3.3 Unity Open Beta UPDATED Feedback Megathread [EXTENDED TO FEB 7]

[Lidhuin]

I'd like to increase the cost of technology by a factor of about 7-21x to adjust for the output of bureaucrats vs researchers and the value of technology vs traditions & planetary ascensions. Unfortunately, I can only do that if I also increase the cost of the (effectively worthless) traditions.

I'd like to suggest the following feedback: Split up the slider for technology & tradition costs, because technology and tradition are not equal at the moment, and that's where I think this unity rework needs more testing.

 

[NeuroNerion]

Super small thing, but the Glebsig Foundation starts with the efficient bureaucracy civic, despite spiritualists having no admistrators. Does the effect still apply to priests, and I'm just not seeing it? If so, does that mean administrative centers affect temples? I'd assumed not.

 

[AllYourPopsAreBelongToUs]

Hello & thanks for your work!
This feedback is based on following settings:
Galaxy Size: Small
Difficulty: Grand Admiral
Aggresivness: High
Regular Empires only so far

First things first:
Game Speed/Performance -> wow, i don't know what you did, but my game speed at fastest is around 3 times as fast than before! Good Job!
UI/Job/Building Descriptions -> clean, i like t!
AI: Despite my best affords to tech rush the AI into oblivion, it managed to stay on equivalent tech until the mid-late game, seems good!


Empire Size:
I was afraid that at some point expanding would feel like a negative, but that absolutly wasnt the case. Right now, its just a number in the background, nothing to really interact with, but thats fine as it's purpose is to slow down snowballing (numbers seem a bit low though and also seems to empathize pops in comparison to size a lot, which makes it so tall empires in comparison to wide empires get taxed by this almost the same amount (pops is power, for tall & wide empres alike). So right now, i dont think it rewards small empires enough and boils down to a background number slowing down your snowballing without any real options to interact with it.

Unity:
Unity from Factions: Insignificant -> a happy faction produces around 6 Unity more than an unhappy one, which is around 3/4 of a job and thats basicly nothing
Unity from Jobs -> Job balance seems to be off: Bureaucrats are terrible, 4 Unity for 2 CG is clerk level of bad, compare that to the manager of a Megacorp: same unity, same cg & added trade value, and even this job is borderline bad. An unemployed luxuary communist is more productive than that
For me i tried to get Unity the same way as before: make use of your ruler jobs & trade value and ignore all other unity producing jobs, because the numbers simply aren't there. Which brings me to:
Trade Value:
Ayyy, you truely didnt do yourself a favor by adding trade value (balancing wise ^^)
After nerfing merchants (added 2 CG upkeep) they aren't as broken as before, but are still good without trade leauge, and busted with trade league (the increased significants of unity kinda outweights the halved unity production)
Megacorps & empires focusing on trade value feels very wierd to play because of trade league -> being in a federation increases your effective trade value by over 100%, its not a choice anymore, its mandatory. (as is mercantile as first tradition into diplomacy) If you manage to get a federation within 20 years (very doable) you will rush through traditions and have enough Unity for everything you want. If you dont... well... you have an empire with effectivly -50% output on their most important ressource, and you might have to employ some of the (terrible) unty jobs.

Influence:
Influence is in a strange spot now - it gets used for early expansion, diplomacy, war and later habitats & megastrucktures. Some empires barely have anything to do wth influence - a non-void dweller, non warlike nation won't have any use for it, after the early expansion phase (considering diplomacy is an upkeep, not a cost). Here is a nice option though: wide empires have a lot of use for influence, tall empires don't - which brings me to:

Planetary Unity Upgrade (Ascension Tier)
Uff.... its yet another button in a game with a lot... of... buttons
I think it should cost influence instead of Unity to give tall empires a use for influence, other than that... its yet another pretty boring micro managing option, without a real decision: you upgrade, once the benefits of production are greater than the benefits of the potential tradition unlock. If it costs influence, it can be the decision between expanding (with force or otherwise) or upgrading, but even then, its just another bland modifier -> maybe make it a bit more flashy? (like giving a few super special ethic/designation-defined jobs instead)

Edicts
Oh my, Edict fund, edict cost, Unity upkeep, Energy upkeep, Empire size modifier - isn't that a bit ecessive? ^^
Maybe focus on the primary decision you want to give the players with these tools, because right now its a seemingly complex system of different modifiers & terms where in the end, all you do is choose the best modifiers (for your empire) from a list of different modifiers.

