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Stellaris Dev Diary #158 - Federation rework

Hello everyone!

It was great to finally reveal what we’re working on at PDXCON, and today we’re back with yet another dev diary where we will dive into some more details on the reworked federations.

The screenshots still feature a bunch of work-in-progress stuff, like every federation perk using a placeholder right now. Numbers and effects aren’t necessarily final either.

Federation Types
Like we mentioned at PDXCON, federation will now come in different Federation Types. Each federation type has a unique passive effect and can unlock federation perks as they level up.​

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Certain federation types have requirements on what type of empire can suggest to form them, but there are no limitations on who can join a federation (except for killer empires & inward perfection). Yes, this also means that Barbaric Despoilers and Criminal Syndicate are no longer excluded.
Galactic Union
This will be a more generic type of federation that will fit most groups of empires. This federation makes it easier to cooperate with empires, as diversity of ethics will have a less negative impact on maintaining cohesion. This federation type will be available to everyone in the free patch.​

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Fleet bonuses a plenty!
Martial Alliance
This federation type is focused around having a very large and powerful federation fleet. Only militarists can suggest to form this federation.​

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Free and automatic research sharing!
Research Cooperative
Empires who wish to cooperate in achieving technological mastery should join together in a research cooperative. Only materialists can suggest to form a research cooperative.​

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New trade policy!​


Trade League
If trade value is the focus of your empire, the Trade League is probably a very good federation for you to be a part of. The Trade League gets access to a new Trade Policy which combines the bonuses of all other trade policies. An empire needs to be a Megacorporation or have the Merchant Guilds civic in order to be able to suggest to form a trade league.

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Did you know there is an Origin that lets you start as the president of a Hegemony?

Hegemony
This federation type is built around one strong core member. The president gets most of the bonuses, but the bonuses for the members are also quite powerful. Only authoritarian empires may suggest to form a hegemony.

Federation Perks
Federations will get access to new perks when they level up, and the perks they get access to depend on their type. There are usually 2 perks that gives bonuses to every member and 1 perk that gives bonuses only to the president. However, the Hegemony flips this around by giving the president 2 perks and the members 1 perk (which does not benefit the president in this case!).

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Hegemony member perk.


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President gets an additional Envoy.

Each time a federation levels up, they will get access to 3 new perks.

Level Up & Cohesion
In order to level gain XP, a federation needs to have positive Cohesion. The amount of XP a federation gains (or loses!) per month is directly tied to its Cohesion, which is a value that ranged from -100 to +100.

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There are a number of things that will reduce Cohesion every month, such as every member, diverse ethics and opposing ethics. Federation members can counteract this by assigning Envoys to the federation, which will increase monthly Cohesion.

When Cohesion is at +100, the federation will gain +10 XP every month. If a federation loses XP and drops a level, they will lose access to their perks after a few months.

Federation Laws
It is possible for federations to customize some aspects of its rules. In some cases, federation types also have access to different laws at different points. A Research Cooperative can never have the highest level of fleet contribution, and they also require higher centralization to increase their Fleet Contribution.

Each federation type will start with a certain set of default laws.

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There are a number of laws which define certain rules for the federation.

Centralization
Many federation laws require federation centralization to be high enough. To increase centralization, a federation needs higher level. In fact, centralization is the only law locked behind federation levels right now.

Increasing centralization isn’t always easy though, as doing so will have a large negative impact on Cohesion. That means more Envoys will need to be assigned to the federation to maintain its Cohesion.

The primary reason to increase centralization is to unlock new laws.

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The Galactic Union federation type requires Medium centralization to have a 20% Fleet Contribution.

Fleet Contribution
Most federations will not start with the ability to build a federation fleet, as their fleet contribution will start on “None”. The Martial Alliance and the Hegemony do start with a “Low” fleet contribution, however. The Martial Alliance is also able to change its fleet contribution law to “High” as early as Medium centralization.

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Most of the other laws not visible earlier.

