I've sunk a few hours into Horizon now and am enjoying myself. However, I find that I have some questions around how the colony/economy mechanics all hang together. In summary I think my question is: what are the numbers in the colony screen based on?
Here's what I think I know:
• Population is the basic resource of the game.
• Approx 33% of the population is available as the workforce
• Farmers are the only type of worker until the population is feed, and then workers (industry) and scientists become available.
• The percentage of each type of worker determines the base amount of Food produced; Industry produced; and Science Projects produced.
• There are some effects, based on planet type, that will have an impact on the total size that a colony's population can grow to, and how effective farming (food production) will be
• Investment in structures in the farming, industry, and science provide bonuses to the base amount of resource produced by the structure (typically along the lines of x2, x3 etc)
• Some technologies will provide bonuses to the base amount of resource produced by some structures (typically along the lines of x%)
So now some questions about what I think I understand:
• Does the above reflect how the base amount of food, industry, and science are calculated?
• If so how what is the formula?
• If not how are the base amounts calculated?
• Is there (or will there be) an opportunity for the player to tweak the base amount of food, industry, or science produced by a planet - for example manually setting the percentage of farmers vs workers vs scientists?
And now some questions about stuff that I don't understand:
• Given that population appears to underpin everything are there any ways to influence growth?
• There is a morale value, which does presumably influence population growth - what factors influence this (I don't recall seeing it change on any of my colonies)?
• How is the Tax Income of the colony calculated?
• Presumably it is some percentage of population size less maintenance costs of the colony structures - is there any opportunity to change this (ideally with associated impacts on morale, productivity etc))? Empire Tax vs Colony Tax?
• I don't understand how a colony's Industry influences the build queues - both ship and structures
• I see on the ship queues there is an industry amount associated with each ship - does this mean that the construction time is calculated based on the goods produced figure shown in the Industry panel (i.e ship industry cost / industry = turns to complete?)
• Is there any impact on industry if multiple ships/structures are being constructed at the same time?
• Do structure upgrades also have an industry cost?
• What is the base of Trade Traffic?
• What influences Trade traffic? - I did see that after signing a trade treaty an increase in the number of lines connecting my colony and the other races increased, does this in some way represent the volume of traffic?
• What is the base of Tourism Traffic?
o What influences Tourism traffic? - I did see that after signing a free movement treaty an increase in the number of lines connecting my colony and the other races increased, does this in some way represent the volume of traffic?
I do have some more general questions and observations too:
• This might be me not understanding how best to play, but my colonies tend to all end up being developed the same way: 2-3 food structures; 2-3 industry structures; 2-3 science; 1-2 trade or tourism structures. How do you guys develop your colonies? Is it along the lines of above, or do you prefer to specialize? If you specialize are there any things you're considering when determining what to specialize in?
• Because of the way I develop my colonies, they don't tend to have any individual personality (for want of a better word). This might be resolved by me playing smarter, but I do have some thoughts on how they might be made more unique and individual:
• More and different resources with different bonuses (I think I've seen gold (trade?) natives (food?) so far in game, so this one might be covered and I just need to play more). Potentially also give some consideration to resources that unlock once some technology has been researched, or leveled; or structures that specifically develop the resource further.
• Variable number Structure slots. I think I read another post that the structure slots are an abstraction of the level of government, so keeping with this theme make the number based on the the population on the planet. This would seem to have some good game-play implications: If terra-forming increases the total amount of population, then it will also open up additional slots as the population grows; If population decreases (is this likely?) then structures will need to be scrapped; etc
• Wonders - structures which generate empire wide bonuses - to be unlocked when the appropriate technology is researched/discovered. Possibly differentiate between unique to empire and unique to game too.
• More structure choices available, and not necessarily upgrades. I.e the ability to have two different Industry structures with differing effects and, to make life interesting, structures that provide bonuses for one resource at the expense of some other resource. Also, structure availability doesn't seem strongly correlated to the tech tree (lots of upgrades available without needing to research them), so maybe make additional structures more dependent on available technology?
Thats probably it for now. Thanks for taking the time to read, and hopefully theres not too many n00b statements to wade through.
Some questions on the economy
Re: Some questions on the economy
Well, right now i tend to build each colony the same, i have found the location of money with a memory editor, i play for fun, not the challenge and i can make money easy in this game, i just want the money from the get go.
Anyway, what i do, is on the capital, i do 3 food, 3 science, 3 trade and 1 tourism, the spare building slots are for when i learn the 4th level buildings for the food and science buildings.
When it comes to the other colonies, i just have 3 food and 3 science and then 1 of both trade and tourism.
In the end, its just pretty much the same thing regardless of the type of world i colonize, gem deposits, gold deposits, i don't bother, because to get a mining colony, you need to ignore other buildings, which technically isn't an issue on a small world (less then a billion population limit), but on larger worlds, the food is needed, it would be better if you could define which type of colony it is or the planet bonuses are passive, instead of needing a specfic colony type.
The game is fun and all that, but when i play, i just pretty much build the same stuff on each planet i colonize or conquer, it does get tedious sometimes, MoO2 had this problem, but it had autobuild, which helped me alot, i could rush build every production building and then just let the rest build on its own.
The thing i do not like about this game is the fact that the upgrades to the buildings also takes a slot, i mean, you are upgrading a building, not building a new one.....doesn't really make sense to me.
Anyway, what i do, is on the capital, i do 3 food, 3 science, 3 trade and 1 tourism, the spare building slots are for when i learn the 4th level buildings for the food and science buildings.
When it comes to the other colonies, i just have 3 food and 3 science and then 1 of both trade and tourism.
In the end, its just pretty much the same thing regardless of the type of world i colonize, gem deposits, gold deposits, i don't bother, because to get a mining colony, you need to ignore other buildings, which technically isn't an issue on a small world (less then a billion population limit), but on larger worlds, the food is needed, it would be better if you could define which type of colony it is or the planet bonuses are passive, instead of needing a specfic colony type.
The game is fun and all that, but when i play, i just pretty much build the same stuff on each planet i colonize or conquer, it does get tedious sometimes, MoO2 had this problem, but it had autobuild, which helped me alot, i could rush build every production building and then just let the rest build on its own.
The thing i do not like about this game is the fact that the upgrades to the buildings also takes a slot, i mean, you are upgrading a building, not building a new one.....doesn't really make sense to me.
Re: Some questions on the economy
So to get a mining colony you have to have no buildings other than industry?
Exactly how much of a bonus to income does a mining colony provide?
Exactly how much of a bonus to income does a mining colony provide?