Please do something with governors

[velles]

Overall the idea to introduce planetary governors was a bad one - the goal was to reduce number of leaders in order to make them more important and removed different researcher positions and yet they introduced planetary governors that require unnecessary micro if you want to play optimally.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Minmaxers will always make themselves miserable. If you want to try to design around that, I've got this boulder I want you to roll to the top of a hill.

This is clearly not a part of the game design, and not how governors are intended to be used. Yes, there is an oversight that allows this loophole to be used to squeeze out a tiny bit more efficiency, but that has not been designed - it's just a loophole found by people looking for work. There will always be loopholes and bugs and oversights that can be exploited.

Getting rid of obvious and unfun exploits is fundamental game design that one should expect from any and every game that is being sold for money. And it does not matter one iota what the developers intended - only the result matters. Everyone saw this problem coming from the moment single-planet governors were announced. The developers should have seen it too - it's literally their job. They failed at their job on this point, and now they have to fix it.

 

[Desolator Trooper]

The only way this system can work is with implementation of minor leaders, like division commanders in recent HoIIV DLC. Or creating rulers for minor titles, like tamples or cities in CKII and III. But that will be amount of work for entire new dlc.
Current leader upkeep costs will simply negate all benefits you will gain here - you'll have to dedicate entire planet to unity for negating upkeep.
It was a fundamentally bad design - like tradition to reduce costs of other traditions, back when unity could be spent ONLY on traditions.

 

[-Marauder-]

Overall the idea to introduce planetary governors was a bad one - the goal was to reduce number of leaders in order to make them more important and removed different researcher positions and yet they introduced planetary governors that require unnecessary micro if you want to play optimally.

100% And it also feels like it completely clashes with the intention of having fewer leaders.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record here. But since none of the people who actually defend this decisions could answer it so far. WHAT EVEN IS THE BENEFIT OF LIMITING SECTOR GOVERNOR traits to a single planet, and introducing more governor slots. And how does it not run contradictory to the stated intention of having fewer leaders. That the total number we've ended up with is altogether too low, all draw from the same limited pool, galaxy size isn't taken into account and so on are issues of their own.

But why exactly did Governors need a blanket nerf to their utility and benefits, and to have their number "needed" to do the same job as prior go through the roof. How does this benefit anyone, how is it good for the "balance" when their traits worked for an entire sector for YEARS.

 

[Calvax]

Overall the idea to introduce planetary governors was a bad one - the goal was to reduce number of leaders in order to make them more important and removed different researcher positions and yet they introduced planetary governors that require unnecessary micro if you want to play optimally.

Lots of good comments in this thread so I don't have a lot to add but I think this sums it up. Planetary governors seem to be an idea completely at odds with the new limited leader system.

Also this is potentially just a me thing, but is anyone else bothered by all the blank silhouettes on planetary screens and fleets? Maybe it's because I'm not used to it but it's a bit ugly and seems to imply you're doing something wrong if you don't have someone on that planet.

 

[Cymsdale]

Remove all non-global building reduction cost reductions from the game in my opinion. I don't like that they are attached to planet designations either.

 

[Hogloo]

For me, planetary governors are above all a system that allows you to place governors that you have chosen for their bonuses for the empire, but to whom you do not yet have a sector to give (must still occupy them). It still smells of the network of relationships and fictitious jobs ^^.

I also think that the basic number of leader need to be more like 8 that 6 (i like to begin with 1-2 governors, 1 general, 4 Scientists and have room for leader who come from events...)

 

[Panzerslothen]

is anyone else bothered by all the blank silhouettes on planetary screens and fleets? Maybe it's because I'm not used to it but it's a bit ugly and seems to imply you're doing something wrong if you don't have someone on that planet.

I'm not bothered by it. Because Planets didn't have Governors before, I don't attribute much significance to them not being there now. And I didn't run an Admiral on absolutely every single fleet before, so I'm not too fussed now.

 

[velles]

UPDATE: The downvotes baffle me. Y'all really don't think selectable Leader Traits are great? You all don't think the Council is great? You don't think 700 Leader Traits options are great? Alreet, that seems bonkers to me, but you do you.

