Development Plan Guide

[Da_Blade]

OK, i was under the impression most people knew their way around dev plans by now, but the latest Sirian-discussion (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=293463) showed me that a lot of people still do not understand much about dev plans. Though the theory (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=287815) has been mostly covered, it seems many people do not know what to make of it just yet, as there is a lot of info in that thread. So i decided to set up a thread to help people with dev plans. To give tips, answer questions etc.

This guide is for those that do not use the player defined plans. Some people are very good at using those, as some people are very good at micromanagment. I am good at neither one. Also realize this is no claim this is the best way to do it, it is just my share of knowledge. I would love other peoples input in this thread. However, if you want to flame QS, dev plans, viceroys, or anyone or anything else for that matter, i advise you to go to the local kindergarten school and ask if you can be readmitted. In other words, please keep the thread clear of rants. Discussions are welcome, but i trust you all know where the borders between flames/rants and discussions/opinions lie.




OK, here we go, first of all i will share with you an excel sheet (http://home.planet.nl/~baas0504/moo3/DevPlans.xls) i have made for you (zipped here (http://home.planet.nl/~baas0504/moo3/DevPlans.zip)). This sheet will not give definate numbers, but does give you an aproximation on the level of stress you put on each target.

I will first list the things everyone needs to realize before setting up their own plans.

First of all, i keep to the use of 7 targets, no more. And i try to use a maximum of 5 targets at a time. The targets i use are: Manufacture, Mine, Farm, Trade, Infrastructure, Government, Research. By reducing the amount of targets you give the ones you do use greater leverage, because the mentioned targets will be mentioned more often, given it more weight.

Second, try not to repeat the same target in the same plan. Repeating within a single plan will more often then not let you end up with too many of the DEA in case the DEA is desirable (will come to this later), and still none if it is not. By combining targets between different plans you let the combination weigh in on the weight of a target, which is much more desirable. For example, having mine as a tertiary target in all three plans on one planet gives it more leverage then the primary target. So let the plan combination do the repetitions, try not to repeat in a single plan.

Third, realize which plans affect which planets. Each planet (longer then 15 turn in your empire) is affected by
1. the All Panets plan
2. a Imperial Importance plan(Frontier/Secondary/Primary/Core)
3. a Mineral Richness/Biodiversity/Size/Habitibility plan.
Now, how a planet is exactly classified i will not cover here, as it has been covered before, but i will try to explain how you can use these plans. Realizing these plans apply you can fill in their general need.
- All Planets plan; you'll really want something that really applies to ALL planets here, as it weighs aproximately as much as both the other plans combined.
- Imperial Importance; these classify a big number of planets, and shall therefore be used also to adress general issues like manufacture and research.
- Mineral Richness/Biodiversity/Size/Habitibility plan; here's where the specialisation comes in. Now, using only this plan is usually not very usefull, as a single plan will most often not have enough leverage. However, combining this plan with the other two plans can result in a much stronger emphasis.
For instance, i will use a Farm primary on high biodiversity worlds early in the game. Having Farm only here means it will not have much leverage. However, if combined with secondary and tertiary importances in the other two plans, it can become a very prominent thing to build on high biodoversity worlds, while still having just little weight on the non-high biodiversity worlds.

Fourthly, do not see your dev plans as a static thing! If there was one static set of dev plans that sufficed for the whole game, QS would have included in the first place. I would advice for everyone to run a game without dev plans, and without handplacing DEAs. You will learn very much the pro and cons of the VR in different stages of the game. Early in the game you will find big food and mineral shortages, while later in game you will find yourself with big surplusses. Understanding this is very important, since you will effectively still work with the same VR, and you will need to influence him with the dev plans. So understanding what his descions would normally be is very important, i will try to cover this a bit later too.

Fifthly, realize the VR will still build things even though they are not in the plans. Most people have found this out by themselves, but didn't realize the knowledge that logically derives from it that is far more important: not everything you want needs to be included in the dev plans. For instance midgame i hardly ever have farming in the dev plans. Mining only still has a very low place in the mineral rich plan only. Still, bio's and mines get build. You can shout and scream the VR isn't listening to you, or you can use this fact to your advantage.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, do not look at single-planet cases. Dev plans are not made to manage a single planet as effectively as possible. Yet they are designed to manage a group of similar planets the best way possible. So expect some ineffeciency's on a single planet. Sometimes a bioharvest is build on a mining planet, or a mine on a very poor planet. Ineffeciency's are an inevitable thing in any empire/country or even in company's for that matter. If you feel better laying out DEAs on every new planet yourselves, by all means do. I will still advice you to try and learn the best you can about dev plans, as they are the only way to control the building of upgrades to DEAs. in any case, realize the dev plans are policy's, not laws. This means they are sometimes not followed exactly and sometimes the VR makes ineffecient descesions. AI technology has not come to the point where it reads your mind, or at least learns from you. Realizing the viceroy will not always do exactly what you would have done will prevent a lot of frustration!

The most important step in becoming a succesfull "macromanager" is to learn not to look at a planet's production, but at the empire's production. Learn the effect of coming technology's and estimate if your mineral surplus will be able to house the coming industry upgrades. Learn to work with the planets screen, to estimate the most usefull ship size according to empire production. In other words, learn to think of the empire as if it were one big planet, instead of 500 little planets.

This does not however mean, you never "micromanage", as it is called in a nice word. Early in the game you do not have enough planets yet to really effectively use dev plans. I plan some DEAs manually, especially government DEAs (for reason explained later). And throughout the game we are (regretfully) forced to keep the shipbuilding somewhat micromanagd too. Though designing some ships to be equal cost can alleviate this greatly, some ships just have to be more expensive then others, and thus need to be put into the queue's manually.



Alright, now i will include some of my working development plans. I always run at natural zoning policy, though i'll need some experimenting wether specilzed maybe is better to start with. I will begin with my most common begin-game set of plans:

All Planets: Mine/Farm/Government
Core/Secondary/Primary/Frontier/New: Manufacture/Mine/Research
Mineral Rich: Mine/Manufacture/Research
High Biodiversity: Farm/Manufacture/Reasearch
Mineral Poor: Reasearch/Manufacture/Farm
Low biodiversity: Reasearch/Manufacture/Research

Let me first explain the philosophy behind these plans before i proceed to more eveolved plans.

The plans are ment to adress some main issues you have at the beginning of the game. First of all the mineral need, as we will need a lot of minerals to expand our empire's borders and production. Food will also be very important, as our people will grow and spread throughout the new colony's. Research DEA's are also very important, though the plans might not suggest so. But fact is, priority for research DEA's is always quite high as a colony is near to completing the last DEA's. The tertiary effect is enough just to make sure those last DEAs are research DEAs and not mines or factory's.

