Are tall empires viable anymore?

[GuardianGI]

You could complete a science nexus in 50-60 years on a 1-3 planet strategy on older versions of Stellaris while deep in repeatables. Felt very reliable to me.

 

[Atreides]

That would also be utterly non-sensical and be rather game-y, however. So I can't endorse this.

It is not particularly gamey at all. There is a reason why all encompassing empires simply don't exist - there comes a point where the effort to maintain said empire over a given size parameter exceeds reasonable application of resources to properly govern said empire.

Take your pick - Egypt, Rome, the HRE, China, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the British Empire, Pax Americana... all of them could only get so big before the ability to properly govern a given society ceased to be worth acquiring additional real estate/pops. ALL OF THEM.

The idea that the cost to govern 10 pops on 1 world and 10000 pops on 100 worlds is the same percentage of bureaucrats is entirely nonsensical.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

It is not particularly gamey at all. There is a reason why all encompassing empires simply don't exist - there comes a point where the effort to maintain said empire over a given size parameter exceeds reasonable application of resources to properly govern said empire.

Take your pick - Egypt, Rome, the HRE, China, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the British Empire, Pax Americana... all of them could only get so big before the ability to properly govern a given society ceased to be worth acquiring additional real estate/pops. ALL OF THEM.

The idea that the cost to govern 10 pops on 1 world and 10000 pops on 100 worlds is the same percentage of bureaucrats is entirely nonsensical.

Sure, it might not be at the same level of efficiency, but its not ever going to be extreme that adding one planet would be 15x the sprawl of an earlier one. Some ramping up makes sense. Not that much as you put forth.

 

[TrotBot]

That would also be utterly non-sensical and be rather game-y, however. So I can't endorse this.

It would also make tall viable at the cost of making wide impossible.

First the game needs to have a way to identify you're playing tall. Then it needs to reward you with some sort of buff that is only for tall empires. Maybe there could be a playing tall ascension perk.

The buff in my opinion should be to have some sort of techs to keep raising district limits without new sprawl. There should be requirements you can break to lose the benefits.

This would make tall REALLY viable. Without making ultrawide impossible.

 

[Chilango2]

You could complete a science nexus in 50-60 years on a 1-3 planet strategy on older versions of Stellaris while deep in repeatables. Felt very reliable to me.

You can do something very close to that in present day Stellaris (mind you, I think it would need to be 4-5 planets) . That's a specific amount of science focus strategy and nothing is stopping you from doing it now. Just do technocracy + meritocracy and properly build your empire to speed up the tech tree.

It is not particularly gamey at all. There is a reason why all encompassing empires simply don't exist - there comes a point where the effort to maintain said empire over a given size parameter exceeds reasonable application of resources to properly govern said empire.

Take your pick - Egypt, Rome, the HRE, China, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the British Empire, Pax Americana... all of them could only get so big before the ability to properly govern a given society ceased to be worth acquiring additional real estate/pops. ALL OF THEM.

The idea that the cost to govern 10 pops on 1 world and 10000 pops on 100 worlds is the same percentage of bureaucrats is entirely nonsensical.

I think we're getting mixed up here: you're arguing for the eventual fall and deterioration of an empire which is slightly different than "does an empire require exponentially more resources to run the larger it is?"

I do actually think there should be some uneven admin cost growth, where for example planets 11-20 cost twice as much admin cap or something because there is clearly a increase in cost to maintain a big state that is not precisely linear.

That being said, very big states can and do last quite a long time, up to and including the entire span of most Stellaris games (2200-2500ish, so around 300-400 years).

Egypt lasted around 2000 years. The Western Roman Empire lasted around 400, and the eastern half survived about 1000. Various Chinese dynasties have lasted different periods of time but a unified Chinese culture and sense of identity that has occupied a mostly defined territory has existed for about 3000 years. It turns out that societies and states, despite their reputation, can be surprisingly durable under the right conditions.

That being said, as I have mentioned elsewhere, it would be nice to have a much more active internal political scene complete with the potential for crisis in Stellaris like what exists in CK II & 3, Victoria II.

