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Stellaris Dev Diary #22 - Alliances and Federations

Greetings fellow gamers!

The topic for today is “Alliances and Federations”. Now, we have modelled alliances quite differently in most of our games. In Crusader Kings II, for example, alliances are bilateral, and allies are (since the last patch) automatically dragged into wars with no option of opting out and breaking the alliance. In Europa Universalis IV, alliances are also bilateral, but you can decline a “Call to Arms” at the cost of Prestige. In Stellaris, alliances are multilateral (they can have any number of members, not just two), and are thus more like NATO and less like the complex web of mutual agreements that existed at the outbreak of the Great War. This means that members of an alliance need a greater say in matters that concern the entire alliance, notable declarations of war (and some things are simply not allowed if you are an alliance member, such as guarantees of independence.)

If I am a member of an alliance in Stellaris and I want to declare a war, all the other members of the alliance need to approve. This ties back to what I talked about in the dev diary two weeks ago; if the goals I declare with the war are only beneficial to myself, my allies are of course less likely to approve. Therefore, I will likely have to dicker with the war goals in order to satisfy all of my allies (depending on their opinions and strategic concerns, naturally.) Of course, members can always just leave an alliance (while at peace) if it won’t permit them to achieve their goals.

stellaris_dev_diary_22_01_20160222_allience_opinion_of_war.jpg


If an alliance works well, however, the members can instead choose to deepen their cooperation and form a Federation. There are pros and cons to this choice. Alliances can be paralyzed by vetoes from the member states, but a Federation is governed by a single President who has the power to act with impunity. On the other hand, the presidency rotates between the member states, so for long periods members will have little control over their foreign policy. Federation members also share victory, which might be a problem for certain types of players…

Another interesting feature of Federations is that they have a special joint space navy in addition to the forces of the separate member empires. The Federation president gets to design these ship templates using all the best technologies of all the member empires. The president also gets to control these fleets, of course. As a rule of thumb, several fairly equally matched empires might want to form a Federation, especially in the face of aggressive, significantly larger neighbors, but it might not be the best idea for empires who are dominant in their own right. Of course, there is also an element of role-playing to the choice…

stellaris_dev_diary_22_02_20160222_federation.jpg


That’s all for now. Next week’s topic is Multiplayer!
 
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Ancient Warrior said:
This. A true Federation would allow its various political entities to leave if they choose, otherwise it's just a nation state. Not one of the original colonies would have ever ratified the constitution if they thought they would never be allowed to leave. But as that generation died off, the idea of union began to be replaced by nation and eventually the States lost their right to leave. There is a reason the colonies choose to call themselves States and not provinces. Because a state is a nation, especially the 18th century definition of the word and a true state does not cede authority over it unless it voluntarily chooses to do so. When it does voluntarily choose to do so it assumes it retains the right to take it back should the federal government become a detriment to it's own interest. The federal government may still be called "federal" but that is just a hold over from history.
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That would be a confederation. A federation is going a step further. But a federated state is still ways off a centralised state (which TheDungen calls nationstate, as if ethnicity had anything to do with it.). The constituent states of a federated state are not sovereign anymore and can not just leave. But they enjoy quite a bit more autonomy than the provinces/departments of a centralised state like France.
The United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, India, Brazil and Mexico are all examples of federations. And so was the Holy Roman Empire. The degree of centralisation differs widely, however.

Anyway, great Devdiary!
I'm not sure, if it is a good idea to force agreement of alliance members for all wars. I'd really like to do some unilateral expansion without calling in everyone from time to time. Real alliances often were only for defensive purposes, after all.
 
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brifbates said:
The part where your allies are free to not defend you when the guy you beat up on comes back with friends?
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If you have an ally that is making a lot of enemies, then you would have to weigh if it is in your interest to maintain the alliance, right? This is part of the diplomacy of a strategy game. My main point is that options should be provided, not limited. Your approach, in my opinion, is limiting to the player.
 
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ikki said:
Or maybe the captains sworn to the higher ideals of the federation just fly off to find worthier people to serve if it all falls apart.
Which could be an interesting event for a somewhat newly formed federation. A fleet of somewhat badly hammered ancient starships come out of warp, they claim to have been roaming the stars for millennia since the federation they served fell apart in civil disputes and are looking to serve you.
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You mean "he is the last guardian of a fallen civilisation, yada yada yada on the starship andromeda hope lives again."
Jokes aside I love that idea.