I think that some of the changes are for the better but the planetary governor thing is definitely a change for the worse - they could've add all these mechanics without adding planetary governors.
In fact this directly contradicts the stated design goal of reducing the number of leaders and making them more important - in order to accomplish that goal they merged 3 research slots into one Head of Research (I am neutral about that change), yet at the same time added planetary governor that generated dozens or even hundreds of positions and made sector governors feel less important (because now their traits apply only to one planet, unless you'll micro) - this is a complete opposite of the stated goal. EOT.

 

[Calvax]

UPDATE: The downvotes baffle me. Y'all really don't think selectable Leader Traits are great? You all don't think the Council is great? You don't think 700 Leader Traits options are great? Alreet, that seems bonkers to me, but you do you.

I didn't downvote you but I imagine the downvotes come from you dismissing anyone's concerns as them being against change or having a tantrum.

I think most of the changes are good but there are clearly issues. It's not like the devs are unaware of this since it's how every update has gone. In the recent gameplay video with aspec and the game director they even mentioned things they would be looking closely at because they weren't too sure how they'd play, like the dynamic fleet cap resulting in templates being awkward and fleets auto splitting upon admiral retirement/death.

 

[-Marauder-]

UPDATE: The downvotes baffle me. Y'all really don't think selectable Leader Traits are great? You all don't think the Council is great? You don't think 700 Leader Traits options are great? Alreet, that seems bonkers to me, but you do you.

[off topic moderated out]

Cutting the leader pool down to six, and having all different leader types draw from the same pool? Not great.
Outright nerfing some leader types? Not great.
Planetary Governors? Atrocious.
Not taking into consideration different galaxy sizes? Not great.

I'm not bothered by it. Because Planets didn't have Governors before, I don't attribute much significance to them not being there now. And I didn't run an Admiral on absolutely every single fleet before, so I'm not too fussed now.

Planetary Governors shouldn't exist now either. That's the big thing. Governors worked because they affected the entire sector, imparting their bonuses at large. This was changed in contradiction to Paradoxes stated intent of lowering leader numbers. It's an unwarranted and unneeded nerf that pushes them into the same area as Generals, being cut entirely for a different leader type. Admirals depending on stage of the game suffer the same problem.

A lot of changes were great, but there are some massive issues they introduced alongside them, and it's those people are talking about.

 

[-Marauder-]

I didn't downvote you but I imagine the downvotes come from you dismissing anyone's concerns as them being against change or having a tantrum.

I think most of the changes are good but there are clearly issues. It's not like the devs are unaware of this since it's how every update has gone. In the recent gameplay video with aspec and the game director they even mentioned things they would be looking closely at because they weren't too sure how they'd play, like the dynamic fleet cap resulting in templates being awkward and fleets auto splitting upon admiral retirement/death.

I did, and I admit I did it for petty reasons. He went through several threads and down voted absolutely every single last post of mine at that point. His attitude is just the icing on the cake. It's not really beneficial for a constructive discussion.

And yes, while there are some great changes in the patch. Planetary Governors, Dynamic Fleet cap, etc are NOT among them.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

The whole "Governor only affects the planet he's on", is a really strange choice. It seems to outright contradict the stated intention of having fewer leaders, and makes taking them at all a rather questionable choice.

I'm fairly confident it's so that they could have destiny traits be crazy powerful. Which is really cool.

The solution, I think, is to have a mix of traits that affect the sector and traits that affect the sector capital only. We already have council only and planet only traits.

Blocker clearing and build speed should affect the sector. It will still be optimal to move the governor around, but there will be 10x less micro (and need for micro).

Right now their veteran classes are "develop the world" (with an XP bonus, to drive home that this is the early game one) and "squeeze the most out of the world". Since the developer one is, by definition, transient, maybe all its benefits should affect the entire sector.

I'm ok with a little bit of moving. If the trait was more focused on build/clearing speed, with the cost reduction being minimal, I'd gladly embrace the idea of bringing in a development specialist to build up a sector in a hurry. But it would have to be sector wide: the speed bonus with have to be massive if it was only one planet at a time.

 

[Strangedane]

Governors almost wasn't worth it before the changes.
At this point the correct play EVERY game is exchanging your starting governor for a scientist asap and then never have a govenor again.

