Why is the homeworld so empty at game start?

[SpeedKatMcNasty]

The Earth is not overcrowded. It's just very poorly managed. We could fit trillions by throwing out our modern concept of cities. The biggest problem is reliable cheap energy for the huge towers of hydroponics we will need. We already waste a third of all farm land on live stock feed.

I think even trillions is an understatement. Quadrillions is something we could achieve with today's technology alone, thats about the point you run into thermal problems, where the Earth would no longer be able to radiate away all the heat we would generate, even assuming we sent mirrors up into space to reflect 100% of the sunlight away.

Its interesting to think that if the entire Human population moved into a city with the same density as Tokyo, it would be about the size of Colombia. The main issue is with Human's insistence on living with massive inefficiency. Everyone wants to live in a suburb in a single family home with 1 acre of land.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

And we could probably fit a butt load of new people just on the land wasted on golf courses.

 

[AlphaAsh]

1. As long as it can be played in MP, it needs to be balanced somewhat reasonably for it.

Never possible, without compromising the gameplay of SP, and as you suggested, turning it into StarCraftellis. If that's what you want, go play StarCraft.

(Stellaris is a 4X/GS hybrid. It has never been an RTS.)

2. Even in a completely SP setting, if rushing is so much better than not rushing you've ruined the depth of strategies available.

Options > Few options. I'm not playing to win. I'm playing to have fun. They aren't the same thing. Don't cut options from a game just so it's balanced for competition. I want to be able to choose not to rush.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

We've wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, and the majority of humans are still experiencing abject poverty, starvation, and war. I would call that overpopulated.

Yes, and you'd be wrong.

That's not what overpopulation is. Overpopulation is us being over our carrying capacity, not people living in poverty or dying in war, and we are absolutely not over our carrying capacity. We already produce enough food to feed everybody on the planet; we just don't. That's a socio-political problem, not us being over carrying capacity.

Saying the problem is overpopulation is the equivalent of walking into a room full of starving people who have plenty of food for everybody and claiming the problem is that the room is too small.

 

[stumason]

We've wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, and the majority of humans are still experiencing abject poverty, starvation, and war. I would call that overpopulated.

Nope, still just badly managed.

But humanity isn't responsible for "60% of animals going extinct". What you're doing there is believing a headline from sub-standard journalism which didn't understand the report it was quoting or the methodology used.

Here, read this: https://www.theatlantic.com/science...really-killed-60-percent-animals-1970/574549/ - the sample size of data represented estimates of populations from only 6% of animals known to exist, then did some extrapolation to include all vertebrates, then averaged them to show that "there are 60% less verterbrates than in 1970", which clearly is totally different to what you're claiming and also questionable methodology in the first place, paid for by the WWF I might add...

Also, the "majority" of humanity isn't experiencing "abject poverty, starvation or war". In actual fact, the majority enjoy rather good standards of living. Sure, tens of millions don't, but that is still but a fraction of the people on earth.

 

[Scorpio_Shirica]

Yes, and you'd be wrong.

That's not what overpopulation is. Overpopulation is us being over our carrying capacity, not people living in poverty or dying in war, and we are absolutely not over our carrying capacity. We already produce enough food to feed everybody on the planet; we just don't. That's a socio-political problem, not us being over carrying capacity.

Saying the problem is overpopulation is the equivalent of walking into a room full of starving people who have plenty of food for everybody and claiming the problem is that the room is too small.

And there are socio-political solutions, just not the political will. This game presumes that we've achieved that political will to unify and explore the stars. And with the advancements in tech needed to become space faring, we discover ways to take care of more people on our planet.

 

[Less2]

Never possible, without compromising the gameplay of SP, and as you suggested, turning it into StarCraftellis. If that's what you want, go play StarCraft.

(Stellaris is a 4X/GS hybrid. It has never been an RTS.)

Go tell Paradox this then, because Stellaris is clearly getting balanced for MP making you clearly incorrect. Furthermore Stellaris is obviously an RTS.

Options > Few options. I'm not playing to win. I'm playing to have fun. They aren't the same thing. Don't cut options from a game just so it's balanced for competition. I want to be able to choose not to rush.

Yes, and you have those options now. If taking Homeworlds was insanely better then anyone trying to play well would have no option but to rush homeworlds.

 

[Peace Weaver]

Yes, and you'd be wrong.

That's not what overpopulation is. Overpopulation is us being over our carrying capacity, not people living in poverty or dying in war, and we are absolutely not over our carrying capacity. We already produce enough food to feed everybody on the planet; we just don't. That's a socio-political problem, not us being over carrying capacity.

Saying the problem is overpopulation is the equivalent of walking into a room full of starving people who have plenty of food for everybody and claiming the problem is that the room is too small.

