12-08-2003 15:01									#1
	-3 Growth: A warning if you're ever tempted Suffering from ads?

I recently discovered an undocumented (I think) "feature" of the Growth setting. When running -3 Growth (i.e. Aki or Sven running Green without Demo), YOUR BASES DO NOT GROW WHEN THEIR FOOD BOXES FILL. The boxes do fill up, albeit slowly, but when full, they just sit there.

I found this out the hard way once when for one reason or another I wanted to run Sven as something better than Simple, but couldn't or didn't want to run FM and needed more tech than I could get while running Planned. I was busy popping out colony pods when all of a sudden, a few turns after switching to Green, one base after another had "population too low" to pop out a pod... after a few turns of this problem growing rather than shrinking, I realized the horrible truth.

The moral of the story is: if you really need to run Green when playing Sven or Aki, balance it with Demo (or I suppose in some extremely exceptional cases with a GA or Creche in **EVERY** base whose food box might fill up before you raise your growth rating above -3). If you can't balance it with Demo, you don't need to run Green as bad as you think you do!

USC

	12-08-2003 16:14									#2
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I think it says 'no population growth' in the box at the bottom-right of the SE screen. Either way, it's nasty though...

	12-08-2003 21:05									#3
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I'm not even going to try that, no way. Negative growth = very nasty.

-Jam

	13-08-2003 03:07									#4
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i thought -3 was "Near Zero" growth

	13-08-2003 03:21									#5
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Well, the excess nutrients are still accumulated in the nutrient box. So there's still some growth. It's just that the base doesn't grow in size when the nutrient box is full.

	13-08-2003 07:36									#6
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So your population doesn't increase. Call me crazy, but from over here, that looks like no growth.

	14-08-2003 00:47									#7
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-2 -20% population growth
-3 ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

even the manual tries to persuade people not to do this.

	14-08-2003 02:37									#8
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Of course, in vanilla SMAC, it's not possible to reach -3 growth.

	14-08-2003 20:18									#9
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quote: -2 -20% population growth -3 ZERO POPULATION GROWTH even the manual tries to persuade people not to do this.

But if like me you're too lazy to pick up the manual and you just read the in-game text....

USC

	15-08-2003 03:21									#10
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Of course, as I realised last night, once you get the Kloning Vats, its not really an issue is it?

-Jam

	15-08-2003 05:01									#11
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Jamski, do you have a German version of SMAC?

	16-08-2003 13:40									#12
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If you have -3 GROWTH and Cloning Vats, which wins?

	16-08-2003 20:29									#13
	Put an end to popups!

Cloning Vats

	16-08-2003 22:44									#14
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Hmm. think I 'll (as Sven) will avoid Green unless I have demo and something else.

	17-08-2003 01:32									#15
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Even with Vanilla SMAC, you can reach -3 Growth by making a custom fraction that has a -1 growth penalty.

The major conquences of your SE choices are listed on the bottom right of the Social Engerning Screen. If your Growth is -3, on that line you'll see ZERO POPULATION GROWTH in all caps.

	18-08-2003 15:10									#16
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quote: The major conquences of your SE choices are listed on the bottom right of the Social Engerning Screen. If your Growth is -3, on that line you'll see ZERO POPULATION GROWTH in all caps.

Jon, it's been a few weeks since that fateful day, but AFAICR, it unfortunately read "NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH", which tricked me into thinking the desciption was mere flavor (like "rampant inefficiency") and the effect was just a 30% larger nut box.

Silly me.

USC

	19-08-2003 06:04									#17
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Unity, if you want to play with pirates in an MP game, come join us Pirates in tHe Acdg(2) Ac democracy game. eh, leave the -3 behind

	19-08-2003 20:24									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Or you could join the Consciousness. They have the ability to get -3 growth as well.

	25-08-2003 08:16									#19
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by UnityScoutChopper: Jon, it's been a few weeks since that fateful day, but AFAICR, it unfortunately read "NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH", which tricked me into thinking the desciption was mere flavor (like "rampant inefficiency") and the effect was just a 30% larger nut box. Silly me. USC

This is interesting. I don't have SMAX, but I have the alpha.txt and alphax.txt from the Planetary Pack. Looking at them and comparing them to the alpha.txt on the SMAC-only CD, the -30% Growth text is indeed different:

• SMAC-only: "-3, ZERO POPULATION GROWTH"
  
• PP, both files: "-3, NEAR-ZERO POPULATION GROWTH"