Stellaris Dev Diary #361 - The Vision

[Averath]

There have been several dev diaries since this one dropped, so I assume it is way too late for my feedback to matter. But I figure, why not?

I bought Stellaris when it first released. After Apocalypse released I started taking increasingly long periods of time where I wouldn't play the game, because it was going in a direction I did not enjoy. With the release of Galactic Paragons, it felt as if that direction was cemented forever. Though nostalgia for the game keeps me coming back.

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

I will be honest. I hated pops at launch, because it felt like a Worker Placement game, but each new planet was an entirely new board added. By the time I had finished, it felt like I was in a warehouse playing with multiple different tables, each filled with worker placement boards. It was just not fun to manage. It could not be automated. The AI couldn't handle it.

The new system addressed some changes, but the tumor of the pop system remained. What purpose do pops and jobs serve? On your starting planet, it is fine. But once you expand into multiple systems, it becomes redundant. It becomes meaningless.

If you really want the pops system, treat it like Spore. It is only relevant until you colonize another planet. At that point your species has progressed to the point at which pops and jobs no longer have any meaning. You're now a space faring civilization! Individual pops and jobs have no meaning to you, only the big picture.

My suggestion would be to just outright remove pops. They were, in my opinion, a failed experiment. They do not add to the game in any way. They only introduce min/maxing in the early game, and then a massive performance hit in the late game. They only exist because people hate to have things taken away. But this is a case where you really need to just rip off the band-aid. Not only should the game's performance improve significantly, but the vast majority of players wouldn't even realize they're gone.

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

I was never attached to fleets to begin with. I prefer Hearts of Iron 4's system. Or, in the context of a space game, Sins of a Solar Empire.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Culture and internal politics.

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

I typically set goals during empire creation. I create the empire based on what I want to achieve. They rarely change.

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

Not important at all. I don't really notice it. I don't have any meaningful ways to interact with it. I've heard it is just a drain on CPU resources. If it were removed, most players wouldn't even notice.

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

Look to Sword of the Stars here, in my opinion. It isn't that colonization is too easy. It is that colonization is not rewarding to begin with. I don't like the fundamental way the system is built. I feel as if you could fix this easily, though.

First, remove arbitrary limits on the number of districts. "This planet has 2 agricultural districts and 25 mineral districts!" is something that should never happen. It feels amazing when you find that planet, but you'll find that planet once every 20 games, it feels like. Most of the time you'll find planets with awful numbers. So, in my opinion, just remove them entirely. Give different bonuses to Hive Worlds and Machine Worlds. And to Underground Civilizations and Aquatic Paradise worlds. I think those are all the "unlimited" slot types?

Second, every planet has modifiers. Look at Sword of the Stars for what I mean here. SotS basically had two qualities for planets. Size and wealth. In the case of Stellaris, each planet should have a modifier that indicates the amount of resources there. Basically, give every single planet those "+25% mineral output" kind of things. There should be a wide range of what they can be. Oh, and that "dig deeper" event chain should increase it further, rather than add even more mineral slots.

As for habitability and planet climate. I think it could matter a lot more. It would be cool if your colony started off with domes that massively limited what you could do with it, but still allowed you to have a functional outpost there. It'd be small, but people would be mostly happy. Right now the system is pretty bad.

Oh, also remove the self-modification as an option in the game settings. I hate that event with a passion. It's one of the reasons why I only play empires that can purify, because then I can kill them all. It just feels like kicking you while you're down because your only options for expansion are "stay put" or "suffer".

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

Yes. A lot 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?

I debated this for a long time. I really disliked Galactic Paragons and was tempted to suggest something related to that. Mostly because leaders are stat-sticks with portraits. They have no reason to exist and could easily be replaced with buffs and nothing would change. I was praying that we'd see Crusader King 2 inspiration with that DLC. Maybe we'd see system governors start acting like vassals. Have their own wants, needs, personalities, corruption level, etc. Something to make your empire feel alive. But that isn't what we got. We got buffs with portraits.

However, no. I realized that there's one system that I would remove within a heartbeat. The Trait System.

