Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not?
| Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Tue, 02 January 2007 11:02  |
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 Skaffen |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 90
Registered: December 2006
Location: Germany | |
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Hi,
this discussion is triggered by the current Babylon 5 game announcement. Please check that for details on the special rules but for this discussion basically it boils down to:
-slow tech
-no IT/SS allowed
-no cheap tech
-AccBBS + 1 turn pop growth as starting pop
Iīve been looking for a way to take con normal for a non-JOAT race and just couldnīt make it work. The way to con 3 for medium freighters for early pop balancing under these conditions is just too long to get the reseach done before the HW is seriously overpopulated.
If you take start at 3 for 4 expensive techs itīs roughly 1700 resources to con 3, around 1000 if no start at 3 is chosen (depening on PRT starting tech of course). Even with LSP the latter gives a bit more than 40% on the HW before shipping can start but during that time nothing has been done except for building a couple of scouts and mines and research. No factories, nothing. If you chose start at 3 itīs even worse, 50% on the HW and it takes several years of shipbuilding to get it back to a 25 or 33% holding level, especially if no green is in a 1 year range (which was the case in my testbed).
Start at 3 under these conditions is worth around 10k btw, quite attractive as you immediately have early terraforming tech, better scanners on the scouts etc. depending on the expensive fields.
Itīs difficult to compare the testbeds exactly as there was quite a difference in quality of greens but I guess I was more than 5 years behind a "start at 3" race without LSP and 19% for both.
So what to do? Iīm sure many people will chose the "easy" way and just take con expensive (or play a JOAT in the first place...  ) so taking con normal could be a strategic advantage. On the other hand being 5+ years behind in growth could be almost suicidal, especially if you get unlucky with nearby planets or neighbors.  Alternative: go normal and no LSP and not not worry about overpopulating, but even then no factories get built...
Is it worth it? The difference in normal to expensive is roughly 200k vs. 350 k to get from con 10 to con 16. So roughly 5 years full scale research later on...
I have a feeling that itīs better to bite the bullet and go con expensive as I donīt think nubians will be available during this game (where the difference would of course be even greater).
Anyone with experience in slow tech games that wants to chime in? Is my assumption about nubs wrong and some JOAT powerhouse can afford it?
Anyway, any suggestions appreciated,
Andreas
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| Re: Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Tue, 02 January 2007 11:58  |
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Many games I have played in were slow tech advance games - most of them made it to nubians anyway.
First of all - for anything other than an IT or PP, choosing LSP generally means being 5 years behind. PP and IT can make it OK due to the second planet - especially if it's a decent green. Taking an immunity with these PRT's virtually ensures that the second planet will be high value.
Taking con cheap is always worthwhile. Even if the HW population screams off to 500k (which is likley in a high growth race), it only takes a couple years to get to con 4. SS is especially good to have cheap con with due to the resource bonus.
As an example, a SS with cheap con, expensive prop, no start at 3 and a decent 1 in 4 hab setting, 19% growth with 13 resources per and 17 factories at cost 9 makes it to prop 2 and con 4 in year 2412 with research being done at HW from year 1 at 15% then increasing to 37% in year 2408 and 56% for one year at 2411. This test was on a HW with only 30 for the germanium concentration.
Now, by this time, HW population has screamed off to 629000 and in year 2412 6 privateers are built to move 150000 off. Another 4 are built in 2413 and 4 more in 2414. By 2415 HW population has been reduced to 330000.
After this, it is play as normal to maximize growth.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Tue, 02 January 2007 12:13 |
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| Skaffen |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 90
Registered: December 2006
Location: Germany | |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 02 January 2007 18:04 |
I'm confused by Skaffen's problem; I just whipped out a very playable IS with all tech normal, 19% PGR, and 1-in-2 habitability. If I put Elec, Prop, and Bio to expensive and click Start at three I can then buy excellent factories and mines with everything else the same.
I have not looked at the game settings, other than what Skaffen outlines, so perhaps I'm missing something else about this game's settings.
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I think weīre talking about different problems here. Of course you can easily design a competetive race, but my question was how to move the pop early when you start with zero con, higher than normal starting pop and slow tech advancement and no cheap tech allowed?
Andreas
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| Re: Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Tue, 02 January 2007 12:20 |
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You can't effectively move pop early without at least medium freighters. You can build a certain number of small freighters to reduce the excess growth until you get at least to con 3 though.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Tue, 02 January 2007 12:47 |
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| Skaffen |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 90
Registered: December 2006
Location: Germany | |
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| Ptolemy wrote on Tue, 02 January 2007 17:58 |
Many games I have played in were slow tech advance games - most of them made it to nubians anyway.
