I think the primary purpose of overcolonization as a mechanic is to discourage players from burdening themselves too hard with macromanaging their colonies.  It's straightfoward to easy to manage 4-5 building queues earlier on. It quickly becomes an exhausting to juggle 18 or more every turn for however many hundreds of turns are needed to finish the game.  This mechanic also keeps players who aren't interested in constantly expanding from feeling like they have to go through data entry chores before getting to the "fun" content.

That one religious law is there, in part, to at least open the door to players who insist on owning every single star they can reach. If you like rapid expanding, religious government is the one you'll want to push really hard. Time will only tell if that subversion to the core mechanic is balanced as intended or not.   (it does make Religious a very attractive option just by itself)

You miss the potential 25% growth/influence on systems, plus 30% dust/science on empire staying on content, so... I don't consider it OP.

Except you're not being told you can't. You have a multitude of options if you want to paint the universe. Lots of ways to push up approval if you want to own all the good systems, many of which were already discussed. If that's not good enough, you still have the religious law if you insist on clinging -- religiously, should we say -- to the notion that players should be forced to grab every single star in reach in order to stay competitive. 

ES2's systems cater to both obsessive-compulsive colonizers who love seeing their colors grow and to people who find spamming colony ships to be repetitive data entry busywork that delays getting to the strategy-oriented part of the game.  (even putting aside the enormous amount of micro that comes afterward because you can automate it, just having to plan widespread colonization can itself be very tedious)

So you have to learn a new system and make some interesting decisions if you want to play 4X the traditional way. Why is that such a problem? This genre is all about systems. Did you not start playing 4X in the first place because it's fun to learn systems and game them? 

Is it that you feel like you have to sit out on other interesting choices if you want to go for the religious law? Except no, ES2 has you covered even there. You can have 2-3 political parties in office at once if you're not a dictatorship. It's just that you'd be using one of those party slots and one of your law slots to essentially remove approval as a mechanic, allowing you a hell of a lot of freedom.  Admittedly at the steep price of potential Happy/Ecstatic FIDSI bonuses, but the ability to own every single star and vacuum up all the luxury and strategic resources within arm's length might be worth it and the resulting empire-wide FIDSI might more than make up for it. It might even become the meta competitively which I'm a little bit concerned about, but it's too early to say for sure.

In practice you can have a hell of a lot of colonies before you have to seriously worry about empire-wide happiness hits.  The trick is that you can't take too many too quickly, which is why the system exists in the first place -- it's to indeed discourage colony rushing. But really, take every single planet that looks too good to pass up. Even if it puts you well over the threshold. So long as you keep giving your colonies (especially newer ones) enough bread and circuses and senate representation, it shouldn't be a problem. Monitor empire-wide happiness and decide in advance whether you're satisfied with it being Ecstatic, Happy or Content. As a rule of thumb, I'd probably suggest that Content is only acceptable if you've been getting insanely lucky with good planets in immediate reach. Then it's a good idea to grab them ASAP before anyone else can set up in your backyard and drink your milkshakes.

Again, this is why ES2 is amazing and is only going to get better as more content comes in -- that's a conscious choice you're making and it feels good to make a call on it, especially if it turns out to be the right call. You're not playing it as algorithmically as some 4X.

ManyEagles wrote:

I've always thought it would make more sense to move that one religious law that sets all your system to content into the Military category. I get that religion can make people happy but It just fits so well with the militaristic conquer everything you see playstyle. It seems weird having to change your whole government to religious everytime you play the Cravers who seem to make the best use of the law.

Top tier Military politics arguably gets an even better law which gives a whopping +30 approval empire-wide for as long as you're at war. That synergizes exceptionally well with Cravers, who pretty much have no reason to want peace.  Combine that with spaceports and the ability to eat minor faction populations for big approval bonuses and you'll be able to have plenty of colonies even without pushing religion. Worse comes to worse, you can just opt to drop some completely-depleted systems entirely if they don't have improvements or strategic resources making them worth keeping.

The religious law in question, "Saints and Sinners" I believe, works best with the Vodyani because mass-producing arks is the most efficient use of essence. Arks that aren't currently being used as part of a flotilla are, naturally, best off docked somewhere. Late-game, it's exceptionally nice to not have to monitor empire-wide approval ratings every time you want to dock.

Ozgwald wrote:

You don't use minor factions traits, 

i do not consider them, because you can't (nor should you imho) rely on the appearence of a minor faction in your galaxy. however you are probably right that i have swept them under the rug. i added the race and law to the op. thanks for the guide btw.

nor do you truly consider all the available laws,

besides the laws from minor civilizations i am pretty sure i considered all, you can see all laws in the senate election party screen.

 and you do not seem to consider the tier 4 luxery resource that gives a 50% reduction to overcolonization. 

lost cities (n-p artifacts) gives reduction to overpopulation, not overcolonization. is there another one i have overlooked?

There is a minor law that reduces overcolonization by 50%, that is 100% reduction. Aprt from numerous mor eoptions towards approval. 

what other options are missed?

Than you don't properly consider faction specifics such as gene splicing for horatio

i do consider it, i put it under the options of:

-some populations provide happiness

in the op (i am currently playing a custom race with the horatio trait and use this).

 or the craver era 3 tech that gives approval for each military ship you own. 

the craver tech unlocks an empire unique building that works only in one system, this barely helps with anything. (and yes the tooltip of that buildings is not correct)

The first change I want to advocate is more transparency on minor factions and population management, too much is hidden or obscure to players.

i wholeheartedly agree with this.

You don't use minor factions traits, nor do you truly consider all the available laws, and you do not seem to consider the tier 4 luxery resource that gives a 50% reduction to overcolonization. 

