3.3 Unity Open Beta Feedback Megathread

[DrawnCord]

I played through a game and I have several thoughts on the new beta patch

Positives:
Overall like the interaction of unity with internal stability
Really Like the new empire sprawl mechanics
Really like the unity cap system
Really Like the changes to edicts
Like the idea of ascended planets

Issues:
Influence feels increasingly vestigial
Influence and Unity feel muddled together
Factions feel pointless and give low relative unity
Feedback from planet ascension is low (It feels very boring)
Large unity numbers make it very hard to judge unity costs
Edict Cap has low feedback

Issues not related to patch:
Starbase defenses utterly pointless in mid to late game
Spying still feels underwhelming and tedious
Crisis wars (Become the crisis) are buggy
No unique tech for ai endgame crisis

 

[SnowOtaku]

Some things I've noticed after doing a xenophile spiritualist megacorp build:

The influence disparity between the player and AI has increased, and further increases, based on game difficulty. Before influence was mostly static, and there were tradition trees and factions to somewhat improve but you couldn't snowball it much. With the introduction of overall fleet presence relating to influence gain the AI is now able to establish an influence foothold ahead of the player. This is even worse on higher difficulties where the AI starts out with more ships, has an expanded naval capacity, and an economy to pump out even more fleets. With factions producing unity instead of influence, there really isn't an easy way to catch up. 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.

Given how slower expansion is the presence of "garbage nodes" becomes more of an eye sore. If i don't fill them in the AI probably will without as much repercussion, and it can also cause me trade value/piracy issues. I'd really like to avoid a swiss cheese empire full of 2 points of physics only systems given how sensitive sprawl is now.

Exploration is depressing because I'm too worried about sprawl to grab that nice looking planet / set of dig sites. Also hostile space organisms become more of an issue as it's difficult to drop a starbase nearby and pump out corvettes to deal with them (which btw, pacification projects should have a considerable cost reduction since AIs can get them a lot earlier and potentially lock you out of a choke point because you're trying to deal with them the more... power based way). Also why can't machine/materialist empires hack mining drones?

Racket pops should be banned from migration treaties. I had this happen very early in a megacorp setup and it ruined the already over sensitive sprawl modifiers. It's mostly frustrating because there's no way to know ahead of time if a migration treaty will have them or not,

There doesn't seem to be enough abandoned gateways going around. This makes it difficult for you and your allies to get around. The unity cost of science leaders pushing back exploration makes it even more difficult to be the first to find such gateways. Only reason I got it is because gateways are so valuable to get around piracy in a megacorp situation that I picked the galactic doorstep origin to guarantee I get gateway tech (and somewhat early at that).

Due to the fleet influence disparity it feels like empires are filling gaps quicker, and leading to faster border friction, which leads to more wars. I had 3 empires in nearly continuous battle due to this, which is incredibly annoying as a megacorp because I can't get people at war to join my trade federation and the gateway issue makes it difficult to get around and defend my allies so my branch offices don't get bombarded. Even worse if my branch offices are spread between attacker and defender. Which by the way...

The ability to rush through tradition trees means the AI can get to become the crisis perk way too quickly. I literally had two empires go full galactic crisis at the same time fairly early and once again the gateway issue screwed me over from helping my allies out. As a megacorp I ended up giving up on the game because it cost me a ton of branch offices that I couldn't recover my economy at all (not to mention all the naval capacity buildings I had going around). In fact, the number of crisis empires that can occur at once should be an option much like other things (with the ability to completely turn it off). The first time was exciting, but after the 10th play in a row dealing with a crisis empire it really just gets annoying (it can also screw you over territory wise if your threat empires are closer to the crisis empires due to the broken way total war and what territory goes to who is handled).

With the whole empire sprawl mechanic as it is, I notice players are considering lots of military conquering vassals, sector vassals, etc to deal with the new mechanic. Unfortunately this is absolutely terrible for federations because subjects join them by default. This seems counter intuitive because protectorates and vassals are literally giving up their freedoms for my protection. By default they should not have anything to say about who joins my federation unless I grant them permission to and also get permission from my other federation members. Can't get a strong member to join my federation because my two 4 system wide sector vassals are voting no. I can't express how frustrated that makes me and that I can't even use favors to manipulate federation joining votes (and war votes).

