Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #6

[ASHBERY76]

So it's basically DW1 with new UI.

My only issue is apart from fuel most resources mattered less mid game onwards in DW1.You sort of forgot about the economy baring war.Pirates never really caused any major issues to your economy.You just wiped them out with a few destroyers.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

So it's basically DW1 with new UI.

My only issue is apart from fuel most resources mattered less mid game onwards in DW1.You sort of forgot about the economy baring war.Pirates never really caused any major issues to your economy.You just wiped them out with a few destroyers.

If it is balanced correctly then war and military assets will detract from civilian growth. There should not be any real resource abundance as it should all go into the civilian if allowed to so it can develop and prosper that way.

When you choose to build and tax it should always be at the expense of the civilian development in some form. The choice should be to have the civilian side loose efficiency or be susceptible to outside military force. As such the military is to be seen as a necessary evil or as a means to subdue an enemy or even conquer new lands.

[StormingKiwi]

Do homeworlds still dominate Empire GDP throughout most of the game's timespan?

I always found this a bit frustrating, from the perspective that homeworld invasions had better cost-benefit ratios than building your own colonies naturally.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

Do homeworlds still dominate Empire GDP throughout most of the game's timespan?

I always found this a bit frustrating, from the perspective that homeworld invasions had better cost-benefit ratios than building your own colonies naturally.

I don't think there is a problem with home worlds being the economic centre of an empire for a long time, the issue is generally that you can invade and take over en enemy home world with enough development left to be an economically viable option. I think this is an issue with most games of this nature.

In my opinion the economic destruction should be much worse the more developed a planet is. So... in essence a small outlying colony should be easier to take over with only small damage to infrastructure than a home world that should require enormous resources to take over, especially in any state where you can use it afterwards.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

Do homeworlds still dominate Empire GDP throughout most of the game's timespan?

I always found this a bit frustrating, from the perspective that homeworld invasions had better cost-benefit ratios than building your own colonies naturally.

I don't think there is a problem with home worlds being the economic centre of an empire for a long time, the issue is generally that you can invade and take over en enemy home world with enough development left to be an economically viable option. I think this is an issue with most games of this nature.

In my opinion the economic destruction should be much worse the more developed a planet is. So... in essence a small outlying colony should be easier to take over with only small damage to infrastructure than a home world that should require enormous resources to take over, especially in any state where you can use it afterwards.

This reminds me of something. It might actually have been in DW1, but I am not sure:
Planets develop to 100% at the normal speed, but they do not stop there.
But every percent past 100% takes exponentially longer to develop.
A home planet had those millennia of additional development, putting it at like 150-200% at the game start.
A colony that existed for a realy long time can approach it.
However this extra development is also very easily lost to combat, bombardment, etc.
As a result, a home planet would not be worth nearly as much to conquer as it is to the original owner.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

Do homeworlds still dominate Empire GDP throughout most of the game's timespan?

I always found this a bit frustrating, from the perspective that homeworld invasions had better cost-benefit ratios than building your own colonies naturally.

I don't think there is a problem with home worlds being the economic centre of an empire for a long time, the issue is generally that you can invade and take over en enemy home world with enough development left to be an economically viable option. I think this is an issue with most games of this nature.

In my opinion the economic destruction should be much worse the more developed a planet is. So... in essence a small outlying colony should be easier to take over with only small damage to infrastructure than a home world that should require enormous resources to take over, especially in any state where you can use it afterwards.

This reminds me of something. It might actually have been in DW1, but I am not sure:
Planets develop to 100% at the normal speed, but they do not stop there.
But every percent past 100% takes exponentially longer to develop.
A home planet had those millennia of additional development, putting it at like 150-200% at the game start.
A colony that existed for a realy long time can approach it.
However this extra development is also very easily lost to combat, bombardment, etc.
As a result, a home planet would not be worth nearly as much to conquer as it is to the original owner.

In addition to this the loss of civilian life should probably also be much greater in percent the larger it is in addition to the loss of development. Future weapons are pretty devastating and if the world is defended the devastation will probably be quite large.

Unless a world is surrendered without a fight the damage should be substantial for planets such as home worlds.

If I know humanity correctly we would probably see our world nearly destroyed before we surrendered it to any alien species. [;)]

[StormingKiwi]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB



I don't think there is a problem with home worlds being the economic centre of an empire for a long time, the issue is generally that you can invade and take over en enemy home world with enough development left to be an economically viable option. I think this is an issue with most games of this nature.

In my opinion the economic destruction should be much worse the more developed a planet is. So... in essence a small outlying colony should be easier to take over with only small damage to infrastructure than a home world that should require enormous resources to take over, especially in any state where you can use it afterwards.

If homeworlds are effectively destroyed by invasion, that exacerbates the problem I was identifying - that the best way to win the game is to knock out the homeworld because that removes the other empire from contention, and 'infrastructure damage' when wars are waged makes the problem worse, not better. The original owner loses their homeworld twice, effectively. Even if they recapture it, they will never recover... But that's a military and war discussion, not an economic discussion.

The issue definitely is that homeworlds are the vast proportion of an empire's economy throughout the whole practical timescale of the game, however. It's a question of balance - when you have one homeworld which is 90% of your GDP, and 19 colonies that combined makeup 10%, what was the point of establishing those colonies?

