Stellaris Dev Diary #307 - Leader Experiments

[Juboboman]

Governors will be part of the Diplomat class, but I've been experimenting with letting any of the three govern a planet or sector in different ways.

That's quite intriguing. Commanders governing a planet increase stability and order and boost military production, but the economy suffers (at the least from opportunity cost of not using a proper governor). Diplomats as the default type of governor we are used to with all the economic benefits. Not sure what scientist governors could bring that's unique, if it's just a boost to research it would be kind of redundant if you also have a scientist assisting in orbit, but overall I think each type of leader being able to govern a planet/sector with unique boosts/drawbacks to that planet/sector would be a very nice addition.

 

[Imp0815]

I made a quick mock-up how i would imagine this new leader category system could work:
EDIT: Updated with the cool icons and added some "could be" titles to the classes.
EDIT2: i moved this mock-up, in a newer version, into this suggestion thread: Suggestion for coming Leader Rework 2(or 3?)

 

[Arcvalons]

If we are Rogue Servitor Common Ground, will the allied Empires be Rogue Servitors too? That would be cool.

 

[verybad]

Give sector capitals as well at the core capital the ability to place ministry buildings that help with leadership (ie Core cap gets single empire buildings, sector caps get one per sector each would improve leadership roles in the categories.) require amenities to run.

 

[verybad]

I made a quick mock-up how i would imagine this new leader category system could work:

View attachment 1010370

Mostly like your mock up, but don't see a good reason for having GalCom and other focus Diplomats. They seem to be doing the same kind of role. Also put Admirals and Generals in the same roll, let them take different traits to make them better at those roles, let military training buildings improve your max number of military leaders. (the same with other roles) Again, I mostly like your mockup though. Army training building on a Sector capital might give you more army traits for leaders etc.

 

[Xyre255]

I made a quick mock-up how i would imagine this new leader category system could work:

View attachment 1010370

I like the way this works. The only thing I'd change is the way envoys work. Instead of having diplomats provide envoys, I'd keep envoys as they are right now, with the exception that diplomats are "super envoys". Diplomats basically have traits in comparison to envoys. They would also use the envoy cap. It is mostly to allow for big spy networks without having to micromanage every single leader. You'd use envoys for simple tasks and things that are done and forgotten, while diplomats would be used for the real deal, like special operations or when you really want to benefit from a trait a diplomat has.

Also I would remove the bonus envoys from Xenophiles and replace it with a bonus to diplomatic actions while xenophobes would get a bonus to espionage.

 

[Thiend]

Are these leader type merges, like... General aggressive veteran class and admiral veteran class are both simultaneously the commander aggressive veteran class, with traits that switch depending on what they're assigned to?

If not, this sounds more like a pruning than a rework... Which I suppose isn't BAD, just, it wouldn't solve the problem.

 

[Imp0815]

Mostly like your mock up, but don't see a good reason for having GalCom and other focus Diplomats. They seem to be doing the same kind of role. Also put Admirals and Generals in the same roll, let them take different traits to make them better at those roles, let military training buildings improve your max number of military leaders. (the same with other roles) Again, I mostly like your mockup though. Army training building on a Sector capital might give you more army traits for leaders etc.

Good reasons are: Besides the Politics tradition we have no means to impact the GalCom and this change would provide an oportunity for it. We would also be able to finally have some more espionage focus besides the Subterfuge tradition. This could allow for many interesting interactions, decisions, RP and differentiation between play styles.

I kept them separate because its super annoying and frustrating to have to choose one of three army traits on a Admiral that already has 5 Ship traits.
They are just too different to mix them up into one Role/Class.
One workaround would be to have double dip traits, have each military trait have a army side and a fleet side. But that would get cluttered and difficult to choose which trait has which double focus.

I like the way this works. The only thing I'd change is the way envoys work. Instead of having diplomats provide envoys, I'd keep envoys as they are right now, with the exception that diplomats are "super envoys". Diplomats basically have traits in comparison to envoys. They would also use the envoy cap. It is mostly to allow for big spy networks without having to micromanage every single leader. You'd use envoys for simple tasks and things that are done and forgotten, while diplomats would be used for the real deal, like special operations or when you really want to benefit from a trait a diplomat has.

