Yesterday was the long-waited big update to Galactic Civilizations III. Version 1.4 added many many AI and UI updates to the game based on months of player feedback.
You can see the news here: https://forums.galciv3.com/472349/
!! UPDATE !! READ THIS: https://forums.galciv3.com/472865/
We’re pretty happy with the response overall. But there is one change I’d like to discuss with you guys: THE WHEEL.
Who am I?
I’m Brad Wardell. I wrote the original GalCiv for OS/2 and much of GalCiv I and GalCiv II. I also designed those games and wrote their AIs. On GalCiv III I’ve been more of an executive consultant thus far as I’ve been focusing on Ashes of the Singularity for the past couple of years. But GalCiv remains my baby. I’ve spent over 20 years with it. So it matters a lot to me.
Background
In GalCiv III 1.0 through 1.3 players could go to the planetary governor and override the global spending priorities on a planetary basis. This made micro-managers very happy and people who don’t like to micro manage very sad.
Planetary Wheel: Love & Hate
I am in the camp of hating it. HATING it. Not because of the micromanagement because it completely violates what GalCiv has always been about: You are running a galactic civilization. It’s supposed to be half simulation, half strategy game. The wheel is totally gamey. No civilization functions where last being can be assigned a job by the government.
I have tried to stay reasonably hands off on GalCiv III but the planetary wheel had to go. I wanted it out for 1.1, then 1.2, then 1.3 but other things took priority and it was finally killed in 1.4.
It has NOTHING to do with the AI
I read the forums and I see people talking about the change being made to make the AI easier. That’s a ridiculous argument. Not to be mean but only a non-programmer would say that. Micro-managing is what AIs do best. I could write up an AI that could tweak planetary wheels every turn to a level that would make most micro managers weep.
Put another way: computers are faster and better at math than humans and the planetary wheel was all about math.
The reason the AI didn’t use the planetary wheel in previous versions is because it was supposed to be eliminated long ago. So there was no point writing AI for this if the feature was going to go away.
It is my game but it is also YOUR game
Now, that said, I write games for you guys. That’s what motivates me. I see people who really liked the planetary wheel. So we need some sort of solution that will make both groups happy.
What I’m going to ask is that a prefs.ini setting called planetarywheel=on be added. If that’s on, you’ll get your wheel. However, that won’t be the official version of the game. There will be no in-game UI option to turn it on. People who are passionate about this feature can still turn it on without everyone else feeling like they have to use this feature in order to micro-manage their empire to the nth degree.
I know that solution won’t make everyone happy. No solution will. But hopefully this will be a reasonable compromise for most people.
I certainly used the wheel myself in the game, but I'm sure the game will be better without it! The reasoning is solid as well. I am glad you are including the option to turn it on. That's entirely too nice of you.
I tend to be a very research-oriented player myself. I oriented the entire civilization towards research with a few planets tweaked towards manufacturing or capital. I'd produce small ships on most planets and big ships at the manufacturing focused ones. This will force me to rebalance a bit, but that's perfectly fine.
As for the civilization wheel, perhaps you could choose different ways of pushing it the way you want. Take a bigger monetary penalty for research subsidies or manufacturing subsidies, or the morale penalty for other methods. It'd be more realistic if such things took time to take effect, kind of like the GC2 penalty for changing governments.
Actually, a good analogy could be made between the allocation of the GCIII wheel and the allocation of a portfolio.
Just like setting the wheel to 100%, allocating a portfolio to just one asset, would be a bad idea.
I don't want to interrupt your discussion on Frogboys portfolio (well actually I want to, I think it is really quite pointless)...
I couldn't really answer this question simply because there are so many variables involved.
But I would say that a minimum of 5 turns, late game, on a mega planet would be required.
Now, I've seen games where people can crank out these units in 1 turn because they've made a series of manufacturing planets that are optimized and with the slider on 100% manufacturing.
I think this makes a lot of sense. Balancing the game in such a way that a single, high end world can produce a high end, largest hull ship in 5 turns seems entirely reasonable.
That in mind, I want to take a moment to talk about my game play experience after having read everyone's comments in this thread. But before I do that, I'd remind everyone that one of the great things about games is their ability to bring people of different backgrounds together. I'd encourage everyone to keep that in mind as we engage each other here.</touchyfeely>
Ok, so here's what I have to add.
