Stellaris Dev Diary #67: Banks Patch Notes

[BrokenSky]

By your logic you'd have to hold those systems until you could colonize all the planets anyways if you don't like the sector AI, which is pretty suboptimal in that it prevents you from colonizing more systems unless you immediately give them over to the sector AI anyways. No matter what you do, every playstyle forces you to have to deal with the Sector AI and all that matters is when.

Or you just don't colonise them.

Bear in mind this is still an early game problem, you can come back later and de-sector them later when you don't have a 3 planet limit (which is what an early game 3 system limit means) and colonise the other planets then.

Not every play-style requires you to deal with the sector AI; if you control only those planets which are being set up and tell all sectors "upgrades only, no replacing buildings" there isn't any decision for the AI to mess up.

 

[Kinkness]

This is one of the absolute best updates paradox has ever done to any game. I would hug and kiss the entire dev team... Reworked governments, re worked diplomacy, re worked FOOD system finally!!, re worked just about everything that needed a serious overhaul has gotten what it needed. I love you guys!

 

[Stoßtrupp Gold]

1° i'd like to say that even in ironman you can change the % of habitable planets , 125% it's usualy great.

Yes you can. Though as 100% is the base setting so i´m refering to that value. I don´t feel that the galaxy has too few planets to colonize. Just the rate of multi-planet systems is very low and that don´t feel wrong either.

2° you can expand however you want, you have just to put sectors on planets that you have already build up and manage the new colony.

Yes but it is a decisive difference if you have 3 or 5 systems contributing to your early expansion.

3° expansion decrease your research speed, and if you use your research time to increase your core systems , you will fall behind , reduciong the rush and strength of tall builder.

Yes it does and that´s why increase core tech should be a starting choice. The sooner you can take it the less you loose. Though there is a thread about compensating the loss in research.

Even if you set it to 500% this is still rare, which is what I said earlier in the thread, but the fact that it is possible with any sort of settings means we need to account for the possibility of running across such a system as well as someone basing their capital on a world in such a system. The changes to 1.5 make it clear that we're more likely to see stars with 4, 5, or even 6 inhabitable worlds at 100% if you get lucky to have three inhabitable ones spawned in there and then barren worlds turn out to be candidates for terraforming, on top of constructing habitats.

By your logic you'd have to hold those systems until you could colonize all the planets anyways if you don't like the sector AI, which is pretty suboptimal in that it prevents you from colonizing more systems unless you immediately give them over to the sector AI anyways. No matter what you do, every playstyle forces you to have to deal with the Sector AI and all that matters is when.

If the 4+ systems are rare even at 500% why are you relating to that very rare occasion? Balance is about setting things right for the most situations not for hardly happening ones.
So no with that rarity you can´t account for that.
Especially in the early game where it is still rarer to find a 4+ system.
Except for the terraforming event i seem to have missed the talk about higher possibilities for 4+ systems, do you have a link for me?

No that is not the logic. The logic is that sectors take their part on the mineral income at least 25% are not available for expansion purposes. 5 cores give simply more minerals than 3. Allowing sooner construction of colony ships.
So yes it comes to a comparison of how wide the empire can be at a certain time, usually when you run into your neighbors. And there the differences between 5 and only 3 are huge.

Habitats are earliest available at midgame, at that point empire mineral production should be able to compensate the sector tax, and differences in cores doesn´t matter that much.

When does the balance between tall and wide really matter? I would say only in multiplayer.
So how about adding in singleplayer games a slider in the galaxy creation for core systems e. g. 1-10 or the like? What do you think?
@Wiz: Would that slider be possible, at least theoretical?

 

[Verx90]

No that is not the logic. The logic is that sectors take their part on the mineral income at least 25% are not available for expansion purposes. 5 cores give simply more minerals than 3. Allowing sooner construction of colony ships.
So yes it comes to a comparison of how wide the empire can be at a certain time, usually when you run into your neighbors. And there the differences between 5 and only 3 are huge.

