for manpower we need a better way to use it. 

Manpower is a empire based resource (so it's shared among all your systems) that comes to fill the reserves in every system and ship.

There is no option to stop filling manpower on certain systems or ships (for instance i build a defensive fleet, it will get filled with manpower even though i don't want it too, making it harder to build an invasion fleet after)

I think that if a ship is orbiting a system that you own, the invasion button should use the manpower of that ship to fill the reserves of the system first, then if they are full to fill the empire wide reserve, this way we could get 2 benefits :

1 : we could refill manpower in a besieged system fast when your reinforcements arrive

2 we can return unused manpower from some ships to be used in others.

for sieges i think that the orbital bombing option should be available while besieging (so we can bomb down pop and building) however a new orbital defense canon improvement should be able to do damage each turn to sieging fleets (that way you can't take a whole advanced system just by besieging it for 10 turns with a small corvette)

Bunker shouldn't just add to max manpower but also give you a threshold for minimum manpower after siege (i mean how can all your manpower get killed by the siege if you have bunkers and stuff, the manpower in the bunkers should be able to survive and if the attacking force is too small, defend your system)

samsonazs wrote:
This is a wider issue as some building currently are not worth building on incorrect planets (but it is ok that it is like that) so your production queue gets even smaller.
For peace factions that is a problem as without era 2 tech you don't have much options you can do with extra production (exploration/colony ships).

But the worst thing is that for every star system you just go for building everything available. Maybe that is the plan but maybe it would be better to have more building that would be better suited for different planets. 

Some buildings are not worth building and yet you just build everything available? Your second paragraph seems to contradict your first, but probably I'm just misunderstanding your point - could you clarify?

Manpower is not working well yet but I like the idea and it should work very well after working out the details.

Things bad:

- unable to transfer manpower between ships and star systems

What sort of interaction flow would you envisage for this transfer? Transfer to/from fleet constructible in the system? A transfer to/from system action in the fleet panel?

- unclear rules on how manpower is generated

- unable to adjust the speed of manpower generation (pacifists should have a lower one and militarists a higher one)

- manpower on systems should be based on populate (why a population 1 system has the same as population 20 system?)

These are we've been working on - expect big changes in the next update

- start system occupation reducing manpower on planets (why? if planet is attacked then population and building should suffer also).

You mean the blockade/siege right? Admittedly this behaviour is easier to justify from a gameplay point of view than from the point of view of lore: it's similar to what was done in EL in that it gives the defender some time to bring reinforcements while creating an interesting conflict for the attacker. The attacker must choose between attacking early and facing stiffer resistance, or waiting for the resistance to enfeeble but, in so doing, give the defender time to arrive with reinforcements.

Good things:

- ground invasions

Hurrah  

So what do you like about the ground invasions?

- the limitations on invasion forces (early limited access to manpower limits your conquer capabilities)

Note that we plan on having specialised invasion modules so that players can spec out invasion ships which carrying larger quantities of manpower.

wilbefast wrote:

It's too easy to build everything relevant to a system faster than you can research new buildings. I recently had to beeline to 3D Printing because I was running out of buildings to queue up (and didn't just want to have every system building ships).

Noted. The more militaristic factions tend to have more to build, we perhaps need to give the Lumeris some love.

This is a wider issue as some building currently are not worth building on incorrect planets (but it is ok that it is like that) so your production queue gets even smaller.
For peace factions that is a problem as without era 2 tech you don't have much options you can do with extra production (exploration/colony ships).

But the worst thing is that for every star system you just go for building everything available. Maybe that is the plan but maybe it would be better to have more building that would be better suited for different planets. 

I know there are plans to rework the planet system:
https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/2-rework-the-entire-planet-grid
So I will wait with suggestions for the next update.

wilbefast wrote:

It's too easy to grow populace. Food continues to be an utter non-issue for me. Frankly I'm trying to cut DOWN on my food resources, since my population's growing so fast it causes massive Unhappiness issues which I DO have trouble dealing with (even with the Lumeris' +20 Happiness bonus).

What are your thoughts on manpower? The plan moving forward is for excess food and population to be the primary source of this resource, though I suppose as a pacifist faction this is less of a priority. We also have plans to provide more control over population migration within your empire, so you'll be able to ship off population when necessary, either to the army or to other systems.

Manpower is not working well yet but I like the idea and it should work very well after working out the details.

Things bad:

- unable to transfer manpower between ships and star systems

- unclear rules on how manpower is generated

- unable to adjust the speed of manpower generation (pacifists should have a lower one and militarists a higher one)

- manpower on systems should be based on populate (why a population 1 system has the same as population 20 system?)

- start system occupation reducing manpower on planets (why? if planet is attacked then population and building should suffer also).

Good things:

- ground invasions

- the limitations on invasion forces (early limited access to manpower limits your conquer capabilities)

MikeLemmer wrote:

I'm just about 60 turns through a random game (Tiny galaxy, multiple constellations, Lumeris faction, 1 AI opponent) in the latest update (the UE update) and I'm just not feeling it. The basic construction feels boring. 

Hi Mike - I'm sure the others will want to pipe up too but I thought I'd go ahead and share my thoughts on your thoughts

It's too easy to build everything relevant to a system faster than you can research new buildings. I recently had to beeline to 3D Printing because I was running out of buildings to queue up (and didn't just want to have every system building ships).

Noted. The more militaristic factions tend to have more to build, we perhaps need to give the Lumeris some love.

It's hard to tell exactly how your decisions are influencing politics. I suppose it's because politics in this game feel unrealistic; there's no conflict with my populace about what I want vs what THEY want. If I build a ton of ships and attack enemies, it just gives my Military party more clout, instead of satisfying them while making the Pacifists angry enough to cause me trouble (or vote in Pacifists to curb my militancy). In other words, it feels too easy to get the populace to want what I want, rather than me having to consider what THEY want.

It's a delicate balance: as you need to be worrying about external threats we can't make the internal one take up too much of a cognitive load or you'll need to be a genius to get your head around it. That said populations will object to a senate that doesn't represent their ideologies and, in the future, the resulting approval penalties will risk causing a rebellion at system or even empire level. Stay tuned

It's too easy to grow populace. Food continues to be an utter non-issue for me. Frankly I'm trying to cut DOWN on my food resources, since my population's growing so fast it causes massive Unhappiness issues which I DO have trouble dealing with (even with the Lumeris' +20 Happiness bonus).

What are your thoughts on manpower? The plan moving forward is for excess food and population to be the primary source of this resource, though I suppose as a pacifist faction this is less of a priority. We also have plans to provide more control over population migration within your empire, so you'll be able to ship off population when necessary, either to the army or to other systems.