Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Juboboman]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

Very exciting dev diary. To start I'll just answer these although I may add some other thoughts down the line. Very much love keeping such an open dialogue.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

It's hard to say. At their core they help differentiate your planets in terms of feeling that you have control and witness over their development and life cycle. Starting a planet with 16 pops and a few buildings/districts and watching it grow to dozens upon dozens of pops with all these new buildings and jobs that you send people do really does feel like it's your planet that you've been shepherding over these centuries. Your baby is growing up. Watching different race pops move/grow on your planet again helps tell that planet's and indeed your own empire as a wholes story. If there were a way to maintain that feel that did not involve as many pops/jobs or even their use entirely I would be okay with it. But it would have to be done right and very carefully.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

What I love most about Stellaris combat is that it is unique among PDX games in that it is almost Total War like in feel of the campaign/battle connection. Unlike other PDX games where you build your armies and then watch 2 sprites hack away at each other as the casualty numbers box ticks up, in Stellaris you build your fleet, it's exact combination and makeup that you've chosen for it appears directly on the "battle map" which in Stellaris is essentially just zooming in. All the weapons and kit you've outfitted your ships with appears before your eyes. And when they start fighting it feels like you are witnessing a real time battle where what you are seeing is what is actually happening. Sure you can't control it once battle starts, but that's okay because you've controlled everything up to it at that point anyway and now you are witnessing the fruits of your labor. If that were changed and building 10 battleships was just generically represented by 1 battleship sprite on the fleet or if the simulation was taking place under the hood and I was no longer watching my actual ships firing and being destroyed it would remove something great and unique about Stellaris and probably ruin my enjoyment of the game to the point where I permanently rolled back or stopped playing all together.

In terms of fleet numbers I'll simply present a screenshot and try to explain what I think is excessive and what I think is fundamental to the experience.

Spoiler: Fleets

https://preview.redd.it/984ene5ih8r...bp&s=14b5b9ec20e4c55ae4c64f127ae9d1030d0d3a10

Looking at that image, I don't need all of that to feel like I'm having a satisfying, fate of the galaxy deciding space battle. But I do need some of it. From that picture I would say you could take one or more probably two of those fleets, combine them and have them fight an enemy fleet of similar size and it would feel I was having a proper DS9 style major space battle between two empires rather than giving us 50 ships each and saying "here now go pretend youre fighting to conquer a quarter of the galaxy". Equally important is that these fleets are not the only fleets partaking in the war. If you you were take one or two of these fleets and say okay this is your 2nd fleet fighting the enemies 3rd armada on x sector of the border I would say yes that's believable. As long as I also have a handful of other similar sized fleets on other sections of my empire it would feel localized enough to matter without feeling "wtf I'm supposed to control half the galaxy and this is the best I can do for my entire empire?"

So to try and answer your question I would say cutting the overall ship numbers in half or a little more would be okay, but I would also like to increase the base fleet command limit so that you are encouraged to have actual cohesive fleets rather than having to bring a bunch of smaller fleets together every battle which ends up with the same doomstacking (just uglier) that the command limit was trying to avoid in the first place. But I think if you go to far and cut the number of ships/fleets drastically by 80/90% or something it would severely hurt the experience. Even if you took the suggestions I see here from time to time "just make the individual ships more important". It doesn't work that way any more than the leaders did. People want enough leaders to make their empire feel alive and populated. And even if they are supermen "here just have 3 scientists for the rest of the game" was never going to work, hence the backlash to the initial leader changes. I hope that experience is kept in mind when deciding how much to cut back on the scale of fleets.

I'm getting kind of tired typing this novel so I'll just answer one more question for now that caught my attention.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

Not very important at all to me. For me the highlight of trade was EU4 where it is something you want to control and fight other empires for as opposed to focused internally. I would be fine with it being gutted if it was replaced with something that incentivized me to conquer otherwise useless portions of space or fight my neighbors for trade routs that would benefit me. But that's probably a lot of work so I'll just say I'm not wedded to trade at all. And while I would like some concept of trade to remain, if it were massively simplified or streamlined to improve performance it would not ruin the experience for me one bit.

 

[thegdthadman]

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

I tend to play with an eye toward completing Achievements, which currently results in an RPG-style meta-approach. I pick the Achievement I want to complete, then reverse engineer an empire with traits that complement with that goal. For example, Like Tears in Rain requires your empire to ascend into machines. So at the very least that calls to mind a science-focused empire of Materialists, with origin and species traits that support that inclination. From that point on, I proceed to play in a way that will lead to that major goal.

Overall, one feature that would be welcome is some kind of Event Log or Empire History. A collection of the significant choices, watershed events, and documented turning points that transpired throughout a campaign. Origins do this in a minor way, since they frame Where We Came From, but there isn't something to chart What We Did Along The Way. In terms of story-telling, which seems to be important to other players, this feature would collate your empire's table of contents as you play.

