We Need To Talk About Empire Sprawl...

They are changing the way sprawl works in the next patch of Stellaris. Admin cap is going the way of the Dodo...

But what does this mean for us and for our empires? Is Empire Sprawl something to worry about?

Lets dive in and find out!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:25 The new situation
1:28 Current sprawl mechanics
2:38 New sprawl mechanics
4:18 Unity balance
5:10 Where does sprawl come from?
6:52 A thought experiment
7:56 If we keep increasing research
12:13 Varying sprawl penalty
15:04 What about unruly?

Stellaris Version 3.2

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And please comment with any feedback, any ideas or if you disagree!

[yakkity]

Imagine a system for leaders/admirals/scientists where the larger your sprawl/population.. the larger your pool to select from. And at a certain threshold, it unlocked being able to *choose* a desired trait. In a multi-system empire with a population numbering in the hundred trillions.. you mean to tell me that I cannot find a voidcraft specialist? >.<

[vadnuit]

honestly... best option imho would be to implement a slider for sprawl impact similar to what was implemented with the pop-growth-slider. This way you can play with sprawl having as much or with as little effect on your game as you like and you can also customize it to the size of your map, as that has a close tie to what is conceivably achievable.

[jeffantonson]

I guess it's not horrible. I just wish the devs spent their time on sectors which are more in need of a rework. We need the ability to manage sector boundaries because the default boundaries can be real head scratchers. Put a system/planet limit if you want to avoid abuse, but let me adjust the borders please.

[teifan]

What I really don't like is how MUCH your population impacts empire sprawl. Like 2 pops do as much as one single system. Meaning there is no penalty for having a massive empire filled with nothing and colonizing only a few planets, but you can no longer play tall with a few densely populated systems. Having a new habitable planet in your territory should be a hurrah! And not an eeeh... whatever

[IceGavel]

I actually really liked how Administrative Capacity felt thematically. Having an increasingly large bureaucratic base _made sense_ to me, in order to have such a large interstellar power be manageable. You have a lot of space, a lot of districts, and a lot of people, and it's going to take a lot to keep track of all of that. Now you just kind of... don't, and I really feel like this was an incredibly lazy way of promoting tall empires over wide. I get that tech rush builds are silly powerful, and they do _need_ to be balanced better... but this wasn't the way to do it. It takes away a chunk of the thematic brilliance for me of having such a large Empire.

[Jernsaxe]

I think the main issue with empire spawl is what contributes to it (and maybe the penalty, but that is easier to balance):

Empire sprawl is supposed to punish wide empires more than tall empires. But most of the sprawl is from pops and districts, not colonies and systems.

For me the district cost feels wrong since it is in reality a 2nd way of sprawl on pops. More pops = more districts.

I think removing (or reworking) the sprawl from districts and make sprawl from number of systems and planets higher would do a lot to help tall over wide.

I also think you could balance sprawl by taking into consideration distance from capital when calculating sprawl.

[BigJad]

Haven't played the beta, but I can say I preferred playing before qe could build Admin offices. It varied playstyle more.

[amirali]

Removing the administrative capacity will slow the game down technologically which i think will cause multiplayer games to just reduce the tech/ tradition cost from 1 to 0.5 or 0.75 to mitigate this speed reduction and apart from that. I feel that with the current situation, allowing to smaller empires not to being too out teched by their larger opponents will make the game more interesting.
However i feel that the fact that the sprawl and overextention of an empire should affect it's speed of research to not the quite realistic.
Although a large sprawl should effect the unity of a civilization,
The overextention of an empire should affect the economy instead of technology, atleast in my opinion.
A large empire should collapse on itself, without proper management and not just be slowed down technologically.
Sry about the long passage but i just feel it's ridiculous. As an empire increases in size it should need to spend time to stabilize and then afterwards it should be able to expand once again. Which means as a civilization advances it should be able to find ways to better manage itself.

