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

[Silens]

Ok, a few more observations/impressions:

- Influence is really, really severely underused. Now that relic activation, most megastructures, planetary decisions etc. all cost unity instead of influence, any meaningful use for influence would be appreciated. In an earlier post I already mentioned using influence to improve diplomatic pacts, so here are some more ideas: use it to improve the efficiency of envoys, use it to improve federation cohesion or use it for special decisions like giving a temporary market fee reduction.

- Now that I'm in the lategame phase, I have to say... well, I can't see myself using more than one single small edict, everything else is far too expensive for what little bonus it gives. Now I'm fully convinced, edict capacity was by far the superior system. Speaking of: The Executive Vigor AP, once one of the best Ascension Perks (when it doubled, and after balancing still gave +50% edict duration), is more or less useless. +100 Edict Funds? I have a mid-sized empire (37 systems, 600 pops on 24 colonies), my sprawl is 800, small edict upkeep is 90, medium 180 and big edicts 270. With funds of 220 I couldn't run a big and a small edict at the same time without going over budget, even with the AP. Please, give us back edict capacity, the new system is complicated for the sake of complexity, it's not fun.

- Unity Ambitions: even more than edicts, those are somewhere between deceased and dead. While I could previously run all of them (I'm not saying I want that back), now I can't even afford one of them. They are ridiculously overpriced: 130k unity base cost and 1.2k monthly upkeep? Considering they're paid content, that's a bit troublesome and in serious need of better balancing.

- Empire size calculation: Pops, districts AND planets cause sprawl, in addition to systems. This seems a bit excessive. For now governors provide a bit of a relief here (-2% empire size from pops per gov lvl), but not enough. Until we get Empire Institutions to deal with it, I'd like to see more options for well-organized planets to reduce its impact, aside from the vastly overpriced ascension tiers. Maybe allow for the governor bonus to include districts and planets?

- AI is great. Not only can AI empires keep up, but they also feel more alive and active. They actively build megastructures and gateways and manage their planets well enough. Good work!

- Leaders: Not directly tied to the unity cost of leaders, but indirectly. I've gone Synth Ascension and am constantly losing leaders to malfunctions. Compared to pre-ascension, I lose more of them than before. Now I have to replace them agan and again, which gets really expensive after a while. Also, unlike everyone else, envoys didn't ascend. The cost of hiring leaders feels balanced, at least if I wouldn't have to re-hire them due to being ascended.

And that's it for now, I'm back to testing.

 

[Frydendahl89]

Just an update on my previous post, after thinking a bit more:

Edict funds should scale with sprawl, to remain a permanent capacity to run a set of edicts for free.

The techs that now grant edict funds, but previously gave admin capacity, should boost the empire-wide unity production.

Right now scientists jobs scale very well in terms of the science they produce versus the costs of later techs, but unity production scales very poorly versus the rising unity costs as the game goes on. Making some traditions to help boost unity production would also help unity empires specialise further.

 

[Otacon]

Hi Paradox,

I jumped in on the new beta when it started and have played more than 100 hours since with the new changes. And in short: I, for one, like them - for the most part.

I disliked sprawl in the previous version as it made me feel like I had to keep its malus at zero or I was something wrong. Hence, I felt the need to spam administrative offices everywhere, which just felt like an unnecessary chore. Sprawl was meaningless, you simply built one building to combat it. It could have been completely skipped.

With the new system, sprawl is an integral part of your empire and you have to ensure that administration and research keeps up with your colony/population count. Or you willfully decide not to, because you currently have other issues and need the building slots for something else, i.e. to combat an imminent threat. This wasn't really possible previously, as sprawl used to cripple your empire.

So, in general, I absolutely agree that this is the way forward. What I disliked:

- Influence for those that do not need much diplomacy (xenophobes/purifiers, swarms, assimilators) is almost useless, as may have pointed out already.
- I feel the cost of edicts is so high, I never really use them. Only the smaller ones that fit my edict cap. I rarely find myself with a surplus of the thousands of i.e. energy credits it now costs to run a campaign. Are they designed to be only short-term relief now, aka is it a game design choice to run a deficit (in most situations) while on a non-unity edict? If so, that goal is achieved - if not, the price is too high. As mentioned before, I personally almost never use edicts now until the very late game when all ascension perks are used or ridiculous income from i.e. dyson spheres is available.
- I haven't really cared for planetary ascension tiers and find the whole management of planet designations bothersome. I found no compelling reason to invest time in it, so I assume it should either be more important or its importance needs to be communicated better.

