Stellaris Dev Diary #316 - Leader Consolidation

[Peter Ebbesen]

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

Already answered in post 17: Not at present.

 

[Letharion]

Admirals and Generals will be merged into the Commander (Staff) Officer, the Military leader class. Admiral and General will remain as veteran classes, with the following foci:

• Admiral - Focuses on Fleets and general naval combat
• General - Focuses on taking planets and assaulting static defenses - Armies, Planetary Bombardment, Ground Combat, and attacking defensive structures such as Starbases are the General’s forte
• Commissioner Commandant - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Martial Law) -
• Strategist - Focuses on the Council, especially the Minister of Defense position

The old Governors and some Envoy functions will be merged into Officials (civil servant, politician or functionary) , the Administrative leader class.

Their veteran classes will be:

• Delegate Ambassador - Focuses on Federations and the Galactic Community
• Industrialist Magistrate - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Industry and Development)
• Ambassador - Council Focus (Diplomacy, Espionage, and First Contact), especially suited for the new Minister of State position
• Advisor - Council Focus (Economy)

Scientists remain the third, Scientific leader class.

Veteran Classes:

• Explorer - Focuses on Surveying and Exploration
• Academic Researcher- Focuses on Archaeology and Anomalies
• Analyst Dean - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Assist Research)
• Statistician Academic - Focuses on the Council, especially the Minister of Science position

I would like to chime in with some naming suggestions:

Military: Comissioner is not bad, but I think, commandant would be more apropriate as this is the standard title for an officer commanding a facility like base, stronghold etc. [Moff would be cool, but too specific ] I am aware that commandant is awful close to commander as generic term but perhaps that could be changed to (staff) officer instead.

Civil: That would leave them awfully close to the officials, which I would rename to civil servant, politician or functionary. As far as I am concerned, Ambassador should be the class which focuses on the GC and federations (and perhaps one day, other empires). Industrialists sounds one-dimensional for the planetary focus, magistrate would be a broader term. The veteran class focused on the foreign policy could be called Secretary as in "Secretary of State".

Science: For Scientists I would recommend researcher as a more fitting title for those focusing on Archaeology and Anomalies. Dean could be more suited for a scientist focused on planetary governance than analyst. Academic could still be used as it's definitivly better than Statistician as council focused veteran class. Alternatively you could use Advisor for the scientist class and economist as the civil veteran class instead.

 

[Panzerslothen]

Some more ponderings...

That sign off - "boldly go where no Dev Diary has gone before" - is extremely interesting.
That's the Star Trek line... are some of the innovations from Star Trek: Infinite coming over to Stellaris? Possible Star Trek tie ins? Legendary Crews, perhaps? Or Legendary Ships?

Is this a DLC clue? Maybe, although I reckon it's still too early for news on the next DLC offering, but maybe not. Come to think of it, the late-year (September/October/November/December) releases are typically Species Packs. The last Species Pack was Toxoids, in September 2022. Before that was Aquatics in November 2021, and Necroids in October 2020. What could a Species Pack linked to "where no Dev Diary has gone before" relate to, I wonder? Hmm... if only there was some kind of place difficult to access and explore within Stellaris's lore. Maybe a place which could be explored, perhaps with a God-like being (as per a certain 1989 science fiction movie known for going where nobody had gone before).

Something like Energoids/Spiritoids/Shroudoids between mid November and mid December 2023, maybe?

Also:
That there is going to be a 3.11 patch after 3.10 - rather than moving to 4.0 after 3.10 - suggests to me that 4.0 will be something of great substance and significance. Maybe there will even be a 3.12! Wouldn't that be interesting.

(of course this assumes Eladrin isn't bamboozling us, which is not only possible, I would argue it is firmly probable)

Wheels within wheels of curiouser and curiouser thickening plots.

I have been out of touch with Stellaris, and I am considering starting a new game. Do we know when 3.10 will be released? (rough estimates are fine.)

Short answer: probably December, but we don't know.