Notice how i only used a few specific cases to specialise: mainly the mineral rich plan and the high biodiversity plan. The mineral poor and especially low biodoversity rating are not very common. However, i do want them to act different from my casual planets, and since they either have lower pop and mining abilities i want them to concentrate on different things. Note that a poor planet can still become a very good manufacturing planet, but i would rather keep my manufacturing with the mining, where more money will be avaible in case it needs serious overdriving.

Note also i will mostly include one manually build government DEA on each newly colonized planet, untill about 200 or more people turn up at a new planet with migration. The VR uses a populated-dependant formula to decide on a gov DEA, so it won't work early in the game as there is no huge population to ever validate a VR building a gov DEA. Once i reach the point where i have plenty pop, the government target in the plans is always enough to build one gov DEA on every new planet, unless it is really small.

Now these plans evolve as technology and time goes by. I start to include trade and infrastructure as soon as they come avaible, and gradually mine and food dissapear from the plans. Note that they are still being built, just not prioritized anymore. Because that is really all that dev plans should do, prioritize some things over other things.

My late game plans, almost always look very much like:

All Planets: Trade/Manufacture/Government
Core/Primary/Secondary/Frontier: Infrastructure/Research/Manufacture
New: Manufacture/Trade/Mine
Mineral Rich: Manufacture/Mine/Infrastructure
Mineral Poor: Reasearch/Manufacture/Manufacture
High Biodoversity: Manufacture/Trade/Reasearch
Low Biodiversity: Research/Trade/Research

The philoshopy behind this is to maximize each planet's manufacturing capabilities and income. Even though the infrastructure plan does nothing more then build the infrastructure improvements, these improvements improve the output of any DEA so are always important to build, no matter what. And since there are always a few planets that haven't build all (avaible) infrastructure improvements yet, i give them high priority. Space ports are important for income, the more income the more you can overdrive your industry and research DEA's, making your empire produce more with the same.

Note that farming has dissapeared completely, and mining only has a lone secondary place. The reason for this is that mineral rich planets will always have a higher priority to build mines then a mineral poor one. This lonely tertiary pick makes the VR wants it just a tad more, enough to still have double the amount of mines i would have on a comparable average planet.

There is a big difference between dev plans early game and late game, as the VR descisions have other factors. Not only does it have more choices to build upgrades in late game, it also deals with larger populations, higher grants, different needs, etc. This makes the VR do very different things when developing a colony beginning of game and late game. Your dev plans work best if they play into the VR descisions.

This is all for now, i will include some more posts on this subject later. I will for one cover the viceroy's primary decsion factors, something important to know when building dev plans, as you will have to influence those factors. I will also try and write a post on the "macrosliders", that is the political-economical economy, spending policy, etc.

I hope you'll be able to experiment a bit already, and i hope to have made a lot of things clear already. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Edit: changed late game dev plans according to some new testing data

[Da_Blade]

Although my testing on the exact VR descisions are as of yet still unclear i will explain what i know about the viceroy so far.

I will first list some factors that influence the viceroy's descision on any DEA, then i will provide some factor i have been able to determine that influence specific DEAs.

The general influences are:
- How many DEA's of the same type are already built. If there are more of the same DEA, it is more unlikely a new one will get built.
- Are there any DEA of same type that can be upgraded (not to say he won't build new DEA, but he is more likely to upgrade an existing DEA)
- No other general factors found yet.


DEA specific influences:

Industry
Factors favoring building:
- Low industry
- Lots of other DEAs
- High unemployment
Factors decreasing favor to build:
- none found so far (except the above mentioned general factor)

Mine
Factors favoring building:
- Mineral Richness
- Mountaineous area
- Low GDP
- Low pop
- First mine of planet
- Mineral shortage/small surplus
Factors decreasing favor to build:
- No mountaineous region
- Poor/Very Poor planet.

Farm
Factors favoring building:
- Plains
- Fertility
- Reasonable pop
- Food shortage/small surplus
Factors decreasing favor to build:
- Only mountain regions left
- Low fertility

Research
Factors favoring building:
- Lots of DEAs on planet
- Reasonable/High pop
- High industry
Factors decreasing favor to build:
- Low pop
- one of the frst few DEAs to be built

Morale DEAs (including government)
Factors favoring building:
- Reasonable/High pop
- Unemployment
- Unrest
- Overpopulating
Factors decreasing favor to build:
- Low pop

Now, i know this list is far from complete, but should give you some insight as to why what is built. With "Reasonable pop" i generally mean above 5 or so pop. Now, these are only factors, so not rules. A bio can pop up everywhere, as long as the pro-factors are better then then the negative-factors.

Mines and Bioharvests are very much influenced by mineral richness/fertility and terrain. That is why i choose to leave them out of dev plans in later game, as those factors alone are usually enough to get some in good places.

Also, the viceroy has a natural tendency to balance worlds to a certain extent. So if you make dev plans, keep this in mind. It's like pulling on an elastic band, the harder you pull, the more DEAs according the plans will be built, but the toughness of the elastic differs between planets. I will explain how hard you have to "pull" on some targets to get things done.

Manufacturing always needs a good dev plan priority, as the VR is more then content with only one or two factory's on a planet most of the times.

Trade always needs good priority too. Though naturally it is built pretty often, it can too easily be forgotten due to other dev plan priority's. Since trade is the cornerstne of any self-respecting economy, always include it in high priority

infrastructure same as trade, though built quite often without dev plans, it is the way to maximize all output of empire, so include in high priority too.

Research has got a decent priority once the planet starts filling up. Include in dev plans, but not too heavily as you will then end up with many research DEAs.

Mine/Farm these DEAs are very strongly influenced by other factors. However in beginning of game you can almost never have enough of either of them, so include them. Later in game you'll find yourself with huge surplusses if you keep including them in your plans. Not being included in plans still builds them, just lower ratios.

Government these will mostly get build automatically too. Do include them lightly to be sure they get build more often. Seldomly a second gov DEA is built unless it is given too much weight in dev plan.

Military/Recreation the AI is eager to build these if they are included heavily in plans. So you can include them, but be carefull, especially military is a very wanted DEA sometimes :)

Terraforming This target does not have much use in terms of buildings. As it doesn;t increase the terraforming expenditures either i have so far only found one use: it increases the need for terraforming and bio building, so that when they are visible in the tech tree, your scientists will research faster towards it. but since this can be done manually too.....

Ok, this post is not done yet, as you can see, but just wanted to already give some preliminary info. I'll edit additional info in later using a red color.

[Da_Blade]

Reserved for a guide on using the imperial sliders and settings.

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by elmo3 in the Micromanagement - Let's settle this once and for all (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=293463) thread.
I usually include Military in my DP's if playing a race that has a military bonus, otherwise Recreation. Either helps with Unrest but both is probably overkill. Lately I've been using outposts for colonizing so I get the Mil when the planet reaches full status. It removes the need for it in the DP's and I don't have to micro manage by placing it manually.

