Be careful about megacity worlds!

[scottrossi]

Wow! I just had a really neat, but ultimately losing game.

I rolled a Siwa world that was basically a garden, with 7.5 billion inhabitants and 62 or 63 zones. The apocalypse happened and there was a decent split between Scavengers, Hunters, Raiders and Farmers. I'm not kidding when I say that at around 10% of the surface of the planet was covered in ruins. It was wild. My city had between 5-7 hexes of ruins on all sides.

It was amazing, but I had a lot of economic problems because I couldn't sell any resources. After about 20 odd turns, the only things that could be sold were machines and high tech items, but they were just a few credits each. I was hurting for cash big time and had to cut funding and slavers invaded in the middle of a rebellion and I lost.

SO FUN! But there are definitely drawbacks to that type of world.

This is seriously the best game I have ever played and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.

[Clux]

If there were a lot of ruins, food should sell well, although that kind of world would be hard to conquer due the high entrenchment than ruins provides, you would need an new type of unit than its specialized on CQC and Urban warfare

[t1it]

Lol nice 7,5 billion is allot of meat. What was the average city population?

[scottrossi]

Sorry, should have clarified, it was only like 2 million and change after the apocalypse. The 7 billion was during 1400 years of colonization.

There were tons of farms too. It was like 20% agricultural population before the apocalypse, and I was putting farms down around my settlements with no problems.

[Cornuthaum]

How do you get high-pop planets? No matter what I do, the best I can get on any Siwa planet, no matter how nice, is about 100 million to 110 million people with 1400 years of colonization

[t1it]

Have some patience, may take several minutes. I'm playing on a 212 million world atm.

[Laiders]

Planet size in the initial planet generation screen is not a fancy way of saying map size. The higher planet size settings literally generate larger planets with higher gravity, denser atmospheres etc. Larger planets are, by definition, more habitable and have more space for habitation so they support larger population. You also, of course, get a larger hex map to play on.

Might be nice one day to have a setting to increase planet size without increasing hex grid size... Then again that might not work with the number of extra ruins getting placed etc.

[Cornuthaum]

I've unironically spent several hours today rerolling on a near 1.0g large planet with decent rainfall and a perfect atmosphere, and it's never going that high. Am I overlooking some worldgen factors that inhibit planetary pop (existing # of indigenous life?) or did i just get extremely unlucky?

[Laiders]

ORIGINAL: Cornuthaum

I've unironically spent several hours today rerolling on a near 1.0g large planet with decent rainfall and a perfect atmosphere, and it's never going that high. Am I overlooking some worldgen factors that inhibit planetary pop (existing # of indigenous life?) or did i just get extremely unlucky?

You absolutely can roll a 1g planet but only on the largest possible planet size. Assuming the planet is also a Siwa class, you should be able to get a perfect Earth-like.

Hang on... I'll save my game and see if I get some screenshots to show you.

[Cornuthaum]

ORIGINAL: Laiders

ORIGINAL: Cornuthaum

I've unironically spent several hours today rerolling on a near 1.0g large planet with decent rainfall and a perfect atmosphere, and it's never going that high. Am I overlooking some worldgen factors that inhibit planetary pop (existing # of indigenous life?) or did i just get extremely unlucky?

You absolutely can roll a 1g planet but only on the largest possible planet size. Assuming the planet is also a Siwa class, you should be able to get a perfect Earth-like.

Hang on... I'll save my game and see if I get some screenshots to show you.

sigh, yes, I know, I *have* done that, it's not particularly hard. The problem is that I can't seem to generate pre-apocalypse population sizes above 120 million on any planet, even the most ideally earthlike ones with fifteen centuries worth of colonization effort going into them, and I don't know why. Hours of rerolling later and I still don't have a fun thickly ruins-covered world.

[Laiders]

ORIGINAL: Cornuthaum

ORIGINAL: Laiders

ORIGINAL: Cornuthaum

I've unironically spent several hours today rerolling on a near 1.0g large planet with decent rainfall and a perfect atmosphere, and it's never going that high. Am I overlooking some worldgen factors that inhibit planetary pop (existing # of indigenous life?) or did i just get extremely unlucky?

You absolutely can roll a 1g planet but only on the largest possible planet size. Assuming the planet is also a Siwa class, you should be able to get a perfect Earth-like.

Hang on... I'll save my game and see if I get some screenshots to show you.

sigh, yes, I know, I *have* done that, it's not particularly hard. The problem is that I can't seem to generate pre-apocalypse population sizes above 120 million on any planet, even the most ideally earthlike ones with fifteen centuries worth of colonization effort going into them, and I don't know why. Hours of rerolling later and I still don't have a fun thickly ruins-covered world.

Oh right. Pops. Totally misread it as you rolling for an Earthlike not on. My bad.

That's sheer dumb luck. My current actual game is on a medium Siwa with a pop of .7 billion and I got that after a couple of rolls. I suspect a factor will be what you define as 'decent rainfall' because, for me, that would be 500mm plus if trying to maximise population. You may also need to maximise living space so ideally no mountains and no more than 10% ocean, which you need to get the rainfall. Up to 10% mountains probably fine.

