Sector Discussion/Quarantine Thread

[clockworkBabbag]

You see, you keep describing all these new and interesting mechanics related to CKII vassals, things which change the dynamics of managing your own holdings, often in pretty fundamental ways, adding new challenges to achieving the dream of ruling an empire vs. being content as a Duke or King beyond simply the scale of managment.

But none of those things are implemented with sectors in Stellaris. You sector can't disobey you (complaints about the AI aside) the idea of one rebelling is laughable considering how barebones the faction system currently is. And since you directly control all the ships in your navy, even if they do rebel it's at most a frustrating annoyance (though considering how planetary rebellions work, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that such an event is often thwarted by the defensive troops they recruited to protect their worlds.)

...That being said, I'll concede a point, it's not the lack of a positive benifit that makes sectors despised.

It's the lack of new compelling mechanics (whether that's buffs or internal politics) once you've reached the point that sectors are necessary that makes them despised.

I was never saying that sectors and CK2 vassals are exactly alike, so saying that none of that is implemented in Stellaris sectors is irrelevant. Every time I brought up features of CK2 vassals, the reason was always to back up my initial argument in our discussion: mechanics that make the player's life harder are not inherently bad. Obstacles the game forces you to manage can be fun and engaging, if implemented well, and it's not necessary to give players an objective mechanical benefit in order for them not to think the mechanic is reasonable.

I just see people arguing otherwise all the time in various situations, whether here or in other games (especially other Paradox games). I feel that the mindset of "the game should only ever use a carrot and never a stick to incentivize the player" is a toxic one to good game design and is really just people whining that the game actually makes them work a bit. I'm glad you're not one of them.


You're absolutely right, though, that Stellaris sectors have a long way to go. Clearly, planet management AI needs a lot of work (if vassals in CK2 actually had problems developing their holdings, you'd see justified complaints about that as well. It's just that CK2 has much simpler development, so it's not anywhere near as bad an AI issue). Better planet management AI benefits the whole game, not just sectors. A specific thing that could benefit sector management AI, though, is a sector toggle to allow sectors to be subsidized by the empire as a whole - this would allow sector AI to truly specialize if they don't have to worry about running an energy deficit, and gives the player at least some control over unexpected expenses from sectors. It also incentivizes smaller sectors, as fine-grained control is a lot safer than a massive sector running a deficit.

But most importantly, there needs to be something more than just management to make sectors engaging to use. They need to have some internal political mechanics involved with them.

But I don't want Stellaris to be CK2 in space. Empires in Stellaris should be a lot more stable than empires in CK2. Ambitious governors shouldn't be the drivers of internal revolts, pops and unhappy factions should be, and unhappy governors should be more of a symptom of unhappy factions than the prime reason a sector would revolt. I'm still trying to think of suggestions that could tie that in with what we know of the new faction system so far, but there's a lot to think about there.

 

[Madzai]

But I don't want Stellaris to be CK2 in space. Empires in Stellaris should be a lot more stable than empires in CK2. Ambitious governors shouldn't be the drivers of internal revolts, pops and unhappy factions should be, and unhappy governors should be more of a symptom of unhappy factions than the prime reason a sector would revolt. I'm still trying to think of suggestions that could tie that in with what we know of the new faction system so far, but there's a lot to think about there.

And don't forget the most important point - in Stellaris, AS, if the intended to be something similar to CK2 in terms of gameplay and depth, should differ for most form of Governments, because there is absolutely no sense for them to have exact same mechanics, parameters and abilities. Despotic Empire and Direct Democracy having exact same AS? Like, really?

 

[Harle]

I acknowledge that there are some niggling mechanical issues to work out. I saw one large early post that really struck me as a better system than what is in place.

My major complaint regarding sectors is that they are kind of boring, as they are implemented now. They are dull and uninteresting.

I haven't decided whether they exist to create a problem (reducing your ability to micromanage), or to solve a problem (reducing the need to micromanage), but in either case it apparently does so without much effort to improve upon gameplay. Strictly speaking, sectors exist to remove gameplay. By revoking your full access to large parts of your empire.

I think that in spirit this wasn't a bad move, because the kind of gameplay that goes on at that level of micromanagement becomes rapidly repetitive and slows things down considerably. In spirit, I am in favor of sectors.

However, I do think that whenever a mechanic is introduced to restrict gameplay, as sectors do, it should be matched with replacement gameplay that is easier to manage. There should be a game about sectors. This was a missed opportunity to develop some really interesting internal empire mechanics, where a big chunk of managing a large empire is managing your sectors from a higher level.

