Why do some people not like Administrative Capacity?

[ruzen]

Its just not a fun mechanic

All you have to do is to build buildings and make jobs.

Politics doesnt matter, distance doesnt matter, giverment type doesnt matter

There are countless ways to make them fun pick anyones suggestion

 

[unmerged(350868)]

All you have to do is to build buildings and make jobs.

Isnt that the whole game?

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Isnt that the whole game?

I would say that the admin buildings are just to effective at what they do.
If you compare it for example to naval capacity which works similar (you get some tech and a job that increases it) the yield to effort ratio is much lower. I know that that is probably due to just higher numbers but still.

If numbers were more balanced like that I feel like the system could have worked just fine. But now since people are just hating it I don't think a simple numbers adjustment will be sufficient.

I just hope they aren't just going back to a fixed barrier like before since a system with now workaround is just unfun. Imagine if naval capacity couldnt be increased at all.

 

[Smurker]

I'm a new player who just started a few months ago, so I haven't experienced Stellaris in it's earlier days. Keep that in mind.

To me, admin cap feels pretty empty and dull. If it was implemented as a way to penalize larger empires from expanding too easily and/or quickly I can fully understand why people don't like it as a mechanic, since it's not doing such a good job at it. Being a new player it does actually slow down my expansion a little bit as I'm utterly terrified of going into the negative and seeing red numbers on my UI, but a more experienced player will most probably handle this a lot better. On a whole, admin cap feels very non interactive and much like a wasted opportunity Let me explain why that is the case.

I love stacking modifiers on planets and deciding what specialization it should have while trying to min-max for the largest possible resource output, which I then pump into science. Watching my empire outgrow others in terms of technology is really fun and this snowballing I see people talking about is something i enjoy. Having a larger empire means i can pump more resources into research and thus grow even more advanced. To me it seems pretty logical that a large empire with vast resources should be able to increase in technology faster than smaller ones, and having empire size negatively impact research speed feels wrong.

I don't think that admin cap as it stands today is the right way to go, and having a negative modifier that applies to empries that are overexpanding is not that fun either. So why do I think that this is a wasted opportunity? Let admin points be a resource that piles up and gets used, add more jobs/buildings/edicts etc so that you can stack modifiers for admin cap too. This makes sure that it's just not a flat resource but instead something more interactive. Now all these admin points that you have stacked up must get used somehow, so why not make it work exactly like science does today? Instead of researching technologies you'd "work on projects" that somehow increases cohesion in your empire. What if sectors also played a role in this? For example, any sector that does not contain your capital planet is subjected to an increase in liberty desire (or something else that fits the theme) which would increase the further away from your "capital sector" it's located. It could be a stat that increases over time, say every month, and when it reaches a certain threshold the entire sector would become an independent empire. Why not let factions be a part of this aswell? Every sector your empire has will house it's own faction with it's own needs and wants. You could then spend your admin points "working on projects" much like research works today, to satisfy/negate/suppress your factions and thus keeping your empire in check.

This system would mean that largers empires need to spend a lot more time and resources on keeping cohesion high while still being fun and interactive. Smaller empires would not suffer as much and could spend everything they have on research instead. If implemented correctly this would introduce more balance in the "wide vs tall" debate and to be honest, I would have an absolute blast playing with it aswell.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

Maybe the wrong forum to ask this

What is the wide v tall debate?

The limiting factor seems to me to be pop growth and pops to work jobs. Expanding you empire does not slow individual planet growth. Having more planet should therefor increase pop growth. It may lead to resource shortfalls if mismamaged, but I dont really understand the benefit of not expanding.

Cheers!

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Maybe the wrong forum to ask this

What is the wide v tall debate?

Are you asking what people consider wide or tall empires or more general what wide or tall means?

 

[Don_Quigleone]

Something to bear in mind, all strategy games, and especially grand strategy games, suffer from the "snowball effect" whereby the game becomes easier the bigger you get. Admin Cap, as originally designed, was an anti snowballing feature, whereby the bigger you got, the more expensive your research and traditions got. This was imperfect but more or less worked.

