Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[GnoSIS]

I think the planet capacity system implies that fully developed worlds that are stagnate should have 0 housing. After the changes to district modifying buildings, this would be rather hard on rural worlds. To reach the balance, the planet should have no city district and building slots. Otherwise pop will keep grow even if theres no jobs avaliable. The balance between housing and job is even harder for species with communal trait. They would have close to +10 housing and continue pop growth on fully developed world that are supposed to be stagnate. This might be good for gameplay but I wouldnt say it logically make sense. The balance is also hard to achieve on city worlds. On a planet with size 13+ and maxed out city districts, only comercial building can create enough jobs to balance the housing. A tech world only needs 8-10 city districts. Creating a tech arcology from tech world "naturally" is barely possible. Government city world is just a complete waste of planets.

Maybe city districts can provide 2 less housings just like building provide 2 less jobs? Maybe building slot limit can be increased or even lifted? There is now a hard cap to building slots according to planet size and since expected buildings on rural worlds is further reduced maybe the buildings on city worlds can increase a little?

I think to be able to reach job-housing balance and to be able to progress to arcology smoothly are some of the main criteria that adds immersion and realism into the game. The population-jobs-production balance is a marvelous success even without those balances in my opinion, but maybe housing-job balance can also have some attention?

I think the problem is that it's difficult to think how CC and housing combine. I would prefer a unified stat that is housing, and have planets have a larger base housing stat. That makes more sense.

 

[GnoSIS]

Please consider clerks producing +1 administrative capacity

It's too much, and would render buerocrats useless.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Please consider clerks producing +1 administrative capacity

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

 

[LogicMage]

I'm looking forward to this beta update. Following from this comment posted earlier, can we please move all pop production, including naval cap, admin capacity and trade value to percentage based buffable? I worry that my soldiers and duelists aren't adding enough naval cap with the new changes. See also the 2nd suggestion below.

I appreciate the small buff to clerks. They are meant to be "filler" jobs for normal empires, but I have a few extra badly needed suggestions:

1. For the auto resettlement mechanic, for "normal" empires, please consider Clerk jobs as if it was unemployment. Meaning that, unless my Planet is still in the Colony phase, if I have a Miner job somewhere, my clerk should move there. This would make Clerk jobs the true safe-guard against unemployment malus without harming your economy. This change would also have an even bigger positive impact in the AI economy.
2. Please change the Prosperity Tradition perk that adds more clerk jobs to City Districts. No one wants more Clerks. Instead, I would suggest that perk should buff all Trade Value generated by jobs with a certain percentage, like 30%.
3. Have Mega Corporation empires gain, by default, a bonus to Trade Value generated by jobs. For Mega Corporations, Clerks should be on equal footing, if not better than, any other worker job. This would revert number 1 above, to avoid my Clerk jobs being emptied because I built a mine somewhere, if I am a MageCorp empire.
4. Boost the Mercantile Diplomatic Stance policy. Keep the 10% to all Trade Value, but add an even bigger bonus to Commercial Pacts. This economic policy is only available to MegaCorp empires and the player should feel like it is the default policy, with the other economic policies being situational for Mega Corporations. This, alongside number 2, should make Trade Value jobs a lot more interesting for Mega Corporations. As a MegaCorp, I want to use the power of my economy to drive my empire, using the Galactic Market and Commercial Pacts (this also should see a boost for MegaCorps, as just a 10% flat bonus is very flavourless) to drive my empire's power.

These 4 changes should make Clerks situationally viable for normal empires, and definitely something you don't mind in the late game (I see you, Trade District Habitats), while making Clerks and Merchants quite powerful for MegaCorp empires.

On the AI. I have been holding off buying DLCs since before Federations because solely of the AI issues. If you guys do indeed manage to address a very large number of the AI problems, I'll start buying DLCs again.

 

[maxirage]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

Woah- you're aware that sprawl being toothless is a problem? I had no idea.

 

[LogicMage]

Please Please Please increase the productivity of soldier jobs, due to population constraints and the buffs other jobs received it is too hard to get enough fleet capacity. I'm aligned with decreasing the overall number of jobs, but certain jobs did not get the increased productivity that other jobs received. Naval capacity has been inadvertently nerfed due to the pop growth changes and it has made it much harder to combat the Khan or Grey Tempest or both at the same time. Please make the soldier jobs get the same productivity buffs other jobs get and increase the base amount of naval capacity soldiers provide at the same time. Thanks!

I have this issue too. In my current playthrough, I temporarily fix it by adding Warrior Culture and Duelists.

 

[Raihslat]

Anything on balancing, min-maxing or adding to the current espionage system besides the latest beta build? Espionage was a key feature in the last DLC and it feels more like a niche system which has very low to none impact. Your thoughts on the current system would be very interesting.

 

[Fjolsvid]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

Could you consider adding 1 bureaucrat to Planetary Administration, 2 to Planetary Capital and 3-4 to System Capital-Complex and reducing the amount of bureaucrats in administrative offices/parks?
Admittedly, administrators should be having some admin cap production. It's in the name

 

[King Harkinian]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

Indeed. Bureaucrats per basic Administrative Offices should be reduced to 1 really. Same for Researchers per Research Labs. Would make upgrading them worthwhile again too.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Hm, did not expect those pop growth sliders - I wonder how far they go?

Otherwise, looking to be on the right track. I do hope something is done to address the immense power of conquest over peaceful play, maybe by pops getting displaced/killed more and planets damaged more during orbital bombardment/ground combat.

... Also, I have a question - why do the capital building "throughput" techs not affect planetary trade value at all? That's just ... I don't know, it feels wrong, and would certainly help trade jobs a bit to keep up with regular resource producers.