There is a minor law that reduces overcolonization by 50%, that is a 100% reduction on the penalty. Apart from numerous more options towards approval. 

Than you don't properly consider faction specifics such as gene splicing for horatio or the craver era 3 tech that gives approval for each military ship you own. There are numerous ways to deal with overcolonization that have not been explored or entirely not known by all previous posters.

Some races have it easier than others, but each race is unique. Hey a science victory is easier achieved with Sophons than with Cravers right? I specifically made a post about all minor faction traits, such that people would read and get a better understanding of the game. Approval right now on largers mpa poses for certain playstyles, and the most classic I want to have it all an unique challenge. Is it properly balanced? No it is not, but I am strongly against the general consensus that pops up in the forums where the mechnic and its effects are dumped down, such that each faction plays the same. 

The first change I want to advocate is more transparency on minor factions and population management, too much is hidden or obscure to players. After this the 2nd one, only when option 1 is properly evaluated, should be to reduce some of the RNG in obtaining these elements that allow you to deal with overcolonization ( you can only assimilate the faction once).

The potential of resource scarcity and needing minor faction traits to win in a certain fashion is far too interesting to remove. 

Another issue I see with encouraging players to try and own every single system is that it makes the game more susceptible to RNG spikes.  While RNG is pretty much impossible to avoid as a determining factor in non-fixed maps, I think if the player can rapidly take every planet in their constellation and beyond, it tips it more towards RNG. Think of it in terms of cards. Say two players draw ten cards and each is instructed to discard four and choose which six are best for the play they're going for.  That creates player choice and it smooths out some of the more dramatic RNG spikes. Whereas before, just colonizing every single planet within your grasp isn't an active choice, it's almost purely a mechanical one. It doesn't become a matter of "if" you can or should colonize a planet but more "how quickly".

To put it another way, in 4X planet-generation RNG I'd prefer to play the equivalent of Poker and less an extended version of War with the busywork of 52 Pickup.

You can't automate the colony ship building and colonization of every habitable planet you come across enroute.  That's part of the "obligatory chore" thing I'm talking about that I think overcolonization is meant to address. It also forces you to be picky with what systems you take even in the mid-late game, where in most space 4X games that's an interesting decision you only pretty much get to make earlier on.

Of course if said religious law becomes the meta we're back to square one with all that, but time will tell there.

Let's talk about overcolonization.

1) How it works:

Each empire can support a number of colonized planets, you can see this number by going to the empire tab (dafaul shortcut: F1, in the lower left of the empire screen).

If you have more systems that your empire can support you will face an unhappiness penalty on all systems. The magnitude of this penalty gets larger the higher the difference between the actual colonized systems and the maximum of supported systems is.

2) How to mitiagte

You can provide happiness bonuses to counter the unhappiness from overcolonization, such bonuses can be found in a multitude of game mechanics such as:

-some system development luxuary resources, most notably Transvine

-buildings

-technologies

-laws, some of which have dependencies, e.g. happiness per faction at war

-planet terraforming: planets themselves provide happiness ranging from -20 to +10

-some populations provide happiness

There are mechancis that deal with overcolonization directly:

-some factions (united empire or a custom faction) reduce the overcolonization penalty by a percentage

-some government form increase the number of supported systems

-some technologies increase the number of supported systems

-there is a minor faction (mavros) law that reduce the overcolonization penalty by a percentage

-there is a system development luxuary resource that reduce the overcolonization penalty by a percentage (Benthic Gems)

There is also a religious law that sets the happiness of all systems to content, basically removing happiness as a game mechanic.

3) Shortcomings of the mechanic

3a) Since the mechanic is tied to the number of colonized systems you basically never want to colonize systems with few planets and no important resources. A simple gas planet with 4 population is a systems provides the same penalty like a 5 planet system with 30+ population.

3b) It also messes with some faction mechanics, like the cravers 50 population collection bonus.

3c) if you already have a big penalty but you can manage it with the points listed in 2), any new system you colonize has a major happiness problem until you get all the happiness stacking there too. This usually forces a player to spend a lot of dust to buy out happiness improvements, terraform the planets and so on, just to get the new colony to content

3d) there comes a point where going wide is no longer possible because happiness stacking is limited, unless you use the religious law.

3e) in wide empires it forces you to terraform all planets, making every empire i play look the same (90%+ atoll planets)

4) Suggested Improvements

-when colonizing new systems implement the projected unhappiness penalty in the colonizing tooltip, e.g. if you colonize this systems you will get -10 happiness across all systems. This makes the mechanic more transparent.

-I would like to see more techs that can increase the limit

-maybe the limit should increase slowly over time or you could spend increasing amounts of something (dust, resources, ....) to increase it?

-systems with only depleted planets should not count towards the limit.

-in large empires with many systems the religious law almost feels like a cheat as you can ignore a lot of otherwise neccesary research, improvements, system development and terraforming

-there needs to be some mechanic or tooltip or advice that makes it clear that low planet count systems are basically noob traps. unless there is some important resource you should never colonize 1-2 planet systems.

Personally the game that deals with wide expansion very well is EU4, in EU4 you have provinces and a province can either be a state or a territory, states cost a small amount of upkeep but provide full economic and military bonuses while territories get a reduction of 75%, i.e. the province still belongs to your country, but it does barely contribute to your economy. The number of states is limited mostly by technology levels and government type. This ensures that large countries with lot's of territories are not that much stronger than medium consolidated countries.

What do you think about this mechanic? Is it fine as it is, does it needs some minor adjustments or would like to see a revamp?