Hey all,

Had a very nice game with Lumeris yesterday in normal difficulty, normal speed, medium galaxy with 3 opponents.

Had a wonderful start and managed to kill the Vodyani in the mid game and all was running perfect with about 16 systems untill I decided to kill the Sophons and since I was pretty much ahead in tech and power, I just owned them quickly but everything went wrong from that :

When I took Sophons capital, a strange noise like an alarm appeared in game and all my systems started going rebellion. This was very frustrating since I was going for my first Era III tech (Chamelon Space) which I could get before the 100 turns. I thought I would have gotton it if I just didn't stole Sophon's systems but the over colonization malus started to hit me so hard with -80 hapiness and then -100 hapiness in all my systems. The money before that was ok but as soon as the rebellion quickly spread I started loosing -600 dust per turn and could not tech anything anymore.. (I had about 20 systems).

So my question is :

- What is the maximum number of systems you can own before going to strike everywhere ?

- Is there any way you can raze a system instead of capturing it ? 

Thx for the feedback,

I posed this question over in the game design forum yesterday. A raze option, or the option to abandon the system and redistribute the population within your territory, seems like the most obvious solution. Given that this is still in alpha though I'd imagine Amplitude will tweak some of these values. Overcolonisation disapproval is crippling right now, as are the effects of low approval in general, and frankly I don't feel they make sense. I can imagine an unhappy populace suffering from a dip in productivity, but throwing down their work implements, starving themselves to death and bankrupting themselves? That barely makes sense in the most fervent of rebellions.

Does anyone else find it ironic that your subjects can be unhappy about overpopulation AND overcolonisation at the same time?

Julot wrote:

- What is the maximum number of systems you can own before going to strike everywhere ?

This depends on the number of systems in the galaxy ; the bigger the map the more systems you can have before over-colo becomes a major burden. However, the precise number will depend on your actual happiness, I'm surprised that you had a clear "tipping point". I would guess that most of your systems were "Unhappy", and the Sophons system you captured was the last straw which made them go "In Rebellion". Do you still have your save?

- Is there any way you can raze a system instead of capturing it ? 

Not for now, but it is planned!

jhell wrote:

Julot wrote:

- What is the maximum number of systems you can own before going to strike everywhere ?

This depends on the number of systems in the galaxy ; the bigger the map the more systems you can have before over-colo becomes a major burden. However, the precise number will depend on your actual happiness, I'm surprised that you had a clear "tipping point". I would guess that most of your systems were "Unhappy", and the Sophons system you captured was the last straw which made them go "In Rebellion". Do you still have your save?

- Is there any way you can raze a system instead of capturing it ? 

Not for now, but it is planned!

Actually, it went wrong from when I switched from 16 systems to 20 in one turn (I took 4 Sophons systems the same turn). Unhapiness was an issue at 16 systems but I could cope with it (I was generating arround 1k sicence per turn, 300 gold and mass production). My game really got screwed as I took the 4-5 Sophons systems.

I do have the save, if you want me to send it just tell me where to send it please.

Good to hear system razing is planned ^^

jhell wrote:

Julot wrote:

- What is the maximum number of systems you can own before going to strike everywhere ?

This depends on the number of systems in the galaxy ; the bigger the map the more systems you can have before over-colo becomes a major burden. However, the precise number will depend on your actual happiness, I'm surprised that you had a clear "tipping point". I would guess that most of your systems were "Unhappy", and the Sophons system you captured was the last straw which made them go "In Rebellion". Do you still have your save?

- Is there any way you can raze a system instead of capturing it ? 

Not for now, but it is planned!

Unhappiness across the entire empire is the last result I'd expect from having too many colonies, and for most factions I would expect (hope) that capturing a system provokes less unhappiness than killing millions of sentients to raze it to the ground. (Well, except for the Cravers. I say raze all the Cravers.)

My problem is most of the simple solutions to preventing the player from expanding too much / too fast seem completely off compared to what you would expect to happen if this was a story, which would be rebellions amongst captured people, colonies left to fend for themselves because resources are stretched too thin, etc. The "colonies need food/industry assistance from core worlds" is complex enough to require a completely new mechanic, but I suspect you could code the Unhappiness to be related to newly captured colonies or colonies with lots of foreign species easily.

MikeLemmer wrote:

Unhappiness across the entire empire is the last result I'd expect from having too many colonies, and for most factions I would expect (hope) that capturing a system provokes less unhappiness than killing millions of sentients to raze it to the ground. (Well, except for the Cravers. I say raze all the Cravers.)

My problem is most of the simple solutions to preventing the player from expanding too much / too fast seem completely off compared to what you would expect to happen if this was a story, which would be rebellions amongst captured people, colonies left to fend for themselves because resources are stretched too thin, etc. The "colonies need food/industry assistance from core worlds" is complex enough to require a completely new mechanic, but I suspect you could code the Unhappiness to be related to newly captured colonies or colonies with lots of foreign species easily.

This.

I understand the desire to limit empire size and prevent snowballing - but PLEASE look for a more creative and thematic solution to this than deciding on an arbitrary limit / soft-cap on empire size.  The current approach has been done to death in 4X games and it's time for something different.

Here's one SIMPLE thought:

1. Population in a system gets a happiness penalty based on how far away it is away from their homeworld.  Large empires would need to rely on keeping species within particular regions closer to their original homeworld in order to avoid large population happiness penalties.  
2. Additionally, have extra penalties if you don't control the homeworld.  So if you take over an enemy system filled with a bunch of alien population, they should be pretty sad about no longer being able to "return" home. 

Some options from other games that might strike a middle ground between annexation and razing:

Sacking (Total War): A very Craver and possibly even Lumeris option, the system taken is devastated temporarily and the victor takes home a significant haul of dust/resources/industry stockpiles without either permanently destroying the the inhabitants or taking political control.

Liberating (Paradox): The system(s) targeted are removed from the major's political/cultural control, and instead become independent minor faction(s). Possibly with some debt to be paid to their liberator.

Puppetting (Civilization/Paradox): the systems are turned into quasi-independent minors/substates of the victor, acting with automation and providing only a fraction of their FIDSI (more likely a dust/essence 'tithe') but also only providing a fraction if any of the expansion disapproval.

These could be credibly tech gated (except maybe sacking, that seems pretty straightforward).