 

[Laugic]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

Not important at all. In fact, a complete rework to these systems that allowed for much higher pops late game would be fantastic.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

Any of it, as long as the ship building part stayed. But even if the ship parts themselves were changed, as long as we were still able to build custom ships it would be fine.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Civics, Ethics, and Origins all greatly inform how I play. I would love to have more ethic options for playing hive mind empires.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

In the early game, I focus on exploring outward as fast as possible to be able to claim important chokepoints. After getting established, I usually focus on improving any yields that are falling behind, and when there are none I focus on expanding my research and unity production.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

I usually play Hive Mind empires, so I don't interface with this system often. Whenever I do play a non-hive mind empire, pirates appearing on unprotected trade routes is more of an annoyance than the enjoyment that the system provides in my opinion.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

I think planets having blockers that reduce habitability that could be removed to improve the planet would be a great way to have an earlier game version of mini-terraforming that makes colonization less straightforward. Toxic pools that emit noxious gases, supermassive volcanoes that make the planet have less sunlight than it otherwise would, etc. These could be very hard to remove and provide passive modifications to the planet. Maybe even some slight bonuses as well so it is an engaging gameplay decision for when to remove them (Toxic pools could give a small amount of Gases but reduce habitability and happiness for example)

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

On this front, I am not sure of specific ones that should switch. However, the civics and origins that drastically alter the start of the game and the direction of your empire are great, and I would love to see more of them.

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

If I could remove one, I would remove Factions. They are one of the main reasons I mainly play hive mind empires. I do not find the gameplay incentives they provide to be engaging. Randomly getting factions that completely do not align with your current government structure so that they are very unhappy because their needs are unsatisfied does not feel good, and there are not many opportunities to manually improve government ethics attraction, so the main way to interact with factions beyond satisfying their needs (which is basically impossible for some of them if they are too different from your current ones) is to just suppress or embrace them. And suppressing a faction really only serves to make them even unhappier, because if the pops do not change their ethics, they will just reestablish a similar faction that will need to be suppressed again.
I would love to see an expansion focus more on planets and systems. Having more planets with unique features would be great for expanding early game decision making and making each playthrough more unique. Systems with resources or anomalies or special projects that result in very cool or interesting outcomes would be great ways to give short term direction for what to do during a playthrough as well.

-
Overall, I think both that current Stellaris is great and enjoyable, but also that even if many of its systems were to change, even drastically, it would still be a highly enjoyable game. Potentially even more so. Reworking pops to not directly be assigned to jobs, like was alluded to in the post, would be a very interesting and welcome change, as it would potentially fix some late game performance issues, and allow for late game gameplay on larger galaxies. Also managing empires with larger pop sizes still sounds fun, even at the expense of being able to control every individual pop. Expanding or reworking many of the current systems would still allow them to interact with the other systems in unique and interesting ways, so I think there are many directions to go in that would result in a fun, maybe more balanced and less performance intensive experience. Very excited for any future changes!

 

[mirco297]

I will leave here what I wrote on Reddit:
The vision and statements as they currently are is exactly what I love about Stellaris, it's great to see that the dev team stays true to them.

What systems and content are “sacred” to you, which would make Stellaris not Stellaris anymore if we changed them?

I think one "sacred" system to me is the current way in which research options become available.
To have a limited number of options each time you complete a technology, based on the draw weight of a large variety of factors and how your empire behaves, is quite unique and enjoyable compared to the traditional and (boringly) predictable technology tree you often see in other grand strategy games.
It adds an element of uncertainty, with the degree of uncertainty determined by your choices.
I think Stellaris would be less Stellaris if this was done away with.

If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

Fleet have never been on the forefront of my Stellaris experience.
I like the variety in weapon technologies and ship options, but I don't think I'd particularly mind significant changes to fleets.

What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Species biography, ethics, civics, origin and species traits (usually in that order), the species biography often really sets out the core sentiments of the empires I hoped to make.

How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

Before the playthrough starts, I set up the fundamental aspirations of the empire as well as their boundaries in accordance with their ethics, civics and biography.
How existing goals might change or new ones might be formulated depend on the t emergent story and situations I may find myself in during a playthrough.

Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

I hadn't thought of this before, but I do like the sound of this suggestion.
I'd also like the present the idea that conquest might be a bit too smooth.
Not combat with another empire, but managing diplomatic and internal affairs in the aftermath of a conquest.

I really look forward to see what the Custodian Team has for the coming Open Beta.
I also really appreciate the link back to the first dev diary, how far Stellaris has come since then. ^^

 

[KNakamura]

Quick answers: I think largely terraforming is fine. Piracy needs a large rework to be interesting, and that is what keeps trade value pretty uninteresting.

