CP efficiency

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Calecute
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:50 pm

CP efficiency

Post by Calecute »

Does anyone knows the relationships of gdp, investment points (IP), control points? I did not really got a lot of data and did the math, but by the looks of it:

GDP and IP are not linear, there's diminishing returns, so adding GDP will add less IPs the richer the country is. I see a lot of people saying Economy investment is better in big population countries, because raising the gdp per capita by a fixed amount will result in more gdp, but IPs being not linear will change this math.

CP cost seems to be linear with IPs, and actually be exactly the unmodified IP budget of the country. But each nations CPs seems to cost the same as the IPs budget. I didn't look into the treshholds to get more control points. This means small countries are much more CP efficient than big ones. You get doble the IPs if you take only 3 CPs nations than if you get 6 CPs nations. This also means the returns to economy investment are kinda dubious if you are CP cost constrained.

This seems to make unifications kinda meh, but actually lowering the CP/IPs is good, especially if it doesn't push you over to more CPs. You keep the sum of funding+research+boost+mission control, that is what you really care about, and have less CP cost to keep it. Even more than investment point / CP cost, the important ration is income / CP cost. (I'm kinda of assuming unification just sum the incomes, but i didn't actually check)

And also the same use of investment points in different countries seems to wield different results. I couldn't tell why. They are some times pretty big differences, but i guess could be just a fixed base value modified by the controllers. Later I'll try to check on start, when no one is controlled.
cesar.malari
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:39 am

Re: CP efficiency

Post by cesar.malari »

Someone posted a formula in Discord (wish I could find the link), but it seems to be IP=GDP^0.33. And yes, a nation that crosses from 3 to 4 control points means you need to spend 33% more CP to fully control it for a minimal IP increase.

re: "same use of IP in different countries" - keep an eye on unrest and armies - both lower the IP you have available to allocate, but don't lower the CP needed to hold the country. This means the most efficient way to get things with a fixed IP cost (armies, navies, MC, boost) is to _build_ it as a small country, then unify it into a larger country once it's all built. Unless it bumps the IP over the breakpoint to add an additional control point, it'll easily cost you less total CP to hold the unified country. If you take the time to powergame it, the EU can end up being an MC _monster_ - as you take each country, build exclusively MC until you've hit the limit for that territory, then merge it into the EU (giving you back most of the CP) and repeat with the next one.
Martenzo
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:24 am

Re: CP efficiency

Post by Martenzo »

The thing about Unifications is that certain categories of IP investment (Economy, Knowledge, Welfare, Funding, Military) are more powerful when applied to a huge nation with lots of provinces and population. Other categories of IP (Spoils, Boost, Mission Control, Nuclear Weapons, Space Defenses once unlocked) provide a static effect that scales linearly with the amount of IP invested, whether that IP is invested in the USA or in Zimbabwe. It's also worth keeping in mind that each nation has an individual Direct Investment cap of 200 IP per year.

Someone over on Reddit did datamine the exact formula of GDP to IP, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I recall that it was a cube root formula of some kind. The "sweet spot" in terms of GDP to IP seemed to be around 15 to 20 IP, after which diminishing returns on IP growth become quite punitive.

Regardless: the value of big meganations is not in their raw IP output. It's in their research output and their ability to maintain multiple armies at a high miltech level. Knowledge investment increases Education in a relatively linear manner, which is a linear scaling factor in the research output of the nation, alongside population. For a faction to dominate research, they need at least one reasonably developed meganation to produce the bulk of their Research income. But to dominate the space race, they also need a bunch of smaller nations, ideally close to the equator, to more efficiently build up their Boost and Mission Control incomes.

Because of this paradigm, factions that lose the initial scramble for claiming countries with meganation potential can still remain relevant in the space race if they can rely on stealing technology from other factions to give themselves a leg up.
Calecute
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:50 pm

Re: CP efficiency

Post by Calecute »

cesar.malari wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:50 am Someone posted a formula in Discord (wish I could find the link), but it seems to be IP=GDP^0.33. And yes, a nation that crosses from 3 to 4 control points means you need to spend 33% more CP to fully control it for a minimal IP increase.
Martenzo wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:59 am Someone over on Reddit did datamine the exact formula of GDP to IP, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I recall that it was a cube root formula of some kind. The "sweet spot" in terms of GDP to IP seemed to be around 15 to 20 IP, after which diminishing returns on IP growth become quite punitive.
Thanks for the info! As GDP^0.33.=Cube root of GDP, you both seem to agree on the formula
Martenzo wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:59 am Regardless: the value of big meganations is not in their raw IP output. It's in their research output and their ability to maintain multiple armies at a high miltech level. Knowledge investment increases Education in a relatively linear manner, which is a linear scaling factor in the research output of the nation, alongside population. For a faction to dominate research, they need at least one reasonably developed meganation to produce the bulk of their Research income. But to dominate the space race, they also need a bunch of smaller nations, ideally close to the equator, to more efficiently build up their Boost and Mission Control incomes.
Did not really look into how research is calculated, will pay attention next.
Rufus
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:54 am

Re: CP efficiency

Post by Rufus »

Re. winning the space race. This is done by having the most boost generation and picking the relevant early game techs. After the first mining outposts are up, boost becomes a lot less useful. At least from what I've seen so far. I don't think that you should be building up boost capacity in small countries near the equator. It is much better to control some country that is already generating boost and trying to get a boost generating organization. I'm not sure how it is in the later game.

As far as I know, building mission control capacity is not more effective in countries near the equator.
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