Maybe try playing on a lower difficulty until the mechanics make more sense, and I think you may get a lot out of watching Horath's Tutorial Series for 2.2:
I also have posted two videos on general advice for 2.2:
Hope you find some of this helpful
New economy is too much for me... advice?
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Maybe try playing on a lower difficulty until the mechanics make more sense, and I think you may get a lot out of watching Horath's Tutorial Series for 2.2:
I also have posted two videos on general advice for 2.2:
Hope you find some of this helpful
Resettlement is certainly very powerful, particularly when moving a planet up to its first 5 pops for a robot assembly plant, it just isn't something that needs to be done in a singleplayer game to be successful, even against the highest difficulty ai. I personally never use it, since I always go for some level of egalitarian and xenophile, and can still manage on grand admiral without too much issue. Yet looking around on these forums it sometimes sounds like resettling pops not just to get the admin building upgrade, but to keep as much pops as possible on the highest habitability worlds and where they can make best use of their traits is somehow essential to get anywhere, and that just isn't the case. Migration treaty spam is a reasonably effective alternative to get colonies established, as is freeing slaves via the market. Are they as strong? No, not really, but they do still get the job done well enough, and they require a good bit less effort.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that if a casual player doesn't want to go authoritarian and make heavy usage of resettlement they don't have to, and I feel like recommending that kind of micro to someone who is apparently overwhelmed by just the basics is counterproductive, even if it is the optimal strategy.
The first aspect is population management. You want to get each colony to size 10 as rapidly as possible. Resettlement is key and pace your colonization to max this out.
Key to not crashing your economy is balancing pops and jobs. You want to build at a pace that your jobs is always just 1 or 2 behind your pops. It's a lot of micro but makes for efficient economy.
Specialisation of planets is key. Early game you may need mixed economies on all planets due to lack of pops and building space but specialise your planets as soon as you can. I.e. a forge planet, a research planet, a farm planet, etc.
Trade is enormous. Set your trade policy to a mix of credits and consumer goods so you dont have to build too many civilian factories. Monitor your trade routes for piracy. Build star ports in such way to max trade resource collection first, then patrol your routes to minimize piracy.
The most important resource is minerals. Minerals is needed to make alloys and consumers goods, and by extension research, to produce strategic resources, and to build and upgrade your planets. You always want a healthy surplus of minerals production.
Dont underestimate building worlds to maximize trade. Lots of city districts, commercial buildings, galactic stock exchange. You will be rolling in credits, and producing huge amounts of trade, which translate into more credits and consumer goods.
To eliminate piracy late game build a gateway in your capital system. Direct all your trade to a few trade hubs in your empire that has a gateway too. Thus all trade goes via gateway to your capital with no piracy. Build a gateway in the terminus planet of the L cluster when you've cleared it. Will allow you to collect trade from all over the galaxy with no piracy.
Key to not crashing your economy is balancing pops and jobs. You want to build at a pace that your jobs is always just 1 or 2 behind your pops. It's a lot of micro but makes for efficient economy.
Specialisation of planets is key. Early game you may need mixed economies on all planets due to lack of pops and building space but specialise your planets as soon as you can. I.e. a forge planet, a research planet, a farm planet, etc.
Trade is enormous. Set your trade policy to a mix of credits and consumer goods so you dont have to build too many civilian factories. Monitor your trade routes for piracy. Build star ports in such way to max trade resource collection first, then patrol your routes to minimize piracy.
The most important resource is minerals. Minerals is needed to make alloys and consumers goods, and by extension research, to produce strategic resources, and to build and upgrade your planets. You always want a healthy surplus of minerals production.
Dont underestimate building worlds to maximize trade. Lots of city districts, commercial buildings, galactic stock exchange. You will be rolling in credits, and producing huge amounts of trade, which translate into more credits and consumer goods.
To eliminate piracy late game build a gateway in your capital system. Direct all your trade to a few trade hubs in your empire that has a gateway too. Thus all trade goes via gateway to your capital with no piracy. Build a gateway in the terminus planet of the L cluster when you've cleared it. Will allow you to collect trade from all over the galaxy with no piracy.
