Administrative Buildings Are Now Required...

[Teralitha]

I thought the system was fine the way it was. Basically, if you dont build them, you are totally ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by sprawl penalties. The changes they made to administration have not improved the gameplay. I now have to use up a building slot and strategic resources, and that takes away from the many other building types I could use.

[Elitewrecker PT]

You stack them on just one planet and use the specialization. Build just basic versions and upgrade as needed.
Increased penalties, but ability to easily increase capacity, as opposed to smaller penalties but no way to minimize them other than one society repeatable tech.

[Ruben_101]

does stacking "Administrative Capacity +5%" through society research not help?

[Stormsong]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

You stack them on just one planet and use the specialization. Build just basic versions and upgrade as needed.
Increased penalties, but ability to easily increase capacity, as opposed to smaller penalties but no way to minimize them other than one society repeatable tech.

This. Find an otherwise ho-hum world (I don't know about you, but for me there's always one where I wonder why my scientists even bothered to inform me of its existence) and dedicate it to paperwork. Admin penalties gone.

[Катя Мяу <3]

I alwys use this useless size 12 tomb world to build all my administration building.

[Teralitha]

Stacking one type of building on one planet is dumb. All your eggs in one basket or whatever.. lose that planet in a war and ... well you get it.

[Elitewrecker PT]

You won't lose the war because your admin planet is occupied, you'll just have higher tech costs and traditions costs until you get it back. If your war is waging on your next tech or tradition (ascension perk at best), you're in a bad state to begin with.
If you're making every planet with one consumer factory, one alloy forge, one lab, one monument, you're simply losing on a good amount of resources.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I find that administrative overhead (ie, having to devote building slots and pops to increasing sprawl cap) is only an issue when expanding very rapidly. As such, it seems to be working as intended. Measured growth allows you the luxury of avoiding penalties by growing your cap to match your empire, whereas rapid growth comes with penalties to offset the inherent advantages of rapid expansion.

It is easy to look at the pops working admin jobs and wish that they could be used for something else, but honestly I think that the current system of allowing you to choose between taking penalties or reserving pops to work admin jobs functions fairly well. It is certainly better than having no limit at all, which would kill the tall play style.

[mss73055]

Well yes, "now" as in since the Federation update.
And the buildings system is up for another overhaul, so don't get too attached to the current situation.

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Stacking one type of building on one planet is dumb. All your eggs in one basket or whatever.. lose that planet in a war and ... well you get it.

So don't lose it then. If you lose a war so badly that you can't defend your core planets, then you're likely done for anyway.

But even if you don't want to specialize... you can spread out your admin buildings and you'll still do just fine and probably get ahead compared to the old system. The modifier scaled up a lot more than you have to scale down your production capacity to use Admin buildings now. Playing wide is more effective than it has been in a long time.

That isnt the point. Look at the Op again.

[Hyperion]

Admin jobs should be integrated into the capital buildings.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Originally posted by Ryika:

So don't lose it then. If you lose a war so badly that you can't defend your core planets, then you're likely done for anyway.

But even if you don't want to specialize... you can spread out your admin buildings and you'll still do just fine and probably get ahead compared to the old system. The modifier scaled up a lot more than you have to scale down your production capacity to use Admin buildings now. Playing wide is more effective than it has been in a long time.

That isnt the point. Look at the Op again.

On point then: learn to specialize planets - that's how you get ahead of AI, making it impossible to lose anything in war.

[Wolfguarde]

Early to midgame, fully upgraded military starbases will fully disincentivise war provided you're maintaining a decently balanced empire and not locked out of your growth potential space. Supercomputers on those starbases pretty much future proof you until you hit lategame if you get them, but it's doable without. Nobody's going to take your starbases, because even if you go to war nobody's combined military is going to exceed the power of one of those starbases unless you're fighting a federation focusing their forces on it. And in my experience, that never happens - partly because I'm the only way those wars start, and partly because their forces are never focused enough to be a problem before I can start chewing them up.

Lategame to endgame, you're going to both be militarily sound and in possession of enough planets that you can designate entire sectors to specific resources if you so choose. Which means empire sprawl is directly mitigatable with additional planets or habitats within the appropriate sector, and should never be an issue outside of managing freshly conquered territory.

[Hyperion]

Originally posted by Wolfguarde:

I'm the only way those wars start

Are you setting AI aggression to max? I do and AI declares wars on me and each other almost non-stop.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Stacking one type of building on one planet is dumb. All your eggs in one basket or whatever.. lose that planet in a war and ... well you get it.

That's how specialities work.

[Wolfguarde]

Originally posted by HairyPlotter:

Originally posted by Wolfguarde:

I'm the only way those wars start

Are you setting AI aggression to max? I do and AI declares wars on me and each other almost non-stop.

I've always had it on high. AI do declare on each other, but by prioritising stations instead of ship military in the early game I almost always completely avoid being the recipient of declarations. The exceptions are cases where I fail to secure growth space and have stunted growth/limited space with belligerent neighbours.