The problem with Empire Growth penalty: Your habitability setting

[sillyrobot]

Stellaris badly needed something to stop pop growth bonuses and colonization spam from being so utterly dominant and this does the trick. I do agree that it makes no logical sense that having more pops slows growth, but overall it's an improvement and I can now finally start playing medium galaxies with 1x habitable planets instead of small galaxies with 0.25x habitable planets and actually start playing the diplomacy game.

An actual viable tall play style actually exists now for perhaps the first time in the game's history, at least in early and midgame. You will still want to start incorporating other empire's pops into your own empire in the late game, but it's refreshing that you don't need to do so in the early and midgame. And it's now more useful to vassalize your neighbors instead of murdering them too, so that their planets can grow and you can integrate them in the late game.

Also, more planets still gives you more growth so it'll always be worth colonizing more. The scaling now just has diminishing returns. But even 2 pops are still enough to make a new colony productive. Build an Industrial District, set it to Forge World, and favor the Metallurgist job. You're now getting 6+ Alloys (value 6x4=24) for the cost of 3 Energy, 2 Food, 1 CG, and 6 Minerals (value 3+2+1x2+6=13), which is a net profit of 9. Production bonuses and upkeep reduction increases that too, but let's go with 10 value. The colony ship costs 1400 worth of resources and together with the 500 minerals for the district that's 1900. The colony will pay for itself in 190 months or 17 years. You do get 7 sprawl before reductions and let's say 6 after reductions. So every 4th colony would have to be an administrative center which costs about as much as the Industrial District. That gives you 30 value to pay for a 7600 investment, which pays back its cost in about 25 years. So you can really keep colonizing up until say 50 years before endgame and still profit from it.

Finally, this is quite trivial to mod. I timed myself and it took me less than 4 minutes to make a mod that removes the slowdown, though it took me another 10 minutes to make a thumbnail and upload it to the Steam workshop. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2462494797

Once you start hitting 8 years for a pop to grow (and 25 for the robot assembly), adding more planets technically still helps, but practically doesn't.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

Once you start hitting 8 years for a pop to grow (and 25 for the robot assembly), adding more planets technically still helps, but practically doesn't.

This is the continual problem with them trying to nerf pop growth after it became an empire's bottleneck. They came up with new penalties and modifiers and whatnot, and advertised it as that they were making pop growth less essential.
The fundamental thing everyone needs to realize about expansionary mechanics is that the solution to making one less critical cannot be to make it just harder to get without some kind of prohibitively-scaling cost elsewhere.
This is because people can spam things to again get it anyways while having less fun, and they get even more of an advantage vs. the empire playing normally. If there is a prohibitive outside cost, then the one trying to spam will hit a net disadvantage and stop, instead.

Any tinkering of just how much pop growth you need thus doesn't work intrinsically. Things like housing exist as outside costs, but the problem is that you can get them for pretty much nothing via certain things...
The main problem they were trying to solve was that you could just keep spamming habitats to inflate pop growth like crazy. Instead of making it take more habitats, while utterly destroying planets too, the solution should be to make habitats cost an upkeep that they themselves can't easily sustain at numbers. I think a large alloy upkeep would do it, as then you'd need a big mineral income and industrial sectors everywhere to support tons of habitats, and mineral sources are limited by planetary deposits.

 

[sillyrobot]

This is the continual problem with them trying to nerf pop growth after it became an empire's bottleneck. They came up with new penalties and modifiers and whatnot, and advertised it as that they were making pop growth less essential.
The fundamental thing everyone needs to realize about expansionary mechanics is that the solution to making one less critical cannot be to make it just harder to get without some kind of prohibitively-scaling cost elsewhere.
This is because people can spam things to again get it anyways while having less fun, and they get even more of an advantage vs. the empire playing normally. If there is a prohibitive outside cost, then the one trying to spam will hit a net disadvantage and stop, instead.

Any tinkering of just how much pop growth you need thus doesn't work intrinsically. Things like housing exist as outside costs, but the problem is that you can get them for pretty much nothing via certain things...
The main problem they were trying to solve was that you could just keep spamming habitats to inflate pop growth like crazy. Instead of making it take more habitats, while utterly destroying planets too, the solution should be to make habitats cost an upkeep that they themselves can't easily sustain at numbers. I think a large alloy upkeep would do it, as then you'd need a big mineral income and industrial sectors everywhere to support tons of habitats, and mineral sources are limited by planetary deposits.

