Stellaris Dev Diary #159 - Galactic Community

[Spaceception]

Manpower? This isn't EU4, Earth starts with 8 billion people in 2200, the text in game says Citadels have a few thousand at best of people, so why would manpower be a problem for an interplanetary empire with some planets?

I've never played, or seen a playthrough of EU4. And it can be manpower, it can be crew. It can be naval capacity but reworked. It doesn't matter what it's called though. As it stands, the only thing preventing you from building massive fleets is the upkeep cost, which is tied to Naval cap. And going over it is almost inconsequential in the late game. You can just build more and more until you break even if you wanted.
But ships need to be driven by something or someone, so having a mechanic/penalty for that forces players to think more about balancing their output and crew capacity to field fleets could add to the strategy of the game beyond "just build more ships". And it's not that there wouldn't be enough people to do this, but if you go over, it shouldn't be a simple penalty that doesn't really matter. If you're running a deficit, you can deal with energy by selling on the market. Should it be that easy?

Scale isn't represented well in Stellaris anyway. Especially population and people. Going by your 2200 numbers, 1 pop is ~300 million people (assuming 2.2 pops), so an iron age civilization can have 2.7 billion people, never mind the fact that we didn't reach 1 billion until the early 1800s. So I don't think that it's the best argument against this. The point is that, how do we improve strategy in warfare? Logistics is one that's barely in the game, and crew is one way that begins to add that.

 

[Sir Roderick]

I've never played, or seen a playthrough of EU4. And it can be manpower, it can be crew. It can be naval capacity but reworked. It doesn't matter what it's called though. As it stands, the only thing preventing you from building massive fleets is the upkeep cost, which is tied to Naval cap. And going over it is almost inconsequential in the late game. You can just build more and more until you break even if you wanted.
But ships need to be driven by something or someone, so having a mechanic/penalty for that forces players to think more about balancing their output and crew capacity to field fleets could add to the strategy of the game beyond "just build more ships". And it's not that there wouldn't be enough people to do this, but if you go over, it shouldn't be a simple penalty that doesn't really matter. If you're running a deficit, you can deal with energy by selling on the market. Should it be that easy?

Scale isn't represented well in Stellaris anyway. Especially population and people. Going by your 2200 numbers, 1 pop is ~300 million people (assuming 2.2 pops), so an iron age civilization can have 2.7 billion people, never mind the fact that we didn't reach 1 billion until the early 1800s. So I don't think that it's the best argument against this. The point is that, how do we improve strategy in warfare? Logistics is one that's barely in the game, and crew is one way that begins to add that.

The pops could simply have a logaritmic scale, with more pops being more people. In any case Earth starts with at least 7-8 billions, and with that many people just in the beginning why would there be a manpower problem?
Crew is one ridicolous way to add logistics, especially since you can have gateways and with jump drives you have spacetime tunnels teleports and with antimatter/zeropoint/dark matter reactors you can just create energy ex nihilo.
Logistics simply matter less and less the more technologically advanced you are, so if there's going to be any mechanic it should be internally consistent and logical.

 

[Spaceception]

especially since you can have gateways

Not until the late-game. And it takes time to build a network. You also can't use them outside your territory unless they're with an ally, you have to cross normally. So back to square 1.

jump drives you have spacetime tunnels teleports

Also late-game. And aside from leader teleport (which is just there for the sake of gameplay), there's no teleportation. And jump drives have a cooldown, you can't constantly use them.

antimatter/zeropoint/dark matter reactors you can just create energy ex nihilo.

So what you are saying, is that energy shouldn't be a problem for fleets because they can create it? Nuclear aircraft carriers can supply their own power, yes, but there's still an external energy cost for everything else, including restocking the supplies for the reactor. The problem in Stellaris, is there is no "everything else". At least in a solid form.

Logistics simply matter less and less the more technologically advanced you are,

But what about hypothetical crew after battles? None of them die?
And what about everything else, like;
Ammunition?
Missiles?
Coolant for energy weapons and shields?
Inert gas for lasers and plasma?
Material for the hull and armor?
Fuel for engines and reactors?
Where is this coming from? You don't have an infinite supply, so how are you restocking after battles, how do you keep a fleet going after years of being out of your territory? Logistics don't matter? It can take you half a year or more to cross into other Empire space, and for your fleets to properly function for long durations, you need a stable route for supplies. Logistics do matter the more advanced you are, maybe it gets easier, but you still have plenty to worry about.

