New player to the game - here's my impressions

[Mastikator]

Im mostly agreeing, but not with all things.
Like micromanaging pops and jobs. Noone force nobody to do that. Doing this is an option to min-maxing your playthrough. Otherwise leave those pops as they are. When planet is becoming full, or there are jobless pops, they are migrating to other planets, its not the same as relocating them, but it is enough. I personally think that players should be dealing with unemplyment, and homeless pops, as this brings some depth, and dont allow to min-max. Some empires will have more problems with those pops, and some will have less, and this is also a nice thing, so not all empires are the same in lot of ways.

Edit. You dont need relocating pops, you have to handle them, perhaps improving their quality of life, perhaps making other places better for migrating etc.
But yes, if you need to take controll of every little aspect of the game and want just to min-maxing your economy and empire so there would be never any red sign showing anywhere... then yes, you have to relocate every single pops, and yes, this means lot of micro in this.

Nobody forces you to build ships or research technology in the game either. But it is one of the core game mechanics and if you want to play the game then what you sign up for is:
1) explore surrounding space
2) expand your territory
3) exploit resources AKA micromanage your pops
4) exterminate AKA build ships and conquer your neighbors

Stellaris is a strategy game, min maxing your economy is NOT the wrong way of playing. The game should NOT punish you for trying to optimize your strategy in a strategy game. (yes it is also a RP and simulation game, blah blah still a strategy game. In fact the game punishes you for roleplaying all but a small number of empire types so don't even get me started!)

 

[Serenity84]

That's completely irrelevant. You don't have to min/max anything" and "You shouldn't be punished for min/max-ing" have nothing whatosoever to do with each other. That should really be obvious. You can optimize things if you like. You just don't have to do it.

If game mechanics like happiness, crime and stability were actually punishing that would be different. But usually they don't matter much and you can just treat them as giving bonuses when taken care of

 

[Archael90]

Nobody forces you to build ships or research technology in the game either. But it is one of the core game mechanics and if you want to play the game then what you sign up for is:
1) explore surrounding space
2) expand your territory
3) exploit resources AKA micromanage your pops
4) exterminate AKA build ships and conquer your neighbors

Stellaris is a strategy game, min maxing your economy is NOT the wrong way of playing. The game should NOT punish you for trying to optimize your strategy in a strategy game. (yes it is also a RP and simulation game, blah blah still a strategy game. In fact the game punishes you for roleplaying all but a small number of empire types so don't even get me started!)

You can optimize your economy manually but you dont have to. Planeta can be handled not badly by macro managing and you are not forced to min-maxing via micromanaging pops. This is n option for you, not a main feature. Main feature is macro managing pops and this is enough to Play tha game AND have fun. If You are having fun only by min-maxing and perfectly redistribute pops then you have tools for it, but dont complain that someone allow you to do this.
Planet managing and microing all planeta one by one when having 30 planets is an issue, but pops are managing by themselves well enough to ejnoy the game.

 

[Mastikator]

You can optimize your economy manually but you dont have to. Planeta can be handled not badly by macro managing and you are not forced to min-maxing via micromanaging pops. This is n option for you, not a main feature. Main feature is macro managing pops and this is enough to Play tha game AND have fun. If You are having fun only by min-maxing and perfectly redistribute pops then you have tools for it, but dont complain that someone allow you to do this.
Planet managing and microing all planeta one by one when having 30 planets is an issue, but pops are managing by themselves well enough to ejnoy the game.

The game shouldn't provide tools that are both the strongest way to play and so painful it drives players away from the game. Good game design is to align "strongest way to play" and "most fun way to play", and only punish failure. Growing stronger should give players additional challenges to overcome, those challenges should be fun to overcome. The frustration should only come from difficulty, not the GUI.

Stellaris does the exact opposite. Stop blaming players for using the badly designed mechanics, blame the badly designed mechanics.