The vast majority of traits you've made in the game are actually Societal Traits, not Biological Traits. There are a few that are biological, but the vast majority have nothing to do with biology. They're entirely cultural. And culture isn't a representation of biology. If a Space Elf joins a Space Dwarf colony, there's zero reason why they shouldn't be able to take advantage of that buff to mineral output, because that's a *cultural* thing. You cannot improve mineral output via biology.

It's the same reason why we use machines. There is a limit to how much mechanical energy the human body can exert on its environment. And while you can argue a Space Dwarf is stronger than a Space Elf and can swing a pickaxe harder, my question to you is: Why would that matter? This is hundreds of years in the future. These are space faring civilizations. We have massive machines to help us mine. Theirs will be even better.

As it is, not only can the game not handle assigning pops to the appropriate job based on what their traits are, but several traits can actively harm your empire. Going xenophile actively harms your empire mechanically. And I feel that that is an awful design choice.

I would love to see the trait system as a whole thrown into the garbage bin, and instead massively expanding the civics system. Civics should be how we define space faring civilizations. We should have a lot more civics slots, and have a lot of civics that are defined by your government type and are mutually exclusive. Civics should allow for a lot of customization.

Yes, this would require a complete redesign of the Evolution ascension path. But lets be honest. It kind of sucks, anyway. And those "adaptive" traits are just a band-aid to a broken system.

 

[KarwszPL]

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

I'm not attached to the system itself, but as overtuned genetic ascension enthusiast I love micromanagement. I believe that micromanaging pops should be optional, but bring great benefits. So, I wouldn't care much if system was reworked, but micromanagement should stay to some degree

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

I like the current fleet system, but it feels incomplete. If it will be altered in a way that would include more strategy, while keeping ship components and balancing ship designs, I wouldn't care much.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

I ask myself: can it defeat Thondo?

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

I usually play competetive so my main goal is domination almost always now. But as the game goes and random events appear, I set myself secondary goals

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

I like it, but it's not complex enough - it would be better as a more complex supply chain system

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

Making colonization more complex would be fun, but I'm afraid it would rise more balance issues

• 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 replace envoy system with leaders. Pops management should be focus of an expansiom, and the feature I want to enjoy are ascensions, but they feel very unbalanced and too easy when comparing one to another. I know it's hard to create balanced variety, but I really wish I could see that in game

 

[Executor Omega]

I recently started playing Stellaris a few days ago, and I already have 65 hours of playtime, but I haven’t finished playing a full game yet.

I purchased the ultimate bundle for $126.47 (includes tax), which doesn’t include the newest expansions. It was a difficult decision for me to buy the game for that price because I could’ve bought several other great games for less money, and I don’t like paying a subscription where I would never truly own the game and never be able to play it whenever I want without having to renew a subscription. Yes, I know I could’ve bought the base game for $4.32, but I don’t want to just play a game that lacks features and updates. For how little I know, it is possible that the base game is a much inferior version, and I’m not going to spend an unknown amount of time researching it. Also, the game didn’t look appealing because it looks like too much menus and pictures. If I wasn’t doing good financially or was too busy playing other games or I hadn’t learned how much I enjoyed Strategy 4X games from playing Civilization games, then I don’t think I would’ve ever taken the risk of paying so much money to play this game. It wouldn’t have been a difficult decision for me to buy this game if it had cost $70 to get everything including the latest expansions. My plan is to only get the expansions through discounts because the prices seem high.

You say Stellaris is a Living Game, but the focus on menus and pictures makes it feel less like a living game. I think there is a lot of room for this game to grow. It is like going from a picture book to a blockbuster movie, but obviously this game is much more than a picture book. It is not necessarily a bad thing that the game is currently designed this way. Every developer has their strengths and weaknesses, time and money limitations, or maybe it is more optimal to focus on other parts of the game first. Stellaris has clearly seen success in its current state, and it can be bad to be too ambitious by underestimating the costs of trying to improve the game in other ways that you might not be familiar with. If you haven’t done so already, I strongly recommend for you to play a game called Spore, which was released in December 19, 2008. I’m not saying Spore is a perfect game, but I think playing it will give you inspiration and ideas for making Stellaris feel more alive.

