2.2=Paradox walking in the right direction then faceplanting into ditch

[TESI303]

Thats about how I can describe this new patch and Megacorp, a new direction Paradox wants to go in with Stellaris.

The Good

- Trade Routes - this is something few space empire building games use or use well. This implementation now puts your stations and fleets to some use and provides more decision making in terms of station placement and loadout. No longer will you be specializing stations (min/maxing them out).

- MegaCorp features like branch offices - great new way to play as a corp or criminal empire

The Average

- The building upgrade system now requiring rare resource upkeep. This turns the game from a macro game into a micro game. In the last patch I used to configure my colonies the way I wanted them, and when I was done, I left it to the AI to just upgrade them.
Now, you have to micro manage your buildings and pops - This is not good.

Remove the rare resouce upkeep cost for all or all except the most valuable, beneficial buildings in the game - ones that will likely grant a very good planetary buff as well as an empire wide buff. Use the rare resource upkeep sparingly - and make the rare resources rare to balance that out !

The WTF!

- Science ship Hyper jump (forgot the actual name, I'm terrible with names) - now takes several times longer to get anywhere. I haven't the writing skill to eloquently put down how hair pullingly frustrating this change is. It was perfectly fine as it was. CHANGE IT BACK!

-Your stratified pops taking 2K+ DAYS to go from ruler or specialist to worker. Are you kidding me Paradox?!
What used to take immediate and logical effect now takes SEVERAL YEARS?!!!!
Where, who on earth thought this made ANY SENSE?!
Even in real life, if some lord got deposed he'd either find himself dead, in a dungeon, or slaving away in some mine the very next day, if not immediately. I'm at a total loss of how this went past quality control.
This is probably the most eggregious senseless baby-sitting micro management I've ever seen!!!

Final Thoughts

Apart from the last section above, which would require very little to adjust, the change in direction is promising.
I would make some further changes:

- implement the rare resources into the trade route system - not unlike in Civ(5?) where the special resources at another city would only be available if it was connected to your capital via road or harbor.
Make it so that rare resources require trade routes to be available. Its worth playing
-Make rare resources actually rare! Remove all the refineries and limit on planet resource gathering to the special resource tile buildings.
-addendum to the above, remove rare resource building and ship/component upkeep. Yes they should factor into the cost of edicts and building material but as a one time per item cost. Only in the rarest and most beneficial of cases should there be a rare resource upkeep
- to the above - make some really beneficial buildings and even ships or ship types that require these rare resources to build. Why not have either some new ships or ship types that require one or some of these very rare resources to build, Some special Cruiser, Battleship or Titan for instance?
- Like a "jump or blink" Cruiser that has much higher evasion and can blink jump in combat to the back of the enemy line (and open up with special weapons/missiles/torps etc). A Dreadnought battelship with more much more arms and armor, and some super titan etc - all requiring very rare resources and trade routers to establih and keep up.
Make your resources more meaningful but not a micro-management costraint^

- Possibly implement some sort of raiding system where you can hire NPC mercenaries/pirates to raid another factions trade value and aforementioned rare resources that are part of the trade router.
-For criminal corps - create a maybe ability to commit your ships to raid another faction rare resources. You will risk losing ships and captains and risk being found out and losing a lot of standing, possibly even leading to justified war (retaliation Casus Beli or something like that).

This update isn't without some seriously questionable albeit fixable flaws, but its really going in a direction with a lot of potential!

 

[Astelon]

- The building upgrade system now requiring rare resource upkeep. This turns the game from a macro game into a micro game. In the last patch I used to configure my colonies the way I wanted them, and when I was done, I left it to the AI to just upgrade them.
Now, you have to micro manage your buildings and pops - This is not good.

Remove the rare resouce upkeep cost for all or all except the most valuable, beneficial buildings in the game - ones that will likely grant a very good planetary buff as well as an empire wide buff. Use the rare resource upkeep sparingly - and make the rare resources rare to balance that out !