 

[Atreides]

Sure, it might not be at the same level of efficiency, but its not ever going to be extreme that adding one planet would be 15x the sprawl of an earlier one. Some ramping up makes sense. Not that much as you put forth.

My apologies I should have clarified when I posted it - the precise math you use would be far more scalable than what I presented... my intention was not to list the exact numbers, just a clear indication of the concept.

The 5/10/15/25 curve is just an example... maybe the real curve is 6/7/9/11/12/14/15/17... I have no idea what the actual curve would be precisely - but the point is that a curve would actually be harsh enough to create viability for 'tall' empires. 5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5 just means that you take every planet in 100% of all situations regardless of planet size, habitability and all mitigating circumstances.

Adding one more planet to your empire no matter how many you have, where it is located, and who is living on it (or should live on it) is better in 100% of all scenarios regardless of circumstances.
THAT IS NONSENSICAL too all observable cultural and historical reality.

 

[Atreides]

Duration/stability of an empire should be a separate discussion from expansion/sizing. Whether an empire suffers a civil war and some sort of break up into separate states should be a separate mechanic from Sprawl.

Sprawl should just be tied to expansion/governance. Although I suppose if Paradox did incorporate some sort of realm stability concept, than a high sprawl penalty would be reasonable in include. Governing your core sector should be far easier than your far flung colonies on the edge of real space...

 

[TrotBot]

Governing your core sector should be far easier than your far flung colonies on the edge of real space...

so long as 100 amenities planets love you and don't cause problems, absolutely. i just don't like hard limits. utopian abundance costing hundreds of consumer goods a month should be enough to solve whatever issues you introduce.

 

[Millbot]

On a reasonable scale a log rhythmic scale would be one piece of the puzzle. The more planets, systems and pops you get, the harder it should be to govern everything properly. You'd just need to have some other parts to make it work and a big issue is that their isn't much penalty for going over the admin cap.

One possible part could be that the core sector gets some positive modifier that results in it's systems, pops and planets incurring less administration needs. Not sure if it would be possible to have some sort of ring set up from there. Where you have your core sector and then you have your first ring of inner sectors that might incur less of a malus penalty than the next ring of sectors.

Also empire size could be setup to have an interesting interplay with certain things that the player can build. It might be an interesting approach to tie empire wide amenities sources. For instance a tall empire could get by easily without a mega art complex, executive retreat or resort world, but a ultrawide empire would want more than one of those to remove having to use building slots amenities because they need to burn more of those on administrative building.

Also getting the admin cap done right would let them add in techs. I do like the idea that maybe there should be a slider. If you pick tall, then going over the cap admin cap incurs a harsher penalty, so that an empire can't just get the techs to do super dense development but use it on an empire that occupies half the galaxy, while tall deals with a less harsh penalty. Also set up the tech, so that it's similar to the voidborne perk. There is no, "lol, I conquered this system and get the two free building slots!" If a wide empire takes your stuff, they get stuck with either eating problems for not developing the territory to suit their governing ability or they suck it up and spend the resources to make territory properly work for them.

Anyways, this is less about making ultrawide not work and more about making it so there is a reasonable cost for being ultrawide. IMO the wider you get the more bureaucrats your empire should need. Having to have more of them can be a way to offset the advantage that ultrawide has. Sure ultrawide has more pops and more raw resources coming in, but they also have less buildings being put towards more research, unity, amenities and strategic resources. So it ends up balancing out some.

 

[SS Boss]

I think empire sprawl should be based on sectors or even systems instead of being the same the entire galaxy.

The wiki says:

Empire Sprawl is a measure of an empire's expansion. Empire Sprawl is increased by 5 for each colony, 1 for each system, 1 for each district, 0.5 for each pop and 2 for each owned Branch Office.

So lets make that on your core sector your sprawl is increased by 5 for each colony, 1 for each system, 1 for each district and 0.5 for each pop.

In the sectors adjacent to your core, sprawl is increased by 6 for each colony, 1.2 for each system, 1.2 for each district and 0.6 for each pop.

