Stellaris Dev Diary #177 - Edict Rework

[retrofrog]

I like a lot of the intent here and am interested to see what new situations it brings up.

My only worry would be that edict duration and cost reduction will now feel pretty meh.
Maybe something like edict strength would be interesting, it would also make spiritualists and the likes have more unique strategy and gameplay.

 

[Kiliman9]

It might be interesting to have an election goal in democracies be to implement or cease using an edict. Like say, have the materialist candidate want to implement mining subsidies.

 

[TofuFox]

How are you communicating all this in the UI, which is already incorrect and confusing about how edicts work.

Currently there's 4 types of edicts:

1. Energy Edicts ("Campaigns"?)
   
2. Influence Edits
3. Strategic Resource Edicts
4. Unity Ambitions

They are affected in different ways by Admin Cap / Empire Sprawl;

1. Affected by the combination of Admin Cap / Empire Sprawl
   
2. Unaffected (in contradiction to the only in-game explanation)
3. Affected by Empire Sprawl, with no effect from Admin Cap increases (in contradiction to the only in-game explanation)
4. Affected by the combination of Admin Cap / Empire Sprawl

And are ordered inconsistently, as it goes 1-2-3-(2 & 3)-4, as edicts picked up from events go in between strategic resource edicts and unity ambitions, even though they usually work like influence edicts.

So despite the fact they work differently to one another, they're all called edicts. And now an Edict Cap is added which only applies to some edicts, making things even more confusing. The gavel / timer icon difference is a help, and sprawl being there may also help, but they're still all called edicts and the cost is is still confusing. 1/4, 2, and 3 above work differently, so they should have differential names to distinguish them in the UI. Alternatives:

1. Set Edicts (Influence Edicts / Other Edicts that Apply to the Edict List)
   
2. Timed Edicts (Energy Edicts / Unity Ambitions)
3. Directive or other <New Name> (Strategic Resource Edicts)

or

1. Edicts
2. Campaigns (Energy Edicts / Unity Ambitions) or <Different New Name>
   
3. Directive or other <New Name> (Strategic Resource Edicts)

Possible other new names: Program, Mandate, Dictum, Ordinance, Act

They could be grouped as such in the Edict screen, referred to as such in the Max Edicts changes from civics and the like, and the Empire Sprawl UI information could differentiate them; e.g. instead of just stating a single Edict cost when there is a penalty, and "While Empire Sprawl is lower than Admin Capacity, no penalty is applied", it could say something like

Empire Sprawl applies a +x% increase to Directive cost; while Empire Sprawl is lower than Admin Capacity, no other penalty is applied.

Empire Sprawl applies a +x% increase to Directive cost and <insert other penalties here>.

to that portion of the UI.

Pop Growth is problematic, so we have made some changes in the upcoming patch that will reduce Pop Growth from different sources across the board (more on that later).

How are you avoiding them turning into the equivalent of gene clinics, the pop growth booster that is ignored because it's not good enough, even as pop growth is king.

Food Policies are no more, and the popular Nutritional Plenitude is now a toggled Edict instead.

So the Food Policy was a replacement for the original use of excess food (increasing pop growth), and then Nutritional Plenitude was added as a food sink now that there was no real benefits to too much food. Are you coming up with a new food sink or benefit to excess food, now that the previous ones have been removed again?

 

[Guilliman88]

@Guilliman88 All icons in the game exist as a graphical file that can be replaced by a mod, so yes, it should be moddable.

Replaced yes, but can there be more? Some ui things are very hardcoded. For some icons replacing is easy, adding more impossible (eg, map icons for one)

 

[KopiG]

WHat about the Planetary Decision Encourage Pop Growth which costs 1000 food and lasts 10 years? Its such a hassle to re-enable it on every planet. Cant it just be rolled into something? Or have the planet a bigger pop upkeep but lasts until canceled?

 

[Ridixo]

But pop growth is power in every 4x game.

Funny enough, I manage to reach the point of too much growth in a mechanist game I tried wehre I ended up making too much robots and lacked the tech for tier 2 buildings to keep up with such growth.

Yes, but what is boring is:
2.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.
2.#: Now [Ascension path] is Op because pops.

All over the forum time and time again. Pop growth has become for some people the only measure that matters on anything. Barbaric Despoilers give you pops is OP, later, Barbaric Despoilers takes too much to give you pops then is no longer OP. Biological Ascension path give you increased pop growth, then its the only worthwhile path and anything else is garbage. Synthetic Ascension path give you, now, the best pop growth, then its the only worthwhile path and anything else is garbage. Spiritualist ethics and Psionic path don't affect Pop growth? Then they are garbage

I am pretty sick that pops and the time they take to growth is the only measure of how good/bad something is. I don't even care if it's a good or bad change as long and it make that people shut-up

Pops shouldn't be the only way to power. People sometimes compare games like Stellaris and CKII and EU to map painters for that is the only thing that matter in them. But apparently for some people Stellaris is a sci-fy version of Stardew Valley. Just that instead of growing crops you grow pops, and instead of romancing Alex they take Xeno-compatibility and romance a Blorg

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

How are you communicating all this in the UI, which is already incorrect and confusing about how edicts work.

I've long given up on making sense in PDS UI and control schemes. Glad to see some still care.

 

[Me_]

I don't know this sounds pretty unnecessary to me.
What was wrong with the edit system?

Frankly, I see minimal change here. I only ever used one-two influence costing edicts anyway. The only reason is that now I will keep them forever instead of not-renewing them whenever influence becomes scarce.

