Slitherine

I've read that growth can be turned off. Is this done by locking the jobs? I could not fine a stop growth button or anything like that.

Besides going into 0 food in stock and negative food per turn I haven't found a way...

BlueTemplar wrote:Besides going into 0 food in stock and negative food per turn I haven't found a way...

Currently is it the negative food option, or you raze your own cities to drop them down a size per turn till you're satisfied. It's pretty lame. Based on the forced-exponential growth model of this game, there is no simple way fix this problem.

I think that growth should be influenced by habitation. This makes sense because limited space increases the cost of living and therefore less people have children. I know someone out there will disagree with me, but there is a decent amount of evidence supporting my claim. Also, in the current state all the factions grow at the exact same rate. I'd rather put some strategy and competition in the mix by allowing factions to manipulate this value (with trade-offs, of course). Not to mention, if growth was hindered by lack of habitation, it would make expansion a bigger priority thus causing border wars and making the game more interesting.

jdmillard wrote: I'd rather put some strategy and competition in the mix by allowing factions to manipulate this value (with trade-offs, of course). Not to mention, if growth was hindered by lack of habitation, it would make expansion a bigger priority thus causing border wars and making the game more interesting.

+1000! Yes, currently there is no real reason to expand! From my Civ playing I am programed to expand but what's the point when I can do it all with a few cities. This is a 4X game or maybe it's 3X (take out expand). There needs to be more emphasis put on resources that way the AI and the human player will go after them and go to war for them. Right now, I set myself you in a nice tidy corner of the world, build my army and infrastructure and then go to war when I'm ready because I always go for the military victory. But going to war just to go to war is not fun, even a war monger like myself needs a reason. In Civ if I need oil and they have it, I fight a limited war to get what I need. I don't like taking out a Civ because I like a longer game and like to leave them around to fight again later, or to serve as a buffer between me and another power. There is none of that here.

I want border wars, I want factions to grab as much land and resources as possible because it all matters.

Linear growth makes the game feel like an Hybrid between a classic 4x and a command and conquer style game. I don't know if that is the goal of dev's?

I personally feel the game would greatly benefit from putting more 4x stuff in it, and breaking this linear growth rule is one of the thing that would need to be done to achieve this.

early on in the game i have to clear out hives, i expand prior to the natives turning hostile, and after i have cleared out most of the hives in my area (so as to get the waves of xenos from killing my new cities and colonizers). this means that i have plenty of 'dead' time with my production, as i have built all i can or need at the time. i turn my production to growth during this time, and end up needing to expand to deal with morale efficiency issues. as a result i always outstrip even SD in growth by late game, and this results in a way to start the process of snowballing to victory, especially since when i do plop down new cities they quickly jump up in pop due to migration. slow expansion yields huge growth gains in this way, which turns 4x gameplay on its ear, which is good. that being said by the time you start reaching your territory limits (from other factions) is when the game ends due to economic or technological advancement (even with military victory, as you are so far ahead in these areas). as such while the growth scheme in the game provides gameplay, it is missing something. perhaps to gain technological victory you should have some super project that needs to be built, that costs more the more you are ahead of the average tech level, giving a real chance for those that are behind to go to war to stop you (as your production is tied up). for the economic victory, perhaps you have to gain a monopoly by using your money to crash their economy until they submit, so when enacted the enemies would convert all of their money production to pollution, and they wouldn't have to worry about gold costs, if the cities ever riot they join your faction (and with all the pollution that would be inevitable), the down side for you would be that you lose a large chunk of gold, and for every citizen that is not yours 1 of your citizens stops paying taxes. given enough time you would win, but it wouldn't be easy, and the enemy has a fighting chance.

- There is a simple way to fix this problem : a "prevent population growth" button. Growth would keep accumulating, but population wouldn't increase.

- Solar dynasty has a growth bonus.

- There _is_ a reason to expand : the special feature tiles (especially the +50% credits and research ones), and specializing cities.

- If I don't have anything left to produce, I prefer turning workers and miners into scientists (except if this means stop working 3+ minerals tiles or if the base has a production bonus).

jamoecw wrote:early on in the game i have to clear out hives, i expand prior to the natives turning hostile, and after i have cleared out most of the hives in my area (so as to get the waves of xenos from killing my new cities and colonizers). this means that i have plenty of 'dead' time with my production, as i have built all i can or need at the time. i turn my production to growth during this time, and end up needing to expand to deal with morale efficiency issues.

