Stellaris Dev Diary #126 - Sectors and Factions in 2.2

[Alastor]

Well that's unfortunate. I liked being able to decide the borders of my sectors.

 

[Sopbucket]

I'm really happy with the sector changes. It's clear that sectors are still a placeholder mechanic, but at least the placeholder is off to the side now and not pretending to be a relevant feature. I still think something useful can be done with them eventually, but I get that this isn't within the scope of this update.

I'm glad that you guys think the new planet management system scales well enough to render automation obsolete, even though it's still there for those who want to use it. And I'm glad that the core system limit is no longer a thing, since it was so awkward to work around. I think putting collapsible sectors on the outliner is a great idea; all planets will now be accessible without everything taking up too much space.

I think it makes sense to make factions more about influence and leave happiness to other factors, now that we've seen what those other factors are. I like that it's no longer crucial to aim for 60% approval, since that would lead to me taking the same approach to factions every single game.

 

[TGK72]

You're ignoring that these territories still have wildly different population numbers. If it were "100% based on geography" (actually demographics), the Northern Territory would have to be a lot larger in order to encompass a comparable amount of the population -- not just 250.000 people, a tenth of WA.

The truth is that any borders drawn are never just 100% based on geography; they are also very much subject to local developments, including politics (internal and international) and military conflict. The fact that Australia's internal borders have shifted quite a bit over the centuries is proof. Note further how Tasmania, in spite of the water in-between, started out as a part of NSW.

^ this piece of real world history, by the way, would be impossible with 2.2's automated sectors.

I'm pretty sure what Wiz is talking about in regards to changing the sectors from being something you politically create into something that's more a part of galactic geography is that now instead of sectors being political boundaries for countries such as New Holland, New South Wales, etc, they now instead represent the continent of Australia itself, so to speak.

While other nations or empires can claim individual chunks of Australia (individual systems) and ownership of these chunks can change hands over a period of time, they are still part of the same geographic continent (or galactic sector) known as Australia, which is regarded a geographic constant.

Even though some of these governments are actually territories of European empires, they are still treated as separate political entities just due to the geographic separation, which seems to be how sectors are going to be handled now.

This ownership juggling you say won't exist anymore as given by your example of Australia's history is actually more possible now then before. Considering that parts of the Galaxy are given true designations as of 2.2 and are treated as such. Much in the same way Australia is recognized as a continent instead of just a "part of earth".

If you just look at sectors being changed to work in the same way as a continent does here on Earth then your worries should be nullified.

 

[TheAtreides84]

I often wonder why Wiz is so hostile to receiving constructive criticism on these forums...

I can think of a couple of interface issues off hand which have been slow to be improved. E.g. lack of fleet manager for almost 2 years after release, still lack of shift-clicking to add ships to construction queues or to fleet templates, no ability to save templates or save designs, etc.

Noticed it, too. There was no need for such a rude response to a wholly benign remark.

 

[Tavior]

Noticed it, too. There was no need for such a rude response to a wholly benign remark.

Are those downvoter asking for more rude/snarky attitude? Really? *Looks puzzled*

That aside, I agree that some changes has often been very slow than I would have liked.

 

[methegrate]

Cant wait to see how feudal empires will work with sectors in future now that this foundation has been built, i'd love to see militarised sectors or mini vassals within my own territory.

I'm really hoping they don't restrict this to just feudal empires. Regional personalities aren't unique to feudal governments, and could add a lot to the game no matter what government you're playing.

How you interact with your sectors could change based on your government. (It should, really. That would also make government types interesting and relevant.) But I've always envisioned sectors like trying to keep Massachusetts and Texas in the same government, or the large but rural Qinghai province alongside Beijing. Whatever their level of political independence, sectors should have their own needs, personalities and interests. Their happiness and loyalty should depend on your day-to-day decisions and should have consequences beyond rising and falling levels of influence (or rebellion, much as that would be a good worst case scenario mechanic).

 

[Destrada]

Well, this sorta throws my automatic first ascension perk pick out the window (Imperial Prerogative). Hopefully, they replace it with something just as useful.

 

[safe-keeper]

Are those downvoter asking for more rude/snarky attitude? Really? *Looks puzzled*

That aside, I agree that some changes has often been very slow than I would have liked.

