High administrative Cap work around

[ray15511]

The high administrative cap was started to impact my empire after 3 planets and moderate expansion. Energy resources were being impacted. Game was not enjoyable. How was I going to conquer the entire galaxy?

I downloaded the Admin Cap Reworked V2 MOD on steam workshop for game version 2.2.3 and the game is fun again. Empire expanded to 11 planets and 130 ships with no impact on Admin Cap. MOD did not impact Achievements or Iron-man playing.

 

[makaramus]

administrative cap ... is not diffrent than old system where you were punished more and more as you go further...
only energy was diffrent since you can now have infinite amount of leaders (you are supposed to produce more energy too now as you go further)
how did you mess up? since its actually more forgiving compared to old system...
by the way:
WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT DIDNT IMPACT IRON MAN ACHIVEMENTS? PARADOX WTF XD

 

[BigPony]

With 3 planets and just moderate expansion you should not even really have been over cap. Certainly not enough to affect you really.

 

[eagletrekkie]

I've gone over the base cap of 30 with about 10 systems and two planets.

 

[Badesumofu]

Admin capacity is something you should mostly ignore. The penalties are modest.

That mod almost certainly blocks achievements. No mods prevent playing in Ironman that I know of. But it would definitely alter the checksum so it would block achievements.

 

[Secret Master]

Going over the admin cap, you say?

More conquests planned, and I'm still getting the "Bleeding Edge" modifier from my science faction. I should have the FEs beat before the end game date.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Lol ignore the cap. IDK why people are so fixated on this stat.

 

[Strangedane]

I don't understand how getting bigger numbers make the game unenjoyable.
You'll still tech faster, get unity faster and have more available energy, unless you're blindly expanding into nothingness.

You could set tech and unity costs to 0.25, then you'd be seeing smaller numbers instead, which if I read you right, would be more enjoyable to you.
Unlike the mod, this actually won't prevent you from getting achievements.

I have yet to run into a situation where rising sprawl equals longer tech or unity times in any meaningfull manner, sure it might add a month to techs just when you place the outpost or the district, but the extra economy should more than outweigh that.
That being said, I surely hope you're not taking 2E systems unless you're snaking towards important chokepoints.

Simply taking all the systems without having to think about it would be a horrible game experience.

 

[Pooks1]

Lol ignore the cap. IDK why people are so fixated on this stat.

It only shouldn't be ignored if you play a megacorp, the penalty can get really harsh real soon.

 

[makaramus]

It only shouldn't be ignored if you play a megacorp, the penalty can get really harsh real soon.

you may not want to ignore it as super tall empire too...
as example: you can create vassals as tall xenophobe authoratian(your vassals dont get relation malus as long you declare main species as your own) but I think everything else you should be playing as megacorp as tall
ofcourse if you want to play a republic with vassals ... thats another story too

 

[Belhedler]

Rather than ignoring the administrative cap and sprawl, it's better to understand how it works and to plan for its effects. That's why I'm building a planner nowadays.

Research will be impacted by a flat progress that depends of the tech level. The base tech cost ranges from 2,000 (Tier 1) to 50,000 (Tier 5 and repeatables). Refer to https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/vanilla/ for a complete overview. Repeatables cost increases after each iteration. The maths themselves are rather easy to pull of:

(game settings multiplier * base cost * administrative cap penalty) / (research production for the tech category * leader research speed) = time to completion in months

The tradition part is a bit harder to figure because the cost increases after each tradition completed and each tradition tree completed (details in Wiki). So you need to figure your production needs according to your progress to offset the increasing cost. Or you can just accept that increasing cost while not increasing your production to counter it. That's a matter of strategy.

Secret Master economy is about right for a wide empire with correct but not exceptional time for completion in technologies and traditions. He's standing at line 70 and column between 600 and 1200. The date roughly align too (I'm planning to add the prospective years later to the table to make it easier to use)

 

[ArmChairAttila]

HaHa you can throw all the spreadsheets you want at me. I have now played both tall and wide in SP MP games several times now. Administrative cap is irrelevant after the first 30 years of game play for most empires. Corps have to be a bit more cautious. Instead of going 250/70 like most empires you can easily do 190/70 and hardly notice with corps. Once I have my first 3 tradition trees and a few key techs finished it's time to expand like a fat man living large. Even if you plan to stay "tall" you should still be expanding in your borders with euco and wonders/habs. Administrative Cap was obviously put in place to curb stomp rapid expansion. Somewhere along the beta QA testing phase paradox nurfed this stat into irrelevance.

 

[makaramus]

what about ascension incrasing your adm cap by 30? is it good option for wide or tall play? not asking to stay under adm cap instead asking to reduce its harms

 

[ArmChairAttila]

If the stat is mostly irrelevant why would you pick a ascension perk to boost irrelevancy?

 

[makaramus]

If the stat is mostly irrelevant why would you pick a ascension perk to boost irrelevancy?

because its not irrelevant just because passing beyond of limits benefit more compared to harms doesnt mean being able to get rid of harms is meaningless
its like you can buy 10 apples fr 2$... but if you say "pls" you can buy them for free

 

[Gratak]

what about ascension incrasing your adm cap by 30? is it good option for wide or tall play? not asking to stay under adm cap instead asking to reduce its harms

It is good for tall play. Pretty much useless for wide play.

The one thing I hate about the admin cap is the stuff that was not part of the old system: It increasing the costs for leaders (and much more strongly than for techs). IMHO, the tech penalty should be HIGHER and the leader penalty LOWER. I mean as a wide empire you already have a huge increase in total leader costs because of all the governors you need. I do not understand why they need another 500%+ penalty there. Tech cost from empire sprawl on the other hand is ridiculously low. It was WAY higher in the old system.

Currently playing a game with my More Modifier mod where I changed that (increased tech penalty, reduced leader cost, upkeep and campaign cost penalty) and so far it feels much more balanced.

 

[Badesumofu]

The simplest way to explain why you just shouldn't worry about admin cap is to put it into context. Say you have a cap of 70 which is fairly typical for an empire around 2250. You're at the cap, you want to do well at science and you're wondering what to do. If you were to double the size of your empire you would incur a 21% tech cost penalty and a 35% tradition cost penalty.

And it gets better. Once you're 1000 empire size over the cap you're already paying 4x the cost for tech. So from there, adding another 20% penalty is actually only a 5% increases. This is why I say you should just ignore it, the bigger you get the smaller the marginal cost of increasing your size gets. And as you increase your size you can easily increase your science/unity/energy outputs to more than compensate. But the real kicker is that there is no penalty on military power.

It's really a minor penalty that just serves to place some limit on the power of snowballing and it's really not all that effective.

 

[makaramus]

The simplest way to explain why you just shouldn't worry about admin cap is to put it into context. Say you have a cap of 70 which is fairly typical for an empire around 2250. You're at the cap, you want to do well at science and you're wondering what to do. If you were to double the size of your empire you would incur a 21% tech cost penalty and a 35% tradition cost penalty.

And it gets better. Once you're 1000 empire size over the cap you're already paying 4x the cost for tech. So from there, adding another 20% penalty is actually only a 5% increases. This is why I say you should just ignore it, the bigger you get the smaller the marginal cost of increasing your size gets. And as you increase your size you can easily increase your science/unity/energy outputs to more than compensate. But the real kicker is that there is no penalty on military power.

It's really a minor penalty that just serves to place some limit on the power of snowballing and it's really not all that effective.

second part means nothing since from that point on things you add to your empire are also insignificant too