There is something wrong with the economy

[Voidian]

It feels like it's far too weighted towards endgame.

Early game I feel like I'm scraping by, all wars are fought with rocks & sticks and if I don't try a design oversight/exploit build I can spend close to 100 years fighting with small ships and low tier weapons.

Then suddenly you get lucky, start rolling those techs that add flat bonuses to workers (specially researchers) and everything changes, your economy suddenly has maxed out resources of every kind, your research which was previously 300 suddenly turns into 6k, the techs taking 70 months now start taking 6 months and you'll tend to far outpace all of the AIs in the map making the rest of the game an unfun cleanup task (GA difficulty, no scaling)


So I have got to ask, do we even need those flat production bonuses per worker in the game? Are they healthy to the balance? Should a couple of techs really make this much of a difference?

Personally I think the game would be better if basic jobs were slightly more productive, there were no flat production bonuses from any reliable sources (maybe precursors or leviathan rewards) and every production bonus used the same type, like job efficiency, adding to other bonuses instead of multiplying them exponentially.

it's how games like EU4 have done things for years and it worked forever, Stellaris seem to be falling in the same trap CK3 did having multiple bonuses stacking and multiplying over each other creating such a gap between those who do have them (often players) vs those who don't (often AI) the mid-late game becomes unfun.

 

[Metallichydra]

The same can be said about the technology buildings.
It is the same problem we had back with the +20% research from researchers technologies: Techs that give extra tech makes tech snowball.
Except basic resources are now even more impacted by technologies than ever before.

In 3.14 tech speed felt fine, if a bit slow at times, since it was mostly the amount of pops you had that determined how fast you could get new technologies.

Now I usually find that the bottleneck for research is either consumer goods production or district space.

 

[aadf97799c]

tech and pop growth slow down extremely create all kind of dissonance compare to older version

 

[Voidian]

To expand on this issue

This is my current game.

For context: i've had a TERRIBLE start as a devouring swarm wilderness I was attacked by my neighbor, was forced to eat his planets, then the guy behind him did the same, and I had to expand further, and then the guy next to him did it again, and I had to expand further, and then it happened again.

My first conquest happened around 2216, by the time those back-to-back wars ended I had something like 1k empire size, devouring swarm wilderness were (and still are) bugged, so we do not get biomass from consuming pops, so all of those worlds were just empty and I could not get rid of them, I could not build on them either, I spent half a decade building nothing but nests to increase biomass generation while trying to balance my income.


When I got about 3 nests on each planet and got access to the tech that boosts specialist production it went crazy, after merely pursuing a draw against my custom clone soldier nation next door (I could not push through their giant stations and their fleets all had 3x my strength, I was still using T1 and T2 weapons while they had cruisers) I started building those lab upgrades, then the mining upgrades to sustain them, my research went from something like 350 to 6k after a sector dedicated to research was completed and, as I mentioned, I've started finishing techs that used to take me 70 months in 5.

Fastforward a few years and this is what the galaxy looks like, I'm using the bugged Behemoth Fury crisis but my babies are still in their second stage, they really aren't all that relevant and whenever they revolt I just instantly subdue them with their fleet escorts, the entire galaxy is currently sitting at pathetic levels and defeating fallen empires would not be an issue at all.

Keep in mind this is a GA galaxy, with advanced AI starts and no scaling, this should be a brutal game, but instead it became a very boring one.

My fleets honestly aren't even that impressive and the baby behemoth, which had 400k, doesn't even count right now as it's growing to the next stage.
This feels like 2.2 all over again.


So the issue seems both that the economy is pretty much broken and these things are giving us far too many resources, and that the AI is completely clueless and probably not even using these upgrades at all, this game is getting boring and I struggle to find reasons to continue this match, nothing is a challenge other than the growing FPS and lag issues.

I'm also nowhere near my fleet cap, and my fleets are half empty, I'm barely trying, in a serious game I'd probably be thousands over the cap and pushing every resource to the limit to squeeze a few extra ships like I used to in the previous versions.