I can’t really say much about other parts of the game since I just started playing it, but I’m really enjoying the game and will likely continue to do so for thousands of more hours. You say Stellaris is our game, but I feel like the best games come from developers that stay true to what they believe is fun. There is always the risk of making a game worse by trying to appeal to everyone or certain audiences. If you are motivated and really believe what you plan to create will be fun, then I think that will produce the best results. We as the players can only help you find the bugs, imbalances, and inspire you with ideas. This also means you need to put in the time to enjoy your game, but only by doing that can you truly see if what you are making is fun.

 

[Drinko]

I think Stellaris is too micromanagement-heavy. I have to deal with unemployment and select traits for my leaders, it gets annoying, especially in war. You can automate some bits but it doesn't feel nice because it is sub-optimal. It feels like work.

The current trade system isn't my thing.

Something I think would be cool is if for instance necrophage allowed you to pick a necrophage tradition tree.

I want to focus on exploration, expansion, war, and diplomacy. Furthermore, I enjoy picking my traditions and ascension perks.

In general, I wish Stellaris picked up some features from EU4. Peace treaties are one example, trade is another.

 

[Galactic Toast]

• How important to you are the current systems that use individual Pops and Jobs in the planetary simulation?
  -currently the system is fine, if it got changed again there would probably be another adjustment period, same as when it was changed from the old tile based system. should be said that changing it in a way that takes away even more player agency probably wouldn't be too fun.
  
  
• If we made significant changes to fleets, how much could we alter before it no longer felt like the game you love?
  -i dont think fleets need to be significantly altered, would be nice if we could choose modules on starbases like we can defense platforms and ships, it being random is just bland. would also be nice to see planetside weapons to aid in system defenses.
  
  
• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?
  -ascension path and synergies creating a specialisation, ie something the civ excels at.
  
  
• 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 dynamic, usually depends on how many wars you're apart of. as for long term things, usually something that fits the empire, for example if im playing an authoritarian imperial civ, ill try to become galactic emperor. other times goals have to be adjusted for things that are more annoying, like certain research options not appearing for too long.
  
  
• How important is the current Trade system, with routes collecting back to your Capital?
  -i dont even really notice this mechanic exists, even when im playing a trade empire.
  
  
• Is colonization too easy? Should habitability and planet climate matter more?
  -not for me to answer, dont play a whole lot of wide builds.
  
  
• Are there any Origins that should be Civics, or Civics that should be Origins?
  -dark consortium should be an origin, it would be cool to be expanded on. its my favourite civic thematically and wish it could be expanded on further.
  
  
• 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?
  -wars, specifically completely reworking them, wars feel far too gamey and abusable, even by AI. i'd rather tank diplomatic power/go in breach of galactic law for the ability to commit warcrimes like ignoring surrender and glassing planets. some AI empires will just immediately surrender and force peace, not super fun to play against, especially if you're boxed in.
  
  

- habitats should be destroyable.
- we should be able to glass total war empires.
- researching feels bloated, compounding issue due to multiple research nerfs and more updates filling out the pool, making it even harder to research something useful.
-to add to this, research focused empires feel too weak compared to just rushing unity
- colossus project should be research, not ascendency locked. i know this conflicts with the above, but i'd rather not waste an ascension perk on the convenience of not having to deal with planets in the mid/late game, which is effectively all colussus project is.
-it wouldn't hurt to expand on subterfuge a bit, feels a bit weak.

 

[Tdevil-01]

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

I like them how they are, but I wouldn't mind a different system if it worked better. I do think that the current system of building, districts , and pops, doesn't work well with roleplay mechanics. When I get unique building from the curators or jobs from the treasure hunter relic, I feel like I have to sacrifice building other things in my economy order to reap the reward for a cool mechanic because of the limited building slots/pops. I also think that micromanaging can become very tedious later on in the game.

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

I wouldn't care at all, I usually use autobuild unless I get a really cool component that I want to manually add because autobuild wont.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

The empire creator is cool but where I find the most things that feel civ defining is random events that feel impactful. I got the arcane building that makes motes, gas, and crystals that I felt was more build deffining than any of my character choices. The most fun I ever had in Stel was with the worm before it was patched to no longer be forcible. The lore and role playing aspect was so cool and it was the thing that defined my game more than anything else.

