Stellaris Dev Diary #132 - Ecumenopolis and Megastructures

[Orphalesion]

If you had a choice between an ecumenopolis and a ringworld for your capital planet which one do ya'll think has more gravitas? I'm not talking gameplay (though I'm curious about insights on that two wrt both) more like as an implicit message about developmental dominance. Ecumenopoli look cyberpunky with the accompanying messages of overpopulation, Corp dominance and social stratification and ringworlds more a sense of almost too/eerily perfect to me.

From a roleplay perspective it seems to me that, often, an Ecumenopolis would be a more natural result of the conglomeration of the political, economical and cultural pull the capital/sectorcapital of an interstellar empire. Like people would want to be close to where the power is and there wouldn't be enough room so people would come up with acrologies and boom, you have Trantor.
A Ring World, meanwhile, with it's massive amount of habitable land seems almost like a deliberate attempt to avoid the capital becoming a Ecumenopolis. Kind of like some of the younger countries on Earth that had the luxury to have enough space to build and properly plan their capital versus older nations who are stuck with a (often very ill-planned/random) conglomerations of centuries/millennia of urban development.

So I think if it is manageable to create one, a Ring World might actually be a preferable capital, simple due to the larger space where you can have a whole planned capital with lavish greenery and giant landscape-art installations and all that. Though even in this scenario there'd be Ecumenpoli in other centers of trade or regional power.
Think of it like New York/Washington DC or Sydney/Canberra blown up to planet sizes.

Of course that's just one perspective. If the given emprie is very focused on their home turf in a way that would make the move of the capital to a Ring World difficult or impossible(for example if their home planet is considered holy or at least of great cultural importance) then an Ecumopolis is the much more likely result.

 

[acerstart]

I am super excited for the new expansion! I do have a question, however. When will the Hive Minds get a unique planet? You have the Machine World for Machine Empires and now the City Worlds for normal Empires. Is there any chance that we could at least get a re-skinned City World and call it a Hive World or something?

 

[jPaolo]

If you had a choice between an ecumenopolis and a ringworld for your capital planet which one do ya'll think has more gravitas? I'm not talking gameplay (though I'm curious about insights on that two wrt both) more like as an implicit message about developmental dominance.

The one you build by sacrificing the whole system.

 

[Aquilegia]

If you had a choice between an ecumenopolis and a ringworld for your capital planet which one do ya'll think has more gravitas? I'm not talking gameplay (though I'm curious about insights on that two wrt both) more like as an implicit message about developmental dominance. Ecumenopoli look cyberpunky with the accompanying messages of overpopulation, Corp dominance and social stratification and ringworlds more a sense of almost too/eerily perfect to me.

The capital tag gave a +5 stability, +5 amenities, +100% ethics attraction the last time I saw it, not very spectacular. However, the more important factor for designating your capital will be where the trade is. The closer the big trade systems and worlds, the better, because you will have less need for many starports and patrolling fleets to avoid piracy.

Ecumenopolis gives 15 housing per city district for a max total of 25x15= 375 housing and a minimal of 125 housing (if you'd go all forge).
Ring worlds can give between 200 housing (all farm/generator, 50x1x4(sections)) to 1600 housing (50(districts)x4(sections)x8(house+tech+tradition)).

This would seem to make a ringworld a better choice for the capital if you go high trade.. but to support such a pop heavy planet you'd also need a lot of resources, so you might have a hard time filling the world up with only cities. Meanwhile an ecumenopolis would have an easier time getting specialist jobs, but also be less reliant on clerks to gain a big and employed workforce, which would again reduce the amount of trade value.

 

[Kapitalisti]

But no technology could decompress matter from a black hole. Gathering hawking radiation isn't practical either. No advanced technology could do this. How is that even possible?

With SCIENCE! everything is possible.

 

[leax256]

Probably. A Gaia world isn't really a gaia world if you've paved it over

Just a note, just cause you turn it into a city planet, doesn’t mean that you paved it over...an excellent example would be shell or onion worlds.

 

[grommile]

But no technology could decompress matter from a black hole. Gathering hawking radiation isn't practical either. No advanced technology could do this. How is that even possible?

*looks at Jump Drive* *looks at Zero Point Energy power systems* *looks at FTL travel without causality violation*

Please, tell me more about what is impossible in the Stellaris universe.

