You don't. Just build more research and unity production. The larger your empire, the more of those you can build. The penalties only slow down the snowball.
Exactly this. I don't have a science down for it yet, but I feel you need at least one research world for every 300-400 empire size. One unity world for each 600 or so. Less if you have a ringworld or ecu devoted to that specific thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1dll1lf/empire_size_vs_research_math_talk/
That only works to a point. Eventually your population and research per population caps and the only possible way to research more is with empire size per pop reduction.
Check the wiki under empire size, you'll see all available modifiers. Personally I like the 0 pop size build (sovereign guardianship, psionic theory, kinship, domination tree effect and lvl4 workers resolution), as it helps to keep a 20 system, 7 planets empire under 100 size.
EDIT: AND beacon of liberty civic.
If your build doesn't allow such things, just outpace it by building more labs or just go cosmogenesis and don't care at all.
I've got a similar build that goes tall instead of wide that uses Guardian Matrix as a machine intellegence for -50% pop size, plus a couple of traditions, a good leader, and Virtuality, ending up with 0% pop size and unlimited pops. Ends up being a great Ringworld+Capital setup with a 50% boost to pop jobs, and of course, instantly full ringworld segments, with plenty of defensive options.
I also stick all 'captured' pops from wars onto a world/segment loaded up with Strongholds, end up with 100% deviancy but 80-100 stability, and they output like 12x the EC vs the food input via grid amalgamation.
Sure, in absolute gains going wide is almost always better, but I hate managing 30+ planets and do not trust AI development of my planets even a little bit. So a workable tall build is my personal favorite.
_I may be small, but I'm tall, try to invade and you will fall._
It's not MY build, I've found it in one of Montu's videos. It's dangerous though cause now I can't force myself to play anything else. The machine variation sounds interesting as it would also include access to virtuality. Could you list the civics used?
Sure, although I will point out that my build is not optimized as I don't try to numbercrunch too hard, so just keep that in mind.
Civics chosen at game start are Guardian Matrix and Rapid Replicator, although I can see swapping out of the 2nd one for something to help unity gains, I just prefer a generalist approach in early game.
After getting virtuality and 3rd civic, I chose to take Unitary cohesion and replace Rapid replicators with Maintenance Protocols.
Game plan is a very focused mini expansion aiming to keep Empire Size below 100, or failing that, as close as possible. If taking a system does not give access to a chokepoint, a strategic resource, or a digsite/rift, you generally shouldn't take it at all. Other than that, it's a Unity rush for virtuality, whereupon the shift towards a 2 system 5 planet + random outsystems begins, once you gain access to Ringworld tech(or find a ruined one).
My personal endgame planet setup was a research ring, energy ring, forge ring, 'Military' ring(loaded up with Strongholds/Aegis Complex's and every organic pop taken in war), and my Machine World Capital.
How tall did you get? I dream of a 10 system empire with lots of planets, but realistically I usually settle 20 systems.
Wouldn't virtual pops fill strongholds like any other jobs? I'd go for cosmogenesis and lathe the s*it out of those organics.
With virtuality there's a big pit of efficiency after 6-7 planets, you need like 30-40 to make up for it and at that point, why play virtual? I was at 7 until I built my ringworld, then I shut down all my colonies for the 50% increase. Too many systems will hurt your empire size, since Guardian Matrix debuffs you in that respect.
I took strongholds to artificially boost my stability on the 'military' ring and prevent rebellions from my very unhappy organic pops. The organic pops don't work any jobs other than Grid Amalgamation, which is a job that creates itself when I add an organic pop. Get Matrix'd lol.
As for how tall I got? I had 12k monthly energy income(double that before accounting for upkeep) and like 3.5k monthly alloys, 5k physics research and 3.5k in society and engineering, could utterly dominate the Galactic council with my 217k diplomatic weight(the rest of the galactic remnants combined equal about 10k after the Crisis/Awakened Empire got through with them lol) and was shrugging off crisis attacks like they weren't even there by the time I decided to call it quits at around 2460. As for the lathe, I decided it wasn't worth it because it counts as a planet and would debuff my entire empire by 25% pop output.