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

My goals are usually just expansion and whatever my origin/civics bring.

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

I don't actually know how the trade systim works other than that i can be converted into differnet reasorces like money or unity.

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

yeah I think it is too easy. I think it's fine for your gaurantied worlds but for other worlds it should be more difficult to colinize, or at least more interesting. I like when planets have unique modifiers or events. I love Odd factor whenever I get it. I feel like climate could be given more depth but im not sure what that would look like exaclly.

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

There are deffinately some origins that would make more sense as civics, like tresure hunter or mechanist, but that would remove some cool civic/origin combos. It would be cool if civics/origins hade something simmiler to orbital rings, where there is a version of something as both a civic and a origin, but you can't overlap 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?

Piracy, I hate pirates popping up and making me divert fleets from other stuff. I would like a whole expantion of things like the worm, complex and lore heavy things that are impactfull and memerable. I think it would be best if they were random, but if players could put thier thumb on the scale if they wanted to experience something, simmiler to how the worm used to work.

• Extra stuff.

I really like archeology / rifts. The drip feed of lore and an eventual reward is really cool. More stuff like that would be awsome.
I want to be able to add a discription to my empires for rp and to know what they are if i create them and don't play them right away.
Thank you for creating and maintaining this awsome game. I love it very much. It means a lot to me because I always play with my brother.

 

[BlackyNoir]

I'm late to the party, but here it is (I played a lot of it, on and off over the years, started when it was the tile system): I agree with the description given to the game, it's design pillars, overall I'm in full agreement. As to the questions, or at least specific points I want to put forward...

1. I can't stand events that break the simulation, or worse just the appearance of the simulation. A great example are the marauders, like the horde, which last time I checked (I great while, now I just disable it entirely) which could spawn and teleport fleets just because the event said so. No care about distance, about moving through occupied space, no nothing.
   On top of the feeling of unfairness and lack of depth, this breaks immersion, break strategy until you learn the specific implementation of the mechanic, and remove a lots of potential for systemic gameplay, interactions, and depth.
   That's also why I stayed away from the federation system, I saw some spawning and obvious AI cheating with it and I just didn't touch it with a ten foot pole, even though I would like to in theory.
2. Last time I checked, the game is still very hard to play without a qwerty keyboard. Extremely basic things like moving the camera are hardcoded, and can't be re-mapped. That's just trolling customers at this point, we had input re-mapping in the DOS era
3. I don't like the linear progression to population growth, instead of the more complex and in best case scenarii exponential progression it should have. Seems like a small thing, but every single time I play it break immersion and move my headspace out of my game, and into unflattering mental comments about lack of computing parallelization and thoughts about Amdahl's law and the like.
4. I would like to see more reactivity to our civ, what we do, our relative power level, our history, etc. I would like shown, maybe even telegraphed what other think about us, and feel about us. I would like to see contempt, fear, servility, desire for cooperation, and so on. This serves several things, from immersion to helping the players wanting a power trip, to give hint about npc AI and their goals and methods, etc.
5. I would for origins to get back to a more transversal, horizontal approach to civs, and not bolster very specific very narrow civics or type/trope of civs. I don't think there should be a "psi origin", but I would like for most or almost all the origins to apply to a lot of different civics.
6. I don't mind the trade system. I would prefer a deeper logistic system, I would like to be able (and the AI too) to blocade or a major bombardment devastation a main farming or alloy producing planet and have it the proper wreck unto my opponent's industry or economy.
7. I do think the colonization system is a bit too easy, and also to simplistic. A bit more difficulty and depth would be good, but not too much. But, there's also a wee issue that planetary colonization as a critical pathway to galactic empire is a bit off, a bit 1960s scifi, and we learned about O'Neill cylinders and general structures. That dissonance tugs at me, even though I recognize part of Stellaris is the simulation and dramatization of those old school space opera tropes. And I don't have a good suggestion to fix it. Just thought I mentioned it, since you asked.
8. Overall and the most important goal to me personally, is that I don't play Stellaris as a hard core strategy game with the goal to "beat the game". I play it as a galactic ant farm simulator, where through my civ I can prod it, push it, and see how it react, and how that affect what I do next, which will impact the simulation, and so on and so forth. So, not much Advanced Squad Leader, and more ant farm. Or a way to tell a story I participate in.
   So, more simulation, deeper simulation, more systems that can interact with more different systems, all good to me. The rest is secondary.