I don't mind doomstacking, but if we could reduce fleet sizes such that we didn't have to, that'd be good too.

Pops could be abstracted or kept the same, but it does feel like traits don't matter.

I'd remove ground combat entirely and reduce it to a situation, if I'm honest and you just up modifiers.. but that's just me.

 

[krco]

I played stellaris since the first days and while many of my points are matching others I would like to give my small comment nonetheless

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • While I like customisation of the pops I don't really mind so much if there are as the number or "pop" but I think the "pop" system is much more fitting to the abstract game as stellaris
  • Late game pop management and movement between planets can be hurdle
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love
  

  • Mono composition is still too dominant but this is also caused by fleet cap.​
  • Ship cap should be significantly reduced like by 60% even and fleets should be composed from capital and escorts ships maybe just by modifier how capital ship pdw are effective without screens. This would also gave each battleship meaning of "wow"​
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  

  • EVERYTHING, I spend days designing my civilisation trying to make them work in RP and somewhat little competitive​
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • This is tied to my previous point where my goals are often set by RP goal of civilisation
  • Even restart is often option, I would really preferred If could additionally setup galaxy,
    • preferred type of neighbour empires, so I can actually play mercantile empire which is not surrounded by hives and fanatic purifiers
    • L-cluster outcome and strength of Grey tempest so my payback empire can be like lama kuzco saying "bring it on"
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I ignore it most of the time and wouldn't be bothered if it was removed but
  • Piracy should be a thing
  • Maybe empire infrastructure and logistical connections should be represented somehow
  • External trade routes should be a thing
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • Yes, start game colonisation is too easy and not much fun, planetary featured should be much more interesting and more unique including blockers and local fauna. Also it should matter also for land armies and maybe even for navies like canyon system where I can hide my torpedo freggats and make raid on sieging fleets
  • Event and situation pack DLC would be on place while reworking old event chains to situations as free patch
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • As other mentioned origins should be split to starting systems and cultural ones so we can combine them
  • Some civics could be reworked to government systems like feudal mentioned by previous user
  • Some civics and origins would needed some RP half point civics like
    • Remnants origin - you can choose if you were destroyed by precursors, fallen empire or advanced empire
    • Payback origin - you can choose what helped you to win against corporate
    • Syncretic evolution origin - you can choose some background of secondary pops and couple unique genetic options, maybe those from pre-sapient for serviles (including some light version of cloning, otherwise this origin is really interesting to super hardcore RP or individual robots)
    • Crusader spirit civic - instead of liberation wars, you should have access to unique wargoals depending on half point civic (xenophobe militarist won't be crusading other aliens to make them xenophobe militarist)
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • Government forms green, yellow, orange, red could use massive expansion together with factions which should be really reformed to interest groups

Thanks for reading and for growing this game after so many years

Also some bugs should be moved in game rules, including snares.

 

[cryptkeeper]

1. How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

Very I like the current system, I'd rather it be expanded and made more interesting. Then stripped out completely, I never liked the previous system. So unless you come up with something more engaging, I don't want it to be overhauled.

2. If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

I would love it, late game lag due to fleets is one of my biggest complaints.

3.What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The ability to combine species , origins and civics to make it feel different right from the start and to further add to their history through ascensions and traditions.
But I believe civics and origins need to be made more interesting, some really have fallen by the way side.

4. How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

From the very start, to the point where sometimes I restart games till I get the precursor I want. I Rarely change my plans, unless I encounter something that makes me rethink my empire, stellaris is very front loaded in terms of goals, I usually pre plan most things beyond exploration and expansion. Precursors could use a once through, in particular the new ones which fantastic stories, with disappointing rewards that do not change how you play in the slightest.

5.How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

I like the idea of trade routes, but they need to be more interactive and work with commercial pacts you make. But ingeneral, I would love a complete overhual of the trade system, megacorps have long had issues where the only good things they have are corporate holdings, where as trade networks are worthless. Speaking on corporate holdings, Antiquarian Expertise and Space Ranchers could use a corporate holding museum annex( increase output) and beast market( increase cull rewards) respectively.

6.Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

Yes, I would like more interaction with colonization if only to slow expansion some in the early game.

7.Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

Super hard question but no I do not think civics should become origins, but civics do need updating particularly old ones that don't change game style or game-play much. Origins on the other hand either need to split up into two categories that you can choose 1 from or all origins need events and other interactions through out the game to make them proper origins like the new treasure hunters( which is one the best origins you have ever introduced), though I do have minor issues with it mainly just that the leader trait isn't available post creation. I don't think making them civics is the way to go, as civics are hard enough choose with so many of them being boring to introduce origin level civics.

