Stellaris Dev Diary #316 - Leader Consolidation

[I Couldn't Decide]

ruling an empire.

No individual can single-handedly manage even a moderately sized city, let alone massive states. That's why bureaucracy exists. Rulers make the decisions, bureaucrats and civil servants act on them. Besides, things like food and energy supply (logistics in general, really) need to be taken care of. "Ruling an empire" requires some amount of administrating the land within it, even if you're focusing on foreign affairs.

There is a reason that kings, princes, presidents, prime ministers, etc. don't run the capital in real life.

This is common, but not universal. The further into history you go, the less this is the case. However, territories outside of the core area (typically the capital + the surrounding farmlands) were given far more leeway in governing than modern administrative divisions are today. Still, even when the capital isn't directly governed, local authorities tend to have fewer liberties than other administrative divisions.

There are only so many hours in the day.

Whether absolute monarchs or presidents, leaders know this. Those in charge of departments tend to be trusted on making reasonable decisions. In fact, it is precisely because there are only so many hours in the day that this is the case: if a leader tried micromanaging every single department/ministry, there would be massive problems (macroeconomic management and agricultural management require two very different skillsets).

One of the most important aspects of leadership is being willing and able to delegate so you can concentrate on the important things you cannot delegate, and the running of cities - or in this case planets - is definitely something that should always be delegated.

I agree that having your leader directly ruling the planet would be silly. But for much of the early game, your entire empire is contained in a single sector. In essence, your empire hasn't yet grown enough to require two levels of administrative divisions. Planets start as your "states"/"provinces". Once you expand enough, sectors take that role, and planets become "counties". But the capital planet and sector remain the capital; being the administrative centers of the empire, they are the empire (in a sense). If governors are civil servants, my argument definitely suffers (though rulers still need something, I think), but they don't seem to be.

 

[CMDR Exorcist]

This is very exciting. Especially getting the Commander leader roll. Sucks that leader cap is still around, but the way its managed now is definitely not as crazy as it was in 3.8.

 

[WoodenP]

Sounds great! Still hoping for a dlc that focuses on internal instability (corruption, uprisings, separatists) that could also elaborate on these leaders. I know some people out there hate this idea, but huge empires should take a lot of skill and a little luck to hold together.

Anyway here are one-word suggestions for alternatives to Advisor:

Treasurer
Bursar
Chamberlain
Chancellor

Even “Planner” would a step up.

Treasurer is great, I like that!

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

No individual can single-handedly manage even a moderately sized city, let alone massive states. That's why bureaucracy exists. Rulers make the decisions, bureaucrats and civil servants act on them. Besides, things like food and energy supply (logistics in general, really) need to be taken care of. "Ruling an empire" requires some amount of administrating the land within it, even if you're focusing on foreign affairs.

You are not telling me anything I don't already know here.

This is common, but not universal. The further into history you go, the less this is the case. However, territories outside of the core area (typically the capital + the surrounding farmlands) were given far more leeway in governing than modern administrative divisions are today. Still, even when the capital isn't directly governed, local authorities tend to have fewer liberties than other administrative divisions.

True. In decentralized states, and in particular in very decentralized states with weak central authority, it was common for the ruler to be somebody who paid significant attention to maintain his ancestral lands - it was his power base, the only thing he could rely on (and that only so far as personal loyalties held), and the focus of his rule - often to the detriment of the state.

Stellaris does not model decentralized states, but highly centralized states, and in centralized states the focus is ruling the state.

Whether absolute monarchs or presidents, leaders know this. Those in charge of departments tend to be trusted on making reasonable decisions. In fact, it is precisely because there are only so many hours in the day that this is the case: if a leader tried micromanaging every single department/ministry, there would be massive problems (macroeconomic management and agricultural management require two very different skillsets).

And this is exactly why the gritty details of managing a capital city in a centralized state is delegated to trusted people who can make decisions without consulting higher authority, such as mayors supported by city councils. Why power is delegated to governors or regional councils in regions.

