Stellaris Dev Diary #302 - Leaders and 3.8.3 Balance Changes

[HorseBattery]

Unfortunately with Gateways and L-Gates it is really easy to send an entire doomstack anywhere you want at a moments notice. No real need to keep multiple stacks at different entry points. Catapults and jump drives are at least more interesting for positioning fleets and come with proper tradeoffs. Hyperlanes don't help the problem that much either.

 

[Zetesofos]

If Leader Cap followed the same logic as other soft caps, it would only apply increasing Unity Upkeep costs to leaders. Maybe even increase recruitment costs too.
I would like to know why the designers didn't want that, it was certainly considered at some point, it is an obvious route.

See, I do like the experience gain penalty idea - I like the idea that tall empires have fewer really talented leaders, and broader empires might have more less experienced ones.

But, 25% penalty is a LOT - 5 - 10% per leader over would seemingly make MUCH more sense.

Ideally, I like the idea that the penalty per leader OVER cap malus is itself a floating value, based on empire size.

So, for example:

If you have empire size >100, and are one leader over the cap, you take a 1% penalty to exp gain (pretty negligable).

However, for every say....50 size over 100, that penalty cap increases by 1%. So, at empire size 500, the penalty would be 8% PER leader over cap.

This is good because now empires have another incentive to manage empire size, and thus gives benefit to tall empires without making such an option unavailable for wide/late game empires.

 

[Zetesofos]

You could also create other reasons to split fleets. A classic - and realistic - one is logistics; if your whole navy operates together, it's going to be hard to keep a large enough supply line open constantly. In Stellaris, this could be represented by either adding an explicit supply/munitions tracking system to the game (where every ship or at least fleet maintains a pool of supplies, refreshed from friendly starbases or whatever, and when it's depeleted the ships being ineffective), or by simply saying that concentrating more than <X amount> of naval capacity in one system exhausts the local supply capacity, with X scaling up over time with tech, traditions, civics, council traits, maybe admiral / governor traits, maybe starbase modules/planet buildings, etc. but never reaching "it's viable to have a large navy all in one system that isn't specifically built for that purposes be combat-effective in one system". Like, Anchorages could greatly increase the local supply capacity in a given system, or maybe in systems within a certain range (a "supply radius" similar to trade's "collection radius"), but if your fleets move beyond that range / lose the starbase / the enemy cuts the supply line behind you, they have to "live off the land" and a given system can maybe only support between 30 and 300 (depending on tech, etc.) naval capacity of ships before penalties start applying to them due to insufficient supply.

Another would be difficulty in massed maneuvers between fleets under separate commands; your ships could take a penalty (the most obvious choice being to evasion, but that doesn't matter for anything bigger than a destroyer) to operating in the same battle as another fleet on the same side, which would give a strong reason to encourage techs, etc. that enlarge fleets but would at least somewhat discourage doomstacking multiple fleets.

On that note, I think the crucial thing that's missing from war is a need to HOLD territory. Currently, the issue is that once you 'conquer' a planet or system, you can just move all your armies/fleets off it without consequence.

Personally, thinking of a lot of sci fi novels and stuff I've ready - it feels like a simple solution that would do a lot to change this dynamic is to add a new diminsion to war exhaustion and/or war acceptance - namely by needing fleets/armies HOLDING territory to gain warscore.

Think of it like this: you gain a static warscore when you take a system or win an engagement. However, what if in addition to that, if you keep a fleet in orbit around an occupied planet colony AND/OR keep an army on the planet, you gain additional warscore each tick based on the size.

On a flipside too - what about the idea of needing to keep fleets armies on your OWN worlds during war in order to mitigate war exhaustion. You can do without, but its now a higher risk that you'll run out of time. A populace feels more enthusiastic about a war if they generally feel there is a fleet directly in orbit to protect them.

(I should right a full suggestion post on this).

 

[AlphaAsh]

This, speaks volumes. You guys are playing on mid sized galaxies, quitting the game before midgame, barely expand much less play the game as most players do.

Pretty sure most players don't and that Enfield_PDX has already said so. Filthy casuals with crap hardware are the majority. If you want your playstyle niche better catered for, grab some mods, or even better, make some.

No, it really isn't sound. At all. You don't buff something to overpowered levels and then make it less desirable to use because using it as intended would unbalance things horrendously.

Going over your leader cap and having to produce more Unity is intended. As is the slowing of experience gain. It's already been acknowledged that the base cap is currently too tight, and that it's being reconsidered. The original design, less leaders, more powerful leaders, is still sound.

 

[-Marauder-]

Pretty sure most players don't and that Enfield_PDX has already said so. Filthy casuals with crap hardware are the majority. If you want your playstyle niche better catered for, grab some mods, or even better, make some.

Enfield has said absolutely nothing about most players. No idea where you get "filthy casuals" from beyond trying to imply I made a claim I never did nor would to attempt and disregard my opinion and anything I've said. Also, Paradox games as a baseline aren't just incredibly casual unfriendly but beginner unfriendly to begin with. They're not exactly main stream Tripple A titles but niche games in a niche genre.