However, the addition of bureaucrats more or less broke that system and eliminated the "braking effect" admin cap had on the game, and made it even easier to tech rush (such that now you can get through the entire tech tree in just 60-80 or so years). Bureacrats made the game less balanced, not more, by eliminating one of the games few brakes on growth.

Bureacrats can still be saved, but it would require making them less effective, more expensive to maintain, or add other negatives to being over admin cap.

But ultimately, the way admin cap is now designed, small empires often are more effected by admin cap than very large ones, so it no longer serves its original intended purpose.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I'm a new player who just started a few months ago, so I haven't experienced Stellaris in it's earlier days. Keep that in mind.

To me, admin cap feels pretty empty and dull. If it was implemented as a way to penalize larger empires from expanding too easily and/or quickly I can fully understand why people don't like it as a mechanic, since it's not doing such a good job at it. Being a new player it does actually slow down my expansion a little bit as I'm utterly terrified of going into the negative and seeing red numbers on my UI, but a more experienced player will most probably handle this a lot better. On a whole, admin cap feels very non interactive and much like a wasted opportunity Let me explain why that is the case.

I love stacking modifiers on planets and deciding what specialization it should have while trying to min-max for the largest possible resource output, which I then pump into science. Watching my empire outgrow others in terms of technology is really fun and this snowballing I see people talking about is something i enjoy. Having a larger empire means i can pump more resources into research and thus grow even more advanced. To me it seems pretty logical that a large empire with vast resources should be able to increase in technology faster than smaller ones, and having empire size negatively impact research speed feels wrong.

I don't think that admin cap as it stands today is the right way to go, and having a negative modifier that applies to empries that are overexpanding is not that fun either. So why do I think that this is a wasted opportunity? Let admin points be a resource that piles up and gets used, add more jobs/buildings/edicts etc so that you can stack modifiers for admin cap too. This makes sure that it's just not a flat resource but instead something more interactive. Now all these admin points that you have stacked up must get used somehow, so why not make it work exactly like science does today? Instead of researching technologies you'd "work on projects" that somehow increases cohesion in your empire. What if sectors also played a role in this? For example, any sector that does not contain your capital planet is subjected to an increase in liberty desire (or something else that fits the theme) which would increase the further away from your "capital sector" it's located. It could be a stat that increases over time, say every month, and when it reaches a certain threshold the entire sector would become an independent empire. Why not let factions be a part of this aswell? Every sector your empire has will house it's own faction with it's own needs and wants. You could then spend your admin points "working on projects" much like research works today, to satisfy/negate/suppress your factions and thus keeping your empire in check.

This system would mean that largers empires need to spend a lot more time and resources on keeping cohesion high while still being fun and interactive. Smaller empires would not suffer as much and could spend everything they have on research instead. If implemented correctly this would introduce more balance in the "wide vs tall" debate and to be honest, I would have an absolute blast playing with it aswell.

This exists and it's called unity. The bigger your empire the more unity you need to buy a perk. The problem is that bureaucrats negate the cost increase.

That said, removing the unity generating buildings and making it something that just kind of accumulates could be neat.

 

[Janx14]

That is, in my opinion, the main problem with the current system, and that's what the old system did better: A progressive increase in tech costs meant that the the time it took to research a tech scaled with the size of your empire. It was quite simplistic, but it made sure tech progress wasn't absurdly fast for large empires. The current system just doesn't do that at all.

I don't think they ever (or properly) tuned science for the lack of size penalties either, resulting in the current crazy tech progression late game. Which again, only serves to augment the snowball rather than make the hill less steep.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

Another potential solution would be if admin cost increased non linearly. It increases slowly for small empires and faster for large ones.

 

[Gilbert95]

Personally I don't care about snowball or tall/wide considerations. For me the problem with the current admin cap and bureaucrat system is the lack of interesting choices. Stellaris is a strategy game and currently this is a non-choice. The correct action at all times is to have just enough bureaucrats to keep your penalty at zero. And it is trivially easy to accomplish this.
I do like the thematics of bureaucrats and whole worlds given over to bureaucracy, so I don't want to trash the system. And neither do the devs. What grekulf has said repeatedly recently is they are working on an overhaul to the system that ties admin can and bureaucracy more into unity. However, this is very much a work in progress and they have not shared any meaningful detail. All that to say OP, from the perspective of the game development, you are arguing against something that is not being considered.

