Stellaris Dev Diary #22 - Alliances and Federations

[brifbates]

My only true concerns are about the absolute powers of federation presidents.

Well, this is easily enough dealt with by not joining a federation if you decide their powers are too excessive. I'll probably give a federation a try in a test game to see how the ai handles it and how extreme the powers are.

 

[ashbery76]

The minute you add ways for the human player to manipulate this system to become President every time it just becomes are way to exploit the game and become overpowered.

 

[Tiaexz]

Being honest, I sometimes liked 'taking a back seat' in CK2, however, with the new Alliances/Federations, it seems that type of gameplay can be improved.

 

[Baron Tanks]

I had a bit of an epiphany while reading this, @Doomdark, I've been enjoying reading most of the dev diaries and the screenshots really stand out. This is definitely the next generation of Paradox games when it comes to visual design. This leads me to the following:

Please integrate (if you haven't already) a button/menu option, or preferably a keybind, that allows you to hide your UI and all kinds of labelling/mouseover elements (even better if we can remove them one by one, but I'll be more than happy to settle for hide/unhide everything), to allow us to take the most gorgeous and unaltered screenshots. This game, more than any other, really warrants the kind of postcard pictures that the art design allows for, I'm absolutely loving it.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

@Doomdark I must have missed it but which FTL method does a Federation get to use?

edit - For example, I assume the various fleets from the member states keep their original FTL type, but I wonder how does the Federation fleet get around? If you can use more than one FTL type, the Federation fleet would be able to reach the entire Federation.

If you were limited to star lanes, your fleet couldn't defend your warp member stars since some of those stars are almost certainly unattached to the star lanes. Just wondering about the pros and cons.

 

[Yenzen]

@Doomdark I must have missed it but which FTL method does a Federation get to use? For example, do the various fleets from the member states keep their original FTL type, or does the FTL method rotate with the leadership?

All "national" fleet keep theirs. Federation president can make an extra federal fleet which passes with the presidency, this fleet can integrate all the tech of the individual members.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

All "national" fleet keep theirs. Federation president can make an extra federal fleet which passes with the presidency, this fleet can integrate all the tech of the individual members.

That sounds reasonable, but the method of travel dev diary from last year claims "a ship can not use or mix several FTL types at the same time", so I was curious whether the federal fleet would need to be rebuilt whenever you want to switch types, or if it is the exception where you can just build two or all three methods into the Federal fleet ships (probably taking up extra ship space for each engine installed).

(edit - Sending wormhole ships through a hyperlane, then spreading out from each node with a warp ship... this could cover more real estate for everyone, and be a nice benefit of joining a federation.)

edit 2 - I noticed the actual quote wasn't what I quoted. If I'm going to use quotation marks, better to use the real quote right?

 

[moglus]

That sounds reasonable, but the method of travel dev diary from last year claims "a ship can not use or mix several FTL types at the same time", so I was curious whether the federal fleet would need to be rebuilt whenever you want to switch types, or if it is the exception where you can just build two or all three methods into the Federal fleet ships (probably taking up extra ship space for each engine installed).

(edit - Sending wormhole ships through a hyperlane, then spreading out from each node with a warp ship... this could cover more real estate for everyone, and be a nice benefit of joining a federation.)

edit 2 - I noticed the actual quote wasn't what I quoted. If I'm going to use quotation marks, better to use the real quote right?

A dev said that "a fleet can only have one FTL type" (paraphrasing a little) so as the president you can use what ever tech that you and the other members have to build the federation fleets, but a single fleet cannot have ships with both hyperlane FTL and warpdrive FTL, as an example.

 

[Assalander]

Well, this is easily enough dealt with by not joining a federation if you decide their powers are too excessive. I'll probably give a federation a try in a test game to see how the ai handles it and how extreme the powers are.

Well I wasn't saying that in a "I don't want the AI to control my external politics" kind of way. I rather think that it would be more intersting for the functionning of federations (whether I'm in it or not) if the president had to care about the other members. Like needing a majority to go to war (that would still allow easier warring than the required unanimity of alliances). Like others, my concern here is that every president will only pursue the goals of his own nation. It is ok that it happens some times, but there should be mechanisms or incentives so that it does not happen all the time (which is boring).

 

[Fenrirwolf]

Iparticularly if my wars are continually vetoed by one annoying little alliance-member with a grudge against me.

Why the fuck would you be in an alliance with someone who has a grudge against you? do you not see how easily exploitable this would be? or do you want an easily exploitable system?

 

[Koopatin]

Maybe the grudge comes later? Maybe if the alliance member is my neighbour and has no place to expand any more or something? Actually it may be fun to struggle with other alliance members to kick a member out while he does the same. In such a case it would be fun if the Alliance would break into two Alliances, a few members on my side, a few on their side. Or the Alliance just could kick out both of us.

 

[gibbonofdoom]

All aboard the space-hype-train! Engage!

 

[dsteve3]

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.

... like Supreme Court Justices?

 

[Yenzen]

President can't even appoint one with almost a year to spare...

 

[Sellt]

No one's claiming that it's morally right or that the US is a paragon of virtue when it comes to international affairs. But given that attacking without allies' support does happen - whether you think that's moral or not - it is unrealistic for the game to prohibit it.

No idea if this got addressed in the last 6 pages. But why is it unrealistic? Why would you else need an alliance in this game? In reality alliances work in much broader aspects that are not in the game. So making references to reality doesn't help you much here.