Since the 1.4 release, I have played several games up to turn 50-100 (insane spiral, genius or incredible.) The only planetary management I did was using the governors. This is the diametric opposite of my pre-1.4 game play: then I'd been using the wheel on hyper-specialized planets. I don't know if I ever got to thousands of production or research, but 500-600 yes. There was definitely a point where I was annoyed when I was not getting every technology in 1 turn or churning out a large hull with the best gear every turn from every shipyard.
Pre-1.4 victory became assured somewhere between turns 100 & 200, again, on insane spirals of any given difficulty.
1.4 w just the AI governors, it's a much closer thing... the races I meet - usually one minor and one or two major race, remember, by turn 100 on these large maps - they're way ahead of me in tech & military power when I meet them.
Pre-1.4, when I had an empire of 25 or 30 planets, this would be mid-game, turns would take FOREVER, because I'd sit there fiddling with the wheel, getting buildings down to 2 turns instead of 3, cycling through each planet to rejigger the wheel and make it just right.
In 1.4, I use the "global" wheel to adjust production times. I specialize planets through the governor; sometimes I'll change the planetary focus on new worlds. Doing this removes almost all the micro from the game. Turns are wicked fast. Like a minute or two fast, compared to 15-20m (!!) before. It's so much more fun. I don't know if I'm going to win or lose, and just the feel of the game is much different.
What does it feel like? I think it feels a lot more like what it ought to given the way I play: military only when I need it, otherwise plow through the tech tree while developing a massive economy. This strategy feels much more risky in 1.4, which it should.
I'd really encourage anyone who's pining for the wheel to give the non-wheel game a real chance. Play through the early game using the governors. It will feel totally unnatural, but it will be a lot of fun, and it won't take very long at all.
TL;DR: It's different than it was, but I think it's better.
With all due respect it's your own fault, not the game fault. Fiddling with the wheel on every planet, every turn is completely unnecessary even on highest difficulty mid game, and aside from being unnecessary it's not effective as microing "generic" planet gives you only a tiny bit of bonuses compared to "power-horse" planets. Managing a bunch (around 10 i think) core important planets is one thing, managing every planet is pure waste of time. Sure sometimes, you had to visit some "less important" planets to feed a shipyard or crank ship in critical situation, but not constantly. If a lot of people had similar problems the simplest way out is to set limit (based on traits, tech, government form, etc.) to how many planets can be manually managed by wheel or its analog, other planet are to be managed by governors. Aside from helping your problem it allow some pretty interesting strategic options about which planet to manage manually.
I must confess, I never did get the point of having to fiddle with planetary or city spending policies in 4X games. I'm the Emperor for Pete's sake not the local bean counter. GalCiv is not the first nor the last game to implement this rather annoying gimmick that forces you to focus more on individual planets than on your empire as a whole. So good reddens to the wheel I say. Why the hell do I have governors then? In no sci-fi book, movie or TV series have I ever encountered a galactic ruler that goes from planet to planet and tells the populace to drop what they're doing and go be a builder/engineer/whatever. Never. Yet every other 4X game seems to expect just that.
The name of the game is Galactic Civilizations not Planetary Governors. No more of this - "And now for the 120th planet in our system you highness, will it focus on military or commerce? Or perhaps a bit of both?...Moving on to planet number 289 then...". It's a very good move in my personal opinion. And yes, I do realize that a game needs to be fun and interesting too but surely there are better ways to accomplish this than having to micro manage every last planet in order to be effective? Give me scheming and plotting mechanics, give me assassination attempts and plots, give me rebellions and incursions, give me treaties and espionage and let the governors worry about where they're going to get the money to build my fleets.
I am due no respect. And it was the game's fault. All the planets I had were powerhouse planets. There had been an event (bug alert: no popup!) that seeded the galaxy with a bunch of class 25+ worlds. I captured as many as I could to avoid the AI getting them, and then I built them up as much as I could, because, well, that's the point of the game.
Ok, that's one particular game, but it was also the game's fault for making the wheel doubly difficult for what I was using it for because of the interface design and some of the game mechanics.
Two issues with the interface. First, if you mouse over an item in the build queue, it wouldn't tell you what the production cost was. Plus, the upgraded structure would disappear from the list of possible buildings, which was the one place mousing over it would show production cost. Even selecting the upgrading structure on the map doesn't show the cost. So if I was trying to get an improvement in 2 turns instead of 3 (or, put another way, 25 improvements in 50 turns instead of 75), then I'd need social production to be 50 instead of 34 & I had to guess or remember the cost of the structures.
