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My main complaint about pops as they stand is they just don't seem to simulate an actual population or manpower in any sort of consistent way. Depending on what part of the game you're looking at your manpower is either tightly limited (domestic production) or infinite (colonization ships, armies). As a pure mechanism for gameplay I don't really love or hate pops, but in terms of Pretty Space Princess Empire Building Simulator, I'd greatly prefer if population was more abstract.
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May 7, 2017 00:49
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Conskill posted:My main complaint about pops as they stand is they just don't seem to simulate an actual population or manpower in any sort of consistent way. Depending on what part of the game you're looking at your manpower is either tightly limited (domestic production) or infinite (colonization ships, armies). it doesn't come up much, but your armies are capped based on pops. you're just never, ever going to hit that cap unless you're taking advantage of something like a newly uplifted Very Strong species.
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May 7, 2017 01:09
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Cease to Hope posted:it doesn't come up much, but your armies are capped based on pops. you're just never, ever going to hit that cap unless you're taking advantage of something like a newly uplifted Very Strong species. Huh. I learned something new today!
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May 7, 2017 01:30
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I gotta admit, no matter how many times I do it, making GBS threads on that fallen empire that's been on your back the entire game is a lot of fun every goddamn time.
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May 7, 2017 02:36
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Fanatic Purifiers with autocannons + cyborg is a gods damned murder train simulator. 111% fire rate increase and I don't have the increased fire trait on the admiral.
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May 7, 2017 04:18
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Poil posted:Pops as they are now should just be removed. Rebalance buildings to work constantly and have populations just be a number of how many of a species is living on the planet. Simply having a strong race on a planet gives that planet the bonus to minerals because the game, rightfully, assumes they'll be working on production. Same with thrifty and agricultural people. No more problems or fiddly micromanagement. I really like the pop system and wouldn't want it to be removed. It adds so much flavour and I don't feel it's annoying and fiddly like the Army system is.
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May 7, 2017 10:02
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Poil posted:Pops as they are now should just be removed. Rebalance buildings to work constantly and have populations just be a number of how many of a species is living on the planet. Simply having a strong race on a planet gives that planet the bonus to minerals because the game, rightfully, assumes they'll be working on production. Same with thrifty and agricultural people. No more problems or fiddly micromanagement. Full Victoria 2 or bust.
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May 7, 2017 10:05
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I hope that the new patch makes the AI build things on their planets. It's weird seeing their homeworlds totally deserted so far into the game. I guess it doesn't actually matter since they still build ships and do "Normal" stuff but it looks strange.
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May 7, 2017 11:17
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The unity bonus from extermination as a Purifier isn't as good as I hoped it was. Basically stuffing each conquered planet with ground forces and a single droid, then pushing wars against neighbors was the only way I kept up. That and getting lucky with a nearby enigma fortress. Those techs are INSANE. They basically allow you to take on Fallen empires way way earlier than normal. Having a 20k fleet wipe out a 40k one is amazing when you have about 1200 hp shields. Just run away as soon as they drain, science up tech, and repeat. Also the AI, even on insane, has this nasty habit of being stuck on a forever invade if you just go HAM stocking up ground defense before they get their ground forces ready.
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May 7, 2017 11:21
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What is it that makes despotic empires so weak? In almost all of my games I see the same pattern - "good guy" AI empires (various flavors of pacifist, xenophile and egalitarian) thrive, those set up to be conquering rear end in a top hat slavers have a good time early on but rather quickly fall behind and eventually get violently liberated. I'm not sure why this is, theoretically they should have the advantage in resource output thanks to slavery. Thoughts?
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May 7, 2017 12:34
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Guildencrantz posted:What is it that makes despotic empires so weak? even main-race slaves under caste system are unhappy and push up unrest, so it only takes a random happiness hit or a badly-managed planet with too many slaves to start causing unrest penalties and unrest events that eat up all of that marginal resource output advantage
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May 7, 2017 12:41
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I've been messing around with Stellaris for a while now and I'm definitely finding it a fun time-vortex. Came across a set of circumstances that feels decidedly odd last night - Playing as a pacifist, I've been aggressively expanding through liberation into protectorates/vassalisation -- I had something like 4 or 5 vassals in my "pacifist" sphere of influence by the time the FEs woke up. They declared a War of Heaven on each other and... I lost all my vassals??? The vassals themselves all got independent choices about which team to join which overrode their status as my subordinates and it completely hosed me. I lost something like 20%? of my fleet cap with absolutely no control over the process as far as I can tell. Is the long and short of it that playing with vassals is a dumb idea because Fallen Empires can just steal them from you through ~game mechanics~?
