But regardless of the problems with micromanagement (and I am not fan of it) you need something to stop the "rich get richer, faster and faster" syndrome that Starfire's SM2 rule changes produces. As that kills the game just as dead. That computer game Sword of the Stars tried to deal with this...clearly they were thinking about the problem. I think just about every modern 4X game looks at how to deal with exactly this issue. Starfire has to do it as well.
G'Day Paul.
I couldn't agree more. With flat costs (i.e. R&D) and an exponential population growth rate, the amount of free cash an empire has increases exponentially.
And without some kind of custom PC support (i.e. SFA), then the game quickly becomes unmanageable. Even
with PC support, the point of "unplayability" exists, it is just further away.
My preference to address this, would be to move away from PU/PTU's, and to introduce costs that are based on the empires income (rather then flat costs). This would have the effect of
further slowing down reaching the point of unplayability.
Fixing the game so that this point never arrives, though, is beyond me.....