Stellaris Dev Diary #21 - Administrative Sectors

[Darustet]

OK, your post seems totally reasonable at first glance. But where is a couple of things to consider:
1) We arguing about manual planet management will be tedious. But why we deiced so in the first place, even before planet management is properly introduced? Why everyone are so sure it will be boring for average person even after 10th or 20th planet? Maybe building system together with event and anomalies will be fun?
But why make AI governors if planets are so good? Because some people don't won't to bother with it anyway (prefer fleet action or strategic decisions only if not "let the game play itself"). And some planets gonna suck in any game or doesn't request constant monitoring.
2) Second one is about numbers. Numbers of planet. If anything, one of the features that forced me to watch Stellaris very closely is that it would be first 4X game that really going to solve "tall with width" argument, allowing you to have compact, yet effective empire. And in my small effective empire i want no "AI advisers".

And another one about "number of planets" and "core auditory". In GC3 (such a good example in many case, but a negative example too), Stardock gone on a crusade against manual control over planets with a crowd of "microing 100 planets is tedious" cheering them. Then they removed "planet wheel" feature, used to manually adjust planet spending. Then asked why, they answered that majority of players don't even know this feature is present, but allow those who know, to seriously outperform AI. And after asking "how "average" player is playing GC3" it turned out that majority of players plays on normal difficulty on smaller maps and obviously have no need microing a hundred of planets and using "planetary wheel"(because it's not needed on normal). So those who suffered from micro tedious were actually only a part of already small part of players who plays on huge maps. And it's in a game that promoted huge maps as one of the game core features.

So, before introducing some feature, it's better to figure out how a majority of players gonna play it (In other Paradox game we have mandatory map size of "Earth", it;s not a case in Stellaris). Wouldn't it be an over-complication, if for 15 planets empires on "medium" maps player is forced to almost mandatory give AI-control to like 10 of them?

Granted, we are making an assumption based on that planetary management is going to escalate rather heavily once we start expanding. This would blow the effort of managing planets individually out of proportions. It's not that the micro itself is boring, is that it wears itself out very quickly if let to escalate in such a way. That is based on the numerous experiences from other similar games and time after time this has proven to be true, which why the negative attitude towards it. The very reason people play GalCiv3 on small maps might very well be because playing any larger map is super tedious to them.

Playing a larger maps shouldn't need the player to accept tedious micro. Well designed game system doesn't punish the player with repetition it even if the empire grows. To oversimplify, at start you're microing 1-10 planets, then 5 planets and one sector with 10 planets, and adding to the number of sectors as the game goes on. At the end you'll control those <10 or so planets with <10 or so sectors/adding to a total of 10-20 (depends on the final design and the goverment types etc.). Even if you control 400 planets, your micro time can be kept within reasonable levels by scaling the game like this.

Then why should managing a larger empire be as easy as small empire? Well, in short, it shouldn't. But added planetary micro doesn't make it harder either, just more repetitive. Instead of adding one type of micro to no end, you have more things you have to take into account.--->
The number of planets, people, resources, fleets continue to grow but the system doesn't penaltise you with added planetary micro but added inner politics micro, governor micro, sector micro and so on. Instead of increasing one type of micro, you are needed to manage new types of micro, which you now have time to concertrate on, because the sectors are doing the added work of planetary micro. In short, the game evolves adding depth and freeing players time and focus to where it is really needed. As the game progresses you need to pay attention to war, politics, trade, revolts, cunning governors, happiness, sectors, different alien races and so on, things that expand the game, not just on one single increased aspect of it. If you would control everything directly there wouldn't be need for governors, and the gameplay mechanics that could be brought with them are gone to waste.

Also, to play larger maps should need the micro of every single planet to stay competitive against the computer. The surplus of a few resources here and there shouldn't make that much of a difference in an empire of 300 planets, or even just 100 planets. It would be more likely, that you've played other aspects of the game poorly if your survival hinges on brute forcing those few extra resources.

Hopefully I've answered some of your doubts and points, I'm writing this from a phone so it's hard to keep track on everything on a large post.