Conquest needs to be stronger than peaceful play in order to have an engaging game. No one would ever go to war if they could become stronger by sitting around doing nothing proactive.

 

[maxirage]

Could you consider adding 1 bureaucrat to Planetary Administration, 2 to Planetary Capital and 3-4 to System Capital-Complex and reducing the amount of bureaucrats in administrative offices/parks?

What a terrible idea. All that would do is encourage colony spam and wide play.

 

[Hansatron]

Based on the building descriptions, I have a suspicion that the job output will be modified in the job definition itself rather than via a modifier like what we see with mining guilds.

I implore the powers that be to consider using a modifier; job definitions are notoriously incompatible when it comes to modding because you have to update the entire stratum at once, for whatever reason.

Also, while you are touching up clerks, you might want to consider adding in the economic category planet_clerks and attaching it to the clerk definition.
Just in case you ever make some changes where adjusting clerk output via modifier would be desirable in some way, that would be a nice to have in the base game. It's literally just slapping

planet_clerks = {
    parent = planet_jobs
}

into /common/economic_categories/00_common_categories. (And adding an empty resources={} block to clerks so you can insert the 'category = planet_clerks' line in there.)

Also, while we are here, if you ever can make it so we can update one job definition at a time (and similar behavior in other files - 02_rural_districts acts this way, unlike all the other district files) I would be eternally grateful.

 

[L.Y.HJ]

Hey since you guys are increasing trade value of the clerks, perhaps you should take a look at Managers. They are currently putting out 3 trade value, 2 society and 3 unity. Maybe bump that up to 4 trade value to match.

Just seems like kind of a weird to go from 4 trade value with Clerks, then down to 3 trade value with Managers and then back up to 6 trade value for Executives.

Agree with what you said
And those without trade

 

[Olterin]

Conquest needs to be stronger than peaceful play in order to have an engaging game. No one would ever go to war if they could become stronger by sitting around doing nothing proactive.

I can only partially agree. Peaceful play does not mean doing nothing proactive. Forging alliances, building up your strength, playing other empires against each other - all are proactive, none involve entering a direct military conflict (that last one kinda maybe became possible with Espionage). But my point is - conquest is far too powerful compared to the alternatives right now, in my opinion, making it pretty close to the only viable way. (If I can conquer 200 pops in 5 years, why should I bother building peacefully at all, if in that same timespan I could only grow by 20 pops without going on the conquest spree? The RoI is too great here, in favor of conquest.) Keep in mind, this game has the (Fan.) Pacifist ethos, it needs to be viable. ((Yes, I see you, Spiritualists, you need help too))

If you attempt to tune that exclusively by changing pop growth, then you end up with either peaceful play that doesn't conquer pops being able to beat every static challenge, but the conquest play being utterly bored by such challenges, or conquest being the only way to meet those challenges. Neither is healthy for a game where both are presented as options, as far as I'm concerned.

Now granted, the sheer power of pops in your empire isn't the only thing to consider here either. I mentioned alliances, this includes federations. Currently, a Federation is already stronger on paper than a singular empire of the same planet count, ever more so as time marches on, due to the pop growth disparity. It's just that an AI federation is ... well. AI is something to be looked at, as the devs themselves said.

 

[Atreides]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

That's an understatement.

As part of this Beta or maybe a separate one - Could the formula for sprawl (planets, pops, systems) be changed from Linear to some sort of Log Function.
So planets instead of being 5/5/5/5/5/5 maybe they become 5/6/7/8/9/11 etc. While the first 100 pops might generate 100 sprawl, the next 100 generate 120... etc.

 

[zZander56]

Since you're looking at Clerks already, would you consider rebalancing trade in general? Until trade value gets as many production bonuses as other resources from techs/increased worker/specialist/ruler output, it's simply not viable to focus on it as an empire, which is disappointing when playing as a Megacorp.

 

[zZander56]

Have you considered tweaking the numbers relating to Branch Office Buildings? The game has changed quite a bit since 2.2, and the numbers have stayed exactly the same.

 

[Arilou]

@Eladrin Since we are talking settings, any chance of getting the ability to turn on/off Awakened empires separate from reducing Fallen Empires? I like having the Fallen Empires around but awkening often messes up the game a bit too much, would be nice to be able to turn it off like you can with the crisis. (and similar thing with the Great Khan for marauders maybe?)

 

[IshOfTheWoods]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

I'm really glad to see this is on the team's radar. One thing I'd like to add: it's not just that it is too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl, but the solution to sprawl is boring and without much of a tradeoff -- more bureaucrats. Some sort of system where you could grant more autonomy to planets or sectors to reduce their impact on sprawl would be cool, and could model large but highly federal empires. Though I suspect you all have lots of ideas already, and perhaps are saving them for an internal politics themed patch/expansion... Keep up the great work!

 

[Cronos988]

Currently, the building adds another 2 jobs, bringing us up to 36 minerals drained to make 18 alloys.
Tentative change removes the extra jobs, but bumps us up to I believe 40 minerals and 20 alloys...

The old building added 1 job per district, so a 50% increase to input and output.

The new building adds 1 alloy per job, which is a 25% increase in input and output, so overall output will decrease (it's exactly the same for 1 district plus the building, due to applying to the building itself).

5 districts would have had 15+2 jobs for an output of 68 alloys. They now have 12 jobs for an output of 60 alloys. The (slight) decrease in output is good, but output per pop goes up, which I think is unnecessary.

It's the tiny fraction I suggested can shut up now.

Looks like I misunderstood you then, apologies!