In this 4X game the focus is on high level Emperor things, you don't build stuff on planets manually (and you control like 200 of these planets), everything (rare exceptions) is built automatically based on your high level orders (edicts, setting specialization of planet, etc) and the type of planet (a desert planet would not attempt to upgrade agriculture). So, the player controls all this indirectly.

Important assumptions of this topic:

- civilian infrstructure only (ignore military, it's handled separately by a different subsystem)

- it's a "hands off" system, note the player has no direct way to tell "built me X next"

- no "regions" or "groups of planets" please, it siomply does not fit the rest of the game

- there should be some sort of soft/hard cap/dimishing result (a planet can "produce" effectively a number of "things", so you need more than one planet, or at least make it so if the population & infrastructure was spread between several planets their overal output would be higher than if all these were on one planet)

Question:

How to make this abstract planetary system? One that takes into account agriculture, industry, mining, administrative, services, etc sectors, the population (workers), size of the planet (can't build 1,000,000 industry on one planet). One where you have a rich economy, makes you want to have many planets and you see naturally specializing planets.

Example solutions/thoughts:

I have a feeling a best system here might be an abstract "level of development of [SECTOR HERE]". Or maybe something more detailed like made of 2 variables: the number of "buildings" and the "tech level". Like you have 20 factories and thier average tech level is 3, these require 1000 workers (if less still works but with a penalty) and produce Y stuff.

Next there should be some "increased cost of erecting new infrstructure" based on the number of infrastructure that already exists (agriculture+industry+mining sectors).

I don't know... Help me sort this out :)

Hmmm.. just an expansion of your idea:

1. You have different sectors (mil, agr, mining ...)

2. Each sector has a empire wide tech-level.

3. You have an empire wide resource, e.g. skilled-workers (derived from the education level and population of your empire).

4. Each sector have a capacity, based on the number of according planets.

5. The productivity of a certain sector is defined by capacity and assigned skilled-workers and the according tech-level.

Why ?

First off, if you gain more planets, you will increase your productivity by simply adding more planets. This will although increase the population and therefor the number of skilled workers. The player has the choice to either invest into certain tech-levels, to invest into education, shift the skilled-worker around, or to gain more planets. Lot of choices :-)

I would start by figuring out what exactly you want the system to do:

- What is the purpose of this subsystem in relation to the rest of the game?
- What kind of challenge is it supposed to pose to the player?
- What kind of feelings is it supposed to invoke in the player?

Good point.

Overall goals:

- no micromanagement; that's the primary uqique point of the game, I basicly sacrifaced the detailed manual advancement of planets (which is cool on it's own) to reduce micro

- feeling of the "empire being too big for the emperor to handle", corrupted govornors and other bureaucrats who are frequently incompetent that run these planets

- each planet being a small ecosystem (socially and politically, to an extend) with possible local organizations a slightly different culture/views

Gameplay purpose:

- planets should become worth more over time, without the player's investment (the longer you keep the planet the more infrastructure & benefits it has)

- planets are the source of food to fed the population (empire wide, it's not handled on a planetary level), the player need to acquire planets that are capable of doing it (not just mineral rich ones)

- non fertile planets are the source of minerals (mines) or platform for industry (factories) which are needed to make ships

- planets are house for population (population being important), you need more planets if you want more population (and you do want more population)

- there are no "overextending" penalties, the player is encouraged to more planets (with dimishing returns after reaching 200 planets)

- IMORTANT planets should have some stats that can be affected by other effects/events/choices like "10 random planets get 'Communication Center' or +1 to existing 'Communication Center'" or "Technologists organisation/guild emerged on 3 random planets" or "All desert planets get Shelter or 1 free water tank". Note it never affects a single planet.

Issuing these high level controls to the systems might be something like Orders to each system :

A production type

or

A primary production type and a secondary prodtype -- first is satisfied then second if possible with resource limitations

also an 'expand' for capacity type of Order - game will self-order necessary resources to +1 the resource generating object (just a count on the system)

I assume various productions have 'formulas' /recipes of what combination of resource is needed to produce 1 prodtype and the player will adjust ratios and develop territory to increase capacity for needed production

How does your transport work to get the needed raw resource to manufacturing centers and that production of then on to consumers?

1)Distance based delays (requires more ships for constant flow over greater distances - and bigger empire can have increasing distances)

2)Instantaneous - one ship does turn around for 1 load per 'turn'

Assuming no micro manage here and some auto mechanism will try to satisfy the needed transport (with some way to prioritize that if the ships themselves are one of the 'resource' factors and there arent enough)

How does your transport work to get the needed raw resource to manufacturing centers and that production of then on to consumers?

