You probably should give it some time and don't judge by one day. I didn't expect to rock the galaxy in my first attempt. I started a MegaCorp and expect to lose because i am way too slow. But i take the time to see what happens. How my pops grow, how jobs and promotions work, how my economy is steered in the right direction. I already have figured out a lot to improve. Just don't expect to play perfect from the get-go. You wouldn't expect this from a totally new game and this update overhauled half the game.
MegaCorp ... i am tired and sad
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I would also strongly recommend to replace the unemployment sign with a scavenger counter for hive mind empires. I didn't even realise how the scavenger function works for the first playthrough and therefor didn't adjust my workforces. Secondly, to micro-check every colony every so many years is really a unnecessary clickfest.
I couldn't disagree more, yes in the old game clicking for upgrades was annoying, but in exchange we gained increasing amounts of freedom about how we built our planets as the game progressed. In 2.2 I'm not making any decisions, I'm automatically taking the thing I'm missing that balances the economy best or stops my planets from falling apart. There's never a situation where I'll choose to maybe build up some extra energy so I can offset the upkeep of a new fleet, or build an entire science planet because I feel like the boost. It's always an "I need X so I'll build X decision". It's incredibly annoying not just because it's boring, but because they put in an entire planetary specialization system only to give you planets where if you try to actually fully specialize them they'll fall apart.
The decisions are there to be made, but they require some thought and planning. If you're just constantly reacting to deficits in your economy rather than making a plan then I guess it could feel the way it does to you. You definitely can specialise planets without having them fall apart, but it again, it requires planning. The old system only ever felt like it was giving you freedom because it was simplistic and boring. Just get as much stuff as you can, and once you have lots do whatever you like. Making an entire science planet because you feel like it is not strategy. Figuring out which planet is going to be suitable to be a research planet, then figuring out how to make it be one, and also whether it's actually a good idea in the first place - that involves strategy, planning, and thoughtfulness. The freedom is there as are the decisions (and those decisions are actually meaningful now) but you have to make the effort and think through what you're doing rather than just build mines everywhere.
There's bugs with the AI struggling to use the new system but overall I think it's an improvement.
You have less "direct" control (as in manually dragging pops to tiles) but really this was just the illusion of control because the click-drag gave you strong kinaesthetic feedback imo. The new system gives you much, MUCH more influence over how to structure your economy and what to prioritise (whereas before it was just rush minerals -> exploit deposits -> do whatever b/c you've optimised your planets and already won), but now you need to think less like a warehouse shelf stacker and more like a manager or high-level administrator.
The new system has way more depth and strategic choice (how many consumer goods should I produce? What should I sacrifice to increase my production of consumer goods? What should I spend them on - pop living standards, research, specialists? What sort of specialists? Should I be producing alloys instead? - the cool thing is that all of these questions have different answers depending on your situation, empire type, geography, and mid- and long-term goals).
Unfortunately the AI doesn't seem to be able to really ask or answer any of these questions lol. That's the biggest disappointment for me.
You have less "direct" control (as in manually dragging pops to tiles) but really this was just the illusion of control because the click-drag gave you strong kinaesthetic feedback imo. The new system gives you much, MUCH more influence over how to structure your economy and what to prioritise (whereas before it was just rush minerals -> exploit deposits -> do whatever b/c you've optimised your planets and already won), but now you need to think less like a warehouse shelf stacker and more like a manager or high-level administrator.
The new system has way more depth and strategic choice (how many consumer goods should I produce? What should I sacrifice to increase my production of consumer goods? What should I spend them on - pop living standards, research, specialists? What sort of specialists? Should I be producing alloys instead? - the cool thing is that all of these questions have different answers depending on your situation, empire type, geography, and mid- and long-term goals).
Unfortunately the AI doesn't seem to be able to really ask or answer any of these questions lol. That's the biggest disappointment for me.
Honestly I think 90% of people's problems with the new economy are, as I predicted, based on how the AI assigns pops. The AI has never been competent at this and although the new system was supposed to be simpler, apparently so is the AI's method of assigning jobs. Higher job? You go there. I doubt this is healthy for the AI empire's economies and it's certainly not for the players. The job assignment system needs a major looking at. Jobs should be prioritised based initially on need (assigning pops from surplus areas to deficit areas but never reassigning a pop so as to cause a deficit) but with manual prioritisation of job types so you can designate high priority jobs. And they should be assigned to fit their skills as best as possible.
The current system isn't unmanagable but to actually go around opening and closing jobs individually is 100x more micromanagement than the old system, and the bad kind of micromanagement, the tedious kind with no decisionmaking.