Succession types
As you could see in previous screenshots there are a bunch of different laws for how federations can decide who becomes the president. Strongest is the empire with the greatest economy. Diplomatic Weight is the empire with the largest Diplomatic Weight (we talked about that at PDXCON, but more on that later). Rotation will rotate the president. Random will choose a president from a random member. Challenge succession type allows you to pick a challenge type for your federation.

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Perhaps we’ll have enough psi-capable pops next time...

There are currently two different challenge types:
Psionic Battle lets psionic pops battle it out over which empire should be president.
Arena Combat lets the rulers of competing empires battle it out. Certain traits for the ruler (both species and ruler-specific) will influence how large chance the ruler has at winning. The Chosen will of course be very hard to beat.

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That’s it for this week, and we hope you survive the information overload! We realized there are so many details we possibly could share, but this should cover the most important parts.

Next week we will be talking about the Galactic Community, Resolutions and more!
 
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except for killer empires & inward perfection
First of all: Thanks for the great DD. However please at least consider giving inward perfectionists a special federation type. I'm probably not the only one, who uses that civic to play "Space-Ming". It would be really neat, if the new federation system was used to represent a tributary state network. Ofc this "federation" would be very limited on centralisation and contribution.

Also I think for kicking members there should also be a "unanimous (among all other members of the federation) Vote" option; or even a "no force kicking at all" option. Then you'd have to think twice about whom you want in your federation, before you reform it to have at least some centralisation.
If you want a real example just look at the EU. Once someone is in, you can't kick them out; and it's very hard to force them to comply with EU laws. And the EU is even more of a confederation than a real federation.
 
Galactic Union gets +50% exp, effectively. Ethics drift penalizing cohesion might be interesting in a strictly hypothetical future where ethics change was adjusted to, you know, actually change ethics.
You misunderstand, I think. In the context of Federations, "Ethics Drift" refers to the governing Ethics of the member nations.

So a Federation that was founded by a Pacifist/Materialist and a Materialist/Egalitarian/Pacifist would have some slight Ethics Drift, but that drift would increase if their Federation expanded to include a Xenophile/Militarist or something.
 
The system will be in the free patch and should be fully moddable, yes.

And anyone will be able to play with those mods?. Or it will be like in these last versions of the game/launcher?.
 
I hope conventional war within a federation could become a type of challenge option. Civil war to become the hegemon and civil wars to lower/increase centralization would be cool too.

A population based election would be cool too. So the most populated empire is leader.
 
You misunderstand, I think. In the context of Federations, "Ethics Drift" refers to the governing Ethics of the member nations.

So a Federation that was founded by a Pacifist/Materialist and a Materialist/Egalitarian/Pacifist would have some slight Ethics Drift, but that drift would increase if their Federation expanded to include a Xenophile/Militarist or something.
Nope, I just immediately went for the most trolly application of the mechanics.

In theory, screwing around with ethics attraction to push AI empires into shifting their ethics should lower cohesion. Such as, to use a random example, having migration treaties when all your pops are Rapid Breeders, Deviant, and Decadent.
 
Spiritualist alliance: unity based theme

Xenophile/Egalitarian alliance: free pop movement and pop rights theme

Xenophobe alliance: segregation and keep others out of your borders theme/Hegemony

Pacifist alliance: keeping out of war theme
 
I was dreaming of building a powerful federation since the launch of the game.
It's good to see the federation is finally getting an update it needed for such a long time.
 
Hegemony
This federation type is built around one strong core member. The president gets most of the bonuses, but the bonuses for the members are also quite powerful. Only authoritarian empires may suggest to form a hegemony.

Hopefully you don't forget that Gestalts are the most authoriarian empire you can possibly get and don't exclude them from this.

Martial Alliance
This federation type is focused around having a very large and powerful federation fleet. Only militarists can suggest to form this federation.

Should be open to Gestalt aswell.

There are currently two different challenge types:
Psionic Battle lets psionic pops battle it out over which empire should be president.
Arena Combat lets the rulers of competing empires battle it out. Certain traits for the ruler (both species and ruler-specific) will influence how large chance the ruler has at winning. The Chosen will of course be very hard to beat.