Yes, i am still looking to include a good unrest quelling priority. I have found the VRs generally build enough unrest-quelling DEAs by themselves, but with a liberty citizenship these are not enough. I would probably put it secondary in the Core/Primary/Secondary/Frontier plans. Wether to use recreation or military depends on the government. If playing absolutists military is generally best.


Are you still up for CMBB? Sent you some scenario suggestions but haven't heard back from you.


Yeah, sorry, been trying to squash a weird bug i suddenly have in CMBB... my framerate won't come above 3 or so (on an overclocked AMD 2000+ with a GeForce ti4600) :(

[elmo3]

I've never had good results with Natural zoning, always preferring Specialized. Then again I never used your DP's exactly either so yours may work better with Natural. It always felt like Natural was too close to Balanced for my liking, but then I prefer to specialize a planet when possible. I want a Min Rich to be mostly Mines for the extra income generated as well as the most efficient use of a Mine. Nothing makes me madder than a Min Poor world building a Mine, except maybe Bio Poor building a Farm! :) I can see where it might be less of a concern later in the game when you have more food and minerals than you know what to do with. Although even then you'll get more income from a Mine on a Min Rich world than a Min Poor.

Being mostly Specialized I do run into the occasional food shortage early so I usualluy have Starving preprogrammed to Farm/Farm/Farm. I know that violates your guidelines on not using all three slots for the same thing, but I want the vic to build a Farm at all costs if the Starving classification has been activated.

Good point about the Gov not getting built early due to pop issues. I noticed that and couldn't figure a good way to configure my DP's that guaranteed one without also getting two or three. I guess placing it by hand is necessary early.

I posted elsewhere that I'm pretty much a convert to using the player defined DP's. I know you don't want to discuss that in this thread so I'll just say that I'm going to give your ideas a try. I'd rather not have to use PD DP's and would be very happy if I could get the game defined DPs to work better within the constraint of my desire to specialize. Sorry Dagda but I may go back to the game defined DP camp yet. :)

P.S. - Sorry to hear about your CMBB frame rate troubles. You might try searching the Battlefront forums for help.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
This guide is for those that do not use the player defined plans.

You're underestimating the utility of the information. :)

If you use PD DPs like I do, you aren't doing it because they "work better." You're doing it because they're "sticky" and don't automatically change as the planet develops. So you're replacing a time sensitive DP with one that's not, that's all. The key "advantage" is that I set them once and know which direction the planet is going to go in without worrying about New-Secondary-Core changes. If anything, using the built-in DPs is the harder task, since you have to understand the development better than I care to. :)

But if you looked at our DPs, they'd be very, very similar as the game progresses.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by elmo3
Sorry Dagda but I may go back to the game defined DP camp yet. :)

What!?!?!

That's not allowed!!!!!!

You're Mad!!!!!!

Call the men in white coats!!!!!!

Or do what you like and enjoy the game. :) I just put my suggestion out there because it annoyed me to have things change in the application of DPs and getting the occasional surprise when I visited a planet and found it wasn't quite going where I wanted it to.

But that's me. If the built-ins work for you, there's nothing "wrong" with using them. Simply a decision about your style of play.

[elmo3]

Blade

In the general influence section you said:

"- How many DEA's of the same type are already built. If there are more of the same DEA, it is more unlikely a new one will get built."

Is this from observation or are there actual parameters in the mob's? I'm curious as I hope you're wrong, at least regarding Specialized Zoning. If the planet is Min Rich I hope the vic would favor Mines even if the majority of DEA's were already Mines, assuming no outside influence from DP's of course.

elmo3

[Da_Blade]

I don't have any definite formula's. I doubt i ever will. But the specialized setting seems to enlarge the factors to do with mineral richness and fertility. Since average worlds will develop exactly the same under specialized or natural. under balanced the factors to do with richness and fertility are decreased it think, didn't try the development difference of an average planet during balanced or natural yet.

Since all of Moo3's mechanics seem to be a collecting of modifiers which are then multiplied by a collection of factors, i find it hard to believe the "less-DEAs if there's already a few"-factor is cut on specialized. Rather, other factors are increased still making it probable that more DEAs are built.

Let me explain with an exmaple. Let's say the priority for a mine is 5 (completely fictional), factored by 4 because the planet is rich, but factored by 1/4th because it will be the 4th DEA. That would make its eventual desiredness 5. Now let's say a industry is calculated at desire 7. In this case an industry would be built.
However, if under specialized the mine is factored by 8 instead of 4 because of mineral richness, the desiredness is double, even though still affected by the fact it is going to be the 4th mining DEA. At desiredness 10 the mine is then chosen before the factory.

So far i have not been able to make complete DEA-desire calculations, as many factors and priority's remain unknown. But i have gotten a good feeling on VR decisions.

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Dagda
What!?!?!

That's not allowed!!!!!!

You're Mad!!!!!!

Call the men in white coats!!!!!!

Or do what you like and enjoy the game. :) I just put my suggestion out there because it annoyed me to have things change in the application of DPs and getting the occasional surprise when I visited a planet and found it wasn't quite going where I wanted it to.

But that's me. If the built-ins work for you, there's nothing "wrong" with using them. Simply a decision about your style of play.

You forgot "blasphemer!".

My biggest obstacle to effective planning is that New and Secondary classes, which are generally in effect for the first 15 turns, are too generic for my style. I prefer to specialize from the start where appropriate but haven't found an effective way to do that without PD DP's. And no Sirian, I don't want to hand place my DEA's. I'm pretty sure that once PD DP's are used on a planet that the game will never change back to it's own classifications again. At least I haven't seen it happen yet. That makes it tough to make sure vic builds the one Gov and one Mil I want in addition to the specialization.

As I said, I want to give Blade's starting DP's a try but as soon as vic buids a Mine on a Min Poor planet they're history! :D My guess is that I'll probably settle on a combination of built in plans with a few PD's for those worlds to be specialized from the start.

Thanks for the practical discussion. All that theory in the other thread was making my head spin.

[Da_Blade]

Well, actually the first factory usually takes somewhere near a good 10 turns to complete. Usually only 3 DEAs are planned during those first 15 turns. After that the specialize plan kicks in. If you have one, that is. Most of my planets get build up using the All planets and the Secondary plan. Yet it manages to carry enough leverage to build every planet full of industry. but i am quite a fan of lesser specialized worlds, since i think tech advancements make specialization unnessecary quite soon. Though before that point specialization is quite handy.

But i rather have every planet make some bio and mining and have lots of industry to spend the income on then have my all industry on one world and all the money on another world. But i like the ability to overdrive big time if neccessary. I was playing a game yesterday that forced me to go to holy war. I ended up with 321k PPs with 72k IPs. Thats in the 5to1 spending range on my industry for the entire empire. That means some planets were spending in the 7to1 range and other in the 2to1 range. And research is still being done. Of course you burn ridiculous amounts of money, and i got a 1/3 decrease in research. but my MBQs got completed 4 times faster as with Peace and Prosperity.