8. If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

Building armies I like the idea of them being a transport module on fleets. I have so many BIo ascension, psionic ascension, Hiveminds, Diplomacy and/or internal politics, New ascension ? I want to enjoy the intel system, I want to enjoy federations, I want to enjoy trade, I want to enjoy factions. Honestly the galactic imperium should be it's own style of federation.

 

[Tseudonym]

I would very much enjoy a trade revamp DLC. Right now I find there's reason to actually collect trade value. In fact, I tend to avoid trade routes so I don't have to send a fleet to go mop the floor with those pirates who naively thought they would ever have chance against my military.

A system to reflect weird quirks in metabolic differences between species would be fun. What if it turns out that aliens can get drunk on sour milk? What if the common cold turns out to be fatal to Blorg?

More types of celestial bodies in general would also be a welcome addition. As would even more space fauna.

 

[Thiend]

What I love most about Stellaris combat is that it is unique among PDX games in that it is almost Total War like in feel of the campaign/battle connection. Unlike other PDX games where you build your armies and then watch 2 sprites hack away at each other as the casualty numbers box ticks up, in Stellaris you build your fleet, it's exact combination and makeup that you've chosen for it appears directly on the "battle map" which in Stellaris is essentially just zooming in. All the weapons and kit you've outfitted your ships with appears before your eyes. And when they start fighting it feels like you are witnessing a real time battle where what you are seeing is what is actually happening. Sure you can't control it once battle starts, but that's okay because you've controlled everything up to it at that point anyway and now you are witnessing the fruits of your labor. If that were changed and building 10 battleships was just generically represented by 1 battleship sprite on the fleet or if the simulation was taking place under the hood and I was no longer watching my actual ships firing and being destroyed it would remove something great and unique about Stellaris and probably ruin my enjoyment of the game to the point where I permanently rolled back or stopped playing all together.

In terms of fleet numbers I'll simply present a screenshot and try to explain what I think is excessive and what I think is fundamental to the experience.

Spoiler: Fleets

https://preview.redd.it/984ene5ih8r...bp&s=14b5b9ec20e4c55ae4c64f127ae9d1030d0d3a10

Looking at that image, I don't need all of that to feel like I'm having a satisfying, fate of the galaxy deciding space battle. But I do need some of it. From that picture I would say you could take one or more probably two of those fleets, combine them and have them fight an enemy fleet of similar size and it would feel I was having a proper DS9 style major space battle between two empires rather than giving us 50 ships each and saying "here now go pretend youre fighting to conquer a quarter of the galaxy". Equally important is that these fleets are not the only fleets partaking in the war. If you you were take one or two of these fleets and say okay this is your 2nd fleet fighting the enemies 3rd armada on x sector of the border I would say yes that's believable. As long as I also have a handful of other similar sized fleets on other sections of my empire it would feel localized enough to matter without feeling "wtf I'm supposed to control half the galaxy and this is the best I can do for my entire empire?"

So to try and answer your question I would say cutting the overall ship numbers in half or a little more would be okay, but I would also like to increase the base fleet command limit so that you are encouraged to have actual cohesive fleets rather than having to bring a bunch of smaller fleets together every battle which ends up with the same doomstacking (just uglier) that the command limit was trying to avoid in the first place. But I think if you go to far and cut the number of ships/fleets drastically by 80/90% or something it would severely hurt the experience. Even if you took the suggestions I see here from time to time "just make the individual ships more important". It doesn't work that way any more than the leaders did. People want enough leaders to make their empire feel alive and populated. And even if they are supermen "here just have 3 scientists for the rest of the game" was never going to work, hence the backlash to the initial leader changes. I hope that experience is kept in mind when deciding how much to cut back on the scale of fleets.

I want to kind of double down on this, but to me what is important about fleet management is:
1. Customization
2. Fleets actually fight, my customization is the unit archetype

What is not important: 9999 fleet capacity.

A reduction to fleets so that I care more about individual fleets and ships would be good to me. Once I've passed the limit of what I can individually manage (which realistically happens shortly after 1000 naval capacity, if not earlier), no additional value is gained - my five or so individually crafted fleets fighting something mean exactly as much to me as those five plus another twenty "whatever" fleets do, the added amount bloats the game but adds nothing.

I feel exactly the same way about colonies and pops, once I've passed what I can actually be managing having another hundred colonies on auto design wouldn't add to my gameplay experience whether the auto setting made them well or not.

 

[Make A Wish]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • Not important at all - I personally would prefer the legacy pop system, in which pop count is based on planet size (which is then number of tiles). It'd be better if production can be incremental based on current population growth (i.e., pop growth is currently 0.5 out of 1, so it can produce 50% the normal output and cost 50% of the full maintenance). This helps with performance issues and reduce micro management in mid to late game.

 

[GreyBlueWolf]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • I'm ok with individual pops, but I would also be fine with "Population" number on planets, without simulating individual pops. Although I really want to play with internal politics of population, does not matter how they will be displayed.
    
