Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary will be about some more changes coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update, with a particular focus on Hive Minds and Traditions.

Hive Minds
Hive Minds was a feature in Utopia that we were not unhappy with, but felt we could have done more on. While it works fine from a gameplay perspective, offering a different mode of play for those who do not wish to concern themselves with internal politicking and just want to get on with building their glorious empire among the stars (and eating those that stand in their way), Hive Minds ended up somewhat lacking in the flavor department, and suffered narratively from gameplay text that does not fit a Hive-Minded society, such as early exploration events.

For 1.8, we've decided to make a major push to improve Hive Minds, both narratively and gameplay-wise. Many events have been changed, disabled or rewritten to fit Hive Minds and their unique societies. We've also tried to address a number of non-event related narrative breaks, such as replacing the 'Sprawling Slums' starting planet tile blocker with a unique tile blocker only found on Hive Mind homeworlds. A new system for relocalising technologies based on government authority types was also created, and a number of technologies will now have different, more suitable names for Hive Minds (such as renaming Administrative AI to Synaptic Enhancers). Some new, unique interactions were also added to the game to emphasise the inherent psionic nature of Hive Minds.

We've also changed the way Hive Minds interact with non-Hive Mind pops. While we still do not want non-Hive Minded Pops to be regular citizens of Hive Minds (for numerous reasons, the main one being keeping Hive Minds distinct from regular empires in how they are played), we have added the option to keep them around as Livestock instead of simply being processed or displaced. AI-controlled Hive Mind empires now also vary in how they treat Pops of other species, with some preferring displacement and others making use of livestock or processing. Livestock/Processing have been buffed from 3/6 food per Pop to 6/8 respectively, and a number of fixes have been made to ensure that Pops that are kept as livestock do not incur building maintenance or similar issues.

Devouring Swarms
In addition to the changes to regular Hive Minds, we've also devoted some more attention to the Devouring Swarm civic that was added in 1.6. Devouring Swarms have had their bonuses increased to be more on par with their Fanatical Purifier non-Hive Mind variant, and a new government type and AI personality was created for Devouring Swarms that you encounter while exploring the galaxy. They also have a few new flavor texts and unique interactions.

Assimilation
Finally, we've improved the process of assimilating non-Hive Minded Pops into the Hive. Instead of having to genetically modify the project (and complete said project before the Pops are eaten or forced out), Hive Minds now have access to a new type of citizenship species right, that is unlocked once they unlock the Evolutionary Mastery ascension perk. This citizenship type, called 'Assimilation', will convert non-Hive-Minded Pops into a Hive-Minded variant of that species, allowing them to be integrated seamlessly into your Hive Mind empire. The process is gradual, with a certain number of Pops converted at regular intervals rather than all being modified at the same time. Non-Hive Minded Pops will of course be quite upset by this, selfishly holding on to their individuality rather than simply surrendering to the glory of the collective. This new method of assimilation was also made available to Synthetic empires, and can be used to convert Pops to cyborgs (if partway through Synthetic Ascension) or upload them into robot bodies (if fully Synthetically Ascended). It can also be used to by non-Hive Mind empires that have unlocked Evolutionary Mastery to de-assimilate Hive-Minded Pops.

Tradition Swapping
Another issue both gameplay and narrative-wise that affects Hive Minds, but is not unique to them, is that certain traditions simply do not fit certain kinds of empires. When creating the tradition trees, we tried to keep them as broad as possible, but ultimately you're never going to be able to design seven full trees that fit perfectly into every possible society and playstyle. It's for this reason that we have created a new system that we call 'Tradition Swapping'. Tradition Swapping allows any Tradition Category (such as Diplomacy) or individual Tradition (such as Trans-Stellar Corporations) to be set up with a number of potential 'swaps'. These swaps have conditions and weights for each individual empire, and can be anything from a simple name and description swap to a full replacement of name, description, icon and effects. A number of such tradition swaps have been created for empires with specific playstyle, such as Hive Minds and Fanatical Purifiers. For example, Hive Minds have replaced 'Trans-Stellar Corporations' (Private Colony Ships make very little sense in a Hive Mind...) with Warrior Forms, a tradition that reduces army upkeep. They also have the entire Diplomacy tree replaced with Adaptability, a new tree focused on growth, habitability and genetics.

