Stellaris Dev Diary #153 - Empire Sprawl & Administrative Capacity

[JeremytheJedi]

While I think updating administrative capacity and empire sprawl are needed, I think that the Administrative Efficiency tech would be more useful if it increased more than 15. Having 50 of those researched increases capacity by 750. That's really not impactful in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Kanzhuu]

A GS/4X hybrid of empire growth and management, full of demographics, is exactly the place for managing planetary demographics.

From what I understand the current pop system just could not handle this, even if you found an implementation that did not become disproportionally complex in relation to the rest of the game. Demographics sounds fine, but if you spend more time managing them than with exploration or fighting, then it would jsut be unbalanced.

 

[Methone]

While I think updating administrative capacity and empire sprawl are needed, I think that the Administrative Efficiency tech would be more useful if it increased more than 15. Having 50 of those researched increases capacity by 750. That's really not impactful in the grand scheme of things.

Plenty impactful if you're going tall and those are all Ringworld Segments.

 

[Duuk]

There are two things I strongly disagree with:
1. That bureaucracy would slow down research (cost of technologies) makes no sense to me.

In sci-fi "lore", the expanded bureaucracy is almost by definition the end of technological advancement. Two prime examples are the two Holy Grails of sci-fi theology: Star Wars and Asimov's Foundation Series.

When the Galactic Senate was at its peak in the Star Wars galaxy, the bureaucrats ran the galaxy and advancement essentially came to a halt. While the galaxy was run "well", it was run stagnantly. Nothing of value was ever achieved and the galaxy was at a pure halt.

In the pre-Foundation Galactic Empire, the Imperial Bureaucracy centered on Trantor had become so inward-looking and so stagnant that it was regressing to the point of collapse and was literally incapable of stopping its own destruction. Seldon's plan didn't STOP the collapse of the Empire and prevent the coming Dark Age, it was designed to limit it to a MERE 1000 years instead of 10000 or more years.

Endless bureacracy stopping the growth of a civilization isn't a new conceit, it's the basis of pretty much all dystopian literature.

 

[sillyrobot]

Plenty impactful if you're going tall and those are all Ringworld Segments.

And completely unnoticeable if you are going wide and have over 3,000 sprawl. If you are somewhere in the middle, it might be noticeable, but underwhelming.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

And completely unnoticeable if you are going wide and have over 3,000 sprawl. If you are somewhere in the middle, it might be noticeable, but underwhelming.

If you are trying to take over the entire galaxy, sure, that won't help. If you have "only" 60 or 70 planets though, that 750 added to cap is key. And I wouldn't call that "tall".

 

[Maethendias]

ehrm, to be frank... who freaking thought "this is a good idea" when the whole economy revolves around "who has the most population to do ANYTHING"?

nevermind, who FREAKING thought "machine empires should play tall" WHEN THEY COMPLTETLY LACK THE TOOLS TO PLAY TALL IN THE FIRST PLACE

they lack an equivalent to trade, they lack in diplomacy (basically destroying tall playstyle anyways) and more importantly,

MACHINE EMPIRES HAVE A HARD CAP ON USEFUL POPULATION ON THEIR PLANETS

they are UNABLE to play a tall playstyle, AND YOU WANT TO CUT THEM EVEN FURTHER by capping their population EVEN FURTHER

what!?

do you even PLAY machine empires?

 

[Maethendias]

also, admin cap for gestalts dont even make sense in the first place, considering the whole thing is A HIVEMIND... ITS LITERALLY ONE ENTITY, and the bigger it gets, the better it gets at its job....

 

[Azar]

In sci-fi "lore", the expanded bureaucracy is almost by definition the end of technological advancement. Two prime examples are the two Holy Grails of sci-fi theology: Star Wars and Asimov's Foundation Series.

When the Galactic Senate was at its peak in the Star Wars galaxy, the bureaucrats ran the galaxy and advancement essentially came to a halt. While the galaxy was run "well", it was run stagnantly. Nothing of value was ever achieved and the galaxy was at a pure halt.

In the pre-Foundation Galactic Empire, the Imperial Bureaucracy centered on Trantor had become so inward-looking and so stagnant that it was regressing to the point of collapse and was literally incapable of stopping its own destruction. Seldon's plan didn't STOP the collapse of the Empire and prevent the coming Dark Age, it was designed to limit it to a MERE 1000 years instead of 10000 or more years.

Endless bureacracy stopping the growth of a civilization isn't a new conceit, it's the basis of pretty much all dystopian literature.

Bureaucracy might hinder the propagation of technological advances, sure, but does it hinder the DEVELOPMENT of them? Why can't my empire have a secret lab in some asteroid somewhere with all the advances, and normal laws don't apply there?

Also, I think how much bureaucracy hinders technological advancement should depend on the form of government. If its a dystopian dictatorship that suppresses free thought, yeah, I can see how there isn't much technological advancement (I withhold giving real life examples here... despite how much I want to). But if its a government of free people akin to Star Treks Federation, everyone could be a potential scientist.

