Mechanics Deep Dive #4 - The Economy (Part 4 of 10)

Before we begin, let me briefly summarise the previous three parts. We have laboriously gathered the resources for the field, then constructed the building and learned that we can upgrade it. However, we are still not producing anything on the field; as a final step, we must settle an individual on the field. And without a hard-working worker, even the best factory is useless. In order not to overload this text, I would like to divide the discussion of citizens into three parts. So, first, the basics: how do I get a citizen in the first place? Settling a citizen costs 10 alien groats for most races. Alien groats?!

Sounds disgusting? Well, the aliens like it, so it's better not to ask about the taste, but to ask: where do I get this stuff? And better in large quantities, because after 5 iron or titanium for the tile, 5 iron or copper for the mine or extractor, 10 alien groats is a lot. But don't despair, ask the farm:

There are essentially three ways to obtain alien groats:

First, the most obvious:

JUNGLE AND CORAL REEF

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On some tiles, mines or extractors simply produce certain amounts of alien groats. The jungle, for example, when an extractor is built on it. Or the coral reef with an extractor. (And yes, if you don't want to build extractors, things look pretty bad here...) However, in this case, a lot of building resources have to be used up that could otherwise strengthen iron or titanium production.

HYDROPONIC FARM LEVEL 1

So it is often better to build hydroponic farms. Hydroponic farms require 10 wood to build, which can be obtained in forests and also in jungles (so you can reap double the alien groats :)). The jungle is particularly good for this, as it provides 3 wood and 2 fossil fuels for a mine. (Fossil fuels are needed for spaceship drives, power generation and processing, both of which I will discuss in more detail later.) Even if you only think of a simple upgrade to level two, you already end up with 6 wood, which means a new hydroponic farm every second round...

The variant with the extractor on the jungle yields one wood less, but also produces alien groats. Equally interesting is the forest, which I already mentioned when discussing possible sources of copper. It produces only 1 wood, but also 1 copper and 1 fossil fuel. Once the wood has been produced, however, the question of location arises for hydroponic farms. This is particularly important because without good soil, alien groats grows rather poorly. So, it's clear that lava worlds are out of the question, but where can I produce a lot of it?

[Forest Plain, Marsh Plain, and Forest]

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The plains on forest planets provide the largest production of alien groats, with a base production of 3. This is closely followed by the swamp plains, with a base production of 2.5 alien groats.

And yes, I know that these are also the main candidates for copper production, but that makes the forest even more attractive, doesn't it? Especially if it also offers a potential alien groats production of 2? Oh yes, and the jungle too, so you have to weigh up carefully what you produce where, because you can only have one building per tile!

[levels 2 and 3 of the Nature and Watering Branch of the Hydroponic Farm]

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And, of course, hydroponic farms can also be upgraded, which doubles production here as well. Level 2, for example, requires 20 wood and 5 iron, or wait, maybe it's better to build the natural branch, which produces 20% less but reduces pollution and only requires 25 wood? (I'll finally explain pollution in the next part, I promise.) Or maybe the watering branch with more production but higher water consumption?

SPACE FLY FARM LEVEL 1

But I mentioned at the beginning that there is a third option for alien groats production. And that is the space fly farm. This building is the alternative for all those who do not have (any more) suitable farming fields or do not want to or cannot invest all their titanium in spaceships. With a basic production of 4 alien groats, the space fly farm allows construction exclusively on space tiles. The tile costs 5 titanium, the space fly farm another 10, for a total of 15 titanium and nothing else. (It also consumes 1 water for maintenance).

This means that the tiles can now finally be made fully functional. Finally, I would like to point out that some species replace parts of the settlement costs with other resources. The species native to desert worlds, for example, use silicon, and of course there are also technologies and other ways to reduce settlement costs. Nevertheless, you will need a lot of alien groats if you don't want this to become a bottleneck in your expansion, mark my words...

We now have a citizen, and he is satisfied. I know I already mentioned this last time, and I would like to finally address it in the next chapter of the economic overview.

Until next time, enjoy your meal, because it's luckily not alien groats!

-a hungry Giratakel (Simon Alber)