Balance Side Notes:
The 1% production on enforcers doesnt change their use: Only worth a pop on big planets (something you have to micro-manage)
Monuments are strange, i dont like them at all. so one building slot for (until mid game) less output than one of the worst jobs in the game. Still better than an empty building slot, but i thnk you can delete it without the game losing anything: if you want more unity you should need to build unity jobs, wich need pops & upkeep, like every other complex resource.
Void Dwellers start with Entertainer Jobs - please dont, you wont need them for a long time

Final Notes: I think the overall direction is very good, Empire Size modifier will definatly "feel" bad for a while, because we are used to not having them, but just like the pop growth sealing its a necessary step to slow down snowballing - i think they even are a bit to conservative - being bigger still makes you so much stronger & stronger faster
Unity & Influence -> Unity specialist jobs - most of all the bureaucrats are aweful (in comparison to rulers/trade value), factions feel insignifanct (and are in a wierd place in general), unity costs of leader is only significant in the early game (and feel restrictive when significant), and the most important use of unity is still traditons.
Leaders, Edicts & Planetary Ascensions feel a bit bloated - they dont give you much to play with, but a lot to think about.

 

[NeuroNerion]

This is not my original idea, but it's so fantastic that I had to draw attention to it! This, Leaky Technology based on Sprawl, is the link to the original thread, so I don't claim to take credit. TLDR for it is essentially this: allow for research on completed technology to leak out to other empires based on Empire size. This makes sense canonically, as any large state is going to have a hard time hiding its advancements. It would temper tech rushing and wide playthroughs simultaneously. Admittedly, there is the glaring possibility of one empire not having to invest in research, just stealing from others. I'd propose this makes espionage and counter-espionage more relevant. Also, we could get something like the Pakleds from TNG, and Star Trek references are always a win.

 

[Tartan Spartan]

Some interesting tweaks, but in the parlance of our times, “This is pretty good, but it can be even better!”

Based on my play to date I have a few suggestions to tighten how this feels and introduce some more interactions between different mechanisms.

1. Sprawl reductions from buildings - Beaurocrat centres, gene clinics, police and slave processing facilites should reduce sprawl by 15-25% (level dependent) from different sources (colony+districts, ruler+specialist pops, worker pops and slave pops respectively) - allowing larger more diverse and developed planets to be more sprawl efficient.

2. Influence to unity - all diplo actions should cost influence, including spying and rivalries - rivalries should generate unity not influence, history shows an external enemy can be helpful in uniting a polity

3. factions should generate 'edict funds' not unity - this seems a closer link and allows for differentiation between empires with high internal trust (edicts for efficiency) and high culture production (tradition boni)

4. power projection should be based on diplo weight - to allow for soft power and prevent empty corvettes

5. sprawl from colonies should be higher (or that from pops lower) - you should need at least 20 standard pops for pop sprawl to outweigh colony sprawl - maybe adjust to 20 for a planet and 10 sprawl for a habitat.

6. Finally - and less specific to the sprawl re-work - traditions should be themed to ethics - starting a tradition tree (e.g. harmony) should generate ethics attraction (spiritualist in this case). Finishing it should make the faction a bit happier (e.g. +5%). It feels wierd for my techno, xenophile, pacifists to be all harmonious, expansionist and supremacist without this influencing the ethics of my empire.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Snowyowl820]

I'm sure I won't say what wasn't said before but here I got. Having so much sprawl from pops isn't annoying enough for wide to stop going wider, so either it needs to affect to work or someting else. I heard that maybe the fix to help tall empires shouldn't be punishing wide, but by rewarding tall play. Having to not worry about sprawl for early parts of the game could be just that. Maybe a good balance would be that non-capital sectors give more Sprawl while your capital sector give lass sparawl.

