Orphanages seem counter-productive

[Fiend]

I've been experimenting with orphanages, and it seems that cities are better off without them.
I have to set a minimum of 50% loyalty for people to work in the orphanage, otherwise the orphans get negative loyalty. That means it's pretty much impossible to keep the orphanage fully staffed, and when the staff level runs low, the orphans get even more negative loyalty.
So all I'm doing is wasting resources raising people with zero loyalty who then just escape as soon as they graduate. Worse still - I can't even demolish the orphanage, because it's not empty.

I guess I'm going to have to starve the orphans to death so that I can demolish the orphanage.

(this is with the orphanage set to 75% Soviet propaganda)

[hjkdsfkhjn]

Fiend, remember the children who have to be put down just because their parents are dead. Give them a chance, give them a life. But of course, it's your choi....Ah dammit, please don't turn this discussion into a political allegory.

Inappropriate jokes aside however, I think the system should be a bit more balanced, like "yes, the orphans will live, but they'll be sad/loyal on average or be given more care, thus being able to live a reverend life."

[Owlchemist]

You'd basically only build one if you're interested in a quicker population growth (and also for RP reasons for some of us). While they may come outa there at low loyalty, that doesn't mean they'll escape. Low loyalty just means that anytime they take a happiness hit for whatever reason, it'll be harsher... if harsh enough, yes they'll escape.

As long as your overall happiness situation is fine, they should be okay and their loyalty will bounce back.

As for not being able to demolish it, just completely remove the staffing (and/or remove paths/roads leading to it) for awhile until it dries up.

[Novu]

Orphanages need a revamp. All they do is produce citizens with negative loyalty who commit crimes and then escape. It does not matter if you meet all their needs. Their happiness will stay at 0% until they either die or escape.

[Owlchemist]

I took a closer look at my orphanage just now, mousing over all the kids currently in there. I'm seeing happiness usually around 60-100%. Loyalty is in the 30s, which is neither good nor bad. It's workable.

No idea how their happiness is determined since they never leave the building and do anything. Is the building powered, heated, sewer/water and stocked?

[Elessar_warrior]

I also need to understand this building more, i'm getting orphanage warnings as they are overcrowded but i really don't want to build more.

[dumba]

Originally posted by Novu:

Orphanages need a revamp. All they do is produce citizens with negative loyalty who commit crimes and then escape. It does not matter if you meet all their needs. Their happiness will stay at 0% until they either die or escape.

Sounds about right :(

[MG83]

Originally posted by Novu:

Orphanages need a revamp. All they do is produce citizens with negative loyalty who commit crimes and then escape. It does not matter if you meet all their needs. Their happiness will stay at 0% until they either die or escape.

yup
Revamp needed.
It should be vice versa.
Anyone who is grown by government should have loyalty of secret agents. Thats why most secret agents are selected by orphans and grown by goverments.

Orphanages should be pumping "loyalist" with % 75-100 loyaly with REDUCED BASE COST OF LOYALY means they should not be needing cars to get % 100 and not losing loyaly in a simple situation of not finding electronics and non basic life requirements ie : sport culture But basic life requirements such as food and health should have normal impact. Also there should b e higher mortality rate in orphanages. Children should get sick more often in orphanage etc or random deaths.

[RyanFireball]

You play on "Hard" with an unsatisfied citizens reaction to be great, and want the citizens reactions to be small, why do you not play with citizens reaction on small, and let us that want it to be hard, keep the hard settings?
R/Tom

[MG83]

Originally posted by RyanFireball:

You play on "Hard"

Hard and broken are different things :> what is discussed is not about game difficulty. Its about orphanages being counterproductive.

[Fiend]

I'm not requesting that the difficulty be lowered. I'm saying that the overall effect of the orphanages seems to be negative, so currently there's no point in having them, regardless of the difficulty level.

[MG83]

Originally posted by Fiend:

I'm not requesting that the difficulty be lowered. I'm saying that the overall effect of the orphanages seems to be negative, so currently there's no point in having them, regardless of the difficulty level.

from the tests i made in past i confirm this situation.

[ArminiusdeCherusk]

The problem is not the orphanage, but the requirement that you need loyal workers to get a positive outcome for your orphans. Seems like 50% + is needed. Therefore you only should build orphanges when you have this loyality. Perhaps it should be tweaked a little, that you won't have negativ modifiers for orphans between 40% and 50% loyality of your workers ?
Orphanges have a positive influence on pop growth, you need that in beginning on empty maps if you play with limited money. But at this point you don't have a high loyality. Higher loyality comes when you are able to build and support a radio or TV station, for me that is "late" game. But a that point you won't need additional pop growth from orphanages anymore. I still build them cause i feel responsible for the kids, but if you have a well manged republic you have so many emmigrants (escapes cause of lack of housings).

[4X-Fan]

Originally posted by ArminiusdeCherusk:

Orphanges have a positive influence on pop growth, you need that in beginning on empty maps if you play with limited money. But at this point you don't have a high loyality. Higher loyality comes when you are able to build and support a radio or TV station, for me that is "late" game. But a that point you won't need additional pop growth from orphanages anymore. I still build them cause i feel responsible for the kids, but if you have a well manged republic you have so many emmigrants (escapes cause of lack of housings).

Yes, I think thats hits the nail - the question is whether you need more pop growth...then Orphanages seem to be a good idea for me. And in my experience, only on hard difficulty pop growth is really an issue.

Which leads to the paradoxon that only lower difficulties in regard to citizen happiness Orphanages are an optional thing you can do for RP - and which will not hurt you in best case (well supplied and staffed by loyal people), while not helping much. However, in the worst case, less ideally runned Orphanages breed unhappy pops...

On the highest citizen difficulty on the other hand my experience is that you need every citizen - and a raised child is at least someone you don't have to recruit from abroad for money. Provided that the rest of your setup can cope with it (crime fighting and loyalty increasing structures present), I think that even not totally loyal workers being released from an Orphanage are a net gain for the republic.

[Fiend]

Originally posted by ArminiusdeCherusk:

Orphanges have a positive influence on pop growth, you need that in beginning on empty maps if you play with limited money. But at this point you don't have a high loyality. Higher loyality comes when you are able to build and support a radio or TV station, for me that is "late" game. But a that point you won't need additional pop growth from orphanages anymore. I still build them cause i feel responsible for the kids, but if you have a well manged republic you have so many emmigrants (escapes cause of lack of housings).

I mostly agree but the situation is actually worse. The orphans in the orphanage increase your population, but not as useful productive workers. They all escape when they become adults, so your productive population hasn't actually increased at all.

[ArminiusdeCherusk]

They only leave if you have not enough houses. After moving out of orphanage they behave like any other 21+ ( despite the fact, that they can't live at their parents home) and when they decide to spread the word in the world of my nice republik they are free to leave. Escaping is, in my opinion, a wrong translation. Escaping is more for lack of food/heating etc. .