empire size and planetary ascention rework needed

[smile444]

I disagree with the wide-empire shouldn't out-tech tall - they should be roughly on par.
Having 4 times the amount of scientists shouldn't make you gain knowledge slower. Definitely not 4 times as fast, but absolutely not slower.

With Unity it's different. Having a large united empire should be orders of magnitudes harder than a united small empire.


Yes, they do.
Especially in terms of unity.
Large empires fracture and fall apart reliably at some point. Some last longer than others, but a significant amount of large fast conquest-built empires have been crumbling within a few generations - if not dissolved immediately after the conquerer king died.

Smaller realms are inherently more stable - with the most significant threats to the status quo being external.

This is where i'd like to go with Stellaris.
Larger realms should face threats of rebellion and instability - those should be resolvable, but investment-intensive. Because that is the reality of large realms.
Smaller realms should have a much easier time dealing with internal issues and get to thrive in their stability. Their economy should be smaller in scale, but more efficient.


^ all of this.
Conquest is way easier than tall play. Not only do you just hit a ceiling in tall play very quickly (which wide also hits in their core sector - so no benefit there), but you also have to work for it even more to even stay competitive.

No. If a wide empire can keep up with a tall empire in terms of tech, they would have both a bigger economy AND similar tech. There is no point in playing tall. Out-tech is how tall empires compete with wide ones. It is not a question of reality, it is a question of balance, and this is why it is present in most 4X games. ANd unity alone cannot make the difference. It would be extremely difficult to rebalance tech and unity in such a way that unity would be much better than tech, and as such a unity rushing tall empire could compete with a wide empire with similar tech.

You didn't understand what I meant by no bearing on reality. What you mentioned about how large empire tend to crumble from internal dissent is true IRL. But stellaris is a game, it is not irl and it doesn't try too much to be realistic. There is no mechanic that mimic the difficulty of running a large empire, and again creating such a mechanic would be difficult.


Now difficult doesn't mean impossible and I admit it would be interesting. But increasing tech and unity cost is a tried and true method. It is a viable way to fix the issue. And as much as i like the idea, i'd rather have the game to be balanced

This whole wide vs tall debate is a bit flawed I think. It shouldnt be that wide should be worse than tall in tech. In fact I would suggest Wide>Tall just that it shouldnt be such a difference. If you have 30 colonies and someone has 5 you should be able to out tech them and it shouldnt be that If the 5 has 1 research planet you need 6 research planets of the same level to compete. Its a complicated balancing thing I know but it just really shouldnt be that tall is better than wide in really anything.

as long as there isn't a negative feedback look, Wide will always be so massively superior to tell that there is no point in playing tall.

 

[MrReaper182]

it is explicitly meant to do that. Or more accurately it is made to make tall playstyles viable. Yes larger empires are more powerful but they pay for that power in tech and unity costs, this is something that is common in 4X games. And as it stands there are not enough ways to upgrade an empire that doesn't involve getting as much territory as possible to make it competitive. Or to be precise not enough ways that a large empire cannot compensate by building more science labs.



i completely missed your post. It is a good idea. I'm going to write a version of it there immediatly



I completely disagree and if anything it shows that you have a narrow view of Tall plays if you think it is lazy first even if you don't expand, you still have to defend yourself from would-be invaders. You still occupy a significant chunk of territory and with all your production bonuses and well-developed planets you're still a juicy target for anyone who manages to take over your territory. Think how fallen empires have little to no territory but give huge rewards to anyone that manages to beat them. You're not quite that far, but same principles.

Also, Tall plays require more fine-tuning and micromanagement, meaning you have to work on developing your economy. It's a different kind of fun sure, kinda like a management game. but it does require the world, making the game more about empire-building than expansion.

Finally the game does not revolve around war. The devs have expended all the diplomacy systems for a reason. It's a big part of it sure, one you probably can't escape, but that's not all there is to it. You can build a federation and take over the galaxy and without invading anyone.

If you sent of yourself to the future using a time machine to a future time where the Milky Way was being populated by lots of different empires you would quickly find that paying tall would only doom a species who did that as they could not get the resources to build a up a army to take on hive minds empires who saw them as nothing but food who had a wide empire or any other empire who would want them gone for what ever reason with a wide empire and were never coming to the peace table.
There is no grantee that the empire form the future who is using the playing tall way of building a empire could from a federation with another empire as aliens might not be so easy to get along with.
I get that Stellaries is a game not just about war (I really try to role play the politics of my empires species in my head when I play and try not to just start wars just for the shake of starting wars) but playing tall in a game about empires is just dooming your empires species to excitation as the strong always bully the week it's sad to say.

 

[Nevars]

If you sent of yourself to the future using a time machine to a future time where the Milky Way was being populated by lots of different empires you would quickly find that paying tall would only doom a species who did that as they could not get the resources to build a up a army to take on hive minds empires who saw them as nothing but food who had a wide empire or any other empire who would want them gone for what ever reason with a wide empire and were never coming to the peace table.
There is no grantee that the empire form the future who is using the playing tall way of building a empire could from a federation with another empire as aliens might not be so easy to get along with.
I get that Stellaries is a game not just about war (I really try to role play the politics of my empires species in my head when I play and try not to just start wars just for the shake of starting wars) but playing tall in a game about empires is just dooming your empires species to excitation as the strong always bully the week it's sad to say.