There feels to be a severe lack of planets in my general vicinity. This in particular includes terraform capable ones. Considering the number of special empires who depend on terraforming (ocean paradise, life seeded) and perks (conscecrated worlds, machine world, hive world, world shaper, Baol precursor) this is a pretty bad situation. Not to mention ocean paradise is going to be even more screwed now because they don't get their bonuses on ecumonopolis, ring worlds, habitats, gaia worlds, and relic worlds (which are normally 100% habitable options). Planet sizes are also... very small. I feel like clone army / high pop growth species are going to have issues with this.

 

[Half Phased]

My thoughts on the beta so far:

Sources of Admin Sprawl
- Districts: these have been reduced to 0.5. Pretty ambivalent on this by itself, since these aren't the key factor in economic output...
- Colonies: These have been doubled to 10. But combined with the district change above, void dweller or empires that get boxed and need to build habitats are in a tough position. They need more habitats than other empires, and since they pay far more in colony sprawl now, these builds are going to be left limping compared to an empire that conquered planets. I'd suggest changing these 2 back to their 3.2 values. Or, if possible, change the sprawl per type, such that a standard planet adds 10, a habitat adds 5, a ringworld segment adds 30....

- Systems: didn't change. No real comment.
- Pops: doubled to 1 each. On the one hand, I'm fine with this, pops are the primary source of economic output.. On the other hand, the harmony tradition tree has just become essential, as with 1000 pops still being a thing by late game, reducing the impact of that on empire sprawl from 1000 to 900 is going to help control some of the penalties. Docile is something I'm going to consider. I will however, now be left realing by the loss of a high level governor.

On the whole, these feel quite rough. About the only change of the 3 I can support is the pops change. I would also seriousy suggest taking a look at the expansion tradition tree, as it's -25% sprawl from planets and systems feels even more mandatory than before.

Edicts and campaigns (to be updated):
- Most edicts feel priced okay at 10 unity base. Edict funds cover the cost of 1, so you can pick one early.
- Research subsidies is too expensive at 50 unity base. That it is a direct 1-1 with sprawl for the increase of edicts, this quickly runs away from being affordable. 25 or 20 feels more appropiate.
- Nutritional plentitude and fortify the border. These should loose their penalties that increase empire sprawl. Since the focus is now on trying to keep that empire sprawl as low as possible, these penalties are immediately bad, before you consider that they actually inflate the cost of themselves just by activating them. Nutritional plentitude already massively increases food upkeep, fortify the border could increase starbase upkeep instead.
- Campaigns are now unaffordable early game. I was seeing value of 88 energy credits when I unlocked them. My energy production was +30. I would actually suggest that these becomes 10 unity edicts, rather than using energy credits. Or just lower the cost.

I do like this system, though I will admit, the pricing is a problem right now. Hard to really say more than that.

Leaders:

Hesistant to say much here. The cost isn't too bad, such that I didn't have a problem with it past the first 5 years. Scaling leader unity cost to empire sprawl could lead to interesting situations where hiring someone late game could cost 1000's unity, which is ridiculous (and raises the question of how much chaff does your empire produce for you to sort through for the cream of the crop). Returning to energy credits here may be a good idea.

Traditions:
- Exploration: has been solidifed as once again, a mandatory tree. And will always be, as long as it has the empire sprawl reduction for planets and systems. With planets having their sprawl impact doubles, this just feels even more mandatory. To make this tree less *must pick*, I hate to say it, but maybe that sprawl reduction should go.
- Discovery: is still a solid, mandatory tree. No change their
- Harmony: Is going to join the above two as a mandatory tree. 10% reduction in empire sprawl from pops, when an encumenopolis can have 100 pops on it and inflict just as much sprawl as 10 colonies just from pops alone.... yeah, pops are going to be the true admin sprawl killer. While there's thankfully many ways to reduce that, the -10% that this tree offers is kinda a free pick, when you consider the +50 edicts fund, the +5 stability and the leader lifespan boosts, this tree is now solidified as a mandatory pick for me.