I'm not saying you have to make a bunch of separate resources, but there should be something better that represents supporting a fleet. Energy/alloys alone feels flat, and static. Especially since there's no transport route or anything. It's all automatic.

so if there's going to be any mechanic it should be internally consistent and logical.

Sure, so what do you suggest? I feel this is becoming a discussion of "why should x matter? It's sci-fi not reality". And there's a difference in technology between the early and late game. Do you have an idea for how this could evolve as your technology improves?

 

[Sir Roderick]

Not until the late-game. And it takes time to build a network. You also can't use them outside your territory unless they're with an ally, you have to cross normally. So back to square 1.


Also late-game. And aside from leader teleport (which is just there for the sake of gameplay), there's no teleportation. And jump drives have a cooldown, you can't constantly use them.


So what you are saying, is that energy shouldn't be a problem for fleets because they can create it? Nuclear aircraft carriers can supply their own power, yes, but there's still an external energy cost for everything else, including restocking the supplies for the reactor. The problem in Stellaris, is there is no "everything else". At least in a solid form.


But what about hypothetical crew after battles? None of them die?
And what about everything else, like;
Ammunition?
Missiles?
Coolant for energy weapons and shields?
Inert gas for lasers and plasma?
Material for the hull and armor?
Fuel for engines and reactors?
Where is this coming from? You don't have an infinite supply, so how are you restocking after battles, how do you keep a fleet going after years of being out of your territory? Logistics don't matter? It can take you half a year or more to cross into other Empire space, and for your fleets to properly function for long durations, you need a stable route for supplies. Logistics do matter the more advanced you are, maybe it gets easier, but you still have plenty to worry about.

I'm not saying you have to make a bunch of separate resources, but there should be something better that represents supporting a fleet. Energy/alloys alone feels flat, and static. Especially since there's no transport route or anything. It's all automatic.


Sure, so what do you suggest? I feel this is becoming a discussion of "why should x matter? It's sci-fi not reality". And there's a difference in technology between the early and late game. Do you have an idea for how this could evolve as your technology improves?

When I say they create energy ex nihilo, I mean they can convert energy into anything they need, including cloning additional crew with saved memories like in the Sixth Day movie with Schwarzenegger or like synth ascension.

Anyway the game has already simplified logistics and adding a system that is complicated at the beginning and becomes less as time passes on, would that be a good mechanic? This games has enough problem as it is without needing more complicated mechanics.

 

[Spaceception]

When I say they create energy ex nihilo, I mean they can convert energy into anything they need, including cloning additional crew with saved memories like in the Sixth Day movie with Schwarzenegger or like synth ascension.

If you're cloning, it could cost an additional food/energy upkeep as they grow, and the duration it takes to grow new crew could mean that in that time, you'd have reduced ship functions. If you're doing mind uploading/synthetics, it could be alloys or minerals/energy instead, and similar penalties. You don't have enough energy to do everything at once.

Anyway the game has already simplified logistics and adding a system that is complicated at the beginning and becomes less as time passes on, would that be a good mechanic?

Did I imply that? Sorry. It doesn't need to be complicated at the beginning and simpler by the end. Technology can reduce your problems, but it also creates new ones. Maybe it's a moderate level of difficulty throughout, but in different ways.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Literally since the dawn of human civilization, manpower has been one of the major caps on military size. We've been able to make do with smaller and smaller percentages of our population as technology has improved, but that's come at a cost, too: no longer can you raise effective armies of peasant farmers armed with hunting weapons (bows, slings) or pointy sticks, because a modern military requires much more training and some degree of intelligence. As technology advances, that's going to get worse and worse; maybe the "grunts" of an Assault Army can be the futuristic equivalent of high-school dropouts, but their dropship crews probably can't and their mech drivers can't either. Combat starships are going to be even worse. The navy and air force on earth already consume a lot of well-trained personnel, and space is going to demand much more of that.

