3.3 Unity Open Beta Discussion Thread

[Ludaire]

You are on the wrong track when you design a game with penalties as the means of control. No one likes to be penalized and worse no one wants to start a game and see an immediate penalty that they cannot remedy. It then just goes down hill from there. Soon I just have too many red numbers and it makes me feel like I am playing the game incorrectly

Like someone else said, just change the text color.

Sprawl's increase to various costs really shouldn't be viewed as a "penalty" any more than fleet upkeep or district upkeep. Yes, it's "negative" just like they are, but it's more of a cost/upkeep/balancing mechanic than a penalty punishing poor play. Back in the day, we essentially had the current system for tech and unity costs, and it was never framed or viewed as a penalty. It was just a thing that that happened, and it wasn't a big deal. You could use some strategies that manipulated said mechanics a bit, but there wasn't this attitude of "MUST ZERO OUT SPRAWL PENALTIES!" that's so common now.

For people asking for even more ways of mitigating sprawl, that's the very thing that made it feel like a penalty rather than a cost or upkeep in the first place. They added a cap so that you didn't have the increase to costs at low empire sizes and a few limited methods to increase that cap. The intention was likely to make the system more interesting and encourage different empire types to interact with the empire size mechanics differently, such as megacorps having a higher initial cap but steeper penalties. Instead, it devolved into trying to eliminate the tech/unity cost increases entirely because it was a scary red number. Then we got bureaucrats so people could completely eliminate sprawl penalties, which meant that a core balancing aspect of Stellaris - certain costs increase as you get larger - was completely removed, and having to dedicate pops to jobs that removed that mechanic didn't make up for it. The result was the crazy tech pace we've had since bureaucrats were introduced.

If they introduced mechanics that could literally zero out your fleet upkeep and it became standard practice to do so, reintroducing a non-mitigatable upkeep for ships would feel like a "penalty." That doesn't mean that it's a bad mechanic; it's just a good mechanic that's misunderstood. You wouldn't want to stick with having completely free fleets; you'd want to adjust the game's presentation of the mechanics to shift players' perception so that it can be once again viewed as a normal part of play instead of a punishment for bad play.

Sprawl "penalties" are the same. I thought the UI had been updated to present sprawl-based increases to costs more in line with what it is, but that's either missing and I didn't notice or people are stuck on how sprawl used to work and haven't adjusted yet.

 

[Pale Blue]

Unclear if this is intended behavior, but the Zombie Assembly building stacks with budding as organic pop-assembly, which allows you to select and build your primary species pops, not zombies.

This is also very fun, and makes for a great psionic build to have organic pop assembly that's compatible with the Spiritualist Faction on day one. But it is a bit strong, and probably not intended.

Considering that spiritualists are rather weak, because their lack of pop assembly I personally think it's a great way to bring psionics on par with empires that can built robots. I would wish being able to built organics early without any ascension would be possible without a special civic (whose zombie Pops are much worse than regular pops). Probably could add it to cloning tech or gene clinics.

 

[Aloexx00]

So I'm finding SPRAWL to just overall be amazingly confusing. The very start of the game for example:

https://imgur.com/GdZu5Hm

so:

• On day 1 I have total empire sprawl of 53, but then lower down it says my sprawl is 3? Well which is it? 53 or 3?
• As my sprawl increases I incur penalties to technology and traditions costs, so that's fine but there is zero info on how those penalties are calculated or how to mitigate them.
• Why is it so mysterious? Why not explain how to control sprawl? I get it "have a small empire" but I'm getting tech and tradition penalties just from settling the 2 systems you get on a default setting with no possible option in sight to reduce that.
• obfuscating these mechanics gives players that understand them unfair and massive advantages in mp which cannot be good for the health of mp, if that's a concern.

I think you just misunderstand the new system. There is no way to control sprawl anymore. The larger you get the more penalties there are, thats it.

 

[Promethian]

The sprawl penalty was always a point of contention. The claim that people didn't sweat it is very untrue. There were regular threads of people freaking out about it. Explaining that your greater size out paced the penalty and it is just a way of making going large less of an overwhelming advantage convinced at best half of the people.

I personally think making the info less easily accessible is the way to go. Don't make it so easy to see we have a penalty. The sprawl system is more elegant solution to the expansion issue than what other similar games do with hard caps. So really the trick is to beat this psychological block.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Change it from "sprawl" (sounds bad) to "immensity" or "abundance" or something.

 

[John MacWhat]

Change it from "sprawl" (sounds bad) to "immensity" or "abundance" or something.