 

[Liggi]

I tried two games, one a high Unity, tall-focused game, and one a low Unity, wide-focused game, just to get an idea of the extremes.

General thoughts:

- I love the Edicts Fund. I always found Edicts kinda annoying, but I love the way this feels. You have the option of going for high Unity and spending it on Edicts, or focusing on maximising your Edict Fund so you can use your main Unity income elsewhere. Big fan of this.
- I love Leaders requiring a Unity upkeep, and being hired with Unity. It prevents Leader spam and makes Leaders more valuable.
- Power Projection is really cool. Gives you a reason to build up your fleet earlier, which is nice.
- It generally just feels like these changes have diversified the number of viable ways to play the game, and that's an incredibly positive thing.

Overall, this change has added some interesting tradeoffs. I think there's probably things to tweak that other people have covered, but I have no particular criticisms.

As a side note however, in both games, I noticed looping AI fleets. I've raised this quite a few times and raised bug reports, but MAN it's annoying. It really ruins the immersion and makes it feel like the warfare AI is broken. Watching an AI fleet go to bombard my world, then turn around and travel a bit, then turn around again and go back to bombarding over and over. I saw this happen FOUR times across two games. It's a total immersion breaker and I feel like it's crippling the AI when it comes to warfare because other than getting stuck, they were actually doing pretty well. Please, please prioritise this, if you can. The warfare AI has come on leaps and bounds (as well the economic AI), and it's just a small thing that totally hobbles them.

 

[Mullahadin]

In before i'm ready to summarise all different aspects of many builds - a quick overwiew about Power Projection.

As mentioned in some of the previous messages - being tied to fleet power/sprawl is highly favouring AI rignt now. And in the same time havily favours "militartistic" approach to spending alloys. What if....

As with federation succesion type - Power Projection can be tied to diiferent value? Economical, Reseaarch, Fleet OR Diplomatic Power? With the same value per sprawl? That would ensure, that purely non combatant Empires could still have access to that extra influence.

 

[Arithmetician]

I’ve done two starts so far, both for about 40-ish years, one with a Permanent Employment Megachurch and my current one, with a Feudal Society/Aristocratic Elite.

The Mercantile tree remains extremely strong, as are Megachurches. That being said, trade was generally weak before Mercantile was a thing. I do think it’s cool that tradition trees can unlock new federation types, though Merchant Guilds now feels quite a bit less special (though having extra merchants from the start should still be good, in principle).

The Unity Cost of leaders did noticeably slow my traditions a bit first, though thankfully Megachurches excel at generating unity. However, this is actually a really nice thing with Feudal Society now - you can be a lot more aggressive with hiring leaders, and you get a bit of extra unity for your governors too.

Power projection gives me much more reason to build an early-game fleet rather than just turtling up, as it directly gives me influence that I can use for either expansion or pacts.

The Edicts Fund and that its cost is based on Unity rather than Influence is nice in that Edicts are far more flexible. It always felt bad to have to pay a large chunk of influence to turn one off, and it makes sense that it should be an ongoing cost rather than just a one-time cost. Though some of the edicts and the campaigns feel like they are massively over-costed compared to the others. And while I haven’t reached that point yet, I can imagine that with sprawl, I can imagine that the cost will eventually outpace the Edicts fund. That’s probably by design, but it means that Edicts Fund is most useful early-game. So Imperial Cult would be great as a starting Civic, as opposed to more of a mid/late game civic for when one has enough influence for extra edicts, as it was before. Kind of wish I picked Imperial Cult now for my Feudal Run.

 

[Hastet]

Played as a Default Machine Empire. Attaching my save to this reply.

