Yeah, sorry, I guess Paradox finally changed something which broke the mod. I haven't played Stellaris in years, so I can't easily test and update it :-/ If anyone wants to take my code and make their own version, they are very welcome to do so.

Does not work in current version.

Sadly don't work in 3.6.1.

running smooth as silk for the latest version

I think it makes sense that Gestalt Empires can't make use of the optoins in this mod. At the very least, it makes no sense for non-Rogue Servitors.

can someone confirm that this is still working in 2.8.1?

Very nice mod. Influence is a major hindrance in the late game but this mod can help elevate it without being at a game-breaking level.

A suggestion, though, could you add an option to use something else, like alloys, in place of consumer goods since gestalt consciousnesses cannot produce them at all? I edited the mod in my game but I don't know enough to make it customizable.

My feedback is that everything is fine.

@Peter34: Thanks for confirming that everything seems fine. I've started up a new game with federations, and haven't noticed any issues - but, also, I've only just encountered the artists. However, this is a mod that requires playtesting, so I will happily welcome any feedback.

Okay, sorry about the delay. My couch was very comfortable...

I'm posting to confirm that Artisan Enslace Influence costs currently seem to be subject to a x5 multiplier, so that indicates fairly strongly that cost scaling is working.

I thought I was only on x4 cost scaling, but I do currently have 270 POPs, so I've gone above the threshold for x5 recently.

I’ve got a fairly large empire now, having to pay 4k EC per ding to the Curators and (ouch) unable to afford the Artisan Enclave, so 1-2 hours from now, when my slow-ass desktop computer has booted up, I’ll check that the Influence cost is scaling correctly.

I think the costs are fine as they are, provided they still scale with empire size, as per my suggestion from long ago. You implemented that, back then, but in my current 2.6.2 game it seems as maybe it isn't scaling any longer.

@Vyserion: By "completely crashes", do you mean it's too cheap? Or too expensive? Or something else? If you happen to have a suggestion for revised costs, I'd be glad to hear it!

Just FYI, this mod completely crashes the current Stellaris economy. If you're looking for a mod that's still working...

Presumably it still works for 2.3.

Mod looks like what I'm looking for

Thanks for updating!

@Peter34: Oops, I misunderstood your question. It is safe to add this mod to an ongoing game.

@Peter34: Yes, absolutely. See the "Backwards compatibility" section above for more info.

Nice! Can I enable the mod in an on-going game? I'm about 1 year in, but would prefer not to start over.

Aaand it's done! Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Okay, thanks for the info.

@Peter34: RL again, I'm afraid. If you want to start right now, I suggest the current version on github [github.com]. It was pretty stable in my short playtest last night, and any bugs that're still in there are minor (missing localisation, no opinion gain with the artists). The full workshop version will be much later tonight or possibly even tomorrow. I've got several more hours' actual work to do before I can look at this again :-/

Any progress? I'm keen to start a new game, with the updated 2.2.6 beta patch.

Update: I found (and fixed) a load more bugs, and I don't think there are any more. (Well, there's one non-blocking issue that I've asked about on the forums [forum.paradoxplaza.com], but that's a nice-to-have at this point.) I'm going to playtest for a bit and roll out very soon.

If anyone doesn't want to be automatically updated to the new hotness, they should subscribe to the old version .

Nice!

Update: RL intervened for a while, but the changes are now mostly complete. As long as I don't discover any really bad bugs, I should be able to push it to the workshop in the next couple of days.

Consider yourself bugged.

Okay, I will.

Awcrap, a new patch? (*does a quick search*) Phew, looks like it's only bugfixes. At least, I hope it's only bugfixes...

Current status on the updates is that they're about half-done. (As you may or may not have noticed, I've also been updating all of my other mods.) Basically, the only sensible way to do this mod (to avoid typos and allow for future changes) is to use automatic code generation. Unfortunately, this is fiddly, relatively uninteresting, and even more time-consuming than a "normal" mod update. But I guess a deadline of Thursday gives me something to aim for.

Keep bugging me ;-)

Any progress on the new version? It’d be awesome if it’s ready when 2.2.6 comes out on Thursday...

@Peter34:

Agreed on minerals becoming quite abundant in mid-game. One possible gameplay strategy to deal with this is to build one or more ecumenopolises - there are housing options that also provide a lot of mineral-using jobs. In my first run into the start of the late-game, I suddenly went from +hundredsofminerals to -smallamount when the pop count on the precursor ecumenoplis exploded.

Re. flavour events: Xenocidal empires cannot interact with the artists, so there's no need to worry about them. I also don't think empire type needs to be taken into account - I was planning on the flavour being linked to the campaign type. Eg: you can acquire a particularly choice location for your billboards - buy it (one-time +50I -500E) or do nothing.

I also like the flavour events concept, by the way. It sounds like fun, but please don't have them occur too often. And also it's very important, if you do implement flavour events, that you respect the differences between major empire types, e.g. normal biological empire, vs Fanatic Purifier, vs Machine Empire, vs specifically Rogue Servitor Machine Empire, vs biological Hive Mind. So maybe it'll actually be too much trouble adding flavour events?

