How to deal with a crashing energy credits and strategic resources?

[[LHI] kaladorn]

I'm at about 12K V.P.s and the premier polity in my galaxy other than the four times larger Fallen Empire. I've digested one polity that was a bit weaker than I (vassal then pleasant integration) and I just won a war with a Hive MInd (they just would not let me have the 4 worlds I claimed... so I bombarded them until their polity collapsed... I'd hoped for vassalage, but didn't get that). So I'm scrambling to claim as much of the open space that the recent polity's failure has created as is possible.

My pop is around 250. I'm about 300 years in. I have growing shortages of power and of strategic resources (volatile moles, exotic gasses particularly). I have a lot of chemical plants and exotic gas plants.

The galaxy started with around 20 nations (1 fallen, 19 smaller ones). A few have went the way of alliance, but I'm 35% at least further ahead in economy.

We're a militant, spiritualist, materialist society. Gene tinkering has filled all of our trait picks. I've got all the Ascension perks except one (I haven't completed exploration yet... all the others are done).

I've build (I figure) a bunch of buildings that have needed volatile motes or exotic gases to build or ongoing as support. I've built almost every possible generator district and quite a few worlds have energy grids. I'm trying to use habitats (just starting) to start to get more power credits.

I recently dropped the slow breeder trait and maybe that was a mistake as we seem to be shooting up in pop, getting more crime (despite precincts) and the 'population control' Decisions I've been leery to use with only modest happiness at the moment....

Sprawl: 521 of 327
Starbases: 26 of 17
Fleet: 499 of 377 (for the recent war)

Bleed rate for power credits is currently -45 after buying 200 from the market each turn. I have positives in my other resources.

So:
1. Do I use Population Control?
2. Do I shut down some of the high power/high strat resource drain buildings? (And lose their benefits and perhaps incur other problems)?
3. Do I look to convert districts to energy? (If I have too much spare housing, replace with energy districts? Or use 'Mastery of Nature' and add +2 energy districts on each planet?)
4. Do I need to not expand into new colonies (trying to goggle up the polity that shattered) and key choke points? (Which I soon can ignore as I'm getting the ability to ignore hyperlanes right now)

Any suggestions would be appreciated. This is the furthest into a game I've got but I feel like if this goes on too long, I'm going to drain all other resources to pay for power and end up in a horrid mess.

[[LHI] kaladorn]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Now get Megastructures and Dyson Spheres and you'll never worry about energy again (at least until you're at 500k fleet power).

A fully completed Dyson sphere generates 4000 credits per month. Which is probably more than your entire empire right now.

The only megastrucure I have so far is a Habitat. I'm working toward an advanced Habitat.

Is a Dyson Sphere in the basic game? Or DLC? If in the DLC, must be further along the tech tree than I am.

[Tiasmoon]

The Dyson Sphere requires the tech ''Mega Engineering'' and the ascension perk ''Galactic Wonders''. Mega Engineering is a rare high tier engineering tech that requires having researched Battleships, ZPM's and Citadels.

[[LHI] kaladorn]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

I'm also trying to limit the aliens in my systems now to limit overgrowth using species rights. I may also try to figure out how to purge them.

Pops = power so you dont want to purge any pops you already have. Limiting growth via species rights, can be useful if you have a better race (with better traits) you want to have more of.

Those pops had different racial traits (I'm an Authoritarian, one of them is Egalitarian... and another bunch differ in other ways). I was assuming purging them and letting them backfill with my peeps was the best way to handle that.

I sort of assumed differing values would translate to disunity, instability, and unhappiness (and then crime). Is that wrong to say?

Or should I just try to remove the offending values from them using gene splicing? That might solve any concerns from differing values...

For strategic resources: There's not many ways to boost these, but any you produce on a planet do get some bonusses.

