Hi folks!

Today, we moved into our brand new offices so things have been a little hectic in Paradox land. The new building is great, but I will always miss the spectacular view of Stockholm from the 24th floor of "Skrapan"...

No rest for the wicked though, so let's talk a bit about the role that characters play in Stellaris. First off, this game is not character based like Crusader Kings, so do not expect a complex web of rivalries and friendships to develop between rulers and leaders with dynamic portraits and genetics. In Stellaris, the real stars of the show are the Pops, with characters acting more like the advisors, generals and admirals in Europa Universalis (though they do have certain personality traits that can affect what options they get in scripted events, for example.) With that out of the way, let's examine the different types of characters:

Scientists can be put in charge of one of the three research departments (Physics, Society or Engineering.) They can also be assigned to captain the Science Ships you use to explore the galaxy. These are all topics for upcoming dev diaries... Suffice it to say that their skill levels and personalities will have clear effects on their tasks. They are also valid ruler candidates in technocratic societies (government types).

Governors can either lord it over a single planet or an entire sector (more on sectors later). They are a very useful way of keeping the populace happy, or increasing the efficiency of a rich and powerful planet even more. Governors are valid ruler candidates under many government types.

Admirals, though they are not mandatory, can give a clear edge to your military fleets, which is pretty straightforward. They are valid ruler candidates in militaristic societies.

Generals lead your armies in defense of your planets against invasion, or when invading the planets of your enemies. Like Admirals, they are valid ruler candidates in militaristic societies.

Rulers give bonuses to entire empires, and, since other leader types can be elected ruler, they typically have a secondary skillset as well. Ruler type characters can also lead Factions; such characters are not recruited by you and cannot be ordered around. Factions and their leaders are, again, something we'll cover in detail later on.

Most leader types are recruited using Influence (a type of diplomatic "currency" in the game) and there is a cap on the total number of leaders you can employ, so you will need to weigh your need for Admirals against that for competent Governors, etc. Although all leaders tend to gain experience and become more accomplished over time, they do not live forever. The day will come when they perish and will need to be replaced…

Now, as you remember from last week’s diary, there are about a hundred different alien race portraits in the game. Thus, we initially felt that lesser leaders should not have actual portraits, because we could not possibly produce enough of them to provide the requisite variety. But then, the artists started to experiment with different backgrounds and clothes, which thankfully proved sufficient to allow all leaders to show a portrait.

The different types of leaders all use different sets of clothes. This helps increases variety, but also reinforces their role, with admirals having a militaristic uniform, governors being more casually dressed, and scientist being a bit more techy. Clothes are shared between some of the more similar species, because creating five unique apparels for each species is just an enormous amount of work. (Not all species wear clothes though; it would be odd if this was every alien race’s custom.)

I expect that humans will be by far the most popular race to play. Therefore, they are getting some special attention with different ethnicities, genders and hair styles. There is nothing stopping modders from doing the same for other races, of course! For example, the system could easily be used for other things, like an insect race where you have a multi tiered system, with one appearance for the ruler, a completely different morphology for your Pops, and a third for your leader characters...

Until next week, take care all!

 

[TheDungen]

I'm thinking oribtal dockyards, deep space reasearch laboratories and such.

 

[Orctavius]

I wondering/hoping that Individualist empires will have a higher leader cap because their societies will produce more people who strive for greatness. Collectivist empires would have a lower cap, but would receive a different benefit that I'm not sure of yet.

 

[Alexander Seil]

What I'm more curious about is whether there is a loyalty mechanic for leaders, because it seems natural that a successful Admiral-who-is-not-you in a military dictatorship should be a huge political liability. Now, you should remain in control of the leaders as long as they're overtly loyal, but sacking an influential general ought to carry the risk of him becoming a faction leader or even attempting a coup. Otherwise, these are just silly stats-boosters akin to "leaders" in other 4x games. I don't see any purpose in them unless they have SOME agency, even if it is only event-driven (unlike the "AI for everyone" madness of CK2, which is a little out of place here).

 

[chopak]

If it was discussed I must have missed it, the first 3 must be some some sort of mysterious resources, the next 3 are research.

Then comes the mystery, what's the two white triangles that he has 0/0 of?

Is the last symbol a planet and if so does that mean he can only have 4 colonies?

First one is Energy/Credits (hell, it even has energy and C-redits in it ). In one of the older screenshots it actually IS credits, and in other it's energy. So, i think they finally settled for both
Second one is "rare/precious resources" on other screenshots it can be seen that some asteroids are marked with "1 diamond" or "2 diamond" probably meaning they contain them.
Third one is some kind of manpower (again - my guess).
Next we have physics/social/industrial research points. I highly doubt it's eu-like mana. They probably only advance research in those branches.
Triangles i had no idea, first i thought they were stargate capacity, but it doesn't fit the wormhole transport model we were presented. Probably starbases.
Next looks like colony count, but I have baaad feelings about "/4" part. Is it hard cap for colonies? I hate those!

