tl;dr: Trait/Civic for reduced housing needs, stockpile minerals as you build up normally, rush ecumenopolis, factory arcology up, stockpile alloys, rush matter decompressor, then dyson sphere, reallocate energy and mining districts to focus on food/city districts, build labs until you are sick, build habitats/colonise junk worlds using just housing structures, for the building slots if you need more space. Build more ecumenopoli to support them if you need, and more farm worlds to support those if you need?
So, since 2.2 I've been looking on Reddit, here on Paradox forums, YouTube, and experimenting with the console and just number crunching and theory-crafting in general to try and figure out how to get the absolute most bang-per-buck out your admin cap, and achieve absurd Science output without incurring a significant administration penalty.
But, I'm coming up against the limits of what one perspective can achieve and figured I'd share what I'd learned and see if anyone else can provide any further insights to improve my theorycrafting.
So in no particular order, I present some of my realizations, thoughts and theories:
Districts, Buildings and Pops
Districts are essential in the early game and increase admin costs by 1 per district. But in the mid to late game there is lots of ways to produce the same resources via buildings or other structures, which means as your empire evolves, you might consider deconstructing districts, and replacing them with non-district alternatives or more efficient counterparts
Taken to it's logical extreme any planet no matter how tiny (Even a habitat), could house up to 60-80 pops through paradise domes/luxury housing, and have space left for 5 or 6 other structures like research labs and factories, for a flat cost of 2 admin cap, because it has no districts whatsoever. For this reason traits and civics that reduce housing needs like Fertile, Communal, Byzantine Bureaucracy and the Adaptability ascension tree are all extremely valuable, as is the shared burden civic which gives you access to communal housing, which is more efficient than luxury housing.
Of course in that extreme model you still have to get your resources from SOMEWHERE.
Habitats and Garbage-tier planets
As examined earlier, habitats and planets with junk surface resources/extremely small size can still be used to construct factories, labs and housing for the flat cost of the colony (2 admin), however planets are numerically limited, and habitats need large amounts of resources to build in the first place.
This strategy also only works with buildings that have high job needs, like high tier factories and labs, since you need 5 pops for every 1 structure unlock, and refineries only use 1 job, and farms only use 2 jobs; for that reason alone it's impossible to make 'farm habitats' in this manner for district-free farming without massive unemployment. To make food yourself, you're pretty much gonna have to allocate districts to farming.
Megastructures:
Dyson spheres and Matter Decompressors are god-tier, providing vast amounts of energy and minerals for no admin cost beyond that of the system they reside in and don't even take up pops. But they are very much late game. Nonetheless they're definitely a project to shoot for as a high priority, the sooner you get them the sooner you can explode productivity and get people off mineral/energy jobs, into labs and maybe even ditch the associated districts.
Ringworlds on the flipside are, as far as I can see, total trash. Providing just 2 jobs and a few homes per district, and the same number of building slots as a planet or hab. The only value here is they allow for unlimited, consolidated energy and food production districts. But if you can build a ringworld, you should probably have used it to build a dyson sphere, not a ringworld full of energy districts (There's that evil word again!), unless you were doing it to consolidate food production.
Ecumenopoli
Ecumenopoli exist in an interesting position. Each of their districts are excellent value for the investment of admin capacity, providing typically 10 jobs and plenty of housing, plus ecumenopoli industrial districts don't need exotic resources like their building-based brethren which means you waste less minerals, energy, admin cap and jobs to produce them lower down the chain. But, they are still an investment of admin capacity.
So, this brings me to the game plan for actually applying all this.
First I should clarify, a lot of the examples cited above are the absolute logical extreme my goal is to keep as close to admin cap as possible, while getting the best bang per buck from it. Building districts in the early game is unavoidable, because there is no good alternative.
