How to make Ecumenopolis and Ringworld great again?

[TSBasilisk]

At the end of the day, it's a game sir, a game that you're focused on winning. All this bs window dressing about immersion and empire building is nonsense due to how the system currently functions. You wanna build an empire? just take over more people...or and here's a novel idea, turn up the damn pop slider instead. If empty planets are such a horrific deal to you, then that is your solution, period. Complaining about problems when solutions for them exist is just ridiculous. Is it ideal? No, but almost nothing in life is Ideal.

The sliders were a stop-gap measure put in due to how much people disliked the pop changes, they're not a solution to the problem. Nearly every response I see from the "keep it as is" crowd amounts to the same thing: Use a workaround. Use a gimmick empire build, or use a gimmick planet build, or use a gimmick species build, or turn off the sliders and just deal with the game being obviously less functional. None of these "solutions" address the bizarre pop growth.

Also, every time somebody decisively ends an argument by saying "use the sliders", I can't help but remember the people in the early 3.0 reaction threads saying the sliders were a trap. Because as soon as you have the ability to counter the pop growth changes, even if the result is imbalanced and a worse experience overall, the people who don't care will just point to it and say the problem is fixed, no need to try for a better solution.

 

[Millbot]

As some have already mentioned, both worlds types were probably more intended for tall builds. Also before someone tries to play pedant, while ignoring what people mean. Again, tall isn't few colonies, it can be, it's having few systems.

Anyways, both are probably hurt more by two very different things. one is obviously sprawl and it'll be interesting to see if the rework solves that issue. The other issue is that the devs really should include something be it a slider, a checkbox in empire creation or hell even a event at or near empire start that makes the player decide to go tall or wide. I get the devs want all the tools to have value to players regardless of how they play. They don't want worlds to be absolute trash that you cant' salvage. This sadly has led to the issue where it's pretty much wide or bust and anything that doesn't synergize with wide looks lacking. If I had to make a choice of being tall or wide and that choice had significant implications for how I'll have to play because it comes with actually consequences. It means, you can make a ringworld useful for wide because wide is given some things that make it worthwhile, but at the same time, you could have tall builds being given tools that make ringworlds something they really want.

It would actually be some asymmetric gameplay that probably could be implemented without huge reworks of everything.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Numbers can always be tweaked to make Ecumenopoleis more powerful, but the issue isn't really game balance, it's simply that they are underwhelming now that Industrial Districts exist and do what used to be unique to Ecumenopoleis.

They need a new district type to become interesting again. I would suggest a Cultural Arcology that focuses on Unity. Of course, Unity also needs to be made more useful in the late game, but I'm pretty sure that's already coming with the changes to Empire Sprawl.

 

[TSBasilisk]

How about a "blank" Specialist Arcology whose jobs are determined based on planetary specialization? So set it to a Research Ecumenopolis, it has Scientist jobs; set it to Foundry, you get Metallurgist jobs; set it to Refinery you get some mixture of Gas/Mote/Crystal production jobs.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

The sliders were a stop-gap measure put in due to how much people disliked the pop changes, they're not a solution to the problem. Nearly every response I see from the "keep it as is" crowd amounts to the same thing: Use a workaround. Use a gimmick empire build, or use a gimmick planet build, or use a gimmick species build, or turn off the sliders and just deal with the game being obviously less functional. None of these "solutions" address the bizarre pop growth.

Also, every time somebody decisively ends an argument by saying "use the sliders", I can't help but remember the people in the early 3.0 reaction threads saying the sliders were a trap. Because as soon as you have the ability to counter the pop growth changes, even if the result is imbalanced and a worse experience overall, the people who don't care will just point to it and say the problem is fixed, no need to try for a better solution.

Weather it's a stop gap or not sir, it is the solution to the "oh so terrible" problem of half empty planets, despite those lack of pops having no real impact on the game what-so-ever aside from better performance. I've seen no valid argument for why the changes are even a problem, aside from OCD crap like "I have empty jobs", which, if your playing smart, you shouldn't even have empty jobs, because unfilled jobs is upkeep your paying with no return, you create jobs as you need them. What's that? too much micro to bother with that? Well that's your problem, strategy games have always been micro heavy.

 

[Ikael]

I think that a quite straightforward solution would be to make ecumenopolis and ringworlds immune to the global pop cap. While they might slow down the game, they won't slow the game as much as an entire galaxy filling with pops. And they would fit their intended role perfectly: late-game ways of allowing pop growth without resorting to conquest nor abduction. I wonder if I could mod and test it by myself.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

The change to pop growth was amde because of a technical issue.
It did not solve the technical issue but simply limited it.

The old pop growth system worked relatively fine on a mechanical level and the new one causes a host of follow-up problems because the entire economic system adn the gamelplay weren't made with declining growth. This has been adressed but also not solved so far.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Numbers can always be tweaked to make Ecumenopoleis more powerful, but the issue isn't really game balance, it's simply that they are underwhelming now that Industrial Districts exist and do what used to be unique to Ecumenopoleis.

They need a new district type to become interesting again. I would suggest a Cultural Arcology that focuses on Unity. Of course, Unity also needs to be made more useful in the late game, but I'm pretty sure that's already coming with the changes to Empire Sprawl.

