Stellaris Dev Diary #211: 3.0.3 Beta Updates

[HFY]

These sliders will allow you to adjust the variables related to the bonus a planet can provide through logistic growth and the amount that pop growth increases per empire pop using sliders in Galaxy Configuration instead of needing to edit defines or use a mod to do so. Please note that these sliders can have major impacts on both performance and balance. Existing saves will use the default values. (Which can themselves be overridden in defines.)

Niiiiiiiiiiice!

Lowering the floor (to remove the guaranteed 3 growth) still must be done in code, right?


Would it be possible to expose in code -- not as a slider -- the formula used to calculate sprawl? I'd like to poke around with non-linear sprawl for empires, tempered by linear Bureaucrat efficacy.

 

[King Harkinian]

I'm really glad to see this is on the team's radar. One thing I'd like to add: it's not just that it is too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl, but the solution to sprawl is boring and without much of a tradeoff -- more bureaucrats. Some sort of system where you could grant more autonomy to planets or sectors to reduce their impact on sprawl would be cool, and could model large but highly federal empires. Though I suspect you all have lots of ideas already, and perhaps are saving them for an internal politics themed patch/expansion... Keep up the great work!

They had this in the past and it sucked. The truth remains that letting a subpar AI control your planets feels bad, and micromanagement is preferable. Being punished for expanding too much with pure number maluses that can't be mitigated also feels bad.

The correct way to balance overextension (whether peaceful or via conquest) is to model what happens to real-world overextended empires - they inevitably break apart due to internal destabilization. A "wide" empire should have to struggle with secessions and rebellions, such as conquered territory dominated by conquered pops attempting to rejoin their motherlands. This would serve as a dynamic and natural balancing factor, without arbitrary restrictions or number penalties.

 

[Vilcoyote]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

I m sure you already consider spending unity to produceadmin cap, what were the results?

 

[rubert]

I guess we are not getting beta patch update today? I was hoping to start a rogue servitor game.

 

[grommile]

A "wide" empire should have to struggle with secessions and rebellions, such as conquered territory dominated by conquered pops attempting to rejoin their motherlands.

Please show me the mainline Paradox Design Studios title where you are the genius loci of a state (i.e. not Crusader Kings) where this has been done well.

Because in all the ones I've played, this is only a brake on expansion because it isn't fun to deal with.

 

[IshOfTheWoods]

They had this in the past and it sucked. The truth remains that letting a subpar AI control your planets feels bad, and micromanagement is preferable. Being punished for expanding too much with pure number maluses that can't be mitigated also feels bad.

Oh yeah, I've been playing on and off since release and wouldn't want to see a return to that. By autonomy, I didn't mean AI controls building and developing. By granting autonomy, I was more picturing what you're talking about with overextension. Perhaps sectors that have been granted autonomy would have greater ethics drift, political movements for more autonomy or outright independence, etc. Perhaps at high levels of autonomy, they even have their armies and fleets... So I think we agree about wanting to see overextension and collapse. Granting a discount to sprawl for higher autonomy would give the player an incentive to start the de-centralizing process, and I think it could be a fun balancing act to try to grant just enough autonomy to keep your sprawl in check without letting your empire break apart.

 

[Azhcristokos]

I honestly wasn't expecting those sliders for a long time, so the fact that they're in a beta hotfix is very cheering.

 

[Miguelinileugim]

I feel like the new pop mechanics are really confusing as you need to do A LOT of mental math to be able to optimize things. This is made even worse by how unintuitive and gamey the whole system is (how come a 2 pop planet grows at like half the rate of a 30 pop planet with room to grow?). I suggest to either roll back to a simpler method or add some UI hijinks to make it patently clear how and why is population growing at a certain pace. Like a bar or X/X number or something to show carrying capacity as opposed to a tiny number in hover text. And maybe some sort of non-gamey justification as for why does empire-wide population size have anything to do with the population growth of the empire.

As an experienced player I don't mind too much but for a newbie to see nearly empty colonies growing nearly as fast as the capital? Or population growth slowing down because you got too many pops elsewhere? Or randomly having pops "disappear" and appear between planets when you're trying to micro without any notification? Or having no visual or clear indication as to why is pop slowing down on planets because of a mysterious "carrying capacity" thing? Damn either simplify this or add enough fancy UI elements, possibly even an entire tab just for pop growth and related mechanics (which may make sense as it is incredibly important anyways).

I can see this being very complicated but pop mechanics on Stellaris are the most insane they've ever been and short of proposing modest UI improvements or suggesting some kind of rollback I'm not really sure what would even help. Great job so far and good luck trying to improve this.

 

[blahmaster6k]

What a terrible idea. All that would do is encourage colony spam and wide play.

I see no problem with encouraging players to play the game well.

 

[frolix42]

• [Balance] Reduced the number of Clerk jobs provided by buildings and districts by 40%.
• [Balance] Clerk trade value has been increased to 4.

