Stellaris Dev Diary #321 - Origins and Civics

[Rafss]

In my opinion (and this is just a personal opinion) the ethics in Stellaris should NOT provide bonuses of any kind and should only limit the policies that our empire can use or should maintain. To provide us with bonuses we already have Authority and Civics and even Origins, not to mention the traits of the species itself.
If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense since ethics are what determine the use of certain Authorities and Civics, and political factions are happy depending on your current laws, your actions, the ethics of your government and its system of government. By eliminating the bonuses provided by ethics, ethics preferences motivated solely by said bonuses are eliminated. Therefore, the only thing left to motivate you to change or maintain the ethics of your government are the happiness of your political factions and your own interest in maintaining a system of government that allows the use of certain laws and civilities. Not something as flat and sometimes meaningless as a bonuses.

I started reading that with a bit of disbelief but... you're not wrong. We do have a ton of bonuses in the game already, and ethics have other effects unrelated to their main bonus such as unlocking edicts and policies as you said. I just think this discussion would need another thread and it would be such a large rework that I don't think the devs can prioritize for now, even if they wanted to (unless it is tied to a drastic Internal Politics update); but this sounds like a great way to innovate in Stellaris 2 for example.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Does "Astral rift fail probability" mean you can fail rifts based on rng?

 

[Critical Ethics]

I would personally call it a militant defensive civic rather than specifically tall or wide, the definitions of which aren't completely clear in Stellaris.

In the early game, the civic suffers from expansion constraints, as picking up too many planets and systems will cause them to fall behind due to Empire Size. In the late game, it does have different behavior due to the strong pops size benefit.

A lot of expansion occurs during the early phase of the game, however, which means that empires with the civic may face some challenges during that portion of the game, and may not be as wide as you would like without some conquest.

The risk is that it's a flat tax; you get the same per-planet bonuses and penalties from this whether you have 10 planets or 100 planets. If you want it to be good for "tall" builds (it says tall in the diary!) you want a progressive tax.

My suggestion would be to apply the empire size reduction to pops and districts only within the core sector and apply the planet and system size increases to anything outside it. Maybe add an additional penalty for having your homeworld outside your core sector. The empire can freely and cheaply expand and grow within their sovereign homelands but anyone living in the faraway feels unwanted and rowdy.

 

[yurshenko]

The risk is that it's a flat tax; you get the same per-planet bonuses and penalties from this whether you have 10 planets or 100 planets. If you want it to be good for "tall" builds (it says tall in the diary!) you want a progressive tax.

My suggestion would be to apply the empire size reduction to pops and districts only within the core sector and apply the planet and system size increases to anything outside it. Maybe add an additional penalty for having your homeworld outside your core sector. The empire can freely and cheaply expand and grow within their sovereign homelands but anyone living in the faraway feels unwanted and rowdy.

You made me remember the original Stellaris, where we had a limit of planets that we could have under our direct control (core sector). Beyond that limit, the planets had to be part of sectors that were self-managing based on their designation and these sectors contributed a percentage of their production to our core sector. The AP Imperial Prerogative is an ancient vestige of that system, as it once increased the limit of planets we could have under our direct control. Certainly your suggestion could be an updated way to recover something similar to that system.

 

[Thiend]

The risk is that it's a flat tax; you get the same per-planet bonuses and penalties from this whether you have 10 planets or 100 planets. If you want it to be good for "tall" builds (it says tall in the diary!) you want a progressive tax.

My suggestion would be to apply the empire size reduction to pops and districts only within the core sector and apply the planet and system size increases to anything outside it. Maybe add an additional penalty for having your homeworld outside your core sector. The empire can freely and cheaply expand and grow within their sovereign homelands but anyone living in the faraway feels unwanted and rowdy.

I think there's probably an easier way. Separate sprawl into different sources, and then make the civic give the current penalties and bonuses but also +(X) sprawl from systems/planets before any penalties are applied. The effect of which would be that an empire going tall would still be below or not much above that threshold, but a wide one would be hurt by it more than helped by the pop and district sprawl reductions. This would also enable adding sprawl from vassals with its own measurement and limit, so that someone with a billion vassals gets sprawled into irrelevance instead of them playing the game on autopilot.

