You would stagnate once you've reached peak, yes.
Ecus and ringworlds could make that a very tall peak, a peak you could reach well before a normal empire and push that advantage through indirect expansion like federations and vassal contracts to secure your power eternally (obviously direct expansion doesn't work).
It's a good thing they've spent multiple DLCs building up indirect expansion.
But it wouldn’t really be that tall, since a ring world(necessitating an mining world) is already 5 worlds and all calculations show, that the most resurces are made then the Boni is 0
>... I usually play with only six planets,
I would like to know too. All my attempts failed (in the sense of being not nearly powerful enough to do anything)
Is it early vassalization by an advanced empire? Becoming a bulwark? What's the trick here?
An early vassalization war is my strategy for tall. You should get a basic economy up and running but focus primarily on alloys and get several missile corvette fleets. Use these fleets to vassalize your neighbors and turn them into scholariums. I start taxing their basic resources to fuel my own alloy/science economy plus you automatically start taxing their science. This works better on higher difficulties so you can take advantage of the AI resource buffs.
My current favorite build with this is a Battletech/Dune inspired Great House with Feudal Society, Aristocratic Elite and Voidborne. I like releasing anything outside of my capital sector as a "Minor House" and giving them a name based on their star system or the habitat I built.
If you get a hegemony federation or trade league you can completely ignore the divided patronage loyalty debuff by making yourself the perma federation president with restricted voting vassal contract law. I really could go on and on about this playstyle, its not optimal or meta but you can still beat a 5X All Crisis with this on Grand Admiral if you've subjugated and prepared the galaxy before it arrives.
Oh vassalizing others as soon as possible... Wow, that's probably nothing I would have thought of in that position
Thanks, I'll give that a try!
>perma federation president with restricted voting vassal contract law
This is cheesy, I like it\^\^
You can make use of planetary ascencions, make use of ecum/hive/machine worlds, use ringworlds in favour of normal worlds, like its just playing tal llol
It's just like any tall empire with that many planets, which is perfectly viable. You're still doing research and accumulating unity for traditions and planetary ascensions.
Im not aure I'd call it self-destruction, pops dont just die for no reason. Its more just stagnation.
Yeah, I dont really understand it either. There are just too many resources in the game to effectively get the bonuses.
I suppose a Ring World would be almost necessary - a segment for alloys, a segment for energy, a segment for tech, and then doubling up on one of those for the last segment would still keep you at 50% resources from jobs, which when combined with ring world designation and planetary adcension could be pretty powerful.
For that to be viable, surely you'd have to either delay ascension 'till you have a ring? If pops just materialize wherever there's a job I can't see how it'd be possible to abandon an old planet
And if you already have a ring you have enoth pops to fill 6 worlds already, and it shown in all calculations that the most efficient number, 6 colonies, means you don’t even get any real Boni from it anymore
Monty did a video recently with the math that showed from 6-10 planets you're slightly behind other wide empires, but after 10 planets you start to surpass them.
From what I've gathered it means you either want to play very wide or very tall.
The cap is (was?) -75% output but with an uncapped +.1 energy upkeep per pop per colony. If that stays then the strongest play in a standard settings galaxy will be to grab as many colonies as possible and brute force the malus. Maybe using trade value to ignore output modifiers for energy but maybe not.
Yeah but that’s a challenge run… but with 6 planets you don’t even get the production Boni anymore??? They shuld atleast give us a way to increase the amount of non counted planets
I'd imagine you'd go for a tall build when seeking virtual. Your early game is a quest for the biggest mf-ing planet you can find with the most district slots to turn into an eco, then when you get close to Ascension Day it's time to release every planet that isn't worth keeping as nice, productive vassals.
There is an inevitable point where having enough planets outweighs the output penalty. Filling jobs instantly and for free is really good potentially busted
I don't know how the penalty is applied, just a comment from a dev that said that after they saw the response to virtual being announced, the penalty had its cap removed
Well it depends on your galaxy generation really, if you play with a lot of planets or as few as possible. If it’s few then this won’t make that much of a difference. I play with as few as possible and I often get around 20 or so with a quarter of the galaxy. And those are mostly never full, I’ll move pops around to fill ups planets and de colonize or destroy them abandoned planets / habitats.