 

[Atahal]

You can optimize your economy manually but you dont have to. Planeta can be handled not badly by macro managing and you are not forced to min-maxing via micromanaging pops. This is n option for you, not a main feature. Main feature is macro managing pops and this is enough to Play tha game AND have fun. If You are having fun only by min-maxing and perfectly redistribute pops then you have tools for it, but dont complain that someone allow you to do this.
Planet managing and microing all planeta one by one when having 30 planets is an issue, but pops are managing by themselves well enough to ejnoy the game.

Imo the main issue is not the micro managing pops.
The main issue is the broken vassal/sector AI.
And AI who doesn't even know how to handle the most basics things.

My vassals are not even creating construction ships. I have to literally give them a system with a construction ship queued in the starbase if i want them to exploit their system resources...

For my sectors, this is even worst. Most of the time, the AI does nothing, if not pure garbage. If i let the sector automation AI handle my systems, i end up with tonnes of unemployed AI, random buildings, and homeless pops. From time to time, i can see it doing one building, in one planet, and then going back to sleep for 1 year while having more than 100k resources in stock.

Everything is fine...

 

[Serenity84]

The game shouldn't provide tools that are both the strongest way to play and so painful it drives players away from the game. Good game design is to align "strongest way to play" and "most fun way to play", and only punish failure.

That still doesn't contradict what he is saying. And neither is he excusing the bad game design. You are arguing against a strawman you constructed

All he is saying is that you can mostly ignore certain things in the game, no matter how badly designed they may be. Which in of itself is a flaw, but their quality isn't the point here

 

[Mastikator]

That still doesn't contradict what he is saying. And neither is he excusing the bad game design. You are arguing against a strawman you constructed

All he is saying is that you can mostly ignore certain things in the game, no matter how badly designed they may be. Which in of itself is a flaw, but their quality isn't the point here

Yes, you can ignore the strongest way to play as a means of avoiding a painful way of playing. Hell I can skip it entirely by not playing Stellaris. Brilliant. "You don't have to min-max" doesn't answer the complaint that the game mechanics directly punish you for utilizing the strongest strategy.

There is in fact no valid argument you could make to defend the way the game is constructed, the only valid answer is for the devs to fix the problem.

The players are not to be blamed for their negative experience if what they do is play the game the strongest way they can see. "Just don't do it" is NOT the answer.
If "just don't do it" was the answer then the game shouldn't let players do it at all.

 

[Liggi]

Hey, that’s me! I’m Liggs124.

Yeah, that’s my best summary of the current issues.

EDIT: I think it's worth noting that I actually do think that the devs WILL address these issues. Probably not with the Necroids-associated patch (if there is one), but with the next major DLC. It's been made clear that they are working on micromanagement, and POP growth is something that's been mentioned before by @grekulf that he wants to take a look at. I think the POP growth rework will probably also address the issues with migration too. My bigger concerns is whether the military AI and the crisis AI will ever be fixed... here's hoping though!

 

[Archael90]

Yes, you can ignore the strongest way to play as a means of avoiding a painful way of playing. Hell I can skip it entirely by not playing Stellaris. Brilliant. "You don't have to min-max" doesn't answer the complaint that the game mechanics directly punish you for utilizing the strongest strategy.

There is in fact no valid argument you could make to defend the way the game is constructed, the only valid answer is for the devs to fix the problem.

The players are not to be blamed for their negative experience if what they do is play the game the strongest way they can see. "Just don't do it" is NOT the answer.
If "just don't do it" was the answer then the game shouldn't let players do it at all.

You are quite right, but not entirely.
Removing pop resettlement system would not broke the game in any way.
This would only hurt min-maxers and certain roleplayers but not all... AND this would remove problem of microing pops.. so win-win?

Your argument of not playing game at all is somehow valid, albut from another way.
If devs should remove all features that someones does not like, they would end up not creating any game.