But we are limited by our social capacities as a species. Which we have surpassed. We might as well be talking about how many armadillos could theoretically inhabit the planet, if only they’d get their shit together and organize themselves appropriately.

I mean just the very fact this conversation is framed as more people = better shows we aren’t up to the task.

 

[Spyre2k]

we're already talking about our planet being overpopulated right now,

The only people saying that are either stupid or doing it for political power so they can be put in charge to "manage" things.

Since the 1800s people have being saying there is over population. Back before the population hit 1 Billion there were books written about how we'd never be able to support 1B people and there would be massive famines and other overpopulation issues. We aren't even close to the max population that our planet could support, and given that population growth is declining due to people having less kids it's not unreasonable to think that in 200 years we aren't likely to reach it either.

But mostly it's done for gameplay reasons as you need room to grow and it gives people choice to focus more on homeworld vs expanding out. Aka the Tall vs Wide playstyles, if your world was nearly completely maxed out at the game's start there wouldn't be much for someone wanting to go tall to do other than than expand.

 

[Astax]

The main issue is with Human's insistence on living with massive inefficiency. Everyone wants to live in a suburb in a single family home with 1 acre of land.

It's not an "issue", you are welcomed to live like a sardine, I won't. Living crammed like that has many detriments both in mental health and enjoyment of life in general. Plus it is wholly unnatural to me. Main issue for me is people who think they know what's best for everyone.

 

[LF7]

We've wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, and the majority of humans are still experiencing abject poverty, starvation, and war. I would call that overpopulated.

Good for you, you're wrong It is nothing close to overpopulation, it is horrendous resource distribution and management. There ARE enough resources and technologies to support every single person on the planet... it just isn't done adequately. If Earth was Stellaris right now, we'd have abundant food, minerals etc... we'd just be lacking Consumer Goods.

 

[LF7]

It's not an "issue", you are welcomed to live like a sardine, I won't. Living crammed like that has many detriments both in mental health and enjoyment of life in general. Plus it is wholly unnatural to me. Main issue for me is people who think they know what's best for everyone.

Sardines? LOL you should probably watch this

even the currently population isn't even close to "sardines" neither would a few extra billion... or 14 billion... Earth is BIG.

 

[wingren013]

If you really want to make it realistic, then you'd think about how development corresponds to lower populations, and how there shouldn't really be any pop growth anyways.

Also I think that the estimate in how many people our current food production could support is around 12 billion. Considering we don't utilize most of our agricultural land, I think it is difficult to call us overpopulated.

 

[Jman5]

Earth's population isn't limited by the space people use, it's limited by resources. By going into space, food and consumer goods can be produced elsewhere, allowing a lot more people to live on Earth.

Yup.

For people who have trouble wrapping their head around this, just break it down into a single city. Imagine for a second Earth is not a planet, but a city. The city of Earth by itself has quite a low carrying capacity by itself. However, It imports material from nearby counties to feed the city folk and build its structures. As time passes, the city of Earth develops better transportation, better roads, better ways to keep perishable goods longer. Instead of relying on just neighboring counties, they can draw from much further afield. The City of Earth grows larger and the carrying capacity increases.

It does not matter that the City of Earth cannot grow all the food it needs or mine the resources it requires. It is where the people are and where the money is, so raw materials flow in and support its increasing population.

Now replace the city of Earth with the planet Earth, and the surrounding country side with the solar system.

 

[Peace Weaver]

Yes, it’s true. If things were different things would be different.

Maybe when all of humanity collectively decides to organize itself and live differently our capacity to sustain a large population could increase, but until then we are living beyond our capacities.

 

[Yaskaleh]

I solve that by going Post-apocalyptic. What is a pop? the number of people needed to perform the necessary production work along with family. Could be any number.

 

[aaronfranke]

I like the idea of having your homeworld only have a couple open slots and WAY more blockers. Instead of feeling like your planet just suddenly realized it can now fill more space, it will feel like a planet with sprawling slums and waste that can either head for colonizeable worlds not obstructed, or use resources to solve it.

Many of those should be "natural" tile blockers, for example: "Massive Desert - This part of the planet is very barren and has almost no wildlife". Clearing it would require desert irrigation tech.

 

[buglepong]

1. As long as it can be played in MP, it needs to be balanced somewhat reasonably.
2. Even in a completely SP setting, if rushing is so much better than not rushing you've ruined the depth of strategies available.

Rushing shouldnt even be an option. This is 4x/gs not rts. Stellaris early game already feels rts-ish because of corvette spam and the incredible speed of population and empire growth. You have the entire galaxy filled in 30 years or so.