BALANCE ISSUES
---need something to spend influence on; it is too easy to stack influence to silly levels even when going extremely wide and claiming nearby systems
---colony ascension costs are too high for negligible benefits; i simply do not feel the need to throw thousands upon thousands of unity into a colony for a few piddly percentage points

BUGS
>>>Ambitions do not cost unity per month to upkeep
>>>AI ships stuck looping between systems, causing a significant performance dip when it happens
>"Integrated Preservation" - synchronicity tradition (ME) adds auto resettlement chance "G30%" [is this plus to base, or +30% of base chance to resettle?]

LIKES
+++performance goes WHOOSH in the early game; begins slowing back down to pre-patch levels in the mid-late game.
+++AI is MUCH more competent at handling its economy/research
+++pacifists are MUCH more powerful now with -15%/-30% pop sprawl; they're probably better at tech/unity rushing than anyone else because of this
++edicts/ambitions have become a catch-up mechanic for tall empires with little sprawl; wide empires will either stall their unity production for edicts or will forego them altogether
+expanding too aggressively will heavily punish trad/technological growth in the early game, especially for empires with stiff sprawl penalties like machines and megacorps; again, this helps equalize tall and wide games
+Hive minds are the new go-to for ultra-wide with Divided Attention and Imperial Prerogative (-100% Colony Sprawl). That, and they get a blanket -25% effects from sprawl.

SUGGESTIONS
~with empire sprawl penalties, maybe reduce or remove the negative effects of activating edicts?
~make megastructures and relic activations cost influence again; maybe make all diplo/espionage maneuvers cost influence? this ought to help prevent influence from stacking up too easily
~remove unity upkeep for megastructures; unity is already difficult enough to maintain from a balance perspective, and it doesn't make sense from a lore perspective for megaprojects to be something that disunites an empire
~double all edict funds gained from civics/techs/leader skill; edicts are tough to maintain for all except the tiniest of empires
~vassals still suck compared to tributaries; maybe give vassals some other bonuses to compensate?
~machine empires need a foundry ring world designation

 

[StellarisFan1]

I like to buy a leadero for unity, it's cool, I should have done it a long time ago!
no more (rol) scientists

 

[sessmurda]

For Permanent Employment: seems like the Zombies need to be marked someway on the migration screen as different than the normal population. Also if they aren't much better than slave pops, should there really be a unity cost associated with moving them around? The latter part is up to balance so could go either way, but certainly need an icon or something added to the pop image. Or to allow seeing pop traits on the migration screen so we can see the zombie trait.

 

[Eycariot]

Looked a bit into beta. Two things:
1) Need somehow mark zombies on the planetary job management screen. Like slaves shakles or smth
2) May be its time to fix gene clinics? Now than they didn't even give unity. Consumer goods on them are kinda bad. They are doing too little for for taking two pops. They are not only bad for bio ascended spicies. They are bad even for buffing zombies constraction speed

 

[Sunderbraze]

To put things bluntly, you have overvalued unity and devalued influence with too heavy a hand.

I was constantly at the influence cap. In a "well balanced" game, I should not have to turn off a "resource full" notification every 5 minutes because I have absolutely no way to spend that resource. If you're just going to change the cost of a bunch of things from influence to unity, you need to find something for us to spend influence on. I honestly don't care what, anything marginally useful will do. Edicts used to be my go-to, but for obvious reasons, that's no longer applicable.

Edit: Adding civilization info below in case its relevant.


Gov: Dictatorship
Civics: Byzantine Bureauracracy / Technocracy
Ethics: Xenophobe / Fanatic Materialist
Species: Intelligent / Very Strong | Solitary / Wasteful / Slow Learners
Origin: Mechanist

Notes: I recant that highly expansionary civs will expend influence more regularly in the foreign theater (claiming, senate props, etc) but as an insular civ, I would typically spend it on domestic theater (edicts) and with that option gone it is useless to me for vast swathes of gametime.

