Stellaris Dev Diary #297 - Leaders, The Council, and Agendas

[Alfray Stryke]

Will leaders still be capped at lvl 10? I feel like there's a lot of civics, techs, traits and traditions that increase the max leader lvl way beyond 10, so it feels like a waste to have those bonuses cap at 10

It's safe to assume that anything that affected leaders (such as civics or traditions that affected leader level cap) have been revised with the changes coming in 3.8/Galactic Paragons.

 

[White Russian European]

Where did they say that we only get to research one technology at a time now? As far as I understand it, we have one research leader that applies their bonuses to all 3 research categories.

Genuinely curious. If I overlooked something, please quote the post so I can see what I missed

No, I don't think you missed anything. This is exactly what was not said anywhere. However, in the current system (of three lead researchers), the comparison of scientists and research is one to one (1:1) - one researcher - one technology. Therefore, I assume that developers can replace three branches of research with one. Perhaps, but I'm not sure about it, these are the very "Programs" that will need to be promoted once every N years. Also, by the way, in my opinion, the solution is not at all the best, not the same as simultaneous and independent research in three different branches of technology. So this is just my guess for now. Well, it’s somehow not at all logical that one researcher, no matter how legendary he may be, can take part in several studies at once.

The idea is that larger empires always have less efficient administrative processes. It makes a lot of sense. Every decision happens in a larger framework and every decision has more people involved in making it.

Having same amount of leaders as smaller empires, but having to distribute them among more potential tasks simulates that very well. They can do all the same things and all at the same strength as in smaller empires, but there are just more things to do - so they have to pick their tasks more carefully and focus on those, missing out on some other gains that a smaller empire might be able to pick up, since it's not a sprawling mess of 800 colonies all wanting to have a say.

I think it is a really good choice, because it doesn't disrupt player agency or give larger empires an arbitrary malus. Larger empires have to consider more carefully where they invest their finite resources, because there are more potential applications. It's a good concept.

Small empires have fewer leaders. Big empires have more leaders. At least by virtue of the fact that the empire is expanding and its inhabitants are facing more and more tasks, problems and difficulties that they may not be able to cope with with their previous strength. Yes, resources are always limited, but a large empire will have more of them than a small one, and it can work simultaneously on a larger number of projects than a small state. In addition, the Head of Research, in theory, has all the necessary opportunities to delegate some of his powers to less senior leaders (for example, leading scientists, in one direction or another of research)

I play the game quite differently. 10 science vessels on the way would just be annoying to handle. I'd much rather have fewer and make more impactful decisions with them rather than just clustering everything with generic, faceless leaders that i constantly need to replace and are thus just a micro-annoyance.

Simply, I like to develop my empires in several different directions at the same time - scientific research, exploring the galaxy, establishing and developing new colonies, building a powerful economy, creating a strong navy and army. And, all this, yes, in parallel. Yes, I love micromanagement (laughs good-naturedly). But this is possible, precisely under the existing, even now, system of leaders - especially scientific. Where they are assigned, practically the main thing, after the ruler, a place. That is why the possible decline in the number of scientific leaders upsets me so much.

With best regards.

 

[Shaded Moon]

Well, it’s somehow not at all logical that one researcher, no matter how legendary he may be, can take part in several studies at once.

They're not supposed to. At least the way I read the DD. They're supposed to be one of the most important top administrators of your empire. They're essentially the Minister of Education. They sit way up on top of the food chain and give broad guidelines. At best they'd be the one telling the researchers what to research, not doing any actual research themselves

 

[HaraldHaradre]

Are leaders influenced by experiences they make and get according good or bad traits? Like being on a planet that was bombarded into submission or living through an invasion of purifiers or a swarm? Say a trauma or a steeled will or a hatred for someone or something...

 

[Spaceception]

Assuming I haven't missed something in the DDs and responses, what was the reasoning for a Head of Research in place of a Minister for Foreign Affairs? Or alongside it? Does that come later, after you make contact? Maybe Envoys still work similarly to now, but then there's a council member who's able to bolster their diplomacy or espionage. Alongside agendas to foster closer relationships with allies and neighbors (though I assume there's already diplomatic themed agendas).

 

[Abdulijubjub]

You keep basing your arguments on false assumptions my dude. There is no base effect other than the innate ruler slot bonus, which scales with level. But all the council slots have innate bonuses that scale with level.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but the devs are great at responding to the thread, and they've given no implications that rulers get anything special that we haven't seen yet - presumably aside from certain rare traits like the special Chosen One ruler trait and so on.

The ruler slot bonus was exactly what I was referring to. Being a ruler forfeits the ability to perform some other function at the same time, but gives you a powerful slot bonus instead. Ex. the emperor gives +.25 influence per level (if you keep your military beefy enough).

Would you rather have the ruler bonus, or one more scientist assisting research in your empire? You could say that's a "downgrade" since they can only do one job, but it's only a "downgrade" if what you get isn't better than what you're giving up.

If you have an especially talented surveying/assisting scientist, you might rather have them in the head scientist position instead of as a ruler so you can do both at once. But if you have a scientist with tons of council traits and not a lot of use outside that, you're just trading one stat stick (+2% researcher output per level on a given planet) with another (+.25 influence per level).

