Stellaris Dev Diary #322 - 3.10.0 “Pyxis” Custodian Features

[Korp]

Will ethics affect leader capacity at all?

It seems like it would be fitting if, for example, pacifists had more officials but less commanders, with the opposite effect for militarists.

 

[NilsFabian]

What happens when my official, delegated to the GalCom dies? Do I get an automatic replacement or do I have to change them every 30 years and remember what he did before his death?

 

[Drullo321]

The patch notes look promising. One thing i noted are the the removal of "-1 negative leader trait" possibilities.
I may be a bit out of the loop because I didn't play since first of octobre this year, but I really disliked those negative leader traits. It always felt punishing even when investing in maximum "-1 negative leader traits" options. Afaik additionally machine intelligence empires could only reach -3, while some other combination allowed up to -5 (-4 were needed for zero negative traits).

Not from a gameplay perspective but from the positive/negative feeling while playing the game, it would feel alot better reducing the overall power of leaders and adding boni instead of distribute random negative leader trait penalties, especially when certain races/factions won't have the possibility to negate those outcomes for whatever reasons.

 

[Harvey_James]

yeah those aptitude tradition nerfs are pretty big.. one wonders if i will care about picking it anymore???

 

[Seridor]

I think we should consider buffing up the price of things-ships, buildings, techs etc because production gets boosted more and more. Especially the governor bonuses/level seems a bit too high.

 

[Douglas2341]

Posting the detailed list in suggestions would be a good idea. It won't guarantee it, but I'll have someone investigate it.

Ping me in the post.

Done. I would be minimally satisfied and able to revive my mod with just the first two suggestion posts linked below, but numbers 3 and 5 shouldn't take much work and would be very nice to have. In order from most important to least:

1. Ensure and publicly confirm for modders that all planet automation behavior is moddable. This is required for reliably correct functionality of my mod.
2. Add script triggers to allow checking automation settings and job availability/disablement. Without this, players would have to do awkward things with event dialogs to inform my mod about what the settings are, and any discrepancy between the actual settings and what the players have kept my mod updated about could result in incorrect behavior.
3. Add script trigger for blocked district information. This should be fairly minor to implement, as it's just getting information that's already prominently displayed in the UI and making it available for scripts to check. Without this, it's difficult for automation planning to properly account for the potential future development that temporarily blocked district slots represent. Important, but ultimately not critical, though it should be easy and quick to do.
4. Unify how automation files handle different types of things planet build queues can work on, and expand to handle all planet build queue item types. This is probably the biggest piece of work out of all my suggestions, and ultimately it's just a nice-to-have, not essential. It would be extremely nice to have, but I can work around it for districts already, for blockers it would only increase the level of precise control I could have, and planet decisions with enactment time are used rarely enough that not being able to automate them isn't a major issue.
5. Add and/or document a way for automation files to control different levels of upgrades separately. Nice to have, and I think shouldn't be much work to implement.

Thank you very much.

 

[great lakes]

I don't like the idea of only one council position i can fill without getting some sort of penalty. I get that it needs to be a consitered choice, but with the shear number of council jobs, it seems the opportunity cost is way to high. could more council slots be a thing, even if traditions, aps, or something were needed for them?

 

[Beauty Nova]

I already said this in another thread (and touched on it earlier in this one even) but yeah, I think just the opportunity cost of not having a default minister is enough.

But it is worse than I feared at the time. The included penalties are absolutely crippling. This doesn't promote meaningful choices regarding whether or not to have a default minister. No one in their right mind would give up any of them except for the minister of state and then only if they already have a civic that blocks them from having one anyway or if they just don't care about the galactic community at all.

 

[Dust"Dusty"Finn]

Commissioner - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Martial Law)

Wouldn't Governor-General make more sense in this contex instead of commisioner?

 

[DeanTheDull]

Hello everyone!

Hi Eladrin (and Team)!

I'd like to say this is a bunch of interesting and generally welcomed changes. I've no doubt there will be some teething pains with various balance items, which is normal, but conceptually I appreciate the change of track and suspect it will be in a healthier state.

