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Stellaris Dev Diary #102: Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we continue talking about the Apocalypse expansion and 2.0 'Cherryh' update, on the topic of Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions.

Edict Changes (Cherryh Feature)
There will be a number of changes coming to Empire and Planetary Edicts in 2.0 'Cherryh', with the aim of both making Edicts more attractive to use, and increasing the number of useful things players have to spend their pooled Influence and Energy resources on. Firstly, we have moved most of the edicts out of the Planetary Edict category, keeping only a handful of Edicts that are either about dealing with a specific short-term problem (such as Unrest-reducing edicts) or executing a long-term or permanent effect (such as Consecrated Worlds or the new Land Clearance edict given by Mastery of Nature). Instead, a number of these edicts have become Empire Edicts.
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Empire Edicts have also been changed to work in the same way as Planetary Edicts, with an upfront cost and a duration rather than a monthly cost. The reason for this is that we wanted to ensure players always have a use for their pooled influence - an empire that is not using that influence on expanding through Starbases or Claims will be able to boost their empire in a variety of ways, including powerful resource-boosting edicts such as Production Targets and Capacity Overload. We decided to move away from the monthly cost because players tend to shy away from monthly costs that bring them into a negative balance, even if they are consistantly hitting their stockpile cap, and so ended up using Empire Edicts far less than they could actually afford to.

To make managing and renewing Edicts less of a hassle, we have added a message when an Edict (Empire or Planetary) expires.
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Campaigns (Cherryh Feature)
Campaigns are a new type of edict added in the Cherryh update. Campaigns are edicts that are unlocked by the Planetary Unification technology and cost energy instead of Influence. They typically have fairly situational effects, and are meant to be an additional use for stored energy.
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Unity Ambitions (Apocalypse Feature)
Unity Ambitions is another new type of edict added in the Apocalypse expansion. These are extremely powerful edicts that last 10 years and cost Unity to activate. You will get access to Unity Ambitions after researching the Ascension Theory society technology, and activating a Unity Ambition has a dynamic cost that is calculated in the exact same way as the cost for unlocking a new tradition (though activating an ambition will not raise the cost of future ambitions/traditions). Unity Ambitions are meant to give a use for Unity after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock, and to ensure the resource is never completely without use.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and the Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Civics and Ascension Perks.
 
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I really dont like the "purchase" method of getting buffs.
Per 10 year, i have to renew
1. Currator.
2. Troupe festival.
3. 3 types of crystal.
4. Edict, campaign, unity ambition.

Do we have a way to auto purchase those thing?
 
Surely by the time we're spending unity on edicts instead of ascension perks the +1 research alternative is going to be pretty useless... we will already have unlocked the +1 tech and be researching the repeatables, so who needs +1 at that stage? Seems a bit redundant. Though obviously the 20% speed boost is nice... just saying you could probably cut the +1 part.
 
How would you feel about trading this for the ability to put FTL-inhibitors on planets, trade a fix for a cool thing that only adds to the game so to speak.

Assuming, that the base game is balanced decently with or without having FTL-inhibitors (like I assume it with or without titans and death stars), that would feel like a more consistent/intuitive DLC policy.

I could kinda imagine that without inhibitors the game would break a bit though. If you release a patch centered around doom fortresses and map geografy and then remove the ability to force fleets to actually stop and care about your fortress, that might not lead to a very fun experience :)

(on a side note: 2.0 is full of free stuff and they probably didnt have the time to develop free unity sinks AND dlc unity sinks (like they did, when they made policies more interesting) - so I am completely okay with this being apocalpyse only for now and the general issue of unity sinks being revisited at a later date.)
 
Cheers for the DD Wiz :D. More quality improvements (and I have to plead guilty to someone who regularly used empire edicts but almost completely ignore planetary ones). The Unity Ambitions will be a nice way of keeping unity useful in the late-game as well :).

To make managing and renewing Edicts less of a hassle, we have added a message when an Edict (Empire or Planetary) expires.

This is particularly good - more information for players is always a win :). Is there any chance of the message including a button that extends/renews the edict, for extra QoL-goodness?
 
