3.99 Zones, one question

[Imp0815]

Sure building spam might be a personal problem of mine, can't say I've seen other people talk about it, but that was my opinion on the situation so. And my main problem with building spam is that it's just mindless busywork you need to do on every planet every time you get one. It's micro heavy and annoying, to me at least, and makes me play tall way more than wide cause I end up not wanting to deal with all that.

Doomstacks are also a problem, but I kinda feel like that is unrelated to the discussion at hand.

And yes, me modding in more building slots does indeed make building spam a bigger issue than in base game, but as is it's the easiest way of uncoupling planet scaling from building slots and putting it instead into planet size, which is in my opinion how it always should be.

I'd also argue, the new system has made building slots more valuable as now they serve a better purpose than "give X amount of jobs". This does slightly hinge on the condition that they do add more buildings and effects as the betas continue, and my understanding is that this is the plan.

Can't really comment that much on the local shortage/logistics system as it's utterly broken at the moment, and I could see that give some grief later on, but cross that line when we get there. I don't think it'll have that big of a effect though, just makes it necessary to build at least some trade zones instead of the none that are needed currently.

To be fair, I’ve read it twice now. I don’t know if this borders too much on personal critique—if so, I’m sorry—but I want to argue on behalf of people who perceive the same problem:
There are automations that work quite well. The gameplay loop doesn’t have much else to do. Things that can’t be automated are warfare (though you can partially automate it with vassals, allies, and follow commands), diplomacy, and... I don’t know, I think everything else can be automated now.
I see this as part of the problem: making the building system more streamlined takes away the last thing I personally find fun—automating planets and manually adjusting them from time to time. Empire management overall works really well for me. Modifying it just for the sake of change, into a system I’ve tested and perceived as worse than before, is quite sad to me.
And I can think of better solutions off the top of my head than the district/zones/building system we now have in the beta.

 

[tappi]

I don't even know what to say to this. Currently game is using at best 1/3 of visual real estate for planetary view, not to mention the size of the window itself. There are tons of space to make good UI for any number or districts on a planet. I absolutely don't see how making science, CGs, alloys, unity and army their own districts would break the UI. Even separating housing and governing is not an issue. As for amenities - it being its own zone is just absurd imo, neither a zone nor a district should be devoted to pop maintenance.

In a future proofing way, the game already has 8 (at least around there) odd different districts, and that's not counting special ones form civics etc. It's about futureproofing the UI and making it more flexible, sure you could add a couple of extra zones/districts, but still having them be a limited number per planet is a better idea than having all be constantly present.

And yeah, amenity zone shouldn't exist, the devs have agreed and it's going the way of the dodo already so.

I would like to test the game, but it is barely working with no migration, no demotion and non-working civilians. So I only limited my playtime with 3 2-hour game sessions. Maybe this specific point isn't that big of a deal when playing the game. For now it looks like it makes a new issue when there was non before for no apparent benefit.

If you want to you can work around the demotion and migration issues currently, it's not perfect but you can largely mitigate the current issues by first picking the harmony tradition tree and the -75% demote time. It doesn't fully resolve the issue, so prepare more consumer good production than you'd think you need or deal with the crime. Also build transit hubs on all planet stations, helps with the migration, or at least I've convinced myself it does. Government zone should always have a holo theater or luxury apartments in them, only way to currently handle amenities without it being a massive pain. Both should last on a planet for a long time. I think luxury is better, cause it upgrade to paradise domes, should have enough amenities regardless of how big the planet is.

Civilians do actually sorta work, it's just that the demotion timer is way too slow.

 

[Calvax]

Other than the Empire Capital? Maybe your first Ecu depending on how many planets you have available.

My suspicion is zones will be better in the late game, but their current form is worse in the early game. When you have enough planets to specialize maybe they'll turn out better. The devs need a better experience for the first 30 years of the game though, since everyone has to make it through that before they can start seeing the potential benefits zones can offer.

My tentative suspicion is that the zone and building system will have a lot of potential for making planets feel different after some development time and more zones added. We already have a bit of this talked about by the devs like betharian mines allowing the mining districts to produce energy. To my mind that's where the interesting differences will come from, with different zones and buildings two planets with the same districts will potentially behave quite differently.

 

[Imp0815]

I'd say the main reason we repeat them is because we want to produce science.

Now I don't think "building spam" is that big of an issue... at least not much more than "district spam" is an issue, aside from having the added annoyance of having to upgrade them all individually, but it's also not a complete non-issue.


Quite honestly, doomstacking never felt "repetitive" to me. It's simplistic, sure, and it'd be cool if it were expanded by a more interesting system, but it does not make me go "Ugh, it's the same thing again!". I guess when one plays the game as a war simulator, one might feel differently, but for me... upgrading all of my buildings, that's much closer to making me feel that way than engaging in wars.