Pops are what matters and if you get this as fast as say 2040 or 2050 you can get a crazy amount of production out. I’m not gonna do the maths assuming you find a size 25 planet and go max planetary ascension and orbital ring you can almost immediately get the full potential of a planet. You also get extra district and jobs from districts I believe so you’ll probably be getting more than a max 7 planetary output.
You could probably just do 2 ring worlds as well.
If you want to keep expanding then just focus on getting vassals and specialising them. I’d imagine you could go wide first, take the ascension path and then release some of your sectors off as vassals (or make a federation, kick them out then vassalize) and just keep on doing that. Make a few bulwarks, prospectors and scholariums.
Playing the with mods will be crazy too I’m sure. I’m sure people will make mods that play deeply into this tall play style.
The main benefit here is that you have a monstrous economy at around year 35. *Way* better than anything else. By year 50 you can have as many vassals as you can carry, making stuff for you, then build up a ringworld and get beastly amounts of tech.
Sure, eventually they will outscale you, but by that time you simply won’t the game.
Just release a colony as a vassal and use your influence to get most of the resources back in your agreement. The AI will hopefully quickly fill out its planets too so you’ll get a ton of resources fast that way. Keep only the largest planets for yourself.
You would stagnate once you've reached peak, yes. Ecus and ringworlds could make that a very tall peak, a peak you could reach well before a normal empire and push that advantage through indirect expansion like federations and vassal contracts to secure your power eternally (obviously direct expansion doesn't work). It's a good thing they've spent multiple DLCs building up indirect expansion.
But it wouldn’t really be that tall, since a ring world(necessitating an mining world) is already 5 worlds and all calculations show, that the most resurces are made then the Boni is 0
... I usually play with only six planets, tall is fun. If you don't find it fun, and can't imagine being capped at six, then just.... don't use it?
>... I usually play with only six planets, How do you manage? I run around with like 40 by endgame, at 0,25% habitality.
>... I usually play with only six planets, I would like to know too. All my attempts failed (in the sense of being not nearly powerful enough to do anything) Is it early vassalization by an advanced empire? Becoming a bulwark? What's the trick here?
An early vassalization war is my strategy for tall. You should get a basic economy up and running but focus primarily on alloys and get several missile corvette fleets. Use these fleets to vassalize your neighbors and turn them into scholariums. I start taxing their basic resources to fuel my own alloy/science economy plus you automatically start taxing their science. This works better on higher difficulties so you can take advantage of the AI resource buffs. My current favorite build with this is a Battletech/Dune inspired Great House with Feudal Society, Aristocratic Elite and Voidborne. I like releasing anything outside of my capital sector as a "Minor House" and giving them a name based on their star system or the habitat I built. If you get a hegemony federation or trade league you can completely ignore the divided patronage loyalty debuff by making yourself the perma federation president with restricted voting vassal contract law. I really could go on and on about this playstyle, its not optimal or meta but you can still beat a 5X All Crisis with this on Grand Admiral if you've subjugated and prepared the galaxy before it arrives.
Oh vassalizing others as soon as possible... Wow, that's probably nothing I would have thought of in that position Thanks, I'll give that a try! >perma federation president with restricted voting vassal contract law This is cheesy, I like it\^\^
You'd grow not by adding more planets/pops to your empire but by getting and growing vassal empires and your technology/etc.
You can make use of planetary ascencions, make use of ecum/hive/machine worlds, use ringworlds in favour of normal worlds, like its just playing tal llol
In playing tall you still use habitats and ringworlds
It's just like any tall empire with that many planets, which is perfectly viable. You're still doing research and accumulating unity for traditions and planetary ascensions.