This is the perfect solution to the unity problem.
Please, consider add some special campaigns to hive minds that cost food instead energy, this would be very thematic, flavorful and would make the playstyle of hives more different and unique (like the fact that the lack of food make the playstyle of machines be very different).

The grow bouns would stop everytime you go for an edict. Thats a problem. But otherwise i kind of like the idea of hives running on food instead of energy.
But it schould be a civic kind of deal since one can imagine hive minds that use technology like humans but are still connected and work for a collective goal.
 
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Assuming, that the base game is balanced decently with or without having FTL-inhibitors (like I assume it with or without titans and death stars), that would feel like a more consistent/intuitive DLC policy.

I could kinda imagine that without inhibitors the game would break a bit though. If you release a patch centered around doom fortresses and map geografy and then remove the ability to force fleets to actually stop and care about your fortress, that might not lead to a very fun experience :)

(on a side note: 2.0 is full of free stuff and they probably didnt have the time to develop free unity sinks AND dlc unity sinks (like they did, when they made policies more interesting) - so I am completely okay with this being apocalpyse only for now and the general issue of unity sinks being revisited at a later date.)
Nobody seems to be noticing he said the ability to build FTL inhibitors on planets. Implying he's suggesting that starfort-based inhibitors would remain a free feature.

I would definitely say the unity sink (or at least a basic version of it) should be a free feature, since it's a real problem fir the base game. I dunno what they could "move" into the DLC instead.

But, since I'll most likely be buying the DLC, not too bothered by it personally :p
 
Unity Ambitions (Apocalypse Feature)
Unity Ambitions is another new type of edict added in the Apocalypse expansion. These are extremely powerful edicts that last 10 years and cost Unity to activate. You will get access to Unity Ambitions after researching the Ascension Theory society technology, and activating a Unity Ambition has a dynamic cost that is calculated in the exact same way as the cost for unlocking a new tradition (though activating an ambition will not raise the cost of future ambitions/traditions). Unity Ambitions are meant to give a use for Unity after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock, and to ensure the resource is never completely without use.

Just wondering, might it make more sense if Ambition unlocks were tied to the various trees rather than Ascension Theory research?
 
The answer is slavery: watching the stream, Wiz has been having unrest issues with his slaves for pretty much the whole game, (edit: including on his HW) and has already made use of the edict once or twice.

Flip it around: if you have to keep dumping 100 influence per planet to keep your slaves from revolting, it adds a decent cost to offset all the extra minerals you get.

Keep in mind you also cannot just drop some armies in place to keep unrest under control on recently conquered/high slave population planets: you have to devote tiles to fortresses in order to get an unrest reduction.

I was talking about planets that you occupie during wars. There is no thing like rebels or partisans... collaborateurs for some reason are plenty enough to form several garrison armies from.
 
Today, we continue talking about the Apocalypse expansion and 2.0 'Cherryh' update, on the topic of Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions.
1) Are there any possibilities for sector-wide edict?
2) Is there any aim to make individual sectors more than a dump for planets one doesn't care to control directly?
 
Nobody seems to be noticing he said the ability to build FTL inhibitors on planets. Implying he's suggesting that starfort-based inhibitors would remain a free feature.

I would definitely say the unity sink (or at least a basic version of it) should be a free feature, since it's a real problem fir the base game. I dunno what they could "move" into the DLC instead.

But, since I'll most likely be buying the DLC, not too bothered by it personally :p

Oh..I did indeed miss that :) In that case, yeah that would be a better solution in my opinion.

(Also, yes, its the death stars, giant spaceships and pirates DLC. On a practical level this probably affects very little people :) )
 
(Also, yes, its the death stars, giant spaceships and pirates DLC. On a practical level this probably affects very little people :) )

Yah, I think the only people who will be eschewing the DLC by choice are the ones complaining about... other changes, which shall not be named. But they won't be getting any of the free features in 2.0 either.

There are those who want the DLC but simply won't be able to justify the expense. And, while they'll miss out on death stars, titans, and KHAAAAAN, they should still get a unity sink. It's a basic necessity :p

I mean, PDX is Swedish, shouldn't they be more compassionate? :)