I want to upgrade a building that requires rare resources. I check if my production can support it. If it can, upgrade, if not, build a refinery or something somewhere, or buy from an enclave. I never actually went on negative with rare resource production, because it's trivial to check and produce more if you are running low. You know, just like with any other resource.

- Science ship Hyper jump (forgot the actual name, I'm terrible with names) - now takes several times longer to get anywhere. I haven't the writing skill to eloquently put down how hair pullingly frustrating this change is. It was perfectly fine as it was. CHANGE IT BACK!

My guess is that they didn't want subspace jumps to replace regular travel, which it pretty much did, at least for me, because they are actually supposed to be used to jump to systems you can't access normally, way before jump drives are researched. That's the reason given in the dev diary they were introduced. If you are blocked by other empires with closed borders, you use the subspace jump to keep exploring the galaxy by jumping over them.

 

[Twogs]

The Average

- The building upgrade system now requiring rare resource upkeep. This turns the game from a macro game into a micro game. In the last patch I used to configure my colonies the way I wanted them, and when I was done, I left it to the AI to just upgrade them.
Now, you have to micro manage your buildings and pops - This is not good.

Remove the rare resouce upkeep cost for all or all except the most valuable, beneficial buildings in the game - ones that will likely grant a very good planetary buff as well as an empire wide buff. Use the rare resource upkeep sparingly - and make the rare resources rare to balance that out !

You realize the irony that you claim became more micro, yet it was TOO micro before for you to handle it at all?

Yeah ... the game got a lot less micro thanks to this system. You won't upgrade all buildings without thinking about it anymore, and that is a good thing.

The WTF!

- Science ship Hyper jump (forgot the actual name, I'm terrible with names) - now takes several times longer to get anywhere. I haven't the writing skill to eloquently put down how hair pullingly frustrating this change is. It was perfectly fine as it was. CHANGE IT BACK!

-Your stratified pops taking 2K+ DAYS to go from ruler or specialist to worker. Are you kidding me Paradox?!
What used to take immediate and logical effect now takes SEVERAL YEARS?!!!!
Where, who on earth thought this made ANY SENSE?!
Even in real life, if some lord got deposed he'd either find himself dead, in a dungeon, or slaving away in some mine the very next day, if not immediately. I'm at a total loss of how this went past quality control.
This is probably the most eggregious senseless baby-sitting micro management I've ever seen!!!

1. Thats a good thing. The experimental drive was too good, little reason to use normal hyperdrives for science ships. Now it is exactly what it was meant to be: Experimental.

2. You don't know many poeple complaining how a job is "beneath them" and they won't do it, do you?

 

[Serenity84]

My guess is that they didn't want subspace jumps to replace regular travel, which it pretty much did, at least for me, because they are actually supposed to be used to jump to systems you can't access normally, way before jump drives are researched

There is one case where the travel time is an annoyance: when you want to use it as a short cut. There are instances where the hyperlanes take a circuitous route while you could just jump a short distance. In that case it makes no sense to take the hyperlane distance for the time. Instead the actual straight line distance should be used. You can tack on a multiplier and it would probably still be quicker in most cases

 

[Scribbit]

There is one case where the travel time is an annoyance: when you want to use it as a short cut. There are instances where the hyperlanes take a circuitous route while you could just jump a short distance. In that case it makes no sense to take the hyperlane distance for the time. Instead the actual straight line distance should be used. You can tack on a multiplier and it would probably still be quicker in most cases

Yeah, it wasn't meant for that particular usage either.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

- The building upgrade system now requiring rare resource upkeep. This turns the game from a macro game into a micro game. In the last patch I used to configure my colonies the way I wanted them, and when I was done, I left it to the AI to just upgrade them.
Now, you have to micro manage your buildings and pops - This is not good.

Remove the rare resouce upkeep cost for all or all except the most valuable, beneficial buildings in the game - ones that will likely grant a very good planetary buff as well as an empire wide buff. Use the rare resource upkeep sparingly - and make the rare resources rare to balance that out !