The goal was less leaders with greater impacts.
The result was needing a govenor for every planet to get what we had before.
The goal and the result does not line up at all.

Either way, I'm never going to use a govenor under the current system.
The opportunity cost is way too high.

 

[-Marauder-]

I'm fairly confident it's so that they could have destiny traits be crazy powerful. Which is really cool.

The solution, I think, is to have a mix of traits that affect the sector and traits that affect the sector capital only. We already have council only and planet only traits.

Blocker clearing and build speed should affect the sector. It will still be optimal to move the governor around, but there will be 10x less micro (and need for micro).

I don't think even with Destiny trait it needs to be limited to a single planet. Because as it stands, Destiny traits in other roles is WAY MORE meaningful and strong. And if it was about Destiny traits, they could've made those and those exclusively planet exclusive.

 

[Heliotic]

While the statement is true, it doesn't apply here in my opinion.

What we have in paragons is a deliberate decision to cater more to the roleplayers than the minmaxers. This isn't "wrong" in itself, but its obviously a very polarizing decision.

I haven't delved that deeply into the DLC yet, but I've been curious and cautiously optimistic about my first new playthrough. It feels that everything is slower, and minor decisions (that minmaxers would call needless micromanagement) actually make a difference. I need to choose between using my leader pool to either explore space, or to develop my planets for example. Now it feels that since I cant have everything at the same time, the choices matter more. It also seems to slow down the game as a whole, which is also not necessarily a bad thing.. But of course, this is just my own personal opinion.

Minmaxing and micromanaging is the antithesis of grand strategy. Grand strategy (and the concept of strategic thinking itself) doesn't mean "really trivial decisions, but like.. thousands and thousands of them", it's looking at the strategic picture and making the big picture decisions.

"Where should I station the bulk of my fleet" and "should I attack that hive mind so I can expand my empire or try to ally with them as a buffer against the exterminators next door" are strategic decisions.

"Which scientist should conduct the research on the jump drive project?" is a decision for a middle manager at lockmart and the person in charge of removing a planetary obstruction is a project manager, not the god damned governor (who is presumably governing the planet and not spending every day at the site making sure they're loading the trucks correctly.)

So it's not that paradox is catering to roleplayers, it that apparently Stellaris is actually a grand strategy game where you make strategic decisions (on a grand scale even).

They need to kill off this micro and anything like it, not to punish minmaxing but because if something can be micromanaged like that it's a huge red flag that it's not a strategic decision.

Ed: if I had unlimited time and money, I'd pay someone to do a study across stellaris and other strategy games to figure out what percentage of time players spent gathering information and using it to make high impact strategic decisions and what percentage is doing low impact configuration changes to get a 50 credit voucher that can be applied to removing a basic terrain blocker.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I don't think even with Destiny trait it needs to be limited to a single planet. Because as it stands, Destiny traits in other roles is WAY MORE meaningful and strong. And if it was about Destiny traits, they could've made those and those exclusively planet exclusive.

There are lots of dud destiny traits for scientists too, unfortunately. +35 research of each type is 2-4 pops at that point in the game.

I think the planetary governor destiny traits land pretty well if you have an ecumenopolis (ex. there's the one which gives +100 society, +100 unity, and +100 trade times multipliers on a full ecumenopolis, or the +25% output ones which will functionally give 6*30*.25=45 alloy, plus incidental unity). They're still not as powerful as the council traits, but you only have 6 councilors.

Edit: actually, the +25% is substantially less impactful once you actually do the math. I'm not sure how I stand, now.

 

[StellarXe]

There's an issue when 50 governer allowed, 0 empire spawl

 

[Abdulijubjub]

There's an issue when 50 governer allowed, 0 empire spawl

Which should be removed. Those bonuses are laughably out of whack. +2% leadership XP, +2 naval capacity, and <research/unity through the entire empire gets around 2% faster, with that 2% increasing and approaching infinity as the number of governors approaches 50>.

Even if it didn't stack additively, that 2% sprawl reduction is way stronger than the others.

 

[Strangedane]

There's an issue when 50 governer allowed, 0 empire spawl

Unlikely to happen on anything other than a gestalt.
That is, unless you want to be sitting at 0 sprawl and producing nothing but unity for leader upkeep.