Stellaris Dev Diary #246 - Announcing Overlord

[Lorenerd11]

I see it differently. It was orders of magnitudes too easy to keep an empire spanning 50% of the galaxy together. (Too easy = nothing even slightly in your way of doing it, in this case.) That needed to be fixed. And the new Empire Size mechanic is the step they took in starting to chip away at that problem. (And Wide is still waaaaaaay stronger than Tall, so calling it a "nerf" is a stretch.)

I think they wanted empire size, vassalisation and situations as stepping stones to building a coherent realm with internal politics. Before the empire size rework there wasn't even a decent lever that you could pull for internal politics.
They will probably make it really hard to keep a really large empire as a union together, but you can still try with some downsides. Having specialised vassals cuts down massively on micromanagement, makes MP more interesting for the defeated side of a war and adds a lot more realism regarding empire coherence. I do think this would add to my overall game experience.

Gestalts have no choice but to remain large empires as they expand though, since they cannot release sectors as vassals at all.

Also, we still lack proper sector customization. Why can't we manually change which planet should be part of which sector yet? It's weird that there was a perfectly functional feature for this before 2.2, but now it's just gone.

And this update better introduce automatic mining/research station construction too, seriously.

 

[SeraphAscending]

Gestalts have no choice but to remain large empires as they expand though, since they cannot release sectors as vassals at all.

Also, we still lack proper sector customization. Why can't we manually change which planet should be part of which sector yet? It's weird that there was a perfectly functional feature for this before 2.2, but now it's just gone.

And this update better introduce automatic mining/research station construction too, seriously.

Gestalts do have the option of subjugating others instead of conquering and purging/enslaving the locals.
This is what this is about.

Also, there have been a few comments theorizing that there might be options to split off sub-minds from the core, which would essentially be like releasing vassals.

Sector customisation and automatic building of stations would be very welcomed, I agree, but neither has any bearing on the validity of this DLC concept.
This DLC might be why they spent less time tinkering with sectors and sector automation. If your empire gets too large, you might benefit from removing areas as vassals instead of fiddling around with sectors and trying to get the automation to work just the right way. It also makes the AI economy improvements very important and explains why they wanted to put that on a higher priority than sector AI.

 

[Yurichenko]

I would like to remind everyone of this little detail.

 

[Yurichenko]

I would like to remind everyone of this little detail.
View attachment 819797View attachment 819796

Where the hell is this thing headed? It's definitely not an L-Gate. Are we going into the galaxy (core) or out (new galaxies)?

The fact that the fleet takes the Juggernaut in the video means it's probably a long trip, but the fact that they show us a small group of elite ships (2 corvettes, 2 Destroyers, 2 cruisers, 2 Battleship, 1 Titan, The Juggernaut) instead of a large fleet makes me think it's more of a scouting mission to somewhere far away.
Also, this image again makes me think that they are plotting a course to somewhere through that big thing.

 

[xeleth12]

Hmm, just a thought but maybe... you're pushing extensions and new content a bit too fast along huge reworks of large parts of the game?
Also, with Federation, then Nemesis, and now this? I don't know, I feel like again many parts of it should be in the base game and those additional contents are DLCs kinda for the sake of it. (Nemesis was bareboned to say the least and let's all remind ourselves of the Espionnage, without going into needless details onto this one).
I guess we will see what is in the free update and what is behind a paywall but I just hope it doesn't go the Nemesis path (which I still have a lot to say about but let's not) and the deeper interactions with vassals wont be behind a paywall, diplomacy and internal works of your empire are, should be, important parts of the game and not completely blocked behind a DLCs which, without it, is bareboned and thus just a DLC for the sake of it/cash grab. (Federations had some of this going on, which was bad enough but the Espionnage one was simply obscene, sorry to say.)
Also the trend of "massive reworks of large parts of the game", barely implimented then suddenly goes another one along a new expansion/lots of new features/new mechanics/etc, then a massive rework again sometimes due to correct all the problems, and the circle goes on... This has been a problem with Stellaris for a while now (take some bugs still in the game for years now despite the community fixing them ages ago; or for example (for many) the performances)... it's not helping.
Chill out, take a breath, stare less at the consumer's pockets and take better care of your game before always revamping large portions of it while always pushing expansions with lots of new mechanics/features that interact with it all.
Please.
Other than all this negativity this does seem like very neat for an expansion. We shall see.
Sorry for the negative rent, hope it wont be like kicking the ants nest.

 

[Gurluas]

Here's hoping it expands a bit on the Scion origin as well since in that origin we're the vassals of an FE! ^^

 

[NilsFabian]

I sincerely hope that's a joke or you're in for a massive disappointment.

Not a joke. More of a hope.
Stellaris has a history of announcing and releasing quickly.

Take Nemesis for example. It was a big one, announced March 13th '21 and released one month later April 15th '21.
So an April release is not totally out of the ordinary

 

[Calvax]

Interesting update! I hope that some of the features will be integrated with systems we already have.

The Hegemony federation always felt a bit weird, since it's like vassals with extra steps. And Federations in general would benefit from a "nominate role" system.

Perhaps the galactic council could have something similar. The GC seems inspired by Mass Effect, where three of the Citadel races were elevated among the rest. The three races split responsibilities, with each specializing in defense, diplomacy, or technology.