I fully understand that it gets frustrating over time to have WIP content criticised as if it were meant to be finished. I suppose the original remark struck a nerve because the poster even acknowledged that it was WIP.

"Hey, I can tell this house is half-finished and all, but why isn't that wall painted? And shouldn't there be glass panes in those windows? Why is there no door?".

 

[Tavior]

I fully understand that it gets frustrating over time to have WIP content criticised as if it were meant to be finished. I suppose the original remark struck a nerve because the poster even acknowledged that it was WIP.

"Hey, I can tell this house is half-finished and all, but why isn't that wall painted? And shouldn't there be glass panes in those windows? Why is there no door?".

I was going for more of a if people are going to down vote both bad and good feedback both alike. Then people might be inclined to not give criticism at all which is worse than receiving feedback that changes has been slow.

Also, I was also the one who gave feedback on separating mining space station from "total sector" yield as to not stop and take out a calculator to look over your large empire's sector. Are you still willing to put my feedback under "Why is there no door?" category?

So while I don't really agree with your point of view but I respect it all the same.

 

[TheAtreides84]

I fully understand that it gets frustrating over time to have WIP content criticised as if it were meant to be finished. I suppose the original remark struck a nerve because the poster even acknowledged that it was WIP.

"Hey, I can tell this house is half-finished and all, but why isn't that wall painted? And shouldn't there be glass panes in those windows? Why is there no door?".

No need to be snarky, still. Imagine a shop owner responding to a customer in that tone. I suspect he would have lost the customer then and there. Honestly, I must say Wiz attitude on the forums has made me hesitant in supporting Stellaris content, and as you can see from my profile I'm a long time PDX fan. But oh well, it's a matter for another thread, I guess.

 

[Soranya]

No need to be snarky, still. Imagine a shop owner responding to a customer in that tone. I suspect he would have lost the customer then and there. Honestly, I must say Wiz attitude on the forums has made me hesitant in supporting Stellaris content, and as you can see from my profile I'm a long time PDX fan. But oh well, it's a matter for another thread, I guess.

I dont think its worth boycotting the game just b.c. wiz is sometimes a bit snarky.

 

[Willem IV]

Is there any idea when the the patch/dlc will be released?

 

[Zulark.]

Is there any idea when the the patch/dlc will be released?

when it is finished.

 

[Peko?]

Is there any idea when the the patch/dlc will be released?

In the first paragraph of the OP

As said before, we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when Le Guin is coming out, only that it's a long time away

 

[Heretic Saint]

I'm pretty sure what Wiz is talking about in regards to changing the sectors from being something you politically create into something that's more a part of galactic geography is that now instead of sectors being political boundaries for countries such as New Holland, New South Wales, etc, they now instead represent the continent of Australia itself, so to speak.

While other nations or empires can claim individual chunks of Australia (individual systems) and ownership of these chunks can change hands over a period of time, they are still part of the same geographic continent (or galactic sector) known as Australia, which is regarded a geographic constant.

Even though some of these governments are actually territories of European empires, they are still treated as separate political entities just due to the geographic separation, which seems to be how sectors are going to be handled now.

This ownership juggling you say won't exist anymore as given by your example of Australia's history is actually more possible now then before. Considering that parts of the Galaxy are given true designations as of 2.2 and are treated as such. Much in the same way Australia is recognized as a continent instead of just a "part of earth".

If you just look at sectors being changed to work in the same way as a continent does here on Earth then your worries should be nullified.

We're both sure about what Wiz said there; he did explain his position quite well, after all. I just don't think it's a good step for the "geopolitical simulation" of the game. To rephrase your post, the new system is about equating administrative divisions to continents -- but those are two different things, otherwise Australia would not even have any subdivision in the first place. In Stellaris, it'd just be one big sector consisting of several systems (cities), and there was nothing you could do about it.

In many situations, that may not be a problem, as I'm sure the system would auto-designate sectors largely the way I would have manually done, anyways. I am bothered, however, by the prospect of no longer being able to manually account for the exceptions, such as adding a "vanguard system" in a different cluster to an existing sector, rather than having it perpetually be its own mini-sector (unless I'm willing to go to war over its expansion).