The secret lies in strategically peeling away admin-heavy options as new options arise. For example ditching related exotic material refineries once you have an ecumenopoli to free up those building slots for housing and ditching the associated city districts on that world; a matter decompressor would basically replace your need for mining districts almost completely, but you should only strip away your old mining districts in a controlled fashion as you need to reallocate the admin capacity to somewhere else.
But there's more to be mulled over and perhaps other people can provide some insight in these
Trade Vs Consumer Goods/Energy Production
Trade is an excellent candidate for trash/habitat planets, since commercial megaplexes give 11 jobs per structure, and essentially consume nothing but food, to produce energy and consumer goods. The problem is the consumer goods surplus is extremely low for the number of pops required to generate them, even when you take into account the other jobs that feed into it, like miners, refiners and technicians. Can this be leveraged as a primary means of production?
Food production Vs the Galactic Market
Food is the one commodity that cannot be produced in useful quantities via buildings alone, you're always going to have to district some amount of food production if you plan to feed yourselves. However, as seen above, energy is one thing that CAN be produced without an admin cost. How viable might it be to just create energy and trade for your food needs?
Are districtless habitats/planets actually worth building?
As illustrated earlier, habitats can be used in the same way as junk planets, using them just for their building slots, so for 2 admin capacity, you can build a bunch of buildings in space. But, habitats are pretty expensive to set up, and it takes a long time for their pops to grow, are they actually worth it; furthermore to utilise them optimally, you're going to need to use paradise domes (Or better still, Utopian Communal Housing), not luxury housing which means exotic resources and significant resource upkeep, and resources often means districts.
Unemployed Pops and Utopian Abundance
Under Utopian abundance, pops produce a small amount of unity and science. As mentioned much earlier, planets/habitats eschewing districts entirely, can't make good use of small-employment buildings like refineries or hydroponics farms, because you end up with shedloads of unemployed; however if those unemployed are a resource could they compensate for it? - Is their upkeep worth their productivity?
In summary, the amount of 'real' tall streamlining that can be done, compared to just naturalisticlly playing an ecumenopolis builder is probably not super significant, but you never know unless you really step back and examine it.
I hope if nothing else some of these insights might give people some ideas to streamline their empires, and on the flipside, maybe I'm wrong and we can figure out the next 1 planet strategy and totally break the game
So, since 2.2 I've been looking on Reddit, here on Paradox forums, YouTube, and experimenting with the console and just number crunching and theory-crafting in general to try and figure out how to get the absolute most bang-per-buck out your admin cap, and achieve absurd Science output without incurring a significant administration penalty.
But, I'm coming up against the limits of what one perspective can achieve and figured I'd share what I'd learned and see if anyone else can provide any further insights to improve my theorycrafting.
So in no particular order, I present some of my realizations, thoughts and theories:
Districts, Buildings and Pops
Districts are essential in the early game and increase admin costs by 1 per district. But in the mid to late game there is lots of ways to produce the same resources via buildings or other structures, which means as your empire evolves, you might consider deconstructing districts, and replacing them with non-district alternatives or more efficient counterparts
Taken to it's logical extreme any planet no matter how tiny (Even a habitat), could house up to 60-80 pops through paradise domes/luxury housing, and have space left for 5 or 6 other structures like research labs and factories, for a flat cost of 2 admin cap, because it has no districts whatsoever. For this reason traits and civics that reduce housing needs like Fertile, Communal, Byzantine Bureaucracy and the Adaptability ascension tree are all extremely valuable, as is the shared burden civic which gives you access to communal housing, which is more efficient than luxury housing.
Of course in that extreme model you still have to get your resources from SOMEWHERE.
Habitats and Garbage-tier planets
As examined earlier, habitats and planets with junk surface resources/extremely small size can still be used to construct factories, labs and housing for the flat cost of the colony (2 admin), however planets are numerically limited, and habitats need large amounts of resources to build in the first place.