 

[Kabian]

Hive machines -> breeding planet

 

[Kapitalisti]

*looks at Jump Drive* *looks at Zero Point Energy power systems* *looks at FTL travel without causality violation*

Please, tell me more about what is impossible in the Stellaris universe.

But surely the Worm still loves us?

 

[Peko?]

But no technology could decompress matter from a black hole. Gathering hawking radiation isn't practical either. No advanced technology could do this. How is that even possible?

Anti-gravity could.

 

[Lanrete]

That makes more sense as a democratic civic than a new government type, mechanically similar to the Fuedal civic that devolves power in the empire. Mechanically though it wouldn’t be very interesting unless we get a good internal politics update.

Well, we have two different versions of oligarchy (normal and corporate), oligarchy and democracy have similar mechanics and are just different "levels" of egalitarian, and imperial and dictatorial are variations of the same stuff (different levels of "authoritarian"), so, why shouldn't we have a variation of democracy government type for max- egalitarism?

 

[Calvax]

Well, we have two different versions of oligarchy (normal and corporate), oligarchy and democracy have similar mechanics and are just different "levels" of egalitarian, and imperial and dictatorial are variations of the same stuff (different levels of "authoritarian"), so, why shouldn't we have a variation of democracy government type for max- egalitarism?

Megacorps aren’t necessarily oligarchic. They can have a range of ethics including fanatical egalitarianism which remakes them to “trade leagues” and represents some sort of mega-cooperative (or Federation of them). They also have very distinct mechanics to other government types, namely that they primarily operate as non-state actors throughout other empires’ territory. It’s a distinct enough play style to deserve it’s own government type, like hive minds and gestalt consciousness.

An egalitarian society with highly devolve power is not like that. It can fit within the democracy class easily, all it requires is a civic and some fleshing out of internal politics.

 

[ramius3443]

At the risk of asking what is probably an obvious question, @grekulf is there a cap to how many city worlds can be built?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Just a note, just cause you turn it into a city planet, doesn’t mean that you paved it over...an excellent example would be shell or onion worlds.

Stellaris' upcoming mechanics adhere to the "pave it over" method, though

 

[Lord Hoosier]

I can build my own Coruscant!

 

[Lanrete]

Megacorps aren’t necessarily oligarchic. They can have a range of ethics including fanatical egalitarianism which remakes them to “trade leagues” and represents some sort of mega-cooperative (or Federation of them). They also have very distinct mechanics to other government types, namely that they primarily operate as non-state actors throughout other empires’ territory. It’s a distinct enough play style to deserve it’s own government type, like hive minds and gestalt consciousness.

An egalitarian society with highly devolve power is not like that. It can fit within the democracy class easily, all it requires is a civic and some fleshing out of internal politics.

The dev's themselves stated, that the megacorps uses an oligarchic system.

 

[Calvax]

The dev's themselves stated, that the megacorps uses an oligarchic system.

Where did they state this? In everything we’ve been shown about megacorps they can have a variety of ethics, including egalitarian ones. I’m not aware of any time they’ve said that this won’t give the same benefits to megacorps as regular empires (such as unlocking policies like utopian abundance).

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Please don't make ecumenopolis having 100% habitability by default. Forge worlds being as good for life as gaya ones are really anticlimatic. If anything they should have less habitability than the original planet so that there would be at least some sense to use habitability techs/traits and gaya terraforming.

 

[Calvax]

Please don't make ecumenopolis having 100% habitability by default. Forge worlds being as good for life as gaya ones are really anticlimatic. If anything they should have less habitability than the original planet so that there would be at least some sense to use habitability techs/traits and gaya terraforming.

Given that habitability in 2.2 will affect housing cost and ecumenopoli are all about having a lot of housing what would the point of non-100% habitability be? Forge districts already give less housing than arcologies so if you make a forge world it will have less people than one with few forge districts.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Given that habitability in 2.2 will affect housing cost and ecumenopoli are all about having a lot of housing what would the point of non-100% habitability be? Forge districts already give less housing than arcologies so if you make a forge world it will have less people than one with few forge districts.

Pretty sure that housing isn't the only thing which is affected by habitability. And if ecumenopolis inherit original planet's habitability with some malus, it will still be large net positive housing-wise but also will be able to synergize with other aspect of the game to get even more housing rather that ignore them.