 

[HeresyX]

I will pay for more portraits! Please, release an aesthetic subscription DLC. Like a season pass for portraits!

 

[Velorian]

Next looks like colony count, but I have baaad feelings about "/4" part. Is it hard cap for colonies? I hate those!

Maybe a soft cap, with a limit for what is 100% efficient and then it gets worse and worse from there.

Or like someone else said it's a cap on how many undeveloped colonies you can have developing at a time. So when they reach the part where they are "done" (self-sufficient I suppose) they stop counting. I hope that's what it means.

 

[prithupaul]

This arbitrary limit on character numbers is very disappointing. I doubt anyone would want Crusader Kings like complexity here, but it could most certainly have been designed in a more sensible and realistic way.

What on earth is the logic behind the character cap? What does it result from? What happens to the other fleets, armies and planets... are they run by magic? Why on earth (or any other planet) does the number of admirals affect the number of governors in a spacefaring nation with population of multiple billions?! It does not make any sense... other than a forced & lazy way to introduce gameplay balance. Well there are many other ways to introduce gameplay balance, as you have shown time and again in your other brilliant games.

Instead it seems you are simply following the example of lesser developers before you. This sort of gamey and contrived design decision I would expect from the hundreds of other generic strategy games that still follow a 20 year old formula, not from Paradox. A focus on characters could have made this different from all the other 4X games, but it seems that is not to be.

Now with that rant out of the way... perhaps you may consider adding an option to disable said character cap. I assume characters will have salaries / upkeep, loyalty etc? You can organically limit the number of "controlled" characters the player can recruit using budget limitations or other similar practical reasons liking increasing corruption, chance of rebellion etc instead of some arbitrary gamey Age of Empires style "cap". Or base the "handpicked" character number on political power and population - let the rest of the nation be governed by randomly generated characters (i.e. elected diplomatically or equivalent) with also random (and less stellar) stats. Both will be more sensible than what I see in this dev diary. And I am certain you can come up with something much better than these.

 

[aitaituo]

This arbitrary limit on character numbers is very disappointing. I doubt anyone would want Crusader Kings like complexity here, but it could most certainly have been designed in a more sensible and realistic way.

What on earth is the logic behind the character cap? What does it result from? What happens to the other fleets, armies and planets... are they run by magic? Why on earth (or any other planet) does the number of admirals affect the number of governors in a spacefaring nation with population of multiple billions?! It does not make any sense... other than a forced & lazy way to introduce gameplay balance. Well there are many other ways to introduce gameplay balance, as you have shown time and again in your other brilliant games.

Instead it seems you are simply following the example of lesser developers before you. This sort of gamey and contrived design decision I would expect from the hundreds of other generic strategy games that still follow a 20 year old formula, not from Paradox. A focus on characters could have made this different from all the other 4X games, but it seems that is not to be.

Now with that rant out of the way... perhaps you may consider adding an option to disable said character cap. I assume characters will have salaries / upkeep, loyalty etc? You can organically limit the number of "controlled" characters the player can recruit using budget limitations or other similar practical reasons liking increasing corruption, chance of rebellion etc instead of some arbitrary gamey Age of Empires style "cap". Or base the "handpicked" character number on political power and population - let the rest of the nation be governed by randomly generated characters (i.e. elected diplomatically or equivalent) with also random (and less stellar) stats. Both will be more sensible than what I see in this dev diary. And I am certain you can come up with something even better than these.

I have similar concerns.

 

[prithupaul]

I have similar concerns.

I am glad I am not the only one.

 

[aitaituo]

I am glad I am not the only one.

Well, I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't think I would explain my point well enough and because I know a lot of players find these kinds of mostly arbitrary only-sensible-in-a-game restrictions interesting to work around. It's certainly the trend in Paradox design to have more and more of these kinds of limits, such as on the number of generals in EUIV (no limit in EU3) and CK2 (as of Horse Lords).

 

[prithupaul]

Well, I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't think I would explain my point well enough and because I know a lot of players find these kinds of mostly arbitrary only-sensible-in-a-game restrictions interesting to work around. It's certainly the trend in Paradox design to have more and more of these kinds of limits, such as on the number of generals in EUIV (no limit in EU3) and CK2 (as of Horse Lords).

I know what you mean, in a day when clickfest MMOs are the most popular games on the planet. But I for one hope for a more "sim-ey"and less gamey experience, something that encourages suspension of disbelief, when I play a sci-fi game, especially one made by Paradox. Our choice of games to play are getting more limited every year. I keep looking to companies like Paradox or Slitherine for salvation.

