Pops should grant additional leader cap.

[Blood Gatherer]

Leader capacity is far too low right now, and I think it should scale with pops. The leader cap is in your face, and very frustrating to deal with, especially in the late game. Compare this with the starbase capacity, while the penalties for exceeding the limit are very high, it scales with the number of systems you have. What I have noticed while playing is that this actually means I only place starbases where I need them, rather than everywhere I can. Because I just acquire capacity naturally while playing, I can justify being below the cap. It is a totally different experience with leader cap. I noticed myself always at the maximum since slots were so hard to acquire, as well as needing to dismiss the renowned leader I got because I couldn't justify wasting a slot on a general. I think a solution to this would be for leader capacity to increase by one for every 100 pops. It doesn't need to be those exact numbers, but it should be increasing naturally over the course of the game.

 

[Sharizcobar]

Honestly having it increase with Pops is the way to do it - but I think that should be adjusted to Pops that are able to generate leaders instead of pops at large, essentially pops with Full Citizenship that aren’t enslaved, and without certain traits like Nerve Stapled, Zombie or Serviles that prevent the pop from generating a leader.

 

[Blood Gatherer]

Honestly having it increase with Pops is the way to do it - but I think that should be adjusted to Pops that are able to generate leaders instead of pops at large, essentially pops with Full Citizenship that aren’t enslaved, and without certain traits like Nerve Stapled, Zombie or Serviles that prevent the pop from generating a leader.

That's a really good point.

 

[Dantpool]

That's a good starting point; but how about the separate leader types having different caps that scale differently, i.e.

1. Empire size increasing Governor cap
2. Pops, total Soldier jobs, or Military Academies (with build limit) increasing General cap
3. Naval Capacity increasing Admiral cap
4. Overall science income increasing Scientist cap

 

[Revengeance_oov]

I proposed something similar in another thread.

Admirals: Fleet academies
Envoys: Tech, embassies, etc as usual (with Envoys being used to scout/survey and scientists used to research anomalies/projects. Part of this new envoy role is to achieve the purpose of drastically slowing down exploration, but also to make harder choices between exploration and diplomacy, and to give them something to do from day 1)
Generals: Military Academies (to date, I have never built a single one. This might encourage doing so)
Governors: Systems (since the need for governors scales with planets)
Scientists: Research Institutes (tech gate, and makes RIs more useful vs research complexes)

 

[velles]

Honestly having it increase with Pops is the way to do it - but I think that should be adjusted to Pops that are able to generate leaders instead of pops at large, essentially pops with Full Citizenship that aren’t enslaved, and without certain traits like Nerve Stapled, Zombie or Serviles that prevent the pop from generating a leader.

This

 

[Blood Gatherer]

That's a good starting point; but how about the separate leader types having different caps that scale differently, i.e.

1. Empire size increasing Governor cap
2. Pops, total Soldier jobs, or Military Academies (with build limit) increasing General cap
3. Naval Capacity increasing Admiral cap
4. Overall science income increasing Scientist cap

I proposed something similar in another thread.

Admirals: Fleet academies
Envoys: Tech, embassies, etc as usual (with Envoys being used to scout/survey and scientists used to research anomalies/projects. Part of this new envoy role is to achieve the purpose of drastically slowing down exploration, but also to make harder choices between exploration and diplomacy, and to give them something to do from day 1)
Generals: Military Academies (to date, I have never built a single one. This might encourage doing so)
Governors: Systems (since the need for governors scales with planets)
Scientists: Research Institutes (tech gate, and makes RIs more useful vs research complexes)

I get where you guys are coming from, and that would be an improvement on the current system, but I think leaving it as a general cap on leaders is preferable. If leader cap is divided into 4 different caps, it either takes up 4 times the UI space or hides essential information in a tooltip. I think just having +1 leader for every 100 pops that can produce leaders would fix the problem of not having enough leaders for a large empire while also keeping the cap in place. It would also buff giving citizenship to conquered pops since slaves wouldn't give you any extra cap. And it might make vassals slightly less desirable since there is now a bonus to directly controlling the territory.

 

[Zetesofos]

That's a good starting point; but how about the separate leader types having different caps that scale differently, i.e.

1. Empire size increasing Governor cap
2. Pops, total Soldier jobs, or Military Academies (with build limit) increasing General cap
3. Naval Capacity increasing Admiral cap
4. Overall science income increasing Scientist cap

Another option is that you could make base leader cap increase based on pops.

And then...

Reduce the cost of leadership of certain roles based on those buildings/traditions.

The best way to do this is to change leadership cap from a low range (6-12), to something like 30-100.

Then, leaders use a base amount of 5 cap per leader
- Select Traditions/buildings/policies could reduce that to 3 or 4 for a type (i.e. generals, scientiests).
- Finally, higher level leaders have increased cap - so that way, you have some choice between fewer more experienced leaders, or more untrained ones.