Currently the expansion penalty seems like a way to artificially limit big empires, even if they're doing nothing wrong per se.



I think that the expansion penalty shouldn't be for expanding- just for expanding too quickly. Simply make it much bigger on outposts and much less on full colonies, and you'll stop people from setting down an outpost on every planet while allowing those who are slow & steady to expand fairly easily. This still achieves the intended goal (giving less lucky people a chance) by allowing those who got a bad start the opportunity to nab some planets because everyone is expanding much slower then they would be normally.



Thoughts? Any changes you'd make?

renamed thread title

Raneman wrote:
Currently the expansion penalty seems like a way to artificially limit big empires, even if they're doing nothing wrong per se.



I think that the expansion penalty shouldn't be for expanding- just for expanding too quickly. Simply make it much bigger on outposts and much less on full colonies, and you'll stop people from setting down an outpost on every planet while allowing those who are slow & steady to expand fairly easily. This still achieves the intended goal (giving less lucky people a chance) by allowing those who got a bad start the opportunity to nab some planets because everyone is expanding much slower then they would be normally.



Thoughts? Any changes you'd make?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this how it is already?



In my recent games I've been expanding more slowly, and I've noticed it easier to keep my approval rating higher a lot easier. That doesn't change as I start spreading out. Maybe I'm just building new enhancements that boost happiness at the perfect times to slow down the penalty, but...I haven't thought the penalty was too severe.



That's just my experience with it, though.

The fact that already developed planets get pissed at expansion really irritates me.



If I was to converse with the system's population it would go like this.



Planet: "We're overpopulated!" *cry*



Me: "Ok, so ill send out some colony ships to spread our seeds accross the Galaxy!"



Planet: "We're volunteering to go to a new world, but we dont like the thought of expansion, its too imperialistic!"



The thoughts are contradicting of eachother and it makes me want to punch a wall at how irrational the mechanic currently is. Any species that wants to NOT become extinct should be happy at the thought of growth and expansion throughout the stars, they wouldn't be pissed at the thought of it. Outposts THEMSELVES recieving an additional happiness penalty on top of the planet they colonize I can understand, it would make the player think more about what world in the system to colonize and how they'll go about developing it. Realistically the outpost is underdeveloped, people feel homesick, threat of attack by raiders, ect. so them being unhappy for those reasons makes logical sense.



Being pissed for the sake of expansion, unless it was FORCED (In which case tell us in the lore if it is.), makes no sense at all on already developed worlds. Type of worlds, underdeveloped outposts, blockades/invasions and certain random events should affect happiness of systems.



If they really do want to prevent super fast expansion coupled with higher tax rates then they should tweak the happiness meter so that it takes much more than just one happiness building or two to get to "I love you!" status. Of course this would also involve fixing the United Empire's Affinity.

Raneman wrote:
I think that the expansion penalty shouldn't be for expanding- just for expanding too quickly. Simply make it much bigger on outposts and much less on full colonies, and you'll stop people from setting down an outpost on every planet while allowing those who are slow & steady to expand fairly easily. This still achieves the intended goal (giving less lucky people a chance) by allowing those who got a bad start the opportunity to nab some planets because everyone is expanding much slower then they would be normally.

I think the system pretty much works fine. If anything, it's too easy to do mass land grabbing. I also don't understand your first point because the current system does just that - it's harder to expand quickly early on and expansion rate is partially limited by how much tech and approval boosters you have.

From everything I've seen in the game thus far... the expansion penalty to happiness keeps people from throwing everything into expansion. I think it's good that several techs (the diplomatic and the colonization trees) have ways to reduce these effects. I'm also glad that all of those techs are not in the same tree.



As for the reasoning... I think that even though expansion would be well liked by people of an empire, there are just plain lots of problems that come about from having massive numbers of people(entities) separated by many light years.

For example: families separated, workers constantly being ushered out to the frontier to find jobs, supplies not being easily accessible in some systems, luxuries not found in outer systems, etc.



Even throwing everything I had at expanding, the happiness was manageable since I was willing to take a major tax cut. When I felt like gaining significant dust reserves, I just stopped expanding and went for a few techs in the diplomatic tree. (as a bonus, these techs also got me the happiness improvements.



As for the "bad start" bit...

Well, every once in a while you may have to change up you strategy a bit in order to accommodate your starting situation. A couple times I just plain didn't expand for the first 20 turns(ish) while I got a couple techs to make my home world and potential expansion worlds better. I didn't even use the colony ship that you start with.

Keep in mind as well, that you can colonize more worlds in your starting system instead/as well and that can be just as big an advantage as ranging out in the stars, but with less happiness hurt and more efficient improvements.



Too easy...

Well, yeah, sometimes it seemed to me like it was really easy to expand a whole bunch, but that's likely because I had focused on other things for a while and went back to it after gaining a few techs and populating my systems' other worlds. In other words, it seems to me that If you expand at a rate that your techs/improvements/taxes can handle, your playing the game well.

TangJET wrote:
From everything I've seen in the game thus far... the expansion penalty to happiness keeps people from throwing everything into expansion. I think it's good that several techs (the diplomatic and the colonization trees) have ways to reduce these effects. I'm also glad that all of those techs are not in the same tree.



As for the reasoning... I think that even though expansion would be well liked by people of an empire, there are just plain lots of problems that come about from having massive numbers of people(entities) separated by many light years.

For example: families separated, workers constantly being ushered out to the frontier to find jobs, supplies not being easily accessible in some systems, luxuries not found in outer systems, etc.



Even throwing everything I had at expanding, the happiness was manageable since I was willing to take a major tax cut. When I felt like gaining significant dust reserves, I just stopped expanding and went for a few techs in the diplomatic tree. (as a bonus, these techs also got me the happiness improvements.

So your "Reasoning" was essentially summing up the Philosophy of the happiness mechanic of Civ 4, a mechanic that makes sense. However the current system is more like Civ 5 Lite, aka contradictory toward basic animal instinct. Even on our own planet, immigration to the Americas did seperate families by vast distances, but they left their countires because they chose to have a new beginning, and they brought their wives and children while leaving their parents behind. "Workers being ushered out to find new jobs" should REDUCE expansion based unhappiness on DEVELOPED worlds, but instead it remains highest on developed worlds. Despite unlocking technologies that reduce the unhappiness, the ones that matter occur so late in the bottom tree because of the science points they cost, you have to just say **** it and get cheaper happiness improvements elsewhere.



In short, Developed Systems shouldnt be suffering from this, or if they do it is VERY short term and temporary. Of which its not.



You should be punished for expanding too quickly for your people to survive on their own without development, but you should NOT be discouraging expansion as a whole, which is what the game does.



With the recent patch, id say its easier to keep money going at lower tax brackets, but before it was tough balancing expansion with wealth creation because of all the upgrades you need to put down on your worlds.



Also, the AI is stupid, these discussions need to be more based on Human vs Human games. Waiting 20 turns before you grab a planet essentially means you just lost, or you're playing against morons.

Why do you always try to throw in pseudo-philosophy with your posts every time, Rebel? It's not necessary. Nor is really necessary to discuss half of this in terms of trying to criticize or justify it through 'lore' reasons or whatever else.



What's really important is what the current system does and whether or not it can be improved and how. My opinion on the matter, being as brief as I can be, is that there should be more techs in all of the trees (all four of them) that decrease expansion penalties either through flat or percentile modifier or affinity specific ones like Pilgrims gaining happiness for colonizing a jungle or UE for arid etc.