Stellaris Dev Diary #122 - Planetary Rework (part 2 of 4)

[WhiteKyubey]

Cannot wait for the patch! I really want to see a ring world in a new system and build only cities there. Then make migration pacts with everyone, stack all +migration attracton bonuses on the ring and make it overcrowded!

 

[Riftwalker]

Cannot wait for the patch! I really want to see a ring world in a new system and build only cities there. Then make migration pacts with everyone, stack all +migration attracton bonuses on the ring and make it overcrowded!

then you'll invent giant robot peace keepers who'll betray the galactic civilization and use the ring world as the hub for their reaping of civilizations to come.

 

[VoodooDog]

A Pop that becomes unemployed will keep the Stratum of the Job that it used to occupy, and will refuse to take a Job from a lower Stratum, even if there are open Jobs available.

thats human like behaviour enforced on every alien race in your game. i find that kinda dissapointing.
what if there are alien races with a different mind set, where pops are not like "what!? no, i wont do that low tier job lul. give me candy pls."
with the current system this is not possible i guess?

 

[hsuzy1987]

Even in an egalitarian society, people should naturally gravitate towards the jobs they are good at. I can grant that habitability should also be important, but habitability is usually at 100% anyway, especially for bio-ascended empires where the dedicated miners are robust in addition to industrious and very strong. So why should a species that is perfect for mining *and* at 100% habitability be pushed out of their jobs just because free migration/reproduction is allowed and they are "overrepresented"?

It makes no sense and is also frustrating from a gameplay perspective.

It makes perfect sense in a way. Jobs are jobs, and people compete to get them... even if they aren't entirely suited for them.

In any case I think you'd still be able to get a miner species dominant planet like you want. It may not be a 100%, but it might be close. Remember that pop demographics are locally determined, not empire wide. What can be done is have a planetary attraction bonus for species with specific traits if the planet's districts/buildings are a specific configuration.

Say you have a planet with of all districts being mines. If you could get a triggered attraction modifier to species with Strong or Industrious, you'd still get an overrepresentation of these species on that planet, relative to the empire's overall demographic makeup.

 

[Ingros]

I still think it would be better to use absolute numbers for pops .. e.g. millions and billions per planet
On each planet there could be a dynamic optimal value per race how many are needed to count as 1 full POP (techlevel, infrastructure etc)
And the rest would be the half-filled one slowly growing... it could still count for production as 1/10 or 1/4 or 1/2 etc of a pop

And all races could grow at the same time

Not sure about performance impact if there are to many races

 

[Pootino]

I hope that with the new system it will be possible to apply population control to your main specie too, so that if you want to go totalitarian to prevent overpopulation you can do it.

 

[Heretic Saint]

Mostly, this sounds really good and exciting. I like the ideas for Pop "mobility" regarding Jobs and even Strata, as well as hinted overcrowding. I hope the latter will actually become a problem for the player at some point, a "sociopolitical challenge", if you will, that has to be countered via more expensive expansion (habitats, suboptimal colonies), controversial policies (reproductive controls, "one child" edict), or just by sucking it up and dealing with the unrest.

It's probably too much to hope that Le Guin will turn Stellaris into more of an interstellar political simulator, but I will embrace anything that better simulates the internal politics of an empire and goes into greater depth in terms of culture and governance, as it's going to evoke that much more space fantasy.

One thing I do not like, and from the looks of it I'm not the only one there, however, is the prioritization of minority Pops in terms of Growth. This just doesn't make sense -- all other factors being equal, it seems obvious that it's the larger demographic that should experience faster Growth. Even the considered manual Species prioritization is not a good solution to the criticism: aside from the added micro-management (which I thought was to be avoided), it just doesn't feel right for an Egalitarian empire to restrict reproductive rights just because the player would prefer a more realistic growth model.

I do not really mind the abstraction of limiting Pop Growth to a single unit (even if simultaneous, individual Growth would add a lot of detail in terms of Migration Treaties or Species Trait, and production modifiers for partially grown Pops should offset any economical imbalance multi-species empires may experience), but the abstraction to one Pop at a time should at least retain a modicum of verisimilitude. I don't care for minmaxing or efficiency here, but turning Growth prioritization upside down is really undermining immersion for no good reason. Humans on Earth shouldn't just stop making babies solely because the first alien immigrant has arrived.

