Why destroy the districts and buildings when you can simply go in and turn the jobs off on the higher tiers?
Conquer a few planets, economy crashes-- 2.2 in a nutshell
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Can you share the ethos you are using?
I played a Authoritarian where every xeno was set to be a domestic servant, most of the times i would just send the xenos back to my primary worlds to be space butlers.
I was a Fanatic Militarist and Materialist, imperial empire. A basic set up I use for most games.
6/1 strikes me as irrational when production rates for anyone with a forge are between 2/1 and 3/1.
What should the rate be?
Or is this just an artifact of AIs not building enough forges?
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Hi there!
I'm a new player, so I didn't play pre 2.2, but I seriously don't think that the game is that hard when it comes to economy and population management. In fact, I kinda dig it. Once you get the gist of it, it's fun to find ways to adapt your newly conquered planet(s) to your needs and to survive the crisis period where the newly conquered planet doesn't do squat: On a sidenote, with a Machine Empire, Synth assimilator (and maybe Psionic assimilation, but there must be a couple of them in your Empire already IIRC), you can simply assimilate the new species using the species tab instead of waiting for things to settle down and for the assimilation to be complete (which could take years). The research will take a few months and your new colony will be fully complient after that. Works as intended I guess.
Your economy must be strong before you conquer, or you're going to crash hard. That or you should only conquer a few useful planets at a time: Don't try a large scale conquest, you'll end up in the red. Also, you can deactivate buildings or downgrade them if their upkeep cost is too high a one point. Honestly, I made a lot of mistakes and I sometimes end up losing the first game when trying a new species and it's intricate properties. I guess that it's part of the learning process.
Still, you're right in a sense that there is a lot of micromanagement when it comes to your empire economy, but I don't think this is a bad thing. Even on Admiral difficulty, you don't have to get it up to the point where it's perfect, but it forces you to think before and after expending. You've got to build whatever building fits your current needs in your new conquered planets, and you'll probably have to re-arrange everything a few times during the course of the game. I know I do and I totally rearranged my planets a few times in my last playthrough as a Driven assimilator machine empire. That thing was a micromanagement hell with nearly 5k pop by the end of 2500 dispatched on 25 or so planets and 3 full ringworlds (and a 4th in progress).
The game changed a lot, and I guess I didn't have to adapt to that change. Probably made learning everything easier for me, but still, I'm sure you'll manage.
I'm a new player, so I didn't play pre 2.2, but I seriously don't think that the game is that hard when it comes to economy and population management. In fact, I kinda dig it. Once you get the gist of it, it's fun to find ways to adapt your newly conquered planet(s) to your needs and to survive the crisis period where the newly conquered planet doesn't do squat: On a sidenote, with a Machine Empire, Synth assimilator (and maybe Psionic assimilation, but there must be a couple of them in your Empire already IIRC), you can simply assimilate the new species using the species tab instead of waiting for things to settle down and for the assimilation to be complete (which could take years). The research will take a few months and your new colony will be fully complient after that. Works as intended I guess.
Your economy must be strong before you conquer, or you're going to crash hard. That or you should only conquer a few useful planets at a time: Don't try a large scale conquest, you'll end up in the red. Also, you can deactivate buildings or downgrade them if their upkeep cost is too high a one point. Honestly, I made a lot of mistakes and I sometimes end up losing the first game when trying a new species and it's intricate properties. I guess that it's part of the learning process.
Still, you're right in a sense that there is a lot of micromanagement when it comes to your empire economy, but I don't think this is a bad thing. Even on Admiral difficulty, you don't have to get it up to the point where it's perfect, but it forces you to think before and after expending. You've got to build whatever building fits your current needs in your new conquered planets, and you'll probably have to re-arrange everything a few times during the course of the game. I know I do and I totally rearranged my planets a few times in my last playthrough as a Driven assimilator machine empire. That thing was a micromanagement hell with nearly 5k pop by the end of 2500 dispatched on 25 or so planets and 3 full ringworlds (and a 4th in progress).