 

[Archael90]

Edict funds were introduced to help tall empires where funds would cover some edicts. Funds are not meant to cover all edicts, not even to cover one whole edict in wide empire, and this goal is somehow achived, yet edicts on its own are too expensive. Funds are great but wider empire have more unity production than taller one, and thus they both can enable more-less same edicts. Imo tall should be able to use more tho.

 

[Asran]

I finally properly tried merchant spam void dwellers in 3.3, and it was a painful experience. Between the amenity issues habitats now have in general, increased consumer goods cost of merchants and nerfs to Merchant Guilds, it was a struggle to scale up your economy.

It feels like you are even more forced to Trade League federation for that +50% multiplicative bonus to effective trade output from the trade policy (assuming 0.125 is the correct unity conversion for that policy — the current 0.25 value is even worse in this regard, and probably the best source of incidental unity in the game.) It just feels bad that you are essentially forced to federate to make this playstyle strong, and particularly since the best way to get that federation running is cheesing it by releasing a useless one-planet vassal.

While I agree that merchant spam void dwellers should get some adjustments, I would suggest that you target the trade league policy instead and revert some of the merchant/merchant guild nerfs — the former is the core issue and a janky mechanic to boot. Generally the amenity balance for void dwellers needs fixing too.

 

[Red Death]

After playing both a megacorp game and an inwards perfection (but very widespread) game, I have a few notes:

• For megacorps, the fact that they still get the sprawl penalty increase feels unfortunate because it's a flat penalty and doesn't really change your playstyle, mainly because your branch offices also increase empire size.
• So, consider instead giving them specifically something like +100% empire size from systems (and maybe colonies). That way, you are actually pushed to keep a smaller blueprint.
• Also, please give Megacorp liberation wars the same treatment you gave to megacorps releasing vassals. I don't want to create more megacorps!

• Ascension is unoffensive but not very impactful, and mostly doesn't feel like something I should be delaying my traditions for.
• I actually do not really like using unity for this, since in my mind, it's an advancement resource like research, and it does not feel good to use on other things when traditions are still available. (Kind of like in eu4 with monarch points and tech)
• Influence is abundant when not playing a megacorp (branch offices are a good influence sink) and before habitats are available. I think non-megacorp empires that are unwilling or become unable to expand must always have a way to spend that influence to improve their empire. Funnily enough, if planetary ascension cost influence instead of unity, I think that would do the trick.

• Empire size penalties are a welcome partial rubberbanding system, but I feel its effects on tech are still a bit undertuned. I'd suggest running a test with double it's current effect and see if that is too punishing.
• Maybe the name change from sprawl to size will help players not try to manage the mechanic in the same way they used too, but I do not have the perspective to see if that's how it's working out.

• Base costs, empire size increases and static edict budget combine to make edicts not feel worth taking most of the time. (especially those that have internal tradeoffs already).
• Consider letting Empire Size affect edict budget, so at least those tech are still useful for larger empires. (and everyone has some choices to make on at least one or two free edicts)

 

[Sovieticozasz]

I want to talk about one of the worst civics in the game, one of the few that actually make your empire worse by taking it. It is "Rogue Servitors". even with the 3 unity trophies in the beta.

¿Why do i think it makes you worse for taking it?, well it changes 1 thing it removes your hability to build Uplink nodes and gives you 5 organic pops at the start that are locked into "mandatory pampering liveing standards" that need to be housed in sanctuaries.

These organic pops have several drawbacks, they are for all intents and purposes one of the worst pop jobs available in the game, they have the following stats:

Upkeep: 1 food and 1 consumer good
Produces: 3 unity and increases the production of complex drones by 1%

At a first glance doesnt look that bad, lets illustrate this with an example, lets assume a planet with ideal conditions where you have the following:

50 Fabricator drones (produces Alloys) 6 base.
50 Calculator drones (produces Research) 4 of each type base.
and lets assume due to technologies capital building and modifiers we only have a 50% increase in production on both witch is EXTREMELY low for the time you will have a planet of this size

each bio trophy will give us in this planet the following:

4.5 unity, 3 alloys, 6 science (2 of each type).

