picture: can't post link, uploaded below, in 3.2 game year 2300 single fleet powers were more like 200k and I don't know from what this difference in power came, I tried to make it up with numbers
opinion about changes and gameplay, not sure if developers are looking here: I am playing 3.3 beta, no mods, settings: 1000 stars, 30 advanced starts AI (including neighbors), 5 fallen empires, 3 marauder, 1x tech/tradition, 1x primitive, 25x crisis random type, mid game start year 2225, end game start year 2250, grand admiral non-scaling, high aggressiveness, 1x hyperlane, 1x abandoned gateways, 1x wormholes, 2x habitable worlds, 1.5x logistic growth ceiling, 0.25x growth required scaling
shattered ring origin, charismatic+extremely adaptive+solitary+unruly+decadent
dictatorian, authoritarian, militarist, materialist, technocracy and mining guilds, later changed to technocracy with warrior culture and nationalistic zeal. I wanted technocracy and fanatic militarist, but non slave empire was unplayable at the beginning due to unemployed specialists pops not taking free jobs, and workers going there instead, then could not be demoted. This is the first thing in beta that I didn't like compared to 3.2, job management was easier back then, accidentally promoted workers could go back from specialists if unemployed immediately after, but seems it does not work like that anymore.
this post was supposed to be much longer with more opinions about gameplay, but I can't paste further content, it says "Your content can not be submitted. This is likely because your content is spam-like or contains inappropriate elements. Please change your content or try again later. If you still have problems, please contact an administrator"
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edit: seems that part "plus one" written with + and number was problem
beginning of game was much more challenging due to 200 unity leader cost, for me it was disadvantage as I like early exploration, I would want to discover every possible anomaly and archeology site, but there are several important traditions to adopt before 2210 (discovery for map the stars edict, possibly plus one research alternative, and then supremacist for reduced ship build cost and war doctrines. With 30 AI it is very fast to met another, which by 2210 usually has 45-60 corvettes, so it's important to develop military as soon as possible, capturing advanced start AI capital is hard but gives large boost to economy.
I like unity costs of early edicts, in the past I very rarely used information quarantine or map the stars due to influence need for expansion. However, edicts which I used often at game start, seem to be not usable anymore due to very high unity costs, capacity and mining subsidies which was obvious choice for 3.2 imperial government, now would lead to 2*50 unity cost multiplied by sprawl, and it would not be possible to balance such economy. Costs of campaigns (recycling and education) are too high to justify using it, calculating cost per month leads to result that one consumer good would be equivalent of 30 energy (with slave empire), however more reasonable in empires with utopian abundance or academic privilege. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but I think edict costs (especially subsidies) should be reduced to make it considerable.
Dictatorial seems to be the best government now, although in next game I will get oligarchy instead to choose better leader, preferably with expansionist overtures to reach 95% claim reduction cost without fanatic militarist. Influence is abundant at the beginning due to not many directions of conquests that can be done simultaneously, AI fleets are much more powerful than in 3.2 and they don't split fleets as often as they did, so it's needed to have everything in single place.
It is very hard to balance amenities, the only viable way seems to use pops with charismatic trait as entertainers/duelists, and distribute luxury goods. First choice of ascension is certainly one vision after completing supremacist, my 2nd was interstellar dominion after harmony (more claims), 3rd ecumenopolis after domination, then synthetic evolution, and 6th one (last achieved so far) for 25x crisis I got 50% more damage dealt. Seems that optimal way to play is now getting everything that reduces sprawl, which was sad as building ecumenopolis is much more fun than just seeing a number -50% sprawl from systems and colonies, and planetary prospecting decision from adaptation tree is more fun than -25% sprawl from expansion tree, I would prefer to have more choices when it comes to optimal gameplay and not be limited to one option which as a result is comparable to having 10% more science multiplicatively, would be awesome if imperial prerogative -50% sprawl from systems added also some other feature, that has nice impact on gameplay, such as these related to megastructures or ecumenopolis.