Would it not be possible to correctly prioritize majority Species, but use diminishing returns for the weighting modifier so that each newly spawned Pop would lower this Species' chance to be picked again for a time, allowing minority Species to "get their turn" in the Growing slot as well?

Or, alternatively, some sort of "initiative order" for the Growing slot, where the game dynamically plans demographic expansion ahead for multiple Species depending on how many of their Pops are on-site?

 

[firesoul]

One thing I'd like is more diverse administrative measures across the empire. For example, alien pops on the cosmopolitan Capital World would be fairly well treated, but on a backwater planet they might be eaten. In the same way, perhaps aliens could only be allowed on certain planets, while being able to travel freely between permitted worlds. There could be uneven migration rules, so that my majority species can live on any world and travel freely except for the homeworlds of subject races, and those subject races would be able to live anywhere.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

One thing I do not like, and from the looks of it I'm not the only one there, however, is the prioritization of minority Pops in terms of Growth. This just doesn't make sense -- all other factors being equal, it seems obvious that it's the larger demographic that should experience faster Growth. Even the considered manual Species prioritization is not a good solution to the criticism: aside from the added micro-management (which I thought was to be avoided), it just doesn't feel right for an Egalitarian empire to restrict reproductive rights just because the player would prefer a more realistic growth model.

No it isn't obvious that the larger demographic will multiply more quickly. The reason is that as the number of creatures goes up they could well reduce the number of babies each individual produces, this is pretty much a biological universal for any species because if they don't they all end up starving to death. Since we however are dealing with a linear increase in population with our pop's system this balances out.

Add another species into the mix. This species is not very numerous, which means it reproduces at close to it's maximum rate, according to the above principle (in all creatures as population density goes up the number of babies per individual goes down) and the existing population don't count as being their species. The only bit that does not make sense here is the increase of the alien population reduces the increase of the existing population, the two factors should be independent and things should work pretty much as they did.

Or rather they should work so that the population increases exponentially until they hit a hard number modified by planet size and then as they exceed this limit there are population growth penalties that also increase exponentially. The number is per-species, so xenophiles are blessed with the ability to increase their population more than anyone else but are prone to starve to death, food shortages should probably promote xenophobia.

 

[Heretic Saint]

No it isn't obvious that the larger demographic will multiply more quickly. The reason is that as the number of creatures goes up they could well reduce the number of babies each individual produces, this is pretty much a biological universal for any species because if they don't they all end up starving to death. Since we however are dealing with a linear increase in population with our pop's system this balances out.

There is no biological wireless switch that makes people more or less fertile only because of who their neighbors are.

And even if there were, and this function were something universal to all species in the galaxy, it should then still apply to everyone at the same time -- since species X is going to feel just as crowded as species Y. It would not make sense if a species would keep reproducing when they share living space with another species that just stopped making babies for fear of "starving to death". And then, if both demographics have the same modifier applied, it'd still result in the majority species growing quicker, because a, say, +2% growth rate for 10 million people will result in more babies than the same +2% applied to 1 million.

I believe what you are actually referring to are certain socioeconomical or cultural factors which, personally, I'd actually like to see modeled in Stellaris. But that's not what we are getting here; the game literally slaps a blanket bonus on Pops just because there's fewer of them, even if they still live in crowded conditions. This is not how biology, sociology, or fertility works.

 

[HTec]

One thing we are considering is allowing you to manually override which species should be growing on a planet, for situations like this. Basically giving a specific species priority for a particular planet. Even 'mining worlds' will rarely be completely 100% mining jobs though.

Each species gets a 'demographical weight' based on factors like citizen rights, growth speed modifier, etc. This is then modified by their current numbers on the planet, with weight being reduced the more of them there already is. Finally a bit of randomness is applied, and highest weight is picked. For example, if you have 10 Humans and 10 Blorg, it will be a roughly 50/50 chance to get a Human or a Blorg, but if it was 2 Humans and 10 Blorg, you'd be guaranteed another Human unless there was another major factor such as the Humans had only Residence rights, which adds a large weight decrease in being picked for next pop.

