Improvement upgrade strategy

from GalCiv2 Forums
IMO Beta4 is starting to get really playable. But I'm starting to wonder about the way upgrades work.

If I'm in a large or huge game the colonization phase lasts long enough so that the starting planets have already built the basic improvements and, given appropriate research choices, are working on upgrades while new planets are still being colonized. The problem I see is that the upgraded improvements (the Extreme Stadium, for example), are so expensive to build that while they are fine for a planet that already has one or more factories (perhaps enhanced), they take ridiculous amount of time to build on newly colonized planets.

So what I'm thinking is that for newly colonized planets, the basic improvements such as basic factory, entertainment network, etc, should remain available even though more advanced versions (like enhanced factory or multimedia center) are available.

After all, if you colonize a new world, wouldn't you bootstrap yourself by building a basic factory first (and fast), then move on to more advanced structures taking advantage of the productivity benefits of the basic improvement while you advance?
ideas
5,494 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm...maybe keep the basic improvements available until a certain number of tiles are improved then drop them from the list (say 3-4 zones) if more advanced ones are available. After x number of zones have been improved, then the upgrade process starts. This way you can build 1 basic factory or more before upgrading automaticly occurs.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, currently, there is a completion bug preventing to finished out-dated imoprovements that were in the queue.

But I agree, it is really annoying when founding new colony (or getting underdevelopped from the AI) not to be able to build some basics improvements to raise production and morale first. I think there should be a way to switch the possible improvement to the outdated one.

But in this case, it can lead to an increase of micromanagement since it would be generally better for your productivity (or research, or morale) to build the basic elements first and do all upgrade steps by steps: when you build a buiding, you don't benefit from it. but when you upgrade one, you benefit from the bouns associated with teh basic version as long as the upgrade version isn't finished.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

I don't see why that couldn't be an option on the "deomestic governors" screen...

X- Hide Older Improvements in Build List

...That would just be on by default.

Or we can just make the new improvements flat-out cheaper to build.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I certainly like the idea that improved social projects would not be prohibitively priced for later colonies. Especially given our real world experience of how many improvements in technology have dropped prices rather than raised them, new and improved factories, labs, etc. could be built for a relatively similar price as the original -- relative to the number of improvement steps which have been achieved. Example: (in round figures not taken from game and not knowing how the game actually prices improvements) Lab 1 = 100, upgrade to Lab 2 = 50, but start with Lab 2 = 110; upgrade to Lab 3 = 50, but start with Lab 3 = 120. Given the rest of your civilization (taxes) should be helping new colonies, the savings and benefits (research achieved) are civilization-wide and not just for the new colony.

If you keep the full list of improvements available, do it with submenus: on the list, show <
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
An alternative that may have already been suggested is the Zoning idea: you only ever build basic building types, then the governor will automatically upgrade them when possible if you're not building anythign else. Then you could set the higher buildings with cheaper build prices, as they'd always be built as upgrades of previous levels.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Either cheaper upgraded buildings or the option to make the older ones available to build works for me. I think I like BoogieMac's option idea.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Why not all buildings are available anywhere but each governor has an obsolete list and if you put stuff on that governor's list it won't clutter up the buildlist.