The current system isn't unmanagable but to actually go around opening and closing jobs individually is 100x more micromanagement than the old system, and the bad kind of micromanagement, the tedious kind with no decisionmaking.
the real culprit of your problems is that that buildings upgrades offer to many jobs. its stupid to think that i have one planet with 4 max research labs and the rest of the tiles are dumb gas.
The devs said they were making changes to the economy so that you can take what you get, IE no mineral spam. but then they do a complete 180, and just let you produce gas n stuff. sense made? 0
also the enemy ai cant hold a candle to you. already beat the game 3x on grand admiral. the ai literally cannot handle upgrading buildings. so when you play tall. you will land slide the board.
The devs said they were making changes to the economy so that you can take what you get, IE no mineral spam. but then they do a complete 180, and just let you produce gas n stuff. sense made? 0
also the enemy ai cant hold a candle to you. already beat the game 3x on grand admiral. the ai literally cannot handle upgrading buildings. so when you play tall. you will land slide the board.
yeah, clerks are beyond annoying. Especially when you got +1 clerk job from traditions. They should boost production i think
I actually am really enjoying the current economy system, but it took me a bit to figure out how to best organise my worlds. this is just the way that seems to be working for me but having them organised into
Industrial worlds, world making full use of their districts to make either minerals, food or energy, and end up typically as rural worlds cause I build at most one city district for some extra needed buildings. pick these worlds based solely on their districts, ignoring planet size, and if they've got any strategic resources then that's an added bonus. I use the building slots on these as booster buildings for the worlds resources, military buildings (some of which provide their own housing, very handy) the odd strategic resource production, and housing buildings to populate the buildings while all other housing from districts does those districts jobs.
Commercial worlds(or urban), these are worlds you should pick entirely on their world size, with strategic resources as a pleasant bonus. these worlds have usually almost if not entirely city districts, and I use their building slots for my jobs. these produce all advanced materials (alloys, consumer goods, science, unity, trade). these worlds usually require (depends on stations obviously) need at least one or two industrial worlds to provide the raw materials for use. these are the planets that should you get the ecumanopolis perk will get made into them. almost all megastructure's fit in this category ( I find late game minerals are my drag, with energy coming from trade and food unnecessary cause synths) so I just use them for advanced goods and large populations.
I find specialising like this keeps things simple. I don't have to worry about strata cause the worlds really only have one, either workers or specialists, not both. and I can change prioritys easily to get my pops out of those clerk jobs and into the mines.
Industrial worlds, world making full use of their districts to make either minerals, food or energy, and end up typically as rural worlds cause I build at most one city district for some extra needed buildings. pick these worlds based solely on their districts, ignoring planet size, and if they've got any strategic resources then that's an added bonus. I use the building slots on these as booster buildings for the worlds resources, military buildings (some of which provide their own housing, very handy) the odd strategic resource production, and housing buildings to populate the buildings while all other housing from districts does those districts jobs.
Commercial worlds(or urban), these are worlds you should pick entirely on their world size, with strategic resources as a pleasant bonus. these worlds have usually almost if not entirely city districts, and I use their building slots for my jobs. these produce all advanced materials (alloys, consumer goods, science, unity, trade). these worlds usually require (depends on stations obviously) need at least one or two industrial worlds to provide the raw materials for use. these are the planets that should you get the ecumanopolis perk will get made into them. almost all megastructure's fit in this category ( I find late game minerals are my drag, with energy coming from trade and food unnecessary cause synths) so I just use them for advanced goods and large populations.
I find specialising like this keeps things simple. I don't have to worry about strata cause the worlds really only have one, either workers or specialists, not both. and I can change prioritys easily to get my pops out of those clerk jobs and into the mines.
Feeling tired and sad is exactly what bad UI does to people.
It feels like I am constantly fighting UI, and not solving game problems.
New system is for the most part quite interesting, complex enough to be challenging and rewarding when you do the right thing and rather elegant. Hope they fix an issue why my mining droid suddenly work as medics when there are empty mines over there.
However with half-baked UI playing Stellaris feels like riding a rusty bicycle on buckled wheels - route is great, views are amazing, but gosh it feels like shit.
I even created forum account instead of shitposting on reddit because how sad it is for me to see a game that I love in such a sorry state.
Wiz, can you please put this cake back to the oven for another month?
It feels like I am constantly fighting UI, and not solving game problems.
New system is for the most part quite interesting, complex enough to be challenging and rewarding when you do the right thing and rather elegant. Hope they fix an issue why my mining droid suddenly work as medics when there are empty mines over there.