Level of the governor adds a % bonus to all resources, and so does any stability the planet has. Below 50 stability its 1% penalty per missing 1 stability. Above 50 stability its a 0.6 bonus (so +30% to all resources, at 100 stability)

Good to know. I think typically most of my planets have been mid sixties up to low 80s happiness and that's with a fairly spartan choice of buildings and levels of lifestyle. A couple of fairly mining intensive (less useful climate) worlds with alien populations on them have caused more unrest, but a couple of precinct houses (and later Halls of Justice) plus anti-Crime campaigns seem to have got this back into order.

Since the buildings only provide one job slot each, you want to either combine them with planets that have upgraded structures to provide you with building slots, or place them on Ecumenopolis/Ring Worlds, since those get a lot of free building slots.

Have not seen either of them (have a notion what a Ringworld is... the other one I assume is another megastructure... but my best to date is Habitat and working now on Advanced Habitat. Those sound far off (maybe past end game unless the economy really accelerates. With about 15-16 polities left (and knowing we need to smoke the Fallen Empire that's out there), I suspect we may not get that far. I figure my game setup thresholds were 300, 600 and 900 from start and we're just past 300 years.

As noted above, you also want to keep your stability high and use a high level governor.

Am I right in saying sectors and governors are of value because you can exploit the ability to have some pretty decent governors (vs. some of the Imperial heirs which have been rather underwhelming)?

Having eaten one and a third other polities, I am wondering if I should be thinking to reabsorb some of the sectors I created (current count might be 5 or 6) back into the main polity... or is absorbing sectors an action that will come with some serious unintended consequences?

Try to avoid using upgraded buildings if you cant supply them with the strategic resources needed to keep running. Consider which you need and which you dont really need to have upgraded.

Most of my upgrades have been to continue the economy growing or to deal with unemployment (usually 1 to the most I saw was 6). I could probably use fewer upgraded buildings, honestly. I just figured it was part of empire growing. Stellaris seems to be more about how you manage your empire (the fine details) than a mad dash to the greatest production on all fronts....

[quote[
If you made contact with the trade guilds (mutagen, etc) you can also make deals with them to get some (up to 5 per month) strategic resources. It wont be cheap but it will be a fixed rate regardless of the market. (some EC up front with some monthly, combined around 14EC per 1 per month) [/quote]

Are those what is referred to in the game setup as 'merchants' or 'travellers'? I may have them turned off in this game, as I have turned off Awakened Empires and I only let one Fallen Empire and no empires with fast starts. I wanted a kind of wimpy neighborhood for a game that I wanted to take all the way.

[[LHI] kaladorn]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

The Dyson Sphere requires the tech ''Mega Engineering'' and the ascension perk ''Galactic Wonders''. Mega Engineering is a rare high tier engineering tech that requires having researched Battleships, ZPM's and Citadels.

I have Battleships and Zero Point Modules. I hadn't opened out Citadels mostly because nothing has got to throw a punch (other than pirates) at any of my Fortresses. If that will open Megaengineering, then I'll look to get Citadels moving when my next tech opening arrives. It's visible, I've just been doing other things.

I've only one more ascension perk because I'm running out of traditions (the last is Discovery and I'm working on it).

[[LHI] kaladorn]

My Ascention Perks are:
Technological Ascendacy
Imperial Prerogative
Grasp the Void
Mastery of Nature
Engineered Evolution
Interstellar Domination

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

Those pops had different racial traits (I'm an Authoritarian, one of them is Egalitarian... and another bunch differ in other ways). I was assuming purging them and letting them backfill with my peeps was the best way to handle that.

I sort of assumed differing values would translate to disunity, instability, and unhappiness (and then crime). Is that wrong to say?

Or should I just try to remove the offending values from them using gene splicing? That might solve any concerns from differing values...

Differing values doesnt matter much. It mainly means gaining a bit lower influence from factions. (most people ignore this aspect of the game entirely)

Lower faction % can mean some happiness penalties but this is usually ignored as the offset isnt large.

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

Good to know. I think typically most of my planets have been mid sixties up to low 80s happiness and that's with a fairly spartan choice of buildings and levels of lifestyle. A couple of fairly mining intensive (less useful climate) worlds with alien populations on them have caused more unrest, but a couple of precinct houses (and later Halls of Justice) plus anti-Crime campaigns seem to have got this back into order.