Research is endless with repeatables. If you reach better tech, you can churn out bigger fleet power numbers. There’s no limit to using that fleet power—you can always gain the upper hand by bringing more guns to a fight.
Research is the best way to scale your fleet power, either directly or indirectly through economy improvements. Economy improvements allow for shifting jobs or outright increasing output. All of this funnels into fleet power. And you don’t even need to use that fleet power for warfare—you use it as a deterrent, a big stick to form alliances or manipulate the GalCom to crown you emperor, which also gives you more fleet power to utilize.
This basically shows that no matter what empire you play, you always run the treadmill of generating and upgrading fleet power(repetition).

This short excerpt of a dead horse should clarify why I beat it—and why I think the building system is not the culprit of repetitive gameplay.
And I think it’s worse to have planets be set up once and then only resort to building city districts if you want something other than energy, food, or minerals. It makes the game more simplistic and repetitive, in my opinion.

 

[tappi]

To be fair, I’ve read it twice now. I don’t know if this borders too much on personal critique—if so, I’m sorry—but I want to argue on behalf of people who perceive the same problem:
There are automations that work quite well. The gameplay loop doesn’t have much else to do. Things that can’t be automated are warfare (though you can partially automate it with vassals, allies, and follow commands), diplomacy, and... I don’t know, I think everything else can be automated now.
I see this as part of the problem: making the building system more streamlined takes away the last thing I personally find fun—automating planets and manually adjusting them from time to time. Empire management overall works really well for me. Modifying it just for the sake of change, into a system I’ve tested and perceived as worse than before, is quite sad to me.
And I can think of better solutions off the top of my head than the district/zones/building system we now have in the beta.

I'm gonna be frank, never used the automation as I have major problems trusting any AI with planetary decisions. I think the only automations I use is auto science ships to excavate and do anomalies after I've manually surveyed everything I want, and auto construction ships (a godsend addition).

I also think that this system isn't really even simplifying the planetary management. It just changes the decision from "what building do I build" to "what zone do I build" and as someone who specializes most of my planets, it removes a bunch of unnecessary micro. Yes, it means I don't have to go through each planet every once in a while and click "upgrade building" 10 times, but I'd also argue that's not exactly engaging.

Don't worry about criticism either, all this is very subjective, I've played stellaris from day 1 and the state of the game has been a wild ride for better or worse.

 

[Imp0815]

My tentative suspicion is that the zone and building system will have a lot of potential for making planets feel different after some development time and more zones added. We already have a bit of this talked about by the devs like betharian mines allowing the mining districts to produce energy. To my mind that's where the interesting differences will come from, with different zones and buildings two planets with the same districts will potentially behave quite differently.

Well, we could have done that also in the building system of 3.14, so I don't see this as an argument for zones or the new system.
For example, industrial districts provide housing with a certain civic.

 

[tappi]

My tentative suspicion is that the zone and building system will have a lot of potential for making planets feel different after some development time and more zones added. We already have a bit of this talked about by the devs like betharian mines allowing the mining districts to produce energy. To my mind that's where the interesting differences will come from, with different zones and buildings two planets with the same districts will potentially behave quite differently.

This is also what I'm expecting and hoping for. If they deliver on special zones/districts it would add a very nice amount of depth to planet management and make targeting special planets a bigger deal. Also just the flexibility for modders makes this a change that I like a lot.

 

[Imp0815]

I'm gonna be frank, never used the automation as I have major problems trusting any AI with planetary decisions. I think the only automations I use is auto science ships to excavate and do anomalies after I've manually surveyed everything I want, and auto construction ships (a godsend addition).

I also think that this system isn't really even simplifying the planetary management. It just changes the decision from "what building do I build" to "what zone do I build" and as someone who specializes most of my planets, it removes a bunch of unnecessary micro. Yes, it means I don't have to go through each planet every once in a while and click "upgrade building" 10 times, but I'd also argue that's not exactly engaging.

Don't worry about criticism either, all this is very subjective, I've played stellaris from day 1 and the state of the game has been a wild ride for better or worse.

Thanks!

I can wholeheartedly recommend my playstyle: dedicate the planet, turn on automation, and disable stuff you don’t want—like upgrades, as they can eat up your strategic resources. Then just visit the colony from time to time to see how it’s going and maybe adjust it a little based on your current needs. It feels like managing a real empire that grows on its own while you sometimes need to “adjust.” It’s really fun for me. Try it!

I’ve already tested this in the beta, and it’s worse now. You basically have access to all three zones about 30 minutes in, which means visiting a planet is only necessary to press "upgrade" on a district—one of four decisions. Buildings are mostly limited to one per planet, and zones limit the building selection even more.
So there’s truly nothing left to do once you dedicate a planet to a purpose—which now just means manually building the three zones and being done with it. Nothing left to decide or adjust.

So yes, it’s gone from having to decide between five districts and eight building slots, to four districts, three zones, and buildings are basically neglectable for now. And it’s not even a fair comparison, since eight building slots often offered a wide variety of decisions, while the three zones are gone really quick—and most of the time, you’d still want research anyway.

 

[tappi]

Thanks!

