I won't lie and write here that I've been keeping this problem in my mind for months now. Especially since the recent pop update. I believe I have come up with an elegant and inexpensive solution for it, that won't require a rewrite of the game and that will make pops even more important, while not leaving out the dozens of planets empty in the galaxy map!
Impossible you say? Read on! (Long Post!)
Consider where we are:
1. Pops are expensive to simulate and we can't keep adding more units as time passes. This has led to the current design choice of slowing pop growth based on number of pops, to keep the total down by slowing it down to a crawl.
2. From mid game onwards, you can build planets, buildings and districts, but you won't have the pops to run them.
3. From mid game onwards, most resources become irrelevant, and you keep getting more from megastructures. Usually this means repurposing pops into other jobs.
Each of those points fills a role and offers solutions to the technical implementation and serves the way the game is modelled and the fantasy of the genre. As the game is, unemployment seems not to be an issue at all and at any time and this is wrong.
Job Automation
The way automation is presented in the game seems to be contradicting: You either need pops for basic things, then there are the op buildings of the FEs that don't require any pops but you can't build them en mass, and then the game considers automation units a lifeform in the presence of robots, droids and synthetics. To top it all off, megastructures need no pops (what?) and then space mining and labs also need no pops.
This is because of the abstract notion of a pop unit that represents an unknown X number of pops. That number is big enough to make mining stations pop free, and insignificant enough that the game gives up on them living on megastructures - with the exception of ring worlds of course.
I tried all takes on automation with mods. And it seemed there was no middle ground. Unlimited FE buildings make pop units irrelevant, as did the "Machine & Robot Expansion" mod, by introducing World Machines - fully automated districts.
Towards a solution:
Ingredient 1: pop efficiency.
I really liked how with the pop rework we got the job efficiency techs. It made sense: you now have less pops in the end game, but now they produce more. it seems fitting with the setting and with technology advancing. I thought that we should move towards this direction - let's have even less pops that are more productive and have more of an impact - like the tile version used to be!
But then how would you fill ecumenopoli and ring words? or even just the dozens of planets out there? This got me thinking: What does job efficiency represent in the game world? it seems to be everything, except or even including one thing "size"
Ingredient 2: Job size
I got the hint from our little friends: the rare resource factories: they have 1 job but they take a full building slot. In essence, we need to combine this design element with pop efficiency and make the game require less jobs as technology increases to exploit a given space,surface,district or building, which makes sense with the setting, the idea of automation and the notion of a prosperous future - if the governing elite allow the pops to experience it that is - and all of that regardless if the pop is a synth/robot or whatever.
Base Solution:
Make buildings and districts require less jobs as technology improves, that produce more.
Problem: It's just silly that you just researched a tech and suddenly, you have unemployed all over the place, or your output instantly doubled! The AI can't cope with it, and the player can't cope with it, to say the least about multiplayer.
Inspiration from Victoria II:
The RGOs would get "smaller" and employ less, as you get technologies that offer tools for the population to manage the entire RGO. At the start of the game you needed a huge mining/farming population to get resources, and it was almost impossible to fill the fields, near the end of the game, with the right techs a small population would work the fields releasing the rest to work in other jobs. And this was happening gradually.
This is the solution for districts: Districts should start with say 5 or 8 jobs but near the endgame they should get down to 1 job. However this should be gradual, and NOT FREE. I propose to introduce district upgrades/levels to represent the ABSTRACT machinery, computational equipment and other infrastructure that would be needed to make a districts jobs BIGGER. This should happen on a per district level, and should have a sizeable cost in alloys, and a new upkeep. Also Upgrade speed should be a bit slow, not something that happens in a year.
Same for the buildings: Building levels should NOT represent a capacity improvement as they do now, by adding jobs, but an automation improvement. The base building would have say 6 jobs, but a level 4 or 5 would have just 1 job and produce even more that a fully staffed 6 job level 1 building would! (and cost waaaay more to build and maintain - including being a sweet bombardment target!)
The AI and player will prioritize what planet and what type of districts to upgrade first, releasing pops to do other jobs, or to colonize other planets. In this way district/building cost modifiers become really important! You don't get the newly researched job efficiency bonus, unless you upgrade the building/district first.