3 bio trophies will produce by this numbers:

13.5 unity 9 alloys and 18 science (6 of each type) for a cost of 3 consumer goods and 3 food

for comparison having 1 more Fabricator, 1 more calculator and 1 Coordinator (witch you dont have acces to) instead will net:

8 unity 9 alloys and 18 science (6 of each type) for a cost of 10 minerals and 11 energy

if we convert the costs into energy taking into account that 1 mineral equals 1.3 energy or 1.3 food and that 1 consumer goods equals 2.6 energy (standar market values at the start of the game) the costs end as follows:

Bio trophies cost 11.7 energy and the robots 24 energy

this is probably one of the best case scenarios, and the bio trophies are "marginally" better, this is a planet with a lot of complex drones, with very low multipliers to production and i have taken the most costily values possible por the conversion to energy costs, and even then the trophies dont even net you production, only better upkeep for it. You will be better instead of having 4 bio trophies having 1 robot in each category and 1 robot in energy production. ¡And this is an ideal scenario for the trophies!

and this is not the worst part, this part would be manageable and even reasonable, the worst part is that it cripples you in 2 very VERY important ways.

the first one is that it prevents you from making and using coordinators. Coordinators are a very ineffective way (in terms of upkeep) to get unity, 4 unity for 5 energy base. but you can make them on demand to boost your unity income, you CANNOT do that with rogue servitors, you start the game with 5 pops that can produce unity and you grow them at a ratio of 2.25/100 per month per planet with perfect hab.

You will always lag behind in unity unless you conquer or raid another biological empire, and even then the unity they provide is subpar in quantity and getting great numbers of bio trophies exacerbates the other problem.

And that problem is that, (and this is what i think makes the rogue servitors worse than not havin any civic at all) you will have less usefull pops on the long run, each bio trophy you get makes any following pop more expensive to manufacture netting you a loss in the number of more useful pops in the empire and making them much much more expensive in alloys. So , growth that is the only thing this civic brings to the table is... well moot.

All of this problems are worse in the beta since unity is so so very important and not only you produce less than the other machines, now you cannot even focus on the oh so important unity resource.

 

[AnemoneMeer]

After more fiddling around with Megacorps in 3.3, I think I've pretty firmly worked out my suggestions.

Megacorps as they stand in the current version of 3.3 are just plain terrible. Most of their civics are bad, and the civics they have that are good do not work with 3.3's changes. Permanent Employment is an extremely strong civic... for 3.2, and is extremely defining for Spiritualist in particular, which has long lacked access to Pop Assembly while gaining bonuses from popspam via Gospel of the Masses. However, Every pop generates 1 sprawl, which after the massive size penalty Megacorps take combined with the reduced yields from Zombie pops, results in some extremely crippling sprawl issues. This civic would have been amazing in 3.2.

Other civics like Media Conglomerate simply do not do enough, or suffer the same issue as Permanent Employment, like Private Prospectors does. But the primary reason for this is one simple thing. While many of them need individual changes to be more than extremely minor stat increases, all of the good ones right now suffer from the exact same issue.

Megacorps take 50% more sprawl penalty from pops than normal empires.

Gospel of the Masses scales with population. Permanent Employment scales with population. Corporate Death Cult encourages stacking Population Growth to take advantage of its mechanics. Indentured Assets scales with conquest, and thus empire size in general.

Even some Megacorp exclusive buildings further encourage this approach. the Xeno-Outreach Agency further encourages population gains via immigration. However, each and every pop needs to work around 50% harder to be equivalent to a normal empire's pops in terms of research and unity. Which means strong civics and empire bonuses. Which Megacorps do not have.

Beacon of Liberty grants +15% Monthly Unity and -15% Empire Sprawl from pops. Brand Loyalty Grants +15% Monthly Unity and +25 Edicts Fund. Nationalistic Zeal Grants -20% War Exhaustion Gain and -15% Claim Influence Cost while Media Conglomerate grants -5% War Exhaustion Gain and +5% Citizen Pop Happiness. Idealistic Foundation also grants +10% Citizen Pop Happiness. Feudal Society grants No Unity Upkeep for Leaders, Governors Generate Unity, -50% Leader Cost, and -50% Subject Power Relations Penalty, while Franchising Grants -33% Subject Power Relations Penalty and -25% Size from Branch Offices.

Megacorp Civics are Statistically Worse than Standard Civics, while Megacorp Pops need to work harder than standard pops.