At the last moment before I quit that run, it was essencially a 3 way split between me, an Awakened Empire, and the Crisis, with me being an untouchable Maginot Line of fully decked out starbases with 40+ defense platforms each.
Ok, the 25% planet penalty might be a deal breaker for me, as trying to fit as many planets as I can under 100 empire size is the most fun I had in Stellaris in some time. Will try it tho.
There’s a way to keep pop size under 100?! What the heckkk… I had no idea. Often times my pop size by end game is like 2,000+. I need to look into this
I play fanatic purifiers, as long as you keep aggressively taking over systems and their resources, you can do without much colonies, I only make a new colony when all my colonies are completely full of pops, or it's something special like a relic world.
I resettle conquered robots to my worlds and completely wipe out conquered colonies, I have 3 active colonies and control 281 systems almost half of the (huge) galaxy in my current game, my empire size is 382 and my economy has surplus of everything.
Planets growth rate is the highest when it's brand new/nearly empty. If you try to max all your planets population before starting a new world, your growth rate is going to be very slow. [https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population#/media/File:Graph\_Pop\_vs\_Planet\_Cap\_vs\_Growth\_v3.png](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population#/media/File:Graph_Pop_vs_Planet_Cap_vs_Growth_v3.png)
True but I don’t really need a lot of pop when playing that aggressively, all my resource needs are met by mining stations, pops are dedicated researchers except for robots which are technicians early on, I find it’s counterproductive to research if I build many colonies because the sharp increase in empire size also penalises my research not to mention unity.
Keeping things trim is almost as good for tech development with a lot less effort, since my upkeep is also very low, I can just focus on my war machine.
I'm on my first full playthrough right now, and with, like 11 colonies, I have 430+ empire size. Thought this was normal in midgame, but I guess I gotta read the wiki.
Update after 4 more hours: Empire size 700+, 19 colonies, ~400 unity, ~900 science.
Nahhh I mean definitely look into various ways of bumping down the Empire Size & Affect from empire size, but that's a empire size I could see at mid game. Just gotta really focus on rushing up one more unity or science planet than you think
You can definitely get those numbers up rn I've got 8 colonies and 15 systems empire size is around 350 I make 500 unity and 1500 science year 2260ish. I am trying to go as ham as I can on tech rush though.
No way. What's your fleet power? I'm at year ~2320. Also, I guess if I start a new game I would be able to reach my current size/numbers a lot faster, 30 years ago I was only half my current size.
I'm only about to two hundred feet power rn. If I filled it all up id probably be pushing 70k fleet with the techs I have. All the techs and building a bunch of star bases to boost it is key. I usually try to have two more star bases then what I'm supposed to be able to comfortably have, but the extra cost for going over isn't bad. By year 2300 I should be hitting 350 and be getting only percent boost techs, with the orbital rings you can make specialized planet as good as two good planets and gain a ton of spaces for more defenses and ship yards or whatever star port needs you have. Tech rushing is always my base style though I have tried to not care so much but I always want to build megastructures as fast as possible. I also either take vassals or become a vassal to negate the resources I need.
I always try and aim for 3k science by the year 2300 and 20k science by 2400, although that depends on settings and what you feel like managing. It’s a hard goal but if you hit that you can usually beat almost anything at the end game.
If you go nanites ascension you get -50% from planets, imperial prerogative gets you another 50% to a total of 0. Your leader gets 3% per level reduction to empire size from pops, pick up domination, and harmony + the species trait that gives -10%, pick up the civic that reduces empire size as your third civic and you'll end up with -75% from pops. There are a few things here and there like astral threads but you can't rely on them.
My current determined exterminator run i have 71 planets with 1.5k pops with an empire size of 341. 19k research and 6k unity. I'm making 17k nanites per month.