Strategic Resources finally have meaningful value and are worth fighting over, because one extra deposit equals an one extra advanced building you can support (not to mention spending them on stuff like advanced ship components). Its a good feature, and I strongly disagree with you wanting them to go back to a set of lukewarm empire-wide buffs.

- Science ship Hyper jump (forgot the actual name, I'm terrible with names) - now takes several times longer to get anywhere. I haven't the writing skill to eloquently put down how hair pullingly frustrating this change is. It was perfectly fine as it was. CHANGE IT BACK!

Why is a longer time MIA bad?

-Your stratified pops taking 2K+ DAYS to go from ruler or specialist to worker. Are you kidding me Paradox?!
What used to take immediate and logical effect now takes SEVERAL YEARS?!!!!
Where, who on earth thought this made ANY SENSE?!
Even in real life, if some lord got deposed he'd either find himself dead, in a dungeon, or slaving away in some mine the very next day, if not immediately. I'm at a total loss of how this went past quality control.
This is probably the most eggregious senseless baby-sitting micro management I've ever seen!!!

It discourages you from mishandling your economy and makes your choices matter. Don't build those specialist jobs if you don't have the population to support them. That simple.

 

[TESI303]

I want to upgrade a building that requires rare resources. I check if my production can support it. If it can, upgrade, if not, build a refinery or something somewhere, or buy from an enclave. I never actually went on negative with rare resource production, because it's trivial to check and produce more if you are running low. You know, just like with any other resource.


My guess is that they didn't want subspace jumps to replace regular travel, which it pretty much did, at least for me, because they are actually supposed to be used to jump to systems you can't access normally, way before jump drives are researched. That's the reason given in the dev diary they were introduced. If you are blocked by other empires with closed borders, you use the subspace jump to keep exploring the galaxy by jumping over them.

There, you just provided the perfect reason why its bad. Its trivial, ie something with little to no meaning.
Its a pointless rare resource micromanagement of resources that are no longer rare (which devalues their meaning in the game) You don't make something rare by having it churned out in seemingly limitless factories.
Less is more.
The less "rare" resources we have and the means to obtain them - the more valuable they will be. The more potent the things we can get or make in the game for them, would make them even more desirable and must have.
Its simple economics.

But that would mean getting rid of the (useless imo) maintenance cost of the multiple buildings and ship components. A one time fee should be all that is required. With proper cost and availability balance, the enjoyment of obtaining amassing and trading these resources in game would make it much more enjoyable and exciting.

As for the Science ship travel.
In the last patch its versatility was used to great effect in getting to Science ship quickly to areas where it was needed for research.
So what do you or anyone else suggest people do instead?
Build a science ship and post it at every corner of your empire?
Make one follow everyone one of your fleets incase there is a debris field to scan after a battle - then just insta-teleport a scientist over when needed?
Because that makes for MUCH better and enjoyable gameplay /s

 

[Azhcristokos]

I agree with a lot of what you wrote...but not with the bits about rare resources. There are enough things that need tweaking now that revisiting them entirely (which I feel is what your suggestions would require) might throw the balance even more out of whack.

Completely agree about the time for pop demotion. I can tell you from personal experience living in an area that endured economic ruin that specialists will step down to lower positions if need drives them. A waiting period for this makes sense (at first, most are going to try and find jobs in their field or at their experience/educational level) but...holy shit, the time is way too long now.

 

[TESI303]

You realize the irony that you claim became more micro, yet it was TOO micro before for you to handle it at all?

Yeah ... the game got a lot less micro thanks to this system. You won't upgrade all buildings without thinking about it anymore, and that is a good thing.

