Manually Managing planets in a large galactic empire

[icarus40]

When I play a wide Stellaris game on a large galaxy map, my mid to late game devolves quickly to constantly being called back to respond to unemployed or unhappy pops. It is very difficult to attend to expansion, fleet planning, battling other empires, monsters or other threats to my domain. Once my empire gets big enough to require constant ministrations to the development of individual planets, I generally have to resolve to play the game on the “Slow” or even “Slowest” setting.

Despite recent updates and betas, I have accepted the fact the AI for auto-management for planets or sectors was largely broken. I have learned recently through other participants to this discussion it is possible to set sectors for research with some success. I have found that setting auto-management for Penal, Resort and Fortress planets can be done with reasonable success. All other planets must be managed individually.

All that being said; I would like suggestions or knowledge that might ease some of this drudgery. Currently, I assign districts or buildings to be built when there are unemployed pops for individual worlds. I watch the Tiny Outliner on the UI to be alerted when I have unemployed or homeless pops.

I am wondering if I can plan my individual planets for development with more extended lists in the planetary build queue. I am sure the list can’t be too long. I am not sure what effect having too many available jobs will have on planetary or empire development. How many available jobs is too many? It would be great if my planets could have longer build queues and not be so needy. Can anybody help me with this?

[Cryten]

Would be nice. Build ques moderated by population has long been a suggestion. I fear it would likely add even more lag for extra pop checks it would require but I would really like to have it.

[Laigon ♥]

I tend to switch over to the AI once I've got 4-5 sectors and maybe 20 odd planets. By that point I've got my economy big enough that it won't tank too much with whatever the AI does. Maybe a nice change would be that you could have a custom build template for the AI to follow, maybe set it to fortify a world by just building bunkers ect or food only.

[a.miligh]

i was just thinking about making a thread about this actually. Having to constantly check dozens of planets becomes extremely tedious in the late game, even though i like having a vast empire. I'm always worried the ai messes my economy or consumes my strategic resources.

What you propose is exactly what i would need to make it less frustrating.
Especially in the late game, where i have endless minerals and energy, allow me to choose a planetary decision wich unlocks all building slots, so i can pre-build new colonies (or finish off building them) even if the buildings costs more and take more time to do it, i don't care! as long as it allows me to deal with endgame crises and to avoid having the "rising unemployment" pop up while dealing with the war in heaven event and the scourge (wich, by the way, i'm having a blast playng my semi-imperium of man empire)

[russak]

I've settled into a routine of ignoring the "flashing lights" for a couple/handful of years at a time, then having a good sort-out while paused. I (ab)use the Pause button a lot... And that sort out is starting to take as long as the intervening gap of "activity" now.

[Leon]

One good thing is the "greater than ourselves" edict you can get if you pass the relevant law in the Galactic Community - it lets homeless/unemployed pops auto-migrate off-planet. Once your economy's big enough you can pre-build planets with 10-20 free jobs and let emigration develop your new territories for a good decade or two before you need to check on them.

The best solution would be a competent sector AI, though :)

[R131]

it would be nice if the migration system worked efficiently, but it doesnt so once a planet is maxed out you put on population controls its that simple and you rarely need to ever visit that world again unless crime syndicate moves in or some kind of random event. turning off refugee acceptance policies also helps to avoid overmanagement requirements to your empire.

once you get a couple ecumunopolis going you can turn off population controls on all planets for 10 years to get some new pops to trasfer over, once you get the hang of using the transfer populations window its pretty easy your just matching those red symbols(unemployed) with the green ones(free jobs). it still gets tedious so plan these big breeding>>populating of planets, and make a prison planet to move those unemployed who wreck building slots(warning box will promt) if you move them for some reason i'm yet to understand, i just have a prison planet and they can wreck things there all they like and then move the good unemployed to your ecus.

[Meewec]

i just run down the list every few years and ignore it the rest of the time once i get a large number of planets. unless i get a notification of mass unemployment or i'm working on a new colony

[mss73055]

You wanted Authoritarian, there you have it :)

This is exactly what is happening in real life. As the country grows, the dictator becomes older.

[icarus40]

Originally posted by Laigon ♥:

Maybe a nice change would be that you could have a custom build template for the AI to follow, maybe set it to fortify a world by just building bunkers ect or food only.

Nice Idea!

[icarus40]

Originally posted by Leon:

One good thing is the "greater than ourselves" edict you can get if you pass the relevant law in the Galactic Community - it lets homeless/unemployed pops auto-migrate off-planet. Once your economy's big enough you can pre-build planets with 10-20 free jobs and let emigration develop your new territories for a good decade or two before you need to check on them.

Didn't know about that law and edict! Will propose that immediately! Thanks

[pipo.p]

I do the same as russak and Meewec, Until 20 planets, it is largely manageable, plus I like adjusting the production of my planets, so a handfull of templates wouldn't be enough.
But a colonization template would be useful, that would start building districts and buildings just in time to be ready for when a new pop arrives. It would be like an opening in other games, before further manual management.
For example for the first 10 pops (just an idea): energy district, urban district, upgrade capital building, crime building, entertainement building.

[tathen]

id recommend https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1617534169

i use this so planets im not currently focusing on just pump out pop while i just managed a small group of 2-3 planets at a time until they are all set to just leave alone then move onto the next group

[icarus40]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1617534169
I use that mod as well. It is pretty cool seeing new pops appearing and disappearing on the the outliner as they move around. However, I still have planets overloaded with pops as I enter the late game. I can't imagine what would happen if I didn't.

[Laigon ♥]

Originally posted by icarus40:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1617534169
I use that mod as well. It is pretty cool seeing new pops appearing and disappearing on the the outliner as they move around. However, I still have planets overloaded with pops as I enter the late game. I can't imagine what would happen if I didn't.

Yeah I use this too but there still comes a point I think where your pops are growing faster than your empire can handle, having a birch world helps.

[SleeperCylon ⊿ ☭]

Lucky you, my game completely grinds to an halt when I try to manage my planets in mid to late game when I play wide. The developers really need to optimize this game because it's pretty much unplayable.