Custom Automation Policies

Hi! 

I believe many late-game problems exist due to abscence of a proper star system automation policies. As far as I remember, in previous Endless games there was a nice "balanced" automation policy which ES2 lacks. However, I suggest going further and allowing to make custom presets of automation policies.

1. Custom automation system.

2. Additional parameters.

3. Directed terraforming.

4. Example.

5. Balanced automation.

6. Global construction.

1) The idea is to add several parameters to the automation within a hierarchy of priorities. This determines which buildings are to be built first as well as how the population should be assigned to planets.

Whenever you create a preset, you can choose a level of priorities for the following Aspects:

Food, Industry, Dust, Science, Influence, Approval, Military and Curiosity.

In regards of any of these aspects the following Actions may be done: building star system improvements (as well as negative anomaly reduction), building planetary specialization, inter-planetary population assignment, terraforming.

You can exclude any Aspect as well as any Action from the automation policy.

There should be such an option as a "balanced" policy which is aimed at maximizing the general output of the star system. The Balanced policy could be integrated into the preset on any level.

2) You should also be allowed to set a minimal approval level for the star system, however if you prioritize food or influence, the automation will tend to consider approval as well. You also can prioritize approval itself.

Another parameter to consider is a planetary colonization. There should be several options: colonize as soon as possible, colonize to prevent overpopulation, colonize planets with Luxury and Strategic resources as soon as possible (and the rest to prevent overpopulation), never autocolonize.

Finally, there should be a check for the things you constructed manually. Options: Automation will freely deal with such things (improvements/specializations); Automation will do nothing with such improvements/specializations; Automation will change specializations and do nothing with improvements; Automation will do nothing with specializations and sell improvements that don't give output any more. 

There should be an option to apply these 3 additional parameters Empire-wide.

3) Sometimes you might want to create an ideal world for a specific population type or to maximize effects of specific improvements. In this case you should be allowed to choose specific planet type you want to terraform the star system into, considering sterile/fertile and hot/cold/temperate. The Automation will turn the planets into the most efficient ones within the chosen limitations.

4) For example, I am playing as a Craver with 3 main pops and 7 minority pops. I would like to create a scientific star system in the long view, but without other aspects suffering significantly at the moment. I also have a quest to keep approval at 70% for 10 turns. Besides, I want to colonize all the planets as soon as possible to prevent them from being depleted too fast. Consequently, I establish a policy as follows:

Minimal approval: 70.

Colonize: as soon as possible.

Affect manually constructed improvements/specializations: only allow selling useless improvements.

1. The depicted policy implies that my population will always be assigned to reach the best synergy with pop traits and system improvements. The population will shift every turn to max FIDSI output. However, we have Cravers which will reduce approval below 70 if they use "slave master" trait at all the minorities. therefore, Automation makes 3 minority pops live on a planet without a Craver. I also enabled planetary specialization automation, but only in respect of new planets - my Slug and Sludge centers will stay to produce more luxury and strategic resources. However, Specializations will not go to the construction queue before all the colonizable planets are settled.

2. Then I want the Science to be the construction priority. However, terraforming takes much turns, therefore I want it be implemented later.

3. When all the Science improvements are constructed, I will need more industry to speed up terraforming and maintain further development.

4. Terraforming starts in order to increase my planets' Science output; effects of population are taken into account as well; whenever a new science or industry improvement becomes available, it is inserted into the queue as the next item. Terraforming will not start if it leads to the Approval decreasing below 70.

5. Finally, when there is nothing to terraform and no improvement can increase my Science and Industry, the Automation starts to build everything else in an order of efficiency.

5) Talking about the Balanced automation, I used the term "efficiency". Every basic resource (FIDSI and manpower) is likely to have a kind of value which the AI uses, but it does not always reflect your current priorities. Instead of endless balance testing, I suggest allowing the players to correct the relative Empire-wide value of these basic resources themselves. The Balanced automation option will thereafter refer to these values while deciding what to construct.

6) Global construction. Sometimes you discover an improvement that would be useful to any of your systems. You sould be able to make such improvements (or planetary specializations) as easily as possible. I suggest the following pattern:

1. Choose an improvement in any of the star systems. Right-click/press a button to add it to all the star systems' queue - either to the end or start.

2. If it is applicable to a star system, it will be added (relevant to strategic resource improvements).

3. If an improvement requires strategic/lusury resources (for example, a System Development level upgrade) and you don't have enough resources for all your systems, the improvement will be first added to the systems where it will be the most efficient.

Thank you for reading all this information. Endless Space 2 is dying with every excessive click as any 4x/global strategy does, and I want ES2 to live as endlessly as possible. After all, it is not an emperor's business to deal with all this mortal billions and their migration from planet to planet - especially in Multiplayer, where you need to take decisions as quick as possible to find time for a "live" diplomacy and just not to bother the other players with long turns.