Stellaris Dev Diary #153 - Empire Sprawl & Administrative Capacity

[Foefaller]

I think you two have made your positions abundantly clear and I think that you both have a point.

As you say, both HMs and MEs are severely lacking in interesting options. Once these options are there, the other issues will be mitigated alongside. As it stands, it is indeed weird to assume that ALL MEs should be tall and ALL HMs should be wide. And the conflict between Driven Exterminators and the tall play style seems obvious to me, but then again, I do not play MEs. Because as of now, they feel like "Stellaris - Incomplete Edition".




I think the same as you do. The issue is that the lack of diplomacy, trade, pop dynamics, politics, etc. is not outweighed by other options. As someone else said: You would need something to replace those, because otherwise the only thing left to you are aggressive wars.

I figure a tall DE would play something like the Vodyani from ES2, where your wars are not about claiming new territory, but razing your enemies systems to the ground for sweet essence to grow more Arks and Vodyani pops before blowing up everyone's capital planet/system for a Conquest victory... Though they are also a quasi-nomadic empire that can move their Arks to new systems when better strategic locations show up, and get some crazy late-game bonuses to movement to traverse all that now-empty space.

So, some sort of bonus for every successful Armageddon bombing or planet cracked. Maybe planets with no machine pops don't count to admin cap (i.e. you're keeping them only long enough to wipe out the organic population) Travel times would be the trickiest one... maybe bring back the wormhole generator as a megastructure?

 

[Duuk]

Side note: This is another example of what I talk about when I say that the game has no CLEAR outline and game design plan or philosphy. With POPs now contributing to Empire Sprawl, the game meta just took a hard-left turn on what defines "tall vs wide" play and calls into question "Does Stellaris even HAVE tall vs wide play?"

So...

I mean, personally, I just play to play, I'm not a theorycrafter, I've never number crunched any of it. I cheat like crazy to speed up the early game. I don't care about achievements, etc.

But having the game be wildly inconsistent from version to version (literally every version seems to be a fundamental shift lately) can be trying.

This really smacked me in the face following the Facebook group and watching the console players talk about THEIR version of Stellaris, which is still on 1.7 and how this version bears absolutely no relationship to that version to the point where they may as well be playing Alpha Centauri or Master of Orion.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Please point me to something that makes Hiveminds "expansion based" because there is no such thing. I don't know how anyone would get that impression.

Hiveminds and Driven Assimilators are the ONLY personality types that have that.

If someone who hasn't done a proper analysis of empires looks at hiveminds, that player would probably think this empire is made for pop growth because those bonuses are everywhere.

But thats obviously not true. Hiveminds get surpassed in pop growth by any other empire as soon as the colonies are above 10 pops and Robot growth kicks in. Meanwhile Hiveminds are forced to have Synapse Drone job on their new colonies which are a huge detriment to their economy.

If all their BONUSES are based on POP growth, and Hiveminds have historically been very good at expanding (which they were), then perhaps the current situation in which they fall behind on expansion is, I don't know... UNINTENTIONAL?

Hiveminds, design- and intention-wise, have always been intended to be highly expansive. That's a fact. Whether they're good at it or not is a matter of balance on a per-patch basis, and these changes to how Hiveminds interact with Admin Cap are VERY CLEARLY in-line with their design intent. "Hiveminds should be the tall ones, here are a bunch of cobbled-together lore justifications" is NONSENSE.

 

[methegrate]

Side note: This is another example of what I talk about when I say that the game has no CLEAR outline and game design plan or philosphy. With POPs now contributing to Empire Sprawl, the game meta just took a hard-left turn on what defines "tall vs wide" play and calls into question "Does Stellaris even HAVE tall vs wide play?"

So...

I mean, personally, I just play to play, I'm not a theorycrafter, I've never number crunched any of it. I cheat like crazy to speed up the early game. I don't care about achievements, etc.

But having the game be wildly inconsistent from version to version (literally every version seems to be a fundamental shift lately) can be trying.

This really smacked me in the face following the Facebook group and watching the console players talk about THEIR version of Stellaris, which is still on 1.7 and how this version bears absolutely no relationship to that version to the point where they may as well be playing Alpha Centauri or Master of Orion.

There was a thread a while back about whether they should just launch Stellaris 2 and this was sort of my takeaway. Even though Stellaris 1 is far from complete, the one reason why it might be a good idea to ditch for a sequel is that they could start over with a clear, coherent design.

