Stellaris Dev Diary #238 - Ascensions, Betas, and More

[smile444]

do you intend to rebalance empire sprawl? I did the math (and discovered mntu plays did too and better than me) and the penalty is too small to affect tech production much in an empire at least not before very late game. I noticed that the way it works is that every new scientist gives diminishing returns in how much they augment your total tech production, but you need an insane amount of pops for the tech production to plateau, making wide tech rushing still more powerful tech-wise than tall tech rushing. Same for unity....I do ask why you made unity take twice the sprawl penalties. Tech is already more powerful than unity it encourage people to rush tech and ignore unity

 

[Culann]

I like where this is going!

 

[Redeemed Sinner]

Ok, I have some issue with people saying being able to get a bunch of scientists quickly is horrible. As @Jouh pointed out, there is a cost to gaining scientists early, if there isn't with a specific origin or civic then that's the origin and civics fault, not the mechanic itself. Also, people seem to be forgetting that if you're a tech-focused empire that values high leader cap and leader level gain you can run into the issue of scientist upkeep with that method. It's happened to me several times before.

What's so horrible about a tiny learning curve that experienced players can exploit? That's going to happen with any mechanic in a game. And what is the issue with being able to cheese the AI in this specific way? There are hundreds of ways to cheese the AI in Stellaris. I mean when you want to play the AI at a higher difficulty they get better yields and other bonuses from everything anyway? It's always been more an issue from AI logic not allowing them to do the same thing as humans than bad game mechanics.

Are all the people who want these changes super interested in multiplayer? Or do they just want more of a challenge? Cause 1.I'm betting most people who play Stellaris don't even touch multiplayer and 2.A greater challenge would be much easier to gain by upping the AI to near-human levels, which will never happen. Unless you want to literally make the game harder on purpose to conflate the challenge and make it seem harder cause it's newer and you don't know how to work around it yet, in which case that would make it seem harder...at least until you got used to the mechanic...but then you're just putting roadblocks in the way for people who casually enjoy the game and get fewer people wanting to continue playing overall.

I can tell at least some of these changes are needed to balance the game (empire sprawl did need to have actual consequences and unity was lacking in use), but I feel that changes to what you need to buy scientists with (Which feels forced to make unity important and completely unimmersive to roleplaying, which a lot of people do) and how they employed changes to empire sprawl fell flat for me cause they don't really end up fixing the issues all these people are complaining about. That and they're only listening to the people who do have complaints about the game, not everyone else who was satisfied with how things already were. When all you do is listen to the feedback of those who do have complaints, your never going to see who does like your current system. Finding a compromise would be way better than just straight-up altering everything, leaving everyone who didn't complain left to re-work how the game works from the ground up.

Cause this is going to fundamentally change the way you play Stellaris, none of the patches I've experienced prior to this one have so fundamentally shifted the way I have to play. None of the DLC either. And I've been playing since around patches 2.2-2.3. I mean the game has changed pretty significantly up to now, but this change feels...subtractive...somehow. I'm not sure how to describe it.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

Ok, I have some issue with people saying being able to get a bunch of scientists quickly is horrible. As @Jouh pointed out, there is a cost to gaining scientists early, if there isn't with a specific origin or civic then that's the origin and civics fault, not the mechanic itself. Also, people seem to be forgetting that if you're a tech-focused empire that values high leader cap and leader level gain you can run into the issue of scientist upkeep with that method. It's happened to me several times before.

What's so horrible about a tiny learning curve that experienced players can exploit? That's going to happen with any mechanic in a game. And what is the issue with being able to cheese the AI in this specific way? There are hundreds of ways to cheese the AI in Stellaris. I mean when you want to play the AI at a higher difficulty they get better yields and other bonuses from everything anyway? It's always been more an issue from AI logic not allowing them to do the same thing as humans than bad game mechanics.

Are all the people who want these changes super interested in multiplayer? Or do they just want more of a challenge? Cause 1.I'm betting most people who play Stellaris don't even touch multiplayer and 2.A greater challenge would be much easier to gain by upping the AI to near-human levels, which will never happen. Unless you want to literally make the game harder on purpose to conflate the challenge and make it seem harder cause it's newer and you don't know how to work around it yet, in which case that would make it seem harder...at least until you got used to the mechanic...but then you're just putting roadblocks in the way for people who casually enjoy the game and get fewer people wanting to continue playing overall.