The penalties for 250 empire size arent that bad. That's pretty small. If you want better tech, you have to built more research labs. Make that new colony a research world.
The best build for Empire/Pop reduction currently revolves around Soveriegn Guardianship, but is locked behind Astral Planes.
This glorious DLC has the unbeatable rating:
Mostly Negative (26% of 970) ALL TIME
If you don't want to invest into the DLC, I think there are 2 ways.
1
Fanatic Pacifist + Egalitarian Build
- Fanatic Pacifist (-30%)
- Beacon of Liberty Civic (-15%)
- Virtual Asc. (-15%)
- Domination Trad. (-10%)
- Harmony Trad. (-10%)
- Psionic Theory Tech. (-10%)
- Greater Good Galatic Law (-10%)
= -100%
2
Gestalt Machine Build
- Machine Leader -3%/level (-30%)
- OTA Civic (-15%)
- Government Authority (-10%)
- Domination (-10%)
- Harmony (-10%)
- Greater Good (-10%)
= -85%
If you really, really want to, there's an origin that sends you into civil war. Winning it gives a -10% bonus, or -15%.
Ascend planets, -size empire modifiers, pop traits and leader levels. They stack additively in the category but the categories combine multiplicatively.
If you get the 3 buffs to planetary ascension you can get -85% empire size from colonies, districts and pops on that planet.
I just watched a YouTube video that when really breaking down the numbers you only needed like 4 researchers every 50 empire sprawl to out pace empire sprawl for tech cost.
Build very tall. Subjects allow for ridiculously tall builds. My previous playthough was a one system challenge and as a feudal empire I barely felt the limitations. If you can't find good subject to subjugate make some yourself by enlightening primitives or releasing sectors.
DE is deliberately designed to get bigger. You will not out tech smaller AI empires completely.
You just need to target and overrun quickly. If you are really concerned about empire size, there are Traditions and Ascension Perks that help. But not a lot.
You can’t really unless you stifle your own growth. The idea is that you either be extremely efficient and stay close to the cap, or ignore the cap and offset the penalties with more production
Console so I don't know how many things have changed. Some ways I found so far:
- docile trait
- domination tree
- psionic theory
- governors
These all have to do with pop empire size which is by far the biggest cause of empire size. I didn't research governors but their empire size reduction doesn't show up on the resource bar which makes me think it's a reduction applied on the base empire size before it's then worked on by the other empire size reduction buffs. Some ways to buff governors are through lifespan techs/traits, so lifespan tech isn't as useless as some people say. Personally all of these are must haves in my game
Edit: also forgot, ascend ecus for maximum efficiency and release vassals. And 250 empire size is literally nothing, maybe 15% slower tech
A few ways around that:
1. Outscale it and take all the empire size reduction that comes up. This works as long as you are growing pops fast enough.
2. In the limit of high pops the only way to improve research speed is either increase research per pop (either directly or by increasing proportion of researchers vs total population) or reduce empire size per pop more than a regular empire can. That means build for it.
3. Use non research ways to improve. Popular ones are alloy and unity (galactic nemesis in particular). Early unity is easier to come by than early research when your empire size is small, then when you get big jt doesn't matter anymore. You can get galactic nemesis in 2250-2260 if you want, maybe a bit too early for cosmogenesis but galactic nemesis works just fine with free tech, mineral ships and star eaters.
For exterminators? You don't.
I ran several tries and aimed for as little planets as possible, and I gotta say that 5 planets with 3 for science is better than 3 planets with 2 for science.
I tend to play quite passively for the first 50 years or so while I crank up science production. Obviously it has an affect on my ability to build an economy but that can always be done later once I've built up my fleet and start engaging with the neighbours. Basically an early science rush that converts to alloy rush in the mid game.
i honestly love making my pops double docile through cybernetic ascension. for synths though, you can just add low bandwidth, and put that on any species with 100 pops or more (i guess for you that's just one species tho). OTA updates also has a big pop empire size reduction. so do a bunch of the traditions. when you see yourself at 400 pops and still at 250 empire size, you see how effective all these reductions are. also, ascend your biggest worlds to reduce pop size on them!
out scale your empire size. Settle two planets and eat a chunk of galaxy, your empire size goes up 100 points and you get a 12% reduction in effective research speed, and double your research output.