Your arguments can be applied to litteraly any aspect of the game, and yet it is invalid, because microing pops is not a valid playstyle, its only a feature presented for certain empires behavior, and min-maxers... Look that egalitarians CANT do this (or its a policy their faction like, i dont remember, i have to go back playing egalitarians, but they cant have imperial government ), and yet they play, and enjoy the game.

 

[Evangeline]

People aren't only talking about resettlement, but mostly refer to the fact that you cannot queue up buildings, instead having to wait until another pop has grown, and then also have to manually upgrade each building, then try to make the right pops (those that are actually good at it) work the jobs they're good at instead of the jobs their species sucks at. And you have to re-check each planet each year, countless times, because the game utterly mishandles planets on auto AND doesn't allow you to plan ahead, design building templates for "new planets", "science planets" etc. that you just have to select once and then forget about. Which also means the game punishes you for winning: the more planets you conquer or settle, the more planets you'll have to check and recheck and recheck again and again to give another little micro command. That's why so many players stop at midgame and restart: the beginning/exploration part is great, but then it just becomes more and more repetitive busywork.

 

[Archael90]

People aren't only talking about resettlement, but mostly refer to the fact that you cannot queue up buildings, instead having to wait until another pop has grown, and then also have to manually upgrade each building, then try to make the right pops (those that are actually good at it) work the jobs they're good at instead of the jobs their species sucks at. And you have to re-check each planet each year, countless times, because the game utterly mishandles planets on auto AND doesn't allow you to plan ahead, design building templates for "new planets", "science planets" etc. that you just have to select once and then forget about. Which also means the game punishes you for winning: the more planets you conquer or settle, the more planets you'll have to check and recheck and recheck again and again to give another little micro command. That's why so many players stop at midgame and restart: the beginning/exploration part is great, but then it just becomes more and more repetitive busywork.

I agree with that fully.

 

[Yourss]

People aren't only talking about resettlement, but mostly refer to the fact that you cannot queue up buildings, instead having to wait until another pop has grown, and then also have to manually upgrade each building, then try to make the right pops (those that are actually good at it) work the jobs they're good at instead of the jobs their species sucks at. And you have to re-check each planet each year, countless times, because the game utterly mishandles planets on auto AND doesn't allow you to plan ahead, design building templates for "new planets", "science planets" etc. that you just have to select once and then forget about. Which also means the game punishes you for winning: the more planets you conquer or settle, the more planets you'll have to check and recheck and recheck again and again to give another little micro command. That's why so many players stop at midgame and restart: the beginning/exploration part is great, but then it just becomes more and more repetitive busywork.

Agreed. If managing 1000 planets takes 1000 more clicks and work than 1, the game is unplayable. Conversely, if managing 1 planet takes 1/1000th of the time it takes to manage 1000, the early game will be boring. Someplace, there is a perfect ratio of player interaction that makes the early game remain interactive, and the late game be playable. It's not up to us as players to find this ratio, or to dream up the systems that make it work, that's on the developers. Sure, I'm being hyperbolic, and it will be called a strawman argument, but Big O notation problems are about working around the worst possible case.

 

[Alkaid98]

While it's true the AI is bad enough you don't need to min-max to win, the current game's mechanics are built in a way where just playing at a basic sub-optimal level is still pretty micro-intensive in the current state. Even if you choose not to constantly check in on planets to optimize jobs, resettlement, buildings or jugggling resources on the market, it's still pretty tiresome. No reliable automation really doesn't help either. But even if we finally got the usable sector AI we've been waiting years for, I'd still hope they could tone down how much clicking and menu navigating even basic things require ever since 2.2. I love a complex, meaty GS or 4x game, but in 2.2+ Stellaris' case it feels like I'm doing more clicking and menu-checking than the actions I'm actually performing should warrant. And I don't even use some things like the fleet manager because it feels like more extra menu hassle than not using it. I'm still baffled how Wiz's big promise for 2.2 was that the new planet management and other systems would reduce micro, and it did the complete opposite.

