How is the micromanagement in 2.2.3/4?

[~Robbie]

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.

The thing is that the new planet system might be okay if it was in a game that largely revolved around little more than managing planets. But Stellaris isn't that game.

I can't help but feel like Paradox made a system they found was engaging, without any kind of consideration as to how it might fit into the existing game that is Stellaris. You can make the best system in the world, but if it doesn't fit Stellaris, it's not going to be good. The new system takes so much time and attention away from the player that it actively detracts from other aspects of the game. Does anybody actually enjoy juggling 50 planets during a war with a fallen empire?

 

[AlanC9]

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.

Although they interact with the products of those choices, right? The point of a well-managed economy is an invincible fleet, after all.

 

[eagletrekkie]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the 1.5x housing limit for stopping population makes sense for planets that are just starting out, since 1.5x housing of a planet with 10 housing is 15. That makes logical sense that it should have room to grow after. Get up to 100 housing, which might be enough for all the jobs on a non-ecumenopolis planet, and you'll get to 150 pops before growth stops from overcrowding. It's ridiculous that that modifier is fixed at 1.5x housing.

Either that modifier needs to be changed to be dynamic and slowly reduce as the population goes up, down to say 1.2x or 1.1x housing at around 100 pops, or what overcrowding is calculated on needs to be changed.

 

[Roddo]

I like to think that my cities are filled to top and ppl just move in to sleep under the benches in the street, why because life here is awesome!

 

[AlanC9]

I can't help but feel like Paradox made a system they found was engaging, without any kind of consideration as to how it might fit into the existing game that is Stellaris. You can make the best system in the world, but if it doesn't fit Stellaris, it's not going to be good.

Or they don't agree with you about what Stellaris is.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Although they interact with the products of those choices, right? The point of a well-managed economy is an invincible fleet, after all.

Yup but that is the issue - the only way to interact with other players is through war, war itself isn't particularly well done and doesn't tie into the opportunity costs of your society/economy very well, while the economy takes up a disproportionate amount of attention and time on the players behalf compared to the interactions with other players.

 

[Metztli]

The game is in a desperate need of quality of life tools that will help you administer your empire better ... The micro is alright it's just the way the game is forcing you to micro is the problem (ex. going through everyone of your planets to use the "encourage growth" decision or keep rebuilding defense platforms).

 

[alteration]

Thankfully Le Guin removed a lot of micro which is rather refreshing.
However it introduced ai issues with sectose etc.
These issues are fixed with the glavious ai mod from the steam workshop though, which I recommend everyone to get.

Nice joke mate

 

[Rhym3z]

Nice joke mate

None was intended, it's unfortunate you feel differently

 

[AlanC9]

Yup but that is the issue - the only way to interact with other players is through war, war itself isn't particularly well done and doesn't tie into the opportunity costs of your society/economy very well, while the economy takes up a disproportionate amount of attention and time on the players behalf compared to the interactions with other players.

How doesn't war tie into the opportunity costs well?

As for the rest, it's not like going back to the duller pre-Le Guin economy would make war more interesting.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

How doesn't war tie into the opportunity costs well?

Because making choices to interact with other players through means other than war are false-choices. The opportunities don't exist.

As for the rest, it's not like going back to the duller pre-Le Guin economy would make war more interesting.

I'm not advocating going back to the simpler economy, however I don't agree that the Le Guin economy is more interesting, it's just complicated and more labor intensive. Before you optimised to maximise fleet, now you optimise to maximise fleet. The system demands more attention but doesn't involve more player interaction, and in many ways represents a lost opportunity, just like the previous war update.

Warfare isn't interesting at the moment, the update intended to address this didn't do a lot in this regard, and now the economy isn't more interesting and the update intended to address this didn't do a lot in that regard.

 

[James_K]

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.