@Wiz , maybe if we could manually override the 'demographical weight', have species-specific housing or something like it for each (empire/allowed) species in each planet (maybe in another "Species" tab in the planetary UI)... This way we would be able to fully use genemodding, build "mining worlds", fiddling with the composition of each planet, etc. The current species numbers (for the example above 10/10), IMHO, shouldn't matter. Only the "player-wanted" numbers/percentages (ex: 90% Blorg, 10% Humans).

 

[HTec]

@Wiz , maybe if we could manually override the 'demographical weight', have species-specific housing or something like it for each (empire/allowed) species in each planet (maybe in another "Species" tab in the planetary UI)... This way we would be able to fully use genemodding, build "mining worlds", fiddling with the composition of each planet, etc. The current species numbers (for the example above 10/10), IMHO, shouldn't matter. Only the "player-wanted" numbers/percentages (ex: 90% Blorg, 10% Humans).

If, during playtesting, this seems like an "extra" feature to you guys, I would go as far as to suggest this new tab on the DLC. I, for one, would be willing to pay for this extra level of planetary control on the "Scarcity" (?) DLC that will go with the 2.2 patch

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

There is no biological wireless switch that makes people more or less fertile only because of who their neighbors are.

And even if there were, and this function were something universal to all species in the galaxy, it should then still apply to everyone at the same time -- since species X is going to feel just as crowded as species Y. It would not make sense if a species would keep reproducing when they share living space with another species that just stopped making babies for fear of "starving to death". And then, if both demographics have the same modifier applied, it'd still result in the majority species growing quicker, because a, say, +2% growth rate for 10 million people will result in more babies than the same +2% applied to 1 million.

I believe what you are actually referring to are certain socioeconomical or cultural factors which, personally, I'd actually like to see modeled in Stellaris. But that's not what we are getting here; the game literally slaps a blanket bonus on Pops just because there's fewer of them, even if they still live in crowded conditions. This is not how biology, sociology, or fertility works.

There very much is a switch, ever wondered why every creature does not starve to death because as the population increases the rate of population growth increases? The eternally-wrong Malthusians have always not understood this principle (it is a foundation of their beliefs), that all species population are inherently self-regulating; it's simple evolution, all creatures whose populations do not have a mechanism to prevent exponential increase starved to death en-masse, leaving only species that were self-regulating (this applies to aliens as well). The factors you mention are simply the mechanism working in humans and are driven by urbanization, as the human population becomes more urbanized the population density increases and so predictably the population growth % goes down, because humans like everything else reproduce according to *lack* of population density. If urbanisation is itself driven by population increase, we could then basically say that perhaps it *is* the control mechanism and always was.

Similar mechanics are at work in certain other species in a somewhat different way. There a fixed number of adults per group (usually the leader and partners) reproduce, as population density increases the number of celibate followers against the number of reproducing leaders goes up, causing the population growth % to go down. In Stelleris terms this is fine, a pop is a linear increase, so the more pops there are the less population increase any new pop represents.

The amusing thing here is aliens are not your species. That means if you arrive on an alien world then your population density is very low and you breed at essentially full capacity, even though you are surrounded by aliens they don't count as population density to the inbuilt population control mechanism. This causes you to increase at a greater proportion of your theoretical maximum than the local population does, potentially allowing even a slow-breeding creature to outpace a faster-breeding creature in linear growth terms. This is however a funny case of evolution not having prepared for a novel situation (the existence of competing aliens), rather like how the reduction in infant mortality led to a population explosion and should potentially lead to problems, giving us a reason to be a xenophobe in effect.

The only thing that is off is that the present population ought to still increase (or not) independently of the aliens. It is just that it is quite sound to have the rarer pop increase at a faster rate.