Biology ascension is for me hellish micromanagement, unless there exist some better way of converting species to traits that I want, than choosing every single separately, like default template? synthetics I feel like is the best due to having cleaner species tab and easier to customizable (although every time a planet is conquered, managing and resettling assimilating pop is also not nice, and waiting several years for 80 pops to convert is not efficient, I wish there was option to resettle automatically, or to convert only part of species at time, not all pops at once as assimilating), however two engineering projects and then adding -10% pop sprawl trait, adds pressure to engineering research, which at this point are needed for L-gates, megastructures and repeatable technologies for kinetic weapons. May turn out that for 2250 late game option, it's not enough time to get return, if considering it like investment. I would however miss 10% added range for ship weapons, but next time I will try psionics to compare how much micromanagement is there. Ship modules also look very nice.
With over 100 planets, could be better to get tech ascendancy instead of ecumenopolis (there should be several anyway from relic worlds), and megastructure related ones instead of evolution, to get more megastructures between 2250 and 2275. In this game it was very good, I had 50% more build speed from L-gate empire, ruined megastructures were sentry array (repaired as first and I think it's the best possible), strategic command center (2nd) and dyson sphere (third), as comparison, I think the worst options would be having ruined mega art, interstellar assembly and mega shipyard. Last one is nice to have, but when I captured some L-gates and built fortresses with 6 shipyards with fleet officer governor in every sector, capacity for constructing battleships was sufficient to be in pair with 6k alloys and 20 dark matter per month. L-gates greatly help with logistics and conquest.
About 2280 I had 3 fallen empire capitals, first one certainly keepers of knowledge for ecumenopolis and archives, I waited until 2275 to get it first, even though it was on the other side of galaxy, and could go to closer one instead. Ring world is very nice too, adds a lot of easy researcher jobs to resettle pops from conquered planets, although I wish there was factory/forge designation like in ecumenopolis, or generator world, at least after synthetic ascendancy. During this year, every time I conquered AI capital, I built gateway there to continue conquest after 10 years of truce, although doubtful if with L-gates it's better to have 10 gateways or 25 more battleships. I like having possibility of rapid deployment into every corner of map, with jump drive, 2x advanced afterburners and dark matter thrusters, it was very helpful when fallen empire awakened around 2280 and they had 4x 140k fleets, that's why sentry array is my favourite megastructure.
Unity costs for leaders make it unreasonable to have scientists assisting research, after synthetic evolution 4500 unity governor/admiral cost is very high too, but advantage is that I didn't like micromanaging and rerolling their traits anyway, I think I will only get any admiral for fleet when crisis arrives, for plus 10% range from synthetics. But with such a high cost, maybe it could be possible to have more control over traits that they have, like initial trait cost similar as when creating species? it is very discouraging now to risk loosing so many unity, I had same dilemma when searching for retired fleet officer governor.
I really like idea of planet ascension, but sadly I was never able to use it because of very high cost, like 700k unity when tradition costs were more like 150k, and percentage modifiers increases were not worth it even on ecumenopolis or ring worlds. I would suggest reducing these costs.
In 2300 I have not even 1/2 galaxy due to lack of fanatic militarist nor expansionist overtures (difference between 85% and 95% claim reduction is huge, and influence is also needed for gateways and ecumenopolis) although most of AI large planets were conquered. Summing up I feel like change of administrative capacity adds more challenge and fun, I didn't like making bureaucrats planets, however tradition adoption cost increased by almost 900% is huge, and with techs 5x times as expensive as it was in 3.2, having 31k research is like 6k earlier which would be bad result by 2300. I however like these changes, and new features add more replayability and fun to game.
edit: I would enjoy maybe allow higher admiral command limit for higher unity cost, maybe even not linearly? quite tiring to assign admirals to 50 fleets, also for unknown reason stack is splitting, 100 battleships are far ahead on front and main force is behind, which will lead to large looses (picture 2)
I am hoping developers maybe will read this post and maybe add more nice changes to game, I really like to play it