 

[Lorenerd11]

I would like to remind everyone of this little detail.

I think that possibly refers to a player Crisis, same for the Contingency's reference to a "class-30 singularity".

There's an event where the galaxy the Prethoryn came from vanishes into nothingness, similar to what happens when you activate the Aetherophasic Engine.

It was actually extremely disappointing that the endgame Crisises don't have any unique dialogue with the player Crisis, since they all seem like they'd have something to say about the player Crisis's aspirations.

There should've also been unique gameplay interactions, like the Contingency focusing the player Crisis (since the construction of the Aetherophasic Engine is what the Contingency was presumably created to prevent).

And the Prethoryn should be fearful of the weapon the player Crisis is constructing. Depending on how strong the player Crisis is, it should focus the player Crisis (especially if it's weakened and vulnerable enough for the Swarm to overwhelm), in desperation to shut it down.

 

[Maethendias]

as a robot player i have to ask... is it "one origin for hives" or "one for each type of gestalt"?

cause... again, again and again, machines lack mechanics (ironic how that sounds, i know)

 

[Lord Hoosier]

This seems cool, but I'm surprised we are getting another control focused dlc so soon after Nemesis

 

[Lorenerd11]

This seems cool, but I'm surprised we are getting another control focused dlc so soon after Nemesis

Yeah, the theme of Overlord does seem to step on the toes of Nemesis and Federations a bit.

 

[SeraphAscending]

Yeah, the theme of Overlord does seem to step on the toes of Nemesis and Federations a bit.

I think it's the other way around. All three of them together are way too large for one expansion and they tried to split it as reasonable as possible.
They all share the very common theme of interacting with external entities in new ways. (diplomacy with the GC and your allies, espionage and suppression of others, and now subjugating others and taking charge over them)
They probably couldn't sell this to the publisher as "yeah, we're gonna do a three-in-one mega expansion, have a super long waiting time between releases and will have trouble pricing it for the price of three."
From a business standpoint that is reasonable, even if we probably all agree that the lines between the DLCs seem kind of arbitrary.

It was actually extremely disappointing that the endgame Crisises don't have any unique dialogue with the player Crisis, since they all seem like they'd have something to say about the player Crisis's aspirations.

There should've also been unique gameplay interactions, like the Contingency focusing the player Crisis (since the construction of the Aetherophasic Engine is what the Contingency was presumably created to prevent).

And the Prethoryn, depending on how strong the player Crisis is, should be fearful of the weapon the player Crisis is constructing, either focusing the player Crisis (especially if it's weak) in desperation to shut it down.

I really agree with you on this one. There is this very strong hint of connection, but it isn't used when it would be most relevant.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I think that possibly refers to a player Crisis, same for the Contingency's reference to a "class-30 singularity".

There's an event where the galaxy the Prethoryn came from vanishes into nothingness, similar to what happens when you activate the Aetherophasic Engine.

It was actually extremely disappointing that the endgame Crisises don't have any unique dialogue with the player Crisis, since they all seem like they'd have something to say about the player Crisis's aspirations.

There should've also been unique gameplay interactions, like the Contingency focusing the player Crisis (since the construction of the Aetherophasic Engine is what the Contingency was presumably created to prevent).

And the Prethoryn, depending on how strong the player Crisis is, should be fearful of the weapon the player Crisis is constructing, either focusing the player Crisis (especially if it's weak) in desperation to shut it down.

idk why people keep assuming the Player Crisis is what all the Crisis's are about. The devs didn't even have the concept for the player Crisis when they originally made the Scourge. Again, the galaxy vanishing was given two possibilities, and just because you all keep ignoring the other one does not make it less valid.

 

[J Farrell]

I have personally felt that Stellaris expansions have consistently been underwhelming for the $20 they inevitably cost. At first blush, this is perhaps the worst one yet. No major systems or mechanics introduced. A handful of new megastructures and new origins (compared to past expansions in which megastructures and origins were added in the first place). Trust me, I don't like being continually disappointed and I'm usually an easy mark to buy expansions for strategy games I enjoy, but this seems super blah to me.

 

[Serenity84]

The GC seems inspired by Mass Effect, where three of the Citadel races were elevated among the rest.

That's how the United Nations is set up and the GC was always called "Space UN"

 

[Lorenerd11]

They probably couldn't sell this to the publisher as "yeah, we're gonna do a three-in-one mega expansion, have a super long waiting time between releases and will have trouble pricing it for the price of three."

Sure, but it still kinda feels like it would've made more sense for origins like Life-Seeded or Shattered Ring to have been part of Utopia instead. Or Doomsday and Void Dweller to have been part of Apocalypse. Or for Interstellar Assembly to be unlocked by Federations. You get the idea.

 

[evilcat]

Community wanted DLC related to vassalization, and they got one. I really like what i am seeing.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Again, the galaxy vanishing was given two possibilities, and just because you all keep ignoring the other one does not make it less valid.

It was? What's the other one?

 

[Tim_Ward]

Is office politics is so bad at Paradox that the Stellaris team is now stealing expansion names from the HoI4 team? What's next, Stellaris: Barbarossa?