Interstellar Space: Genesis - a modern MOO2-inspired game

[WingsofMemory]

Yeah, the wormhole is probably the reason you don't have contact. You'd probably need to build something on the other side of the wormhole to get it.

That upkeep does sound quite large, and if your homeworld has a bonus to colony ship creation, I guess you should use colonies for trade good to offset the cost. Kinda makes historical sense lol.

[haphazard1]

I think a lot of my cash flow problem is just that my population is still pretty small. More people == more cash flow, and I just don't have enough people yet. Earth has 9 pop, while the various colony worlds have mostly two or three. The migration has helped the new worlds grow, but that comes at the expense of slower growth at the home world. I believe it will be worth it overall to get the new colonies going faster, especially since some of them are mineral rich or even ultra rich while Earth has just average minerals.

I am planning to try an asteroid outpost set for trade income, to see just how much it produces. I do have asteroid belts in more systems that could be used for this, or for research. ISG describes the trade income option as your government selling mining rights to private corporations; there is a mention of piracy, so I am not sure if you can get pirate events like in the original MOO that affected trade deals until you sent a fleet to clear out the problem. Leaders can also apparently have pirate-related skills -- maybe you can raid other races' outposts for cash? That would be interesting.

[WingsofMemory]

Interesting, hopefully pirates don't overrun us. How much of a fleet do we have?

[RefSteel]

Thanks (belatedly; I've been time-constrained lately) for the information on the nebulae, Haphazard! Sounds like an interesting interaction with the scanning system too!
And:

Oh okay, sorry about that, I wasn't picking up what you were putting down.

Well, mostly because I was communicating so ineffectually.

Here's a question about events and their effect on replayability, are they more replayable when they don't offer choices?

That's a good question; I hadn't thought of it that way before - but I think the answer is that events with forced "choices" are worse than events whose choices are made through actual gameplay. So, in your example, MoO does have most of those choices:
1) To support your recycling initiatives, spend resources on more-expensive recycling-based infrastructure to invest in the planet's future, allowing it to do more in spite of its mineral poverty. To do this, spend on IND at higher costs than before, and gain more production on the planet.
2) To accept the situation and emphasize farming and education, move spending from the Ind slider to the Eco and/or Tech sliders.
3) Use the "Transfer" option from the Planets screen to ship in resources from other systems. (Especially effective in RotP, where spending from the reserve isn't affected by the destination planet's richness or poverty.)
4) Write a story about executing the governor and/or playing space tennis! As a bonus, next time this event happens, you can write a story about exiling the mining installation's CEO to a remote asteroid scanning station and taking a desperately-needed vacation at the space sauna at the inferno world of Geothermae 4!

Best of all though, you can combine any or all of these and other options, like sending transports to "help displaced mine workers find work at other colonies" or "take advantage of the now-rampant unemployment among ex-miners to recruit space marines," shifting priorities with time and/or adapting to changing circumstances and new emergencies - and instead of one-time, arbitrary, tightly-constrained choices with pre-written stories having only a tenuous connection to the actual gameplay, the choices you make flow from your overall strategy, and their consequences flow naturally from the known rules of the game! There may be special rules created because of events (Plague victims are under quarantine, trade income is reduced while pirates exist, colonists in a system about to go supernova can't contribute to research on anything but their solar rejuvenator) and options to violate some of these rules would give the player even more choice and maybe be even better too: Sending 'sports from a plague world could work but prompt you to reconsider, "Warning! If you own or conquer [the destination] when these transports arrive, the plague will spread there too!" Allowing "special projects" with separate sliders (I think Dominus Galaxia does this) could be cool too so you can choose between Planetary Shields and missile bases, Terraforming and pop growth, Solar Rejuvenator or normal research, etc.) - but it does add to the complexity of the interface and the number of Special Things you have to do at each world instead of managing the empire as a whole.

Or, put more generally: The designers have created a game (no matter who and which) that (if it's any good) is fun to play, immersive enough that all the spreadsheet numbers that run in the background are subsumed into and serve emergent stories of a strange, new galaxy (or one alternate-history vaguely-Earth-like world!) - so successfully when they do it right that obsessive players may create their own literal spreadsheets to plan their empire's future according to the game rules, and even enjoy that as supporting their experience of the game! And I think it's a bad plan for the designers then interrupt their (hopefully) well-conceived gameplay and lovingly-rendered galaxy with a text box saying, "Here's a story you've read many times before if you like the game and may well not be reading anyway while you skip to the bonus/penalty choices whether you've read it before or not! Choose a cleverly- or snarkily- or boringly- or high-handedly-phrased option for a magic bonus out of nowhere or to exchange of one in-game resource/effect for another or the least-bad-in-your-opinion penalty from this one-time list of three!"

That's if the designers want to make a good game though, and have the courage of their convictions. If they want to make a game that sells well and keeps players talking about the game, don't ask me and don't do what I say; I'm bad at marketing!

