Stellaris Dev Diary #331 - Custodian Fixes in Eridanus

[Troyen]

I think Ascension Theory SHOULD be an endgame tech for most players. Your suggestion of adding some draw multipliers for Unity-focused builds is good, but it should still be a rare tech you get pretty late. Ignoring technology completely should punish you, it's important to have interconnected dependencies between different game systems. And a Unity-focused build currently gets through all the Tradition Trees way too fast, so Ascension Theory serves like an important brake so you can't unlock the full Unity endgame in the early game.

The big problem on the beta that I encountered is Ascension Theory blocks the last five tiers of planetary ascension, which is supposed to be the end-game unity dump. I played tech-rush builds in both betas, using only some monuments + culture workers for unity jobs, run a number of edicts above my cap (like research subsidies and nutritional plenitude), and I still ended up with a pool of millions of unity with little to spend it on for decades after finishing my tradition trees. I had so much unity to spend I was even ascending my big mining worlds. It's too strong of a unity gate.

If it didn't gate planetary ascension and just gated unity ambitions, then it would be less of an issue because you could at least continue meaningful unity progression. But since the tech does serve as an ascension gate, being able to acquire it in a reasonable timeframe is a valid concern. On live you can blow through society filler techs in a year to force rerolls and empty out the pool. With the tech curve, it takes considerably longer to research a filler tech (and Society's tree has a lot of filler techs that you're going to draw in the late game), so being able to actually draw the tech is important.

 

[DaBombXXX]

The rate of tech progression had gone completely out of control, so it was time to rein it in. We've had an entire month of tech betas to test changes, first a test that was seriously overtuned to test concepts and a second milder version based on those experiences.

They went with the milder version, and the game is much the better for it. As a very rough estimate, the rate of tech progression has been set back to roughly where it was two years ago. I expect most players will appreciate the changes once they adapt to them.

As for the increased tech costs, they apply a lot more to the higher tiers than the lower tiers of tech. The changes don't significantly slow down reaching the mid-game, but the end-game. The increased costs also scale with difficulty level, so those playing on the lower difficulties are affected much less than those playing on higher difficulties.

Those who already played optimized tech builds will probably continue doing so, but rather than reach tier 5 around 2250 as was possible since 3.7, they'll now likely do so a decade or two later.

I haven't really played the game since Overlord, so if tech went out of control since then and now , I guess I was just simply not aware of it! Good to hear that levels are similar to about the time when I played the game. I've been looking forward to getting back into things, just waiting for them to finally add a dlc to make midgame not as boring.

 

[Takfloyd]

Getting a tech at T4 while "ignoring technology" is hardly getting it in the early game, I should think.

Also, your idea that a unity-focused build goes through the tradition trees way too fast is unsupported by the design. Since 3.3 planetary ascension as the primary unity consumer supported by unity ambitions has been designed as the unity-endgame with traditions being the unity early- and mid-game for builds that focus on unity, and the problem with Ascension Theory since 3.3 is exactly that the tie to end-game tech is too strong, enforcing strong unity play to be subservient to strong tech play to gain full benefits of the unity end-game.

This has been an annoyance since 3.3 but not a big problem since tech progression was incredibly rapid and increasing with speed almost every release, so most players who played strong unity builds combined that with playing strong tech builds, by taking advantage of planetary ascension being able to be used to increase the strength of the tech component of a build when used wisely, but the tech betas slowing down reaching Ascension Theory by decades turned it into a problem that needed addressing.

May I refer you to the developer diary #329, which I referred to and which introduced this change to Ascension theory, specifically saying that:

One new change we’ll be making based on some of the data we’ve collected is that we’re moving Ascension Theory to Tier 4 from Tier 5, but it will only be available to empires that have completed at least six tradition trees. As Unity and Research are intended to be “opposing” resources to a degree, we did not want the capstone of Ascension based gameplay to be so strongly tied to the later game tech tree.

So my comment is given in the context of the developer team intending for it to be available at T4, though certainly not guaranteed, under certain circumstances, to whit, having completed 6 tradition trees.

