twimpix wrote:

I'd like to know HOW wide are you talking here? 

This was exactly the same question I was thinking. With a mix of terraforming, approval buildings, laws, and heroes, you can quite happily run a low 20's system empire on happy-ecstatic on a large size galaxy before touching auto admin. So unless you mean 30+ systems, in which case you've either won, or are about to win, a conquest victory, I'm a little baffled by the complaint.

As a sidenote (not aimed at you in particular twimpix), I'm not entirely sure that the concepts of wide vs tall really apply to ES2 in the standard way. There is absolutely no reason not to push your approval as hard as possible. If you have anything under the system limit, then you're wasting potential FIDSI by not getting another system. If all you're systems are above 100+ approval, you're wasting potential FIDSI by not getting another system. With good resource management and buyouts, you can reasonably build every relevant improvement in every system with plenty of turns to spare for ships, colonisation, and infinite builds. So it's not like there is a type of play that involves lots of low quality systems vs a few high quality ones. System quality is marked by size of system and anomalies more than anything else. This is a marked contrast from other 4X where industry rates tend to be much lower, approval is more difficult to manage, where there are specific bonuses for having fewer systems/cities, and/or there are so many improvements that you couldn't possibly build them all across lots of systems/cities. Endless Legend was more classical in this sense, 

I think the notions of wide vs tall should maybe get replaced here with rate of expansion. Faster expansion generates more problems that slow expansion in terms of approval, food, and dust, but also pays off in the long term if those problems are overcome. So with that change of concepts in mind, it sounds like OP expanded at a rate that they couldn't keep up with to control those problems. So maybe next time, either expand less quickly, or expand at the same rate, but choosing a tech and political path that helps overcome those problems.

Never had a problem managing unhappiness.

Kray wrote:

Unhappiness is absolutely controllable, esp. when playing militaristic. 

Overcolonization is a failsafe mechanism and it needs to be managed. It prevents the player from painting the map into a single colour with ease aka steamrolling. 

• grab the most valuable systems of an AI first; dump the most useless ones first
• when you’ve already 20 systems and are swimming in 900+titanium/hyperium and need to sell it each turn, think about deserting those bad early start systems you colonized just to get these resources in the first place
• Laws (Us or Them, etcpp.)
• start terraforming the most hostile planets soon; reduce bad anomalies when you can (it's in the middle of all these points because it needs to always to be done along the way and should be a priority)
• get heroes soon and level some up this way to be useful when it comes to unhappiness – when a system stabilizes permanently rotate these heroes to more unstable systems
• mid-late game: use excess dust to buy cheap luxury resources on the market: you may not need these resources for system level but they may help to shut off rebellions
• breed minor races which give happiness on high growth rate breeding systems and repopulate systems where unhappiness is an issue
• send pop you don't want to penal colonies and chain gang them there
• and now as the last resort I build the happiness buildings

I simply do happiness buildings last, so that I have some buffer left and can react in case of imminent rebellions. They can’t help in turning the tide when it comes to unhappiness and I view them pure as band aids. Sure, they can help with growth a little bit but I like to have some means to conquer unhappiness when I really need to. 

Noticed, that I haven't mentioned the system level 4 overcolonization building yet?

At the very end, it's possible to influence gameplay with custom races.  Just give them the +25%/+50% overcolonization threshould. Or just play United Empire which comes with +25% from the start. 

Just tweak a race this way so that it helps you to play the way you want. 

Good advice.

I do think you have to conquer too many enemy systems before they want a truce, so I always have to gift most of the systems to an ally (to the weaker members or the Unfallen without vines in reach). It would be nice to release systems as a puppet, so you have almost no controll over them, but they pay tribute in strategics or what you decide.

Unhappiness is absolutely controllable, esp. when playing militaristic. 

Overcolonization is a failsafe mechanism and it needs to be managed. It prevents the player from painting the map into a single colour with ease aka steamrolling. 

• grab the most valuable systems of an AI first; dump the most useless ones first
• when you’ve already 20 systems and are swimming in 900+titanium/hyperium and need to sell it each turn, think about deserting those bad early start systems you colonized just to get these resources in the first place
• Laws (Us or Them, etcpp.)
• start terraforming the most hostile planets soon; reduce bad anomalies when you can (it's in the middle of all these points because it needs to always to be done along the way and should be a priority)
• get heroes soon and level some up this way to be useful when it comes to unhappiness – when a system stabilizes permanently rotate these heroes to more unstable systems
• mid-late game: use excess dust to buy cheap luxury resources on the market: you may not need these resources for system level but they may help to shut off rebellions
• breed minor races which give happiness on high growth rate breeding systems and repopulate systems where unhappiness is an issue
• send pop you don't want to penal colonies and chain gang them there
• and now as the last resort I build the happiness buildings

I simply do happiness buildings last, so that I have some buffer left and can react in case of imminent rebellions. They can’t help in turning the tide when it comes to unhappiness and I view them pure as band aids. Sure, they can help with growth a little bit but I like to have some means to conquer unhappiness when I really need to. 