Habitats are earliest available at midgame, at that point empire mineral production should be able to compensate the sector tax, and differences in cores doesn´t matter that much.

When does the balance between tall and wide really matter? I would say only in multiplayer.
So how about adding in singleplayer games a slider in the galaxy creation for core systems e. g. 1-10 or the like? What do you think?
@Wiz: Would that slider be possible, at least theoretical?

i think its all based on balancing , usualy you find at least 1-2 habitable planets with a good habitability for your race in a close range from your capital , then its all luck .

atm if you find more habitable planets, you will just expand the faster you can to increase your border and increase over time your income of minerals and energy . BUT if you are in a empires cluster and you are closed by them , you wont have expansions route . yep, there is war , but the effect its the same, you will take more planets, invest resource to increase overtime your income , there is no alternative . and thats the problem , there is not alternative, if you remain small, your research cost less, but you have less research station, less planet for making research , less minerals income and less energy income . they are nerfing the "luck" factor and giving more way to play the game . with this patch is actualy possibile to invest in your core sistems, making important research to upgrade your income when the other tall will have to research core systems , or find themself with realy low income for all the early game , and in midgame you will build your extra planets in your little empire .

they even said during the stream , that they want to change the "victory condition" , because evrything is forcing always to try to become the biggest possibile , the fastest possible.
in stellaris atm you have to be a military supremacy , you can't be something else to win . if you think at all the way you can build a supremacy (military, economy)or sistem you have to controll ( colonies, religions, culture, research) in EU4 or the vassal - family structure of ck2 you will notice that stellaris is lacking in objectives , you just want to grown and take more planets possible . not that stellaris isn't good, stellaris have many ways to obtain your (only) objective, have great events and (i love)end game crysis that are great, and with this patch , this is becoming even better with more fixed difference between empires choise .

i.. started to bablebla during the end , but i think this is a necesary balancing to increase the burden of the colony rush ( that i do , i even rush droid's research to colonize un-habitable planets). this don't force you to do not, it don't even really force you to focus on core system researches . it even have a positive factor , it force you to make early sector, that will make the
appearance of faction in your empire faster , and usualy in early game you don't have much divergence so, they should like you and give you free influence , to colonize even more!

 

[Impeel]

Added 3 new Slavery types: Domestic Servitude, Battle Thralls and Livestock. Domestic Servants get moderate penalties to all production types, but provide happiness for other Pops on the planet. Battle Thralls get small penalties to energy production and moderate research penalties, and can be used for special slave armies. Livestock do not produce any minerals, energy or research, but produce extra food per Pop

What happend with Chattel Slavery ?

 

[Wizzington]

What happend with Chattel Slavery ?

It's not new, it's just a name for the kind of slavery that's already in the game.

 

[Daimonin]

Added a war demand to dismantle Frontier Outposts

What's the point? If you are already declaring war, you might as well swing by any unwanted frontier outposts and blow them up. Is there some new mechanic where the THREAT of war might make the AI decide to just accept your demands if they are small enough/you overpower them enough? That's about the only time I can see such a war demand being useful. Oh I guess it would come with some period of they can't rebuild it for x years, guess that's a bit better. THough honestly if I need a frontier outpost gone, it's because I have my own constructor/colony ship ready to go the moment it's cleared out.

AI now remembers rejected diplomatic offers for much longer and will not offer them again for a long time

That's nice. I don't suppose they check that list of remembered offers when you propose a trade, to see if it might be a trade they had recently offered to you, and therefore be more likely to accept? It's a bit of a pet peeve when AI makes a trade offer, but if you decline and initiate the same offer yourself they refuse it. Granted I don't recall if Stellaris suffers from that problem.

