Stellaris Dev Diary #34 - Clarke Patch

[Aquila SPQR]

It adds trade offs; If you want to be a mass expansionist who has a hundred worlds, fine, but your research is going to suffer while your industry might be amazing. If you want to be a smaller empire who maybe has... 20(?) worlds, fine, your research will be better, your industry won't be nearly as great, but hey - You'll have better ships than your enemy.

Is such scenario realistic? Can a powerful empire, having economies of 100 worlds at their disposal, having 10 times more research centers than its neighbours be really worse at research than them? Can you explain to me why exactly (in real world, not in some in-game mechanics) country with more research centers and more investments in research be actually worse than country who has less scientists at their disposal?

The mechanic exists for a reason, it most certainly isn't "dumb".

I think it's only to halt the progress of the bigger empires so they won't become too powerful. Only to punish those who want have their empires bigger. It's the standard paradox's way of thinking - if the empire goes bigger and more powerful - we have to add a special mechanic to cripple it somehow so it would be more "balanced". Halt your progess, America! Because you can't be more powerful than Somalia! The whole game seems to like this idea - keep things small! You have more than 5 planets - you're punished! You create a sector - you're punished! You have too much population (why "too much"? Having too much people on one planet can be bad, but having 100 billions on 100 planets - how can it cripple their development?) - you're punished!

I call it "dumb", because it's unrealistic, ruins the realism and I believe it's only for balancing purposes. While balancing is generally good it can't be done by punishing the strong and favouring the weak though, especially in such illogical way. I'd prefer something like CIV mods - tech diffusion. Let the powerful be powerful and give smaller ones boost to the techs already researched by neighbours. You won't punish the strong and you'll help the weaker ones.

 

[Dalwin]

The problem being, there is not really anything to do for "going tall" except refrain from "going wide". Internal management is basically nonexistent - what can you do as a non-expansionist that an expansionist can't ?

My version of going tall seems pretty effective, though it is really just a slight delay to going wide.

Instead of choosing colony ship as the first tech to research, choose the one that give +1 influence. This will almost force you to get a frontier outpost or two in place before your first colony. The combination of getting the outposts (assuming you have a constructor develop the systems) and of delaying that first colony gives a much better growth curve on technology. There is no need to hold back more than this by capping how many colonies you are will to eventually create etc.

Is such scenario realistic? Can a powerful empire, having economies of 100 worlds at their disposal, having 10 times more research centers than its neighbours be really worse at research than them? Can you explain to me why exactly (in real world, not in some in-game mechanics) country with more research centers and more investments in research be actually worse than country who has less scientists at their disposal?
I think it's only to halt the progress of the bigger empires so they won't become too powerful. Only to punish those who want have their empires bigger. It's the standard paradox's way of thinking - if the empire goes bigger and more powerful - we have to add a special mechanic to cripple it somehow so it would be more "balanced". Halt your progess, America! Because you can't be more powerful than Somalia! The whole game seems to like this idea - keep things small! You have more than 5 planets - you're punished! You create a sector - you're punished! You have too much population (why "too much"? Having too much people on one planet can be bad, but having 100 billions on 100 planets - how can it cripple their development?) - you're punished!
I call it "dumb", because it's unrealistic, ruins the realism and I believe it's only for balancing purposes. While balancing is generally good it can't be done by punishing the strong and favouring the weak though, especially in such illogical way. I'd prefer something like CIV mods - tech diffusion. Let the powerful be powerful and give smaller ones boost to the techs already researched by neighbours. You won't punish the strong and you'll help the weaker ones.

The real world reason is actually very simple. Tech improvement is not as simple as developing something in a lab and then being done with the process. To make use of any new tech one must also integrate it into his empire at many levels. Manufacturers have to retool their plants to make the new things. Some techs need to be eased into place to avoid empire wide economic collapse.

These are real world scenarios.

All that being said, the above is still merely rationalization. No matter how valid the explanation given, the truth is that this is a VERY important balance feature. It forces some key strategic decisions on expansion pace. Without it the answer is ALWAYS to colonize everything you can possibly reach as quickly as you can. That kind of one dimensional thinking without strategic tradeoff is about as interesting as putting all of your ships into one massive fleet or having allies who can do nothing better than follow you around.

 

[Elsa]

Thanks dev team!

I had to make an account here just to say thanks and keep up the hard work after reading the exhaustive list of changes coming only !!!2 weeks!!! after release.

Thanks again and hope you guys continue to support this awesome game!

Cheers!

 

[Akrasjel]

Nice

 

[Coffee Fox]

Is such scenario realistic? Can a powerful empire, having economies of 100 worlds at their disposal, having 10 times more research centers than its neighbours be really worse at research than them? Can you explain to me why exactly (in real world, not in some in-game mechanics) country with more research centers and more investments in research be actually worse than country who has less scientists at their disposal?



