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Rostyk.96

Second Lieutenant
6 Badges
Feb 11, 2020
112
117
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Stellaris
  • Surviving Mars
  • Age of Wonders III
  • Surviving Mars: Digital Deluxe Edition
This mechanics adds no value to the gameplay, only unneeded and annoying complications for empire management, empires that already are harder to manage than gestalts, why gestalts don't have to deal with any of this BS? On top of that it creates ridiculous vulnerability in your economy: if your capital gets cut from the rest of your territory due to occupation or border gore, you lose all your trade income, if your capital system gets occupied, you lose all your trade income, if pirates spawn in wrong place, you lose all your trade income, why the hell trade value needs to be "collected", but other resources not!? It makes no sense.
 
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The concept of trade routes and piracy is certainly nice in theory, in practice so, I don't get much enjoyment out of it. Once piracy starts to become an issue, pick some suitably located systems, build hangar starbases on them, done. At least that's how I do it, I understand you could also have fleets do patrols, but naval power points are limited and needed for war.

IMHO, the whole idea could use a good deep look and thought. We do play as the ruler of a galactic empire, dealing with the minutiae of internal trade and piracy seems beneath our job. Maybe combine the trade and piracy mechanics with other issues regarding your economy and internal security? The idea would be to balance things like (different?) resource income and stability.

Something I will surely write more often: I once read that a good game let's you make a lot of meaningful (!) decisions. The zombie shooter Left4Dead does this nicely IMHO, do you use the health pack now or later, do you carry that gas canister with you, etc. By contrast, in Stellaris, it often either feels not like a "real" decision (because there is one obviously better choice) or not a meaningful one (because the impact isn't really all that much).
 
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IMHO, the whole idea could use a good deep look and thought. We do play as the ruler of a galactic empire, dealing with the minutiae of internal trade and piracy seems beneath our job. Maybe combine the trade and piracy mechanics with other issues regarding your economy and internal security? The idea would be to balance things like (different?) resource income and stability.

I mean pirates threaten the security of your empire as they prey on your trade routes.
That definitely seems like a military issue, which falls very much into YOUR lap.
 
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I mean pirates threaten the security of your empire as they prey on your trade routes.
That definitely seems like a military issue, which falls very much into YOUR lap.
You definitely have a point, it's just, the pirates are a very weak military threat, if one actually pops up, I usually just have a pet or other special ship handle it, one that I wouldn't want to risk against a proper enemy. And again, the way you fight piracy in the game isn't very engaging, though I definitely don't want to play whack-a-mole either.
 
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You definitely have a point, it's just, the pirates are a very weak military threat, if one actually pops up, I usually just have a pet or other special ship handle it, one that I wouldn't want to risk against a proper enemy. And again, the way you fight piracy in the game isn't very engaging, though I definitely don't want to play whack-a-mole either.

Bubbles the enforcer?! :D

Bubbles: "I'm not above the law, I AM the law!"
 
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I agree with the OP that is quite stupid that only one resource is collected. I also agree that this game mechanics could use a rework in some of its aspects.

However, I would not ditch it entirely. It's a good thing for a "strategy" game letting a small force in the right place the ability to grind to zero important sectors of the economy of an empire. This is true both flavor-wise and gameplay-wise. As your planets specialize and become more and more interdependent, trade routes must become delicate. Specialized advanced economies are fragile (and the supply-chain problems with chips in the current real world are a good example of this). A sufficiently wise enemy (or even a "natural" occurrence, such as piracy) has to be able to stop your very efficient but fragile economy. On the other hand, you can also avoid specialization, losing efficiency but increasing the robustness of the empire.

Now, I am not saying that the current version of Stellaris is able to give you this kind of choice (efficiency vs robustness), but removing this mechanics is certainly not a step in the right direction. Also, as others have written, is not that hard to avoid piracy problems. Just circle some corvette fleets and place a couple of well armed stations in the chokepoints. And if you have problems collecting resources from planets on the other side of the galaxy well... I think it is perfectly fine.
 
However, I would not ditch it entirely. It's a good thing for a "strategy" game letting a small force in the right place the ability to grind to zero important sectors of the economy of an empire. This is true both flavor-wise and gameplay-wise. As your planets specialize and become more and more interdependent, trade routes must become delicate. Specialized advanced economies are fragile (and the supply-chain problems with chips in the current real world are a good example of this). A sufficiently wise enemy (or even a "natural" occurrence, such as piracy) has to be able to stop your very efficient but fragile economy. On the other hand, you can also avoid specialization, losing efficiency but increasing the robustness of the empire.
That's a good point, and I will add to it that piracy could play a bigger role if the game had trade routes between empires, and piracy festered in unclaimed systems or on the border between the two empires. If the game worked that way, it could exacerbate tensions and problems along the border, making the game more interesting and consistent with how piracy works in the real world.
 