Overdriving can be ineffecient, but having the possibilty to overdrive is far from ineffecient i'd say. If you ever need to pump out a ridiculous fleet in notime, it's nice to have semi-balanced planets.

[Zhaneel]

And post it to Orion Sector or GameFAQs. :-) Once its complete.

Something I've been thinking about is the early on stuff. I had a game where I had no good habitable planets and even fewer of the min rich/high biodiverse options. I faced almost a constant mineral shortage and had to have mines on my mineral poor planets. Grar.

But perhaps specialized would be a good zoing to have early on, when every planet counts and needs to work well within the whole because there is such a fine line, and natural later on? Kinda like chaning the Dev Plans later in the game.

Also, at least for new planets, I think Saving some money until you get that first industry is a good idea. My general response is to therefore turn off the AI and handle it myself, since I don't want my industry plantest saving just because I got new planets.

Which makes me want a Sort by Dev Plan button on the filters.

Zhaneel

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
...Most of my planets get build up using the All planets and the Secondary plan. Yet it manages to carry enough leverage to build every planet full of industry. but i am quite a fan of lesser specialized worlds, since i think tech advancements make specialization unnessecary quite soon. Though before that point specialization is quite handy.

I'd argue specialization is quite handy all the way through, especially with the tech advances. The reason is that you will derive much more income from the specialized worlds DEA's, especailly after the tech advances kick in. If I keep the planet tax low and the Imperial tax high then I can put that "extra" money earned on my specialized worlds into the Imperial coffers and then dole it out to the Industry giant worlds through the sliders. That should allow me to out produce an empire of more balanced industrial planets with overdriving when needed.

But i rather have every planet make some bio and mining and have lots of industry to spend the income on then have my all industry on one world and all the money on another world...

See my argument above regarding the distribution of funds. I don't want to turn this into an economics thread, but I think it is very relevant to DP's. I have not tested this in any scientific way but I'll argue that an empire built on specialized planets will out perform a non specialized empire in most cases. Obviously my specialized empire is more suseptible to blockade which is a concern, however it is worth the risk IMO in larger galaxies with fewer opponents where there is time to build up the "front lines". Non specialization is more prudent in smaller galaxies with more opponents and/or when you run into a hostile empire early in any size galaxy.

[Zhaneel]

I think the lose from planet to imperial to planet again (especially when we don't understand Military Grants) is not as good as having at least something on all planets. So, I'm inclined to agree with Da_Blade on this one. Specialize your planets sure, but not to such an extent that you can't use a specialized planet for anything else if you need.

And here's an another argument:

If I have a fairly specialized planet that can still pump out my picket/escort ships in a reasonable time all that planetary money (which I ALWAYS have a surplus of) goes to good use if I have 1-3 Industry there and the Imperial portion can go to my industry giants (who have at least 1-3 min/bio DEAs for income) who are making my core ships. By spreading out my production like this I have more MBQs going with useful stuff AND more AUs being spent at the low burn rate to get the same total number of PPs/turn.

Zhaneel

[DavidByron]

Well I used my first DP in a game the other day :)

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
But i rather have every planet make some bio and mining and have lots of industry to spend the income on then have my all industry on one world and all the money on another world.

No argument. But that gets more to how you apply your PD DPs than it does using them in the first place. When I finally get a chance to play again, I'll be changing mine to balance things out a little better and probably won't be double-applying a single DP again.

[Da_Blade]

First of all, i want to stress i do not make completely balanced planets. I just don't stress them to be overly specialized. What i do in the dev plans, is order every planet to prioritize manufacture.

The beauty of this method is, that the viceroy will still zone the mining and bio DEAs where they are best applied. If there are more regions suitable for mines/farms more will be zoned. Thats the way viceroy works. Go back to the rubber elastic comparison. The more suitable regions for mines or farms, the more sturdy the rubber will be,and the less manufacture will be built.

Having rethought the zoning policy i would definately advice a specialized zoning policy early in the game. As said before an average planet develops the same with or without specialized zoning policy. Testing should show wether a poor planet also develops the same under specialized. If this is the case, specialized definately is the way to go.

Later on in game i guess it's a preference. Frankly i couldn't keep the viceroy from building the amount of mines and farms he builds now, maybe working with three plans would work, but i am too scared things like governemnt and morale DEA's would be left out too, as the dev plans get so much force they ignore eveything not in them. Natural setting delivers me with more then enough food and minerals already, though i have to bring back farm and mainly mine targets in the dev plans from time to time to ensure i don't loose too much surplus.

Now, i am quite interested in seeing what one of your specialized empire's could do elmo3, but since i used to use specialized but moved to natural, you can understand i am currently not expecting too much of it. But alas we cannot test it conclusively. We could both build up an empire to turn 250, but i guess that would mostly just show who's a better overall player. Dev plans are only a small part of it... And last thing i claim to be is a good player :D

[elmo3]

We could use Brawler's test bed and run for say 100 turns but I'm not sure it would really prove anything either. I was going to download it from the link you provided in another post but when I went there the link was broken.

[Da_Blade]

Oops, should work now. Kinda hard to download something if you forget to upload it :rolleyes:

Here (http://home.planet.nl/~baas0504/moo3/Turn061.rar) is the link again, in case you're too lazy too look it up again ;)

But i doubt this will be very effective, since most of the DEAs will be layed out under shortage, not really showing the differences. Also, i am convinced natural is better at high tech, not low tech.

[Zhaneel]

Could always just not settle them all at once. Run a test where you decide when to settle and then see how it goes.

Zhaneel

[CAN_ttal]

Originally posted by elmo3

As I said, I want to give Blade's starting DP's a try but as soon as vic buids a Mine on a Min Poor planet they're history!


And what's wrong with a Mine on a Poor or Very Poor planet? A mine will increase your planet's GDP, allow you to build that industry in the same region without worrying about population factors, allow overdriving of industry/research on that planet and increase overdriving & economy of your planets with excess minerals, since they need to send less minerals to planets that are running a shortage.

Unconvinced? Some hard numbers from the mob files.

Base mineral production by mineral richness:
Very poor - 1
Poor - 2
Average - 3
Rich - 5
Very Rich - 8

Mineral production by region type (non-Geodic):
Plains - (-1)
Broken - 0
Mountains - +1

So basically, a Poor mountainous region will produce the same minerals as a Average broken region (before other modifiers). Or another way to look at it, all modifiers & building improvements being equal, a Very Poor planet will produce 1/5th (20%) the minerals a Rich planet will produce, and a Poor planet 2/5th (40%).

Hypothetical test:

6 planets--1 rich, 3 average, 1 poor, 1 very poor; and by luck of the draw, they all have the same population, regions, and DEAs built. Unreasonablistic, I know, but hey, this is my example. ;)

Rich planet produces 1000 minerals, excess 500;
Avg planets produce 600 minerals, excess 100;
Poor planet produces 400 minerals, shortage 100;
V. Poor planet produces 200 minerals, shortage 300;
Total minerals produced/needed - 3400/3000, AU value added to planetary GDPs - 3000 AUs (mineral value is 7.5 AUs).