edit: adding a small note that the AI really needs to learn to play the game. Sometimes I dig deep into what a vassal of mine is doing, and I'm not a good Stellaris player I would be destroyed in multiplayer but by god the AI is magnitude times worse than me at basic things like what to build, how to specialize production. I know this is very hard, but the game is many many years old now, and it's a bit much...

 

[Muldeh]

T contextualise my response, I have played off and on since stellaris first came out. I play exclusively in a cooerative multiplayer game with a singlefriend. We play with pop growth penalties, and with increased tech and tradition costs, lower numbers of habitable worls, but large galaxy size.

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

When the pop system was changed to what it is now I remember it took me quite awhile to get my head around it. But now I'm used to it. What I will say is that micromanaging pops in the current system is a pain in the ass - tryign to get a specirfic pop into a specific job is not particualrly fun, and probably involves resettlement costs, or demotion time penalties. The demotion time makes sense fro ma realism perspective, but I don't think it makes for good gameplay, I'd much prefer flexibility and simplicity in managing my pops.

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

Being able to customise ships is the most important thing to me. I love the ship designer, and I love that is is deep enough and balanced enough that we can argue over the best ships.. and there is some level of paper-scissors rock going on, where no ship is the best at everything. That's what I think is core to this system. I don't mind if the actual combat is abstracted away somewhat from an aesthetic perspective.. BUT if it's totally abstracted then things like the effectiveness of point defence, cloaking, sublight speed and so on could become more easily processed, and it might take away some of the magic.. not a huge deal though.

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

#1 The ascension path. The biggest one being virtual machines, since they don't have to worry about pop growth speed, and are somewhat limited on total number of planets playing virtual makes the biggest difference to how I play the game. I actually dislike this though, since I feel like I have to decide on my ascension path in advance and pick my civics and origin around it, rather than choosing my ascension path during the game based on events in the game.
#2 Orihin - This one makes sense to be the msot defining feature.. but there are some that I dislike due to them locking you int oan ascension path - as above, I would like ascension path of be something flexible you pick part waythroug hthe game.
#3 Civics: These are the next most important, once I've made myself a goal for the game and picked ascension path and origin, civics are the next things I'll lock in.. however I do feel like a lot of these are too weak.. probably 2/3 of them I never see myself picking.. and a small handful I see as being too strong where it's difficult to justify not picking them most games.

• 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 setthem before starting. Generally I'm just tryign to maximise one specific thing, or a few things, perhasps with some self imposed limitations. I don't tend to change my goal durign the game - if I change my goal I star ta new game.

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

I like trade, but I don't care abouttraderoutes, piracy doesn't seem impactful at all. Commercial pacts seem too strong - and it seems weirdthat they benefit the player with less trade more.. I get that it's realistic, but it's weird to me that playing a megacorp is not about producing trade yourself, but making commercial pacts with other people who produce the trade.

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

I don't think so - but remember I play with minimal habitable planets so my answer is probably different t oothers.However, what I will say is that I don't really want an incentive to colonise a lot of planets at the moment BECAUSE it is a pain i nthe ass to manage them.. and the automation is terrible. What I would really like to see is much better UI for bulk construction, bulk planet decisions etc. Like to maintain "distribute luxury goods" on all my planets, every 10 years I need to pause the game, cycle through each of my planets one by one clicking decisions andthen distribute lxury goods.. and with 5-10 planets its a chore.. with mroethan that it's unbearable.
Same thing with checking for crime on my planets, or trying to build districts right when needed and make sure all the pops are i nthe right jobs.. often I just queue up a bunch oif buildings in advance, but this isn't the mostefficient. EU4 for example it's much easier for me to build things, because I can just clic kthe building I want to build and then click all the places Iwant to build them.. so managing 100 territories in EU4 is easy.. in Stellaris 100 planetswould be a nightmare.