What??
How does a game get a lot less micro, when you now have to constantly micro-manage not only building space availability due to poopulation requirements, but pop unemployment, housing, overcrowding. And I emphasize the word constatntly because unlike this patch, in the last one once you were done building out your buildings - whether you waited for your pops to grow or not - you were done. You could assign your system to a sector AI which wuld auto upgraded your building setup (and manage any pops if they still needed to grow).
Here, you can't leave a a colony or pops alone.
Its turned from a Macro game to a Micro game. From a Grand Space strategy game to an eternal Micro-Colony-Management-Ville. Its horrible. Its not what Stellaris set out to be.

I'm fine with the pop requirement for buildings now. Thats fine, thats great.
But micro managing job availability should be delegated to an AI to auto-resettle, while you focus on colony building.

2. You don't know many poeple complaining how a job is "beneath them" and they won't do it, do you?

Huh?
Are you kidding me?
If they complain they can then carry their stuck up butts to the homeless shelter and soup kitchen. No work, no benefits! And thats if you're a benevolent empire/government. An evil criminal / dictatorship would just end the misery of a useless eater in some far off ditch! lol

Having to hear their whining and complaints for even a month is too long, but +2K days?!! Someone carried the decimal point way too many digits over in some code somewhere.

Stratified pops should take any job they are required to take immediately. They can vent their frustration or displease via the stability meter. I'll just hire more enforcers to ...encourage their compliance.

Otherwise its a... well. nothing less than big wtf feature as it makes no sense, benefit, or balance in game or in real life for that matter.

 

[TESI303]

I agree with a lot of what you wrote...but not with the bits about rare resources. There are enough things that need tweaking now that revisiting them entirely (which I feel is what your suggestions would require) might throw the balance even more out of whack.

Completely agree about the time for pop demotion. I can tell you from personal experience living in an area that endured economic ruin that specialists will step down to lower positions if need drives them. A waiting period for this makes sense (at first, most are going to try and find jobs in their field or at their experience/educational level) but...holy shit, the time is way too long now.

But are you not realizing - that because you can manufacture these resources (with virtually limitless factories) - that they are then not anymore rare!

 

[Etrutian]

Argues that rare resources should not be utilized as second tier building material and then doubles back to cite that rare resources should be only be used if they can connect with a trade post. As much as I liked year one stellaris, they 'hyper-local' rare resources was one of the worst parts.

They will probably make Hyper-Jump faster again, but frankly, working as intended. It should never have been so rapid in the first place; no reason for it to replace normal FTL.

The stratification demotion is one of the more interesting issues in the game; and attempt at simulating a normal society where if you suddenly deprecate high-power jobs, you get an unhappy populace that is out of work. I don't appreciate how long the delay to re-balancing is, but the idea that a formerly wealthy group floats on its wealth to avoid 'lower work' for a while is not too far a stretch.

 

[TESI303]

Argues that rare resources should not be utilized as second tier building material and then doubles back to cite that rare resources should be only be used if they can connect with a trade post.

And the point of that argument is?

If you limit its production and availability - you make it rare.
If you make it rare - you can't use it as viable upkeep for common building (upgrades).
Which will make getting and keeping resources, whether through expansion, colonization, conquest, or diplomacy - more important and meaningful.
More meaningful features, makes for more exciting, fun, and strategic gameplay.

They will probably make Hyper-Jump faster again, but frankly, working as intended. It should never have been so rapid in the first place; no reason for it to replace normal FTL.

If its not better or more useful than regular FTL, then why implement it in the first place. Now devs made a useful, researched tech, rather useless and pointless. Exact opposite of what you want to design in a game. Complete design logic fail.

The stratification demotion is one of the more interesting issues in the game; and attempt at simulating a normal society where if you suddenly deprecate high-power jobs, you get an unhappy populace that is out of work. I don't appreciate how long the delay to re-balancing is, but the idea that a formerly wealthy group floats on its wealth to avoid 'lower work' for a while is not too far a stretch.

Stellaris is not a society simulator, It is a grand strategy game. Its fine to represent diverse classes of pops.
Its not ok to have to baby sit and micro-manage them when you have a galactic empire to build!

