More crime please!

[Flame13223]

Could you specify those arcologies please?

They are not arcologies, I refer to hive worlds and machine worlds respectively. Not that they're important to this conversation whatsoever considering criminal syndicates cannot build branch offices on those planets anyways not to mention crime not really being a thing for them, its called deviancy in their case.

 

[Devanor]

Funnily enough the only time I've ever build crime fighting buildings is as a machine empire.

That's the strangest about the crime system: gestalts should have less problems, not more

More whips? C'mon . there can't be too many whips when slaves are around...

Cracks whip

 

[Shirasik]

not to mention crime not really being a thing for them, its called deviancy in their case.

It has another name and absolutely the same backend, with absolute lack of sideways to fight it.

hmm...

K, I got it.
We simply need to remove all stuff that reduces crime for normals, except enforcers.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

My observation would be that if you increase crime to the point that it becomes something every planet has to have a building to deal with, then you're essentially locking a building slot out. At which point, you are in the situation where you start to ask "well, why bother with a building slot, then, and not make the default and bake it into the base planet stats?" After all, if you require [x] amount of resources to bring things to a base zero-level state, then it's basically a trap option to not do that. (And I'm opposed to that sort of trap option.)

Really, I think, having to spend extra resources on crime ought to only be confined to cases where it is outside the general default, else it is not an interesting gameplay decision to deal with it, it's just another rote thing you have to do not to get penalised every time.

 

[Flame13223]

It has another name and absolutely the same backend, with absolute lack of sideways to fight it.

Yeah except it cannot be spread actively by criminal syndicates to F you over completely. Gameplay balance is kind of important and if you increase the penalties on crime but keep Criminal Syndicates as they are right now, then most normal empires would get pretty screwed...

 

[Shirasik]

Yeah except it cannot be spread actively by criminal syndicates to F you over completely. Gameplay balance is kind of important and if you increase the penalties on crime but keep Criminal Syndicates as they are right now, then most normal empires would get pretty screwed...

So you want to say what normals and gestalts are balanced to each other? Especially machine empires, compared to normals?

 

[Flame13223]

So you want to say what normals and gestalts are balanced to each other? Especially machine empires, compared to normals?

No, what I said is they should be balanced compared to each other, now a perfect balance is impossible of course but one should get at least somewhat close to it. Criminal syndicates becoming OPAF would not really help in that endeavor.

Also, I know a lot of ppl cry about machine empires atm, but honestly I agree with the devs here, they're not nearly as "broken" as some claim they are. I am just finishing up with a Rogue Servitor playthrough and while yes it was definitely more challenging especially since I wanted to go tall this time (something I barely ever do) I wouldn't say they're weak, in fact I have all of the traditions and get enough unity to get all unity ambitions running at the same time and its just the end of the mid-game. I think a lot of people don't realize that you can remove jobs you don't need such as unity/society generation jobs in favor of other ones. It was definitely very micro intensive so perhaps the problem lies there, a lot of people don't like micro whilst I actually love micro.

 

[Shirasik]

It was definitely very micro intensive so perhaps the problem lies there, a lot of people don't like micro whilst I actually love micro.

Imagine multiplayer game with that micro. All the time. "Oh wait me please, I playing micro-intensive empire". "Pause, pause, please". etc.
Also, try to manage empire as big as 10k+ pops and 200+ colonies. How normals would manage it and how gestalts.

 

[Flame13223]

Imagine multiplayer game with that micro. All the time. "Oh wait me please, I playing micro-intensive empire". "Pause, pause, please". etc.
Also, try to manage empire as big as 10k+ pops and 200+ colonies. How normals would manage it and how gestalts.

So maybe dont play it in MP then if you cannot handle it. Look its perfectly fine to have more micro intensive empires and less micro intensive empires, hell its perfectly fine to have empires that are stronger in certain conditions than others. I am sure there's empires that are better depending on the game settings, such as map size, hyperlane density, number of empires, number of primitives, number of habitable planets, etc...

I do get it though, locking an entire group as big as machine empires behind a micro gate is probably not great game design, so it will need further change, but don't try to suggest that those changes are because machine empires are weak, because that's not the reason behind them anymore now is it?

PS - I play wide but I dont think I ever had 200 colonies before, my max has to be around 80 and that was before the 2.2 economy rework. Since then I cap at around 40-50 and at that point several planets are maxed out and have nothing to micro other than occasional resettling of 5 pops ever several years from one planet to another.