Though Tradition swaps may appear to be completely different from what they are replacing, they still occupy the same 'slot'. This means that the system is able to easily handle any change in the empire that would affect the tradition trees - if a Fanatic Purifier has the Purity tree (replacing the Domination tree) filled out and stop being Fanatical Purifiers, they will not lose their unlocked traditions and ascension perks, instead they are simply swapped for whatever variant of the same slots are valid for the empire - in this case reverting the Purity tree back to being Domination. While this may seem slightly strange, we felt it is nonetheless the preferrable way of handing such switches, as all sorts of issues would arise from simply yanking a number of unlocked traditions from empires that could no longer fulfill the conditions for them. By keeping the system as robust and dynamic as possible, it allows us to make far more adjustments to individual traditions for different playstyles than would be otherwise possible. The Tradition Swapping system is, of course, fully accessible to modders.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about voices. Or hearing voices? At any rate, voices will be involved for sure, so stay tuned!

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I for the life of me don't understand why can't you just allow player to pick a tradition for slots, possibly conditionally and had to come up with "swapping".

Probably because we all know that in this case we'll just cherrypick the best stuff, which means you'd have to add arbitrary restrictions that are harder to communicate inside the UI (without a full redesign) OR you are forced to have parity between all potential options (which isn't exactly easy and would eleminate a lot of the more "fluffy" flavorful ones).

Cant wait to learn what this traditions are.

I assume they are still subject to change, so that's why we can't show 'em yet.
However, what I saw felt pretty good. The Adaption tree in particular felt great.

 

[Ari54x]

Yes, yes, but what I had thought of was actually that it would be cool if empires who went for the synth evolution could willingly change their ethos and become hive minds (as an optional ultimate stage of ascension path), but that would require the possibility of becoming a synth empire starting as a hive mind. Actually this could be done also for the other two ascension paths.

(Cybermen!)

Well, it's currently impossible to change your authority to hive-mind in the middle of the game, but the previous stream did briefly show a second authority type under the new "Gestalt consciousness" option that Hive Minds now live under, and it looked distinctly mechanical, so I expect if you're willing to commit from year 1, you'll be able to play as Cybermen/Borg/a synthetic hegemonizing swarm.

 

[Red192]

Very Good!

 

[marvin the martian]

Uhm wait. we're completely ascended utopian beings now, what's up next? Nothing?" - *drops into lethargy*

And thus, a Fallen Empire was born ...
Seriously, why not think about a game mode, where your species becomes a FE and is only able to influence the lesser, upcoming races to prepare for the "War in Heaven" ... This would require vastly improved diplomacy and a fleshed out espionage system.
But would also be quite fun, I presume

 

[Alblaka]

Wrote up my thoughts on further Tradition Swapping opportunities in a thread:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/tradition-swapping-tweak-ideas.1034273/

Curious to see how well this feature is used in the upcoming patch (Mod support is nice, but I prefer having features used in the basegame). It's a realy good developement to make Traditions less bland.

 

[Devanor]

That's cool! But there is still no possibility to go through sythetic evolution as a hive mind, isn't there? Why?

Wasn't a sixth government 'leaked'(but not discussed) in a video that pictured a brain with computer cords that required hivemind ethic?

If it's real, perhaps that'll be the cyborg-hivemind(Borg!) you so desire?

 

[Kinkness]

Hive-Mind tend to be OP compared to other type of Empires, I think they should have their own Crisis, like another "Queen" appearing, civil war commences.

Personally I think a Hive Mind should have something similar to a "Mind Strength" mechanic that's empire wide. Happiness is a huge balancing factor, and taking that away entirely just makes Hive Minds incredibly OP because of it. You get all the benefits with no set backs.

Your empire can have a "Mind Strength" for lack of a better term, something that gets weaker as you grow bigger in size. It can be shown as a bar at the top of the screen, or in your empire view. As you grow bigger with more population that "connection" gets weaker. You need to continue building a special "Central Mind" building that strengthens that connection permanently empire wide.

