Stellaris 2.2, Thomas Malthus and Thanos

[ashbery76]

Just enact a policy on planets to stop growth.Not hard.

 

[Tim_Ward]

Yeah, just do the edict if you're that worried about pop growth. Or make an Ecumenopolis if you've got Megacorp, which I can see that you have.

More generally, there's the instability of pops transferring to new jobs once a new building comes online. Up till mid-game players have very little sense of their stable economic power because things are popping all over the place with pops transferring. This whack-a-mole economics coupled with the soul-crushingly low pop growth makes the early game an unbearable grind

Don't put buildings that give specialist jobs on planets where you can't afford to lose worker jobs.

The thinking should be "I need an alloy foundry, where should I put it" not "I've got some space here, I'll make an alloy foundry".

If you need something to build just get rid of unemployment commercial complexes are good. The give five jobs which support other pops with amenities and if you need some specialists on the planet you can just take them from clerks, it's very unlikely you'll go into the red for want of a few clerks.

I do think pop job selection should take into account world type, i.e if it's a mining world then never promote pops from being miners.

Pop growth should slow then halt at a certain level of planetary development taking into account unemployment and lack of housing (as is the case IRL ...broadly)
For empires without migration controls, faster emigration to planets with excess jobs (can add a whole suite of edicts, policies, traditions etc to this mechanic)

What's this then, Scotch Mist?

For the record, I was switching between beta and live branches to test out some performance stuff and for some reason it deleted all the mining districts on this planet. Don't @ me.

 

[Cry_Havok]

Yeah, just do the edict if you're that worried about pop growth. Or make an Ecumenopolis if you've got Megacorp, which I can see that you have.



Don't put buildings that give specialist jobs on planets where you can't afford to lose worker jobs.

The thinking should be "I need an alloy foundry, where should I put it" not "I've got some space here, I'll make an alloy foundry".

If you need something to build just get rid of unemployment commercial complexes are good. The give five jobs which support other pops with amenities and if you need some specialists on the planet you can just take them from clerks, it's very unlikely you'll go into the red for want of a few clerks.

I do think pop job selection should take into account world type, i.e if it's a mining world then never promote pops from being miners.



What's this then, Scotch Mist?

View attachment 436363

For the record, I was switching between beta and live branches to test out some performance stuff and for some reason it deleted all the mining districts on this planet. Don't @ me.

It's slowing pop growth, way after it should have slowed and when the planet is cripplingly unstable.

 

[Tim_Ward]

It's slowing pop growth, way after it should have slowed and when the planet is cripplingly unstable.

This happened overnight due to a save game/version issue, as I said, and it's not ''slowing" it, it's stopped it dead. Might even start to decline if I let the game run longer.

I do think the migration mechanics need to be made clearer.

 

[eagletrekkie]

Just enact a policy on planets to stop growth.Not hard.

And take a penalty if you're egalitarian?

 

[Tim_Ward]

And take a penalty if you're egalitarian?

Yeah? Why shouldn't you take the penalty if you enact space one child policy?

 

[eagletrekkie]

Yeah? Why shouldn't you take the penalty if you enact space one child policy?

Because it actively gimps playing egalitarian?

 

[Tim_Ward]

Because it actively gimps playing egalitarian?

+25% amenities and pop-upkeep on one planet is "gimping" now? OK. You, uh, must like to run your economy very close to the wind.

I mean, the non-egalitarian edition is -5 stability, which I guess is not gimping?

I just don't know anymore.

 

[Snoipah]

History shows that populations self-regulate their growth over time as they develop.

Foreign aid and immigration shows otherwise. Africa is incredibly overpopulated even though a lot of the population is in poverty.

So the problem with Stellaris' new take on population growth and economic resources:

Removes all sense of accomplishment in 'finishing' a planet as before ...instead, the player is rewarded with unending pop growth leading to unemployment, lack of housing and instability.

No more room for jobs or housing? It's finished, enable population controls and ignore the planet forever.

coupled with the soul-crushingly low pop growth makes the early game an unbearable grind.

Try xenophobe with rapid breeders.

Pop growth should slow then halt at a certain level of planetary development taking into account unemployment and lack of housing (as is the case IRL ...broadly)

First off it's make that last pop take a painfully long period of time, and as before, China and Africa would like a word with you.

[edit} final idea, new buildings shouldn't 'steal' pops away from other jobs. Perhaps give players the choice on where the new pops will come from via policies?