For the output of 14 industrial workers, on a normal planet, a normal planet needs 7 planetary districts, 7 admin sprawl, 14 energy, and 14 pops. For 8 housing to help keep planetary capacity high enough to support at least 3 growth, you're going to need another urban district for 8 admin sprawl and 16 energy total.

For even better output on an Ecumenopolis, the Ecumenopolis needs only 2 planetary districts, 2 admin sprawl, 10 energy, 2 strategic resource upkeep and 12 pops. The 8 housing comes standard.

In exchange for increasing the cost by 2 strategic resource, you are saving 6 admin sprawl (worth half a buearacrat-pop), 6 energy (worth half a later-game technician pop), and 2 pops entirely. This doesn't even cover that an Ecu will only be using one 4-mote nano-alloy foundry, while smaller worlds will be using 4-motes each, so reducing the number of industrial worlds by consolidating onto an arcology will save 4 motes per world converted. Which- considering that Arcologies take 2 districts to do what 7 districts on a normal world do, so a size-18 arcology could save the worth of 3x size 21 industrial worlds...

A 2 mote for 3 pops in savings trade is very powerful in and of itself, especially as admin sprawl becomes significantly more of a handicap later in the game as tech costs make each point of sprawl matter more, and there's no good reason to keep planetary industrial districts when an Ecu comes online. You can use those 3 pops for more industry, or to more-than-cover the cost of synthesizing motes, or for other empire-useful things. And this is only liable to get more powerful when the admin sprawl system is reworked with the removal of bueracrats. At that point, both unity (used to counter-act effects of sprawl) and district efficiency (minimizing the need for admin sprawl unity) will be significantly more effective.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

As some have already mentioned, both worlds types were probably more intended for tall builds. Also before someone tries to play pedant, while ignoring what people mean. Again, tall isn't few colonies, it can be, it's having few systems.

this also fits into the story of the cybrex who stopped expanding/decontaminaiting the galaxy and resettled back to just two ringworlds: cybrex alpha and cybrex beta

so a ringworld fits perfectly into a one-system tall build as you can produce or trade in anything you need and want there (with habitats you won't even have to rely on trade), while an ecumenopolis is more one-planet-many-systems (and vassals) tall build for a capital planet of a galactic empire with constant need of importing resources from all over the empire (also fits into the story of the first league with the ecu being the capital of the whole federation)

 

[emattosalves]

How to make Ring Worlds and Ecumenopolis great again? Just build a giant wall around them and make the agraryan Indyllics pay for it!!!!!!

 

[Bezborg]

The sliders were a stop-gap measure put in due to how much people disliked the pop changes, they're not a solution to the problem. Nearly every response I see from the "keep it as is" crowd amounts to the same thing: Use a workaround. Use a gimmick empire build, or use a gimmick planet build, or use a gimmick species build, or turn off the sliders and just deal with the game being obviously less functional. None of these "solutions" address the bizarre pop growth.

Also, every time somebody decisively ends an argument by saying "use the sliders", I can't help but remember the people in the early 3.0 reaction threads saying the sliders were a trap. Because as soon as you have the ability to counter the pop growth changes, even if the result is imbalanced and a worse experience overall, the people who don't care will just point to it and say the problem is fixed, no need to try for a better solution.

Absolutely agreed.

And the solution is already known: transition away from a single-entity pop system, and the "slot-job to be filled by slot-pops" system, and go into a more abstract planetary population system the likes of Imperator et. al.

Until we do that, we have no solution to this primitive pop system that is destroying the game engine for no reason at all, as if the pop system in Stellaris is engaging in any way whatsoever

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

How to make Ring Worlds and Ecumenopolis great again? Just build a giant wall around them and make the agraryan Indyllics pay for it!!!!!!

so basically when a xenophile fallen empire wants to give me planetary shield tech i should also demand minerals for building it

 

[emattosalves]

Ok, seriously now, due the current pop system, the advantage of large pop capacity and jobs becomes far less powerfull, especialy in late game, when ring worlds and late ecumenopolis are build.

My sugestion to counter that loss of power, and make them "great again" is give a substantialy job production bonus to pop on ecu and RWs. In flavour, could be said that the pop units actualy represent more people per unit in those vast sized planets.

So, less pop housing and jobs provided by districts, but with a big bonus. In that way you can simulate a large amount of people with few pops ( so, less late game lag).

This will make room to some exploits, like reseatle pops of regular worlds to Ecu and RWs because is more eficient, but will give this 2 types of worlds their power back. It will be better that, as long as the games goes on, more bonus is placed to pop work output in general, as i said, to simulated more people represent in each individual pop unit, but perhaps this will cause tha lag to be as bad as the previous versions of the game.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Ok, seriously now, due the current pop system, the advantage of large pop capacity and jobs becomes far less powerfull, especialy in late game, when ring worlds and late ecumenopolis are build.

My sugestion to counter that loss of power, and make them "great again" is give a substantialy job production bonus to pop on ecu and RWs. In flavour, could be said that the pop units actualy represent more people per unit in those vast sized planets.