"Empire Might"

 

[MordridBlack]

Like someone else said, just change the text color.

Sprawl's increase to various costs really shouldn't be viewed as a "penalty" any more than fleet upkeep or district upkeep. Yes, it's "negative" just like they are, but it's more of a cost/upkeep/balancing mechanic than a penalty punishing poor play. Back in the day, we essentially had the current system for tech and unity costs, and it was never framed or viewed as a penalty. It was just a thing that that happened, and it wasn't a big deal. You could use some strategies that manipulated said mechanics a bit, but there wasn't this attitude of "MUST ZERO OUT SPRAWL PENALTIES!" that's so common now.

For people asking for even more ways of mitigating sprawl, that's the very thing that made it feel like a penalty rather than a cost or upkeep in the first place. They added a cap so that you didn't have the increase to costs at low empire sizes and a few limited methods to increase that cap. The intention was likely to make the system more interesting and encourage different empire types to interact with the empire size mechanics differently, such as megacorps having a higher initial cap but steeper penalties. Instead, it devolved into trying to eliminate the tech/unity cost increases entirely because it was a scary red number. Then we got bureaucrats so people could completely eliminate sprawl penalties, which meant that a core balancing aspect of Stellaris - certain costs increase as you get larger - was completely removed, and having to dedicate pops to jobs that removed that mechanic didn't make up for it. The result was the crazy tech pace we've had since bureaucrats were introduced.

If they introduced mechanics that could literally zero out your fleet upkeep and it became standard practice to do so, reintroducing a non-mitigatable upkeep for ships would feel like a "penalty." That doesn't mean that it's a bad mechanic; it's just a good mechanic that's misunderstood. You wouldn't want to stick with having completely free fleets; you'd want to adjust the game's presentation of the mechanics to shift players' perception so that it can be once again viewed as a normal part of play instead of a punishment for bad play.

Sprawl "penalties" are the same. I thought the UI had been updated to present sprawl-based increases to costs more in line with what it is, but that's either missing and I didn't notice or people are stuck on how sprawl used to work and haven't adjusted yet.

sprawl penalties are visible if you hover over that icon
if you stay under 50 [the current cap in the beta] there are no penalties

however when you go over that cap, the penalties will start occurring

that being said they greatly reduced the penalty amount


i think the main thing people have issues with now is that there is no real way to increase that cap
there are ways to mitigate how much sprawl you have, but even using all of those [or as many as you are able] eventually you'll have to go over that cap

 

[John MacWhat]

I really think it would also be better if "eventually" was something like after you have 5 planets, 100 pops, 20 systems rather than immediately after you colonize like two planets

 

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for the purposes of leaning into unity with the utopian abundance living standard, do unemployed under that standard receive the benefits of unity job multipliers and planetary ascension?

 

[DeanTheDull]

Considering that spiritualists are rather weak, because their lack of pop assembly I personally think it's a great way to bring psionics on par with empires that can built robots. I would wish being able to built organics early without any ascension would be possible without a special civic (whose zombie Pops are much worse than regular pops). Probably could add it to cloning tech or gene clinics.

The spiritualist pop assembly has always been over-rated- it's a -5 penalty if you keep from AI, which is the smallest ding there is, and way outweighed by the happiness of going Psionic Ascension, which gets you into the Happy Tier for maximimum pop bonuses.

The real reason Psionics shouldn't go robots is that robots eat alloys and take too long to pay themselves off, when Psionics are primarily an early war advantage. You can conquer more pops with the alloys you'd spend building.


But yes, I would love it if organic pop assembly was a baseline issue. I'd even go for Gene Clinics if they added .5 pop assembly each, so that you could get 1 organic assembly or 2 robot assembly, as long as they still boosted normal growth enough to even out. They make decent amenity jobs now, if you don't want to entertainer spam.

 

[doomwarrior]

Right now the sprawl malus is crippling at best and pretty much expansion preventing all together at worst.

We just had a game where the tiniest habitat merchant trade league empire outpaced everyone by such a longshot it wasnt even funny anymore. Cause why focus on unity or tech if you can have it all plus pop growth with synth ascension and added bio growth. You utterly outpace even the most sophisticated spirtual habitat trade league builds simply cause they cannot ever keep up in pop growth. However adding more systems to the empire and grow the pop that way increases sprawl for the spiritual while the habitat merchant tradeleague + robos just grows and grows and grows.

Still sprawl is nuts right now. 4k-5k upkeep in unity for one ambition (even though right now they cost nothgin since buggy) is just nonsense.

