• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Stellaris Dev Diary #26 - Migration, Slavery & Purges

Hi folks!

It has been a very busy week for yours truly, with a load of press demos and, of course, the grand Paradox press conference in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the rest of the team has been hard at work finishing up the revised start-up screens, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today… Instead, through the confused haze of my jet lag, I thought I’d say a few words about how to manage your population in Stellaris! As you might recall from the dev diary on Policies and Edicts, your initial choice of Empire ethos will heavily affect what you can and cannot do and what your initial population will tend to frown upon. Three of the more interesting Policies concern Migration, Slavery and Purges.

stellaris_dev_diary_26_01_20160321_policies.jpg


Let’s begin with Migration. There are two ways in which Pops can move between planets; spontaneous migration or resettlement. If you are playing a Fanatic Individualist empire, you must allow at least your founding species Pops to move freely as they like (there is an option to disallow alien Pops from migrating - not popular with Xenophiles.) Pops who are allowed to migrate will tend to move to planets they like better than the one they currently live on. This is not just a matter of the Planet Class, but also things like whether the planet has Slaves (which Decadent Pops like), if there are alien Pops on the planet (which Xenophobes dislike and Xenophiles like), and whether the planet lies within a Sector or the core worlds (dissidents and aliens tend to move to Sectors to live with like-minded individuals.) If another Empire is granting you migration access, your Pops will also consider migrating to their planets.

Now, unless you are playing an Individualist Empire, you can also enact a Policy to allow the forcible resettlement of Pops. This will allow you to simply move Pops between planets; at a hefty cost, of course. There is one more way to control migration; fanatic Xenophobes can enact planetary Edicts to strongly discourage xeno immigration. In the same way, fanatic Xenophiles can strongly encourage it...

stellaris_dev_diary_26_02_20160321_resettlement.jpg


So that’s basically how migration works. Next, we have Slavery. Like the migration Policies, you have three options; allow it for all Pops, xenos only, or not at all. Fanatic Individualists cannot play with Slavery unless the founding species has the Decadent trait, and only Xenophobes can limit Slavery to aliens. Why use slaves? Well, reprehensible as it is, enslaved Pops are harder workers (but poorer scientists.) Of course, slaves can - and will - join Slave Factions, although Collectivist slaves are more accepting of their lot, for the Greater Good.

Finally, let’s talk Purges, which is simply a way of getting rid of troublesome Pops… permanently. Naturally, this is something that both your own population and other Empires tend to react to rather emphatically.

That’ll have to do for now. Next week, we’re aiming for a more cheerful dev diary about sound and music!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • 139
  • 72
  • 4
Reactions:
I couldn't find an answer anywhere, but if a planet has pops of two different species on it, which species is selected for pop growth?
I think they both grow separetly, but if there is only one slot to grow in, then its species that would grow more - the ones with more pops on planet assuming same pop growth traits.
 
So if one of my slave worlds foolishly rebels from my glorious empire and somehow the unlikely event in which they win occurs, I will be rather perturbed. It can be assured that I will retake what was mine soon enough and when I do I will not be merciful. They had their chance to put their pethetic bodies to use for something greater than them! They won't have another. The slat with be wiped clean....


-pushes the purge button-
 
Do pops migrate for economic reasons, or it's all based on ethics? I mean, if another empire has, due to tech or infrastructure advantage, available buildings or slots producing more output (which is a fair way to represent higher productivity - higher *wages* or whatever the pop takes for working), does that weight when deciding if and where to migrate?
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Do pops migrate for economic reasons, or it's all based on ethics? I mean, if another empire has, due to tech or infrastructure advantage, buildings or slots producing more output (which is a fair way to represent higher productivity - higher *wages* or whatever the pop takes for working), does that weight when deciding if and where to migrate?
Pops will migrate based off of happiness. Now, what is happiness? It is a combination of how well suited a species is to a planet type, whether they have a job (there are empty tiles and Pops working empty tiles will be unhappy), whether their Ethos are being satisfied (Individualists will dislike slaves on the planet, Xenophobes will dislike aliens who are not slaves on the planet, presumably diametrically opposed Ethos will also dislike each other, so that if 12 pops on a world are Pacifist then a Militarist pop might dislike it).
All of these contribute to happiness which is a factor in determining whether a pop will voluntarily migrate, and to where they might migrate.
 
