How is the micromanagement in 2.2.3/4?

[Roddo]

This already upgraded planet to late game tech is doing just fine without holo-theatres. Just from the clerks alone I get 84 amenities.

These events happen at 0 crime if you have enough unemployed pops. If you have a 100 planets and stack a lot of pop growth bonuses it will happen all the time if you forget to resettle pops for a year or two.

The most I have "managed" to get so far into unemployment is -6... It might happen to go furhter in some of the new colonies if I just let them go into the wild unattended for a few years.

 

[permeakra]

OP here, thanks for great feedback everybody.

I am mildly shocked, the required micromanagement must be overwhelming once the empire grows a bit. This is horrible for a strategy game (imho).

There has to be dev team plans to streamline planet/job management and AI better than now, so the player is not particularly handicapped for a hands-off approach?

*rolling eyes*
Let me put it this way:
if you put a little though into the task, there is not need for manual resettlement. It might benefit you slightly if you resettle pops to get absolute best, but the benefits are moderate and matter for the first several colonies. The devs implemented migration that exports most of population growth from a planet that hit overpopulation and unemployment. They also gave at least one (probably more) powerful civic for people who specifically aim to never resettle a pop.
By the 2250 I mostly give up on manual resettlement, it doesn't matter anymore. Migration covers it well enough.
Job assigment is done automatically without direct player's control. The system does take into account traits of the pops, though it probably could do a better job.

And yes, devs introduced some challenges for people who do not plan for any conquest. Your empire needs moderate maintenance and eventually you'll have to combat overpopulation.

 

[sillyrobot]

*rolling eyes*
Let me put it this way:
if you put a little though into the task, there is not need for manual resettlement. It might benefit you slightly if you resettle pops to get absolute best, but the benefits are moderate and matter for the first several colonies. The devs implemented migration that exports most of population growth from a planet that hit overpopulation and unemployment. They also gave at least one (probably more) powerful civic for people who specifically aim to never resettle a pop.
By the 2250 I mostly give up on manual resettlement, it doesn't matter anymore. Migration covers it well enough.
Job assigment is done automatically without direct player's control. The system does take into account traits of the pops, though it probably could do a better job.

And yes, devs introduced some challenges for people who do not plan for any conquest. Your empire needs moderate maintenance and eventually you'll have to combat overpopulation.

Unless you play gestalt or synth ascend, you mean. Your solution is hardly universal.

 

[permeakra]

Unless you play gestalt or synth ascend, you mean. Your solution is hardly universal.

Organic hiveminds actually work same way. Their pops do migrate if you activate the policy (by default it is prohibited). And moderate unemployment for hiveminds is hardly an issues since unemployed drones convert food into minerals which you might actually want.

The solution of course is not universal. If it was universal, the game would be shit. It is a good idea that more than one approach works. Of course, the absence of migration is a big problem for synths and MEs and this is why I do not play them.

 

[AlanC9]

The most I have "managed" to get so far into unemployment is -6... It might happen to go furhter in some of the new colonies if I just let them go into the wild unattended for a few years.

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself.

As a theoretical matter, how many minutes should we be OK with leaving a planet alone?

 

[Astax]

They tried to fix somethings, and as a result Im dealing with problems I never had before like low stability as Hivemind because now the maintenece jobs are too low priority!

I have been able to reduce micro overall, but this one thing is a real pain in the butt

 

[sillyrobot]

Organic hiveminds actually work same way. Their pops do migrate if you activate the policy (by default it is prohibited). And moderate unemployment for hiveminds is hardly an issues since unemployed drones convert food into minerals which you might actually want.

The solution of course is not universal. If it was universal, the game would be shit. It is a good idea that more than one approach works. Of course, the absence of migration is a big problem for synths and MEs and this is why I do not play them.

*rolls eyes*

 

[sillyrobot]

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself.

As a theoretical matter, how many minutes should we be OK with leaving a planet alone?

I expect to have well over 100 planets so 3 hours of game play? 3 decades might be sufficient.

 

[Roddo]

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself.

As a theoretical matter, how many minutes should we be OK with leaving a planet alone?

I'm not quite understanding what you want to say, I've had these planets with relative high unemployment and overcrowding for a while now.. simply because it's impossible to improve their general situation.

It is related to what I've said before, after a while you realize that it's meaningless to redevelop a planet, because you reach to the same conclusion every time....
In order to reduce unemploiment the best solution is comertial zones, which nets you amenities, which make ppl happy, which give you stability, which will make your planet grow faster, which makes you tear down another building to fit a housing one, which puts you in the cicle all over again.

I reckon there's a turning point, in which planet stops growing. I haven't reached it so far, and I hope it happens soon

 

[permeakra]

I reckon there's a turning point, in which planet stops growing. I haven't reached it so far, and I hope it happens soon

AFAIK 50% overcrowding stops pop growth.

 

[Roddo]

50% of what?

edit: my most overcrowded planets still have growth, they also have high emigration but not high enough to stop growth alltogether. Emigration will eventually triumph I guess?