Long answer: Major patches come out approximately every 3 months or so. Half of those are 'Crisis' updates - i.e. DLC releases - and the other are purely 'Custodian' updates. However the picture is a bit complicated because the DLC updates also have a free patch alongside them, which I believe the Custodian team also works on - those updates just aren't as commonly known by the community as 'Custodian updates'.

The last DLC release was Galactic Paragons, in early May. This implies a next DLC update in November.
The last major patch was early September. This implies a next major patch in early December.
My guess - we'll see a DLC+Update in late November or early December. This would also tie in for the Christmas season.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

That there is going to be a 3.11 patch after 3.10 - rather than moving to 4.0 after 3.10 - suggests to me that 4.0 will be something of great substance and significance. Maybe there will even be a 3.12! Wouldn't that be interesting.

If we move to 4.0 any time soon, we won't be able to release a 3.14 patch.

 

[Zetesofos]

What are the odds that the first public version of the patch will be 3.14.1?

hopefully, they'll give us a sine when they get closer.

 

[Chronos_Sk]

The Ambassador and Delegate names do seem a tad switched.

 

[Panzerslothen]

If we move to 4.0 any time soon, we won't be able to release a 3.14 patch.

I can fully believe that you're absolutely serious about that and I wouldn't even be surprised if its on the Custodian development board alongside a LOT of puns...

The pi(e) Easter Eggs of 3.14 are going to be dank.

 

[rylasasin]

As long as your making the poorly thought out free resource perks go the way of the dodo, you should also consider nerfing the admiral traits. Specifically the four problematic ones: Fleet Organizer, Armada Traditions, Military Pioneer, and Shipwrights. Thanks to these, it's far too easy to get neigh free fleets you can build at breakneck speed and have a high naval capacity to boot.

While you could nerf them down individually, reducing or replacing their effects, personally I say just make them so their effects don't stack and you can't get more than one of these per person. That would reduce their impact by a lot. Being unable to stack two to four Military Pioneers in your council to get nigh free ships or a bunch of fleet organizers on your council to give you butt tons of free naval capacity (as if anchorages and supremacy's traditions weren't enough of a problem on their own!) would work wonders towards fixing the large fleet problems (And the fleet related lag) issues we now face.

Actually, you should probably make it so that all council traits don't stack, so you're more encouraged to get a variety of perks instead of just stacking a few select ones into your council.

 

[GermanDave]

The leader upkeep cost is VERY restrictive now early game. Since we can't seem to directly mod it (0,2 unity per level per month tick). This can seriously kneecap unity income in the early game. It's like you don't want us to have many leaders.

 

[WoodenP]

It's like you don't want us to have many leaders.

Exactly, they don't. That was literally the remit of the leader rework.

 

[Seridor]

what i don't like about these sneak peeks is that now I just don't want to start a new game until this drops.. I was still playing 3.7 during 3.8 era, as I felt the whole leader update half cooked, now finally gave it go in 3.9 for a single run, but now i'm gona wait 3.10.. Thankfully that official star trek mod is coming soon, will check out that.

 

[GermanDave]

Exactly, they don't. That was literally the remit of the leader rework.

Then at least let me mod the crap out. What happens between me and my CPU is MY BUSINESS.
And the pattern of: 21. Introduce feature 2. Nerf it into the ground"" is just plain idiotic. People will min-max anyway. The new approach to leaders also makes it hurt more to lose a leader now.
The start for bio non-swarm empires also seems kind of broken, hampered by low economic output.

 

[I Couldn't Decide]

What could a Species Pack linked to "where no Dev Diary has gone before" relate to, I wonder?

Changelings.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Then at least let me mod the crap out. What happens between me and my CPU is MY BUSINESS.
And the pattern of: 21. Introduce feature 2. Nerf it into the ground"" is just plain idiotic. People will min-max anyway. The new approach to leaders also makes it hurt more to lose a leader now.
The start for bio non-swarm empires also seems kind of broken, hampered by low economic output.

