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Stellaris Dev Diary #146 - The Baol and The Zroni

Hello everyone!

As promised last week, we’re back to talk about something old that’s new – which, as many of you correctly guessed, is about new precursors. Adding new precursors has been something we’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now, and we’re very happy that we can now finally provide what’s been asked for.

In the next DLC you will be able to explore the fate of two new precursors, namely the Baol and the Zroni. To not spoil too much, I’ll only give a basic description of their respective backgrounds and lore.

The Baol
The Baol Organism was once a sprawling interstellar Hive Mind comprised of trillions of psychically-linked plantoids. With their ability to slowly terraform a planet's ecosystem and atmospheric gases via centuries of sustained photosynthetic processes, the Baol civilization produced a plethora of rich flora and fauna on otherwise unremarkable worlds. The Baol Organism curated lush planetary gardens and arboretums across many systems, forming mutualistic symbiotic relationships with local alien wildlife.

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The Zroni
The Zroni were possibly the most powerful psionics to have ever existed, or at least they were the first to discover the dimension which has come to be known as The Shroud. Once the Zroni population reached a certain critical mass it seems that their collective unconscious minds began to make contact with the proto-shroud in dreams, leading to mass lucid dreaming. Soon the phenomenon was studied and the Zroni discovered how to psionically project themselves into the Shroud, where they found that they could manipulate the very fabric of reality with their psionic powers. It wasn't long before the Zroni discovered they could physically enter the Shroud and live like Gods, transforming the dimension to suit their whims.

Precursor changes
One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy.

We have also added some more features and rewards to the old precursors. For example, after having found the Irassian home system, you can now spend minor artifacts to unravel some of the secrets of the Irassians. The new artifact actions aren’t the only new things though, and there’s some more cool things that you will be able to find.

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Additional precursor plans
Some of you have been asking about archaeology and adapting some of the old precursor content to use the new system. In regards to that question I will say that it is something that I always planned to do, but due to other things taking priority we can’t promise that it will happen immediately. If those changes don’t make it into the next update, it's very likely they will appear in the next big update after that. Changing that content would of course still be a part of the base game.

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That is all we had to share for this week’s dev diary. Next week we’ll be back again, which also happens to be the 3 year anniversary for Stellaris :)
 
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I'm hoping the five old precursor systems get a rebalance. Currently fen habitis is too good and will continue to be so, based on what we know so far. The teaser with manual planets shows that 5% alloy production from foundry worlds & the 2% bonus to urban worlds is going away. So that is an ever so slight nerf to ecumenopoli because that can be a sizable amount of alloys. Problem is a slight nerf to ecumenopoli won't bring the precursor systems line. Also if arcology chains are intended to help balance things out, I'm not entirely sure that will achieve the goal with how far ahead fen habitis is compared to the other systems.

Cybrex is a bit of mixed bag. Easiest fix would be to have one section intact enough to allow for colonization before mega-engineering, but of course have blocker on districts or lock those behind projects & decisions.

The other three systems are essentially clones of each on resources IIRC.

I'd be fine the balance was some precursor systems are really good for colonization options, while others are good for arcology bonuses. I just don't want that setup be grossly powerful future colonies vs grossly powerful buffs from arcology.

As far as AI doing the chains. I'm on the fence with that because it's really easy to get hosed by RNG & never have a chance because one goes with max empire spawn and probably ends up with a small number of systems because the game spawned other empires fairly close to them. I'd also wager that giving the AI access to these systems is going to do very little to make it competitive. I feel there is little value in even doing an off/on switch for AI precursors, when it has more value as something for the player to work on. A better fix would probably be to introduce an on/off switch that greatly nerfs precursor systems in some way, that prevents the player from curb stomping the AI (be that greatly reducing of arcology bonuses or making the colony options less good. First league home world ends up being a size 10 ecumenopolis & maybe the cybrex ringworld districts take years to clear).

Also I'm now going to assume every Zro deposit is a mass grave for Zroni. Thus meaning that if the Zroni ever come back, they'll probably only have a favorable view of gestalts, since currently gestalts can't research Zro refinement technology and proceed to desecrate their dead.
 
Coming from a player who played the game for less than 1 campaign long long ago, will civilizations be able to rise like Zerg and Protoss in Stellaris :D That would be very cool!
 
Coming from a player who played the game for less than 1 campaign long long ago, will civilizations be able to rise like Zerg and Protoss in Stellaris :D That would be very cool!
What do you mean by that?

Because by my metric, they already can. You can make a hivemind that assimilates other species, or a powerful technological empire with psionic abilities.
 
You mean Baol?:eek: Or some other previous race/species? Need to read more dev diaries :D
Hive Minds that bio-ascend can assimilate non-hive minded pops into their mind. So make a race of arthropoids, call them Zerg, bio-ascend, tada.
 
This is how people meta-game precursors. You see where you spawn in the galaxy, you send a science ship clear across the galaxy without ever surveying a single system (and NEVER EVER researching any first contact civs so you don't get border-locked) and you rush that science ship to the First League area of the map. You THEN survey a system, get the First League chain started. Then you send your science ships out normally and you'll get First League chain in your local area going forward. Easy Peasy First League Squeezy

Have you actually tried that last half, though? I have once and I would never get FL anomalies if not in FL territory, and Fen Habbanis also would always spawn in FL territory. So not only you need to rush your ships all the way to FL-land, you also need to keep them there surveying for a while.

