Here is the screen shot. It takes 38 turn or 2000 credit to upgrade a factory to Xeon factory.

I don't see a Space Elevator and a Deep Core Mine ... I always start with those for production. They give flat bonuses to production which is much more powerful than the low percentage bonuses of factories.

Edit: is this the base game? But even there those structures were present, but I don't see them in you list of buildable improvements on the right ... ? Are they further down or missing completely?

Looks like you are playing vanilla and not crusade.

What's particulary interesting is that your social manufacturing is lower than your raw production. I'm not up to date on what is going on in vanilla, but if I had to guess, I would say stats are still computed with the economy wheel.

This means 1 raw production is divided between manufacturing, research and wealth, whereas in crusade 1 raw production gives one towards each.

In this case it is ridiculously far from balanced. I would just suggest to you to mod the game:

1) Go to <installdirectory>\Galactic Civilizations III\data\Game
2) Copy GalCiv3GlobalDefs.xml
3) Into <username>\Documents\My Games\GalCiv3\Mods\ExampleMod\Game
4) Open the file
5) Search the line <PopulationToProductionMultiplier>1.0</PopulationToProductionMultiplier>
6) And change the number to 2.0 (You may need to increase this to 3 or 4, I am not up to date on vanilla balance with half the crusade changes in)
7) Start GC3 go into settings and enable mods
8) Restart the game

 I see.

 This is very fast pace! In normal pace the price for upgrade is even higher.

 

 Thanks and I will try to mod the game soon.

 

Can you confirm whether the space elevator and deepcore mine are available to build? What pops up when you click the 'Govern Planet' tab? Is there a planet focus you can activate in that menu?

 

You can mod it like it was suggested above, but you will pretty much remove any decision making when it comes building your planets as it will be easy to build anything at the drop of a hat. One of the best parts of GalCiv is the planet management. Once you get the hang of it, it's a lot of fun.

 

They updated a lot with vanilla, especially the UI, and I'm playing with the Crusade expansion. Another thing you can do is build the bureau of labor improvement, then access 'Govern Planet' tab which will show you a tri-colored 'wheel' that indicates how the production stat is split between wealth, construction and science. You will be able to move the pointer for the planet all the way to the point where the production stat contributes entirely to construction, speeding things up considerably. You should also still be able to do this globally, for all planets, in the govern tab from the main galactic screen.

 

I also wonder when you colonised the planet, and the ideology choice you picked came with a planetary malus that slows construction? Sometimes I do take those choices and have to supplement the planet with an extra starbase or citizen (if you play Crusade).

Hi,

If you are playing the vanilla game then the thing you absolutely need is durantium refineries. These cost quite a lot to rush but, if I remember,  add+8 raw production to a planet which is a massive boost. 

For research,, Thulium Data Archives (I think they are archives) have the same function. 

You also need to research to whatever it is (sorry it's a good while since I've played vanilla) - Galactic Governance? - to get control of the planetary wheel for key planets. 

Cheers,

Jon

 

 No, I just have access to space elevator in starting.  And yes, in government page I have access to four options for my planet.

Ok.
 

I see.

 I think I don't have that option in vanilla.

 

Negative.  The basic econ improvements are 10%, with most first upgrades to 12-15%. 

Please stop referring to "balance" among the planetary management options.  "Game balance" refers to equity among opponents - i.e. players - whom we agree should have equivalent opportunities to win. 

What you are discussing is whether certain improvements or management techniques are better than others.  There is NO agreement that several different options should have equivalent outcomes. 

There is no competition among improvements, for goo'ness sake!  Thus "balance" has no meaning when applied to them.

 

 

 

I don't know if you have taken a look at his screenshot...
He gets 2.7 social manufacturing out of 5.8 raw production with two basic factories and level 2 adjacency each. Sounds reasonable?

Xeno factories are down to only giving +20% (from +25%) while manufacturing cost is up to 100 from 60. Colony capitals used to give 5 raw production, not one. This is not the vanilla you remember anymore.

Negative.
You can check it in the base games ImprovementDefs.xml. It's +3 flat and 10% per level now.

I think I have an simpler solution for you.
1) Right click galciv3 in steam library
2) Properties->Betas
3) Activate 'galciv3classic - v2.33 Release'

I only gave the improvementDefs a glance, but it seems reasonably close to the pre-crusade state, meaning the balance is quite good.

What?!

If Improvement A gives me X benefit/cost and improvement B gives me 10*X benefit/cost, what is the purpose of improvement A except for confusing and disappointing people?

From your screenshot, they changed a lot of the UI from when I last played vanilla. You should be able to select a planetary 'focus' that lets I think* (it's been a while lol) an extra third of production between construction/science/wealth. This was the first means of speeding things up, unless you played a faction like the vanilla Krynn, you would have the planetary wheel unlocked from the very start.

 

Still, the best, most efficient way to play vanilla is to learn how to use the wheel system at the planetary level, and global level depending on your needs at the time. When you get the hang of it, it can be quite OP actually. For example, when I would start a game pre-crusade, I would move the marker on the global wheel halfway between science and construction to get both of those things kickstarted at the global level. It's a balancing act, as you do have to watch your money and the size of any deficits. I definitely, strongly recommend you get used to trading techs and resources for more of what you need, as that is a big part of the game and a great way of getting money. Researching treaties like science or free trade are really valuable to the AI, so you can trade that for money and/or tech. 

 

Also, someone commented above to use durantium refineries. Yes, wherever possible, you want those things. Especially on your big manufacturing worlds that you rely on for building fleets quickly. And definitely, use starbases to boost you planetary economies!