In a frontier sector on the other side of the galaxy, sprawl is increased by 30 for each colony, 6 for each system, 6 for each district and 3 for each pop.

You can add more factors in this instead of only distance from the core, like % of xenos in the population or % of pops with other ethics.

I think its a fair solution while we dont have a proper internal politics system and proper rebellions/revolutions.

 

[blackbirdgriffi]

Empire sprawl itself is a very gamey mechanic but it is needed as there are no other mechanics to show the administrative weight that would come from anexing and integrating the ressource production and "taxes/production" that a planet has,

IMHO this is just a mechanic that needs to be reworked, something along the line of adminstrative efficiency would be awsome, a planet that is like 30 system away from your capital should be harder to control, that would make IMHO portals even more usefull and awsome than they are as a big empire could go from a crumbling mess ineffective into great system once connected to the portal network (obviously tho this is a solution for "classic empires" and it feels kinda weird for a swarm to have a similar system).

This comes from a guy that plays mostly in SP and therefore wants more "empire building", this might be annoying to MP players out there.

 

[MrGuyPerson]

How about some combination of making sprawl slightly more punishing, limiting the number of bureaucratic centers that can be built (upgradeable capital building only; more tech could unlock additional smaller ones that could be built on sector capitals, so they actually feel like capitals..., or at least give the ability to build a new one per number of colonies, so small habitat-dense empires could also take advantage), and impose a cool-down on when sprawl from new conquests can be reduced by your existing bureaucrats (similar to stellar culture shock). That would make unfettered expansion at least a bit slower and provide a reason to stay near the admin cap.

 

[TrotBot]

i don't understand why people keep saying there's no penalties for being over admin cap. there's lots.

 

[mial42]

i don't understand why people keep saying there's no penalties for being over admin cap. there's lots.

There are, and they're important (well tech cost is), but they're not urgent. If you spend the whole game over cap, you will be much weaker then an empire that doesn't. But if you spend the first couple of decades way over cap, and every decade and half or so you spend a year over cap (as will often happen with conquest-heavy empires), there's no real consequences (or if you lose your admin cap planet(s) in war or to crisis; you can just build a new one). Tech and unity are both long term effects, so you can ignore them short term.

If, for instance, being over sprawl did things like increase influence costs, increase building/district/ship upkeep, lower stability, and lower production, which can all cripple your empire short term, then that would be a serious penalty, which would strongly incentivize pre-building admin cap before conquests.

Not suggesting that that actually be done, only that the penalties for admin cap aren't of the right type to serve as a check on expansion.

 

[Kanaric]

Tall is, was, and never will be viable. It's an anachronistic BS gamestyle that needs all kinds of artificial buffs to be "viable".

You ofc could always limp along being bad on purpose in games and play tall. However the company should never cater to that.

i don't understand why people keep saying there's no penalties for being over admin cap. there's lots.'

The penalties exist and are irrelevant because wide as possible will only ever be the best strategy in any 4x game.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

There are, and they're important (well tech cost is), but they're not urgent. If you spend the whole game over cap, you will be much weaker then an empire that doesn't. But if you spend the first couple of decades way over cap, and every decade and half or so you spend a year over cap (as will often happen with conquest-heavy empires), there's no real consequences (or if you lose your admin cap planet(s) in war or to crisis; you can just build a new one). Tech and unity are both long term effects, so you can ignore them short term.

If, for instance, being over sprawl did things like increase influence costs, increase building/district/ship upkeep, lower stability, and lower production, which can all cripple your empire short term, then that would be a serious penalty, which would strongly incentivize pre-building admin cap before conquests.

Not suggesting that that actually be done, only that the penalties for admin cap aren't of the right type to serve as a check on expansion.

I actually have done this and it really works well.

Penalties include:

- Starbase Influence cost
- Stability
- Naval Cap
- Building Cost (it's waaay too much to affect upkeep, plus cost means it's slower to build bureaucracies to fix your admin problem)
- Gov. Ethics Attraction

In addition, sprawl naturally increases starbase influence cost by a small amount each time, so an empire with around 500 sprawl is going to be paying around 120 influence for a starbase if they're under cap (the penalty cost is double this amount per point over admin cap).