And why planets in Stellaris are governored by a local governor, whose job is to spend every waking hour dedicated to running the planet with the aid of his trusted subordinates, without having to abandon everything because there's a diplomatic crisis or an outbreak of war or internal strife or political chikanery or policy issues to consider, that has higher priority than attending to the day-to-day running of that particular planet through the local bureaucracy answering to him.

The most exceptional of these governors are represented in-game by the named leaders.

I agree that having your leader directly ruling the planet would be silly. But for much of the early game, your entire empire is contained in a single sector. In essence, your empire hasn't yet grown enough to require two levels of administrative divisions. Planets start as your "states"/"provinces". Once you expand enough, sectors take that role, and planets become "counties". But the capital planet and sector remain the capital; being the administrative centers of the empire, they are the empire (in a sense). If governors are civil servants, my argument definitely suffers (though rulers still need something, I think), but they don't seem to be.

My problem here is that I imagine that the workload of anybody governing a planet responsibly in a centralized state is very high, if we aren't into comedy style WH40k governance, and that adding onto that the reponsibilities of head of state and head of government, both ceremonial, political, and executive, on the grounds on "the empire hasn't grown large enough to require two levels of administrative divisions" is a greater workload than the suspension of disbelief will support.

 

[Onyd]

My first reaction here was that "Commander" is a naval rank in many militaries.

Commander - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Of course it appears that this title is used for more things these days but colloquially more often the navy these days.

I would have said "Officer" but then the civilians are going to "Official". My impression of that is that an official can be civilian or military.

Do these have to be single words? A "Civil Servant" is any number of public sector, non-military, non-party-hack staffers. There are other words like "Functionary" (scroll down to the "official" section: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/civil servant) but that one at least is slightly perjorative.

I hadn't thought of it before I started my post, but maybe:

• Officer (military combat/support leader class)
• Civil Servant (civilian administration leader class)
• Scientist (civilian research leader class)

(I'm splitting little hairs as narrowly as I can of course.)


By now I have (*record scratch*) hours playing Stellaris and I'm having a lot of fun. Thank you!

 

[yurshenko]

Commanders should be in charge of espionage (specifically the general class), not officers. It is a way for them to passively gain experience without being at war, it makes them more attractive, useful and reduces the burden on officers.

I speak Spanish, and the term "funcionario" (person who works for the State) can be translated as Official, Functionary or Servant. I don't think the name the devs chose is wrong. Likewise, another serious option is to use the term "Politician".

 

[Lys91]

True. In decentralized states, and in particular in very decentralized states with weak central authority, it was common for the ruler to be somebody who paid significant attention to maintain his ancestral lands - it was his power base, the only thing he could rely on (and that only so far as personal loyalties held), and the focus of his rule - often to the detriment of the state.

This is not the only example. France (post-revolution) is a highly centralized state. Paris was under direct state control for most of 1794-1977. That was under multiple regime forms. I am pretty sure you can find other examples.

 

[I Couldn't Decide]

You are not telling me anything I don't already know here.

Oops.

Stellaris does not model decentralized states, but highly centralized states, and in centralized states the focus is ruling the state.

The gets to the root of the problem: what do "centralization," "ruling," and "state" mean? Is centralization a vertical process, where more legislative power is invested into the central government at the cost of delegating administrative power to subdivisions, or a horizontal one, where the central government increases power over the subdivisions at the cost of more bureaucracy? Is ruling more about making the grand strategic decisions (such as foreign policy or national security) or more about the routine administration (such as domestic policy or civilian logistics)? And is the state that which controls territory, or the territory itself? Worse, these answers are hardly binary; there may be hundreds of equally valid ones.

And this is exactly why the gritty details of managing a capital city in a centralized state is delegated to trusted people who can make decisions without consulting higher authority, such as mayors supported by city councils. Why power is delegated to governors or regional councils in regions.