 

[Ludaire]

i think the main thing people have issues with now is that there is no real way to increase that cap
there are ways to mitigate how much sprawl you have, but even using all of those [or as many as you are able] eventually you'll have to go over that cap

Except that allowing us to increase the cap takes us right back to where we were at before. A bunch of players zero in on keeping under the cap when you're quite simply not supposed to, or they make it so you're supposed to and the tech/tradition trees shrink to miniscule lengths.

Again, thinking of it as a penalty rather than a cost or upkeep is the real problem. Don't view it as any different from district or ship upkeep. You wouldn't stop building ships just because they cost energy. Nor would you say you're being punished or demand that you be able to reduce them to zero. If someone keeps building ships and never expands their energy output and complains it crashes their economy, it's laughable because yeah, you have to pay for those ships.

The sprawl-based increases to various costs in the game serve essentially the same purpose. I think even adding in that 50 sprawl grace period just confuses things further. "I shouldn't have sprawl penalties out the gate" is like saying "I shouldn't have fleet upkeep out the gate." You have research and unity out the gate that goes beyond the empire's base output, so of course you have sprawl increases to match the fact that you have pops, districts, and a colony.

The only real difference is that it's clearer that a properly built economy handles the various upkeeps in the game just fine while it's less clear that a properly built economy will outpace the sprawl-based cost increases just fine, too.

This is of course only talking about tech and tradition cost increases. The increases for edicts are totally bonkers in my opinion and should be more in line with tradition and tech cost increases, even if that means the base costs need to be higher.

 

[AntiMachiavel]

I just noticed that while Marketplace of Ideas policy has its Unity production reduced to 0.125, the Trade League trade policy still has it at 0.25. I'm pretty sure both should be equal.

Also, pure (expensive) upkeep edicts seem MORE micromanagement heavy than previous limited time edicts: turn research edict on while there is a critical tech to be researched and off after, turn ship boost edicts on before the big battle and off after etc.

 

[Muramas]

...I've noticed this has made the AI (especially Xenophobe) empires able to be extremely greedy with hyperlane skipping. Even one of my friendly neighbors was trying to bring construction ships to pickup systems over 10 hyperlanes away. Normally I've not seen the AI be that aggressive if I close up the immediate territory around them.

I would really like to see that AI doesn't skip lanes unless there is no other lanes to take over. This would prevent stupid things like the AI coming though a wormhole and taking up chunks inside your territory.

 

[Grenartia]

You know, it occurs to me that the right way to rebalance spiritualists would have been to rebalance the internal empire mechanics in general, and implement a religion mechanic within the scope of that. One of those things where some cross-pollination from CK3 would be really good.

 

[klingonadmiral]

So are Liberation Wars broken? Did not release a new empire from my occupied territory.

 

[Verx90]

So are Liberation Wars broken? Did not release a new empire from my occupied territory.

It is uberbeta, the discussion is on unity rework, not the bugs (and there are a lot is a beta ) . Considerate that at the moment late game edict (ambition)say to cost 1000 unity, but in reality don't make you pay so can take them all.

Right now the sprawl malus is crippling at best and pretty much expansion preventing all together at worst.

We just had a game where the tiniest habitat merchant trade league empire outpaced everyone by such a longshot it wasnt even funny anymore. Cause why focus on unity or tech if you can have it all plus pop growth with synth ascension and added bio growth. You utterly outpace even the most sophisticated spirtual habitat trade league builds simply cause they cannot ever keep up in pop growth. However adding more systems to the empire and grow the pop that way increases sprawl for the spiritual while the habitat merchant tradeleague + robos just grows and grows and grows.

Still sprawl is nuts right now. 4k-5k upkeep in unity for one ambition (even though right now they cost nothgin since buggy) is just nonsense.

I'm confuse, I played megacorp, they start actually with the debuff ( void born origin) while the habitats are still kinda op for the chance to rush research. Mega corporations have no chance to actually dodge they malus to sprawl, +25% of the effect of the sprawl.

Everyone get sprawl, you need to build up a bit science the more sprawl you get, atm in early game is around 1 more science job every 50 sprawl to keep the previous research speed. Mega corporation have it harder, as they have a plus 25% to the effect.

Fun fact, "tall" don't really get much of a discount, systems are rapidly outpaced by pops and planets sprawl, every planet count as 10+ (1/2planetsize) (district count as 0.5) and every pop cost around 1 sprawl. So tall empires have to work around the clock anyway, and have less building space for science.