If you want to mod out the leader upkeep it should be as simple as changing the values in the Stellaris\common\inline_scripts\paragon\leader_base_upkeep.txt file.

 

[GermanDave]

If you want to mod out the leader upkeep it should be as simple as changing the values in the Stellaris\common\inline_scripts\paragon\leader_base_upkeep.txt file.

Ok I have a SERIOUS ripgrep problem it seems.

 

[Gyges Skyeye]

We may end up shifting more of the over-cap penalty over to the upkeep cost of leaders.

This, to me, seems like a perfect opportunity to accentuate playstyle differences between tall and wide empires. As a game mechanic, making leaders important basically necessitates that both tall and wide empires have sufficient numbers of them to run their empires. There's not exactly a way around that. (Not that doesn't involve telling wide empires that they don't get to play with leaders beyond a certain number.)

What can be done is choosing what penalties are applied to growing leader spam and giving the player options from which they can pick and make choices. Rather than having more leaders is more good, which always favors wide empires; We can have leader count dictate how bad you are at something and have options whose worst effects can be best skirted in tall and wide builds. Thus tall and wide empires to be bad at different things, which accentuates their comparative advantage and mechanical identities.

A good example of how this would work in game are the industrial and trade policy selectors. You can pick where on the spectrum of consumer goods to alloys focus you want to land. And for trade, you can pick how you want to cash in and monetize trade value. Those drive decisions on how you structure your economy (and it's granular building choice).

For leaders, lets use this as an example and starting point of ideation:

Societal Chain of Command - "We need to set policy on how our organizational hierarchy works. Do we distinguish an explicit chain of command by pay grades or take a more horizontal approach that might lead to butting of heads?"

Policy Option 1 - Pay Grades - "Someone must be the top dog. But how will we know who is top dog if we don't pay them as such?"
Effect - Sort leaders by experience value, with ruler on top. Each ruler must be paid more than the ruler below them. Start pay grades at bottom and increase them arithmetically. Aka leader 0 -> 10 unity, Leader 1 -> 20 unity, Leader 2 -> 30 unity, Leader 3 -> 40 unity, etc.


Policy Option 2 - Horizontal Cadres - "Our leaders fulfill their tasks independently. We can have more and cheaper, productive leaders who don't need to be managed. Sadly though, with too many cooks in the kitchen comes loads of useless infighting."
Effect - Count leaders by total number. Apply a logarithmically growing empire wide penalty(s). Penalties can/should be something steep. At 5 leaders, -5% to science output, basic, industrial, and strategic resources, ship fire rate. At 10 leaders, something around -7.5% to the same. At 20 leaders, -10%. At 40 leaders, -12.5%. And so on.

Calibrate these values around playtesting. But the point is, tall empires should be fine paying arithmetic values, while wide ones would be crippled by their costs to maintain staffing levels. Done correctly it should force wide empires to switch to logarithmic penalties, creating headwinds for wide empires to hopefully induce lethargy in them. Critically, a lethargy that the player opts into. Hopefully shifting the adage from "more is more good" to one of "more is managed differently".

 

[Nayna II]

YES I wanted Space Military Governors like Sheridan or Sisko who can headdesk whenever the civilian population decides to do something ridiculous. PERFECTly aligned with my preferences

 

[stargazersatnight]

What is your goal there exactly? Conquer an entire empire after winning a couple space battles or just taking their capitol? Not trying to be rude, just curious what game state you're looking for vs what the developers are? I don't forsee them actually reworking the warfare mechanic too heavily.

As it stands, the best use of war is to start one, take a few systems and one colony, then hold onto it till white peace; rinse, repeat. Military empires that want to integrate other empires are better off doing it piece-meal rather than all at once - its more accurate to how we see most conflicts throughout history that were of equalish size.