Also, don't forget all the support personnel involved. A fighter jet might only have a flight crew of one or two (who, at least in the USA, will generally be tertiary-educated commissioned officers), but there are tens or hundreds of ground personnel to maintain, repair, re-arm, and so on for every such plane. Then there's the people who build and maintain the airfields and hangars, who build and refit and upgrade the planes, who deal with the needs of not just the flight crews but all the other support staff (housing, food, various amenities), who deal with the bureaucracy and accounting and logistics, who deal with recruitment and training, who deal with decommissioning old hardware (you really don't want to leave it lying around in operational, or even spy-inspectable, condition), and so on. That's just for the air force, too. Now consider the navy - probably the much closer equivalent to Stellaris - where capital ships have a crew of thousands (not counting flight crews!), and again that's not accounting for all the shipbuilders and breakers, logistics people, recruitment and training, and so on.

The USA's Department of Defense employed 1.3 million people on active duty and over 2.8 million total as of 2016. That's a bit less than 1% of the USA's population, and more than 1% of its working-age population. Advancing technology means fewer and fewer of them personally in the line of fire, but they're still needed to do the DoD's work, which takes manpower away from economically or socially valuable work like running businesses, manufacturing consumer goods, providing (non-military) government services, or being homemakers and caretakers. That's also not even accounting for all the government contractors who design, test, and build military equipment instead of civilian equipment; as in the real world, Stellaris represents those as civilians working in industry (foundry workers / metallurgists). Again, all of these are people taken out of economically or socially productive work, people who could be building houses and offices, or even just working in restaurants or daycares, for the betterment of society. We need them doing what they're doing (or at least some of them; there are some who question whether the DoD needs to be quite so big), but it's a drain on our productive population.

Finally, we're not even on a war footing! Those people are volunteers, and the US hasn't felt an actual pinch on military manpower since the Vietnam war. If a major war were to suddenly break out, though, the US military would suddenly need a lot more people. By the end of world war 2, the US armed forces employed 12.2 million people on active duty. That's almost 11.5% of the total population at the time (and a big chunk of that total would have been children, elderly, disabled, etc.). It caused a huge drain on the civilian economy and standard of living. Two thirds of them were draftees, as well, and nobody liked getting drafted. In countries today with compulsory military service, it's generally among the least popular government policies.

Also, to bring this back to Stellaris again, the entirety of that 12M people on active duty for the US at the end of WW2? That's represented in Stellaris as a single primitive army. Stellaris armies aren't the equivalent of a single regiment or whatever; they're maybe 1/10th of the force needed to conquer a typical entire planet. That is a lot of people, and I think the game really should represent this fact better.

 

[Methone]

As technology advances, that's going to get worse and worse

I mean, up until automation takes it over, but Stellaris takes place in 2200 where Nuclear Fission bombs are the latest and greatest thing. So neither our appeals to realism matter.

they're maybe 1/10th of the force needed to conquer a typical entire planet. That is a lot of people, and I think the game really should represent this fact better.

Should it? Remember, an entire planet in Stellaris is the equivalent of a city in most Earth-bound games. Factor in that five people with WW2 weapons will be a hell of a lot less deadly than five people with 2200 weapons, and it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

 

[methegrate]

When I say they create energy ex nihilo, I mean they can convert energy into anything they need, including cloning additional crew with saved memories like in the Sixth Day movie with Schwarzenegger or like synth ascension.

Anyway the game has already simplified logistics and adding a system that is complicated at the beginning and becomes less as time passes on, would that be a good mechanic? This games has enough problem as it is without needing more complicated mechanics.

My concern with expressing logistics as a resource is that I'm not sure it would add any depth, just complexity. For every given ship there will be an amount of fuel/manpower/ammunition that it requires to operate. You can't have less than zero of them because the game punishes you. But there's also no use for any more than zero of those resources. (What do you do with extra bullets? Extra manpower? Nothing. They're a buffer in case you miscalculate your income.) So it's just another optimization problem, where the amount of logistics resources you need is hard-set by the number of ships you have.

So I'm not sure I see what this adds in terms of decision making. It would certainly add many extra steps to the process. You'd need to build new building types, would need to account for missing pops (if the manpower system ate into population), etc. But it would still all be built around a problem with a single, mathematically optimal solution.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

My concern with expressing logistics as a resource is that I'm not sure it would add any depth, just complexity. For every given ship there will be an amount of fuel/manpower/ammunition that it requires to operate. You can't have less than zero of them because the game punishes you. But there's also no use for any more than zero of those resources. (What do you do with extra bullets? Extra manpower? Nothing. They're a buffer in case you miscalculate your income.) So it's just another optimization problem, where the amount of logistics resources you need is hard-set by the number of ships you have.