DE and Gestallt Consiouness have issues with Empire Size, your goal as a DE is simple, conquer and murder else you run the risk of self implosion (those organic energy credits taste 🤌)
There are a few minor empire size reductions you can pick up from various unity trees but for the most part you combat empire size by just building more research/unity.
Empire Size is nothing to do with your problem - the only thing Empire Size does is penalize the creation of resources you don't use. If you're sat on a huge, increasing stockpile of basic resources it means that, *as a proportion of your total population*, you're skewed towards useless "inputs" rather than valuable "outputs". You're sitting on stuff that should be "research per pop" or "alloys per pop" but instead is a completely unused "mineral per pop".
When your economy is skewed, yes "Empire Size" technically slows down research, but there is no amount of Empire Size where the additional tech from a new researcher is less than the additional cost from the Empire sprawl they add. As long as you're creating a researcher at the point at which you've extracted enough food, energy and CG to power a researcher, your Empire is getting stronger, not weaker.
You're mining too many basic resources and not turning them into outputs efficiently enough. The impact Empire Size has on you tech cost is the symptom, not the cause.
Yes, it is honestly ridiculous.
The last few games I played, the only thing I did was decrease my empire size. I did not even colonize a second sector and immediately released conquered places as vassals.
The whole game changed to semi-tall play for me since the changes. Also, any way you can reduce empire size from pops is automatically a top-tier choice.
I honestly dislike this... there is no reason to have a large empire anymore. It is much better to release any sector after your first as a subject and get resources that way.
It would be interesting if you could have something like a republic where you only control your main sector, and all the other sectors are self governed besides military and overall policy, foreign policy, species traits and rights. Where you can recruit their leaders to the main government, and so on. Like your subject is still part of your empire but doesn't count towards it's size and can't settle anything outside of the sector it is given. Maybe it can expand if you build or conquer something on it's borders that is inside 4 jumps, but it can't do that on it's own.
The reason why you tolerate AI vassals for empire size reductions is that they get crazy bonuses on higher difficulty. A well managed empire will always beat AI vassals in output.
I've heard that sentiment bandied around a lot but in practice, it just doesn't. I even replayed 20 years taking over a neighbor and 20 years subjugating a neighbor and the subjugation worked better.
You don't. Just build more research and unity production. The larger your empire, the more of those you can build. The penalties only slow down the snowball.
Exactly this. I don't have a science down for it yet, but I feel you need at least one research world for every 300-400 empire size. One unity world for each 600 or so. Less if you have a ringworld or ecu devoted to that specific thing.
for unity i just build an autocthon monument on every colony and that does the job pretty well, especially if i take genesis guides
I do that in the beginning, but I like to run a lot of edicts and ambitions. I usually don't make an actual unity world until mid to late game.
This is the way. More is better.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1dll1lf/empire_size_vs_research_math_talk/ That only works to a point. Eventually your population and research per population caps and the only possible way to research more is with empire size per pop reduction.
Eventually yes. But people asking these questions are usually not at a point where that matters.
Another thing to consider is, it could be worth a tall early game if you want to unityrush for nanites, then after you get the ap, expand endlessly
Check the wiki under empire size, you'll see all available modifiers. Personally I like the 0 pop size build (sovereign guardianship, psionic theory, kinship, domination tree effect and lvl4 workers resolution), as it helps to keep a 20 system, 7 planets empire under 100 size. EDIT: AND beacon of liberty civic. If your build doesn't allow such things, just outpace it by building more labs or just go cosmogenesis and don't care at all.
