Stellaris Dev Diary #367 - 4.0 Changes: Part 1

[Promin]

Spoiler: image

I can see that Empire Size is still here... I think that it's a useless parameter. Things that should have been affecting it are not affecting enough and it will get enormously high no matter what. I've already said my thoughts about this and more in the comments under The Sights Unseen if you're interested in more detailed analysis...

 

[great lakes]

one note, I'd like to see it possible for one species to have 2 or more defaults assigned. bioengeniered humans don't need to be both indusias and inginius.

 

[The Founder]

one note, I'd like to see it possible for one species to have 2 or more defaults assigned. bioengeniered humans don't need to be both indusias and inginius.

Good idea, but how would the game decide which one to apply?
Why would it not just ping-pong between the two?

 

[great lakes]

Good idea, but how would the game decide which one to apply?
Why would it not just ping-pong between the two?

planetary designation seems the natural divide, and/or the system aims for a player set ratio of subspecies a/b

 

[Critical Ethics]

Spoiler: image

View attachment 1246902

I can see that Empire Size is still here... I think that it's a useless parameter. Things that should have been affecting it are not affecting enough and it will get enormously high no matter what. I've already said my thoughts about this and more in the comments under The Sights Unseen if you're interested in more detailed analysis...

It's supposed to get very high.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

In the long term, I'd love to have some version of optional persistence between games, maybe where you could export your empire after you won a game and have it show up as a Fallen Empire in your next one.

Perhaps a tickbox option in empire generation : "Valid for Fallen Empires" ?

 

[Thiend]

In the long term, I'd love to have some version of optional persistence between games, maybe where you could export your empire after you won a game and have it show up as a Fallen Empire in your next one.

That sounds good, or if you're feeling really ambitious you could make a system where empires you've beaten the crisis with can be made into precursor event chains and based on what you did in that game, you can choose different mechanical bonuses for that precursor to have (and then just write in your event texts, or have them be super basic).

I don't know how realistic that is, but the moment you said "persistence between games" my top idea that doesn't involve a second galaxy was that.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

It's supposed to get very high.

Empire sprawl is indeed supposed to get really high to balance big powerful empires.
But I don't think Promin has enjoyed the power of -100% sprawl from pops in the late game (from the comment in Dev Diary #364 about pacifist ethics and sprawl reduction being useless - I do understand the frustration with defensive wars only, but the sprawl reduction is powerful).

Personally I don't hate sprawl, but don't like it either.
I miss how sprawl and admin cap worked between versions 2.2 and 3.3, where you had admin cap and compared that to sprawl to decide the effective penalty (I think the penalties were much harsher back then as well).

Currently my issues with sprawl:
Too few ways to modify sprawl from systems (it hurts even more having to claim useless empty systems when that's most of your sprawl)
Too many ways to lower sprawl from pops (undermining the removal of admin cap as a resource when you can negate most of the source of sprawl)
No UI for sprawl on planets (so sprawl reduction effects from ascending etc are only indirectly seen in the total sprawl tooltip)
No UI to show the predicted benefits before taking sprawl reduction (leading to players overestimating or underestimating the effects of sprawl reduction)
Bureaucrat jobs are less interesting (less output+upkeep than Politicians and Culture Workers is a boring niche to fill)

Admin cap was removed to stop players completely negating sprawl penalties and yet it's still easy (and sometimes optimal) to try to get close to -100% sprawl from pops, completely undermining the reason for removing sprawl reduction from jobs in the first place.

Personally I miss Bureaucrat jobs reducing the penalties of empire sprawl via providing admin cap... it was fun to feel the need to have an entire planet just dealing with the added paperwork from all that conquest and felt more reactive, interactive and thematic than simply having Bureaucrats generate some unity. I feel the job output was simply overpowered from 2.2 to 3.3 after a lot of incremental little buffs.

