment complex or 40% of 150 bc, that is, 60 bc from 2 markets. All of a sudden the markets are a better deal from this point on.

Now obviously, actual numbers are going to vary, but my point is that, depending on the size of the planet, you should start with farms/entertainment complexes to build a large tax base and then exploit that tax base with market buildings later on (which sounds like, gasp, real economics!).

There are two minor points that also need to be evaluated. First of all, population also improves planetary defense against invasions as well as improving cultural influence, so it has added value beyond just economics. On the other hand, population grows over time but market buildings are active as soon as they are built, meaning they pay themselves off much quicker. So individual planet situations are going to require different strategies.

Just some thoughts, open to discussion.

[Gufnork]

There is also the giant point that approval ratings drop faster the higher the population (up to 25 billion or something). The formulas in this game makes me crinch, btw. So while one entertainment center might be sufficient to keep the first 4 billion people happy, you might need two ECs per farm if you build enough of them. There's also the point that if you take people away from the planet the farms does nothing, while markets always helps. I'm unsure how economic bonuses are implemented, but if other bonuses are additive with markets then they're worth less as well.

There are many things worth considering, but I can say for sure that the first farm is always better than markets on every planet with sufficient PQ.

[tetley]

> First of all, population also improves planetary defense against invasions

It provides nice planetary offense as well. hee hee hee hee


By the way, in the beta, by the time your population starts hitting 15 bil on planets, you don't really need more money. You need production. A stock market here-and-there and an Ent Ctr. on approval bonus squares probably won't kill you, but it's really factories you need.

[Topgun]

I've only had the game a few days but the following (on Normal difficulty) seems to work well for new colony development:

If no bonus to Mfg queue up one Factory, Market, Research, and one Entertainment in that build order.

If there's a bonus tile, BUY first Factory, queue up the rest same as above.

Remaining queue items depend entirely on the PQ. If it's 10 or better I'm planning a Starbase so remainder of queue would include another Factory, another Research, and another Market.

There is no need to even think about building a Farm until planet is at or very close to max pop (5 billion) and then you can just Buy it since it's so cheap. Remember that population = money, so not growing is going to hamper your economy. There's no need to stress your approval rating so long as you keep it above 55%.

KEY STEP before you leave the new colony screen!

Set the tab at the top of the screen to focus on Social. I can't remember it's proper name but the little dohicky at the top of the planet build screen that lets you focus planet production on Military, Social, or Research. This is perhaps the step that many are overlooking? During the land grab phase there's no reason to waste production on Military or Research on planets that aren't producing much of that anyway (and certainly not when you have yet to build a starbase on the planet)

That little tweak alone can easily cut in half the amount of time it takes your colony to start showing a profit.

[goldark]

There's no need to stress your approval rating so long as you keep it above 55%.

With 1.2 (or the current beta), the changes to growth rate and the fact that approval rating affects your growth rate makes the approval rating quite significant, at least the way I play. In the early game I find population is key to getting in some taxes and keeping the economy afloat, so I always try to keep approval over 80%, even 100% if possible (2xpop growth).

Growth is a double-edged sword due to happiness, but unless you build lots of farms then I rarely find it a big issue and would almost always take more population. I tend to go for 2-4 high PQ planets and really focus them on growth and the economy, as they have room for the combo of farms, entertainment complexes (if required - better to get the galaxy-wide bonuses if possible), and market centres.

Smaller planets its not such an issue, I tend to use these for production or research.


One question though - what's the impact of population on the planet's influence level?

[Hansolo88]

That's something I've wondered also. Does population form the basic influence amount that planet has, which is then multiplied by various modifiers such as embassies, resources, etc.?

[Topgun]

Originally posted by Hansolo88
That's something I've wondered also. Does population form the basic influence amount that planet has, which is then multiplied by various modifiers such as embassies, resources, etc.?

Yes, population plays a role in your planets IP:

http://galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Influence

BTW my reference to the 55% approval is for very early game, where there's little hope of keeping your approval high during the colony/expansion phase.

Once you've settled down tho, you certainly want to keep your approval as high as possible for the growth bonuses. I'm up to Challenging now, and in my current game have 55% tax rate and only one planet that's below 100% approval.

I love Morale resource starbases

[tetley]

I don't do that at all. During initial colonization, I turn down the tax and run a huge deficit, to get the population growth. A lot of tax X not-a-lot of people = not-a-lot of tax. Then when my treasury is in trouble, I research Star Democracy and crank up the tax to 49%. Then the higher tax is multiplied by the government bonuses and much more people. Much more bang for your buck that way.