Proposing a small overhaul to planetary management and a few other tweaks.

[Amorenkaire]

before they base sprawl on sectors they need to find a way to keep your empire from spawning weird little zones where you have like, 6 sectors that consist of one or two systems each

Or at the very least the ability to redraw/remake sectors. For example, by nominating a sector capital that will then take every system 2 hyperlane jumps away to join that sector, either taking said systems from non-core sectors in the process, or by being able to make a planet go 'sectorless' for an extreme penalty that means you'd want to only use it as a transitory period as you redraw the sectors.

Or allow you to manually draw sectors yourself to keep things pretty, with the stipulation that no colony can be further than two jumps away from another colony in that sector, and be at least 4 jumps away to all colonies in that sector (essentially the same sector size and method of spawning in game, but you can add those annoying rogue empty systems to a sector for your sector map aesthetics).

 

[Derp]

Stellaris has its own means of sliding between tall and wide play through however, with the fact that there was always a penalty to technology and tradition cost with your size (Sprawl was essentially always there, just being a bit 'hidden' if you didn't pay attention).

There can be an argument that the sprawl mechanics should be tweaked, if the penalty and capacity usage are too linear so that sprawl doesn't act as a sufficient 'deterrent' from wide empires from out classing research and unity production via raw production, which I can certainly agree too. But I think that's about it I think.

the tech/unity penalties weren't there to make tall viable. they were there to make snowballing less snowbally.

 

[Typee]

the tech/unity penalties weren't there to make tall viable. they were there to make snowballing less snowbally.

This. "Tall" doesn't have to be a viable strategy anyway. And people weren't so obsessed by the concept before Civ V came out.

I do wish however that Corporations were actually strongly polarized toward tall play, as advertised. Right now they play more like a regular empire with branch offices as a flavorful, but ultimately inconsequential mechanic.

 

[Amorenkaire]

Do you mean in 4X games or just in Stellaris? Because the Tall/Wide playstyle was discussed and codified in SM:AC (University ftw).

 

[Marek15]

I was hoping for people to exchange ideas in this thread but that sadly didn't happen, and after browsing the forums it seems most people just seem to want to vent.
Aside from the few who think the game is flawless in its current state, most people have criticisms about at least one thing if not more. Yet very few are proposing any ideas to address the issues people agree exist, and those who do are met with negativity.

Finding flaws in ideas and pointing them out? That's great! Analyzing and addressing flaws is how people improve things. Coming up with alternatives of your own is even better.
Disagreeing due to a difference in personal preference? I can respect that. After all a "one size fits all" solution cannot exist due to widely differing preference people have.
But to reject the existanse of clear and obvious problems or even resort to strawmanning? What the hell?...

Reflecting on the state of the community i'm no longer surprised with the community manager's response last week. In fact i can't help but feel sympathy for the developers.

This is getting quite off topic, so lets get back on track with proposing ideas, aka blaspheming.

My finial act of blaspheming before taking my leave from these forums:
Change #7
Remove consumer goods and alloys, instead pay with minerals just like in 2.1.
It is essential pointless complexity that add zero depth to the gameplay.
It punishes those don't properly micro mange the ratios and adds nothing of value to those do right.
The fact that gestalt empires work just fine without consumer goods and are less annoying because of it is clear evidence for consumer goods, and by extension alloys, being detrimental to the gameplay.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Change #7
Remove consumer goods and alloys, instead pay with minerals just like in 2.1.
It is essential pointless complexity that add zero depth to the gameplay.
It punishes those don't properly micro mange the ratios and adds nothing of value to those do right.
The fact that gestalt empires work just fine without consumer goods and are less annoying because of it is clear evidence for consumer goods, and by extension alloys, being detrimental to the gameplay.

Yeah, no.

 

[AlphaAsh]

I can agree with tweaking the empire sprawl rates, for example, such as if they decided to remove the planet penalty and instead added a sprawl usage for each sector you have, which would make densely grouped planets and habitats better, for example.

Bravo. Agreed. And you wouldn't have a need for additional distance calcs, because that's already being handled by sectoring.

One caveat though - sector formation still needs a fix, to reduce the number of one planet sectors. And I guess that really needs to scale to galaxy size and rate of habitables. This would help sprawl scale better too, though.