Alliances are there to work together. If you don't want to work together then don't make an alliance. Pretty simple. If you just want to use the other nations as defense shields then you would be exploiting the game.

 

[Sellt]

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!

If you want to declare wars as you please... then do it. the game doesn't restrict you there. it just says you can't have everything. You need to choose. Either risk go it alone but have more options or take the safer way (alliance) and need approval from the others for decisions. Again. Why do you want to start an alliance in this game? (your answer will provide further proof for my point of view)

 

[wickermoon]

Concernig Alliances and their Parliaments:

Do bigger alliance members have a heavier vote in the parliament or any other advantages? I can understand why smaller nations would want to join, but bigger nations get less and less of an incentive to stay in an alliance, imho, the longer the game drags on. Take a look at the NATO, for example, where GB, USA, etc. have several benefits smaller nations like Greece or Lithuania do not have.

 

[Safehold]

The reason why the US can wage independent wars outside of NATO is because the US provides the super majority of the logistics, transport, strategic weapons, and force projection for the alliance itself, both offensive and defensive units and weapons. Europe is less of an ally and more like a protectorate, weaker than Japan or Israel. The protectorate doesn't want their protector's military force squandered in foreign countries, they want it at home, defending them, as the US bases in Germany remains to this day for that purpose.

Not even the British or the Russians can transport a significant number of troops to Kuwait without the approval and use of US logistics ships due to the naval advantage.

There was a summation quote some time ago, that the US Navy's strength is equal/greater to the next 7 strongest navies in the world, combined. Though that will change in time due to China and Japan.

Now that raises a different issue for in game alliances, since usually someone with 75% or a majority of the military power in the galaxy wouldn't need an alliance, just a non aggression pact as they take over individual territory piecemeal, similar to Hitler vs Poland and Hitler over Rhineland.

In a military alliance, a faction's say rests upon their personal military forces and what they offer to the table. The other sides in this "multilateral" alliance isn't necessarily all that multilateral in the EU or UN sense. In order to prevent their strong ally and protector from walking away from the alliance, they tend to give concessions, in return for a lot more than they could get while going alone. The UN's veto is due to the world's desire to keep the former superpowers from each other's nuclear throats, that's why they made it so that enemies could veto each other, rather than wage war over it. It was designed to produce gridlock, not alliances.

An alliance between near equals would be about the only alliance where a veto might come into play. A veto implies that there's some ultimate benefit to not leaving the alliance for those involved, or the threat of the group ganging up on the one who left. There's some kind of coercion or threat behind the veto, since obviously anyone can leave the organization if they don't abide by the single party veto.

In a defensive alliance, the priority is always on protecting the members from foreign invasion. Not on offensive wars. In that sense, NATO would apply even though the Warsaw pact it was designed to defend against no longer exists, which causes most of the members to have lost almost all of their offensive force projection powers; it raises doubt on why the alliance even exists, what purpose does it have, except making Western Europe into a permanent protectorate of the US. Having a veto on when they should defend a member state, would produce a lot of gridlock and often times invalidate the purpose of the alliance itself.

An alliance between China, Japan, Russia, and the US would be one of "near equals". A veto in that alliance would be something the members would require before joining. As they would not want their foreign policy controlled by any single or even majority of member states.

Given the design decisions in latest CK2 version concerning alliances pulling the members into a war automatically, they seem to want to spread that to Stellaris as well, because the new mechanic is something they have faith in. Whether that fits within the context of the gameplay, remains to be seen.

To illustrate France's situation, France has the Foreign Legion in North Africa and in other parts of their (former) colonies doing... something. The US did not attempt to veto that. Of course, NATO has historically seen France doing whatever it pleases. So they were always an outlier.

 

[inspiratieloos]

The minute you add ways for the human player to manipulate this system to become President every time it just becomes are way to exploit the game and become overpowered.

Not necessarily, just use the EU4 HRE system with all the factions in the federation being an elector, but with an increasingly negative modifiers for long reign instead of a positive modifier.
For example:
'has been president in the last N terms' -10
'has been president twice in the last N terms' -100
'has been president three times in the last N terms' -1000 (or whatever the 'ha ha, no' value is in Stellaris)
Where N is the number of factions in the federation.

That way being powerful and well liked enough to overcome the -100 modifier gives a single nation control 3/N+1 of the time, making it interesting for powerful nations due to having a larger degree of control while weaker nations still get to hold the presidency a significant amount of the time, especially in larger federations.

 

[aitaituo]

The reason why the US can wage independent wars outside of NATO is because the US provides the super majority of the logistics, transport, strategic weapons, and force projection for the alliance itself, both offensive and defensive units and weapons. Europe is less of an ally and more like a protectorate, weaker than Japan or Israel.

Uh, what? I mean, the non-US NATO members represent significantly larger military forces than Japan or Israel. They are not the Federated States of Micronesia. The Israel example is a bit perplexing, since a few years back Netanyahu was saber rattling with threats to unilaterally bomb Iran if the US wouldn't agree to bomb Iran with him, but it never happened in part because, as critics immediately pointed out to Netanyahu, Israel would have required US mid-air refueling to even reach Iran.

The Japan example is also fairly perplexing, since the argument that Japan has been a de facto US protectorate since WWII is the more typical one, given that the US occupied Japanese territory for decades and also because the UK and France both spend significantly more on their military than Japan and Germany spends close to the same amount while not having much of a navy.

I am unaware of any provision of the NAT that prevents NATO members from waging offensive wars without NATO.