That might cause an issue where theres too much micro managing, but giving us an option to disable auto stealing pops away from other jobs could be nice for those who like micro managing.

I would like it, others won't.

 

[Sarius1997]

We're going off-tangent but - for recent history, the data says otherwise. World pop growth has been consistently declining since 1971 (bar ~3 years). Even countries with high growth rates now are below their historic peak (most of them anyway).

edit: ok I can't link but the world bank has a good data portal for this

Yeah, i know the data.
But as i said. This decline is happening under the circumstances of a spread of certain societal values around the globe (equality between the sexes), within a system of cultural norms(western culture). Economic conditions are definitly a part of it, but the cultural norms are (IMO) more important.

 

[DeathSheep]

Pops require very careful micro to not implode your economy. You CAN'T prebuild, or all your pops shoot into upper strata jobs, and then starve themselves to death rather than stay farmers and miners. New planets will spend decades useless if you don't move pops over, particularly if you are reliant on robots. It's not even about microing pops by species, but a large amount of babysitting is required on every planer to monitor building slots, districts, what's unemployment doing, amenities, housing. Even if you have UA or Shared Burdens if unemployment gets to high either stability crashes or consumer goods use skyrockets. Miss a control pop growth timing and suddenly entire species are killing themselves off. Right now the entire game can be spent barely staving off a malthusian nightmare, and as soon as you take your eyes off your pops to deal with a war, you end up with overcrowded planets everywhere with massive unemployment.

This is one of the reasons I've been playing with a population growth mod. And even with that, if I hadn't drawn the First League as Precursors in my current game and settled their ecumenopolis, I'd be having massive unemployment and homelessness issues.

 

[AlanC9]

Pops require very careful micro to not implode your economy. You CAN'T prebuild, or all your pops shoot into upper strata jobs, and then starve themselves to death rather than stay farmers and miners. New planets will spend decades useless if you don't move pops over, particularly if you are reliant on robots. It's not even about microing pops by species, but a large amount of babysitting is required on every planer to monitor building slots, districts, what's unemployment doing, amenities, housing. Even if you have UA or Shared Burdens if unemployment gets to high either stability crashes or consumer goods use skyrockets. Miss a control pop growth timing and suddenly entire species are killing themselves off. Right now the entire game can be spent barely staving off a malthusian nightmare, and as soon as you take your eyes off your pops to deal with a war, you end up with overcrowded planets everywhere with massive unemployment.

I don't know what version you're playing, but this has nothing to do with my experience. Well, except for not prebuilding, but I never did that anyway.

I mean, by the time you've actually got planets so overcrowded that you can't make jobs for everybody, your production of everything should be colossal. How does anybody run out of everything? (Just running out of CG isn't enough since you can always buy more.)

And how many game years does it take for a planet to reach this stability crash? I've never seen one.

 

[Dëzaël]

And how many game years does it take for a planet to reach this stability crash? I've never seen one.

Nearing 2400 I had the issue with two 13 sized planets with low district count that I used as refinery planets. Refineries and their +1 job tend to easily generate high unemployment. Refinery planet specialization is in an odd spot imo due to this, but choosing those particular planets was mismanagement on my end. Even then, sacrificing a slot to add in enforcers was pretty effective.

 

[iquabakaner]

And take a penalty if you're egalitarian?

Just take Utopian Abundance and planet growth will stop when you have too much unemployment (which doesn't matter because they give science) and overcrowding (which only reduces stability by a small fraction).

 

[AmpsterMan]

Just take Utopian Abundance and planet growth will stop when you have too much unemployment (which doesn't matter because they give science) and overcrowding (which only reduces stability by a small fraction).

One thing to keep in mind, unemployment science doesn't get any resource production bonuses, so while you do negate the negatives of overcrowding/unemployment, it has a very high opportunity cost. In fact, I would argue that overcrowding under utopian abundance is very costly.

 

[Sinister2202]

Is it just me? I've never reached a point where I saw my pops decline anywhere. The lowest point I've reached was 0.5 growth rate, even with immigration pull modifiers on other colonies. By then the colony was overcrowded. I mean for whatever sake, there are other pristine colonies barely touched by civilization out there. Why don't they just do me a favor and just move out without my saying so? It's just as frustrating as egalitarian with freedom of movement, as you can't resettle excess unemployed Pops.

But in the end, I'm okay with this. Primarily because it brings out dynamic societies of each colonies, their own hardships and social problems, reminds me of my need for penal colonies and resort colonies.

