Population above 50% reduces colony profitability

[Dampfnudel]

I had this with 50% extra corruption reduction and 100+ development.
The AI suffers a lot from this as well. Their capital planets are capping at 100% and the AI is fooled and does not attempt to kill its own population, making it weaker than it should be.

It is a bad game design, that the 100% pop planet earns less than the 50% pop planet if we can not control until what point the population should grow. And as "growth investment" is global, we will invest money into earning less money.
100% pop should earn marginally more than 50% pops if we do have not enough development/other stuff, but it should not earn less.

Please see my second post above. There are tools for dealing with this and killing your own population is not at all a good idea. If you don't want to use them that's your choice but please don't blame the game for that.

- Improve your Suitability
- Improve your Development
- Reduce your Corruption
- Improve your Happiness

... and you'll find those very large worlds can do well.

I am doing these things.

I boosted development from 30 to 100+ with alone ~70 from luxury ressources.
I stacked anti corruption to 50% empire wide.
I build admin buildings.
I build a starport with recreation, medical and commerce.
I colonized the best available planet I have found.
Still: after 50% pop profit goes down into the negative.

I play on epic tech, suitability techs and higher levels admin is decades in the future. Gerax hyperdrive is the current tech level in my universe. So maybe not all luxury ressources find their way.

Meanwhile the AI has negative income on all their capped planets including their capital. I wonder how they finance themself.

[Dampfnudel]

Have you looked at increasing suitability and building facilities to improve happiness?

I've increased suitability and measured the effects. The calculator takes the suitability into account in determining the actual max pop (and btw it seems max pop due to suitability is capped at 65) and multiplying the revenue by the suitability and coefficients.

How is happiness meant to affect levels of corruption? I've deleted facilities that boosted happiness to try and see if that's what was reducing it by a large margin, but have seen no effect.

As far as corruption % goes, I've only observed the suitability affecting the corruption by changing how the current pop compares to the maximum pop based upon suitability and diameter.

The formula I'm working with regarding corruption is:

Corruption = 10 + (CurrentPopulation/MaxPopulation)*100*0.8 + [(TaxRate-20)*0.5].

Simplified:

Corruption = 10 + (CurrentPopulation/MaxPopulation)*80 + (TaxRate-20)*0.5
with a cap of 80% corruption.

So at 50% filled pop, the base corruption is exactly 50% before corruption reduction comes into play.

Maybe that formula is a bit off, but that's how it's plotted in my tests and modelling. But I'm still finding these edge cases in other people's saves where it's far lower, after I've controlled for leaders, ambassadors, artifacts, tax rate, government, and population


EDIT: Using data from a friend's save playing normal difficulty, the corruption rate was exactly half of what the above formulas predicted. But when I tried accounting for that in my own game, it seems like my corruption rate is still stuck on hard mode.

Have you checked for absolut population? I am very certain my 6000 size planet with its 22b pop causes much higher corruption than my 3000 size moon with 3b pop.

[OloroMemez]

Have you checked for absolut population? I am very certain my 6000 size planet with its 22b pop causes much higher corruption than my 3000 size moon with 3b pop.

I'm certain it is not based upon absolute population, but on population relative to the maximum. Filling up planets halfway to their max (calculate max based upon suitability, not what the game tells you) always results in the same corruption %.

[zgrssd]

I had this with 50% extra corruption reduction and 100+ development.
The AI suffers a lot from this as well. Their capital planets are capping at 100% and the AI is fooled and does not attempt to kill its own population, making it weaker than it should be.

It is a bad game design, that the 100% pop planet earns less than the 50% pop planet if we can not control until what point the population should grow. And as "growth investment" is global, we will invest money into earning less money.
100% pop should earn marginally more than 50% pops if we do have not enough development/other stuff, but it should not earn less.

Please see my second post above. There are tools for dealing with this and killing your own population is not at all a good idea. If you don't want to use them that's your choice but please don't blame the game for that.

- Improve your Suitability
- Improve your Development
- Reduce your Corruption
- Improve your Happiness

... and you'll find those very large worlds can do well.

I am doing these things.

I boosted development from 30 to 100+ with alone ~70 from luxury ressources.

That sentence alone makes no sense.
I just get 45+ Development from Population. To which I add up to 90% via Resources
That is before local bonuses.

So yeah, those figures are a few steps short of what they should be.

Have you verfieid the gamefiles yet?
It is realy kinda a no-starter, if you keep running around with a damaged installation.

[alexman91]

how do i genocide m population to make it profitable but without causing civil war?

[zgrssd]

how do i genocide m population to make it profitable but without causing civil war?

Planet
Population Policy
Extermination or Resettle

[mavor]

The formula I'm working with regarding corruption is:

Corruption = 10 + (CurrentPopulation/MaxPopulation)*100*0.8 + [(TaxRate-20)*0.5].

Simplified:

Corruption = 10 + (CurrentPopulation/MaxPopulation)*80 + (TaxRate-20)*0.5
with a cap of 80% corruption.

So at 50% filled pop, the base corruption is exactly 50% before corruption reduction comes into play.

Maybe that formula is a bit off, but that's how it's plotted in my tests and modelling. But I'm still finding these edge cases in other people's saves where it's far lower, after I've controlled for leaders, ambassadors, artifacts, tax rate, government, and population


EDIT: Using data from a friend's save playing normal difficulty, the corruption rate was exactly half of what the above formulas predicted. But when I tried accounting for that in my own game, it seems like my corruption rate is still stuck on hard mode.