Noticed, that I haven't mentioned the system level 4 overcolonization building yet?

At the very end, it's possible to influence gameplay with custom races.  Just give them the +25%/+50% overcolonization threshould. Or just play United Empire which comes with +25% from the start. 

Just tweak a race this way so that it helps you to play the way you want. 

Void2258 wrote:
...despite having researched and built literally everything I could find on the tree...  "but being unable to take out a rival early because your own civ will revolt limits gameplay options"

"Autonomous Administration" is also on the tree, if you have literally everything you should have no overcolonization dissaproval at all.
Have you tried invading their home system to achieve supremacy victory? It's just one extra system, shouldn't hurt.

Void2258 wrote:
I think having the majority of the methods for dealing with unhappiness due to planet cap so far down the tech tree is an issue. Especially having most of the cap expansion tied to Automatic Administration which is tied to reaching the last level of Economy and Trade and having the luxury resources to build out lvl 4 planets.

I'm not saying it should be automatic, but being unable to take out a rival early because your own civ will revolt limits gameplay options. Realistically only Craver and Vodyani can be at war early on because of how they work (they basically have to be at war), and even they still have issues with expansion because of unhappiness, albeit that it works a bit differently/controllably for Vodyani.

There are some ways to deal with Unhappiness. Laws are usually the way to go for early game Happiness management. I also will try to use minor faction population like Kalergos, Z'vali, and Sisters of Mercy to boost Happiness.

I do agree more could be done to control Happiness and I recently added an Idea for a new Planet Specialization that would give a player a little more wiggle room around mid-game.

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/1699-happiness-specialization

Without the variable taxation system from the original, Happiness tends to be very rigid and the penalties for low Happiness are particularly brutal in ES2.

WeLoveYou wrote:...

I think the notions of wide vs tall should maybe get replaced here with rate of expansion. ...

Eh, I'd rather see two or three buildings to let me spend my Approval buffing existing systems. I'll always be a tall player at heart and it's important to provide a bit of that vertical progress for peaceful methods of victory like Science and Economy.

But as to OP's issue, the good news is that soon Federations will have an effect where your Overcolonization threshold goes up with every Hero you acquire. Unfortunately It's a little tough to use because the Academy will give you Hero points for pretty much everything you do, and thus you can't make any special effort to get Heroes through there, while the Marketplace has only ever had two or three Heroes in it in my experience.

If you do expand that quickly there is a way you can cope with it - Using Laws. If your get a goverment ruled by the religous party for a bit you can enact the "Saints and Sinners" bill, which sets your approval to content (50%) accorss the galaxy. You can have as many planets as you want, your approval will be 50% everywhere. 

Also, this is one of the reasons that early scouting helps. Just focus on locking down a few highly valuable systems (4 or 5 planets). If you luck out and get approval luxuries, those help when improving system level. When going on a conquering spree, just hit the enemy where it hurts. 

Void2258 wrote:

I began the war with 12 systems on a 9 system limit (3 minor factions joined me). By the end of the war I had another 10 worlds (the AI in my allaince was basically not bothering to do any conquering on its own). I do realize that this is a big jump, but I was conquering an equivalent empire so a rough doubling of systems should be about normal. If you go to conquer another side you are going to get another side worth of systems.

This explains the big approval hit. Unfortunately for you, the game punishes conquering at that speed. As I said above, if you are planning to conquer on such a scale, be sure you have your Autonomous Administrations and/or the system upgrades that reduce said penalty at the ready otherwise you will end up as you did.

I began the war with 12 systems on a 9 system limit (3 minor factions joined me). By the end of the war I had another 10 worlds (the AI in my allaince was basically not bothering to do any conquering on its own). I do realize that this is a big jump, but I was conquering an equivalent empire so a rough doubling of systems should be about normal. If you go to conquer another side you are going to get another side worth of systems.

I'd like to know HOW wide are you talking here? How many systems were you controlling and what was your threshold at the time? If you did Autonomous Administration on all systems, you should have been still pretty good. It sounds to me that you wanted to swallow the galaxy too quickly. If that was the case than the disappointing truth is that the game was not designed that way. The way it was designed is to penalize the player if they go too wide too quickly. I've been there myself, mostly during my time in Endless Legend but I learned a lot about the game since then.

Until I have Autonomous Admin ready I will keep the number of systems within the limits. Then, as I start conquering I make sure that I keep up with building it wherever possible. If I do that, it is for sure that I won't run into the troubles you are describing.

In the latest G2G Balance Mod where we are testing future balance updates, federations got a buff that will help them support a wide empire (+1 over-colonization threshold per hero, etc).

Eventually, You should count on Autonomous Administration. It will increase overcolonization threshold, which means almost +10 happiness for all systems.

Otherwise, you can also alleviate unhappiness other than happiness structures/terraforming/political party laws. By growing Marvros population to 50, you can get minor-faction law which halves the overcolonization penalty.  Kalgeros pops will also give you useful law, which removes overpopulation penalty.