Yeah making a valuable resource scarce makes it more valuable not less. Pops were very valuable. Reducing their supply made their bottleneck and how essential they were more obvious.

 

[Abberon]

Of course it does, only later. I never claimed otherwise. But it is good enough to play trough a game.

Not really later. It's a steadily diminishing return curve. If you reduce the penalty rate, you just change the near-zero marginal return point to a larger number. All other things being equal, you'll reach the higher cap in a reasonably similar timeframe.

The equation has to be more complicated than that to actually get the effect you describe. On a per-planet basis this would actually make a lot of sense, where each additional pop on a crowded ecumenopolis gets not just steadily more expensive, but increasingly more expensive as you get more crowded.

Empire wide, with lots of empty planets, it would still suck, this is the sort of incremental adjustment that could start to address the problems reasonably rather than this moronic sledgehammer approach they came up with.

 

[Sledjer]

I honestly couldn't bear to play on lower habitability settings, even before the update when it meant micro hell. I remember back before the economy overhaul I used to play with a mod that made all planets colonizable, but most had no habitability and had to be terraformed. Just seemed right since in the vast majority of space operas most planets have been terraformed and inhabited long before the story began.

 

[Andakingu]

I would disagree, usually, I have 5-8 planets, the first one is still often close by, but not guaranteed, and after that I expand usually as a president of a federation through new members or with vassals.

I mean no disrespect, honestly I don't and if you can find your fun with a galaxy spanning empire of 5-8 planets... more power to you.

But I and I suspect, many other players will agree. That 5-8 planets, a galactic empire, does not make, it's a drafty backwater. Little more than a sector.

I could literally play Master of Orion, the original, from 1996 and have an empire with more worlds.

Look, when you have a vast range of game setup, but the vast majority of players are forced to play on minimal settings, because the mechanics are broken or behave poorly on the higher settings or performance tanks. You have a problem. Infact, you probably have more than one.

Galaxy size: 200 stars upto 1000! (probably best to play on 400 and no more though, insider wink)
AI Empires: 6-30! (urm... best not to go over 11 though, performance and all that, insider wink)
Habitable world options: x0.25 - x5! (yeeeah, about going over 0.25.... let me guess... minimal settings? You got it! insider wink)
Primitive civilisations: Zero upto x5! (Urm... sigh, none? Preferably yeah, but if you must, 0.25.. performance you see...insider wink)
Gateways: Don't ask...
Wormholes: see gateways...
Guaranteed worlds: Honestly at this point who cares? But you can build habitats! Hey come back, where are you going?

Comedic hyerbole aside, that's how it feels to many of us already, then the new pop mechanics have been introduced and it feels like a kick i the teeth for people who care about more than gamebalance and overcoming the moribund AI.

Which again, sounds like I'm getting down on PDX or the game, which isn't the case, but the frustration is real and it doesn't come from nothing. People I think are getting tired of have to reiterate the same concerns only to see the supposed fixes, completely missing the point, then having to try to claw back what little stable ground they had to begin with.

It's great that you have found a way to find fun inspite of shortcomings, but telling people that their misgivings are the result of not being zen enough, I'm not sure it's having the effect you think it is.

It's great you offer an alternative for people to think about, but telling people they are wrong, for not finding the fun as you do. I can't say that's constructive, you know?

 

[Krabbz]

I still wonder about the different experience with the new Empire growth penalty, because my experience is just great with it. But I stumbled on a difference with some other players, who think that this mechanic is absolutly aweful: We play with different habitability!

I always play with 0.25 to create the feeling that every habitable planet is precious and important. A lot of players do not for all kinds of legitimate reasons. But the problem is the following: I can usually fill my precious planets quite well while the other players complain about empty planets and an end of POP growth. The culprit: The penalty per POP is in both games the same (0.5), but I need a lot less of them.

So, a solution for you now would be the reduction of your habitability setting during game setup.

And the devs should maybe connect the amount of penalty with the habitability slider (higher = lower penalty per POP) to allow better developed planets, but still with a lower endgame amount of POPs, which the penalty provides.

Nah. I'll probably try playing with 0.25 habitable worlds as I wanted to try it but it still doesn't make any sense that your population grows so slowly the more you have in your empire. It is absolutely unrealistic and kills the whole game for me...

