Colonies, Outposts & Population Growth

[jygro]

I like to see a revamp of the population expansion model for VBAM. The end of the turn rolls for all the planets in the empire is a bit of a chore. The more I think about it, I like having the census increase show up randomly, but allow the player to spend Intel to push the randomness in their favor.

Another thought is if a player decides the top ten planets for census expansion and there is a random roll based on those 10 planets.

I like the idea about colony fleets being used to grab land and as a boost to the number of colonies an empire has as Tyrel states, but I think there should be a maintenance cost for operating those small colonies (I think of them as not self-sufficient).

-Bren

[Chyll]

I am probably going to go more academic then wanted, and certainly more than needed but I keep thinking about this during the drive back and forth to work and tried some websearches over lunch with only mild success. Enough to help form my thoughts some, but not enough to put this to bed.......

OK, not enough came to light with a light search on colonial population growth. Lots of stuff on migration, but it was hard to filter through all the modern studies or find anything that cleanly offered what I wanted.
I think its out there (I seem to remember reading something about this in the dark ages of my youth), but it would take a stronger effort to find than I have committed so far.

Anyway, one thing I found that could apply was some stuff by a person named Stouffer. In short, Stouffer presented a case that migration had less to do with distance and population totals than with the opportunities in each location. There's even "Stouffer's Law of Intervening Opportunities" from his work.

Summarizing broadly, the amount of migration over a given distance is directly proportional to the number of opportunities at the destination, and inversely proportional to the number of opportunities between the place of departure and the place of destination.

Basilly, that second part of Stouffer's Law defines that opportunities that appear along a migration route may persuade a migrant to settle there rather than proceeding to the original destination.

Now, that all being considered (and not having read at length) this makes a lot of sense to me, and fits with my vague memories of reading that touched on and westward expansion migration and settlement patterns.

(bear with me, I am rushing to get some thoughts out before I have to get back to work)

Anyway, recognizing that it is about migration more than population growth there may be a way to use this to set up a slick tool for guidance on our issues.

1) We have a general consensus that allowing players to place their new Census is the way to go.

2) It makes sense that low populated colonies with capacity and available productivity would be more likely to attract migration.

3) Could there be a basic guideline that says you can place your census, but you must first consider XX, where XX represents defined conditions for available "opportunities" for the migrants? This works for me because as a player I can direct migration through productivity increase expenditures, etc. but still allows for the occasional random event to disrupt my carefully (or even randomly) determined plans (curse you, dice gods).

(And, sorry this doesn't even have a sloppy bow on its package. I was just afraid I wouldn't get back to it after satisfying my curiousity with the brief research I managed.)

[mwaschak]

If we are going to assume some form of migration without help from the player loading everyone up then there is one important thing to remember, jobs. If a system has Productivity > Census, then that means that there is an gap in the economy which might encourage migration.

-Jay

[Chyll]

If we are going to assume some form of migration without help from the player loading everyone up then there is one important thing to remember, jobs. If a system has Productivity > Census, then that means that there is an gap in the economy which might encourage migration.

-Jay

fine then... be more succinct then me.

[Tyrel Lohr]

I think that is a pretty good overview of the drives between migration and colonization, and lines up with the two paragraph reply that I started the other day and then abandoned because I didn't have time to do the kind of fact checking I wanted to.

On the points your raised:

1) While I can understand reasons for not wanting it, I think it makes more sense for players to place their own Census from population growth. It certainly cuts down on micromanagement.

2 & 3) Census probably should be placed at the colonies with the lowest Census first; that would be the first determining factor. I would then use RAW and Productivity as tie-breakers, in that ordery. The reasoning being that the Census will want to move where there is considerable chance for acquiring wealth (RAW), followed by the availability of jobs (Productivity). Morale should probably give in there, too, but I am not sure whether it would be a tie-breaker before or after Productivity.

Then again, Bren's idea of selecting a list of colonies and rolling for placement also has some strengths to it, as it would still retain some randomness as to where the Census could appear, but the player could populate the array with values. Of course, that doesn't work well if you don't have enough systems to fill the 10 slots.

One other solution that we haven't discussed is to do ALL THREE options simultaneously. This is actually possible, now that I think of it. When population increases, ODD population growth goes to colonies with the lowest Census (player's choice, using whatever guidelines as desired) and EVEN population growth goes to colonies with the highest Census. So it would be half-and-half, with remainders going to low-Census colonies. No colony could receive more than +1 Census from growth until all other colonies have received 1 more Census (I truly doubt this would ever happen, except maybe in a 1 colony empire with some sort of a Zerg species). This effectively places colonies at both high and low Census planets, and the player still gets to select them (with tie-breaker guidelines influencing those decisions).

[Tyrel Lohr]

I like to see a revamp of the population expansion model for VBAM. The end of the turn rolls for all the planets in the empire is a bit of a chore. The more I think about it, I like having the census increase show up randomly, but allow the player to spend Intel to push the randomness in their favor.