I've found with the values I've used, going over is still manageable until you're around 100 over, then it can really start to hamper progress.

I plan to add an 'encryption' penalty when 2.9 hits, to reflect the lack of logistics affecting your ability to monitor information.

 

[TrotBot]

There are, and they're important (well tech cost is), but they're not urgent. If you spend the whole game over cap, you will be much weaker then an empire that doesn't. But if you spend the first couple of decades way over cap, and every decade and half or so you spend a year over cap (as will often happen with conquest-heavy empires), there's no real consequences (or if you lose your admin cap planet(s) in war or to crisis; you can just build a new one). Tech and unity are both long term effects, so you can ignore them short term.

If, for instance, being over sprawl did things like increase influence costs, increase building/district/ship upkeep, lower stability, and lower production, which can all cripple your empire short term, then that would be a serious penalty, which would strongly incentivize pre-building admin cap before conquests.

Not suggesting that that actually be done, only that the penalties for admin cap aren't of the right type to serve as a check on expansion.

ok, yeah i agree, i just mean if you are almost never over your admin cap you can outtech an equivalent empire massively. but you're right. primarily i think going over your admin cap should impact your stability. but costs and crime as well, to reflect corruption over long distances and thinly spread administration along the chain. debuffs to all resource incomes should progressively grow worse. nothing crazy. like, percentage debuffs.

and yeah, upkeep for ships and starbases should grow. i don't agree with increasing influence costs unless you're actually over though. any empire that can keep its admin right should be completely uncapped.

 

[STABBY5]

It's an anachronistic BS gamestyle that needs all kinds of artificial buffs to be "viable".

Playing tall is almost never about the buffs, its about avoiding the debuffs of being large. It was perfectly fine until they added bureaucrats. Most importantly it was fun even if it wasn't optimal. The idea of spending your resources on internal development over expansion isn't BS and its typical of 4X games especially Civ which stellaris is clearly influenced by.

 

[HFY]

Playing tall is almost never about the buffs, its about avoiding the debuffs of being large. It was perfectly fine until they added bureaucrats. Most importantly it was fun even if it wasn't optimal. The idea of spending your resources on internal development over expansion isn't BS and its typical of 4X games especially Civ which stellaris is clearly influenced by.

Yeah.

In Civ 4, which is an actual 4x game unlike Stellaris, playing "tall" is viable.

This is in part due to victory conditions which allow a "tall" strategy to work throughout the game, but also because you can leverage your "tall" advantages into a temporary tech advantage at the right times to break out as a large conqueror -- you don't need to stay small even if you start out playing "tall".

Honestly the latter is what I'd like to see in Stellaris: some way to gain a temporary advantage (and suffer a temporary problem or two) by deviating from the expected growth formula -- going either wider or taller -- and then dealing with the problem or leveraging the advantage into something worth having the problem(s). But for that to happen, we'd need an expected growth formula, and then a reason to stick with it. The game has nothing for that now; some kind of empire instability mechanic might help here, for example.

 

[Kolath]

The actual thing that would limit wide strategies is any kind of meaningful internal political simulation. Historical large, multi-cultural empires primarily had to content with being able to actually control all of that territory and to maintain some semblance of cohesion as a political unit. In Stellaris, outside of happiness/amenities, there is no real chance of unrest. Empire Sprawl is easily mitigated by just building more admin buildings because there is no cap or escalating cost. There is no downside to being bigger, so being bigger is better because you just have more resources to work with.

The only real downside at the moment is wide empires are (maybe) harder to defend before the advent of gateways because it can just take so damn long to fly from one end to another. But technology soon erases that as a meaningful strategic constraint on maneuver. (That and the meta disadvantage of being increasingly annoying to manage the UI for all those planets )

So, in short, "tall" (few planets) variant was never competitive and dense will always be dominated by wide unless and until there are internal political forces that become increasingly difficult to manage the bigger your empire becomes.