Build order templates and automation

[*Aqua*]

I didn't enjoy the build system of Master of Orion 2. There you had to specify manually for each planet what to build. The build queue was limited to 10(?) items you constantly had to check if them.
Also as new technology became unlocked you had to check every colony you again to build the new stuff.

This system works up to about a dozen of colonies. But while you expand it quickly becomes a nuisance to do the same stuff over and over again.
That's why I want building templates and building automation.

I propose a system where you select a build order template for each colony if you want. There can be multiple custom templates (i. e. one for production colonies, one for food stuff, one for ocean planets, etc.). When a template is selected the colony tries to build everything specified in the template.
That's nothing new, other games already have that.

A new thing would be to edit the templates as new technology gets unlocked. Let's assume I just researched a ground-based defense building. I now edit a template to add the building to the build order. After I safe the change all colonies which have that template assigned will now automatically build that defense building.
I believe this will help to reduce micromanaging especially when the empire grows large.

I would also like to have a function to export and import the templates so I don't have to re-create them when starting a new game.

What do you think about that?

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Doomdark kind of addressed this in a Q&A

Space Game Junkie: What mechanisms do you have in place to keep micromanagement in check as an empire expands from one system to dozens or hundreds of systems?

Henrik Fåhraeus: We have several different mechanisms in place. Most importantly, we do not have a ton of different buildings that you can (or even should) build on every single planet you acquire. The economy is more about choosing which planets to develop, and how to specialize them. Sometimes, it is even a smarter choice not colonize a planet at all, but to mine it from orbit instead.

So, instead of a complex system for managing all of the redundant stuff you are building, the game is designed so that you don't need to build all that stuff. We don't really know the details of how that will work though. Perhaps a lot of development will boil down to something like the growth of tax value, with various technologies increasing the growth rate or increasing the ceiling. The first Master of Orion had a system something like that, and it involved a lot less fiddling and busywork than MoO2.

 

[*Aqua*]

So we'll get mil/prod/sci sliders for each colony? Ok, I can live with that.

 

[SIEGE-109]

In MoO 1 the only productive structures were factories. I'd like a system where you also build labs, farms, mines, etc in a similar fashion to MoO 1.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

So we'll get mil/prod/sci sliders for each colony? Ok, I can live with that.

Just to be clear, I just brought up MoO 1 as an example of a system that had decisions, but didn't require a huge amount of micromanagement. I don't know what the devs are doing for Stellaris, except that it doesn't have a lot of "must-build" structures on every planet.