The year is 2344

 

[durecellrabbit]

I've been thinking the same and I'm worried about our MP games with casual friends are going to go once MP is fixed.

It feel like there are a lot of noob traps when it comes to research choices and rate of expansion, and if a player gets it wrong they'll be stuck with an incredibly weak economy and/or slow growing population. There is only so much backseat gaming you can do.

Even when trying your best you can run into issues. My latest game with bio ships took me 80 years to get the food district unlocked, and that was with it as my highest priority. The food techs just didn't show up, and that was with me often picking a cheap tech to reset the pool.

 

[Voidian]

I've been thinking the same and I'm worried about our MP games with casual friends are going to go once MP is fixed.

It feel like there are a lot of noob traps when it comes to research choices and rate of expansion, and if a player gets it wrong they'll be stuck with an incredibly weak economy and/or slow growing population. There is only so much backseat gaming you can do.

Even when trying your best you can run into issues. My latest game with bio ships took me 80 years to get the food district unlocked, and that was with it as my highest priority. The food techs just didn't show up, and that was with me often picking a cheap tech to reset the pool.

I could be wrong but I believe those modifiers were introduced because they wanted technology to boost production but they couldn't simply add pops since they were so problematic for so long.

If that's the reason such techs and bonuses exist... Can't we just get rid of them and turn them into basic efficiency? I mean, the game's using pop groups now so in theory it shouldn't be weight on performance if 200 metallurgists had 100 extra manpower instead of multiplicative stacking bonuses.

Then again, I must ask myself, do we even need multiple techs that just boost production over and over again?

I mean, the tech tree is already convoluted, random, and full of choices we feel like we have to "discard" to get to the techs we really want, couldn't we cut down the number of techs removing many of these passive bonuses and increasing overall tech costs to keep progression about the same, while boosting basic production instead of waiting for techs to do it for us?

 

[RoverStorm]

The usual problem is that it's pretty easy to get "free" modifiers from technologies, for no cost except the up-front costs to research the tech with the modifier.

Technology making stuff more advanced and efficient is fine...if there's actual preparation that has to be done to prepare for the advancement.

To use an examples, the invention of the radio in Italy did not mean that every single person in Italy suddenly gained the "benefits" of the "radio technology", possibly in this metaphor at an immediate energy upkeep.

No, it meant Italy could invest in setting up production for radios, and then slowly installing and/or selling it to their businesses and houses. Which sometimes radios break, so you need to also maintain it as well.

Buildings that increase the flat output of jobs in exchange for either the building's maintenance in strategic resources and possibly higher upkeep for the jobs in question are excellent examples of how to have technology make the economy stronger without being a "free" snowball. Rolling out the buildings takes investment, time, and then ongoing maintenance as well. It also creates risk, as losing a critical refinery planet might leave you with the hard decision to pay extortionate market prices to offset the loss of the refinery or deliberately downgrade your buildings until your strategic resource income can recover. And it's directly proportional to how "big" your empire is. Wide Empires with huge amounts of job-based mining on many worlds will have to build and mineral purification plants on every single planet, while a tall empire with a single research relic world only needs to put new research buildings on just a single planet.

All of the technologies that are like "+20% minerals from jobs because you researched this tech" are very poor inclusions. No investment scaled by how many colonies you want to apply that bonus to, no risk associated with supply chains, it's just an instant permanent improvement to your economy.

 

[Voidian]

The usual problem is that it's pretty easy to get "free" modifiers from technologies, for no cost except the up-front costs to research the tech with the modifier.

Technology making stuff more advanced and efficient is fine...if there's actual preparation that has to be done to prepare for the advancement.

To use an examples, the invention of the radio in Italy did not mean that every single person in Italy suddenly gained the "benefits" of the "radio technology", possibly in this metaphor at an immediate energy upkeep.

No, it meant Italy could invest in setting up production for radios, and then slowly installing and/or selling it to their businesses and houses. Which sometimes radios break, so you need to also maintain it as well.

