Please end the war on Micro-Managemennt

[Challenge]

As much as I like the general format and concepts underlying Stellaris, I lean toward the side arguing that the automation is a bit too prevalent. I like having the Sectors, but as an extension of a galactic organization they are a bit too autonomous. I have no way to access excess resources available to them; they build starports, ships and stations -- which is good -- but they aren't listed as Empire assets so I can't find them if I need them -- except mostly by accident. So if I tell them to build military, I don't know what they add to my capability. They behave more as a separate entity instead of as a part of a greater whole. And frankly the limits on how many you can make reduce the effectiveness they did have even further.

Vicky 2 is the only other GSG I have from Paradox and I would hardly call that overly micro. There is an enormous amount of information to keep track of, but the focus for the player is setting policies and making choices to push toward long range goals. You can see what effect the decisions you make have without having to nurse-maid each unit, building or individual pop. I feel like I am running an Empire, not trying to second guess an AI assistant. I need something done somewhere in particular, I go order it done.

I can't do that in Stellaris. I have to trust the AI governor to do what I need because there is no way to override decisions -- I don't have control over the empire once I make an administrative subdivision. How does that work in RL?

Managing 40 planets or so may seem a bit micro, but I don't think it is all that much. Early in each colony's development, yeah it can be a challenge to keep building out every planet tile, and even more so after a colony rush. But that's it. Once the colony is developed there really isn't much to do except build ships, pick tech to study, explore anomalies, rinse and repeat. Oh, and once every few turns do some diplomacy.

It's pretty much like every 4x game I've done before. At least in Vicky I actually have to figure out a goal or two. I have to encourage different aspect of the economy, encourage pops to change careers, make nice with other empires on a regular basis. (Playing Russia and trying to avoid the Bolshevik revolution is proving challenging.) There is nothing in Stellaris to equate to the grand part of strategy. I do like what the game offers, I just don't see it as a GSG.

 

[Jamey]

What is "microgestion"? Apparently it is the unifying theme of what is being ranted about here, but I can't figure that out. Microgestin is a hormone treatment, and the closest I could find to "microgestion". Somehow I don't think that is what you mean.

I look at HOI4 and see most of the differences between HOI3 and HOI4 are either completely different game design (e.g. the production and training system) or things that removed tedious micromanagement (e.g. the OOB and the HOI3 air war).

What you want in a game is not what I want in a game. I have no problem with that, except that you seem to think that because you want something, everyone wants it. Right now, there are 7700 people playing HOI4 and 355 playing HOI3 on Steam. That indicates to me that people prefer HOI4 to HOI3.

 

[Arizal]

I'm not arguing for adding "clicks" into the games for the sake of adding Micro. I argue against the removal/simplification of core gameplay mechanics and/or removal of player agency for sake of removing Micro.

I understand your point about agency. I am also frustrated when I cannot tell my sectors to act in one way or the other. However, I also consider managing every planets individually to be a fest-click.

Victoria 2 example, above, is a good one. You don't have to nurture each pop individually, instead you concentrate on big decisions. Same thing about vassals in both EUIV and CK2. The game should allow us to submit less general guidelines to sectors, such as : build up to x energy in this planet, improve happiness, build this particular building in the sector/the planet. Such actions could cost influence (between 0 and 25). It would cost more the more direct your orders are.

In fact, I believe "sectors" are too generic. Maybe you could have different options for your sectors depending on your government form. Are they administrative divisions in an organized country in which even the ruler doesn't impose his will everywhere, more like provinces in a federated states (in which there are constitutionnal barriers to an intervention from the top), or are they simply there as assistants for an all powerful emperor?

That's a bit far of the subject, though. To return to microgestion, when I read this, I hear "micro-management", and the sense I give to that word is... not per say "mindless clicks", but an extremely high number of decisions by aspect of the game, which, in a game meant to represent a whole galaxy, seems hard to do without overwhelming the player. I would much prefer well built macro-management.

 

[General WVPM]

What is "microgestion"? Apparently it is the unifying theme of what is being ranted about here, but I can't figure that out. Microgestin is a hormone treatment, and the closest I could find to "microgestion". Somehow I don't think that is what you mean.