What about number of colonies and distance to capital?

[OloroMemez]

What about number of colonies and distance to capital?

Number of colonies shouldn't have an effect on corruption.
Distance to capital is not something I can really measure as I can't precisely control distances to capital, and I don't think most players would be able to measure it properly. But yes, treat distance as some additional unknown term at the end there.

[mavor]

What about number of colonies and distance to capital?

Number of colonies shouldn't have an effect on corruption.
Distance to capital is not something I can really measure as I can't precisely control distances to capital, and I don't think most players would be able to measure it properly. But yes, treat distance as some additional unknown term at the end there.

Take a look at the Galactopedia:
"Smaller empires have relatively low corruption, but as your empire's population grows, corruption grows along with it. Also, the further your colonies are from your capital, the more corruption exists."
The wording is ambiguous. Total colony count of your empire as well as total pop number might have a significant impact, or none at all.
Distances could be measured by comparing how far a certain amount of fuel gets you.

[Spidey]

What about number of colonies and distance to capital?

Number of colonies shouldn't have an effect on corruption.
Distance to capital is not something I can really measure as I can't precisely control distances to capital, and I don't think most players would be able to measure it properly. But yes, treat distance as some additional unknown term at the end there.

You can sort of measure it by giving a ship a move order to find out what the coordinate of various systems are. I am assuming that distance for this purpose is measured as the bird flies, though how nebulas affect things is anyone's guess.

Also, I believe you can move the capital, which should make it possible to test distance 0 and distance very far.

[OloroMemez]

You can sort of measure it by giving a ship a move order to find out what the coordinate of various systems are. I am assuming that distance for this purpose is measured as the bird flies, though how nebulas affect things is anyone's guess.

Also, I believe you can move the capital, which should make it possible to test distance 0 and distance very far.

Most formulas so far have been curved and not straight, so it would require collecting quite a few data points to try and plot it out. I may do this in the future and include it in the final calculation.

[Dampfnudel]

Is it confirmed that suitability only affects ukpeep cost if it is under 20 as the tooltip tells us?

[OloroMemez]

Is it confirmed that suitability only affects ukpeep cost if it is under 20 as the tooltip tells us?

Yes, it increases at a fixed rate for every one suitability below that. In my saves it increases at a rate of 447 credits.

[zgrssd]

Is it confirmed that suitability only affects ukpeep cost if it is under 20 as the tooltip tells us?

Yes, Upkeep costs only increase for average Suitability below 20. So you want a planet with only speceies that have 20+ on the planet.
However there are other factors, like approaching high population that drag this up.

However, keep in mind that all increases to happiness ultimatively mean you can tax them higher, offseting even a Suitability cost increase.

Corruption actually seems to have two factors - baseline and taxation.
There is a baseline corruption. But any Taxation over 20% also increases corruption - and drops happiness on top of what taxes already do. So corruption acts as a cap on taxation.

[Erik Rutins]

I am doing these things.

I boosted development from 30 to 100+ with alone ~70 from luxury ressources.
I stacked anti corruption to 50% empire wide.
I build admin buildings.
I build a starport with recreation, medical and commerce.
I colonized the best available planet I have found.
Still: after 50% pop profit goes down into the negative.

I play on epic tech, suitability techs and higher levels admin is decades in the future. Gerax hyperdrive is the current tech level in my universe. So maybe not all luxury ressources find their way.
Meanwhile the AI has negative income on all their capped planets including their capital. I wonder how they finance themself.

I understand you are playing on very slow research speed, but the colonization and terraforming techs to improve suitability, along with the mid-game facilities to improve development on your largest planets, are intended to be part of the equation to allow maximum population planets to be profitable. If you aren't able to use those tools yet, that's probably why they are not profitable for you.

This could be an indication that we need to ease up on things a little to make the slow research playstyle not feel as difficult in this regard. The AI has the same tools and should know how to use them, but I expect the very slow research is also preventing it from getting to them so far.

[Erik Rutins]

From a customer save I was testing with today, I just wanted to share this image of a very highly developed, well above max pop, terra-formed super-world in the late game, generating about $600k net tax revenue just on its own to show what is possible if you use all the tools together to improve a world.

FullyDevelopedWorld.jpg (639.18 KiB) Viewed 1154 times

[OloroMemez]

I'm not saying that higher pop worlds can't make more tax revenue if you're increasing development, boosting suitability, and building admin to increase corruption reduction.

But on that colony, you'd be better off deliberately causing rebellions and killing your population to bring them down below either 50% or 75% filled, while keeping suitability, development, and corruption reduction the same.

[Emperor0Akim]

Just out of interest, how much is the upkeep of all facilities in addidion to the planetary support cost ?

[SgtBootStrap]

Just out of interest, how much is the upkeep of all facilities in addidion to the planetary support cost ?

Given the Pic above, with that Max'd out Planet, with a ton of Troops, it shows as -26,829.

[Emperor0Akim]

Just out of interest, how much is the upkeep of all facilities in addidion to the planetary support cost ?

Given the Pic above, with that Max'd out Planet, with a ton of Troops, it shows as -26,829.

Thats planetary support cost. What I meant is : the Administration Building, the Shipyards etc.
cost upkeep as well.
That should be added to the 27k of support cost.