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

Well, a civic is a collection of buffs/changes with a councillor position, with no inherent story attached..
Origins used to be essentially the same thing but more impactful.. but have now started to be less about the initial buffs and more about the story - e.g. under one rule isn't particularly interestign at first glance, but when you factor in all the unique events, it's really cool. Fear of the dark is another big one like that.. it seems like its just achallenging start.. and it is.. but the payoff is a whole extra civic slot, something nobody else has access to.

Unfortunately I think that the more "boring" origins that don't have story events tendto be too powerfulto convert into civics. Overtuned for example, has no story attached, and could be a civic, but it would be too powerful if it was.

Sovereign guardianship as a civic I find to be one that is really hard to justify not picking sometimes, especially since I almsot always play tall.Aside from the -emprie size from pops which enables you to easily stack it to -100, it also suppoprts the fantasy of building mega bastion systems. I think this could be converted to an origin with some story where some NPC empire is out to get you, which would give you something to defend against with those mighty bastions, and that would be really cool.

• 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?

The galactic community. There area bunch of problems with it.
Firstly I just don't care about the resolutions. The thing is, if I'm trying to beat everyone else, then the buffs I get from the galactic community don't make much difference, since everyone benefits from them - some more than othersdepending on their focus.. but still, 10% more fleet power for example, doesn't really change much other than increasing the numebrs on both sides.

The other problem is I feel thaat players outscale the npcs in terms of diplomatic weight waytoo easily without even trying. I think the problem is the diplomatic power from fleets scales too exponentially, and some normalisation to bring it back in line would be good. It's weird that 100 years into the game you can have more diplo power than the rest of the galaxy combined without even trying.

 

[Keyhenge]

Probably too late for this but I figure I'll add my feedback, hopefully will be useful since I'm very new to the genre. I purchased the game and all the DLC during the Steam strategy game sale a few weeks ago on recommendation from my friends, and have logged just over 200 hours since then. It's my first 4X game, and it's very fun! At this point I've completed 6 different playthroughs, with the last 3 being lightly to heavily modded, However, my intense focus on it has also brought problems I have with the game to the forefront a lot quicker. I haven't read through this entire thread, so I apologize if this is just repeating what other people have already said or suggested.

First of all, most systems that aren't warfare feel half-baked.

• Diplomacy is largely dependent on a single stat (opinion) which is affected mostly by static modifiers. Diplomatic decisions boil down to making pacts for small bonuses in exchange for influence, or lowering opinion to get influence. Because AI behavior is largely dependent on their current opinion of you (improves relations when positive, harm relations when negative), this leads to a single decision when you first meet the empire: will these people permanently be my friend, or my enemy? From there, relations will largely improve/decay to numbers that are so high/low actions with the empire stop mattering. Trust being so heavily influenced by opinion means it's basically the same stat, just dressed up nicer (and as a pseudo-budget for vassalization).
• Espionage is functionally useless in its current state. I know from the other dev diaries that it's already being reworked and that many opinions/suggestions have already been offered, but I think it bears repeating that all of the options given are largely inconsequential. More importantly than that though, they don't integrate into the rest of the game's systems. You can't send cloaked fleets in to do operations, you can't interact with other empire's factions, it's very difficult/near impossible to cause heavy damage to an enemy fleet or ruin their economy, etc. You generally run an operation and then you're told you've affected the enemy in some way. Even if these operations were significant, the lack of player involvement and insight into enemy empires means you wouldn't feel much when you succeed.
• Economic output/trade fares better than the other two by virtue of planet management, but generally stops there. As a megacorp, I focused a bit more on diplomacy to get commercial pacts and also micromanaged my planets more closely, but it ultimately didn't feel too different from a "normal" game. I know that trade routes and piracy are being removed both for performance concerns and because it's not very well explained/conveyed to the player, but I think making it into a single resource is a bit of a misstep, though I'll elaborate on this later.

The reason I'm going through all of this is because of that last point in "The Vision", that every game feels different. Right now, that mostly comes down to your willingness to roleplay and whether you're playing as a mostly diplomatic or warlike empire. This feeling is mitigated a lot by random scripted events (anomalies, crises, event chains, etc.) but those can only really be experienced once, after which the procedurally generated story elements should kick in to make more variety, but right now I think most game variety is decided at the empire creation screen when you're deciding what your story is going to be.

