David wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 7:55 am
When you got the impression that the AI was spawning talents, the AI might actually be headhunting talents from other companies to replace the missing talents.
No no no ... I double checked just right now. They definitely spawn in new top talent from the void and stealing talent has no effect on their research development (at least not for PRODUCT TECH)
Check out the screenshots of my current game below.
Some info:
There's only 2 companies doing research in 'house hold' products in my game. They are Pur Treasure and Perspective. They each employ 5 and 2 talents accordingly. Pur Treasure has one guy at 80 loyalty and can't be headhunted. This leaves us with a total of 6 headhunt-able people. But before we start snatching, let's see what they can actually hire to replace them with.
This is the talent pool at start before I fill up my R&D center with 'household product' talent by headhunting them. Game Settings is talent pool at NORMAL. This is a small developed city of only 1.85 million people, so talent is quite limited.
- TalentPool.png (1.57 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
As you can see the next top talent is Patty Mathis at 92 skill. This is the pool that any company should start hiring from if their guys are headhunted and they can't headhunt for better talent elsewhere to replace them with.
This is Pur Treasure's R&D center with 5 talents doing research on washing powder, 1 guy can't be headhunted (80 Loyalty) leaving us with 4 possible guys to steal.
- PurTreasureRD.png (1.56 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
This is Perspective's R&D Center with 2 talents doing research on toilet cleaner, these 2 guys can be headhunted.
- PerspectiveRD.png (2.03 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
This is the headhuntable pool, there's only 6 candidates according to the list, it also names the 6 guys, they all correspond to the guys from Pur Treasure and Perspective that can be headhunted. The game does NOT give me the ability to headhunt for any others as there are no other talents employed elsewhere that research household products (look I'm at the bottom of the list already). Therefore these are all the guys that are out there in my game currently. Any other talent needs to be replaced from the original talent pool itself.
- HeadHuntablePoolEnd.png (1.71 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
Now I hire all 6 of these top talents through headhunting them.
- HeadHuntedRD1.png (1.93 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
Look Mark Phelps is part of my new team in this screenshot, in fact all the top talent are in my R&D center now. But look ... I found 3 more guys with talent of 98 ... they are the replacements that Pur Treasure hired from the deep dark void and they have 98 skill too and I consequently headhunted them as well to fill in more R&D units.
This is what the Headhunt pool now displays after I have already headhunted the 6 top talents away + 3 new mystery guys from the void. Look all these guys are skill 98 when the next guy should be Patty Mathis at 92 skill.
- NewHeadhuntPool.png (1.71 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
But Patty Mathis is never taken from the pool. Patty Mathis is still in the original talent pool. (picture not shown because it is EXACTLY the same as the picture of the original talent pool)
In fact, I can fill up many more R&D centers with top talent by headhunting into the AI void. The new spawned in talent DOES decrease VERY slightly in skills, but often by just a single skill point for every 9 spawned in guys. I've managed to fill 3 more R&D centers with guys from the void all with skills of 96 or higher. Look this is the fourth R&D center I filled with headhunted people from the void. The lowest person had 95 skill.
- 3MoreR&DCentersFilledWithTopTalent.png (1.72 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
It's only 1994. These aren't guys that were trained up over time. I've spawned in as many new guys with talent above 95 as there are talent in the ENTIRE original pool with skills ranging from 30 to 92 (Patty Mathis being the highest of them originally). I should be at the bottom of the list already but they just keep spawning in top talent. In fact, I've filled up a total of 6 R&D centers with talent with skill above 92. There were only 36 talents (skill ranges from 30 to 99) total in the entire game for house hold products before I started headhunting the six top talents away and I've managed to fill up another 5x9 or more than 54 positions with talent with a skill above 92.
- SixthRD.png (1.92 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
Poor Patty Mathis will never be hired if this keeps on going. Well thats not entirely true ... I've finally managed to dig my way to the bottom of the talent list to meet Patty.
- PattyMathis.png (1.7 MiB) Viewed 1145 times
Look Patty Mathis finally showed up in the list!
I can put him in my 7th R&D center to research household products ... oh no ... he's actually useless because there's only 4 household products and I've already filled 4 R&D centers with the top talent from the deep dark void. He will never get to do any research on household products.