 

[Artaios Greybark]

What's the point? If you are already declaring war, you might as well swing by any unwanted frontier outposts and blow them up. Is there some new mechanic where the THREAT of war might make the AI decide to just accept your demands if they are small enough/you overpower them enough? That's about the only time I can see such a war demand being useful. Oh I guess it would come with some period of they can't rebuild it for x years, guess that's a bit better. THough honestly if I need a frontier outpost gone, it's because I have my own constructor/colony ship ready to go the moment it's cleared out.

I have often wished for a war demand like that because there was nothing that I wanted from my neighbor except for the area that their outpost occupies. It's mostly for role-playing purposes, I imagine. That's what I like about it.

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

If the 4+ systems are rare even at 500% why are you relating to that very rare occasion? Balance is about setting things right for the most situations not for hardly happening ones.
So no with that rarity you can´t account for that.
Especially in the early game where it is still rarer to find a 4+ system.

I think we might be looking at rarity in different ways. At 500% it's not that systems with 5-6 habitable worlds that are easily exploited are unlikely to appear in a game so much as they replace stars with 3 habitable worlds as the rarest: On some settings it's actually just likely that you'll find systems with only a single inhabitable world as it is you'll find one with 3-4, and ones with six are uncommon enough that you'd be lucky to have one close enough to be a viable colonization candidate due both to the difficulty defending a disconnected empire early on and how unlikely it is that more than one of them will be of your species' preferred type, on top of the fact almost every such system I've found also had a pre-FTL civilization developing on it. So while I worded it poorly, I mean that these systems show up just frequently enough on certain settings that factoring in their existence is appropriate, but still not often enough to be able to know exactly what to expect from it or how to deal with it early game due to the number of habitable worlds generally providing difficulties more often than other systems (can't quite be put into a sector if you don't trust the AI, unlikely to be able to use more than 1-2 at an acceptable efficiency until mid-late game unless you get lucky, increased chance of finding a pre-FTL civilization simply by virtue of there being more planets capable of having life, etc).

Except for the terraforming event i seem to have missed the talk about higher possibilities for 4+ systems, do you have a link for me?

It's more of a combination of the standard (assumed) limit of 3 habitable worlds at max in a system at a habitability setting of 100% and the addition of some barren worlds being terraformable now, which I guess I decided to treat as planets sub optimal for colonization due to the environment the same way I would planets outside the climate type of my preferred world since Terraforming Candidates can be terraformed with the Atmospheric Manipulation tech. Since we don't know the chances of such a world popping up, it's entirely possible it would be rare, or it could be possible to get multiple in a single system.

* It is now possible to terraform barren planets that have the "Terraforming Candidate" modifier if you possess the Atmospheric Manipulation tech. Mars is such a world by default

 

[Asari Inquisitor]

I am curious about events that can change/remove/add a certain ethic to pops on a planet or even the entire empire, now that all of them can have only one ethic. Without spoling the event itself, I assume that, for example, the one that can result in my pops becoming Fanatic Spiritualist+Collectivist, and then gives me the option to reform to a Divine Mandate, has been reworked.

 

[BrokenSky]

It's not new, it's just a name for the kind of slavery that's already in the game.

Maybe worth adding the name change to the changelog? You did for the Ethics name changes? But it's not a huge point...

 

[General Karthos]

Disappointed "Manifest Destiny" is being removed. I liked gaining control of several border star systems instantly upon completion of a common technology. Also wishy-washy on the changes to Militarist and what looks like the significant weakening that Collectivist (now Authoritarian) received. Happy though with the increased effect of Xenophobe on border range.

That said, I'm looking forward to the free patch (and perhaps the expansion too) once the inevitable bugs have been fixed. (With so many changes, I'll be amazed if we don't see at least a few major (if not game-breaking) bugs popping up in the first few days after the expansion is released.) Not a criticism! I love how much Paradox works on games even if we don't buy the expansions, but when a major patch is released or DLC is dropped, there are usually new and exciting bugs for a few days to a few weeks that need to be addressed.

 

[Meathim]

* Save the last used galaxy settings. Singleplayer and Multiplayer settings are saved individually

Yaaaayyy

* Added game launch option -bajen

...what?

