Viceroy overbuilding DEAs

[kcoleman]

Hi everyone. I'm enjoying beginning to understand this complex game, but I've seen references in these forums to something that I am not seeing happen.

Specifically, the Viceroy is massively overbuilding DEAs on my planets - I have seen many references to it being intelligent and not building DEAs that there is no one to work in yet, but this does not appear to be happening for me.

I just ran a quick experiment, and my DEA Employment on a newly colonized world in my home system is currently 3/9 on a size 8 world. 3.3/9.33 if you don't round off, if I'm understanding correctly (10 mines, 6 industry). DEA Productivity from Population is reading 35%. I have tried this experiment with some "early game" DPs that I saw posted in a thread by Da_Blade, and without any DPs - very similar results (massive DEA overbuilding way ahead of population growth).

Am I doing something wrong? Is this expected behavior and I've misunderstood in other contexts in these forums? I have applied the patch, by the way.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice!

[zanzibar]

Ummm... over-building DEAs in a new planet is a GOOD thing!! This allows for your planet to get it's production on track ASAP! Just let your VR build up your planet, until all DEAs are built. Then you should set the slider to a reasonable level... like around 10% or so... this will allow those DEA improvements to continue to be built, and your planet will continue to grow. So, unless you want your new planet to take like, 100 turns to build it's first DEA... I'd let the VR over-drive DEA production for a while... at the very least, until I got at least 1 industry and 1 mining built on that planet...

[kcoleman]

Originally posted by zanzibar
Ummm... over-building DEAs in a new planet is a GOOD thing!! This allows for your planet to get it's production on track ASAP!
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a total waste of money/resources in the early game. On that new planet, 3 of the 6 industry DEAs built by the VR are completely dormant - why didn't it use those 450 PPs to build some sort of defensive ship or a colony pod or just save up for a few turns so it could overdrive more effectively later? Why is it overdriving my industry to build a bunch of empty factories and barely manned mines?

Am I misunderstanding something here? Does having a bunch of unused/little-manned DEAs benefit my planet in some way that I'm not taking into account?

[zanzibar]

Ummmm... with no DEAs you get almost no production, food, and minerals. With no production, ships take hundreds of turns to build. With no food your colonies starve. Getting the DEAs up as fast as possible ensures that when they fill up, you have the infrastructure to support your population, and ship building. Yes, ok... you do get some pollution from this, but the faster build time is definitely worth it, and your viceroy knows this.

[kcoleman]

I don't think you're understanding me. I'm not suggesting that the VR should be building zero DEAs - of course DEAs are needed to build things efficiently, which is why it always builds an industry DEA first. I'm suggesting that it's building way too many way too early.

I believe that when my population is 3, there's very little reason at all for it to have already built DEAs to support a population of 9. Is that an incorrect statement?

Rather than it building industry, mine, mine, industry, mine, industry, followed by 10 DEAs that have no one to man them, I would like to see it build industry, mine, mine, industry, mine, industry, ship while waiting for population to grow a little, mine, industry, 5x ship while waiting for population to grow more, etc.

Wouldn't that be a more efficient use of my resources? Isn't that how you would do it if you were micromanaging everything? Is it too much to ask of the AI?

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by kcoleman
Rather than it building industry, mine, mine, industry, mine, industry, followed by 10 DEAs that have no one to man them, I would like to see it build industry, mine, mine, industry, mine, industry, ship while waiting for population to grow a little, mine, industry, 5x ship while waiting for population to grow more, etc.

I understand what you're saying, but I believe there is a pop-pull factor with understaffed DEAs (e. g. "I can't get a job back home, but they're willing to pay me big bucks to move here and work!" )

[zanzibar]

believe us... DEAs are good to get built early. Not only do they have a "pull" factor, but pop growth is usually higher in developed areas then ones without a DEA.

[Ron_Lugge]

Bumping threads = no no

[Rockstone]

Originally posted by zanzibar
Ummm... over-building DEAs in a new planet is a GOOD thing!! This allows for your planet to get it's production on track ASAP! th Than why do they call it over-building?:haha:

[Patton1942]

Originally posted by Rockstone
Than why do they call it over-building?:haha:

Well, for 2 reasons
1.) building more than you need. Its overbuilding. But just because you dont' need it, doesn't mean its not helping.
2.) Also - Overdriving: building sliders at something other than green. the yellows, brown and red all cost more money. At x3=x16 or something like that, I forget. Either way, overdriving gets things quiker, but at a greater cost.