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So others have talked about things like using resettlement to rush to 10 pop on a new world, and specialising worlds into energy / minerals / food / etc. and most importantly using the Consumer Benefits trade policy. But only a couple of replies dealt with the real basics. I play like this:
1. Go and find the guaranteed nearby habitable planet(s).
2. Start building a colony ship as soon as you hit 200/200/200
3. Claim the systems with the habitable planets, and any intervening systems.
4. Build a 2nd science ship and hire another scientist to captain it.
5. Found colonies on the habitable planets (by this time you should have started Expansion and got +25% speed for this and +1 pop)
6. For any new colony:
- as you're approaching the 3rd pop, build a district of what you're short of (energy, minerals or food) - you can specialise planets later when you have plenty
- as soon as the 4th pop grows, build a city district (these take a long time)
- when you hit 5 pop build an Autocthon Monument (these are a huge unity boost and pretty much the only one worth building)
- as you approach 7 pop build another district of what you need, and again as you approach 9
- as soon as you hit 10 pop, build the Planetary Administration and then a building that you need, usually consumer goods or alloys but research if you can or a better building you have unlocked
The key for me is alloys. If I am unlucky with trade I find myself building CG factories for every 10pop building and my alloys stay at base for decades. If I can build an early 2nd alloy factory the game gets much much easier.
1. Go and find the guaranteed nearby habitable planet(s).
2. Start building a colony ship as soon as you hit 200/200/200
3. Claim the systems with the habitable planets, and any intervening systems.
4. Build a 2nd science ship and hire another scientist to captain it.
5. Found colonies on the habitable planets (by this time you should have started Expansion and got +25% speed for this and +1 pop)
6. For any new colony:
- as you're approaching the 3rd pop, build a district of what you're short of (energy, minerals or food) - you can specialise planets later when you have plenty
- as soon as the 4th pop grows, build a city district (these take a long time)
- when you hit 5 pop build an Autocthon Monument (these are a huge unity boost and pretty much the only one worth building)
- as you approach 7 pop build another district of what you need, and again as you approach 9
- as soon as you hit 10 pop, build the Planetary Administration and then a building that you need, usually consumer goods or alloys but research if you can or a better building you have unlocked
The key for me is alloys. If I am unlucky with trade I find myself building CG factories for every 10pop building and my alloys stay at base for decades. If I can build an early 2nd alloy factory the game gets much much easier.
the point about recommending it to a new player is a fair point. Maybe resettling is extra task load that could be avoided.
The robot factory is nice, if you have it, I personally pick temples for first building, to each his own. But the point of resettling to population 10 is to get the planet admin and lose the -50% growth penality.
Your colonies have a hard, divide by 2, growth penalty up until they get a planetary admin center. They literally only grow half as many pops until you do this upgrade only available at population 10. They only count as half worlds for population growth. That is why I recommend resettling population on to them.
It may appear that they grow at normal rate, but if you look at how they grow, by mousing over the population growth icon, you will see that -50% growth penalty, and the rest of the growth is actually being drawn from other worlds via immigration. If you then look at your homeworld you will see that its population growth is being drained by same amount. This is actually a bit painful as it prevents you from developing population on the one world with 100% habitability where you can have clerks without having to worry about piracy.
Yeah that 50% growth penalty is a pain, doesn't apply to robots though. Spiritualist egalitarian is probably one of the weakest ethics combos right now as a result, since both resettlement and robots aren't really applicable to them, so their colony development early on is glacial.
I wonder if adding a bonus to immigration based pop growth on colonies in addition to the immigration pull would help make the overall balance in that area better, so that way the choice of resettlement over migration wouldn't give so much of an outright advantage in total pop growth, but rather just a choice of how that growth happens. Maybe a 20% bonus or something like that.
One thing I've really noticed is that although your survey ships receive over time a large number of perks, abilities and techs to expedite and otherwise improve the survey of a given system, your constructor ships still precede at a relative snails pace in building up a system. It just doesn't make much sense to me.
Well, in practice my constructor ships are limited by minerals early, and influence late. If there were techs to increase construction speed, I'd skip them.
The other things I do, which are not strictly econ based, bit still viable starting tips are ....
1. Explore several constellations without surveying to get the lay of the land.
2. Drop a Corvette on systems with promising planets to mark them. (My memory for such things is lousy).
3. Get a second and third science ship early. Then survey towards the systems with planets you need, and also with an eye to blocking off constellations for later expansion.