Does this make clerks worthwhile?

Because it seems to me that the reduction in # of jobs mitigates some of the buff. This is undeniably a buff though, Clerk buildings are more efficient.

 

[Miguelinileugim]

As an unrelated suggestion I'd like to propose a non-gamey solution for the exponential pop growth problem: Selectively simplified planet management. Early on in the game micromanagement can provide an invaluable edge, however later on it becomes far less important, however being the sector AI as incompetent as it is now it's usually a terrible idea to let it handle things. But there is a third option. Create a technology that allows the player to, permanently, simplify any planet's management as much as possible.

Simplified planets:
- Only produce one resource (e.g consumer goods)
- Have no buildings or districts, instead there would be an investment bar which will be filled each month at the player's discretion (whether manually or from a pool like the one the sector AI uses), increasing the amount of resource producing jobs in the planet and its efficiency
- Stability, happiness and crime will depend on policies, with maybe some sort of indirect way to influence simplified planets (e.g a lever to pamper the population more or less at an increased food and consumer good cost, or to increase law enforcement with a slight decrease in productivity and happiness)
- Ethics will be calculated planet wide instead of on a per-pop basis

Whatever is computing intensive or complex for a busy player or simple AI to handle would be simplified or removed for these individual planets. Players could assign this AI to every planet after they get out of the early game, except for maybe a few critical ones they want to optimize. Resource costs of already constructed buildings would be automatically added to the investment bar. AI players will use this on every planet very early on, possibly from the very start of the game, players probably won't mind the AI playing by slightly different rules if the alternative is for them to be absurdly incompetent.

The idea is to curtail micromanagement, make sector AI and regular AI far simpler to program and to make it so that if pop growth reaches 10k pops in the late game or more to make that really easy for the game to handle. I appreciate feedback from players and devs alike.

 

[OgMummbles]

If you reduced the number of clerk jobs did you increase the amount of unity they produce for machine empires via Machine Integration?

It's sad that your ignoring every playstyle and forcing a play your way theme.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

Does this make clerks worthwhile?

Because it seems to me that the reduction in # of jobs mitigates some of the buff. This is undeniably a buff though, Clerk buildings are more efficient.

No. If I understand the numbers right, this puts Clerks on par with 2.8 in terms of their relative output to Technicians, it just means that Trade Districts might be okay because you get less annoying Clerks alongside your useful Merchants.
Please for the love of all that is good let modifiers improve trade value from Clerks. It is ridiculous how they don't scale. Or, make them reduce pop upkeep. Just give them something beyond being weaker Technicians.

If you reduced the number of clerk jobs did you increase the amount of unity they produce for machine empires via Machine Integration?

It's sad that your ignoring every playstyle and forcing a play your way theme.

From what they've said, they're reducing the number of Clerks from things like Commercial Zones and Trade Districts, not Clerks from City Districts, and not Maintenance Drones from Nexus Districts.
Can't say I don't wish for them to reduce the number of Maintenance Drones too, though...

As for reducing number of jobs, good...but please consider tying jobs into carrying capacity. Growth is just too good right now. Also please increase empire sprawl per colony to something actually meaningful. The current meta is to spam as many 25 job colonies as possible, and that's just not fun.

 

[OgMummbles]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

Why was it made so easy? Why was empire cohesion removed?

It was made easy long ago and was ignored.


Sector AI was made long ago and ignored.


Planetary building AI was made long ago and is ignored.


Factions were added long ago and are basically nothing now.


All these features keep getting put into game as a quick fix, and then promptly get ignored.




All Paradox needed to do was fix the AI, but with everything Paradox add or change they break the AI even more. Late game issues aren't from population, their from a horrible AI that cant manage them.

 

[Critical Ethics]

It's already far too easy to deal with Empire Sprawl.

Most exciting post in the thread

 

[grommile]

Late game issues aren't from population

late game performance issues are in fact from population

 

[OgMummbles]

late game performance issues are in fact from population

They are not in fact from population, and are in fact from the AI miss handling them and making too many calculations about what their best job is. The AI is the problem causing late game performance issues. Not population.


Pop jobs should be player controlled, and ignore whether a pop is better suited to it.

If you are better at mining but doing a cushy desk job, does the government throw you into a quarry?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Why was it made so easy? Why was empire cohesion removed?

It was made easy long ago and was ignored.


Sector AI was made long ago and ignored.


Planetary building AI was made long ago and is ignored.


Factions were added long ago and are basically nothing now.


All these features keep getting put into game as a quick fix, and then promptly get ignored.




All you needed to do was fix the AI, but with everything Paradox add or change they break the AI even more. Late game issues aren't from population, their from a horrible AI that cant manage them.

All of these are far before my time on the project, roughly a year ago I was just another fan.

 

[InvisibleBison]

Why was empire cohesion removed?

Because it was a bad idea.

 

[OgMummbles]

Because it was a bad idea.

It did its job, quite well, punished players for making huge land grabs.