 

[Princess Stabbity]

* NEW: Conservational trait added to the game

After reading this my first thought was: the game needs pollution.

Oh and I hope the frequency of the "additional core sector systems tech" has been increased (and not been made too expensive)! Why there is a limit for core sector systems is beyond me, because it isnt "logical". You should simply have the OPTION of using sectors ... to reduce the hassle of managing planets. Some people WANT TO manage planets though and they have their choice taken away from them atm by far too rare tech and an arbitrary limit.

I don't understand this argument because you do actually have a choice. Core sector systems is not a hard cap. You can go over it if you want.

Of course you will suffer penalties for that but... what fun is a choice if it has no meaningful consequences?

Or by "choice" do you mean "I want to ignore the balance of the game and have an objective advantage over sector-heavy empires while not having to invest in tech, traditions, ascensions and civics?"

You can't claim to have a choice if one approach is clearly optimal, so... nuh, I'd rather have a choice betwen two evils. It's more fun this way.

 

[BrokenSky]

I don't understand this argument because you do actually have a choice. Core sector systems is not a hard cap. You can go over it if you want.

Of course you will suffer penalties for that but... what fun is a choice if it has no meaningful consequences?

Or by "choice" do you mean "I want to ignore the balance of the game and have an objective advantage over sector-heavy empires while not having to invest in tech, traditions, ascensions and civics?"

You can't claim to have a chocie if one approach is clearly optimal, so... nuh, I'd rather have a choice betwen two evils. It's more fun this way.

The penalties are not balanced to allow you to choose between the two options, they're balanced so that you still have some limited leeway to exceed the cap within limitations.

As you've said, by "choices" people mean something where one looks at the two options, weighs them up and then takes the circumstantially more valuable choice; not blindly and consistently taking the only real option; i.e. they mean a meaningful choice, between comparable options. The use of sectors is not a meaningful choice; you can either let the sectors play the game for you, or you can suffer massive penalties.

The thing is, if we could build on sector planets as well as the sector do (while using the empire mineral and influence supplies, rather than the sector's) the balancing factor would still be there (the sectors are still taking a load of your resources and doing their own construction, and when you build stuff for them you have to pay for it, the same as in CK2, EUIV and HOI), but it wouldn't feel like you have to let the AI play half the game for you. The balancing parts don't even have to be tied to the micromanaging reduction, and surely decoupling them would solve all the problems better than just giving everyone what only some people want?

 

[Artaios Greybark]

The penalties are not balanced to allow you to choose between the two options, they're balanced so that you still have some limited leeway to exceed the cap within limitations.

As you've said, by "choices" people mean something where one looks at the two options, weighs them up and then takes the circumstantially more valuable choice; not blindly and consistently taking the only real option; i.e. they mean a meaningful choice, between comparable options. The use of sectors is not a meaningful choice; you can either let the sectors play the game for you, or you can suffer massive penalties.

The thing is, if we could build on sector planets as well as the sector do (while using the empire mineral and influence supplies, rather than the sector's) the balancing factor would still be there (the sectors are still taking a load of your resources and doing their own construction, and when you build stuff for them you have to pay for it, the same as in CK2, EUIV and HOI), but it wouldn't feel like you have to let the AI play half the game for you. The balancing parts don't even have to be tied to the micromanaging reduction, and surely decoupling them would solve all the problems better than just giving everyone what only some people want?

I tend to agree with this. I like that aspect in CK2. You still don't get all the resources generated within the sector, and if you want to build something, pay for it out of your own pocket.

 

[Verx90]

The penalties are not balanced to allow you to choose between the two options, they're balanced so that you still have some limited leeway to exceed the cap within limitations.

As you've said, by "choices" people mean something where one looks at the two options, weighs them up and then takes the circumstantially more valuable choice; not blindly and consistently taking the only real option; i.e. they mean a meaningful choice, between comparable options. The use of sectors is not a meaningful choice; you can either let the sectors play the game for you, or you can suffer massive penalties.