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May 7, 2017 13:19
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Autocracide is a moral good, they should remain losers.
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May 7, 2017 13:24
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Never play with War In Heaven enabled. Like on top of what yoh described it is broken in multiple ways. Just dont do it. Either mod it out or only let one FE spawn
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May 7, 2017 13:29
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Wilekat posted:I've been messing around with Stellaris for a while now and I'm definitely finding it a fun time-vortex. Came across a set of circumstances that feels decidedly odd last night - Actually, the long and short of it is that playing with Fallen Empires is a dumb idea because they either do nothing, bug out or do non-interactive crap that nullifies huge swathes of gameplay. I now only generate FE-free galaxies and I haven't looked back.
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May 7, 2017 13:27
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I can get behind this. Sick to death of being stuck up against a Xenophobe FE
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May 7, 2017 13:30
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I've never had these kinds of problems with FEs.  The Xenophobe FE is the best one to have when it wakes up because being a thrall has so few restrictions.
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May 7, 2017 13:32
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Although there is a mod that fixes most of the War in Heaven bugs and another that lets you keep your vassals so downloading those is an option too
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May 7, 2017 13:32
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GunnerJ posted:I've never had these kinds of problems with FEs. Me either. One has awoken in my game and it's absolutely fine. After the unbidden arrived a second one awoke and they're at war, but the original one hasn't done a good job of dominating anyone!
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May 7, 2017 13:39
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Poil posted:Pops as they are now should just be removed. Rebalance buildings to work constantly and have populations just be a number of how many of a species is living on the planet. Simply having a strong race on a planet gives that planet the bonus to minerals because the game, rightfully, assumes they'll be working on production. Same with thrifty and agricultural people. No more problems or fiddly micromanagement. I'd have no reason to play the game anymore if you remove the only bit of economic-focused gameplay it has.
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May 7, 2017 14:08
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Probably a dumb question, but do strategic resources EVER spawn in your own territory when you research them? Every time it doesn't happen, as I expand, I feel like it's less and less likely that ONE of my many systems has none.
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May 7, 2017 14:32
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Veryslightlymad posted:Probably a dumb question, but do strategic resources EVER spawn in your own territory when you research them? Every time it doesn't happen, as I expand, I feel like it's less and less likely that ONE of my many systems has none. I think strategic resources are set at game start rather than when you research them. But yes, I've had them appear in my space before.
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May 7, 2017 14:46
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Magil Zeal posted:I'd have no reason to play the game anymore if you remove the only bit of economic-focused gameplay it has. While I agree the game needs more economics, fiddling with pops is not exactly compelling economic play. and the whole NEED MORE POPS TO GROW is just silly, when you think of grand strategy the limits SHOULD be infrastructural rather than population based, and the needs of population centric economics limits how interesting you can make the infrastructure development. WhitemageofDOOM fucked around with this message at 14:56 on May 7, 2017 |
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May 7, 2017 14:54
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Ah, I see we are yet again discovering that Stellaris should have been Victoria Lite in Space.
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May 7, 2017 14:55
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Crazycryodude posted:Ah, I see we are yet again discovering that Stellaris should have been Victoria Lite in Space. Honestly? I'd love that, I have a ton of board games in space. I want the game about terraforming, uplifting, running an interstellar empire, and shucking my organic forms for something greater.
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May 7, 2017 14:55
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Veryslightlymad posted:Probably a dumb question, but do strategic resources EVER spawn in your own territory when you research them? Every time it doesn't happen, as I expand, I feel like it's less and less likely that ONE of my many systems has none. Resources have areas now. So if you research the one that your area has the most of you're not likely to find huge deposits of another one unless you've expanded a load.
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May 7, 2017 15:03
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Taear posted:Resources have areas now. So if you research the one that your area has the most of you're not likely to find huge deposits of another one unless you've expanded a load. That explains a ton. This is excellent to keep in mind. Another thing that this game needs is the ability to not have trade deals immediately expire, or at least wormhole access deals I just lost like, 5 wormholes because a deal expired, even though the other empire was totally ok with re-upping our contract.
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May 7, 2017 16:00
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Well, the tall science game went very well. Flesh is Weak around 2250, All neighbouring empires liberated and vassalised by 2270, Synthetic Evolution on 2280, spiritualist fallen empire liberated 2310, awakened xenophobe empire dumpstered 2330... Still sticking with 15 planets, making about 1000 of each science and finished the actual tech tree around 2290.