Going over your leader cap and having to produce more Unity is intended. As is the slowing of experience gain. It's already been acknowledged that the base cap is currently too tight, and that it's being reconsidered. The original design, less leaders, more powerful leaders, is still sound.

Except the leaders aren't really stronger outside of council positions, and there are numerous mechanical and gameplay oversights they didn't bother addressing in their rush job, at all.

 

[AlphaAsh]

Also, Paradox games as a baseline aren't just incredibly casual unfriendly but beginner unfriendly to begin with. They're not exactly main stream Tripple A titles but niche games in a niche genre.

I'd suggest taking a look at Steam sales for Stellaris.

Except the leaders aren't really stronger outside of council positions, and there are numerous mechanical and gameplay oversights they didn't bother addressing in their rush job, at all.

*looks at governor currently increasing alloys output of homeworld by 200%* Sure. Whatever.

 

[-Marauder-]

I'd suggest taking a look at Steam sales for Stellaris.

While selling fairly well, they don't have "mass" appeal the way CoD have. The hurdle to get into them is much higher, and they appeal to a distinct demographic. I had to coach several friends and other people I got into Stellaris over time.

*looks at governor currently increasing alloys output of homeworld by 200%* Sure. Whatever.

Oh, 200%? How exactly did you achieve that? Please do tell.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Oh, 200%? How exactly did you achieve that? Please do tell.

If his planet generates 1 alloy and the governor generates 2 alloys, that's 200% more.

 

[-Marauder-]

If his planet generates 1 alloy and the governor generates 2 alloys, that's 200% more.

I... kinda don't have anything to say to that. You're technically correct.

 

[sillyrobot]

I... kinda don't have anything to say to that. You're technically correct.

The best kind of correct!

 

[Dr Pippy]

If his planet generates 1 alloy and the governor generates 2 alloys, that's 200% more.

But doesn't the homeworld automagically produce at least 5 alloys?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

But doesn't the homeworld automagically produce at least 5 alloys?

Not if you carefully employ 2 Roboticists to consume those alloys and bring down the net output.

 

[-Marauder-]

Not if you carefully employ 2 Roboticists to consume those alloys and bring down the net output.

Well, pack it up guys. Governors are great. If you do something weird they can increase alloy production by 200%. In theory they can increase other production by an almost infinite amount, the static perks on a planet that doesn't produce that resource for example. Sounds kind of OP!

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Well, pack it up guys. Governors are great. If you do something weird they can increase alloy production by 200%. In theory they can increase other production by an almost infinite amount, the static perks on a planet that doesn't produce that resource for example. Sounds kind of OP!

The tricky part of getting the most benefit from your governors is veeeery carefully balancing your forge/mining world so it makes only .1 net minerals. If it made .2, you'd cut the benefit you get from your Private Mines governor from +32000% to only +16000%.

 

[Rafss]

The tricky part of getting the most benefit from your governors is veeeery carefully balancing your forge/mining world so it makes only .1 net minerals. If it made .2, you'd cut the benefit you get from your Private Mines governor from +32000% to only +16000%.

And you all disagreed with the guy who said Stellaris players like to punish themselves!

 

[Foxosaur]

Thank you for this dev diary. I guess I just have a couple of questions.

Was it necessary to make the leader change to none-dlc players? If so could we automate that so that we don’t feel compelled to manage it anymore than the old system? Otherwise to some ( me included ), it feels a detriment to my game. Prior to 3.8, I hired and forgot my leaders, I could be selective but I’m not and don’t look to do that.

If leaders are now much more powerful, I’m forced to manage them one way or another - something here could be done for your none-dlc players, maybe the min and max values are limited so I’m less forced to take an interest so I less likely to significantly handicap my empire myself by a bad trait.

I realise that did happen somewhat prior to 3.8 with leaders that created crime but it felt more obvious to deal with. Maybe I need help to understand that better in 3.8.


And would it be possible to get some information about where this game is heading. I think in essence my question is - should we take the leader change as something in isolation of it’s dlc or is this a signal towards being more parallel to your other games?

A vision of where you are taking us ( maybe after your all back from summer ) would really help me at least to understand if the journey remains for me, I’m hopeful it is. Maybe that is what others would like, I’m not sure.

I think someone used the term ‘crusader kings in space’, well I hope not and not even because I dislike CK, I barely tried CK2s basegame. What you have here, seven years into the game is a sandbox with elements of a x4, rather than the other way round. I don't know if its a disservice to existing and past players to change this drastically, so late in the games life span. For that reason, if you can't avoid this, at least lock it away to DLC - at least giving some of us the option to play on and receive updates. Don't force us to regress Stellaris, we still might buy <some> DLC. You risk a lot otherwise, in my humble opinion.

Personally, I feel strongly that Stellaris stays and maintains its own individualism, it’s got a lot going for it. No one really wants borrowed systems from other games that could ‘easily’ be just dumped into this game, that isn’t the experience I want and hope others don’t either - we hope you don’t want that either. Please keep this as a sandbox