4. Dont build outposts everywhere. Choose your systems wisely for resources, planets and future expansion. You can always backfill later.
5. I usually hold off on colonizing until I have 40+ pops on my homeworld so I can get a basic one planet econ going. And never drop it below 40.
6. Its worth dropping a few resources on neighbors to buy goodwill, so you can get a NAP or research agreement. Avoids unnecessary early wars.
1. Explore several constellations without surveying to get the lay of the land.
2. Drop a Corvette on systems with promising planets to mark them. (My memory for such things is lousy).
3. Get a second and third science ship early. Then survey towards the systems with planets you need, and also with an eye to blocking off constellations for later expansion.
4. Dont build outposts everywhere. Choose your systems wisely for resources, planets and future expansion. You can always backfill later.
5. I usually hold off on colonizing until I have 40+ pops on my homeworld so I can get a basic one planet econ going. And never drop it below 40.
6. Its worth dropping a few resources on neighbors to buy goodwill, so you can get a NAP or research agreement. Avoids unnecessary early wars.
This ^ is what I do and works best for me. Literally exact strategy. Rushing expansion can stall your main planet and economy due to the huge immigration draw of new colonies.
Hi All, thank you for your replies!
Just a quick update...
My most recent game following all this this great advice sees me playing a life seeded Spiritualist / Pacifist empire.
(I wanted to focus on just one planet, and largely try to ignore other empires while i focused on getting my head around the economy side of things)
In this latest attempt, i have just finished turning my home world into my first Ecumenopolis (supported by 6 teraformed Gia resource worlds). So i've allready managed to get further than ever before.
I think i have a better grasp of this new system now, but i would like to clarify my understanding with you all to see if my new assumptions are correct.
This is the way i currently see it... could you tell me how far of base i am?
Tier 1 - Workers in Planet districts produce the three raw resources. (Only Minerals are used in the higher tier process, Whilst Food and Energy are used empire wide outside the "economy")
Tier 2 - Workers in buildings convert Minerals into Consumer goods / Alloys / special resources (crystals / motes / gas)
Tier 3 - Consumers goods are turned into Unity and research by workers in buildings
Tier 3 - Alloys are turned into ships / upgrades / star bases etc. Basically your military arm.
Tier 3 - Special resources are consumed mainly by advanced buildings for the workers in Tier 2
Outside this, trade value is produced by planets as a result of jobs, this is collected by starbases and transferred back to the home system... and can be used to generate credits / unity / consumer goods depending on setting. (I wonder if trade value is a viable way to create vast amounts of unity / consumer goods... rather than buildings?)
I realize this is simplistic... but am i close?
Just a quick update...
My most recent game following all this this great advice sees me playing a life seeded Spiritualist / Pacifist empire.
(I wanted to focus on just one planet, and largely try to ignore other empires while i focused on getting my head around the economy side of things)
In this latest attempt, i have just finished turning my home world into my first Ecumenopolis (supported by 6 teraformed Gia resource worlds). So i've allready managed to get further than ever before.
I think i have a better grasp of this new system now, but i would like to clarify my understanding with you all to see if my new assumptions are correct.
This is the way i currently see it... could you tell me how far of base i am?
Tier 1 - Workers in Planet districts produce the three raw resources. (Only Minerals are used in the higher tier process, Whilst Food and Energy are used empire wide outside the "economy")
Tier 2 - Workers in buildings convert Minerals into Consumer goods / Alloys / special resources (crystals / motes / gas)
Tier 3 - Consumers goods are turned into Unity and research by workers in buildings
Tier 3 - Alloys are turned into ships / upgrades / star bases etc. Basically your military arm.
Tier 3 - Special resources are consumed mainly by advanced buildings for the workers in Tier 2
Outside this, trade value is produced by planets as a result of jobs, this is collected by starbases and transferred back to the home system... and can be used to generate credits / unity / consumer goods depending on setting. (I wonder if trade value is a viable way to create vast amounts of unity / consumer goods... rather than buildings?)
I realize this is simplistic... but am i close?
Yes. Now you should look into stability/amenity/housing optimization
Actually, you can live with minimal investment into advanced buildings, especially with ecumenopolis running. The more critical application of advanced resources is their use in advanced ship components and running several edicts boosting ships.
Almost perfect. Just some small improvements.