What I point out is that as far as I can extrapolate by and large the tech will still only be available at T5, though acquired earlier at T5 on average for those who have completed six traditions than it would currently, and the only cases where anybody is likely to get it significantly faster than currently is for those getting it at T4 by using the abnormal gameplay of deliberately trying not to advance to T5 by selectively recruiting too few T4 techs to advance while cleaning out lower level techs rather than increasing the pool of techs it is competing with by all T5 and repeatable techs, which is the sort of counterintuitive gameplay that should not be incentivized.

Planetary Ascension and Unity Ambitions coming into play less than halfway through the game is the exact same problem that the devs literally just spent these betas trying to rid the tech side of the game of - namely, that all the interesting stuff is over too soon and then a large stretch of the game is spent doing menial, boring shit and watching numbers go up (repeatable techs, planetary ascension).

The Tradition and Ascension Perk system was designed to last for most of the game, just like the tech tree. A large chunk of the Ascension Perks are blatantly meant to be endgame content, like megastructures and colossi. It doesn't matter that the current version of the game doesn't work out that way, because the reason is that the current version of the game still isn't balanced properly.

The problem is not that Ascension Theory comes too late, it is that Traditions finish far too quickly, and people have gotten too used to a broken game and forget that it's supposed to last until 2500, not 2400.

 

[Takfloyd]

The big problem on the beta that I encountered is Ascension Theory blocks the last five tiers of planetary ascension, which is supposed to be the end-game unity dump. I played tech-rush builds in both betas, using only some monuments + culture workers for unity jobs, run a number of edicts above my cap (like research subsidies and nutritional plenitude), and I still ended up with a pool of millions of unity with little to spend it on for decades after finishing my tradition trees. I had so much unity to spend I was even ascending my big mining worlds. It's too strong of a unity gate.

If it didn't gate planetary ascension and just gated unity ambitions, then it would be less of an issue because you could at least continue meaningful unity progression. But since the tech does serve as an ascension gate, being able to acquire it in a reasonable timeframe is a valid concern. On live you can blow through society filler techs in a year to force rerolls and empty out the pool. With the tech curve, it takes considerably longer to research a filler tech (and Society's tree has a lot of filler techs that you're going to draw in the late game), so being able to actually draw the tech is important.

Again, it's quite obvious the problem is that traditions are unlocked too fast, not that Ascension Theory comes too late. Tech and Traditions used to be well balanced against eachother before, but progression of both were way too fast. Now tech has been slowed down but Traditions are still as fast as they used to. Tradition costs need an increase to match the new tech speed.

 

[mrt1212]

Planetary Ascension and Unity Ambitions coming into play less than halfway through the game is the exact same problem that the devs literally just spent these betas trying to rid the tech side of the game of - namely, that all the interesting stuff is over too soon and then a large stretch of the game is spent doing menial, boring shit and watching numbers go up (repeatable techs, planetary ascension).

The Tradition and Ascension Perk system was designed to last for most of the game, just like the tech tree. A large chunk of the Ascension Perks are blatantly meant to be endgame content, like megastructures and colossi. It doesn't matter that the current version of the game doesn't work out that way, because the reason is that the current version of the game still isn't balanced properly.

The problem is not that Ascension Theory comes too late, it is that Traditions finish far too quickly, and people have gotten too used to a broken game and forget that it's supposed to last until 2500, not 2400.

I love this take because its pretty true - without even trying via Trade and Xenophilia and Front Offices on Capitol worlds for Unity, but just liking Tradtions and APs for what they do...

Theyre done around mid late game and im waiting for Ascension Theory if its pretty banging in the playthrough.

However, the foundational question of "When should the Character of your Empire be Estsblished" looms. Pre Crisis is correct. The Character of your Empire is pretty much as it is to solve the final test of the game after building towards that and anything else that subverts Crisis or otherwise does enough to top scoreboard by 2500.

Pirate Haven Void Dweller Lithoid 2300/2400/2500 mid end Victory, Grand Admiral No Scaling Over Time 30 Empires 10 Advanced for context

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Planetary Ascension and Unity Ambitions coming into play less than halfway through the game is the exact same problem that the devs literally just spent these betas trying to rid the tech side of the game of - namely, that all the interesting stuff is over too soon and then a large stretch of the game is spent doing menial, boring shit and watching numbers go up (repeatable techs, planetary ascension).

