Question on Colony support mechanic?

[Jorgen_CAB]

I wonder why the game keep counting large colonies that already reached max population in the calculation for colony support, or at least so it seem?

I think this is just an Achilles heel for the AI who don't understand that keep paying this once their main home colony is fully grown are quite inefficient and can be very expensive for no gain what so ever. There might be some incentive to start paying again, but you really need a fair few medium sized colonies that have not reached population limit.

Once the population is reached on several worlds there is no point in poring money into colony growth anymore, it is way to expensive.

I can be wrong and I'm only seeing something that is not there, like migration will have something to do with it. But it seem like we pay for this nonstop even though there is no gain.

There should be a way to exclude a planet from receiving this funding and a way for the AI to understand when to turn it of. I think it probably would be worth turning that off when a planet is roughly 75-80% full as a general guideline for the AI.

[Nightskies]

Are you talking about Excess spending on Growth?

If so, agreed. Scaling this down as the population reaches new heights would be a good idea, depending on the number of colonies the empire has. An empire with 4 max population colonies and one new one has no business funding growth!

[Jorgen_CAB]

Are you talking about Excess spending on Growth?

If so, agreed. Scaling this down as the population reaches new heights would be a good idea, depending on the number of colonies the empire has. An empire with 4 max population colonies and one new one has no business funding growth!

I think the mechanic is a bit flawed the way it is implemented. I think that worlds should gradually wane of the excess spending from about 50% of max population and then it should end at around 70-80% total max population.

The way it is implemented now is not good for the AI in particular but even so for the player. You usually are better off stimulating the economy with money to increase the potential for migration rather than funding growth as you pay allot of credits for no actual gain as all planets is included in the cost even though those planets no longer gain any benefit from it.

The AI just keep funding growth if it has the means to do so. After you funded max growth on your home planet there is almost no point in doing so ever again unless in some rare cases. You are better of using that income to either boost research (excess funding, crash research or both) or encourage migration through building more resorts which generate more passenger ships and spend the maintenance on that instead.

The AI certainly don't understand how this mechanic work and I doubt most players don't either. It is not intuitive that it work this way.

[Nightskies]

I was about to say this expense tends to be small. Then going through some of my largest empires, it would be nearly 10% of total empire income- including bonus income. 144 / 191 colonies at max (or very nearly at max) for my first successful empire. 1 trillion population, 10 million total credit income.

So it is a big waste of money for them, but then again, such huge empires are somewhat excluded from the development focus. By the time the empire is that big, the game should practically be over.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I was about to say this expense tends to be small. Then going through some of my largest empires, it would be nearly 10% of total empire income- including bonus income. 144 / 191 colonies at max (or very nearly at max) for my first successful empire. 1 trillion population, 10 million total credit income.

So it is a big waste of money for them, but then again, such huge empires are somewhat excluded from the development focus. By the time the empire is that big, the game should practically be over.

It can be a considerably bigger portion in the early to mid game. It also is in the early and mid game that cost have a much bigger impact on general growth.