So I guess we both had worthless comments that didn't have a point. Here's an idea: How about we both stop doing that.
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Conquer a few planets, economy crashes-- 2.2 in a nutshell
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When you have pops that can be promoted intently to specialist but take year to go to worker, that's a broken system. I don't understand why so many people are defending this system.
Many of us are defending it because it is much more interesting than the old system which excelled in blandness and in micro with little meaning. yes the new system has a lot of micro too, but I feel like it is micro that involves decisions instead of involving only a long series of no-brainer clicks.
I'm not saying we should go back to the old system, only to let us have more control on the system we have now.
Not having control isn't a problem, as long as you play according to the level of control you actually have. If you can't force pops down to a different stratum at will, don't put yourself in a position where you need to do that.
Seriously now, it is not that hard. I have never had any serious problems with it as I scale up my economy or advance to higher tier buildings. The closest I came to problems was when I was assimilating 4 recently conquered colonies at the same time and that only required me to sell a few resources on the market to avoid energy zeroing out and setting martial law for a while on the new acquisitions.
I am not claiming any special skill. This just isn't that hard.
(For those who are wondering, I play on captain difficulty. I have tech/tradition advance set to 1.25 and habitable worlds set to 0.75. I use a random start instead of a clustered one and do not let advanced start empires begin next to me.)
I am not claiming any special skill. This just isn't that hard.
(For those who are wondering, I play on captain difficulty. I have tech/tradition advance set to 1.25 and habitable worlds set to 0.75. I use a random start instead of a clustered one and do not let advanced start empires begin next to me.)
You're dodging my arguments. Instead of addressing the main subject of micro limitations vs good macro planning, you're shifting to a detail that's not the main thrust of your argument. Your issues are not solely based on pop demotion, unless everything else you've said was superfluous, including the original post, as pop demotion wasn't even mentioned. Regardless, it's just another element of limiting your direct control over your pops to force you to shift your focus to the macro building/district game instead of doing that part haphazardly and then making up the difference with pop micro.
If a system rewards good, intelligent play while punishing sloppy, poorly thought out play, it's a good system. I understand longing for the 2.1 days where you could micro your way out of any situation, but I'm glad that option is gone. It makes the economy a much more meaningful, but less tedious part of the game.
I "dodged" it because I've already addressed it, and I'm tired of going around in circles with people on this crap. You and about everyone else are just rephrasing the same arguments over and over again. The system is not "rewarding" unless you like this type of economy simulator, if you do that's fine, have fun. But this is not a good system. It is a connect-the-dots play style, and if you do anything other than follow the path you will fail.
Now there are ways to keep the economy simulators elements while also making the game playable for players who don't like that crap. One is by giving players more control. For example, letting us drag-and-drop pops. But for some reason people are saying that is bad thing. Why? Because you don't like options? "Well I like playing this way, therefor everyone should also play this way," how about you play the game how you like and everyone else will do the same.
This is just letting players micro their way out of poor decision making. If you want to reduce the time spent managing your economy, that's the opposite of what you want. Shouldn't you want less clicks on your planets and pops, not more?
Regardless, if you don't want to play a game that includes major economic elements, then fine. Leave. If you just want a war game with minimal economy, there are better games for you. They've turned the economy from a meaningless clickfest into one of the most engaging economies I've ever played in a 4x or grand strategy game, and people are whining about it because you can't just casually toss down buildings without a care in the world, and then micro if you make a poor decision.
If you want them to improve automation, fine. I fully support that, as it's the actual solution to your issues, just as sectors were the solution to this issue before 2.2. But I don't support dumbing down the system or adding more micro so people can play a mindless pop micro game instead of a much deeper economy game.
I think the new economy system is better than old planets.
You guys are complaining about the type of micro. The old system was basically, which tiles have bonuses, move people there build right kind of building on right kind of resource tile. Empty tile? Use for stuff that generates unity or happiness. It wasn't really engaging. It was just, look at type, pick right building. Or maybe it was, figure out what you wanted on empty tiles, or if a 1 food tile was worth using for a farm or just ignoring and putting a power plant. It certainly wasn't rocket science.
This micro takes less overall effort, because you really only need to pay attention to it when the unemployment or housing icon shows up. It is actually less of a pain to deal with. You make quick decisions about what you want, but there is a level of depth to. Does the planet have more agri districts? you could make it a farm world and get the farm bonus. Or maybe you need a forge world, and you make a lot of forges and even out the 3 district types to make sure you get the right bonus.
It does reward people who check their planets rather than waiting for unemployment or housing icon, and the wide range of builds and upgradable buildings are balaned out by resource costs. If you build too many upgraded research centers you might need another world that produces synthetic crystals. Did you want to settle so many worlds, now your developed worlds are losing all pop growth to emigration, is it worth the effort to resettle to pop 10 and get rid of the -50% pop bonus? Only if you are careful and dont drop your worlds under one of the building slot requirements and blow up a building. Did you need to change up what you are building? Not so fast, you might end up with too many unemployed specialists if you switch over too much stuff... can you move those specialists elsewhere?
The system is pretty easy to use at a very basic level but has depth. In my opinion, this is better than before. Both easier and deeper mechanics. Is it perfect? Of course not. I would like better control of job assignments, for example, as it is, moving pops from job to job is a massive pain, and all you can do is close down slots on individual buildings, and they wont reopen if pop becomes available, leading to dumb unemployment. Sometimes things will screw you over if you arent careful, like if you conquer several planets and have your defualt race settings set to slave, your planets will suddenly experience massive depopulation as the ruler class has to go over to new planets to take control. Then you might get a ruined building or two. Learning to work around the flaws is part of the challenge.