One replacement that I can think of for this would be to keep a running sum the total of your empire's Census and Morale every turn, and then each time it hits a certain target value (say, 200), you get to place 1 Census and subtract 200 from the total.

The only difference between this and the current population growth rule is that you are doing a bit of work each turn, instead of back-loading it on the 12th turn of the campaign year.

I like the idea about colony fleets being used to grab land and as a boost to the number of colonies an empire has as Tyrel states, but I think there should be a maintenance cost for operating those small colonies (I think of them as not self-sufficient).

The maintenance costs would be encapsulated by the costs to maintain the space and/or ground units that are in the system as defenders. There may not be Census there or any output, but that doesn't mean the system wouldn't be subject to attack from enemy forces or pirates, and it would need to be defended lest it be destroyed.

[Tyrel Lohr]

I thought of using fractional census for a 'new' system of population growth and the only problem with that is there is a bunch of more numbers to track. Can you imagine trying to track 15 or so fractional census for every empire in a game?

Fractional Census starts going into the large population sizes inherent in Starfire or computer strategy games. There just get to be too many Census units to track and move at that point. It does make for more distributed population growth, but the bookkeeping makes it untenable, especially when you start considering fractional Census losses from orbital bombardment...

That being said, it would make population growth more versatile if you increased Census sizes by 10 times their normal state. And you could do that without breaking the game system, you just have to remember to multiply Carrying Capacity times 10 and divide Census by 10 before multiplying times Utilized Productivity (unless of course you wanted to jump the economic scale 10x all the way around, at which point you could...).

-Tyrel

[Rainer]

Another idea would be to simply randomly determine the location of new census points. Empires which lots of small colonies would probably still get them deployed somewhere on the frontier though perhaps not exactly where the player would want them to be (though that's not a bad thing).

[mwaschak]

fine then... be more succinct then me.

LOL.

Yeah, almost. You definitely said something a bit more usable than I did . The only problem there is most governments don't have too much control about populations moving about without, say, giving away land in Wyoming.

My main point of contention is letting players place their Census.

-Jay


And just for fun:

RAAAAINNNER!!!

[mwaschak]

Another idea would be to simply randomly determine the location of new census points. Empires which lots of small colonies would probably still get them deployed somewhere on the frontier though perhaps not exactly where the player would want them to be (though that's not a bad thing).

I always liked those moments in 4x games, like BotF, where "Oceana system encourages migration". Then I look at it, and can't see why for the life of me a population would move to a volcanic planet along the Romulan border.

-Jay

[Chyll]

I always liked those moments in 4x games, like BotF, where "Oceana system encourages migration". Then I look at it, and can't see why for the life of me a population would move to a volcanic planet along the Romulan border.

-Jay

My doctor told me the heat would be good for that chronic Antarian Congestial Virus I picked up.

[mwaschak]

My doctor told me the heat would be good for that chronic Antarian Congestial Virus I picked up.

And don't forget the lovely view of Mt. Fire this time of year.

-Jay

[jygro]

and wind sprints around an active volcano...

-Bren

[Charles Lewis]

The only problem there is most governments don't have too much control about populations moving about without, say, giving away land in Wyoming.

Except they did. Technically all unincorporated frontier land belonged to the federal government. They encouraged settlement (and speculation) by selling plots at cheap prices - which is why so many people moved out there. They basically bought land sight unseen for prices they could afford and then went there and succeeded or failed.

In VBAM terms, being able to place new census where desired would essentially mirror that outcome. [handwavium] Somewhere in the background where mechanics don't need to exist, the player's government put together a package of incentives/discounts/etc. that encourage a point of census to ultimately generate in the desired location. The costs or revenues involved were insignificant at the level seen by the player and therefore go unreported. [/handwavium]

[mwaschak]

The only problem there is most governments don't have too much control about populations moving about without, say, giving away land in Wyoming.

Except they did. Technically all unincorporated frontier land belonged to the federal government. They encouraged settlement (and speculation) by selling plots at cheap prices - which is why so many people moved out there. They basically bought land sight unseen for prices they could afford and then went there and succeeded or failed.

That is exactly my point though. The USA did not exactly enable the settlers to homestead (in general), save by giving the land away. There were no free wagons, oxen, seed, or anything else.

In VBAM terms, being able to place new census where desired would essentially mirror that outcome. [handwavium] Somewhere in the background where mechanics don't need to exist, the player's government put together a package of incentives/discounts/etc. that encourage a point of census to ultimately generate in the desired location. The costs or revenues involved were insignificant at the level seen by the player and therefore go unreported. [/handwavium]

Wouldn't it be nice if all the Census magically shifted to the most efficient spots on the map. I am not sure if that is accurate, or good game play. I am trying out some of the new ideas, which are very good IMHO.

We typically see in industrial societies that populations spring from the population centers, and not rural areas. Migration can be a funny thing too, who knew people would leave industrialized Mid-West states to go live in the deserts of Nevada or Arizona.

-Jay