Help with a micro-friendly empire

[Dr. B]

Good afternoon

With the newest patch out, I consider buying the expansion and playing a bit.
However, I am scared about the micromanagement needed to administrate a large empire and AI's lack of ability to manage planets. I made a topic about this earlier and the responses confirmed my worst fears.

So, I need to find a playstyle that is not the most powerful, but easy on the micro. And normal empire, no hives or machines.

I am thinking this:
Xenophobe, stick to the master race and purge the xenos. No hassle with different species, and it is always good to be Xenophobe, it feels right.
Spiritualist, for unity and the ascension. Bio and Cybernetic means more micro, Psionic is fire and forget. And no pesky robots either. One race, one faith, one vision.
Then some focus on letting people migrate by them selves, to lush planets, so probably much terraforming, semi-tall playstyle, focusing on unity and tech while not neglecting defense. Like Inward Perfection without the Inward part.

What do you think, will this provide a relatively micro-friendly experience? Could I do something to help more? Any good traits, civics or ascension perks? Suggestions are welcome.

 

[Dr. B]

Is there really no way to reduce the horror of mind-crushing busywork by playing a homogenous empire?
Then Paradox has really done it this time, wow.

 

[Assman]

it's quite impossible at the moment I believe, on the recent playthrough I did 3 ecumenopolises in on the sector and the rest of the universe is for resources, and not even looking whats happen there... It was less micro this way actually, but then other problems...
massive overcrowding, rebels, pirates everywhere. and sector ai building unnecessary buildings...
actually, it would be better if I had chosen have mind or robot because I would not need to babysit my trade routes and forget about consumer goods so that's is something to think about

for now, the best way to play "wide" I found is to take myself all the dead space and make every enemy planet tribunary if you robot then ringworlds is the way to go, if not then ecumenopolis and have some mining planets by your personal choice I prefer about 8 - 14 depending on their size
as for overcrowding is you xenophobe its best to make one thrall world and put every unemployed pop in there like 500 it does not matter if they rebel that's even better for you...

 

[PeterPancake]

Micro-friendly from the part of species true. Less Species less modification hassle.

Micro hell is rather the constant bickering of planets wanting something to build or not enough housing, unemployment and open building slot.

- Xenophobe works well with the one species idea. No worries about modificiation because you are going for one race. Species tend to self-modificate with trait points left.
- Egalitarian is nice with Utopian Abundance. You just don't care anymore about unemployment, housing and to some degree amenities. They are going to be happy. If there is like -9 housing population growth halts on a planet. And you still have like +80% Stability. You need a higher ratio of CG (thumb: 20 planets= 4-5 research 8-9= CG 6-7= Alloy).
- Pacifist + Civic Agrarian Idyll is awesome because it does help early on focusing just on Resource Districts instead of housing+amenities (slighty less micro).
- Spiritualist is nice with temple as everything you need for your unity and amenities. Does work well with egalitarian for more influence as Spiritualist have a strong ethics attraction (even some more happiness).

Ascension isn't a real problem Bio and Psionic work well. Only Synth with Robots are slighty more hassle.

Traits:
1. Communal - solve your housing problem and good with Agrarian Idyll (works really nice with Orbital Speed Demon and the red one for more housing reduction)
2. Intelligent - as you don't have technocracy more research output is nice
3. Natural Engineers or Sociologist - Physics is already pretty fast (+void cloud bonus) and you need every trait point early on (instead of intelligent) - slighty favor engineers
4. Thrifty, Ingenious- Base Production increase for early game is nice Thrifty (is even a boost for unity or CG with policy change) and commercial zones (upgraded +11 jobs) are awesome in boosting job count on a planet to get 80 pop mark (last upgrade for administrative building).

Open or left ethics, traits, AP government are more the players flavour. Consecrated World (Holy World) near FE is nice. Mining Guilds for that Mineral Boost (+Thrifty good overall). Oligarchy for easier to handle and overall more lucky governors.

To bother less with trade/piracy beeline starbases and redirect trade through those systems. Even lvl1 without any upgrade stops piracy completly.

edit:
Don't forget the resort world.

 

[Dr. B]

Thanks guys. Sigh, I guess I will wait and see if there comes a working sector mechanic or other automating feature in the future. Sounds like there is no escaping from micro hell.