But its alarming to know about CK2, as I am yet to look at Horse Lords. And I did not by EU4 for similar reasons.

 

[TheDungen]

I'm guessing they're aftraid that the game like ck2 would use a lot of it's power on more or less meaningless characters.

 

[aitaituo]

I know what you mean, in a day when clickfest MMOs are the most popular games on the planet. But I for one hope for a more "sim-ey"and less gamey experience, something that encourages suspension of disbelief, when I play a sci-fi game, especially one made by Paradox. Our choice of games to play are getting more limited every year. I keep looking to companies like Paradox or Slitherine for salvation.

But its alarming to know about CK2, as I am yet to look at Horse Lords. And I did not by EU4 for similar reasons.

The Sims is a great example here. It was probably the first "click-and-wait" only style game to be a mainstream success, but it doesn't feel like it's merely a series of bars you have to periodically refill by clicking a button. Never again will watching someone clean a toilet be so fun.

Contrast that with Fallout New Vegas' hardcore needs system, though, and you have something packaged as adding realism, but implemented in such a gamey way that it never feels realistic. You need to drink water a couple times a day, sure, but you only need to have a snack every other day to avoid feeling hungry, which means just a minor stat penalty immediately resolved by clicking a food item in your inventory. You only need to sleep once a week and even worse is that feels like this weird occasional interruption in your game rather than a regular routine that has to be done, because you're already so accustomed to walk-gunfighting for 20 hours straight that not only does the night-day cycle seem irrelevant to your character, but in real time it may be several weeks of light playing before you get the pop-up notification that your character is tired. Unless you go poking around their living spaces at the right times, you might not see NPCs eating or sleeping ever.

Both of these are essentially the same thing. Time is accelerated, needs are bars that deplete/fill on their own, a button is clicked to refill/lower the bars periodically, but the former is part of an entire self-contained world that you can believe in, while the latter is this weirdly tacked on afterthought to a game world that already had a very different immersion experience built into it.

 

[TheDungen]

The Sims is a great example here. It was probably the first "click-and-wait" only style game to be a mainstream success, but it doesn't feel like it's merely a series of bars you have to periodically refill by clicking a button. Never again will watching someone clean a toilet be so fun.

Contrast that with Fallout New Vegas' hardcore needs system, though, and you have something packaged as adding realism, but implemented in such a gamey way that it never feels realistic. You need to drink water a couple times a day, sure, but you only need to have a snack every other day to avoid feeling hungry, which means just a minor stat penalty immediately resolved by clicking a food item in your inventory. You only need to sleep once a week and even worse is that feels like this weird occasional interruption in your game rather than a regular routine that has to be done, because you're already so accustomed to walk-gunfighting for 20 hours straight that not only does the night-day cycle seem irrelevant to your character, but in real time it may be several weeks of light playing before you get the pop-up notification that your character is tired. Unless you go poking around their living spaces at the right times, you might not see NPCs eating or sleeping ever.

Both of these are essentially the same thing. Time is accelerated, needs are bars that deplete/fill on their own, a button is clicked to refill/lower the bars periodically, but the former is part of an entire self-contained world that you can believe in, while the latter is this weirdly tacked on afterthought to a game world that already had a very different immersion experience built into it.

Well Stellaris should probably not try to be the sims but if the next fallout tries to (and does better than last time) I won't complain. Ck2 could also always do with looking more at the sims. I always felt that the sims medieval and ck2 was approaching a similiar idea from two diffrent directions, and goofy as it might be there are some things that sims medieval does really well.

 

[Alexander Seil]

This arbitrary limit on character numbers is very disappointing. I doubt anyone would want Crusader Kings like complexity here, but it could most certainly have been designed in a more sensible and realistic way.

What on earth is the logic behind the character cap? What does it result from? What happens to the other fleets, armies and planets... are they run by magic? Why on earth (or any other planet) does the number of admirals affect the number of governors in a spacefaring nation with population of multiple billions?! It does not make any sense... other than a forced & lazy way to introduce gameplay balance. Well there are many other ways to introduce gameplay balance, as you have shown time and again in your other brilliant games.

Other fleets, armies and sectors are run by nobodies of no consequence.

The logic behind a character cap is very simple, it's a way to make sure that large blobs don't snowball out of control even faster, as tends to be the case in literally every Paradox game. If I can generate arbitrary amounts of influence, with no cap I can just keep hiring new admirals until every system patrol has a 5-star Brave, Brilliant Strategist in command.

If you keep digging into this system to fix the "gameyness" you'll end up with a whole sub-game of personnel management akin to pilots in War of the Pacific, and in the meantime there are 20 other systems to flesh out, some of them clearly indicated to be much more important to the game vision (e.g., POPs).

