Stellaris Dev Diary #247 - New Ways to Rule

[Alfray Stryke]

1. "Protectorates gain a massive bonus to research", "but is receiving a research subsidy equal to 15% of the subject’s research from the overlord."
If your subject type is not a protectorate, you lose -X research and your vassal gains +X research without any modifiers, right? Or is there some kind of modifiers that is boosted by a number of technologies you're ahead of? Like research agreement.

Protectorates get an inherent bonus (regardless of Terms) of -80% to tech cost for any technology that their Overlord has researched - this hasn't been changed from 3.3

 

[Eladrin]

what about the "vassals don't get the AI difficulty bonuses" topic?

AI empires that are player vassals will get a portion of the AI difficulty bonuses.

do you think you could add the ability for us to build habitants and gateways in our vassals space?

Yes in the case of Gateways and [REDACTED].

It was always a bit annoying that as a megacorp for example, your created vassals were megacorps, too.

Released vassals have been Merchant Guild Oligarchies since 3.1. Cepheus will apply that change to Liberation Wars as well.

Are subjects forced to work the jobs provided with the overlord buildings? Can a player just disable the propaganda jobs?

Depends on the holding and the job. Propagandists cannot be disabled.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

How are those jobs gonna be treated? It would be a shame if they could yust be deprioritised...

Depending on the holding and the jobs added, this might not be possible.

 

[Eladrin]

could I make my own versions of these resource categories?

Yes.

Spoiler: Bit of script about how these look

resource_subsidies_advanced = {
    term = resource_subsidies

    resources = {
        alloys
        consumer_goods
    }
...

Can a subject pledge secret loyalty to another subject?

No, it requires recipient independence. Both subjects could swear fealty to the same independent empire though.

What happens if I release a sector as a vassal?

You release them using the Vassal (or Subsidiary) preset, but without a cooldown to renegotiate the terms.

Could I mod in a new row "Federal Holdings"

Not at this time, but I'm pretty sure some of the modders will find a way to do something similar.

Are subjects/clients blocked from switching off Holdings jobs [a la criminal jobs]?

Depends on the job and the holding. If the holding is giving you, say, Manager jobs, those are normal. If they're giving you unique overlord specific jobs, then you cannot deprioritize them.

How is integration changed now - if at all?

No major changes to integration, other than not being enabled by default. I believe that the AI will never use it on a player unless you opt into it by turning it on in negotiations with your AI overlord.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

The "Holdings" tab appears to replace the "Corporate" tab. If someone used a Megacorp civic like "Franchising", how would the "Holdings" tab interact with the "Corporate" tab? Would one replace the other?

You can build both Branch Offices (if the subject is a non-corporate, non-gestalt empire) and Overlord Holdings on your subjects' planets!

In fact, the Franchise HQ holding requires that you have a branch office open on the planet.

 

[Sharde]

Do we will get more way to make a vassal without war ? for example with a special espionage operation or to force them with diplomacy and using due favor or just buy them as a megacorp ?

With the right factors and terms, it is entirely possible to subjugate peacefully using negotiations.

 

[Sharde]

Are branch offices and holdings now going to be mutually exclusive, unless the overlord is a corporate empire? Or can both exist on the same world, regardless of who the overlord is?

I might have missed it, but is building subsidiary branch offices exclusive to the corporate overlord or is it /could it be a contract option from “no branch office rights” to “branch office rights” to “exclusive branch office rights”?

It's possible for both branch office buildings and overlord holdings to be built on the same planet, even if the megacorp and overlord are different empires.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Then I'll just have to mod them into one.

The groundwork for gaia seeding other empire's planets seems like a sufficient foundation -- fingers crossed!

Modding in a corporate variant of Idyllic Bloom should only be a couple of lines of script.

 

[Eladrin]

I admit, I was skepitcal. This however, is everything I had hoped we'd see out of vassals

I hope not, I have more dev diaries to write!

We haven't even gotten into the Specialists.

 

[Sharde]

How would this work with human players? If I'm a human player am I able to reject any contract or is it controlled by loyalty?

Agreement proposals and rejecting changes to existing Agreements both require Influence.
You can reject incoming changes to existing Agreements as long as you can afford it. Rejecting new proposals are free.