 

[slickrunner]

I love a lot of what this update did. It makes the empires feel more dynamic and interesting. My more technical concerns have been mentioned by others but there are a few roleplay changes I would like. First Reanimators should be able to create zombie pops in normal empires instead of just Mega Corp. I also think that you should be able to select the ruler traits of your first leader. This can help create a more personalized ruler for your empire. I also think an interesting idea would be to remove unity cost for hiring leaders but have them have to traits. Then use unity to buy desirable traits. This can allow for early game exploration, cancel out leader cycling, while still making unity valuable for leaders.

 

[spcike]

unity upkeep for leaders does not make sense in my opinion and i find it irritating to balance it to unity production. why would it cost unity to hire and maintain a leader? do they not have a salary? also, removing influence from factions and adding it to fleet size with power projection is a needless nerf to any more pacifistic empire or megacorp that does not prioritise fleet power. it gives militaristic empires an unfair influence buff over less militaristic empires and i dont think this makes sense. political clout can just as easily be gotten from a dominant trade economy or diplomatic skills as with a strong fleet. i find this change unbalanced and unfair and it gives militaristic empires an unfair advantage.

 

[evilcat]

For me the beta isnt playing that much different which may be good.

The lack of buerocrats is great move, hate this guys. They warent adding anything solid. However, i almost miss lack of technology/civic/tradition based admin cap. The difference is that you can get infinite amount of admin cap from buerocrats it rewards blobing, but having limited amount nominal bonus to admin cap (like +20,+10) this could reward small empires which manage to hold the limit longer. Buerocrats pop bad, some random free admin cap is ok, or doesnt matter.
The initial grace value could be small (50) it could be higher like 100 to give that grace period.
You could also mess with sprawl values, put down from pops and districts, pump up from planets and systems.

The initial survey is slower, since the choice of influence is real. Which is ok. To some degree even fun. It feels that there is more choice with influence/survey/technology or just didnt find optimal path yet. However the initial cost of leaders is high, and later is minimal.
The first tradition are coming really fast, especially with spiritualists. But that could be result of player focusing more on influecen production. This results in some ascension perks coming faster, for example psionics. This can be good for example Galactic Force Projection comes early enought to matter.
Also technology is... faster? It is easier to outpace new admin cap, and technocracy is better.
Easy way to make technology slower is to change tech speed upgrades into 3x5x10% (1 for each tier).

Planet ascension is great idea, however there could be some encourgment for focusing on few planets rather than spreading on every single you have. As reward for tall players.

With new system there could be unity based planet destination if we want to dedicate planet to Temple world or Unity production. This could also be chance to do something with Holly Worlds ascension perk to be more user fiendly and make it tool to create super unity worlds.

There is more reason to use vassals in new system (save admin cap), maybe it is time to do something with vassals, like allow to set individual obligation, or different tier of dependance. It seems you cant switch one vassal type to another no matter what is your loyality.

Egalitarians seems to be very slow to move from planet to planet, maybe that was here before.
New technocracy is very powerful again, but in less crazy way, but still heavy meta.
You made Merchant guild useless, maybe add private colony ships, or some baseline pirate suppresion to this civic. It is good civic for roleplay, just need something nice out of it.

There is a trick of switchin on and off edicts just to win that one fight, which adds some micro. Especially with military edicts. But this may be ilussionary problem, as if we sitch battle edicts on off often, then probably dont need to switch them on off, there is more combat.
Some edicts have very hard cost. Leader XP isnt worth that much energy. Why leader xp and CG are energy anyway, cant they be unity too?
Resources edicts are priced high 100unity+ which is prohibiting to use them, there is some value in switching them on for short period for some quick fix.
Edicts fund are not scaling, it help with some initial small edicts, but 100 fund will not help with not offset resource edicst. Maybe edict fund should scale to.
There is also the case of what will happen if we switch on all edicts and run negative unity, this is not severe enought now. Maybe negative unity should stop edicts from taking place (brutal).

I ended with surplus of Influence. Which is great for spamming habbitats. Maybe there should be a rule that Unity is for manipulating people, but influence is for manipulating spacetime. However even before there was a surplus of influence. There could be some influence sink, maybe planetary decissions? Or some diplomacy tricks.