Without the minerals produced by the poor planets, I would end up with a shortage of 200 minerals and would have lost the extra GDP of 3000 AUs.

As further proof, with mining improvements and industry upgrades which lower mineral requirement, even a Very Poor planet can produce enough minerals to support its industry, which increases the GDP of your other planets.

Sorry for the semi-rant and bringing economics into this discussion, but I've been hearing that mines and poor planets don't mix so often in these forums I just had to say something, especially considering that poor/very poor means something very different in MOO3 compared to the previous 2 MOOs (directly affected planetary production).

[elmo3]

Originally posted by CAN_ttal
And what's wrong with a Mine on a Poor or Very Poor planet?....

What's "wrong" is that it's inefficient. So is a Farm on a Low Bio planet. A Mine/Farm on a Rich world will far outproduce one on a Poor world including generating more income as well from the "specials" or whatever Tom Huges called them in his Economics thread.

I'd rather fill those Poor world slots with Industry or Research and keep most (but not all) of the Industry and Research off my Min/Bio Rich worlds. I'm more tolerant of a Farm on a Poor world because as Tom pointed out, a little food is better than none if a planet is Starving.

I won't comment on your hypothetical test becasue, as you said, the numbers are contrived. The stats you quoted from the mob files say it all.

I prefer specialization because it is more efficient. That's just the way I play and it works for me. YMMV. Now all I have to do is come up with some DP's so that vic agrees with me!

[Da_Blade]

Well if you really want vic to ignore mines on a poor planet as much as possibe, i'd use a Manufacture/Manufacture/Manufacture or Research/Research/Research plan for mineral poor to make sure mines are forgeotten as much as possible, but that means he forgets just about everything else as well.

I fully agree with Can_ttal on mining on poor planets. You should reserve the rich planets for more mining, but every planets needs a mine to get some money in.

[DavidByron]

with mining improvements and industry upgrades which lower mineral requirement, even a Very Poor planet can produce enough minerals to support its industry

You can get production up, yes, because efficiency bonuses (the economy ones not the construction ones) add to the base efficiency without regard to the planet richness. +1 is +1 to a very poor planet too but it doubles production there whereas on a rich planet it only increases it 20%. Racial pics do the same.

To a Silicoid with max mining and +1 from tech it matters much less. Very poor/mnt = 9, Very rich/valley = 15.

However half the money from a mining DEA comes from the rare elements and that multiplies by the base efficiency again, so the Very Poor planet won't produce much even for its output.

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Well if you really want vic to ignore mines on a poor planet as much as possibe, i'd use a Manufacture/Manufacture/Manufacture or Research/Research/Research plan for mineral poor to make sure mines are forgeotten as much as possible, but that means he forgets just about everything else as well.

I fully agree with Can_ttal on mining on poor planets. You should reserve the rich planets for more mining, but every planets needs a mine to get some money in.

Let me ask you guys a question:

If I am using Specialized Zoning and none of my DP's that would apply to a min poor colony have Mine in them, shouldn't that be sufficient for the vic to get the message that I don't want a Mine on that planet?

When, not if, he puts a Mine there anyway it does't ruin my game but it leads me to conclude that DP's need more weight in the decision process. If he ever puts that Mine in Plains when Mtns are avialable, as I've seen, then I think something is broken.

A bigger issue for me is how the AI empires will ever be competitive without benefit of DP's since my experience with Regional Zoning alone (i.e. no DP's) leads to a very weak empire IMO, but that is a topic for another thread.

[Da_Blade]

OK, let me retract that last statement. Depends on your racial treats really. Let's talk about AU's first:

A mine on a poor planet with 100% DEA productivity, no moons, tech advances and a race with average mining makes 69 AUs a turn (see Tom Hughes' thread) assuming the minerals produced (3 minerals) are consumed by a factory on one of your planets. For a race with superior mining that would be 106 Aus, assuming the 5 mined minerals are used on planet or somewhere else in empire.

A factory operated by a race with average manufacturing, 100% DEA productivity, no moons, unrest, etc. makes 300 AU. For a race with superior manufacturing that would even be 504 AU.

Now, that's a GDP additive, let's look at an example. For a poor planet without unrest and habited by a race with average mining and average manufacturing, let's assume a tax rate of 20%, and 4 employable pop.

Example 1:
3 industry DEAs
1 mining DEA (in mountain)
- This would give a DEA productivity of 2-1/(4/3,33)*root(4/3,33)= 124%.
- The 4 pop would produce 12 industry
- The 3 Manufacturing DEA's would produce 74 industry, making a total of 86 industry.
- The mine DEA makes 3 minerals.

The GDP produced by pop is 240 AU
The GDP produced by industry is 1110 AU
The GDP produced by the mine is 69 AU
--------------------------------- +
Making a total GDP of 1419 AU

20% tax = 284 AU avaible to spend on 86 industry. Making a total of 178 PPs possible, in we leave out maintenance and pollution.

example 2:
4 Industry DEAs
- This would give a DEA productivity of 2-1/(4/4)*root(4/4)= 100%.
- The 4 pop would produce 12 industry
- The 4 DEA's would produce 80 industry, making a total of 92 industry.

The GDP produced by pop is 240 AU
The GDP produced by industry is 1200 AU
--------------------------------- +
Making a total GDP of 1440 AU
20% tax = 288 AU avaible on 92 industry. Making a total of 187 PPs possible, if we leave out maintenance and pollution.

Now, this is an interesting result. Like you see they do not differ much. Of ocurse, on a very poor planet they would differ a lot more, as the mine DEA produces next to nothing. But interesting fact here is that the 4 industry's produce just a little more then the 3 industry's and mine. Now i let DEA productivity in this example on purpose, because it does make things matter as you see. It's the DEA productivity doing it's best job here :)

Now, time to make some realistic conslusions. First of all, noone here will ever play a race on average mining and average manufacturing. So things are different in reality. Needless to say, the mining gets more effective if you have superior mining and average manufactururing. But most common will be the other way around: Superior manufacturing and average or good mining. In these cases the 4 manufacturing DEAs really are better then the 3 manufacturing and one mine.

However, this does not throw mining on poor planets completely out of the window. Mines on rich and very rich planets make huge money. I would rather have a good mine/manufacturing ratio on rich planets against the price of a few ineffective mines on poor planets. And no matter what, those Mine DEAs on average/poor/very poor planets do bring in minerals, be it not very much, but later in game they bring in a nice amount to run a big part of your industry from, the rest can be brought in from the surplus on rich planets.

I hope i have cleared some things for everyone, though we remain in the same situation: it's a preference wether you want to specialize or balance your empire. Never before have i encountered a game were so many different strategies were possible without one being obviously the best of all. Thumbs :up: to QSI.

