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Stellaris Dev Diary #128 - Decisions and Planetary Bombardment

Hello everyone! We’re back yet again for another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, and as promised last week, the topic will be Decisions and Planetary Bombardment.

And before we get right into it I of course have to reiterate that we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ is coming out, and that screenshots may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

Decisions
Planetary edicts are gone - long live Decisions! Decisions is a new feature that will replace the old Planetary Edicts. We’ve always wanted to do more with planetary edicts, and Decisions now allow us to do a lot more cool stuff. Some Decisions can be enacted on any planet (colonizable or not) in your empire’s borders. Decisions can cost any resource, and can also require a certain amount of time to pass before the effect will take place. For example, the Mastery of Nature Ascension Perk now allows you access to Land Clearance – the Decision (see image below). Some Decisions will have toggle options – like for example Martial Law. Enacting the Martial Law Decision allows you to later on Revoke Martial Law should you wish to do so.

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The system will be fully moddable and we’re looking forwards to seeing what cool stuff the community can come up with.

Planetary Bombardment & Devastation
To better fit with the new systems, bombardment has been slightly reworked.

When a planet gets bombarded it will suffer Devastation. Devastation ticks up from 0 up to 100, and is a direct penalty to your planet’s housing, amenities, trade value and pop growth. Clearing Devastation will take time and cost resources, as one would expect.

Fleets, as you know, have different Bombardment Stances – each with its own effect on how fast Devastation ticks up and how large chance there is for a Pop to be killed during bombardment. The higher the Devastation is on a planet, the higher the chance is for a Pop to be killed. When a building slot becomes invalid due to no longer having the amount of Pops required for it to operate, the building occupying it will become Ruined. A Ruined building may be repaired once the requirements of the building slot are once again met.

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For those concerned that Devastation is too punishing, rest assured that we will be looking into that. Recovering from Devastation should never feel like an impossible task.

Next week our we will continue covering the features of the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update with the topic of Tradition rework. Because this week’s dev diary is a bit shorter, I’ll leave a teaser for next week. Enjoy!

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Large empires don't really need it. I've always seen it as a way to squeeze more out of small realms
Yeah i know that large empires dont really need 1-3 more tiles on a planet but its not just this edict/decision. The influence cost for megastructures is the same (playing on 1000 stars map and owning about 3/4 of the galaxy i still have those "high" influence cost for megastructures despite me beeing able to build one every 2 or 3 months if it werent for influence). Simply allowing large empires to gain more influence (a small amount per planet for example) would fix this issue. And it would be more realistic too, as you will have a hard time arguing to spend the minerals produced within a decade on a single project but if its like a monthly income you spend on a project and when not much else needs to be done...
Also the empire edicts cost should depend on size as right now its just silly that you can spend a bunch of influence and every planet will now produce a lot more minerals/energy and the cost does not depend on the amount of planets. Also these edicts should have some kind of drawback like increased mainenance or some unhappiness from the working pops or a lowered production after the edict ends for a while during which you also cant enact the edict again. Also maybe add some war economy edict/decision that is cheaper in defensive wars/doesnt add war exhaustion in defensive wars.
 
If you are finding the game currently too easy then increase the difficulty.
While you didnt mean me... Well thats not possible :(. After winning the first war as fanatic purifier you usually have a rather easy time (especially if your enemy had the same climate preference as you) and of course i am talking about grand admiral difficulty. Then again some reason for this is also because the ai right now is completly retarded and you can easily exploit that they continue to chase a fleet even if there is not only a strong starbase in the system but your entire non bait fleet and after that you can usually grab any system that isnt colonized (and doesnt give you a border with another empire if you dont want to have that) therefore completly crippling your enemy if you dont finish him in this war anyway. The main difficulty after the first war is usually travel time as it can take years to react if someone declared an unexpected war and you didnt build a defensive starbase in a choke point. But if you simply look around the map once a year or so and dont forget about systems with npc enemies that you didnt kill already due to them beeing to strong earlier you should be fine.
 
In the latest stream there was a mention about how political power directly calculates to voting power in democracies (If I uderstood it correctly).
Will there be an civic like "True Democracy" or something where all pops, no matter their strata and living conditions have the same voting power but still affect stability respectively to their strata and living conditions ? Alternatively, this could be couped with the "Idealistic foundation", or "Parlamentary system" civic.
 
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Honestly this update wasn't just short it was anorexic. I wonder if this basically means we have several months to go before the update lands. Shoot, this update didn't even cover the new mechanics all that well. By no means am I attacking the op, it just seems really lacking in details.

For example, does the new bombardment mechanics impact tomb world creation? Or what if anything happens if you bomb an entire planet to ruin? For the decisions, it might just be me, but it didn't showcase the point of the change. Right now, all I see is a couple ui changes and combining of edicts. I'd just liked to have seen something that makes full use of the new system.

edit: Still looking forward to the changes, just wish a tad more information was given in this update.
 
