How is the micromanagement in 2.2.3/4?

[Rhym3z]

It's fine if they don't care that they're playing sub-optimally. That doesn't mean that giving the players the choice between insane micro and playing sub-optimally is good gameplay design. Any given game should (and usually is) designed around the idea that players will apply themselves and try to win to the best of their ability. If people like micro, that's absolutely fine! But "micro is optional because you can always choose to play poorly" is not.

We can apply this school of thought to other genres to see how poorly it holds up. Learning combos in a fighting game might be hard and people might not like it, but you would never say "you don't need to learn combos, because you can always just choose to lose". Of course it's fine if people want to play that way, but telling people that micro is optional because they can choose not to be competitive is not true. It's only optional in the sense that you can decide not to engage with it at the cost of not playing the game well.

I would agree if we were talking primarily about multiplayer. It absolutely applies to some of the most hardcore games. However, the beauty of nearly all 4x games is the option to do what you want and see what happens, same with RPGs.
If the game was aiming for us to play optimally, then everyone would just chose the same traits, civics all the time, and have cookie cutter builds. That's no fun.
I certainly don't feel like I'm missing out, or like I'm left behind by being a bit more relaxed with the game.

 

[~Robbie]

I would agree if we were talking primarily about multiplayer. It absolutely applies to some of the most hardcore games. However, the beauty of nearly all 4x games is the option to do what you want and see what happens, same with RPGs.
If the game was aiming for us to play optimally, then everyone would just chose the same traits, civics all the time, and have cookie cutter builds. That's no fun.

You're comparing choosing different traits that result in some min/maxing to choosing to ignore a core part of the gameplay. I edited my post just before you quoted, but I added this to be more clear:

Or even just to other aspects of Stellaris. Building science ships isn't necessary to play, but you're just choosing to ignore a massive part of the game that will damage your success in a major way, the same as choosing to ignore the new micro.

Can people choose to ignore science ships if, for some reason, they don't like using them? Sure. But that doesn't mean science ships are optional. Would you ever suggest to somebody who doesn't like using them "you can just choose to play without them"? Of course not, because they're a core part of the game. It's not the same as selecting meta traits and civics, it's actively ignoring a core mechanic that directly determines your ability to succeed.

 

[Ryika]

I think the discussion of whether something is "optional and not optional" is a bit misguided. In the end, everything that optimizes things is optional and whether you engage in it very much depends on how optimized you want to play. But just because something is optional, doesn't mean it doesn't need to be looked at.

Surely there are some people out there somewhere who pause right before the end of the month to see if they can move pops around in a way that generates the few extra resources they need to construct a new building, or that bit of extra food they need to start the growth decision, etc. - most people would not want to engage in that sort of gameplay, but the fact that you can do that to optimize your empire further is not really seen as a big problem, because players don't feel the need to do it.

Why? Because what you gain from doing it is a really small bonus, so ignoring it isn't a big problem.

The problem with the stuff that's talked about here, is that you can't really ignore it without a severe decrease in efficiency. It's something that's not fun to many people, but not doing it feels bad as well for them because not doing it does come with a rather harsh penalty. That, I would say, is an indicator of game design that should be optimized.

 

[Roddo]

I guess I just play differently.
As for ai problems ive been using glavious ai mod since forever and sector ai in le guin doesn't seem bad when using it. Was pretty bad when it was incompatible and I couldn't use it tho. Maybe worth trying it if you haven't already?

Well then we're talking about different things. From what I read Galvious mod fixes AI drastically, and I'm talking about base game. I could try the mod along the line, but the truth is I tend to play vanilla only because of the achievements, so...

I would try mods in the future, but only after I've had my fill with the base game. And the base game is somewhat borked, I think you'll find no ppl saying otherwise.

 

[permeakra]

Some were on colonies that were effectively "finished" and the pops needed to get shifted.