I can imagine it but i don't know if this feasible with the UI and how the duly ledge leaders are kept apart from "normal" envoys.
I see some ways this could go down:
Introducing Diplomats as Envoys could result in a Envoy overflow and most often or not you want to pile your envoys in the same jobs, for example you are not spying on one empire if you choose to interact with this mechanic most often or not you have two to three envoys spying. Same goes for Increasing relations or buffing GalCom or federations.
And cutting down on available envoys by introducing Diplomats as fully customizable envoys could mean you have too choose to appease the genocidal neighbor or have impact in the GalCom or keep your federation from falling apart or do espionage. I like decisions but i don't like hard trade-offs. One problem that could arise from connecting Envoys to Diplomats is if a Diplomat dies you could loose track on where you envoys where employed. But here are surely workarounds for that.

Mostly i proposed this as it could mean we have leaders that are fluent in one field and as diplomacy is a wide area and we have so many envoys, if we want to, i think it feels better to have sub classes to restrict trait rolls to have them all be useful in their field.
For Example: Having envoys attached to Diplomats could mean we have two or three envoys attached to a Diplomat that has specialized in foreign relations so they get a buff for "increasing relations" and can simultaneously applies this to three neighbors.
Having Diplomats apply empire wide buffs would feel cheap and would take away player decisions but could also be a thing. As in "Envoys assigned to Increase relations are more effective". But this sounds like a councilor trait and a Diplomat without it would do what exactly?

 

[cryptkeeper]

I still believe the biggest issue is the way anomalies work, and surveying systems. If we could do a basic survey with out a scientist in charge of science ships leader limit would be fine. But if we are making these categories think about making authoritarian and spiritual empires getting +1 limit to governor type, +1 commander for militarist and xenophobe, +1 scientist materialist an Egalitarian, +1 diplomat for pacifists and xenophile.

If we are Rogue Servitor Common Ground, will the allied Empires be Rogue Servitors too? That would be cool.

It would be cool if we could select our allies, maybe if we could only select from the common Ground empires we have already built or the dev made ones. Same with hegemony.

 

[CMDR Exorcist]

I like the idea of merging the roles, but in a way this seems to just be making the leader cap more complicated when it really shouldn't exist at all (or simply scale with empire size).

 

[verybad]

Good reasons are: Besides the Politics tradition we have no means to impact the GalCom and this change would provide an opportunity for it. We would also be able to finally have some more espionage focus besides the Subterfuge tradition. This could allow for many interesting interactions, decisions, RP and differentiation between play styles.

Yeah I agree on giving them a mission in GalCom, but making them a separate type seems extensive, just let envoys have traits that you apply when you recruit them. Envoys to empires might get bonuses if they have similar factions as the species they're visiting. GalCom is important, but the base role is that you want to use envoys to improve your role with GalCom, no underlying reason to have a different category. It's either diplomatic or espionage.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Or maybe "statesman".

If "Diplomats" are going to contain planetary governors and the leader of the empire, might I suggest renaming that leader pool from "Diplomats" to something more general, like "Statesmen"?

Statesman isn’t the best word for this.

While the literal definition is somebody involved in governance and administration, the term is typically used to refer to exceptionally competent and venerated leaders. These are the Otto von Bismarcks and Winston Churchills of history rather than run-of-the-mill politicians.

And while not always, it’s typically a posthumous designation. Shinzo Abe’s Wikipedia page refers to him as a statesman, for example, whereas none of his then-contemporaries (such as Merkel or Obama) are referred to as such.

 

[Averath]

Governors will be part of the Diplomat class, but I've been experimenting with letting any of the three govern a planet or sector in different ways.



Leader Consolidation is on a longer timeframe, everything in that image is 3.9.

It would be kind of awesome to outright remove Governors and just place existing leaders wherever you need them, and have Envoys (Diplomats) become the standard governor type that we had previously. Scientists would likely have bigger bonuses with Technocracy, and Commanders would have bigger bonuses with their respective ethics and civics.

 

[Casko]

I Hope the Devs are looking into the Psi-Corps building, and make it so you can build them easier than requiring you to migrate pops around just to upgrade your capital building to get telepaths. as its the only one of the ascension perks that requires you to do tedium like that.