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by elmo3
Let me ask you guys a question:

If I am using Specialized Zoning and none of my DP's that would apply to a min poor colony have Mine in them, shouldn't that be sufficient for the vic to get the message that I don't want a Mine on that planet?

When, not if, he puts a Mine there anyway it does't ruin my game but it leads me to conclude that DP's need more weight in the decision process. If he ever puts that Mine in Plains when Mtns are avialable, as I've seen, then I think something is broken.

A bigger issue for me is how the AI empires will ever be competitive without benefit of DP's since my experience with Regional Zoning alone (i.e. no DP's) leads to a very weak empire IMO, but that is a topic for another thread.

The VR on specialized will build less mines on poor planets. he will not completely stop building mines though. Also, if you want to keep the VR from building mines on poor planets, build some manually on rich planets to make sure you don't run in mineral shortage at some time. Mineral shortage and free mountains mean new mines no matter how poor the planet is.

If you want to prevent mine building on mineral poor planets make sure you make a mineral poor plan of Manufacture/Research/Manufacture or something alike, that should keep him busy most of the time :)

As for weight of dev plans, i think it would be good to have a switch for dev plan weights. Though we kind of already have it. The VR listens to dev plans better on natural setting, and worse on specilized/natural....

Oh and the AI empires get nice production bonusses so they can still be more or less equal with our highly optimized empires. Still i'm afraid this means they will be strong in beginning but weak later on, as all the tech advancements make the bonusses smaller and smaller in comparison.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by elmo3
[B]Let me ask you guys a question:

If I am using Specialized Zoning and none of my DP's that would apply to a min poor colony have Mine in them, shouldn't that be sufficient for the vic to get the message that I don't want a Mine on that planet?

Nope. Particularly with specialized zoning you'll have this particular "problem." The DP gives a DEA a +30 bump in priority (pulled from DevelopmentPlans.txt). Specialized gives a +50 bump in priority (AIPlanet.txt). So you'll get fewer mines (as Da_Blade pointed out), but you're just not going to stop 'em altogether.

That's one of the reasons that switching to Natural zoning can make DPs more effective - when you want to go "against the grain" for a planet, Naturalized removes a large obstacle to getting your guidelines followed. This is normally a mid- and late game desire, though, since you're fighting for every scrap of food & minerals in the early game to keep your economic engine chugging. Even with natural, you'll still see some mines pop up, but they'll usually be in good spots for mines (barring a shortage). Experiment with switching to natural zoning around turn 80+ when you've established a decent surplus. You'll find that your DPs are suddenly even more effective at building industrial worlds even if the "specialized" zoning would call for a mine or bio.

[laxrulz777]

I tend to emphasize manufacturing and research over everything else but i also specialize my planets... That's not to say that a mineral rich is all mines except for 1 industry and 1 gov't. But I do periodically sort my planets by mineral richness and delete farms from rich planets and mines from poor planets (this takes about 2 minutes and is pretty simple... I do it about every 10 turns)

My Dev plans generally look like this (I tend to play as a democratic Cynoid with bad ground forces)

All Planets: Manufacturing / Research / Infrastructure
New Planets: Manufacturing / Government / Manufacturing
Mineral Rich: Mining / Mining / Mining
Mineral Poor: Research / Manufacturing / Recreation
High Biodiversity: Farming / Research / Recreation
Player Defined 1: Manufacturing / Manufacturing / Morale
Player Defined 2: Research / Research / Recreation
Player Defined 3: Farming / Recreation / Farming

Note that I don't emphasize trade at all but they are generally filled out regardless so I don't care. Ideally I have 3-4 type of worlds with the following concentrations (according to the 1, .7, .3 ratio)

Factory worlds (All, X, Player 1): Manufacturing 3, Research .7, Infrastructure .3, Morale .3
Mining Worlds (All, X, Rich): Mining 2, Manufacturing 1, Research .7, Infrastructure .3
Farm Worlds (All, High, Player 3): Farming 2.3, Research 1.4, Manufacturing 1, Recreation 1, Infrastructure .3
Research Worlds (All, Poor, Player 2): Research 3.4, Manufacturing 1.7, Recreation .6, Infrastrucure .3

This leaves me with alot of Manufacturing and Research capability that is well spread out but with specialized Mining and Farming.

To me that's exactly how you want it. Ignoring specialities for the moment consider that Mining and Farming generate the greatest benefits for specialization. Manufacturing gains some things from specialization (time to produce large ships mostly) and Research almost no benefit from specialization.

The only times I build things manually are the occasional planet that insists on building mines on a mineral poor broken terrain and i usually hand place research facilities on specials. Other than that though I find that these Dev Plans guide things pretty well. I don't generally change the Dev Plans during the game and I make relatively minor changes for different races (deemphasizing mining slightly and upping farming and usually switching research for manufacturing on the all plan... That's about it.

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Dagda
Nope. Particularly with specialized zoning you'll have this particular "problem." The DP gives a DEA a +30 bump in priority (pulled from DevelopmentPlans.txt). Specialized gives a +50 bump in priority (AIPlanet.txt). So you'll get fewer mines (as Da_Blade pointed out), but you're just not going to stop 'em altogether.

Why does Specialized make it _more _ likely to get a Mine, or is that not what you meant by Nope? Also, what exactly gets the bump? Surely not Mine on a Min Poor planet?!

That's one of the reasons that switching to Natural zoning can make DPs more effective - when you want to go "against the grain" for a planet, Naturalized removes a large obstacle to getting your guidelines followed. This is normally a mid- and late game desire, though, since you're fighting for every scrap of food & minerals in the early game to keep your economic engine chugging. Even with natural, you'll still see some mines pop up, but they'll usually be in good spots for mines (barring a shortage). Experiment with switching to natural zoning around turn 80+ when you've established a decent surplus. You'll find that your DPs are suddenly even more effective at building industrial worlds even if the "specialized" zoning would call for a mine or bio.

I'm not "going against the grain" asking the vic not to build Mines on a min poor planet, he is! Unless there is an empire min shortage that he would interpret as a min shortage on his planet there should be no incentive to build a Mine under the conditions I laid out.

How does Natural Zoning remove an obstacle to my wanting to stop vic from building Mines on a min poor world? I've had really lousy results when testing Natural Zoning. In every case Specialized gets better (for me) results. I do agree that Natural would make it easier to build an industry world if it was classed min rich but I don't see where it will help on min poor worlds since Specialized should be ignored on those anyway.

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
...build some manually...

<shudders violently> <makes the sign of the cross while backing up> I need to alert the Mods that Sirian has taken over Da_Blade"s account! :D

Seriously though, I rarely have min shortages but I follow you that it could be the trigger for vic to build a Mine on that min poor world. I'll watch for that in future play.

[Da_Blade]

Dagda does have a point. I must honestly say i don't have much experience with Specialized anymore, since i;ve only used it for a short while before turning back to natural. Though Dagda is wrong on the modifier (i proved those modifiers were not working a while ago), there are numbers that could make the VR build more mines, even on min poor.