But hey at least they made it so the AI can use this new change... oh wait.

 

[permeakra]

I agree, but I would say, that right now, with 3.01, 0.25 habitability is a better experience regarding POP growths.

Not by much. You might be fine untill you start spamming habitats - and you absolutely need to spam habitats at this settings. With you first ringworld up, you hit the same wall. And thanks to faster tics, it will happen around the same realt-time into the game, even if the game year would be around 2350-2400 instead of 2270.

 

[monkeypunch87]

Not by much. You might be fine untill you start spamming habitats - and you absolutely need to spam habitats at this settings. With you first ringworld up, you hit the same wall. And thanks to faster tics, it will happen around the same realt-time into the game, even if the game year would be around 2350-2400 instead of 2270.

No, you don't need to start spamming habitats, never did that.

 

[monkeypunch87]

I mean no disrespect, honestly I don't and if you can find your fun with a galaxy spanning empire of 5-8 planets... more power to you.

But I and I suspect, many other players will agree. That 5-8 planets, a galactic empire, does not make, it's a drafty backwater. Little more than a sector.

It's great you offer an alternative for people to think about, but telling people they are wrong, for not finding the fun as you do. I can't say that's constructive, you know?

Well, I think even the central management of one planet is "grand" and in reality an impossible task. So, 5-8 planets is "really grand" in my headcanon. It all comes down to mental cinema anyway. As I said before, I also choose this setting for immersion. We haven't found even one habitable planet beside Earth, so I find it really, really silly that the Stellaris default settings offer that many habitable planets close by.

So, yeah, even one more planet than the Homeworld makes a space empire unbelievable grand. The game just offers a bad scale, even on 0.25. But it doesn't make 5-8 planets a drafty backwater, if my Empire spawns across a quarter or so of the galaxy, in my opinion.

I'm not sure that I wrote the word "wrong" before and where I wasn't trying to be diplomatic about a different opinion. Show me, but it also could be the language barrier. I'm sorry if I gave the impression.

 

[Elh]

I played on 0.25 as a "band aid" against micromanagement of previous patches, and it kinda worked for me. However, now, even on 0.25, the game just becomes stagnant close to 2300. If you have 6-7 planets, there is nothing new thats happening there for years.

 

[permeakra]

No, you don't need to start spamming habitats, never did that.

In previous patch, If you want a chance to get reasonable fleet to deal with FE or crysis, you need about 3-5K alloys/month, which translates into 4-5k minerals at minimum. Optministically, it is 200 mining districts, which is at best 10 planets (and more likely 15-20) and that's not counting CG costs. Without those planets your only hope is to get minerals is mining habitats you absolutely need to spam.
With AI bonuses, it has better time supporting its fleet, so it can field similarly sized fleets with less resources, at least normally.

This makes me believe that you are playing with defanged opponents, if you think it's normal. *rolls back* Hmm, seems like you actually do. AFAIK, if you turn off guaranteed habitable worlds, it screws AI really hard, and you do that.

 

[monkeypunch87]

In previous patch, If you want a chance to get reasonable fleet to deal with FE or crysis, you need about 3-5K alloys/month, which translates into 4-5k minerals at minimum. Optministically, it is 200 mining districts, which is at best 10 planets (and more likely 15-20) and that's not counting CG costs. Without those planets your only hope is to get minerals is mining habitats you absolutely need to spam.
With AI bonuses, it has better time supporting its fleet, so it can field similarly sized fleets with less resources, at least normally.

This makes me believe that you are playing with defanged opponents, if you think it's normal. *rolls back* Hmm, seems like you actually do. AFAIK, if you turn off guaranteed habitable worlds, it screws AI really hard, and you do that.

Hm, crisis provide a challange, as they should, and I can deal with them most of the time with my federation fleet. But yeah, I don't play the game with the goal to be able to defeat the crisis every game. In roleplay you can't know that and what crisis will occur when, so I don't plan for it.

 

[Dragatus]

So it turns out there are several other mods already that address the pop growth scaling:

Steam Workshop::Flat empire pop growth

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Error

steamcommunity.com

 

[Rora_Lion]

I also used to play on 0,25 habitable worlds because my weak computer cound barely run the game beyond 2350 with 2.2-2.8 pop growth figures.