I look at HOI4 and see most of the differences between HOI3 and HOI4 are either completely different game design (e.g. the production and training system) or things that removed tedious micromanagement (e.g. the OOB and the HOI3 air war).

What you want in a game is not what I want in a game. I have no problem with that, except that you seem to think that because you want something, everyone wants it. Right now, there are 7700 people playing HOI4 and 355 playing HOI3 on Steam. That indicates to me that people prefer HOI4 to HOI3.

I believe he means micro-management, making decisions on a small scale that have mainly short term effects.

In some RTS games it plays a huge role, for example in a ww2 game called Company of Heroes, you have to manually order a squad to throw a grenade or to get behind a small wall for cover. This is quite different from for example deciding what squads you would want to train or to what area you will send them.

In HOI3, it is also quite clear, manually ordering an air unit to do a certain mission at a certain time is micro. Deciding which nation to invade and when, is macro.
There is ofcourse a huge grey area...

Most complaints about micro are about the effort required to do small actions (basically asking make it easier).
The main argument for it, is that when it is automated the AI tends to either do it wrong or as stated in the OP, you feel as if it was done for you.
Some might argue that being able to put a large amount of effort into those small actions is a form of skill.

If you think this is not what the OP is talking about, then tell me what he is talking about (maybe micro-congestion -> microgestion?.

 

[Darkath]

Oh right microgestion is french for micromanagement, op edited

 

[Axe99]

Up front, I appreciate the hard work the two dev teams have put into HoI4 and Stellaris . They've done some genuinely excellent things, and both games show enormous promise. I'm a huge fan of Paradox, have been for years, and hope to be for many years more. I don't think there's a charge to 'dumb down' games, and I don't think Paradox are 'cashing out' or anything like that. I do think PDS are passionate about their work and want to make games both them and their fans enjoy.

However, I do think a narrow range of playstyles within Paradox's internal teams has left something of a blind spot to ways other people play their games, and that this is strongly reflected in the UI's of both HoI4 and Stellaris and, counter to stated design goals, these design choices mean that from a playstyle perspective, the UIs in HoI4 and Stellaris are less accessible than those for HoI3/EU4/CK2/etc.

We still have very precise control over units, production, politics (mostly) and the like, but finding out what's going on if we go down that path is now orders of magnitude harder than it was in earlier titles. Ie, from what I can see, the mechanisms are still in place (we have just as granular control over land troops in HoI4, arguably more as we could make single-battalion units), but the UI in the two latest games, while looking great on the surface, narrows the range of 'feasibly fun' playstyles by only providing relevant information for a particular way of playing the game.

To highlight this, if I want to play HoI4 or Stellaris, without forgetting whole sectors (of the front, or space, respectively), I need to play with a notepad and paper. The limited UI doesn't tell me what I need to know, so I need to go outside the game and set up my own information system to compensate. I haven't had to do this in a strategy game for years (possibly since the early 1990s), and it's anachronistic and odd for games that in many ways are quite modern. We have sandbox games with railroaded playstyles.

This is, in no small part, because the UIs in HoI4 and Stellaris are amongst the least flexible in terms of surfacing information that I've seen. I have more options about what I get to see and am alerted on in your average first-person shooter than I do in HoI4/Stellaris (this is not an exaggeration - you have ammo counts, grenade indicators, sound indicators, various reticules, all sorts of stuff in FPS - in HoI4 you have 'pause on notification on or off'). They are, in effect, very flexible games, but with a very inflexible 'game control system' (ie, the UI) that, at this point in their development, is focussed very much on a particular way of playing the game (somewhat oddly, in HoI4's case, in a way that means many of the game's systems will be barely noticed by players).

Going forward, I very much hope we see a return to game UIs that provide a range of options for players - limiting the scope of the UI makes a game less accessible in the long-term, as it limits the range of playstyles a game caters to. Going back to the FPS, all those notification options provide some flexibility in how you play the game - run'n'gun, cautious and careful, as a team player, as a solo man, you name it. It feels like when I play HoI4 and Stellaris, there is one way to play, and if I don't like it, I should be playing something else.