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May 7, 2017 16:00
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WhitemageofDOOM posted:While I agree the game needs more economics, fiddling with pops is not exactly compelling economic play. and the whole NEED MORE POPS TO GROW is just silly, when you think of grand strategy the limits SHOULD be infrastructural rather than population based, and the needs of population centric economics limits how interesting you can make the infrastructure development. I prefer the 4X elements to Grand Strategy elements anyway, all of Paradox's other games focus so much on the grand strategy and basically ignore the regional level, so at least let me have this in Stellaris. I want to have pops working terrain.
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May 7, 2017 16:35
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Magil Zeal posted:I prefer the 4X elements to Grand Strategy elements anyway, all of Paradox's other games focus so much on the grand strategy and basically ignore the regional level, so at least let me have this in Stellaris. I want to have pops working terrain. I mean if it was fun, sure. Constantly shuffling pops around because your weak master species really wants to go to the mines instead of a very strong slave species or a robot isn't fun.
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May 7, 2017 16:45
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Yeah honestly, the pop/tile system was kinda novel and interesting at first, but it VERY rapidly got annoying and just made me long for Victoria in Space/Distant Worlds With a Decent Graphics Budget.
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May 7, 2017 17:03
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Veryslightlymad posted:That explains a ton. This is excellent to keep in mind. It's a punishment for not playing hyperlanes only at all times.
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May 7, 2017 17:06
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Just try and use domestic servants properly, it only involves resettling one pop of the slave race on every planet and habitat you have.
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May 7, 2017 17:14
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Domestic servants needs to be a building instead of a slavery option, because there is no way any of the current systems will ever make it not completely lovely to handle. That doesn't mean the pop system is complete poo poo, just that certain things with it don't work well.
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May 7, 2017 17:20
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I thought the one time I used domestic servants wasn't too bad. I just turned on population controls when i invaded a primitive world, then shuffled them of one by one to my core worlds. I didn't try to micro one of them on every planet, just was content with the boost on my original colonies.
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May 7, 2017 17:27
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Pops are a neat idea, but in practice, as currently implemented, they're a mess. Their only real functions require you to carefully micromanage tiles to get the most out of them, but pops themselves are an incredible pain to deal with. Migration and immigration means that your pops are constantly reshuffling themselves, often in stupid and annoying ways that more than counteract the mild benefits of allowing them, and disabling those in favor of manual micromanagement is not only fiddly but expensive as well. The fact that a bunch of pop settings (like slavery) are now on the species-level even though their effects require managing individual pops is particularly troublesome.
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May 7, 2017 17:27
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Main Paineframe posted:Pops are a neat idea, but in practice, as currently implemented, they're a mess. Their only real functions require you to carefully micromanage tiles to get the most out of them, but pops themselves are an incredible pain to deal with. Migration and immigration means that your pops are constantly reshuffling themselves, often in stupid and annoying ways that more than counteract the mild benefits of allowing them, and disabling those in favor of manual micromanagement is not only fiddly but expensive as well. The fact that a bunch of pop settings (like slavery) are now on the species-level even though their effects require managing individual pops is particularly troublesome. On that note, while the new patch mostly looks good, this seems like a pretty bad idea: quote:* Pops that are freed from slavery in a Caste System will now have some lingering unhappiness about being made slaves in the first place
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May 7, 2017 17:48
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Playstation 4 posted:Autocracide is a moral good, they should remain losers. Congratulations to this guy, for having the Good Political Opinions, and letting us all know in the space video game thread!! We're all very proud of you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl5UH6EZXIM&t=265s
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May 7, 2017 18:11
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The reason pop-tile matching isn't fun is because there's one optimal distribution and it's trivial to figure it out, so it's just mindless busywork. Say that each pop had opinions about the kind of work they like/dislike doing, and it affects their happiness. At least you'd have a number-crunchy minigame of optimizing your resource production (should i put the intelligent spiritualists on research even though they hate it, or are the dumber materialists better when you consider the happiness bonus? or maybe i can crank the spiritualists' happiness to 110% somehow so they still output max research?). That's still not great, as it would be a fairly mechanical job of optimizing production. But now let's say the pops' job satisfaction doesn't (only?) affect happiness, but also unity output somehow. Now it's an actual choice, do i want better production at the cost of reduced unity? (That actually made me think: while it makes a lot of logical sense, would it be good for gameplay if happiness boosted unity somehow?)
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May 7, 2017 18:25
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Poil posted:Pops as they are now should just be removed. Rebalance buildings to work constantly and have populations just be a number of how many of a species is living on the planet. Simply having a strong race on a planet gives that planet the bonus to minerals because the game, rightfully, assumes they'll be working on production. Same with thrifty and agricultural people. No more problems or fiddly micromanagement. Abandon Stellaris and add multiplayer to Distant Worlds
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May 7, 2017 18:34
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