So will you finally, after almost a year of demand, give Hivemind rulers some leader traits and agendas? And since we know that Hiveminds in fact are a psionic species (otherwise you couldn't talk to the Prethoryn as Psionic Ascended empires) they obviously have to be able to fight a psionic battle aswell. Maybe finally add that hugely demanded option for Hivemind to ascend psionically aswell?

If you continue to deny Hivemind rulers any traits or agendas than I can already see some random starfish that turned ruler 2 years ago beat the great old one Hivemind rulers in some arena combat and Hiveminds will continue to be the laughing stock of the community.
 
Determined Exterminators, but used as a shorthand for Fanatical Purifiers as well. Basically the genocidal empires.
Well I mean, Purifiers can federate with other empires of their own species, and Exterminators can federate with both machine and synth empires.
 
I do not like it. Lately Stellaris expansions have had pretty bad QA. It'd be nice if they actually took their damn time and got it right.

Fair enough. Although one can argue that early release still coulb be beneficial, since proper balance work probably requires massive feedback, which is only guaranteed after (imperfect) relsease. So, sooner the release is, sooner we will get all those necessery patches and fixes. I am not speaking about obvious game-breaking bugs and obvious AI flaws, though. I remember how bad the Megacorps was at release.
 
(otherwise you couldn't talk to the Prethoryn as Psionic Ascended empires)
While we're on the topic of speaking with the Prethoryn, am I the only one who finds it bizarre that psionic-Purifiers and Devouring Swarms can beg the Scourge for coexistence?
 
I feel like there should be a "Spiritual Compact" federation type, as the other federations all have ethics that they can closely tie to:

Hygemony - Authoritarian (and debatably Xenophobe)
Martial Alliance - (Militarism)
Trade Alliance - (Xenophilia, whilst not essential will help a MC with trust growth etc)
Galactic Alliance - (Egalitarianism / Xenophilia - if it's modelled upon the Startrek Federation as I suspect)
Research Alliance - (Materialism)

Spiritualism is the only one that doesn't really have any strong representation. A federation built on the grounds of spiritualist traditions and thought could round this out (note, spiritualism =/= religion).

Also, will we be able to create a flag for our federation too?
 
While we're on the topic of speaking with the Prethoryn, am I the only one who finds it bizarre that psionic-Purifiers and Devouring Swarms can beg the Scourge for coexistence?
Bizarre? That's kinda cool actually. Purifiers in harmony. Or an attempt anyway.
 
Crazy idea: it would be cool if envoys would be not only numbers, but new leader type that you can send to other empiers! With there own traits, like +% to ethic shift to the ethics of your empire or increasing trade value from trade pact.
 
Are absolutly certain that this bug was indeed in the game since 1.0 because that would be absolutly ridiculous. (Started playing with version 1.8.? and thats probably also about the time where i played/tested democracies the last time).
Yes. I am certain.
Maybe there should be a science-based election method.


If there isn't a useful/interesting gameplay hook, I don't see the point in building a Federation type for an Ethic.

Militarists are All About War, so it makes sense that they'd have a special, fleet-focused Federation type (which may also bypass their usual reluctance to join Federations).

Pacifists... don't like fighting. So wouldn't the best fit for them be... a research/economic Federation? Or even just a default one, where everyone plays nice with each other?

Similarly, Spiritualists don't have a solid mechanical hook of their own to hang Federation gameplay on. Research is a universal mechanic, and Materialists are good at it, so Materialists get a research-centric option. Spiritualists can't say the same.

Spiritualists... can't... say the same... literally the ONLY GAME LORE THE GAME ACTUALLY HAS is about The Shroud. Nobody knows a darn thing about why there is a Contingency. Nobody knows much about any of the Precursors. But we KNOW, FOR A FACT, that the Shroud exists.

SPIRITUALISM IS THE ONE, PROVABLE FACT in Stellaris!

And yet people are like, "meh, religion is dumb" because they're viewing it through 21st Century Earth eyes. The metaphysical is the ONE THING Stellaris has bothered to actually flesh out. We know, FOR A FACT, that the spiritual exists in this universe. And yet it gets papered over, ignored, has broken mechanics (lookin' at you here ethics attraction).