That sounds like something that's worth trying. And I'm specifically keen on the scaling-with-POPs, as that was the thing you and I talked about last year, and whose absence I felt made your mod not worth using in the end. With scaling-with-POPs, the service can become up to 5 times as expensive as the base cost, and that's important. Having it renew every 10 years is also a fine way to involve the scaling issue.

So please give it a try. If it turns out to feel a bit off-key, then you can always tweak it later based on feedback.

In my experience, using the Glavius AI mod, Minerals become ultra-abundant even in the mid game, and largely impossible to sell on the Market (the price tanks and stays low), so any of the options that has a Minerals cost component are going to be very attractive.

[1/3]

@Peter34: Not yet. It took quite a bit of guesswork (and luck) to get the empire modifier working again. And now that I'm playtesting it, the cost seems almost ludicrously low. All of my previous thoughts about how to balance this now seem rather outdated.

BTW, here is my current most-favourite balance idea. Any comments?

(1) Change it to a 10-year constant modifier (instead of the current infinite duration).

(2) After 10 years, you get a call from the artisans asking if you want to renew. (See also #4.)

[2/3]

(3) Base costs ("I" = "influence/month", "E" = energy/month, "M" = minerals/month, "F" = food/month, "C" = "consumer goods/month"):
--- Unsolicited Mail: +0.5I, -10 E
--- Viral Memes: +1I, -30E
--- Billboards: +1I, -20E, -20M
--- Aggressive Marketing: +1.5I, -40E, -40M
--- Saturation Advertising: +2I, -60E, -60M
--- Bread and Circuses: +1I, -20M, -20F
--- Touring Games: +1.5I, -40M, -40F
--- Galactic Olympics: +2I, -60M, -60F
--- Cultural Masterclasses: +2I, -40E, -40M, -20C
--- Galactic Art Gallery: +3I, -80E, -80M, -40C
--- The Great Exhibition: +4I, -120E, -120M, -60C
(If you double the benefit, you either triple the cost or double the cost and also use the same amount of another resource.)

[3/3]

(4) On renewal, the actual cost of the buff scales with number of pops. (The other enclave buffs are +100% for every 60 pops, capped at 400%. I may or may not push the cap a bit higher.)

(5) Cleanup script + flavour event to remove v1 buffs

(6) (LATER! MAYBE!) Different flavour events for each kind of marketing campaign

---

For reference, in my current game I've recently hit the +400% mark and could just about afford the +1I options (-150E or -100E-100M or -100M-100F) in the long term. I could perhaps tailor my empire to hit +1.5I, but I think +2I is impossible. But I can imagine late-game empires that could easily afford even the most expensive option on +400%. This seems fair, given that a lot of influence-gain options have been removed in the last few patches.

Did you implement the cost scaling?

This is now updated for 2.2.4 - enjoy! (Also, curse Paradox for changing loads of internal undocumented variable names.)

By removing the culture building/monument they gave, artist enclaves are pretty much useless other than for a 10% unity buff for 10 years for a cost of energy. Honestly, this mod would make it so the Artists aren't worthless anymore, so eagerly awaiting it for 2.2

completely fair, no worries

@Vaeringjar: Yes, coming soon. I'm not playing Stellaris much at the moment (CK2's Holy Fury is too good...), but I will try to get all of my mods updated to work with v2.2. That said, because I'm not playing much at the moment, they may not be well balanced for the new game environment.

2.2?

I can still test your mod in my SP game.

Okay, that's too bad. We start the MP tomorrow, but I'll test your mod in SP once it's ready.

@Peter34: Update on the beta version: I've got it mostly working, but it's unpolished and untested. So, it's not going to be ready for your game - sorry!

Okay. We'll test the mod if you can have it ready in 7 days.

We play Sunday afternoon, European time. Do you want to join?

Hmm. On second thoughts, I suppose you could. The worst that would happen would be that there would be a blank infinite-duration empire-level buff that has no effect (and that you can't remove). And you could work around this by spending the first 5 mins of your session by getting everyone to deactivate the buff via the diplomacy screen before switching mods.

Wouldn’t it be possible to just stop using the beta mod, and revert right back to the normal mod?

That MP game sounds like an ideal testing ground! I think it'll be impossible to revert directly back to this mod, but I can think of several possible workarounds. (For example, create a 2nd beta mod where the drain is no longer pop-dependent.) I'll have to think about the best way to do this, bearing in mind that the conversion needs to be extremely reliable.

My vague plan for the scaling is to silently update the size of the mineral/energy drain as your empire increases/decreases in size. It would be nice to have a continuous sliding scale, but I suspect that, in practice, I'll need to use stepwise changes.

For stepwise changes, the step size needs to be pretty small - I don't think it'd be good to have large hidden swings in net mineral/energy income from one month to the next. (Unless it's as a result of conquest.)