 

[LivingMarionette]

I haven't been able to play much, but decided to at least try the beta, my impressions are as follows, bear in mind that I am not a very experienced stellaris player so some of this feedback might just be me not having understood the mechanics:

1) lore wise, using unity for recruiting leaders, as well as factions giving unity rather than influence feels much better! It just makes more sense that pleased political factions give an increased sense of unity from within the empire rather than increase influence which at least I tend to read as an "external" resource, a measurement of how respected you are kind of... And it makes no sense your own political factions increase that!

2) I love how that ^ removes the early game influence bottle neck... However, with factions removed, gaining influence is kind of hard early on, but hey, that is one way of not opening the game up too much so it kind of works... However, after the expansion phase, we have the opposite problem, influence now feels kinda moot. Sure, you can claim others systems with it, and join pacts to your heart's content but if you are not playing as an empire that does the whole claims and war things... Influence just kinda sits there and piles up, no way you can join that many pacts. It always used to be that way for me but it happens much sooner now.

3) The empire size penalties didn't seem to actually be that punishing, but, it is difficult to now figure out what kind of counters those, or if there even is a way to counter them. I seem to recall hearing unity should be the countering factor for a big empire size but yeah... I sure didn't get that! Lore wise though, it makes sense, of course a more collected empire is more easily controllable than one that isn't unified at all.

 

[Silens]

Is that behaviour intended?

I have two planets, A is tier 2, upgrade costs 24000 and B is tier 1, upgrade costs also 24000. I upgrade planet A to tier 3, now the upgrade cost from tier 3 to tier 4 are 34000, but the upgrade costs on planet B for the upgrade from tier 1 to tier 2 are also 34000.

Is this a bug?

Edit: Ok, so it seems the overall costs rise based on the cumulative number of ascension tiers in your whole empire. This is brutally expensive.

 

[Darrien]

I do not know if its my coding program, but I am using Paradox syntax in vcode and it looks like one of your defines comments is not spaced so it might not be counting it as commented out. See the below line in the defines file.

PLANET_ASCENSION_SPRAWL_MODIFIER = -0.05# Reduction of planet sprawl per level of ascension

 

[DeathOClock]

I've played a couple MP games and an SP in the beta. I really like the balances to influence and unity. I don't remember when empire sprawl was changed to be like it is now, but it seems quite balanced.

 

[John MacWhat]

I'm still really skeptical of a lot of these edict costs. I want to call attention to one in particular: Numistic Visualization. This edict has a base cost of 40 unity. You gain access to the edict by buying it from a Caravaneer. Its effect is -5% Pop consumer goods upkeep, +10% research speed for statecraft, +10% energy credits.

Now, that does seem like a solid edict. I can see why the devs make it so expensive compared to others.

But for goodness sake, consider how much Empire Size impacts edicts like that. I just bought this edict in 2285, my Empire Size is around 400ish. That means this edict, by itself, would cost me around 200 unity a month. I have been doing my level best to keep up on generating unity and I'm around +350 a month right now. So, sadly, I think this edict is yet another button I will never touch due to cost.

Quick napkin math says I would need about 30-35 administrators to afford this edict (edict fund does not even come close to keeping up with Edict Cost), and those jobs all have consumer goods upkeep, those buildings have energy upkeep, the buildings cost minerals, and there's two opportunity costs in that I could use the unity for something else or I could be using the Pops in different jobs. Wouldn't I be better off just building more economy directly than making administrators to afford this edict?

I strongly recommend any combination of the following as fixes:

• Base edict cost for all edicts is limited to 20 (especially if you do not embraced the next two suggestions)
• Edict fund scales with empire size (or possibly hide this functionality in an Ascension Perk like Executive Vigor) so that civics, traditions, and technologies that provide edict fund remain relevant throughout the game. Currently, they scale so poorly that I never choose them or prioritize them
• The effect of Empire Size on edict cost is reduced, perhaps all the way down the same level as on traditions

 

[Zyrusticae]

Before I start with more targeted feedback, I want to note that pretty much everything I said in my post in the first thread remains relevant.