Without going too far into too much, some things in particular I like the sounds of include-


-The overall leader class consolidation. While I've some confusion on how some of the new leaders will be applied, and a lot remains to be seen, that will work itself out. The more important point is the silo'd leader structure justifying different, more balanced, spreads rather than pure-stacking, and each leader type at least seems to be justifiable as governors as well as practical uses. I am a bit concerned there might be a envoy-function shortage, as a lot of diplomatic-functions are long-term investments which would be under-valued if they come at the cost of immediate-term economic-governor boons, but I will wait to see.

-Council Legitimacy seems like an interesting mechanic that could be built upon in the future. As-is, this will definitely support cohesive empires, which will drive some frustration with certain ethic setups (such as over-powering xenophilia, or xenophobes having a huge hatred of being the dominant leader of a federation), but also reward some strategies a bit more comparitively.

-Civic-wise, the Feudal Society nerf is totally justified. I am curious about the Shared Destiny, but it seems the vassal meta is going from a 'many small vassals' to 'few big vassals.' That's probably appropriate, but it may be appropriate to explore a 'you can have X number of vassals of each type' model similar to the new leader system. If Divided Patronage cap is lower than the number of specialty vassals, even though it's a situation you can brute-force, there's a player-psychology pressure to, well, not. I'd recommend something like a 'you can have 1 of each type of vassal' setup (1x Prospectorium/Scholarium/Protectorate/etc.), but with a shared rather than unique over-capacity penalty, so that there's less psychological pressure against exploring the different vassals. The best Overlord-build is going to remain MegaCorps, but primarily because they can get quasi-overlord holding benefits without needing to be an Overlord.


-On the 'oomph' front, a bit loser of these announced changes is yet another nerf to trade builds, right after their early-game was already cut by the Clerk nerf. As-is, the mid-game power climb of trade builds was the Trade Federation, specifically by vassal-spam. Culling vassal-spam drastically decreases the potential of taxable vassal tax and trade generation by federation mates, as you're approaching only a sprawl-free 10% release. Further, trade builds are being nerfed by the leader consolidation, as the Official position with it's 5% trade boost as a Counilor bonus is in direct competition with the much more directly powerful diplomatic and resource-boosting traits roles. Given that the sector-governor level bonus doesn't even boost trade, but only direct resources- meaning it will be dead bonuses one way or another in the sector- and that the Official slot is in competition with potent Diplomatic functions, and Trade-Officials will probably be to Resource/Diplomatic-Officials what Generals were to Admirals- incredibly rare to justify.


For Traditions-

​

Traditions & Ascension Perks​

While reworking leader classes and traits, we’ve also gone through and rebalanced leader adjacent tradition trees and ascension perks:

Aptitude

• Opener: Swapped +1 Trait on leaders for +1 Trait Selection when leveling up.
• Finisher: Replaced effects with +1 Commander, +1 Official and +1 Scientist Cap
• The Empire Needs You: No longer increases Leader Pool Size
• Specialist Training: Swapped +25% Leader XP gain for +1 Leader Pool Size
• Psychological Profiling: No longer reduces the number of negative traits leaders can have
• Healthcare Program: Swapped +20 Leader Lifespan for -1 Max Negative Traits
• Champions of the Empire: Replaced effects with +1 Leader Initial Level.

This seems like a heck of a lot of nerfs for a Traditions whose primary power derived from the traits, which are themselves being nerfed heavily with the change to the free-resources. Not all of these changes are bad changes, but a lot of them seem to be more about 'less likely to have bad Leaders' than 'having better leaders.' Since that itself was something that could be handled by re-rolls in the leader pool, this is... not bad, but not as relevant as an opener or a mid-game tradition.

Statecraft:

• Opener: Increased Edict Fund from 20 to 50.
• Finisher: Replaced effects with -5% Empire Size
• Constitutional Focus: Increased Council Agenda Speed to 25% from 10%
• Immutable Directives: Increased Agenda Duration to 25% from 10%
• Amongst Peers: Replaced effects with Councilor gain 150 XP per Level when an Agenda is completed
• Shared Benefits: Replaced effects with +1 Effective Councilor Level

Does 'Replaced effects with -5% Empire Size' also include the guaranteed research option for Galactic Administration?