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Just don't set up trade routes then, no trade no piracy
Several problems with that point
1. They are set up automatically, and I'm not sure they can be completely disabled
2. There are big red markers that are unpleasant to see.
3. Giving up a possible source of income is never good
4. It better to let the system run and ignore it than to not use it.
5. The system could legitimately be improved, including by removal. Your comment doesn't really add anything to the discourse.

The problem with trade is that it is the only form of Logistics we have in the game, because trade is such a small and unimportant resource the developers can safely ignore it leading to Atrophy. If all of the resources in the game had to use Logistics then Trade and Piracy would not have atrophied this bad. It's the exact same problem as ground armies, it's a small part of the game that because it is small it atrophied. The question isn't wether or not the game would be better if the system were reworked, you very much could rework either system to make it a fun and engaging part of the game.

The question is whether it's worth the Return on Investment to rework it, it's a High risk investment, there are a lot of ideas on how to improve the system, Several are too much or too little for the amount of Return available (building a whole HOI 4 in Stellaris won't be worth it). Some ideas only sound good in theory, or may end up with poor numbers ala Anglers Civic that results in the impression that it was only good in theory. Some ideas would likely result in negative externalities, bugs or exploits may invalidate other systems or the reworked system, cargo ships sounds like a great idea, if you've ever played with the living systems mod you'll know that yes they make your empire feel more alive with the Hustle and Bustle of Civilian Traffic, but the performance impact is so harsh that ultimately it isn't worth it. The window on ideas that can improve the system, that makes it fun and engaging, that doesn't cause severe negative externalities, is actually really small.

Armies and trade are both small systems that are unimportant to most of the game, it's how they've been allowed to Atrophy, this results in the idea that the Return on improving either system would be low. High risk low reward investments are typically bad investments. Removing the Atrophied systems may sometimes be the better option. Several Developers want to do away with armies altogether, their opinion isn't wrong, it's just disappointing and hard to accept.
 
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Several problems with that point
1. They are set up automatically, and I'm not sure they can be completely disabled
2. There are big red markers that are unpleasant to see.
3. Giving up a possible source of income is never good
4. It better to let the system run and ignore it than to not use it.
5. The system could legitimately be improved, including by removal. Your comment doesn't really add anything to the discourse.

The problem with trade is that it is the only form of Logistics we have in the game, because trade is such a small and unimportant resource the developers can safely ignore it leading to Atrophy. If all of the resources in the game had to use Logistics then Trade and Piracy would not have atrophied this bad. It's the exact same problem as ground armies, it's a small part of the game that because it is small it atrophied. The question isn't wether or not the game would be better if the system were reworked, you very much could rework either system to make it a fun and engaging part of the game.

The question is whether it's worth the Return on Investment to rework it, it's a High risk investment, there are a lot of ideas on how to improve the system, Several are too much or too little for the amount of Return available (building a whole HOI 4 in Stellaris won't be worth it). Some ideas only sound good in theory, or may end up with poor numbers ala Anglers Civic that results in the impression that it was only good in theory. Some ideas would likely result in negative externalities, bugs or exploits may invalidate other systems or the reworked system, cargo ships sounds like a great idea, if you've ever played with the living systems mod you'll know that yes they make your empire feel more alive with the Hustle and Bustle of Civilian Traffic, but the performance impact is so harsh that ultimately it isn't worth it. The window on ideas that can improve the system, that makes it fun and engaging, that doesn't cause severe negative externalities, is actually really small.

Armies and trade are both small systems that are unimportant to most of the game, it's how they've been allowed to Atrophy, this results in the idea that the Return on improving either system would be low. High risk low reward investments are typically bad investments. Removing the Atrophied systems may sometimes be the better option. Several Developers want to do away with armies altogether, their opinion isn't wrong, it's just disappointing and hard to accept.
I think the idea "they aren't wrong" is highly debatable at best.

But anyways, the main problem, clearly, is the game engines Paradox is using. Every one of their games suffer from this issue of never being able to really change anything because their engine sucks and totally implodes whenever they do anything. The reality is, the community clearly wants deeper games, that can achieve more complex, more meaningful systems. The best way to achieve that, is just make a new Studio wide Engine that can handle these things. The return on investment writes itself in that case, as the whole studio will use it going forward.
 
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I think the idea "they aren't wrong" is highly debatable at best.

