The Death Spiral: I have an opinion about it.

[captainamaziiing]

I'm curious what other folks think of the Death Spiral game mechanic. Right now I'm feeling like it's a deal breaker.

There HAS to be some sort of throttle on it. I'm very near teh end game. But I was making too little naphtha. So my plastic production lagged. So my antiseptic production lagged. So my medical I supply lagged. So my Medical II supply lagged. So my hospital went without meds, so my citizens started dying, which was the first I realized there was an issue. I dropped everything and built more naptha supply, but it was too late. I was losing 50 to 75 citizens a month. Shutting down industries all over, and hoping the supply chain would make it through in time. No chance. I went from 4300 pop to 2500 pop, and my entire build is a meltdown.

This is not okay. I've completely lost interest.

There is no point telling me to 'get gud'. I lost more people than the Black Plague. Because naptha.

This is a really bad game mechanic and needs addressing. Am I alone in this opinion?

[Veter]

I dont want to answer to this topic, instead of this, i would ask what the hell is this people is?! They consume tonns of food per year, they consume tonns of luery item and they consume tonns of medical per year, do they are real humans or this is some sort of monsters or mutants or aliens?

[DDR-Boy]

think so

[manfred.stabentheiner]

the answer is simple
who make the death spiral the player or the game

[captainamaziiing]

Originally posted by manfred.stabentheiner:

the answer is simple
who make the death spiral the player or the game

The game. That's why I am suggesting the game needs to be fixed because in real life the black plague doesn't kill as many people as the death spiral.

Now, if folks really love the Death Spiral, then so be it. This isn't the game for me and I'll adjust my review accordingly. But if I am not alone in considering a broken game mechanic, then it is incumbent on the people trying to sell a good game to fix it.

[BaronVC]

This is absolutely a realistic mechanic, and to be very blunt about it, is a direct result of a failure to maintain an adequate buffer of goods that are critical for subsequent higher tier manufacturing. The game already provides for alerts that can be set up to warn, in advance, of looming shortages of all types of stored goods, unless, of course, you maintain no warehouses.

IRL, there are typically diversified supply lines, with multiple inputs and massive buffers of goods stored around the world. All you have to do is think back a few years to recall what happens when even a base-level commodity (toilet paper) is in short-supply, or consider the baby formula shortage that occurred, and the ripple effects felt throughout the world.

While global populations did not spiral in the aforementioned instances, there have been IRL situations where sanctions have been placed on countries that have caused catastrophic death tolls. The inability of some of the sanctioned countries to acquire materials (base-level or higher), and other goods, directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

While the situation in-game sucks, and I feel bad for you, there are systems available to the player, forewarning of impending issues, and to prevent such an event occurring.

[Kaery]

I have to agree with BaronVC. If you add buffer storages between processes (I like to have at least a T1 warehouse for T1 Medical supplies, for example), you can set alerts that warn you about stuff like this long before the effects actually reach anything important.

I don't have alert everywhere, but important things like food storage, medical production, diesel production and similar are covered.

The game does give you the tools needed to avoid death spirals or at least notice the beginning stages of them, usually early enough that you can prevent deaths. Use them.

That said, 2500 pop should, provided you have some stockpiles of strategic resources, allow you to recover the save. Pause things. Construction parts should be a large industry you can completely stop while your population recovers. Slowly ramp back up. Use the edict in the captains office that boosts pop-growth. Heck, turn that beacon back on. This is a setback, but not a lethal one.

[johntarmac]

Originally posted by captainamaziiing:

This isn't the game for me and I'll adjust my review accordingly.

Maybe you could be fair and edit your review to say the death spiral was entirely preventable if you had used the alert feature to warn you of low resources.

[[TAG]Alblaka]

The (mitigate-able) risk of a death spiral is one of the key factors that differentiates this game from other factory-genre titles that go for more of a sandbox.

I don't mind if the devs add a sandbox checkbox which allows you to just cheat up any ressource you run into a shortage of (for those who can't handle the game otherwise. Each to their own.),
but removing the actual fail condition of the game in general would lessen the challenge and thus fun & accomplishment.

[Capo Rip]

Originally posted by Veter:

I dont want to answer to this topic, instead of this, i would ask what the hell is this people is?! They consume tonns of food per year, they consume tonns of luery item and they consume tonns of medical per year, do they are real humans or this is some sort of monsters or mutants or aliens?

I'm with you.

[mac18782]

Originally posted by captainamaziiing:

I lost more people than the Black Plague. Because naptha.

This is a really bad game mechanic and needs addressing. Am I alone in this opinion?

Not because naptha, cause u making anything wrong in all the chains. U don`t use the mechanic but talking`em bad, sorry, but the fault is not founding in the game. Thats urself.
4.3k Ppl down to 2.5k, wow, u crying about it, i getting down from 11k down to 1.1k, thats worst, not ur stats, that can handle many ppl`s here withing 20-30 minutes maximum.
everyone here had to learn the mechanic, but on the hard way at most, surely. Learning by doing. Push ur space key, the game changed to "PAUSE MODE", so u can watch every factory, truck etc.
And if ur settlement raising up, ur ppls need more stuff, so u have to produce more stuff, u have to watch all the time about it.
Use the Storages, some of em with the Warning function, it works at 2 ways, low and high at 4 stages. Thats just a logical build. Dont use trucks for delivery, use Conveyer Belts, so the trucks can do other jobs.
This game looks sometimes harder then it is, just use ur brain logicaly, that`s the joker in this game.
The Dev`s give us, the community, a game, where we have to use our brain, thats not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SimCity game :)
We r allowed here, to use our brains and we have to do it.
Everyone here had started sometimes a new game, but they learned about their mistakes, me too ;)
I planed some industrial areas and if they builded, running etc. i found a problem cause i don`t calculate the flowrate from a pipe, or a belt. thats happening, that`s life :)
If everything in life or game running perfect, it will be boring, and that will be fast coming.
The death spiral of ur topic, is just a solid fault of urself, cause anywhere in ur game r mistakes btw. problems, like FULL running pipes, Belts, Storages, not enough ressources, industry too low.
Many many many Problems coming by starting a game here, just a logic thing

[Keranik]

Priority settings on buildings are really handy. Ensure that critical infrastructure is always marked as high priority and do not create setups that involve critical infrastructure that could back up or lack product. Having alerts on critical storages and other things are quite helpful as well. It is an entirely preventable mechanic, but it is definitely not forgiving.

[hazxan]

Another plus for using Alerts. I never used them in my first game and also had frequent death spirals. Have used them on anything critical in my second run through and have had no death spirals and now at research level 4 approaching end game.

Alerts on any important storage (probably about half of them) set to warn if less than 25% seems to work well at giving advance warning.

Alerts are something I overlooked for 100 hours, but is a game changer, a lot of reward for little effort!

[Lamecius (lulu)]

The main stat of Medical Supplies 1 and 2 is it +health stat (+15 for MS1 and +20 for MS2)

The problem seems to be your pollution lowering health, not the medical supplies themselves. You created an island that was unlivable without Medical Supplies.

[captainamaziiing]

Thank you all for your replies. Apparently I am in the minority on the topic so I'll leave it alone. This is simply not the game for me.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by captainamaziiing:

Thank you all for your replies. Apparently I am in the minority on the topic so I'll leave it alone. This is simply not the game for me.

Sad to see you go because of a preventable issue with a feature that makes this game, if not unique, at least stand out from the crowd. Good luck and have fun with other games, though!