I would have reworked it so that Admin cap/Empire Sprawl modified the sprawl penalty rather than eliminating it entirely, and I'd have added diplomatic weight from Bureaucrat jobs instead of buffs to Admin cap to make them stronger (every patch increased admin output from jobs until they removed it entirely when they made job output too strong).

 

[NotNitehawk]

Love everything, no comments. Keep up the great work, guys!

 

[SeekingEtermity]

(also, would it be possible to have some kind of toggle/option to set the "custom" as the default so I don't have to see that annoying pop up every time I wanna make a new ship design?)

Yeeeeeah. I already almost always just give an existing template a new name and then redesign it (starting with the sections), because the "New design" button is more clicks *anyhow*, but adding *yet another extra click* is definitely unwelcome.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

I miss how sprawl and admin cap worked between versions 2.2 and 3.3, where you had admin cap and compared that to sprawl to decide the effective penalty (I think the penalties were much harsher back then as well).

1. It still works that way, it's just that the capacity number is fixed at 100 instead of being slightly (pre-3.3) or extremely (after the introduction of bureaucrats) flexible.
2. Pretty sure the penalties are much steeper now, as part of the mission to slow down tech progress in general and specifically pare back the ability of huge empires to burn through a repeatable in under a year.

 

[Psykhes]

I can see that Empire Size is still here... I think that it's a useless parameter. Things that should have been affecting it are not affecting enough and it will get enormously high no matter what.

This is not true.

It is quite possible to minimize empire size with specialized tall builds, especially combined with the -50% empire size from pops civis. You do not even need pacifistic.
<200 empire size with 1000+ pops in the middle-late 2300s is very realistic.

And it is no useless parameter, it is to balance playstyles. Without it "expand as much as you can, always, forever" would be the only halfway valid playstyle.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

1. It still works that way, it's just that the capacity number is fixed at 100 instead of being slightly (pre-3.3) or extremely (after the introduction of bureaucrats) flexible.
2. Pretty sure the penalties are much steeper now, as part of the mission to slow down tech progress in general and specifically pare back the ability of huge empires to burn through a repeatable in under a year.

Sorry... I think I need to clarify because it's hard to rely on memory when discussing old game versions.

Sprawl/Empire Size used to be more punishing by far, in v3.0 it was 4x as harsh on tech costs per point you went over the cap (8x if you were a machine empire because they had a +100% penalty on top for going over admin cap).

The reason why it didn't work (and why tech speeds were riduculously fast, and still are a bit fast) is that it was possible to reduce the penalties down to 0 quite easily, in much the same way that now we can reduce the sprawl from pops by -100%. It feels to me like it's come full circle and every attempt to slow tech progress is met by other changes that undermine it quite quickly. Only now bureaucrat jobs are slightly less interesting than I think they could be.

Spoiler: Sprawl penalties

There are lots of other effects but just looking at tech and traditions for simplicity:
v2.2:
Each point of Empire Size over the Administrative Cap adds the following:

• +0.3% Tech cost
• +0.5% Tradition adoption cost

v3.0:
Each point the Empire Sprawl exceeds the Administrative Capacity will impart the following penalties:

• +0.4% Tech cost
• +0.6% Tradition adoption cost

v3.6:
Each point of empire size above 100 increases:

• +0.1% Tech cost
• +0.2% Tradition adoption cost

It may feel much harsher now, but that's because usually you can't completely avoid the penalties when you could before.

In a v3.14.15926 save I have 33 colonies, 1600 pops, going +531 sprawl over base 100 gives +100% Tech cost.
In a v3.1.2 save I have 13 colonies, 290 pops, going only +148 over the dynamic admin cap gives +118% Tech costs
But the same v3.1.2 save with 6 coordinator jobs enabled, at +0 over admin cap gives +0% Tech costs.
...the admin cap jobs were cheap, plentiful and overpowered so you never needed to be over admin cap, although the penalty if you were over was harsher.