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
A scifi example of a Collectivist society is the Tau from 40k.
The society is most definitely a Fanatical Collectivist

It most definetly is not. They have individual pride and honour as well as caste and empire ones. Individuals were reported to act agaist collective in some cases, Farsight being the major example.
Etherials got some nice mind-affecting pheromones, which they use to guide castes smoothly, for example, during meetings between high ranked castes representatives they sooth conflics and force coordination. That and their ideology makes them collectivistic.
But on a level of individuals they are as individualistic as humans, which is that they certainly consider themselves having some individual value and being able to go against the will of collective. "Fire warrior" novel as a source. That means they are collectivistic but not fanatical collectivistic.

and they generally accept other species with, relatively, open arms.
How exactly this is related to collectivism issue? It's xenophile/xenophobe and Tau are surely closer to xenophiles then other warhammer factions but these are different ethos systems.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Pops will migrate based off of happiness. Now, what is happiness? It is a combination of how well suited a species is to a planet type, whether they have a job (there are empty tiles and Pops working empty tiles will be unhappy), whether their Ethos are being satisfied (Individualists will dislike slaves on the planet, Xenophobes will dislike aliens who are not slaves on the planet, presumably diametrically opposed Ethos will also dislike each other, so that if 12 pops on a world are Pacifist then a Militarist pop might dislike it).
All of these contribute to happiness which is a factor in determining whether a pop will voluntarily migrate, and to where they might migrate.

Since I don't think tile output will affect happiness, that means pops on equal conditions won't migrate to more productive worlds (not even inside the same empire), as there is no happiness incentive for that.

Unless I'm wrong, of course.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Pops will migrate based off of happiness. Now, what is happiness? It is a combination of how well suited a species is to a planet type, whether they have a job (there are empty tiles and Pops working empty tiles will be unhappy), whether their Ethos are being satisfied (Individualists will dislike slaves on the planet, Xenophobes will dislike aliens who are not slaves on the planet, presumably diametrically opposed Ethos will also dislike each other, so that if 12 pops on a world are Pacifist then a Militarist pop might dislike it).
All of these contribute to happiness which is a factor in determining whether a pop will voluntarily migrate, and to where they might migrate.
So it's basically impossible for a Individualist democratic Empire to force their own people to settle on non-optimal planets, cause they gonna migrate out of it anyway? For non-individualist it's not easy too, but at least for them you can lock up migration.
And xenophile individualists? Those guys can't event force aliens too live on those planets.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
It most definetly is not. They have individual pride and honour as well as caste and empire ones. Individuals were reported to act agaist collective in some cases, Farsight being the major example.
And he is universally reviled in Tau society now, because he Ethos drifted.

Etherials got some nice mind-affecting pheromones, which they use to guide castes smoothly, for example, during meetings between high ranked castes representatives they sooth conflics and force coordination. That and their ideology makes them collectivistic.
But on a level of individuals they are as individualistic as humans, which is that they certainly consider themselves having some individual value and being able to go against the will of collective. "Fire warrior" novel as a source. That means they are collectivistic but not fanatical collectivistic.
The Fire Warrior novel is a bit outdated, recent Codices have further defined Tau society. There are instances where issues arise when Ethereals are not present, but by and large the majority of the fighting occurs far from any Ethereals (there are too few of them to put all over the front lines) and the Fire Caste still maintains its adherence to state doctrine and the Greater Good.
On the level of Individuals most Tau would gladly sacrifice themselves (whether through death or acting in a fashion abhorent to themselves) in order to advance the Greater Good. A perfect example of this is the Water Caste, they are diplomats and they adopt their hosts customs and integrate into their societies to better steer those societies toward accepting the Greater Good. The Ethereals only appear in the final stages of this process, as they are considered too valuable to risk. In general Ethereals are around for the important stuff (final deal making, peace talks, strategy discussions) but mostly leave each caste to do its thing.