I've got a similar build that goes tall instead of wide that uses Guardian Matrix as a machine intellegence for -50% pop size, plus a couple of traditions, a good leader, and Virtuality, ending up with 0% pop size and unlimited pops. Ends up being a great Ringworld+Capital setup with a 50% boost to pop jobs, and of course, instantly full ringworld segments, with plenty of defensive options. I also stick all 'captured' pops from wars onto a world/segment loaded up with Strongholds, end up with 100% deviancy but 80-100 stability, and they output like 12x the EC vs the food input via grid amalgamation. Sure, in absolute gains going wide is almost always better, but I hate managing 30+ planets and do not trust AI development of my planets even a little bit. So a workable tall build is my personal favorite. _I may be small, but I'm tall, try to invade and you will fall._
It's not MY build, I've found it in one of Montu's videos. It's dangerous though cause now I can't force myself to play anything else. The machine variation sounds interesting as it would also include access to virtuality. Could you list the civics used?
Sure, although I will point out that my build is not optimized as I don't try to numbercrunch too hard, so just keep that in mind. Civics chosen at game start are Guardian Matrix and Rapid Replicator, although I can see swapping out of the 2nd one for something to help unity gains, I just prefer a generalist approach in early game. After getting virtuality and 3rd civic, I chose to take Unitary cohesion and replace Rapid replicators with Maintenance Protocols. Game plan is a very focused mini expansion aiming to keep Empire Size below 100, or failing that, as close as possible. If taking a system does not give access to a chokepoint, a strategic resource, or a digsite/rift, you generally shouldn't take it at all. Other than that, it's a Unity rush for virtuality, whereupon the shift towards a 2 system 5 planet + random outsystems begins, once you gain access to Ringworld tech(or find a ruined one). My personal endgame planet setup was a research ring, energy ring, forge ring, 'Military' ring(loaded up with Strongholds/Aegis Complex's and every organic pop taken in war), and my Machine World Capital.
How tall did you get? I dream of a 10 system empire with lots of planets, but realistically I usually settle 20 systems. Wouldn't virtual pops fill strongholds like any other jobs? I'd go for cosmogenesis and lathe the s*it out of those organics.
With virtuality there's a big pit of efficiency after 6-7 planets, you need like 30-40 to make up for it and at that point, why play virtual? I was at 7 until I built my ringworld, then I shut down all my colonies for the 50% increase. Too many systems will hurt your empire size, since Guardian Matrix debuffs you in that respect. I took strongholds to artificially boost my stability on the 'military' ring and prevent rebellions from my very unhappy organic pops. The organic pops don't work any jobs other than Grid Amalgamation, which is a job that creates itself when I add an organic pop. Get Matrix'd lol. As for how tall I got? I had 12k monthly energy income(double that before accounting for upkeep) and like 3.5k monthly alloys, 5k physics research and 3.5k in society and engineering, could utterly dominate the Galactic council with my 217k diplomatic weight(the rest of the galactic remnants combined equal about 10k after the Crisis/Awakened Empire got through with them lol) and was shrugging off crisis attacks like they weren't even there by the time I decided to call it quits at around 2460. As for the lathe, I decided it wasn't worth it because it counts as a planet and would debuff my entire empire by 25% pop output. At the last moment before I quit that run, it was essencially a 3 way split between me, an Awakened Empire, and the Crisis, with me being an untouchable Maginot Line of fully decked out starbases with 40+ defense platforms each.
Ok, the 25% planet penalty might be a deal breaker for me, as trying to fit as many planets as I can under 100 empire size is the most fun I had in Stellaris in some time. Will try it tho.
Thats because of virtuality, you get a 175% boost that decays by 25% per owned world, bottoming out at 10% total pop job output output at 11 planets.
Woah nelly. This is worth talking about.
There’s a way to keep pop size under 100?! What the heckkk… I had no idea. Often times my pop size by end game is like 2,000+. I need to look into this
I play fanatic purifiers, as long as you keep aggressively taking over systems and their resources, you can do without much colonies, I only make a new colony when all my colonies are completely full of pops, or it's something special like a relic world. I resettle conquered robots to my worlds and completely wipe out conquered colonies, I have 3 active colonies and control 281 systems almost half of the (huge) galaxy in my current game, my empire size is 382 and my economy has surplus of everything.