The galaxy in Stellaris isn't like Earth where we have oceans that form an insurmountable natural border, thus designating continents. In Stellaris, there's only space, and what constitutes a cluster is simply a matter of distance -- which means border designation is by nature open to a certain amount of interpretation. With an automated system under the hood that completely neglects to account for the political/military situation or economic development, I continue to see this as a downside.

As amazing as it is, Stellaris has a habit of "taking two steps forward, one step back" with its big patches (see the removal of Alliances, Ruler starships, Civilian Access..), and ultimately I guess this is just something I have to learn to live with. Doesn't mean I cannot express my frustration and, perhaps, hope for potential compromises or concessions such as allowing limited manual tweaking that may be implemented at some later point. Not that it's possible for a game to cater to every single player, of course.

And for what it's worth, at least 2.2 still looks more like "three steps forward, one step back".

 

[methegrate]

We're both sure about what Wiz said there; he did explain his position quite well, after all. I just don't think it's a good step for the "geopolitical simulation" of the game. To rephrase your post, the new system is about equating administrative divisions to continents -- but those are two different things, otherwise Australia would not even have any subdivision in the first place. In Stellaris, it'd just be one big sector consisting of several systems (cities), and there was nothing you could do about it.

In many situations, that may not be a problem, as I'm sure the system would auto-designate sectors largely the way I would have manually done, anyways. I am bothered, however, by the prospect of no longer being able to manually account for the exceptions, such as adding a "vanguard system" in a different cluster to an existing sector, rather than having it perpetually be its own mini-sector (unless I'm willing to go to war over its expansion).

The galaxy in Stellaris isn't like Earth where we have oceans that form an insurmountable natural border, thus designating continents. In Stellaris, there's only space, and what constitutes a cluster is simply a matter of distance -- which means border designation is by nature open to a certain amount of interpretation. With an automated system under the hood that completely neglects to account for the political/military situation or economic development, I continue to see this as a downside.

As amazing as it is, Stellaris has a habit of "taking two steps forward, one step back" with its big patches (see the removal of Alliances, Ruler starships, Civilian Access..), and ultimately I guess this is just something I have to learn to live with. Doesn't mean I cannot express my frustration and, perhaps, hope for potential compromises or concessions such as allowing limited manual tweaking that may be implemented at some later point. Not that it's possible for a game to cater to every single player, of course.

And for what it's worth, at least 2.2 still looks more like "three steps forward, one step back".

I agree with this to some degree. I sometimes feel like there's a very Ned Flanders sense of "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" here. Particularly, almost anything to do with the map feels like they may be running into a creative wall and simply duplicating ideas from land-based games.

After all, between the FTL change and the definitely-not-ES2 constellation update, every galaxy map is now just a series of islands separated by ocean. Each island has a specific choke point connect by a road, and each star is just a territory that you have to cross in order to get to its neighbor (and which can only be owned by one player).

Now sectors will mean that each island is also a contiguous territory. We seem to be iterating towards a familiar model, if I could only put my finger on it...

Spoiler

Next we're going to see bonuses for uniting an entire cluster under one sector. Pro tip: get the small ones first. No one ever manages to unite all of Asia, I mean the big clusters.

But snarkiness aside, tying sectors to geography is being billed as making it possible to unleash their true potential. But... why? I get the need for stability, but the old influence cost system actually did a great job of keeping sector sizes relatively stable. It was only a problem because sectors don't mean anything, so it was a gameplay tax on a UI feature (and because not having a confirmation pop up was a huge pain in the @$$).

Maybe tying sectors to star clusters is a good idea. But what about giving them minimum/maximum sizes? Or having sectors be good and bad at different things based on their focus? Or having a system's efficiency diminish based on distance from the sector capital? Or having governors be really a big deal, so that players are incentivized to want the sectors which can use them? Or having different government types require different organizations? Or having factions be much happier/unhappier when they are the majority/minority population in a sector? Or having sectors spread organically the way borders used to, so the only way to curtail one sector would be to establish another?

All of this, and I'm sure many other ideas I haven't thought of, would involve player agency. If my industry sector had a +20% minerals/-50% energy, well I'd have a real choice to make about where to put that star with 8 minerals and 9 energy. Yet just like star lanes were built to replace strategic uncertainty with forced battles around choke points, a purely geographical model leaves no opportunity for that kind of decision making at all.