Another easy factor to miss is average temperature. A Siwa class with an average surface temp of 30 degrees may technically be a perfect Earthlike in all other respects. It would still be barely habitable. Average global temperatures of 30 degrees will mean local temperatures rising above what the human body can dissipate for a significant portion of the year. AC and cooling clothing would be life or death. Even 20 degree average temperatures could be problematic (as evidenced by how apocalyptic a 5 degree rise on Earth would be; even a 1 - 2 degree rise will make populated areas uninhabitable due to temperature and humidity). Target between 10-15 degrees for average surface temperatures.

If you really got all those factors lined up perfectly, then I'm afraid you were seriously unlucky.

On that note, might be good if one day we could get some target X settings for generation where we tell the game to try to get an approximate outcome. If it can't, it could then actually report why and we restart generation with that in mind.

[GodwinW]

Maybe the chances to get some stuff are date-based. Who knows ^^

[Cornuthaum]

ORIGINAL: Laiders

Oh right. Pops. Totally misread it as you rolling for an Earthlike not on. My bad.

That's sheer dumb luck. My current actual game is on a medium Siwa with a pop of .7 billion and I got that after a couple of rolls. I suspect a factor will be what you define as 'decent rainfall' because, for me, that would be 500mm plus if trying to maximise population. You many also need to maximise living space so ideally no mountains and no more than 10% ocean, which you need to get the rainfall. Up to 10% mountains probably fine.

Another easy factor to miss is average temperature. A Siwa class with an average surface temp of 30 degrees may technically be a perfect Earthlike in all other respects. It would still be barely habitable. Average global temperatures of 30 degrees will likely mean local temperatures could rise above what the human body can dissipate for a significant portion of the year. AC and cooling clothing would be life or death. Even 20 degree average temperatures could be problematic (as evidenced by how apocalyptic a 5 degree rise on Earth would be; even a 1 - 2 degree rise will make populated areas uninhabitable due to temperature and humidity). Target between 10-15 degrees for average surface temperatures.

If you really got all those factors lined up perfectly, then I'm afraid you were seriously unlucky.

On that note, might be good if one day we could get some target X settings for generation where we tell the game to try to get an approximate outcome. If it can't, it could then actually report why and we restart generation with that in mind.

I was working off of a global avg temp of 13 degree, 20-hour day, 87% plains and 13% oceans and 452mm avg rainfall, which is, all things considered, pretty good and rather pleasantly earthlike... and yet pop numbers stay infuriatingly low

[Laiders]

ORIGINAL: Cornuthaum

ORIGINAL: Laiders

Oh right. Pops. Totally misread it as you rolling for an Earthlike not on. My bad.

That's sheer dumb luck. My current actual game is on a medium Siwa with a pop of .7 billion and I got that after a couple of rolls. I suspect a factor will be what you define as 'decent rainfall' because, for me, that would be 500mm plus if trying to maximise population. You many also need to maximise living space so ideally no mountains and no more than 10% ocean, which you need to get the rainfall. Up to 10% mountains probably fine.

Another easy factor to miss is average temperature. A Siwa class with an average surface temp of 30 degrees may technically be a perfect Earthlike in all other respects. It would still be barely habitable. Average global temperatures of 30 degrees will likely mean local temperatures could rise above what the human body can dissipate for a significant portion of the year. AC and cooling clothing would be life or death. Even 20 degree average temperatures could be problematic (as evidenced by how apocalyptic a 5 degree rise on Earth would be; even a 1 - 2 degree rise will make populated areas uninhabitable due to temperature and humidity). Target between 10-15 degrees for average surface temperatures.

If you really got all those factors lined up perfectly, then I'm afraid you were seriously unlucky.

On that note, might be good if one day we could get some target X settings for generation where we tell the game to try to get an approximate outcome. If it can't, it could then actually report why and we restart generation with that in mind.

I was working off of a global avg temp of 13 degree, 20-hour day, 87% plains and 13% oceans and 452mm avg rainfall, which is, all things considered, pretty good and rather pleasantly earthlike... and yet pop numbers stay infuriatingly low

Not sure if day cycle matters particularly. Settings like that, though generally higher rainfall, have certainly done the trick for me before.

You'll have to see if you can get Vic or an experienced beta tester to respond because I'm out of ideas.

[scottrossi]

cornuthaum i got that planet on the third roll, believe it or not. here were the stats i can remember. i wish there were seed numbers, but alas, maybe in the future, haha!

siwa
small
.45g
30degrees
4.5 billion years old

18% water
10% mountains
~1000mm rain
earthlike atmosphere

none
none
none
full
bushes and shrubs

and then boom, there it was after 3 rolls. i gasped because there were SO MANY ruins.

[Cornuthaum]

I think the answer turns out to be 1000mm rain or above while having a non-hazardous atmosphere, I actually managed a 3.5bn pop planet on that earlier (except it was fully irradiated and i was sandwiched between two majors so rip those two hours of rerolling)

[Jdane]

Very interesting discussion.
But to be sure, this 3.5 billion population number was before the Apocalypse wasn't it? It seems really high to me.

[scottrossi]

yeah, the high numbers are pre-apocalypse.