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Stellaris Dev Diary #15 - Fallen Empires

Hello and happy new year! I’ll be your substitute Doomdark for today and in this week’s dev diary we’ll take a closer look at Fallen Empires.

The galaxy is vast, old and unknown. New species constantly flare into existence and some are even able to take their first cautious steps towards other stars. Of those that do some are arrogant enough to assume that they are the first and only chosen. They fail to realize that others may have taken those same steps before them, others who have found amazing wonders and unraveled their secrets, others who reached the furthest edges of knowledge only to crumble away. Those others are called Fallen Empires.

These are once-glorious empires that for unknown reasons have stagnated and often fallen to infighting or crippling apathy. That which once covered hundreds of systems have shrunk to a fraction, barely held on to by superior technology and what little remains of a once glorious fleet. Fallen Empires are isolationist and will look at newer species with disinterest or outright contempt. Diplomatic attempts are futile and they will most likely attack any unknown ships entering one of their remaining systems.

stellaris_dev_diary_14_01_20160104_diplomatic_contact.jpg

The response of Fallen Empires vary greatly when approached. It is rarely friendly though.

Design Reasoning

We’ve added Fallen Empires to the game for a couple of reasons. They have the potential to enable some really cool stories and there is a bunch of different directions we can take to ensure players get a different experience from game to game. Players should never feel confident in how a Fallen Empire may react to different events in the galaxy. If left alone they might resurge as a reaction to a galaxy-wide threat or become outraged when their most holy planets are colonized by lesser races.

Gameplay-wise the Fallen Empires can act as a potential source of advanced technology for players willing to invest the military forces required to defeat one of their fleets in battle. In Stellaris, all ships destroyed in combat will leave debris behind and through reverse engineering a player may discover the technologies required to build the weapons and components equipped by those ships. Players can also invade planets belonging to Fallen Empires, allowing them to utilize whatever advanced buildings placed there. This of course means dealing with a new species within the Empire.
While the rewards may be tempting, players may want to consider the risks before attacking a Fallen Empire. Who knows what horrors they have unearthed during the ages, what forbidden secrets their planets hold within, what captives might be unleashed should their wardens be struck down.

stellaris_dev_diary_14_02_20160104_fallen_empire.jpg

Fallen Empires will use a separate series of models for their ships and stations.

Next week the good Goosecreature will be back with a dev diary on the events and mishaps that may befall colonies and their inhabitants. Until then!
 
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This has a lot of potential.

But are there any other traces of these empires? Can we find defunct space stations, long lost subspecies, etc? What would really drive this feature home is if you didn't just wander into systems claimed by somebody else; you wander into systems that have spent centuries under alien rule and are littered with their remnants.
 
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why would the other means of travel also not be blocked by a fallen empire?

The wormhole travel would be able to bypass and warp could simply go around.

This. I'm thinking of bypassing a hostile controlled border star system. If the links head into and out of a fallen empire's system into neutral space, as well as deeper into, it would block that one type of travel, while the other 2 types could simply steer around that star and keep exploring. A static fallen empire would be worth leapfrogging around.
 
They fail to realize that others may have taken those same steps before them, others who have found amazing wonders and unraveled their secrets, others who reached the furthest edges of knowledge only to crumble away.
We’ve added Fallen Empires to the game for a couple of reasons. They have the potential to enable some really cool stories and there is a bunch of different directions we can take to ensure players get a different experience from game to game.
While the rewards may be tempting, players may want to consider the risks before attacking a Fallen Empire. Who knows what horrors they have unearthed during the ages, what forbidden secrets their planets hold within, what captives might be unleashed should their wardens be struck down.

If Fallen Empires have secret knowledge and hidden secrets, then I want to at first be in wonder of their hidden treasures, ancient secrets, devastating superweapons, etc on first contact and I want to then feel in retrospect that I have filled out those boots. I want to end a campaign having my own secret knowledge and galactic horrors and superweapons and such. It'd be nice if Paradox remembered to not only create devastating galactic disasters in the end game, but also to create some game-changers that we can create or control or contain.

So if my scientists bumble into some containment unit for a stellar monster that a Fallen Empire kept tamed and I accidentally set it loose, say it takes my whole fleet to destroy the thing. It'd be nice to have the "tech cards" reflect that experience so that, far down the road in the campaign, I too can entrap such a creature ... or genetically engineer it in order to unleash it on my enemies. ... If there's some mysterious seemingly supernatural supervillain from another dimension that I set loose accidentally after conquering a believed abandoned Fallen Empire world, I'd like to know that I just might have the ability to contain such a person in the future when another species accidentally tears the fabric of the multiverse in a cataclysmic experiment ... or that I might contain this Fallen Empire prisoner and pulp her/him for information to make me immune to this extragalactic threat.