That wouldn't have been so bad if, second, as I was moving the wheel, the various numbers in the interface behind the planetary govern dialog (maybe just replace the map?) actually updated as I was moving the wheel. But alas, no, you were required to adjust the wheel, close the dialog, see what the new numbers were, if they weren't to your liking, open the wheel, rinse & repeat.
That's the interface. But in terms of the game mechanics, say you build a ring of starbases around a world. You'd need to revisit it on every set of upgrades, because you don't see what the production will be when the starbases or its modules are in place. You see the planet's numbers this turn, without them in place, despite the game knowing what it will be next turn. Frustrating. So, your careful wheel management to not waste resources or to get improvements faster needs to be redone next turn when the starbases are done building and you have the new numbers.
And if you're deep in the tech tree, you might be adding .3 pop/turn. A world ringed with economic starbases with lots of enhancements is going to need further adjustment to avoid waste and to optimize things.
Anyway, all that could take 20-30 or more seconds, depending on how certain you were of the strategic role for a given planet.
Quoting MadzaiSA, reply 80Managing a bunch (around 10 i think) core important planets is one thing
30 seconds, 10 worlds = 5 minutes. Add to that improvement placement, to rush or not to rush?, starbase construction, trade, diplomacy, war, exploration, ship design... I mean, obviously there's a lot going on in the game, but a lot of it could be streamlined, and I think ditching the wheel - in the hope of getting more things like EmperorLeto mentions - I think is hard to argue is not a good step.
Several things:
First, the argument "I'm the Emperor, not <insert job description here>" applies to: planetary improvement placement, ship design, planetary spending allocation, fleet formation, fleet deployment, station construction, and probably several other things. Shall we remove all of these features simply because "goddamn it, I'm the bloody Emperor, not some nameless bureaucrat?"
Second, you do not need to turn to fiction of any type to find examples of leaders who stick their noses into details far too minor to really be worth their time. Adolf Hitler and Walt Disney are relatively recent examples, while Emperor Hadrian is a much older example, and these are merely relatively famous leaders who were for whatever reason inclined to a very high degree of micromanagement on some of their projects despite having reasonably competent subordinates to whom they could have delegated responsibility.
Third, what you've written is really more of an argument for the addition of a reasonably competent automation option than for the removal of an existing feature. The work involved in making it possible for the player to control a planet's discretionary spending has already been done, players have had the option to make use of it, a number have made use of it and many clearly liked having the ability to make use of it. Which makes more sense - do the work to add in a set of automation options, or do the work to add in a set of automation options plus the work to remove the existing management options? Hint: only one of these options is likely to upset a portion of the player base. Maximum reasonably-attainable output being too high could have been dealt with simply by reducing the production granted by population and colony/civilization capitals by, say, 50%, which would have had a similar impact to forcing the player into using a less efficient means of empire management.
Fourth, the spending allocation settings cannot sensibly be interpreted as the sum total effort of the planetary population. There is clearly a private manufacturing sector; without one, rush purchases make absolutely no sense (cost per manufacturing point is unrelated to demonstrable production costs on planet, and you can generate significantly more manufacturing points with rush purchases than some planets should be capable of producing given that the only manufacturing infrastructure on the planet is the manufacturing infrastructure which is owned and operated by the state). What's really going on with the wheel is more like reducing the budget for Norfolk Naval Shipyard so that you can increase the budget for Oak Ridge National Labs, not telling everyone in the city of Norfolk that today they're all going to be putting bolts into a new carrier or making everyone in Philadelphia develop stuff for the next Mars mission.
Such heated discussion concerning the wheel and such a love/hate relationship towards it. To me the issue is simple, the game MUST include a user selectable option to either have it back as in 1.3 or have it gone as in 1.4.
Fair points, but I think there needs to be differentiation between decisions that only affect a colony (building placement, starbase improvement around a particular colony etc) and decisions that affect the entire empire (ship design, fleet formation and so forth).
It's the colony level decisions I can't be really bothered with. I've always liked the idea of being able to design templates for planetary construction, then telling the Governor for that 12 planet "Your focus is Research, as per Research Template, obviously using the adjacencies that your planet has to your advantage." So, while you're coming up with the designs for your E/M/R Planet, the implementation of that is left to the Governor of each Planet to do as best it sees fit. From an implementation (gameplay) viewpoint:
On Colonization:
Pop up menu where you select:
The Governor Focus
The particular Template you want to apply to the Planet (Economy/Manufacturing/Research)
Whether to Upgrade Buildings automatically
What Type of Starbases with the Appropriate Add-ons
A Shipyard (or Link with Shipyard from another Planet) to send Constructors to help with Starbase Upgrades
Which sounds - to a point - like the automating that you suggest.