Any goal really, by midgame any war involves the whole galaxy and you have to conquest every planet for it to end. War exhaustion will take 100 years it's obnoxious. There have been a few threads about it off and on. Part of it is undoubtedly because I play 1000 star galaxies, but in any case a eu4 style to negotiate the end of the war would be a great qol improvement

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Societal Chain of Command - "We need to set policy on how our organizational hierarchy works. Do we distinguish an explicit chain of command by pay grades or take a more horizontal approach that might lead to butting of heads?"

Policy Option 1 - Pay Grades - "Someone must be the top dog. But how will we know who is top dog if we don't pay them as such?"
Effect - Sort leaders by experience value, with ruler on top. Each ruler must be paid more than the ruler below them. Start pay grades at bottom and increase them arithmetically. Aka leader 0 -> 10 unity, Leader 1 -> 20 unity, Leader 2 -> 30 unity, Leader 3 -> 40 unity, etc.


Policy Option 2 - Horizontal Cadres - "Our leaders fulfill their tasks independently. We can have more and cheaper, productive leaders who don't need to be managed. Sadly though, with too many cooks in the kitchen comes loads of useless infighting."
Effect - Count leaders by total number. Apply a logarithmically growing empire wide penalty(s). Penalties can/should be something steep. At 5 leaders, -5% to science output, basic, industrial, and strategic resources, ship fire rate. At 10 leaders, something around -7.5% to the same. At 20 leaders, -10%. At 40 leaders, -12.5%. And so on.
Calibrate these values around playtesting. But the point is, tall empires should be fine paying arithmetic values, while wide ones would be crippled by their costs to maintain staffing levels. Done correctly it should force wide empires to switch to logarithmic penalties, creating headwinds for wide empires to hopefully induce lethargy in them. Critically, a lethargy that the player opts into. Hopefully shifting the adage from "more is more good" to one of "more is managed differently".

Alternatively, "these pay scales are bonkers, but at least they make for interesting narratives."


The Story of the Arithmetic Pay Grades:

The second highest-paid employee in the empire is the... chief dog catcher of Aldebaran II? Granted, he's probably really good at catching dogs, definitely better than his newly recruited deputy, but why exactly are we paying him 153 times that of his deputy, and twice that of Aldebaran II's governor?

He's the top dog!

Top dog-catcher!

Same thing!

No, it really isn't. We could buy a cruiser for that money. Sack him. Now, I've had a complaint from Abel, Banach, Cauchy, and Dirichlet about the pay schedule.

The four heads of science on the old Cybrex Ringworld? What problem could they possibly have? Their salaries are astronomical!

They want equal pay for equal work.

What?

They claim that since they were all hired and assigned at the same moment of frozen time (don't ask me what they mean by that) and have been working the exact same number of hours, they are exactly equally skilled and can prove it mathematically. Thus it is discrimination to rank them differently and hence pay them differently.

I'm stumped.

Me too.

Right, let's sack them.

Yes, let's. Now, next up is... Oh, it is another complaint from governor Bronson... Don't grimace.

That time of the year again?

Yes, same old, same old. Pointing out that he's principled and righteous, a true unifier, and voted best governor in the empire for the seventh year running. He's asking (rather sarcastically if you ask me) why we are paying a corrupt gullible bureaucratic old fool of an embezzler the highest salary of any of the governors in the empire.

Because I'm on the council, that's why! And I'm not an old fool.

I beg to differ, it is exactly because you are an old fool. Longest serving governor in the empire. Being on the council has nothing to do with it.

I'd forgotten that. Forget my own head next. Right. Sack him.

We already tried that, remember? It didn't work.

We did? It didn't? Why not?

Body doubles. I've fired seventeen brown-haired guys so far thinking they were Bronson, but he's always three moves ahead.

There's got to be a better way of doing this. We keep hiring and firing people on the basis of their pay grades.

That's it. You're fired!

No! Wait! I've got an idea.


The Story of the Logarithmic Horizontal Cadres:

That concludes the demonstration of our new improved pay schedule, the "Horizon Cadres". Now, we've all had our disagreements about the old pay schedule, haven't we just, but let's bury the hatchet, end the feuds, and let bygones be bygones. It is water under the bridge, and we've all passed a lot of water since yesterday. Are there any questions?

