The food policies seem like the least-balanced part of this game.

[Zalmin]

Seriously, does anyone ever run strict rationing? Even when I tried to play as an empire where the bios were only rulers and researchers and droids did everything else I still didn't want to use strict rationing because of the happiness hit. Nutritional plenitude seems like it's almost strictly correct if you are at all minimaxing.

Am I missing something, or this just a complete non-decision 98% of the time?

 

[Shirasik]

Seriously, does anyone ever run strict rationing? Even when I tried to play as an empire where the bios were only rulers and researchers and droids did everything else I still didn't want to use strict rationing because of the happiness hit. Nutritional plenitude seems like it's almost strictly correct if you are at all minimaxing.

Am I missing something, or this just a complete non-decision 98% of the time?

Pretty useful for bio GC when you have to repurpose tonload of food production into tonload of mineral production, when endgame crisis fires. Or when in a Devouring Swarm game food suddenly dies, because it, well, all was eaten, so hive have to deal with food shortage, but can't afford 75% malus of drone growth.

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

Yeah, I'd rather have negative income food plus nutritional plentitude even at the beginning of the game.

I could possibly see a use for the strict rationing if you had somehow filled all your planets and didn't want any more growth. But it's hard to imagine a scenario where you wouldn't have any still growing/recently acquired planets, but would still have any incentive to keep playing. Maybe some sort of pure feudal vassal run.

 

[sortulv]

I think it is simply too generous a policy - the effects are too limited. Having plentitude be +100% consumtion, and rationing be -50%, might make it more of a choice...

 

[Roddo]

Why take anything other than plenitude?

 

[tinculin]

You seriously can't think of any larger balance issue than the food policy? I think you're touching on the biggest balance issue in the game, but coming to an incorrect conclusion.

The reason you pick nutritional plenitude is because fast pop growth is king & that's the underlying root of why nutritional plenitude is the optimal pick.

This isn't to say you can't win a game by not focusing on pop growth, but you make life far easier if you do.

Pop growth is currently the 'meta' way to play Stellaris. It's why nutritional plentitude is the optimal choice, it's why genetics is the optimal ascension path, it's why going wide regardless of your empire sprawl penalty is the optimal way to play. 6-800+ pops across a dozen planets by year 150 will easily out perform an empire that stayed small, easily dwarfing the smaller empire in economy, science and unity.

 

[Zardnaar]

You seriously can't think of any larger balance issue than the food policy? I think you're touching on the biggest balance issue in the game, but coming to an incorrect conclusion.

The reason you pick nutritional plenitude is because fast pop growth is king & that's the underlying root of why nutritional plenitude is the optimal pick.

This isn't to say you can't win a game by not focusing on pop growth, but you make life far easier if you do.

Pop growth is currently the 'meta' way to play Stellaris. It's why nutritional plentitude is the optimal choice, it's why genetics is the optimal ascension path, it's why going wide regardless of your empire sprawl penalty is the optimal way to play. 6-800+ pops across a dozen planets by year 150 will easily out perform an empire that stayed small, easily dwarfing the smaller empire in economy, science and unity.

This.

Sometimes I find as a bio engineered empire late game you are getting to much pops but you have to expand and move them around. I could see you reducing growth if expansion was not an option.

My last great "mega empire" had 9600 odd pops. Then the game crashed.

 

[Edorath]

I would say the dubious honor of the biggest balance issue goes to machine empire starts and early game, between pops using energy for maintenance, growing slower than bio pops and having no trade playing them tends to be a struggle to keep your energy income positive.
Being a beep boop is suffering.

 

[Agamemnic]

My last great "mega empire" had 9600 odd pops. Then the game crashed.

how? Mods? Did the power in your city also go out?!

 

[Shirasik]

how? Mods?

1k-star galaxy, 5x habitable worlds, lots of management...

 

[Dalwin]

Seriously, does anyone ever run strict rationing? Even when I tried to play as an empire where the bios were only rulers and researchers and droids did everything else I still didn't want to use strict rationing because of the happiness hit. Nutritional plenitude seems like it's almost strictly correct if you are at all minimaxing.

Am I missing something, or this just a complete non-decision 98% of the time?

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a non-decision. I'd call it 2/3 of a decision. Both balanced and excess food consumption are useful. I agree about never using rationing.

For example, last time I played a devouring swarm, I used their version of high consumption for something like 110 years until I just could not afford it anymore, then I went back to normal.

 

[Nussor]

They put things in the policies section that should have been edicts.

 

[Dalwin]

They put things in the policies section that should have been edicts.

The distinction is not the effect.

Policies have no direct cost, though there is usually a trade-off. Policies do not expire.

Edicts have a direct cost in resources to enact and have an expiration date.

 

[Urza1234]

The wide vs tall issue would be really easy to fix by just buffing pop-growth from tech.

Empires that go wide early generate a tech deficit that they only make up for after they've grown enough. If tall empires were able to leverage their tech advantage a bit more to close some of the growth deficit there would be no issue.

 

[Adantigus]

Hive minds and their swarms of drones are one thing, but why again does stuffing your face with lots of snacks result in higher population growth in a post-industrial society? If anything, eating a lot lowers life expectancy.

And the usual caveats about realism do not apply here. I am not aware of any trope in any science fiction I have ever seen or read where eating lots of food results in population growth. That is not a science fiction trope. That is a silly video game convention that as far as I know was invented by Sid Meier for Civilization I and has been blindly copied again and again ever since.

Food availability only drives population growth in the most primitive of conditions. After that, it becomes much more about the availability of medicine. Beyond that, and once birth control exists, population growth is entirely driven by social factors such as religion/ideology, female literacy and education, the profitability of children for labor, and the availability of social safety nets such as pensions in old age. A society that is missing out on population growth because of food shortage has no business traveling to the stars. It does not even deserve the stars.

 

[Shirasik]

Beyond that, and once birth control exists, population growth is entirely driven by social factors

Isn't growth rates are affected by stability?

As for most primitive conditions. Cloning. It needs a lot of complex nutrients to grow clones. To grow entire clones as well as spare limbs and viscera, extending average life expectancy as a result. Not for leaders, tho.

I mean, "food" isn't just what you got on a dish, but rather lots of complex nutrients, packed in one way (apples) or another (liquids for cloning).

...
Could anyone develop this idea of splitting of nutrients into something useful for the game?