Yet, if a machine empire is able to make any kind of technological advances, it should be one of the governments least susceptible to bureaucracy, since it is a gestalt entity, right? There is only one "main computer" that decides all, as far as I can see. There is also the mind-boggling contradiction in this new system in that Hive minds get a bonus for going wide, while machine empires (which is a form of hive mind) get punished for it? I just don't get it.

 

[Peko?]

There is also the mind-boggling contradiction in this new system in that Hive minds get a bonus for going wide, while machine empires (which is a form of hive mind) get punished for it? I just don't get it.

Synchronising your trillion thread mind is a bitch

 

[Duuk]

Bureaucracy might hinder the propagation of technological advances, sure, but does it hinder the DEVELOPMENT of them?

Because scientific advancement in Stellaris doesn't just represent "discovery" but also full-scale adoption of those discoveries?

Some dude on Mars didn't just figure out a new fusion drive, a full scale mass production of that drive was made possible empire-wide.

 

[Kanzhuu]

Synchronising your trillion thread mind is a bitch

You give an elegant flavour explanation, but since people are apparently unhappy with the current hive mind civics, I would suggest a rework of the hive mind and the gestalt consciousness civics that would allow the player to chose different playstyles. I think it is not unrealistic to have tall and wide playstyles available to both hive minds and gestalt consciousnesses and still have them be distinct from another. What I do find unrealistic, however, is the impossibility of a machine based empire unable to go wide or a hive mind to go tall. For both there are good flavour arguments, and I would argue that driven exterminators, which are already in the game, is probably going to lean more towards wide than tall.
For hive minds there could a civic that makes it 'sedentary' because it likes to keep its drones close for faster, more effective communication and to avoid the splintering of its hive mind or simply because it detests the lonely emptyness of space. There is also no reason why a hive mind needs to be stupid, dangerous, stupidly dangerous and dangerously stupid.

Why not have a nice philosopher hive mind that seeks to contact as many life forms as possible? It seems rather unlikely that, if I were to fuse my mind with my neighbour, our first reflex would necessarily be to devour other people. Maybe we fuse because we are looking for a better understanding of the human condition, to maybe break our solipsistic isolation?

 

[Foromar]

Seems kinda flawed. Why would an empire, that can settle all types of worlds at the start of the game, be the one you would pick to play tall?
Even more so, if they get the best Administrative Cap generation? The problem comes then with the seperation of unity generation to another job.

In the end they will probably have the worst Admin cap, simply because they will need more pops to produce it. (At least if they want to produce unity at all)

Edit: Not to mention the hard cap on population per planet, caused by their bad ammenity production.

 

[Paeris]

Love the change in the mechanics in general, the details need a bit more polishing though.

Maybe we could get sector capitals to "boost" it too?

 

[semisweet]

Some Thoughts

Administration in general is necessary when something requires organization, planning, direction, etc. It seems to me that pops that are independent should need less administration and pops that are followers or reliant on direction should need more administration. It also seems like it should matter how tightly the government is trying to control the population. If the government is attempting to control every aspect of a persons life, this will require much more administration than if the society lives in anarchy. With these ideas in mind, below are some possible implications.

1) Confident independent pops should require less administration than docile cautious pops as the former require less oversight and instructions than the latter. This relationship would be reversed for crime/deviancy since confident independent pops are more likely to do what they want while docile cautious pops will do what they're told. Confident independent pops are more likely to lead to instability without addition enforcement, but docile cautious pops will require more administration to operate at peak performance. This makes independent populations less stable and more efficient, and it makes docile populations more stable and less efficient.

2) Authoritarian governments should require less administration since the organizational structure is more streamlined. Less meetings However since they are more hierarchical and allow for less personal choice, there are more opportunities for people to break the rules, meaning more crime will be generated per pop and more enforcement will be necessary. On the flip side egalitarian societies will require a lot of administration to come to a consensus (think voting, meetings, etc), but because more people have their voices heard, when a consensus is reached more people go along with it, leading to less crime/deviancy. This makes authoritarian governments more efficient and less stable, and it makes egalitarian governments less efficient and more stable.

3) Machine intelligence empires are essentially a large society that functions as one unit with a central commanding intelligence. There is almost no tolerance for deviancy and independence. On one side this makes them very similar to an extreme authoritarian government since decisions are almost all made by the central intelligence. This would make for an efficient and less stable empire. However machine empires are essentially a special type of pop as well, one which is very docile. They do only as they're told, and they are prone to inefficiencies if not directed towards useful work. This would make the empire less efficient, since the central intelligence has to decide so much, but it would also make everything more stable. They would be like an authoritarian empire with a docile population and in the end the two might cancel each other out making them more neutral in terms of efficiency and stability.