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Even when no cheap fields were allowed?
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Taking con cheap is always worthwhile. Even if the HW population screams off to 500k (which is likley in a high growth race), it only takes a couple years to get to con 4. SS is especially good to have cheap con with due to the resource bonus.
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Problem is that con cheap is not an option, it can only be normal. So those couple of years just got longer... Also no SS allowed.
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As an example, a SS with cheap con, expensive prop, no start at 3 and a decent 1 in 4 hab setting, 19% growth with 13 resources per and 17 factories at cost 9 makes it to prop 2 and con 4 in year 2412 with research being done at HW from year 1 at 15% then increasing to 37% in year 2408 and 56% for one year at 2411. This test was on a HW with only 30 for the germanium concentration.
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OK, I just ran another test, 1/4 WM, con normal, 19% growth rate, 11/9/16 factories, start at 3 checked, 1 year pop growth without production as per game parameters:
Doing nothing but research takes 7 years / 41% capacity to get con 3, so with shipbuilding itīs 8 years / 46% till pop moves.
If I thrown in building some scouts to actually find planets to go to, thatīs another year added and 50% reached. If I build factories and only use a research scheme as you suggested it gets ridiculously late.
So colonizing starts around 10 years into the game minimum and 5-6 years after other races when they start at a 25% hold. Plus, if early scouting shows a nice juicy green nearby, races with con expensive or JOATs can ship even earlier before the 25%.
IMHO that is way too late. Even if the econ penalty for non-optimized pop growth and factories being started late might not even be that big in the long run, being 6 years late into the colonizing race will cost at least some juicy planets Iīm sure.
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Now, by this time, HW population has screamed off to 629000 and in year 2412 6 privateers are built to move 150000 off. Another 4 are built in 2413 and 4 more in 2414. By 2415 HW population has been reduced to 330000.
After this, it is play as normal to maximize growth.
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IMHO this can work only in a universe with a lot of room, otherwise being out of the gate so late (even if in force then) will cost several planets or lead to very early conflict.
Normally not too bad (Especially as a WM... ) but in this case the race youīre fighting might well be your ally (about 50% chance, see the game description) after alliances are fixed. Actually the chance that your early enemy will be your ally is higher assuming the elder races will not chose someone whoīs had his growth curbed by early conflict.
Andreas
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| Re: Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Thu, 04 January 2007 15:00 |
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Personally, I think CA should be banned or heavily penalized by extra points and no TT. With the restricted start, TT would make CA like an HE but with far higher HP type resource counts. Ban TT for a CA for sure and, give it a 50 - 100 point handicap in the race wizard.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Early pop management in slow tech - Con expensive or not? |
Thu, 04 January 2007 20:52 |
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| Drakhyulla |
 | Crewman 2nd Class |
Messages: 16
Registered: December 2006
Location: A crypt near you :)= | |
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| Skaffen wrote on Thu, 04 January 2007 |
I hope we wonīt have just CAīs and JOATs.
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We all know we are going to be part of an alliance and need to bring something to the table.
Given the choice will the Ancients support 3 JoaT's/CA's? Or will they opt to include viable SD's/WM's/PP's/AR's/HE's/IS's if they can?
If you are end up in the alliance of lesser races, what do you have to offer?
In the previous game the Shadows allied with a WM and 2 SD's and toyed with allying with a PP race. They also had relations with a 3rd SD and a CA from what I can see from my old game files.
Not including the Ancients, gates and News network there seems to have been:
4 SD's, 1 JoaT, 2 HE's, 1 PP, 1 AR, 1 IS, 1 WM and 1 CA.
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Iīve tried some of these suggestions, might lead to a bit of an iron crunch if the starting concentration is low and you build a sizeable scouting fleet but in the end itīs doable.
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There are ways of lengthening the time before the Ir crunch hits. Also, you have 30 years of mineral alchemy and mining before you actually start.
You could even lobby the host for good starting minerals  Our host may agree because it may increase peoples option's and encourage variety. Alternatively, he may not because it adds to the excitement 
If you are concerned about the overabundance of JoaT's and CA's you could also lobby the host to restrict numbers e.g. to 3 of each as a maximum with no more than 1 of each in an Ancients alliance (perhaps preference going to less experienced players for those races) ... although judging by the last game it would be unnecessary.
Drakhyulla.
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