Arkangilos said:
Eh, I'm in favor of the "leader" of the federation declaring war without the consent of everyone else. After all, when congress declares war (or whatever legislative power of the federations in question), the state Governors don't have a say. Congress may be composed of representatives of each state, but that doesn't mean the state exactly controls them.
I think a good expansion would be fleshing it out so you could choose or your people could elect a representative to the federation "council" and that they would either vote for or against what the president chooses based on their ethics. You don't get to tell them how to vote, but you can choose them based on things that make them likely to vote certain ways.
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The US isn't a federation any more though. The executive power of the central government has been constantly growing since the foundation of the US.

Arkangilos said:
Oh yeah? What definition says this?
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How about every federation before the US?

Arkangilos said:
And you know George Washington personally led an army to put down a rebellion that started over taxes right? I get the feeling that if a state would have seceded, he would have led an army to stop that, too.
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He also had Alexander Hamilton as his vice president, the man who though the these united states ought to have a king. Washington was a federalist (or rather he was a figurehead for the federalist Hamilton). But most of the founding fathers were more like jeffersson, they wanted a loose federation.

Chieron said:
That would be a confederation. A federation is going a step further. But a federated state is still ways off a centralised state (which TheDungen calls nationstate, as if ethnicity had anything to do with it.). The constituent states of a federated state are not sovereign anymore and can not just leave. But they enjoy quite a bit more autonomy than the provinces/departments of a centralised state like France.
The United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, India, Brazil and Mexico are all examples of federations. And so was the Holy Roman Empire. The degree of centralisation differs widely, however.
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Actually I pointed out that nationstate didn't work for the US. Hence that I chose to use the word federal state.
And I disagree that those nations are federations, federations are usually a lot less centralised than that. Now that the EU debate is raging it's often said that the EU sceptics want the union to remain a loose federation (or abolish it alltogheter) while the federalists want it to become a centralised state.

Paradox use the term federation correctly in this game.
 
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helicopterpizza said:
If you have an ally that is making a lot of enemies, then you would have to weigh if it is in your interest to maintain the alliance, right? This is part of the diplomacy of a strategy game. My main point is that options should be provided, not limited. Your approach, in my opinion, is limiting to the player.
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It's not my approach, it's the approach the devs are taking-allies automatically defend each other. As long as that is the case it makes perfect sense that allies also have a say in offensive action that is being considered as the consequences will fall on them as well. There are pros and cons to this system but I do think it makes the decision to ally with nations much more interesting than "ally for the meat shield then bail when it's most convenient for me" which is pretty much the EU IV system.
 
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I'll try again: Just because the US has a stronger federal government now than before, does not mean that the powers extended to the states has degenerated to a degree where it is no longer a federation. A federation does not have a hard worldwide definition, but if it did, it certainly wouldn't be "what some revolutionary American statesmen thought up and wanted in the 1700's".

In respect to global comparison, the US is a federation, and so are a large number of other countries as previously spoken about. Just because you choose to define a federal state according to your own or some non-widely held standard, does not make it so. It is a federation, because not only does it call itself such, but it isn't disputed by the majority of the world (unlike certain "people's democratic" whatever).
 
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Arkangilos said:
Yes it is. Just read te constition (it's only 8 pages) and read each state's separate constition.

The fact that in one state you can smoke dope and in the others you can't, that in one state you can buy alcohol on Sunday and in another you can't, is proof that the states have far more autonomy than a unitary state. The federal government has *very specific* powers, and the state's *have all of the other powers*. In a unitary state, the government has almost all of the power, and allows autonomy.

For example, when congress tried passing the Affordable Care Act under the commerce clause it was originally rejected by the Supreme Court, saying that the federal government did not have the power to do so (I mention that because state governments force auto insurance, the state government *does* have the power to force an insurance, not the federal government). However, they do have the power to tax in order to provide for the common good, and so it was allowed *as a tax*.

The state governments could then *refuse* to comply. The only thing that would happen is that the federal government would not fund the state.

In France, if the government were to say it did not to have the power to force an insurance, would the provinces be able to?

Another important thing is that our governors do not work for the federal government, and they do not answer to the president. It takes some serious stuff to override the state, and the federal government can only do it when the state conflicts with the constition directly. The constition can only be changed by the ratification of it in 38 states.
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No one dienies that the US used to be a federation, but that has changed over the years. Today we have presidents declaring was more or less as they please.
 