It's only a loss at all if you're forced to shove someone ill suited to the role into the ruler slot.

 

[Rafss]

Do Gestalt Civics alter the kinds of Nodes you get?

 

[Zetesofos]

They're not supposed to. At least the way I read the DD. They're supposed to be one of the most important top administrators of your empire. They're essentially the Minister of Education. They sit way up on top of the food chain and give broad guidelines. At best they'd be the one telling the researchers what to research, not doing any actual research themselves

Most importantly, such senior leaders set the tone of what sorts of research are encouraged, which proposals get the most sympathy, and which ideas are taken seriously for funding requests.

That's all perfectly simulated now by the Head of Research and their field specialties.

 

[Zetesofos]

Assuming I haven't missed something in the DDs and responses, what was the reasoning for a Head of Research in place of a Minister for Foreign Affairs? Or alongside it? Does that come later, after you make contact? Maybe Envoys still work similarly to now, but then there's a council member who's able to bolster their diplomacy or espionage. Alongside agendas to foster closer relationships with allies and neighbors (though I assume there's already diplomatic themed agendas).

I still really like the idea of envoys becoming full leaders, with traits and levels. Next to scientists, Envoys have a great number of roles: impact direct relations with other empires, building spy networks, and influencing the galactic community.

Especially since there is a soft leader cap now, I feel they can get away with making them full leaders with their own traits and little stats they can modify.

Also, any feature that would be +1 Envoy could instead be changed to reduce the cost of Envoys on your leader cap (by say 10% or 20%); which should achieve the same effect, and allow Envoys to get the same RP treatment.

Also, then we could definitly have a Minster of Foreign Affairs, which feels like an ideal default council position. Here's hoping they come around on that.

 

[Stormwindzor]

With the implementation of Councilor traits, there simply isn't any need for them anymore. If your wish is to manipulate the odds of getting tech, you could theoretically have a Council of mostly scientists (pick your civics well, for example, Technocracy adds a Scientist position), each with the same expertise trait to mess with the odds. Getting the exact expertise trait might take a little time, but do-able with the DLC. I'm sure someone will figure it out.

I'm a bit confused by this, I thought aside from the defense minister all council seats allowed scientists to used allowing us to get similar expertise bonuses as to before. But by the way technocracy is singled out, it seems that not all civics will allow for that

 

[Blackadder23]

For the sake of all that's good and holy please please please revisit this and finally merge admirals and generals into a generic military leaders class so I can never care about armies again.

They've said they're changing the combat system so we can just bomb planets into submission. You won't have to worry about armies if you don't want to.

 

[Rafss]

Can't wait to employ one of the Legendary Leaders as the best Chief Bureaucrat in the universe * - *
Our enemies will waste decades trying to get a war declaration license!

 

[White Russian European]

This. You're still researching the 3 techs at a time, you just have a single overarching lead scientist who can have multiple traits to improve the research in multiple areas at a time. Just imagine, getting a scientist with Genius, with a research assistant AI bot, and then a research specialty in an area for all 3 branches of science and then, you also have a former scientist who was maniacal and has his own research AI bot along with matching research boosts who is elected as your leader. You're adding ALL of those bonuses together for a lot better research ability.

I'm sorry, but I didn't quite understand your answer...
It turns out that the developers, well, let's say, «compressed» three positions of leading scientists and their individual features and bonuses in one leading scientist, who is part of the Council of the Empire - which is the «Head of Research»? And he simultaneously leads all research - all three technologies - in all three scientific directions... Together??? But there are still three scientific directions - as before? And technologies, as it was before, you can study three at the same time?
Well, in extremely simple terms, they replaced three scientists with one and gave him the powers, abilities, traits and bonuses of all three scientists that were previously available? Just making the controls easier for the user (player)? That's all?
Or did I misunderstand you?

Large empire->more unity generation->being able to go more over the softcap.

So if you do not want to change how you play you dont have to.

That is, with some desire, I can use exactly the same way of playing as before? Will it only be necessary to have a sufficient level of unity? And then I can hire as many leaders as I see fit? Approximately, as I already do with the «Fleet Capacity» parameter - my complete disregard for the fact that the limit has already been exceeded for a very, very long time and is greatly exceeded - due to the fact that my empire has a very powerful economy that allows it to produce so many resources that they cover all my expenses with a huge margin?
Did I understand you correctly? Or not?

With best regards.

 

[Silesian Burd]

> Tribune of Rights

> Job is limiting your pops' rights so they use less Amenities

Also, is a Gestalt Council just gonna be three copies of yourself, arguing over nothing?

 

[Tilarium]

I'm sorry, but I didn't quite understand your answer...
It turns out that the developers, well, let's say, «compressed» three positions of leading scientists and their individual features and bonuses in one leading scientist, who is part of the Council of the Empire - which is the «Head of Research»? And he simultaneously leads all research - all three technologies - in all three scientific directions... Together??? But there are still three scientific directions - as before? And technologies, as it was before, you can study three at the same time?
Well, in extremely simple terms, they replaced three scientists with one and gave him the powers, abilities, traits and bonuses of all three scientists that were previously available? Just making the controls easier for the user (player)? That's all?
Or did I misunderstand you?