On 600stars game runs faster for 100y, maybe it slows later on, but there is difference.

 

[Pale Blue]

The difference between unity and influence feels very muddy now. What exactly is the difference supposed to be? I was thinking external Vs internal, but there is things like habitats or mastery of nature that cost influence, but are internal. Meanwhile planetary ascension costs unity. Force projection with fleet power grants influence, but ambassies in other empires grant you unity, although they are external affairs.
Abbandoning a colony costs influence, but is internal. Meanwhile resettling costs unity. There are probably more examples.

I think there needs to be a harsh divide between what influence is used for and what unity is used for. Anything external lik pacts, Galactic Community, Federations, claims should cost influence, while anything internal unity.
This would probably need a rebalance of influence income, because as a conquerer you need a lot of it for claims, but a peaceful empire doesn't need that much.

Another possibility is to merge the two resources and use that for everything.


Planetary ascension should get an ascension perk or an effect added to some existing one like ecumenopolis or mastery of nature that makes it cheaper to ascend your planets/increases the cap. Making your existing planets better should be an alternative to the endless habitat spam, although they would need to compete on the same resource to achieve that. So both need unity or influence.

Planetary ascension on your homeworld does not seem worth it. You can reach 100% stability in other ways more easily and the amenities aren't that great either. Compare that to the potential massive upkeep reduction on forge worlds. Ascending your capital (and system capitals) should be the ones you want to ascend the most, not the ones you want to never ascend.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Some observations from a game as FanEga+Xenophile Humans, Meritocracy + Beacon of Liberty (+ Shared Burdens), just after winning the game in 2425 (crisis didn't show up). I tried playing tall-ish but still ended up with 52 systems at the end of the game due to spawning in a region with great geography:

Some observations:

Unity is overvalued, Influence is undervalued​

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Currently, after the initial land grab there is little to do with Influence. Habitats are problematic currently, ringworlds are even more so, so the only things left are claims and GC stuff. I can't comment on how this affects wide empires as I haven't played one yet, but it turns the GC even more into a player tool. With all that spare influence I can call in plenty of favors in order to shoot down or force through whatever resolution I want.​

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Likewise, Unity is in too high demand. Unity Ambitions are especially egregious, currently a single one would cost me 3638 unity/month. Combined with the fact that many Unity Ambitions are of dubious value (Hearts and Minds, Will to Power, Fortress Proclamation and Desperate Measures are outright bad) there isn't really a reward at the end of the unity tree. An Unity-focused empire might do better, but they'll also not get Ascension Theory as early as a tech-focused empire. Like, maybe turn Unity Ambitions into something that requires Influence instead.​

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Empire Sprawl works backwards​

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Make tall play more viable, preferring to balance tall vs. wide play in favor of distinctiveness, and emphasizing differences between hives, machines, megacorps, and normal empires. (This does not necessarily mean that tall Unity focused empires will be the equal of wide Research focused ones, but they should have some things that they are good at and be more competitive in general than they are now.)​

Congratulations, you failed. As it is currently Empire Sprawl massively favors wide empires. Every owned system increases empire sprawl by 1, but every colony increases empire sprawl by 10. A wide empire does not build up their space, so they have maybe 1 planet per 5 systems ( = 15 sprawl), whereas a "tall" (I still think the term does not work for Stellaris, "dense" is a much better description) spams habitats in the midgame and beyond. So they end up with say 10 planets per 5 systems (=105 sprawl). And those planets also carry much more pops combined pops than the single planet of the wide empire, so the effective sprawl is even greater.​

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Now of course the space of a "tall" empire produces quite a bit more resources than an equal amount of space of a wide empire, but since wide empires can largely ignore unity as they rush down the galaxy (which largely requires tech and alloys).​

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Now while it would be easy to simply flip the numbers, I think what would be really interesting is to tie empire sprawl into sectors. Perhaps the core sector should be completely free sprawl-wise (at least in the late game), but empires could perhaps chose centralization levels. Highly centralized empires would take full sprawl from the sectors but also efficiently extract their resources, while decentralized empires take less sprawl from sector systems while also getting resource penalties. It should of course be tied to the sectors themselves to allow proper management - an empire might not care about the paltry resources in the Evarian Voidwaste but pay great attention to extract the most from conquered fallen empire worlds.​