 

[permeakra]

./defines/00_defines.txt:               BASE_POP_GROWTH                                         = 3             # Base growth rate of pops
./defines/00_defines.txt:               OVERCROWDING_NO_GROWTH_THRESHOLD        = 1.5   # At this amount of overcrowding, growth stops entirely
./defines/00_defines.txt:               MAX_GROWTH_FROM_IMMIGRATION                     = 5
./defines/00_defines.txt:               MAX_GROWTH_PENALTY_FROM_EMIGRATION      = 0.95  # Fraction of base monthly growth

 

[KingAlamar]

I hated the tile system because it was the same exact feeling for every single planet. The same hoops I jumped through in the same order, regardless, in order to make the most of the bonuses. I don't feel that way for the new system.

I pretty much do feel that the new system is more or less the same regardless of planet. I'm pretty much doing the same sorts of things in the same sorts of order with only minor deviations regardless of planet, empire, etc. Radically different empire types [machine empire vs. organic megacorp] will likely have different builds but each planet of those empires pretty much follows a similar pattern.

Is it different than before --- sure? Is it "hard" -- not really -- not as long as you're willing to invest some micro.

It got to the point that I tried to put everything into sectors and let the inefficient sector management take care of it for me, because I disliked it so much.

I did something similar. I would pre-set my entire building, and where applicable population, build order for the entire planet. Once that was locked in I handed that off to the sector AI so I could concentrate on more important matters. Easy-peasy.

As far as I can tell both systems are VERY simple if you're willing to invest micro in the right places.

I was promised adjacency bonuses, but the only building that provided it was the planetary capital.
I was promised variation because of resource distributions, but in the end I just followed those resources and made no real decisions on my own.
I was promised that I could eventually stop having to worry about it, but with the fact that I kept colonizing as made sense, I never stopped, and it drove me insane.

I understand and the devs didn't really deliver on those promises. Other 4x games have handled adjacency and similar better.

With the old system though you looked at a planet one time and in a few minutes never had to touch it ever again. With the just-in-time nature of planet management that's not how the new system plays.

There you have it, that's why I hate the tile system so much. I hated it almost a year before Le-Guin was announced. It's just a bunch of empty promises with no real hope of salvation. The new system has the ability to be better, and I already feel it is a bit better. It's the right direction to go, and we just need to arrive at the destination and I feel everyone will agree.

I'm of mixed opinions on that.

I do agree that the new system can improve a LOT. I can see some of the Megacorp ability to build things on other planets as a stepping stone to things like espionage [building safe houses, spy networks, etc.] or even embassies or other buildings that could add depth to the game. So there is potential in the recent changes.

Unfortunately the new economy doesn't really have much in the way of interesting decisions to make for many empires. The decisions are certainly impactful BUT it's pretty easy to build a good-enough economy at this point. If you increase the impactful decisions by 10x but all of those decisions are simple is it REALLY adding much to the game. In this light the new system hasn't separated itself from the old one OTHER than it's harder to avoid micro that just isn't interesting to me in the slightest.

YMMV

 

[Roddo]

./defines/00_defines.txt:               BASE_POP_GROWTH                                         = 3             # Base growth rate of pops
./defines/00_defines.txt:               OVERCROWDING_NO_GROWTH_THRESHOLD        = 1.5   # At this amount of overcrowding, growth stops entirely
./defines/00_defines.txt:               MAX_GROWTH_FROM_IMMIGRATION                     = 5
./defines/00_defines.txt:               MAX_GROWTH_PENALTY_FROM_EMIGRATION      = 0.95  # Fraction of base monthly growth

Allright, color me stupid but I have to ask. 1.5 of what exactly? My overcrowding is -17 in some planets and I still have growth in them.
1.5 of the total max of housing? if that's it then I'll have a pretty rough run until the planet stops growing.

On the other hand, I have other planets, not that much overcrowded which have declining pops and I cannot help but wonder why... even the selection for the declining pop seems weird. it's my precious uber-human! This whole system is just too obscure.

 

[permeakra]

Allright, color me stupid but I have to ask. 1.5 of what exactly? My overcrowding is -17 in some planets and I still have growth in them.
1.5 of the total max of housing? if that's it then I'll have a pretty rough run until the planet stops growing.

Apparently you'll have

On the other hand, I have other planets, not that much overcrowded which have declining pops and I cannot help but wonder why... even the selection for the declining pop seems weird. it's my precious uber-human! This whole system is just too obscure.