I can wholeheartedly recommend my playstyle: dedicate the planet, turn on automation, and disable stuff you don’t want—like upgrades, as they can eat up your strategic resources. Then just visit the colony from time to time to see how it’s going and maybe adjust it a little based on your current needs. It feels like managing a real empire that grows on its own while you sometimes need to “adjust.” It’s really fun for me. Try it!

I’ve already tested this in the beta, and it’s worse now. You basically have access to all three zones about 30 minutes in, which means visiting a planet is only necessary to press "upgrade" on a district—one of four decisions. Buildings are mostly limited to one per planet, and zones limit the building selection even more.
So there’s truly nothing left to do once you dedicate a planet to a purpose—which now just means manually building the three zones and being done with it. Nothing left to decide or adjust.

So yes, it’s gone from having to decide between five districts and eight building slots, to four districts, three zones, and buildings are basically neglectable for now. And it’s not even a fair comparison, since eight building slots often offered a wide variety of decisions, while the three zones are gone really quick—and most of the time, you’d still want research anyway.

Yeah, it does somewhat hinge on the condition that they add more buildings to the zones and so. Most currently have 3-4, which are unlockable with tech later in the game, but for planets where you'd for example plonk down 3 research districts, you still have a bunch of building slots left over you can't put anything into. I do have trust that they'll be modifying and reworking the rest of the old buildings to work in here and hopefully add more variance.

We shall see.

 

[Imp0815]

Yeah, it does somewhat hinge on the condition that they add more buildings to the zones and so. Most currently have 3-4, which are unlockable with tech later in the game, but for planets where you'd for example plonk down 3 research districts, you still have a bunch of building slots left over you can't put anything into. I do have trust that they'll be modifying and reworking the rest of the old buildings to work in here and hopefully add more variance.

We shall see.

You are right, it hinges on more work and we shall see.

But I want to conclude this by saying this would be fully unnecessary if they hadn’t made this change in the first place.
It's cascading work and balance demands that weren’t there before, and we could’ve just had more possible alternatives and more unique and interesting buildings/districts and features in the old system instead—directly made, without this new liability of zones and such.

 

[Ryika]

You are right, it hinges on more work and we shall see.

But I want to conclude this by saying this would be fully unnecessary if they hadn’t made this change in the first place.
It's cascading work and balance demands that weren’t there before, and we could’ve just had more possible alternatives and more unique and interesting buildings/districts and features in the old system instead—directly made, without this new liability of zones and such.

But isn't that same argument valid for the 2.2 rework? Instead of doing all of that unnecessary work to expand the system and allow for more interesting planets, we could still have tiles, and just add more interesting buildings with more interesting adjacency bonuses to create unique planets. And yeah, that would work, but you'd still have a much more limited system at baseline to expand upon.

Same's true for the current rework. Sure, you could expand the current system, but the new system opens up more options.

Ultimately, both are "unnecessary" in the way that we could do without them. But I think leaving the performance issues that it caused out of the picture and just looking at the gameplay, most people today agree that the new system is far more interesting than what we had before, and that it kind of justified the work that went into it.

Ideally, that's where 3.0 is heading as well.

 

[Imp0815]

But isn't that same argument valid for the 2.2 rework? Instead of doing all of that unnecessary work to expand the system and allow for more interesting planets, we could still have tiles, and just add more interesting buildings with more interesting adjacency bonuses to create unique planets. And yeah, that would work, but you'd still have a much more limited system at baseline to expand upon.

Same's true for the current rework. Sure, you could expand the current system, but the new system opens up more options.

Ultimately, both are "unnecessary" in the way that we could do without them. But I think leaving the performance issues that it caused out of the picture and just looking at the gameplay, most people today agree that the new system is far more interesting than what we had before, and that it kind of justified the work that went into it.

Ideally, that's where 3.0 is heading as well.

Good point! I can't really argue around that because it's been such a long time since we got the new system that it's hard to pinpoint the pain points with the puzzle game. It had merit and was fun to fiddle with, but probably nearly impossible to teach to AI, I would guess.
The only thing I truly remember is that the new system felt infinitely better and gave planets much more scale while maintaining complexity to a degree.

One thing however is that we've addressed many aspects and things in the meantime that clearly show the game does not currently suffer from the planet management and building system. And I think most of us would agree we have much more pressing issues.
That's why I think the second rework of the planet building system is a surprise to us—and in my case, not a welcome one.

 

[WoodenP]

Honestly zones don't accomplish anything that districts/buildings can do. There are a lot of circular arguments in this thread where one camp is failing to grasp that. Beyond this, zones are a rather crowbarred idea that is quite nonsensical from a thematic/ludo narrative perspective.

Best case scenario the review bombing when 4.0 drops won't amount to much, and then we're going to spend a year or two of patch refinements to get back to some semblance of a status quo. Time that should have been on other areas of the game. Planetary development didn't need redefining as a part of 4.0, and the opportunity cost will be enormous.

Scrap zones.