No but it's kinda silly Palpatine can't get his vassal to give him 10k energy from his 50k stockpile.
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Sectors completely ruin immersion
- Thread starter napoleon_mayo
- Start date
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No but it's kinda silly Palpatine can't get his vassal to give him 10k energy from his 50k stockpile.
I like the concept of sectors. It's good.
However even though I like the concept of sectors untill very late in the game I always develop the colonies myself until they have a planetary capital and then fill the construction queue for all tiles before handing it to the AI. I wouldn't do that if there was a way to tell the AI to focus on growth first.
Also I always have to keep the planets I use for fleet construction, because the AI will always ignore that I forbid redevelopment for spaceports and replace my military orbital stuff for civilian suff it doesn't need anyway. (e.g. orbital farm for a fully developed planet with food surplus anyway)
Here is what in my huble opinion needs to be changed:
- there has to be a way to effectively forbif the AI orbital redevelopment. (If it was seperated from planetary development even better.)
- there has to be a way to forbid the AI to emacipate slaves even better certain slaves. (If it was possible to teach the AI to emancipate or enslave properly even better.)
- there should be a check window when removing parts from the sector to avoid accidentally wasting 25 influence.
Here is what in my huble opinion would be great if it also were to be changed:
- there should be a way to tell the AI to focus on growth first and not to instantly abandon the farms one has built.
- there should be a way to tell the govenor that certain tiles should always be worked. I'd even spend influence on that!
- there should be a way for the player to do some finetuning and to build or replace single buildings. I'd spend influence on that too!!
(For example if you need 150 years to get mineral processing plants because researching debris halts your freaking tech forever, I'd like to go through the planets and see that certain planets finally get one).
- developing colonies should not reduce your energy income and should not counted as actual system as they are not even displayed as actual sixth system.
- you should not have to reload to get rid of the energy malus.
Also it would be great if govenors actually had a clue what they are doing and were aware of the most effective way to allocate pops. A power hub should never be vacant when 7 power plants are worked. And if they actually cared what their pops are good at putting the intelligent ones on research and the idustrious on mines, that would be awesome.
Also sliders would be excellent. At the moment it's all or nothing, there is no way to tell the dudes to focus on energy and research the same way.
Also govenors don't seem to work properly. When I want to boost research of a sector giving it a science govenor nothing changes.. it simply does not work. That should be fixed as well.
However even though I like the concept of sectors untill very late in the game I always develop the colonies myself until they have a planetary capital and then fill the construction queue for all tiles before handing it to the AI. I wouldn't do that if there was a way to tell the AI to focus on growth first.
Also I always have to keep the planets I use for fleet construction, because the AI will always ignore that I forbid redevelopment for spaceports and replace my military orbital stuff for civilian suff it doesn't need anyway. (e.g. orbital farm for a fully developed planet with food surplus anyway)
Here is what in my huble opinion needs to be changed:
- there has to be a way to effectively forbif the AI orbital redevelopment. (If it was seperated from planetary development even better.)
- there has to be a way to forbid the AI to emacipate slaves even better certain slaves. (If it was possible to teach the AI to emancipate or enslave properly even better.)
- there should be a check window when removing parts from the sector to avoid accidentally wasting 25 influence.
Here is what in my huble opinion would be great if it also were to be changed:
- there should be a way to tell the AI to focus on growth first and not to instantly abandon the farms one has built.
- there should be a way to tell the govenor that certain tiles should always be worked. I'd even spend influence on that!
- there should be a way for the player to do some finetuning and to build or replace single buildings. I'd spend influence on that too!!
(For example if you need 150 years to get mineral processing plants because researching debris halts your freaking tech forever, I'd like to go through the planets and see that certain planets finally get one).
- developing colonies should not reduce your energy income and should not counted as actual system as they are not even displayed as actual sixth system.
- you should not have to reload to get rid of the energy malus.
Also it would be great if govenors actually had a clue what they are doing and were aware of the most effective way to allocate pops. A power hub should never be vacant when 7 power plants are worked. And if they actually cared what their pops are good at putting the intelligent ones on research and the idustrious on mines, that would be awesome.
Also sliders would be excellent. At the moment it's all or nothing, there is no way to tell the dudes to focus on energy and research the same way.
Also govenors don't seem to work properly. When I want to boost research of a sector giving it a science govenor nothing changes.. it simply does not work. That should be fixed as well.
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I didn't even know this could be changed! Thank you.
I like sectors. The AI needs some work, sure, and it will come with time.
The usefulness of sectors requires a little bit of understanding. I used to get really frustrated and than found this which explained sectors better: Link
In short:
- Set Tax to 75% and feed your sectors minerals and credits when they need it and you can afford it.
- Be sure to periodically pump minerals or energy into the sector so it can build. You can tell because you'll give it a 1000 minterals and you'll see about 800 immedately disappear next month
- The OP recommends setting everything to prioritize research, which I've had positive experience with myself
- Setting build quarry before giving a planet to a sector has been reported to be helpful, I've had mixed experience
Here is my two cents: I would like
- to have a reasonable limit on the number of planets a sector can manage, and maybe government type or ethos affect what that limit is (some in the 7-12 range?). Technologies to increase that limit.