 

[Sinister2202]

I usually start a game, picturing a certain goal: my egalitarian empire as not a utopia, but a dystopia. No shining white skyscrapers against clear blue sky. Rather dark, gloomy, always raining, neon lights everywhere, densely populated cities, diversity, high tech and brutalistic police force, societal issues, the need for penal colony and of course, crime is a major one. But crime never occurs. So my dream is constantly shattered.

Every rounds I play, the game makes it possible for my empire to go socially flawless. So I am naturally almost always inclined to go down that route of post-scarcity utopia.

 

[The Founder]

I usually start a game, picturing a certain goal: my egalitarian empire as not a utopia, but a dystopia. No shining white skyscrapers against clear blue sky. Rather dark, gloomy, always raining, neon lights everywhere, densely populated cities, diversity, high tech and brutalistic police force, societal issues, the need for penal colony and of course, crime is a major one. But crime never occurs. So my dream is constantly shattered.

Every rounds I play, the game makes it possible for my empire to go socially flawless. So I am naturally almost always inclined to go down that route of post-scarcity utopia.

You could disable the Enforcers that come with the Capitol building. In most egalitarian societies, they tend to be enough.

Something worth looking at might be Academic Privilege. It has effects similar to Stratified Society. While at the same time not triggering the Egalitarian Faction issue and fullfilling the Authoritarian Faction one.

 

[Sinister2202]

You could disable the Enforcers that come with the Capitol building. In most egalitarian societies, they tend to be enough.

Something worth looking at might be Academic Privilege. It has effects similar to Stratified Society. While at the same time not triggering the Egalitarian Faction issue and fullfilling the Authoritarian Faction one.

true thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Shirasik]

Look its perfectly fine to have more micro intensive empires and less micro intensive empires

And microintensive empires must be stronger, if a player could handle those micro correctly, don't you think?

hell its perfectly fine to have empires that are stronger in certain conditions than others.

hmmmm.... either you wish to get back to civ series, where starting conditions is 50% of a win, or you agree what playstyle that is according to type of empire is a primary win condition?

I do get it though, locking an entire group as big as machine empires behind a micro gate is probably not great game design, so it will need further change, but don't try to suggest that those changes are because machine empires are weak, because that's not the reason behind them anymore now is it?

Well, ATM Stellaris just don't have any in-game options of empire-wide management, except micromanagement. Old sectors did the thing, but in a way of "pack and forget". New sectors just not manageable.

PS - I play wide but I dont think I ever had 200 colonies before, my max has to be around 80 and that was before the 2.2 economy rework. Since then I cap at around 40-50 and at that point several planets are maxed out and have nothing to micro other than occasional resettling of 5 pops ever several years from one planet to another.

 

[The Founder]

And microintensive empires must be stronger, if a player could handle those micro correctly, don't you think?

This now goes into "Balancing for Skill", wich is a tricky thing to do:

 

[Flame13223]

And microintensive empires must be stronger, if a player could handle those micro correctly, don't you think?

That depends on a lot of other things and this whole conversation has gone terribly off topic as is.

hmmmm.... either you wish to get back to civ series, where starting conditions is 50% of a win, or you agree what playstyle that is according to type of empire is a primary win condition?

Not at all, in fact starting conditions on the map itself have nothing to do with my comment, I suggest you read it again. It was about the game settings meaning the settings the map spawns with.

Well, ATM Stellaris just don't have any in-game options of empire-wide management, except micromanagement. Old sectors did the thing, but in a way of "pack and forget". New sectors just not manageable.

Nice screenshot however that raises a couple questions like what year are you in, what mode are you playing on, map size, difficulty, mods, etc...

As for your point, yes Stellaris has no way to afk at the keyboard which is fine by me. If you want to play with little micro there ARE options for that, certain empire types haven't got much to do, you could play a life-seeded one planet challenge or just play tall with a non-machine empire. Hell, just playing a non-gestalt makes the game require a hell of a lot less micro becuase there aren't as many jobs that you need to manually lock down as with machine empires, hell you could play without locking and it would be alright.

Look I get it some form of automation should be in the game, for example an auto-resettle button would be pretty friggin great for me. I'd just set up a planet to a pop limit above which it will automatically resettle pops to the target planet and voila, no more resettling micro needed on giant planets.

Before the economy patch I literally alt+tabbed on fastest for long periods of time because there was simply nothing to do whatsoever and I do not want that to happen again.