If not, I've no real issue with the overall changes. This is definitely a decline in it's overall leader-build synergies, especially from the leader XP, but it also doubles-down on the Council Agenda synergies, which is well and fine. Leaving overall Leader XP growth be the point of Aptitude is fine, and no objection.

If it does lose the Galactic Administration option, that's a shame I'm not sure was needed. Even just as an option for early 3-civic reformation, Statecraft changes the viability of a number of civic combinations for early-game build flexibility.

Supremacy

• War Games: Replaced Admiral Cost and Upkeep modifiers with +1 Commander Capacity and +1 Commander Initial Level.

Unyielding

• Resistance is Frugal: Removed modifiers for Generals

This... seems a bit counter-intuitive, given that one of the key points of Unyielding is benefits to planetary defense, while Supremacy now gives empires the leader type that... directly contributes to planetary defense. Supremacy already gets more competitive value out of Soldier Jobs than Unyielding due to the Naval Cap benefits- now they get more Army jobs to generate yet more defense armies and naval cap? And an Admiral-function who can yet again stack naval build cost construction modifiers?


Supremacy has already been a 'too strong for its own good' Tradition. This only makes it better, even as Unyielding got weaker, when having the leader benefit go to Unyielding instead could have actually offered a a way to even-out the balance of benefits.

Ascension Perks

Galactic Force Projection: Reworked, now increases Influence from Power Projection by 2, gives +1 Commander Capacity, +100 Naval Capacity and +50 Fleet Capacity.

This... actually seems good. Maybe not meta, but definitely usable for more than an early rush, and a direct synergy to claim-builds and supporting leader builds and anything that modifies influence gain, which already worked well with Imperial government.

• Universal Transactions: Added +1 Official Capacity and +20% Commercial Pact Effectiveness

Has commercial pact effectiveness changed the issue where bonuses CPE were multiplicative, rather than additive?

This was an issue IIRC with MegaCorps at the government type rebalance, whose own 20% CPE meant they got 12% of other-empier trade rather than 30%, which is generally a negligable amount for any non-trade-build empire. I don't recall if that was ever acknowledged as an issue as opposed to working as designed.

Regular dev diaries will resume the week after, on November 23rd.

See you then!

See you then, and good luck with the DLC launch!

 

[mrt1212]

-Civic-wise, the Feudal Society nerf is totally justified. I am curious about the Shared Destiny, but it seems the vassal meta is going from a 'many small vassals' to 'few big vassals.' That's probably appropriate, but it may be appropriate to explore a 'you can have X number of vassals of each type' model similar to the new leader system. If Divided Patronage cap is lower than the number of specialty vassals, even though it's a situation you can brute-force, there's a player-psychology pressure to, well, not. I'd recommend something like a 'you can have 1 of each type of vassal' setup (1x Prospectorium/Scholarium/Protectorate/etc.), but with a shared rather than unique over-capacity penalty, so that there's less psychological pressure against exploring the different vassals. The best Overlord-build is going to remain MegaCorps, but primarily because they can get quasi-overlord holding benefits without needing to be an Overlord.

It's absolutely needed but I do wonder a tiny bit about the larger meta effects at a galactic level, where even though lots of small vassals were cheesy (I admit it, but I love cheese you see...), where it's not so much about balkanizing 10 claims into 10 separate vassals, but more about 'all these small fries want to be my vassal, and anyone I can fight to subjugation is a small fry, these three secret fealties are also small fries, so am I just not supposed to do half of this now or what?' kind of giving away potential gains to somebody else who is a little bit stronger and bigger and can absorb the riff raff better.

We shall see and we will figure it out together and then take it for a walk around the block on the finest harness.

