Is ecumenopolis op?

[Archael90]

Just a discussion about ecumenopolis, and its influence on economy, who thinks it is op, and who dont, and why?
A s far as i can agree, that ecumenopolis is not needed, yet i belive that everyone should have at least one of them... bcs who woulnd not want to have 10 metalugist jobs per district without needs of volatile motes?
Any thoughts?

 

[Jabby]

It’s not op since it drains your resources a lot. In the game I’m playing I don’t have enough resource generating planets to supply and ecumenopolis. Once I get the matter decompressor though I will be more able to build one. If you dont have enough agri-worlds and mining worlds your ecumenopolis will fail

 

[Badesumofu]

I'm not sure how helpful all the discussion around how many resources it takes to fuel them is. It would take just as many resources to fuel that many jobs whether they are distributed among a bunch of regular planets or on an Ecu. They are strong because planets are scarce and one of these is worth several regular planets.

I don't think they are OP, but they are certainly very powerful. They are very planet-efficient and very admin cap efficient. Needing the pops and raw resources to fuel them puts a hand-break on your ability to milk them.

 

[Archael90]

It’s not op since it drains your resources a lot. In the game I’m playing I don’t have enough resource generating planets to supply and ecumenopolis. Once I get the matter decompressor though I will be more able to build one. If you dont have enough agri-worlds and mining worlds your ecumenopolis will fail

Yeah, but trying to make same amount of alloys on other planets you needs buildings, which drain your building space (4 districts = 5 buildings), and buildings needs volatile motes, and housing, while arcologys do not.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Whether it is too powerful for its cost when constructed manually I remain unconvinced, but the free precursor ecumenopolis of Fen Habbanis (First League) is a game changer, allowing the player to immediately start a transfer of production and population while early in the game: All the power of the ecumenopolis with none of the high costs.

 

[EvilKnievel82]

I think the balancing looks worse than it is. The main limiting factor is actually population growth (I.e. the time you need to fill it), unless you just shift every pop you can to the ecumenopolis once you have it. Then you will easily have a basic resource problem...

I would much rather like to see the alternatives to ecumenopoli buffed or changed. Ring worlds and habitats may need something they are particularly good at.

 

[Archael90]

Fen Habbanis is broken ecumenopolis, and needs to be cleared before full usable, but i think it should have some debuffs before its done
Ringworlds are agragian ildylls, and habitats should be able to make minerals/science, like it was in the past
But lets go back to ecumenopolis, shall we?

 

[WhiteKyubey]

Ecumenopolis is totally OP in alloy/CG production, and quite good for unity as well.
You get any number of alloy/CG jobs without spending any building slots or rare resources. And when you have all alloy/CG production on one (maybe a few planets, if your empire is that large) you get lots of empty building slots everywhere. Ecumenopolis is also much cheaper and easier to get then megastructures.

The only "problems" with ecumenopolis:
- if you spam your alloy/CG districts without thinking you can waste all your minerals
- you need other planet types for basic resource production - while Ecumenopolis is awesome it does not fix everything

 

[Incompetent]

The main weakness of an Ecumenopolis isn't the lack of natural resources (after all, you're enacting the arcology project on a planet that is already fully urbanized); it's the hard cap of 16 buildings per planet, which means with a huge population, you really need to rely on the districts.

Residential arcologies are a little disappointing as districts go: sure, you can house twice as many pops as a city district on a normal planet, but you aren't going to be able to make twice as many jobs for them.

Foundry arcologies are awesome of course: this is *the* way to get really high alloys production (assuming you have the minerals to support it).

Industrial arcologies are also great, but unless you have really extravagant living standards, you'll soon reach a point where you have more CGs than you can use. So I suppose the main point is to make regular CG factories obsolete (freeing up the slots and crystals for other things) and/or as an opportunity to switch trade policy away from consumer benefits.

Leisure arcologies aren't so important for the amenities, but I suppose the mass unity production could be interesting for fuelling unity edicts in the late game.

 

[SirL]

Fen Habbanis is broken ecumenopolis, and needs to be cleared before full usable, but i think it should have some debuffs before its done
Ringworlds are agragian ildylls, and habitats should be able to make minerals/science, like it was in the past
But lets go back to ecumenopolis, shall we?

