Agree. Stability simply becomes too easy to manage in the late game and is too much being tied to the size and infrastructure of the city (as a penalty for making mega-cities). Patronage tech being overpowered has long been recognized by the community and needs to be reworked (or simply removed). The same goes for +4 stability through trade. 

Developers should make stability management a more challenging issue in the late game. One way to do so, I would suggest, is to make citizens more "demanding" as players advance through a new age. For example, each worker, trader, and scientist would generate -1 stability after hitting the early-modern age,  -2 stability in the industrial age, and -3 in the contemporary age... Those penalties could be mitigated through building critical insfractures associated with their profession (like universities for scientists, banks for traders... etc...)   The penalty doubles for each unemployed citizen. 

If you complain that stability is too easy to manage, you could rise the difficulty up a bit.
I'd say the main issue with stability is that you either have »too much« or »too little« of it. It seems players don't stay long between 30 and 90 stability.

amosblanco wrote:

Patronage tech being overpowered has long been recognized by the community and needs to be reworked (or simply removed). The same goes for +4 stability through trade. 

I do hope so! But it has been a year and I've seen no sign of changes in the air for patronage and/or trade bonuses. 

amosblanco wrote:

Those penalties could be mitigated through building critical insfractures associated with their profession (like universities for scientists, banks for traders... etc...)   The penalty doubles for each unemployed citizen. 

I'd welcome any change that makes building infrastructure necessary to deal with negative modifiers and not just a question of a positive bonus. 

Cure_off wrote:

If you complain that stability is too easy to manage, you could rise the difficulty up a bit.

And how does that affect stability? I wish stability was tied in with difficulty, that is one of the main points I'm making. 

agree

sapsling wrote:

Stability is the main pushback mechanism in Humankind, but while it is a fairly intricate system that could work brilliantly, the game cancels out most of its potential by handing out a great deal of stability bonuses along the way. 

Apart from the occasional Public Fountain and Aquaduct in early game, I almost never have to place a single Commons Quarter (I play Nation/Empire). 

Religious buildings, wonders and in particular trade and the tech bonuses later on solve all stability issues in such a way that often the baseline stability level of my cities is not just 100% but closer to 200% or even 250%. 

It’s a shame really because this mechanic could really offer the opportunity for fun gameplay, especially in later era’s when your empire has grown large, and for people who like to play more peacefully/tall. Managing your global empire internally should be an effort in itself and offer interesting gameplay.  

I offer here two suggestions, 1) to incorporate the stability level in the difficulty settings, and 2) a more expanded idea that really puts stability and the managing of your internal empire at the forefront of gameplay.

In general I understand the decision to stay on the safe side with stability, as you want first time players to have a good experience. HK is after all a fairly complicated game to get into. But once you know how the systems work, there is little challenge left with stability and so it would be nice if it could be incorporated into the difficulty settings. 

Two options:

1) a customizable stability setting, where you can determine yourself how much stability each new district and/or territory attachment costs.  

2) implement more challenging stability penalties into the difficulty settings themselves: for example, Nation -15, Empire -20, Civilzation -25, Humankind -30 (of course other modifiers need to be adjusted then). 

I also believe buy-out options should be impossible when concerning stability buildings and infrastructure. I think Stability should be the one thing that you cannot insta-buy your way out of. Right now it is just too easy to buy a series of infrastructure in one turn or simply add some more trade resources when your stability is low. Voila - all stability issues are solved in just one turn. 

But I believe the system could offer so much more. 

I would love to see empire wide Stability become a permanent visual marker in the top screen, with different scaling offering impactful bonuses or maluses. 

Right now the scaling goes from 0-30%, 30-90% and above 90%. The latter offers +2 influence per pop and positive events, and the strained condition offers +1 influence, and a mix of positive and negative events. While I believe this is a great idea, I think it is a missed opportunity now and could potentially become much more impactful.

I would suggest to use more than just the three states of Mutinous, Strained and Settled, with each state offering more interesting and far reaching modifers.  

Here’s a rough suggestion:

95-100%: Glorious (big buffs)

80-95%: Thriving (small buffs)

60-80%: Content (no buffs - baseline)

50-60%: Discontent (small malus)

30-50%: Turmoil (big malus, and no army building possible in the relevant city)

0-30%: Revolution (no production possible, with spawning of rebel armies in X amount of terms depending ont he exact percentage). 

I envision this as a bar that could have visual effects too. Glorious offers a golden hue and festive sparkle, while getting into Discontent the screen greys out a bit, with Revolution really feeling dark and cloudy. 

Of course for this to work, the Stability bonuses should be thoroughly reworked and downsized. I imagine that a baseline stability lies around 70% and getting your empire into Glorious state should be really challenging. Of course achieving and holding Glorious state each era can offer Fame, and how fun would an achievement be to string all 7 era’s with a Glorious condition. Perhaps also moving into the next Era can become impossible if your Empire is in Turmoil or lower state.  

All in all, this means the simple stability add-ons of resources are drastically reduced, the Patronage tech does not give +30 stability and the other techs that offer stability are downsized as well. 

For instance, right after you have gotten Patronage, there is Microbiology halfway in the Industrial tech tree, dealing out a free +1 stability per pop, as well as offering the infrastructure Hospital dealing another +2 stab per researcher. While I like the idea for tech to have impact when researched, right now this stability gift is uncalled for and way too much of a bonus. You are pretty much exempt from having to deal with it, until later on you get another hit of +1 stab per pop with Suburbs & Mass entertainment, while Social Housing gives the Sewage treatment infrastructure. While this reflects the explosive growth in the later Era's, the problem is the system never pushes back hard enough for stability to become a real problem with the Industrial and later Era. 

