Habitability might matter too much when deciding which species to grow

[Kryndude]

Playing with Syncretic Evolution civic in 2.2.5 here.
Only serviles have inadaptive cuz their upkeep is significantly lower which makes the 10% penalty trivial.
About 20 years into the game I notice the pop ratio is already 3:1.
4 out of 5 planets are currently breeding High Elves, so I assume it'll get worse.
Should 10% hab matter this much?
Maybe they should change it so that growth weight only differs among different hab colors(green, yellow, red)?

 

[Kryndude]

And don't worry people, I realized I haven't enslaved those filthy xenos and did it right away. All good.

 

[Urza1234]

They actually kept and in fact lowered their exponential habitability growth weighting, which already existed. This used to be set to start at 60% habitability(yellow) and now starts at 50% hability.
They seem to have added an additional habitability value starting at 200% habitability. I might assume that this new value is linear, hard to say and annoying to test.

Still, if they're at a 3:1 ratio with only a 10% habitability difference... thats just ridiculous; whatever its supposed to do, its very possible its not doing it.

 

[Urza1234]

They claim:

We will be adjusting how pops are chosen for growth, and try to avoid having pops move to, or being chosen for growth, on planets where they have a very low habitability. I feel like moving pops to those planets should be based more on player choice.

I dont really see how playing around with habitability values does much to augment player choice. Simply upping their previously existing exponential habitability value is all they need to do to make planets grow more according to habitability, my growth overhaul mod does that and it works just fine, but there is still no real choice involved.


Perhaps they should instead add a species right, policy, or planetary decision that ups habitability for the associated species/planet etc, and just keep their old exponential system.

 

[Kryndude]

Weird, I started a new game with nonadaptive on both species and the main species still outgrow the serviles for some reason. Now most of my worker jobs are held by my main speices with weak and decadant traits. Syncretic Evolution got nerfed in a bizarre way.

 

[Urza1234]

Weird, I started a new game with nonadaptive on both species and the main species still outgrow the serviles for some reason. Now most of my worker jobs are held by my main speices with weak and decadant traits. Syncretic Evolution got nerfed in a bizarre way.

Idk, thats really strange.

Question: Is this just on your home planet, or does this behavior persist on colonies? Your home planet grants your root species 2x growth priority, which in 2.2.4 and previously was countered by the 50/50 enforced ratio.

 

[Dustman]

Hm, time to look at Syncretic Evolution egalitarian xenophobe civ. Before it was almost impossible to get fine balance between master and slave/residence species, since syncretic specie was favored for growth too much.

 

[Kryndude]

Idk, thats really strange.

Question: Is this just on your home planet, or does this behavior persist on colonies? Your home planet grants your root species 2x growth priority, which in 2.2.4 and previously was countered by the 50/50 enforced ratio.

Well for low hab pop breeding planets I have yet to see serviles grow, so that contributes to the imbalance although in theory that shouldn't be the case. I also get the feeling that even on appropriate hab worlds I see my main species more frequently than serviles in the growth window. Total pop ratio is 73:31.

 

[Urza1234]

Well for low hab pop breeding planets I have yet to see serviles grow, so that contributes to the imbalance although in theory that shouldn't be the case. I also get the feeling that even on appropriate hab worlds I see my main species more frequently than serviles in the growth window. Total pop ratio is 73:31.

The only other mechanic I know of that could be contributing to that is Migration.

What you could be seeing is 2x growth of root species on homeworld -> Pop differential -> Migration from homeworld and other worlds maintaining the imbalance.

The game in all 2.2.x versions has already had a mechanic that weights growth by the number of a certain species already on a planet, its just that that mechanic up till 2.2.5 has been completely outweighed by the 50/50 ratio.

In 2.2.5 they nerfed the 50/50 ratio down to a value of 0.25, which doesnt directly translate to a 25% ratio or anything, but does mean that what you're likely to see in 2.2.5 is that over time every single multi-xeno planet in the galaxy will approach an equilibrium with 1 dominant species, with all lesser species combined constituting a plurality on the planet.