 

[mammonmachine]

If Commanders can also govern planets/sectors, and General remains as a commander specialisation, perhaps it would make sense to roll planetary/sector governance traits into the General specialisation. It would make a lot of sense - Generals would become the planet-side specialists.

While we are multitasking our leaders, maybe Commanders could share espionage with Diplomats (both would seem to have relevant skillsets), perhaps giving Generals the best traits in this area as well. Making them true General-ists. (I'll get my coat)

 

[Letharion]

I’ll go into full details after Caelum is released, but the quick summary involves consolidating the five leader classes down to three (Commanders, Diplomats, and Scientists) and reworking how Envoys are used. (As they would be merged into the Diplomat class.)

​

Governors will be part of the Diplomat class, but I've been experimenting with letting any of the three govern a planet or sector in different ways.

It's very unfortunate that the class-based leader limits didn't work out due to UX issues. I think there would have been a lot of possibilities as described in several threads in the suggestion forum. Perhaps there will be a way to make it possible with a bigger update later on.

But I welcome the consolidation of the leader classes. I suggest experimenting also with letting any of the three classes do the former jobs of an envoy (and perhaps reduce the need for envoys for some tasks or substitute the envoy cap with a not leader related "diplomatic relations caps" like EU4 so you can maintain not more or less tasks than until now but can "upgrade" their execution with an leader (as espionage operations with an asset). If this turns out to be suitable, the leader class beside Commanders and Scientits should perhaps something more alike "politicians".

To help focus a single leader on a special development it further on could be useful if the traits you can choose would be related to the last action he earned XP from.

 

[DeanTheDull]

First, it's a shame that the leader cap by type didn't work, but it's also appreciated that you shared why it didn't. Given the prominence of the issue, pushing out a 'we recognize this as an issue, we tried, it didn't work because of this reason, and we've an idea on how to approach it forward' is exactly the sort of communication I appreciate, and I'd bet the community will appreciate. This is a productive communication of issues, and intents, and I thank you for it.


For some brief thoughts on other things...


With the Federation rework, I think the Gestalt change is good in general, but I'd recommend a coding caveat that ensures trade federations don't start with gestalts. It'd be especially annoying for MegaCorps to RNG into that sort of start.

For Archaeotech, I'm unsure of the practical impact of a few of these. For the empire research lead starting with the Archaeotech specialization, that seems fine if it is an 'in addition to normal starting traits,' but a potential downgrade if it's a 'instead of,' given that archaeotechs can't roll in the early game when that trait could be useful for something else. Additionally, the MacroCannon +50% range is a buff, but I'm not sure it's enough to make up for the perceived primary weakness of accuracy. It might benefit from some secondary characteristic, even something as 'modest' as a bombardment boost. Overall, though, I think an aspect that might be worth considering to boost Archaeotech is to give Technological Ascendancy a +1 leader buff: Archaeotech fishing depends heavily on the two ascension perks to boost chances to a semi-reasonable mid-game draw level at tier 3 techs, but TA is a but underpowered now in the leader economy.



Finally, for the leader rework, obviously this will remain to be seen. A 3-leader category system does seem like it could mesh nicely with the Overlord specialized vassal setup, and invite some specialty bonuses aligned with those leader categories for the corresponding vassal type.

3 leader types could also work reasonably well with the 8 ethics, with ethics having a bias / bonus towards a certain leader type. You could have it that each ethic has a +1 capacity for a leader type of a corresponding synergy. Militarists + Xenophobes as Commanders, Xenophiles + Pacifists as DIplomats, and so on.

 

[Dark_wing]

Governors will be part of the Diplomat class, but I've been experimenting with letting any of the three govern a planet or sector in different ways.

This is a great idea that synergizes well with planet specializations.

 

[Jim_L0ck]

I think merging Generals and Admirals may actually be a bad idea.

Despite both being military leaders, they have very different uses. Army traits will be useless on fleets, and ship traits will be useless on armies.

i think the way to solve this is just like having old general traits merge or gain fleet buffs. So all Commander traits buff armies and fleets in some capacity(of course some may be better for different situations) and since you can't have both of them activated there shouldn't be any power creep.

 

[DanielPrates]

So was anyone able to de-pixelate next week's clue?