I haven’t even taken into account the civics that can offer huge stability bonuses as well. 

Of course this is a simple sketch of a suggestion and how this all could be balanced would need a great deal of testing and tweaking. 

But I am curious to know what people think of the main point that Stability right now is far too easy, and that it potentially could offer great gameplay, perhaps even remedying the late game boredom of having not much to do.

I would love empire management to feel challenging in itself - not just through war and conquest, or farming fame.  

 

Yeah, in addition I would even improve rivolutions since they have always played a major role in in the flow of history, they would deverve to be more important and considered more "a way to start again, in better" than something to completly avoid

sapsling wrote:

Cure_off wrote:

If you complain that stability is too easy to manage, you could rise the difficulty up a bit.

And how does that affect stability? I wish stability was tied in with difficulty, that is one of the main points I'm making. 

I take the problem the other way. You say, the game is too easy, that you never have any stability issue. I suggest taht you make the game harder and will therefore have more challenges to meet, that will lead to stability issues.
Some source of stability (getting patronage first, grabbing land with resources, avoiding non-wished wars, etc.) are easier to get at low or mid-levels. For example, playing against an influence focus AI can lead to many osmosis issues. It is easier obviously easier to fight it at lower levels. If you have can get less resources, get less gold for trade, etc. you'll mechanicly end up with less stability than you're accustomed to.

Of course, if you never have stability issues but encounter difficulty to win your game, upping the level isn't a good solution.
I offered it as many players tend to play at the same level for a very long time. If playing at a higher level is not a necessity and can even ruin the fun, with the many updates, quitting a supposed comfort zone can be interesting and make the game wildly better (and a hard fought second place can entertain more than a 1st ever place).

Cure_off wrote:

I take the problem the other way. You say, the game is too easy, that you never have any stability issue. I suggest taht you make the game harder and will therefore have more challenges to meet, that will lead to stability issues.

I see your point, but it feels like an unsatisfying workaround that misses the intention of my post. 

I wrote the post because I think stability in itself can lead to interesting gameplay, not because I want to complain how the game is too easy - like you implied. 

And I would prefer to “play” stability without having to go into Civilization or Humankind difficulty and the huge flat bonuses they give. Something I personally don’t enjoy. 

Besides that, I’ve been going from Nation to Empire lately and while difficulty increases, the stability still is a non-issue. So I doubt your solution will satisfy my need for more interesting stability gameplay. 

I read between the lines, that you seemed to have the game pretty much in your grip at the nation level, as you seemed to reach easily high stability all the time. It was, indeed, thought as a workaround, the game being complex and the stability mechanism being impacted by many factors. For example, playing on huge maps makes stability less difficult to manage, without changing the difficulty.

I stated in my previous post that playing at higher level »can ruin the fun«, and wasn't implying it is the alpha & omega of dealing with the issue. I'm fairly aware of the limitation of my proposition. It was thought as a possible way to deal a bit with the issue, as it won't be fixed tomorrow.

How do you fare at the Empire level? Do you plan on going back to Nation?
Wishing you a good day

Cure_off wrote:

I stated in my previous post that playing at higher level »can ruin the fun«, and wasn't implying it is the alpha & omega of dealing with the issue. I'm fairly aware of the limitation of my proposition. It was thought as a possible way to deal a bit with the issue, as it won't be fixed tomorrow.

Oh I see. I was a bit triggered by your use of “complaint”. I love this game, and my post came from love, not complaining :)

Cure_off wrote:

How do you fare at the Empire level? Do you plan on going back to Nation?
Wishing you a good day

I am actually having one of the best games so far, on Empire, normal map. I am roleplaying a bit (as I like to do), as Zhou-Ming-Japanese, and I am slightly ahead but it was a close call.  

Before I had a game on Empire huge map which was not so fun. With all my effort I remained 5/6th. 

I notice the AI tends to vassalize a lot, sometimes 2 or even 3 players. I don’t really like that, considering the limited options for vassal gameplay. So basically you are up against multiple AI then. 

Will I go back to Nation? The problem is with Nation I like the fame pacing but the game is usually over around Industrial, sometimes Early Modern. But Empire can be frustrating with all the bonuses and runaway AI. But I will definitely play Empire more, although stability still is not much of an issue.

Hey thank you for all the feedback on the matter, I know is a loooong one so all the ideas, even the more crazy ones, are welcome.
Not gonna lie, on the stability side, it will require a big rework/balance, so it is not something that could arrive in the short term, but it is something that we are aware of.

Daarkarrow wrote:

Hey thank you for all the feedback on the matter, I know is a loooong one so all the ideas, even the more crazy ones, are welcome.
Not gonna lie, on the stability side, it will require a big rework/balance, so it is not something that could arrive in the short term, but it is something that we are aware of.

That is awesome to hear! And thank you for the response. 

Just saying I agree.

I just want to caveat this by saying that while I would prefer if stability was harder to manage, I still want a lot of tools to deal with it. It just would make more sense if sometimes I had trade offs when I made such decisions, like building a military unit rather than a stability producing building.

Maybe implement more decisions like "force conscription" - rush completion of military unit for stability hit?

Wald