How exactly this is related to collectivism issue? It's xenophile/xenophobe and Tau are surely closer to xenophiles then other warhammer factions but these are different ethos systems.
The Caste system is an example of a Collective society, and their entire mentality of the Greater Good is the definition of collective.
 
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
When considering the "extreme" ethics we probably should not draw too much from human history and experience. This game is about aliens.
Even in humans with the most extreme viewpoints, the biology of the brain is practically identical. When considering species that did not even develop alongside humanity, it isn't that far-fetched to find even more radical ideas about slavery.
I think it would be a tremendous shame to try to fit all of the ethics to some flavor of present day humanity, because that isn't what the game is about.
 
  • 5
Reactions:
So it's basically impossible for a Individualist democratic Empire to force their own people to settle on non-optimal planets, cause they gonna migrate out of it anyway? For non-individualist it's not easy too, but at least for them you can lock up migration.
And xenophile individualists? Those guys can't event force aliens too live on those planets.
You can 'grow' new pops there and 'force' an initial fragment of a pop to settle on a non-optimal world with the colony ship. However you are correct if there are worlds with open spaces better suited to them then your pops are likely to move there. But if a world is full I doubt the pops can leave a bad planet to go to a full good planet.
So not all hope is lost.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
In my opinion it would make sense to add a happiness modifier depending on the slot production to represent higher wages, but I can foresee balance problems with that. +1% per unit produced might be too much.
 
The Caste system is an example of a Collective society, and their entire mentality of the Greater Good is the definition of collective.
It is, but still unrelated to welcoming other species with open arms.
Their mentality of Greater Good suggests you SHOULD strive for a greater good, which implies you can do otherwise. And Tau did so before Etherials came.

I consider it more fun to image the most broad range of societies possible in Stellaris, so fanatic collectivists would be society with individuals not having any value to themselves, drones without much personality. Tyranids would be an example of fanatic collectivists.

Well, maybe there will be hive added later as a distinct ethos/government/trait, then I'd consider your point right. Now I would rather see fanatic collectivists as a hive.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
They become citizens of that empire.
hello !
i have 2 questions !
1 : can democratic xenophile federation turn evil and becaume xenophobe militaristic empire ???
2: for the second one i know thats there is a few possibility to have this one in the vannila game ! but can nations create some sort of galactic senate to maintain order ? like ending huge wars between eternal rivals or punishing those who d ont respect laws !


plz answer me i need to know :)


EDIT: last question ! can we play with other factions when we choose load game like in CK2&EU4 or we need use the consol to change the faction ?
 
I would like to point out that a species being Fanatically Collectivist in Stellaris means that they are literally incapable of organizing into any type of government other than ones ruled by a single person with absolute power. According to the information on the wiki, Fanatic Collectivism locks all the government types besides the absolutist ones. I can think of only two ways to interpret this - either a really strong hierarchical reflex where everyone is practically falling over each other to "follow the leader", or a Zerg-style hivemind where a single entity directs a subservient whole consisting of parts that mostly aren't, by themselves, sentient.

Either way, out of all the societies you can build in the game, it is one is one of the most alien.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Doesn't feel alien at all. I love watching the sheep blindly follow their Chosen One.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Cheers for the DD Doomdark, and good luck with the jetlag :). It all sounds very interesting, and a potentially wonderful dynamic system that will interplay with diplomacy and factions to provide deep, engaging gameplay - great work :).

They form a new empire.

Very cool :cool: