I've been a Stellaris player ever since around the 1.5 (Utopia DLC) patch. The game has more or less with each major update/DLC increased the rate of resource generation, most notably in 2.2, but more recently the modifier creep has become plainly absurd and it's impacting my enjoyment. I'm not a player to play GA x25 crisis campaigns, I'm just an experienced player tending to play on commodore or admiral.
Galactic Archives introduced a number of really powerful relics and specimens, Cosmic Storms powerful planetary features, Astral Planes its own overpowered modifiers, and Machine Age and BioGenesis additional ascension-related modifiers. And the free 4.0 update escalated the issue further by introducing numerous additional ways to rapidly scale the player's economy through the new planetary development system, making pops as efficient as ever - additional specialization options, modifiers, the automation building etc.
The current way of gathering strategic resources is a particularly visible example of this. Their income is supposed to be counted in dozens and their upkeep for buildings, ships and edicts reflects that, but now the player can set up production of over 100 with a single building at an industrial world for a price of higher job mineral upkeep, which doesn't matter as minerals are overabundant. Not to mention the planets where you can get strategic resources alongside mining for free. The player won't need to ever worry about strategic resources again, and without even needing to dedicate any new jobs to them, leaving pops free for other things. I've been having tens of thousands of strategic resources of each type stored without even really trying to maximize their income and have been hitting the storage ceiling - so I started selling them off in bulk, basically fixing any trade upkeep issues forever. The issues compound on one another. I honestly miss refinery worlds.
I've had issues with finding ways to spend minor artifacts with the archaeostudies building as well. Note the research incomes from jobs here too.
Here's an example of an energy world producing 1100 energy with a pre-4.0 equivalent of 14-15 pops, without even being naturally primed to be one. A fully built dyson sphere used to provide 1000 energy at an earlier point in the game.
And about the automation building: the benefits far, far outweigh the high upkeep. It frees a lot of pops to do other things, including to produce more than enough additional energy to make up for the costs. Note that the base cost of the automation building here is 90 (in reality reduced by 35%!), which is really easily offset.
And an agri-world producing 1600 food, far more than my whole empire would ever really require, with an equivalent of 19-20 pops. Pops only amount to 567 food consumption, a number that is really easy to reach with one mildly specialized agri world. Hell, my energy world (shown above) with 5 food districts and a bio-reactor comfortably covers half of it.
And finally a betharian mining world that I've managed to get to output 1350 energy and 860 minerals with an equivalent of 20-21 pops.
It's become a regular sight to have tens of thousands of basic resources in storage in midgame and nearing endgame. Ecumenopolis project, supposedly a massive effort to convert a planet, now has its mineral cost of 20000 relatively trivialized as mineral incomes in at least several hundreds monthly are now expected. I've been turning a good number of my planets into ecumenopoli because why wouldn't I, given that my resource worlds are so productive? In my view for a single ecumenopolis-type planet there should be around half a dozen regular planets at least, but the game balance makes me feel comfortable to have that ratio closer to a third. I don't want to imagine what it would look like to have all of them fully developed and cranking out alloys and research.
Once you have so many resources you don't know what to do with, focusing more pops on research is a clear move. With 4.0 my research rate has exploded and simply negated the tech cost rebalancing done in an earlier update - which is I think another important example of the economic balance going wrong. And the empire size penalties are frankly pitiful as always.
Unity too has become quite a bit easier to accumulate. I find myself completing ascensions in 2250, though I do tend to play builds with an emphasis on unity.
This issue seriously hampers my enjoyment and engagement with the game, as there's not really much challenge left in managing resources and building your empire. I love Stellaris and wish for it to be better. To me, the economic balancing caused by excessive pop efficiency is the number one problem about the 4.0 update, closely followed by the AI issues. Even if it didn't impact balance, I find smaller numbers plain nicer. Stellaris has been consistently leaning towards bigger and bigger numbers over the years, while not really increasing the costs and upkeeps with them.
This is just my 2 cents about the current state of the game. I don't find this being talked about much compared to other (also valid) issues so I decided to make a thread.
I've attached the save file these screenshots are from for transparency. Note that this was a vanilla multiplayer campaign and I have been relying on the host to provide a few of the DLC, and it's also a few hotfixes behind. But AFAIK the economic balancing hasn't really been touched by the hotfixes.