So, less pop housing and jobs provided by districts, but with a big bonus. In that way you can simulate a large amount of people with few pops ( so, less late game lag).

This will make room to some exploits, like reseatle pops of regular worlds to Ecu and RWs because is more eficient, but will give this 2 types of worlds their power back. It will be better that, as long as the games goes on, more bonus is placed to pop work output in general, as i said, to simulated more people represent in each individual pop unit, but perhaps this will cause tha lag to be as bad as the previous versions of the game.

I finished an ecumenopolis in 2241 in my most recent game, started the project in 2231. They're not a late-game tech.

I feel like the people who talk about how bad the pop growth system is haven't actually played with the current default sliders at all, and only remember what it was like on 3.0 release. It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I never have problems filling up planets into the midgame and even lategame with hundreds of pops.

 

[emattosalves]

Yes, but Ecu and RW were made to be build thinking in the old pop growth system. The current way, make them considerable less powerfull, been very dificult for you put 80 pops on any of them without breeding worlds. The way that i see, there is no other way to correct this other than aply a job productin bonus based on years passed in the game.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Yes, but Ecu and RW were made to be build thinking in the old pop growth system. The current way, make them considerable less powerfull, been very dificult for you put 80 pops on any of them without breeding worlds. The way that i see, there is no other way to correct this other than aply a job productin bonus based on years passed in the game.

I have about 15 combined growth per month on my ecumenopolis between bio assembly and natural growth. All of my planets are growing themselves, no funneling pops into the ecumenopolis, and it already has more than 80 even though it hasn't been around for that long yet (still quite a few years away from the default midgame year). The only empire type that can't get comparable growth is a psionic empire that chooses to not build regular robots. This planet will have 200 pops on it before it even starts to get full.

This is my empire capital's pop growth screen in 2286. Note the 10.57 organic growth and 5.6 monthly organic assembly. A synthetic empire will have those two numbers roughly swapped, ~10 assembly and ~5 growth per month. I may only have 334 pops in my empire at the time of this screenshot, but just with the base sliders, you're getting 50% extra base growth from pops (+1.50) and the pop cost is only 187.5% of what it was prior to the growth rework in 3.0. That means it only takes 25% longer to get each pop at this point in the game compared to before 3.0, and that's just taking into account base growth and ignoring the modifiers you can get on top of it. And my ecumenopolis is already more full than you seem to believe is possible to realistically achieve.

To claim that the rework makes it impossible to fill up an ecumenopolis is just flat out wrong.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Yes, but Ecu and RW were made to be build thinking in the old pop growth system. The current way, make them considerable less powerfull, been very dificult for you put 80 pops on any of them without breeding worlds. The way that i see, there is no other way to correct this other than aply a job productin bonus based on years passed in the game.

The biggest advantage of Ecumenopoli has always been the 20% bonus, not the growth bonus, and this is more important in a limited-growth system. Breeding worlds are a solution, but the best solution has always been to flat-out re-locate your pops to the Ecu ASAP. The same update that gave the pop change gave a free method in pop-migration.

 

[TrotBot]

Complaining about problems when solutions for them exist is just ridiculous. Is it ideal? No, but almost nothing in life is Ideal.

This is the most american answer to a feature request on a videogame forum that I have ever seen.

Sir, this does not make you a rugged individual, and changing the pop slider to destroy your endgame speed is not "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps".

 

[苏白@夢璃花]

The relative weakness of both is down to the pop change, without specific pop condenser/vacuum builds your just not gonna ever fill out these super worlds in the course of a normal game. Heck anything but your first few worlds and the handful of 11-14 size planets won't max out either in the course of play. There just aren't the pops to make them worth taking with regular settings.

Tech rings are best rings this is true, but i think that has more to do with the ring colony designations, then the districts themselves. Being the only colony type that's given a tech production increase, when ever other type just get upkeep cuts is silly good. Other types of output are more in line with normal worlds but not tech for some reason. Imo just nerf the tech ring designation and then see what else needs to be done to level the field for the other districts.

Ecus just suck period no matter what has been done to there districts. There intended to be ultra dense pop worlds on par with multiple ring segments(planet size willing).
But you can't fill them so the potential density is worthless.

Well, now with the pop change, you are forced to make more conquest to gain pops and more towards early game rush. I farm the AI pops to fill those empty worlds rather than wait they grow. The devs really need to put some thoughts to refine the pop system I guess.

I don't really think nerf the tech ring designation is a good idea when you consider how much it take to get a ring world. I would think it's probably better buff the other types.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Well, now with the pop change, you are forced to make more conquest to gain pops and more towards early game rush. I farm the AI pops to fill those empty worlds rather than wait they grow. The devs really need to put some thoughts to refine the pop system I guess.

I like how people just ignore my post and continue to act like the new growth system is completely crippling when it's not. Worlds fill up just fine by themselves. You don't need breeder worlds, you don't need to vacuum pops with raiding bombardment. Do planets grow slightly slower than before? Yes. But it really isn't that much slower until the very late game at which point it doesn't matter because any player will have won the game by then.

Honestly don't get why so many people still say this even in the face of evidence to the contrary.