You guys are complaining about the type of micro. The old system was basically, which tiles have bonuses, move people there build right kind of building on right kind of resource tile. Empty tile? Use for stuff that generates unity or happiness. It wasn't really engaging. It was just, look at type, pick right building. Or maybe it was, figure out what you wanted on empty tiles, or if a 1 food tile was worth using for a farm or just ignoring and putting a power plant. It certainly wasn't rocket science.
This micro takes less overall effort, because you really only need to pay attention to it when the unemployment or housing icon shows up. It is actually less of a pain to deal with. You make quick decisions about what you want, but there is a level of depth to. Does the planet have more agri districts? you could make it a farm world and get the farm bonus. Or maybe you need a forge world, and you make a lot of forges and even out the 3 district types to make sure you get the right bonus.
It does reward people who check their planets rather than waiting for unemployment or housing icon, and the wide range of builds and upgradable buildings are balaned out by resource costs. If you build too many upgraded research centers you might need another world that produces synthetic crystals. Did you want to settle so many worlds, now your developed worlds are losing all pop growth to emigration, is it worth the effort to resettle to pop 10 and get rid of the -50% pop bonus? Only if you are careful and dont drop your worlds under one of the building slot requirements and blow up a building. Did you need to change up what you are building? Not so fast, you might end up with too many unemployed specialists if you switch over too much stuff... can you move those specialists elsewhere?
The system is pretty easy to use at a very basic level but has depth. In my opinion, this is better than before. Both easier and deeper mechanics. Is it perfect? Of course not. I would like better control of job assignments, for example, as it is, moving pops from job to job is a massive pain, and all you can do is close down slots on individual buildings, and they wont reopen if pop becomes available, leading to dumb unemployment. Sometimes things will screw you over if you arent careful, like if you conquer several planets and have your defualt race settings set to slave, your planets will suddenly experience massive depopulation as the ruler class has to go over to new planets to take control. Then you might get a ruined building or two. Learning to work around the flaws is part of the challenge.
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So basically fuck the people who don't like what you like. Great logic. I'm done with you.
There's definitely situations you'd want more control. Ex: I'm playing genocidal Space Elves, and every time I conquer a big planet, a handful of my pops arrive, some become ruling-class and some become administrators. But the Specialists often don't become enforcers, which I need to lower crime enough to stop the crime events which causes big negative effects like lowering stability (which would substantially reduce production on the planet of the former occupants being worked to death even more than it starts out as). If I want to do it myself I currently have to deprioritize whatever specialist jobs they're on until they get on the job I want them to have, and then I have to eventually reactivate them. This can easily require up to 30 or so clicks, depending on how cooperative my pops want to be and depending on the level of development of the planet I conquered. Drag&Drop would have reduced the overall number of clicks I would have required to do this, as well as cut time.
There's other situations where one would want stronger interaction. For a different example (sectors), because of the order I colonized three planets, I ended up with 1 sector of 1 and 1 sector of 2, but 1 sector could have easily encompassed them all. A way for the player to re-draw sectors (with some constraints) would be good for sector management, which should also be good for reducing micro as the ability for the player to consolidate sectors when they can means fewer sectors lying around and a more compact sector view.
Improved automation is fine and all but can't necessarily be counted upon, and a manual handbrake hurts nobody.
well...someday I hope either paradox will implement a POPs dragging(or normal priority..which will be a priority, not open slots) or someone will make a mod doing this.
and then 2.2 will be perfect (even if it'll be implemented for people with Migration Control, or even tied only to Authoritarians and Hiveminds)
also some improvement to UI or QoL changes could be done to pops. like resettle directly from the population screen(to resettle exact pop you want) or "resettle all\race\stack" buttons
If I went into an RTS community and complained that the economy was way too simplistic, I'd be laughed out. I don't know why you think it's so unreasonable to respond in kind when someone complains that they can't just play war and ignore the rest of the game in a 4X or grand strategy game. But go ahead and ignore the entire rest of my post if you don't want to consider that you might be wrong in your approach or that the proper fix is something other than dumbing down the system.
In the very specific situations where you have 4-5 pops on a planet you need more control, sure, but the current system is fine for that. A better option for improvement would be for enforcers to be higher priority than other jobs, perhaps only when crime is above a certain level. That way, no clicks are needed. Again, as I said earlier, improvements to automation are the right fix, not more micro.
I 100% agree that more control over sectors is necessary to fix the micro complaints. People who don't want to engage as much with the economy should be able to have reasonably sized sectors (I favor player controls here), have the automated building work well, and be able to give sectors resources on a monthly basis. That's all fine, since it's largely one-and-done, and is really just managing automation at a very high level. It's very different from wanting to micro the economy down to the most infinitesimal level by moving pops around.
I would love to see better prioritization and job swapping between jobs of the same stratum, though I think there are bigger issues (like sectors) that I'd rather see done first. Adding in a system for dragging around pops when we can now have hundreds on a planet instead of a max of 25 seems like a terrible micro hell to me, and I can't fathom why people think it'll reduce micro...
"The path?" That doesn't make much sense. There are plenty of ways to play the current economy well.
The fact that you don't like the new system enough to learn how to play it doesn't mean that others haven't learned to play it. It does mean that you're not much of an expert on what competent play looks like, though.