The game changed a lot, and I guess I didn't have to adapt to that change. Probably made learning everything easier for me, but still, I'm sure you'll manage.
Specialists still cost food and consumer goods and there are foundries' building costs, space it takes and upkeep (sometimes rare resources). Plus, in order to have enough alloys for trade, you still have to create more of them than you actually need. 6 to 1 may appear to be awkward, but it makes sense.
It's 5:1. Unless there is something affecting trade ratio that I don't know of. Races who love me seem to give the same as races who are indifferent to me.
It seems fairly reasonable at game start. Building slots are limited, and complex manufacturing goods should command some kind of premium above what the pure input costs and worker time is. It's just that this starts to break down as all the productivity bonuses start adding on (increasing the output but not the input needs) while building slots become significantly less limited and basically uncapped with Ecumenopolis. It also gives a huge amount of versatility since you can run large mineral surpluses when going into builder mode and spamming districts/buildings, then let trades run out and go into war mode with massive alloy banks.
I believe it's just an artifact of the AI having excess minerals. I've never seen an AI not want alloys (which makes good sense), when doing these types of trades your limiting factor is the AI getting -1000 because it won't give all its minerals away. This trading strategy might be significantly less useful on lower difficult settings.
But it just is. If you try to micro manage every pop, job and whatnot, making sure each of your 20 species go exactly when their bonuses dictate, and if every 1 mineral lost will make you unhappy, then sure. I can now play even the widest game with no problem, if you go wide, there is the point when micromanagement become simply unnecessary, when you have so much of everything that just completely base attention take care of running your empire (you actually won by then anyway), and it's not even the endgame. If going not so wide, there is more micro, but less planets. Going tall there is again more micro but less planet.
In previous versions i only did barest minimum, no resource optimization at all. Managing more than 4-5 planets made me go crazy with endless stream of click, click, CLICK on every building. I would NEVER go back even if 2.2 broken literally everything else.
I'm getting 5.7/1 from fellow federation members, and 2.7/1 from a xenophobic isolationist.
I think the fundamental problem is that this is a fake market. Which isn't a terrible design decision -- I don't think anybody's ever made a real market work. But you're always going to see silly prices.
I think the fundamental problem is that this is a fake market. Which isn't a terrible design decision -- I don't think anybody's ever made a real market work. But you're always going to see silly prices.
it goes pretty fast now.
I remember while I was waging a war I left a fleet over the homeworld of the enemy. I moved some fleets around, did some stuff and at some point I was like: "hmm... I wonder how the bombing is going..." and checked up on it. it was at 100% devastation at that point already.
While I somewhat do understand people that complain about the current state of the game and the fact that the basic ruleset before 2.2 is now COMEPLETELY invalid ... I do NOT get all the fuzz about it.
I currently play a Materialist/Egalitarian Mechanist/Technocracy with bonus to Energy and Mineral production.
Why?
Simple...it only took my first game to realize that fast colonization does not work anymore. And that my main problems are within basic resource production.
It took me three (!) games more until I got a stable economy. Two more games to also get a decent fleet into the mod and not getting wanked by the AI empires in the early/mid game.
After that, I needed two games more to roughly measure how many planets I can conquer without my economy crashing.
TL;TR: There are totally new mechanics. You only learn by failure. You got to deal with it and stick to it.
I currently play a Materialist/Egalitarian Mechanist/Technocracy with bonus to Energy and Mineral production.
Why?
Simple...it only took my first game to realize that fast colonization does not work anymore. And that my main problems are within basic resource production.
It took me three (!) games more until I got a stable economy. Two more games to also get a decent fleet into the mod and not getting wanked by the AI empires in the early/mid game.
After that, I needed two games more to roughly measure how many planets I can conquer without my economy crashing.
