The underground nation origin is broken due to the new system of building planets and districts

[Mech_infect]

Previously, the bonus was that when building mining districts, you not only got more housing, but also for 3 districts you could get +1 slot of a free building. Now you just have a district improved by +housing. According to the lore, mining districts there were few residential, urban districts. I would like some equivalent for the early bonus to buildings.

Solution idea -

Maybe let the mining district have a second specialization slot, like all races "basic city districts"

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Previously, the bonus was that when building mining districts, you not only got more housing, but also for 3 districts you could get +1 slot of a free building. Now you just have a district improved by +housing. According to the lore, mining districts there were few residential, urban districts. I would like some equivalent for the early bonus to buildings.

Solution idea -

Maybe let the mining district have a second specialization slot, like all races "basic city districts"

The Subterranean origin has access to (and starts with) the Subterranean Urbanization district specialization in their mining districts. These give access to the 3 building slots of the mining district, but accept urban buildings in addition to mining buildings while giving an additional 50 miner and 50 trader trader jobs to each mining district.

 

[Mech_infect]

The Subterranean origin has access to (and starts with) the Subterranean Urbanization district specialization in their mining districts. These give access to the 3 building slots of the mining district, but accept urban buildings in addition to mining buildings while giving an additional 50 miner and 50 trader trader jobs to each mining district.

I apologize, the word "broken" was clearly unnecessary then. I didn't see this particular district specialization (the UI is still a bit inconvenient and unusual).

But, to be honest, it seems like this is not enough and it is not an equal equivalent. Previously, you could fill a large planet with mining districts, and otherwise make this planet scientific. Now you can spend a maximum of all districts on mining in a planet, but there will be no dual specialization, like in city districts.

Therefore, maybe make the main one not the city district, but mining with 2 specializations and the ability to build both scientific, and archives, and other types of specializations there. And the City district in place of the mining district with 1 specialization. IMHO, this will better reveal the "flavor" of the underground nation, which literally builds a city in the middle of mines.

I understand that you now have many other tasks that need to be fixed, but please - think about it.

 

[Thiend]

The Subterranean origin has access to (and starts with) the Subterranean Urbanization district specialization in their mining districts. These give access to the 3 building slots of the mining district, but accept urban buildings in addition to mining buildings while giving an additional 50 miner and 50 trader trader jobs to each mining district.

If you add a fourth building slot, that'll probably work.

Not confident one building per colony really replicates the former system of providing building slots, but it is something. Just allowing them in the mining district only helps if you DO need mining districts but DON'T need the minerals badly enough to use all three slots on it, which... actually could happen, with the engineering support specialization or any similar ones added, so its not completely intolerable. Still, I think it would work better with 4 slots on the mining district.

 

[Red Death]

The Subterranean origin has access to (and starts with) the Subterranean Urbanization district specialization in their mining districts. These give access to the 3 building slots of the mining district, but accept urban buildings in addition to mining buildings while giving an additional 50 miner and 50 trader trader jobs to each mining district.

It should be noted that this is really not equivalent to the previous function in either power or feel.

In 3.14, getting building slots from mining districts meant you could build things like research labs and bureaucrat offices without building city districts.
A few points:

1. Building slots per district was a straight bonus. The different new district specialisation is a side-grade option. So that is a nerf to the civic.
2. The equivalent to building slots in the old system is not building slots in the new system, it is research/bureaucrat-specialised city districts. (scaling production!)

So perhaps think along those lines instead.

The above also goes for the Agrarian Idyll civic, by the way.

 

[vulcan7200]

The Subterranean origin has access to (and starts with) the Subterranean Urbanization district specialization in their mining districts. These give access to the 3 building slots of the mining district, but accept urban buildings in addition to mining buildings while giving an additional 50 miner and 50 trader trader jobs to each mining district.

As others said, this is not the equivalent. Agrarian Idyll has the same exact issue. It feels like these Origins and Civics had very little time spent on them as the bonuses are uninspired and miss the mark on what made them originally work.

Previously they gave you an extra Building Slot per X Districts. Building Slots were one of the main ways to get jobs on your planet as that's where nearly all of your Specialist Jobs came from with the exception being Factory and Foundry. This allowed you to utilize your Basic Resource Districts to get the very important Building Slots, instead of using the City District as the City District only gave Clerks and Housing. If you wanted a Unity Planet, you could build Mining and Farming Districts to get some Building Slots, with minimal City Districts and you will still get the full effect of a Unity Planet by putting Admin Buildings in those Building Slots.