Only micro I've ever done were just building things and creating jobs. However, I do get a little frustrated when I play as authoritarian and have to resettle excess Pops to fill other colonies all for the sake of my idealism.

A planetary decision to spread out highly dense colonies would be really nice, giving high emigration push to a point of population decline as temporary remedy. A "new life lottery" if you will... It would be an addition on top of the other way around, where we would purchase immigration pulls on other sparsely populated colonies.

 

[artemis667]

I'm considering just changing the point at which no new pops will grow to be 1.0 multiple of housing in my games, rather than 1.5. Seems the easiest solution, although I don't know if the AI would get crippled and how badly.

 

[Vanhal]

Pops require very careful micro to not implode your economy. You CAN'T prebuild, or all your pops shoot into upper strata jobs, and then starve themselves to death rather than stay farmers and miners. New planets will spend decades useless if you don't move pops over, particularly if you are reliant on robots. It's not even about microing pops by species, but a large amount of babysitting is required on every planer to monitor building slots, districts, what's unemployment doing, amenities, housing. Even if you have UA or Shared Burdens if unemployment gets to high either stability crashes or consumer goods use skyrockets. Miss a control pop growth timing and suddenly entire species are killing themselves off. Right now the entire game can be spent barely staving off a malthusian nightmare, and as soon as you take your eyes off your pops to deal with a war, you end up with overcrowded planets everywhere with massive unemployment.

It seems we really play a different game... or maybe not. I play heavily since 6th dec (and i'm grateful to PDX for releasing it just when i have time and not later when i will be overwhelmed) and not counting the very first play when i did collapsed my economy while learning how the new mechanic works i had never ever any of the problems you mention here, and i am the first to admit i don't like minmaxing and most micromanagement so i just try to ignore it and go with the flow and it seem to work anyway, you just really need to watch literally few numbers and voila. So it seems it is not my nor the game problem, but it's definitely between your seat and monitor. Not necesarily a "git gud" issue, since i can do it and i'm definitely not gud in this game, but you may try to maybe play some smaller games first. or just game changed too much for you, it do happens sometime.

I think social science should be studied using rigorous experimental designs, but from what I understand modern evolutionary biology makes use of computational models and game theory. I would not say that biology is a social science though.

Yeah, biology as a starting point would be possible but we would still need some real info on how it works on other planets, especially that there is very much we don't even know about life on Earth. But biology is only a part of what determine an intelligent species, at least the only one we know, and the rest we could barely guess in case of aliens (hell, even modern social sciences are in part based on guessing). So right now any of such mode would be pure guess on a base of guess on a base of probably not very relevant data from earth which are furthermore also incomplete. Basically, we already have such system in a very simplified version. it's called Stellaris

 

[Thinkamancer]

It seems we really play a different game... or maybe not. I play heavily since 6th dec (and i'm grateful to PDX for releasing it just when i have time and not later when i will be overwhelmed) and not counting the very first play when i did collapsed my economy while learning how the new mechanic works i had never ever any of the problems you mention here, and i am the first to admit i don't like minmaxing and most micromanagement so i just try to ignore it and go with the flow and it seem to work anyway, you just really need to watch literally few numbers and voila. So it seems it is not my nor the game problem, but it's definitely between your seat and monitor. Not necesarily a "git gud" issue, since i can do it and i'm definitely not gud in this game, but you may try to maybe play some smaller games first. or just game changed too much for you, it do happens sometime.



Yeah, biology as a starting point would be possible but we would still need some real info on how it works on other planets, especially that there is very much we don't even know about life on Earth. But biology is only a part of what determine an intelligent species, at least the only one we know, and the rest we could barely guess in case of aliens (hell, even modern social sciences are in part based on guessing). So right now any of such mode would be pure guess on a base of guess on a base of probably not very relevant data from earth which are furthermore also incomplete. Basically, we already have such system in a very simplified version. it's called Stellaris

Excellent post!

 

[Agamemnic]

Just take Utopian Abundance and planet growth will stop when you have too much unemployment (which doesn't matter because they give science) and overcrowding (which only reduces stability by a small fraction).

I'm on a utopian abundance run right now. Keep getting unemployment/crime pop-ups every few months.

Overall, I'm just exhausted with this new system especially in late game. There's simply no way to just get a stable planet going. Using the pop growth edict is far too punitive. Hives and machine empires are viable though.