- low Amenities
- +Consumer Goods = Holo-Theaters, Gene-Clinic, Temple (Spiritualist), Temple of Prosperity (Megacorp, Spiritualist, Gospel of Masses)
- -Consumer Goods = District Housing, Commercial Zone, Food District (Agrarian Idyll), Bureaucratic Complex (Byzantine Bureaucracy), Upgrade Administrative Building
- planetary focus (Capital doesn't has focus so you can build what you want)
- with 2-3 buildings of Consumer Goods, Alloy Foundries, Research Lab on one planet gets you +5% bonus on that production so never build these randomly
- a focus on Energy, Minerals, Food (Planet Modifiers are strong candidates) needs Energy Grid, Mineral Purification Plant, Food Processing Facility/Hydroponic Farm - don't build focused Specialist Buildings here
- ignore the amount of resource districts (a planet is a planet is a planet even the small ones)
- Research, Consumer Goods, Alloy Foundries (small planets or ones with low amount of resources districts work well)
- Focus your research on one planet per 7-8 planets colonized
- Almost every 2nd planets needs to be Consumer Goods
- Around every 3rd-4th planet should be Alloy Foundries
- want to emphasize on the don't build anything unless you have unemployed people - workers rushing into specialised buildings can wreck your resource production early on
- Amenities/Housing/Employment can be slighty negative (-5 as a rule of thumb) without crippling your growth so don't rush to adjust everything immediatly
- Planets with special resources have Jobs or Buildings (Mote, Crystal, Gas [for free] needs to be build on a slot) that provide good bonuses
- generally negative Resource, Special Resource income is not a problem with a market providing some buffer
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I can give you one advice. Play Swarm. Right now Swarm is basically Stellaris on Easy Mode. The really have just upsides and barely any downsides going for them.
First off, way to go with one of the hardest picks to play. Life Seeded is very challenging due to admin cap smothering your Research and Unity as you take a bunch of systems but can’t keep up production of the above to match.
Second, Ecumenopolis is best done on a medium sized world that is not your home world, especially when you have a LS Gaia homeworld which always has rare resources and is already at 100% habitability. Best candidates have few production districts and no rare features.
And last, yes Trade Value can significantly boost unity but the amount of energy sacrificed needs to be produced somehow. The AI creates Trade Worlds sometimes covered in Commercial Zones. Now the AI is dumb AF but in this one case it’s a very good use of small worlds because of the massive amounts of Trade Value and jobs that can be pushed out. Especially with Stock Exchange tech. Oh and check your Trade routes for piracy because good coverage with Hanger Bays on Starbases can be essential.
Summary of my and other posts .... for those battling with the economic aspects of the game.
1. All buildings require pops to operate them. Building anything when you dont have pops will cost you maintenance for an unused building, and worse, the AI will distribute your pops differently across the available jobs than you might have intended. Rule: only add buildings when you have pop to work them. The sector AI is good at reducing the micro here but again may not build the same things you might have.
2. Planet tiles produce raw resources (energy, minerals, food). These are the foundation of your economy and all else is derived from it. Rule: you need a healthy surplus of each, especially minerals.
3. Building tiles are unlocked by pops. 1 building tile for every 5 pops. After 80 pops no more buildings. Buildings produce 2nd tier resources (unity, research, alloys, consumer goods, amenities). Rule: aim to get 80 pops minimum on each planet to fully exploit it.
4. Pop growth speed is linked to your capital building, which can be upgraded as your population grows. The upgrades unlock at 10, 40 and 80 pops. Rule: You want to get to 10 pops rapidly. Resettlement helps but can be painful.
5. The market is a good safety net, and an emergency resource converter, but is less efficient than having a healthy econ in the first place.
6. Specialising a planet will unlock a 5% bonus for that resource, and makes the planet unique buildings super worth it (stock exchange, resource institute, food processor, mineral purifier, energy nexus). Because all resources go into a global resource pool there is no penalty for a planet running a deficit on any resource.
7. Upgraded buildings produce 2nd tier resources at exactly the same rate per job as the base building. They just offer more jobs and costs a strategic resource as well. The advantage to upgraded buildings is that the energy maintenance is less per job, and you are squeezing more jobs out of valuable building tiles. Upgrades also dont contribute to empire size. Rule: dont rush to upgrade buildings unless you have a surplus of strategic resources and pops, a shortage of building tiles, or you are fighting the admin cap.