I can tell at least some of these changes are needed to balance the game (empire sprawl did need to have actual consequences and unity was lacking in use), but I feel that changes to what you need to buy scientists with (Which feels forced to make unity important and completely unimmersive to roleplaying, which a lot of people do) and how they employed changes to empire sprawl fell flat for me cause they don't really end up fixing the issues all these people are complaining about. That and they're only listening to the people who do have complaints about the game, not everyone else who was satisfied with how things already were. When all you do is listen to the feedback of those who do have complaints, your never going to see who does like your current system. Finding a compromise would be way better than just straight-up altering everything, leaving everyone who didn't complain left to re-work how the game works from the ground up.

Cause this is going to fundamentally change the way you play Stellaris, none of the patches I've experienced prior to this one have so fundamentally shifted the way I have to play. None of the DLC either. And I've been playing since around patches 2.2-2.3. I mean the game has changed pretty significantly up to now, but this change feels...subtractive...somehow. I'm not sure how to describe it.

Couldn't agree more, the leader changes are just frankly unacceptable, and actively punitive for no actual reason. There is zero reason for this change. Zero. It does not affect Tech Rushing, it does not affect Unity generation, it does not affect resource generation, it does not affect fleet capacity....

It does literally nothing, besides limit you, because you're "playing the game wrong" or w/e Elitist nonsense someone wants to say. It's change just for the sake of it, without any real reasoning or justification for it.

 

[Redeemed Sinner]

OK, so here's another idea on how we could modify the current system:

Keep the current method of base 60 Admin Cap to start with and be unable to change that. But add methods by which can reduce the overall impact of systems, planets, and districts on Admin Cap. Systems, planets, and districts all add 1 Empire Sprawl. For Pops, make it so they only produce 0.1 Empire Sprawl (I'll get why later). Each point of Empire Sprawl over Admin Cap increases Technology and Tradition costs by +1%.

Systems:
Have their impact on Admin Cap reduced for each planet in the system that has a fully upgraded Capital building. So each planet meeting said requirement reduces the 1 Empire Sprawl that system adds to the total by 10% (so three worlds with fully upgraded Capital buildings in a system would reduce the systems impact to +0.7 rather than +1).

Planets:
Can have their impact reduced by building a certain building that reduces that planet's effect on Empire Sprawl by 2% with a job that's added for every 5 Pops on the planet. This building can only be built once, but the job it provides has a Unity upkeep of 5. So every instance of that job can cost you in unity. As an example for how that would work: you have 100 Pops, so 20 instances of this job, which a 40% reduction to this planets +1 addition to Empire Sprawl (meaning +0.6 rather than +1), but with a combined upkeep of 100 unity.

Districts:
Like a prior post, Districts would have their overall Empire Sprawl on a planet reduced by 3% per Governor level. As an example: you've built 10 Districts with each adding +10 to the Admin cap, your Governor is a level 6 so you gain an 18% reduction to your District's impact on Empire Sprawl on this planet (+8.2 instead of +10). This does mean with the leader soft level cap of 10, you can only gain a 30% reduction at maximum. Whether this would affect each planet individually or affect the combined total of districts in the sector the Governor governs, I don't know.

Pops
So instead of making Scientists cost unity, why not add a 0.1 Unity upkeep cost for each Pop you own? Managing populations within an empire does include making sure your citizens are united after all, so each Pop you gain should impact how unified your empire is. Alongside this, having a positive monthly income of Unity would increase Governing Ethics attraction by 1% on all your planets for every 5 Unity you're gaining a month (-10 deviancy for every 5 Unity in Gesault Empires). While having negative Unity per turn reduces Governing Ethics Attraction by 5% and adds +1% Crime to your empire's planets for every 5 Unity you lose per month (+5% Deviation per 5 Unity in Gesault Empires).