I think it's only to halt the progress of the bigger empires so they won't become too powerful. Only to punish those who want have their empires bigger. It's the standard paradox's way of thinking - if the empire goes bigger and more powerful - we have to add a special mechanic to cripple it somehow so it would be more "balanced". Halt your progess, America! Because you can't be more powerful than Somalia! The whole game seems to like this idea - kep things small! You have more than 5 planets - you're punished! You create a sector - you're punished! You have too much population (why "too much"? Having too much people on one planet can be bad, but having 100 billions on 100 planets - how can it cripple their development?) - you're punished!

I call it "dumb", because it's unrealistic, ruins the realism and I believe it's only for balancing purposes. While balancing is generally good it can't be done by punishing the strong and favouring the weak though, especially in such illogical way. I'd prefer something like CIV mods - tech diffusion. Let the powerful be powerful and give smaller ones boost to the techs already researched by neighbours. You won't punish the strong and you'll help the weaker ones.

There is such a thing as 'Getting in each others way' - To many scientists, to many buildings, can be a hindrance to research. How can you possibly manage say, 200+ scientists, research buildings, and the like? How are those scientists supposed to co-ordinate their efforts to advancing technology? They can't. It becomes to unwieldy; And so many labs would certainly be a nightmare; How are you going to co-ordinate what lab will work on what? How will they share their findings with each other? What if one lab makes a breakthrough - Then every other lab/all the scientists would have to get up to speed - More time wasted.

At some point, more labs just become useless and a waste of space. Kind of a mess of an argument, but still.

 

[Azhcristokos]

Great patch! Very much looking forward to it!

Is there a possibility that we are going to get an "upgrade all buildings" or "upgrade all buildings of [type]" in this patch or another one soon? It is a minor UI annoyance but one that could save us all a great deal of clicking so we can get back to the juicy stuff.

 

[JoeSteel]

What is planned in relation to more mod accesibility? Particularly in relation to ironman? Will we have an alert as to when achievements are turned off like in previous games?

 

[ZenthWolf]

Can I ask what the intended behavior of "Respect Tile Resources" is in the view of the devs?

Two cases in particular:

I may have a planet with 4 tiles producing food and no other resource- should sector AI in this case build four farms, even if only 2 or 3 are strictly necessary?

How are mixed tiles expected to be regarded? E.G. 2 minerals + 1 food? Will the focus guide the AI into building a building rather than not building one?

I guess, in short, do you expect certain, if fairly obvious, sub-optimal cases to be exposed as part of the "cost" of utilizing sectors, and part of the nature of an expansive empire?

 

[Chieron]

Technology cost is now increased both by number of planets owned and size of population, instead of just population. Accordingly, the tech increase cost from population was lowered.

I hope this is balanced well enough, otherwise colonizing smaller worlds is quite penalized (and they were not that interesting to begin with).
Potential population ( i.e. total empire planet size) might've been a better parameter for tech costs.

 

[Coffee Fox]

My version of going tall seems pretty effective, though it is really just a slight delay to going wide.

Instead of choosing colony ship as the first tech to research, choose the one that give +1 influence. This will almost force you to get a frontier outpost or two in place before your first colony. The combination of getting the outposts (assuming you have a constructor develop the systems) and of delaying that first colony gives a much better growth curve on technology. There is no need to hold back more than this by capping how many colonies you are will to eventually create etc.


The real world reason is actually very simple. Tech improvement is not as simple as developing something in a lab and then being done with the process. To make use of any new tech one must also integrate it into his empire at many levels. Manufacturers have to retool their plants to make the new things. Some techs need to be eased into place to avoid empire wide economic collapse.

These are real world scenarios.

All that being said, the above is still merely rationalization. No matter how valid the explanation given, the truth is that this is a VERY important balance feature. It forces some key strategic decisions on expansion pace. Without it the answer is ALWAYS to colonize everything you can possibly reach as quickly as you can. That kind of one dimensional thinking without strategic tradeoff is about as interesting as putting all of your ships into one massive fleet or having allies who can do nothing better than follow you around.

So, if you hold off on the first colony, how do you build your homeworld? I tend to go a mix of research buildings, energy, and minerals myself.

If you don't mind, whats a good amount of planets, if you've found a number, for a tall empire?

My space foxes require more efficiency. Do you build worlds dedicated to industry with a bigger focus on science worlds?

I hope tall empires have become more viable with planet numbers increasing tech costs, while population less so.

I just haven't found a good guide for any of this.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

The real world reason is actually very simple. Tech improvement is not as simple as developing something in a lab and then being done with the process. To make use of any new tech one must also integrate it into his empire at many levels. Manufacturers have to retool their plants to make the new things. Some techs need to be eased into place to avoid empire wide economic collapse.

These are real world scenarios.

All that being said, the above is still merely rationalization. No matter how valid the explanation given, the truth is that this is a VERY important balance feature. It forces some key strategic decisions on expansion pace. Without it the answer is ALWAYS to colonize everything you can possibly reach as quickly as you can. That kind of one dimensional thinking without strategic tradeoff is about as interesting as putting all of your ships into one massive fleet or having allies who can do nothing better than follow you around.

