A lot of posts have been circling these ideas, so I wanted to centralize them into a single discussion.
And though I think its worth having the discussion, the reality is...so close to release I don't think any changes that we discuss in this topic should occur right off the bat, if even at all. The economy is such a core centerpiece of the game that changing it would have huge consequences.
So here are the main topics I've seen discussed:
Planet Specialization is demanded for good play.
It can be argued that most 4x games require specialization to a degree for good play. However, I think Gal Civ 3 takes it to a much higher threshold, for a few main reasons:
The local 100% slider: If you can go to 100%...you should, no reason not to. And because every planet can be tailored to 100% of a certain resource, you are compelled to do so.
The Adjacency System: The current adjacency system is "like begets like". Factories help other factories, so even without the slider you are still encouraged to stack the same groups of buildings together. This aspect is not as strong though because there are "regions" on a planet. I might have 3 clusters of tiles on a planet, and could theoretically make 1 clump of factories, 1 clump of research, and 1 clump for wealth....except that the slider compels my otherwise.
The Cost of Changing Gears: Its not just that Gal Civ 3 encourages specialization, but once a planet is specialized it is basically "locked in", even though you can change the slider so fluidly. The reason is the enormous infrastructure cost to change. Changing the slider on a research world to wealth provides so little benefit its not worth it. And destroying all those research laps to build markets takes such a large amount of time...again its not worth it.
Compare this to Civ 5 as a counterexample. I can buy or build a few key buildings, change all my specializations, and suddenly my city is specialized in a completely different way.
The projects model theoretically does this for a manu world, allowing them to adapt to other types. However, right now we have seen the gauntlet of OP and UP versions of those models, so I don't think its working quite right yet.
Special Tiles are not strong enough in many cases
The special tiles theoretically give you incentive to go "against type", by building something that you might not otherwise. And in the cases for manu, research, and wealth...it doesn't work.
The power is the slider is so strong, that even a +3 adj bonus is not enough to compel me to go against the planet's specialization. The only exceptions are the secondary resource bonuses:
Influence: Not affected by the slider, so you get good returns here.
Approval: Often only 1 approval building is desired on a planet, so the more bang for the buck the better.
Population: Faster growth is a big deal early on, so putting your hospital here is good.
Military: A +3 with hyperion shrinker is good. Otherwise I ignore these completely.
There is little incentive to upgrade buildings
Right now, upgraded buildings do not provide that much more benefit, and are hugely expensive in manufacturing costs.
Lets look at an example:
Take a 12 production research world with 6 research labs (or a 210% research bonus assuming some standard adjacencies). We are going to assume that his planet has 2 factories with a manu bonus tile (so a 75% manu bonus). Its important to note that we are being pretty generous here. I am assuming no extra science bonuses (which on a science world is unlikely). I am also not being stingy on the manu with a +3 manu tile.
We intend to upgrade the labs to xeno labs. To do that in "short order" (4 turns per upgrade), we are only left with 5.57 production going into research.
Summary: After 24 turns, all labs are upgraded (so we crank all 12 production back into science). In total, it takes 153 turns before we have broken even on the exchange. For many, the game is half over before 1 planet's upgrade actually pans out.
Why so much? For the gearheads out there, here is some further math:
A research lab costs 30 manu and gives a 35% bonus to research (with 2 adjacency, very easy to get in most cases). That's 1.167% / 1 manu.
A xeno research costs 45 manu and gives an additional 5%. That's .11% / 1 manu.
It takes 7 upgraded labs to give me the same research benefit of 1 extra research lab, but it takes 10.5 times the manufacturing! And since research planets are often manu starved, that's a big deal.
If we look at at the research institute, we get an additional 10% for 67 manu, or .15% / 1 manu. A little better, but still 7.78 times the manufacturing of a single new research lab.
A research center is .15% / 1 manu. And a research institute is .13% / 1 manu.
To put this in final context, a research lab that relies on Universal Soil Adapter station provides 35% research with a total cost of 181, or .19% / 1 manu (still better than any of the upgraded labs). Going down all of the yellow terraforming techs, I can generate 5 new research labs with terraforming, providing me a 175% research benefit for a total cost of 544 manu, or .32% / 1 manu. That's 2.5-3 times more bang for the buck than the upgraded labs offer.
So my conclusion is that building upgrades simply cost too much manu. Even at the base 30 cost, a new lab is still roughly 7 times better than a xeno lab, so its not like they suddenly become must halves even with such an adjustment.
