Is there a point to unification?

[jeremy5-7-10]

I unified the southern cross, and it seems all i did was lose 2 bn gdp.

[sevensided]

Action economy , really. You only have so many agents and if you want to control Earth , you're going to have to unify to reduce the amount of country maintenance you need to do.

There are other reasons but this is the biggest for me.

[Botji]

There is also the case where you unify into a huge country, then the aliens do magic and steal your points bypassing all your defenses in said country which is then nearly 100% impossible to retake because 2500000 points in defense from giganormous economy that you have to try to overcome etc.

Not to mention how them taking/you losing even 1-2 control points in that country is a MASSIVE resource loss for you as they cut away 2/6th or whatever of your entire economy until you can get them back, if you can get them back.

[corisai]

Bigger countries are much better for economy development.

[Mistfox]

To lower democracy and knowledge for a better growth rate, to push smaller countries over the 2 trillion self sustaining mark, to spread your per capita investment over more people leading to better GDP growth etc etc.

Unification is a growth strategy.

[Raidus Drakon]

Originally posted by Botji:

There is also the case where you unify into a huge country, then the aliens do magic and steal your points bypassing all your defenses in said country which is then nearly 100% impossible to retake because 2500000 points in defense from giganormous economy that you have to try to overcome etc.

Not to mention how them taking/you losing even 1-2 control points in that country is a MASSIVE resource loss for you as they cut away 2/6th or whatever of your entire economy until you can get them back, if you can get them back.

Yeah you Really have to Push those Defence Techs against ALien Mindcontrol.
Otherwise everything you build up will just Vanish, and that is just "if" the AI doesnt start to cheat.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Raidus Drakon:

Yeah you Really have to Push those Defence Techs against ALien Mindcontrol.

a) Average Science of your councilors help here too.

b) Assassination of aliens on Earth protecting you indirectly.

c) Long-range fleet capable to intercept alien ships in deep space will stop aliens mind control completely (even a single hour spend on Earth orbit is enough for alien ship to transfer agent).

[BanDHMO]

CP and investment are more efficient on a larger country, I believe. Neither is linear, apparently, but both are fewer for a united AB than for A and B separately.

For CP united is strictly better. For investment, it depends on what you want. If you want things that provide country-wide benefit, like increasing stability, military tech, economy, education, it's better to unify, since two countries would have to each spend the investment point.

But if you want to spend investment points on something that produces individual tangible "things", like mission control centers, then it's better to stay separate, because you will have more points in total by keeping the countries separate.

This leads to an interesting Euro strategy, where countries about to merge push out tangible things first, then merge and focus on country-wide things after.