 

[Strangedane]

My complaint with stratified society is the complete opposite of yours.

Under a stratified economy pops should not be able to be demoted from the ruler class without a societal rework.
Once you've reached the top of the social strata nothing short of revolution is going to make you move down again.
I also think specialists should have at least 5x demotion time under stratified economy.
While you argue that they'll either listen or starve, the fact is that ruler and specialist pops under stratified economies have HUGE political power.
You wouldn't just be able to remove them without massive revolts, from everyone who now suddenly didn't feel safe in their social position anymore.

 

[Felius]

- Science ship Hyper jump (forgot the actual name, I'm terrible with names) - now takes several times longer to get anywhere. I haven't the writing skill to eloquently put down how hair pullingly frustrating this change is. It was perfectly fine as it was. CHANGE IT BACK!

I'd argue that the experimental subspace jump of the science ships is not there to replace the hyperlanes, but to serve as an alternative to particularly snaking paths, as well as getting to sectors that you know but that have empires with closed borders in in the way.

 

[Etrutian]

And the point of that argument is?

If you limit its production and availability - you make it rare.
If you make it rare - you can't use it as viable upkeep for common building (upgrades).
Which will make getting and keeping resources, whether through expansion, colonization, conquest, or diplomacy - more important and meaningful.
More meaningful features, makes for more exciting, fun, and strategic gameplay.

That was my question, we seem to want the resources to be used less and also to make them more difficult to use so its more 'meaningful'; Rare resources allow for specialized buildings. The idea that we need to be able to build all buildings is likely to be kept to late game. I think its flawed to allow high-powered highly specialized buildings early in the game by not capping them with difficult upkeep. Its a challenge to balance this out, I think its working pretty well.

If its not better or more useful than regular FTL, then why implement it in the first place. Now devs made a useful, researched tech, rather useless and pointless. Exact opposite of what you want to design in a game. Complete design logic fail.

The point was to let science ships get around closed borders. A bad start was locking players out of a key feature of the game. No other reason.

Stellaris is not a society simulator, It is a grand strategy game. Its fine to represent diverse classes of pops.
Its not ok to have to baby sit and micro-manage them when you have a galactic empire to build!

[/QUOTE]

Not arguing its the best mechanic. Just addressing the "Where, who on earth thought this made ANY SENSE?!" I even state I don't appreciate the length of movement. But it has precedent and its an interesting take on the idea of class movement. I think it will take more fine tuning.

 

[Delthor]

How does a game get a lot less micro, when you now have to constantly micro-manage not only building space availability due to poopulation requirements, but pop unemployment, housing, overcrowding.

What you call micromanagement has most of us going "Thank god there's finally actual gameplay involved in the economy!" The old system was absurdly simplistic, and took almost no real thought at all to manage once you had the basics down unless something really crazy happened. But it had endless pointless clicks, that was only just barely saved by the sector system. Now you actually have to spend time and thought to maintain your economy, and almost every click has meaning. This is a huge improvement. If all you want is a space war game, Stellaris is not the game for you. Empires are more than just war, especially in a game where pacifism is an entire ethic.

You can't just take all play you're uninterested in and dismiss it as "micro." Deciding when and how to build buildings, balancing your pop/job/housing/amenity values, and keeping your resource flow strong are all now just as important as how you build and deploy your fleet or choose to expand your empire. That's macro game, not micro. In theory, if you don't like it, you should be able to pass it off to the AI sector and have the performance be solid, if not ideal. You should be asking for that, not asking to remove a system that improves the game so much for anyone who plays Stellaris as more than a space war simulator.

If its not better or more useful than regular FTL, then why implement it in the first place. Now devs made a useful, researched tech, rather useless and pointless. Exact opposite of what you want to design in a game. Complete design logic fail.