Normally, this would be fixed with Branch Offices. You can just build yourself some pop-less resource generation. And you know what, Branch Offices are legitimately great. But, as stated from Franchising, Branch Offices generate Size. Additionally, their development is directly tied to the development of the empire it is built on. A Private Research Enterprise generates 18 research, 6 of each, and is not modified by technologies that boost Researcher Output. A Researcher generates 12 research, 4 of each, and is modified. After reaching +50% output, by any means, Researcher pops are equivalent in output to Branch Office structure research in output/sprawl ratio. Researcher output can be increased to +100% in all fields simply by techs, but is also modified by factors such as Stability, Specialist Pop modifiers, and similar.

But what about the other Branch Office buildings? Private Military Industries generates 3 Alloys. As does a single Metallurgist. Metallurgists are modified by stability, have buildings that flatly increase their output, and have techs that increase their output. Private Military Industries does not. So it starts worse. Soldiers vs Mercenary Liason Office is the only case where Megacorps come out ahead, as a soldier is worth 6 Naval Capacity while the building is worth 10.

Yes, you can build multiple buildings on a world. But in single player, this is based on the AI upgrading the world. While they are generally extremely quick to get to 1 building, they are actually extremely slow to get to two. In my testing, many worlds did not have two Branch Office building slots until 2300 or later. Let that sink in. There were few if any planets with two building slots until after we were throwing Battleships at eachother. Across multiple games. Once more, this is not to say Branch Offices are bad. They are a fun and engaging mechanic that adds a new strategic dynamic to the game. They are simply incapable of compensating for the issues plaguing Megacorps at the moment. They really do try their best and were actually very well balanced in 3.2. But you can't use Energy Credits to buy research.

But, there's one single additional nail in the coffin for Megacorps right now. Every other Empire Type grants a positive modifier in addition to its other effects. Hive Minds gain -25% Empire Size and +25% pop growth speed. Imperials get +1 Power Projection. Dictatorial Empires get -10% Empire Size Effect, Oligarchic gets +15% Faction Unity Gain, and Democracies gain +50% Resettlement Chance. Machine Empires were also changed to have new benefits.

Megacorps are the only Empire Type who's Empire Modifier is entirely a downside, even among the playstyle changing empires.

--------------------------------------------

So, how do we fix it? The answer is honestly very simple. Megacorps have Branch Office buildings that generate pops. They have Civics that generate pops. They have civics that generate value directly from pops. Megacorps are designed around pops. So, lets just lean into that all the way.

Make Megacorps take less size from pops.

Reduce their penalties from pops. By a lot. Just strap a -50% to it or something. Maybe colonies too to reward habitat spam and mass terraforming. You can keep the increased size penalty if you want. It's annoying, but we can just compensate for it by adding a huge size reduction from pops. Hell, make systems cause MORE size too.

Now the worse civics aren't a problem (save for a few), because our pops are more efficient. Now Permanent Employment is good, because without huge size penalties from the extra pops, the fact they're bad pops doesn't even matter because they're more pops. Now Xeno Outreach Agencies are good, because more pops at less penalty.

And guess what. Subsidiaries become EXTREMELY valuable with this too. Having better vassals to control all the systems you can't control because big size penalties means not wanting systems that aren't filled with worlds for you to exploit. So give them to your minions and take the best systems for yourself.

-------------------------------------

A small cluster of extremely dense and profitable constructions surrounded by and staffed by workers who work for but do not live on the land owned by the company, is about as Megacorp as it gets. Having a few systems stuffed to the brim with profitable worlds, habitats, and starbases, while exploiting the empires around you for workers and money and controlling their governments feels pretty much peak Banana Republic. It feels Megacorp. And that is, in my opinion, how they should be balanced. You don't want or need systems that don't earn you money. Let the nations play their games of territory. No, you want to take their most valuable systems, staff them with their own people, and sell their own resources back to them for profit.

And it all clicks together. If you just give them a modifier to encourage them to get as many pops as possible.

 

[Silens]

After playing for a while, I have to say: the performance is really great. I'm at 2550 (600 star galaxy) and it's almost as smooth as in the beginning (and I have an 8y old 4th gen intel CPU, far from being new or fast). Whatever you guys did, it worked.