TL;TR: There are totally new mechanics. You only learn by failure. You got to deal with it and stick to it.
ok. fair enough. you have a point.
even though I always have too many minerals that I usually just sell 10k on a marker once every few months\years
it's so easy to get them with just a few developed forge worlds...but almost nothing to spend them on
Districts/Buildings still cost some energy upkeep regardless if the jobs are on or off.
I vehemently disagree.
I definitely don't try to micro every pop and job, I can't really directly direct where my species goes, and when I do go through my planets around mid-game (2300-2350 ish), I'm often up to 2-4 unemployed pops at many planets. Not sure how you play, but my micro increases as size (wideness) increases, not decreases. The amount of time I spend looking just at planets when I just have 1, 2 or 3 planets is far less than when I have 10, 20, or 30 planets, let alone nearing triple digits.
What's your "widest game" look like? My current game is a 1,000 sector map, I own ~70 planets or so in ~30 sectors around 2360, >2000 empire sprawl with probably about that many uncolonized-by-choice ones within my borders. I've never reached a point where I can basically neglect my colonies, in fact my empire size is so high I'm considering cutting governors from all but my largest sectors as leader upkeep has become a plurality of my energy expenditures.
Now I'm perplexed. What did your barest minimum look like? That experience doesn't match mine whatsoever.
2.1, I'd directly manage 3 planets (3 inhabited sectors under personal control was the old maximum) and put the rest under sector AI hands, maybe with some planet pre-building if I wanted stuff arranged a specific way, or a specific building (usually 1 Stronghold/Fortress for FTL inhibitor, Planet Shields, or special buildings). I'd sometimes spam some droids or synths on some tiles sometimes but otherwise I'd leave it be. Other than that, much of the time was spent managing the fleet and starbases. I'd only need to go through my core planets myself to upgrade stuff when I got a new research and there weren't so many of those lying around anyways (3 levels per resource building type, IIRC?). Sector AI got the rest, and they did, eh, acceptably (didn't crash my economy at least)
Now I have to personally check all my planets at least every 2-3 years at absolute minimum. What used to be a footnote on my right-side scrollbar is now half-full of just assorted planets by mid-game. If I wait too much longer than 2-3 years, I get negative events due to housing/unemployment/crime or whatever aggrevating the situation.
I thought I was being moderately micro-ey with those builds, but if your barest minimum with no resource optimization was managing >4-5 planets then I'm not sure what to call what I did.
Once again, I'm not going back to 2.1, I like the general idea of 2.2, but it's also brought a ton of management issues, most of which could be resolved or at least lessened with a UI overhaul and fiddling with certain mechanics.
When I play HoI I play as luxembourg and just build civilian factories and nothing else all game, why can;t I win, paradox should fix this, and don't tell me I'm playing wrong otherwise the game is a failure.
In Le Guin, they are the same. They've all but removed the ability to micro pops, and pretty much all of the economy happens at the planet level, with buildings and districts. Pop management is about balancing housing, amenities, job count, and pop number, not about dragging pops to the matching tile like it's glorified Candy Crush.
I neither wait for unemployment or turn buildings off. Just keep the number of empty jobs on a planet in the 2-3 range, and pops will naturally work the jobs needed. It's really easy. It takes some attention for developing colonies, but that just means you need to learn when to call a colony "done" and stop growth so that that colony's pop growth gets redirected to a more useful place. If you have an empire of 70 planets and all of them are still being actively developed, you're playing wrong. Just because every planet can support 100+ pops doesn't mean they all should.
Pops doing whatever they want is part of the system. You now have to play with and work around pops that you don't have fine tune control over. Once you give up trying to get that back and learn to make the new system work for you, the game is much, much better than the old game. And that's why it's better. It improves the game by removing micro that was really meaningless. Now you have to plan and think around your pop behaviors, and that play is much more enjoyable than the glorified Candy Crush drag and drop tile system.
But his was much cleverer and actually had a point that addressed the original complaint.