The Tradition and Ascension Perk system was designed to last for most of the game, just like the tech tree. A large chunk of the Ascension Perks are blatantly meant to be endgame content, like megastructures and colossi. It doesn't matter that the current version of the game doesn't work out that way, because the reason is that the current version of the game still isn't balanced properly.

The problem is not that Ascension Theory comes too late, it is that Traditions finish far too quickly, and people have gotten too used to a broken game and forget that it's supposed to last until 2500, not 2400.

Ascensions are vaguely similar in function to repeatables, yes. But there's also an ascension civic (for every government), an ascension tradition, and an ascension federation type. They're unlocked on tradition #3, rather than tradition #7, and they start out incredibly cheap so you place them down sooner rather than later. They are unambiguously, undeniably not intended to be exclusively end game content.

And unity needs them. Techs will buff all your jobs by 2-3x and double the number of jobs you can actually have in any given space. The entire tradition tree from start to finish doesn't provide anywhere near that level of return on investment. It's ascension which makes it competitive.

They're mechanically similar to repeatables, but so are Geothermal Fracking, Field Modulation, and Eco Simulation (albeit in a different way). Having some similarities does not imply exact equivalence in role.

Traditions could last the entire game if they had enough power and content to warrant a game-long investment in unity, but they don't. I would love if they did, but they don't. Ascensions fill that gap just fine, and it's only once you've ascended all your best planets and are ascending random breeder planets that they actually sink to repeatables' "a number you barely care about goes up by some tiny fraction" level of barely-engaging resource dump.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Planetary Ascension and Unity Ambitions coming into play less than halfway through the game is the exact same problem that the devs literally just spent these betas trying to rid the tech side of the game of - namely, that all the interesting stuff is over too soon and then a large stretch of the game is spent doing menial, boring shit and watching numbers go up (repeatable techs, planetary ascension).

The Tradition and Ascension Perk system was designed to last for most of the game, just like the tech tree. A large chunk of the Ascension Perks are blatantly meant to be endgame content, like megastructures and colossi. It doesn't matter that the current version of the game doesn't work out that way, because the reason is that the current version of the game still isn't balanced properly.

The problem is not that Ascension Theory comes too late, it is that Traditions finish far too quickly, and people have gotten too used to a broken game and forget that it's supposed to last until 2500, not 2400.

First, 2500 is the optional victory condition for players who, for whatever reason, have not chosen to end their game earlier. The default end-game date is 2400, by which point you should face a crisis for which you are ideally well prepared by using the end-game toys. The reward for defeating the crisis is a relic that helps you run victory laps, not the start of the "real" end-game up to 2500.

Whatever the original idea was with regards to how long it should take the tradition tree, and I too remember Wiz' comments on it back in the day before Utopia's launch, that is no longer relevant and hasn't been for many, many, years. The intention didn't even survive Utopia's release.

So, no, the Tradition and tech tree as they exist now were not designed to last most of the game until 2500 before planetary ascension and repeatable tech came into play.

For tech, since 2.0 the game was designed with T4 being a 2270-2300 phenomenon, and certainly not intended to be reached earlier than 2250 where critical hull size tech is concerned even if you push tech hard, with T5/repeatables coming in around 2300 or so for players pushing it, and certainly by the mid 24th century for players that did not, or at least that is the impression the game gives if you extrapolate from the date-gating in the engineering data files which is used to segregate warfare eras by hullsize and starbase size.

Ascension theory, being T5 gated, was supposed to provide the player with a unity sink using Unity Ambitions, coming in on the same schedule as repeatable techs.

That changed in the 3.3 rework. Tech progression had sped up significantly over time due to all the new stuff added and the idea of unity as a kind of kind-of-equal-but-opposite resource to science had never really worked out since Unity Ambitions were lacking as a unity sink and people just continued focusing on science.

The new vision for the unity system recognized that like base techs traditions would be completed by the mid-game date, or earlier by people really investing it, later by people skimping on it, and introduced planetary ascension as the new unity outlet that you could start using early on and with ever increasing strength as you completed tradition groups, taking the role of post-tradition endgame unity sink.