 

[safe-keeper]

OK, your post seems totally reasonable at first glance. But where is a couple of things to consider:
1) We arguing about manual planet management will be tedious. But why we deiced so in the first place, even before planet management is properly introduced? Why everyone are so sure it will be boring for average person even after 10th or 20th planet? Maybe building system together with event and anomalies will be fun?
But why make AI governors if planets are so good? Because some people don't won't to bother with it anyway (prefer fleet action or strategic decisions only if not "let the game play itself"). And some planets gonna suck in any game or doesn't request constant monitoring.
2) Second one is about numbers. Numbers of planet. If anything, one of the features that forced me to watch Stellaris very closely is that it would be first 4X game that really going to solve "tall with width" argument, allowing you to have compact, yet effective empire. And in my small effective empire i want no "AI advisers".

These things very easily become incredibly tedious once you've done them a few times. We don't really need to know Stellaris too well to know that .

 

[Madzai]

Hopefully I've answered some of your doubts and points, I'm writing this from a phone so it's hard to keep track on everything on a large post.

Thanks, for a great in detail post. I have to agree with most of it, and some small details cannot be confirmed and thus discussed before more info on Stellaris appears.

These things very easily become incredibly tedious once you've done them a few times. We don't really need to know Stellaris too well to know that .

It's true, but it also true what if you outsource to much to AI, you can easily loose any "attachment"(and interest in developing it) to your Empire and not everyone are found of concept of "letting the game to play itself".

In the end i'll just hope we'll be able to have enough planets in manual control so we can "play" with them if other activities run out (if it ever happens) at some moment.

 

[safe-keeper]

It's just as much a matter of leaving the smaller, more minute and tedious tasks to your minions, leaving you to focus on what's actually fun. It's like buying a dishwasher because while you may love to cook and eat food, doing the dishes just isn't as fun.

The same way, selecting 25 provinces and building the same thing in each of them isn't my idea of an enjoyable game experience, hence all the solutions to this we see everywhere, from planetary production templates in Stars! to CK2-style "desmenes" (spelling?), which also work as a good balancing mechanism, in Stellaris.

So why people we perfectly OK with allowing AI to handle Armies in HoI3 if manual control is tremendously more effective (even if horribly tedious)? Why they were OK before, but suddenly will mandatory switch to "optimal strategy" in Stellaris or suffer for all eternity?

And btw, if you play on such a huge galaxies, how about other rather common activities? Like anomalies or special planetary events chains? In big galaxies there are going to be bunch of them constantly. You want to auto those too?

I'm one of the people who found micro-ing divisions, or worse (ugh) which units belonged to which HQ, and keeping units within HQ range, to be a massive pain in HOI3. Which is why the devs are working on an improved AI control system for HOI4. Just that something is more effective doesn't mean it's always desirable. Some people play games to have fun and enjoy themselves, not as to feel that they have achieved a kind of grand strategy 100% run.

 

[MateusMat]

If you had read mine, you would have seen where I tried to express that even the option of having mix/maxing for optimal effect would be too tempting. So while I don't like to do it, I would feel like I'm missing out on something if I don't do it. The AI is unlikely to be as effective as a human, and so establishing the disincentive to micromanaging, balances the game for people who don't want to micromanage (as you suggested, the 90%) and gives you confidence that the AI is doing as well as if you were doing it yourself (because of the penalty). Maybe I'm not expressing myself clearly.

Are you really reading what I've been saying? I expressed 2 times now. That Sectors would grand bonuses to people who don't want to manage all planets. So that in the end the game is balanced, and doesn't give player who min-max an advantage.

So in the end there would be no advantage or disadvantage of using sectors or managing all... (Unlike Civ)

I myself am not a min-max player... In the end min-maxing is tiring and just not fun. But there are people who genuinely like min-maxing... for them it's fun. So why limit their stile of play?

As I said 1000x now... in the end min-max or sectors would be the same, since using sectors would grand benefits. The game would be balanced. Think like different religions in EUIV, none is inherit better, it's just different benefits balanced, that may fit a certain play stile.

 

[Madzai]

It's just as much a matter of leaving the smaller, more minute and tedious tasks to your minions, leaving you to focus on what's actually fun. It's like buying a dishwasher because while you may love to cook and eat food, doing the dishes just isn't as fun.

Sure, but i don't think you want to put your grand-grandmother Chinese porcelain tea-set into it, right? Sometimes you have to do it manually.
But as i said, i'll hope i'll have enough planets to manually control, so i'll not waste critical ones on AI.