The thing is, if we could build on sector planets as well as the sector do (while using the empire mineral and influence supplies, rather than the sector's) the balancing factor would still be there (the sectors are still taking a load of your resources and doing their own construction, and when you build stuff for them you have to pay for it, the same as in CK2, EUIV and HOI), but it wouldn't feel like you have to let the AI play half the game for you. The balancing parts don't even have to be tied to the micromanaging reduction, and surely decoupling them would solve all the problems better than just giving everyone what only some people want?

its intresting how you just ignore the fact that you can give your mains planets as part of a sector , resulting in having only 75% of the planet income , but those planets are (hopefully) already managed and builded , by the time the sector will reach he's cap of resource, he will give you 100% of the income e keep upgrading the building and spaceports.
you wont belive me, but you also can TAKE BACK thinks from sectors ! and build whatever you want.
all your ppl sector hater arguments are based on your lack of understanding of why sector are a balancing and needed factor in the game , why if you want to have many core system you have to focus on that and why there is a heavy pressure of this in the early game .
i know you love your imperial military tall space rush , but build tall must not be the only way to be significant .

you like the ck2 system ? think of sector as a limited vassal , that can only control what is build in he's planets, he don't want to to chose for what a pop live for , if you want to force it, spend your 25 influence point , take back that planets and build what you want and give it back to the sector , you can force them to not replace buildings .

in the end ? you can already do what you want to do, you just don't want to spend for it, you want it for free and umbalanced .

ps. you don't like micromanaging , you don't like to control what sector and doing and correct them part for part , you just like build and forget. thats not micromanaging.

 

[BrokenSky]

its intresting how you just ignore the fact that you can give your mains planets as part of a sector , resulting in having only 75% of the planet income , but those planets are (hopefully) already managed and builded , by the time the sector will reach he's cap of resource, he will give you 100% of the income e keep upgrading the building and spaceports.
you wont belive me, but you also can TAKE BACK thinks from sectors ! and build whatever you want.
all your ppl sector hater arguments are based on your lack of understanding of why sector are a balancing and needed factor in the game , why if you want to have many core system you have to focus on that and why there is a heavy pressure of this in the early game .
i know you love your imperial military tall space rush , but build tall must not be the only way to be significant .

you like the ck2 system ? think of sector as a limited vassal , that can only control what is build in he's planets, he don't want to to chose for what a pop live for , if you want to force it, spend your 25 influence point , take back that planets and build what you want and give it back to the sector , you can force them to not replace buildings .

in the end ? you can already do what you want to do, you just don't want to spend for it, you want it for free and umbalanced .

ps. you don't like micromanaging , you don't like to control what sector and doing and correct them part for part , you just like build and forget. thats not micromanaging.

I'm not ignoring that, but it's clearly not how you're intended to play (otherwise it wouldn't be called core limits ). Neverthess it is another option; you can have all your good planets have penalties while having no penalties on your new planets, again being punished for playing the game yourself, though less. Yes you can take back your planets from sectors to build in them, and again that doesn't seem like how the system is meant to be used?

At this point I have to ask, if the sectors give you 100% of the income when their reserve is full and you can build in them whenever you want, what balancing feature do they even serve? Why not remove them? Because most of the time this isn't the case and they do serve a balancing component.

If the sectors in Stellaris were like CK2 vassals, or even EUIV vassals prior to being allowed to build in subjects, it wouldn't be a problem; it wouldn't feel like the AI is running my empire, it would feel like the AI is running it's own thing. Nevertheless even in these games where the vassals are far more autonomous, building in them is allowed and not considered unbalanced.