Let me try again. Research is not changed at all. You're still researching a physics tech, an engineering tech, and a sociology tech like you do currently. The researching itself has not changed at all. The only thing that has changed is that you no longer have 3 leaders heading each department but instead just a single one. Think of it like this. In the game currently, you have 3 scientists leading research. They aren't the only ones doing the research, they are just the heads of the department pf hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. With the update it will just be one person in charge of those hundreds of thousands.

Right now each of the heads has a trait that effects his research in a particular field and if you're lucky he'll get a second one or even genius or maniacal to effect all research. With the new version, your single head scientist will have multiple traits that will effect multiple fields of study at a time (the total amount depends on if you get the DLC or not). Adding to that, any other scientists you add to the council in any of the other positions, including the leader, can have traits that effect other fields of study or even the same ones that your head of research has. That is effectively giving you super bonuses that you couldn't get other wise.

Example: Your head of research has maniacal, Void Craft, Industry and Military Theory traits. That gives you the a boost to a single field of study in each research branch just as it does now but because he also has maniacal, that also gives you the overall boost to research for all 3 branches of research. Now, your leader also has Military Theory as well as Intellectual (Or whatever the current leader trait is that gives overall research boost) and Genius. That gives you the boost from both Intellectual and Genius to all fields of study on all 3 branches of research but also an extra boost on Military Theory.

 

[Mcgan]

I'm a bit confused by this, I thought aside from the defense minister all council seats allowed scientists to used allowing us to get similar expertise bonuses as to before. But by the way technocracy is singled out, it seems that not all civics will allow for that

We can see on the screenshots that the various council positions are restricted to certain classes.
The "Available for" part:

I imagine most council positions granted by civics will have at least some restriction if even "Tribune of Rights" has one.

 

[corsairmarks]

Will Rogue Servitors have anything special about their Council-equivalent to denote their unique hybrid system, with individually minded bios and a Gestalt Machine Intelligence?

If there is not like something like that in the game, and it is moddable - watch this space: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496357447

 

[Kapi96]

That's what the devs meant when they said it slightly favours smaller empires.

A small empire can get the full bonuses to all important planets with planetary governors, but larger empires would have to pay exceedingly more to get the same administrative benefit, so they'll probably have to resort to limiting it to a few key planets and otherwise utilise the less effective sector governors to spread a smaller bonus to a larger share of their worlds.

This is how i read that at least.

I like how they implemented that, since it gives smaller empires an boon without giving larger empires a rather arbitrary malus. Larger empires can still decide how they invest and what they focus on. It doesn't limit player agency or impose a "bureacrat tax" as we had in the past, but relatively speaking they can not utilise the power of leaders as well as smaller empires can.
At least in concept this is great.

It sounds alright when put like that. I must say the idea of having sector capitals being the most important and "best" planets in a sector makes a lot of sense too.

Although can't help but feel it's pretty contradictary with the idea of wanting less leaders so cutting the research scientists. With both changes the end result is likely to be a lot more leaders, not less.

 

[oreopirate]

Iirc don't AIs always have access to all dlc content?

They do, with exceptions for things that the Ai is having difficulty being taught to do, like using the Eager explorer's civic, and the broken shackles/payback origins completely on their own.

I don't think this is actually as bad as some people think. Most people start the game with 4-6 scientists, with half being research heads. If you only need one lead researcher, that still leaves you 3-4 slots for researchers.

I'm curious how many people have more than 5 scientists early game out surveying and researching anomololies - as I get this sense this is part of some multiplayer meta that most players don't do.

I will, depending on my empire. I usually play xenophiles, so they are eager to explore.

I am both surprised and unfortunately not surprised that apparently no one else saw that.

Also, did you get a "disagree" within minutes of posting? That is rather insane. Now that I look around, many of the comments which even remotely disagrees with the Devs' decision have a disagree. Odd.

Mostly because the majority of us are liking the idea. I for one am only disagreeing on posts where people come off as trying to say their opinion is a fact, or are insinuating stuff that isn't at all implied.

I'm just passionate about the game and want to avert ill-advised changes.

Let me fill you in, bud. This is not how you are coming across. You are coming across like this, "I don't like these changes and I know what's best for everyone and what everyone will like". Mostly by your phrasing. Instead of saying "I am worried this will make leaders pointless" you are saying, "Great, rulers are pointless now."
That's not voicing an opinion, that's stating an opinion as a fact. I'm more than willing to believe that this isn't intentional, but your phrasing makes you sound massively upset that the game is undergoing a change. Hence all the downvotes, especially the ones from me.

Some people still think that getting rid of tiles, and cultural pressure to claim systems, was an ill-advised change.

 

[Dr_Gentech]

If there's anyone here who has also played the other Paradox game people keep mentioning, "CK2" (I thought it was CK3? I don't really know): how many leaders, in general, would you expect to have in that game? At maximum, I mean. And how would you compare their level of "in-depth-edness" to what Galactic Paragons seems to be? Just trying to get a feel for what sort of things might have influenced this update.