And if you don't believe me on that, if you really, dearly, and sincerely believe that completing seven tradition groups should take most of the 300 year timespan you believe is what the game should be played for due to the optional victory date condition, remember that planetary ascension becomes available after you gain three ascension perks, and try to come up with answers to the following questions:

• Why does the game have a civic, Ascensionist, boosting planetary ascension, which you can take from game start start? Is it intended as a trap, or is planetary ascension something that is expected to come into play fairly quickly if you focus on unity?
• Why does the game have a tradition-group finisher, Harmony's, boosting planetary ascension? Is it intended as an end-game tradition group, and if so, do Harmony's other bonuses support this idea?
• Why does the game have a federation, Holy Covenant, that as its third tier bonus boosts planetary ascension for all members and further for the president, a tier that is usually reached 30-40 years after the federation is established (and on rare occasions faster than three decades if concord prevails at the ecumenical council and members are closely aligned in ethics), which for federations established by origin happens 2230-2240, and for other early-game federations happen 2240-2250... Is it intended for these Ascension bonuses from the federation to not to be of any use for decades until the player completes three tradition groups? Or do they intend for players that focus on unity to have gained three ascension perks by then? This question is not difficulty to answer.

Three tradition groups completed within the first few decades for players focusing on unity is not because traditions are progressing too quickly - it is because they are progressing as designed. The remaining four are equally swift if you focus on unity, and this is not an error, but by design.

 

[currylambchop]

Will the spiritualist corporate galactic emperor still have prosperity preachers?

 

[mrt1212]

First, 2500 is the optional victory condition for players who, for whatever reason, have not chosen to end their game earlier. The default end-game date is 2400, by which point you should face a crisis for which you are ideally well prepared by using the end-game toys. The reward for defeating the crisis is a relic that helps you run victory laps, not the start of the "real" end-game up to 2500.

Whatever the original idea was with regards to how long it should take the tradition tree, and I too remember Wiz' comments on it back in the day before Utopia's launch, that is no longer relevant and hasn't been for many, many, years. The intention didn't even survive Utopia's release.

So, no, the Tradition and tech tree as they exist now were not designed to last most of the game until 2500 before planetary ascension and repeatable tech came into play.

For tech, since 2.0 the game was designed with T4 being a 2270-2300 phenomenon, and certainly not intended to be reached earlier than 2250 where critical hull size tech is concerned even if you push tech hard, with T5/repeatables coming in around 2300 or so for players pushing it, and certainly by the mid 24th century for players that did not, or at least that is the impression the game gives if you extrapolate from the date-gating in the engineering data files which is used to segregate warfare eras by hullsize and starbase size.

Ascension theory, being T5 gated, was supposed to provide the player with a unity sink using Unity Ambitions, coming in on the same schedule as repeatable techs.

That changed in the 3.3 rework. Tech progression had sped up significantly over time due to all the new stuff added and the idea of unity as a kind of kind-of-equal-but-opposite resource to science had never really worked out since Unity Ambitions were lacking as a unity sink and people just continued focusing on science.

The new vision for the unity system recognized that like base techs traditions would be completed by the mid-game date, or earlier by people really investing it, later by people skimping on it, and introduced planetary ascension as the new unity outlet that you could start using early on and with ever increasing strength as you completed tradition groups, taking the role of post-tradition endgame unity sink.

And if you don't believe me on that, if you really, dearly, and sincerely believe that completing seven tradition groups should take most of the 300 year timespan you believe is what the game should be played for due to the optional victory date condition, remember that planetary ascension becomes available after you gain three ascension perks, and try to come up with answers to the following questions:

• Why does the game have a civic, Ascensionist, boosting planetary ascension, which you can take from game start start? Is it intended as a trap, or is planetary ascension something that is expected to come into play fairly quickly if you focus on unity?
• Why does the game have a tradition-group finisher, Harmony's, boosting planetary ascension? Is it intended as an end-game tradition group, and if so, do Harmony's other bonuses support this idea?
• Why does the game have a federation, Holy Covenant, that as its third tier bonus boosts planetary ascension for all members and further for the president, a tier that is usually reached 30-40 years after the federation is established (and on rare occasions faster than three decades if concord prevails at the ecumenical council and members are closely aligned in ethics), which for federations established by origin happens 2230-2240, and for other early-game federations happen 2240-2250... Is it intended for these Ascension bonuses from the federation to not to be of any use for decades until the player completes three tradition groups? Or do they intend for players that focus on unity to have gained three ascension perks by then? This question is not difficulty to answer.