Looking cool, and explains where the heck the name "zro dust" comes from, but... I just realized "zroni" rhymes with "brony", and this terrible revelation has infested my mind, if not my soul like something out of an Alexis Kennedy game. I'm so sorry for telling you all this.

Well, people asked for space unicorns....................
 
Have you actually tried that last half, though? I have once and I would never get FL anomalies if not in FL territory, and Fen Habbanis also would always spawn in FL territory. So not only you need to rush your ships all the way to FL-land, you also need to keep them there surveying for a while.

No, but I'll try. Now I has some funny situation. I was transforming one of my world into ecumenopolis and then.... all my worlds, tundras, tropicals, gaia's barren worlds, frozen worlds and every moons turn into ecumenopolis in the same time..
 
So uh... how do we pronounce these names? Baol, is it "Bey-uhl"? Beh-oll? Ba-jol? And Zroni is it Ze-roni? Shroni? Pronounciation is important. And I guess now we know the origin of the Zro resource's name. Remarkable how that name has survived for countless millions of years when knowledge of the Zroni will be relevant only in 1 of 7 games. There's not gonna be any chance of us being able to discover more than one precursor civilization still, is there?
 
So the Zroni became the Gods of the Shroud effectively? That’s what it sounds like
 
So uh... how do we pronounce these names? Baol, is it "Bey-uhl"? Beh-oll? Ba-jol? And Zroni is it Ze-roni? Shroni? Pronounciation is important. And I guess now we know the origin of the Zro resource's name. Remarkable how that name has survived for countless millions of years when knowledge of the Zroni will be relevant only in 1 of 7 games. There's not gonna be any chance of us being able to discover more than one precursor civilization still, is there?

Add an e then drop it when you say it.

Zro is Zero, drop the e when spoken. Zroni is Zeron-I or Zeron-ee (could be either), drop the e after the z when spoken. "Sh" but with buzz. Tongue at top of mouth.
 
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I really hoped that Diplomacy rework will be the next thing and what most people agree is lacking in current game and makes it feel shallow in mid-late game, but instead we get this, sigh...

1st DLC: Story Pack (Leviathans)
2nd DLC: Expansion (Utopia)
3rd DLC: Story Pack (Synthetic Dawn)
4th DLC Expansion (Apocalypse)
5th DLC: Story Pack (Distant Stars)
6th DLC: Expansion (Megacorp)
7th DLC: obvious
 
Is this new? Havent played the game in very very very very long time... What is an ascend?
With the Utopia Expansion, biological empires can 'ascend' via Ascension Perks. You can either go Psionics (Everyone is a space wizard), Synthetics (Everyone is a robot) or Genetic (Everyone's GATACA). Hive Minds can only pick the Gene-Route, which when completed, allows you to forcibly turn other non-Hive species in your empire into Hive Drones rather than just enslave/purge them.
 
Side note: I really wish Hive Minds could go psionic route, too.
 
Side note: I really wish Hive Minds could go psionic route, too.
It'd be interesting, and maybe we'll see it eventually, but I understand why they didn't initially- the Psionic events would basically ALL need to be rewritten, since they're so heavily based around how society changes and using teams of telepaths to probe the Shroud.
 
I'm more interested in espionage being included in the game, able to steal tech, sabotage buildings, etc. - of use in war. I'm more interested in fleet combat being improved - better AI, as well as more tactical involvement in space battles. Currently, it's a matter of building massive fleets, and then overwhelming the opposition by sheer numbers. There's not a lot of tactics involved - just a mass of ships on screen slogging it out.

Adding DLC for precursor events and archeology seems to me to be a very low priority - fairly pointless. Sort out the combat, AI, and overall fun factor of the game first. Currently, hours of doing nothing - probably mid-game - can be spend without much happening.

Diplomacy needs improving. Skirmishes and conflict with neighbours should be permitted without the need of all out war (crossing into territory that has been closed, resulting in firefights - not necessarily leading to war - would be a welcomed addition).

From what I've read so far about this planned DLC, I'm not impressed. I'll certainly be holding off buying until espionage has been included, and perhaps a few more randomised events as well as events linked to the player's character (leader) - as well as maybe other in-game characters, factions, etc. So far, it's all pretty boring stuff.
 
I'm more interested in espionage being included in the game, able to steal tech, sabotage buildings, etc. - of use in war. I'm more interested in fleet combat being improved - better AI, as well as more tactical involvement in space battles. Currently, it's a matter of building massive fleets, and then overwhelming the opposition by sheer numbers. There's not a lot of tactics involved - just a mass of ships on screen slogging it out.

Adding DLC for precursor events and archeology seems to me to be a very low priority - fairly pointless. Sort out the combat, AI, and overall fun factor of the game first. Currently, hours of doing nothing - probably mid-game - can be spend without much happening.

Diplomacy needs improving. Skirmishes and conflict with neighbours should be permitted without the need of all out war (crossing into territory that has been closed, resulting in firefights - not necessarily leading to war - would be a welcomed addition).

From what I've read so far about this planned DLC, I'm not impressed. I'll certainly be holding off buying until espionage has been included, and perhaps a few more randomised events as well as events linked to the player's character (leader) - as well as maybe other in-game characters, factions, etc. So far, it's all pretty boring stuff.
For the THIRD TIME:

We JUST had an enormous game-changing rework in 2.2, and you're expecting another one immediately after?

2.0 - Big Change
2.1 - Smaller Stuff
2.2 - Big Change
2.3 - Looking Like Smaller Stuff
2.4 - Looking Like Bigger Stuff (And devs have all-but-confirmed this will be the diplomacy thing people keep harping on and on about)