Spoiler: Pictures

Your comment made me check the wiki... but that isn't always accurate so I then swapped Stellaris over to v3.1.1... then had issues with the game not running properly and the mouse not being aligned in fullscreen. Fixed that by running it in windowed mode and ran a quick test game on fastest speed while listening to a video till I had a similar tech penalty (taking roughly the same traditions and things, but so much has changed).

v3.14.15926

v3.1.2 without admin cap jobs:

3.1.2 with one world of unupgraded admin cap jobs:

If I could rework the old sprawl and keep the jobs interesting I would try to make some sprawl penalty be unavoidable the entire game, example numbers:
+0.2% Tech cost x (Sprawl/Admin Capacity) per point of Sprawl

So it's not the amount over admin cap that matters but the ratio that matters. You could push the penalty down, but never eradicate it.
min 1x or +0.2% Tech cost per point of sprawl (when Admin cap > Sprawl - shown in green, then yellow as you go over)
max 3x or +0.6% Tech cost per point of sprawl (when Admin cap < 3xSprawl - shown in red to warn you to do something about it)

The old job outputs needed a rebalance. A big nerf and perhaps a sidegrade to compensate for the lost output.
I'd have replaced the +17 or so admin cap per coordinator in the above save with something like +4 Admin Cap and +0.5% diplomatic weight (needing ~24 jobs out of 287 instead of just 6 jobs out of 287 to have admin cap equal sprawl, or 10% of the workforce, but more as total sprawl increases and you rely on the jobs and not just the base admin cap).

The only reason this is on my mind is that I don't like bureaucratic empires producing unity as I miss them doing actual administration work. I'd also like them to be better at handling intergalactic bureaucracy as well (diplomatic weight), or logistics (depending on how that will work in future).

 

[Critical Ethics]

So it's not the amount over admin cap that matters but the ratio that matters.

Yeah, not being a ratio was (one of) the big issues with adjustable admin cap. If you had 100 admin cap and went over by a couple of points it was the same penalty as have 1000 admin cap and going over by the same amount of points. Conversely if I was so far over admin cap that I was already paying 10X costs then another planet that would have been a 10% cost increase for an at admin cap empire was only an adjusted +1% costs for my sprawling morass. Similarly the bureaucrat that gave the biggest returns was always the one you needed to bring your admin cap over your sprawl, but any bureaucrats after that did nothing. There was an exact amount of bureaucrats you needed and that number was always "exactly match your sprawl" or "None". Working off a ratio would mean your first few bureaucrats were the most valuable and it was up to you to decide where the tipping point was.

The other issue is a bit harder to circumnavigate - a big empire could afford to dedicate one or more entire planets to efficient bureaucracies while a smaller empire was operating on a much tighter margin. Not sure how edict capacities (e: that was supposed to say ratios) would affect this.

Personally I'd like bureaucrats to generate edict capacity.

edit: Also if we go back to adjustable admin cap then instead of green under -> red over the colour for admin cap should be red if you're under your cap, green if you're over your cap, and yellow if you're really really far over your cap. Being under cap is bad! It means you're either expanding too slow or investing too much in cap increasers!

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Yeah, not being a ratio was (one of) the big issues with adjustable admin cap. If you had 100 admin cap and went over by a couple of points it was the same penalty as have 1000 admin cap and going over by the same amount of points. Conversely if I was so far over admin cap that I was already paying 10X costs then another planet that would have been a 10% cost increase for an at admin cap empire was only an adjusted +1% costs for my sprawling morass. Similarly the bureaucrat that gave the biggest returns was always the one you needed to bring your admin cap over your sprawl, but any bureaucrats after that did nothing. There was an exact amount of bureaucrats you needed and that number was always "exactly match your sprawl" or "None". Working off a ratio would mean your first few bureaucrats were the most valuable and it was up to you to decide where the tipping point was.

The other issue is a bit harder to circumnavigate - a big empire could afford to dedicate one or more entire planets to efficient bureaucracies while a smaller empire was operating on a much tighter margin. Not sure how edict capacities would affect this.

