Stellaris Dev Diary #307 - Leader Experiments

[Northernwwater]

Aren't leaders supposed to represent a (small) portion of your total population that fulfill specific jobs, e.g. leading a fleet or governing a planet. If we extend this line of thought, shouldn't the leader capacity grow with you total population?

Depends on the society and government.

 

[KNakamura]

This feels a bit like Habitat where throw out the whole system rather than address the ROOT cause. I already posted about how the issue with the Leader Cap is the XP Penalty and not the cap itself. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-the-new-leader-system.1589988/#post-29001010

There are SO MANY questions with this new leader rework. I would assume the XP Penalty is staying cause I didn't see any mention of removing it just trying to make better use of the limited Leaders you have while further restricting your leaders and requiring MORE leaders.

Reducing things to three leader types and merging envoys into the mix begs the question... Are we going to get a Larger Leader CAP!?!?! Cause if you go the Diplomatic Route before you could easily have 8+ Envoys to send to other empires, engage in spy actions, work the Fed/Council, and etc. Now were are gonna have even higher demand for our leadership positions so are they gonna give us an extra 8+ to leader cap??

They JUST released Paragon DLC with the Leader Rework and they effectively seem set to throw out the majority of it and completely rework Leaders again all because people don't like how the Leader Cap penalizes them. Instead of fixing the issue that no one likes they are reworking everything else to keep that system.

I've bought every single DLC and enjoyed Stellaris for years but honestly not likely how things are going. The One system Habitat is huge turn off for me as it kills that unique play style the void dwellers had going. Now they are planning to throw out the 4 Leader type system that's been in the game for years after a major rework which had each leader type have it's own traits and veteran classes. I was really starting to like the whole new leader system as I got a better feel for it but I didn't like the cap mechanics. However it doesn't even feel like they gave it a chance because all they care about is keeping that XP cap.

Frankly this is the lowest my opinion has ever been on the direction Stellaris is taking and starting to think it might be time to move on. I honestly can't think of any other changes in the past that had me this skeptical short of when they removed the 3 warp types but even that I was still hopefully optimistic about. Given how badly they fumbled Paragons with making leaders more in demand due to Govs being planet rather than sector bonuses while having a tiny cap and overly harsh penalties only to then compound it by repeating the same mistake of rolling the high count need for envoys into that leader cap and no mention of FIXING THE CAP ISSUE the future does not look bright.

It's almost as if they don't just want to add more cap size without addressing a cause.

Or, you know, not performing simple fixes to interesting ones.

 

[Northernwwater]

This feels a bit like Habitat where throw out the whole system rather than address the ROOT cause. I already posted about how the issue with the Leader Cap is the XP Penalty and not the cap itself. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-the-new-leader-system.1589988/#post-29001010

I've bought every single DLC and enjoyed Stellaris for years but honestly not likely how things are going.

I ignored the Steam reviews(Steam reviews are useless drivel) and I bought Galactic Paragon and First Contact (full price) and was very happy with both. My personal opinion is that Galactic Paragons is the best DLC so far. This has given me new hope in the future of the game and increased my play time.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

There were caps but there we no meaningful impacts to going over cap. No impact to making a choice makes the game easier.

No, there was no leader cap for a long time. None. You are misinformed.

... or it was slightly modified to pacify the complaining.

No, it wasn't slightly modified. It was removed. And stayed removed for years.

My personal opinion is that Galactic Paragons is the best DLC so far. This has given me new hope in the future of the game and increased my play time.

I'm glad you've reined it back from "it's the best DLC and made the game objectively better in every way, so that another who doesn't like it is simply ignorant" to "my personal opinion". Edit: Premature celebration.

The DLC is tailor-made for your playstyle in particular. It's not surprising that you really enjoy it (and more power to you). But most people don't play a galaxy simulator without claiming more than a handful of systems outside of their core sector or ever growing more than 600 pops/200 empire size.

It works really well for small empires, but not for larger ones (in very unsatisfying ways).

Also: you weren't playing when it came out. What do you mean by "it increased my playtime"? From zero?

 

[Northernwwater]

No, there was no leader cap for a long time. None. You are misinformed. No, it wasn't slightly modified. It was removed. And stayed removed for years.