Um.
Migration is a thing. If you plan for ~ 5% overpopulation and unemployment, than amount of manual resettlement is like 20-100 times less, since pop growth mostly emigrates in this case. Yes, you loose slightly on production due to crime, but you can get some productions from, I dunno, fanatic egalitarian and utopian abundance if you are lategame. I don't play MEs exatcly because I can't do so with them, since they have no migration. With hiveminds it is OK, because unemployed drones produce minerals from food and drones actually migrate.

You're basically saying that there are two schools of thought: people who are trying their best, and people who are not. Game design should always assume that a given player is trying their best

No.
Game design assumes and always should assume that people try to have fun and that they need different things for that. You want micro with manual resettlement? You can. You don't want such micro? Just choose different build and you'll be fine.

 

[sillyrobot]

Um.
Migration is a thing. If you plan for ~ 5% overpopulation and unemployment, than amount of manual resettlement is like 20-100 times less, since pop growth mostly emigrates in this case. Yes, you loose slightly on production due to crime, but you can get some productions from, I dunno, fanatic egalitarian and utopian abundance if you are lategame.

No.
Game design assumes and always should assume that people try to have fun and that they need different things for that. You want micro with manual resettlement? You can. You don't want such micro? Just choose different build and you'll be fine.

Not in a synth-ascended empire its not .

 

[permeakra]

Not in a synth-ascended empire its not .

Ugh.
That's something to be addressed.

 

[Bouchart]

If you play tall or on small maps the micro isn't so bad, but the bigger you are the far worse it gets. Try playing on a huge map and colonizing 200 worlds...it's rough.

In older versions everyone complained about Sectors, but at least they did their jobs somewhat well, maybe giving you 75% of what you wanted. Now you've got to do it all by hand.

 

[~Robbie]

No.
Game design assumes and always should assume that people try to have fun and that they need different things for that. You want micro with manual resettlement? You can. You don't want such micro? Just choose different build and you'll be fine.

There is no build where micro is not a core part of the gameplay now. It's tolerable early game when you only have a few planets, but once you get to 20, 30, 40, or 50, it becomes an extremely demanding part of the game.

And again, you can always choose not to play that part of the game, much like you can choose not to construct any science ships. The solution to "this isn't fun" should never be "ignore this core mechanic and accept that you will suffer a massive decrease in your empire's efficiency".

 

[AlanC9]

I guess we're not defining micro in the same way. Specifics would help. Are you referring to thinking about when to upgrade rather than just upgrading everything automatically?

 

[sillyrobot]

There is no build where micro is not a core part of the gameplay now. It's tolerable early game when you only have a few planets, but once you get to 20, 30, 40, or 50, it becomes an extremely demanding part of the game.

And again, you can always choose not to play that part of the game, much like you can choose not to construct any science ships. The solution to "this isn't fun" should never be "ignore this core mechanic and accept that you will suffer a massive decrease in your empire's efficiency".

For me so far, it's been "stop about a century in and throw the save away. Start fresh." though to be fair, a good part of that is the serious bugs I run into mid/late game like being unable to build my main species any more and serious lag. But the rest is that's when the micro really starts to get out of hand.

It's be nice to get (much) further in the game.

The next patch of the latest patch of 2.2 may get the game in shape where the bugs/lag are tolerable, but I doubt anything is going to address the micro in the mid-term.​

 

[Agamemnic]

To the OP: as per the consensus, the micro is real and its a pain. I can only play with 25% habitable worlds myself now. Anything over 20 planets and I just want to die. Forget about grand strategy, this is now a fantasy space simulator

 

[AlanC9]

If you play tall or on small maps the micro isn't so bad, but the bigger you are the far worse it gets. Try playing on a huge map and colonizing 200 worlds...it's rough.

In older versions everyone complained about Sectors, but at least they did their jobs somewhat well, maybe giving you 75% of what you wanted. Now you've got to do it all by hand.

I suspect that the current system was designed for people who never liked the sectors in the first place, and wouldn't have used them if they had any choice.

 

[Roddo]

Micro is all. Micro is opening up a planet view and taking a decision. Upgrading/Replacing/Building is all just the same, you take a decision there, the only diference is the amount of time it takes you to make it.