 

[DeanTheDull]

I'm a bit sad to see the changes to Heroic Past and Aptitude - +1 starting trait is significantly more valuable than +1 starting level, because it makes it much easier to grab specific trait combos. My favorite tradition/civic mix right now is Aptitude+Harmony+Heroic Past for a juicy 3 starting traits and ~no risk of negatives on leaders. Now I probably won't be running Heroic Past at all.

Heroic Past was killed as a top-tier starter civic by the loss of free-resource traits, not the loss of +1 starting trait. +1 of the new 'more potential jobs' would still leave the limiting factor being pops.

In the longer run/later game, Heroic Past actually got significantly stronger for the new leader mid-game, as that +3 leader capacity (+1 of each trait) seems like it will be a substantial economic boost across the board. Given the governor sector and planet bonuses, and the potential Official applications, this is a substantial expansion of how much of your economy can get boosted, and basically adds another 3 sectors worth of bonuses to your tech economy / resource economy / military naval cap economy.

The patch notes look promising. One thing i noted are the the removal of "-1 negative leader trait" possibilities.
I may be a bit out of the loop because I didn't play since first of octobre this year, but I really disliked those negative leader traits. It always felt punishing even when investing in maximum "-1 negative leader traits" options. Afaik additionally machine intelligence empires could only reach -3, while some other combination allowed up to -5 (-4 were needed for zero negative traits).

While negative traits were a major penalty in the current/'previous' meta, I'd be amazed if their penalties aren't substantially nerfed to go along with the nerf to the positive direct resource traits.

yeah those aptitude tradition nerfs are pretty big.. one wonders if i will care about picking it anymore???

Seems like it will still be pretty useful, personally, just more of a mid game than game-opener with the loss of free-resource traits.

At the end of the day, the leader bonuses are still quite potent, just mid-game and later rather than early-game, and having +3 leaders, better rules when hiring, and the all-mighty leader XP agenda is going to be a credible role- especially with the nerf to all-leader XP gains from Statecraft. Pairing Aptitude with Heroic Past for an extra +6 leaders who can be rapidly leveled up with be a very considerable boost in the mid-game, especially for wider empires who can make the most of those governor bonuses.

At it's core, Aptitude will be the 'max level leaders currated to my will' tradition, rather than 'free resources to rush the economy' tradition.

 

[HoIo]

Heroic Past was killed as a top-tier starter civic by the loss of free-resource traits, not the loss of +1 starting trait. +1 of the new 'more potential jobs' would still leave the limiting factor being pops.

I personally never picked any of the Resource traits as they made no sense to me why I would put them on my Leaders. They were nice yes but I preferebly put actually usefull traits on my leaders.

They could've left aptitude and heroic past alone and everything would have been fine as removing the resource traits already nerfed leaders in general (apparently).

 

[DeanTheDull]

I personally never picked any of the Resource traits as they made no sense to me why I would put them on my Leaders. They were nice yes but I preferebly put actually usefull traits on my leaders.

...the resources were the actually useful traits on leaders. They fundamentally shaped the leader-meta.

In effect, Leader-resources allowed you to employ far, far more of your limited pops as alloy workers and scientists in the early game by giving you direct resource inputs vis-a-vis any other modifier. This allowed radically faster industrialization, military build ups, tech rushes, and conquests to snowball vis-a-vis leaders who took %-boost modifiers. That you'd replace them later for those other bonuses later, when you had the economic base that the leader resoruces were far less consequential, didn't change that.

They could've left aptitude and heroic past alone and everything would have been fine as removing the resource traits already nerfed leaders in general (apparently).

With the change in leader traits, leaders as a boon have become more of a mid-game thing than an early-game thing. In that reframe, both are still fine, particularly on the raw economic front where +2 Officials means that your default number of Official-boosted worlds goes from 1 to 3 (because 2 Officials should generally be committed to a Federation and the Community).

The reason Heroic Past was good in the 3.9 meta was entirely due to the resource-nature of the traits. With the loss, the +1 starting trait / -1 negative trait dynamics are losing much of their relevance. It's quite likely the old version of Heroic Past will actually be weaker in the new meta than the new form.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Heroic Past was killed as a top-tier starter civic by the loss of free-resource traits, not the loss of +1 starting trait. +1 of the new 'more potential jobs' would still leave the limiting factor being pops.