As far as climate goes: each species has its own climate preferences. You can use alien species with different from your own to increase the habilitability of planets.

If you have Continental preference, you would only get 20% on artic planets. But a species with Arctic preference will get 80% on those planets.

I forgot to mention it before, but there's another way to boost production of things like strategic resources: habitability.

The habitability % of planets directly effects all resources produced, growth rate, upkeep for your pops. As with most things in the game, you can see the details by mouseover on the % in the planet screen.

Each 1% below 100, increases Amneties required and upkeep for your pops by 1%. It also reduces all resources earned and pop growth by 0.5%

For example 70% habitability would mean +30% more Amneties needed, 30% higher food/consumer goods upkeep per pop, 15% resources reduction and 15% growth reduction.

In case of resources earned and growth penalty, those are additive. If you already have +80% resources earned, it will instead become 80-15= +65% earned.

Crime isnt something you really want to get worked up over. Its easy to keep it low as long as you keep happiness at decent levels. (crime per pop is based on their happiness:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2422959370

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

I suspect we may not get that far. I figure my game setup thresholds were 300, 600 and 900 from start and we're just past 300 years.

300 years is very far into the game, but each player does have their own pace. My own games rarely reach 2400 at this point. (but then I only finished one game, and that one was around 2450~)

900 years into the game is pretty extreme by any measure.

Most get megastructures (habitats are not actual megastructures) somewhere around 2350-2450, but very experienced players can get them before 2300.

Don't see that as some sort of ''must have by that date'' but rather guidelines to give you an idea of where there's room left to improve.

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

Am I right in saying sectors and governors are of value because you can exploit the ability to have some pretty decent governors (vs. some of the Imperial heirs which have been rather underwhelming)?

Having eaten one and a third other polities, I am wondering if I should be thinking to reabsorb some of the sectors I created (current count might be 5 or 6) back into the main polity... or is absorbing sectors an action that will come with some serious unintended consequences?

I rarely manually create sectors. There is some benefit to be gained there, but not much for too much work most of the time.

The main issue is that the capital/starting sector cant be changed unless you move the capital to another sector first. (which costs influence)

Sectors do indeed have the benefit that you can use more specialised governors (one that boosts science, administration or food for example) but their bonusses from traits arent very large. The main thing to watch for is that every sector has a governor. Its usually better to have your capital sector be as large as possible since thats where your highest level governor is usually at.

Keep in mind tho, that you can swap governors as needed. It can be handy to have some traits on a spare governor (like justice, for crime reduction) that you can use when the situation calls for it.

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

Are those what is referred to in the game setup as 'merchants' or 'travellers'? I may have them turned off in this game, as I have turned off Awakened Empires and I only let one Fallen Empire and no empires with fast starts. I wanted a kind of wimpy neighborhood for a game that I wanted to take all the way.

Those are the merchants, who have their own stations. There is 1 for each of the 3 resources, one for unity/influence, and one for science (who also gives intel on leviathan class space monsters). I dont know if you can disable those without disabling their DLC. (Utopia? I forgot)

Travelers (Caravaneers in the start options) are groups with their own ships that may occasionally offer a unique trade deal. (an edict or unique building for example)

[yuzhonglu]

Oh. Well. Too late. For late game you need Megastructures. They are literally a game changer.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by LHI kaladorn:

My Ascention Perks are:
Technological Ascendacy
Imperial Prerogative
Grasp the Void
Mastery of Nature
Engineered Evolution
Interstellar Domination

Grasp the Void and Technological Ascendancy are good early game perks that stay good for most of the game.

Grasp the Void isnt very good. There are other ways to get more starbases. (each 10 systems = 1 starbase, tech, etc) While in itself its not a bad perk, you lost too much ''opportunity cost'' by being unable to get a better perk.

Imperial Prerogavite is pretty bad. 20% admin seems nice, but it falls flat compared to many of the other perks you could pick.

Mastery of Nature is pretty specific. There's uses for it, but most of the time you will lack the pops needed to man those districts anyway.