This is not a feeling I get from CK2, EU4, HoI3, EU4, CK, HoI2, Vicky 2, Vicky 1 or any other Paradox title I can think of. It's not a feeling I get playing War in the East, or Galactic Civilizations II/III, or Civ (pick any), or even Dune 2 style RTS games like Starcraft or Command and Conquer.

 

[Jamey]

Oh right microgestion is french for micromanagement, op edited

Heh. Your English is far better than my French, or I might have figured that out.

 

[Aries666]

I tend to find people conflate micromanagement and busy work clicking. For example I am currently doing a nomad WC in CK2, I will complete the run in 120-130 game years having raised every single county to the ground. However, it will have taken over 30 hours of real life time to do it. The reason, the ridiculous number of clicks involved in revoking titles, pillaging holdings and then granted cleared counties back out. There is no real strategy in the way I do this either it's simply take x kingdom, revoke all titles, put down revolts, pillage everything, distribute counties, much of this could be automated and would be a good example of eliminating busy clicking.

Now take for example sectors in Stellaris. At the smaller scale there are obvious benefits to managing all your own planets and indeed I did a pacifist game were I ran 15 core planets. However, I feel that once you get beyond this number the benefits of micromanaging all your planets would become so marginal, especially compared to to the benefits of just colonising/conquering more planets, that automating the process doesn't really take anything away. However, in removing a lot of busy clicking (that managing all your planets would entail) there needs to be something put in its place otherwise you are just watching the game play itself and this for me is the biggest problem with both Stellaris and HOI4. Both games did a great job of reducing busy work clicking (and consequently saving my wrists/hands!) but they didn't really replace that work with anything creating the impression of empty games.

 

[Darkath]

I tend to find people conflate micromanagement and busy work clicking. For example I am currently doing a nomad WC in CK2, I will complete the run in 120-130 game years having raised every single county to the ground. However, it will have taken over 30 hours of real life time to do it. The reason, the ridiculous number of clicks involved in revoking titles, pillaging holdings and then granted cleared counties back out. There is no real strategy in the way I do this either it's simply take x kingdom, revoke all titles, put down revolts, pillage everything, distribute counties, much of this could be automated and would be a good example of eliminating busy clicking.

Now take for example sectors in Stellaris. At the smaller scale there are obvious benefits to managing all your own planets and indeed I did a pacifist game were I ran 15 core planets. However, I feel that once you get beyond this number the benefits of micromanaging all your planets would become so marginal, especially compared to to the benefits of just colonising/conquering more planets, that automating the process doesn't really take anything away. However, in removing a lot of busy clicking (that managing all your planets would entail) there needs to be something put in its place otherwise you are just watching the game play itself and this for me is the biggest problem with both Stellaris and HOI4. Both games did a great job of reducing busy work clicking (and consequently saving my wrists/hands!) but they didn't really replace that work with anything creating the impression of empty games.

Exactly this is what i'm getting at but you formulated it quite well.

 

[ninthlite]

I think the problem with Stellaris was not just there was no micromanagement, but there was no macro management either

 

[Ritmas]

WTF is wrong with clicks even if it were added only to trigger you? These aren't RTS games that 300apm is required to play decently, more clicks means more control, more decisions, more failures, more strategy. And who said that vicky2 is micro intensive? It's most(bar latest 2released games) "play itself"(as in issue commands and sit afk for 10years at speed5) game of all pdx games, but it's good compared to HoI4/Stellaris because of its shear scale, possible decisions and amount of control given to player. Even HoI3 is not that micro intensive if devs bothered to fix starting OOB and adding new regiments to current chain more intuitive. HoI4 all player really controls is how many regiments he wants and where to draw a line. I wouldn't even mind battleplanner if it required an actual plan to be drawn, but atm a single line to paris/moscow and you're done with your ww2.

