Separate Pop Groups

[Prospective]

Hi all,

 

I remember reading a post in the forum that some people deliberately set up a second Pop Group on their HW in order to move all mining facilites there. Some reason was given but I fogot what it was.

 

So, is there any positive affects of setting up a "mining pop group" on the HW? Any drawbacks?

 

Thanks.

[hobknob]

The main benefit is that you can build up all those nifty administrative/religious installations that work on a 100:1 ration. This then encourages your administrators to be more effective with the end result being a greater output from your mines. In addition it insulates your mines from power problems if you mess up your shipyards or something.

 

The down side is that you have to set it up and you have a one turn delay to use the materials since the XTR order will go before production happens. It will also add a few steps to your process if you need to move population or materials over in order to build more mines due to ICE-X or DCS activity. The other down side is that if you get bombed you mines are more vulnerable in a seperate pop group.

 

This is useful on your HW with lots of characters and less useful on captured HW's.

 

[EEOC]

We did this and were one of the first to post. It reduced the costs of surplus facilities (temples etc..) by reducing the 100:1 numbers. We routinely get 20-30 hits a turn from our characters sometimes 7 on one resource.... sample:

 

Iron Mine: 3,410 Iron(s) were produced in Population Group # xxxxx

> Master Trader Calamari used his/her skills as a Merchant to good effect, improving Iron extraction in Population Group #

yyyyyy!

- Iron Mine: 529,149,825 Iron(s) were produced in Population Group # yyyyyy

[Prospective]

EEOC,

 

Impressive numbers coming from Pop Group #yyyyy! However, what is normal production without any bonuses? I mean are we talking a 5% increase over base production or a 95% increase over unmodified production?

 

Also, my setup favors scientist and explorer special characters. Do you have a whole lot of religious/merchant/administrative type characters in this setup?

[Sssarass]

Each hit by a helpful character is cumulative. The lower end ones add in the teens plus the upper end ones add over 20% so with 7 hits you could conceibable get over a 4x mulitiplier of that base production.

 

CTO, Sssarasss

[SargonKingOfSlith]

I have a pop group on my home planet that produces ground troops and construction materials that get sent to my colonies. I set up a list of tooled BI commands a couple years ago and haven’t changed them since. I don’t have a yield rating for any of the items in this list (except iron), so this is all done from strip mines.

 

A different pop group on my home planet produces ship components. The BI commands for this group change somewhat frequently.

 

For me, the advantage is never changing the build queue for the first pop group. Its done, out of sight, out of mind.

[ShadowKitsune]

Some of us grognards started the game with five PopGroups, following the trend of players "emptying" out the smaller PopGroups into the largest PopGroup did Pete modify the later set-ups with the one big PopGroup design. Here endeth the history lesson ...

 

Advantages to having ancillary PopGroups have already been mentioned, mostly taking advantage of the 100:1 building ratios. Fractionally better mine results and increased Population growth (percentage-wise) being the two biggest advantages of having these side PopGroups that I am aware of. For other people, it is also "nice" to have dedicated PopGroups that "specialize" in certain tasks (mining, ship-building, troop building, etc.) because as Sargon pointed out, you set them up and forget them. One less detail to deal with each turn.

 

Disadvantages to having the ancillary PopGroups are military vulnerability, the one turn time lag and initial set-up costs.

 

Like most strategic level things in this game, it's a question of personal preference. There is no "best" way to do anything. Some methodologies are better than others depending on the criteria you, personally, deem to be important to your unique race/empire.

 

For me, the rule-of-thumb should be: If you are having fun, you're doing it right.

 

FWIW,

-SK