Personally I'd like bureaucrats to generate edict capacity.

edit: Also if we go back to adjustable admin cap then instead of green under -> red over the colour for admin cap should be red if you're under your cap, green if you're over your cap, and yellow if you're really really far over your cap. Being under cap is bad! It means you're either expanding too slow or investing too much in cap increasers!

I agree with all that. The maths of it all can be tricky and with unintended consequences and optimal playstyles.

Though if there is a base penalty per point of sprawl that you can't go below (the ratio has a minimum value) then dedicating entire planets still isn't going to get rid of the penalty entirely for having a large empire, and the small empire will have a smaller penalty no matter what just because they have less total sprawl. And if the jobs have secondary outputs they will never be completely wasted unlike the old system.

Mostly I just miss the feeling of making an officiously bureaucratic Vogon world... there are so many things Bureaucrat jobs could be producing to feel thematic, it could be Edict fund, diplomatic weight, intel/infiltration, automatic resettlement chance, logistics, bonus to hyper relay effects etc. But I miss Admin cap, and what it could have been if it had been implemented as a ratio.

Also I'd love a special "Resort world" with a Vogon flavour. A place to stack bureaucratic jobs and bonuses for special empire-wide effects, especially bonuses related to your hyperspace bypass Hyper Relays, with some events that involve cracking worlds to build Hyper Relays, Gateways and Quantum catapults faster, perhaps even a resolution making it a galactic centre for all paperwork like the market hub...

Talking about the market hub, I think that could work better if you had to actually propose your planet as an option for other empires to vote on (requires a minimum amount of Trade Value to propose), so you can call in favours and fight for it and it wouldn't go to empty planets or isolationist empires with closed borders as they would have penalties to their diplomatic weight, no friends and no favours to call in. It feels odd leaving it up to RNG.

 

[Gnostiko]

Unless it's a core function of the game I've long been ignorant of, I would love it if in species view there was a pop-up breaking down which planets particular species in my empire live on.

 

[MarkDey]

Unless it's a core function of the game I've long been ignorant of, I would love it if in species view there was a pop-up breaking down which planets particular species in my empire live on.

There isn't a pop-up, but if you've researched gene-modding technology, then there is a workaround you can do. Create a new pop template (doesn't matter what's in it) and then go to Apply it. Before you confirm that decision, you're able to see all of the different planets those pops live on.

 

[Ikael]

Empire sprawl is basically the only thing preventing you from snowballing into inevitable victory when you capture your first enemy capital (you need at least two of those, sometimes even a third one). That's a huge positive thing that lengthens the game interest, IMHO.

As for bureaucrats, they were indeed awesome, but far too exploitable, especially by wide empires. Even the current builds of zero-pop sprawl don't come close to those bureaucratic shenanigans of yore. The empire-size system might be a tad too gamey, but at least it works.

Perhaps at some point in the future, this will be looked at (or at least, bureaucrats would be able to generate edict fund or state capacity or whatever), but I don't think that this is a priority right now, with all the massive rebalance that the pop rework will need.

 

[Calvax]

Empire sprawl is basically the only thing preventing you from snowballing into inevitable victory when you capture your first enemy capital (you need at least two of those, sometimes even a third one). That's a huge positive thing that lengthens the game interest, IMHO.

A long running hope I've had is that one day internal politics could be fleshed out to make conquering a significant number of pops (relative to what you already have) quite difficult, requiring some strategy beyond military.

Having only one planet should make occupying another of equal size a massive economic, military, and political challenge. Rather than being something we have now where you get a short lived happiness debuff on that world.

Ideally this would be the key difference between small and large empires too. Smaller empires would struggle economically, but be much easier to manage socially. Whereas larger empires would be richer with the issues that come with such a widespread and diverse society.

 

[grommile]

A long running hope I've had is that one day internal politics could be fleshed out to make conquering a significant amount of territory (relative to what you already have) quite difficult requiring some strategy.

That would be neat, with the caveat that it tends to fall under the Paradox paradox: making the game itself harder makes winning in SP easier.