So the overall pop reduction is actually pretty good for me, because it fit with my playstyle and it make the game a lot more interesting. Some examples:

• warfare is actually meaningful now, because you can no longer spam endless numbers of pops out of nowhere:
• colossi are actually meaningful now for the same reason (eg - destroying a heavily populated planet that took decades to fill up is actually a reasonable strategic choice);
• mandatory pop micromanagement is over;
• performance has received a considerable boost.

Howhever, I can easily see the reason behind the complaints about pop reduction empire wide, because this is not the only way to play the game and I myself like to try something else from time to time.
I think that the better solution lies with a slider, such as the one that was added for other controversial aspects of the game such as xeno coatibility, that used to be mandatory and is now locked behind a slider. Something like the habitable worlds slider, trat runs from 100+(number of pops x 0,1) to 100+ (number of pops x 0,5) that we have now.

 

[Andakingu]

I also used to play on 0,25 habitable worlds because my weak computer cound barely run the game beyond 2350 with 2.2-2.8 pop growth figures.

So the overall pop reduction is actually pretty good for me, because it fit with my playstyle and it make the game a lot more interesting. Some examples:

• warfare is actually meaningful now, because you can no longer spam endless numbers of pops out of nowhere:
• colossi are actually meaningful now for the same reason (eg - destroying a heavily populated planet that took decades to fill up is actually a reasonable strategic choice);
• mandatory pop micromanagement is over;
• performance has received a considerable boost.

Howhever, I can easily see the reason behind the complaints about pop reduction empire wide, because this is not the only way to play the game and I myself like to try something else from time to time.
I think that the better solution lies with a slider, such as the one that was added for other controversial aspects of the game such as xeno coatibility, that used to be mandatory and is now locked behind a slider. Something like the habitable worlds slider, trat runs from 100+(number of pops x 0,1) to 100+ (number of pops x 0,5) that we have now.

My problem with this, is that then, the performance issues are technically "resolved" PDX then can wash their hands of it. Not saying they are just waiting for that opportunity, but in their place, I'd probably be grateful for chance to focus on something other than the tanking performance.

Putting this "psuedo fix" behind a slider, allows PDX to walk away and when challenged, say: "You have the option to limit performance degrading elements, you simply choose not to use them... hey, wanna buy a new ships set!?" It would simply become too easy to accept this half hearted fix and let those too dogged to swallow it and who stick to their guns, succumb to their own stubborness.

I dunno, maybe I'm being too cynical (Sorry devs I'm not saying you don't care, but when you have been dealing with a problem for more than a year... even saints would want to dump and run, it's no judgement on you, but an admission of the monumental challnge of the task at hand, lesser folks would have given up by now)

 

[Rora_Lion]

My problem with this, is that then, the performance issues are technically "resolved" PDX then can wash their hands of it. Not saying they are just waiting for that opportunity, but in their place, I'd probably be grateful for chance to focus on something other than the tanking performance.

Putting this "psuedo fix" behind a slider, allows PDX to walk away and when challenged, say: "You have the option to limit performance degrading elements, you simply choose not to use them... hey, wanna buy a new ships set!?" It would simply become too easy to accept this half hearted fix and let those too dogged to swallow it and who stick to their guns, succumb to their own stubborness.

I dunno, maybe I'm being too cynical (Sorry devs I'm not saying you don't care, but when you have been dealing with a problem for more than a year... even saints would want to dump and run, it's no judgement on you, but an admission of the monumental challnge of the task at hand, lesser folks would have given up by now)

I am not suggesting that the game as it is now is perfect or even that the "Slider" solution would be the perfect solution to the *pop relevance & performance* vs *empire dynamism & pop expansion into the lategame* dychotomy that is emerging in the forums. But the game as it is now is significally in a better shape that - say - after the last major rework in 2.2.1 or even 2.2.7.

A step in the right direction was made. Let's hope this trend continues.

 

[Andakingu]

But the game as it is now is significally in a better shape that - say - after the last major rework in 2.2.1 or even 2.2.7.

A step in the right direction was made. Let's hope this trend continues.

But that's just it. You think it's significantly better. There are a large number of people who really don't.

Some people would argue the misstep occured at 2.2.1 and every step thereafter, has been one, in the wrong direction. The problems arising now, are merely a result of that decision and PDX attempted fixes are an attempt to brute force the new economic model to work, because a year and half (more than that, I don;t know how long those changes were being developed) of invested time and development, makes it hard to put ones hands up and say... guys, I don't think this is working out the way we wanted.