That's absolute reverse of me:
I play the Greens and I never attack natives before they do, even if my towns are near hives. I do all to let the natives cool, preventing pollution, keeping forests and mushrooms. I only grow the towns with the clones operation, I never use the intown growth: I use only the money increase (if a town has nothing to build, as I need many money to buid swifly new towns, and to shape anew my units with new/better technology). My need to expand is only to have more power in case of a war, I'm not a military offensive player (I like 'cultural' wins).

as a result i always outstrip even SD in growth by late game, and this results in a way to start the process of snowballing to victory, especially since when i do plop down new cities they quickly jump up in pop due to migration. slow expansion yields huge growth gains in this way, which turns 4x gameplay on its ear, which is good. that being said by the time you start reaching your territory limits (from other factions) is when the game ends due to economic or technological advancement (even with military victory, as you are so far ahead in these areas).

With my reverse gameplay of yours, I have the same conclusions.

as such while the growth scheme in the game provides gameplay, it is missing something. (...) technological victory (...) economic victory,

And to add a cultural victory, or a cultural feature, like in Civ4, where just by borders a neighbours town can join you.
So the growth of towns would be far more important feature.

Along these lines, how about a new 'transport' unit for moving population. Use it to take pop from one city to another. Something a bit slower than the seeker and that takes 1 pop at a time is my suggestion.

kidpython wrote:Along these lines, how about a new 'transport' unit for moving population. Use it to take pop from one city to another. Something a bit slower than the seeker and that takes 1 pop at a time is my suggestion.

I like this just a join city button would all that would be needed to make this work.

Revisiting this topic post-game, where the linear growth model eventually caused my downfall .... (I just could not stop growth!)

I agree with previous statements, that there should be a way to halt\allow population growth, especially in situations where continued growth becomes detrimental to cities.

I was thinking about altering the xml to affect growth, but after thinking about the linear behavior of the code controlling growth -- It just won't work. Since the growth rate would still remain constant regardless to what was occurring in-game. If your cities start running out of resources, the population will continue to increase causing a constant drain. This means that morale, habitat and other elements will eventually start to diminish with no way to stop it. (Same problem but at a different rate)

So, the best option and really the only option is to have an in-game control to halt or allow population growth.

Hopefully the Dev's will consider this in the near future .......

mjm800 wrote:

jdmillard wrote: I'd rather put some strategy and competition in the mix by allowing factions to manipulate this value (with trade-offs, of course). Not to mention, if growth was hindered by lack of habitation, it would make expansion a bigger priority thus causing border wars and making the game more interesting.

+1000! Yes, currently there is no real reason to expand! From my Civ playing I am programed to expand but what's the point when I can do it all with a few cities. This is a 4X game or maybe it's 3X (take out expand). There needs to be more emphasis put on resources that way the AI and the human player will go after them and go to war for them. Right now, I set myself you in a nice tidy corner of the world, build my army and infrastructure and then go to war when I'm ready because I always go for the military victory. But going to war just to go to war is not fun, even a war monger like myself needs a reason. In Civ if I need oil and they have it, I fight a limited war to get what I need. I don't like taking out a Civ because I like a longer game and like to leave them around to fight again later, or to serve as a buffer between me and another power. There is none of that here.

I want border wars, I want factions to grab as much land and resources as possible because it all matters.

Agree 100%

The game would benefit greatly, if it had factions that were highly motivated to accumulate territory and resources. The factions must value resources\territories as if their existence depended on it -- Because it does.

Presently, your faction can search out all the prime locations on the planet that are rich in resources and control them without a single challenge. At the same time the other factions are starving for resources and won't do anything to acquire them.

If you want border wars, you may play in a very small map (I usually play in huge with marathon pacing).

BlueTemplar wrote:- There is a simple way to fix this problem : a "prevent population growth" button. Growth would keep accumulating, but population wouldn't increase.

How about a family planning building that would gradually cut down percentage growth over time.

kidpython wrote: How about a family planning building that would gradually cut down percentage growth over time.

Ideally this option would not be availble to the religious faction! Instead they get to build a church that deducts 10% from their income but boosts morale.