In the past few blog posts, I’ve primary discussed the benefits and disadvantages that we incurred with our decision to reduce pop growth. While I’ll slowly roll out my thoughts on the changes we need to do to solve the early game pacing issue over the next few weeks, its clear that at least PART of the solution has to involve some increase to pop growth. The question is – how to do it, while keeping most of the benefits we have of the current regime?
I’ve mentioned that I want to tweak the benefits from hospitals. There are several reasons for that. Hospitals, medicine and medical research is a huge part of Trek. Many episodes revolve around diseases and a magical cure, take place in hospitals (or psychiatric hospitals) or deal with cutting-edge medical research (and sometimes, with the ethical dilemma comes with it). That’s one of the reasons why we have healthcare policies in the mod and one of the main reasons why hospitals are so paramount in the mod.
Hospitals are not only the thematic option, but also a logical mechanical decision to be the place where we nudge pop growths further. If we want to retain the feeling of smaller colonies surrounding a major home world, if we want to retain the power of major home worlds that have access to living standards simply not found ‘on the fringes’, then hospitals make sense for that. Higher hospital levels are already tied directly to the level of capital building, and thus, to the population size on the planet. By allowing better hospitals to increase pop growth further, we can improve the pace of the game while still keeping the overall current structure, driven by the mechanics and inspired by trek lore.
However, making hospitals so powerful makes them almost mandatory ton construct, and having a building you simply HAVE to build is simply bad game design. ‘Fun’, again, is about having interesting choices. An obvious choice is not interesting.
For that reason, I am considering gating higher hospital levels behind a new strategic resource – Cordrazine, available from a new type of rare deposit. Every player could build the first hospital level on almost every planet, but higher levels will both require higher capital levels and access to Cordrazine. This will make the decision of which hospital to upgrade, and where to invest your rare Cordrazine, an interesting choice.
Overall, hospitals efficacy would increase from about a maximum of 75% now to 100%, and would be structured in such a manor that technology benefits you more.
We will also change the healthcare policies – no longer will a single healthcare policy give you +5% growth per doctor anymore, and instead will be reduced to +2%. Frankly, it made that policy and obvious choice, and we already know obvious choices are bad.
In addition, two new techs will instead give you +2% growth rate per doctor, improving your medical science further. 5 doctors could then each give you a maximum of 16% each, totaling 80%, with an additional 20% granted from the hospital itself (and the Cordrazine required to support it as upkeep).
Love is a choice, Hugh, and one doesn’t make that choice just once. One makes it again and again. – Vice Admiral Katrina Cornwell