Three tradition groups completed within the first few decades for players focusing on unity is not because traditions are progressing too quickly - it is because they are progressing as designed. The remaining four are equally swift if you focus on unity, and this is not an error, but by design.

IDK if this should be an entire new thread or not but...

I think its obvious that the Game System as it were has gotten away from Devs intent in multiple ways with multiple devs. Hard to miss the symptoms littered all over the place and it doesn't really have a huge amount to do with a segment within the playerbase driving it despite the accusation.

But what is the kind of 'Control Sample' or samples they're even designing around at this point? I think even most players experience the symptoms if they kind of play by the Narrative and Pacing Book (Like I do by not pushing playthroughs in Research and Tech to hit Narrative points about the time they 'should' according to default pacing and era settings but max difficulty with no ease in. So that I have some kind of, idk grounding? on what the devs are even trying to do with my tester of an empire)

But still, yeah, the game basically always being a wrap before 2400 if it went gangbusters is a thing despite my trying, and if it was just ho hum, Crisis fight and dust settled with still 40 to 50 years left and at that point...really nothing to do if it has not already been done.

So I play to my Tipping Point mostly and a playthrough that never reaches that tipping point goes to 2500, and ive found out only recently that means self hobblement around several core mechanics - sloppy sprawl all over, no vassals or feds, neglectic research to the point of almost always being inferior (although a huge part of that is simply having tons of backfill to well...backfill when ascendancy to the top of the scoreboard is already done, and not through tech points no no).

Ive had just one in the past 2 months go to 2500 and it was hella fun for the change in experience but...no Khan, no War in Heaven, straight up Contingency against a 4 Powerbloc Galaxy (where I was my own on my own) in 2417, wrapped 30 years later finally...so some Narrative Marks were missed entirely, again...phooey! Probably my own fault again in Galaxy Settings with 30/10 Empires/Advanced and no ease in to GA bonus but

rambling aside, the cumulative effect of the dev decisions and implementations seem off from whatever the book hints it is trying to be and even explicitly has in it but we often miss.

And thats just the POV from By The Book players like me, you Meta Tuners have your own engagement the Devs are kinda whiffing on in other ways but I cant comment having not researched T5 Meta Tuner Brains nor will I select Game Breaking For Sport as an AP hahaha

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I think its obvious that the Game System as it were has gotten away from Devs intent in multiple ways with multiple devs. Hard to miss the symptoms littered all over the place and it doesn't really have a huge amount to do with a segment within the playerbase driving it despite the accusation.

Of course it doesn't. While not infallible and occasionally showing an arguably poor grasp of mathematics where predicting stacking issues is concerned, the development team is clearly competent.

So while intentions change over time, not only with the change of guard but also as the natural consequence of building and maintaining a live service game, there is exactly one thing we can know for certain about intentions: The development team wants the game to be accessible and fun for new players playing with default settings.

If you consider that the prime directive where game changes are concerned, you are probably not much wrong.

 

[theringbot]

When stellaris subscription on steam or humblebundle bundle :/

 

[Sharizcobar]

Will the spiritualist corporate galactic emperor still have prosperity preachers?

Even if it doesn’t, the Galactic Emperor can still reform back into a Corporation while remaining Corporate Sovereign. I usually didn’t do this as a MegaChurch ImpiriCorp as Imperial didn’t need to deal with the split between corporate and secular middle management and I’d prefer to have the Priests, but now that we get special jobs, it could be beneficial.

 

[wildhuntblue]

It’s blowing up on the Stellaris subReddit, but here in this forum there’s no mention of how unpopular these nerfs are to the Knights of the Toxic God origin.

I’m pleased to see that the boosts to the capital will be increased to be more in-line with the knights’ boosts. However, I think it’s worth noting that the fun of choosing challenging origins like this is (at least partially) for the long-term payoff—a tough early game, but successfully enduring earns the player the satisfying reward of strong boosts. There are several nerfs to this origin, and I and other players are concerned that the rewards of choosing to boost our knights will become far less satisfying than it currently is.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I haven't really played the game since Overlord, so if tech went out of control since then and now , I guess I was just simply not aware of it! Good to hear that levels are similar to about the time when I played the game. I've been looking forward to getting back into things, just waiting for them to finally add a dlc to make midgame not as boring.

