Empire Tech Levels: The Dirt Farmer's Plight

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Tyrel Lohr
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Gareth_Perkins wrote:Quick question indirectly relating to this:
Tyrel Lohr wrote: This creates a situation in which an Interstellar empire could have eight star systems with an output of 123, while the Interplanetary empire would control one system with 60 EP.
Does this mean that the "Wartime Economics" rule is being shelved (as with it the income imbalance in the buildup to war is likely to be roughly 30-92EP as the Interstellar Empire ramps its economy up to invade the Interplanetary faction)?
Wartime Economics will be built into the game system as a default rule, but its effects are being changed. The specifics of what we are going to do haven't been completely nailed down yet, but the gist of it is that Gearing Up will allow you to get at most a +50% economic/production bonus (and Recessions can get you as low as a -50% economic/production penalty). This means that an empire at a full Wartime Economy will have only 50% more output than an empire at Peacetime. In 1E the rules gave the Wartime empire a +100% bonus, which was excessive and made everyone want to be at War for the economic bonus.

Balancing out the Wartime Economy rules this time is the concept of Wartime Fatigue. For each turn that your output is above 100%, you earn +1% Wartime Fatigue. You also earn +1% Wartime Fatigue for each turn that you Gear Up (Gear Up increases output by +5%; limit once per turn; so it takes 10 turns to go from Peacetime to full Wartime). Any time your Wartime Fatigue is > 0, you have to roll a check on a D100 + Fatigue to see what ill effects (if any) your empire has suffered. There will be a chart that will have a range of effects starting at results of 101 and working upwards. As the values increase, the potential results grow more severe. The absolute worst effect will be a complete economic collapse, which will send you into a full Recession but without a meaningful diminishing of your Fatigue. Essentially, at that point your empire collapses from the stress of constant war.

Now, Gearing Down acts as the opposite of Gearing Up, and reduces output by -5% but also reduces Wartime Fatigue by 1. Each turn that you are at peace (no Declaration of War/Total War) you also lose 1 Wartime Fatigue. Thus the mechanic works that when you Declare War, you can begin ordering Gear Up for ten turns then, when your war is resolved, you can start Gearing Down to burn off the excess Fatigue and return to a normal economy. If you have built up too much Fatigue, you might have to Gear Down below your 100% output level, and then wait for your Fatigue to fall to a level where you can once more "Gear Up" to restore your economy to normal levels.

Technically, you could decide to Gear Up at any time, but I would probably make the cost to Gear Up during peacetime incur twice the normal Fatigue. Similarly, Gearing Down during wartime probably should remove twice the normal Fatigue.

Internally we discussed the issues related to keeping the economic outputs at the normal 1E non-Wartime levels and adding Wartime Economies on top of them. Our final determination is that 2E has enough extra infrastructure types, more expensive units, and generally more things to spend EPs on, so the greater income values should balance one another out.

-Tyrel
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Gareth_Perkins
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Post by Gareth_Perkins »

That almost sounds a lot like tweaking taxation,

Would that make wording things simpler?

Set your economy up as you like from 50% to 150% "taxation", with points in excess of 100% progressively making the populace more disgruntled (perhaps make the gradient of that upset shallower if you are actually at war, rather than just taxing for increased revenues),

Of course tax set below 100% might award a player with improvements to morale,

You could then use racial Aggressiveness to manipulate the wartime disgruntlement factor (so Klingons might put up with heavy taxation if you are actively at war), (sorry to use ST as an example again - but they are so stereotyped that it's just too easy),

I guess the wartime fatigue method has the advantage that you can easily manipulate the numbers directly (so an uncovered Intel: Assassination plot might lower your fatigue as the populace is angered by the opposition - and a heavy defeat might drastically increase it - maybe even forcing the player into an armistice or surrender because the will of his people has broken, even if he still has military options!),

Mmmm, on second thoughts I like that a lot,
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Post by Charles Lewis »

That definitely has potential. Pondering has officially begun.
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Post by nimrodd »

So, what areas will the Wartime Economics affect? Just EP production, or will it affect Industrial Capability also (more factory space is converted from plowshares to swords)?
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

nimrodd wrote:So, what areas will the Wartime Economics affect? Just EP production, or will it affect Industrial Capability also (more factory space is converted from plowshares to swords)?
I think that it should at least affect production output, though it is debatable as to whether economic output should also be affected. I think it should, but good arguments could be made either way.

-Tyrel
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Post by nimrodd »

Tyrel Lohr wrote:
nimrodd wrote:So, what areas will the Wartime Economics affect? Just EP production, or will it affect Industrial Capability also (more factory space is converted from plowshares to swords)?
I think that it should at least affect production output, though it is debatable as to whether economic output should also be affected. I think it should, but good arguments could be made either way.
I would think that Economic Output would have to be affected. We are still having to pay for the new ships with EP, correct? Industrial Capacity (Productivity * Raw) is just the max that can be produced at that system, isn't it, or am I missing some change here.
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

nimrodd wrote:I would think that Economic Output would have to be affected. We are still having to pay for the new ships with EP, correct? Industrial Capacity (Productivity * Raw) is just the max that can be produced at that system, isn't it, or am I missing some change here.
Economic Output would have to be increased if we wanted to make sure the player had more EP to spend on purchases, but a player might actually have enough EP already available to do quite a bit of purchasing, whereas an increase to Production Output would allow them to actually build anything.

I do think that having both of them be modified when Gearing Up or Gearing Down would make the most sense, but one could argue the case either way.

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Post by nimrodd »

Tyrel Lohr wrote:Economic Output would have to be increased if we wanted to make sure the player had more EP to spend on purchases, but a player might actually have enough EP already available to do quite a bit of purchasing, whereas an increase to Production Output would allow them to actually build anything.

I do think that having both of them be modified when Gearing Up or Gearing Down would make the most sense, but one could argue the case either way.
I think that they both would need to be increased when Gearing Up. I run into both ends of the spectrum at times in the game I'm in. Sometimes I have more EP to spend than I have shipyard bays. Other times I have empty shipyard bays due to not enough money coming in (actually too much maintenance). Sometimes I have the right balance for a little while, but usually, I am at one end of the spectrum (usually the not enough money).
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Post by jygro »

I really like the idea of the player determining the 'taxation level' for their empire and getting penalties based on that. 50 - 150% sounds great and another great way of spending intel!

-Bren
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