A side note: I find it a little insulting that you seem to think you know what I like to do in stellaris. I like to play pacifist most of the time; it's just that stellaris in 1.4 only really has 3 mechanics: Exploring, Building up planets and building cool battleship builds. By the end of the early game exploration no longer feels relevant, sectors take over playing the planet part and if you're pacifist you get punished for fighting in an offensive war. If you had read the entire 16 pages of this thread you would have seen already my more general opinion on the matter, rather than a specific response to the comment I was responding to (though I can't really fault you that much for not doing that), which is that we have to wait and see regarding 1.5, but please by all means, feel free to lump everyone who you disagree with together.

 

[Verx90]

I'm not ignoring that, but it's clearly not how you're intended to play (otherwise it wouldn't be called core limits ). Neverthess it is another option; you can have all your good planets have penalties while having no penalties on your new planets, again being punished for playing the game yourself, though less. Yes you can take back your planets from sectors to build in them, and again that doesn't seem like how the system is meant to be used?

At this point I have to ask, if the sectors give you 100% of the income when their reserve is full and you can build in them whenever you want, what balancing feature do they even serve? Why not remove them? Because most of the time this isn't the case and they do serve a balancing component.

If the sectors in Stellaris were like CK2 vassals, or even EUIV vassals prior to being allowed to build in subjects, it wouldn't be a problem; it wouldn't feel like the AI is running my empire, it would feel like the AI is running it's own thing. Nevertheless even in these games where the vassals are far more autonomous, building in them is allowed and not considered unbalanced.

A side note: I find it a little insulting that you seem to think you know what I like to do in stellaris. I like to play pacifist most of the time; it's just that stellaris in 1.4 only really has 3 mechanics: Exploring, Building up planets and building cool battleship builds. By the end of the early game exploration no longer feels relevant, sectors take over playing the planet part and if you're pacifist you get punished for fighting in an offensive war. If you had read the entire 16 pages of this thread you would have seen already my more general opinion on the matter, rather than a specific response to the comment I was responding to (though I can't really fault you that much for not doing that), which is that we have to wait and see regarding 1.5, but please by all means, feel free to lump everyone who you disagree with together.

i'm sorry if i fell insulting, its not my intention . edit: this is not even my mother language , and i'm helping myself with google traslate with some complex concept and some twisted words

if you take system back from sector, you pay for it , you have to leave another system to a sector and pay influence to do that, and this make sense .

its not a punishment for playing the game, its the way an internal-politic chose is made, it cost administration and politic power and time . do in your state regions change form ?(and when they do, they do it asap and painless?) do they receive founds to build what THEY want to build and not what the govern want to build? when the govern intervenes thinks work differently?

stellaris is far the easier game of paradox under this aspect . you are managing a space civilization, billions and billions of ppl , you can't do that without delegate. in any nation and govern form of history there are sectors when a nation grow too big for theirs administration capacity .

 

[BrokenSky]

i'm sorry if i fell insulting, its not my intention . edit: this is not even my mother language , and i'm helping myself with google traslate with some complex concept and some twisted words

Ah, right. Sorry.

if you take system back from sector, you pay for it , you have to leave another system to a sector and pay influence to do that, and this make sense .

its not a punishment for playing the game, its the way an internal-politic chose is made, it cost administration and politic power and time . do in your state regions change form ?(and when they do, they do it asap and painless?) do they receive founds to build what THEY want to build and not what the govern want to build? when the govern intervenes thinks work differently?

stellaris is far the easier game of paradox under this aspect . you are managing a space civilization, billions and billions of ppl , you can't do that without delegate. in any nation and govern form of history there are sectors when a nation grow too big for theirs administration capacity .

Perhaps. I'm certainly not opposed to sectors as a concept, and as I said, if they were more like EUIV or CK2 vassals (I.e. more autonomous) I'd probably be more ok with not being able to build in them, but as is it just feels silly, especially as you can build space stations etc.. That said, and especially since, as you've said, you can already build on planets by removing and then re-adding them from/to a sector, I still think you should be able to build in them from your own resources (since this would be a streamlining of existing functionality anyway...).