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • If I can't build & control individual ships - it's no longer the same game. I don't want HOI4 in Stellaris.
    
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Ethics & civics. I wish we had more options to define our civilization. Loved how we can upgrade our type of government after ascension. MORE OF IT please.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • Depends on the neighborhood, also depends on what is happening around me. I will always go to steal Relic if possible or go occupy space for archeological sites.
    
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • It's there... I wish we had trading nodes in the game, game generated key star systems that would accumulate trade value of small region, similar to EU4. Finally there would be something to fight over lol.
  • Also every planet should have their own planetary storage - if planet is being blockaded there should be hunger and no minerals for alloy production of said planet.
    
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • It is. I think heavy farming or having museums should not be possible on a planet with 25 habitability for my primary species (we are not robots).
    
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • All civics that can't be removed mid-game should not be civics but instead something else entirely.
    
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • War system. It's absolute trash. I don't want to fight wars because it sucks so much. If I want war I will rather play EU4, at least I can leave in the middle of the war instead of waiting for the wars core to trickle - PUKES.

 

[NessaWyrm]

Trade seems fun in theory, but its systems aren't so intuitive and felt out of place. Even as a player with 1000+ hours (and who mains individualist empires), I still don't feel like I grasp routes or trade protection/piracy. I bypass it outright by playing tall on trade builds so constant starbases everywhere mean I don't have to think about it. Now that I've nearly gotten every achievement in the game and don't need vanilla ironman mode, I may also just keep a mod to prevent pirates (it reduces lag too!). It feels like some earthly trade mechanic than Stellaris to me.

But I do definitely think trade itself needs to exist. Firstly because outside of routes it is loads of fun, I love the merchantalism builds and the cooperative abilities to form commercial pacts or be megacorp. There's roleplays in my heart with friends where we try to be as ultra-capitalist as possible, especially at the expense (aha) of our citizens.

I think the pops/jobs system should stay as is. It adds a neat element of strategy plus I love scrolling over them and seeing how happy (or miserable) they are and why. That feels perfectly Stellaris to me. Expanding internal politics would be fun (I love the Manifesti, they're so silly) and I'm sure your team already knows it is popular.

I put in a good deal of effort into understanding shipbuilding some ~500 hours into this game. I'm not perfectly mastered (it's not my priority) but I am fond of how it presently is. Lag is a real problem, but I appreciate how it is a system you can either ignore or, if you go through the trials to understand it, become a superpower.

 

[Khaali]

Stellaris is a 4X Grand Strategy game with Roleplaying elements that continues to evolve and redefine itself.


Please keep it at that way. Roleplay elements are fine, but i hope that the game stays a strategy game foremost. I know CK3 shows that going for more roleplay is popular way to go, but you then lose players like me, which like the strategy side more. I played a lot more CK2 than 3 and CK3 wasnt able to convince me to come back because its almost only roleplay now.


Yes, i do a lot of roleplay in my megacorp runs, which is also a reason why i think we could do away with pops. Would get taller nations better chances to compete and the world would not feel so empty (lets face it, currently most of the planets feel empty, even a ecu is almost empty most of the time). But for me the roleplay works because there is a lot of stuff happening in my head (stellaris is also the only game able to do this to me). But if there is now added more stuff only for roleplay, i would lose complete interest at some point.

Oh and also this is the perfect moment to mention my answer for what my focus of an expansion would be: Megacorps! Do more stuff with megacorps! Do more criminal syndicate stuff! I love playing a gigantic corporation with maybe one or two planets, having governments as vassals (how funny is that? Imagine Microsoft and its divisions are Windows, XBOX and Bulgaria XD), as well as playing subversive cults which have a HQ on other planets convincing the nation of their perfectly legal business and then have several pirate ports running on the planet to smuggle stuff in and out of the planet .

I know Megacorps arent the dream playstyle of the majority here, so i doubt there will be a megacorp only expansion, but maybe we get some better systems and some reworks.

 

[Normannus]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

I think the simulation works alright, but I would like to see it expanded to impact the military- you can conduct a major, grueling, decade-long bloody slugfest of fleets, but as long as no one attacks any of your planets directly you won’t lose a single pop. There are no casualties that affect your population.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

I am in favor of significant changes, go for it.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Anything that makes the empire play differently from others. Empires do play differently, of course, but I think even more differentiation of mechanics or of what the “meta” is for different types of Empire is a good thing.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

I rarely set major goals ahead of time, I just play and see where it takes me.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

As unimportant as I am able to describe it. Getting rid of this system and replacing it with almost any other possible idea would be a great change.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

I would say that early-game colonization is too easy, mid or late-game is fine. Colonizing your first new planet is a civilization-altering event, and this isn’t represented. But once you have a dozen worlds, what’s another one? So the late game colonization is fine.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

No opinion

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

I would remove the current trade system- both the “trade value” and the galactic market. I think it’s insane how trade and actual resource production/exchange/consumption seem to be totally divorced from each other, or how trade is a replacement for electricity.