If the post was not about Galactic Paragons 3.8.x it should be clearer.

I'm glad you've reined it back from "it's the best DLC and made the game objectively better in every way, so that another who doesn't like it is simply ignorant" to "my personal opinion".

As I have said multiple times. My opinion is that it is the best DLC, and it is true that it is objectively better than 3.7. I never said anyone was ignorant.

The DLC is tailor-made for your playstyle in particular. It's not surprising that you really enjoy it (and more power to you). But most people don't play a galaxy simulator without claiming more than a handful of systems outside of their core sector or ever growing more than 600 pops/200 empire size.

The DLC brings benefits to many play styles, obviously. As I have said before tuning is inevitable and expected. I speak up when hyperbolic objections are made against 3.8.4.

It works really well for small empires, but not for larger ones (in very unsatisfying ways).

It works better for players who chose to make choices to exploit leaders while they forgo the benefits of not making those choices. Some players choose to play "large" empires and make choices which benefit that play style. This is a strategy game. There should be tradeoff choices.

Also: you weren't playing when it came out. What do you mean by "it increased my playtime"? From zero?

It means I played(a lot) before 3.8?

I mean there are other games and other things in life.

 

[Gabarius]

I’m glad to hear the leader system is being reworked. I really like the idea of caps per type of leader, and also maybe making governor traits affect entire sectors—it makes no sense to drastically limit the amount of leaders you can have *and* make them less effective. I end up dismissing all my governors but one in the lategame to allow for more admiral-led fleets, keeping just the one for fast building or blocker clearing. It’s not a very rewarding system.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

If the post was not about Galactic Paragons 3.8.x it should be clearer.

No, there was no need to clarify something so obvious.
When someone is referring to a time before the cap, it's reasonable to assume they're referring to before the most recent patch, which added a cap.

As I have said multiple times. My opinion is that it is the best DLC, and it is true that it is objectively better than 3.7. I never said anyone was ignorant.

Ok, so you didn't rein it back. You're still adamant that your opinion is objective truth.

I suppose being blind to objective truth is possible without being ignorant. One could perhaps be deluded, instead. I'm not sure that's better. How are we meant to interpret being told that our views (like "I personally don't think that 3.8 was a net improvement to the game, yet") are disconnected from reality and objectively wrong?

It works better for players who chose to make choices to exploit leaders while they forgo the benefits of not making those choices. Some players choose to play "large" empires and make choices which benefit that play style. This is a strategy game. There should be tradeoff choices

It's so funny to me that you keep insisting that anyone who does something so gauche as to eXpand or eXterminate in a 4X is clearly just playing the game wrong and shouldn't expect the game to work with them.

3.8 puts the leader mechanics on display, and even before 3.8, they featured prominently on large swathes of the UI. For people who do either of the above, all those portions of the UI are big black boxes telling them that they're playing incorrectly; their planets are ungoverned, they haven't even organized their empire into sectors, their fleets are unled. And they get constant notifications and decisions to make about things that would be incredibly powerful mechanics if they weren't permanently limited to a single planet in their massive empire, and are instead irrelevant. And if they want to do anything like exploring systems in a large galaxy, they have to constantly fight the UI in immersion breaking ways, teleporting leaders back and forth across the galaxy because the ships they're assigned to would take years to get from one side to the other and they can't just have 20 scientists on hand like before the patch.

It's not just that they're making strategic tradeoffs. That's fine: if you have a large empire, you should pay some prices and feel its sprawl. But the game now fights you when you play in what is the default mode for even the AI controlled players. It's a 4x. There are strategies that involve going tall, but the default is to expand. And it's even still the strongest path. The problem is not weakness or gameplay penalties; the existing ones are insufficient to make expansion non-viable or even non-optimal. The problem is that the game is screaming at you that you're doing something wrong and tons of things become more and more annoying the more you play.

That's why people keep proposing "just let us explore with uncrewed ships", "just fill every leader slot with a level 0 leader", "just let us survey/research anomalies without a scientist", "at least let governors affect a full sector" as fixes.