And to your point about Hitler: Things might have turned out better for Germany had he kept his nose out of his Generals business. Not that I regret how things turned out...
Hey Frogboy, and everyone else in this discussion.
First of all, thanks for taking the time to have this conversation. There are not many devs, let alone heads of companies that would engage with the community like this. As you may remember, I was a very vocal opponent of removing the wheel once it was announced. The reasons for its removal were clarified and I resigned myself to the idea, knowing the game would still be fun, if not tailored quite as much to my particular tastes as previously. I'm very surprised to see so much heated discussion over what seems like a real best of both worlds solution. Those who don't like it don't ever have to think about it again, and those who do like it have a means to turn it on if we wish. That anyone would be upset about it at this point seems very weird to me and the level of hostility in this thread is beyond my understanding.
I have a few questions:
1) Were you serious about the race trait thing? Would that be instead of the original solution or in addition to it? Would coercion penalty be flat, based on distance from global slider, or something else?
1a) I know this is far from what you are talking about, but it would be interesting if there were 3 modes: coercion where you could set the global and local sliders as you wish, socialism (not a great name but I can't think of another right now) where you set the global wheel and can set focuses, and free market where you set the global wheel, but each planet is actually functioning at a random point within a 10% range of the global point. Then tie the economic models to the ideology system. I know, this is me thinking in my own wishful terms.
2) What is your feeling on the global wheel? It doesn't create as much micro, especially in larger empires, but every other objection to the local wheel applies to the global one as well. To me, with the local wheel gone, the global one feels pretty out of place.
EDIT: I responded to this thread before I saw the one Frogboy made talking about plans for coercion. Any response to this post probably belongs in that thread.
I'm completely against any automation IF this automation makes logical decisions for the player, esp. if the game has the ability to calculate the mathematically very best design.
Such automation is only necessary in RTS games like Distant Worlds Universe where you don't have the time to look into everything once your empire grows larger even at slower speed. But in a TBS you have all time of the world and before pressing the turn button, even could make a save in order to go back if you forgot something. Besides, most players play small maps anyway, and if I read here in various threads when people finish an insane-all abundant spiral in 100-200 turns then obviously the pace of the game is out of whack, such a game should last a min of a month.
I mean if you could tell the game "optimize this one for research" "this one for industry" "do it all perfectly yourself just don't bother me anymore I seriously need to watch TV while we're at it" we could just get rid of the planetary screen and have planets that will give you randomly x-amount of res, prod, wealth, pop and have these numbers slowly rise as the game progresses.
Building planets up (by yourself) is A KEY FEATURE of all GalCiv games and getting better at it is a main factor in winning the game. Which necessarily implies that you can make errors... that you can do things differently, and think about what you do, and try different approaches etc. A brain-dead automation would just remove these processes entirely....
At least, let us set up the logical routines under which a governor would do its job by ourselfs. This is actually something I've never seen in any game, would be nice to see it here first. IF_THEN_ELSE with OR/NOT thrown in and tight to various available objects would be nice for the start.
One thing I think that is important to point out, is the difference between the mainstream game as produced by SD, and the possibility of Mods.
The goal of the mainline game is to satisfy the large percentage of customers who are "casual" players - those who play (at most) a couple hundred hours per year, and likely less. You look for defaults that satisfy those users, and, while at the same time, aren't soooooo crippling as to make "expert" (or, more appropriately, dedicated) players flee.
Mods are for all those things the expert players love. Since the experts players are NEVER going to come to consensus around many important features, that's why a thriving Mod community is important: if the background switches for things are available, it's trivial to Mod to play the way *you* want to play.
Thus, in this case, I think it's not a bad idea to have the "Yes, use the Wheel" option in an INI file. But having that option (and options for other "controversial" features) does NOT mean that the mainline game should design around the limitations or benefits of that OPTIONAL feature. That is, in this case, the main game design should progress with the assumption that there is no wheel (and the appropriate tradeoffs made with the mainline featureset in mind, no other). The Wheel should remain an option, but not a SUPPORTED (in the sense of game design balance) option.
Because, folks, let's admit this: us min-maxers loved the wheel, as it let us get the absolute most out of the game. The fact that it was inherently unbalancing doesn't necessarily hurt our enjoyment of the game.