 

[timtheboost]

Mostly, this sounds really good and exciting. I like the ideas for Pop "mobility" regarding Jobs and even Strata, as well as hinted overcrowding. I hope the latter will actually become a problem for the player at some point, a "sociopolitical challenge", if you will, that has to be countered via more expensive expansion (habitats, suboptimal colonies), controversial policies (reproductive controls, "one child" edict), or just by sucking it up and dealing with the unrest.

It's probably too much to hope that Le Guin will turn Stellaris into more of an interstellar political simulator, but I will embrace anything that better simulates the internal politics of an empire and goes into greater depth in terms of culture and governance, as it's going to evoke that much more space fantasy.

One thing I do not like, and from the looks of it I'm not the only one there, however, is the prioritization of minority Pops in terms of Growth. This just doesn't make sense -- all other factors being equal, it seems obvious that it's the larger demographic that should experience faster Growth. Even the considered manual Species prioritization is not a good solution to the criticism: aside from the added micro-management (which I thought was to be avoided), it just doesn't feel right for an Egalitarian empire to restrict reproductive rights just because the player would prefer a more realistic growth model.

I do not really mind the abstraction of limiting Pop Growth to a single unit (even if simultaneous, individual Growth would add a lot of detail in terms of Migration Treaties or Species Trait, and production modifiers for partially grown Pops should offset any economical imbalance multi-species empires may experience), but the abstraction to one Pop at a time should at least retain a modicum of verisimilitude. I don't care for minmaxing or efficiency here, but turning Growth prioritization upside down is really undermining immersion for no good reason. Humans on Earth shouldn't just stop making babies solely because the first alien immigrant has arrived.

Would it not be possible to correctly prioritize majority Species, but use diminishing returns for the weighting modifier so that each newly spawned Pop would lower this Species' chance to be picked again for a time, allowing minority Species to "get their turn" in the Growing slot as well?

Or, alternatively, some sort of "initiative order" for the Growing slot, where the game dynamically plans demographic expansion ahead for multiple Species depending on how many of their Pops are on-site?

I agree with you that there need to be changes to the current system. What I don't really get is then need to hold on to the one pop growth. Wouldn't it just be way easier to add a growth for each species? Balancing of different weighting does not have to be done at all and those occurring problems won't exist anymore.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I agree with you that there need to be changes to the current system. What I don't really get is then need to hold on to the one pop growth. Wouldn't it just be way easier to add a growth for each species? Balancing of different weighting does not have to be done at all and those occurring problems won't exist anymore.

The problem is when we can make species to order, so we can deliberately multiply the number of species in order to get faster population growth.

 

[George The Eco]

I agree with you that there need to be changes to the current system. What I don't really get is then need to hold on to the one pop growth. Wouldn't it just be way easier to add a growth for each species? Balancing of different weighting does not have to be done at all and those occurring problems won't exist anymore.

I would guess the reason is that if you do that either it is a killer performance wise, or it leads to a lot of slow pop growths happening at the same time in cosmopolitan empires. To illustrate what I mean, say you are playing as a xenophobe empire, you have only one species. You now have 1 growing at say 20 'growth points' a year. If it took about 100 'growth points' then you would get another pop in 5 years. but for the next one you would now be able to use that one pop to help grow the next, so say for argument sake you now have 25 growth points, its now 4 years till the next pop. now you have 3 more years till the next pop give or take. It takes you 9 years to grow 2 pops, and in 20 years you will have about 5. Now suppose you are a xenophile empire. You also have 20 growth points a year, but have to divide it in 2 for you two species in this hypothetical scenario. so you get 2 new pops in 10 years, already lagging behind. I could continue but I believe you get the idea. The problem only gets worse the more species you have. This off course destroys balance because now you as a xenophile empire are always going to be a little bit behind,being more behind the more pops you have. Although there probably are ways for you to match this with modifiers those would just as easily become exploitable.