But we are missing some pieces that might make that possible. We are missing interesting characters with personalities who might represent factions and sector governors, who have their own agendas, wants, and influence. We are missing an internal simulation of the governments that we choose, and how decisions are made and orders carried out in such a government. We are missing in-depth factions which might help flesh out the shifting allegiances within sectors (though this is looking to improve sooner rather than later).

There should be interplay, a give-and-take between the empire and its sectors, decisions to make, interpersonal interactions, agendas and secrecy and backstabbing and espionage. Things that can be represented by complex systems but managed through decisions and planning rather than build-queues.

Replace the build-queues with empire management. Give people empire-level things to do. It's a lot to ask but if the game is going to expand its mechanics somewhere, in my opinion it needs to expand toward higher-level empire management, and that means adequately simulating what is happening at the sector level, and the people who live and act at that level, so that we actually have something to manage.

 

[SMudrac]

Hi everybody, I mostly lurk around the forums (not that much lately), not usually posting anything, but this time I think that it would be a good idea to take some time and let my voice be heard since I believe there is a number of people like me. People which really enjoy the game, but are certainly annoyed by certain game mechanics (in my case sectors), but usually do not post anything for whatever reason. Now, I am certainly not speaking on their behalf, I just want to challenge the assumption "If you are not complaining then you like it the way it is" as seems to be implied in this thread. While certainly true for some people, there is no reason to assume it for all and thus basically shift the blame solely to "vocal minority".

Since I am writing this post might as well offer my thoughts on the sector system and how it can be changed/improved. Basically I see the future of sector system as two mutually exclusive paths: 1) basically scraping the entire system and rebuilding it from ground up and 2) keep the current system, but somehow streamline the management and tackle more features to it to make it comfortable to use. People here have given suggestions for both of these. I am personally for option 1) since, right now, I feel that the sectors are there to basically fix the problem of planetary tile management which is very tedious and, might I say, completely redundant. The sectors fell as if they were put there simply to spare you from having to deal with this more than you should (even current amount seems to much for me). But, of course, it is up to the devs to decide how they want to proceed, since they know best what they wish to accomplish and how much resources they have at their disposal. So here are my suggestions for both cases:

1) Sectors are completely broken and need to be rebuilt from scratch

As I said above, I feel that the main problem lies in planetary tile management system and that sectors are there simply there to spare you from dealing with it so much. I am not sure why Paradox choose to implement this honestly - just because it is present in so many space 4X games? In most of these games it always proves to be equally annoying, forcing you to focus on unnecessary busywork rather than on the big picture. Sure it can be fun for first couple of hours, but gets boring really fast and does not scale well into the end game. This is even more baffling if you take a look at other PDX games. In all of them the management of the provinces (equivalent to planets in Stellaris) is highly abstracted and managing a large number of them is not particularly difficult using different build overlays. So they already had a system that was working well and more importantly, scaled very well. Difference in managing 10 or 100 provinces in EU4 is not that big.

So, what I would like to suggest is to use the formula that works. Drop the tile system and abstract the planets. Is it really necessary to know how resources are exactly distributed over the planet so that you can give order where exactly to build a mine? I do not think so. What we need is simply to know what are the capabilities of planet to produce minerals, energy and food and its size. If planet has for example 5 mineral sources, then first 5 mines you build receive a bonus to mine production. Simple as that! And it actually does not make the system any less complex (which, again goes to show how shallow the and uninteresting the current system is anyway), since you can still ignore all that and build a bunch of farms if that is to your hearts desire - similar to ignoring tile bonuses. What about pops, you ask? Same thing - we do not need to know what each individual pop is doing. Assign them automatically - if there are more buildings then pops, then scale the production levels of buildings according to pop availability. For example, if there are 10 buildings and 8 pops only, make each building operate at 80% capacity. Now, these are only my suggestions, you can abstract it however you please, just simplify them and reduce the amount of busywork around them.

So, how does this tie-in with the sector system? Well easily, with planets abstracted make the sectors basic unit of governance, something akin to states in HOI4. You should not interact with planets directly, but with sectors. So when you order the sector to build something he should try to distribute it evenly across the sector. For example, you order a sector with two planets to build a second farm - the sector attempts to keep the distribution of buildings across planets uniform and thus builds a farm on the planet which does not have one. Maybe allow players to specify important planets within the sector (up to certain limit of course) so that we can order sector to focus building up these planets first. This way, you would govern your empire via sectors and even late in the game, this would scale well, since 100s of planets can be put in a dozen of sectors thus keeping the micromanagement to a minimum.