I don't know. Maybe it will work out, maybe this is the best move. But I'd have really liked to see some sort of discussion about the purpose and future of sectors first. What the heck is this mechanic even for anymore? And what is it iterating towards?

And is there really no way to do that which involves the player making choices?

 

[Heretic Saint]

Yeah, those are some good points. Although I would also add that by nature of how the game creates the galaxy, and the distances between systems, cluster/sector auto-assignment is still going to look superbly arbitrary. As I suspect, it's likely not an issue in most cases, but it's going to end up weird as soon as you only control a portion of something, and that something is close enough that it might just as well belong to "your" cluster.

I also can't help but snarkily point out that if there was a Risk version of Stellaris, the upcoming patch would have all continents on the map be a single sector each, rather than have all those subdivisions. After all, only geographic boundaries count, right?

But what about giving them minimum/maximum sizes? Or having sectors be good and bad at different things based on their focus? Or having a system's efficiency diminish based on distance from the sector capital? Or having governors be really a big deal, so that players are incentivized to want the sectors which can use them? Or having different government types require different organizations? Or having factions be much happier/unhappier when they are the majority/minority population in a sector? Or having sectors spread organically the way borders used to, so the only way to curtail one sector would be to establish another?

Yeah, distance to (sector) capital in jumps would have been my preferred approach, I think. There could have even been a Society tech to increase the distance; probably something with communications. Alternatively, the devs could have shifted the cap from limiting the number of sectors (why is this even a thing?) to how many systems each of your sectors may have. And maybe add a few sensible consequences for shifting internal borders all the time, so disincentivize abuse?

Oh well, I suppose we'll just have to learn to live with what has been explained here, just like we learned to live without various other aspects of player agency that were patched out of the game. Wiz' comments at least make me hope that this crippled sector setup may, at some point, yield a deeper political simulation, and just seeing something like this on the team's radar feels good.

 

[methegrate]

I also can't help but snarkily point out that if there was a Risk version of Stellaris, the upcoming patch would have all continents on the map be a single sector each, rather than have all those subdivisions. After all, only geographic boundaries count, right?

Ha! That was actually the point I was grasping at... ; ) That's basically what this is turning into. The countries/subdivisions are the star systems. Each continent is a sector, joined by a choke point link, and each star is a country.

If we changed some of the colors around, drew borders around the stars to correspond with star lane connections, and swapped each spaceship image with soldier art, the gameplay would be increasingly indistinguishable.

 

[General Karthos]

I actually invest an enormous amount of time and energy in avoiding sectors entirely through civics, ethics (when possible), technology, and the ascension perk. (In one game I have a core sector cap of 15 systems.) Now it seems I'm being forced to have sectors, but it sounds like they will be less onerous and problematic than the old system, so I can't complain. Just hoping it'll work out with sectors just being created for ease of management, rather than forcing it on us to avoid micro that frankly, I don't mind.

And if the original goal of sectors was to minimize micro, why not be up front with that and make them optional?

 

[methegrate]

And if the original goal of sectors was to minimize micro, why not be up front with that and make them optional?

Personally, I think because it never was.

Everything about the way sectors were originally built implies that they were supposed to be the infrastructure for CK2-style internal politics.

For a pure UI tool designed to minimize micro this never made sense. There's no reason to make that mandatory. No reason to make core worlds a huge deal. Sectors keep a minimum 25% tax of minerals and energy... why charge the player for a UI tool? It was incredibly expensive to reorganize your sectors. A management tool would never make the player jump through hoops like that. It created more problems than it solved.

However all of that makes perfect sense as the building blocks for a semi-independent political system. Of course sectors would be mandatory in that case; otherwise players could skip a big chunk of gameplay. Core worlds would be the only planets whose loyalty you could always count on. And the minimum resource tax and influence cost to remove systems would stop players from solving sector-related problems by just starving them of resources.

I've always been disappointed because, just personal opinion, I think that would have been a much better game. Emphasizing the personalities of sectors and leaders would blow open opportunities for storytelling. It would fit Stellaris' space opera setting and have far more longevity than the current system of relying on the same tired old pop-ups again and again.

But... the original dev team never pulled that design together, and the new one seems to have a different vision. C'est la vie.