But the flip side is that the Wheel had serious problems for the casual player. 90% of the customer based either didn't like it (and didn't use it) or didn't even know about it (and didn't use it). That's telling.
Just because the expert players are passionate about a feature doesn't make it automatically the right thing for casual players. And while your expert user base is certainly one which will overall give you the most $$/player, I'd be *very* surprised if the total $$ from expert players even comes near the $$ from casual ones.
Good points Maiden666. I like working out the optimal planet build out, its a big part of the 'game' for me. I do use gov's late game on captured planet that i don't want to bother with.
What they said ^
Agree. Agree. More user customization is better.
Hell No! The wheel must go!
To me a 'user selectable option' that allows for production/tech/income FAR in excess of what was originally intended is just a bad idea. It leads to complaints that the game is too easy, that 'x' or 'y' is 'broken' or 'OP' or 'useless' etc. And it makes balancing the game in general based on player feedback much more difficult.
Having the wheel and not having it are pretty much day and night for how efficiently you can make your econ run. I think they need to come up with an option and go with it (whether it's keep the wheel and rebalance costs or ditch it and go with what they have now). Yes, there will be changes to the game as it evolves but maintaining two completely different ways of manipulating the econ will just end up in more QA time and/or more issues in the long run.
Sure, they can say 'this option is unsupported' but I guarantee you that the first time someone enabling said option runs into a bug or problem or balance issue they will either be screaming on the forums or scribbling a 'Not Recommended' review onto Steam....
I have personally never felt that the wheel added to the amount of micromanaging, and frankly, I am so amazed that so many people complained about it that I almost feel like most people just played with it for two seconds and gave up--just a hyperbole to express my stance.
In early game for me, all I have to do is predetermine a purpose and layout for my improvements (or do whatever if I am lazy), set the wheel to 90%-ish Manf, 10%-ish wealth, and leave it be until improvements are done building. Even as the improvements build out and costs increase, I still do not have to check back because I already allocated some production to wealth to accommodate this increase in cost, and that is still being conservative. However, even if cost does become an issue, there are plenty of ways to resolve this, including building another planet focused on wealth to make up the deficit. The only time the wheel gets shifted is when improvements are done building, and I want to shift its focus to research until the next major set of improvements are unlocked. It literally takes 5 seconds or less to swing the focus between research and manf. per planet, which translates to less than two minutes to manage an empire of twenty planets, and this procedure continues for the first 150 turns or so, which is the second half of the game for me in most cases.
Mid to late game is the only time where I need to pay more attention to the wheel, but even then it is only slightly more. When I actually have higher values of research and production is when I can actually afford to split, but this is still a no-brainer that takes seconds to do, regardless of specialization. I just simply move the wheel enough to one turn every improvement (or two turns if one is impossible because of specialization) and allocate the rest of the resources to wealth or research. With a few exceptions, there are no improvements that cost more than 300 social manf points, so set the wheel to produce about 250~300 social manf, and you never have to check back until your improvements are done. This also takes literally less than 5 seconds per planet to do if you actually have a clue what you are doing with your planets.
Sure, the focus radio buttons help to cut the managing time down in half, but that is still only going from 2 minutes for a 20-planet empire down to one minute. Cool. In exchange, I lose a ton of control over each planet and have to rely on a project to fuel my war machine when the old slider actually allowed me to do that AND run another project--like Economic Stimulus or Cultural Festival--at the same time!
The hardest part of managing a planet for me is planning where to put what while taking into account future terraforming, which is a bit difficult because it is not always easy to tell which tile can be terraformed. The time put into planning out a planet FAR exceeds any amount of time spent micromanaging them during the build out, and this is not something that taking away the wheel helps, especially if you want to place improvements yourself. Governors just do not cut it.
And then the whole research issue should be nonexistent. Technology grows exponentially, NOT linearly. This fact is observed in the real world across many areas of technology. It took known history until 1903 to barely achieve flight, 44 more years to go supersonic, 14 more to achieve the first spaceflight, and finally another 8 years to land on the moon. If we want to achieve the sense of realism that is behind defending the removal of the wheel, then research should grow faster the more techs a player unlocks. Instead of a linear increase in bonuses provided by research improvements upgrades, the math should be calculated on a curve. Each research upgrade should be providing an exponent of the previous, and naturally, the cap on this should be either the amount of people to compute data (aka, pop) or lack of breakthrough technology (aka, improvements).
If we want to follow realism, then 2K+ research is not only NOT too ridiculous by late game, but it should be expected at the least. Requiring more research to unlock new tech is OK, but nerfing research is just lazy rebalancing that ignores how it grows in the real world.