How is tall empire can't get resources to build up military?

They can just take it from their various subjects with collectively about the size of andromeda galaxy so they can build military that darf literally all milky way wide empires combined then subjugated all of them.

Sorry if you want to use your fictional scenario to justified something I can also use my fictional scenario to debunking it.

 

[HFY]

playing tall in a game about empires is just dooming your empires species to excitation as the strong always bully the week it's sad to say.

The only "tall" empires we've seen posted here on the forum were Overlords which kept their core population small by exploiting other empires to provide all their basic resources.

The only "tall" empires we've seen posted here on the forum were the strong bullies who exploited their weak neighbors.

 

[Nevars]

the strong bullies who exploited their weak neighbors.

Hey they are protected from all harms and still have self-governance, they just have to pay tax to me.

I think that's quite a bargain compared to the alternative of being directly annexed lol

 

[smile444]

If you sent of yourself to the future using a time machine to a future time where the Milky Way was being populated by lots of different empires you would quickly find that paying tall would only doom a species who did that as they could not get the resources to build a up a army to take on hive minds empires who saw them as nothing but food who had a wide empire or any other empire who would want them gone for what ever reason with a wide empire and were never coming to the peace table.
There is no grantee that the empire form the future who is using the playing tall way of building a empire could from a federation with another empire as aliens might not be so easy to get along with.
I get that Stellaries is a game not just about war (I really try to role play the politics of my empires species in my head when I play and try not to just start wars just for the shake of starting wars) but playing tall in a game about empires is just dooming your empires species to excitation as the strong always bully the week it's sad to say.

The only "tall" empires we've seen posted here on the forum were Overlords which kept their core population small by exploiting other empires to provide all their basic resources.

The only "tall" empires we've seen posted here on the forum were the strong bullies who exploited their weak neighbors.

Hey they are protected from all harms and still have self-governance, they just have to pay tax to me.

I think that's quite a bargain compared to the alternative of being directly annexed lol

If you sent yourself to the future you will find that humanity is either pretty much the only sentient species in the galaxy, or that there is maybe one or two aliens sentient species max. There may be a plethora of other alien-looking sentients but they are the descendant of the above, it's just that genetic manipulations, technology like cyber tech, or even good old evolution completely changed them. You'll also find that there isn't a true interstellar empire, just a bunch of self-governing completely independent empires, each limited to their own solar systems, because ftl is impossible. Also those systems are chock full of habitats and Dyson spheres and halfway disassembled planets that no one ever actually settled on because building habitats is much easier than terraforming and we don't know yet the effects of a lifetime at a gravity different than our own homeworld, and the only artificial gravity we can produce is spin gravity.

Point is Stellaris isn't IRL. Now if someone went to the future of the stellaris galaxy, he would find that the crisis and every expantionist empire got their as kicked by a federation of systems, one of which who somehow managed to out-tech everyone so fast they are at fallen empire level of tech.

Actually there are other ways to play Tall than overlord gameplay. ANd those predate overlord gameplay.

Megacorp can gather quite a ressource by putting branch offices everywhere. without ever-expanding. Habitat spam can allow you to have a pop similar to a wide empire in an empire the size of a pinprick, and it is possible to tech rush so fast you get a Dyson sphere by the midgame when you no longer can expand.
You can create a federation to get a federation fleet, become the custodian to get the custodian fleet, and any of the above with decent tech to build your fleet with will wreck a crisis. ANd you can have both.

point is, you can use one or several of the methods above to become a powerhouse without expanding militarily or getting vassals. Of course, doing that is much easier, and there is no point in doing it unless you're doing it for the memes, but you can.

 

[evilcat]

Solution: Each designation MUST provide atleast 10% increase in inportant output like tech, alloy, cg. That means that ascension buffs important bonus not something random like build speed. Mineral discount is nice, but we dont build forge world for minerals.
There are variations like add 5% bonus output for ascension, but this has similar effect of base 10% +25% of that. And designation giving 10% at start and then buffing that is just easier to implement and understand.
People sometimes ascend capital, since that 10% bonus to everything is exacly how ascension should work to be useful.

 

[Nevars]

If you sent yourself to the future you will find that humanity is either pretty much the only sentient species in the galaxy, or that there is maybe one or two aliens sentient species max. There may be a plethora of other alien-looking sentients but they are the descendant of the above, it's just that genetic manipulations, technology like cyber tech, or even good old evolution completely changed them. You'll also find that there isn't a true interstellar empire, just a bunch of self-governing completely independent empires, each limited to their own solar systems, because ftl is impossible. Also those systems are chock full of habitats and Dyson spheres and halfway disassembled planets that no one ever actually settled on because building habitats is much easier than terraforming and we don't know yet the effects of a lifetime at a gravity different than our own homeworld, and the only artificial gravity we can produce is spin gravity.