So I'm not sure I see what this adds in terms of decision making. It would certainly add many extra steps to the process. You'd need to build new building types, would need to account for missing pops (if the manpower system ate into population), etc. But it would still all be built around a problem with a single, mathematically optimal solution.

At some level, everything is an optimization problem with a mathematical solution. When you have 4x the combined fleet strength of every other empire combined, does a bigger navy do you any good? Not really. Does that mean that alloys are "just another" maintenance resource?

Most games - most challenges in general - are only interesting on the margin. On the gap between "I have more than enough" and "I don't have enough". It's technically possible to calculate that line with precision, given enough time and information, but part of the point of a strategy game is that you definitely don't have enough time and usually don't have enough info. You don't know when an enemy invasion force is going to appear and you'll suddenly need to go Martial Law + Fortress World (badly nerfing planetary productivity) and recruit every possible army (which would, in this scenario, demand tremendous Manpower), for example - so it's not just a matter of keeping a buffer but of deciding how big of one. How many reservists do you keep, ready to take up arms on short notice? How much of a military draft do you impose, reducing productivity (and probably also military happiness) but avoiding a major bottleneck in fleet construction? How much do you emphasize quantity (throw massive numbers of people at it) vs. quality (draw a smaller but more educated military workforce)? Or perhaps you emphasize automation, improving efficiency per person but requiring extensive research and introducing weaknesses in your military's flexibility and reliability (AI rebellion in a heavily-automated military? Not a good time for you).

Just because a mathematical optimal exists doesn't mean you can calculate it. There's a mathematically optimal set of plays for every possible board state in Go or Chess, but even our most powerful supercomputers can't compute them for any states but the ones where you're only a few moves from guaranteed winning (and that's in a perfect knowledge game!). You use heuristics, and there's consequences for making mistakes. That is what the system would need to model. A new resource, necessary for military expansion, that ideally doesn't come from jobs like (nearly) all the others. One that you can ignore if you're willing to be unable to rapidly expand your military, or invest in at the cost of reducing non-military productivity and possibly over-building for the amount of military you actually end up building. One that you need to focus on prior to your actual military build-up, lest you be bottlenecked on finding people for construction crews and sensor technicians and mech drivers. One that is drawn from every time you build a new army, ship, defense platform, starbase upgrade, military starbase module or building, or so on. Maybe it's even drawn from when you repair ships, representing the need to replace casualties (currently, repairs are free, which is frankly just weird). One that, unlike alloys, you cannot stockpile huge amounts of in advance (or maybe you can, but reservists are expensive both directly and by reducing civilian production), but you can invest in production (recruitment / training programs, drafts, etc.) to fill the pipeline when you need it.

Finally, going to war should have a much bigger impact on your economy than slightly increasing your fleet maintenance costs.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

My concern with expressing logistics as a resource is that I'm not sure it would add any depth, just complexity. For every given ship there will be an amount of fuel/manpower/ammunition that it requires to operate. You can't have less than zero of them because the game punishes you. But there's also no use for any more than zero of those resources. (What do you do with extra bullets? Extra manpower? Nothing. They're a buffer in case you miscalculate your income.) So it's just another optimization problem, where the amount of logistics resources you need is hard-set by the number of ships you have.

So I'm not sure I see what this adds in terms of decision making. It would certainly add many extra steps to the process. You'd need to build new building types, would need to account for missing pops (if the manpower system ate into population), etc. But it would still all be built around a problem with a single, mathematically optimal solution.

Also, manpower could absolutely be one of those "soft" resources where there's an incremental benefit to having more of it and an incremental penalty for less, raltive to some arbitrary baseline, rather than "you need this much and more doesn't help". For example, under-crewed ships could suffer the same kinds of penalties that well-trained ships already get in bonuses (DPS, evasion, etc.). Having extra manpower available could mean the ships you build start out better trained (you select your crews from the elite recruits), or could mean that you build your ships faster (heavy parallelism, around-the-clock shifts, etc.). Recruitment in times of peace could be just a slight drain on the economy, but in war it could be the source of War Exhaustion attrition, so if you have enough military already and don't need to recruit (for expansion or to replace losses) then you could remain in a state of war far longer than normal.