Also, I can't help but praise the AI: several factions built megastructures (Science Nexus, Mega Shipyard, Sentry Array etc., not just gates), Juggernauts are flying around, one AI has become Custodian and tried to make a grab for unlimited term (I got just enough influence to veto that). And they keep up in an all-out war against an Awakened Empire, worlds get cracked... and I just sit there, surrounded by my friends in a martial federation (which wasn't founded by me!), waiting for my chance once the Custodian falls.

The Galaxy feels alive, the AI puts up a fight, isn't a pushover... I applaud you, dear Devs, for your fine work.

 

[fourteenfour]

PDX

If you want to foster tall play without resorting to ridiculous penalties then have us spend unity to manage systems and planets. this would have the wide player have to trade their tradition growth for empire growth. Unity as an expression of running your empire aligns perfectly with managing a growing and expanding empire. Combine this with reigning in tech bonuses (there are far too many), research per job, and how stored research is consumed, means you can tone down tech rushes very easily.

At this point, the silliness of renaming sprawl to size is fooling no one. If you are not going to allow us to lower the penalty then remove its display.


The bug fixes have made a large galaxy easy to play through even in late in the game. I don't have that annual hiccup as much as before either. however nothing you have done manages the tech rush because you aren't doing it right.

 

[TSBasilisk]

Spitballing here, but if the edict fund is too small to be useful past the early game, what about having Politician type pops increase the Edict fund while generating less unity? That makes non-politicians more attractive for unity generation while linking Politicians more to the government.

 

[Spidee]

Hello,

I think the Alien Zoo needs a bit of a buff. 150 cheaper minerals, 1 lower energy upkeep for the same as an Holo-Theater, at the cost of having to research a tech felt....disappointing. Maybe 4 Entertainer jobs, or some additional benefit.

 

[CometBliss]

The game starts to get laggy after a while, about 50-75 years end and way late game it makes no progress probably due to all the pops throughout the galaxy. In my singleplayer game I devastated so many planets with a colossus and the game still lagged though. I'm not sure what causes it if it is the population or if it is something else going on behind the scenes.

 

[Bad Bill]

The "new" Beta certainly has some improvements on the "original" one, but one basic problem still remains: Influence, particularly in the early game. I have been playing a bunch of different single-player galaxies with empires with different starting conditions, all intending to play broad (I'm lousy at playing tall...) and going 30 years or so into the game. Pretty much uniformly, I have found the expansion rate in the early going to be somewhere from 20% to 50% slower than in the tons of single-player games in my past (I've been playing this thing intensively since version 1.7). There simply isn't enough influence to do stuff, and no way to up the flow of it except to hope that some Influence-granting event or anomaly comes along unusually early. Is that slow growth, at least when playing broad, a goal of this game version? If so, I hope the developers are OK with an increased number of beginning players who give it up after starting a couple of galaxies and finding the pace so slow as to be boring.

Solutions might be any or all of:

• Larger Influence bonuses in things the player can control, e.g. choosing the Domination Tradition
• Paying for treaties out of Unity rather than Influence (this is a huge Influence sink early if one is playing a Xenophile)
• Adding an Influence increment for the fleet, by granting it to Science ships and Construction ships as well as warships (it's already distasteful to play a Pacifist empire and have to build tons of warships just to boost Influence gain)
• Some mechanism for cashing in Unity to "buy" Influence, maybe with a penalty in the form of increased chances of getting a Corrupt Leader -- seems logical, doesn't it?

 

[ruhrbaron]

Dear PDX. please. please reconsider making tech costs scale with pops, it makes neither economic sense nor does it fit the setting, 40k is hilriously off in that regard. In economic growth theory, both empirically and theoretically, tech progress has constant returns to scale wrt. population if not even increasing returns to scale, so decreasing makes no sense. more people can work more research jobs producing more tech and that's good.

Arguably, if returns to scale of research were negative we wouldve never made that much scientific progess that quickly - thats what breaks the immersion in a setting where from the invention from FTL to jump drives maybe 200y pass by.

Instead, either make bigger empires slightly more unstable or imho much better, more realistic and importantly not immersion breaking, make tech spread to other empires reducing their tech costs - which fits the model of technological spread much better too.

Other than that i absolutely love 3.3, the game perfromance looks really good

 

[Lidhuin]

A couple of positive highlights:

1. Performance is great!
2. AI is better in many ways

One thing re egalitarian:
Egalitarian ethic increases unity gain from faction
The egalitarian faction is impossible to get 100% approval from
Therefore, the egalitarian ethic doesn't actually increase unity gain from factions, as unless you manage your pops to get 90% xenophile attraction (easy enough, but boring), you're actually better off being not egalitarian to get unity from your factions. Conceptually anyway - I haven't done the math.