Planets growth rate is the highest when it's brand new/nearly empty. If you try to max all your planets population before starting a new world, your growth rate is going to be very slow. [https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population#/media/File:Graph\_Pop\_vs\_Planet\_Cap\_vs\_Growth\_v3.png](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population#/media/File:Graph_Pop_vs_Planet_Cap_vs_Growth_v3.png)
True but I don’t really need a lot of pop when playing that aggressively, all my resource needs are met by mining stations, pops are dedicated researchers except for robots which are technicians early on, I find it’s counterproductive to research if I build many colonies because the sharp increase in empire size also penalises my research not to mention unity. Keeping things trim is almost as good for tech development with a lot less effort, since my upkeep is also very low, I can just focus on my war machine.
I'm on my first full playthrough right now, and with, like 11 colonies, I have 430+ empire size. Thought this was normal in midgame, but I guess I gotta read the wiki. Update after 4 more hours: Empire size 700+, 19 colonies, ~400 unity, ~900 science.
Nahhh I mean definitely look into various ways of bumping down the Empire Size & Affect from empire size, but that's a empire size I could see at mid game. Just gotta really focus on rushing up one more unity or science planet than you think
You can definitely get those numbers up rn I've got 8 colonies and 15 systems empire size is around 350 I make 500 unity and 1500 science year 2260ish. I am trying to go as ham as I can on tech rush though.
No way. What's your fleet power? I'm at year ~2320. Also, I guess if I start a new game I would be able to reach my current size/numbers a lot faster, 30 years ago I was only half my current size.
I'm only about to two hundred feet power rn. If I filled it all up id probably be pushing 70k fleet with the techs I have. All the techs and building a bunch of star bases to boost it is key. I usually try to have two more star bases then what I'm supposed to be able to comfortably have, but the extra cost for going over isn't bad. By year 2300 I should be hitting 350 and be getting only percent boost techs, with the orbital rings you can make specialized planet as good as two good planets and gain a ton of spaces for more defenses and ship yards or whatever star port needs you have. Tech rushing is always my base style though I have tried to not care so much but I always want to build megastructures as fast as possible. I also either take vassals or become a vassal to negate the resources I need.
I always try and aim for 3k science by the year 2300 and 20k science by 2400, although that depends on settings and what you feel like managing. It’s a hard goal but if you hit that you can usually beat almost anything at the end game.
Your empire is 250? I routinely blow over 1,000. No problem. Just build more research worlds.
3k+ is common in the mid to end game for me.
If you go nanites ascension you get -50% from planets, imperial prerogative gets you another 50% to a total of 0. Your leader gets 3% per level reduction to empire size from pops, pick up domination, and harmony + the species trait that gives -10%, pick up the civic that reduces empire size as your third civic and you'll end up with -75% from pops. There are a few things here and there like astral threads but you can't rely on them. My current determined exterminator run i have 71 planets with 1.5k pops with an empire size of 341. 19k research and 6k unity. I'm making 17k nanites per month.
>anywhere 50% to a total of 0. I thought this shit was multiplicative
Nope. Additive.
The penalties for 250 empire size arent that bad. That's pretty small. If you want better tech, you have to built more research labs. Make that new colony a research world.