FIRST!

Commander Jameson, first as always. We are all ears.

The more exceptional commanders employed, the worse we are at basic science. Is that right?

Right on, Commander.

...and the worse we are at industrial production?

Yes.

...and the worse our navy performs in combat?

Yes.

So, as a hypothetical, if I were to retire, then Commander Shephard would perform better?

Got it in one.

Even if, to take an extreme example, he was on patrol on the frontier, cut off from all contact and desperately fighting off Bananian Hunks out to steal his Mojo, while I was relaxing in the capital?

Even then!

My goodness. The strategic implications are stunning.

Indeed they are. The advantages of purges of the officer corps during wartime should not be underestimated, and that's just one of the interesting benefits we've already anticipated... and planned for!

Okay....Errr.. Sorry if I'm a bit thick here, but what about the ships commanded by unexceptional commanders?

Same goes for them. The more exceptional commanders, the worse everybody performs, and conversely, the fewer exceptional commanders, the better everybody performs.

I understand it all now. I've got just one question: Why?

Why?

Yes, why? Why does this happen?

It is quantum. A butterfly's fart on Roomba III affects the weather patterns in the cloud computing on Yorasukker IV, that sort of thing.

Oh, I see. Obvious in retrospect.

Next is... Governor Morgan, you have a question?

Yes. I'll be fielding the next version of MorganLink next week, so I just want to know, did I understand right that Jameson's retirement will improve the quality?

I am not retiring.

Yes. Commanders, Officials, Scientists - the fewer exceptional leaders, the better it is for the economy.

What about the MorganSatellite constellations - we've pretty much reached a plateau of production pending technological breakthroughs.

Same thing. With Commander Jameson's retirement, their productivity will improve.

I am not retiring!

So, hypothetically, if the government were to retire Scientists Abel, Banach, Cauchy, and Dirichlet along with Commander Jameson, both MorganLink and MorganSatellite would increase in value?

I am not retiring!!

Yes, that's how it works.

Great! It was nice knowing you, Jameson. Now, I'm got a business proposal for you gentlemen.

I AM NOT RETIRING!

---

Shall we tell him that we already fired Abel, Banach, Cauchy, and Dirichlet yesterday, and he has already reaped the benefits?

I may be an old fool, but I am not that foolish. Take his money.

 

[Ikael]

One of the most interesting developer diaries in a long time, so here are some thoughts about it (also, no name suggestions because that has been extensively covered by other fellow forum dwellers):

- Giving each leader class "governor" capabilities is a very smart way to reduce leader types and it opens lots of possibilities for flavor, but I am not sure about the whole "commanders puts sectors under martial law". Unless the post-war occupation period has been massively expanded and buffed (thus making snowballing and conquering harder), there is very little use for expending precious leader cap to prevent rebellions from invasion shock. On the other hand, each type of leader giving different bonuses to each sector/planet they rule would be quite on brand for them (scientists increasing science output from sectors, commanders increasing the naval cap and defense effectivity, officers increasing trade value, etc, etc)

- Rolling admirals and generals into commanders: Hell yeah! It will be interesting to see their reworked traits as well

- Still, I have mixed feelings about veteran classes. Many of them seem that they won't have uses beyond the very early game (explorer) while other ones look too niche (academic). Having two veteran classes for the council position, on the other hand, seems to offer a quite interesting choice! I just hope that there won't be any obvious "best veteran class".

- It is interesting to see that envoys will stay with us longer than expected, even if we won't need as much as before thanks to the new council position. However, I do wonder if they will also stay if espionage is eventually reworked and you get to assign a Commander named "Shephard" on a special mission against the Contingency : p

- Finally, the teasers for the "not internal politics" sound great. Bring on leader-dependent agendas and different council mechanics (and loyalty too, now that we are at it!)