 

[Ajacoba]

I think there's probably an easier way. Separate sprawl into different sources, and then make the civic give the current penalties and bonuses but also +(X) sprawl from systems/planets before any penalties are applied. The effect of which would be that an empire going tall would still be below or not much above that threshold, but a wide one would be hurt by it more than helped by the pop and district sprawl reductions. This would also enable adding sprawl from vassals with its own measurement and limit, so that someone with a billion vassals gets sprawled into irrelevance instead of them playing the game on autopilot.

They already fixed vassals by making the loyalty penalty on having too many unavoidable

 

[Thiend]

They already fixed vassals by making the loyalty penalty on having too many unavoidable

Unless they made low loyalty actually cause rebellions/reduce taxes, that didn't do anything.

 

[Calvax]

Unless they made low loyalty actually cause rebellions/reduce taxes, that didn't do anything.

I hope if this isn't addressed that it will be. I assume the AI already takes into account if other AI would join it when deciding to go to war. Having a large number of low loyalty vassals should be a powderkeg that eventually goes off.

 

[Beauty Nova]

Would be neat if vassals could pledge secret fealty to each other and then if they win a war become a federation.

 

[yurshenko]

Would be neat if vassals could pledge secret fealty to each other and then if they win a war become a federation.

I talked about this topic some time ago through a suggestion, but as always it was ignored by both the community and the devs. Currently the game lacks some mechanics regarding alliances and declaring wars.
1-If a vassal empire swears secret Loyalty to you, you can declare war on its overlord and it will join you in the war if you use the casus belli. But however, if you declare a war of subjugation to the same overlord, said vassal does not join you, which I don't see any sense in since he will still end up as your vassal.
2-Being a vassal, there is no mechanism to collaborate with other vassal or non-vassal Empires to declare a joint war of liberation. Just as there is the Secret Loyalty option, there should be a "Secret Alliance" option which allows two empires to collaborate in a war of aggression against another Empire, such as the Overlord himself.
In general, I think the game needs the concept of a military alliance for wars of aggression, not just mutual defense pacts. Relying on federations alone for this purpose is cumbersome and sometimes not viable.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

1-If a vassal empire swears secret Loyalty to you, you can declare war on its overlord and it will join you in the war if you use the casus belli. But however, if you declare a war of subjugation to the same overlord, said vassal does not join you, which I don't see any sense in since he will still end up as your vassal.

This would be nice.

2-Being a vassal, there is no mechanism to collaborate with other vassal or non-vassal Empires to declare a joint war of liberation. Just as there is the Secret Loyalty option, there should be a "Secret Alliance" option which allows two empires to collaborate in a war of aggression against another Empire, such as the Overlord himself.

This already exists. Vassals declaring independence wars can ask other vassals to join them.

 

[yurshenko]

This would be nice.

This already exists. Vassals declaring independence wars can ask other vassals to join them.

I must have rushed that last point regarding alliances between vassals, although I also think that military alliances outside of federations could be worked on.
That said, something that could be interesting is adding a casus belli for vassals that match the power level of their overlord in order to subjugate him and claim all the vassals for himself. Finally we would have real internal struggles for the throne of large empires with many vassals.
As an additional detail, something that makes me feel bad is. It was to empires with imperial authority being vassals of others. I think the most appropriate thing to do would be to simply rename the authority from "Imperial" to "Monarchical."

 

[Dr_Gentech]

This already exists. Vassals declaring independence wars can ask other vassals to join them.

It's only reliable if it's like secret fealty, where you can organise it beforehand and commit together to a course of action, so you can make an informed decision on whether it's viable to pull the trigger. If all of your vassals are disloyal but individually weaker than you, but some combination of disloyal vassals is stronger than you, it should be a lot easier and more common for at least that combination of disloyal vassals to rebel together in a unified war against you.

That said, something that could be interesting is adding a casus belli for vassals that match the power level of their overlord in order to subjugate him and claim all the vassals for himself. Finally we would have real internal struggles for the throne of large empires with many vassals.

