For anomalies, I feel like by increasing the negative penalties received from negative anomalies, you would simultaneously have to increase the bonuses received by positive anomalies. Otherwise, it runs the risk of just being unbalanced, and in some ways, not making any sense. Cuz it sounds like you're focused on just penalizing mass-colonization and not attempting to balance the colonization mechanics; in regards to anomalies.

On top of that, I get what you're saying about negative anomalies not being significant once you reach a certain stage in the game, but I don't think that, in general, anomalies are supposed to be super significant factors when colonizing a planet later in the game, they're like a minor bonus or pain, not something that is meant to put major thought into. 

And once a space-age faction reaches a certain technology stage, why should some anomalies matter all too much ? It's just unrealistic that, for example, the Vodyani would be affected by Acid Rain on a monsoon planet, especially after reaching a certain level of technology. 

As for Overpopulation, I agree with both you and IceGremlin that overpopulation should not affect the food production, but the growth rate of a population. However, I don't believe that it should eventually put the growth rate at 0 if you don't continue to construct food buildings (though consumption will eventually force you to construct food buildings anyway), since a population at that technology stage, is realistically going to continue growing, since problems like not marrying/having kids because of social/economic reasons or because of an aging population are unlikely to occur with space-age civilizations, unless the government places restrictions on population growth. So, per your solution, growth should be reduced, but not eventually placed at zero, since that literally makes no sense, and personally, I'd be freaking annoyed if I had to constantly micro-manage my systems populations by individually selecting groups of immigrant pops to put from one system to another. 

On top of that, this would have to be specified on a faction-by-faction basis, since (For example) the Vodyani, and Vaulters, would definitely suffer more than other factions in this regard, due to the negative growth they already suffer from b/c of the "Gargantuan Population" and "Black Thumbs" traits. 

The reason for the Growth consumption approaching 0 is not for realism, it's for gameplay. If it doesn't approach zero, the risk is run of the population constantly growing, such that the player inevitably runs up an Overpopulation malus that they didn't deliberately invest in. It's a matter of ensuring you only rack up a high Overpopulation malus because you deliberately chose to do so.

As for Vodyani and Vaulters, Vodyani for one have rarely if ever had to deal with Overpopulation malus, while Vaulters reduced Food wouldn't be difficult to understand in regards to a Growth malus.

As to the "after reaching a certain level of technology" bit about negative anomalies, we have a mechanic for that- Technologies, one of which already is a late game tech meant to remove the negative effects of anomalies, and which is very unimpressive because the anomalies it fixes for such a high investment are themselves unimpressive. So of course it would be unrealistic to still be affected by negative anomalies past a certain point, that's why we have a technology for that express purpose, except said technology doesn't much help because negative anomalies don't much hurt.

Hi,

Sounds like you know the game well! We haven't currently planned to tweak anomaly balance as we feel it sits in a decent spot. This could certainly make for an interesting mod however.

As for growth being slowed once you reach overpopulation, it's an interesting idea but we actually wanted players to have to deal with the malus from overpopulation. If there is enough traction on an Idea we could consider a change, but for the moment it's unlikely.

Best,

I like the current framework. But the malus from overpopulation is pretty much negligiable, as others have said. Or, to put it another way:

jhell wrote:

 we actually wanted players to have to deal with the malus from overpopulation. 

I think everone here does! But right now it's dealt with trivially.

It would be interesting to see how punative it would be if you doubled the overpopulation malus - I am not convinced it would be too harsh, at all.

Groo wrote:

Dragar wrote:

It would be interesting to see how punative it would be if you doubled the overpopulation malus - I am not convinced it would be too harsh, at all.

Sounds like someone is calling for a mod, to test? In case it "feels good", I would prefer to have a setting in game options, to double overpopulation malus. You remember the gamers complaining about overpopulation/overcolonization malus?

That's true; many people were unhappy with those things (I quite liked the challenge, though having the new expensive building seems to have satisfied the 'paint the map' urge). But this effect is local to a system - overcolonization was a penalty to every system, so hopefully it wouldn't be in the same league.

jhell wrote:

...As for growth being slowed once you reach overpopulation, it's an interesting idea but we actually wanted players to have to deal with the malus from overpopulation. If there is enough traction on an Idea we could consider a change, but for the moment it's unlikely.

Best,

I think you've misinterpreted the point here. It's not about letting players avoid the current Overpop Disapproval, it's about how if we buff Overpop Disapproval enough for it to actually matter, players need some sort of a check against their Growth so they can choose to take on that additional Overpop Disapproval. Because right now, Overpop Disapproval doesn't actually matter. To return to my original post, 

"the Approval malus can't be very high because we have no real choice in filling the slots "

As in, Overpop Disapproval is negligible right now, but it has to be negligible because we can't stop Overpop slots from eventually being filled, especially cause Food is so abundant. Therefore, in order for Overpop Disapproval to be increased (say, -4 Approval per Overpop), then we need a Growth malus to ensure that we don't grow too much incidentally, and instead must choose to buff our Food to overcome it and accept the Overpop Disapproval.

Think of it like Overcolonization Disapproval. It's not something that just automatically happens, it's something we choose to pursue and accept the consequences, hence why it can be so high.