 

[SalmonMoses]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  Very important. Job management is one of my most favorite things in Stellaris. It helps me to immerse in the planetary management, where population exists and works, and doesn't just bring abstract boni.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  Civics, origins, government types, traits
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  I prefer creating backstory for my empire on the start of the game and then just follow flow of story
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  It's ok
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?
  Factions. Right now factions feel very shallow, and it would be better to replace them with some more deep internal politics simulation. Make democracies feel like democracies and feudalism feel like feudalism.
• Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  Feudal empires could get their own expansion. We already have civic for them, but new systems specific for them would be cool. Also, it can be combined internal politics expansion, that would bring parliaments, political movements, feudalism, etc.

 

[Deterock]

Wanna add my opinion about the current state of the game. I think that armies, factions, piracy and trade need a revamp, as they are currently not very interesting to interact with. Especially factions, as they have no impact on internal and foreign policy at all. So:

• Factions are really pointless in the democracy gameplay. You don't have any laws or vote, they are either happy and give bonuses or upset and give debuffs. I was thinking about a parlament for democracies/oligarchies where you need to have majority to do what you want. Want to change the law (policy but laws would be more interesting)? Bribe factions or do what they ask and they'll vote. Something similar to Frostpunk 2. Need to declare a war or sign a pact with neighbor? Need a coalition of factions to do so. And so on.
• Armies are just extra unit to take down the planet, and you can't actually do much about ground fight if the world is a Warhammer Cadia: you either bomb it for years (if not decades) or just non-stop send there cannon meat. Usually I never build such worlds in singleplayer but I saw my friends building it in multi-player and it's really a pain. Armies and/or ground combat deserves a revision, imo.
• Pirates are just random events that annoy you sometimes. I still have occasional pirates in my hivemind or machine systems, and I don't understand why. They should be a mix of caravaneers and raiders.
• Trade is... just not my type, I guess. I don't like building extra stations and upgrade them just to have some bonus resources.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?

I think pops are fine, maybe they need to have a bit more of impact on vote in democracy? Like, X pops would vote for their party in a hypothetical parliament.

• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?

Command limit of fleets changed the rules of the game, but I don't like it sometimes. It's really strict. I saw an idea about supply hubs for fleets (like fuel or ammo) but I don't know how you could make it real without making it painful.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Origins and civics. Once upon a time ethics and government were more important but merely as a RP element. Gameplay as a monarchy and as a democracy is basically the same, you just have different bonuses after all.

• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?

Depends on my neighbours. If they're not very friendly, then I try to build fleet to subjugate them. If they're peaceful, then I concentrate on my internal development. I rarely have a crisis that changes my goals. In the mid-late game I go for Custodian/Emperor of GC, beat crisis, FE etc.

• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?

I don't like it. Most of the times, if I have a trade system enable I just ignore it honestly.

• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?

I don't see a point in planet terraforming. I mean, I know there are cool planet types but I rarely go after them. Since I usually play with machines I don't have any problem with colonization.

• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?

Yes! I guess some civics like driven assimilators, devouring mind/exterminators/purifiers should be an origin. And a Fallen empire should be one as well (sorry, couldn't miss the opportunity). Also maybe some civics that radically change your gameplay (reanimators, Eager Explorers, Natural Design). Maybe Mechanist and Overtuned should be a civic?

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

Pirates (even though they are not really a system) are pointless. I'd dedicate an expansion to internal politics (factions, parliament etc.). I'd really like to have a different gameplay as democracy, oligarchy, dictatorship and monarchy. I'd say democracy/oligarchy should rely more on pops and a parliament, meanwhile there should be a loyalty system for leaders in a dictatorship and monarchy + limits for capital sector, so you'd assign leaders to rule sectors as a "quasi-empire", with their fleet and some interactions.

 

[Stein14]

Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion?

Domestic policy.

I would like to see different forms of government behave a little differently. The difference between the most democratic democracy and the most oppressive autocracy is currently a small bonus and the length of your head maker's term in office.

 

[Hell Lord]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • Planetary simulation currently functions fine, but it contributes to lag more than anything in this game. Personal biggest gripe with planet management is that it feels too arbitrary what pop is, and management starts to become a chore after the third planet so you wanna automate it an never look planets again.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Ethics, Origins and Civics are by far the most important for me in defining my empires.
• Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • Inner Empire politics don't matter at all beyond gaining resources and feels lifeless, a player can change core fundamental values of an empire with barely any work.
  • Ethics currently feel too binary, and restrictive on properly defining my empires values, currently system implies all spiritual empires 100% agree with each other, which frankly does not make sense in the current in-game religious interpretation of the ethic. Otherwise it only affects, what civics you can use, who likes who and who hates who.
  • Biological Hive-Minds empires feel like an abandoned child compared to Machine Empires after recent updates. And there's barely any gameplay or roleplay difference playing as one no matter what civics or origin you have. I feel like hive-minds should almost have a their own ethics tree, to determine are the more what values does the Hive-mind care about.