In 4.0 however, Building Slots are NOT the main way to get Specialist Jobs. City Districts are. So while yes the Subterranean Urbanization and Agrarian Village Zones let you build Urban Buildings, these Building Slots are MUCH less impactful than they used to be. If you want a Unity Planet now, you build a Unity Zone in your City District, and then build lots of City Districts. Sure maybe you'll still build one Mining and Farming District for those Building Slots but after than you'll just ignore those Districts.

Furthermore, the two Zones for Subterranean and Agrarian Idyll replace 50 Miner/Farmer Jobs to also get 50 Trader Jobs as pointed out. If you don't want those Trader Jobs (Which you very well might not), you'll have to build just the normal Mining and Farming Districts meaning you'll get NO benefit from the Origin or Civic despite building Mining and Farming Districts.

Lastly, there will be many times where you'll fill up those Mining and Farming Building Slots with the Mining and Farming Buildings that buff those jobs, again further limiting the Origin and Civics usefulness.

I don't mean this to sound condescending, but this is exactly the type of things people were worried about by rushing 4.0 out. The bugs are bad, but can be quickly fixed via patches as we've seen. The flaws listed here make it feel like no play testing was done on these, as it would have been obvious pretty quickly why the new Origin and Civic don't work that well. Fixes to things like this will likely NOT be made quickly like bug fixes are, though I'd love to be wrong about that. By rushing 4.0 out certain Origins and Civics feel like they'll be doomed for a long time.

 

[Red Death]

1. Building slots per district was a straight bonus. The different new district specialisation is a side-grade option. So that is a nerf to the civic.

I have to come back here to semi-correct myself: Subterranean also makes all base mineral districts provide 100 extra miner jobs, so you can take the urban specialisation and still have an overall mining district with more miner jobs than a normal empire.

Actually no, that's just outdated wiki information, so it's as bad as I thought.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

The equivalent of the old building slot buff would be getting just extra jobs (instead of swapping some over).

Ex. Subterranean and Agrarian Idyll give +50 trader jobs per mining district, without touching the specialization at all.

Ideally it would actually swap based on the urban district specializations (ex. if you have two alloy specializations, you get +50 metallurgists), but I have no idea how feasible that is.

Getting another 3 urban building slots is quite nice, but it mostly encourages you to build a single mining or farming district on every planet.

 

[jedavis]

The equivalent of the old building slot buff would be getting just extra jobs (instead of swapping some over).

Ex. Subterranean and Agrarian Idyll give +50 trader jobs per mining district, without touching the specialization at all.

Ideally it would actually swap based on the urban district specializations (ex. if you have two alloy specializations, you get +50 metallurgists), but I have no idea how feasible that is.

Or provide a bunch of specializations for mining/ag districts that give like +66 specialist jobs of different types (ex a mining+research spec, a mining+alloy spec, a mining+unity spec, ...)?

 

[Red Death]

The equivalent of the old building slot buff would be getting just extra jobs (instead of swapping some over).

Ex. Subterranean and Agrarian Idyll give +50 trader jobs per mining district, without touching the specialization at all.

Ideally it would actually swap based on the urban district specializations (ex. if you have two alloy specializations, you get +50 metallurgists), but I have no idea how feasible that is.

Getting another 3 urban building slots is quite nice, but it mostly encourages you to build a single mining or farming district on every planet.

The original intention of these Civic/Origin was to let the resource districts be a partial city district (without negatively affecting the resource district itself) while nerfing the city district.

Right now they did that by adding housing and urban building slots to the resource district, but those are the least important parts of the city district! The point of the previous version is that it let you build your primary research production.

What they can do is:

• Give a default +200 +100 jobs to the resource district (so the next choice is not a weakening of the district's normal function).
• Allow you to pick any of the default city district specialisations. Research, Archives, alloys, etc.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

The original intention of these Civic/Origin was to let the resource districts be a partial city district (without negatively affecting the resource district itself) while nerfing the city district.

Right now they did that by adding housing and urban building slots to the resource district, but those are the least important parts of the city district! The point of the previous version is that it let you build your primary research production.