If you look above the desiredness of a mine is measured by
a) mineral richness
b) mountaineous terrain
These two are seperate modifiers, making mountains very much wanted, but rich mountains even more. Now, if specialized makes these two modifiers more heavy, the more heavy mountain desire might cancel out the lower, or possibly even the same, richness modifier. See what i mean?

I did one quick run on specilised/natural differences yesterday which yielded less mines in specialized then in natural, but it was hardly a scientific test to be honest....

[elmo3]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Dagda does have a point. I must honestly say i don't have much experience with Specialized anymore, since i;ve only used it for a short while before turning back to natural. Though Dagda is wrong on the modifier (i proved those modifiers were not working a while ago), there are numbers that could make the VR build more mines, even on min poor.

If you look above the desiredness of a mine is measured by
a) mineral richness
b) mountaineous terrain
These two are seperate modifiers, making mountains very much wanted, but rich mountains even more. Now, if specialized makes these two modifiers more heavy, the more heavy mountain desire might cancel out the lower, or possibly even the same, richness modifier. See what i mean?

I did one quick run on specilised/natural differences yesterday which yielded less mines in specialized then in natural, but it was hardly a scientific test to be honest....

I see what you're saying, but can't see why Specialized would affect the mountain modifier since most worlds have a mountain. I could see it affecting min richness though.

<pause to rtfm>

However, after just rereading what the manual says about Specialized I'm not sure what it really means or how it would be applied. I've always taken it to mean it would favor Mines on a Min Rich, Farms on a Bio Rich, etc. but now I'm not sure. That sounds more like Natural Zoning to me now.

At this point I'm burned out trying to figure it all out. I'm just giving up until the code patch comes out, hopefully along with the new online manual. If it isn't all clear then I'll prolly just give up on MOO3.

Thanks for the discussion though.

[fdlu]

Please advice:
I am still playing the game more or less for testing purposes, to learn the ropes so to speak. Time constraints and waiting for the code patch.
I used this post (thanks for it anyway) as kind of a blueprint to test the dev. plans and get a feel for them.
Test game has 3 settled planets (turn 6) with 3 more to settle.
I tried out da-blades suggestions. Esp. the government dev.plan.
But I noticed the following: Whenever I laid in a government DEA all (!!!) additional building and planning by the VR stopped. Gov.DEA lingers in planned. Nothing else gets build after it. VR will finish his until then planned DEAs but after that nothing more. How come ? After deleting it the VR will build up the planet (no gov., only if I include it in another plan, then often get 2 or more).

Will it be possible to post some advice the way:
Use this plan with this planets and the result will be...
If you change the dev. plan then the VR will build...
If you make them ....it will only...., so avoid
So any newbie will be able to reproduce it. This will help a lot I think as some kind of tuturial is still surly missing.

[Icarus falling]

I'm sorry if this is such a basic question. This has probably been covered elsewhere; but here goes.

If I choose military as the primary emphasis in a development plan, does that direct the planet to build military DEAs or will it increase percentage allocated on the military production slider to more (ie.; build more ships)? Or maybe both!?

I asked this question in general discussion and have been treated like I have SARS! Is it my breath!?

[Icarus falling]

Bye the way this is a great thread!!! I'm stickying this one!

It seems to me that having a good grasp on how to use Planet Classification and Development Plans are very basic to being able to enjoy and play this game well.

I don't have time to review the entire thread now, but I plan on it! Then AI's look out! (I'm too cowardly to face off against human multiplayers)

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by Icarus falling
I'm sorry if this is such a basic question. This has probably been covered elsewhere; but here goes.

If I choose military as the primary emphasis in a development plan, does that direct the planet to build military DEAs or will it increase percentage allocated on the military production slider to more (ie.; build more ships)? Or maybe both!?

I asked this question in general discussion and have been treated like I have SARS! Is it my breath!?

Dispite your bad breath i will answer this question :up: ;)

The dev plans only influence ViceRoy descisions. So a military terget in your plans wield do nothing but yield Mil DEAs and their improvements.

[Icarus falling]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
<snip> So a military terget in your plans wield do nothing but yield Mil DEAs and their improvements. [/B]

So I guess if I want to churn out the ships I have to concentrate the development plans on Manufacture, infrastructure and mining, right?

Am I correct then to assume the only way to increase ship production is to:

A)Call a "Holy War"
B)Go around pushing up the Ship building sliders on all your planets with the highest industrial production

Are there any other ways?

[Da_Blade]

Yes, this is one of the things i will be discussing in the imperial sliders/tools guide. If you want to up your production, increase you military budget and decrease your other grants. Furthermore crank up the military-political economy slider, and set spending policy to spending. No need for manual changing of sliders, just call a holy war.

I'll show you the difference between two turns:

It's the same empire, one with the Holy War setting, one with the Peace and Prosperity setting.


The Peace and prosperity setting:
http://home.planet.nl/~baas0504/moo3/example11.jpg


The Holy War setting:
http://home.planet.nl/~baas0504/moo3/example10.jpg


You can see that the Holy war setting yields over 2 times the amount of production, while lowring research. Now research spending is ineffecient by peace and prosperity, the production spending is inefficient by Holy War. Luckily there is a few grades in between :)

Also, you can see the effect of trade everywhere in my plans, since it requires a lot of money to overdrive all industry on all planets by an average of 5to1! I wish they would include test tubes/research points instead of the expected next turn RPs, that would make much clearer how much you are overdriving your research department.

Also note the small surplus in food and minerals. You might still think this is a lot, but 10 turns ago i had a production equal of the current need, so that surplus definately is needed to accomodate my fast growth.

Oh and yes, Manufacture, infrastructure and trade will be your main focus for industrial production. Mines and Bioharvest are best kept to a small surplus to accomadate for future growth.

[smphang]

/me waiting eagerly for the imperial funding sliders guide.....
:D

[Kralizec!]

Two questions:

Does the (beta) code patch change how Da_Blade's DP's work (such as how Recreation DEA's now produce income)?
Do you have any plans to complete the long awaited guide on using the imperial sliders and settings? :)
[/list=1]
And a comment:
[list]
Kudos :up: on the excellent thread! After avoiding DP's like the plague for months, I think I am ready to try them out ...

[Da_Blade]

1. as far as i have been able to tell not much has changed, though i have changed a bit of strategy myself, but haven't tested it out yet really. But as far as i know everything in the guids is still up-to-date.

2. I have plans, but at the moment it's just that, plans. My life has gotten a lot more busy, and writing such a thing demands at least a few hours, not counting the testing. No problem in itself, but i rarely have a few hours to spare anymore.

But it will end up there eventually! :D

[friedmad]

Ive noticed you never included Military in any of your DPs. Is this because you manually control this?

[NeutroniumDrgn]

While the third group of dev plans varies a bit by what race I'm using, I've had generally good results by setting...