Having the Bar under a certain threshold can trigger critical events that end up having a special end game crisis for your empire alone, where say another hive Queen appears, several planets turn Rogue, etc. as they break away from your central hive.

This would then also make "Home Worlds" or "Core Worlds" more important. That's where you most likely will want to build most of your Central Hive Mind buildings, but losing these planets in a war could critically weaken your entire mind strength, and a prolonged war with key planets being lost could result in catastrophic consequences as part of your empire breaks away as a new hive mind, etc. So where you put these Hive Mind buildings, and how aggressive you are in wars, etc. is a strategic layer for Hive Minds, rather than just straight out warring everyone in reach with no risk of loss.

 

[Devanor]

Your empire can have a "Mind Strength" for lack of a better term, something that gets weaker as you grow bigger in size. It can be shown as a bar at the top of the screen, or in your empire view. As you grow bigger with more population that "connection" gets weaker. You need to continue building a special "Central Mind" building that strengthens that connection permanently empire wide.

Having the Bar under a certain threshold can trigger critical events that end up having a special end game crisis for your empire alone, where say another hive Queen appears, several planets turn Rogue, etc. as they break away from your central hive.

I do like the sound of needing to place 'towers' of sorts on distant worlds to ensure your pops are still under your control, although, causing a crisis akin to AI rebellion simply because you lose control over those worlds may not be a good idea.

How would this new 'queen' act? Would it target the hivemind alone? Well sh*t, now you have two wars to fight, while losing your 'mind strength'. Would it target the enemy of the hivemind, as it wants to save it's 'future servants' before taking over? Now the enemy has to fight two wars. Unpredictable? Well, now either of the two can happen.

 

[Ari54x]

Personally I think a Hive Mind should have something similar to a "Mind Strength" mechanic that's empire wide. Happiness is a huge balancing factor, and taking that away entirely just makes Hive Minds incredibly OP because of it. You get all the benefits with no set backs.

Your empire can have a "Mind Strength" for lack of a better term, something that gets weaker as you grow bigger in size. It can be shown as a bar at the top of the screen, or in your empire view. As you grow bigger with more population that "connection" gets weaker. You need to continue building a special "Central Mind" building that strengthens that connection permanently empire wide.

Having the Bar under a certain threshold can trigger critical events that end up having a special end game crisis for your empire alone, where say another hive Queen appears, several planets turn Rogue, etc. as they break away from your central hive.

This would then also make "Home Worlds" or "Core Worlds" more important. That's where you most likely will want to build most of your Central Hive Mind buildings, but losing these planets in a war could critically weaken your entire mind strength, and a prolonged war with key planets being lost could result in catastrophic consequences as part of your empire breaks away as a new hive mind, etc. So where you put these Hive Mind buildings, and how aggressive you are in wars, etc. is a strategic layer for Hive Minds, rather than just straight out warring everyone in reach with no risk of loss.

Hive minds are already pretty balanced, most of their issues are lack of content that makes sense for hiveminds. Let's set aside swarms for a moment, (which should be compared to Purifiers) and talk about vanilla hives.

They can't receive new pops through immigration. They receive an automatic -30 opinion malus with every AI that's not a hive mind, (which means it is difficult to make research agreements unless you happen across xenophiles, the only empire type Hive Minds can get a bonus with) and cannot gain extra influence from Factions, so are more limited in their use of edicts and policies than normal, especially if they decide not to gene mod any conquered species into their empire, as that means spending influence on resettling pops to every conquered world so they can re-grow its population from scratch as hive-mind pops. In 1.8, they also won't be able to use federation mechanics by default.

What you're proposing is an interesting mechanic, (although possibly with far too punishing a failure consequence as compared to normal revolters, who usually only seize a single planet. It wouldn't be fair to do this to Hive Minds without also buffing revolters for empires under the normal ethics system) but it's not needed to balance hive-minds as-is. They're fine, and hive-minds can get revolts while they're purging pops as it is, (it can be quite a pain if you don't reconquer them quickly, as your hive mind pops can die off and you have to resettle again) they just can't get them on planets they've colonized naturally, so any half-decent Hive player does indeed have to manage unrest and unhappiness during purges, and the only way to avoid purges is to play without caring about winning, as even assimilating conquered pops will be purged in the meantime while you genemod them.