Gameplay purpose:
- planets should become worth more over time, without the player's investment (the longer you keep the planet the more infrastructure & benefits it has)
- planets are the source of food to fed the population (empire wide, it's not handled on a planetary level), the player need to acquire planets that are capable of doing it (not just mineral rich ones)
- non fertile planets are the source of minerals (mines) or platform for industry (factories) which are needed to make ships
- planets are house for population (population being important), you need more planets if you want more population (and you do want more population)
- there are no "overextending" penalties, the player is encouraged to more planets (with dimishing returns after reaching 200 planets)
- IMORTANT planets should have some stats that can be affected by other effects/events/choices like "10 random planets get 'Communication Center' or +1 to existing 'Communication Center'" or "Technologists organisation/guild emerged on 3 random planets" or "All desert planets get Shelter or 1 free water tank". Note it never affects a single planet.

ok, so your doing some high level modeling of an economic system.

your inputs to the model are player commands/edicts/directions to advisers/staff - high level stuff, not "build item x on planet y".

your outputs are:

planets - worth more over time - you mean tax revenue? or innate value due to natural resources, and existing infrastructure? is money produced per planet an output of the economy model?

2. food produced

3. minerals produced

what else?

so the player will issue an edict, the economy model will use variables such as those described by TheRelic (pop, tech level, morale, etc) and spit out production numbers for each planet, which would add to your global empire-wide resource pools - since you're not modeling supply rules / resource distribution logistics (like resource transport units in a RTS game).

as author, you'll know what the variables affecting the economy model should be, and what its outputs should be. this should lead to obvious choices for possible edicts.

so step 1, figure out the outputs the model should produce: food produced per planet per turn, revenue produced, minerals produced, etc - whatever you think they should be, based on what you already model in the game. if your resources are basically money, food, and minerals, then those should probably be the three outputs for example.

step 2: figure out the variables that should affect the outputs (population etc).

step 3 come up with the rules / formulas of how variables affect outputs.

step 4: implement in code, playtest, and tweak model as needed.

you'll find yourself applying this same basic methodology for every feature you model in the game universe. what are my desired inputs, what are my desired outputs, what variables should affect it? ok, what rules or formulas will make it behave the way i want? so that i get the desired output for a given input and set of affecting variables for all cases of interest.

What part of this game IS micromanaged (its what 4X games are generally about) ?

This is all just ideas - but what I am suggesting below is there usually needs to be some balance in 'level of detail' for all the different objects/things/elements the player gets to manipulate in the game (versus what all happens automagically). They are usually interrelated in many ways.

If you simplify the economics too much - to the point the player might only really be selecting military targets or even areas for acquisition (or denying to their enemies) - where with the simplified economic game mechanics you could have what might be tedious balancing done so easily the program might as well do it (including make decisions about what to produce where). And then the player decides and just says MORE FOOD (or its even obvious that food is a predecessor to whatever final (tactically interesting) products are built that that too could just be automaticly controlled as well) Too simple without significance just turns into tedious....

Too simple AND there are no real specific military goals/targets (just grab generic territory) - having no significance of locality (maybe only vulerable border areas vs safer core area - ALL depending on the rest of the game mechanics) - no tactical importance (and virtually no decisions for the player) - just the overall strategy of having enough (and excess) for maintaining and growth of the empire - building piles of units instead of game pieces with their own significance (tactically interesting).

Yes, you can simplify the economics, to maximize the attention the player gives game elements of ships and military forces - but those ARE used to act upon the economic elements/targets (acquiring and protecting). IF one target is as good as another, that makes planning localized defense irrelevant (simple blanketing strategy).

That brings up political actions in the Empire - as in what affect/interactions/orders does that part of the game have the player do ?

Maintaining control of the territory so that the economuic resources can flow, etc... Do most miltary units just turn into garrisons to maintain control ? Whatever entity is the factor that maintains that control - how complicated is THAT part of the game (and then how all does it interrelate to the economics? DO Military units of higher detail now just babysit simplistic local areas ?

Politics linked to economics - problems/difficulties resulting in unrest/etc... These things are interweaved (and the 'edicts' to correct things now have to interact with that economic system - People are starving and refuse or cannot work - so edict to Transfer/Grow more food is the only option ??? --- Part of these games can also be having options - some of which are risky&cheap others sure&slow&costly. But such options need a system with sufficient details to have enough different approaches to the solutions to the problems.