 

[methegrate]

I bought the game because I saw a commercial for the new Necro race and it looked awesome, plus the game was on sale 75% off. I decided to go with the package that gives you a bunch of DLC bundled together. My intention was to learn how to play and then when the necro race came out, to buy that DLC and begin playing the new race.

Since then I've put 47 hours into the game and I think I might be changing my mind about buying the new DLC. The micromanagement is hell. I've run into the same problem that many others seem to be running into and I found a good post on reddit that is worthy of copy/pasting here:



-reddit user "Liggs124"

Liggs hit the nail on the head. I wasn't sure if it was even worth my time to bother providing this feedback. I've been thinking about just ditching the game and moving on to something more fun, but I can tell that the developers have put a lot of work into this game and it seems to have potential. So I went through the time and effort to share my opinion on this forum. This is my first post, and it might be my only post ever on here. So devs, if you've had a backlash from a large portion of your loyal fans, be sure to recognize the value in their efforts to provide you with important feedback. There's probably many others who, like me, aren't even sure if it's worth the time and effort to create an account on here rather than just ditch the game and find something more enjoyable to do. Cheers!

Personally, I think the problem comes from a lack of any coherent identity to this project.

Stellaris is something like four or five different games all crammed into the same box. In the game's original design, it was supposed to focus on the people of your empire. That's why pops are such an unusually big deal in Stellaris as compared to any other strategy game or 4x. Usually this genre treats the people of an empire as just resource engines. The first designer of Stellaris wanted them to be the focus of the story with their own agency, goals, politics, etc.

That design struggled. In part it's because Paradox's %-modifier approach makes every individual in every society feel exactly the same, but in part it's because they built very little interactive gameplay around these pops. They put in the bones of this system. Autonomous pops, edicts, policies, factions, sectors, leaders, etc., it's all there. It's just for some inexplicable reason they did very little with all of that.

The second game designer for Stellaris wanted to build an entirely different game. His design focused on empire building and optimization. He wanted to build a much more classic 4x game focused on making your empire strong and competing with the other empires on the board. There's nothing wrong with that, except he then built that on top of an existing and entirely different game. It's like someone replaced half the pieces on a chess board with Monopoly tokens. The rules simply weren't written to work together and it leads to bizarre and broken results.

At the same time this project has never settled on whether it wants to be a single player game with a multiplayer feature, or a multiplayer game with a single player mode. Once again the result has been that the devs have tried to essentially build both of these games at the same time. The game's design emphasizes the long-term play and narrative elements of a single player game and the low-depth, streamlined mechanics necessary for a multiplayer game. And also once again, not only do these designs not work together, they're often actively hostile to each other.

 

[methegrate]

I'm still baffled how Wiz's big promise for 2.2 was that the new planet management and other systems would reduce micro, and it did the complete opposite.

Agreed. It feels similar to how the big promise for 2.0 was that the starlane and chokepoint system would reduce doomstacking, and it did the complete opposite.

 

[Oscot]

In terms of POP growth, the growth is per-planet, which means that the only viable strategy is to play wide. You want as many planets as possible so you can get as much POP growth as possible, because POPs are the key to the game. Again, this doesn't make much sense. Say I have a single colony with a population of 1 million. I colonise two new worlds, and send 20,000 people each to those worlds. According to Stellaris' current model, I get three times the population growth having done that than I would just get sticking with the single world.... why? The number of people hasn't changed overall, I've just spread them out. Not to mention that only one POP of any particular species can grow on a planet at any one time, this means that minority populations often end up rivalling or outnumbering your original, native population in a weirdly short amount of time. Again, it makes zero sense.

• Pre-colonisation: Everyone lives in a cramped planet-arcology with no room to swing a cat eating mood-stabiliser-laced protein slurry
• Post-colonisation: One planet has everyone living cramped; two planets are wide rolling fields, fresh food, clean air, billions of acres of open space for naturist orgies and large families to run around free-range
• Total pop growth increases threefold
• HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND

Oh Reddit, what a bastion of high-IQ discussion you are

Massive benefits to controlling systems and settling planets is one of Stellaris' good points. This is a game of galactic empire, not a game of turtling; lebensraum expansion is I think one of the few game systems which is unimpeachable.