There are lots of ways this system could play into the game, without even being any weirder than, say, the way that excess power provides slight bonuses to your warships.

 

[Monturiol]

Finally, going to war should have a much bigger impact on your economy than slightly increasing your fleet maintenance costs.

Hell no, don't you remember the bad old days of ~1.5 where you literally couldn't fight a single war during midgame because just undocking your fleet tanked your economy?
Stellaris is a grand strategy game AND it's already too boring; warfare needs to be facilitated, not penalised.

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

Hell no, don't you remember the bad old days of ~1.5 where you literally couldn't fight a single war during midgame because just undocking your fleet tanked your economy?
Stellaris is a grand strategy game AND it's already too boring; warfare needs to be facilitated, not penalised.

War is already maximally facilitated, given that it's the only way to do anything.

Costs also don't have to be limited to just resource deficits. That's why manpower is so useful as a metric. If war has a personal cost, then you have the basis for peace countercultures, disgruntled fascist veterans, mutinies, and other shockwave ripples in your society. You also have the content basis for conscription policies, and a unique reason to employ mercenaries (beyond just energy vs alloys). All of that adds depth.

You could theoretically do this without manpower, but having a visible number provides a foundational sense of why certain things are happening. Same as any other number on the screen.

 

[LWE]

It's strange, people were complaining not so long ago that "there's no reason to go to war"... I think that the war/peace balance in this game is mostly OK.

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

It's strange, people were complaining not so long ago that "there's no reason to go to war"... I think that the war/peace balance in this game is mostly OK.

I disagree.

War is good if you want to expand your control and deny options to opponents because right now that's the only way to do it. We don't yet have good ways of expanding through just diplomatic clout or economic stranglehold.

Peace is good if you don't want to expand your control, and just play tall, because opponents have nothing they can do to fuck with you as long as you can defend your borders.

Taken together this makes for both shallow wide play and boring tall play.

 

[Monturiol]

It's strange, people were complaining not so long ago that "there's no reason to go to war"... I think that the war/peace balance in this game is mostly OK.

There still is no reason to go to war, though.

• Need special resources that can only be found across the border? No you don't, strat resources are easily (best!) generated by buildings.
• Need certain specific stars so you can Reform the Orthodox Faith Restore the Roman Empire lol no, Stellaris has no de jure territory of any kind
• Need more clay just so you can hand it out to appease truculent vassals? No you don't, there are no vassals!
• Need to capture a specific landed character so you can use his claims to get CBs for the next war? No you don't, CBs in Stellaris are arbitrary!
• Need to go to war for generic resources? No you don't, just turtle in your cluster and build a dyson sphere!

War serves no strategic purpose in Stellaris. It serves only the metastrategic purpose of "I am playing a videogame and to win the videogame I should map-paint"

 

[LWE]

I find both economy and war interesting and useful, and actually used current federations as a means of expanding my control diplomatically (see my Fox AAR). I think it's because I'm a mediocre player, those who already have the AI at Pathetic power by 2300 would find the game boring, indeed. Perhaps it's no coincidence that my most useful Federation was my first complete game I didn't play well.

 

[methegrate]

At some level, everything is an optimization problem with a mathematical solution. When you have 4x the combined fleet strength of every other empire combined, does a bigger navy do you any good? Not really. Does that mean that alloys are "just another" maintenance resource?

Most games - most challenges in general - are only interesting on the margin. On the gap between "I have more than enough" and "I don't have enough". It's technically possible to calculate that line with precision, given enough time and information, but part of the point of a strategy game is that you definitely don't have enough time and usually don't have enough info.

I disagree with this because I think we're starting from different assumptions. The fact that something can be optimized is entirely different from designing it as an optimization problem. Sure, these are computer games. They're all just spreadsheets with a UI. At some level you can calculate an answer. But just because something can be reduced to an absurdity doesn't mean that it is inherently absurd. The game is judged by how it is ordinarily played.

The reason we keep coming around to the optimization problem in Stellaris is because it is optimized by design. (Note: Not the same thing as saying optimized by intent.) There is no designed and effective alternative to "if someone spends 5,000 alloys on a fleet" other than "spend 5,100 alloys." In a good game, there is an alternative solution to one player's move. Take Starcraft for example. If one player builds 12 wraiths, the answer is not to build 14 wraiths. The answer is to build six goliaths. In chess there is no optimal move for any given situation, just one that has led to victory in the highest percent of games. That's not the same thing because your opponent has alternative ways to respond, and their response will completely change and define your next move.