I'm completely shocked by this trend of saying the game has less micro now. They added a whole new layer of complexity to the game for the love of god.

There's 10 times more pops now, at least 10 new buildings to choose from, 4 new different "efficiency indicators" to look out for....
How could this version of the game have less micro with all those additions?

It's magic!
Magic AI it seems.... the same AI that needs help to keep a mid sized empire running.

 

[~Robbie]

I guess we're not defining micro in the same way. Specifics would help. Are you referring to thinking about when to upgrade rather than just upgrading everything automatically?

Micromanagement has a clearly defined meaning. That it's mandatory to regularly return to every planet to manage its population and construction on a one-by-one basis, having to carefully monitor each world with zero ability to automate the process is pretty much the textbook definition of micro.

I would look at this from the other perspective and ask the question of "if this isn't micro, what is?"

 

[Bouchart]

I suspect that the current system was designed for people who never liked the sectors in the first place, and wouldn't have used them if they had any choice.

Sectors overbuilt some types of buildings like farms. Sectors sometimes had the wrong pop working the wrong tile, like a pop built for mining working on a monument. But even that is better than the current system of having to babysit every single planet manually. And you still sometimes have the wrong pop working the wrong job.

 

[AlanC9]

I don't see that I actually have to babysit my planets. I look at the planet list often, sure, but I might as well do something while the game runs.

 

[Chthon]

It's fine if they don't care that they're playing sub-optimally. That doesn't mean that giving the players the choice between insane micro and playing sub-optimally is good gameplay design. Any given game should (and usually is) designed around the idea that players will apply themselves and try to win to the best of their ability. If people like micro, that's absolutely fine! But "micro is optional because you can always choose to play poorly" is not.

We can apply this school of thought to other genres to see how poorly it holds up. Learning combos in a fighting game might be hard and people might not like it, but you would never say "you don't need to learn combos, because you can always just choose to lose".

Or even just to other aspects of Stellaris. Building science ships isn't necessary to play, but you're just choosing to ignore a massive part of the game that will damage your success in a major way, the same as choosing to ignore the new micro.

Of course it's fine if people want to play that way, but telling people that micro is optional because they can choose not to be competitive is not true. It's only optional in the sense that you can decide not to engage with it at the cost of not playing the game well.

It wouldn't be suboptimal if the icons appeared at 0 and not -1, and you could restrict populations to specific job types in species.

Perhaps instead of complaining about the micro introduced, you should instead make suggestions about how the new system can be fixed like this.

 

[Chthon]

Not in a synth-ascended empire its not .

This is a different issue with synths and hive minds that I fully agree with. Shuffling pops there is a pain. Part of why I stopped playing them even though I loved them and they were my first race to play.

 

[KingAlamar]

I don't see that I actually have to babysit my planets. I look at the planet list often, sure, but I might as well do something while the game runs.

If you used to do nothing while the game was running prior to 2.2 that would be one thing. I already had stuff to do though in 2.1 and earlier:

• Check tech, tradition, AP progression. Check upgrade path vs. current situation.
• Check economy from an "empire wide" perspective
• Try to work trades / diplomacy with my neighbors
• Review borders, military buildup close to me, etc.
• Check contacts list for "power rankings"
• Update ship designs
• Decide what fleets need to be deployed and where
• Handing "level 1" developed planets over to the AI to manage
• Making sure my sectors were doing what I wanted
• As needed make upgrades on my "core" worlds

Now I'm having to fiddle around planet by planet shutting down some [soldier often] worker jobs so my citizen pops can promote to the specialist jobs that seem to have lower priority than soldier. I'm needing to be concerned with planet by planet decisions on not just WHAT TO DO but EXACTLY WHEN to do it. The lack of automated piracy patrols, ability to set custom patrols the way I'd like, scanning planets to see if "decisions" have run out [that I'm not informed of], etc. all adds too much.

Even though I play on small galaxies I'm thinking of dropping back to very low habitability [0.25??] just so the planet management doesn't take away from the more grand decisions I'd prefer to be making.