I was thinking 3.2/3.3 rather than 3.4 when I wrote that two year estimate, but it is a rough estimate anyhow.

Arguably tech progression was already out of control then, given how much faster it was than back in the early- and mid- 2.x days, but that was as nothing compared to what was to come.

The reign of scientific terror (3.7-3.9) where players using the Paragon DLC and all other tools in the game could stack up 300-400%+ increased tech speed while getting 300%+ increased researcher output for ascensionist psionic leader-focused builds (or lesser numbers, but more POPs, for other high tech builds) was already stopped in 3.10 though, but that was just putting a stop to the worst of the glorious madness.

This update reduces the power of some of new stuff since you last played, additionally reduces the base science output of researchers, and also introduces a Difficulty Adjusted Tech Cost multiplier with its own slider (off, low, normal, high, extreme), which, unless you turn it off or play on Civilian difficulty will scale the costs by both tier and difficulty level, such that higher tiers and higher difficulties have higher scaling multipliers.

This is in my opinion a much better solution than the old tech slider, that multiplied the costs at every tier by the chosen value, meaning that if you tried addressing an issue of too fast tech progression at high tiers, you could only do so by slowing down the early- and mid-game significantly. The old slider still exists, but the new one allows a much better tuning of the overall tech progression progression curve.

That said, combined with other changes since Overlord it might take a bit of adapting to, especially if you used to play on the high difficulty levels. I wouldn't be surprised if tech progression feels a bit slow at first.

 

[krikav]

Hello!
Somewhat new player (although quite hardcore from other 4X games)
I fired up the beta a few days ago and I'm rather pleased with the nerfs on % ship build reductions. It was abit annoying to tailor your strategy around stacking multipliers.

There are two other things that I have previously been utilizing to get quite an edge against the AIs in previous games that are still in the beta though and I would love if they got an overhaul!

1. The way I see it influence is the core resource in this game, you get get all other things easy by exploiting the AIs stupidity. So almost all my games so far have been tailored around stacking claim cost reductions.
Start game with militarist and some nice economic civics, get interstellar domination as the first asc-perk and then at around 2220 swap to nationalistic zeal and embrace fanatic militarism and go into supremacy. With some luck you have also teched interstellar campaigns by the time you are about to drop the hammer.
With rightful claims (statecraft trad) you get the cost down to 0. (Even inside an offensive war).
This feels like such a cheesy way to game the system that I would love for it to get some sort of nerf. Maybe do them multiplicative or something...

2. The salvager enclave... Here you can buy reclaimed corvette squadrons, destroyers, cruisers or battleships at rock bottom prices. 240 energy for a destroyer thats super cheap to retrofit with your prefered tech.
Unlike the other two enclaves (Shroud and Curator) there only seem to be one of these, so much of the game circulates around exploring the entire map until you find them, then buy cheap ships and go on a conquest spree.
Nerf them somehow, or make them spawn at more locations!

They also have their unique starbase building which reduces docked ship upkeep and stacks with the crew quarters, so in almost all my games my entire fleet end up hanging around their system.
I love the flavour they add to the game, but the mechanics they provide just feel completely broken.

 

[wildhuntblue]

Hello!
Somewhat new player (although quite hardcore from other 4X games)
I fired up the beta a few days ago and I'm rather pleased with the nerfs on % ship build reductions. It was abit annoying to tailor your strategy around stacking multipliers.

There are two other things that I have previously been utilizing to get quite an edge against the AIs in previous games that are still in the beta though and I would love if they got an overhaul!

1. The way I see it influence is the core resource in this game, you get get all other things easy by exploiting the AIs stupidity. So almost all my games so far have been tailored around stacking claim cost reductions.
Start game with militarist and some nice economic civics, get interstellar domination as the first asc-perk and then at around 2220 swap to nationalistic zeal and embrace fanatic militarism and go into supremacy. With some luck you have also teched interstellar campaigns by the time you are about to drop the hammer.
With rightful claims (statecraft trad) you get the cost down to 0. (Even inside an offensive war).
This feels like such a cheesy way to game the system that I would love for it to get some sort of nerf. Maybe do them multiplicative or something...