Please consider making it possible (not necessarily easy) to reach 100% approval with all factions.

 

[Valleo]

Hello there,

Really good update. I love the 3.3 and the rework done on unity, but I still have a balance issue about one of the new features : Zombies (and I was excited about it).

I really don't see the point using zombies.
They are costing a civic, but after a few years (between 10 and 15), robots will be unlocked.

We could see zombies like organic robots, but they have -25% resource output and they cannot ever become specialists. The absence of consumption and the assembly cost does not compensate, especially if we consider habitability that affects zombies and not robots.

As zombies are taking the assembly pop slot, why a player would chose to make undeads instead of robots ?
Especially for Megacorps that are supposed to be played tall, meaning they would need a bigger proportion of specialists (because they will have less pops).
But Zombies are bad workers, meaning the small population of the corp will be less efficient than empires having made robots from the beginning, even without counting the ability of droids to become specialists !!
If at least they would have been superior workers, stuck in the worker stratum forever but superior to any other in this domain, I could have understood.

I was also thinking assembly bio pops would have been great for spiritualist empires, wanting to avoid robots and still be a little bit competitive, and I was hoping to use zombies to do stuff like that, but the outcome was really disappointing.

In the end, zombies are nothing more than really bad robots.

I would see only 2 ways to make them attractive :
- Allowing them to become specialists later on (and without the -25% production penalty), making them basically bio robots.
- Keeping them like they are, but drastically increasing their production output (like, +25% instead of -25%). Allowing to have super workers, great for a short term growth, but never allowing to have the tons of specialists usually given by robots.

 

[Lidhuin]

Consider removing the cap on unity gain from all sources. Who decided that a maximum of 1000 unity every 10 years for Democracies was in any way desirable? That's less than 10 unity per month, and to get it you'd need to be producing 167 unity per month. Similar problems occur with tech & events.

In contrast, I've seen no such cap on tech gain, which just scales infinitely with your research output.

 

[TSBasilisk]

I love how each page of this thread seems to have one person saying "Nerf tech rush more, the sprawl doesn't do enough!" and another saying "The sprawl penalty on tech is absurd!"

 

[Harakani]

I'd be okay with this beta pretty much as is.
However...

LEADERS
I tried not to cycle leaders (and played a game as Feudal so I couldn't).
Two things broke my resolve.
1. Recruiting and seeing 3 of the same speciality - that I already had. This happened enough I started to wonder if there were heavy weights or an issue with the randomizer.
2. When a bunch of my scientists started dying of old age and I had to rerecuit the cost was so minimal I ended up cycling for someone good enough to 'replace' the scientist I lost. Specifically Spark of Genius and particular tech specs.

Can I please suggest
- change the randomizer so you get offered three *different* specialities.
- could the cost be a % of monthly unity (like 200% I think) this would make it relatively cheap at the beginning and expensive at the end UNLESS you were doing badly.
- spark of genius is too good. Change the number of 'options' to 2, but give a bonus 'passion' option for each spec. Tech specialists will have one from their branch (I know scientists - a biologist will have something biological they're interested in). Maniacal gets a rare (possibly lowest tier available). Spark of genius has no passion so gets -1 option. Give the others a combo of reasonable passions so Explorer gets particles (drives & engines) & propulsion (thrusters) - not as worried about the other specs because it is rare to have them in the research tree, but at least it would be a choice. This'd make the option interesting (I really want better drives, but don't have a particle spec... maybe put that explorer in)

