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Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/27/2020 4:27:03 PM

ramnblam

Posts: 199
Joined: 6/9/2020
From: Australia
Status: offline

sup guys,

So on my latest beta game which has been heaps of fun. Something has annoyed me, when creating border zones/cities to help kick along logistics and exploit new resources, the happiness is an absolute bitch to manage and constant emigration and immigration seems to occur.

So while I have largely ignored colonists so far :P, do they have some benefits in this situation? Like if I have 10k colonists ready to roll, boom make new zone and send them in are they just as likely to be like "yo this joint blows" and jet or are they more loyal since I paid for the ****ers?

I don't wanna be that guy but I would love a governor order option to disallow emigration, the troops at the front are ****ing starving because level 4 vidcom automated flesh light porno suites aren't installed, workers are leaving even though the worker pay is really good...

How are you guys managing these sort of situations?

Post #: 1

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/27/2020 5:53:18 PM

lloydster4

Posts: 164
Joined: 6/19/2020
Status: offline

Once settled, there's nothing stopping colonists from migrating.

I've never experimented with this personally, but I'm wondering if you can use some of the Zone Orders to prevent workers from leaving. There are settings for Hire/Fire policy and "Ideal worker total". Fiddling with those might help? Just spit-balling here.

I agree that it would be nice to have more information about migration and more ways to influence it.

(in reply to ramnblam)

Post #: 2

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/27/2020 7:41:20 PM

ramnblam

Posts: 199
Joined: 6/9/2020
From: Australia
Status: offline

Cheers lloydster, I'm gonna stomp this last major in this game and I'll see if ****ing with those options make a diff.

(in reply to lloydster4)

Post #: 3

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/27/2020 8:13:09 PM

Tssha

Posts: 33
Joined: 3/25/2013
Status: offline

I went back to a game where I hardly ever built hospitals and the like and it took a couple dozen turns to sort out the situation so my workers weren't leaving all the time. It does eventually happen, with persistence. It's a massive metal sink, but sometimes you gotta spend metal to make metal.

A stopgap can be an increase to worker pay, though it's seldom pleasant to throw money at the situation. Also, giving worker privileges (strat card) can help shore up sagging worker happiness.

One thing I'm sure won't work is futzing with your hire/fire policy. IMO it's best to let the game set the hiring and firing to the actual need of workers. Besides, just because you set the correct number of workers to hire, doesn't mean you're gonna hire that many workers. The private economy can always find work for surplus population. You might not get anyone if the private economy just pays better. Also, if your workers are starving or massively unhappy.

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Post #: 4

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/30/2020 12:39:00 PM

WCG

Posts: 138
Joined: 5/30/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ramnblam

Something has annoyed me, when creating border zones/cities to help kick along logistics and exploit new resources, the happiness is an absolute bitch to manage and constant emigration and immigration seems to occur.

...

How are you guys managing these sort of situations?

I haven't had that problem, myself. My capital tends to lose more people to the neighboring major regime (a friend of ours) than it gains immigrants from them, but my new cities always seem to get more than they lose.

It's been my experience that happiness in a new city starts high, but it will drop until you get enough QOL buildings constructed. (It helps to play stratagems which give private QOL buildings, too.) I put money in the private economy, too, which makes them happy.

But I've always got tons of colonists ready to go. (If you get too many, you can always 'colonize' your capital.) The key thing is probably logistics. You need logistics not just to build all of the stuff you need in your new city, but also in order to ship colonists there.

But as I say, I haven't had a big problem with this, myself. (I don't create new cities where there are enemies nearby, though. That could be a problem.) Happiness starts very high, and it drops slowly enough that I can build enough QOL buildings before it gets too low.

Admittedly, I've only created two new cities, so my experience is limited.

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Post #: 5

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/30/2020 3:06:32 PM

demiare

Posts: 470
Joined: 6/20/2020
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG

But as I say, I haven't had a big problem with this, myself. (I don't create new cities where there are enemies nearby, though. That could be a problem.) Happiness starts very high, and it drops slowly enough that I can build enough QOL buildings before it gets too low.

Admittedly, I've only created two new cities, so my experience is limited.

If you're playing with Government profile and start a colony with full set of public happiness building - yes, there will be no issue here.

Without Government you NEED to throw some stratagems to keep workers happy - as since it down to ~60-65 you will have very high chance to roll negative event, that cold screw everything for many turns.

Another important thing that you really want to keep your civilization score low if want to build more then one-two new cities. So strict "no" to building hospitals and so on in existing cities (min-maxing by controlling their output seems to be unreliable as civ scores increasing/decreasing with delay after points change).

(in reply to WCG)

Post #: 6

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/31/2020 2:22:54 AM

WCG

Posts: 138
Joined: 5/30/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: demiare

If you're playing with Government profile and start a colony with full set of public happiness building - yes, there will be no issue here.