- to set planetary priorities (minerals, energy, research, growth) in addition to sector priorities.
- the AI (for every planet, actually) to auto activate/deactivate structures based on if a POP is working them (no point in paying maintenance)
- 25 influence edict that allows me to build/upgrade/replace/remove tile blockers (I can already do this by removing the planet, this just makes it simpler)
- I would like the following sector management options:
- Prioritize Empire and Planetary Unique Buildings: AI, after meeting food requirements, will ensure that unique buildings are staffed so they get their proper effect
- Do Not Redevelop Unique Buildings: AI will not redevelop your Lythuric Atmospheric Manipulator, for example
- Do Not Build Unique Buildings: AI will not build unique buildings
- Do Not Redevelop Orbital Platforms: AI will not redevelop orbital platforms
- Focus: Maximize and Break Even: AI will develop the planet to maximize its output, have the minimum essential food, and ensure it produces enough energy to cover costs for buildings and robots/droids/synths
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but if you've researched the repeating techs for +1 sector
you've also had the opportunity to research the repeating techs for +1 leader
governors with no upper cap on system limits for the sector make the sector limit irrelevant
at most you only need 4 sectors, 1 for each spiral arm
by limiting the max systems within a sector it adds choices to the player
do they use the minimum of 4 Scientists
or do they use 5+ Scientists
do they make use of Admirals
do they make use of Generals (the most useless type imo)
do they have sectors with no governors
do they have governors on primary systems
the player then has to balance manpower resources over a larger number of assets
gains in one area will be offset against basic performance in other areas
growth vs stability, research or production vs fleet power
choices should matter
you've also had the opportunity to research the repeating techs for +1 leader
governors with no upper cap on system limits for the sector make the sector limit irrelevant
at most you only need 4 sectors, 1 for each spiral arm
by limiting the max systems within a sector it adds choices to the player
do they use the minimum of 4 Scientists
or do they use 5+ Scientists
do they make use of Admirals
do they make use of Generals (the most useless type imo)
do they have sectors with no governors
do they have governors on primary systems
the player then has to balance manpower resources over a larger number of assets
gains in one area will be offset against basic performance in other areas
growth vs stability, research or production vs fleet power
choices should matter
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Only way they ruin immersion is by mismanaging slaves. Pretty hard enslave every xeno in the galaxy ATM.
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Sectors utterly fail in the goal of reducing micromanagement because the sector AI cannot optimize planets, it is basically too dumb to play the game. The goal of sectors, however, was not reducing micromanagement - if micromanagement was gone Stellaris would be even less of a game than it is. The goal is artificial difficulty.
Everyone who reflexively put disagree to the OP's post is not helping. Blind support of bad design and bad implementation will ensure that Paradox's current negative trend in quality continues.
Everyone who reflexively put disagree to the OP's post is not helping. Blind support of bad design and bad implementation will ensure that Paradox's current negative trend in quality continues.
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Think about all the potential sectors offer, though. They're not supposed to just be AI assistants to help you run a big empire, but eventually an important source of challenge once you have a big empire. It's a really ambitious and fun idea, that you will be creating rivals for yourself while you play.
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I think people disagreed with the OPs post because it was overtly sarcastic and really didn't add anything helpful to the conversation about sector management. Raging on the forums is not the ideal way to contribute to the game's design.
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The thing is, we never hear 'the problems are serious and we are going to fix it' from the design team. They're always relentlessly upbeat, talking about their *future* plans - seemingly oblivious to the problems with the game as it is. And, as shown with previous titles from this company, that actually is the case with a reasonable frequency. I also know that, for CK2, there were a select group of forumgoers who were on a playtest team who were unreasonably supportive of anything the design team did - good or bad. I don't want Stellaris to turn into the same kind of hugbox. At least the HOI forums are properly critical - seems historical wargamers are a little more serious.
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Have a look through Wiz's posts and you'll see that's not true. They're optimistic, yes, but that's not a bad thing. No game gets better without there being bugs, so it's pointless to put one off to do the other.
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Here is my two cents: The design team's job is not to validate our frustrations and join our rage mobs... it's to make a better game. We can help the them out by having a respectful, thoughtful conversation about what works, what doesn't, and possible alternatives that are interesting/fun. If one is going to rage in order to make sure that PDX understands, than go for, but don't be surprised if one gets downvoted in favor of productive critiques. I yield to the wisdom of xkcd
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Right now, sectors remove gameplay without adding something in its place.
Planets under direct control generate gameplay from managing their construction and trying to balance the needs of growing them fast to extracting resources from them, putting them in sectors removes that.
Eventually you don't have to worry about trying to balance planet output because the empire output is high enough that an individual planet doesn't matter, but that point comes after you're forced to start putting planets into sectors by the inefficiency and low system cap (and changing to system cap didn't help very much because exploiting multi-planet systems requires tech which will, generally, come later than the point where you have to start sectoring).