All Planets: Infrastructure, Trade, Recreation
Core/Primary: Manufacturing, Government, Recreation
Secondary/Frontier: Manufacturing, Government, Military

The third group varies a bit by what race I'm using (particularly size designations), but often includes similar to the following:

New: Manufacture, Manufacture, Mine
Mineral Rich: Mine, Mine, Mine
High Biodiversity: Farm, Farm, Infrastructure
Mineral Poor/Poor Biodiversity: Research, Manufacturing, Infrastructure
Large: Manufacture, Manufacture, Government
Small: Research, Research, Infrastructure
Unrest: Government, Recreation, Military

Now, this is somewhat colored by the fact that I'm almost always playing a Parliamentary government, and thus get a great benefit out of the Government DEAs.

Also, being the obsessive type that I am, I generally take the time to manually lay down DEAs for a good ways into the game; at the very least ensuring that those which I consider critical are present. I'm not too interested in Military DEAs (since their unrest reduction is minor under the government type I favor), but I do try to ensure that there's at least one in each system within a few hops of the borders for scanning purposes.

Neutronium Dragon

[Archonon]

touch to prevent deletion

[Sangrolu]

Good thread, touch, and newbie question:

Looking at the sample DevPlans some of you have laid out, it seems that research doesn't get near the emphasis I think it should. Perhaps it's just my experience in MOO2, but I general like to be king research. Is it that much less important in MOO3 by way of comparison?

[Devastator03]

research is important. However, dev plans empasize reaserch DEA's, which make test tubes, which make Reaserch Points cheaper. It just works out to requiring many more industrial DEA's for the huge amount of money they make, and the importance of production.

[ZSharlin]

tapping

[Kralizec!]

ZSharlin wrote:
tapping

As opposed to poking? :p

[Da_Blade]

Oh dear! I see I've accidentaly pulled down the hosted pics. My bad, I hope I still have them somewhere at home.... :confused:

[Kralizec!]

Da_Blade wrote:
Also, if you want to keep the VR from building mines on poor planets, build some manually on rich planets

In my current game I have tried this, but even on a small galaxy this requires so much horrid micromanagement that my wrist is killing me (especially as I had to slide up and down the Infrastructure bar several times to find the best place the manually build the mines, then change the DEA to something else when the VR puts mines in a 2.2 efficiency region). :cry:

[pedxing]

Originally posted by Kralizec!
...my wrist is killing me (especially as I had to slide up and down the Infrastructure bar several times to find the best place the manually build the mines... :cry: so... did you end up getting the current release of the 1024x768 mod?

much less scrolling... ;)

[Kralizec!]

pedxing wrote:
so... did you end up getting the current release of the 1024x768 mod?

much less scrolling...

After seeing this post, I was sure to hunt it down and install it.

Now I want to name my next child after you!:)

[Tarhalindur]

Last Strategic touch for the day. :)

[Da_Blade]

Damn you for spamming my email inbox with all these touches :p

[Da_Blade]

But the touches have worked. Decided to give good old Moo a try again, and boy am I enjoying it!



I should probaly read up on my own strategy again ;)

[JosEPh]

ERHMmmm....

Read up on your own Strategy again.

And this time include Balanced Zoning.

And I put several Mines on Poor and Very Poor planets Early game when they are needed the most. Mid game and on they get switched to Industry and Research.

:D

JosEPh

[krpeters]

ERHMmmm....

Read up on your own Strategy again.

And this time include Balanced Zoning.

And I put several Mines on Poor and Very Poor planets Early game when they are needed the most. Mid game and on they get switched to Industry and Research.

:D

JosEPh

I think I've found a "trick" to getting Roy to handle Rich/Poor planets in a sane fashion.

When I need minerals, I set Zoning to "Specialized". Roy happily stuffs all my Rich/Very Rich world with mines, and smartly doesn't build mines on my poor planets. This is a good way to start -- but only for a dozen or so turns, because Roy will almost *only* build mines on Rich worlds. You'll be up to your eyeballs in minerals soon.

When I have enough minerals, I set zoning back to "Balanced" -- and *don't* include Mining in my devplan. So my poor/very poor worlds have little incentive to build mines (thanks to the rich world overproduction), and so I don't get too many mines there. Occasionally (once every 50 turns or so) I go through my poor planets and manually rip out the mines.

Does anyone know of an *easier* way of accomplishing the same thing? (Setting up a dozen different dev plans for Roy's planet assignments or manually creating player designations doesn't count)

[pedxing]

Does anyone know of an *easier* way of accomplishing the same thing? (Setting up a dozen different dev plans for Roy's planet assignments or manually creating player designations doesn't count)
well, if one already has a saved set of DevPlans that cover the planet assignments, then loading the plans is pretty darn easy.

why wouldn't that count? is it the initial investment of time in making the full set of plans? :weird:

sure, it was some one-time work, but now that i have them have them, it's just as easy to click the load button as it is to fool with the zoning strategy.

[jamesbode]

Thanks fer those posts mate .mayb i wud do tad betta in the game now :P
free online games (http://www.flashtrackz.com)

[Naggarok]

Can someone upload his DP ? I cant get it to work. I never used them, i always manually set up my worlds. However, sometimes i just want a planet to build 1-2 Industrial DEAs and then ONLY research DEAs. How would i set this up using DPs ? I understand how they should work (i.e. assign a class to the planet, assign priorities to a class) but i NEVER was able to actually use DP at all because i cant change the class my planets are classified into..

[pedxing]

well, i know it was just an example, but community experience is that not having enough Industry on a planet because it is all Research is not a good idea.

the reason is, Research consumes AUs, while Industry generates them.

if you don't have enough Industry to generate the AUs that Research consumes, the Research will not be driven as well as they should be...

but that aside, you don't want to use devplans to do something like that, unless you want all vaguely similar worlds to do the same thing.

what you use devplans for is to adjust the way that most planets will behave... then if you want a special few planets to have some crazy dea layout, you do those by hand.

what they are for is when you realize that you are doing just about the same thing on every planet, with minor variations here and there, and you want to be relieved of that tedium.

they allow you to tweak the 'roy so that it will put roughly the same mix of deas you would put, on most planets.

there will still be occasional fits of stupid, but the work of fixing that stupid is hopefully lower than the work of laying out every single planet by hand.

also important is that DevPlans that work for one race will not always work for others, due to difference in planet preference, and farm/mine/industry/etc ability, so crafting your own for your favorite race is the way to go.

there is a method, which i've written up a couple of times, for how to arrive at a DevPlan collection that works for your style and favorite race.

it involves letting the game autorun for a while, several times, with progressively more and more plans defined.

each time a run completes, you go around the empire, finding the patterns in the stupid, and adding a plan or two that tries to counteract that stupid.

then you autorun again with new plans, confirm the reduction of stupid, and identify a next stupid to try to tackle.

it relies on using the Planets list, changing the details setting to show classification, and sorting the planets in different ways, and looking for patterns.

i'll see if i can dig up one of my old descriptions of the method...