Engineered Evolution is one of 3 ascendancy paths. (bio, psionic, synthetic/robot) Each path has 2 perks associated with it.

Engineered Evolution -> Evolutionary Mastery (bio)
The Flesh is Weak - > Synthetic Evolution (synth)
Mind over Matter -> Transcendence (psi)

First perk gives good benefit, but the real power is in their second perk. You can only pick one of the 3 paths, but you really want to get both first and second perks.

[RawCode]

press escape, click exit, start new game...

250 pops after 300 years is joke, you are expected to have 2500 pops and win game by this time.

most players have 250 pops after 30 years or less, based on how lucky you got with map generation.

but ever if you are very unlucky and got only 3 starting planets, you will have 6+2 growth on every planet and get 3 pops per year, 100 years will give you 300 pops, 300 years will give you 900 pops, without conquest and expansion.
ofc 3 planets can't host such amount of pops, but you can go syntetic and make habitats, basically ignoring housing limits and pay only minor stability penalty for not having living space at all.

your result is very very very bad.

[Tiasmoon]

Most people dont have 250 pops after 30 years, bruh. That's very unrealistic for the average player, nevermind a new one.

[RawCode]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Most people dont have 250 pops after 30 years, bruh. That's very unrealistic for the average player, nevermind a new one.

defeating single AI will give you ~250 pops by 30th year, close to this value is possible if you lucky with primitives or if you decided to cheese federation start or by playing necro properly.

[talemore]

Crash your economy and problem is solved. Buy energy when in war.

[[LHI] kaladorn]

Originally posted by RawCode:

press escape, click exit, start new game...

250 pops after 300 years is joke, you are expected to have 2500 pops and win game by this time.

most players have 250 pops after 30 years or less, based on how lucky you got with map generation.

but ever if you are very unlucky and got only 3 starting planets, you will have 6+2 growth on every planet and get 3 pops per year, 100 years will give you 300 pops, 300 years will give you 900 pops, without conquest and expansion.
ofc 3 planets can't host such amount of pops, but you can go syntetic and make habitats, basically ignoring housing limits and pay only minor stability penalty for not having living space at all.

your result is very very very bad.

I don't doubt that. But I also took slow breeder and that's part of that. Plus having 19 neighbours in a fairly modest galaxy size (I think that size called for 12) and that's not counting the fallen empire.

I expanded as fast as I was able with the influence and technology at hand and by the time I had my 3rd system with a colony, it was probably 175 years in. Most of the regions around me lacked habitable planets (despite the settings in the game that should have helped that). Also, my contact with neighbours started fairly fast and I hadn't the ability to fight a war I could win until about 2150 (and with good odds, 2175 or so).

The current game may be not up to MP approaches, but I want to play through one entire game. I've had to abandon others because my empires got overrun by events and enemies that struck early (not enough defence while trying to push the tech/society tracks).

Once I get done this game, I will look at other things.

I do appreciate the estimation of what the average player might expect. I also know from reading on the net and on Steam forums that there are a lot of people who have recognised the various winning strategies or exploits and that make every choice to give them a fast early game ramp - meaning many options they never play because they know they aren't optimal. If I was worried about competition, I'd follow some of those, but I'm mostly just exploring what the game throws at me over the lifespan of a game in the current game. I kind of plan to explore the different options over time, but I'm not expecting to play competitive MP or even super high difficulties.

[IPWIW]

starting year is 2200

[[LHI] kaladorn]

Originally posted by RawCode:

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Most people dont have 250 pops after 30 years, bruh. That's very unrealistic for the average player, nevermind a new one.

defeating single AI will give you ~250 pops by 30th year, close to this value is possible if you lucky with primitives or if you decided to cheese federation start or by playing necro properly.

My pop now including the aliens actually turns out to be 500-600. The 250 was my estimate of my own species. After this last war where I crushed the hive mind, I actually counted the fleets (including the first Jump Drive fleet with high sublight speed I built) and it's about 70-75K for the whole Navy. I thought it was considerably smaller, but wartime production and looking at all the fortified border stations turned up more force than I had figured I had.