Another (and depending on time, more important) reason is travel time. Not saying you're wrong (you're absolutely right).

The most exceptional of these governors are represented in-game by the named leaders.

I would agree, but I would like some indication that there's a governor. It's my biggest problem with the "focusing on the great leaders" approach: it ignores those who are not well-known. Most people can probably name their head of state/government; they probably can't name their UNGA representative.

My problem here is that I imagine that the workload of anybody governing a planet responsibly in a centralized state is very high

Which is why bureaucracy and civil servants exist. FWIW, that was the first point I made.

adding onto that the responsibilities of head of state and head of government, both ceremonial, political, and executive, on the grounds on "the empire hasn't grown large enough to require two levels of administrative divisions" is a greater workload than the suspension of disbelief will support.

Note that creating two levels of administrative divisions would not increase, but actually decrease the administrative workload (assuming that sectors are created from territory controlled directly by the central government). Also, do you think that planets that aren't in sectors are controlled directly or not? Genuinely curious.

I am pretty sure you can find other examples.

I was thinking of Washington, D.C., as congress has final saying over everything. But check out the Wikipedia articles on federal districts, federal territories, and direct-controlled municipalities.

 

[Noir_Reborn]

Hey Eladrin, no answer if this DLC will continue to devalue the leader mechanic for people not owing Galactic Paragons? Because for now it seems like it at the best it will just cause "admirals" to start getting general traits that are absolute garbage for a leader leading a fleet?

 

[Chrysostom15]

Certain civics should impact the number of leaders, as should the population count for species able to serve as leaders. I understand wanting to make leaders a bigger help for smaller empires due to balance, but realism suggest population growth would mean more leaders and more potential leaders. Even if the increase is only log linear such as getting one additional leader at 10 pops, 2 at 100, 3 at 1,000 and 4 at 10k. Adding a leaders, at least for every add digit in primary species population would be more realistic than the same empire having the same leadership capacity with 3k pops as with 3. I agree with technology and traditions and ascension perks increasing leader capacity, but population should do so too.

There is currently a mega structure that significantly increases envoys, especially when you have 2 of them, I think it is the essembly or something, that should probably increase leaders, as should the strategic command megastructure.

As a tangent It would also be nice if some leaders enabled faster megaatructure construction or more or more at the same time. Likewise, it would be great if it was possible to assist federation members with megastructure construction. These huge structures already are related to events where other empires requires you delay construction and stuff like that, why not have an option to request or offer aid in building them. Similar for vassals and masters. It could be even a vassal slider of megaatructure support where the vassal or lord contributes x percent of the cost of megaatructures built and a similar federation setting.

Especially, late game, imagine you have a prospertaroum. Consider how much more valuable it would be with a matter converter or Dyson sphere or a scientorium with a science megaatructure station. The ability to buy one for it, or contribute towards it would be great. It would make it more valuable and powerful and, also, make big players fighting over lordship of such a vassal much bigger. Helping to get vassals megaatructures can really enhace the game and the value of vassals.

I being this up because I know leaders are currently part of the balance for tall v wide, but it is possible to make leaders more important and have more of them and then balance that with the above idea that turbocharges vassals and strengthens tall.

Such a change would still keep the tall v wide balance, and even more it to tall some, while being more realistic and making leaders more important.

Another idea is treating fleets like hearts of iron 4 and allowing multiple fleets to be controlled by a grand admiral or something. Individual fleets could have their own admirals, but say several fleets could join under the command of a grand admiral who can have his own command fleet and command other fleets. The command fleet under his direct command could give fleet wide buffs to all the fleets under the grand admiral. So, with the grand admiral, say every fleet with an admiral upto his fleet number limit could be in his grand fleet. Say that starts at 3 and grows to upto 8. We have his command fleet and the upto it other fleets inside the grand fleet. Each needing to be within his command range starting at say 2 systems and growing. Each fleet is relatively independent, but any fleet in the same system as the grand admiral and his commands fleet gets all this command fleets buffs. So, say, you could have 1 of each type of titain in the command fleet and it would be really strong. Plus, the grand admiral would provide some experience boost and other benefits. Just an idea. It would be nice to also allow their entire grand fleet to be controlled together, as an option. Nice to be able to add a juggernaut and army ships. Also nice if you can attach a scientist and multiple science ships to the grand fleet to enable debris examination and stuff as part of the fleet. It is more realistic and easier than chasing behind your fleet with science ships.

