Re: ICE Mod 10m
Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:08 pm
I checked some of my old saves and compared them versus new ones. It's certainly not a population issue, like I said before I always play with a population boosting trait and with your mod I use the biggest one, subterranean. Also, I tend to play dictatorship as well to get the more easily accessible moral bonuses. However, it does look like the overall boost in maintenance isn't as bad as I thought. It's maybe a few percent on maintenance. This is an overall increase compared to vanilla, but not so terrible. The real reason my rates tend to get so high is more that I'm blasting past my command limit to deal with a more dangerous AI. I thought much of that would be nullified by moral bonuses to income, but this appears not to be the case. My mistake.
*Edit*
Maybe I spoke too soon. It really just depends on the planet climates one has early to mid game. Once you get terraforming and radiation shields, it's not a big deal either way. I see a few games where the majority of my planets are barren with some radiated planets. Radiated got a 15% boost in maintenance, barrens a 20%. Fewer planets tend to be radiated than barren. Barrens are very common. It's worth noting these observations are of icecold maps with a dictatorship. If half my planets are barren and radiated, that's around a 7-10% boost in maintenance overall from vanilla (seeing as empire maintenance mostly consists of building maintenance). It's a decent increase. It can certainly drive taxes up a bracket and if one doesn't use a population pick, they may suffer. The saving grace is that you have fewer buildings early on to drive up maintenance. The more structures you develop, the more urgent terraforming and planetary shielding becomes. It's certainly different and adds a new challenge.
*Edit*
Maybe I spoke too soon. It really just depends on the planet climates one has early to mid game. Once you get terraforming and radiation shields, it's not a big deal either way. I see a few games where the majority of my planets are barren with some radiated planets. Radiated got a 15% boost in maintenance, barrens a 20%. Fewer planets tend to be radiated than barren. Barrens are very common. It's worth noting these observations are of icecold maps with a dictatorship. If half my planets are barren and radiated, that's around a 7-10% boost in maintenance overall from vanilla (seeing as empire maintenance mostly consists of building maintenance). It's a decent increase. It can certainly drive taxes up a bracket and if one doesn't use a population pick, they may suffer. The saving grace is that you have fewer buildings early on to drive up maintenance. The more structures you develop, the more urgent terraforming and planetary shielding becomes. It's certainly different and adds a new challenge.