I am pretty sick that pops and the time they take to growth is the only measure of how good/bad something is. I don't even care if it's a good or bad change as long and it make that people shut-up

Pops shouldn't be the only way to power. People sometimes compare games like Stellaris and CKII and EU to mapo painters for that is the only thing that matter in them. But apparently for some people Stellaris is a sci-fy version of Stardew Valley. Just that instead of growing crops you grow pops, and instead of romancing Alex they take Xeno-compatibility and romance a Blorg

Preach it! It's like in EU4 back when the way to achieve anything was to stack discipline until one had like 250%. It was boring and repetitive.

 

[Rodahtnov]

About the pop grow thing, instead of ripping pop grow out, why not instead of making pop modifiers like habitability - happiness - ethics - factions be handled by pop, be handled by planet?

A planet with 200 pops, with those 200 pops being a mix of 4 races with 8 ethics, will have 32 calc threads rather than 200

1. Human group 1 has 70% habitability and 60% happiness and is materialist, and have 30 pops
2. Human group 2 has 80% habitability and 50% happiness and is spiritualist, and have 20 pops
3. Human group 3 has 100% habitability and 55% happiness and is authoritarian, and have 40 pops
4. ...
5. Klingon group 1 has 30% habitability and 30% happiness and is shackled, has 60 pops
6. etc

Instead of every single pop having that modifier and monthly calculations, the planet make the parent calculation (influenced by the empire modifiers ) and the pops receive the child result

And there are way less planets than pops, so its compressing calculations. so no real need to GUT pop grow, but rather redirect the way pops are handled monthly, that is the direct cause of lag

I even theorise a galaxy full of exclusively gestalt empires played by humans is WAY less laggy than a galaxy full of normal empires played by humans.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

TBH I think bringing back the old "turn on for an ongoing influence cost" mechanic would have been better, especially now that I can reach +7-9 influence/month WITHOUT Will To Power.

 

[Jorlem]

Not all Edicts will use Edict Capacity, but rather only the ones that last until cancelled will. Edicts that can be toggled will have an Activation Cost and a Deactivation Cost, which is usually Influence. This means that you are paying the Influence when you are making changes, rather than paying to upkeep the Edicts you want.

Will there be a confirmation dialogue for activating and deactivating the Edicts? Misclicks on those tiny checkboxes would be rather annoying.

 

[Shadowstrike]

Perhaps controversial, but any thoughts about just removing the pop growth edict? It feels like a no-brainer to keep it on all the time.

 

[Me_]

Not all Edicts will use Edict Capacity, but rather only the ones that last until cancelled will. Edicts that can be toggled will have an Activation Cost and a Deactivation Cost, which is usually Influence. This means that you are paying the Influence when you are making changes, rather than paying to upkeep the Edicts you want.

Edicts that last until cancelled will be marked with a different icon from the edicts (and campaigns) that expire once their duration runs out.

Why would anyone ever deactivate an edict?

 

[Rodahtnov]

Why would anyone ever deactivate an edict?

Missclick or realising you picked a really weak or harming edict (not picked the naval one, that is nearly mandatory to everyone xd)

 

[Ridixo]

Why would anyone ever deactivate an edict?

Because the edict is no longer useful?
To make room for other edict?
Because they no longer have the administrative capacity to up-keep the 8 edicts at the same time without their empire collapsing in a black-hole of delayed papers and entropic bureaucracy?
All good reasons to me

 

[Pancakelord]

So the Food Policy was a replacement for the original use of excess food (increasing pop growth), and then Nutritional Plenitude was added as a food sink now that there was no real benefits to too much food. Are you coming up with a new food sink or benefit to excess food, now that the previous ones have been removed again?

That's a good point - minerals are continuously useful to both build with and turn into alloys, energy too for robots and various upkeep costs.
But for food, so long as you meet your pop's monthly needs, is totally useless.

IMO food should be perishable: take X% of your stockpile at the end of each month and delete it, then tie some technologies to this to reduce the permeability % (to puff out the society tech tree some more).
Or turn gene clinics into bio-assemblers that assemble organic pops in exchange for food (as a loose proxy for biomass/cloning paste)
And armies should be paid in food too (either both EC and food or just food/minerals for lithoids) IMO - an army marches on it's stomach, not on energy credits.

 

[3Davideo]

I'm liking it. Given all the new ways to spend influence in Federations (using favors in the GC, proposing resolutions, using envoys against diplo stances, migration treaties now costing influence, removal of xenophile diplo influence reduction...), it's nice that there's some movement on reducing the other influence costs. It might make the special edicts from anomalies (Talisa the Teller of Tall Tales, Improved Energy, etc.) less garbage!

I approve of dropping the planet food decisions. The bookkeeping was always a pain, especially once you have 10+ colonies but still only have 15k resource storage - I've been assigning years to colonies to renew their decisions, and splitting them into cohorts to keep the amount I have to have on hand at once down. It was too good a benefit to simply turn down. And it was weird how Lithoids couldn't take it, making their pop growth penalties larger than they looked at first glance - but if they completed Synthetic Ascension, they could use them again.

 

[magnum2016]

This may seem like an obvious question but will the May update ruin current save games as I am preparing to start an AAR that will take several months to complete

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

It should really scale with empire size. Something like per planet increase since it is a campaign. With capital sector giving a discount. Give it more cost for such an empire wide bonus.

The rare resource edicts currently scale to sprawl, regardless of admin cap, so edicts that cost resources and affect the empire as a whole (such as recycling initiatives) should scale with it.

 

[Methone]

especially now that I can reach +7-9 influence/month WITHOUT Will To Power.

How the hell?