Repeated Midgame economic collapse

[mlee70]

I am on PS4 - not PC - every single game - no matter the empire chosen - unless I go to war with my neighbors - the economy collapses late midgame.

This occurs when there is no major empire growth, no conflict, no major changes of any sort - incremental growth is taking place - building out the 1 or 2 colonies currently under dev - other than that nothing new

I have major stock piles of all products and energy - everything is in the green. Most all my planets are mature - pop growth has stabilized - I have high unity and stability across the empire - only some random pirates - I have civ products in the green along with everything else and I even took a slow growth route building enough admin centers to avoid the sprawl penalties - nothing helps.

My naval fleet is small - only to handle pirates

I do not run the game at tops speed and I do not leave it AFK where things can happen without my noticing.

Then food goes red - no matter how much I bolster my food production - stays -100+ -

then civ prods goes red - civ prod output didnt change - my pops did not suddenly jump - but demand doubles versus supply

then mineral demand goes 3x - output goes from 200+ to -100

then energy demand goes 4x - output goes from +300 to -100

My pops did not suddenly grow - my planets - except for the few colonies - are not growing quickly.

I have posted this question on multiple stellaris boards because I have seen many others on console having the same issue.

Going to war or being in an extended military conflict stops the collapse from occuring - I have tested this repeatedly. This is highly suspicious

Spending 4 - 6 hours building an empire for the game to decide to end it all for no justifiable reason makes this game unplayable and frankly it feels like it was intentional by the game engine to just call it quits.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I am on PS4 - not PC - every single game - no matter the empire chosen - unless I go to war with my neighbors - the economy collapses late midgame.

This occurs when there is no major empire growth, no conflict, no major changes of any sort - incremental growth is taking place - building out the 1 or 2 colonies currently under dev - other than that nothing new

I have major stock piles of all products and energy - everything is in the green. Most all my planets are mature - pop growth has stabilized - I have high unity and stability across the empire - only some random pirates - I have civ products in the green along with everything else and I even took a slow growth route building enough admin centers to avoid the sprawl penalties - nothing helps.

My naval fleet is small - only to handle pirates

I do not run the game at tops speed and I do not leave it AFK where things can happen without my noticing.

Then food goes red - no matter how much I bolster my food production - stays -100+ -

then civ prods goes red - civ prod output didnt change - my pops did not suddenly jump - but demand doubles versus supply

then mineral demand goes 3x - output goes from 200+ to -100

then energy demand goes 4x - output goes from +300 to -100

My pops did not suddenly grow - my planets - except for the few colonies - are not growing quickly.

I have posted this question on multiple stellaris boards because I have seen many others on console having the same issue.

Going to war or being in an extended military conflict stops the collapse from occuring - I have tested this repeatedly. This is highly suspicious

Spending 4 - 6 hours building an empire for the game to decide to end it all for no justifiable reason makes this game unplayable and frankly it feels like it was intentional by the game engine to just call it quits.

If you hover over the production it will tell you what you spend it on. I know screenshots aren't possible, but some pictures even just from your phone would help a lot to figure out what is going on.

Having a resource deficit in one resource can affect the production of other so one negative might lead to a chain of deficits.

Of course it could also be a bug with the console version.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

You should maybe also post this in the console forum.

 

[mlee70]

You should maybe also post this in the console forum.

thx - I didn't see the console forum - its not well displayed

 

[Ryika]

You're probably upgrading too many buildings too quickly. Higher tier Research Labs for example have 2 extra scientist slots, and these pops are dragged out of their worker slots if you upgrade.

Alternatively, maybe you overbuilt buildings that use advanced resources such as Volatile Motes. The negative modifiers associated with being in negative on those are quite harsh and hit the entire economy.

 

[TSBasilisk]

The sudden food collapse sounds like an issue with Food Processing buildings. Have you been using tier 2 versions on your agriworlds? Those consume Motes, as mentioned in the above post. Those are also used by upgraded foundries, which makes them very important.

It's easy to go negative on a strategic and not notice if you have a decent amount stored. They're all listed in one drop down menu to the right of the main resources.

Quick fix is to either delete a consumer building to get to 0 Motes per month or set up a trade deal to do the same.

 

[Dirk_Slamchest]

You're probably upgrading too many buildings too quickly. Higher tier Research Labs for example have 2 extra scientist slots, and these pops are dragged out of their worker slots if you upgrade.

Alternatively, maybe you overbuilt buildings that use advanced resources such as Volatile Motes. The negative modifiers associated with being in negative on those are quite harsh and hit the entire economy.

It's probably this, OP. Specialist buildings pulling workers off vital basic industries is a counter-intuitive effect that happens all the time late game.

Edit: Could also be a production or consumption modifier expiring. Recycling Initiatives does this with Consumer Goods all the time.

 

[majikero]

If you're upgrading buildings across your empire, you're pulling workers off basic resources and putting them to specialist work. So you're reducing your output of basic resources and increasing your upkeep of consumer goods.

The problem is that your pops did not grow to accommodate the expansion you're doing.

 

[evilcat]

Havent seen that one on PC, some random ideas:
*Use civics Miners Guild and Master Crafters (extra civics) for more resorces
* Get New Merchant tradition and switch to civic good trade policy
* Lack of one resource could chain on others, especially rare resources are sneakky.
* Mass upgrading advanced jobs like researchers suck low jobs like farmers
* have some generator jobs and use overload edict and buy missing from market
* recycling edict is temporary but good.
* autobuilder loves police stations, if you dont need them switch them off
* you can always switch off temporary buearocrats or techlabs just to save civic goods. You can also switch off metalurgy to use less minerals.
* mess with standard of living (lower it) also economy type to balanced
* you can manually lower amount of clerks or enforcers, so there will be more free people for farming.
* starbase farms are very good now

Sometimes i quee too many tech labs and not only increase demand for civic goods but take workers. Similar alloy production uses minerals but also takes away miners.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Havent seen that one on PC, some random ideas:
*Use civics Miners Guild and Master Crafters (extra civics) for more resorces
* Get New Merchant tradition and switch to civic good trade policy
* Lack of one resource could chain on others, especially rare resources are sneakky.
* Mass upgrading advanced jobs like researchers suck low jobs like farmers
* have some generator jobs and use overload edict and buy missing from market
* recycling edict is temporary but good.
* autobuilder loves police stations, if you dont need them switch them off
* you can always switch off temporary buearocrats or techlabs just to save civic goods. You can also switch off metalurgy to use less minerals.
* mess with standard of living (lower it) also economy type to balanced
* you can manually lower amount of clerks or enforcers, so there will be more free people for farming.
* starbase farms are very good now

Sometimes i quee too many tech labs and not only increase demand for civic goods but take workers. Similar alloy production uses minerals but also takes away miners.

He is playing on console (see his first sentence).