It should be possible to have a scientist command several science ships you speed up exploration as long as they are in the same system. Say each additional ship increases speed by about 2/3 of what the last did. So 1 ship is 100 percent. 2 ships can survey a typical system at 165 percent the speed and 3 at 200 percent speed. Twice as fast/half as long.

Early game, obviously, people would use 1 ship per scientist, by mid game, being able to use 3 ships per scientist, all in the same system or within a command range, would reduce the scientist spam and make leaders more important.

Mid game, for peaceful builds especially, you need to explore and claim systems before someone else if you don't want to declare wars to take them by force.

Xenophobic builds can get Starbase costs to a reasonable influence cost with expansion and the right ascension perk and claim over a hundred systems without war... But using almost all their leaders as scientists. Builds like that, where the goal is to peacefully take a large chunk of the galaxy, currently use up leader slots to explore. Speeding up exploration would build some room for other leader use, rather than all scientists to explore for decades. Plus, it might let them transition to looking at anomalies and relics a little sooner. This would improve the game enjoyment and richness for that play style.

It would also help for tall builds where they're explore away from their territory and where losing 1 ship can be a huge loss if no other science ship is within several travel years. With a wide build, you can have star bases close enough to rebuild list science ships. With a tall build, you might have some way, way far away star bases, having 3 Science ships traveling together may allow you to continue exploring if you lose one. Columbus used 3 ships to explore the new world. Space is dangerous and redundancy should be an option that does not cost extra leaders who do nothing nor the micro of sending 2 more unled science ships by hand. Let's have science fleets as an option with a scientist leading them.

 

[Spyre2k]

Next Week
Next week we’ll boldly go where no dev diary has gone before.

GROUND COMBAT.

 

[VoodooDog]

make zero sense that hive minds have leaders or councils....

 

[Beauty Nova]

Gonna be a real tough choice updating to get these fantastic changes, since they'll be coming with the destruction of habitats...

 

[Calvax]

GROUND COMBAT.

More likely covering the Star Trek game

 

[yurshenko]

make zero sense that hive minds have leaders or councils....

Personally, I never understood why hive minds have leaders if at the end of the day they are not individuals, they are all the same consciousness. Only in the case of the Progenitor Hive origin do I consider it justifiable. It would be interesting if hive minds, instead of using leaders, would instead use their own consciousness nodes for each of the functions and the limit of leaders in this case would limit the number of functions that the same person can perform. consciousness node simultaneously. It would be quite an interesting feature to lose the variety of individuals in favor of immortal "leaders" who can be used in more than one function at a time.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I would agree, but I would like some indication that there's a governor. It's my biggest problem with the "focusing on the great leaders" approach: it ignores those who are not well-known. Most people can probably name their head of state/government; they probably can't name their UNGA representative.

When asked, Paradox has outright stated in connection with the 3.7 leader rework with the introduction of the cap, that all planets have governors and that we just pick the exceptional ones, just like how all fleets are led by admirals rather than left in a decision-making void if you don't assigned named admirals, so the two of us are in good company here.

Having the leader slot show up as empty rather than the silhoutte with a random name is a UX choice.

(And as for why survey ships cannot perform anything beyond the most basic actions without an assigned scientist leader, I believe the argument is something along the lines of "mumble mumble balance." )

Note that creating two levels of administrative divisions would not increase, but actually decrease the administrative workload (assuming that sectors are created from territory controlled directly by the central government). Also, do you think that planets that aren't in sectors are controlled directly or not? Genuinely curious.