It reminds me of what another poster said a page or two ago about how none of the mechanics in this game seem to tie together. There's a reason for that. With no central design philosophy, there's no core idea to link each mechanic back to. Instead you just get a whole bunch of "wouldn't it be cool if" ideas thrown in and operating on their own.

Wouldn't it be cool to have trade? If empires could get too big to properly manage? To have piracy? To include leaders and governments? Sure! How does all that relate back to core design? What core design...

And, tbh, if after two weeks this is all we can expect in terms of ideas and momentum it feels like the devs may be preparing to wrap up anyway...

 

[LystAP]

Wouldn't this idea of robots having higher capacity penalties due to centralized control also extend to authoritarian ethic empires.

Democracies would be easier to run at a wide scale due to self representation. Oligopolies a little less so. Dictatorial and Imperial empires would need large bureaucratic arsenals to retain their centralized control.

This could be offset by the civics like the feudal empire civic, where you have nobles running their own localized fiefdoms.

 

[methegrate]

Hiveminds and Driven Assimilators are the ONLY personality types that have that.

I guess? Not sure I see the difference. Almost every empire expands until the map fills in, then declares war on the weakest neighbor. If I just watched a time-lapsed view of the game, I could never tell the hive minds from the militarists or the spiritualists or materialists.

I suppose the difference is that hive minds are indiscriminate, while ethics will sorta play a role in who the empire targets. But it's one of the reasons I so dislike empire creation. Except for the occasional fanatic pacifist, they all follow the basic loop of "expand, run out of space, get aggressive." (And the few that don't just sit there inert.)

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I guess? Not sure I see the difference. Almost every empire expands until the map fills in, then declares war on the weakest neighbor.

I was asked to provide evidence that Hiveminds are and always have been meant to be expansion-based.

I provided that evidence- their flavour text and one of the underlying hidden AI decision-making tags are quite explicit that Hiveminds are RELENTLESSLY expansive, to the point that they'll turn on you like a switch flipped the moment they run out of room to expand peacefully.

Hiveminds have a EXTREMELY UNIQUE trait that reflects this intention, and they've had it since they were just a special personality type for Fanatic Collectivist empires.

 

[RationalLemming]

Can you make systems and colonies in frontier space not contribute to empire sprawl? However, they would suffer from higher piracy, crime, ethics drift, and other negative factors.

This would mean that sectors would cost 'more' to maintain but would be 'safer' and get benefits from governors. Frontier space would be 'cheaper' but would be closer to lawless space.

 

[methegrate]

I was asked to provide evidence that Hiveminds are and always have been meant to be expansion-based.

I provided that evidence- their flavour text and one of the underlying hidden AI decision-making tags are quite explicit that Hiveminds are RELENTLESSLY expansive, to the point that they'll turn on you like a switch flipped the moment they run out of room to expand peacefully.

Hiveminds have a EXTREMELY UNIQUE trait that reflects this intention, and they've had it since they were just a special personality type for Fanatic Collectivist empires.

That's fair, and certainly true. The flavor text and traits of hive minds show that they're meant to be zerg-like swarms. (Or, to get nerdier with it, Hamilton-like.) To the extent of "please point me to something," I feel like we can all reasonably agree that hive minds are intended as expansionist aggressors.

What I meant was a bit tangential. I feel like this is true in theory and intent, but not in practice. In actual gameplay hive minds wind up pretty much indistinguishable from any other empire because... well, there's really nothing else to do in the game except expand. So while hive minds are intended as expansion-based, it's kind of a distinction without a difference because almost every empire ends up doing that.

 

[Shadowlyger]

Oh boy, more fun tax.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

That's fair, and certainly true. The flavor text and traits of hive minds show that they're meant to be zerg-like swarms. (Or, to get nerdier with it, Hamilton-like.) To the extent of "please point me to something," I feel like we can all reasonably agree that hive minds are intended as expansionist aggressors.

What I meant was a bit tangential. I feel like this is true in theory and intent, but not in practice. In actual gameplay hive minds wind up pretty much indistinguishable from any other empire because... well, there's really nothing else to do in the game except expand. So while hive minds are intended as expansion-based, it's kind of a distinction without a difference because almost every empire ends up doing that.

The game absolutely has a problem with every empire winding up feeling same-y. But the solution isn't to throw up our hands and go "that's just how it is, who cares", it's to push for more distinctions between empires. Each Ethic should have its own unique strengths, weaknesses, and mechanics.

 

[methegrate]

The game absolutely has a problem with every empire winding up feeling same-y. But the solution isn't to throw up our hands and go "that's just how it is, who cares", it's to push for more distinctions between empires. Each Ethic should have its own unique strengths, weaknesses, and mechanics.