Objection! Will nobody think of those of use who loved it alongside the Aptitude opener because it made fishing for council members with Eye for Talent a very real opportunity, allowing us with a degree of confidence to stack the council with decent councilors each providing +20% leader XP, turbocharging XP growth across the board already from the first decades?

Now Eye for Talent councilors will be rarer in general, and in particular ones that have other council traits will be very rare (except for oligarchies, if you are willing to swap in your new Eye for Talent councilor candidate as ruler, since rulers only get to pick between council traits.)

Sure, the bonus resource issue was nice too, but that was always going away in 3.10. It was a miracle it wasn't already killed in 3.9. That they put a stake through the heart of my Eye for Talent councilor builds is a much more unwelcome change.

Then again, with my luck they might have nerfed Eye for Talent too.

In the longer run/later game, Heroic Past actually got significantly stronger for the new leader mid-game, as that +3 leader capacity (+1 of each trait) seems like it will be a substantial economic boost across the board. Given the governor sector and planet bonuses, and the potential Official applications, this is a substantial expansion of how much of your economy can get boosted, and basically adds another 3 sectors worth of bonuses to your tech economy / resource economy / military naval cap economy.

It certainly looks like it'll be both a strong civic to start out with for some high unity builds that really leverage the extra leaders early on (though it has fierce competition for the slot), while also being a strong contender for 3rd civic in the 2220s/30s - or in a later reshuffle for an end-game civic state - for a lot more builds.

With the change in leader traits, leaders as a boon have become more of a mid-game thing than an early-game thing. In that reframe, both are still fine, particularly on the raw economic front where +2 Officials means that your default number of Official-boosted worlds goes from 1 to 3 (because 2 Officials should generally be committed to a Federation and the Community).

Now, there I must disagree with you slightly, at least in larger galaxies.

There's a significant benefit to being able to have more admirals out exploring and more scientists out surveying in the early game, and you aren't always lucky enough to get some eager idiots to do that for you when you've reached the cap - and the default cap of 3 before penalties sets in is quite restrictive in that regard.

It might take longer before you feel a need for more than 3 officials, but then you run into the Transcendent Learning/Imperial Prerogative issue. TL gives scientist cap, IP official - but if you are trying to keep empire size down while expanding, you'd all else being equal prefer picking IP first.

+1/+1/+1 to leader cap could, for a high unity leader focused approach, be a quite valuable starting civic.

Or so I reason now. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in practice.

 

[Lorenerd11]

• Academic - Focuses on Archaeology and Anomalies
  • Anomaly Research Speed: +10%
  • Archaeology Excavation Speed: +10%
  • Astral Rift Exploration Speed: +10%
• Analyst - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Assist Research)
  • Planet Effects:
    • Research from Jobs: +10%
  • Sector Effects:
    • Research from Jobs: +5%

These class names still feel exactly the wrong way around.

 

[Harvey_James]

academic but in the field like an archaeologist or explorer.. a bit odd

 

[mrt1212]

These class names still feel exactly the wrong way around.

All I got is that research produced on a planet is an economic output and researched produced by poking an amoeba in the side and it absorbing your academic, and taking them on a pretty annoying trip for 6 years is what Academia feels like to academics.

Actually, can we get a random event where an amoeba eats an academic in one gulp but then you get to steer the amoeba around the galaxy all covert style after a short situation with 'indigestion'?

 

[DeanTheDull]

Objection! Will nobody think of those of use who loved it alongside the Aptitude opener because it made fishing for council members with Eye for Talent a very real opportunity, allowing us with a degree of confidence to stack the council with decent councilors each providing +20% leader XP, turbocharging XP growth across the board already from the first decades?

I will think of you... and say nay! (Nay to what- I don't know! But nay! Nay I say!)

More seriously- I agree that Eye for Talent was a very real build dynamic, albeit one with a somewhat later payoff compared to resource-rushing, but still potent in it's own right. I, too, suspect it's been nerfed in 3.10, as many other XP sources have been.