What they can do is:

• Give a default +200 jobs to the resource district (so the next choice is not a weakening of the district's normal function).
• Allow you to pick any of the default city district specialisations. Research, Archives, alloys, etc.

A small quibble: I think the default zones add e.g. +100 miners (so it would be +100 jobs by default).

But aside from that:

• The default district specializations are half of a city district (+100 jobs), so it would be bumping both of them up to the equivalent of 0.5 building slots per mining/agri-district (quite a jump).
• Neither the default district specializations (nor the government zone) can host the standard boosting buildings for e.g. minerals, so swapping the district would kneecap your basic resource production.
  • You could fix this (ex. allow those two civics to build the relevant boosting buildings in the government zone near the capital, even if means adding code for a government_subterranean zone to enable it), but it's worth noting.

Or provide a bunch of specializations for mining/ag districts that give like +66 specialist jobs of different types (ex a mining+research spec, a mining+alloy spec, a mining+unity spec, ...)?

I resisted the temptation to propose that, because "just make a duplicate of every possible urban specialization for each civic that boosts these effects" sounds like a PITA to maintain.

 

[Thiend]

I resisted the temptation to propose that, because "just make a duplicate of every possible urban specialization for each civic that boosts these effects" sounds like a PITA to maintain.

It may be the easiest and best solution to actually make Subterranean mining be a city specialization, rather than putting city specialization stuff into Subterranean mining districts.

This could also include direct bonuses to mineral-based products, IE a city district that directly provides mining jobs and a large bonus to CG, alloy, and hivemind lithoid researcher/unity jobs (in number and/or output).

That actually fits the theme much better, and resolves the longstanding problem that subterranean MASSIVELY overproduces minerals if you actually use it to any degree. Instead of producing more minerals, it would be very easy to produce some minerals everywhere you need them while improving the jobs that need them locally.

 

[Mech_infect]

About the problems of the new planet building system in 4.0 - the fact that in ecumenopolises you build auxiliary districts ONLY for the sake of 3 building slots (you still spend all the districts on the main dual city slot) is indicative and demonstrates the problems. It feels like buildings should be built using a different system.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Allow you to pick any of the default city district specialisations. Research, Archives, alloys, etc.

It may be the easiest and best solution to actually make Subterranean mining be a city specialization, rather than putting city specialization stuff into Subterranean mining districts.

Porque no los dos? Put your mines in your cities and your cities in your mines.

This would also result in altered lockstep control as a side bonus - you could have mining/cg city districts and science specced mining districts, allowing you to build your science and CG separately but always boosting your minerals.

You could similarly add a subterranean farm specialisation that does something neat and then reuse it by making it rarely available to other empires via planetary deposits and events.

 

[Nakkivene]

The new is more attractive from a power perspective to me. I'd never want a billion mining districts anyway, in previous iteration.

 

[Enailios]

Would it be crazy if the appropriate resource district became the urban district at top with the auto 6 building slots and ability to specialize twice while the urban goes to the bottom resource side along with the other two normal districts?

 

[Red Death]

It may be the easiest and best solution to actually make Subterranean mining be a city specialization, rather than putting city specialization stuff into Subterranean mining districts.

This could also include direct bonuses to mineral-based products, IE a city district that directly provides mining jobs and a large bonus to CG, alloy, and hivemind lithoid researcher/unity jobs (in number and/or output).

That actually fits the theme much better, and resolves the longstanding problem that subterranean MASSIVELY overproduces minerals if you actually use it to any degree. Instead of producing more minerals, it would be very easy to produce some minerals everywhere you need them while improving the jobs that need them locally.

At first thought it sounds nice, but a mineral specialisation in your city district actually sounds kind of... weak? That's taking the spot of what could be a double-specialised research or industry district. The problem with a city district specialisation is that you can't build "just a few" of them, you just made a set decision that every time you try to increase any of your advanced resources on this planet, it's weaker and you will instead get some more miners.

You could also just put some bonus miners on the base city district instead. You don't have to sacrifice any specialisation slot then, but you still end up with probably more minerals than you need.

Porque no los dos? Put your mines in your cities and your cities in your mines.

This would also result in altered lockstep control as a side bonus - you could have mining/cg city districts and science specced mining districts, allowing you to build your science and CG separately but always boosting your minerals.

