Warning to wide players: Unity costs are now multiplied

[Dinges]

Given this runs contra to how Science scaling costs work, I'm inclined to think this might be a bug/oversight rather then a design feature.

Not to mention the fact that the penalties are already high if they are additive. Unlike science, unity is almost exclusively generated on planets. Even with them, thanks to several powerful empire unique or limited buildings which give static amounts of unity, and other buildings generally be limited per planet, it is already very difficult (perhaps impossible?) to overcome those penalties lategame by expanding.

 

[MK1980]

Given this runs contra to how Science scaling costs work, I'm inclined to think this might be a bug/oversight rather then a design feature.

or it could be intentional to make compact (aka. tall) empires a lot better at unity than wide empires. the science penalties are pretty low now, so taller builds will probably have an initial advantage but wide catches up over time. and wide has better energy & minerals.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

or it could be intentional to make compact (aka. tall) empires a lot better at unity than wide empires. the science penalties are pretty low now, so taller builds will probably have an initial advantage but wide catches up over time. and wide has better energy & minerals.

Yes it is a incentive and bonus for medium and small empires. Makes sense from a lore perspective also. Large empires with a lot of population/planets are not going to be as unified as smaller more cohesive empires. We all know unity is a strong resource. It feels like you are trading traditions for minerals/energy (larger fleets) when going large, which is fair IMO.

As for reaearch, it really is not affected to much going big from my experience. The numbers swell a lot but I can keep up just fine with my smaller more nimble human players.

 

[nrader]

- Just ignore unity and maybe even tear down all unity buildings once you've gotten 3-4 tradition trees, depending on when you get too big.

This. It's wide gameplay we are talking about after all. Why bother?
Though for aggressive wide players even 3 is optimistic. You finish your red tradition tree and then forget that traditions exist because you're too busy conquering your neighbors.

Same goes for science, pretty much. As long as you have your tons of minerals, you are fine. And bigger fleet and fleet cap will make sure you can absorb much war exhaustion to win wars and be even wider than before.

 

[panda_Express12]

It's fine. People wanted playing Tall to be viable. Decreased tech/unity costs are one of the benefit of playing tall.
I always found it dumb that you could take every single tradition quite easily in previous patches. Now it feels just right, with a large empire being able to fill out about 4 trees by the end of the game.

 

[CrowScape]

If/when the war exhaustion changes come through, it looks like this is all the more reason for Devouring Swarms to just lock everyone into permanent war and prevent the entire galaxy from ever gaining unity again.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

I could see it being intentional, to make wide empires really suffer with unity, which was the original intent of the mechanic I believe.

It does explain why my first 2 plays, which have been high-unity empires (rogue servitors and spiritualist inwards perfection) still struggled so much to finish traditions. Thanks for bringing it up!

It does mean that playing tall for unity gains, you really really want to minimize your claiming of systems you can't colonize.

 

[Bobylein]

2,763*3.27 = 9035
2,763*1.15*2*2.12 = 13,472

Damn, looks like you're right.
Here's the formula from the defines file

tradition cost = ( base_cost + ( ( cost_tradition * num_traditions )^traditions_exponential ) + cost_pop*num_pops ) * ( 1 + cost_planet*num_planets )

EDIT: I don't think the game is using this formula, because I can't figure out how to massage the numbers past 10000, and that's before taking the expansionist trait that lowers planet penalties by 20% into account.

Can confirm, I changed the formula with a mod and it doesn't change anything in the game. Also confirmed that the mod is working by changing the base value, that works so the formula is simply not used.

Edit: now I feel stupid, it's commented out.... most likely there so one know how the values change the outcome. Also it's an old formula from 1.9 or earlier, considering that pops are included and no system count.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Can confirm, I changed the formula with a mod and it doesn't change anything in the game. Also confirmed that the mod is working by changing the base value, that works so the formula is simply not used.

Edit: now I feel stupid, it's commented out.... most likely there so one know how the values change the outcome.

If it's intentional, I'm cool with it. My rogue servitors (owning enough of the galaxy to have a 920 fleet cap without repeatables) still completed their traditions before 2400.

If a wide, non-unity-focused empire just can't reasonably do it anymore, that's alright. I felt strange when my determined exterminators managed to finish them up in 2140 once

So, either play tall, play unity-focused, or do both and load up on ambitions after you're done

 

[RoverStorm]

You think wide alone is bad? Try a one-planet challenge. At least each planet gives about 80% of the unity of the capital once fully built up-but outposts give zero percent of the capital's unity while increasing it!

 

[MadDjinn]

It does mean that playing tall for unity gains, you really really want to minimize your claiming of systems you can't colonize.

no, it mean never expand.

Just checked the math and yes, it's (cost of tradition #n) * (filled tradition trees * num systems * num colonies).

For example, my 28th tradition is 4425 cost * (1.2 for 4 traditions filled * 1.78 for 39 systems * 1.64 for 4 colonies) = 15700 unity

So each and every colony is multiplying the whole by 1.16% and that cost to expand to one more planet is ever increasing based upon the number of filled traditions and systems you've added.

