Production: Social vs. Military

[Sarcastic]

I've played GalCiv1 before, and though I haven't played GalCiv2 yet, this mechanic separating military and social production seems strange to me. It seems that it would be much more efficient to build one thing at a time. Is there any use at all to trying to build more than one thing at a time on a planet? Has Brad mentioned why he chose to design it that way?

[Trifna]

I'm pretty sure he mentioned it at some point, but I couldn't remember what it was really about for him. But what it does at least for me is that

- It brings forth the bread or butter dilemna (I'm pretty sure Brad brought that)
- Real economies not producing ONE thing at the time, my planets are not stuck as much as to where my ships are going to be from, scrapping a project cuz of incoming invasion, border planets having a condemned social...
- You can still bring a planet to specialize to military or social anyway. Consider also that some "military" (ships like freighter/constructor) are of civilian use, and "civilian" projects are of military use.

Overall, it seems more flexible to me once you're into it. But you did not say why you thought the other way to be more efficient, so maybe you still see something nice of the other way.

[Gufnork]

Re: Production: Social vs. Military

Originally posted by Sarcastic
Is there any use at all to trying to build more than one thing at a time on a planet?

No. If you want to be efficient, you'll constantly switch production from 100% social, to 100% research and then to 100% military. I personally think it's stupid and annoying.

[tetley]

There's lots of strategic considerations in building a ship & a social project at the same time. The big one is waste. If your social project is 1 shield away from completing, you're wasting less by going 50/50. And since your sliders more-or-less apply to ALL your planets, that means if ANY of your planets are 1 shield away from completing, you're wasting capacity. Splitting your spending is one way to reduce that.

Another consideration is maintenance. Often you can start building something you don't need right away, like an Extreme Stadium but you're already at 100% morale, or a warship but you're not at war. You want to invest several shields in something, but you don't quite want to complete it just yet. So you split your spending.

Another consideration is your treasury. It usually costs more to go 100% capacity in one or the other. If you don't have the money to go 100% in the more expensive route, it's good to split your spending. You could also just go 90% in one and 0 in the other, but that's a waste of capacity.

[bonscott]

I've always loved the fact you can build up a military and social projects at the same time. I really wish the Civ games had that feature.

[yin26]

Agreed. I'm interested in how the waste issue will work with the next patch.

EDIT: I mean, I know the planned fix for it, but I'm curious to see how it will play out.

[oldstatesman]

I like the 'inefficency' of the system - it reflects somewhat on the real world...changing production goals always incur some upfront costs that are not spent on actual production - there is always a bit of waste involved when dong things lke re-tooling, re-training, and re-planning. Every decision has consequences; part of the fun for me lies in having to weigh the pros and cons of whether it is better to lose some resources or better to wait and re-balance things at a later time.

Maybe it is not a 'pure' system that appeals to the gamer who wants to squeeze out every shieled possible, but IMHO, it adds to the immersion factor - and the immersion factor is what makes a game fun for me.

[Sarcastic]

I am not the kind of player who enjoys squeezing the most out of the systeml, by contrast, I hate micromanagement. But it seems unnecessarily complicated. Why not just abstract the waste of switching production? Galactic Civilizations is not a simulation, and it shouldn't be. While I dislike micromanagement strongly, I dislike over complication more than anything. It seems like changing the system to one type of production at once would reduce both of those, not to mention strengthening the AI (as it wouldn't split its efforts as some players already don't).

I still don't understand what the purpose of having social and military production is. Unless there is a good reason to use separated production often (excluding the waste problem, which I would hope would be eliminated in the first place), why have the feature?

[Gufnork]

I would have love it if the system incurred some upfront costs and have the decisions have consequences. That's what it doesn't do. There are only benefits to switching between research and production frequently.

[bonscott]

Originally posted by Sarcastic
I still don't understand what the purpose of having social and military production is. Unless there is a good reason to use separated production often (excluding the waste problem, which I would hope would be eliminated in the first place), why have the feature?

Perhaps you don't understand that Military production goes toward building ships and social production goes toward building planetary buildings. If you do I apologize.

So the reason they are separate is that you can build both ships and buildings at the same time. In Civ 4 it's just all "production" because you cannot build military units and buildings at the same time. It's one or the other. GalCiv 2 has both at the same time.

[EternalSpark]

Has Brad mentioned why he chose to design it that way?

My gut says that it was a choice to be something different than Civ In Space.

I like the 'inefficency' of the system...Maybe it is not a 'pure' system that appeals to the gamer who wants to squeeze out every shieled possible...I am not the kind of player who enjoys squeezing the most out of the systeml,

Why are you playing a Civ game, then?

[Sarcastic]

Originally posted by bonscott


Perhaps you don't understand that Military production goes toward building ships and social production goes toward building planetary buildings. If you do I apologize.

So the reason they are separate is that you can build both ships and buildings at the same time. In Civ 4 it's just all "production" because you cannot build military units and buildings at the same time. It's one or the other. GalCiv 2 has both at the same time.

I do understand that, no apology necessary. The thing is, I don't see any reason to split up your spending that way. If there were mechanics in place that rewarded a balanced budget instead of a all or nothing one, it would make sense, but I don't see how it does. That's what I'm really asking, is there any reward for a balanced spending.

[bonscott]

Originally posted by Sarcastic


I do understand that, no apology necessary. The thing is, I don't see any reason to split up your spending that way. If there were mechanics in place that rewarded a balanced budget instead of a all or nothing one, it would make sense, but I don't see how it does. That's what I'm really asking, is there any reward for a balanced spending.

No, and balanced speding isn't the goal. Need more ships? Then up military spending and your factories will put more hammers toward ships instead of buildings. At peace and want to speed along some buildings? Then push up social spending instead and those factory workers now build your buildings faster. Makes sense to me anyway.

[Shadowlord]

That *sounds* reasonable, but wouldn't you have to retrain building-construction workers to give them the skills needed for building ships, etc? And wouldn't it be harder to go all-out on one kind of construction than to balance it between different types which require different resources, tools, and skills?

[Sarcastic]

Originally posted by bonscott


No, and balanced speding isn't the goal. Need more ships? Then up military spending and your factories will put more hammers toward ships instead of buildings. At peace and want to speed along some buildings? Then push up social spending instead and those factory workers now build your buildings faster. Makes sense to me anyway.

But could that be more easily achieved without the split in production? If you needed military, you'd build ships. If you needed infrastructure, you'd build that. The point is, if you almost never split your production, why complicate the game with this mechanic which could cause unnecessary slider adjustments throughout the game?

EDIT: I should make something clear. I am not advocating creating mechanics to encourage balanced spending. If that could be done in a fun way, then great, but otherwise, why not just eliminate it?