Instead it seems you are simply following the example of lesser developers before you. This sort of gamey and contrived design decision I would expect from the hundreds of other generic strategy games that still follow a 20 year old formula, not from Paradox. A focus on characters could have made this different from all the other 4X games, but it seems that is not to be.

There's a cap on leaders in CK2 too, it's just not explicitly hard. Good luck getting enough good personnel, even as an emperor, to run every army, duchy and council seat.

Now with that rant out of the way... perhaps you may consider adding an option to disable said character cap. I assume characters will have salaries / upkeep, loyalty etc? You can organically limit the number of "controlled" characters the player can recruit using budget limitations or other similar practical reasons liking increasing corruption, chance of rebellion etc instead of some arbitrary gamey Age of Empires style "cap". Or base the "handpicked" character number on political power and population - let the rest of the nation be governed by randomly generated characters (i.e. elected diplomatically or equivalent) with also random (and less stellar) stats. Both will be more sensible than what I see in this dev diary. And I am certain you can come up with something much better than these.

So, why exactly does the NUMBER of Admirals have anything to do with their chance of revolt? Or corruption? You're just hiding the underlying problem (the need to abstract some systems) under a different cushion.

 

[prithupaul]

Other fleets, armies and sectors are run by nobodies of no consequence.

And I want to see these relative nobodies represented in the game, minus any management on the player's part, but adding to authenticity and decisionmaking.

The logic behind a character cap is very simple, it's a way to make sure that large blobs don't snowball out of control even faster, as tends to be the case in literally every Paradox game. If I can generate arbitrary amounts of influence, with no cap I can just keep hiring new admirals until every system patrol has a 5-star Brave, Brilliant Strategist in command.

There are other more natural, less lazy ways to limit those.

If you keep digging into this system to fix the "gameyness" you'll end up with a whole sub-game of personnel management akin to pilots in War of the Pacific, and in the meantime there are 20 other systems to flesh out, some of them clearly indicated to be much more important to the game vision (e.g., POPs).

If you do not want to micro-manage, then do not recruit too many characters (which also gives an organic limit to the number of chracters). No need to limit everybody else to play it your way. Not to mention, there can always be options like auto-assign for those wanting a simpler experience.

There's a cap on leaders in CK2 too, it's just not explicitly hard. Good luck getting enough good personnel, even as an emperor, to run every army, duchy and council seat.

That does not classify as a cap. And that is preceisely why I want both good and not so good characters (who may not be picked by players). Characters != heroes.

So, why exactly does the NUMBER of Admirals have anything to do with their chance of revolt? Or corruption? You're just hiding the underlying problem (the need to abstract some systems) under a different cushion.

The more characters you seek to control, the less control you will have over them individually. I did not think this required explanation.

 

[StukaTR]

Looks wonderfull. Really hyped!

 

[ollary]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...st-get-consent-before-speaking-20151026103272

You dount get the irony I think...

 

[spinoza013]

A fleshed out endless space with better politics and exploration sounds great.

 

[Safehold]

The Sims is a great example here. It was probably the first "click-and-wait" only style game to be a mainstream success, but it doesn't feel like it's merely a series of bars you have to periodically refill by clicking a button. Never again will watching someone clean a toilet be so fun.

Contrast that with Fallout New Vegas' hardcore needs system, though, and you have something packaged as adding realism, but implemented in such a gamey way that it never feels realistic. You need to drink water a couple times a day, sure, but you only need to have a snack every other day to avoid feeling hungry, which means just a minor stat penalty immediately resolved by clicking a food item in your inventory. You only need to sleep once a week and even worse is that feels like this weird occasional interruption in your game rather than a regular routine that has to be done, because you're already so accustomed to walk-gunfighting for 20 hours straight that not only does the night-day cycle seem irrelevant to your character, but in real time it may be several weeks of light playing before you get the pop-up notification that your character is tired. Unless you go poking around their living spaces at the right times, you might not see NPCs eating or sleeping ever.

Both of these are essentially the same thing. Time is accelerated, needs are bars that deplete/fill on their own, a button is clicked to refill/lower the bars periodically, but the former is part of an entire self-contained world that you can believe in, while the latter is this weirdly tacked on afterthought to a game world that already had a very different immersion experience built into it.

If I recall correctly, the New Vegas option came from a user mod of Fallout 3. The survival one that needed food and water. It wasn't nearly as harsh in New Vegas as the user made mod was. But it adds a little bit more value to faucets that aren't radiation and clean water, but it turned it into a sort of save system that replenishes your health too fast. So the reason it feels tacted on is probably because the game wasn't built with that in mind. There are too many items and probably too many sources of water for that. In Pillars of Eternity, Josh Sawyer, the New Vegas project lead, started designing in limited resources for resting from the beginning of the game, which feels more useful and natural a mechanic.