 

[Liggi]

• Pre-colonisation: Everyone lives in a cramped planet-arcology with no room to swing a cat eating mood-stabiliser-laced protein slurry
• Post-colonisation: One planet has everyone living cramped; two planets are wide rolling fields, fresh food, clean air, billions of acres of open space for naturist orgies and large families to run around free-range
• Total pop growth increases threefold
• HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND

Oh Reddit, what a bastion of high-IQ discussion you are

Massive benefits to controlling systems and settling planets is one of Stellaris' good points. This is a game of galactic empire, not a game of turtling; lebensraum expansion is I think one of the few game systems which is unimpeachable.

As the person who made the "high-IQ" comment, I think you're totally misunderstanding.

Firstly, I'm not talking about a cramped planet-arcology. The same logic applies on a planet with massive amounts of housing space, jobs and amenities. Also, EVEN in that other case, the idea that you think two tiny brand new colonies could match an existing planet in terms of POP growth is pretty laughable. You think the small colonies would be having an EQUAL number of children to the planet that's packed full of people?

And also, playing tall is a totally reasonable strategy, and should be.

 

[Oscot]

As the person who made the "high-IQ" comment, I think you're totally misunderstanding.

Firstly, I'm not talking about a cramped planet-arcology. The same logic applies on a planet with massive amounts of housing space, jobs and amenities. Also, EVEN in that other case, the idea that you think two tiny brand new colonies could match an existing planet in terms of POP growth is pretty laughable. You think the small colonies would be having an EQUAL number of children to the planet that's packed full of people?

Yes.
And I cite as my evidence: the real world.
Population growth by birth rate is negative in high-amenity Europe.
Population growth by birth rate in Africa, where the only resources they have is space and nature: explosive.
Quod erat demonstradum.

And also, playing tall is a totally reasonable strategy, and should be.

Well, as is often the case with questions about what sort of a game Stellaris should be, I don't really know how to respond to this other than "No".
Try and stay as a one-province count in CK2, you're gonna have a bad time, and also why tf did you even buy the game.
I bought Stellaris to be CK2 except your dynastic wife can be a hot plant-girl from Sirius 12, and as such, I appreciate the same pressure to conquer and expand as in CK2.
You wanna turtle in your home system RP-ing a race that never discovered FTL, then, well, you do you, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't hamstring my game of galactic imperialism by demanding accomodations to your idiosyncratic niche goldfish playstyle.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Back to the Navel Gazing vs Naval Gazing conversation I see...

What even is Tall?

 

[Liggi]

Yes.
And I cite as my evidence: the real world.
Population growth by birth rate is negative in high-amenity Europe.
Population growth by birth rate in Africa, where the only resources they have is space and nature: explosive.
Quod erat demonstradum.


Well, as is often the case with questions about what sort of a game Stellaris should be, I don't really know how to respond to this other than "No".
Try and stay as a one-province count in CK2, you're gonna have a bad time, and also why tf did you even buy the game.
I bought Stellaris to be CK2 except your dynastic wife can be a hot plant-girl from Sirius 12, and as such, I appreciate the same pressure to conquer and expand as in CK2.
You wanna turtle in your home system RP-ing a race that never discovered FTL, then, well, you do you, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't hamstring my game of galactic imperialism by demanding accomodations to your idiosyncratic niche goldfish playstyle.

Sorry, you think that the difference in birth rate between Europe and Africa is due to availability of "space and nature"? And not, say... lower levels of female education? Less access to contraceptives?

And yeah, I think it's a totally legitimate playstyle to focus a lot more on fewer planets. If you only want the game to support a single playstyle, fair enough, but I think most people would disagree with you and want the freedom to explore more options.