It seems to me that rather than getting more traits, the old boon, the current leader build set is about managing which traits you can get. While Aptitude specifically is going for a more 'better initial rolls' setup, the implication of level-up perks being weighted around leader-role suggests to me at least the potential for a more... shall we say 'curated' style? Rather than more traits = more raw power, the idea instead is 'more power to control + more ability to level up = more power', which leans into Aptitude's stint as the leader level up button (after you unlock your council spots).

Now, there I must disagree with you slightly, at least in larger galaxies.

There's a significant benefit to being able to have more admirals out exploring and more scientists out surveying in the early game, and you aren't always lucky enough to get some eager idiots to do that for you when you've reached the cap - and the default cap of 3 before penalties sets in is quite restrictive in that regard.

It might take longer before you feel a need for more than 3 officials, but then you run into the Transcendent Learning/Imperial Prerogative issue. TL gives scientist cap, IP official - but if you are trying to keep empire size down while expanding, you'd all else being equal prefer picking IP first.

+1/+1/+1 to leader cap could, for a high unity leader focused approach, be a quite valuable starting civic.

Or so I reason now. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in practice.

I'll confess I'm not sure where we are disagreeing slightly, as I do agree with this and don't see a necessary contradiction. If you want more than 6 explorers (3 admirals and 3 scientists), obviously the additional slots will be good. But then, some of the other traditions are also adding leader slots that can support, whether Supremacy or Discovery or Enmity (which is a wicked buff, in my view), so there's definitely alternatives as well.

To my view, one of the reasons that the +3 leader cap Aptitude/Heroic Past may be a bit of a downgrade is that while leaders will be nice, the return on investment is going to be considerably longer without the resource-leaders. High-unity gameplay is definitely a build, but leader-spam seems more like something only a high--unity build could afford to do early, visa-vis sinking that unity into traditions that gradually increase the cap, and in that time there's a better case for other early-game civics to cover the role of Heroic Past's exploration. For example, the next civic Hyperspace Speciality +2 Planetary Detection range and +10% sublight speed and immediate access to hyperdirve tech is arguably much more relevant for expansion-rush builds, as while potential +2 explorers can go down two more routes, the planet detection is a much better setup for knowing which routes to go down in the first place without having to spend the time entering each and every system. Meanwhile, in the early game, you really won't be able to properly make use of the +6 leaders for planet or sector-boosting purposes, leaving a fair deal of dead-weight bonuses that could be doing something else.

Obviously none of that denies the different and distinct bonuses that the +3 leaders that could, indeed, be doing something else more relevant. But the point isn't a claim that Heroic Past is bad in the early game, but rather that it's no longer as uniquely powerful in the way it once was. +3 leaders can indeed be powerful. I especially look forward to putting a Commander along a planet-dense sector when the time for war comes up to get dozens of extra naval capacity in a switch, and if the General-army XP gains are captured that could be a wicked-fast level up for the Commanders who just curb-stomp levels via XP acceleration. But it's a much slower ROI for the initial unity input, compared to both alternatives and to the relative delay on investment if you adopted the civic as a 3rd civic reformation.

 

[dawedqafdAD]

Since Paragons, leaders have become more important. There are posts saying how great leaders contribute to empire growth.

But once in a while, there should be leaders who cause severe impairments to their empires. I suggest digging into negative leader traits, which can be categorized in 4 groups:

• Negative traits originate from Species traits.
• Negative traits from Government types.
• Stress and Corrupt related traits from Empire Size.
• Underperformance related traits from going above Leader Cap. They replace EXP penalty.

thing is though these leaders would be immediately fired so what's really the point.. any leader that gets negative empire size penalties or negative unity modifiers is promptly terminated in my games. Besides that there are plenty of "maximum negative traits" modifiers in the game already that basically make negative traits a thing of the past.. which is again why if a leader gets one i just fire them because i could easily hire one who wont get negative traits.

Maybe they could add these traits to your country leader specifically since they cant just be up and fired, but I doubt many people would consider that fun and interesting rather then annoying and disruptive.