 

[Offe]

@Offe is quickly becoming Paradox's totally human Kilroy

View attachment 822251

Memes are good but...

 

[Alfray Stryke]

How many building slots are allowed? Do they scale with population size?

The total number of holdings across all colonies of a subject is governed by the relevant agreement term, not their population.

Please feel free to steal my thunder and put this in the base game.

We like to have some differences between the empire types instead of them being homogenised.

This looks awesome. Will it fix the issue where status quo peace in a subjugation war creates new megacorps instead of oligarchies? Right now it is a big disincentive to try to subjugate as a 'corp. Also: will there be new spy operations for dealing with your subjects/rivals' subjects?

Subjugation wars, you say? Not Liberation wars (which should be fixed in 3.4) - if so I'll add to my list of issues to fix.

Just a thought regarding the Gaia Seeders Overlord building. It only works on regular planets, correct? No turning Hive/Machine/Relic/Ecumonopolis into Gaia?

The current Gaia Seeder buildings have restrictions that prevent you from accidently Gaiafying a special world, but the Overlord building seems to have looser requirements.

The Gaiaseeder holding is subject to the same restrictions that the building is, but in 3.4 those restrictions have been relaxed. See this DD for more info!
EDIT: Since that DD went live, we've also made it so that empires with the Idyllic Bloom civic start with a phase 1 Gaiaseeder building present on their capital.

Memes are good but...

They could be even better?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

this feature is a must have for overlord. Splitting off sectors right now is basically a gamble as to what planets you're keeping.

How is it a gamble? The sector map mode shows which systems are part of a sector, so it should be fairly clear as to which colonies the new subject will get.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

It's a gamble when you create the sector as you have no control over the systems that go into it because someone decided we can't edit our own sectors anymore.

Sectors span four hyperlanes from the colony you declare to be the sector capital. By moving the capital, you’ll change the sector.

maybe my game is bugged cause i lost sector map modes after they were changed? or maybe I'm a moron and they just got moved somewhere but ever since sectors became automatic I haven't had a sector map mode.

There should be a checkbox near the map modes to enable sector view.

 

[Eladrin]

Update to the Restricted Voting tooltip.

If your subject is unable to join the GalCom (mostly looking at you, Fanatic Purifiers and Determined Exterminators), you cannot select this term for them.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Do other Federation members get a say in whether those subjects are allowed to join?
Especialy with federation-unity(cohesion?) and voting this can become quite trouble some for a federation otherwise.

This also takes into account Federal Laws.

We can have Purifier/Exterminator vassals?? Because that makes me start wondering at a whole myriad of scenarios... and Origins...

If you're the same species you can engage in diplomacy with Fanatic Purifiers, e.g. if the Commonwealth of Man were Fanatic Purifiers, they could be a subject of the United Nations of Earth.

Likewise, Determined Exterminators can be subjects of other machine intelligences.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

DEs seem to engage in diplomacy when I do a Synth Ascension.

Can my Synths have a pet Terminator, too?

I think they may consider you to be machines then so it should work! Apologies it's been a long week.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Question. why do shared desteny and freinds remove all loyalty penelties for subjects? I can get someting like 20% less loss from multilble subjects, but waiving it outright seems a bit much to me.

They don’t remove all loyalty penalties, they remove the penalties you normally accrue from having multiple subjects.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Will the overlord having any influence on what perks a subject can take be that directly or indirectly?

For example, if I'm a rogue servitor, does that prevent my subjects from being able to select become the crisis?

Also on the note of become the crisis ascension perk. If an empire with that perk gets vassalized, are they able to continue down the path of becoming a crisis or will that put a freeze on their progress until they become an independent empire again?

Become the Crisis has a blocker on it so that it can’t be taken by subjects already.

If you subjugate an empire that has already taken the perk, they can partially progress down the path - level 5 is blocked and can only be gained by being independent. So they can’t get Star Eater or the Aetherophasic Engine while being a subject.

EDIT: Dug up a screenshot

 

[Eladrin]

Please consider making Embassies a type of Holding,too, now that multiple separate empires can have an holding on a planet.

Embassies were actually on my wishlist as a "Diplomatic Holding" so it'd be easier to see them but were cut for scope reasons. (Overlord's pretty big!)

Might return one day in the future.