Without Government you NEED to throw some stratagems to keep workers happy - as since it down to ~60-65 you will have very high chance to roll negative event, that cold screw everything for many turns.

Another important thing that you really want to keep your civilization score low if want to build more then one-two new cities. So strict "no" to building hospitals and so on in existing cities (min-maxing by controlling their output seems to be unreliable as civ scores increasing/decreasing with delay after points change).

I keep attempting to choose Government, but the game seems to insist on Commerce. Everything seems to boost Commerce, instead of Government. But I'm not sure why that would make a difference. You still start with nothing you haven't already built, don't you?

As I say, my new cities start with very high happiness. Happiness drops each turn because the city lacks QOL buildings at first, but that's a slow process. I've had plenty of time to build what I need.

Also, what you need to do is keep the city size low, don't you? I don't mean the population size, but the 'official' size of the city? As I understand it, the civilization level is what's important, right? And that depends on the civilization scores of each city (which is easier to keep high when the official size of the city is small).

I build hospitals and such, but I don't seem to need a lot of them in most of my cities in order to keep the happiness maxed out.

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Post #: 7

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/31/2020 4:52:02 AM

demiare

Posts: 470
Joined: 6/20/2020
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG

I keep attempting to choose Government, but the game seems to insist on Commerce. Everything seems to boost Commerce, instead of Government. But I'm not sure why that would make a difference. You still start with nothing you haven't already built, don't you?

Government "Workers right" will rapidly increase workers happiness up to ~60-70 with a +2..+3 ticks with no need to building anything. Usually it's enough to counter low QOL influence without need to use a stratagem to fix it.

As I already had said ~60-65 worker happiness is a danger level to trigger negative event on next turn.

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
Also, what you need to do is keep the city size low, don't you? I don't mean the population size, but the 'official' size of the city? As I understand it, the civilization level is what's important, right? And that depends on the civilization scores of each city (which is easier to keep high when the official size of the city is small).

To keep your civilization level low:
1) No state buildings like hospitals. Well, you may build them - but only temporary to combat huge QOL penalty and should disable them once it's reduced.
2) High taxes to reduce amount of private buildings.

Logic is simple : less your civilization score then less will be difference between QOL and it for even new cities, so less will be your happiness penalties.

(in reply to WCG)

Post #: 8

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/31/2020 12:55:13 PM

WCG

Posts: 138
Joined: 5/30/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: demiare

Government "Workers right" will rapidly increase workers happiness up to ~60-70 with a +2..+3 ticks with no need to building anything.

Neat! I'm only on my second game (and I quit my first game early, just because the new version was released and I wanted to play that, instead).

But both times, I wanted to go with Government and ended up getting pushed - hard - to Commerce. There just didn't seem to be a reasonable way to fight that - or a good enough reason, either.

And now, we can't do both. I really dislike that recent change where we can't get bonuses from a profile unless it's been the top profile for awhile. That really punishes those of us who want to play a more balanced game.

Oh, well, that's not important here. I should stay on subject, huh?

quote:

ORIGINAL: demiare

To keep your civilization level low:
1) No state buildings like hospitals. Well, you may build them - but only temporary to combat huge QOL penalty and should disable them once it's reduced.
2) High taxes to reduce amount of private buildings.

My biggest problem with this is that I play the game specifically to restore civilization. Heh, heh. I mean, for me, that's the whole point of the game. That's why I play it.

If this were just a wargame, I wouldn't be interested. Even a strategy game needs a role-playing hook, for me. The setting, the history, my motivation,... all of those are absolutely critical for me as a gamer. I'm not looking for a game of chess. That would bore me.

Obviously, that's just me. It needn't apply to you or to anyone else who plays this game. But for me, the whole point is civilization level. Well, not necessarily how civilization "level" is calculated in the game, of course. But the whole point, for me, is to restore civilization.

And I'm not a min/maxer. I'm perfectly fine with doing things that aren't absolutely the most efficient way possible in a min/max sense, as long as they make sense from a role-playing perspective and they still work. I still want to win the game, of course. But there's more to the game than that, for me - lots more.

So, basically, I want to have QOL buildings and I want to have a flourishing private economy. Of course, I don't want to destroy my chances of winning the game. But I've never noticed this "huge QOL penalty" you talk about. Admittedly, I'm not playing on a high difficulty setting (another thing I don't really care about).

My first game was going well (before I decided to switch to version 1.04 and start over), but I kept increasing the official size of the city (whatever that's called) whenever I was given that option. From what I've heard since then, that was going to cause problems for me, later on, right?

So now, I only do that when I need it for something. And as long as my civilization "score" in each city stays high enough to keep everyone happy, I don't build QOL buildings like crazy, either. There are always lots more things I need (typically logistics - always, always logistics!).