Consequences and further changes:
1. You need resources for the mid/late game to upgrade the infrastructure across your worlds - a huge and constant resource sink.
2. You release more pops to colonize and do other things or even have unemployment - by only requiring a few of them to work for an entire planets surface! Utopian Abundance and friends could have larger meaning - as their bonuses and all bonuses from free jobs, would need to scale on a per tech level.
3. You need less pops to fill the entire galaxy! YAY!
4. Internal politics would have a larger impact: Suddenly a non compliant pop ethic could create a big issue.
5. New improved AI is needed for district upgrades.
6. This is more micro heavy, but in a good way, as it could be easily automated with planet/empire ministers. (prioritize district upgrades)
7. Core systems would become a much more valuable and sweet prize with less pops on them and far better jobs than the frontier trash worlds.
8. Frontier worlds would have more pops working on inefficient jobs, until the development is there.
9. We'll have tension again on requiring more "Lebensraum", as you will need more land again, for your pops.
10. Megacorp branch building jobs should produce a % total of the total planetary output, making them very powerful for fully developed worlds. They are pathetic now.
11. it solves the lack of jobs at the beginning for empires that are boxed in, because no one would be able to have 300 pops to fully exploit a planet at the start, giving them time to get to those first extra habitats up, making the game flexible about colonies.
12. Some ethics would be against those technologies, introducing an extra conflict axis.
13. It makes unemployment somewhat relevant again, including strategies for free jobs - if you don't have more colonies.
14. Endgame, with all upgrades, a size 25 colony would have just 25-30 pops. A 3k pop empire could fill 100 such colonies.
15. Suddenly bombardment makes you worry again: Reducing district and building levels would be a major threat! Especially if such upgrades costed thousands of resources.
Modding it in the game as we are now:
1. You can only remake the buildings. The game doesn't support district upgrades.
2. You could make all district upgrades with new districts per planet tier, by adding terraforming levels for all planet types (i.e. Terran I -> Terran 2). Messy and tedious to code.
3. I was experimenting with a single planet wide infrastructure building and with planetary modifiers. (I somewhat gave up on that mod)
4. You could remove all districts, and implement all district types as buildings and add more building slots.
5. You still need to make large changes to AI code.
That's the gist of it. Thanks for taking the time to read it all (if you did!)
let me know what you think!
Impossible you say? Read on! (Long Post!)
Consider where we are:
1. Pops are expensive to simulate and we can't keep adding more units as time passes. This has led to the current design choice of slowing pop growth based on number of pops, to keep the total down by slowing it down to a crawl.
2. From mid game onwards, you can build planets, buildings and districts, but you won't have the pops to run them.
3. From mid game onwards, most resources become irrelevant, and you keep getting more from megastructures. Usually this means repurposing pops into other jobs.
Each of those points fills a role and offers solutions to the technical implementation and serves the way the game is modelled and the fantasy of the genre. As the game is, unemployment seems not to be an issue at all and at any time and this is wrong.
Job Automation
The way automation is presented in the game seems to be contradicting: You either need pops for basic things, then there are the op buildings of the FEs that don't require any pops but you can't build them en mass, and then the game considers automation units a lifeform in the presence of robots, droids and synthetics. To top it all off, megastructures need no pops (what?) and then space mining and labs also need no pops.
This is because of the abstract notion of a pop unit that represents an unknown X number of pops. That number is big enough to make mining stations pop free, and insignificant enough that the game gives up on them living on megastructures - with the exception of ring worlds of course.
I tried all takes on automation with mods. And it seemed there was no middle ground. Unlimited FE buildings make pop units irrelevant, as did the "Machine & Robot Expansion" mod, by introducing World Machines - fully automated districts.
Towards a solution:
Ingredient 1: pop efficiency.
I really liked how with the pop rework we got the job efficiency techs. It made sense: you now have less pops in the end game, but now they produce more. it seems fitting with the setting and with technology advancing. I thought that we should move towards this direction - let's have even less pops that are more productive and have more of an impact - like the tile version used to be!
But then how would you fill ecumenopoli and ring words? or even just the dozens of planets out there? This got me thinking: What does job efficiency represent in the game world? it seems to be everything, except or even including one thing "size"
Ingredient 2: Job size
I got the hint from our little friends: the rare resource factories: they have 1 job but they take a full building slot. In essence, we need to combine this design element with pop efficiency and make the game require less jobs as technology increases to exploit a given space,surface,district or building, which makes sense with the setting, the idea of automation and the notion of a prosperous future - if the governing elite allow the pops to experience it that is - and all of that regardless if the pop is a synth/robot or whatever.