You could similarly add a subterranean farm specialisation that does something neat and then reuse it by making it rarely available to other empires via planetary deposits and events.

I guess this makes sense as well.

Maybe the outcome we should be aiming for is:
For every mine you build (because you want the minerals), you are getting a bonus that is equal to a partial city district (in the ways that matter).

For that, I think buffing the base mining district, and then letting it take the city district specialisations is in principle good enough, but the more elaborate changes people are suggesting would also work.

 

[vulcan7200]

After playing quite a bit with Subterranean and Agrarian Idyll (Combining both is a playstyle I always enjoyed previously) maybe the easiest solution is to just have that Origin and Civic add those Jobs to the City District. Maybe 50 Miners for Subterranean and 25 for Agrarian Idyll (I feel like Origins should have a bigger benefit than a Civic). I think part of the problem is that the Developers were/are so focused on trying to showcase what Zones can do, they simply overlooked the fact that these simply do not work as Zones. There's so many scenarios where you aren't going to be building Mining or Farming Districts, and many Scenarios where you'll be building one of the normal Zones (Either the full Zone or the hybrid Research Zone), instead of the "special" Zone the Origin and Civic give you. I found myself barely utilizing the Origin and Civic when I played with them.

Subterranean I would say is probably one of the worst Origin in the game right now. The benefits you get (Mining Districts uncapped, Extra Housing from Mining Districts, Orbital Bombardment Damage reduction, Cosmic Storm Devastation reduction, 15% Minerals from Mining Jobs, and Minimum Habitability 50%) barely effect the game. They're all very niche bonuses, with 50% Minimum Habitability maybe being the best benefit as that lets you colonize more if you got unlucky with Planets at the start. The downsides to this Origin though, are quite big. 20% less Growth Speed is substantial, 10% Empire Size from Pops while not crippling is still always in effect, and finally Planetary Infrastructure Cost, Upkeep and Build Speed means getting everything up and running is more expensive and slower. Again not crippling, but when combined with your slower Population Growth you'll have a noticeably slower time getting your Colonies up and running at full speed.

I really hope Paradox does a second pass over all of the Origins and Civics.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Adding farmers to city districts works mechanically, but is the exact opposite of what the civic is. Its whole thing is "fewer cities, more farms instead", and "avoid[ing] large-scale urbanization" is literally in the civic description.

It works for Subterranean, though.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Another option for Subterranean: skip the unique specializations, just let them build urban specialization in the mining zone (and make Mineral Processing available in the government district, possibly for everyone). And because you're just re-using the existing specializations, the devs don't have to make/maintain duplicates of everything.

Ex. city double-specialized to forge, mining also specialized to forge for 200 miners+100 metallurgists per district.

It would make them more efficient at producing resources in-situ:

• Forge/factory worlds can have any ratio of mining/metallurgist jobs that they want (disregarding rounding):
  • 0::1 build all cities
  • X::1 where 0<X<2 build a mix of the two (real forge planets land here)
  • 2::1 build all mines
  • X::1 where X>2 use regular mining specialization, build in whatever ratio like a normal empire (hard to imagine wanting this)
• Forge/factory worlds will have better job density than other empires doing the same thing:
  • 5 mining/10 forge makes 1500 miners and 2000 metallurgists for normal empires (0.75::1 ratio)
  • 8 mining/7 forge makes 1600 miners and 8*100+7*200=2200 metallurgists for subterranean (0.73::1 ratio)
  • Subterranean can also use 3 building slots for forges (up to 600 pops per building slot) instead of just Surface Quarry.
    • Side note: this removes all incentive for Subterranean to ever use Surface Quarry (they get better ratios converting a district to mining), which is a nice side effect
• Research/unity worlds can be double specialized to research, and have all their CG produced locally without major job inefficiency
  • Requires buildings to adjust the minerals::CG ratio, though, since 2 miners::1 artisan is not a very reasonable ratio.
• Subterranean hives can do the same thing as forge/factory with their research worlds, or use research support as normal.

It doesn't play nice with research support though, unfortunately (except for hives), since you can't have your cake and eat it too.

tl;dr: Mining districts give 100 more jobs than city districts. Moving jobs from City to Mining lets you build more mining districts, even without increasing the jobs beyond 300 which gives you more total jobs.