I like 3.3 sprawl changes: Research OK, Unity bad

[Hurkaleez]

Any time any game makes changes people who are used to the old way get pissed. I get it, I'm one of those often too. I was annoyed there were no real options for tall play before as the admin spamming was just too easy and powerful.

Ironically this playthrough I went wide. I am currently year 2350 with 762 sprawl and a 66% hit to Research cost, but I'm researching this about as fast as I was in 3.2.

What I dislike is the need for Unity for about everything now and the massive sprawl debuff to that which has huge implications. Edicts are almost useless as the edict pool buffs you can get do not adjust to your sprawl so like +50 to edict pool is nothing, not even enough for 1/5th of a subsidy or 1/12th of an Ambition. That is absurd, it almost completely removes edicts for me as I could support 1 but it would mean unity growth is but a trickle of the river it once was!!! And now that unity is used for so many things, it means I cannot use an Ambition until I am completely finished with my Traditions.

I'd like them to focus specifically on the Unity aspect and figure out way to not completely remove features of the game from wide play, but rather debuff them in a reasonable way.

Am I missing something?

[phimseto]

Originally posted by Hurkaleez:

Am I missing something?

Yes, the fun that playing the game was prior to this "baby with the bathwater" update.

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by phimseto:

Originally posted by Hurkaleez:

Am I missing something?

Yes, the fun that playing the game was prior to this "baby with the bathwater" update.

I would argue the game is more fun now that you don't need bureaucrats. I'll let others enjoy that fun however.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by ScreamCon:

Originally posted by phimseto:

Yes, the fun that playing the game was prior to this "baby with the bathwater" update.

I would argue the game is more fun now that you don't need bureaucrats. I'll let others enjoy that fun however.

I'll concur, I played with people new to the game and they enjoyed it a lot more because they didn't have to worry about admin cap so much.

[Heimdall313]

Unity should actually be important, and imo tied directly to stability (low unity = low stability, low stability = riots and resource penalties).

[ChaffyExpert]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

Unity should actually be important, and imo tied directly to stability (low unity = low stability, low stability = riots and resource penalties).

Also, going above admin cap should destabalize more and more, basically, real easy to keep a few planets, but holding the galaxy should be a very tenuous situation.

[koimeiji]

Originally posted by ScreamCon:

Originally posted by phimseto:

Yes, the fun that playing the game was prior to this "baby with the bathwater" update.

I would argue the game is more fun now that you don't need bureaucrats. I'll let others enjoy that fun however.

I disagree. Bureaucrats were immersive in my opinion. While it may not have felt optimal towards a minmaxer or powergamer, there was a level of roleplay in your civ starting out as a fledgling space empire struggling to "manage" all their worlds and becoming a massive powerhouse with entire city-planets dedicated to administration, ala coruscant.

[Rangoric]

Which is great because that's exactly how you can have a nice large unity producing planet to help ascend planets and get traditions/Ascension Perks.

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by koimeiji:

Originally posted by ScreamCon:

I would argue the game is more fun now that you don't need bureaucrats. I'll let others enjoy that fun however.

I disagree. Bureaucrats were immersive in my opinion. While it may not have felt optimal towards a minmaxer or powergamer, there was a level of roleplay in your civ starting out as a fledgling space empire struggling to "manage" all their worlds and becoming a massive powerhouse with entire city-planets dedicated to administration, ala coruscant.

True but I also really hated continually trying to keep it under and wasting building slots. I feel though the balancing could use adjustment.

Real world the bureaucracy jobs can make up for up to 1-3% of all the market wages. Meaning for every 50 jobs you would have one bureaucrat. Depending on your interpretation that could equal to one bureaucrat building if all 15 building slots were representative of total building volume. Obviously it would be smaller ratio but the least you can do is one building.

Which is about the ratio if you only use them to create unity for leaders spread over your empire. Unless we're going to get into trying to have edicts or advance traditions faster.

[Legs]

Originally posted by Hurkaleez:

What I dislike is the need for Unity for about everything now and the massive sprawl debuff to that which has huge implications. Edicts are almost useless as the edict pool buffs you can get do not adjust to your sprawl so like +50 to edict pool is nothing, not even enough for 1/5th of a subsidy or 1/12th of an Ambition. That is absurd, it almost completely removes edicts for me as I could support 1 but it would mean unity growth is but a trickle of the river it once was!!! And now that unity is used for so many things, it means I cannot use an Ambition until I am completely finished with my Traditions.

So what is Influence for now?

In my latest game its floating between 800-1k now that the serious exploration phase is over. It's only used for Relic Activation now, I went to Reform Government to try and burn some off and that requires Unity now as well...

[HappySack]

Influence is still used to build ring worlds and habitats, espionage actions, proposing resolutions (and using favours), and moving pops manually.

And claims if you didn't bother to make a colossus.

[jojobe]

+1 everything but the unity was good. Who get paid in unity. take that unity and buy something. Its the immersion aspect. People work for money not unity... it just does not make any sense.

[rafael.ramus]

So you like it, but you don't, right? I agree with the "baby with the bathwater" statement made a few posts above, this is exactly how I feel regarding this Unity overhaul.

[KomiNeko]

I feel a bit in the same boat. Research didn't became problematic, but seems that the focus on Unity might have become exaggerated? I haven't had the chance to go through multiple games yet so most I tried so far was a wide hive mind.

The only slowdown I felt was in traditions, but I understand that I won't really be able to use many planet ascension upgrades because likely it'll come down to most of the unity going into edicts. I can constrain myself to limit my sprawl and so it should be manageable - But like this I won't really get to play with Nihilistic Acquisition because I cannot let my population get too out of hand. Can only mitigate sprawl from pop so much, and can only produce so much unity/planet, while still needing to maintain the rest of my empire rolling.

I don't really do PvP MP, so I'm not used to some aggressive exploration tactics I saw mentioned or some serious tech rushes that are not part of my usual gameplay style, so in that front the impact I felt was negligible - But seems in some of the cases the fun is being taken away.

Also the only few times I played tall was with the Voidborne origin so the idea (I figure) is to spew out habitats in a limited space - No loss through system claiming, but a big penalty thanks to habitat number, which I thought was the voidborne strength. Will this hurt them as much as I'm thinking?

What other kind of tall empires are played? Feels that if you'd do it with any other type of race you'd just grab a handful of planets at best and that's it? Just slow progression aftewards?

[Fyre]

You use ambitions before you finish all of your traditions? I mean maybe for an extra megastructure slot but seriously...?

Anyway yeah unity is a bit of a bummer. I had just gotten used to the game and honestly was absolutely fine ignoring unity and now I have not a new fun extra ball to juggle but an annoyingly tedious extra ball to juggle... on top of the ai being improved. I was like just getting into the groove of the game, lol.

[FourteenFour]

They should just give us a slider for empire size penalty where we can turn if off by selecting the maximum value.

What people overlook about empire size penalty is how it is calculated which in effect counts items more than once. Plus the penalty is double on traditions.

Systems are one point each. Simple easy to understand.

Each colony is ten points, again simple to understand

Districts are half a point each, which overlaps the colony cost

each pop is one point which overlaps the colony and district costs

They really need to change how they determine size.


Then again the very idea that a much larger empire would have a harder time researching the same technology as a much smaller empire is just stupid. If anything a much larger empire would have many more research projects simultaneously