 

[Shirasik]

Nice screenshot however that raises a couple questions like what year are you in, what mode are you playing on, map size, difficulty, mods, etc...

Approximately 2450, Ironman, 1k stars, 5x habitable, admiral, mods - except graphical, Automatic Pop Migration.

As for your point, yes Stellaris has no way to afk at the keyboard which is fine by me.

K, at a certain game speed, each important object generates some events from time to time. Some of them can be truncated to series of related events (for example, new pop + queuing of a new building or a district + completion of the latter + optionally, resettlement). As game goes further, empire goes wider, so total count of sources of such events goes higher.
Let's say, you could meaningfully handle %insert_desired_number_here% of such events per minute in real time (w/o pausing), IF user interface isn't already laggy due to lategame.
Obviously, from certain point, count of events happening per minute exceeds your ability to handle 'em, so you can't handle your empire anymore. It become too big to handle via manual management. Meaning, you need some manageable automation for common-and-routine-and-everywhere-happening events. Otherwise, there is a hardcap of expansion exists.

upd
And it's very funny: due to overall game mechanics, and, especially, crime, gestalts, that must be better suited to wide playstyle, hits hardcap of expansion earlier than non-gestalts, because gestalts requires way more micro.
/upd

mod train mode: on

for example an auto-resettle button would be pretty friggin great for me.

Well, I've linked the mod I using for this
mod train mode: off

Before the economy patch I literally alt+tabbed on fastest for long periods of time because there was simply nothing to do whatsoever and I do not want that to happen again.

The thing is, Stellaris is mostly a routine-in-another-routine game, most of the time you don't need to make decisions, except the beginning, when you still looking for the optimal way to handle common events. After you have found the way, you will wish to automate it, in order to be able to make something bigger.

 

[Slynx]

I played against crime syndicate AI's before and they're the most annoying thing ever ruining some of my best planets with 100 crime.

Crime should do much more bad things yes but it also should be harder to spread then, because right now its WAY too easy to get 100 crime.

you were doing something wrong then,. it's extremely hard to spread crime to others unless it's already there.
and he wasn't ruining. he was giving you free stability.

When a neighbouring criminal syndicate started establishing branch offices in my biggest trade centers. They were super useful.

calling crippling your own economy with a useless building useful...is a bit strange.
you lost more pops by forcing them to work as enforcers that way. you also lost stability and time\resources. which could've been spent elsewhere.

unfortunately in a current state of the game crime is ...weak. because you have a magic "remove crime" button right from the start (deal with a lord). and since your planets will eventually reach the state where they have crime (unless you force stop the growth on them) - it's not a big deal if you push this button right away and ignore crime for the rest of the game.
​

 

[208]

calling crippling your own economy with a useless building useful...is a bit strange.

you lost more pops by forcing them to work as enforcers that way. you also lost stability and time\resources. which could've been spent elsewhere.​

?? Upgrading one building from 2 jobs to 4 is crippling? I would have lost more jobs to crime than I used on enforcers.

​

 

[Slynx]

?? Upgrading one building from 2 jobs to 4 is crippling? I would have lost more jobs to crime than I used on enforcers.

having a building in a first place is crippling.with t2 precinct house and leveled planetary admin...you have about 6 enforcers or more. that's 6 lost pops.
and how many you'll loose to crime? 4? for just -1 trade power per pop? and you also loose 10 stability for having enforcers.

 

[Flame13223]

5x habitable

Yeah that would be it. I usually play on 1x or 1.5x altough I used to play on 2x before the economy update but my problem with it was that back then it took way too long to actually win because you need to capture a % of habitable planets.

The thing is, Stellaris is mostly a routine-in-another-routine game, most of the time you don't need to make decisions, except the beginning, when you still looking for the optimal way to handle common events. After you have found the way, you will wish to automate it, in order to be able to make something bigger.

Fair enough. Even so I do prefer to have manual control over things, I don't trust the AI to be optimal.

you were doing something wrong then,. it's extremely hard to spread crime to others unless it's already there.
and he wasn't ruining. he was giving you free stability.

I mean, its a huge planet so the AI here has 4 building slots each with 50 crime and I have hundreds of pops that also add their own crime so yeah its not easy to get rid of.

Anyways yes my point was that if crime were to become much more severe and detrimental to your planet's output you would have to rebalance the way crime spreads because it could lead to issues where crime syndicates can just cripple any large planet.