Clerks need something

[Cronos988]

With the latest change, I think that turning off all clerk jobs will still be the "correct" choice, but not doing so now will be far less damaging to the AI and players that don't know better.

A side benefit of turning off clerks is it makes it easier to manage the whole S-curve growth without thinking about it too hard. In general, you are better off if pops are moved from your more populated worlds to your less populated ones. Turning off clerk jobs provides an organic way of doing this w/o the micro of looking up planet capacity and current growth bonuses on each planet. I still think it's worth turning off clerks for this reason alone.

I now prefer removing clerks entirely and reworking all commercial zones to provide a smaller number of merchant jobs (should probably also look at housing). This is more in line with an overall reduction of the amount of pops and the size of the economy.

 

[MrGuyPerson]

I now prefer removing clerks entirely and reworking all commercial zones to provide a smaller number of merchant jobs (should probably also look at housing). This is more in line with an overall reduction of the amount of pops and the size of the economy.

I agree, and I say this as someone who really wanted clerks to work. I think commercial zones could produce 1/2 merchants (maybe with a planet limit of 5 or something if needed for balance), and then the galactic stock exchange could function like the other resource enhancing buildings (provide a merchant job or two, plus additional trade per merchant). It might also be nice if Megacorps and merchant guilds received passive trade and amenities from urban districts (the tradition in prosperity could improve the trade value and be available to all empire types). The prosperity finisher also needs to be reevaluated. Even on my biggest planets, I might get two merchants from it by the late game.

 

[Millbot]

Something to bare in mind, there will always be the "worst" job type. Clerks got pegged for that when the game was made. I doesn't see productive to try and bring them out of that spot because then we'll get new threads about job x not being worth it.

So the better question is what needs to be done to make them worth existing as the job of last resort? What needs to be done to ensure they stay above just turning off the jobs for utopian abundance or consumer welfare? What needs to be done to keep them from being annoying micro? What also needs to be done to keep them relevant because trade doesn't scale.

I know the current beta patch has reduce total jobs, which was in order. The problem with last place job, is that if you struggle to reach unemployment when playing right. Then last place job is never going to be turned out. The buff to their trade output also helps, but that will only help in early game and then people will feel disenchanted with the job again.

I would suggest instead of adding a tech that outright buffs clerk trade value and let's also be honest merchants likely need scaling as well. Why not have each repeatable that buffs the output of a resource from both jobs and mining stations also slightly increases trade value that clerks and merchants generate. Have the advantage of these two jobs being that they scale passively as you improve your output in other parts of the economy.

I know a possible risk to this is that they might end up better than other jobs, but tweaking can be done to keep the job as the last preferred, but always being better than any unemployment setup.

Finally, another question that should be asked, is what should be done to make both merchants and clerks a more integral part of a megacorp's economy? I mean their direct economy within their empire, not branch offices. I think it could be argued that in that setup, technicians at the very least should be the bottom tier job for megacorps, perhaps even miners and farmers should be there as well. You're a megacorp, the pride of the ideal job in your empire is going to be a more mercantile job than basic resource gathering. In fact, such an empire seems like the type that would look down on such jobs.

 

[GnoSIS]

the buff wasn't enough. In my current updated beta game, I still close the jobs off.

 

[Cronos988]

Something to bare in mind, there will always be the "worst" job type. Clerks got pegged for that when the game was made. I doesn't see productive to try and bring them out of that spot because then we'll get new threads about job x not being worth it.

That's true, but only to an extent (largely determined by how easy it is to convert resources). Most other jobs are the only source of a given resource.

The way the game is set up, it rewards local specialisation. Hybrid jobs like clerks don't really fit into that

 

[Gobla]

One thing to take into account is that clerk output isn't modified by habitability. And clerks provide 2 amenities which covers their need on a 0% habitability world.

With consumer benefits your clerks will, even on 0% habitability easily cover their own upkeep and more on almost all living standards and provide energy for your empire.

So colonize all those red planets, pump them full of clerks and bureaucrats whose job output isn't reduced and profit right from the start.

 

[DanielPrates]

I'll just drop this here real quick and leave: all the above is pertinent, but it will never be perfect while trade is just "trade equals money" or "trade equals half money half unity" etc. Trade is a hell of a thing, it should be made into a more interesting mechanic on itself. People would value their clerks then.

 

[Millbot]

That's true, but only to an extent (largely determined by how easy it is to convert resources). Most other jobs are the only source of a given resource.