This would be fantastic. We definitely need more dynamism like this in the galaxy, building a perfect empire or alliance across the whole galaxy that lasts forever should be incredibly difficult, not the default outcome without any effort.

It's not as much of a problem now, but as vassal blobs become slower and less likely to form Federations are likely to come back as a problem in a similar way. There should be more mechanisms for Federations to fall apart or suffer from internal dissent. For example, the strongest empire in a Federation should have an AI weight (modified by ethics) to attempt to force vassalisation on all other Federation members, and that empire + those who comply go to war with the rest of the Federation. Other candidates for civil wars could be Federations with fundamental disagreements like slavery/anti-slavery or spiritualism/machines going to war to attempt to enforce a policy change.

Basically, I don't mind everyone in the galaxy being either in a Federation, an Overlord, a Vassal, or some combination thereof. I don't even mind if it's quite difficult to hold yourself apart from galactic politics as a genocidal, IP, or just very strong empire that isn't interested in diplomacy - it should be hard to be a rogue state in a world of other states that are at least talking. I just want the galaxy to be dynamic and tumultuous, so that alliances shift and who is dominant changes over time, and it requires significant work for players to build and maintain the perfect galaxy spanning forevempire. For players that don't want that, there is a slider in galaxy settings for AI aggression, a similar slider could determine how likely such dynamic events are to occur.


Plus, if the galaxy was more dynamic like this then it would be an even better environment for an internal politics rework to come in emergent storytelling is the best.

 

[yurshenko]

Plus, if the galaxy was more dynamic like this then it would be an even better environment for an internal politics rework to come in emergent storytelling is the best.

When the new vassalage mechanics of the Overlord dlc were announced, I anticipated and warned that the federations would completely take a backseat. Let's go by points:
Currently in Stellaris they are anything but what they say they are. Federations, mechanically speaking, are nothing more than military alliances with some different bonuses between each type of federation.
They are inferior to vassals since after the Overlord DLC, vassals have much more flexibility in how you relate to them. Additionally, forming a federation is much more work, starting with the nonsense of having to select the Diplomacy tradition in order to form a federation on your own.
It takes a long time for a federation to level up and requires constant effort from your envoys to do so. On the other hand, for specialized vassals it is much easier to level up.
And finally, the fact that at the time of founding the galactic empire, all federations are dissolved. Even the federation in which the new Galactic Emperor himself was!

In my opinion, the federations need a major rework and these would be some things I would like to see:
-Add military alliances that are not related to federations
-Possibility of surprise attacking members of the same federation (

)
-Possibility of the entire federation voting unanimously on resolutions in the senate, including agreeing in advance on whether or not to present a resolution to the senate
-Add Federation Holdings to Federation members' worlds. The resources could be shared between the president of the federation and the owner of the planet.
-That forming federations does not require a tradition!
-Finally, I would like to see that federations, instead of simply adding some second level-up bonuses, would focus more on the laws part, making their member states have to share more and more their ways of governing, internal laws and even ethics.

Making the federations effectively centralize more definitively has to mean that the member states lose autonomy in favor of the federation itself, so those states that are not satisfied with the direction their federation is taking could seriously consider abandoning them. If federations stop providing bonuses, then leaving a federation would only mean losing your "allies" in order to maintain your own freedom to govern as you please, not as it currently is which would only mean losing.

 

[Jois]

But generally people bent about a lack of Tall play seem to want a flatter yield curve to production centers where 1 Planet can be as good as 2-3 Planets with the right choices and synergies and leveraging, but without any way to exclude someone applying those same synergies and leveraging to being done on 2-3 planets too, in excess of their 1 planet comparison. Empire wide production modifiers and multiplicative building slot buildings are huge contributors to this dynamic.

I think something like that could be doable early on with influence. Either you use your influence to make your current planets better or you use influence to get more systems and planets (expansion/claims) or to negotiate vassals contracts. Though of course later on most Empires will likely have the influence to spare for internal development so the difference would disappear.