 

[Ex Mudder]

Pop Growth: This is the base level of Pop Growth on the planet from natural reproduction and immigration. A Planet will only have a single growing Species at any given time, but is not limited to the Species alreadyliving on the planet - any Species with theoretical access to the planet through migration will be able to start growing on a planet, and when choosing a Species to grow, planets will generally prioritize Species that are under-represented on the planet, meaning for example that an empire with Syncretic Evolution will generally have both its Species growing in turn on any new colonies, instead of being limited to only the Species that they used to colonize the planet. The rights you have assigned to Species will factor into this, so a Species with Full Citizenship will get far higher weight when deciding which Pop to grow next than one that merely has Residence. Habitability is also a major factor.

I think there is an issue with how this written / translated / interpreted, as it seems to promote the slow genocide of your primary species if you are egalitarian or xenophilic. It seems to saw something like "If Snalians are over represented in Snalia, lets cause their numbers to decline and let other Species in to take their place." I doubt that was the intent, as it actually refers to making sure additional species immigrate to / grow on colony worlds, and represents the population decline of overpopulated planets to emmigration.

But when you say "Overcrowded Planets that have over-represented Species will have those Species begin to decline in numbers and be replaced by newly growing, under-represented Species" I have to ask WHY would ANYONE migrate to an overcrowded planet in the first place? Did you combine 2 different things into one sentence? Such as over represented species on overpopulated planets will decline the fastest though MIGRATION to other planets? And that under-represented Species on all planets get a boost in chances of growing, to promote multi species planets, gene tailored empires, Xeno Slavery, and the spread of Space Slug Hosts to new planets? Which can be offset though polices and diplomacy for Authoritarian and Xenophobic empires if they don't want it.

I'd think the per species emmigration "push" would also factor into this, as would Habitablity, which was mentioned later, and suitable job availability for species traits.

I'm also assuming Gestalt intelligences have different rules.

 

[Rakses]

In Diary said, that priority given to small species. But what If I want all species to have civil rights, and my original species to have better prospects as a state-forming?
P.S. If I have any grammar and other mistakes - say me, I'm russian.

 

[Pizzarugi]

I've been putting a little more thought into this, but this whole overcrowding thing worries me somewhat, at least as someone who loves building (and becoming) robots.

As described in this development diary as well as clarification from Wiz, robots and droids require significantly less living space than most things, not only because of what they are, but also because they're technically counted as slaves. That reduction in housing needs is removed the moment you liberate them which requires they become synthetic.

If you have planets that are already maxed out in housing and infrastructure, can't expand further, and with a sizeable robot population, you're going to have severe overcrowding issues the moment they become synthetic and you liberate them. In order to prevent this housing crisis, players who utilize robots would have to make sure they never fully develop any planets they colonize if they intend on liberating them once they become synthetics, so they'll always have space they will need due to increased housing demand. I don't think the onus should be on players to limit planet development, especially if they play wide and have to use sectors which probably can't restrict infrastructure development.

In my case, as it stands, I'm probably gonna have to outright forego any development of robots until synthetics are researched, and that makes me sad.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I would guess the reason is that if you do that either it is a killer performance wise, or it leads to a lot of slow pop growths happening at the same time in cosmopolitan empires. To illustrate what I mean, say you are playing as a xenophobe empire, you have only one species. You now have 1 growing at say 20 'growth points' a year. If it took about 100 'growth points' then you would get another pop in 5 years. but for the next one you would now be able to use that one pop to help grow the next, so say for argument sake you now have 25 growth points, its now 4 years till the next pop. now you have 3 more years till the next pop give or take. It takes you 9 years to grow 2 pops, and in 20 years you will have about 5. Now suppose you are a xenophile empire. You also have 20 growth points a year, but have to divide it in 2 for you two species in this hypothetical scenario. so you get 2 new pops in 10 years, already lagging behind. I could continue but I believe you get the idea. The problem only gets worse the more species you have. This off course destroys balance because now you as a xenophile empire are always going to be a little bit behind,being more behind the more pops you have. Although there probably are ways for you to match this with modifiers those would just as easily become exploitable.

The logical solution is to ditch the one pop at a time rule for everyone. If every single pop generates another pop of the same kind as itself, whenever the space exists to expand we have no problem at all. We just reduce the speed of pop growth overall to be more realistic (that is slower) and everyone wins.

Except the devs are in effect doubling down on the 1 pop at a time growth rule.