The way the game is set up, it rewards local specialisation. Hybrid jobs like clerks don't really fit into that

Depending on where the job numbers end up, this might not be an issue.

It's only really an issue if you swimming in so many specialized jobs that you aren't hiring clerks because it makes more sense to have those pops work the specialized jobs. If specialized jobs run out before you hit your pop goal for the world, then you only option is to go with the non-specialized jobs. You have that setup and all that really needs to be done is ensuring you don't have so many jobs that clerks might as well not exist and that it's not more feasible to have a pop be unemployed or a domestic servant.

I mean, I do think part of the issue was that there were so many jobs, not sure if this patch fixes it, that all the low performance jobs got culled unless they absolutely needed to be filled.

Make their trade value scale with tech and probably buff the amenities they provide. Honestly, I'd like to see entertainers get tweaked so that that they are on par with clerks on amenities, but are a better source of unity, not to the point that overtake culture workers. So that the question between amenities from clerks or entertainers becomes whether you want more trade value, but at the risk of it emptying when better jobs open or unity.

Also agree that they do need to look into energy. If it's going to be essentially money, that makes things harder to balance.

 

[Cronos988]

Depending on where the job numbers end up, this might not be an issue.

True. My argument is more that dealing with unemployment is a more interesting consequence of fewer jobs overall than viable clerk slots. The Devs have stated that they want unemployment to be a problem, and so having a job that is mostly associated with unemployment control seems like an unnecessary complication.

And you need to drop jobs very low to have an appreciable effect. I play with half-size planets and most clerk jobs deleted (or replaced by fewer merchant jobs) and I have yet to encounter unemployment problems despite not playing super wide or aggressive (albeit with base growth at a flat 3 for organics and around 1.5 for new machine colonies). I can build habitats and have yet to convert any planet into an ecu, so I'm clearly not anywhere close to my theoretical maximum even if I don't expand further (which, unless I purge, wouldn't help with unemployment anyways).

Make their trade value scale with tech and probably buff the amenities they provide. Honestly, I'd like to see entertainers get tweaked so that that they are on par with clerks on amenities, but are a better source of unity, not to the point that overtake culture workers. So that the question between amenities from clerks or entertainers becomes whether you want more trade value, but at the risk of it emptying when better jobs open or unity.

I think it might be interesting if we shift away from the simple model of simply having a single building per "need". On the other hand the current system really doesn't offer any alternative to "focus tech and alloys" as a strategy, so any attempt to diversify jobs might be wasted.

As a side note, if you give housing districts 2 amenities directly (rather like the way luxury housing), the amenities are significant on worlds that require lots of buildings, like research or bureaucratic centers.

 

[ruzen]

I dont understand why clerks should worth more than they are!?

Why can they just be a sideeffect of a big economy and give only infrustructure for economic systems to work(as in real life)


In stellatis they do that. They consume a(trade value) and represe t the white-color jobs(as i describes above)

Clerks are perfect in the beta

 

[Cronos988]

I dont understand why clerks should worth more than they are!?

Because as they are, clerks are a "disable this job every time you build a city district" minigame.

 

[ruzen]

Because as they are, clerks are a "disable this job every time you build a city district" minigame.

It souldnt be the only reason though.

 

[hangry]

I really like the new clerks in the current beta. In my current game I play with the merchant guilds civic and the thrifty trait and I have zero generator districts and all my industrial districts are focused on alloys, because I generate all the consumer goods I need through the consumer benefits trade policy. My main is focused on commercial zones, commercial megaplexes and nothing else. It may not be the best build, but it's viable with clerks producing 4 trade (5 with thrifty). I have 177 pops right now and they produce 365 energy credits and 182 consumer goods.

Edit: That way you can play with militarized economy to get +25% alloys, but the -25% consumer goods don't matter, because consumer goods from trade isn't impacted by it.

 

[Bayushi Tasogare]

I'll just drop this here real quick and leave: all the above is pertinent, but it will never be perfect while trade is just "trade equals money" or "trade equals half money half unity" etc. Trade is a hell of a thing, it should be made into a more interesting mechanic on itself. People would value their clerks then.

Something I thought of while reading this thread is that maybe Clerks could reduce the Cut from the Market? Increase the default to something large (50-60% maybe), and then have each Clerk reduce it by some amount.