That being said, after playing three games in the update, one of them as a fanatic spiritualist empire to absolute completion, I have more specific things to add this time around:

• Planetary ascension is, again, a good step in the right direction, but it remains unimpactful and rather flavorless in its current form. I concur with Harkinian's Dinner's post on the subject here. Remember that "tall" empires will NOT have the option to have a bunch of highly specialized worlds! Planetary designations are specifically designed to benefit specialized planets, something that tall players often cannot afford to do as they're usually dealing with a lack of space in the first place. I should also note that the cost scaling per ascension is kind of absurd and should probably be toned down somewhat (in whatever form you decide to take it going forward).
• Influence is still badly in need of uses for tall empires. I remain adamant that you should be able to use influence to aid in internal development through methods that are not exclusively tied to habitats. Planetary decisions that allow planets to become more efficient that cost influence are outright necessary if you want a genuine balance between "tall" and "wide" empires, and even disregarding the fact that "tall" empires will not necessarily be spending influence on claims even wide empires eventually run out of reasons to spend influence, rendering the resource largely undesirable in its current form. I should also note that you should be strongly considering adding a use for it for empires that are "land-locked" in the early game (by a fallen empire, marauders, etc.), and not only things that are useful mid-game or later (as habitats are now). Bonus points if it's not locked behind an ascension perk!
• Tech remains the end-all, be-all, and thanks to some informative posts on this very forum I better understand the why. It basically comes down to two things:
  1. Tech costs do not increase at the pace that traditions do, meaning the value of a single researcher is significantly better preserved towards the end game. Bureaucrats, meanwhile, become individually less valuable the further into the tradition trees you go.
  2. Techs that improve basic and specialist resource gain are absurdly overpowered relative to other modifiers, and consequently, they trivialize many aspects of the game's resource management in addition to blowing traditions out of the water. Either these techs are in need of a serious stat crunch (from, say,+20% to +5% per tech), or they need to be removed outright. As it is, in the cost-benefit analysis between unity and tech, tech always wins.

Addressing all of the above should go a LONG way towards making "tall" builds feel like an actually viable (and flavorful) option and not just something you put up with because you have no other choice. That said, the military side of the game is also badly in need of a rework for "tall" to truly be viable.

If I'm allowed to complain for a bit, I still want to see long-standing issues like the huge disparity between citadels and fortress worlds (with citadels not even being a speed bump in the late game versus fortress worlds being utterly impenetrable), the AI's bizarre resistance to surrendering even when all their star bases are taken just because a single claimed world hasn't been invaded specifically by the warring empire (note: this one actually breaks the game in cases of multiple wars against the same empire), and the utter uselessness of defense platforms all be addressed in a future update. I am really hoping that these are things you're going to address with the update after 3.3 alongside espionage (which, yes, is the one most vestigial expansion feature ever created in its current form). I have an absolute laundry list of suggestions I want to make when you finally get around to it.

At any rate, I am still heartened to see so many steps being made in the right direction, and I am looking forward to seeing further developments on this and other fronts going forward. The improvements to the AI alone have been a major improvement to my enjoyment of the game and I can hardly wait to see how the game evolves a few patches down the line.

 

[Kilroy_X]

This has less to do with game play more to playability for me personally and at least one other person I know. I have some vision loss and it is getting very hard for me to see the Dark Red numbers on a black background. Anything to help improve this would be awesome. The problems in the Beta I have encountered have all been noted by others.

 

[Nevars]

I really don't like how Imperial Cult civic became early game civic that progessively devalue with time thus player should reform out of it in mid-late game.

If you don't want to do anything with edict funds then considered give Imperial Cult another bonus to at least be a consolation prize of keeping it.

 

[Archael90]

The saddest part here is that doesnt matter if you are tall, wide, big, small. Edict cost is tied to your sprawl, sprawl is tied to you size of your empire, and bigger empire have more pops that can produce unity than smaller ones, that produce less unity, and when the second cost is lower, they also have less unity to spend on edict, and thus neither tall nor wide can afford for them... but idea was that tall could use more of them.