 

[General WVPM]

WTF is wrong with clicks even if it were added only to trigger you? These aren't RTS games that 300apm is required to play decently, more clicks means more control, more decisions, more failures, more strategy. And who said that vicky2 is micro intensive? It's most(bar latest 2released games) "play itself"(as in issue commands and sit afk for 10years at speed5) game of all pdx games, but it's good compared to HoI4/Stellaris because of its shear scale, possible decisions and amount of control given to player. Even HoI3 is not that micro intensive if devs bothered to fix starting OOB and adding new regiments to current chain more intuitive. HoI4 all player really controls is how many regiments he wants and where to draw a line. I wouldn't even mind battleplanner if it required an actual plan to be drawn, but atm a single line to paris/moscow and you're done with your ww2.

The problem with clicks is that mostly you make a decision and then you need to click a dozen times to execute it.
People generally like making decisions not ordering units to execute decisions.

 

[Ritmas]

The problem with clicks is that mostly you make a decision and then you need to click a dozen times to execute it.
People generally like making decisions not ordering units to execute decisions.

Only decisions that are possible with few clicks are "I want to win" and "I don't really want to win". Clicks, micro and macro are mandatory for a solid gsgame, unless there's already mind reading controller for games. And huge amount of clicks shouldn't put off people unless those clicks are unrewarding/meaningless or simply the feature is badly designed, or even more simply you aren't a gsg type of player.

 

[Sigwald]

I don't feel the clicking for exploration in Stellaris useful or rewarding, and I can't understand why they put automatization of that function except for two really wrong reasons which are :
- they put lot of dev time into exploration and feel they are throwing it away by automatization ;
- they feel that there is nothing left to do in early peacetime when you remove exploration.

Those two reasons show some of the flaws in their management of micro in Stellaris.

 

[Darkath]

That's why i suggested scientists should have more usefulness over time and by the mid/late game become some kind of Kirk/Shepard special agents that engage in recon, survey, sabotage, infiltration, propaganda, terrorism, etc. (depending on their traits and how their science ship is fitted).

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...re-roles-for-scientists.965691/#post-21763928

Sadly the thread is already in the depth of the Stellaris forum.

 

[Sigwald]

There is something wrong with the forums, the thing is they are overcrowded with people asking help or advice on their games. While this is perfectly logical that they would do so, I seriously think that they should be moved on a separate forum so discussions about the game (and not the particular game of someone).

 

[qer]

The problem isn't features that play themselves but that after CK2 paradox games have been all very shallow. The destruction of some micro features is part of this problem but is a much bigger one that mechanics fall short of what they could be ( Eu4 DLC features are a good feature) or are completely wrong due to taking away player choice ( what you describe in your OP) or are uninteresting due to the lack of player feedback (air warfare in Hoi4, and should probably also included naval warfare)

 

[Wizzington]

Micromanagement is not the essence of grand strategy. It's called "grand" for a reason.

 

[Wizzington]

The problem isn't features that play themselves but that after CK2 paradox games have been all very shallow. The destruction of some micro features is part of this problem but is a much bigger one that mechanics fall short of what they could be ( Eu4 DLC features are a good feature) or are completely wrong due to taking away player choice ( what you describe in your OP) or are uninteresting due to the lack of player feedback (air warfare in Hoi4, and should probably also included naval warfare)

EU3 is more shallow than EU4, CK1 is more shallow than CK2, HOI3 is more shallow than HOI4 (requiring 2 hours of OOB micro before unpausing is not depth).

 

[Axe99]

Micromanagement is not the essence of grand strategy. It's called "grand" for a reason.

Indeed, which is why the lack of notifications of events and the subsequent UI micromanagement required to compensate for it is a somewhat surprising design decision in Stellaris/HoI4. While we don't need to know about every battle, or fleet arrival, there are some that are significant at a grand strategy level (particularly in Stellaris, with the current 'large battlefleet' model), and having to keep scrolling around the map to know when someone's arrived somewhere is an unnecessary drag, and the definition of needless micromanagement.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I think Stellaris is great more broadly .

Edit 2: This is also more of an issue for HoI4 than Stellaris, but I thought it better to use an example from your game .