Like you said - you're just trying to rationalize it. Research is one thing - implementation of the technology - another. I'm already paying additional price to upgrade ships and buildings - then why should I pay for it twice? And actually what you said could've been plausible if I had to pay the price in energy or minerals - but no - I'm paying the price of having too much population in research - so we have to assume that having one additional population in some far away planet somehow makes my scientists a bit dumber. Previously he could calculate something in two days, but now we colonized a new planet 100 light years away and now he has to spend 27 days calculating it.

As I said - I have nothing against balancing because games have to be someow balanced, but not at all cost, not at cost of implementing illogical things. Make new planets cost additional maintenance (the more you have - the more it costs to maintain) to simulate growing cost of governing the expanding empire - and it would be cool and quite realistic.

There is such a thing as 'Getting in each others way' - To many scientists, to many buildings, can be a hindrance to research. How can you possibly manage say, 200+ scientists, research buildings, and the like? How are those scientists supposed to co-ordinate their efforts to advancing technology? They can't. It becomes to unwieldy; And so many labs would certainly be a nightmare; How are you going to co-ordinate what lab will work on what? How will they share their findings with each other? What if one lab makes a breakthrough - Then every other lab/all the scientists would have to get up to speed - More time wasted.

At some point, more labs just become useless and a waste of space. Kind of a mess of an argument, but still.

Like Dalwin said - you're also trying to rationalize the illogical. I'm quite sure that in the future people would easily coordinate their research worldwide. It's not like they have to communicate by sending pidgeons anymore. Besides - it's also not like 50 research centers are working at only three projects at a time. I consider this as a simplification. The more scientists you have the greater is your overall tech progress. In reality these 50 research centers could be working at 50 different projects. For game purposes we only have three options, but I do not think of the research in my game in such way. It represents my total scientific capability. For example people in lab on the plains on Terra Nova are working on some new lighbulb. They were expecting to finish their job in one month, but unfortunately we founded a new colony twenty light years away, so they now have to work five months longer.

Fortunately I modded it and it seems to be ok right now. Early techs are being researched quite fast, higher tiers - slower. Now I have to find a way to encourage AI to colonize more planets or simply play with more AIs to have less space for easy claiming.

 

[nuyu]

So can we filer the planet type?

 

[tomme25]

Free patch? Why wouldn't it be free?

 

[Baron Jukaga]

Any word on Starbase armaments upgrading properly?

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I dunno, I think at the end of the day, some sort more centralized research is going to be more efficient than research being performed scattered across the map (arm, galaxy, whatever). I mean, here on Earth, it can be hard enough coordinating with people in different TIME ZONES let alone if you were separated by days/weeks of travel time to exchange information.


Of course this modifier is an abstraction because it would be in play even if you didn’t generate a SINGLE research point from outside your Homeworld. And in that instance, I wouldn’t find it to be ‘realistic’/plausible. But for the way the game is generally structured (you’re deriving research points from isolate orbiting labs across dozens of star systems and planets) then I think it’s actually quick lenient and more than plausible.

 

[Warial]

Free patch? Why wouldn't it be free?

If you check every patchnotes for EU4 and CK2, you will see that at the very beginning they are split into 2. First, they are DLC features mentioned, then there are features which are a part of a Free Patch. It's just there to differentiate between what's part of DLC and what's for free.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

It just reminded me a something from Civilization series. These games also had a mechanic preventing players from expanding their empires too fast. In Civ IV you had to pay maintenance for your cities - the more you had, the greater was the cost needed to maintain the new ones. Thanks to that you had to calculate how many cities you could have at the moment and if it is really profitable to found a new city right now. And it also could be explained by having new additional costs of governing additional territory.

And then Civ V came and... they for some reason decided to change this perfect mechanic. In Civ IV every city had a separate happiness - it's quite understandable why - Rome can be happy while some backwater city with no coloseum can be a bit dull and its citizens may be unhappy. In Civ V happiness became an empire-wide thing. People in the whole empire were getting less happy when any city grew a new citizen or when new city was founded. And it was as ridiculous as current Stellaris' research penalty and was widely criticized by fans. Imagine this - people in Rome had a happy life, had their coloseum where they could see the games, had a tavern where they could hang out and suddenly they become less happy because the emperor founded a new city 200 km away from them. Absolutely ridiculous. It did its job because it become more difficult to expand fast (well, at least a bit difficult) but the idea behind it was simply dumb.

 

[Zaydin]

Hopefully the AI will react better to the end-game crises with this. It's annoying to have a galactic threat like the Scourge arrive in your backyard and end up dealing with it yourself because the AI doesn't care.

 

[Magnificate]

One small funcionality I'd like to see in one of the patches is the option to rename planets on conquest. Say, I conquer Xzzzytria and the game prompts me if I want to change it to say, Solaria, or other name matching my colonized worlds.

 

[Hubolb]

How about you implement a casus beli system? It's a shame that paradox's stategy game do not have one.