They have local governors (since all planets have governors in Stellaris) that answer to the government, whatever the government be.

This is not the only example. France (post-revolution) is a highly centralized state. Paris was under direct state control for most of 1794-1977. That was under multiple regime forms. I am pretty sure you can find other examples.

I was thinking of Washington, D.C., as congress has final saying over everything. But check out the Wikipedia articles on federal districts, federal territories, and direct-controlled municipalities.

State control. Congress.

I am afraid I fail to see why you think this makes a case for rulers/heads of state to be considered governors of Paris, Washington DC, or other direct-controlled entities in Stellaris terms.

I guess you could argue that if the Precept of the Seine and the Precept of the Police answers to the government, and Napoleon is the head of state, that makes him the governor of Paris by the transitive property. And certainly his building projects shows his direct hand. And likewise that since the local authorities in Washington DC answer directly to congress/federal agencies and territories ditto, Joe Biden as head of state is the governor because, well, somebody has to be, right?

But that's not how governors work in Stellaris. They directly affect the productivity of the population in the areas they govern, reduce crime, reduce red tape (the reduction to empire size from POPs) with their positive and negative traits having potentially significant effects.

Joe Biden, however, is not involved in the day to day running of Washington DC at all, nor can he issue orders to the federal territories save through his authority as president of the US. Jimmy Carter's background as a Peanut Farmer and his general understanding of agricultural issues was of exactly as much relevance to the agriculture of the US Federal Territories as it was to the states in the union, that is to say, not at all. Their governors - because the permanently inhabited US federal territories do have governors - have a more direct impact on the running of their territories than the president will ever have.

As for Paris, it is my understanding that it was governed as well - or poorly - in Napoleon's absence on campaign as in his presence, but perhaps I am wrong in that. Perhaps Napoleon and the subsequent monarchs and elected heads of state of France to 1977 were directly involved in governing Paris to the degree that it would make sense to argue that they were governors in Stellaris terms. But I seriously doubt it.

 

[yurshenko]

Likewise, I think they should not have a "ruler" per se. I think it would best represent as another central consciousness Node since the hive mind is not multiple individuals connected to one central individual, it is multiple individuals sharing consciousness.

 

[Ajacoba]

make zero sense that hive minds have leaders or councils....

the council nodes are sub-brains and the leaders are relay stations
just like in Warhammer or Star Craft
someone has to interpret the orders from the main mind and explain it to the dumb zergs at the very end of the command chain

the only hiveminds in stories I know that do not have leader entities are small scale ones
even the borg in Star Trek have queens and occasionally platoon leaders or guys like Locutus

also in terms of game mechanics the drones are individualistic enough to develop deviancy or become pirates, they aren't entirely brain-dead

I mean, you can't expect a command unit placed someone on the capital world or wherever to single-handedly control each and every action of every single drone in the entire hivemind, especially if you play ravenous swarm and eventually control half the map (honestly, technically your empire is "too big" the moment you leave your home system and bring literal light years between your ships and the homeworld)

 

[karimjebari]

Suggestions for new names:

Advisor - Council Focus (Economy)
suggestion: Chancellor (like the "Chancellor of the Exchequer")

Academic - Focuses on Archaeology and Anomalies
suggestion: investigator

Analyst - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Assist Research)
suggestion: research coordinator

Statistician - Focuses on the Council, especially the Minister of Science position
suggestion: Provost (A reference to Prokhor Zakharov from Alpha Centauri)

It would be fun if the leader names changed depending on government form. For example, under a monarchy, the commissioner could be a "viceroy" and an admiral could be a "lord admiral". Whereas in a democracy, the industrialist could be "people's tribune" or "public servant".

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

With another forced council position, is there going to be an increase in the maximum number of council slots we can have?