You're arguing that a special movement command that has unlimited range, ignores closed borders, bypasses hostiles, has no drawbacks when used (like jump drives do), and comes with a fairly early game tech can't have a drawback of needing to wait quite a while. That's absurd. It's not an early jump drive with unlimited range. It's not meant to be better than the standard FTL in the game. It's for a very specific situations where you need to jump past specific points so you can continue exploring. Complaining that you can't use it as an early game jump drive is ridiculous.

-Your stratified pops taking 2K+ DAYS to go from ruler or specialist to worker. Are you kidding me Paradox?!
What used to take immediate and logical effect now takes SEVERAL YEARS?!!!!

"If my fleet loses in battle, I have to wait A WHOLE YEAR for the survivors to come out of missing in action? Are you kidding me Paradox?!"

Failing to manage your pops, employment, etc. has consequences. Just like failing to manage your fleet in war. This is what we call "meaningful gameplay." Are you unfamiliar with the idea outside of combat scenarios?

Also, you just called a consequence of your actions that's automatically resolved after a certain period of time "micro." It feels like you're just using it as a negative word to describe anything you dislike.

 

[TESI303]

What you call micromanagement has most of us going "Thank god there's finally actual gameplay involved in the economy!" The old system was absurdly simplistic, and took almost no real thought at all to manage once you had the basics down unless something really crazy happened. But it had endless pointless clicks, that was only just barely saved by the sector system. Now you actually have to spend time and thought to maintain your economy, and almost every click has meaning. This is a huge improvement. If all you want is a space war game, Stellaris is not the game for you. Empires are more than just war, especially in a game where pacifism is an entire ethic.

You can't just take all play you're uninterested in and dismiss it as "micro." Deciding when and how to build buildings, balancing your pop/job/housing/amenity values, and keeping your resource flow strong are all now just as important as how you build and deploy your fleet or choose to expand your empire. That's macro game, not micro. In theory, if you don't like it, you should be able to pass it off to the AI sector and have the performance be solid, if not ideal. You should be asking for that, not asking to remove a system that improves the game so much for anyone who plays Stellaris as more than a space war simulator.

I think you completely misread my statement, by completely ignoring the word constant.
No one who plays Stellaris or has played it from release until now would argue its not about micro-management (to some degree).
The main difference between this version and the last, is that you can no longer give your sectors out to the AI and expect it to maintain, upgrade and manage the planets under its control - due to the drastic building and resource upgrade changes - that are essentially a clowns act of continuous filling and re-filling of every piling punctured jugs of water. Thats not how you set up an empire building game. Paradox went too overboard in going from the last patch to this.

"Stellaris, space war simulator" Yeah nice try. Unless of course, one had never actually played any past space 4x titles no one would infer or look to Stellaris as a space combat simulator or space empire game that would scratch that space combat tactics itch.

You're arguing that a special movement command that has unlimited range, ignores closed borders, bypasses hostiles, has no drawbacks when used (like jump drives do), and comes with a fairly early game tech can't have a drawback of needing to wait quite a while. That's absurd. It's not an early jump drive with unlimited range. It's not meant to be better than the standard FTL in the game. It's for a very specific situations where you need to jump past specific points so you can continue exploring. Complaining that you can't use it as an early game jump drive is ridiculous.

That special movement command was used to great effect to realize the purpose of the research ship - to survey and research - and in most cases, these research opportunities would pop-up randomly in distant areas. Thanks to this latest change, you now how to keep a (usually an empty) research ship at every conceivable corner of your empire incase something comes up and you have to insta-teleport a scientist over.
Does that sound like sound and fun game design to you?
Cause to any rational player, allowing for one but not the other is complete nonsense - especially since the solution or workaround makes about as much sense as having to keep or own a car at every end of the city because the manufacturer arbitrarily decided it was too fast and limited to less than a quarter of its top speed, so you have to use a train/bus to get there, before you can use said car. Its asinine!

And some have brought "balance" into the equation.
BALANCE AGAINST WHAT?!!!