This strategy also only works with buildings that have high job needs, like high tier factories and labs, since you need 5 pops for every 1 structure unlock, and refineries only use 1 job, and farms only use 2 jobs; for that reason alone it's impossible to make 'farm habitats' in this manner for district-free farming without massive unemployment. To make food yourself, you're pretty much gonna have to allocate districts to farming.
Megastructures:
Dyson spheres and Matter Decompressors are god-tier, providing vast amounts of energy and minerals for no admin cost beyond that of the system they reside in and don't even take up pops. But they are very much late game. Nonetheless they're definitely a project to shoot for as a high priority, the sooner you get them the sooner you can explode productivity and get people off mineral/energy jobs, into labs and maybe even ditch the associated districts.
Ringworlds on the flipside are, as far as I can see, total trash. Providing just 2 jobs and a few homes per district, and the same number of building slots as a planet or hab. The only value here is they allow for unlimited, consolidated energy and food production districts. But if you can build a ringworld, you should probably have used it to build a dyson sphere, not a ringworld full of energy districts (There's that evil word again!), unless you were doing it to consolidate food production.
Ecumenopoli
Ecumenopoli exist in an interesting position. Each of their districts are excellent value for the investment of admin capacity, providing typically 10 jobs and plenty of housing, plus ecumenopoli industrial districts don't need exotic resources like their building-based brethren which means you waste less minerals, energy, admin cap and jobs to produce them lower down the chain. But, they are still an investment of admin capacity.
So, this brings me to the game plan for actually applying all this.
First I should clarify, a lot of the examples cited above are the absolute logical extreme my goal is to keep as close to admin cap as possible, while getting the best bang per buck from it. Building districts in the early game is unavoidable, because there is no good alternative.
The secret lies in strategically peeling away admin-heavy options as new options arise. For example ditching related exotic material refineries once you have an ecumenopoli to free up those building slots for housing and ditching the associated city districts on that world; a matter decompressor would basically replace your need for mining districts almost completely, but you should only strip away your old mining districts in a controlled fashion as you need to reallocate the admin capacity to somewhere else.
But there's more to be mulled over and perhaps other people can provide some insight in these
Trade Vs Consumer Goods/Energy Production
Trade is an excellent candidate for trash/habitat planets, since commercial megaplexes give 11 jobs per structure, and essentially consume nothing but food, to produce energy and consumer goods. The problem is the consumer goods surplus is extremely low for the number of pops required to generate them, even when you take into account the other jobs that feed into it, like miners, refiners and technicians. Can this be leveraged as a primary means of production?
Food production Vs the Galactic Market
Food is the one commodity that cannot be produced in useful quantities via buildings alone, you're always going to have to district some amount of food production if you plan to feed yourselves. However, as seen above, energy is one thing that CAN be produced without an admin cost. How viable might it be to just create energy and trade for your food needs?
Are districtless habitats/planets actually worth building?
As illustrated earlier, habitats can be used in the same way as junk planets, using them just for their building slots, so for 2 admin capacity, you can build a bunch of buildings in space. But, habitats are pretty expensive to set up, and it takes a long time for their pops to grow, are they actually worth it; furthermore to utilise them optimally, you're going to need to use paradise domes (Or better still, Utopian Communal Housing), not luxury housing which means exotic resources and significant resource upkeep, and resources often means districts.
Unemployed Pops and Utopian Abundance
Under Utopian abundance, pops produce a small amount of unity and science. As mentioned much earlier, planets/habitats eschewing districts entirely, can't make good use of small-employment buildings like refineries or hydroponics farms, because you end up with shedloads of unemployed; however if those unemployed are a resource could they compensate for it? - Is their upkeep worth their productivity?
In summary, the amount of 'real' tall streamlining that can be done, compared to just naturalisticlly playing an ecumenopolis builder is probably not super significant, but you never know unless you really step back and examine it.
I hope if nothing else some of these insights might give people some ideas to streamline their empires, and on the flipside, maybe I'm wrong and we can figure out the next 1 planet strategy and totally break the game
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