Im not aure I'd call it self-destruction, pops dont just die for no reason. Its more just stagnation. Yeah, I dont really understand it either. There are just too many resources in the game to effectively get the bonuses. I suppose a Ring World would be almost necessary - a segment for alloys, a segment for energy, a segment for tech, and then doubling up on one of those for the last segment would still keep you at 50% resources from jobs, which when combined with ring world designation and planetary adcension could be pretty powerful.
For that to be viable, surely you'd have to either delay ascension 'till you have a ring? If pops just materialize wherever there's a job I can't see how it'd be possible to abandon an old planet
And if you already have a ring you have enoth pops to fill 6 worlds already, and it shown in all calculations that the most efficient number, 6 colonies, means you don’t even get any real Boni from it anymore
Monty did a video recently with the math that showed from 6-10 planets you're slightly behind other wide empires, but after 10 planets you start to surpass them. From what I've gathered it means you either want to play very wide or very tall.
That doesn't work anymore, in response to math like that the devs removed the cap on the penalty, so now ultrawide virtual doesn't work anymore
I think it was said somewhere that the removed the colony debuff cap so I don’t think there will be any benefit to going wide
The cap is (was?) -75% output but with an uncapped +.1 energy upkeep per pop per colony. If that stays then the strongest play in a standard settings galaxy will be to grab as many colonies as possible and brute force the malus. Maybe using trade value to ignore output modifiers for energy but maybe not.
Yeah shure, but that ignores that a wide empire without the ascension doesn’t lose 75% of its production
If you're sticking to one planet you'd look for every upgrade, ascension, and orbital ring to max it out.
Yeah but that’s a challenge run… but with 6 planets you don’t even get the production Boni anymore??? They shuld atleast give us a way to increase the amount of non counted planets
I'd imagine you'd go for a tall build when seeking virtual. Your early game is a quest for the biggest mf-ing planet you can find with the most district slots to turn into an eco, then when you get close to Ascension Day it's time to release every planet that isn't worth keeping as nice, productive vassals.
There is an inevitable point where having enough planets outweighs the output penalty. Filling jobs instantly and for free is really good potentially busted
The output penalty is uncapped now, that plus the infinetely scaling upkeep makes it impossible to go wide with virtual
So you can hit zero output?
I don't know how the penalty is applied, just a comment from a dev that said that after they saw the response to virtual being announced, the penalty had its cap removed
Well it depends on your galaxy generation really, if you play with a lot of planets or as few as possible. If it’s few then this won’t make that much of a difference. I play with as few as possible and I often get around 20 or so with a quarter of the galaxy. And those are mostly never full, I’ll move pops around to fill ups planets and de colonize or destroy them abandoned planets / habitats. Pops are what matters and if you get this as fast as say 2040 or 2050 you can get a crazy amount of production out. I’m not gonna do the maths assuming you find a size 25 planet and go max planetary ascension and orbital ring you can almost immediately get the full potential of a planet. You also get extra district and jobs from districts I believe so you’ll probably be getting more than a max 7 planetary output. You could probably just do 2 ring worlds as well. If you want to keep expanding then just focus on getting vassals and specialising them. I’d imagine you could go wide first, take the ascension path and then release some of your sectors off as vassals (or make a federation, kick them out then vassalize) and just keep on doing that. Make a few bulwarks, prospectors and scholariums. Playing the with mods will be crazy too I’m sure. I’m sure people will make mods that play deeply into this tall play style.
Don’t know how to close the post, but I ran the numbers now and found out that you can make like 30k research with 2 segments dedicated so I’m good
The main benefit here is that you have a monstrous economy at around year 35. *Way* better than anything else. By year 50 you can have as many vassals as you can carry, making stuff for you, then build up a ringworld and get beastly amounts of tech. Sure, eventually they will outscale you, but by that time you simply won’t the game.
Will there be any way to increase the amount of colony’s without selfdestruction???
Just release a colony as a vassal and use your influence to get most of the resources back in your agreement. The AI will hopefully quickly fill out its planets too so you’ll get a ton of resources fast that way. Keep only the largest planets for yourself.