The fact that leaders (outside of the council) are utterly irrelevant to a large empire (because of their low number), and that the change was made because of a patch that was explicitly supposed to make leaders more important, is even worse. But that can be lived with. Leaders can be a tall mechanic; that's fine. But it would certainly be easier to swallow if the messaging around the changes was less disconnected from the reality of their impact.

People are saying "The changes made the game less fun for me", and it's so frustrating when we hear other players chiming in to say, not "It works fine for me" (which would be perfectly fine, different strokes for different folks), but rather "It should work fine for everyone. See, it works just fine for me. If you think otherwise, you're not only playing the game wrong, but you're objectively incorrect about the things you think you enjoy".

It means I played(a lot) before 3.8?

I mean there are other games and other things in life

What was the last patch you played before 3.8? Are you attributing to 3.8 all the improvements from e.g. 3.4-3.7, or are you coming fresh from from 3.7 and actually seeing that 3.8 is a significant improvement (for you)?


---------

To be clear: The council is a great addition to the game, if the balance of particular traits and civic council positions may need some work. It did add some power creep, but that's best reined in by adjusting overall power, somewhere (nerf researchers, increase building costs, increase tech costs... something that slows down all empires equally and doesn't restrict choices, just slow down the pace of the game). But instead, it was "addressed" by restricting the brand new leader mechanics to the point of near uselessness for large empires, in the same patch that also nerfed them to start with. My carefully selected best governor used to be buffing 6 planets and 8 ring world segments with +30% research from jobs (Intellectual, Brain Slug and Erudite), effectively bumping my empire's entire research output by 10%. Now governors buff a single planet, and I'm only allowed to have ~10 of them. What's the point of adding new toys in your expansion and trumpeting their arrival if you then tell 3/4 of the people who play your game that they're not allowed to play with them?

This is why they're making changes, as announced by the devs in the very dev diary that you're commenting on.

 

[Northernwwater]

I’m glad to hear the leader system is being reworked. I really like the idea of caps per type of leader, and also maybe making governor traits affect entire sectors—it makes no sense to drastically limit the amount of leaders you can have *and* make them less effective. I end up dismissing all my governors but one in the lategame to allow for more admiral-led fleets, keeping just the one for fast building or blocker clearing. It’s not a very rewarding system.

I do just the opposite. I make choices to increase fleet cap allowing the more effective use of admirals while increasing my governor count to take advantage of the power of Champions of the Empire(Aptitude Tradition). By late game I have about 4 Admirals which I nuture for high levels. They always make level 10. Then I hire and dismiss for emergencies and I also take advantage of Eager leaders.

 

[Northernwwater]

Ok, so you didn't rein it back. You're still adamant that your opinion is objective truth.

I suppose being blind to objective truth is possible without being ignorant. One could perhaps be insane, or deluded, instead. I'm not sure that's better. How are we meant to interpret being told that our views (like "I personally don't think that 3.8 was a net improvement to the game, yet") are completely disconnected from reality and objectively wrong?

Some people are sensitive. That is the way the world works. I'm not one of them

I have no problem with people saying their play style is affected, but yes it is true 3.8.4 is objectively better because the choice set and choice paths for play styles has been enriched and broadened. Tradeoffs are good for a strategy game.

It's so funny to me that you keep insisting that anyone who does something so gauche as to eXpand or eXterminate in a 4X is clearly just playing the game wrong and shouldn't expect the game to work with them.

I never said that. You are saying that while imputing it to me. You fantasize me saying it, I guess.

PDX will do whatever PDX does and I don't expect them to bend to my will. Players can play anyway they want. I realize some people want to play the way they always played. I get it. That does not change the fact that adding more choice tradeoffs is better for the game.

3.8 puts the leader mechanics on display, and even before 3.8, they featured prominently on large swathes of the UI. For people who do either of the above, all those portions of the UI are big black boxes telling them that they're playing incorrectly; their planets are ungoverned, they haven't even organized their empire into sectors, their fleets are unled. And they get constant notifications and decisions to make about things that would be incredibly powerful mechanics if they weren't permanently limited to a single planet in their massive empire, and are instead irrelevant. And if they want to do anything like exploring systems in a large galaxy, they have to constantly fight the UI in immersion breaking ways, teleporting leaders back and forth across the galaxy because the ships they're assigned to would take years to get from one side to the other and they can't just have 20 scientists on hand like before the patch.