 

[Ikael]

Awesome update!

- Cattle slavery buff + devouring swarm buff = We're the Zerg now! kekekekekek!
- Peaceful hiveminds + some kind of "sexual pheromones" civic = Wubba Lubba Dub-Dub, Morty!
- Leaders having up to 10 levels means that now venerable traits and inmortality will be quite useful. Still, there's a lot that can be made with leaders, lots of untapped potential, but this is certainly a good step towards making the player care for them
- Dynamic tradition trees can give lots of flavour to several civics and empire types. Holy empires replacing the discovery tree with rituals, warrior cultures replacing the diplomacy tree with a martial one, and so on. More flavour like this, please!
- Still, no plans to add (instead of swap) tradition trees? There are certain civics, such as "Machinist" that stays inmutable during the entire game and thus, would possibilitate to give them additional tradition trees with no fear of loosing traditions. Also, the more ways to spend unity, the merrier!

I really like how this is making each type of empire more different. Moar in that direction, please!

PD: Voices? Shroud related update, perhaps?

 

[Milten]

Happiness is a huge balancing factor, and taking that away entirely just makes Hive Minds incredibly OP because of it. You get all the benefits with no set backs.

Happiness and factions are double-edged sword, since they are source of bonuses as well.

 

[runrun]

I just have a question
You propose to be able to assimilate the other species gradually. Very good, it was really lacking. But when a species and subspecies is already present in the empire.
Which one the self-assimilation will choose ?
Can we choose which sub-species will be chosen for this self-assimilation?
To take an example
I just conquerir 2 new planets
I would like to convert each planetes to 2 different sub-species.
Will self-assimilation concern only the fact of being able to live near a hive mind specie and then having to go through genetic modification?
Or more broadly, assimilation will make it possible to modify the species as it is desired that it will be within the empire? And of the different sub-species if it was our desire?

edit:
I would really like to be able to sort the planets or habitats according to my own choice in the menu on the right

 

[COBB311]

I don't believe hive minds are OP, at least not from a single-player perspective. What I've noticed happen in most of my SP games is that AI diplomacy pretty much decides that any hive minds or fanatic purifiers need to go, and early on they work towards taking them out (sometimes repugnant species, as well).

I rarely play as hive minds or purifiers, but I like to have them in my game. They just never seem to be able to survive on their own.

 

[Milten]

What I've noticed happen in most of my SP games is that AI diplomacy pretty much decides that any hive minds or fanatic purifiers need to go, and early on they work towards taking them out (sometimes repugnant species, as well).

Pretty random in my experience. They don't avoid diplomacy and sometimes manages to expand better than everyone else. I once even saw a hivemind with four defensive pacts, it and it's buddies could have become a powerhouse without my intervention.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Is it truly so hard for hivemind to understand other societies? They have autonomous drones, after all. Conceptually the hivemind will probably feel the same we would feel if we met a person whose liver and intestines argue all the time and a new brain is elected every 10 years.

met a person

To a hive mind, this is already unthinkable. It has never "met a person". If you lived for a few thousand years thinking you're the only person that exists or has ever existed, how good do you think you'd be at sudden diplomacy, even with another person who's actually similar to you?

 

[GuildenSpur]

My latest game was a hive mind play through. I like these changes to hive minds a lot!

 

[VoidEmperor]

That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about voices. Or hearing voices? At any rate, voices will be involved for sure, so stay tuned!

@Wiz You bastard with your damn teasings

 

[Es57]

With the Devouring Swarm buff and getting to keep pops as livestock I can finally play as the Bugs from Starfire. Excellent.

No need, every new Stellaris patch is usually already full of bugs anyway !

 

[minke19104]

When can we pre-order the new DLC?? I want it now

 

[runrun]

Happiness and factions are double-edged sword, since they are source of bonuses as well.

A hive mind is not a unique person but a sum of unique people with a collective spirit. Spirit that can be either open to its environment or centered on itself. So be a greater diplomat, or less than a single person.