 

[Dirk_Slamchest]

Maybe the wrong forum to ask this

What is the wide v tall debate?

The limiting factor seems to me to be pop growth and pops to work jobs. Expanding you empire does not slow individual planet growth. Having more planet should therefor increase pop growth. It may lead to resource shortfalls if mismamaged, but I dont really understand the benefit of not expanding.

Cheers!

There is no benefit to not expanding. Seizing as many systems, planets, and pops as you can as fast as possible (i.e. playing wide) is objectively the best strategy in every way. That part is not even debatable.

The controversy is that many players want viable strategies which do not work this way. They are advocating for mechanics which either punish growth outright or allow empires to spend resources on internal improvements that are mutually exclusive with growth in some way. A small empire could thus remain competitive with larger ones (i.e. playing tall).

Arguments in favor of adding tall mechanics:
- Since size is everything, the first 20 years is the only part of the game that really matters. The rest is just watching a snowball grow, which is boring.
- Strategy games are about trade-offs. When there's only one viable path, there's little variety between games and every empire feels pretty similar to play, which is boring.
- Earth's political history is full of little nations pulling ahead of big ones due to superior technology or organization. Stellaris is unable to model this situation, which is BORING!

Arguments in favor of the status quo:
- I shouldn't be punished for playing the way I like to play.
- Anyone who disagrees with me just wants to ruin the game because they are bad at it!

(Sorry, I couldn't help caricaturing OPs belligerent non-arguments. Someone else might have decent points in favor of wide-only mechanics, but I haven't read any.)

 

[Janx14]

Arguments in favor of adding tall mechanics:
- Since size is everything, the first 20 years is the only part of the game that really matters. The rest is just watching a snowball grow, which is boring.
- Strategy games are about trade-offs. When there's only one viable path, there's little variety between games and every empire feels pretty similar to play, which is boring.
- Earth's political history is full of little nations pulling ahead of big ones due to superior technology or organization. Stellaris is unable to model this situation, which is BORING!

I'd also say tall is important for peaceful cooperation. Right now, even with federation buffs, a group of allied empires is generally weaker than a single empire of equivalent size as their combined size.

Thus beyond RP, there's no reason to really ally with anyone outside of fear of them conquering you.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

The controversy is that many players want viable strategies which do not work this way. They are advocating for mechanics which either punish growth outright or allow empires to spend resources on internal improvements that are mutually exclusive with growth in some way. A small empire could thus remain competitive with larger ones (i.e. playing tall).

Arguments in favor of adding tall mechanics:
- Since size is everything, the first 20 years is the only part of the game that really matters. The rest is just watching a snowball grow, which is boring.
- Strategy games are about trade-offs. When there's only one viable path, there's little variety between games and every empire feels pretty similar to play, which is boring.
- Earth's political history is full of little nations pulling ahead of big ones due to superior technology or organization. Stellaris is unable to model this situation, which is BORING!

Arguments in favor of the status quo:
- I shouldn't be punished for playing the way I like to play.
- Anyone who disagrees with me just wants to ruin the game because they are bad at it!

How is your definition of tall gameplay? I am asking because I usually encounter two different ideas.

Low number of systems or low population

 

[LayZboy]

Maybe the wrong forum to ask this

What is the wide v tall debate?

The limiting factor seems to me to be pop growth and pops to work jobs. Expanding you empire does not slow individual planet growth. Having more planet should therefor increase pop growth. It may lead to resource shortfalls if mismamaged, but I dont really understand the benefit of not expanding.

Cheers!

It's a term (incorrectly) borrowed from civ5, where you would either have many cities pumping out units and gold but the cities were limited in growth as they'd overlap often, or fewer cities with a focus of maximising their potential growth in their surrouding tiles.

An equivelent of the HEX/worker system in stellaris never existed, so the wide vs tall could never really apply in stellaris, since even if 2 planets occupie the same system their growth will be identical. You could correctly say that people who play tall are just playing the game worse, at least in the minmaxing area of the game, than one who goes wide.