[ConflictZNE]

The new administrative capacity penalty needs to add a system of succession wars. Colonies can have increased chance of rebellion the further away they are from the capital. Increasing more & more the further you get over your administrative cap.

[joyu]

I feel like this is more of a equalizer than making tall a reliable game style, it will make so tall's(or just small nations in general) will not be always Pathetic in terms of tech compared to wide or at least less often

[ThomasDimensor]

It seems mostly interesting thus far, although I don't quite like it.
I do believe they made the penalty to edicts caused by Empire Sprawl *way* too punishing here. Like, sure, don't make them free, but when Edicts cost like 50% more than baseline before you even begin playing, then it goes from being interesting to being obnoxious.

[jimmytickles]

Okay i admit i panicked when i heard they were getting rid of admin cap... And youve allayed those fears for now 😂 but i feel like the thing missing from this vid is that game systems should primarily be based on "fun". I get that some people might enjoy playing tall, but playing wide generally means that you conquered a bunch of other empires or at least tried to grab as much space as possible from others, and that should be rewarded in the game. I think a lot of people hate the idea that they will win a war, grab another chunk of pops and planets, and then check their empire sprawl to see that theyve just been penalised for winning!

[glenmcgillivray]

I thought the goal here was to make empires with limited ability to expand gain a technological and unity buff to help compensate for their lack of exploitable resources.

Instead the game seems to be punishing anyone who tries to grow instead of doing nothing. Except it's failing even at that

I would have thought new worlds would contribute more as a multiplier of population.

It seems, like they have gone the wrong path. Population with high unity should be reducing their empire sprawl through cohesion as a nation
Not suffering because there are too many kids out there.

A tall empire needs pops to feed their science. A wide empire grows more pops and makes more alloys and minerals to feed their furnaces.

[Mrworldin]

I love having administrative planets, its awful that they were removed. Very high admin cap shouldn’t be unattainable, just expensive.

[SmallkellerReborn]

The beta is kicking my ass, I know I’m adjusting to the changes but I swear the AI got better

[TheArklyte]

The real question is who scales better in the long run. Because eventually even widest builds run out of easy exploitation while the tallest of all builds are also forced to go wide. So who's better, wide going tall or finally focusing on rulling what they conquered OR tall going wide ie noticing chaos around and deciding to exploit it?

[AlmightyDrA]

i kind of like it except the massive edict cost, paying 7 influence per month at my current beta game for +10% research speed on industry edict is kind of crazy, used to be 100 influence for like 15-20 years or something like that

[FreshMedlar]

Brother Void Dweller!

Spiritualist! Pacifists!

My brothers.

I see in your eyes the same joy that would take the heart of me.

A day may come when the tall fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.

A season of wide fanatic militarists and shattered world may come, but it is not this patch!

This day we grow, we prosper, we fortify!

By all that you hold dear on this good game, I bid you stand, Men of the Tall!

[ptera]

Sprawl penalties may force me to drop my two favorite empire types, machine and megacorp.

[TheRealMichelozzo]

Having played a decent amount of 3.2 and a game in 3.3 to completion, I have to say I am not a fan of how Empire Sprawl works. The fact that we went from 'you can actively increase your administrative efficiency to meet the growing needs of the administration' to 'welp guess there's nothing you can do' does not feel good. Why does having more farmers make my research slower exactly? let alone star systems and planets? Administrative book keeping. So why can't I hire more administrators to fix this?! We have the ability to go *faster* *than* *light* you'd think we'd be able to ya know, organize from freakin' paperwork to make the trains run on time. Instead of every empire feeling like an absolute chaos. This was an issue before they introduced Admin Cap increases, and now they brought it back because, reasons? Who was complaining? People were making memes about habitats entirely dedicated to admin capacity, giant balls of paperwork and office drones just to keep the interstellar empire running. If they wanted to tie it into unity, fine. Make empire sprawl take from unity, and you get penalties if you can't afford to 'pay' your sprawl off. Instead of just...taking away control from us.

I dunno I ranted a bit there but I'm still annoyed at this.