However with half-baked UI playing Stellaris feels like riding a rusty bicycle on buckled wheels - route is great, views are amazing, but gosh it feels like shit.
I even created forum account instead of shitposting on reddit because how sad it is for me to see a game that I love in such a sorry state.
Wiz, can you please put this cake back to the oven for another month?
I think the market system is good but people need to be careful about them, for example as many of you know, you can make automatic month trades like some minerals per month, special resources, etc, but keep in mind that the month prize of this products can change really fast if someone buy or sell a lot of this products, in my empire I wasn't able to get enough minerals so I set automatic amounts of minerals per month but one time I decide to buy a lot of them in one go because I have a lot of energy credits and need it to build some districts, the next month I was in a INSANE deficit in energy credits because when I buy minerals increase the prize a lot so the monthly amounts I buy get really expencive I almost get broke but after a couple of months the prize of minerals stabilize again. I think some of the "for no reason" brutal changes in economy are related with this, since I think (maybe I'm wrong) AI can make the prizes on the market changes when they buy or sell something.
I'm not really feeling this new system either. Balance and UI issues can be fixed, but for me personally the biggest problem is the direction this update is taking the game. I really didn't want an economic system that is this deep. Smaller tweaks would have suited my play style better. I have a fear that it will increase the amount of micromanagement to a level which I don't find enjoying any more. I want to feel like I'm the ruler of an space empire not the accountant or the HR manager for it. I will try a game or two with this version, but if I feel the same after that I'll probably go back to 2.1.3 and it will be the final version of Stellaris for me. Luckily I have that option so it's not really a huge problem.
The new system has less micromanagement than the tile system. It has more strategic depth, though.
But if you were constantly in deficit in 2.0, you'd constantly be responding to that too. Responding to deficits is far less critical now, since if you have a surplus of anything, you can get what you need from the market.
It's not a lot of fun upgrading your buildings just so your people can start starving to death. Lots of open farms, no food in the empire.
I picture a high tech holo-conference call with genetically engineered supermen starving to death because they don't know what the big green dome across the street is for.
It's that stupid. Doesn't feel fun.
I picture a high tech holo-conference call with genetically engineered supermen starving to death because they don't know what the big green dome across the street is for.
It's that stupid. Doesn't feel fun.
A government that encouraged all its farmers to move to higher paying specialist jobs and starved its population as a result would indeed be pretty stupid.
Yeh, but I didn't see anything labeled "stop being farmers" on those research buildings. If I am in a total command economy, capable of forcing people off the farm and into a lab, I ought to be able to to the reverse, or better yet..just allocate pops if I'm going to have that sort of control. Maybe there's a setting somewhere for it. I didn't see it.
It's clearly not a total command economy. You can force people off the farm by shutting the farm. That doesn't imply a command economy. By building the lab you opened up new and higher paying jobs which the pops promptly moved to. If you wanted them to stay on the farm then why build a lab?
To the extent that this is a problem, I believe the solution that has been floated by the new GD is to having a cooling off period after a pop promotes where it can demote again instantly.
when people have grown acustomed to the new interface/mechanics, the exact same will be said about what we have now.
Having introduced friends to stellaris over the time pre-leguin, I KNOW there were choices and sub-optimal ways to play the game, as I could see my friends do things I wouldn't do and sometimes struggle hard because of those choices. I didn't suffer this as I was used to the game. I can see the exact same thing will happen with the 'new' game, as it is not more 'interesting' but simply more tedious with more forced micromanaging to pad out timeuse by forcing clicks from the player instead of allowing the player to actually plan ahead and let the plan be effectuated insteda of constantly needing attention.
It's like when I remember starting out back in the days playing MoO2. Initially I thought it was hugely complex, but after I had played it alot I was consistently beating the AI on the hardest difficulty with a wide assortment of tactics, depending on which mood I had been in when designing my race for a particular game. The difference there, however, was that even though I was going on autopilot with 'the right choices' as far as managing my colonies (like there was and still is in stellaris, making colony management still very much auto-pilot mode) the differences in fleet combat, depending on which tactic I wanted to go for, made meangingfull differences. Those meaningfull differences aren't really available in stellaris as, in spite of the fluff and flash of the ship designer, all ship systems are really just variations of the same set of mechanics.
It's a bit sad that a venerably ancient by now (MoO2) managed to be more apt at giving meaningfull choices than what we got now with stellaris AND doing it while it also gave us the ability to use TEMPLATES which we can't even use in stellaris and thus are forced into ALOT of timepadding by the game by forced gameclicking that serve no other purpose than timepadding.