This is badly designed because there doesn't seem to be a map size scalar. Playing tall on a tiny map is fine, but keeping the same math on a 1000 system map is dumb.

 

[Bobylein]

You think wide alone is bad? Try a one-planet challenge. At least each planet gives about 80% of the unity of the capital once fully built up-but outposts give zero percent of the capital's unity while increasing it!

Yea playing tall now means to squeeze as many colonies in as few systems as possible.

 

[Matt516]

If it's intentional, I'm cool with it. My rogue servitors (owning enough of the galaxy to have a 920 fleet cap without repeatables) still completed their traditions before 2400.

If a wide, non-unity-focused empire just can't reasonably do it anymore, that's alright. I felt strange when my determined exterminators managed to finish them up in 2140 once

So, either play tall, play unity-focused, or do both and load up on ambitions after you're done

Yup. It does give Tall empires the Unity niche while still allowing Wide empires to compete in Tech due to the different scaling.

 

[Lordban]

You think wide alone is bad? Try a one-planet challenge. At least each planet gives about 80% of the unity of the capital once fully built up-but outposts give zero percent of the capital's unity while increasing it!

Honestly, that isn't doable at all. Did one-system (building habitats), I was losing a lot of steam by 2300 when I finally got them. Bottleneck being the inability to follow the tech cost progression and, above all, ship maintenance costs in minerals. I'd never have kept up with late-game in spite of fully optimising (IP, Life-Seeded, Materialist).

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Honestly, that isn't doable at all. Did one-system (building habitats), I was losing a lot of steam by 2300 when I finally got them. Bottleneck being the inability to follow the tech cost progression and, above all, ship maintenance costs in minerals. I'd never have kept up with late-game in spite of fully optimising (IP, Life-Seeded, Materialist).

Well, essentially, for unity, adding a planet is always beneficial but asymptotically approaches a max, because your capital might produce the most unity, but it doesn't produce 5x the unity. This has always been the case, leaving out population only changes things slightly.

The only possible exception was if you loaded up 5 planets with monuments, and have a ministry of culture, and 5 scientists running faith in science, then adding a 6th planet might actually set you back, if it produces less than half the unity of the other planets. But 5 planets was always better than one.

This update may have made unity harder for everyone, but it did not disproportionately affect one planet challenge unity, it was never optimal in the first place. It just made claiming systems uniformly bad for unity, whereas before it had no effect. Adding a planet is still good, regardless of how many systems you own, if it was good before, but adding systems is always bad, unless you need to add a couple to get your juicy 5th planet.

It changed science a lot more, as previously, claiming systems could boost your science without affecting your costs. Now it does affect your costs. Before this change, OPC, with a science nexus, and using outposts to claim systems, could be king of science. If you had a size-20 homeworld (110% science cost) and added a second size-20 world (+30%) you could potentially reach the point where that 2nd world is giving you less than +27% science, but even thats not easy. Now that claiming systems does matter, and pops on worlds doesn't, one-planet is again not optimal for science.

Edit: was slightly wrong, removing the population component of unity does hurt OPC, just like it hurts it for tech, by reducing the relative effect of planets 2-5 on your unity costs. But, again, 5 planets was optimal before, and still is.

 

[Lordban]

This update may have made unity harder for everyone, but it did not disproportionately affect one planet challenge unity, it was never optimal in the first place. It just made claiming systems uniformly bad for unity, whereas before it had no effect.

Correct. It's research costs which kill you by the time you enter late-game techs in a one-planet challenge, not Unity.

 

[scaper12123]

Not so much of a problem for spiritualists, though it makes using Ambitions difficult. I suppose that is to be expected, but they seem very expensive.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Correct. It's research costs which kill you by the time you enter late-game techs in a one-planet challenge, not Unity.

Yah, just looked it up (not at my game right now). Tech is 2% per system... and only 5% per planet now!

Which means that claiming a second system with, say, neutronium or dark matter or living metal (5 research) is detrimental if you have a combined total of 250 science, so a science nexus is enough to make adding a system bad for a OPC tech cost. But before then, it's a boost.

Meanwhile, adding a second planet is good if it produces even 5% of a science boost, rather than before where it could increase your costs by as much as 33% (size 25 planet added to size 16 homeworld). So, not even a science nexus will make adding planets bad, and claiming systems in order to grab planets is almost always still good. And, one would expect tech costs to be scaled around that fact; it's that increase which screws opc.

A habitat with monument, art monument, leisure center and capital, puts out 48 science before pop bonuses. You'd need 960*pop/planet bonuses combined science to make that a bad idea. Additionally, the 2% per system is ignored for colonized systems. A 16+ size planet, using tile bonuses, can easily hit the required science output to be beneficial by the time you have a science nexus, while also providing minerals and energy.

 

[Held der Arbeit]

Are these mechanics affected by the size of the galaxy? Does controlling 100 systems in a 200 system galaxy affect Unity (and research) as much as in a 1000 system galaxy?

I doubt it, but it should.

 

[Siddyus]

Just lower the tradition cost slider...