Maybe we change "bad" color to purple.

I have no problem exploring all I need to in very large sparsely populated galaxies. Exploring is never a problem for me. I can take as many system as my influence allows and that has not been taken by other empires. I also have no problem exploring beyond early game. I think there is nuanced hyperbole at play here.

It's not just that they're making strategic tradeoffs. That's fine: if you have a large empire, you should pay some prices and feel its sprawl. But the game now fights you when you play in what is the default mode for even the AI controlled players. It's a 4x. There are strategies that involve going tall, but the default is to expand. And it's even still the strongest path. The problem is not weakness or gameplay penalties; those are insufficient to make expansion non-viable or even non-optimal. The problem is that the game is screaming at you that you're doing something wrong and tons of things become more and more annoying the more you play.

All tradeoffs are the game "fighting you". All strategy choices are the game "fighting you". If the game does not "fight you" it is easier. We don't need an easier game.

That's why people keep proposing "just let us explore with uncrewed ships", "just fill every leader slot with a level 0 leader", "just let us survey/research anomalies without a scientist" as fixes.

What is a level 0 leader?

The fact that leaders (outside of the council) are utterly irrelevant to a large empire (because of their low number), and that the change was made because of a patch that was explicitly supposed to make leaders more important, is even worse. But that can be lived with. Leaders can be a tall mechanic; that's fine. Butit would certainly be easier to swallow if the messaging around the changes was less disconnected from reality.

It is hyperbolic to say leaders are "utterly irrelevant" to "tall" empires. Well, I guess every mechanic is irrelevant to tall-enough empires because they have won by subtraction. They have weakened the opponents and all they have left to defeat is an arbitrarily large crisis.

People are saying "The changes made the game less fun for me", and it's so frustrating when we hear other players chiming in to say, not "It works fine for me" (which would be perfectly fine, different strokes for different folks), but rather "It should work fine for everyone. See, it works just fine for me. If you think otherwise, you're not only playing the game wrong, but you're objectively incorrect about the things you think you enjoy".

You keep using phony quotes. Why? Who are you quoting? You are definitely not quoting me.

What was the last patch you played before 3.8? Are you attributing to 3.8 all the improvements from e.g. 3.4-3.7, or are you coming fresh from from 3.7 and actually seeing that 3.8 is a significant improvement (for you)?

I've played every patch.

 

[Northernwwater]

---------

To be clear: The council is a great addition to the game, if the balance of particular traits and civic council positions may need some work. It did add some power creep, but that's best reined in by adjusting overall power, somewhere (nerf researchers, increase building costs, increase tech costs... something that slows down all empires equally and doesn't restrict choices, just slow down the pace of the game). But instead, it was "addressed" by restricting the brand new leader mechanics to the point of near uselessness for large empires, in the same patch that also nerfed them to start with. My carefully selected best governor used to be buffing 6 planets and 8 ring world segments with +30% research from jobs (Intellectual, Brain Slug and Erudite), effectively bumping my empire's entire research output by 10%. Now governors buff a single planet, and I'm only allowed to have ~10 of them. What's the point of adding new toys in your expansion and trumpeting their arrival if you then tell 3/4 of the people who play your game that they're not allowed to play with them?

I also like the council. It was an excellent idea. I have said over and over that tuning will come and makes sense.

Personally, I hope the game still includes difficult tradeoff choices.

This is why they're making changes, as announced by the devs in the very dev diary that you're commenting on.

I'm aware of which thread I'm posting on.

 

[Imajicus]

Remove the leader cap

While I really appreciate that they took time to explore solutions, I'm also concerned in what they tried. Extending and overcomplicating this already "unpopular system". I don't know. This goes in a wrong direction. Why not exploring alternatives to the cap? They need to do a step back and try a different perspective.

Isn't the solution already implemented and in place? I believe it is: use the unity upkeep for leaders! Why not balance with that? Scale each leader cost with their level and benefits and make paragons even more expensive. Adapt the formulas there. Then I can see their costs in the unity summary on the top of the screen can decide MYSELF how much my leaders are worth for me and how much I want to spend on them. Stop making this decision for me! That's what the cap does.