Buildings that increase the flat output of jobs in exchange for either the building's maintenance in strategic resources and possibly higher upkeep for the jobs in question are excellent examples of how to have technology make the economy stronger without being a "free" snowball. Rolling out the buildings takes investment, time, and then ongoing maintenance as well. It also creates risk, as losing a critical refinery planet might leave you with the hard decision to pay extortionate market prices to offset the loss of the refinery or deliberately downgrade your buildings until your strategic resource income can recover. And it's directly proportional to how "big" your empire is. Wide Empires with huge amounts of job-based mining on many worlds will have to build and mineral purification plants on every single planet, while a tall empire with a single research relic world only needs to put new research buildings on just a single planet.

All of the technologies that are like "+20% minerals from jobs because you researched this tech" are very poor inclusions. No investment scaled by how many colonies you want to apply that bonus to, no risk associated with supply chains, it's just an instant permanent improvement to your economy.

I'm just going crazy here so this might be a really bad idea but....

What if such specialization happened over time through politics or even simple experience from the population working that same job, in that same planet, for dozens of years, instead of technology?

Such as investing into more infrastructure over time to fill up a bar that increases the level of labs, farms, etc.. Instead of simply researching techs and having to click every planet dozens of times to upgrade every single building?

Similar to the concept of factories in HoI4, they get more efficient if you just leave them producing the same item for long enough, except we could have civics, council actions or planetary decisions that use resources to speed up the efficiency gain and possibly the natural level up of such buildings that don't require manually clicking?

Then again, this sounds more like DLC content, focusing on changing the economy, than an free patch.

Of course, if the issue is tall vs wide then Empire size could have a negative impact on efficiency gain/building evolution.

 

[RoverStorm]

What if such specialization happened over time through politics or even simple experience from the population working that same job, in that same planet, for dozens of years, instead of technology?

"Job Experience" and passing on on-site knowledge is an idea I've loved for a long time. Unfortunately I do think it's a bad idea, but not because of the design:

It just sounds absolutely horrible for performance.

Such as investing into more infrastructure over time to fill up a bar that increases the level of labs, farms, etc.. Instead of simply researching techs and having to click every planet dozens of times to upgrade every single building?

Certainly there's interesting ideas on how to automate processes of spreading out "new inventions". The tricky part is if you find yourself in the unfortunate position that you need to downgrade, how do we make sure it's just as pain free? Or only upgrade some things. Maybe your new alloy buildings cause your metallurgists to need volatile motes, but your existing mote mining can only supply one of your three foundry worlds.

 

[Voidian]

"Job Experience" and passing on on-site knowledge is an idea I've loved for a long time. Unfortunately I do think it's a bad idea, but not because of the design:

It just sounds absolutely horrible for performance.


Certainly there's interesting ideas on how to automate processes of spreading out "new inventions". The tricky part is if you find yourself in the unfortunate position that you need to downgrade, how do we make sure it's just as pain free? Or only upgrade some things. Maybe your new alloy buildings cause your metallurgists to need volatile motes, but your existing mote mining can only supply one of your three foundry worlds.

Maybe reducing the number of employees?

A radical change like that certainly would need it's own balance patches though

 

[DarkHelmet110985]

The early game is a grind because they nerfed the starting Industrial, Unity and Research we enjoyed in 3.14 when they made the change from Industrial Districts to Zones. We had 200 Forge + Factory jobs at game start, now we have 150 of each. 200 Bureaucrat jobs(now 120) and 200 Researchers(equivalent to 100 of each, only get 60). Spiritualists got shafted the worst since they enjoyed 3 Industrial Districts(hence Industrial productivity is half of what they were used to) while Unity is still less(have 320 Priest jobs compared to the 400 3.14 would have provided).