Systems are literally worth around 1 pop with the expansion tradition, and that's the only price for wide empires, but let's be honest, conquering another empire capital in early still steamroll any tall empire build.

I will assume you are playing with very few AI empire, and so you just go all early game in expanding non-stop, and by not having neightborg you don't realize you had to build more research.

 

[malakhglitch]

Still waiting on what the devs are planning to do to iron out the snarl with Rogue Servitors that popped up in the beta.

 

[Zyrusticae]

So I've tried playing a peaceful federation builder empire that doesn't expand beyond its initial borders as a bit of a test of the changes.

First things first: Pops remain the end-all be-all, and I immediately ran into issues due to being unable to rush habitats early (as I'm not a min-maxed tech rushing empire). This is, of course, a holdover from previous versions of the game, but it remains a problem if you actually want "tall" play to be viable before the mid-to-late game. The fact is that every individual pop counts significantly more than whatever else you have in your systems, and the faction with more pops will simply crush the ones with fewer. I was rather hoping that something in this rework would change that equation, but outside of finding bigger friends to act as your military there is a dearth of options here should you find yourself penned in.

The sprawl penalties don't even come close to offsetting this (and anyone obsessing over them is, frankly, not understanding a lick of how the game actually works). It's nice that they're back and actually relevant again, but the fundamental problem of "tall" play remains the exact same as before: Pops are everything. You need more pops. Period. Ascension tiers are an interesting step in the right direction, but they are just that - a step. Let's talk about the issues I have with them:

1. The fact that it only increases the specialization bonuses means that there are actually specializations that are useless to ascend. You don't need less upkeep when you're running a surplus of anything, you just need more stuff to keep up with the bigger empires. Some kind of universal production boost tied to ascension tiers would be VERY welcome, and go a long way further towards fulfilling its intended purpose.

2. The costs scale very hard very quickly - too much for even my tiny empire to keep up with for more than maybe just the capital. I cannot fathom what kind of empire would have enough unity to max out the three starting worlds by the game ending year. I feel like it should be possible to have three planets max ascended by the endgame year (2400) IF you're completely 100% focused on unity production and your sprawl is comparatively limited, or at least your capital and one other planet if you're splitting resources. There is absolutely no way in hell a capital with 35% greater productivity is going to eclipse even a single developed planet, after all (and that's, again, the fundamental problem of making "tall" viable).

3. The fact that it is unity-specific means, of course, that "tall" empires that don't have specialized unity production won't really be able to take advantage of it. So what other options are there? I don't see them. We need more options beyond just this.

To the latter end, I suspect espionage not being nigh-useless would go a loooooooooong way to helping "tall" players have another avenue outside of begging other, bigger empires for support. Another would, of course, be to nerf wide empires directly by attacking one of the game's weakest points - the lack of internal politics and concomitant instability - though this is, I suspect, more a topic for a full expansion than anything else. Slowing down wide empires' use of traditions and other unity-spending features is all well and good, but it ultimately is meaningless in the face of hundreds of alloys per month worth of ship production.

There's a lot of big questions that need answers if you're actually serious about pursuing this line of improvement. The game, thus far, has long had an excessive focus on military might above all else, and the fact that that hasn't really changed in the 5+ years since release is rather disappointing; however, the fact that it's even being looked at at all is highly encouraging and I look forward to seeing those major changes to Nemesis's mechanics down the line. I also really, REALLY hope that the next expansion addresses these issues directly. Preferably at launch, and not with a patch far down the line.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Mastery of Nature still costs 100 influence to use.

Mastery of Nature and Planetary Prospecting Decision (that one is unlocked by a Tradition) should get some buffs in my opinion. Of course getting more districts on ascended planets is a littlebit better, but I think buffing or slightly reworking those decision offers an opportunity to give more options to tall player.

A long time ago, I talked about buffing Planetary prospecting, because its almost entirely useless and a waste of ressources. I bet no one knows what it does, it unlocks the potantial to build more districts of one type.

However, its random, so you have no idea if its going to help with specialization.

And it has an extremely small change to discover strategic ressources deposits.

In my suggestion I asked the devs to increase the chance to discover strategic ressources deposits. This would be a big help and a nice buff for this tradition finisher and it would also help tall Empires by not having to spend as many building slots to make strategic ressources.

Right now there is no reason to take Mastery of Nature early on as an AP. And later on you want other AP anyway. And it only really shines once you have a lot of planets, so going wide is just better.

So why not rework and buff those two options? Both have very little use.