The purpose of a science ship is to survey and research unexplored locations and points of interest on the galactic map!
If you are now preventing a ship from reaching - especially time sensitive points of interest - then why have them in the game to begin with?
Unless you are ok with the aforementioned asinine solution.

Example:
The purpose of Rail Guns is to do damage.
Rail guns are balanced so that while they do more damage to shields, they do less damage to hull/armor.

If the above "logik" was used, then devs would nerf the base damage because since the guns have a buff, we now have to reduce the base damage to balance it out.
Complete logic fail and nonsense.

The purpose of guns it to do damage
The purpose of a research ship is to explore and research.
Removing or greatly hampering their potential in their natural form is illogical - as I have written above.

"If my fleet loses in battle, I have to wait A WHOLE YEAR for the survivors to come out of missing in action? Are you kidding me Paradox?!"

Now you're trying to attribute examples of an aspect or part of the game - THAT I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH - as a problem. I never made any reference to the time sink in regards to a penalty for lost battle as being bad. If they had increase it several fold, then maybe I would have, but so far AFAIK they haven't touched it or adjusted it very little.

Failing to manage your pops, employment, etc. has consequences. Just like failing to manage your fleet in war. This is what we call "meaningful gameplay." Are you unfamiliar with the idea outside of combat scenarios?

Also, you just called a consequence of your actions that's automatically resolved after a certain period of time "micro." It feels like you're just using it as a negative word to describe anything you dislike.

Now that is complete silliness. Taken completely out of context, same as the first paragraph. Empire building, especially in Stellaris should require some degree micro management (and I never said or inferred 'micro' is bad - that was you).
Its the constant, increasing, and ever necessary need to do so that is the problem. A problem, that did not exist in the last version. You could build a planet the way you liked - then give it to the AI, set it to not 'redevelop' and it would simply upgrade the buildings for you. Then move onto building up the new one.
You can no longer do that - due to the (not so) rare resources upgrade required.
I have no problem with having a sensible resource transmutation and requirement. But this isn't it!
It takes away from the core and purpose of the game - which is to build an empire - through some economic and conflict driven gameplay. Not complete and ever expanding.
Stellaris was overall fine the way it was. It just needed building on top of the last patch, not scrapping it outright (at least the economic and exploratory aspects of it).

 

[Delthor]

Now you're trying to attribute examples of an aspect or part of the game - THAT I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH - as a problem. I never made any reference to the time sink in regards to a penalty for lost battle as being bad. If they had increase it several fold, then maybe I would have, but so far AFAIK they haven't touched it or adjusted it very little.

My point was to compare the consequences of mismanaging pops to the consequences of mismanaging war. Both parts of the game are deep, meaningful, and can win or lose you the game. Expecting the economy to just take care of itself is expecting the most interesting part of the game for many of us to end after a certain point. It's comparable to expecting war to not be punishing or difficult.

I feel like your complaints would be better directed at the sector AI, not the systems themselves. If the sector auto build was sufficiently good, you could ignore the economic side of the game most of the time. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would do well enough that people uninterested in that part of the game could ignore it more. However, I can't help but think that you and I are drawn to the game for fundamentally different reasons, so there might not be a change that we'll both be totally happy with.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

You know they need to get rid of all that pointless micro in the warfare. I have to desighnships, I have to build ships I have to size up foes and manuver around choke points and things... This is meant to be a grand strategy I donthave time to micromanage every deployment of assets. The game keeps opposng me and making me plan around not getting everything I want right away... Youknow its possible to loose enter fleets and sometimes worlds right? thats just messed up. Just let me give the military a budget and let the admirals abd generals handle it so I can actually handle my economy and the lives of my pops.

I cant even escape this my playing a fanatic pacifist becuaseI'll just get invaded and loose the game. They even have whole special empire types just about killing in order to force me to fight things.

 

[Tim_Ward]

Wow, this guy really hates it when pops don't demote to a lower stratum in a timely manner.