Honestly this update wasn't just short it was anorexic. I wonder if this basically means we have several months to go before the update lands. Shoot, this update didn't even cover the new mechanics all that well. By no means am I attacking the op, it just seems really lacking in details.

For example, does the new bombardment mechanics impact tomb world creation? Or what if anything happens if you bomb an entire planet to ruin? For the decisions, it might just be me, but it didn't showcase the point of the change. Right now, all I see is a couple ui changes and combining of edicts. I'd just liked to have seen something that makes full use of the new system.

edit: Still looking forward to the changes, just wish a tad more information was given in this update.
Again, nothing in the diary indicates that Armageddon bombardment would work any differently than it does now. Presumably, different bombardment stances have different caps on how much devastation they can cause, and Armageddon stance would still be the only one that can completely depopulate a planet and it turns into a tomb world when you do. None of the changes in the new mechanic preclude that system from carrying over.
 
In the latest stream there was a mention about how political power directly calculates to voting power in democracies (If I uderstood it correctly).
Will there be an ethic like "True Democracy" Or something where all pops, no matter their strata and living conditions have the same voting power but still affect stability respectively to their strata and living conditions ? Alternatively, this could be couped with the "Idealistic foundation", or "Parlamentary system" ethic.
Just pointing out, those are civics, not ethics. That was a confusing few seconds.

I agree with the premise though.
 
Seems kinda weird to have "Pop Growth Reduction +3" instead of just "Pop Growth -3".
 
In the latest stream there was a mention about how political power directly calculates to voting power in democracies (If I uderstood it correctly).
Will there be an civic like "True Democracy" or something where all pops, no matter their strata and living conditions have the same voting power but still affect stability respectively to their strata and living conditions ? Alternatively, this could be couped with the "Idealistic foundation", or "Parlamentary system" civic.
because realistically, any living standard lower than social welfare would result in the majority (who most likely will be at the bottom strata) using the power of democracy to bring up their living conditions
 
In the latest stream there was a mention about how political power directly calculates to voting power in democracies (If I uderstood it correctly).
Will there be an civic like "True Democracy" or something where all pops, no matter their strata and living conditions have the same voting power but still affect stability respectively to their strata and living conditions ? Alternatively, this could be couped with the "Idealistic foundation", or "Parlamentary system" civic.
Political Power is one value and it is directly tied to the Linving Standarts (as in: They give the PP modifiers). Defusing one kind of Political Power (voting in Democracies) from all other Uses (Planet Stabiltiy, Faction Power) would just cause wierd behavior.

There are at least 2 living standarts that give identical Voting Power:
Utopian Abundance and Shared Burden (requires a Civic). With Shared burden keeping Consuemr Goods use manageable
 
I hope the new traditions, at least the one shown in the OP, are unique to certain ethics....I would definitely not like it if in my United Nations of Earth playthroughs I had to pick a tradition that outright stated my fanatic egalitarian, beacon of liberty, idealistic foundation government was suspending due process...
 
I hope the new traditions, at least the one shown in the OP, are unique to certain ethics....I would definitely not like it if in my United Nations of Earth playthroughs I had to pick a tradition that outright stated my fanatic egalitarian, beacon of liberty, idealistic foundation government was suspending due process...
Why is your fanatic egalitarian, beacon of liberty, idealistic foundation UNE taking traditions from the Domination tree?
 
The 2.2 looks great, and i am looking forward to it. But waiting, waiting deals stability damage to me. :-(

Why is your fanatic egalitarian, beacon of liberty, idealistic foundation UNE taking traditions from the Domination tree?
What?
The IDEA is that EVERYONE could get taste of our LIBERTY. We are going to liberate them on the beaches, on the sea, in the air, and in Space. Alwats Domination and Supremacy.
How also should i play?
 
I hope the new traditions, at least the one shown in the OP, are unique to certain ethics....I would definitely not like it if in my United Nations of Earth playthroughs I had to pick a tradition that outright stated my fanatic egalitarian, beacon of liberty, idealistic foundation government was suspending due process...
All they would really need to do is change the name to something like "The Price of Freedom is eternal vigilance". Same effect, different name.
And since I take them all anyway, I always found their game effect more interesting then their description.

Why is your fanatic egalitarian, beacon of liberty, idealistic foundation UNE taking traditions from the Domination tree?

Because you have to choose all trees, it is just a matter of order.
^That
 
Mastery of Nature could really use some love now. Just remove the influence cost, and it will be fine. That +1 size for 100 influence is terribly bad.
I'll note, again, that the text makes no reference to it being a 1-time only civic anymore.

It's entirely possible that it can be used as many times as you want now (perhaps up to some arbitrary cap on how big a planet can be).