I cant help but ask, have you tried my growth mod? Because this is exactly the kind of issue it addresses. Only caveat is that its 2.2.4 only so far, I have an aversion for trying to mod an unstable branch.

 

[The Founder]

Only serviles have inadaptive cuz their upkeep is significantly lower which makes the 10% penalty trivial.

You just provided a very good reason that it should be that way: So the -10% is not irrelevant.
It is the same reason Repugnant/Charismatic now affect Amenities. So they stop being picks you can take without tradeoffs.

As the other said, there are a lot of factors prefering your Elve species:
- the Elves are the primary species
- the Valdari are residency or slave pops. That alone already was a huge penalty.
- the Valdari are technically a Xeno species (even if they are Xeno Species with the same Homeplanet)
- the Valdari have worse habitability on every planet
- the Valdari propably are not present from the get go (as you can not use Slave Pops for the Colonsit job).

 

[Urza1234]

- the Valdari are residency or slave pops. That alone already was a huge penalty.

The game actually has pre-existing rules to try to enforce a 50/50 slave-free ratio, and I dont think it has any rules about residency affecting growth weights.

 

[AppleBeam]

Hey, just a hint.

3:1 is pretty close to the ratio you want in the midgame if you allow robots in your empire. With 1:1 there is a very severe shortage of specialists somewhere around the time you are done with the initial expansion (assuming all your planets are also assembling robots). You will notice that you can easily support a lot more scientists etc, but simply don't have enough non-workers.

The issue disappears after you research droids (they can fill multiple specialist roles, freeing jobs for slaves), but it's entirely up to the tech roulette.

It doesn't invalidate your point about the habitability issue, but you don't necessarily want to fix something what is actually working in your favor.

 

[The Founder]

The game actually has pre-existing rules to try to enforce a 50/50 slave-free ratio, and I dont think it has any rules about residency affecting growth weights.

It used to be that species rights matered, both for Imigration and Growth. But at least the Beta no longer has those values.

 

[Urza1234]

It used to be that species rights matered, both for Imigration and Growth. But at least the Beta no longer has those values.

Educate me? What values? You're not literally talking about pop and migration controls are you?

 

[The Founder]

Educate me? What values? You're not literally talking about pop and migration controls are you?

Nope.
I mean something like "do not go to places that drop you from "residency or full to slavery" or "from full to residency".

But as I said, they no longer appear to be in the game with teh current beta. And maybe I just misread them to begin with?

 

[Urza1234]

Nope.
I mean something like "do not go to places that drop you from "residency or full to slavery" or "from full to residency".

But as I said, they no longer appear to be in the game with teh current beta. And maybe I just misread them to begin with?

Interesting, I picked up stellaris again after year+ long break in 2.2, and didnt deep dive the code again until 2.2.2, so yeah I guess I must have missed what you're referencing.
It may explain all of the complaint threads I saw over the break about xenos immigrating to slave empires, though that still does happen and I guess people just got over it.

 

[Kryndude]

I've done some testing and it seems giving inadaptive only to the main species balances out slave growth weight penalty (that I assume exists) so I get something like 45:55, slaves being the slightly favored ones. As Applebeam said this is a bit too much slaves though.

 

[KingAlamar]

View attachment 448928

Playing with Syncretic Evolution civic in 2.2.5 here.
Only serviles have inadaptive cuz their upkeep is significantly lower which makes the 10% penalty trivial.
About 20 years into the game I notice the pop ratio is already 3:1.
4 out of 5 planets are currently breeding High Elves, so I assume it'll get worse.
Should 10% hab matter this much?
Maybe they should change it so that growth weight only differs among different hab colors(green, yellow, red)?

I don't mind habitability mattering a lot HOWEVER other factors should be weighed like:

• For Syncretic species what's the ratio between "primary" and "secondary"
• What jobs are available for which species
• Is that planet labelled "thrall world" or similar