This is what players and game designers mean by the difference between "complexity" and "depth." Complexity is the number of rules or steps surrounding an element of gameplay. Depth is the number of meaningful options that emerge from those rules.

A deep game is one in which a choice will present multiple viable alternatives, each of which can potentially affect the player's strategy and their opponent's. To take Starcraft again, at any given time I can choose to build a number of units; the unit I build may define my future builds and attack plan; and my opponent's strategy may have to change based on the forces I send against them.

A complex game can have a vast number of choices to make but if none meaningfully affect the a player's strategy, or if they don't actually present the player with a viable set of options, the game is not deep. This is why we keep coming back to the concept of maintenance resources. Maintenance resources are a clear-cut example of complexity without depth because they don't present the player with any actual options. If I go below zero, the game objectively punishes me. If I go above zero, I get no new options that will change the state of play. No matter how many CG's/Food/Minerals/Energy/Anything Else my opponent produces, the correct response is to for me to produce alloys and vice versa.

That's why I'm reluctant about logistics resources. I don't see them adding anything but complexity because they don't add any new options. You can't choose to produce fewer and don't have any use for more, so we're back to the same old optimization problem: the correct amount of logistics resources is exactly as many as you need based on alloy production. No matter how much ammo my opponent is producing, my correct solution is to produce alloys and level-set my economy accordingly. It just feels like extra steps, and Stellaris already suffers from a high complexity/low depth as it is.

That's just one person's opinion of course.

And to your example, a gameplay element can change based on context. For example, minerals are a deep resource in the early game that become merely complex fairly quickly. However here the answer is no. You've simply won the game.

 

[korawit13]

@grekulf, do you think the corruption system on Federations would be a great idea? I hope I do not post at the wrong place here. Let me explain. Since you like the federation to be divisive. What do I mean by corruption? It means what it is. On, Earth or Galaxy, corruption always exists. Technical suggestions: members increase "Favors" by bribery (Buy vote)
Bribery: give resources to a target, give a trade deal, or give technology to the target.
The federation can be disbanded if the members lose trust in each other.

 

[King of Zoot]

. . . because combined, they have more war potential.

Unless diplomacy is about more than just uniting militaries, it is an accessory to the war system. You're using diplomacy to get more ships to fight a war, and not as an alternative to war.

You can function in the game through pure military power, without diplomacy. Can you function without a military, and just diplomacy? Getting allies to fight a war doesn't count because you're still doing the same thing, you're just acquiring your ships through means other than alloy production.



Defensive pacts are about using diplomacy to enhance war. This is a straightforward case of exactly what I'm talking about.

Sanctions have the potential to be different, I'll grant. These can directly deny Resources and Build Options to the target. But based on the current state of the game, they're probably going to take the form of pitifully weak modifiers like "-10% to mineral production" or "+15% fleet upkeep".

If they were harsh enough to directly cause political collapse on par with losing a bunch of planets in war, then sanctions would be a powerful alternative to war.

But it looks like it has to come down to war, in the final analysis. Everything else is just about setting you up to win that war.



Fight them . . . in war.

I see nothing about using the UN to, say, bombard that Fanatical Purifier with subversive peace memes until their populace paralyzes their industry with a general strike. Or jointly fund a research project to hack that Determined Exterminator's Gibson and cause their drones to de-cohere.

Maybe that's outside the scope of the UN, but if we don't have a means of doing that somewhere in the game mechanics then it all comes down to prepping for war.



Here are the Civ 6 Emergencies:

Military Emergency

• Cause: A civilization that is leading in some victory type has just conquered another civilization's city.
• Resolution: The Members must capture cities from the Target. This can only be done through war.

City-State Emergency

• Cause: A civilization has captured and is occupying a city-state.
• Resolution: The Members must liberate the city-state. This can only be done through war.

Religious Emergency

• Cause: A civilization has converted the Holy City of another Religion through a Religious Spread action.
• Resolution: The Members must convert the Holy City away from its new Religion, for a number of turns, before the Emergency expires. This CANNOT be done through war.