But anyways, the main problem, clearly, is the game engines Paradox is using. Every one of their games suffer from this issue of never being able to really change anything because their engine sucks and totally implodes whenever they do anything. The reality is, the community clearly wants deeper games, that can achieve more complex, more meaningful systems. The best way to achieve that, is just make a new Studio wide Engine that can handle these things. The return on investment writes itself in that case, as the whole studio will use it going forward.
Sure, but didn't they make this engine? And swapping engines would be a thing for a sequel to do, that's still a few years away at least
 
Sure, but didn't they make this engine? And swapping engines would be a thing for a sequel to do, that's still a few years away at least

Yes, they did make this engine, at least 10 years ago. IIRC, Stellaris uses the CK2 Engine, highly modified ofc, but the point remains. Even CK3's newer more polished version is seemingly too weak to handle much of anything.
 
The question is whether it's worth the Return on Investment to rework it, it's a High risk investment, there are a lot of ideas on how to improve the system, Several are too much or too little for the amount of Return available (building a whole HOI 4 in Stellaris won't be worth it). Some ideas only sound good in theory, or may end up with poor numbers ala Anglers Civic that results in the impression that it was only good in theory. Some ideas would likely result in negative externalities, bugs or exploits may invalidate other systems or the reworked system, cargo ships sounds like a great idea, if you've ever played with the living systems mod you'll know that yes they make your empire feel more alive with the Hustle and Bustle of Civilian Traffic, but the performance impact is so harsh that ultimately it isn't worth it. The window on ideas that can improve the system, that makes it fun and engaging, that doesn't cause severe negative externalities, is actually really small.
I've often thought that it would be cool to see cargo ships roaming about my empire. I'm not sure how much of a permanence hit it would take, but you could only display the cargo ships on the galactic map if in Trade View Mode. If you're in a System View you'd still be able to see them moving through the system.
 
Several problems with that point
1. They are set up automatically, and I'm not sure they can be completely disabled
2. There are big red markers that are unpleasant to see.
3. Giving up a possible source of income is never good
4. It better to let the system run and ignore it than to not use it.
5. The system could legitimately be improved, including by removal. Your comment doesn't really add anything to the discourse.

The problem with trade is that it is the only form of Logistics we have in the game, because trade is such a small and unimportant resource the developers can safely ignore it leading to Atrophy. If all of the resources in the game had to use Logistics then Trade and Piracy would not have atrophied this bad. It's the exact same problem as ground armies, it's a small part of the game that because it is small it atrophied. The question isn't wether or not the game would be better if the system were reworked, you very much could rework either system to make it a fun and engaging part of the game.

The question is whether it's worth the Return on Investment to rework it, it's a High risk investment, there are a lot of ideas on how to improve the system, Several are too much or too little for the amount of Return available (building a whole HOI 4 in Stellaris won't be worth it). Some ideas only sound good in theory, or may end up with poor numbers ala Anglers Civic that results in the impression that it was only good in theory. Some ideas would likely result in negative externalities, bugs or exploits may invalidate other systems or the reworked system, cargo ships sounds like a great idea, if you've ever played with the living systems mod you'll know that yes they make your empire feel more alive with the Hustle and Bustle of Civilian Traffic, but the performance impact is so harsh that ultimately it isn't worth it. The window on ideas that can improve the system, that makes it fun and engaging, that doesn't cause severe negative externalities, is actually really small.

Armies and trade are both small systems that are unimportant to most of the game, it's how they've been allowed to Atrophy, this results in the idea that the Return on improving either system would be low. High risk low reward investments are typically bad investments. Removing the Atrophied systems may sometimes be the better option. Several Developers want to do away with armies altogether, their opinion isn't wrong, it's just disappointing and hard to accept.
Trade has become enormously important recently, to the point that trade focused empires will build chains of starbases to avoid piracy (because it will cripple your empire).

This, of course, just means piracy is more of a nuisance intended to teach you that your enemy can also cut off your trade.
 
I really like the system, I think it could be done better, but to remove it would really disappointing. If you want it adjusted sure, made more engaging sure. Piracy makes sense, it should exist, if it existed it would target trade routes, hence the system we have.

I would prefer actual civilian chips that represent the trade route. If piracy popped up they might destroy some, but future ones will try to reroute themselves. This would cause delays in shipping and would therefore throw your supply line out of wack which is why you'd try to mitigate piracy. destroying their base should then give a reward that, although not equivalent, is proportional to what you lost. If you have other space stations the civilian transport ships would try to stop there and then when they undock they will have an escort based on the level of the starbase.
 
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I agree that trading and piracy mechanics per se are a good idea for immersion. But when implementing, please keep in mind how these are engaged with by the level of government the player engages in, that is, the very highest. Sure, the player/emperor may assign ships to internal security duty, but having to specify patrol routes seems just a bit too low-key to be engaging in a 4X space strategy game.

I kinda like the idea of civilian ships spawning and doing their trade automatically but visibly, could also liven up the map a bit.