This brings me to my second point, the AI isn't allowed to be intelligent. I've seen it in my own games and there's a million posts online about how the AI cannot manage its economy or fleets to save its life, and therefore generally needs to cheat in order to keep up with the player. This is not what I'm complaining about, it's very hard to make strategy game AIs that can effectively plan for the future and manage their resources well. Instead, I started thinking about this after getting StarTech AI and noticing that some of the AI empires could actually keep up with my output, after which I had the realization that it barely made a difference gameplay-wise. I had started placing the other empires along two axis: hostile vs friendly, followed by pathetic fleet power vs equivalent/superior fleet power. If they're friendly, continue raising opinion. If they're not, I only care if their fleet power is worth something. Even if the AI was truly great at managing everything, the only meaningful interaction it can have with the player is through warfare.

That's what I mean by the AI not being "allowed" to be intelligent, because the differences between the various empires disappear when they can be boiled down to 2 numbers. I think this is a direct result of the other systems not being fully fleshed out. The current systems mean that in order for AI empires to remain a threat/concern for the player, they must focus on fleet power. Better research? Only my concern if they're using it for fleets or if I can steal technology via espionage. Better economy? If they're friendly, it's a small bonus to my pacts, otherwise only my concern if they're using it for fleets. In exchange, the player inevitably builds fleet power using accumulated perks and micro the AI can't hope to match, leading to snowballing in the latter half of the game. The AI also can't use advanced tactics like cloaking or jump drives, partially because it focuses solely on fleet power, but also because such tactics wouldn't accomplish much. The player has little incentive to do so either; why bother cloaking to get a surprise attack on a specific system when I can just doom stack fleets and be more successful?

As for some random suggested improvements/features:

• Opinion should be a resource managed at the diplomacy screen, with various things either consuming or adding to it rather than static modifiers. For example, border tension or diametrically opposed ethics would be a constant drain on opinion, while having the same ethics or improving relations should be a constant plus. The goal here is to avoid situations in which relations with an empire become stagnant, expected, and unable to be changed.
• Trust should be uncoupled from opinion or reworked entirely. It's somewhat redundant in its current state and fails to capitalize on situations where empires could have high trust, but dislike each other and vice versa, such as dealing with a shady megacorporation, or xenophobes that value honor highly.
• Diplomacy and espionage should deal directly with factions, rather than the empire as a whole. This goes a long way to making factions feel more important, and could add additional gameplay constraints to make diplomacy more engaging. You might only be able to improve relations with an empire if you satisfy the requirements of their dominant faction (high fleet for militaristic, no offensive wars for years for pacifistic, same kin for xenophobe, etc). Similarly, you could propagandize a faction into being and then continually bolster it via espionage in order to make diplomacy easier/a possibility in the first place.
• Unhappy factions should cause problems relative to their size, unhappiness, and ethic. This could take the form of terrorist attacks from militarists, peaceful demonstrations from pacifists, increased consumer goods/pop power from egalitarians, among others.
• Trade networks definable by the player in the form of cargo ships, whose cost scales with empire size. The cargo ships would be set on patrol routes between planets, and the efficiency of the trade defined by how frequently they visit planets on those patrols. This accomplishes several things at once:
  • It better contextualizes empire logistics and ties it into existing game systems
  • Patrols and pirates have meaning again, while being easier to calculate performance wise
  • It gives a reason for the player to invest in cloaking, by messing up enemy logistics in a very personal, visual way
  • It gives a reason for the player to invest in anti-cloaking, since the enemy could do the same thing
  • It represents an opportunity to expand megacorps, by extending the trade network into allied space and grabbing trade value that way. You could even outfit cargo ships with cloaking and send them into enemy territory, representing a sort of black market economy
  • It makes sieging planets possible and easy to understand, since planets cut off from the trade network would lose basic resources if they weren't self-sufficient
  • It presents a natural limit on wider playstyles that have a tendency to snowball easier and earlier due to increased resources
  • It can be a significant investment away from increasing your fleet, making playing a trade heavy empire feel much different
• More options in diplomacy regarding trade, particularly that of giving or taking systems diplomatically. This could be used to grab an important chokepoint from a friend (for now) or bolster a vassal
• Remove envoys entirely, and replace them with assigning leaders to tasks. This allows better balancing after diplomacy/espionage buffs, more specialization on the player's part, and also makes decisions regarding them more consequential. If my redshirt spymaster dies in an event, I really don't care, but a leader I've invested time into would hurt to lose. It's also just more understandable given the rest of the game's systems, where you generally assign a leader to a task and they do it.
• Batch AI decisions by a random number of months, and give them a "priority" (like improving energy credits, alloy output, pursuing a certain research) for around 10 years. The point of this would be to prevent corvette/lowest common denominator spam that makes all of the empires feel like they're doing the same thing.