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brifbates said:
It's not my approach, it's the approach the devs are taking-allies automatically defend each other. As long as that is the case it makes perfect sense that allies also have a say in offensive action that is being considered as the consequences will fall on them as well. There are pros and cons to this system but I do think it makes the decision to ally with nations much more interesting than "ally for the meat shield then bail when it's most convenient for me" which is pretty much the EU IV system.
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The approach that you are arguing for (the one presented in this dev diary) is limiting to the player in that players are no longer allowed to create conflicts without consent of the majority of allied partners. Others here have expressed their reservations to this as well. I appreciate you taking the time to present why you are for it, and I understand your reasoning, but I and others "respectfully disagree" with the direction. This dev diary has presented a move in a direction that limits rather than frees up players (at least until alliances, and especially federations, are fleshed out into a finished feature in DLC), so I am just adding my voice to those who have reservations. Thanks!
 
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Yenzen said:
I'll try again: Just because the US has a stronger federal government now than before, does not mean that the powers extended to the states has degenerated to a degree where it is no longer a federation. A federation does not have a hard worldwide definition, but if it did, it certainly wouldn't be "what some revolutionary American statesmen thought up and wanted in the 1700's".

In respect to global comparison, the US is a federation, and so are a large number of other countries as previously spoken about. Just because you choose to define a federal state according to your own or some non-widely held standard, does not make it so. It is a federation, because not only does it call itself such, but it isn't disputed by the majority of the world (unlike certain "people's democratic" whatever).
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Neither would it be the unites states, I mean just look at what I wrote the united states, the founding fatherused to write these united states. We say the united states is not that they are.
But quite frankly I linked to a very nice documentary series a few posts back that will make this point a lot better thna I can (or rather am willing to derail the thread with).
 
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Every DD shot seems to take place within 5 years of game start (2200). I think most of them are simulated situations from the start of the session to demonstrate features, just guessing though.
 
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Interesting take on alliances and federations. I'm unsure how I feel about the new commitment-heavy alliance system but it could work well. I am a bit baffled however by the absolute powers of the federation president. I would have expected that at least a majority of members would have to approve any war of aggression (like councillors in Conclave). So more efficient than the unanimity required for an alliance, but still needing to give war goals to at least some other members.

Like many others here, questions:
1) I suppose federal ships's upkeeps are paid by everyone, but how are they built?
2) Can a federation ally to individual empires?
3) Can those join the federation later on? In other words, can federations grow by accepting new members and how?
 
Cheers for the DD Doomdark :). System sounds good and a bit different for PDS games, am interested in seeing how it works in practice.
 
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KaiserDeathIV said:
Next week is about multiplayer?

Oh RNGesus, our god and saviour, pls dont let the Stellaris multiplayer have any Out of Sync errors.
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This would be my biggest request for MP. Seriously, I can't play an EU4 MP game with friends without going out of sync ever hour or so. And each out of sync requires a restart of the entire app...
 
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What I'm really hoping for is the ability to form policy that affects the entire federation. For example, is secession allowed (without war)? How much resources should member states dedicate to the federation? Policy on slavery, wars and human (or in this case sentient) rights?

Is it possible to restrict membership in these political unions to certain government types, like how the EU is democracy-only?

It's just an interesting concept I would like to see more of.
 
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chrisjwmartin said:
Also I think that not even giving us the option to break our word and not help our ally - at a huge diplomatic cost, of course - is a bad thing. I didn't realise that CKII has now had such a silly rule introduced. It seems like a backwards step.
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Quite a few CK2 players agree with you about that.
 
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Latheloi said:
Will there only the be the option of rotating presidencies, or are other more interactive systems of selecting the next presidents in federations possible?
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Like what - Cage match? Amazing race? Survivor?

helicopterpizza said:
If you have an ally that is making a lot of enemies, then you would have to weigh if it is in your interest to maintain the alliance, right? This is part of the diplomacy of a strategy game.
Click to expand...

They are doing so up front and telling you if you want to go declaring war on your own and make lots of enemies, leave the alliance first, because it's not in their interest to maintain an alliance with you. This approach probably makes it a heck of a lot easier for the AI to deal player diplomacy. Would you be happier if the alliance members simply kicked you out if you declared war unilaterally, rather than forcing you to proactively leave the alliance?
 
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