4) Hive minds are basically a large society where each individual operates mostly on instinct, but in they're so dependent on one another that they basically end up operating as one giant entity. For a hive mind very little organization is needed. The organization happens naturally without direction. Pops follow their instinct and end up going where they need to be without being told. This means that little administration is needed, but if one of the parts isn't functioning as expected it can throw everyone off. This makes the empire efficient but also prone to instability. On the other hand hive mind pops are also a special type of pop, similar to how machine intelligence have a special type of pop. This pop is very independent. It follows its instincts. This makes hive mind pops require very little oversight, but they are also prone to instability. This combination makes hive minds the ultimate in efficient empires. It can sprawl vast sections of the galaxy without much need for administration. However, it is also prone to "cancer", and sections can split off if deviant pops are not "taken care of".

5) Empire policies, planet decisions, species rights, civics, and diplomatic stances seem like they would all impact administration and crime/deviancy. Decisions and policies that are more strict should require more administration in the empire in order to plan and implement. They should also allow for more rule breaking, since there are more rules, which would lead to inflated crime. For example closed borders with an empire would increase administration needs to implement and it would lead to some crime as some citizens work to smuggle across the border. A second example would be choosing the civic citizen service. This would require more empire administration in order to register and process each citizens term, and it would also lead to more crime as some citizens try and draft dodge. As a final example, the policy saying that slavery is banned would require more administration in order to deal write laws and adjudicate them. It would also lead to more crime as some black market trafficking would begin to take place.

 

[methegrate]

2) Authoritarian governments should require less administration since the organizational structure is more streamlined. Less meetings However since they are more hierarchical and allow for less personal choice, there are more opportunities for people to break the rules, meaning more crime will be generated per pop and more enforcement will be necessary. On the flip side egalitarian societies will require a lot of administration to come to a consensus (think voting, meetings, etc), but because more people have their voices heard, when a consensus is reached more people go along with it, leading to less crime/deviancy. This makes authoritarian governments more efficient and less stable, and it makes egalitarian governments less efficient and more stable.

I'd argue that, historically, this is exactly the opposite of what happens. Authoritarian governments generally rely on enormous bureaucratic infrastructures and vast police states to keep everybody in line. Pushing a top-down version of power requires having enough people to keep an eye on pretty much every citizen pretty much all of the time. But it means that there are enough police, enough of the time to keep crime relatively low.

Meanwhile the process of consensus building in liberal societies can take longer, but it involves far less bureaucracy to enforce the government's decision because there's a process of basic buy-in from the citizens. Countries like France, England and the USA generally have had tiny administrative states compared to someplace like the USSR or China. But the government's footprint is light enough that there's plenty of room for criminal activity. (It's a lot easier to do crime when the police have to get a warrant before busting in your door.)

 

[Kanzhuu]

Seems kinda flawed. Why would an empire, that can settle all types of worlds at the start of the game, be the one you would pick to play tall?

Edit: Not to mention the hard cap on population per planet, caused by their bad ammenity production.

I agree, that is why you would need a flavour reason as to why the machine empire would not do, and one reason that makes sense is to avoid communications lag or to maximize efficiency regarding use of space.

The hard cap on population on machine empire planets at the same time makes me dislike machine empires, but also makes a lot of sense. Why WOULD you have unnecessary drones?

5) Empire policies, planet decisions, species rights, civics, and diplomatic stances seem like they would all impact administration and crime/deviancy. Decisions and policies that are more strict should require more administration in the empire in order to plan and implement. They should also allow for more rule breaking, since there are more rules, which would lead to inflated crime. For example closed borders with an empire would increase administration needs to implement and it would lead to some crime as some citizens work to smuggle across the border. A second example would be choosing the civic citizen service. This would require more empire administration in order to register and process each citizens term, and it would also lead to more crime as some citizens try and draft dodge. As a final example, the policy saying that slavery is banned would require more administration in order to deal write laws and adjudicate them. It would also lead to more crime as some black market trafficking would begin to take place.

Some of these ideas are very good. I can imagine a temporary increase to crime after sweeping reforms, such as the introduction or slavery, the changing of species' living conditions for the worse, or a permanent crime modifier for planets adjacent to closed borders.

 

[morangias]

"Tall" makes sense in Civ5 mechanics; it's an intuitive descriptor for a viable strategy in that game. In Stellaris, it feels like forcing the ling for the sake of just keeping familiar terms around.

What you're talking about would be better described as "Dense," or "Compact."

We can discuss the best term for this playstyle all we want, but fact of the matter is, everyone calls it "tall" in Stellaris, even if it's less than a perfect fit.

 

[semisweet]

Authoritarian governments generally rely on enormous bureaucratic infrastructures and vast police states to keep everybody in line. Pushing a top-down version of power requires having enough people to keep an eye on pretty much every citizen pretty much all of the time. But it means that there are enough police, enough of the time to keep crime relatively low.

In my thought process I'm including all of these things under the job of the enforcers. It's possible, depending on how you balance the game, that an authoritarian government could actually end up being less efficient due to having to have so many enforcers. However, in the idea I had the bigger differentiation is between an efficiency penalty that causes instability (crime), vs an efficiency penalty that doesn't cause instability (administration). It seems to me that an authoritarian government would have much more inefficiency that is instability related and an more free society would have much more inefficiency that is not instability related.

 

[shadowclasper]

withholding judgement until I see how it plays out in full honestly.