Patty Mathis's college degree in Household products is useless! Give Patty Mathis a break and stop spawning in talent from the void! Patty Mathis deserves a job opportunity without reality bending over backwards spawning in guys that shouldn't exist that take his job opportunity away from him! Poor Patty Mathis just wants to do his job but he is made irrelevant in today's top talent spawning in from the void economy!
You can very easily reproduce this bug/effect by just starting a new game. I recommend 1 city, normal talent pool and only a handful of competitors and then just checking the total talent at start of the game, see what the AI hires, and then start headhunting them away after a year or two. The game will spawn in more talent to replace them and soon you'll have entire rows of R&D centers filled with talent that shouldn't exist according to the original talent pool. New top talent is spawned in instantaneously.
Even if you hire from the original talent pool and don't headhunt, you'll find that the game spawns in some decent talent often with better skills than the batch you just hired. So instead of pressing the ''Hire All'' button and be done with it, it's better to do a second hiring run and hire each guy individually because a new guys might spawn in that have better skills. Headhunting by far seems to the most effective way to spawn in infinite top talent though. The AI corps get an automatic replacement with the equivalent or a tiny -1 skill point reduction from their predecessor. The talent pool does eventually dry up, but we're talking dozens if not more R&D centers here ...
The bottom tier talent is entirely useless in this current system and is hardly ever even touched. In fact poor Patty Mathis even though he scored a 92 on his college exams and wasn't part of the top super 6 was still only eligible for a college job after 45 guys preceded him from the deep dark void. No wonder college educated people in today's economy can barely get a decent paying job, when even a top student like Patty Mathis can't get hired after graduating Cum Laude from his college. What's Patty Mathis to do in this situation?
A good investigation regarding the talent system would be in order. It definitely doesn't seem to work as is expected/intended.
To summarize how it works right now:
New talent is spawned in as soon as old talent is hired filling up the candidate list up to a point (this point being waaay to large right now to be meaningful). This new talent has potentially (quite often) better skills than the guys you just hired. Making it so that you need to go back to the hiring interface and hire again a second run each guy individually to replace the lowest talent with the new spawned in top talents, rince and repeat a few times to optimize your hired talents. Or cheese the system entirely and headhunt them away from AI's. This last option is by far the best as it produces consistent high skilled talent. As long as you can headhunt a really good skilled guy, you can farm that AI for good skilled talent since they will instantly spawn an equivalent talent. If the AI has an 100 skilled guy and you can headhunt him then they spawn another 100 skilled guy, which you can headhunt, and another spawns, headhunt it again, and another spawns, and again and again and again ... oh wait ... no ... now they spawned a 99 skilled guy
this is how you fill your R&D centers with 100 skill guys when the normal talent pool doesn't support this possibility at all. It's total cheese.
What I'd prefer:
The talent pool at start is all the talent that there is initially and no extra is spawned in magically. Every new year some new talent is spawned ranging from bottom to top tier depending on education/development levels and size of the city. New top talent can be spawned but is RARE. The talent pool is filled up to a certain number of talents. When new higher talent is spawned in than what is currently available in the list then the lowest talent gets booted out of the list and replaced with new talent to simulate how people who are bad in a field go to other careers or get squeezed out by better performing talents. When you headhunt from an AI, they should NOT get an instantaneous replacement from the void with similar skill level but instead should be forced to hire from the regular hiring pool like any other schlob.
Optional: When you headhunt or hire for talent, you can sign a 5 year exclusivity non-compete contract with them that forbids them from getting hired/headhunted by other companies. After the 5 years, they can be head hunted again but you can also counter-offer them and sign another 5 year contract matching the offer of the headhunting company, locking them in for another 5 years. You can only do this twice for each talent so that after 10 years, the talent can be headhunted by another company if they so desire. This is to keep flexibility in the talent pool system so it does not becoming so static with one company having all the best talent forever. You can headhunt them back once they have their 2 terms up at the other company. Or if the AI deems it too expensive to hire your guy they will never headhunt them to begin with lol, allowing you to keep them safely.
So if you want to test this whole thing about AI's spawning in more top talent. Let the game run long enough so that there is at least 1 guy that you can headhunt, that is the requirement. As long as there is 1 guy that you can headhunt, you can infinitely farm this company for top notch skilled talent as they continue to spawn new ones every single time without fail for every guy you headhunt from them. Going so far as drawing them from the dark corners of the abyss.
Lastly, plz donate to the Patty Mathis foundation for disgruntled college graduates that got side lined by talent from the void. Immigrants should not take your hard earned college jobs!