The one campaign I started since the DLC dropped. Started in v4.0.4, done in v4.0.21 - life and other interests got in the way alot.
The early phases of the new crisis path felt suitably biological: you are parenting for a gigantic, planet guzzling baby. Going to war purely to get some baby food. Correcting it when it throws a tantrum then fixing the damage. Next time I will designate a corner of the galaxy as a "baby room" so I don't have to keep paying influence to re-build outposts to get research stations back online. The influence cost to make the first egg and to make the baby gow up are reasonable - I was just short because my neighbour asked to become my vassal, then draind me of influence to convert them to a bulwark.
The level 2 behemoth was something pretty much my whole fleet had to helicopter parent. Good sense of watching the baby grow into an unruly child. This is also around the time I started breeding space fauna to use excess resources and to be fodder for the behemoth. The huge modifiers from urban districts supporting basic resource districts made income arrive fast. Then I noticed I gaind food when my behemoth ate, so I built lots of storage silos all over the empire. This also meant I didn't waste any energy when I activated that big diamond relic (which maybe should give trade instead of energy now).
Once I got to Lv 3, I immediately started the mind meld project. Then reloaded - I didn't do ironman this time as I expected there'd be strange bugs to be wary of. I suppose a narrative-conscious player ought to anticipate getting kicked out of the galactic community (and the market). The transference modifiers also need some planning to play around: I had to get a dyson sphere and matter decompressor researched before I was comfortable hitting that project. This gave some time to fight some fallen empire to stock up and get fallen tech from salvage.
When stripped of the narrative fluff, the final phase of the crisis path is waiting about 3 decades for a bar to fill up while balancing your economy as the pops become liabilities. The designated big bad is invincible until that bar is full. The tooltip for the bar's progression says "empire size: -90%" to go with "growth factor: 555%". Nothing says how the empire size ieffect on this bar is calculated. It's only when I was almost done removing my pops that I saw the empire size malus be anything other than -90%. Maybe re-think how to present that tooltip: the player should have intermediate goals to aim for while waiting about 30 years.
This segues nicely into planet UI: I wish there's a "resettle all unemployed" button. I did around 1000 mouse clicks (taking care not to overly rely on one finger for those clicks) to shuffle pops around my planets during those 30 years. It's definitely an interesting puzzle to keep the player pre-occupied: how to manage the transition from productive people into stoned beast-addicts. Even my automation buildings were getting useless. Took a while to notice the mind meld districts provided all teh science I'd ever need.
The basic resource districts could still produce because a -120% job output modifier can be countered with urbban districts specialised to support mining/farming/energy. That requires trade which an Ecumenopolis at ascendancy 10 could reasonably produce despite that job output malus. It felt thematic that science, factory and foundry worlds stopped having any purpose towards the end so I was coasting along on huge stockpiles. Soldiers weren't affected by teh job output (naval capacity) malus so they were one of the last to be sent to the mind meld districts..
I suppose the "smarter" way would have been to play tall and then let everyone take my systems and planets to shrink my empire size faster. By instinct I kept re-capturing the systems the AI slowly conquered. Towards the end, the contingency showed up right as the progress bar filled up. That was an amusing side show before fighting the big bad. Which went down so fast, I might have managed with just my standing fleet and behemoth children.
Overall, the crisis path was a good tutorial to motivate players to try out automation buildings. Replacing the stoned pops with automation was a good narrative for managed decline. I wish the game didn't lag hard when it was mind meld time every 6 months. Maybe that's because I had some 30 different pop groups in that transference job. I really REALLY wish there was some sort of "all-your -lanets spreadsheet" so I could quickly sort and filter for what I want. When I realise I need to send 10k scientist pops to the mind meld districts, I should not need to click through 50 planets to find them, then another 100 clicks to resettle them in tiny groups.
The early phases of the new crisis path felt suitably biological: you are parenting for a gigantic, planet guzzling baby. Going to war purely to get some baby food. Correcting it when it throws a tantrum then fixing the damage. Next time I will designate a corner of the galaxy as a "baby room" so I don't have to keep paying influence to re-build outposts to get research stations back online. The influence cost to make the first egg and to make the baby gow up are reasonable - I was just short because my neighbour asked to become my vassal, then draind me of influence to convert them to a bulwark.
The level 2 behemoth was something pretty much my whole fleet had to helicopter parent. Good sense of watching the baby grow into an unruly child. This is also around the time I started breeding space fauna to use excess resources and to be fodder for the behemoth. The huge modifiers from urban districts supporting basic resource districts made income arrive fast. Then I noticed I gaind food when my behemoth ate, so I built lots of storage silos all over the empire. This also meant I didn't waste any energy when I activated that big diamond relic (which maybe should give trade instead of energy now).
Once I got to Lv 3, I immediately started the mind meld project. Then reloaded - I didn't do ironman this time as I expected there'd be strange bugs to be wary of. I suppose a narrative-conscious player ought to anticipate getting kicked out of the galactic community (and the market). The transference modifiers also need some planning to play around: I had to get a dyson sphere and matter decompressor researched before I was comfortable hitting that project. This gave some time to fight some fallen empire to stock up and get fallen tech from salvage.
When stripped of the narrative fluff, the final phase of the crisis path is waiting about 3 decades for a bar to fill up while balancing your economy as the pops become liabilities. The designated big bad is invincible until that bar is full. The tooltip for the bar's progression says "empire size: -90%" to go with "growth factor: 555%". Nothing says how the empire size ieffect on this bar is calculated. It's only when I was almost done removing my pops that I saw the empire size malus be anything other than -90%. Maybe re-think how to present that tooltip: the player should have intermediate goals to aim for while waiting about 30 years.
This segues nicely into planet UI: I wish there's a "resettle all unemployed" button. I did around 1000 mouse clicks (taking care not to overly rely on one finger for those clicks) to shuffle pops around my planets during those 30 years. It's definitely an interesting puzzle to keep the player pre-occupied: how to manage the transition from productive people into stoned beast-addicts. Even my automation buildings were getting useless. Took a while to notice the mind meld districts provided all teh science I'd ever need.
The basic resource districts could still produce because a -120% job output modifier can be countered with urbban districts specialised to support mining/farming/energy. That requires trade which an Ecumenopolis at ascendancy 10 could reasonably produce despite that job output malus. It felt thematic that science, factory and foundry worlds stopped having any purpose towards the end so I was coasting along on huge stockpiles. Soldiers weren't affected by teh job output (naval capacity) malus so they were one of the last to be sent to the mind meld districts..
I suppose the "smarter" way would have been to play tall and then let everyone take my systems and planets to shrink my empire size faster. By instinct I kept re-capturing the systems the AI slowly conquered. Towards the end, the contingency showed up right as the progress bar filled up. That was an amusing side show before fighting the big bad. Which went down so fast, I might have managed with just my standing fleet and behemoth children.
Overall, the crisis path was a good tutorial to motivate players to try out automation buildings. Replacing the stoned pops with automation was a good narrative for managed decline. I wish the game didn't lag hard when it was mind meld time every 6 months. Maybe that's because I had some 30 different pop groups in that transference job. I really REALLY wish there was some sort of "all-your -lanets spreadsheet" so I could quickly sort and filter for what I want. When I realise I need to send 10k scientist pops to the mind meld districts, I should not need to click through 50 planets to find them, then another 100 clicks to resettle them in tiny groups.
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