Newbie needs help with sectors

[P-Dub]

Hi all! Big fan of Paradox games. Cities Skylines, Europa Universalis 4 and now Stellaris! I got it on steam sale and I have to say I'm not disappointed.

I'm roughly 4 hours into my first game. Very basic humans vs. one alien entity, tiny galaxy, you get the idea.

Anyway, I'm casually expanding across the galaxy and I'm informed that I need to create sectors in order to continue expanding. As a long-time Masters of Orion 2 player, I'm not keen on turning my empire over to the AI. Half the fun of 4x games is building up these tiny dirt balls into glorious industrialize planets.

So my question for you: How do I create viable sectors? I understand how the mechanics work of selecting planets, but I'm concerned that I won't be able to make ships in these "AI Controlled" worlds.

Are there any tips or tricks to making your sectors useful instead of just establishing and then forgetting them?

 

[Chapter Serf]

The way I deal with sectors is I only put colonies in sectors when I'm happy with their layout. The AI is kinda poop in this regard and doesn't build on non-resource giving tiles and as far as I'm aware, doesn't build special buildings like Hyper-Entertainment Forums or Virtual Combat Arenas. Once I've built up a colony with all the special buildings I want, overwritten all the pre-established resource tiles I want specifically overwritten (because let's face it, sometimes you don't need all that food) and have that set, only then do I turn it over to the sector management. The Sector will automatically update buildings as better ones become available (Power Plant 2 to Power Plant 3 sorta thing), which is fine, and as long as you turn off redevelopment, the AI won't erase special buildings.

As for making ships and armies, you'll still have that level of control. I've never seen the game build military ships out of my sectors, though sometimes their auto building of Spaceport addons is dodgy, but you can control that as well. The sector AI will automatically build a handful of defensive armies, but again, you can still raise and train your own specialty armies on AI sectors.

 

[The Founder]

Some data indicates to keep them small. 4-5 Planets.
Also it does not deal with Slavery well (or at all). If you can enslave ahead, and then turn it's management off, use it.

 

[Arkona]

Some data indicates to keep them small. 4-5 Planets.
Also it does not deal with Slavery well (or at all). If you can enslave ahead, and then turn it's management off, use it.

In the current version of the game each sector creates its own independence faction which can cause many problems. If you have too many sectors then you won't be able to suppress them all.

Are there any tips or tricks to making your sectors useful instead of just establishing and then forgetting them?

I add the planets to the sectors, once the AI has developed them fully I check that everything's okay. If something sucks, like +20 food on a planet of size 14, I remove that planet from the sector and manually fix the problems with it. The disadvantage is that removing a planet from a sector costs influence, but I find that to be an acceptable cost. The AI is good enough but you should still check the planets one by one to make sure that everything's working fine. Sometimes, you also want quick results like 20 refineries or 20 power plants to be active asap, and in that case you have to go down the manual route.

 

[Chapter Serf]

In the current version of the game each sector creates its own independence faction which can cause many problems. If you have too many sectors then you won't be able to suppress them all.

I've found that's only an issue when you're dealing with the screwy Ethics Divergence. As in, in that small time frame between colonizing and controlling the divergence, you get one or two pops that happens to turn pacifistic in your militaristic empire and then throws a temper-tantrum every time you decide to smack some other loser in the galaxy. This is all despite having spent god knows how many decades with negative ethics divergence, that pacifistic tendency was never weeded out.

Edit Aside: I hope the Ethics changes in 1.5 helps with this. It's frustrating to have one or two pops demand your most powerful, built up and useful sector be let go every time you decide to sucker punch that bloody fanatical purifier on your borders.

 

[SYahoo]

Some data indicates to keep them small.

I agree for a couple reasons:
1. Performance at end game can suffer if sectors are too big compared to 3-6 planets.
2. Sector AI seems to slow down the more planets there are in the sector. This may be my imagination but when I keep my sectors small the AI handles building on all planets or it just may have to do with resource numbers.
3. In late game I keep every system in a sector except for my capital and maybe 1 or 2 other multi-planet sectors. If I keep my sectors between 3-6 planets I can usually add the whole sector back to change planets or build ships if i want to by spending 100 influence and disbanding the sector instead of 25 influence per system removed.

Also it does not deal with Slavery well (or at all). If you can enslave ahead, and then turn it's management off, use it.

No it does not and there is really no way to work around this. It just seems to enslave everything. I don't play slavers yet in Stellaris because you can't really expand wide and maintain slaves without AI and programming issues.

 

[SYahoo]

I've found that's only an issue when you're dealing with the screwy Ethics Divergence. As in, in that small time frame between colonizing and controlling the divergence, you get one or two pops that happens to turn pacifistic in your militaristic empire and then throws a temper-tantrum every time you decide to smack some other loser in the galaxy. This is all despite having spent god knows how many decades with negative ethics divergence, that pacifistic tendency was never weeded out.

Edit Aside: I hope the Ethics changes in 1.5 helps with this. It's frustrating to have one or two pops demand your most powerful, built up and useful sector be let go every time you decide to sucker punch that bloody fanatical purifier on your borders.

I purge those immediately. There is a whole science to colonizing planets and purging and keeping ethics the same. It basically boils down to not adding your own pop ethics until they outnumber the existing ethic of the existing pops being purged or slaves.

In my current game I have expanded across a huge galaxy and there is not a single pop that isn't my ethics and I am not using a spiritualist build, just the conformist trait.

 

[Chapter Serf]

I purge those immediately. There is a whole science to colonizing planets and purging and keeping ethics the same. It basically boils down to not adding your own pop ethics until they outnumber the existing ethic of the existing pops being purged or slaves.

In my current game I have expanded across a huge galaxy and there is not a single pop that isn't my ethics and I am not using a spiritualist build, just the conformist trait.

I'd purge if I played a collectivist. Maybe I should be playing collectivist... But I really like the Military Republic gov. Maybe 1.5 will fix it.

 

[rcasale]

Be sure your sectors are well stocked with resources. If it looks like your sectors are doing nothing, it could be because they don't have enough minerals or energy.

 

[GuildenSpur]

As mentioned here, it does seem as if the sector AI slows down in big sectors.
But I have no prove of that. Might be just a feeling.