 

[Dirk_Slamchest]

How is your definition of tall gameplay? I am asking because I usually encounter two different ideas.

Low number of systems or low population

Either number of pops or number of colonies - both seem sensible to me. It's the linear relationship between number of pops and output of every single resource (but especially science) that makes rapid expansion so strong. Raw number of systems means relatively little.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

It's a term (incorrectly) borrowed from civ5, where you would either have many cities pumping out units and gold but the cities were limited in growth as they'd overlap often, or fewer cities with a focus of maximising their potential growth in their surrouding tiles...

Lol... Yeah I know it was from Civ 5... the very reason I gave up on Civ. Civ 4 is still a great game, though... REX all the way!!!

Yeah...People often talk about Building high on Stellaris, and I just dont get it... unless you are just doing it as a challange. It cannot be a better strategy long term than expanding a a decent rate, as you will eventually get outproduced. But then I am new to the game, and I may be missing a mechanic having never played that way

 

[Brael]

Something to bear in mind, all strategy games, and especially grand strategy games, suffer from the "snowball effect" whereby the game becomes easier the bigger you get. Admin Cap, as originally designed, was an anti snowballing feature, whereby the bigger you got, the more expensive your research and traditions got. This was imperfect but more or less worked.

However, the addition of bureaucrats more or less broke that system and eliminated the "braking effect" admin cap had on the game, and made it even easier to tech rush (such that now you can get through the entire tech tree in just 60-80 or so years). Bureacrats made the game less balanced, not more, by eliminating one of the games few brakes on growth.

Bureacrats can still be saved, but it would require making them less effective, more expensive to maintain, or add other negatives to being over admin cap.

But ultimately, the way admin cap is now designed, small empires often are more effected by admin cap than very large ones, so it no longer serves its original intended purpose.

If it were me, not that this has been a popular idea with players, I would make starbases give admin cap similar to how anchorages work currently. If you want more admin cap in order to expand, you pay for it in fleet size/cost.

The controversy is that many players want viable strategies which do not work this way. They are advocating for mechanics which either punish growth outright or allow empires to spend resources on internal improvements that are mutually exclusive with growth in some way. A small empire could thus remain competitive with larger ones (i.e. playing tall).

I feel like the best way to do that, would be more Worm like events. Create ways where players could give up expanding in terms of system count in order to have more planets inside of a smaller footprint. Habitats and Ringworlds help to get there, but come too late to really matter. Also, the concept of needing to specialize planets works against going tall because you'll not fill out enough jobs of one type in many cases. Balancing those resources tends to reward having the ability to go wide.

Modifiers to going tall would require things like more DImensional Portal Researcher style bonuses, or something like a Mineral Processing Plant that's +25% minerals, and then an additional +1% minerals per 5 worked miner jobs.

 

[Critical Ethics]

How is your definition of tall gameplay? I am asking because I usually encounter two different ideas.

Low number of systems or low population

Wide is expanding as fast as you safely can and eating your neighbours when you run out of empty space to expand to. Everything that's not that is lumped under the heading of "tall" so nobody actually agrees on what tall means apart from "not wide". To players who panic when anyone even vaguely hints at the concept of putting brakes on their snowball, a "tall player" is a strawman caricature sitting on a single planet wanting to be competitive with someone owning half the galaxy (hilariously that was actually a valid strategy for a while).

It's all just tribal labeling designed to short circuit discussion. Bigger = better is fine, bigger = different is my preference, bigger = exponentially better only works for very specific kinds of games and they're not the kind of games that can meaningful support playing as xenophilic pacifist slugs trying to escape their exploding hellworld.

Whether pre-bureaucrats admin cap helped remove the "exponential" is debatable, but the addition of bureaucrats definitely slammed it back in hard.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

If it were me, not that this has been a popular idea with players, I would make starbases give admin cap similar to how anchorages work currently. If you want more admin cap in order to expand, you pay for it in fleet size/cost.

The main problem with this is that your main source of starbases is the number of systems you have. Which means this will only weaken small empires (who generally have fewer starbase capacity) and relatively benefit large empires, which doesn't deal with the original problem of snowballing, but rather actually causes more snowballing.