Back to the matter of the wheel, it makes sense to me to allow only certain race traits to have it. Not everyone wants to run a government that manages every little detail of its citizens. Some will rely on governors and some will dictate everything. However, the player should be able to freely set this during faction creation (not during generating up a map) without costing trait points as this to me is more of a play style choice.
Personally, I've always thought that you played games for fun unless (or perhaps even if) they are your job like chess has been for me.
I'm therefore completely baffled why there should be such clamour when Brad is offering us a choice as to how to enjoy the game most.
As to the technical questions I think it would be best if you could toggle the wheel/no wheel option at the start of a game without fiddling with prefs.ini. (This would mean that you could have simultaneous games with different settings).
I've also suggested that you might have full control of just a few designated planets where your crack team of bureaucrats (or marines) can control the population. Just allowing three, say, would totally change the game since any money problems would disappear and you could have a tech line to increase the number. You could use focus for the rest. The racial traits idea is also interesting as is a coercion penalty.
Jon
Spot on, I followed spores development and had great fun in the creature editor. The only problem the game was mind terrible;
Cell phase - This was actually the best of the mini-game phases to play and I'd still like to see this released as a stand alone smart phone game.
Creature phase - playable in short bursts but a missed opportunity in many ways.
Tribe phase - shallow and awful the composition of your creatures no longer matters.
Civ. Phase - shallow, awful and almost unplayable.
Galactic phase - So much potential, so completely, totally wasted. Functionally unplayable.
Spore was a great procedural animation and creature creation tool in search of a game.
Imagine using the editors to create races for GalCiv 3. Actually I wonder if someone has looked into extraction of movies from spore and converting to bink.
I have to confess I was always way to lazy to keep tweaking that wheel on all my planets all the time. I only used it in the first few turns on my home-world to speed the important initial research.
By the time I had 6 or 7 planets I just set it to the center on all of them and left it.
So obviously I won't miss it as I never really felt compelled to make much use of it. I think having the option to include it for those who are obsessive min-maxers though is a good idea.
If the focus is on making GalCiv III more fun and less of a micro management headache (at least for people who want to optimize their gameplay), what about the following suggestions:- get rid of the planetary wheel AND the empire wheel, just let planets produce whatever their buildings will produce (factories = production, banks = cash, labs = science, etc...). Simple to understand, no micromanagement, only forward thinking / planning, which is what a strategy game should be all about- add production / science / whatever overflow carry over to next production / science / whatever, to eliminate possible high yield micromanagement such as tailoring ship designs to multiples of high production city capacity etc...Yes it's basically what Civ V does, but IMHO this aspect of Civ V is much more convenient and fun to play than the GalCiv seriesIf you don't like this, perhaps it could be made available as a game option ?Cheers
That's already in, the ui just doesn't show it well.
If we count editing text files as 'available as a game option' (as we must if we want to count present incarnation of the wheel), it basically is already. Switching all buildings to produce flat quantities of stuff rather than percentages is very easy to do, as is turning off the benefit of production.
Well I was shocked to see the wheel gone, but its too early to see if the game is better or worst. What I don't understand is the justification that a free market economy works better than a command economy. During war all economies become command economies. The USA during War World 2 became one. It had no union strike rules (only violated by the coal industry), price controls which forced the rationing of commercial goods, and conscription. It also seems that the developers never heard of "Rosie the Riveter." Again I have not played with the current format, but the fact that I can use the wheel to control all my colonies production on a empire wide scale makes a joke of the justification. If that is not a command economy I don't know what is.
At least bring back the manufacturing slide bar on a planetary scale. Certain planets need to accelerate building social objects like Planetary Defense Systems, especially under the threat of invasion, but apparently I can only do so on a Empire wide scale. As such ship production will suffer on a safe planet that might be producing ships to defend that very same planet under threat, all because I'm forced to build a project on that planet just to get rid of the Idle Colony button. I guess I could destroy any ship yard associated with the planet in jeopardy or edit the sponsors so some other poor planet has to produce a ship, but unless I'm missing something that is crazy.
FYI I have not played with the current format but I was in the middle of a game when I updated, and I did test out to see how manufacturing is now working. As far a cohesion or command economies paraphrasing "Slippery" Jim DiGriz, the roguish hero of the Stainless Steel Rat, or was it Jame Retief of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. The only thing worse than a corrupt manipulative government is a corrupt manipulative alien government.
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