The early game got so empty

[Jazzbanana]

Of the various problems I've experienced in Le Guin, this has to be the one that puts me off the most.
My main beef with 2.2 is that the game got so damn slow compared to older versions, that it feels that all I'm doing is waiting for pops to grow. I'm there early game, in the planetary view, thinking "Alright, now I need to wait two pops to spawn so they can fill the two miner jobs, and then wait for at least one more to build a research lab in one of my four empty slots". Here we go, five years of impotent waiting for my capital world. This is not bad per se, but the game needs to give me something to do in the meantime. Before 2.2, you'd spend quite a bit of time cycling your planets, individually upgrading buildings and whatnot. Mind you, this was everything but exciting, but it was something, right? You'd pass the early game exploring and expanding your economy steadily, trough a lot of clicks. Now the economy and the production systems have been reworked, a lot of unexciting micro removed and I have a lot more free time. Good. Free time to do what? What do I do in the early game except following what my science ship does and sending a conctructor after it? I see your requests of reducing micro and I personally agree with them, but I'll bitterly note that at least reprioritizing pop jobs gives me something to do before midgame.
I've found myself abandoning more and more runs because, for the first time since I own it, the game makes me feel bored. Somewhat painful for me to admit, because when someone asks me what's my favorite game, I still answer Stellaris.
I'm all in for reworks and deepening of the game mechanics, but the gameplay and fun factors should be above everything else. Right now the game has laid foundations for a more complex system, but it lacks substance, like taking a big slice of bread and trying to spread too little butter on it. I really couldn't wait to spend these holidays conquering space, but I guess I'll be taking a little break for now.

 

[Sherry Fox]

You should play the waiting game. As do we all waiting for stellaris to move out of early access.

 

[edenprime]

In 1.0 we had the same issue around mid-game when we had nothing to do and the early game was considered to be the most interesting part. The thing is that the early game relied on exploration and the micro of the tile system. Now the novelty of exploration has gone and the tile system micro was removed... That doesn't leave us with much.
To sum up the mid-game was front loaded to fix the previous issues but in the mean time the ice filling the early game has entirely melted. I think they must be aware of this problem but it's not something they can easily fix. My approach would be to create busy work with leaders and internal politics.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

I don't know what edition of Stellaris you had for 2.1 and before, but my memory is that you literally had the same problem. Back then pops grew really slowly (their rate slowed as you got more of them, which is not generally true now) and there was basically nothing to do on planets except wait for a pop to be close to done, build a building and then wait some more. 2.2 didn't create this problem. 2.2 just failed to fix it.

 

[stumason]

Admittedly, even as someone who really loves 2.2 over previous iterations, the early game can be a bit slow.

That said, I jazz my game up with a plethora of mods which now give me stuff to do, extra events etc so it's not that bad. Once you get a few colonies developed and start to roll a bit, there is plenty to do.

 

[1Evilgenius]

For me the early game is practically the same as before 2.2 so i have no idea what you are talking about. The mid game has been greatly improved for me, finally there is something to do.

 

[Jman5]

I think one problem is the -50% planet growth colonies get. It really drags out the pop growth speed in the early game which greatly slows down the amount of things you need to manage. Once they're all matured it becomes much more micro-heavy.

Another thing I have noticed is there are a lot fewer Space Aliens to fight in the early game. Maybe you'll have 1 or 2 systems with 500-1000 strength aliens that you can tackle eventually, but alloy is so expensive it takes longer to get a proper sized fleet ready. Also, with the change in pirates, there is less need to rush any sort of early fleet.

The nice thing if you're using Glavius AI mod is that it does make the early game expansion phase more engaging. Unlike Vanilla, the modded AI is really aggressive in expanding its territory. So you have this hectic race where your neighbors are all rapidly expanding from all directions. You have to race ahead to cut them off and carve out little pockets to expand into afterward. I usually don't even have time to build the stations and have to have bring a 2nd construction to backfill. Meanwhile the lead construction vehicle is just slamming down outposts as fast as my influence can build in order to reach that one critical system that locks down a nice sized little pocket of unclaimed systems.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Early game is where you start expanding and juggling all the anomalies, decide where your first/second colony will be, and most importantly who your neighbours are. Yeah, pop growth is slow, but the rest still makes early game the most decisive. And those things are identical to pre-2.2.

If you miss the boring clickfest of 2.1, just to do something, well i don't know what to say.