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The Tech-Tree needs de-cluttering​

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Please, please, please get rid of some of the most offensively bad techs like Offworld Trading Company, Void Clinics, Clone Armies and Gravitational Analysis.​

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The AI is much better, but that still doesn't save it lategame​

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As long as the AI does not understand how to properly manage fleets of decent ship designs, no measure of (sensible) economic improvement will help them. In my lategame wars, I still traded single-digit battleships for complete destruction of the hostile armadas.​

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Also please teach the AI how to build gate networks, the biggest pain of fighting against a crisis or the varius pseudo-crises is dealing with the horrible galactic infrastructure.​

 

[Ysmarin]

Beside's some number tweaking I like the new systems, but they are overly punishing for void dwellers.
They start with 3 habitats which are counted as a full colony but they are far smaller and weaker then a real colony.
Starting off with 64 out of 50 admin cap is rough as it will hinder everything you do and others will not get it untill they have several colonies which are insanly more productive then a single habitat.
I would lower the admin costs of habitats or lower them for void dwellers alone. As currently it is an extreemly punishing start.

 

[ASGeek2012]

I'm only halfway through a game on the beta branch, but I noticed something interesting. At first I was wondering why so many people were saying that the empire sprawl mechanic was too punishing as my tech costs were going up only mildly and I was getting ahead of some of the nearby Ai empires. Then it dawned on me: I always play with guaranteed habitable worlds set to zero, and I had yet to find a suitable planet (I was playing as an aquatic species with ocean world preference). Therefore, I was playing semi-tall at first because I had only one planet.

It was not until I finally found two ocean worlds to settle and one to usurp from primitives (playing as xenophobe, so we obviously have a better use for the planet than those filthy xenos) did I really notice empire sprawl affecting tech costs. So I guess I would say the mechanic is working as designed. I'll see what happens after I start expanding at the expense of my neighbors.

One thing I will agree with: sprawl is so bad on edict costs that it's not even worth it. At the very start of the game, before I have even unpaused, I already have a +44 penalty to edict cost. That's ridiculous. The edict scaling cost is so bad I have to wonder if that's a bug and not intended behavior.

 

[hhooven4]

Just a few thoughts on how I feel my experiences have gone so far. I have played mostly spiritualist unity builds just to get an idea of how the systems feel when pushed to their limit.

First, influence gain is too low. There are still a ton of mechanics in the game that require influence, but even the Diplomacy tradition doesn't allow you to be involved in more than a small handful of treaties before you just have an impossibly low influence to be able to do things like claim systems and expand the size of your ocean planets.

Second, early unity cost for leaders is prohibitive. With the way the game works, it encourages you to send a bunch of science ships out early, but the leader cost makes that a problem. Even in a big unity build you don't really have the early momentum to explore out. Given that there is a limited window in most games for this exploration, it might be better if either the cost was lowered on leaders at the start of the game or each player just started with two science ships with leaders instead of one.

Third, and I can't stress this enough, influence gain is way too low. I appreciate the inclusion of power projection, but power is projected in more ways than just via your fleet. If you want to make influence tied to the projection of *real* power, then it should be tied to Diplomatic Weight. Diplomatic Weight already calculates in your fleet power, but it also takes into account non-military forms of pressure that an empire could apply on everyone else. Have good science? This should give you influence. Have a massive economy? Influence. Big fleet? Influence. All of these are tied into your Diplomatic Weight, which is why that should be your Power Projection.

 

[CometBliss]

I think technology costs should not go so high, it could be game changing. I was watching a friend stream in discord while playing the same game a pvp game, His sprawl was crazy because he took over so many planets but he nearly had +100% technology costs and he got psionic jump drives. It would of taken him a while to get that through.

Also is it normal for others to be able to Ascend your planets?