Edit: and this is a psionically ascended empire, so not even using the expanded ascension features or advanced government types.
Galactic Archives introduced a number of really powerful relics and specimens, Cosmic Storms powerful planetary features, Astral Planes its own overpowered modifiers, and Machine Age and BioGenesis additional ascension-related modifiers. And the free 4.0 update escalated the issue further by introducing numerous additional ways to rapidly scale the player's economy through the new planetary development system, making pops as efficient as ever - additional specialization options, modifiers, the automation building etc.
The current way of gathering strategic resources is a particularly visible example of this. Their income is supposed to be counted in dozens and their upkeep for buildings, ships and edicts reflects that, but now the player can set up production of over 100 with a single building at an industrial world for a price of higher job mineral upkeep, which doesn't matter as minerals are overabundant. Not to mention the planets where you can get strategic resources alongside mining for free. The player won't need to ever worry about strategic resources again, and without even needing to dedicate any new jobs to them, leaving pops free for other things. I've been having tens of thousands of strategic resources of each type stored without even really trying to maximize their income and have been hitting the storage ceiling - so I started selling them off in bulk, basically fixing any trade upkeep issues forever. The issues compound on one another. I honestly miss refinery worlds.
I've had issues with finding ways to spend minor artifacts with the archaeostudies building as well. Note the research incomes from jobs here too.
Here's an example of an energy world producing 1100 energy with a pre-4.0 equivalent of 14-15 pops, without even being naturally primed to be one. A fully built dyson sphere used to provide 1000 energy at an earlier point in the game.
And about the automation building: the benefits far, far outweigh the high upkeep. It frees a lot of pops to do other things, including to produce more than enough additional energy to make up for the costs. Note that the base cost of the automation building here is 90 (in reality reduced by 35%!), which is really easily offset.
And an agri-world producing 1600 food, far more than my whole empire would ever really require, with an equivalent of 19-20 pops. Pops only amount to 567 food consumption, a number that is really easy to reach with one mildly specialized agri world. Hell, my energy world (shown above) with 5 food districts and a bio-reactor comfortably covers half of it.
And finally a betharian mining world that I've managed to get to output 1350 energy and 860 minerals with an equivalent of 20-21 pops.
It's become a regular sight to have tens of thousands of basic resources in storage in midgame and nearing endgame. Ecumenopolis project, supposedly a massive effort to convert a planet, now has its mineral cost of 20000 relatively trivialized as mineral incomes in at least several hundreds monthly are now expected. I've been turning a good number of my planets into ecumenopoli because why wouldn't I, given that my resource worlds are so productive? In my view for a single ecumenopolis-type planet there should be around half a dozen regular planets at least, but the game balance makes me feel comfortable to have that ratio closer to a third. I don't want to imagine what it would look like to have all of them fully developed and cranking out alloys and research.
Once you have so many resources you don't know what to do with, focusing more pops on research is a clear move. With 4.0 my research rate has exploded and simply negated the tech cost rebalancing done in an earlier update - which is I think another important example of the economic balance going wrong. And the empire size penalties are frankly pitiful as always.
Unity too has become quite a bit easier to accumulate. I find myself completing ascensions in 2250, though I do tend to play builds with an emphasis on unity.
This issue seriously hampers my enjoyment and engagement with the game, as there's not really much challenge left in managing resources and building your empire. I love Stellaris and wish for it to be better. To me, the economic balancing caused by excessive pop efficiency is the number one problem about the 4.0 update, closely followed by the AI issues. Even if it didn't impact balance, I find smaller numbers plain nicer. Stellaris has been consistently leaning towards bigger and bigger numbers over the years, while not really increasing the costs and upkeeps with them.
This is just my 2 cents about the current state of the game. I don't find this being talked about much compared to other (also valid) issues so I decided to make a thread.
I've attached the save file these screenshots are from for transparency. Note that this was a vanilla multiplayer campaign and I have been relying on the host to provide a few of the DLC, and it's also a few hotfixes behind. But AFAIK the economic balancing hasn't really been touched by the hotfixes.
Edit: and this is a psionically ascended empire, so not even using the expanded ascension features or advanced government types.
Last edited:
- 6
- 3