Other Miscellaneous Changes
Make Edicts cost influence, but have unity upkeep. Make terraforming cost influence on top of energy. These changes would make it harder for wide empires to take advantage of the methods you can use to reduce Empire Sprawl production. Unless they stop expanding they are just going to have to deal with massive amounts of Empire Sprawl.

I know this system isn't exactly a realistic change to Stellaris and is just as much an overhaul as the current one, but I think these changes are somewhat more in line with the themes of Stellaris, even if they aren't the best as game mechanics. Thoughts and ideas anyone? Should upkeeps be increased or reduced? Is Empire Sprawl reduction or gain too high or low?

 

[TheRevanchist25]

A quote from Wiz, the previous game director.

"This is called 'rubber-band mechanics' and is generally a very, very bad idea. Players are not dumb and will understand perfectly well that they are simply being arbitrarily punished for being successful, removing all causation between their actions and the game's consequences. It's probably among the worst possible ways to handle internal unrest and late-game challenge, as far as I'm concerned."

I find this highly amusing, given how divisive these Sprawl changes are, and how their very much arbitrary rubber band mechanics.

 

[Redeemed Sinner]

A quote from Wiz, the previous game director.

"This is called 'rubber-band mechanics' and is generally a very, very bad idea. Players are not dumb and will understand perfectly well that they are simply being arbitrarily punished for being successful, removing all causation between their actions and the game's consequences. It's probably among the worst possible ways to handle internal unrest and late-game challenge, as far as I'm concerned."

I find this highly amusing, given how divisive these Sprawl changes are, and how their very much arbitrary rubber band mechanics.

Not really? Empire Sprawl, from a thematic and game play perspective, makes sense. It's how they implement it that's the issue.

Empire Sprawl is supposed to thematically represent how distance, size, and numbers affect your ability to spread knowledge and implement traditions. The challenges of massive empires like the Roman, early American, British, and Mongul empires encountered.

From a game play perspective, it's to help balance the Wide and Tall playstyles so one's not inherently overpowered in comparison to the other. Large empires, prior to the current patch were extremely overpowered cause Empire Sprawl didn't do the job it was supposed to, it was too easy to get Admin Cap. So not only could Wide empires have no penalties, it would gain Traditions, Techs, and resources in massive amounts very early in comparison to a Tall playstyle.

And since early moves in Stellaris snowball in effect in the mid and late game? Tall players were given the shaft. This is only a major issue in multi-player or when playing hard-core difficulty modes, however. Which probably why so many people were upset and confused with the new changes. It never affected the casual players.

The current changes are good...from solely a game play perspective. Thematically, however, it makes no sense that an empire has no means of mitigating the effects of Empire Sprawl, like all empires throughout history have had some means of doing so.

Whether through roads, com boyus, the internet, and administration offices, humanity has developed many means of nullifying or reducing the negative effects of large empires. It boggles the mind that an interstellar empire wouldn't also have some means of doing so.

That's why I advocate more changes to the system that are more of a compromise between the current and old systems. If you have to take away from role-playing to balance a game all about role-playing, then there is an issue with how you're balancing things.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

This is honestly the problem with what most people call "tall." Often, what they actually mean is "small." If you have fewer pops, fewer planets, and are generally smaller in every way than another empire, you shouldn't be competitive with them. Rubber banding mechanics are good, but equalizing every empire regardless of size and success is not. Tall needs to be a different kind of big, not be a strategy where you doing nothing can remain competitive to someone actively expanding and conquering. You need to be expanding in a different way; otherwise, it becomes a game where a player who sits there twiddling their thumbs and one who actively plays the game are competitive with each other.

This man sum'd it up quite nicely. Tall is currently a myth that does not actually exist. There is no way to balance these things with the way the game works. Pops, Planet districts etc, they all have caps and you eventually run out of space. Habitats do not compete with planets, and they shouldn't. Trying to achieve something so fundamentally impossible is just going to drive off people who love to expand from playing the game anymore, because the only way to make "Tall" competitive is to force Wide, to be Small.

Not really? Empire Sprawl, from a thematic and game play perspective, makes sense. It's how they implement it that's the issue.

Empire Sprawl is supposed to thematically represent how distance, size, and numbers affect your ability to spread knowledge and implement traditions. The challenges of massive empires like the Roman, early American, British, and Mongul empires encountered.