Here comes even more glorious part

NEW_POP_SPECIES_RANDOMNESS                      = 1.0   # The higher this is, the more random species selection of new pops will be
NEW_POP_SAME_SPECIES_WEIGHT                     = 1.0   # The higher this is, the more new pops will be weighted by number of same or subspecies pops
NEW_POP_EXACT_SPECIES_WEIGHT            = 0.5   # The higher this is, the more new pops will be weighted by number of exact same species pops
NEW_POP_SLAVERY_WEIGHT                          = 0.5   # The higher this is, the more new pops will tend to be balanced between enslaved and non-enslaved species
NEW_POP_SPECIES_DIV                                     = 0.5   # The higher this is, the more planets will tend to grow species that are underrepresented on the planet
NEW_POP_HABITABILITY_THRESHOLD          = 0.6   # If habitability is under this, apply exponentinally increasing penalties to new pop weight
NEW_POP_HOMEWORLD_MULT                          = 2             # Pops have increased weight for growing on their homeworld
NEW_POP_ASSEMBLY_TRAIT_MULT                     = 1             # Extra weight per trait point for assembled pops
NEW_POP_GROWTH_MOD_MULT                         = 0.66  # How much does species growth mod trait matter for new pop weight
NEW_POP_IMMIGRATION_MOD_MULT            = 1             # How much does species immigration growth mod trait matter for new pop weight (when there is immigration)
#.....
POP_DECLINE_THRESHOLD                           = 3.0   # [B]A species will decline when there is another species with a growth priority this many times higher[/B]

 

[Chthon]

It's not about subconsious dislike. I told you. A scum of hive an villainy. Every time. My planets overpopulate indefintely and bad events keep happening on all my planets, it reduces stability, overall output and leads to devastation, criminal outbreak and riots.

Yeah I can leave it for a year or two, but if I go to war I literally don't have the time to constantly manage 10+ planets from slowly imploding AND play the war game. It feels more like I'm babysitting a suicidal toddler more than running an interstellar empire. There needs to be a decision you place on a planet that effectively says "this planet is done, growth may not exceed emigration"

If you have enough amenities, a housing shortage isn't really a problem. Fred just lives in his mother's basement while looking for a place to stay.

These events happen at 0 crime if you have enough unemployed pops. If you have a 100 planets and stack a lot of pop growth bonuses it will happen all the time if you forget to resettle pops for a year or two.

Unemployment is the real issue with those events, but if you have enough consumer goods, you always get the option to subsidize people to prevent it from growing into actual crime.

 

[Chthon]

I pretty much do feel that the new system is more or less the same regardless of planet. I'm pretty much doing the same sorts of things in the same sorts of order with only minor deviations regardless of planet, empire, etc. Radically different empire types [machine empire vs. organic megacorp] will likely have different builds but each planet of those empires pretty much follows a similar pattern.

Is it different than before --- sure? Is it "hard" -- not really -- not as long as you're willing to invest some micro.

Once you get past the early colony days, you now have the ability to specialize your colonies, so I can stop to think, what do I want to build here. My first specialty building happens somewhere between the 3rd and the 6th building depending on the needs of my empire. By mid game my colonies look dramatically different from each other.

The old system it was just random based on the tile outputs. There really wasn't anything beyond that.

Comparison, now by mid game my colonies start to look unique compared to each other, then my colonies just looked like jumbled mishmashes and I was encouraged by the tile system to do so.

 

[KingAlamar]

Once you get past the early colony days, you now have the ability to specialize your colonies, so I can stop to think, what do I want to build here. My first specialty building happens somewhere between the 3rd and the 6th building depending on the needs of my empire. By mid game my colonies look dramatically different from each other.

The old system it was just random based on the tile outputs. There really wasn't anything beyond that.

Comparison, now by mid game my colonies start to look unique compared to each other, then my colonies just looked like jumbled mishmashes and I was encouraged by the tile system to do so.

True you can certainly specialize colonies but I find that the specialists still evolve organically. I just look and go ... I need more of X [alloys or research or whatever]. If I already have a planet doing X I see if I can add another X type of building there so they can do more of it.

Note: We could specialize colonies in earlier versions of Stellaris. 2.2.X has just thrown in an extra 5% bonus [or so] to planets to encourage that behavior a little more.

I kinda wish the planet specialization bonus was higher. Sometimes it feels like the 5% bonus isn't really worth bothering to get.

 

[r3xm0rt1s]

In 2.1 planets were finished in time or I could throw them foundations to sector governor to deal with. In the late game I did not bother even the foundation.

I have yet to see a finished planet in 2.2 because the population growth is glacial.

Also, demolishing districts and buildings has no hotkey and requires confirmation. Upgraded buildings are 2 step process to eliminate. At least buildings can be replaced directly, but districts have problems. So redeveloping planets is a pain. Makes me want to build them up in their final form right away at the expense of immediate needs. "Yes, I need minerals now, but this planet will be an ecumenopolis so select city district and hold down B."

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Pretty atrociously high.

I think, before a gameplay element is introduced, it should be informed by the philosophy that any decision the player has to make in a strategy game should be "How does this allow the player to interact with the other players in the game", and while I was no fan of the tile system, the sheer amount of attention the new system requires detracts from those other, more interesting strategic decisions and represents a missed potential. So much of it is navel gazing rather than naval gazing.

With that play on words, the focus should be on placing pieces on the game "board" and on the player interacting with the pieces owned by each player. Given that the attention the player has is a finite resource, the focus should be on spending that attention on elements which interact with other pieces of the game.

For me the new economy falls flat because it must be mastered to play well while competing with the other players/AI, but there is very little way for others to interact with the choices you yourself are making.