Although we are a little off this sort of decision (we do not yet have the ability to change to either of these), we are 6 turns away from changing to research Planetary Networks, which gives us a Planned Economy choice, and the one after is Ethical Calculus, which gives us Democracy.
Analysis:
We are currently at -1 Efficiency, which effects both our tech accumulation rate and our energy generation, but not by much with the size bases we have.
Planned Economy
This will give us +2 Growth, +1 Industry and -2 Efficiency
New stats: -3 Efficiency, +2 Growth, +1 Industry
Efficiency is harder to quantify, but our bases will grow 20% faster and we will build 10% faster.
With the current state of NA, this amounts to building the WP in 15 turns, not 17 (a 20 mineral saving), and (from testing with another game), the base grows in 6 turns, not 12 as crrent. This seems to come from a reduced # of nuts required to gorw - reduced by ten to be precise.
However the efficiency hit will cause slower research and energy accumulation. If anyone could accurately quantify these effects I would appreciate it.
Democracy
This gives +2 Efficiency, +2 Growth and -2 Support
We would then reach +1 Efficiency, +2 Growth and -2 Support.
Our efficiency actually improves here, meaning some small increase in research rate and energy accumulation. The Growth increases also, exactly the same as for the Planned Economy. The -2 Support means only 1 unit is supported free per base, and there are no free minerals for bases (whatever that means
). Each of our bases except Antioch and New Suez would lose an extra mineral in support. This would slow our construcion of the WP from 17 turns to 19 turns.
Both Planned and Democracy
With both of these choices we would reach
+4 Growth, +1 Industry, -1 Efficiency (same as now), -2 Support
The effects of this would be to dramatically speed base growth, by 40%. Mineral costs would be down by 10%, but we would lose one free mineral per base with more than one unit to support. For NA, these two effects basically cancel, and we build the WP in 17 turrns still. The effect of growth is to decrease the nuts needed by 20, meaning NA and TBIBTU would grow in 1 turn, not 12 and 7 respectively.
Overall, we will soon have the opportunity to
1. increase Growth and bulding speed at the cost of a very low Efficiency;
2. increase our Growth and Efficiency basically at the expense of 1 mineral per base; or
3. increase our Growth a LOT at the expense of 1 mineral per base. (Industry increase essentially compensated for the -2 Support).
Please, what do you think will be best for us?
Personally I like the idea of a massive growth as soon as we can manage it, that way we can rapidly build CPs and colonise as much of Planet as possible. I would hope for a switch to Planned ASAP, as long as we are not producing too much energy by then, and a switch to Democracy ASAP, unconditionally. But perhaps it would be best if we waited until Democracy, then switched to both at the same time in order to negate the Efficiency loss of the Planned Economy.
Of course, these changes will cause a slight Energy cost - maybe 32 or so?
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