Why isn't the upkeep a viable solution so that its not being explored further? Is this known?

Paradox, you are the experts! Please invent something clever. Please do not build even more nasty extensions to already nasty workaround (the cap), but fix the root cause of the issue in a clean an nice way. For the sake of role playing immersion get rid of this illogical cap.

Thanks.

P.S. Sorry for the drama in the previous dev diary. Wasn't my intention to insult anyone.

Edit: formatting

 

[verybad]

Remove the leader cap

While I really appreciate that they took time to explore solutions, I'm also concerned in what they tried. Extending and overcomplicating this already "unpopular system". I don't know. This goes in a wrong direction. Why not exploring alternatives to the cap? They need to do a step back and try a different perspective.

Isn't the solution already implemented and in place? I believe it is: use the unity upkeep for leaders! Why not balance with that? Scale each leader cost with their level and benefits and make paragons even more expensive. Adapt the formulas there. Then I can see their costs in the unity summary on the top of the screen can decide MYSELF how much my leaders are worth for me and how much I want to spend on them. Stop making this decision for me! That's what the cap does.

Because if there is not a soft cap for leaders, it's way to easy to put in a million of them when you have high Unity flow. Having a soft cap makes you make choices, which a lot of people like. It's not a hard cap. Having 30 leaders when you have a big empire would be simple enough, and would do them a disservice. Who would look at where they came from or their faction, then? I agree that leader cap isn't 100% popular and could use some adjustment, but removing soft cap entirely would be similarly unpopular to a lot of other players.

 

[LayZboy]

Will you please take "inspiration" from UI overhaul dynamic since your own UI doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot of good. I assume it's ignored out of spite these days. The extended topbar submod for it is nice too.

 

[Imajicus]

Because if there is not a soft cap for leaders, it's way to easy to put in a million of them when you have high Unity flow. Having a soft cap makes you make choices, which a lot of people like. It's not a hard cap. Having 30 leaders when you have a big empire would be simple enough, and would do them a disservice. Who would look at where they came from or their faction, then? I agree that leader cap isn't 100% popular and could use some adjustment, but removing soft cap entirely would be similarly unpopular to a lot of other players.

You mean, if people manage to get rich, they still should be limited how much they can spend. Effectively they remain poor, no matter what they do. On top of that, people prefer it like that. I don't belong to those people.
So, why wasn't this an issue pre Paragons DLC?

 

[verybad]

You mean, if people manage to get rich, they still should be limited how much they can spend.

Yes. Unlimited resources are very boring.

Effectively they remain poor, no matter what they do.

That is vastly irepresented. Having an unlimited resource (i.e. being able to get as many leaders as you want) makes them not a resource. Having the right or wrong leaders in place has affect the most powerful nations on earths history, they are the most important resource an empire can have, and they should be rare in terms of quality.

On top of that, people prefer it like that. I don't belong to those people.

I do belong to those people, so obviously we disagree, and that is fine, but just agreeing to your opinion as though everyone did so would be a disservice to myself and others with my opinion.

So, why wasn't this an issue pre Paragons DLC?

Why are you asking that question when it is obvious, Paragon came out and changed leaders, leaders weren't very much discussed before Paragon DLC because they didn't affect the game very much. When you could have 10 scientists exploring in early game, people DID complain about there being no exploration left in midgame however. Paragon made them important. Are they perfect? No, but removing a soft cap seams like a yawn to me.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Yes. Unlimited resources are very boring.

That is vastly represented. Having an unlimited resource (i.e. being able to get as many leaders as you want) makes them not a resource.

No. Even in 3.7 they were an important resource. Governors, admirals, and research leader scientists gave customizability to your empire and fleets through whom you chose to recruit and give XP to.

I can agree about research assistance scientist (they were just a box to check), but for the rest (except generals) they were important resources to manage before and after.

Without the leader cap, leaders have even more management and interaction than before 3.8: more traits, more specialization, still a finite number of XP opportunities while levels are more important than ever. Scarcity is not a requirement for relevance; in fact, for large empires, it forces non-council leaders to be irrelevant, since e.g. governors can only provide level bonuses to ~15% of your empire, and trait bonuses to 3% or so.