I'm one of the people who found micro-ing divisions, or worse (ugh) which units belonged to which HQ, and keeping units within HQ range, to be a massive pain in HOI3. Which is why the devs are working on an improved AI control system for HOI4. Just that something is more effective doesn't mean it's always desirable. Some people play games to have fun and enjoy themselves, not as to feel that they have achieved a kind of grand strategy 100% run.

If you play Vanilla and not some hardcore stuff like BICE you can let AI to do the dirty work or managing only special Units or Events (like D-Day). And HQ and CoC are so bad in HoI3 because where are a huge wasted potential. There was so much useful stuff one could possibly do with HQ's gameplay-wise (starting with de-abstracting supply lines, which were actually more important in WW2 than type of your Armor, but somehow got totally abstracted) i actually don't where to start. But it's an OT for this thread.

And what "feel that they have achieved a kind of grand strategy 100% run" is? HoI3, f.e., allow you to archive all possible WW2 ends (historical and ahistorical) in party time limit with AI-controlled troops. One the other hand if you want something completely ahistorical (like solely beat USA as Japan), that's not "100% run".

 

[FlaviusMarcusFelix12]

stellaris: Rise of Ultramar

 

[migalhone]

Less micromanagement, good

 

[Cianog]

I love paradox games they are my favourite studio but damn does the ai usually be lacking. In games like eu4 it's at least limited to the enemy and colonial nations/vassals so not too bad but considering that there will be limited building plots on planets rather than set buildings like ck2 I worry about them being a bit silly but I guess that it can be balanced between micromanagement and ai easily enough and if not there's bound to be a mod that changes ai building order if its not great

 

[Don_Rumata]

Everyone on this thread seems to be arguing simply micromanagement of everything shouldn't be an option vs micromanagement of everything shouldn't be penalised. Why can't there be a middle way? Why can't micromanaging everything be reasonably and realistically penalised but still be viable?

 

[Teije]

This is an excellent approach, very happy they are using the CKII model. I am one of those players that usually tries to micro-manage all my planets/systems in 4X games, until I just get fed up & bored with the busywork and put everything on autopilot. Making it so the game requires delegation of this to sectors is the perfect solution.

I look forward to seeing my sectors eventually agitate & rebel - that's the best of CKII of course.

 

[Yenzen]

Don_Rumata: It goes back to the prior arguments that balancing the game for multiple options on how to deal with (possibly) hundreds of planets is an extremely difficult process. Every time Paradox then makes a change to the game with an update or even a DLC, they will have to test it with those two options and see if it favors one more or less. They also have to keep adjusting the penalty on micromamaging everything to hit a viable middle ground. Now expand this to every other gameplay mechanic someone does not like and "wants a choice!" on including or not and you're left with such a lose core gameplay that the devs can't possibly make a game with a reasonable comprise between challenge and the player having fun. In other titles, it's already hard enough to walk on that balancing rope and Paradox has often made updates that swung too hard in either direction.

It's already been stated that certain governments, techs etc. can increase the size of the central government's domain. A player who desired more control should play towards that. Every screenshot we've seen appear to be in the early years of the game, and we've already seen the limit be anywhere from 3 to 9. It's not unrealistic to expect that it could be even higher with an extremely collectivist hegemonic empire or similar.

 

[Santander]

Ah don't be so precious.

Are you sure that's the word you're wanting here?

Pointing out that someone's opinion appears to only be held by a minority of people, despite their repeated proclamations is hardly "ridiculing" them. It's merely saying that not everyone supports the idea, not an attack on the person.

Calling someone a "vocal minority", and then using that label as a reason to dismiss their argument is bad form. It is, in effect, saying "Most people who agree with you don't happen to care enough to say so, so I'm not even going to listen to you", and that is, in fact, ridicule. Heck, I don't even remember who it was who did it, but it did happen.

 

[Yenzen]

I agree that simply being in a minority isn't a very foolproof argument against you, but disagreeing with someone and voicing it isn't harassment, and being of the majority opinion isn't a weakness either. If you're arguing an unpopular point, you'll face more opposition - mostly because others have *reasons* that they disagree with you and they will voice them. Paradox can't make everyone happy, so they are likely gathering input from their beta testers and will seek to at least make the majority of players happy with the final outcome.