There's more I could suggest, but a lot of this is just "MAEK MOAR GAEM" and I know that I'm writing at a time where many changes have already been decided on and are only half-revealed; it's entirely possible some of these suggestions are already part of 4.0, or something better would take their place. The main point I want to get across is that my idealized version of Stellaris generally weighs diplomacy, warfare, espionage, and economy somewhat equally, and player/AI empires would generally spec to have one as a primary and another as a secondary. When a player meets a foreign empire for the first time, meeting a hostile sneaky machine empire focusing on espionage and some warfare should play wildly differently from meeting a hostile very openly militaristic empire with some focus on economy/logistics. More importantly, it would represent a point where the player either had to change their strategy or generally make their RP work while wrangling entirely different kinds of threats.

Bonus round:

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

It generally doesn't matter, though it can sometimes be frustrating what jobs pops will decide to do when you have several split priorities, which leads to more micromanagement of planets.

• 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 getting rid of ship builder would be a step too far, since countering the AI at specific spots in the game is fun. If anything I don't think the game leans far enough into that aspect since AI only builds for fleet power, rather than trying to counter their enemies (might be improved with better espionage?)

• What aspects are most important in defining your civilization?

Right now, roleplay and ethics are the main thing driving new playthroughs. Civics are generally too inconsequential to really give a "novel" feeling, and most of the actual gameplay is the same. Like I said above, I think the gameplay should be more heavily altered by the type of civilization you're playing.

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

Generally goals are decided by the phase of the game, how hostile my neighbors are, and my current economic situation. The less/more those change, the less/more I change my goals.

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

The current trade system is unfortunately not very good. I learned very early on that I didn't need patrol ships, since pirates could easily be beaten by 1-2 defense platforms. Trade value is also somewhat hard to see/calculate, so most of the feedback I get is just from energy credits/consumer goods/unity going up. Once again, I think player defined logistics is definitely the way to go here, since it opens up a lot of possibilities for interacting with the rest of the game's systems.

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

Hard to say since I've generally kept setting habitable planets down and down due to performance concerns, and because of the incoming changes to pops. As it is right now, even if you only consider "good" habitability planets you'll have a lot by midgame and then terraforming transforms the rest into useful planets as well, doubling or even tripling your planet count very fast. At that stage of the game, it's easy to stop caring about planetary management as you go through the motions of [terraform -> colonize -> build necessary buildings -> build planetary specific buildings -> wait for pops -> build stuff you're missing] for so many planets in a row.

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

Again hard to say given the mixed nature of importance in origins/civics. Many origins are just starting on a specific world, while more recent ones seem to be more story focused with long event chains. I do think that since the winds seem to be moving in the direction of more story-focused content for origins, simple planetary origins should become civics for Prosperous Unification. Also consider going back to some of the origins that have a potential for story and adding more.

• If you could remove one game system, what would it be?

The vivarium. My second playthrough was a beastmaster run and managing it manually was awful. I also don't see an obvious way to make it interesting without severely altering how beastmasters work.

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

Probably the trade system since I see a lot of potential there.

• Is there a feature you want to enjoy, but feel the current implementation doesn’t quite work for you?

Definitely espionage, I definitely want to make an empire focused on shady dealings, assassinations and the like but the current system just doesn't allow for that and isn't useful enough to even pretend like I'm doing it.