I strongly disagree - this is my first GSG, but I've played a lot of 4X's and economic management is much more interesting to me than war. Conflict has its place, but it shouldn't be the focus of the game. Before 2.1 economic management in Stellaris was mostly a way to kill time between wars. Now it represents real gameplay, a vast improvement in my opinion (though clearly the new systems still need work).

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

I strongly disagree - this is my first GSG, but I've played a lot of 4X's and economic management is much more interesting to me than war. Conflict has its place, but it shouldn't be the focus of the game. Before 2.1 economic management in Stellaris was mostly a way to kill time between wars. Now it represents real gameplay, a vast improvement in my opinion (though clearly the new systems still need work).

How does the new system represent real gameplay?

Notice that I said interaction between players, not conflict between players, in my post.

The problem is that most of that economic management has no impact on other players, unless you declare on them or they on you and your fleets clash. There's no way to compete or cooperate with others, because the pieces you have to play with don't interact with the pieces owned by other players. There's no mercantile navy, and a very limited civilian navy which doesn't interact with other players.

I'm not against peaceful play - the peaceful play that is currently in Stellaris isn't an improvement on what was there before, it just requires more player input.

 

[James_K]

How does the new system represent real gameplay?

Planning out which planets to colonise, deciding how to develop them as the population goes, seeing them grow from empty balls of rock into thriving metropolises. This may not be what you're after, but I prefer it to mashing big balls of ships into each other.

Notice that I said interaction between players, not conflict between players, in my post.

Fair enough, I may have been distracted by your excellent pun.

The problem is that most of that economic management has no impact on other players, unless you declare on them or they on you and your fleets clash.

Do you play multiplayer? I play single-player and I don't really think of the AI as a "player" but rather as an obstacle to be ignored or attacked as I feel like.

I'm not against peaceful play - the peaceful play that is currently in Stellaris isn't an improvement on what was there before, it just requires more player input.

What did you have in mind? I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[LeanneKaos]

Yup but that is the issue - the only way to interact with other players is through war, war itself isn't particularly well done and doesn't tie into the opportunity costs of your society/economy very well, while the economy takes up a disproportionate amount of attention and time on the players behalf compared to the interactions with other players.

The same can be said of almost every other RTS or 4X game out there. Some throw in token espionage but it's usually more of a pain than it's worth to deal with. Offworld Trading Company is the only game I can think of that's different, but that one is *entirely* focused on economic competition.

What kind of other interactions would you be looking for here?

 

[ImbaXenoSnipar]

The amount of micro has obviously increased dramatically in 2.2. In my opinion, this is making the game less fun and the micro should be reduced in some way. If you go over to steam and read the reviews there, you will see that the micro is one of the most commonly mentioned problems with the game (after bugs and performance problems) in the recent negative reviews. And Stellaris has accumulated quite a bit of negative reviews lately...

 

[Starisc]

Good read on a lot of the comments. Disclaimer: I have immensely enjoyed 2.2 despite some bugs and micro rage. Over 200h in 2.2 alone.

In general I agree with the idea of two player types:

1. Carefree/Tall
2. MinMax/Wide

--------------------

1. Carefree or tall players feel pretty ok I think. If there are only 7 planets or dozens of red warnings do not alarm you, life is peaceful and good.
2. For MinMax and/or wide players the micro is unfortunately much worse. It scales linearly with galaxy size / planet count, thus is unsustainable without more tools.

Here is a comparison of an aggressive wide playstyle 2.1 vs 2.2:

2.1 Planet micro

1. Conquer Planet
2. Make sure Pops are enslaved/purged
3. Decide what FEM & S planet it should be
4. Delete all buildings
5. Queue all buildings & blocker clearing
6. Resettle main species (if purging)
7. Rename Planet & System (My naming scheme was Food, Energy, Mineral, Science with size, e.g. Mineral 15)
8. Put into a sector (Sector AI set to respect buildings)
9. Forever forget about it