 

[Eebex]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  - I don't mind what kind of a system is in place as long as it provides enough to do. As long as I can manage my planets, then it'll be fine. I think that exact population numbers would also be nice to have.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  - I'd say that fleets, combat and war overall needs a rework. I'd love to see a new system for ships and ship designing which would be "more realistic". Currently ships in Stellaris don't feel like "individuals", but they feel like tiny pieces of grand armadas. Yet in real life most people remember at least some legendary warships like HMS Victory, USS Enterprise or the Yamato. Stellaris fleet combat is also limited, as it's currently just about who counters the other and who has the bigger fleet. I'd like to see Stellaris fleets and ships go in a brand new direction, with fewer, but more important ships, which could be more expensive and take longer to build, for example. Ship design itself should also go in a new direction in my opinion. As in real life nations didn't wholly try to build the biggest ships with the most amount of guns (partially due to treaties), but limitations were made and a balance between armour, speed and armament had to be made. Currently in Stellaris you just equip your ships with as many guns as you can and as much armour as you can. That's partially due to space combat though, but I'd like to see the system changes in order to encourage different, especially more creative and detailed, ship design. There were the giants of the world wars like the Yamato and Iowa class, yet there also was the speedy HMS Hood and the very interesting design of the Nelson class. Pre dreadnoughts fought alongside more modern ships like SMS Lutzow. There's so much about naval combat and ship design that Stellaris is missing, in my opinion. It also feels like all empires' ships are the same, there's not enough variety. For example, with pre-dreadnought French designs were quite unique, they were "hotel ships" with a unique hull shape and overall different functionality than their british counterparts. It'd also be cool to have big ship variety in size, function and role. Imagine an origin where one would start with a moving habitat / battle station, which could fight and move (High Charity from Halo). An epic battle could be fought to destoy this capital of an empire, which would, of course, lead to devistation with this grand planet ship being destroyed. Overall Halo handles ships and their importance quite well, with small ships and big important ships like the CSO-class supercarriers.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  - The most important part about defining my civilisation is the role which I set for it. I first come up with an idea for a civlisation which I'd like to play, then I pick the ethics, civics, origin and species traits that fit my idea. The idea, in my own mind, defines the whole civilisation, I have it in my own mind. The civics and ethics allow great variety and control in establishing a civilisation that one whishes for, but base stellaris is a bit limited. The "ethics and civics classic" mod improves on the base game stellaris system by having more ethics, civics and by allowing the player to pick more of them. The biggest problem with defining my civilization is the current origins, as I have to go with prosperous unification most of the time. Many origins are great, yet they usually take the centre stage, instead of another idea. Yet overall, with base stellaris the ethics are probably the most important, with the "ethics and civics classic" mod civics also become more important.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  - When I begin the game I usually know what I want to do. I have usually already planned a future for my empire and even what traditions I'll pick and in which order. The goal might be to "become a nanite empire quickly", to "dominate the galaxy politically" or even to "create a grand galactic alliance". If a new enemy comes up or something drastic happens in the galaxy my short time focus will change to that, yet the "grand plan" will usually stay the same.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  - I usually ignore the trade system, there isn't much that one can do with it. It is definitely not important, as it is so bare bones that it adds so little.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  - currently poor habitability just gives massive debuffs, which I find to be a bit boring. It'd be nice to see the habitability system expanded upon somehow. Colonization itself isn't bad, I don't think that it needs to be overlty complex or anything.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  - Well origins defy a big part of the civilisation's history and origin, whilst civics explain some smaller aspects of said civilisation, like its culture and ideals. I'm not really sure if any civics or origins should be switched around, but for balance reasons the worst origins could be turned into civics, and maybe even syncretic evolution, as it has a similar effect as drives assimilators.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  - I'd remove factions, trade or ground combat, as all those systems currently do very little and all need a bit of work. Yet if I could pick a focus of an expansion it'd be war or internal politics / internal stuff overall. Changes to war is definitely needed, as I stated in my fleet/ship rant. Ground combat also needs work and so do peace deals and the overall effects of war. War, especially big wars, should effect the empire in more ways than just losing a bit of energy credits and alloys. The people should feel the effects of war, the people should actually feel war exhaustion and experience some kind of mobilisation (if the war is large enough that is). Peace deals are also incredibly limited, and it should also be possible to break truces just like in CK3. Battles should also be more than just putting 2 fleets to battle each other. There should be multiple fleets doing multiple things, and with each fleets having their own movements in battle even maybe. The current deathstack system is quite boring for combat, and smaller fleets should somehow be encouraged, maybe by introducing raiding and removing the conquering systems and a lot of empire intel. If enemy fleets aren't instantly detected and can slip to raid planets then it'd create a need for smaller patrol or response fleets.
  - The 2nd expansion would be internal stuff overall: internal politics, factions, planets, election, empires, nations, law and all. It'd be cool for some government types to have parliaments for example, and for factions to play a much larger role, even in dictatorships and monarchies. In democracies factions might limit what the state wishes to do and in autocracies the factions would have to be pleased in order for the system to work, or other methods would have to be taken in order to control them. Laws are also important, like what victoria 3 has. Overall I think that a big expansion on war and a big expansion on internal politics would bring oh so much to Stellaris and would bring much more depth and make it feel so much more alive. Also a system which I'd like to enjoy, but don't enjoy, is the ship designer. I talked a lot about ships in the fleet section, but I'll say that I think that different ship types should also be able to be unlocked earlier, but building them is more of an economic struggle rather than a technological one.