[Ranbir]

Those colonies probably have access to resources that need to get shipped to that home world. That's what I hope to see from how AI prioritises war objectives. Bleeding the enemy dry before taking key systems since without resources they can't supply their fleets.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi
If homeworlds are effectively destroyed by invasion, that exacerbates the problem I was identifying - that the best way to win the game is to knock out the homeworld because that removes the other empire from contention, and 'infrastructure damage' when wars are waged makes the problem worse, not better. The original owner loses their homeworld twice, effectively. Even if they recapture it, they will never recover... But that's a military and war discussion, not an economic discussion.

The issue definitely is that homeworlds are the vast proportion of an empire's economy throughout the whole practical timescale of the game, however. It's a question of balance - when you have one homeworld which is 90% of your GDP, and 19 colonies that combined makeup 10%, what was the point of establishing those colonies?

Well... they were not 90% of your economy in DW by mid game so I doubt they will be in this version either.

I still don't see a problem with home worlds being the more powerful economic world. It obviously is also easier to defend one point that is very important.

Colonies are good for infrastructure as you need to get the resources to that home world. The home world will not be so powerful if you can't feed it with resources from those colonies and mines.

It will always be beneficial if you have the military might to knock out a neighbor early, they are going to be extremely weak after that no matter what. The thing is... if the home world is effectively almost useless then you will at least not snowball in comparison with everyone else in economic power.
In my opinion it would be even better if it were more costly to hold hostile planets for a long time for the exact reason of the snowball effect.

If you look at history you usually se the same patterns... conquest where natural resources or specific goods is the target usually are more economically viable than subduing a large civilization. We see this over and over from history, it probably would be similar in the space age as well that has allot of similarities with 15-17th century colonization period.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB



I don't think there is a problem with home worlds being the economic centre of an empire for a long time, the issue is generally that you can invade and take over en enemy home world with enough development left to be an economically viable option. I think this is an issue with most games of this nature.

In my opinion the economic destruction should be much worse the more developed a planet is. So... in essence a small outlying colony should be easier to take over with only small damage to infrastructure than a home world that should require enormous resources to take over, especially in any state where you can use it afterwards.

If homeworlds are effectively destroyed by invasion, that exacerbates the problem I was identifying - that the best way to win the game is to knock out the homeworld because that removes the other empire from contention, and 'infrastructure damage' when wars are waged makes the problem worse, not better. The original owner loses their homeworld twice, effectively. Even if they recapture it, they will never recover... But that's a military and war discussion, not an economic discussion.

The issue definitely is that homeworlds are the vast proportion of an empire's economy throughout the whole practical timescale of the game, however. It's a question of balance - when you have one homeworld which is 90% of your GDP, and 19 colonies that combined makeup 10%, what was the point of establishing those colonies?

Why did you spam 19(!) colonies? Get one colony, then work to make it profitable before you go grabbing more stuff.

A very early introduction talked at lenght about how colony spamming is not the way to victory.

[Retreat1970]

19? I've had 3, 80+, and everything in between.

There's more than one path to victory, and more than one way to play.

[StormingKiwi]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB
Well... they were not 90% of your economy in DW by mid game so I doubt they will be in this version either.

Really?

It's mid-game.
Current homeworld GDP: 1574.
Current total empire GDP without other empire homeworlds: 1786.

Do you have a calculator handy?

ORIGINAL: zgrssd


Why did you spam 19(!) colonies? Get one colony, then work to make it profitable before you go grabbing more stuff.

A very early introduction talked at lenght about how colony spamming is not the way to victory.

I didn't "spam" 19 colonies. Some of those colonies have been established for many many years. Their individual contribution to my total GDP is still dwarfed by the homeworld.

I'm unsurprised, the point I'm making is that colonising is a noob-trap.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: StormingKiwi

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB
Well... they were not 90% of your economy in DW by mid game so I doubt they will be in this version either.

Really?

It's mid-game.
Current homeworld GDP: 1574.
Current total empire GDP without other empire homeworlds: 1786.

Do you have a calculator handy?

ORIGINAL: zgrssd


Why did you spam 19(!) colonies? Get one colony, then work to make it profitable before you go grabbing more stuff.

A very early introduction talked at lenght about how colony spamming is not the way to victory.

I didn't "spam" 19 colonies. Some of those colonies have been established for many many years. Their individual contribution to my total GDP is still dwarfed by the homeworld.

I'm unsurprised, the point I'm making is that colonising is a noob-trap.

Not sure how you play but I usually have a couple of colonies that will at least be half if not more of the home world income by mid game, you probably are taxing your colonies too much so they don't grow their development and population fast enough.

[Webbco]

Can we expect Dev Diary 7 this week?

[Erik Rutins]

It will be finished this week, whether it goes out to the public this week or next remains to be seen.

[Webbco]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

It will be finished this week, whether it goes out to the public this week or next remains to be seen.

Thanks Erik. Do you envisage completing the Dec diary series significantly before DW2 releases?

[Erik Rutins]

I expect there will always be more to talk about. [8D] Once we get to release, the rest will be in the manual and in-game galactopedia and as is usual these days we'll likely switch over to previewing parts of that and then the whole thing as we get closer.

Regards,

- Erik

[CaptBeefheart]

Not sure how hard it would be to program, but it would be easier to read those numbers if the 4+ digit ones had commas.

Cheers,
CB

[Webbco]

I think I'm ready for #7 now...[;)]

[Webbco]

Well, it's been almost 5 weeks since the last Dev diary. [X(]