Why are you asking that question when it is obvious, Paragon came out and changed leaders, leaders weren't very much discussed before Paragon DLC because they didn't affect the game very much. When you could have 10 scientists exploring in early game, people DID complain about there being no exploration left in midgame however. Paragon made them important. Are they perfect? No, but removing a soft cap seams like a yawn to me.

In my experience, the difference between 4 scientists exploring and 10 scientists exploring is that you spend way more time microing, exploration ends at basically the same time as before, and you end up with slightly fewer anomalies overall because you're not able to beat the AI to the punch as easily. It did not extend the exploration phase, though I had hoped that it would when it was released.

 

[velles]

Enovys being the proper leader class is a good thing but I'd argue that putting Governors into the same category makes the governor position even more useless - why would anyone assign a Diplomat leader as a governor when they can use it as an Envoy? Maybe except cases like having a really good planet or playing as some genocidal empire. Like that's the main issue - Generals were always the joke leader type, Governors were nerfed with Galactic Paragons - it's not like the governor or general position will be any more valuable just because it will be lumped with another leader class (in fact - it might be even less valuable) so this still doesn't fix the issue.

IMO Governor should stay as separate class but sectorwide traits should be brought back (or at least some traits should be sectorwide or give some partial bonuses). Replacing sectorwide governors with planetary ones was probably the biggest mistake of the leader rework (I'd argue it was worse than the leader cap). I mean technically there are sector governors but if they affect only one planet they're pretty much planetary governors. I know that stacking traits with planetary governors could have some unwanted issues but you should try to balance it out.

I actually really like Envoys as they are - second string leaders that fit neatly into that 'ambiguous get-stuff-done' slot, as opposed to the big picture people the other leaders are. As for Envoys not having anything to do with spying, Wikipedia has the following to say:

The oldest known classified document was a report made by a spy disguised as a diplomatic envoy in the court of King Hammurabi, who died in around 1750 BC.

Espionage and diplomacy are intimately entwined and pretty much always have been in human history.

Hell, even today it is a common practice to disguise spies and other agents as a diplomatic personel

Spies posing as diplomats have a long history

WASHINGTON (AP) — In ordering the largest mass expulsion of Russian diplomats ever, the U.S. and its allies have upped the ante in an East-West spy game that dates to the Cold War and cast light on an unspoken but widespread practice in the cloak-and-dagger world: sending operatives abroad under dip

apnews.com

 

[verybad]

No. Even in 3.7 they were an important resource. Governors, admirals, and research leader scientists gave customizability to your empire and fleets through whom you chose to recruit and give XP to.

In my experience, the difference between 4 scientists exploring and 10 scientists exploring is that you spend way more time microing, exploration ends at basically the same time as before, and you end up with slightly fewer anomalies overall because you're not able to beat the AI to the punch as easily. It did not extend the exploration phase, though I had hoped that it would when it was released.

Different opinions. I like having anomalies and stuff being more valuable, potentially worth fighting for. Anomalies are a part of exploration, so I do think they made that phase longer.

IMO they were too easy to get whatever you wanted before 3.7 I am interested in the changes

 

[Gabarius]

I do just the opposite. I make choices to increase fleet cap allowing the more effective use of admirals while increasing my governor count to take advantage of the power of Champions of the Empire(Aptitude Tradition). By late game I have about 4 Admirals which I nuture for high levels. They always make level 10. Then I hire and dismiss for emergencies and I also take advantage of Eager leaders.

Yeah, I do this too, and if you’re playing reasonably wide you can’t do this and have governors in all your sectors, plus generals.

 

[Gabarius]

It's trivially easy either way. We didn't have this cap for a long time, we didn't need it and it served no purpose so it was cut back in the day. The new devs thinking they know better and playing necromancer has come with a whole host of bandwagon issues. To the point they had to try and fix it ever since, and now we're reached them wanting to do another complete rework because of it after we just had one.

The cap does absolutely nothing to enhance the game play or make the game better.

Exactly. There’s already pretty hefty unity upkeep for high level leaders, so there’s your expenses, as it had been forever. Plus the fact that they made governors LESS effective, requiring more of them.

Devs aren’t players and it shows.