However, can we all take it a bit easy? I think that a lot of people have bad experiences with other space 4X (this is the first I'm ever interested in) where they loathed to micromanage everything... meanwhile other users here loved that. People want what they hated or loved before, but Stellaris is its own game and having 40 different toggles to vastly change the gameplay simply isn't possible.

Do note that it appears that the administration of planets requires is a far more active process than in EU4 or even Victoria II's industry (*possibly* discounting Planned Economy parties). You need to shift around where each of the POPs work in each zone for that sweet +1 energy each and every time. You'll also have far more planets than regions in Victoria II.

I do actually hope that there are some fundamental differences in the degree that the central government can intervene in the affairs of regions. In an direct/indirect/moral/military democracy the regional government would probably be very resistant to "federal overreach" while an autocracy might be able to intervene to some degree in internal affairs such as tiles of sector planets (or set some sort of production goal) - with oligarchies somewhere in the middle. We just don't know enough about core mechanics to make a final judgement on it.

 

[Don_Rumata]

Thanks for an eloquent and well thought out post. I certainly think you make some good points. However, I think you might be putting things too strongly. I agree it's right for Paradox to have a vision of how the game should play and work towards that, however that doesn't mean they have to deliberately close off other options. A strategy involving micromanagement could be sub optimal without being unviable. Paradox can still focus on balancing the game around people who dont want to micro everything while allowing that as an inferior playstyle. Since there doesn't seem to be a hard cap they are kind of already doing this but in a way I personally think sounds somewhat arbitrary and negative and would make micro impossible for all players except those who know how to cheese the game. And, at the end of the day, real balance simply isnt possible or even necessarily desireable (except possibly in the context of multiplayer) in a game of this complexity with so many variables. It certainly hasnt been achieved or been a central focus in other Paradox strategy games. The focus seems so far to be more about making most options and playstyles viable and fun as well as allowing players to roleplay and for the game to generate stories

 

[ponasozis]

Oh for gods sake people

the game was balanced and intended to work with administrative sectors
you are not going to get a choice in micromaging all the planets
its an internal politics not just deciding what to build on every god damm world (which is absolutely stupid if you ask me that you have to decide where to build everything when you rule a god damm space empire)


if you don t like the game don t buy it just go back to gal civ 3 if you like it so much then keep playing it and stop trying to mess up with a game all others want

 

[GC13]

You know, for my part, I'm really happy with this announcement. I didn't like the idea of micromanaging individual planets in a grand strategy game, but the idea that the planets I do micromanage are core worlds and everything else I tuck under a governor sounds really good to me. I also love the sound of the interactions you can have (subsidizing them specializing them, etc...).

I must admit though, I'm kind of sad that rebellious sectors won't be able to be implemented until a potential expansion. They'll already have their own separate identity, so separatism should just come with the territory. Also, why can't sectors have their own fleets? I hope it will at least work like EU: Rome and we'll be able to assign the governor ships to defend his own sector with. That would probably make sense for most empires, though I hope that a hypothetical Outlying Sectors expansion would include the tools to allow a sector to become so autonomous that it's responsible for manufacturing its own defense fleets.

 

[wthomas]

Are you really reading what I've been saying?

No I get it, but what I'm trying to say is:

I think there should be a big enough penalty for min/maxing (or large scale micromanaging) that discourages it's practice all together. I don't think you can achieve a perfect balance where both systems are equally attractive due to the limits of AI technology and the wide array of player skill. - In this regard I think we can agree to disagree on how that would work out since it's all speculative.

I'm also saying that if 90% of players approve of the system, that's great! You can't please everyone and if you try, you'll likely just make things worse on the whole. - this is a philosophical argument, so we could probably agree to disagree here as well.

 

[ZyZla]

 

[Santander]

Oh for gods sake people

the game was balanced and intended to work with administrative sectors
you are not going to get a choice in micromaging all the planets
its an internal politics not just deciding what to build on every god damm world (which is absolutely stupid if you ask me that you have to decide where to build everything when you rule a god damm space empire)


if you don t like the game don t buy it just go back to gal civ 3 if you like it so much then keep playing it and stop trying to mess up with a game all others want

Let's at least pretend to be civil, shall we? Some people don't happen to share your opinion, and that's fine. There's no need to become hostile over it.