2) Sectors are fine as-is just needs some polish and streamlining

Not much to say here, keep the system as it is, but add some polish and quaility-of-life changes. One thing I would like to see if the current system is to stay is to add some sort of "Planetary Planner". The idea is to allow you to create a plan of planet development. Basically, as soon as the planet is under your rule you can open this planner which should allow you to specify what to build on each tile and in what order. This way you can map out the planet from the start in one go, rather then constantly going back-and-forth. As soon as a pop and resources are available, the game should inform you that you can now proceed with a plan for the given planet. All you need to do is click a button and AI should automatically set the pop to given tile and start constructing the pre-planned building. Sector AI should first and foremost follow this plan of development and only after that, if possible, do his own development. This way all you need to do is pass a "recipe" for each planet to the AI and he will deal with the tedious part - checking if pops and resources are available.

Whoa, what a wall of text. Hope you will find some of this I posted useful in some future development/discussion. Have fun guys!

 

[Crissa]

... And, as has been written often enough on the forums, AI development is not something you can simply throw money at.

Err, yes it is. Sure, it can be a big dark hole sometimes, but AI development is totally something you can throw money at.

You could even do things like creating subsystems that recorded players's actions as they were synced to the cloud and use those to mine for patterns of actions a probabilities. It's not true AI, but a way to apply deep learning algorithms.

And yes, that costs money O-o

Please throw money at the problem.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

Err, yes it is. Sure, it can be a big dark hole sometimes, but AI development is totally something you can throw money at.

You could even do things like creating subsystems that recorded players's actions as they were synced to the cloud and use those to mine for patterns of actions a probabilities. It's not true AI, but a way to apply deep learning algorithms.

And yes, that costs money O-o

Please throw money at the problem.

Paradox is a long, long, long way away from being something like EA. They don't necessarily have the ability to just magic more people onto the job.

 

[blakh]

With all due respect, what is the point of sectors?

If they're a macromanagement tool, then how does allowing the user discretionary control defeat the purpose? If anything, it enhances that purpose by letting me ignore 90% of my empire's workings and step in for the 10% that matters. What's more, if this is just a macromanagement tool, why am I forced to use it? And it's a bad macromanagement tool, because users are often frustrated with its results.

Didn't Paradox state again and again that many players want to play perfectly, and micro-managing everything usually is very little fun, so if you want players to have fun playing the game you need to force them not to micro-manage everything? (Which to me seems perfectly sensible.)

 

[Agamemnic]

Didn't Paradox state again and again that many players want to play perfectly, and micro-managing everything usually is very little fun, so if you want players to have fun playing the game you need to force them not to micro-manage everything? (Which to me seems perfectly sensible.)

I agree to an extent. Except sectors also tax you a permanent 25%. Fine take away the micro but why such a heavy penalty?

 

[GuildenSpur]

@SMudrac
Regarding further planet abstraction, I have mentioned this also a while back. It would be interesting but a lot of players like the micro.
Maybe just doing so for sectors would be an option, but what then if a system is taken out of the sector?

 

[RELee]

I just feel compelled to put it out there that sectors are a functional, necessary and enjoyable part of my games, in my personal opinion.

Yes, I am serious.

 

[ramius3443]

Err, yes it is. Sure, it can be a big dark hole sometimes, but AI development is totally something you can throw money at.

You could even do things like creating subsystems that recorded players's actions as they were synced to the cloud and use those to mine for patterns of actions a probabilities. It's not true AI, but a way to apply deep learning algorithms.

And yes, that costs money O-o

Please throw money at the problem.

Actually, if Sega/CA and Firaxis is any indication, throwing more money at the AI team is not the end all be all of AI development. Indeed, adding too many people onto the payroll, and having too many people messing with the code, will probably wreck rather then enhance the AI.

Of course don't let this discourage the board of Paradox from giving Steelvolt a massive raise or anything.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

I just feel compelled to put it out there that sectors are a functional, necessary and enjoyable part of my games, in my personal opinion.

Yes, I am serious.

Functional in the sense that they do let you just put things in a sector and forget about them? Sure. But then you go back and look at them and wonder why the AI has let your planet starve to death and the entire sector has no energy profit while there are all these empty tiles with no non-food resources and you realize that there is definitely some kind of problem with them (literally saw this an hour or two ago). That's not a matter of sectors not being optimal enough to satisfy die-hard power games. That's a problem.

