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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!
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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.

upload_2019-10-31_15-37-35.png

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.

upload_2019-10-31_15-24-36.png

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.

upload_2019-10-31_15-37-52.png

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.

upload_2019-10-31_15-24-18.png

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.

----

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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Finally, a way to make federations more interesting! Though I'm a bit disappointed there doesn't seem to be a way to make your federation a single super-state like the UFP from Star Trek (unless it's a detail for later). It would give a big incentive to play diplomatically and add a new, interesting way to subdue your neighbors.
 
Good stuff!

Just a small typo I found in the screenshots (I know it's WiP, but maybe it helps speed things along)
In I think the 8th screenshot: "Cohesion simbolizes how united our federation is and ranges from -100 to 100" --> symbolizes
 
Realism42 said:
It sure would make for a nice consistent game. I wonder how that would work for people who won’t buy the expansion though?
Click to expand...
Everybody runs the same code, regardless of their DLC. It just happens that the code has "host_has_dlc" checks in it on certain options and events. Sometimes those checks even only apply to player empires; I saw AI megacorps after 2.2 came out but before I bought the DLC.

In other words, it would work just fine. They could either keep the existing system for people without the expansion, or (more likely, IMO) make it use the new system (with Hegemonies and so forth) except players can't create those themselves, and maybe cannot become the leader of them.
 
I like what I'm seeing here between the lines. Diplomatic envoys, specifically - hopefully it's something akin to EU4 diplomats, but more fleshed out, so that they're actual characters to a degree. But even if not - having a limit on how much diplomacy you can do, and how powerful said diplomacy can be, and have ways to interact with that, is very encouraging.

I also hope that should this system turn out to be insufficiently fleshed out, that it will get the attention it deserves. Yes, I'm worried, because (unless I missed something in one of the images) it isn't clear whether it's just the president who gets to decide on Federation Law or if there's a vote, or even if this is something that can be changed.

Also, I do think that Federation Cohesion should in itself apply a bonus/malus and not just be an xp bar measure. "A house divided against itself cannot stand", after all.
 
Vilhelm said:
Finally, a way to make federations more interesting! Though I'm a bit disappointed there doesn't seem to be a way to make your federation a single super-state like the UFP from Star Trek (unless it's a detail for later). It would give a big incentive to play diplomatically and add a new, interesting way to subdue your neighbors.
Click to expand...
I suspect that maxing out Centralization results in absorbing the non-leader empires.
 
This is definitely exciting! But is there a way for someone to join two federations at once now? Particularly research cooperatives feel like they could benefit from it, particularly if they didn't require a defensive pact between members but that was instead a law that they could add.

Will decreased cohesion also make AI empires more likely to leave a federation? One thing I dislike about existing federations is that they can feel too difficult to unseat.

And I do really hope that there is a way to absorb other empires through federations; that would be an excellent way to take over the galaxy as a pacifists!
 
No Great United Church (spiritualists) federation?
 
MacrosoftWord said:
My immediate concern is about how Hegemony Origin will affect MP. A few possibilities come to mind, and none of them really seem that balanced.
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All of the 'you start in a federation' origins are worrying me. How does that interact with AI Empire count? If you have 'federation vassal' start, but 0 FE, then what? Or what if you have 5 FE? A repeat?
 
grekulf said:
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.
Click to expand...

What about fleet combat? Or just ship vs ship?

grekulf said:
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.
Click to expand...
If a Federation is at level 1 and -100 cohesion for a while will it dissolve? One of my major gripes about federations as they are now is that they are very static and members will never leave them.
 
Nwaij said:
No Great United Church (spiritualists) federation?
Click to expand...
Make some other type of Federation, invite your spiritualist pals, give it an appropriate name. As has been discussed, the existing Federation types are all expansions of specific aspects of Federation gameplay, and Spiritualists don't have a unique gameplay hook to hang one of those on.
 
Methone said:
All of the 'you start in a federation' origins are worrying me. How does that interact with AI Empire count? If you have 'federation vassal' start, but 0 FE, then what? Or what if you have 5 FE? A repeat?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I follow.

If you take the "Hegemon" origin, it presumably spawns an extra AI empire to be your subject. If you take the Federation one, it presumably does the same. if you're a Scion, it probably force-spawns at least one FE in the galaxy and then makes you their subject.
 
why not also a simple succession law like "election"? Is maybe going to be "diplomatic weight?" I'm curious.

Also, I think that challanges should be not only for psionics! some kind of space ordalia could be interesting even without super powers.
 
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