2. The salvager enclave... Here you can buy reclaimed corvette squadrons, destroyers, cruisers or battleships at rock bottom prices. 240 energy for a destroyer thats super cheap to retrofit with your prefered tech.
Unlike the other two enclaves (Shroud and Curator) there only seem to be one of these, so much of the game circulates around exploring the entire map until you find them, then buy cheap ships and go on a conquest spree.
Nerf them somehow, or make them spawn at more locations!

They also have their unique starbase building which reduces docked ship upkeep and stacks with the crew quarters, so in almost all my games my entire fleet end up hanging around their system.
I love the flavour they add to the game, but the mechanics they provide just feel completely broken.

Sounds to me like you are utilizing the game mechanics the way that they are supposed to be utilized…doesn’t sound any more or less “broken” than, say, the various ways to get insane pop growth, or colossal amounts of basic resources from subjects, etc.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

It’s blowing up on the Stellaris subReddit, but here in this forum there’s no mention of how unpopular these nerfs are to the Knights of the Toxic God origin.

I’m pleased to see that the boosts to the capital will be increased to be more in-line with the knights’ boosts. However, I think it’s worth noting that the fun of choosing challenging origins like this is (at least partially) for the long-term payoff—a tough early game, but successfully enduring earns the player the satisfying reward of strong boosts. There are several nerfs to this origin, and I and other players are concerned that the rewards of choosing to boost our knights will become far less satisfying than it currently is.

Yeah, it's a bummer.

I think they're aiming for a more "sane" or grounded Knights late game, with Demesne Orbitals scattered over various systems providing the bulk of your knights (instead of thousands of pops stacked on the main habitat) and no more infinite scaling % modifiers to alloys. They removed all the modifiers that made things scale out of control. That... sorta makes sense. I don't particularly like it, but it makes sense.

But squires got absolutely destroyed. 2% multiplicative to 2.5% additive is somewhere between losing 50% to 60% of their effect, even for just for research/unity. And losing the naval capacity/amenities scaling makes them makes them even more laughably useless anywhere but the main habitat.

Ex. On a habitat with 10 knights from Order's Castle and 8 Demesne Orbitals, a squire would previously have given 0.8 naval capacity, ~4 research of each type, ~1.2 unity, and 3 amenities. Not amazing, but a solid ~1/8 soldier, 1/4 of an entertainer, 1/3 of a researcher, and ~1/5 of a bureaucrat, but without any upkeep. Just barely a job, but still worth it after accounting for saved infrastructure/sprawl/upkeep. Now it's just 1/4 of a researcher, 1/5 of an entertainer, and 1/8 of a bureaucrat, or less. Barely half of what it did before, and not even remotely worth working.

So why even have squires anywhere but the main habitat?

 

[currylambchop]

So why even have squires anywhere but the main habitat?

Is this necessarily bad that squires are only good on the main habitat? At least the planet modifier options, or controlling the Toxic God at the end, will now be actually competitive

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Is this necessarily bad that squires are only good on the main habitat? At least the planet modifier options, or controlling the Toxic God at the end, will now be actually competitive

If they are a trap: one of the worst jobs in the entire game and always the wrong choice, then they should be removed. Or, at least, the ability to build Order's Demesne on other habitats should go. The game should not contain trap options that mislead new players or exist to do nothing but create the busywork of closing jobs.

Or, more accurately: if a piece of content outside the norm exists only to be a trap, then it should be removed. Why add something new if it's so bad you should never use it?

 

[currylambchop]

If they are a trap: one of the worst jobs in the entire game and always the wrong choice, then they should be removed. Or, at least, the ability to build Order's Demesne on other habitats should go. The game should not contain trap options that mislead new players or exist to do nothing but create the busywork of closing jobs.

Or, more accurately: if a piece of content outside the norm exists only to be a trap, then it should be removed. Why add something new if it's so bad you should never use it?

You build the demenese for the knight jobs not the squires. I would agree with removing the squire districts outside of the main habitat. They’re not necessarily a bad option though, because sometimes there’s 15 demenese orbitals which doubles your theoretical yields.

removing suboptimal things because they’re a ’trap option’ isn’t good game design. only a few builds are actually optimalr and it’s name is progenitor hive, or clone army sometimes. it’s good to have many options even if some are weaker, because it makes each game different and adds diversity to the gameplay.