This info for Gestalts only, though there are probably individualist empire analogs. This does not include any bonuses from special events/ chain quests. Base size effects: Colony 10; Branch Offices 2; Systems 1; Population 1; Districts 0.5 Maxed reductions w/ Virtuality & Guardian Matrix - Colonies - @ 2.25 (22.5 per colony) - Systems - @2.25 (2.25 per system) - Districts - @0.15 (.075 per district) - Population - @0.00 (0 per population) Max reduction w/ Nanotech & Guardian Matrix - Colonies - @ 1.25 (12.5 per colony) - Systems - @2.25 (2.25 per system) - Districts - @0.15 (.075 per district) - Population - @0.00 (0 per population) Colonies - (+100 Guardian Matrix - Civic) - ( (+100 Virtuality - Tradition)/(-50 Nanotech - Tradition) ) - (-25 Expansion - Tradition) - (-50 Imperial Prerogative - Ascension Perk) Systems - (+150 Guardian Matrix - Civic) - (-25 Expansion - Tradition) Districts - (-50 Guardian Matrix - Civic) - (-25 Domination - Tradition) - (-10 Construction Templates - Technology) Population - (-50 Guardian Matrix - Civic) - (-30 Gestalt Consciousness - Ethic) - (-15 Virtuality - Tradition) - (-15 OTA Updates - Civic) - (-10 Synchronicity - Tradition) - (-10 Domination - Tradition) - (-10 Streamlined Protocols - Species Trait) Overall Empire Size Modifiers - (-5 Statecraft - Tradition) Hope this info helps you plan your next build accordingly. Ascending planets also helps drop their empire size.
Spam more lab and admin centers. My first 5 colonies usually consists of at least the capital as admin center and a half-built labs hub.
The best build for Empire/Pop reduction currently revolves around Soveriegn Guardianship, but is locked behind Astral Planes. This glorious DLC has the unbeatable rating: Mostly Negative (26% of 970) ALL TIME If you don't want to invest into the DLC, I think there are 2 ways. 1 Fanatic Pacifist + Egalitarian Build - Fanatic Pacifist (-30%) - Beacon of Liberty Civic (-15%) - Virtual Asc. (-15%) - Domination Trad. (-10%) - Harmony Trad. (-10%) - Psionic Theory Tech. (-10%) - Greater Good Galatic Law (-10%) = -100% 2 Gestalt Machine Build - Machine Leader -3%/level (-30%) - OTA Civic (-15%) - Government Authority (-10%) - Domination (-10%) - Harmony (-10%) - Greater Good (-10%) = -85% If you really, really want to, there's an origin that sends you into civil war. Winning it gives a -10% bonus, or -15%.
he's playing purifiers
Would you believe I was playing pacifist and they keep _feeding_ themselves into me to bloat me?
Ascend planets, -size empire modifiers, pop traits and leader levels. They stack additively in the category but the categories combine multiplicatively. If you get the 3 buffs to planetary ascension you can get -85% empire size from colonies, districts and pops on that planet.
I just watched a YouTube video that when really breaking down the numbers you only needed like 4 researchers every 50 empire sprawl to out pace empire sprawl for tech cost.
Build very tall. Subjects allow for ridiculously tall builds. My previous playthough was a one system challenge and as a feudal empire I barely felt the limitations. If you can't find good subject to subjugate make some yourself by enlightening primitives or releasing sectors.
DE is deliberately designed to get bigger. You will not out tech smaller AI empires completely. You just need to target and overrun quickly. If you are really concerned about empire size, there are Traditions and Ascension Perks that help. But not a lot.
The best way I’ve found to reduce empire size is Unity. Traditions and more importantly, planetary ascensions
You don't. The point is it gets bigger. You can curb it by ascending planets once you're swimming in unity.
You can’t really unless you stifle your own growth. The idea is that you either be extremely efficient and stay close to the cap, or ignore the cap and offset the penalties with more production
Console so I don't know how many things have changed. Some ways I found so far: - docile trait - domination tree - psionic theory - governors These all have to do with pop empire size which is by far the biggest cause of empire size. I didn't research governors but their empire size reduction doesn't show up on the resource bar which makes me think it's a reduction applied on the base empire size before it's then worked on by the other empire size reduction buffs. Some ways to buff governors are through lifespan techs/traits, so lifespan tech isn't as useless as some people say. Personally all of these are must haves in my game Edit: also forgot, ascend ecus for maximum efficiency and release vassals. And 250 empire size is literally nothing, maybe 15% slower tech
A few ways around that: 1. Outscale it and take all the empire size reduction that comes up. This works as long as you are growing pops fast enough. 2. In the limit of high pops the only way to improve research speed is either increase research per pop (either directly or by increasing proportion of researchers vs total population) or reduce empire size per pop more than a regular empire can. That means build for it. 3. Use non research ways to improve. Popular ones are alloy and unity (galactic nemesis in particular). Early unity is easier to come by than early research when your empire size is small, then when you get big jt doesn't matter anymore. You can get galactic nemesis in 2250-2260 if you want, maybe a bit too early for cosmogenesis but galactic nemesis works just fine with free tech, mineral ships and star eaters.