The reason I think this is that Clerks generate the only 'thing' in the game--trade value--that doesn't have a fixed use. Any attempt to improve Clerks should take this into account: their purpose seems to be 'the flex job'. So one way to do that is to reduce the Market Fee... this makes all of your resources more interchangeable, which seems to work towards the flexibility idea.

In fact, if you wanted, you could make that what Trade Value does. Your Market Fee is calculated as some ratio of your total resource production to your trade value. So you can make resources directly, and have a difficult time interchanging them, or you can make a lot of trade value, and all of a sudden, you can trade minerals and energy 1:1, or something.

 

[Incompetent]

Because as they are, clerks are a "disable this job every time you build a city district" minigame.

This is even more true of maintenance drones for Gestalts, only it's more annoying because you probably *do* need some of the jobs (and the number increases as you make pops), just not very many compared to what the game provides, and you want the excess to be unemployed so they resettle. (You also want to make sure any underpopulated planet has positive amenities, otherwise drones won't resettle there, not even if there's a maintenance job they could take.) It's terrible for the AI too, which can't shut jobs like this, and so an AI-run planet often either has a ton of utterly useless maintenance drones, or all the pops are promoted out of maintenance drones which means it has no amenities.

We desperately need something that can automate the "keep amenities above 0 but otherwise amenities don't count as useful work" minigame and/or can get pops to resettle when the planet has run out of *useful* jobs as opposed to completely running out of jobs.

 

[Astax]

Why cant City district give entertainer and artisan job D: Or maybe give one Clerk job and bury the other two in some tradition tree.

 

[Millbot]

High amenities contributes to stability, so turning clerk jobs on and off isn't straight forward as it seems. Really, if employment is suppose to be a thing, then there are too many jobs. So any easier fix is getting jobs down to reasonable levels. Perhaps it's time the devs took a look at prosperity tradition that adds clerks, can't recall the and the wiki doesn't have the names (not going to boot up the game solely so I can check a tradition name that should be in the wiki).

Might I suggest that said tradition just boosts what the clerks we have already can do. Also makes it no longer a dead end trait for void dweller, don't think this tradition does anything for them since they technically don't want planets.

 

[Zenopath]

Clerks are real bad now, but they could be fixed with a simple change; make them produce 4 amenities and 0 trade. They'd basically be same as maintenance drones ta that point, bad... but not worthless. They would still suffer in comparison to entertainers or other amenity providers, but they can also be used with no regrets since they don't take up a building slot and you get a lot them anyways as you are forced to build more city districts than ever before.

 

[Sinister2202]

I hate things that happen that's out of my control. And megacorps are one of those things. Their branch offices increasing the population sink that is the clerk job, needs to be changed. More clerk jobs is bad news in this update.

I think clerks should give 0.5% district job output per. I don't know about others, but this makes sense to me. The district jobs are prioritized before clerks do anyway, so if clerks are gonna come in later, they might as well be the colony maximizing factor. Lore wise, commercial zones are a bunch of skyscrapers full of offices, and clerks are office workers in finance, which means they are "mini corporations", bankers and investment firms. What do these guys have in common, than to try to acquire assets by taking pieces of industrial pies, and then increase their output to efficiency and meet demands, for gains? This will also be beneficial for megacorp that suffers from lower admin cap potential, and can even motivate them to play tall. Perhaps even give one of their megacorp civics a +0.5% more, making clerks whip out 1% district output per. Doesn't even have to be strictly district output. This sorta makes sense for maintenance drones too. The point of maintenance is not only to make sure everything runs fine, but on time as well.

This is post-scarcity capitalism. If money doesn't exist and one's wealth is judged by how much energy they can put out, it might as well be raw resources and production to be the true currencies.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

High amenities contributes to stability, so turning clerk jobs on and off isn't straight forward as it seems. Really, if employment is suppose to be a thing, then there are too many jobs. So any easier fix is getting jobs down to reasonable levels. Perhaps it's time the devs took a look at prosperity tradition that adds clerks, can't recall the and the wiki doesn't have the names (not going to boot up the game solely so I can check a tradition name that should be in the wiki).

Might I suggest that said tradition just boosts what the clerks we have already can do. Also makes it no longer a dead end trait for void dweller, don't think this tradition does anything for them since they technically don't want planets.

That's a good idea I think. The lesson with the specialization buildings was that stuff should add production to jobs, not add jobs. Adding jobs just means adding more voids to fill (and doesn't make the jobs necessarily worthwhile), while adding production to jobs makes things better.