Nuclear Emergency

• Cause: A civilization has used a nuclear weapon.
• Resolution: The Members must capture cities from the Target. This can only be done through war.

Betrayal Emergency

• Cause: A civilization has declared war on another civilization, with whom they had a high-level Alliance.
• Resolution: The Members must capture cities from the Target. This can only be done through war.

Every single emergency besides the religious one is both instigated and solved through war, and war alone. Civs that fight them get military bonuses. They also get diplomatic bonuses, but the only use for these is to make it easier to work together when fighting the inevitable war.

You are missing the natural disaster emergencies where other players compete to send money and produce aid shipments. Also there is the olympic games and nobel prizes that rely on great character points.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

You can't choose to produce fewer and don't have any use for more, so we're back to the same old optimization problem: the correct amount of logistics resources is exactly as many as you need based on alloy production. No matter how much ammo my opponent is producing, my correct solution is to produce alloys and level-set my economy accordingly.

You... did see the half-paragraph I devoted to just-off-the-top-of-my-head ways to make manpower strategically interesting, right? Getting more-experienced-out-the-door ships, getting ships/starbase upgrades/etc. faster, having a lot of stockpile (reservists) that build up over time but cost upkeep vs. pushing recruitment to the max when you need it (press-gangs/drafts/compulsory service) at a sudden steep cost to civilian economy (probably directly consumes pops) and possibly also to popular support/stability, focusing on quantity vs. quality vs. automation, etc. The idea is that you can't just pair recruitment to your alloy production for long, you can in fact run a "disproportionate" ratio while still building at full tilt (just, getting better or worse soldiers/ships/etc. as a consequence), and you have different ways to solve the problem.

Yes, if you're doing nothing but steadily building ships whenever you have the alloys with no consideration to things like upkeep, spoofing your combat strength (which the game tells everybody, but in imprecise terms that can be gamed), holding off on production while you get a significant tech upgrade, diverting alloys to starbases/colonies (especially if machines)/megastructures, or the obligate mention of roleplay, then sure, you'll want to keep your manpower recruitment at a pretty steady rate. However, that kind of thing being the optimal way to play is one of the things that manpower (or logistics in general) is explicitly designed to interfere with, so you have to make choices. If you did attempt that, it should just bite you on the ass when some large percentage of your would-be productive workforce is doing nothing but building and operating weapons. On the other hand, if you're actually playing strategically - that is, you're trying to deceive the enemy, or plan for the future, or avoid spooking your neighbors (did you know that certain AI personalities are friendlier if they perceive you as weak?), or do literally anything other than amass the biggest fleet you can in the least time - then you'll probably face the prospect of quickly hitting the manpower cap and needing to figure out whether you'll have enough when you step up military production, or focus on building up manpower and shipyards so you can really crank out fleets when you need them, etc.

Also, manpower should be more than purely military. Construction ships should take manpower. Megastructure construction should take a lot of it (in fact, the game already justifies the megastructure construction limit explicitly using the word manpower), and when the structure is done you should get some of that manpower back but some should be perpetually consumed by the megastructure. Starbases - especially upgraded ones - should take some even if they're just trade hubs. Finally, as with the megas, disassembling starbases or fleets (not the same as losing them in combat) should return some manpower, so you can make decisions like "I don't really need such a big merchant marine right now, let's shift them to manning warships".

In fact, I think you're being unfair to the game's current strategic depth; there are significant options already beyond just "spend 5100 alloys". If you've out-teched them, jump drive into under-defended space. If it's not too late in the game, turtle up instead of building an offensive fleet; starbase upgrades are slow but are far more effective, alloys-to-fleet-power, than early corvettes or destroyers. Scout them out to figure out what their fleet is weak to, and refit to counter it. Pay the marauders to raid them. Spend strategic resources on combat boosts (the cost for that really ought to scale with navy size or even fleet power, not just empire size, but oh well). Spend minor artifacts on military applications. Meet them in a pulsar system with an all-armor fleet. Lure them into your Rubricator system and spawn Shard while they tangle with the starbase (OK, they'd probably just retreat, but it'd be a funny way to kill or at least send home an enemy fleet if you get the timing right, and if you build up a ton of clues with a really low-level scientist then have a high-level one finish the last few days of the last chapter, you probably can).