 

[KingAlamar]

Here are some things I've tried:

• Xenophobe without migration treaties and similar does cut down a lot on the species management IF you don't have any intention of conquering the galaxy.
• Expand rapidly [and peacefully] at first. When you run out of planets to grab then switch your playstyle to "tall"
• Play with no guaranteed planets and minimal habitable planets to minimize the planet management micro
  
• Authoritarian seems to allow you to stop growth or to expel excess population and similar. This way you won't HAVE to micro planets that are "done".
• If you build an empire that isn't "trade heavy" then you probably don't need to worry AS MUCH about piracy, piracy patrols, etc.

You do still have to deal with planetary build micro but with the other things minimized it's not as bad as vanilla.

 

[Cronos988]

Thanks guys. Sigh, I guess I will wait and see if there comes a working sector mechanic or other automating feature in the future. Sounds like there is no escaping from micro hell.

Gestalt empires are a bit more micro friendly, as you will not have to deal with pirates, happyness, factions etc. If you play a purging variant you also won't have to deal with additional species. At least with Glavius' AI, automating sectors works. You have to manually administer any planets you want to specialize, but you can hand the generation of raw resources over to the AI once your empire is large enough.

 

[trojan1234]

Good afternoon

With the newest patch out, I consider buying the expansion and playing a bit.
However, I am scared about the micromanagement needed to administrate a large empire and AI's lack of ability to manage planets. I made a topic about this earlier and the responses confirmed my worst fears.

So, I need to find a playstyle that is not the most powerful, but easy on the micro. And normal empire, no hives or machines.

I am thinking this:
Xenophobe, stick to the master race and purge the xenos. No hassle with different species, and it is always good to be Xenophobe, it feels right.
Spiritualist, for unity and the ascension. Bio and Cybernetic means more micro, Psionic is fire and forget. And no pesky robots either. One race, one faith, one vision.
Then some focus on letting people migrate by them selves, to lush planets, so probably much terraforming, semi-tall playstyle, focusing on unity and tech while not neglecting defense. Like Inward Perfection without the Inward part.

What do you think, will this provide a relatively micro-friendly experience? Could I do something to help more? Any good traits, civics or ascension perks? Suggestions are welcome.

My tips for micromanagement are :

1. Use Curator or Artisan enclaves as 10 years timer to refresh Encourage planetary growth decision. After early expansion, we start to run 'encourage planetary growth' decision but it is easy to forget when it expired. I found Curator's research speed deal and Artisan's unity deal is ideal timer for this decision. When curator or artisan asks to extend deal, pause game and click the decision in all planets. Similarly, use other enclaves for 'festival of the worlds' timer.
   
   
2. 'Set default right' button top right in the species tab saves hundreds of clicks. I wanted to set every xeno has 'migration control enabled' and I clicked for every species and its subspecies. But I found this button and it set every species has the control.
   
   
3. [One main species empire only] Synchronized pop growth cycle saves planetary managements. You can set up so that 90% of your planets will have new pop in the same month, only exceptions are ecumenopolis because of 50% growth. It is tricky to setup, however, once it is done, you can focus war, explore, or whatever you want for x months and completely forget about planetary managements then look at planets once in x months when all planets got unemployment icons from new pops.
   
   
4. The easiest way to set this up is i) make all planets' growth rate the same (except ecumenopolis) ii) make sure all planets having 50 or more stability so no internal migration happens and obviously no external migration treaty iii) set all xeno or minor species have 'population growth control enabled' iv) gene modify main species will synchronize pop growth. Plus all ecumenopolis can be synchronized to each other.

Psionic plus xenophobe is kinda weaker combo imo. Because you don't have enough habitability bonus and spare species, your pop upkeep will be higher until terraforming. If you wanna go xenophobe, I'd recommend bio or synthe path.

 

[Dustman]

Hm.. Turtle play. Bit boring, but high number of planets isn't really necessary. Don't overexpand, get few nice features like 5-6 total planets, a black hole, and, if wanna try it, L-Gate. Xenophobe Egalitarian Spiritualist is a nice combo, but you won't be able to resettle, it's only drawback, so Ecumenopolis will take forever to grow.

Consecrated Worlds or Executive Vigor, two picks for ascendancy, Ecumenopois, 3 for habitats and megastructures, and prolly Mastery of Nature or World Shaper to squeeze bit more out of your planets. Gaia worlds are nice together with Consecrated Worlds. Habitats can substitute for Ecumenopolis albeit at higher sprawl, but are more flexible.

Venerable since leaders dying young is the main problem with Psionic path. Non-Adaptive, since you won't colonize much, and can terraform what you get. Another +/- combo is optional.

If you get bored, set War Policy to Liberation Wars and harass your opponents. After all, no need to take their land but adds bit of excitement.