Basically, I want everything. Because hype.
 
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1. An interesting possibility. I do not see why not.

2. I'd imagine they might have a separate tech tree to research from?

3. Oh for the love of.... If the answer is "Yes", then, I do not care how dangerous their tech is, I will do everything in my power to eradicate them.
2. There is no tech tree in this game. Research is semi-random.
 
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This is absolutely amazing. Thanks Paradox, I can't wait to play this game,

BUT...

...please work on a better fallen empire generator. The empire shown looks like a new civilization that spread evenly in all directions- circular. A fallen empire should look like it was once a giant blob, but it was nibbled at so many times that now it more like a collection of "islands of power". The perfect example is the Byzantine in CK2. They have islands on the other side of the Mediterranean, poorly positioned territories in Sicily, and even an enclave on the opposite side of the Black Sea. They have tremendous power in terrible positions.

For example, a fallen empire may have once spanned three spiral arms, but it lost the strip of territory that connected the three arms to another fallen empire. The second fallen empire lost that territory to rebellions after it colonized beyond the strip, making their territory two blobs on either side of the three spiral arms. This allows the younger races to expand like a gas around the "old rocks".

Furthermore, archaeology should pick up artifacts from the fallen empires in what was their maximum range to help you fight that same fallen empire. In time, you may be able to discover their story.

There should be some chance that their race splintered into multiple sovereign entities. This might be like Vulcans and Romulans who split as a result of civil war, or it could be like the British freely giving up their empire. There could be a situation of a once mighty empire divided into little Italian city-state like system-kingdoms. It could be that the uplifted slave-soldiers over through the intelligent machine builders, and now have no idea how anything works. There are so many incredible possibilities. I know you were showing a very simple example, but I would hate it if you had to redo the system like you did with EU4 random new world system.

Thanks again for all you do.
 
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This sounds like a feature that could offer a lot of possibilities and be developed really in-depth.
 
This has a lot of potential.

But are there any other traces of these empires? Can we find defunct space stations, long lost subspecies, etc? What would really drive this feature home is if you didn't just wander into systems claimed by somebody else; you wander into systems that have spent centuries under alien rule and are littered with their remnants.

I'm assuming POPS are unattached to tags, so to work with this feature it might be nice to discover a primitive civilization or something that turns out to be the same racial type of POP as one of these fallen empires.
 
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I read that Fallen Empires will use special ship models. Are they procedurally generated (meaning randomly generated mixing premade parts) or just a set?

Also, can we still design our ships's appearance and if yes does the AI use presets or procedurally generated ships?
 
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I read that Fallen Empires will use special ship models. Are they procedurally generated (meaning randomly generated mixing premade parts) or just a set?

Also, can we still design our ships's appearance and if yes does the AI use presets or procedurally generated ships?

Clarifications that there are six art styles for ships, one for each phenotype, so I would think there'd be up to six different styles for fallen empires, too.
 
I wonder... can we assimilate a Fallen Empire into our own on a peaceful way?
 
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Submit to a primitive lower species?! NEVER!
Who says lower? Maybe my species is technological advanced enough to be seen as equal. Not to mention unbelievable fluffy :3
 
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Why are aliens using such a specifically designed Terran symbol? I mean, stars and shields and other generic things like that could be common enough, but an axe behind a bundle of sticks like that? It seems a bit odd.

Ah, we've not yet limited the symbols to specific types of Empires or species yet so they grabbed one at random. It'll be more controlled at release.

Do you have to participate in combat to take debris ? Or can you swoop in after the battle is over ?

Still doing some testing on this but currently the idea is that the debris should be visible and available for all. First come, first serve most like.
 
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How exactly will we know who are the fallen empires and who are empires like ourselves first realizing the wonders of the universe.
I think it can be seen from that map screenshot - there are two little empires and one bigger one. This bigger one is the fallen one (as can be read in the diplomacy window), so i assume that two small are new, emerging powers. Very weak right now comparing to the fallen empire that was there for long time. So at first they are at disadvantage, but it will change in time beacuse i very much doubt the fallen empire will grow in strenght at all, unless the restoration event happens (and i don't think that will be common).
 
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Still doing some testing on this but currently the idea is that the debris should be visible and available for all. First come, first serve most like.

Now THIS could be really cool. Imagine an Empire that's resource-poor that develops specialized ships for swooping in after a battle and salvaging the wreckage as quickly as possible....
 
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