2.2 Planet micro

1. Conquer Planet
2. Make sure Pops are enslaved/purged
   
3. Decide what FEM & S planet it should be
   
4. Delete not all buildings but some
5. Build Slave Processing/ Enforcer buildings to bring down unrest
6. Some main species already resettled (nice!)
7. Resettle some more as enforcers (and for specialist)
8. Optional: resettle all purged alien to penal colony to enjoy their forced labour longer)
9. Rename Planet (&system)
10. Until this point this is LESS effort...BUT
11. Revisit every year to
    1. queue more districts (because you get punished for building them too early with admin cap)
    2. construct buildings (because they cannot be queued)
    3. resettle pops (beyond 10 to below 10, once max pop count has been reached very late game)

Here is the problem with the current planet micro:

1. It is not setup&forget but permanent&ongoing
2. It scales with every, single planet. Forever.

E.G. I play a 1000 galaxy with 5.0 habitability right now (for Deus Vult achievement to get four holy worlds.) I reached 100 planets before year 100. As I pause game for admin stuff, I spend most of my game time paused clicking through a 100 planet list. And I have maybe 20% of the galaxy. FML! And don't get me started on the trade & piracy whack a mole before you get gateways.

TL; DR: 2.2 is much more micro for wide minmax players than before.

 

[AlanC9]

Note that point 1 is only a problem in combination with point 2. If the number of planets stays below your personal management threshold, having to look at a planet every few years or so isn't bad, and is likely good. All Stellaris games get dull late, but with my style that point is pushed off for a few decades with the new system.

 

[KingAlamar]

Note that point 1 is only a problem in combination with point 2. If the number of planets stays below your personal management threshold, having to look at a planet every few years or so isn't bad, and is likely good. All Stellaris games get dull late, but with my style that point is pushed off for a few decades with the new system.

As an FYI: I wish it were easier [without deliberately tanking play] to reduce the micro load via game settings. I wanted to reduce planets to reduce the micro so I figured ... hey why not go from 1.0 habitability to 0.25 and from 2 guaranteed planets to no guaranteed planets?? I don't usually go to war [until very late] so I figured this would have to cut my load by a LOT.

The result: In 2270 I have 10 planets which is two fewer than in my prior game .. from 2370!! So much for my experiment with reducing micro

Note: Even with the Glavius AI mod the AI civs just simply don't expand fast enough. I should be at 3 planets instead of 10 but the AIs basically LET ME cut them off from the rest of the galaxy and they didn't lift a finger to stop my rapid, peaceful expansion [even when they had larger fleets].

 

[Medu Salem]

Didn't read through all the comments... but I say the micromanagement is worse than before.

There is a positive thing about it... there are more viable ways to build up planets than there were before.

That said I can't deny that it becomes a huge cookie-clicker game towards the endgame when you have lots of planets or habitats etc to build up or rework after conquests etc.

The sector AI... Man... I don't even want to start about it. It's just... unusable. Was barely good enough before 2.2, but now with all the ways to specialize and develop planets getting the AI to do what you want is like trying to get a cat to wipe its butt on a sea urchin. That it's not working is an understatement.

There need to be something like templates you can generate of which buildings to build and whatnot and then apply to individual planets or something alike... so the AI knows what to build at which stage, otherwise it will never be helpful.



That said the worst part is that the AI empires don't know how to deal with the planet management at all either (I mention it because they probably use the same algorithms to determine what to place as the player Sector AI). Even after all the beta updates the AI often still runs into negative balance, builds stuff they don't need, never replaces anything of conquered planets and toooooonnnnssss of other crap you would do entirely different as a human player.

So as a player you can take your sweet time to experiment around and whatnot... the AI ruins itself economically eventually anyway.

The only reason an AI empire might become dangerous is if you selected a high difficulty scale where they get ridiculous amounts of bonus resources to overcome their stupid AI choices. But that isn't what makes for me brilliant AI design... that's just cheating it's way out of bad AI design.

It's as if a shooter AI would be capable of shooting through walls instead of maneuvering around them.