I think that it's quite wonderful how such feedback is being asked by the devs. Otherwise, I think that the current plans of the devs seems to be good, so surely the future for Stellaris is bright. I hope for the best.

 

[Abbodon]

I am looking forward to seeing what comes from this sort of poll, may as well give my own two cents.

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  • As they stand currently, not very, I only need to mess with planet jobs when my economy is sputtering and even then it doesn't take much effort or thought. Back in the very early days the tile system made it more interesting to interact with but everything now is automated enough that it's mostly a background process rather than a part of moment to moment gameplay.
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  • The fleet combat isn't a core part of the 'feel' of Stellaris for me, war and combat should probably involve more than just looking for bigger/smaller numbers and whilst you can absolutely retool your fleet for specific battles and punch well above your indicated weight ultimately most end game wars still become just simple point and click affairs. I'd say as long as you kept the ability to modify and customize ships you could rebuild the entire system without damaging my passion for the game.
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  • Civics and ascension perks tend to define my civilizations, as the game goes I usually end up creating my own narrative for the empire to follow but what options I have available or not available through ascension perks really feel like the major things that differentiate late game empires whilst early game is defined by the smaller mechanical bonuses offered by civics.
• How do you set goals for yourself during gameplay? When do you set them, and how often do they change as you play?
  • I have been chasing down achievements for a while, and that involves setting goals and shifting my gameplay style to fit whatever I'm aiming for in a run, as well as identifying other possibilities and maybe pivoting to try them. Outside of that I usually do set myself goals or targets but they're usually small scale goals like 'fix my economy' or 'make a fleet' rather than over-arching campaign goals.
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  • I wouldn't say it's important, I wouldn't mourn its loss but it does provide some interesting gameplay and generally dictates where I place my space stations for any empire I want to collect trade in any meaningful amount. Late game, of course, gateways completely remove the mechanic but I like the progression and how it eventually frees up stations to be built in more strategic places.
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  • I don't know if it's too easy as much as planets are too homogenous. Any continental world is as good as any other world. Their size matters little and generally you always want to settle every planet you see. I would like to see more costs for settling, more risks as well as something like Guilli's Planet Modifiers and Features and Planetary Diversity folded into base game Stellaris so worlds are much more distinct and picking which ones to settle and which ones to leave for later.
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  • Nothing springs to mind here, but I saw another comment mentioning the idea of splitting origins into world and cultural origins to allow more granularity in how you play.
• If you could remove one game system, what would it be? Which system would you make the central focus of an expansion? Is there a feature you want to enjoy but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?
  • If I could remove one system it would probably be the original crisis path, after seeing cosmogenesis I feel the original crisis is a bit cartoonishly evil, maybe I'd roll it into the psionic ascension as a path you can take by following a patron, rework it into the end of cycles lore. But right now I almost never use it and think it feels odd from a lore perspective.
  • As mentioned previously, planets I think deserve an expansion and some real focus, with more features, modifiers, and blockers to differentiate classes and planet types. We have anglers and aquatic for ocean worlds, I'd love to see other planet classes get their own equivalents of those traits to really make them stand apart.
  • For systems I enjoy but don't feel like they're integrated, Astral threads stand out to me. They have some fun interactions but feel very self-contained. No other anomaly or digsite references anything about giant holes in reality, no lore really explains why they're happening or even indicates that portals to another dimension are anything to be concerned about, nor the fact they're just... appearing. No tech exists to encourage, stop, or otherwise interact with them, nor to make use of the resource outside of some edicts and a single building. I'd love to see Archeotech equivalents for astral threads, tech from other universes like the null beam that need threads for support. Or just an effort to integrate that lore with the rest of the game.