the slower expansion affects Ai aswell i hope?

Fck war! Don't make war, make mods!

I actually disagree with people saying the penalties are too steep, I think it's just right and if anything it's like too EASY to counter empire size, just like 2 administration planets were enough to counter it entirely, you can get over 100%. I think I'd rather it be that they give some flat reduction rather than % based, but Idunno
At any rate though, very cool mod, thank you

We also just tried to play MP with this mod. within 10 years my game mates ecos were crashing. Also priests don't seem to have the modifier.

Reducing the base empire size to 75 instead of base 100 is painful, let alone the scale at which is punishes you. My game mates were 100-120 empire size with like no systems or pops. and no eco for the jobs to reduce that, the scale imo need to be cut, flat cut, by 50% at least

@Jinx Could you tell me how bad it gets by early mid-game? In my tests, things like bureaucrats and tech would start decreasing the impact rapidly, alongside other modifiers you can get.

I tried this for a bit in a heavily modded game. I think the penalties are too steep too early.

With 34 pops, 3 colonies, 4 systems and 18 districts I have +155% starbase influence cost which is a bit crazy. On top of that a monthly influence penalty of 17%. Penalties in all other areas range from 6% to 13% right now which is okay but I have barely started the game and I can only imagine what it would be like in a few years.

I'm a sucker for tough survival games so I love the concept, but this is a bit too much even for me. My suggestion would be to tweak the numbers a bit (especially for influence) and/or have an empire size cap after which you get the penalties like in vanilla. I do like the gradual effect on everything though and the weighing on what should affect empire size makes sense to me.

I'll keep playing and see how far it goes but I expect my expansion to nearly completely stop in its tracks due to the high influence costs.

Interested. Following this for now and considering adding to my next game.

How does this affect the way the AI handles its economy and expansion?