Base Solution:
Make buildings and districts require less jobs as technology improves, that produce more.
Problem: It's just silly that you just researched a tech and suddenly, you have unemployed all over the place, or your output instantly doubled! The AI can't cope with it, and the player can't cope with it, to say the least about multiplayer.
Inspiration from Victoria II:
The RGOs would get "smaller" and employ less, as you get technologies that offer tools for the population to manage the entire RGO. At the start of the game you needed a huge mining/farming population to get resources, and it was almost impossible to fill the fields, near the end of the game, with the right techs a small population would work the fields releasing the rest to work in other jobs. And this was happening gradually.
This is the solution for districts: Districts should start with say 5 or 8 jobs but near the endgame they should get down to 1 job. However this should be gradual, and NOT FREE. I propose to introduce district upgrades/levels to represent the ABSTRACT machinery, computational equipment and other infrastructure that would be needed to make a districts jobs BIGGER. This should happen on a per district level, and should have a sizeable cost in alloys, and a new upkeep. Also Upgrade speed should be a bit slow, not something that happens in a year.
Same for the buildings: Building levels should NOT represent a capacity improvement as they do now, by adding jobs, but an automation improvement. The base building would have say 6 jobs, but a level 4 or 5 would have just 1 job and produce even more that a fully staffed 6 job level 1 building would! (and cost waaaay more to build and maintain - including being a sweet bombardment target!)
The AI and player will prioritize what planet and what type of districts to upgrade first, releasing pops to do other jobs, or to colonize other planets. In this way district/building cost modifiers become really important! You don't get the newly researched job efficiency bonus, unless you upgrade the building/district first.
Consequences and further changes:
1. You need resources for the mid/late game to upgrade the infrastructure across your worlds - a huge and constant resource sink.
2. You release more pops to colonize and do other things or even have unemployment - by only requiring a few of them to work for an entire planets surface! Utopian Abundance and friends could have larger meaning - as their bonuses and all bonuses from free jobs, would need to scale on a per tech level.
3. You need less pops to fill the entire galaxy! YAY!
4. Internal politics would have a larger impact: Suddenly a non compliant pop ethic could create a big issue.
5. New improved AI is needed for district upgrades.
6. This is more micro heavy, but in a good way, as it could be easily automated with planet/empire ministers. (prioritize district upgrades)
7. Core systems would become a much more valuable and sweet prize with less pops on them and far better jobs than the frontier trash worlds.
8. Frontier worlds would have more pops working on inefficient jobs, until the development is there.
9. We'll have tension again on requiring more "Lebensraum", as you will need more land again, for your pops.
10. Megacorp branch building jobs should produce a % total of the total planetary output, making them very powerful for fully developed worlds. They are pathetic now.
11. it solves the lack of jobs at the beginning for empires that are boxed in, because no one would be able to have 300 pops to fully exploit a planet at the start, giving them time to get to those first extra habitats up, making the game flexible about colonies.
12. Some ethics would be against those technologies, introducing an extra conflict axis.
13. It makes unemployment somewhat relevant again, including strategies for free jobs - if you don't have more colonies.
14. Endgame, with all upgrades, a size 25 colony would have just 25-30 pops. A 3k pop empire could fill 100 such colonies.
15. Suddenly bombardment makes you worry again: Reducing district and building levels would be a major threat! Especially if such upgrades costed thousands of resources.
Modding it in the game as we are now:
1. You can only remake the buildings. The game doesn't support district upgrades.
2. You could make all district upgrades with new districts per planet tier, by adding terraforming levels for all planet types (i.e. Terran I -> Terran 2). Messy and tedious to code.
3. I was experimenting with a single planet wide infrastructure building and with planetary modifiers. (I somewhat gave up on that mod)
4. You could remove all districts, and implement all district types as buildings and add more building slots.
5. You still need to make large changes to AI code.
That's the gist of it. Thanks for taking the time to read it all (if you did!)
let me know what you think!
- 5
- 5
- 4
- 3