 

[ttacd]

1,In the case of adopting high living standards, it is unreasonable for the unemployed to still have output when the income of consumer goods is negative, and it is recommended to change to no output.
2,The option to invite fallen empires to the federation is currently unavailable, the prerequisite for assigning emissaries should be removed
3,Awakened Fallen Empires can build a large number of special buildings such as Level 4 Singularity without limit and without consumption. This makes the Awakening Empire too powerful, and the decadence buff does not play its due role.
4,The change "recruiting Leaders costs unity" is for game balance. In the mid to late game, you don't need too many leaders, and the cost of recruiting these leaders is very low, and it may only take you a few months of unity output, this change is only effective in the early game. If the cost of the first few Leaders is reduced, then this balance change is more ineffective. It is recommended to change back to the original 200unity to recruit a Leader and no additional unity for every owned leaders(50 more additional unity change it's useless for balance in the mid to late game)or add more additional unity for every owned leaders.Increasing additional unity costs on an exponential scale(first 100 cost,second 200,third 400,fourth 800) is also a good idea.

 

[Ketrai]

I'm happy about some of the changes, but overall I feel like many, many grievances went largely unaddressed. Including a couple elephants. I'm not just going to repeat what I said last post completely, but to summarize.

- Spiritualists still one of the worst builds at unity. See byzantine bureaucracy, see trade league trade policy. This is ironic given their access to theocracy and +20% unity, but it doesn't hold up versus bureaucrats thanks to secondary bonuses....

- Rapidly rising unity costs still doesn't really make unity that competitive versus research. (Especially for planetary ascension)

- Sprawl managing bonuses are needlessly powerful. Hives can still reach 0 sprawl from colonies with civics and ascension perks. Certain civics are a must have now for many, many builds.

- Tall is far more powerful than wide play now. It's all about limiting sprawl because of oppressive penalties.

- Several civics have lost their niche or had it seriously crippled. Rogue Servitors limited access to coordinators actually makes them worse at unity production (even when trophies are so cheap), but better at other things like tech stacking. Machines and hives don't get leaders so miss out on a lot of unity. Nobles were gutted, duelists, death priests, chroniclers. Limiting the way players can effectively play certain builds limits diversity.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...eta-feedback-megathread.1507028/post-28029879 (Previous post on the last feedback thread.)

To illustrate once more how skewed the balance changes are, I'm happy to announce that egalitarians are very powerful once more. I don't feel like avoiding half the game mechanics out there should allow for a decent build, unfortunately. (Illustrated in the screenshots below)

Oh, and maxed out bureaucrat ecumenopoli can easily reach 3000+ unity/m late game. (Not illustrated in the screenshot below.)

 

[TempestM]

Leaders costing Unity has to go, lowering the cost won't do. At least certainly until we had a better leader pick system than just 1 out of 3 with recruitment reroll when traits are so important for another rolling mechanic (techs).
Having to rely just on luck when you can get a required scientist/admiral from the first pick, or didn't get one after 20 rerolls, in a 4x, is not fun at all.

 

[-Herek-]

(I edited my latest reply, so I decided to post what I edited as a new reply so it won't get buried and to explain it better)

As others have said, Planetary Ascension as it is now not only lacks flavor but it's not as that much viable for Tall empires due to the fact that in order to get max effect from it it requires heavily specialized planets. Tall empires usually don't have that many planets so they can't specialize them as much as Wide empires.

In order to add flavor to the whole Planetary Ascension and to make Tall empires more viable, I suggest these changes:

• every time you use Planetary Ascension to level up your planet there's a chance to get a permanent bonus to your planet.
• the smaller empire you have, the higher chance to get a permanent bonus to your planet upon leveling it up.

this would not only add flavor to the whole Planetary Ascension mechanic, but it would also make it more interesting and viable for Tall empires.

Edit.: it also means that Wider empires, that can have more specialized planets than Tall empires would benefit more from the bonuses to their planetary designations, and Tall empires, that cannot have that much specilized planets would benefit more for getting the permanent bonuses to their planets.

 

[Mataphysical]

I chose to focus on terraforming planets in my own borders instead of blobbing or habitat building. There are not enough uses for influence. I also chose leader lifespan upgrades, so I barely even got to use it on elections. Influence reaches 1000 before year 2300.
It would be nice to be able to trade it for something useful.