I don't think sectors do anything with "immersion", and I'm not super sad about the fact that the AI governor is rubbish and I have to deal with an extra layer of inefficiency because of the way sector resource taxes work (even though I think that should change), but I do think that the gameplay they remove needs to be replaced with something.
Planets under direct control generate gameplay from managing their construction and trying to balance the needs of growing them fast to extracting resources from them, putting them in sectors removes that.
Eventually you don't have to worry about trying to balance planet output because the empire output is high enough that an individual planet doesn't matter, but that point comes after you're forced to start putting planets into sectors by the inefficiency and low system cap (and changing to system cap didn't help very much because exploiting multi-planet systems requires tech which will, generally, come later than the point where you have to start sectoring).
I don't think sectors do anything with "immersion", and I'm not super sad about the fact that the AI governor is rubbish and I have to deal with an extra layer of inefficiency because of the way sector resource taxes work (even though I think that should change), but I do think that the gameplay they remove needs to be replaced with something.
I know Paradox is hinting that this is where they want to go with further development of internal politics, and I can understand it for a historical game. But again, I think they're losing the plot here. It's a science fiction game with aliens, not human history.
If every alien civ has to contend with internal politics and sectors that break away, then how do you play a race of insect aliens that operate as a hive mind? Or a race like the Kzin with biologically hard-coded loyalty to the Patriarch? We should at least have the option of playing aliens with more rigid control of every planet, in a way that would be impossible for humans because they're not human.
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You're making a good point that even sectors working-as-dreamed don't fit some races that one might want to play operating on the premise that a single leader CAN oversee the entire empire. I hate to just answer "hopefully there will be DLC" to everything, but that's probably what we have to hope for. Even some kind of special government of this type could still make use of sectors, feasibly. For instance under some circumstances a rogue overmind might split from you and act as a modified sector that you would have to deal with from then on.
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One would hope that when sectors get developed, different government forms will interact with them differently as well, so that different builds do feel different to play.
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There's no Paradox game when you are spirit of the race.
Yes, they are properly critical about Paradox not fixing AI when Paradox clearly said it's actually fixing AI.
If not microing every planet remove gameplay from grand strategy game, then the real problem are not sectors.
It's space opera game. Space opera is about people. If you want totally un-human aliens that populate big part of space operas, they are called "late game crisis".
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I believe sectors should have sectors inside (like vassal of a vassal in CK2), essentialy removing "why can i control 5 systems and sectors can control 65 systems" rant.
Also, sectors should seek independance when far away from / stronger than capital
Also, sectors should seek independance when far away from / stronger than capital
They're supposed to. There are probably tuning problems with the mechanics underpinning that objective.
Many Paradox games have this concept. Indeed it is a direct port of Demnesse from CK2 (the minor difference is that AI seems to be excempt from it*).
Primarily it is a idea against blobbing (becomming so big nothing is a challenge anymore), something Grand Strategy Games have to consider as part of the difficulty/game progress curve.
It does not break immersion, but instead enforces it. You do not control every last of those billions of citizen on your planets manually, do you? There is that planetary government in the Planetary Adminsitration doing detail stuff too, or not?
So at some point even controling those planetary governments becomes to much of a hassle for the President/King/whatever.
Does the sector AI have issues? Yes. Of course it has. It is just a game AI after all.
Are those design decisions or bugs that will be fixed? Bugs. Or design decision that might get worked over.
Did they have a companywide vacation the entire last month, so not work was done? Yes, they did.
Are they fixing issues right now that they are back? 1.2.4 and 1.2.5 say clearly "Yes, they are". Simply by existing.
In the end it is just the 1000ths complaint about "they had thier yearly, 1 month, companywide vacation last month so no work was done".
They are back. Measure thier reaction time from the point at wich they returned, not the one where thier vacation just started. Everything else is as logical as expecting them to know of a issue on your end before you even reported it.
*It already has the disadvantage of being a gaming AI with no ability to plan ahead.
Primarily it is a idea against blobbing (becomming so big nothing is a challenge anymore), something Grand Strategy Games have to consider as part of the difficulty/game progress curve.
It does not break immersion, but instead enforces it. You do not control every last of those billions of citizen on your planets manually, do you? There is that planetary government in the Planetary Adminsitration doing detail stuff too, or not?
So at some point even controling those planetary governments becomes to much of a hassle for the President/King/whatever.
Does the sector AI have issues? Yes. Of course it has. It is just a game AI after all.
Are those design decisions or bugs that will be fixed? Bugs. Or design decision that might get worked over.
Did they have a companywide vacation the entire last month, so not work was done? Yes, they did.
Are they fixing issues right now that they are back? 1.2.4 and 1.2.5 say clearly "Yes, they are". Simply by existing.
In the end it is just the 1000ths complaint about "they had thier yearly, 1 month, companywide vacation last month so no work was done".
They are back. Measure thier reaction time from the point at wich they returned, not the one where thier vacation just started. Everything else is as logical as expecting them to know of a issue on your end before you even reported it.
*It already has the disadvantage of being a gaming AI with no ability to plan ahead.
As it is right now, sectors want independance when pops are unhappy, which only happens when you conquer someone elses planet.