Also, none of this means events-with-one-off-choices make a game bad; they can even add to gameplay if you're careful with them and build them into the game ... more thoughtfully than I see most strategy games using them.

[WingsofMemory]

Thanks (belatedly; I've been time-constrained lately) for the information on the nebulae, Haphazard!  Sounds like an interesting interaction with the scanning system too!
And:

Oh okay, sorry about that, I wasn't picking up what you were putting down.

Well, mostly because I was communicating so ineffectually.

Here's a question about events and their effect on replayability, are they more replayable when they don't offer choices?

That's a good question; I hadn't thought of it that way before - but I think the answer is that events with forced "choices" are worse than events whose choices are made through actual gameplay.  So, in your example, MoO does have most of those choices:
1) To support your recycling initiatives, spend resources on more-expensive recycling-based infrastructure to invest in the planet's future, allowing it to do more in spite of its mineral poverty.  To do this, spend on IND at higher costs than before, and gain more production on the planet.
2) To accept the situation and emphasize farming and education, move spending from the Ind slider to the Eco and/or Tech sliders.
3) Use the "Transfer" option from the Planets screen to ship in resources from other systems.  (Especially effective in RotP, where spending from the reserve isn't affected by the destination planet's richness or poverty.)
4) Write a story about executing the governor and/or playing space tennis!  As a bonus, next time this event happens, you can write a story about exiling the mining installation's CEO to a remote asteroid scanning station and taking a desperately-needed vacation at the space sauna at the inferno world of Geothermae 4!

Best of all though, you can combine any or all of these and other options, like sending transports to "help displaced mine workers find work at other colonies" or "take advantage of the now-rampant unemployment among ex-miners to recruit space marines," shifting priorities with time and/or adapting to changing circumstances and new emergencies - and instead of one-time, arbitrary, tightly-constrained choices with pre-written stories having only a tenuous connection to the actual gameplay, the choices you make flow from your overall strategy, and their consequences flow naturally from the known rules of the game!  There may be special rules created because of events (Plague victims are under quarantine, trade income is reduced while pirates exist, colonists in a system about to go supernova can't contribute to research on anything but their solar rejuvenator) and options to violate some of these rules would give the player even more choice and maybe be even better too:  Sending 'sports from a plague world could work but prompt you to reconsider, "Warning!  If you own or conquer [the destination] when these transports arrive, the plague will spread there too!"  Allowing "special projects" with separate sliders (I think Dominus Galaxia does this) could be cool too so you can choose between Planetary Shields and missile bases, Terraforming and pop growth, Solar Rejuvenator or normal research, etc.) - but it does add to the complexity of the interface and the number of Special Things you have to do at each world instead of managing the empire as a whole.

Or, put more generally:  The designers have created a game (no matter who and which) that (if it's any good) is fun to play, immersive enough that all the spreadsheet numbers that run in the background are subsumed into and serve emergent stories of a strange, new galaxy (or one alternate-history vaguely-Earth-like world!) - so successfully when they do it right that obsessive players may create their own literal spreadsheets to plan their empire's future according to the game rules, and even enjoy that as supporting their experience of the game!  And I think it's a bad plan for the designers then interrupt their (hopefully) well-conceived gameplay and lovingly-rendered galaxy with a text box saying, "Here's a story you've read many times before if you like the game and may well not be reading anyway while you skip to the bonus/penalty choices whether you've read it before or not!  Choose a cleverly- or snarkily- or boringly- or high-handedly-phrased option for a magic bonus out of nowhere or to exchange of one in-game resource/effect for another or the least-bad-in-your-opinion penalty from this one-time list of three!"

That's if the designers want to make a good game though, and have the courage of their convictions.  If they want to make a game that sells well and keeps players talking about the game, don't ask me and don't do what I say; I'm bad at marketing!

Also, none of this means events-with-one-off-choices make a game bad; they can even add to gameplay if you're careful with them and build them into the game ... more thoughtfully than I see most strategy games using them.

Thanks for the thoughtful response, I think I 100% agree with you on all of that. Games like Stellaris having little choice boxes with events suits the game well (partially because it's a nice distraction from the normal gameplay that can get a bit mind-numbing.) and the events often have fun little side-stories, and aren't too repetitive assuming you don't play the game that much.

Master of Orion though, (MoO1 specifically) is such a tightly designed game that it doesn't need stuff like that to keep it interesting, and the random events have gameplay answers to them, so they don't need choicebox answers.

I think that there is probably a way to make events-with-choice-boxes better and more interesting so that they do contribute something fun and interesting to the gameplay without being repetitive or conflicting with the story that's emerging in the minds eye of the player as they play. Assuming that's a normal thing, and not just something the two of us do lol. I just don't know how to do that though. Maybe just steal the plot of every Star Trek episode and have those be the random events lol. I mean, we have Space Amoebas and Space Crystals already in MoO...

"Your scout encountered a planet that is complete copy of our homeworld except all the adults are dead, or one of our ancient empires never fell or something I dunno: what do?"

Hmm, maybe that's not the best way to do it?