ADMINISTRATORS
administrators do feel a bit weak compared to other specialists.
- give priests get a bonus based on spiritualist ethics
I'm okay with priests being about the same as bureacrats so long as there is still a *cheap* edict that gives them a 20% bonus. This then means spirtualist empires can essentially use part of their excess edict fund as actual unity. On the other hand, if this is supposed to be a no-brainer maybe just remove the decision? Something that gave a bonus to priests based on the spirutalism of the planet sounds awesome. It means very holy planets would have temples, rather than temples making planets holy. Given a chunk of spiritualist playstyle seems to be making everyone spiritualist giving them a bonus seems good. Could also do it by changing their "Unity per ascension" building to be +X% unity where X is spirutalism percentage up to 25/50/100.
- call priests clergy
if they're administrators, they are more than a single job, they're a whole system.
- give bureacrats a bonus to bureacrats
I would like to suggest making bureacrats weaker, but giving them a % boost (<=5%) to bureacrats. This means a planet full of them will be way better than a single building on multiple planets. The bureacracy pushing for more bureacucracy seems very realistic, and allows for planets consisting solely of administrators (yay the movie Brazil).
- bring back culture workers
I still managed to get culture workers. They're now a bit misbalanced compare to administrators. My suggestions is balance for them, but make getting them super special. Might be nice if they were called 'Artists' though?
- please don't make death priests administrators.
Make them a special and allow empires that have them to build normal priests as well. I'd actually be tempted to make this a ruler tier job and a special building.


UNITY/STABILITY/AMENITY/HAPPY
I'm a little unsure of this, and the spam-checker won't let me post why.
I think amenity is the delivery of services.
If you have a planet with high Energy and low Amenities then people walk to the powerplanet each day for a bucket of batteries.
A planet where that happens is full of unhappy people. Unhappy people spend more time grumbling and are therefore less productive and more likely to rebel (stability). This might bring them together (Unity) or have them turn on each other, so has nothing to do with unity.
If this is true, then administrators should do more for amenity. If 50% of your pop are bureacrats I'd expect the trains will run on time.
I've also no idea why entertainers make amenity better. I can see they increase happiness, but it feels like they should do more to increase unity than amenity.
If this isn't right, then a clear explanation of the interelationship would be nice.



PLANETARY ASCENSIONS
I love it
- I feel like to should be a Decision rather than a button though. And have it take at least some time. Alt you could put it on the planetary specialisation button and make that a bigger thing.
- Can we have it show up in the title?
- does need to be some thought about how it interacts with the planetary specialisations. Unlike other people, I've often been in situations where I'd prefer massively lowered upkeep to increased production. It would also help very small empires; if your alloy ecumepolois has workers who only need .5 minerals per alloy, you may not need a mining world at all. Conversely if your alloy workers are at +80% already, another +35% wouldn't mean that much.

SIZE
In all my playthroughs the planets component of Size has only really been an issue for Voidborne. I also always pick ecumenpolis now (bigger districts). Might need to juggle all these balances.
- I like planetary distance rather than size. Hopefully it would lead to more compact empires.

Edit:
Having played and thought a bit more...
I cannot believe how much better the game is thanks to the improved AI and speed. I don't want to gloss over it. Every other thing pales into insignificance besides how much more enjoyable the game is due to that.
Also though...
I seldom hire leaders from Artists, Mercs etc. I do now. Good, reasonable leaders that don't have an escalating cost? Sign me up. I realise all these leaders have downsides, but, eh. Democratically elected president Oracle says its good for the economy. Leader events are now awesome.
Might be worth Leaders adding to sprawl instead of costing Unity?
I did use a Unity edict late game, but I had to really think about it. A lot. I was building megastructures before I turned on Education Campaign. Would be nice if a bunch of these were Unity cost and "adds an X upkeep to Y", so that Edict Fund did something, and they scaled better.
Being able to turn edicts on and off was a bit dodgy, but it was REALLY good at letting me evaluate what an edict would do without having to commit to a 10 year plan or do a bunch of math. Turn it on, look how the numbers change, turn it off.
I'm guessing Colonoy/Planet costs size because it is a multiplier on pop growth and to a lesser extent planetary uniques? Would make sense why a habitat costs the same as a ringworld; both grow pops about the same speed.
I liked the old system for System sprawl, where you wanted adjoining systems. I am a little worried about wierd looking empires, especially when Gateways become available. Very tempting to just downgrade crappy systems. Possibly this should be per mining/research station? So you can have a 'DMZ' of systems where you do not bother to build anything inside it?
I like planetary ascension where (in general) basic resources give +X% production and advanced give -X% upkeep. Should be consistent though.
I love Trade Federation trade policy... too much. Might need to be wound back? A balanced policy is good, but maybe not 150% trade. This was overpowered before the patch though.
I love Size being out of 100. Just feels right. You're at 70% of your ideal empire size you can support - expand. You're at 450% of your ideal empire size - maybe calve off some vassals? Now that vassals don't do stupid things I just might.