From a game play perspective, it's to help balance the Wide and Tall playstyles so one's not inherently overpowered in comparison to the other. Large empires, prior to the current patch were extremely overpowered cause Empire Sprawl didn't do the job it was supposed to, it was too easy to get Admin Cap. So not only could Wide empires have no penalties, it would gain Traditions, Techs, and resources in massive amounts very early in comparison to a Tall playstyle.

And since early moves in Stellaris snowball in effect in the mid and late game? Tall players were given the shaft. This is only a major issue in multi-player or when playing hard-core difficulty modes, however. Which probably why so many people were upset and confused with the new changes. It never affected the casual players.

The current changes are good...from solely a game play perspective. Thematically, however, it makes no sense that an empire has no means of mitigating the effects of Empire Sprawl, like all empires throughout history have had some means of doing so.

Whether through roads, com boyus, the internet, and administration offices, humanity has developed many means of nullifying or reducing the negative effects of large empires. It boggles the mind that an interstellar empire wouldn't also have some means of doing so.

That's why I advocate more changes to the system that are more of a compromise between the current and old systems. If you have to take away from role-playing to balance a game all about role-playing, then there is an issue with how you're balancing things.

 

[Ixal]

For tall play there must be a actual tradeoff between building more colonies/conquering more system and improving the systems you have, for example by them requiring the same resource or building/conquering new colonies giving a noticeable, temporary debuff to existing ones.

But as this does not happen the ideal strategy is "wide and tall" by getting as much as you can as fast as you can.

 

[Arthrodira]

Well “zombies” have to have SOME upkeep if you want them to actually move (and you know work). I don’t care how dead they are, if there is a muscle moving it must be expending energy. That energy would be food. Want to say that they are reanimated through robotics? Fine, then the energy comes from power. But there must be an energy input to have a work output - this is one of the absolute most basic principles of physics.

 

[Libertine Angel]

Well “zombies” have to have SOME upkeep if you want them to actually move (and you know work). I don’t care how dead they are, if there is a muscle moving it must be expending energy. That energy would be food. Want to say that they are reanimated through robotics? Fine, then the energy comes from power. But there must be an energy input to have a work output - this is one of the absolute most basic principles of physics.

One of the most basic principles of physics is also that nothing travels faster than light and yet here we are with Jump Drives, so I'm not sure that should be a constraint on ideas in this game.

 

[Arthrodira]

One of the most basic principles of physics is also that nothing travels faster than light and yet here we are with Jump Drives, so I'm not sure that should be a constraint on ideas in this game.

I mean that’s the pre-requisite for having a game though. Kind of apples to oranges don’t you think? Besides, technically aren’t you’re following “hyperspace lanes” - I don’t recall any text in the game anywhere suggesting that ships could actually go faster than light without bending space (that’s why every science fiction media calls them sublight engines).

anyway I don’t see what the problem is with giving these reanimated corpses a small upkeep. Doesn’t have to be much, just something. The bonus pop growth alone makes the thing worth it

(I would also argue that special relativity is a heck of a lot more complex and modern concept than the simple observation that things do not spontaneously move without a stimulus - I mean didn’t the ancient Greeks figure this one out?)

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I mean that’s the pre-requisite for having a game though. Kind of apples to oranges don’t you think? Besides, technically aren’t you’re following “hyperspace lanes” - I don’t recall any text in the game anywhere suggesting that ships could actually go faster than light without bending space (that’s why every science fiction media calls them sublight engines).

anyway I don’t see what the problem is with giving these reanimated corpses a small upkeep. Doesn’t have to be much, just something. The bonus pop growth alone makes the thing worth it

(I would also argue that special relativity is a heck of a lot more complex and modern concept than the simple observation that things do not spontaneously move without a stimulus - I mean didn’t the ancient Greeks figure this one out?)

We've got a machine that can blow up an entire galaxy by triggering every star to go Supernova simultaneously, ...logic of any kind went out the window a long time ago.

 

[grommile]

I mean that’s the pre-requisite for having a game though. Kind of apples to oranges don’t you think?

Jump drives say "screw your fancy hyperlanes, imma go where i want".