Point is Stellaris isn't IRL. Now if someone went to the future of the stellaris galaxy, he would find that the crisis and every expantionist empire got their as kicked by a federation of systems, one of which who somehow managed to out-tech everyone so fast they are at fallen empire level of tech.

Actually there are other ways to play Tall than overlord gameplay. ANd those predate overlord gameplay.

Megacorp can gather quite a ressource by putting branch offices everywhere. without ever-expanding. Habitat spam can allow you to have a pop similar to a wide empire in an empire the size of a pinprick, and it is possible to tech rush so fast you get a Dyson sphere by the midgame when you no longer can expand.
You can create a federation to get a federation fleet, become the custodian to get the custodian fleet, and any of the above with decent tech to build your fleet with will wreck a crisis. ANd you can have both.

point is, you can use one or several of the methods above to become a powerhouse without expanding militarily or getting vassals. Of course, doing that is much easier, and there is no point in doing it unless you're doing it for the memes, but you can.

How the heck is megacorp tall predate overlord tall when tributary swarm is older than the very idea of megacorp?

Heck the exploit of OPM vassals swarm for infinite naval cap was much much older and so op that next patch got the entire vassal play nerfed to the ground thus overlord player need to switch to full tributary swarm instead.

Also plz stop with your fanfiction and using as a point in debate, I can equally write silly fanfiction to nullified all your points.

 

[HFY]

you will find that humanity is either pretty much the only sentient species in the galaxy

We're probably not even the only sentient species on the planet. We are awesome (HUMANITY F...RIENDSHIP YEAH), but we're not alone, not even at home.

Point is Stellaris isn't IRL.

Uh, no, the point is that so far what we see of successful "tall" builds are very active and aggressive.

They are not cowards who hide. They are not lazy. They are not passive. They are not oppressed. The other poster was mistaken about characterizing "tall" builds.

Not really interesting in going off-topic into a discussion about how one of my favorite sci-fi games isn't reality (yet). That's fine, it's sci-fi, we know fiction isn't real (yet). The game mechanics can be discussed even if the tech wouldn't work IRL (yet).

 

[SeraphAscending]

We're probably not even the only sentient species on the planet. We are awesome (HUMANITY F...RIENDSHIP YEAH), but we're not alone, not even at home.

One could only argue that for sapience, but even that isn't clear if we're the only one to have that. (Hard to test for, after all.)

That's fine, it's sci-fi, we know fiction isn't real (yet). The game mechanics can be discussed even if the tech wouldn't work IRL (yet).

Exactly. Realism discussions and gameplay discussions should be entirely separate.
Realism should inform gameplay, but obviously not the other way around.

If only one strategy is viable, because that's what we've determined to be most realistic, the game loses a lot of appeal.
It is important to make alternatives possible and viable, even if we lose a bit of realism there.

 

[smile444]

We're probably not even the only sentient species on the planet. We are awesome (HUMANITY F...RIENDSHIP YEAH), but we're not alone, not even at home.



Uh, no, the point is that so far what we see of successful "tall" builds are very active and aggressive.

They are not cowards who hide. They are not lazy. They are not passive. They are not oppressed. The other poster was mistaken about characterizing "tall" builds.

Not really interesting in going off-topic into a discussion about how one of my favorite sci-fi games isn't reality (yet). That's fine, it's sci-fi, we know fiction isn't real (yet). The game mechanics can be discussed even if the tech wouldn't work IRL (yet).

you never played tall if you think playing tall is lazy or passive. There is a lot of micromanagement involved, and often enough even if you don't go to war, war comes to you, meaning you have to prepare accordingly.

And it's more like the current "Tall builds" are actually wide builds with extra steps. And at the risk of repeating myself, there are ways to win while not expanding horizontally. They're just somewhat gimmicky and there isn't really a reason to play them rather than a wide empire.

How the heck is megacorp tall predate overlord tall when tributary swarm is older than the very idea of megacorp?

Heck the exploit of OPM vassals swarm for infinite naval cap was much much older and so op that next patch got the entire vassal play nerfed to the ground thus overlord player need to switch to full tributary swarm instead.

Also plz stop with your fanfiction and using as a point in debate, I can equally write silly fanfiction to nullified all your points.

megacorp predate overlord, as in the DLC.

And tell that to the other guy, he's the one who thought his fanfiction was reality. Not only that but that "fanfiction" is far from impossible in Stellaris. All the tools for it are already here.

 

[HFY]

"tall" builds are very active and aggressive.

you never played tall if you think playing tall is lazy or passive.

Did you quote the wrong post?

It looks like you're agreeing with me, but from your tone it sounds like you think we disagree.

 

[Nevars]

megacorp predate overlord, as in the DLC.

And tell that to the other guy, he's the one who thought his fanfiction was reality. Not only that but that "fanfiction" is far from impossible in Stellaris. All the tools for it are already here.

Actually there are other ways to play Tall than overlord gameplay. ANd those predate overlord gameplay.

But your original statement did not specific that you means Overlord DLC.

You said overlord gameplay, the most obvious interpretation is playstyle that being overlord with a bunch of subject aka vassal swarm or tributary swarm which predate Overlord DLC.