Clearing it up just takes credits, and not even much of them. I really think 1 - that event ecu clearing cost should be higher, maybe take some minerals too? and 2 - other precursor event systems should be buffed. All they have is just ~10 research planets and ~5 rare resources which is complete garbage if you compare it to free ecu

 

[Archael90]

The main weakness of an Ecumenopolis isn't the lack of natural resources (after all, you're enacting the arcology project on a planet that is already fully urbanized); it's the hard cap of 16 buildings per planet. This makes residential arcologies a little disappointing as districts go: sure, you can house twice as many pops as a city district on a normal planet, but you aren't going to be able to make twice as many jobs for them.

but you are not forced to make residential arcologies, other arcologies provide housing for its workers, so you need only few housing districts (each provide 5 jobs, so 10 "empty" housings) so you have to count how many jobs will be in buildings, and make aproprate number of residential arcologies (rounded up to 10). This is not even close to problems :v

Clearing it up just takes credits, and not even much of them. I really think 1 - that event ecu clearing cost should be higher, maybe take some minerals too? and 2 - other precursor event systems should be buffed. All they have is just ~10 research planets and ~5 rare resources which is complete garbage if you compare it to free ecu

I can be wrong... but im pretty sure, that it takes also minerals :v

 

[Incompetent]

but you are not forced to make residential arcologies, other arcologies provide housing for its workers, so you need only few housing districts (each provide 5 jobs, so 10 "empty" housings) so you have to count how many jobs will be in buildings, and make aproprate number of residential arcologies (rounded up to 10). This is not even close to problems :v

I'm just pointing out that the rule of thumb, that an ecumenopolis is like having several urban worlds, is not strictly true: if you had several urban worlds, you'd have a lot more building slots with many options for how to use them. Of course, it's still a huge upgrade starting from a single urban world.

With pops that use reduced housing (a must for high-density play in general), you hardly need any residential arcologies, because the other districts provide a lot of spare room.

 

[Archael90]

I'm just pointing out that the rule of thumb, that an ecumenopolis is like having several urban worlds, is not strictly true: if you had several urban worlds, you'd have a lot more building slots with many options for how to use them. Of course, it's still a huge upgrade starting from a single urban world.

With pops that use reduced housing (a must for high-density play in general), you hardly need any residential arcologies, because the other districts provide a lot of spare room.

Nice upgrade would be to release cap of building, and as long, as you have enough pops, you can make more buildings, up to "infinity" (this would need a balance with paradise dome. Maybe new building dor each 10-15 pops, rather than 5?), or depend building slots on planet size/district built?

 

[SirL]

but you are not forced to make residential arcologies, other arcologies provide housing for its workers, so you need only few housing districts (each provide 5 jobs, so 10 "empty" housings) so you have to count how many jobs will be in buildings, and make aproprate number of residential arcologies (rounded up to 10). This is not even close to problems :v


I can be wrong... but im pretty sure, that it takes also minerals :v

Welp, maybe I forgot what it costs, because the price is so low :0 Still, point stands. I think the cost should be alot higher, I would even suggest it should require a technology of some kind

 

[Alastor]

They are not OP. They are not self-sustained and you can't spam them. Try doing that and you'll soon be bleeding minerals faster than you can possibly replenish them. Building an ecumenopolis is a strategic choice, that comes with advantages and disadvantages.

 

[Archael90]

They are not OP. They are not self-sustained and you can't spam them. Try doing that and you'll soon be bleeding minerals faster than you can possibly replenish them. Building an ecumenopolis is a strategic choice, that comes with advantages and disadvantages.

So tell us... how any other worlds can comete with ecumenopolis? I know, that ecumenopolis is not self-sufficient, ut is there any other kind of world?
And look, you have
5 planets, and 1 ecumenopolis within them
or
7 planets without ecumenopolis
lets say that 4 of them are exact the same. Do you think that second option can have simmilar economy to the first one? Bcs i strongly believe that they just cant be competing.

 

[AlknicTeos]

ecumenopolis are OP! They will be nerfed, and I fear this day. I only need exotic gases for science buildings. The other advanced ressources I never build.

 

[Wolfgang I]

Welp, maybe I forgot what it costs, because the price is so low :0 Still, point stands. I think the cost should be alot higher, I would even suggest it should require a technology of some kind

I just found Fen Habbanis in my current game. Base cost is 1000 energy and 1000 minerals.
This is the cost for arcologies. Pretty much irrelevant if you have the economy to provide the minerals and energy to keep the buildings running.
The traits apply too so you can get -25% from the environmental engineer governor trait too.

 

[tobias.mb]

So tell us... how any other worlds can comete with ecumenopolis?

You can't really compare an Ecumenopolis to a regular world though. They are an ascension perk and should be better than regular worlds. (What's the point otherwise?)
If you want to compare, you can only compare them to other ascension perks. They are definitely top tier, but compared to galactic wonders or machine- / hive-worlds I wouldn't call them OP.
Compared to galactic wonders: I do think ecumenopolis' are better than ringworlds alone, but matter decompressor + dyson sphere + sentry array still makes galactic wonders better imho.
Compared to machine-/hive-worlds: If you compare one Ecumenopolis to one Machine world, the Ecumenopolis is clearly better, but Machine worlds don't cost influence, so you can spam them.

 

[Alastor]

So tell us... how any other worlds can comete with ecumenopolis?

Competing with a normal world? They are an ascension perk. They should be powerful. But that doesn't make them OP. They have as I said advantages and disadvantages. Placing them is a strategic choice that should take those into account. And to counter your argument. Have those 7 planets and have them all be an ecumenopolis and have another empire with the same 7 planets but all of them normal. See what happens.