No disagreement there. I feel like there are several core things still missing from Stellaris, all essentially linked to depth of play, but this is absolutely where I'd start.

 

[methegrate]

Although I also feel like @Mezmorki got it right in his recent piece on Explorminate:

Frequent readers likely know my views on Stellaris by this point. But briefly, this is a game that is perpetually reinventing itself in a chaotic pitch to realize its potential. The possibility of Stellaris is incredible, but for me, it never hits its stride and I have no interest in hanging onto this particular mechanical bull, waiting to get thrown off again. The reliance on self-directed goals and emergent narrative to shape your experience clearly works for many people, but in my view that comes at the expense of strategic gameplay, which seems to be getting pulled farther and farther away from the game’s initial conceit.​

Stellaris remains fun to talk about, but by this point mostly from a "what-if" standpoint.

 

[Repùblica Vèneta]

I like the idea of these bureaucrat jobs but I wish they also gave us a slight boost to another resource, such as a small amount of society research or unity- like culture workers.

 

[Averath]

The first thing that comes to mind upon seeing this change is decreased performance. Pops are overloaded as is, and as long as they remain a part of the game they're going to be a drain on resources that very quickly gets out of control. At least from what I've observed. Wouldn't it make more sense to abstract pops to a simple number? I realize that it would require a lot of work, but I feel that it might be worth it if we can get performance at the end-game to not be completely demoralizing.

Once you get to the mid game and the number of pops skyrockets, the performance just tanks. So it's clear that the fact that they exist is a massive drain on resources. So I'm not suggesting we remove them out of any hatred of the system. I realize for some people it will hamper immersion. However, I feel that a game that runs smoothly vastly outweighs and loss of immersion.

 

[Malonex]

I think you guys should focus on performance for a little bit, I am restricted to playing only in tiny galaxies otherwise the lag slows the game down to an unbearable crawl. Even in tiny the lag is pretty awful the later the game gets.

These changes are interesting even if I don't see the point. But I still think they should take a back seat for the time being, all things should until the game is in a state where it makes sense to start building more upon it. Just my two cents.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

The first thing that comes to mind upon seeing this change is decreased performance. Pops are overloaded as is, and as long as they remain a part of the game they're going to be a drain on resources that very quickly gets out of control. At least from what I've observed. Wouldn't it make more sense to abstract pops to a simple number? I realize that it would require a lot of work, but I feel that it might be worth it if we can get performance at the end-game to not be completely demoralizing.

Once you get to the mid game and the number of pops skyrockets, the performance just tanks. So it's clear that the fact that they exist is a massive drain on resources. So I'm not suggesting we remove them out of any hatred of the system. I realize for some people it will hamper immersion. However, I feel that a game that runs smoothly vastly outweighs and loss of immersion.

No thanks. POPs are one of the things that makes Stellaris unique compared to other similar games. I doubt they're going away, nor do I want to see them do so.

 

[alexwiwa]

Another calculation for the late game. More micro.

Make ship maintenance more expensive for exceeding your admin cap and call it a day.

Work on the late-game performance before adding another sweeping change. Can the AI even use this?

 

[exi123]

No thanks. POPs are one of the things that makes Stellaris unique compared to other similar games. I doubt they're going away, nor do I want to see them do so.

I agree with you on this side. But the lategame performance needs to be much much better. There is no way to buy more dlc's for this game when you cant even enter the lategame with stable gameplay. I lately started an ironman campaign on a small galaxy with 0.25 habitables and i abondoned it for two reasons even before the crisis arrives:

- Even on this minimal settings my very good gaming pc starts to stutter noticeable.
- The management of all these planets just gets boring AF without helping mods.

It is a total shame for this game and PDX. I play other games like Overwatch with 250 FPS, Anno 1800 with full graphics in three sessions fluently, all total war titles with combats of 1000s of soldiers, projectiles and animations on the field with stable high fps, Factorio with millions of entities running all over the map and on an on. And Stellaris? Cant even handle its own gameplay with minimalistic galaxy settings.

They need to adress this. They need to show me real improvents for the next big dlc in future dev diaries. With Megacorp in my mind... No thanks. The best thing is the soundtrack after an other frustrating playthrough. I hear it at Youtube from time to time.

 

[DanielPrates]

I have been wondering latelly if the next big PDX announcement is Stellaris 2. That would explain the current pace and (lack of) aims in the current development cycle.