Actually, if Sega/CA and Firaxis is any indication, throwing more money at the AI team is not the end all be all of AI development. Indeed, adding too many people onto the payroll, and having too many people messing with the code, will probably wreck rather then enhance the AI.

Of course don't let this discourage the board of Paradox from giving Steelvolt a massive raise or anything.

Yeah, that's actually a known effect. There's a point where more people on a project just gives you diminishing returns, and eventually makes things worse.

We're probably pretty far from that point knowing a general idea of what Paradox's resources are compared to AAA publishers/studios, but that lack of resources is exactly why it's just not an option here in any case.

 

[LordMagus]

Not sure how long the sector AI will take to start queuing up upgrades for energy buildings, despite having enough resources.

TL;DR: Sector world not queuing up the power plant upgrade, despite having more than enough minerals to do so.
Looking forward to the tooltip Wiz, so I can see if the 1000 minerals are being reserved to buy jewellery for the colonists' owl wives.

 

[PirateJack]

Someone mentioned either in this thread or another one last week that once a sector hit five planets it seemed to have problems allocating resources and just froze up instead. Might be worthwhile to split your sectors up into smaller chunks and see if that helps.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

Someone mentioned either in this thread or another one last week that once a sector hit five planets it seemed to have problems allocating resources and just froze up instead. Might be worthwhile to split your sectors up into smaller chunks and see if that helps.

Short-term solution.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm generally fine with just letting sectors handle planets and forget about them - while more interesting things are going on, planets are boring to pay attention to. Sectors being bad is far from rendering the game unplayable for me. But when I ever do get around to looking at them (and there isn't anything else to care about) sector incompetence gets infuriating.

The way the game is currently set up, everything about sectors seem to want you to use only a few massive sectors rather than lots of tiny ones. There are limited leader slots, one big sector is a lot less micro, and there's no explicit, intended penalty to having a large sector. When the AI has massive problems with what the game is intuitively telling you to do, that's a big problem.

 

[Derp]

Not sure how long the sector AI will take to start queuing up upgrades for energy buildings, despite having enough resources.

Is the sector set to allow to build anything other than buildings? Robots, space construction, etc?

 

[RELee]

Functional in the sense that they do let you just put things in a sector and forget about them? Sure. But then you go back and look at them and wonder why the AI has let your planet starve to death and the entire sector has no energy profit while there are all these empty tiles with no non-food resources and you realize that there is definitely some kind of problem with them (literally saw this an hour or two ago). That's not a matter of sectors not being optimal enough to satisfy die-hard power games. That's a problem.

That's a problem I have not experienced. Playing without mods, I always jump start my sectors with energy and minerals, and I don't tax them to death except in emergency war situations or when I just can't help it. When I check on them, they seem to be progressing nicely.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

That's a problem I have not experienced. Playing without mods, I always jump start my sectors with energy and minerals, and I don't tax them to death except in emergency war situations or when I just can't help it. When I check on them, they seem to be progressing nicely.

This was a long-existing sector started out of vassal-integrated, developed worlds with an abundance of minerals and plenty of empty tiles to build power plants and farms on.

You cannot deny that sector building AI has some glaring instances where it does not function. This is a problem, and something needs to be done to make it work. The easiest solution - and one that would make most of the people who find it to be an issue happy - is to allow the player to build in sector planets, just like the player can make choices for spaceports*. The micro that needs reduced is the mindless, boring upgrading. Making initial choices for what building belongs on which tile at least takes some decision-making, and is not clearly mindless tedium that should be avoided by the game at all costs.

*On that note, give the player full control over being able to disband stations under sector control too - I've integrated vassals with tons of military stations and stuck them all in a sector before forgetting to delete those stations, and having to pay influence to fix that sector's massive energy debt which the sector will not fix (I don't believe they ever disband existing stations) is not acceptable.

 

[RELee]

I can honestly deny that I have ever experienced any major problems with sectors.

I will acknowledge that quite a few people report bugs in AI-controlled sectors.

I have also had to pay out influence (when I had it available) due to my bone-headed mistakes in game play. That's a whole different issue.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

I can honestly deny that I have ever experienced any major problems with sectors.

I will acknowledge that quite a few people report bugs in AI-controlled sectors.

I have also had to pay out influence (when I had it available) due to my bone-headed mistakes in game play. That's a whole different issue.

There are things that are reasonable to pay influence for.

There are things - like having rules about what you can or cannot disband or control when in a sector be inconsistently applied - that are absolutely not.