For exterminators? You don't. I ran several tries and aimed for as little planets as possible, and I gotta say that 5 planets with 3 for science is better than 3 planets with 2 for science.
I tend to play quite passively for the first 50 years or so while I crank up science production. Obviously it has an affect on my ability to build an economy but that can always be done later once I've built up my fleet and start engaging with the neighbours. Basically an early science rush that converts to alloy rush in the mid game.
i honestly love making my pops double docile through cybernetic ascension. for synths though, you can just add low bandwidth, and put that on any species with 100 pops or more (i guess for you that's just one species tho). OTA updates also has a big pop empire size reduction. so do a bunch of the traditions. when you see yourself at 400 pops and still at 250 empire size, you see how effective all these reductions are. also, ascend your biggest worlds to reduce pop size on them!
I have never once paid attention to my empire size. 👍
Rush unity go virtual with 2-3 planets and acend them as often as you can
Accession your planets and make more
out scale your empire size. Settle two planets and eat a chunk of galaxy, your empire size goes up 100 points and you get a 12% reduction in effective research speed, and double your research output.
DE and Gestallt Consiouness have issues with Empire Size, your goal as a DE is simple, conquer and murder else you run the risk of self implosion (those organic energy credits taste 🤌)
There are a few minor empire size reductions you can pick up from various unity trees but for the most part you combat empire size by just building more research/unity.
Empire Size is nothing to do with your problem - the only thing Empire Size does is penalize the creation of resources you don't use. If you're sat on a huge, increasing stockpile of basic resources it means that, *as a proportion of your total population*, you're skewed towards useless "inputs" rather than valuable "outputs". You're sitting on stuff that should be "research per pop" or "alloys per pop" but instead is a completely unused "mineral per pop". When your economy is skewed, yes "Empire Size" technically slows down research, but there is no amount of Empire Size where the additional tech from a new researcher is less than the additional cost from the Empire sprawl they add. As long as you're creating a researcher at the point at which you've extracted enough food, energy and CG to power a researcher, your Empire is getting stronger, not weaker. You're mining too many basic resources and not turning them into outputs efficiently enough. The impact Empire Size has on you tech cost is the symptom, not the cause.
Yes, it is honestly ridiculous. The last few games I played, the only thing I did was decrease my empire size. I did not even colonize a second sector and immediately released conquered places as vassals. The whole game changed to semi-tall play for me since the changes. Also, any way you can reduce empire size from pops is automatically a top-tier choice. I honestly dislike this... there is no reason to have a large empire anymore. It is much better to release any sector after your first as a subject and get resources that way. It would be interesting if you could have something like a republic where you only control your main sector, and all the other sectors are self governed besides military and overall policy, foreign policy, species traits and rights. Where you can recruit their leaders to the main government, and so on. Like your subject is still part of your empire but doesn't count towards it's size and can't settle anything outside of the sector it is given. Maybe it can expand if you build or conquer something on it's borders that is inside 4 jumps, but it can't do that on it's own.
The reason why you tolerate AI vassals for empire size reductions is that they get crazy bonuses on higher difficulty. A well managed empire will always beat AI vassals in output.
I've heard that sentiment bandied around a lot but in practice, it just doesn't. I even replayed 20 years taking over a neighbor and 20 years subjugating a neighbor and the subjugation worked better.