First, I like the economy model in GCII. Its basic innovation is decoupling spending from income and that is a great thing. I do think it has a fundamental flaw however and I would like someone to point out why I'm wrong. Allow me to explain the way I think spending works:
Spending: Industrial Capacity.
This slider controls at what base efficiency your factories and labs run. Straightforward. Multiply this percentage by the structures base value to get its theoretical maximum production for that turn. (Leaving aside bonuses, a big caveat admittedly.)
Spending Distribution:
These three sliders don't distribute spending as one might assume from the description, but rather, activate capacity. If I set research to 50% I am not distributing 50% of my spending to my labs but rather I am using 50% of my labs theoretical maximum for that turn. If I set military to 30% and social to 20%, I am not distributing 50% of my spending to my factories but using 50% of the factories capacity. I am also dividing it 60/40 between military and social.
Now it's obvious from this that the social and military sliders must be linked. They draw from the same capacity pool and their total cannot exceed 100%. However labs draw from a different capacity pool, there is no inherent link between their percentages and the sliders should not be linked.
To illustrate: I have 10 apples and 10 oranges and 3 friends to distribute them amongst. Two of my friends only like apples and the other only likes oranges. I proclaim that I shall distribute 100% of my fruit. I decide that shall divide the apples 50/50 between my apple loving friends and all the oranges shall go to my third friend. That is a correct implementation of 100% utilization of my two disparate capacities.
However GCII rules would say: 50% of your apples to the first friend plus 50% of your apples to the second friend equal 100% of your capacity thus friend three receives nothing. Or, 100% of your oranges to your third friend equal 100% of your capacity and thus your first two friends get nothing. However this is comparing apples to oranges and is an incorrect implementation of 100% utilization.
Basically, if I have one pool, total utilization cannot exceed 100%. If I have two pools, the 100% limitation loses meaning. 100% of what exactly? It's a complete mathematical non sequitur, like saying the total of the three sliders cannot exceed blue. What does that mean?!? If I have two pools, each separate pool cannot exceed 100%. Thus military/social sliders should be linked with the sum being 100% and the research slider should disappear completely. Spending: Industrial Capacity would then properly control how much of my capacity was activated and Spending Distribution would properly allocate my factory spending between military and social. Since lab output has only one destination: research, no slider is required.
I would love someone to explain where I'm wrong, because this isn't a good/bad question, it's a right/wrong question. At least for this feature. As I said at the top, on the whole I think the economic model is very much ahead of any others.
Mr. Lucky