8. Administrative efficiency will serve as a brake for rapid growth but generally the benefits of going wide outweigh the penalties. Improving your admin cap reduces the penalties but trying to operate at zero penalty (tall) is not worth it economically. It is of course fun for roleplay or if you want a challenge.
Tip: If you find the whole thing intimidating or micro intensive.... set the sector AI priority to production, give it some minerals to play with, and leave it to build your planets. Just check your queues from time to time. It's 5% to 20% less optimal but 80% less micro.
1. All buildings require pops to operate them. Building anything when you dont have pops will cost you maintenance for an unused building, and worse, the AI will distribute your pops differently across the available jobs than you might have intended. Rule: only add buildings when you have pop to work them. The sector AI is good at reducing the micro here but again may not build the same things you might have.
2. Planet tiles produce raw resources (energy, minerals, food). These are the foundation of your economy and all else is derived from it. Rule: you need a healthy surplus of each, especially minerals.
3. Building tiles are unlocked by pops. 1 building tile for every 5 pops. After 80 pops no more buildings. Buildings produce 2nd tier resources (unity, research, alloys, consumer goods, amenities). Rule: aim to get 80 pops minimum on each planet to fully exploit it.
4. Pop growth speed is linked to your capital building, which can be upgraded as your population grows. The upgrades unlock at 10, 40 and 80 pops. Rule: You want to get to 10 pops rapidly. Resettlement helps but can be painful.
5. The market is a good safety net, and an emergency resource converter, but is less efficient than having a healthy econ in the first place.
6. Specialising a planet will unlock a 5% bonus for that resource, and makes the planet unique buildings super worth it (stock exchange, resource institute, food processor, mineral purifier, energy nexus). Because all resources go into a global resource pool there is no penalty for a planet running a deficit on any resource.
7. Upgraded buildings produce 2nd tier resources at exactly the same rate per job as the base building. They just offer more jobs and costs a strategic resource as well. The advantage to upgraded buildings is that the energy maintenance is less per job, and you are squeezing more jobs out of valuable building tiles. Upgrades also dont contribute to empire size. Rule: dont rush to upgrade buildings unless you have a surplus of strategic resources and pops, a shortage of building tiles, or you are fighting the admin cap.
8. Administrative efficiency will serve as a brake for rapid growth but generally the benefits of going wide outweigh the penalties. Improving your admin cap reduces the penalties but trying to operate at zero penalty (tall) is not worth it economically. It is of course fun for roleplay or if you want a challenge.
Tip: If you find the whole thing intimidating or micro intensive.... set the sector AI priority to production, give it some minerals to play with, and leave it to build your planets. Just check your queues from time to time. It's 5% to 20% less optimal but 80% less micro.
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In most cases you need to adapt. There is no one best way to play. Get a swarm or purifiers on your border and your priorities change. Instead of colonization you'd be focusing on alloys, alloys and alloys. Get a FE and you are shielded from one direction, limiting expansion option and forcing you to play (semi)tall.
In SP you got tons of opportunities to experiment. Just look at what you've got, prices for stuff on galactic market, your main deficits and plan accordingly. Trade is great but might be hard to manage prior to hangar bays due to piracy. Energy zones are more reliable and can be phased out later on.
Research is good but research labs lvl1 are not. CGs and energy for upkeep, food and amenities for staff scale them down quite a bit. Space labs might be much better with just a bit of luck. And you can always reverse engineer techs from enemies you destroy.
Do not go for continuous space early on. Influence is the most limiting resource at the start, but getting several systems with nothing but few minerals/energy in them is waste of admin efficiency and huge sink of alloys.
In SP you got tons of opportunities to experiment. Just look at what you've got, prices for stuff on galactic market, your main deficits and plan accordingly. Trade is great but might be hard to manage prior to hangar bays due to piracy. Energy zones are more reliable and can be phased out later on.
Research is good but research labs lvl1 are not. CGs and energy for upkeep, food and amenities for staff scale them down quite a bit. Space labs might be much better with just a bit of luck. And you can always reverse engineer techs from enemies you destroy.
Do not go for continuous space early on. Influence is the most limiting resource at the start, but getting several systems with nothing but few minerals/energy in them is waste of admin efficiency and huge sink of alloys.