Ecumenopolis was OP when it was first introduced, there was no industrial district at that time and the arcologies don’t require any strategic resources. This is the reason why First League is the only precursor don’t have relic. But now, as time changed, it falls from OP to mediocre. I don’t pick the arcology project ascension perk anymore, you’re good enough with relic worlds that are guaranteed to spawn and turn then into Ecumenopolis.
It's going to bounce back in value when admin sprawl is reworked.
Ecumenopoli and Ringworlds aren't just producers, they're
efficient producers in terms of upkeep but especially admin sprawl. The strategic resources you're using are basically cutting off admin sprawl per X number of jobs supported. That's already significant now, because every point of admin sprawl in the later game is huge amounts of wasted science-beakers, but by the same token you don't want to waste pops on admin upkeep (which, itself, requires strategic resources to be efficient).
When bureaucrat spam is no longer a thing, Ecumenopoli won't just be better production centers, they'll be key to avoiding science cost inflation in mature empires.
I think we could add more Ecumenopolis type like Planetary Diversity - More Arcologies. Maybe not that many, but at least have one industrial oriented with new type arcology that produce rare resources and one civilian oriented with commercial arcology. And make a new designation with commercial arcology that can collect trade value like your capital. It means they are the secondary economic center of your empire.
A commercial/trade arcology is worth considering, though there may be some trade code that's not modification-friendly, but there's really no need for a strategic resource arcology. That's just building slots, which already exist on the planets you should be de-industrializing when moving pops
to the arcology. Habitats especially will be your ideal refineries, thanks to their multiplication of space-based resources.
Ring world districts need some improvement too. Once you build a ring world, you will only build research segment, and nothing else. Why would you waste precious ring world district to build agricultural segment and you need to pay rare resources upkeep? Not to mention, you must built or repaired a multi-stage megastructure and acquired Mega-Engineering technology, then pick Galactic Wonders ascension perk and research ring world. You need to wait 18.3 years and pay 25000 alloys to get first segment. You are only after the tech boost from the ring world if really consider all the prerequisite.
Outside of science, Ringworlds are basically the galaxy's refugee camp system that lets you benefit from waves of refugees and create a core economic base that's consolidated behind defenses and not vulnerable to being destroyed piecemeal by the crisis. It's something that lets you grow
stronger as the AI falls, rather than have swarms upset your amenity and stability balances or become huge CG sinks for lack of jobs. It also puts your economic heart behind a secure defense line, rather than seeing your industrial core starved to death if you lose the frontier, ie if the Contingency spawns inside your economic bread basket and you go from having the strongest economy to dying in decades.
If you're good enough/strong enough that you can solo the crisis without AI, it's a waste. But the role is basically to achieve a compact self-sufficiency even if you lose much of your empire.
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