Yet I find the snowball begins in stages. Stage I is Civilian Migration. Namely, your Colonies don't start pumping out Pops until they reach about half Planet Capacity. Until then they're heavily reliant upon Civilian migration so early game growth(Medical Centers or better) is extremely important for early-game Expansion. The more Colonies you get, the better It will be. It will put a strain on resources, but it'll pay off in time. Stage II is the Strategic snowball. Strategics are needed for Advanced Buildings and none more important than Exotic Gasses since they're tied to Pop Growth(Gene Clinics and higher). If you're lucky enough to get the Colony event that results in a Colony's Pops producing 0.50 Exotic Gasses per 100 Pops, you've hit the lucky jackpot. If you Genetically Ascend, Exotic Gasses become even more important because its tied to Stage III in Ascension snowball. Once you Ascend your Population, productivity skyrockets thanks to Job Efficiency. Genetic provides 30%(at minimum) thanks to Flexible Tradition II but can offer another 25% via Flexible Tradition I(Mutation) and even more via Purity's Oligarchic Authority. Since Job Efficiency Techs happen to be Society and Biologists require Exotic Gas upkeep, it makes getting Exotic Gasses that much more important. Physics and Engineering will come later but early Society is actually very important. Genetic Researchers produce Society Research too and if you go down the Cloning Tradition path, you can add up to 4 Clone Vats to a given Colony to generate some insane Organic Pop Assembly. In time, you'll be producing so many Pops that the snowball becomes unstoppable.

Oh and one more thing: Overtuned origin, even if you don't use the Traits, is extremely strong for two reasons. 1) You get +2 Trait Points and +1 Trait Picks for Faction creation(hence 4 points/6 picks) and you can unlock Biomorphosis earlier(needing only 1 AP instead of 2). I also find Parliamentary Systems to be stupidly broken with Overtuned because it helps you roll through the first two Traditions, enabling you to unlock Genetic Ascension insanely fast and consequently get those Job Efficiency buffs.

 

[Metallichydra]

The fact that colony spam is still the best way to grow pops is baffling to me.
This is especially true for robots.

 

[Seridor]

I know it's about money..as time is money.. but they really should playtest more.. or at least a bit before release.. and yes, the 4x genre is about snowballing inevitably, it shouldn't be helped by giving flat bonuses everywhere.

 

[Voidian]

The fact that colony spam is still the best way to grow pops is baffling to me.
This is especially true for robots.

I've played a few games and I have to agree.

While pop growth is almost zero and doesn't seem to matter, pop production is still rather flat and limited per planet, meaning the more planets we have with a clone vat, robot assembly, mutagenic spa and gene clinics the faster your pops will grow.

I've played some multiplayer games last week with a bunch of people that didn't seem to have figured that out and the results were clear, I'd have over 2x their population, even without conquests, than most/all of them after the first century

 

[Metallichydra]

I've played a few games and I have to agree.

While pop growth is almost zero and doesn't seem to matter, pop production is still rather flat and limited per planet, meaning the more planets we have with a clone vat, robot assembly, mutagenic spa and gene clinics the faster your pops will grow.

I've played some multiplayer games last week with a bunch of people that didn't seem to have figured that out and the results were clear, I'd have over 2x their population, even without conquests, than most/all of them after the first century

My takeaway from multiplayer games is that your empire doesn't matter, your civics does not matter, your species does not matter.
All that matters is if you took an origin that allows for early ascension - Clone Army, Overtuned, Cybernetic Creed, Synthetic Fertility and Teachers of the Shroud.
Okay, that is exaggerating and oversimplifying it a bit, but it is true to an extent.
Ascension not only boosts your pop growth, it also massively improves the amount of resources your pops produce.

 

[Metallichydra]

Also, there are only two ways to produce pops efficiently:
Planet Spam
Or
The pop-printer-3000-inator with Lubrication tanks.
Truly ridiculous amounts of pops with that one, yet at the same time you're probably better off just planet spamming, because the amount of pops you make with the pop-printer means you have to roughly create an ecumenopolis every 3 months or you're going to run out of space for your pops, which will make your crime skyrocket and your stability plummet as your planets quickly reach a housing deficit and an amenities deficit that are so enormous that the game has trouble displaying the number.