But I don't go out of my way to avoid building them, or to max out taxation, either. And that hasn't cause a problem for me, not yet. (I control about 40% of the planet, and it would be more than that if the diplomacy game wasn't a bit broken.)

But, as I noted, this is about me as a gamer, I think. Other gamers will undoubtedly have other interests.

Thanks!

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Post #: 9

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/31/2020 1:17:03 PM

jobu13

Posts: 7
Joined: 7/30/2020
Status: offline

If Commerce is your highest profile, you should have stratagems that give you free private investment in the zone. I find that, in new zones, private investment will usually be directed to QoL improvements first, although you might want to exploit all of the available resources with public assets first.

There are also Commerce stratagems that will immediately create (or upgrade) specific private QoL assets in a zone (zoos, shopping centres, etc).

In my high-Commerce game, I found I was able to easily manage new zones by playing 2 - 3 stratagems from the above categories soon after the zone was settled. This was enough to keep the population happy and growing for 20+ turns without needing to do anything else for this purpose.

< Message edited by jobu13 -- 7/31/2020 1:18:37 PM >

(in reply to WCG)

Post #: 10

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 7/31/2020 4:00:51 PM

demiare

Posts: 470
Joined: 6/20/2020
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
But both times, I wanted to go with Government and ended up getting pushed - hard - to Commerce. There just didn't seem to be a reasonable way to fight that - or a good enough reason, either.

You NEVER forced to push any ethics. Going complete opposite ethic of all your starting factions is hard but doable.

I'm currently absolutely charmed by Authoritarian-60 / Goverment-Max / Fist-Max combo. Core idea - stay out of any useless unit feats. Authoritarian easily to keep around 60 as their events are plentiful & often allow democratic alternative approach so I will never get Firing Squads. Government will provide you with tons of production and happy workers (plus not too bad unit perks). Fist is ... well, fist.

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
My biggest problem with this is that I play the game specifically to restore civilization.

I'm doing exactly same. It isn't my fault that dev have strange idea that people survived after nuclear+ apocalypse will be so unruly and demanding as modern citizens of first-world countries. It's not my idea that on "OK" level of worker happiness they're eager to have a strikes.

So I doing my best to avoid it. In fact I'm creating more like communism - everyone will have +/- same QOL. Yes, not high. But equal.

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
But I've never noticed this "huge QOL penalty" you talk about.

I'm creating 3-5 cities usually in every game as playing on quite inhospitable worlds. Big civilization level make it so annoying - I tried to play meritocracy&commerce but SO often lacked enough stratagems to keep my new cities in green. And I suffered a lot after conquering new city as hadn't any fitting option to deal with unrest. Now it's so much better ^_^

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
And as long as my civilization "score" in each city stays high enough to keep everyone happy

Irony that this is simply impossible

Your civilization score is ~= average QOL level in all zones. So while some zones will get bonuses - some will get penalties. Higher difference between them - stronger penalty.

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
There are always lots more things I need (typically logistics - always, always logistics!).

Huh. In my last games all starting zones were bare of resources but had A LOT of free folks. In previous game my capital had ~650k pops, in latest game after 5 turns my total population (citizens&free folks) already ~200k... Well, also I have two wars ongoing (at round 5, yes), no way to expand being locked by rogue AI, nomand and 2 major AIs empires - but I called that planet "bloody hell" for a reason! And game was generous enough to give me 2k hard attack plasma tank at beginning

So no, logistic is not issue when you have 3+ train stations dumping all their output through single core hex

< Message edited by demiare -- 7/31/2020 4:02:49 PM >

(in reply to WCG)

Post #: 11

RE: Colonists and New Zone Q's - 8/1/2020 12:33:15 PM

WCG

Posts: 138
Joined: 5/30/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: demiare

quote:

ORIGINAL: WCG
And as long as my civilization "score" in each city stays high enough to keep everyone happy

Irony that this is simply impossible Your civilization score is ~= average QOL level in all zones. So while some zones will get bonuses - some will get penalties. Higher difference between them - stronger penalty.

I think you've got that backwards, don't you? It's the civilization level that's calculated from the civ scores of the zones?

And I've had no problem keeping everyone happy. I've got ten cities - two of them I founded myself - and they're all quite happy. I just don't see an issue here. Admittedly, as Jobu13 points out, commerce stratagems help.

But when it comes to logistics, I'm building railroads and truck stations pretty much permanently in my cities (and that requires a truly massive amount of resources at high level!). This is especially the case at my capital, of course.

I can avoid bottlenecks that way, but even constant upgrading of rail and truck stations at my capital barely keeps up with the demand. So, no, I would never claim that logistics is "not an issue" in my game. Heh, heh. But I have to wonder what I'd do on a planet without easy access to metal!