Every option has its place (at least in theory).  When you have a Manufacturing bonus and not enough food, use Factories.

In a way, it's similar to Ascension.  99% of the time the whole quest is pointless.  So why keep it in?  To confuse and disappoint people?  Or those who don't understand it yet?

Again, this is not a balance issue, it's an issue with your (or our) lack of understanding.

Talking about current Crusade: Would you say there is a point to building factories? Is there anything that factories do better than food+pop? Because I don't. It can be calculated. I did so in the 'Beyond 2.6'-thread (page 5 or so). There is objectively no reason to ever use factories or research labs in current crusade.

When you say:

Then food-pop vs. pure mfg/research is the prime example I would think of. They dont have equivalent outcomes.

Would you say, nothing should be done about this?

I'm not arguing whether we should call this balance or not yet.

...Lets actually do that:

And what happens if player one uses management option A while player 2 uses management option B, while the two options don't have equivalent outcomes? The players are inbalanced due to using different strategies. If you say balance only refers to both players having access to management option A, so both can need to use A when wanting to win, then your definition of balance is so narrow it is not practical for designing a game with big variety, which is the point.

The only point I see as arguable in this thread is not refering to it as balancing, because OP meant 'pacing' instead of it. A game with bad pacing mans all management options take ages or too short. But as soon as we are talking pop vs. factories, it is balance territory.

Or whatever word you want to call this, but as pointed out at the start, it is a very real issue, that needs to be considered.

They are not in the base game. They are crusades equivelent to Power plants, Slave camps, Power Matrix, Hives, and others.

 

Since we've moved from pacing, which is where we started, to discussing actual balance:

It seems to me at this point that if Stardock just made food and cities The Really Obvious Way To Win, then they've just most of the buildings irrelevant. Which, by extension, means they're risking making most of their work irrelevent. Does this even mean Citizens aren't worth having? That's another balance question: If - as some have pointed out - building a Tall Empire is kind of impossible so a Wide Empire is it, then Leaders and Administrators seem to be TROWTW when picking what kind of Citizen you want.

They need to buff up the improvements - factories, research labs - etc so they are at least much more equivalent to food and cities in terms of helping production. Food and cities build and research slower but boost morale (workers with full stomachs are more satisfied), improvements mean things are built/researched faster but lower morale (working in grey buildings is a bit of a downer). So there's a balance created in the choice of improvement/farm...

 

I don't disagree that some more balance work needs to be done so that the population factor is not the be all, end all. However, I think it is pretty clear by now we have a new player that needs some help understanding some of the basic rudiments of the game. Even with the vanilla balance changes, that construction que is too arduous. I would prefer the outcome be that Mokus understands the fundamentals of the game first before being dragged into a debate on the finer details of balance by some of the more advanced players here. Better they learn the game, and from there, formulate their own judgments. That is my view on this thread.

 

Frankly, a lot of replies to this thread are better directed at Frogboy (and yes, I note your detailed reply to him in "beyond 2.6"), or the dev team because while I happen to like the 1:1 factor of production, it needs some more work. The important thing here in this thread is that we get a new player diving into, and enjoying the game. 

You are missing my point. My point is, that there is nothing to learn from the current balance except getting bored from the pacing.

Hence I advised modding or reverting to 2.33 vanilla and learn the fundamentals there and hope Froggy and team get the balance on the recent iteration right soon.

I know you are meaning well here, but maybe you should play a few rounds in vanilla 2.6 yourself, if you can't tell from the data examples I gave above, that the pacing in 2.6 vanilla is very sluggish compared to what you remember.

You are assuming e.g. that there is plenty of Food.  There may not be.

No one in his right mind would argue that Fact. are better than (or equivalent to) Food+Pop in the current implementation.  You've erected a stalking horse by choosing to read my posts as though I do.

What happens when one player is good and the other is not?  As I said, the only real question here is ignorance of the mechanisms. NOT that the mechanisms are not equivalent.

IMO a very valid criticism.  Especially if the AIs don't "get it".

IMO that is not good advice.  Personally, I prefer to play 2.33.  But using it to "learn" the game creates more of a problem than it solves, unless one intends to stay on the old version.  The planet management in 2.33 is radically different from 2.5+ (which is why I bounced off 2.5 rather quickly).  Better to just diagnose his problem directly and help him over the hump.  This thread appears to have wandered off behind the little animals for that purpose, so recommend he starts a new thread?

 

 

Good so we have a common opinion on this.Quite frankly I have no idea what you are arguing. If you agree with me that the above is a good example for something that needs fixing, there is nothing left to argue except maybe semantics. And I really don't care about those at this point. Give me another nice two-syllable word for this and I can use that.If SD doesn't get the pacing right in the future I would advice exactly that: Continue using 2.33 or mods. Don't use the current iteration of the game if it's not well made.

But being SDs guineapig for this is not the a good way to get into this game.

You're reading in again.  I don't necessarily agree that it needs fixing.  Frankly, I don't know enough about the devil's details to offer an opinion.

Uh.. "fubar"?

The reason I object to "balance" is that the word implies moral obligation, and an existential game flaw - neither of which apply to the issue here.

It's hard to argue against staying on 2.33.

 

'Balance' in reference to game design is commonly used the describe relative power of different potential player actions. It has nothing to do with moral obligations and is not exclusive to existential game flaws.

This is the point where I don't understand at all how

, does not imply fixing it.

This is quite OT now, if you are interested we can continue this discussion via pm.

 

Nah, don't worry about it.  Just remember the old software developer adage.  "What some consider a feature, others consider a bug."