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Stellaris Dev Diary #315 - The Velvet Glove

Hi everyone!

3.9.2 has been released with a handful of bugfixes.

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#################### VERSION 3.9.2 ######################​

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Balance
  • Catalytic empires can now build bio-reactors.
  • Pre-FTL empires now have reduced technological development before the mid-game year.

Bugfix
  • Anomalies that reward Scientist Expertise traits now apply those traits to the Cognitive Node for gestalt empires.
  • Blocked empires without the Scientific Method technology from constructing research districts.
  • Federations End should no longer spawn empty habitats if the pre-FTL slider is set to 0
  • Fix a CTD when loading a save containing an invalid species archetype
  • Fix for wrong value for evasion in ship design.
  • Fixed being able to build multiple gaia seeders on a single planet.
  • Fixed Fallen Empires not triggering their monthly random events
  • Fixed pre-ftl civilizations that naturally progressed to the Early Space Age being unable to become space faring.
  • Fixed Secrets of the ... no longer granting Expertise traits.
  • Fixed stage 4 gaia seeders being buildable, but immediately destroyed by non-Idyllic Bloom empires.
  • Fixed the Colonial Remains deposits not spawning for the Remnants origin in some cases.
  • Fixed the Patron achievement not firing.
  • Fixed the Prethoryn getting stuck because their starting system contains an FTL inhibitor that prevents them from expanding
  • Fixed the Surveyor not spawning resources in some cases.
  • Gardening Drones will no longer have an unlocalized string.
  • Habitat Central Complexes constructed around stars should now be placed further away, so they no longer clip into the star.
  • Industrial designation is now only available on habitats for gestalt empires, if they use consumer goods.
  • Merc enclaves now inherit their shipset from their creator.
  • Paradisiacal Habitat modifiers in Ithome's Gate no longer use placeholder icons.
  • Restored -25% penalty if the government doesn't have a head of research.
  • Set a manual planet size for the Toxic God star asset, as it otherwise counts the large visual effects as part of the planet.
  • The Crystal Splitter will now hopefully stop blowing up Fruitful Partnership colonies
  • The spiritualist fallen empire will now wake up if you eat their holy worlds.
  • The knights will no longer try to quest if you pacify their habitat.

Performance
  • Removed MTTH from anomaly.6710, bane of ship events, horror of designers
  • Removed MTTH from assorted fallen_empire_tasks events
  • Removed MTTH from communications_spread.1 and communications_spread.3
  • Removed MTTH from crime.1, crime.40 and crime.41, plus added pre-triggers to all crime-events
  • Removed MTTH from fallen_empires.1, fallen_empires.3, fallen_empires.10, fallen_empires.11
  • Removed MTTH from leviathans.660 and leviathans.662
  • Removed MTTH from pop.1-13, madness that should have never existed
  • Removed MTTH from random caravaneer events (cara.4000-4050)
  • Removed MTTH from refugees.5, scourge of the game, destroyer of performance
  • Removed MTTH from the Migrating Forests event chain (colony.1 to colony.12)
  • Removed MTTH from the Orbital Debris event chain (colony.171 and colony.171)

UI
  • Added new main menu gradient

Modding
  • Added researchers_add.txt and archaeoengineers_add.txt inline scripts for buildings.
  • Added chemist_add.txt, factory_add.txt, foundry_add.txt, refiner_add.txt and translucer_add.txt inline script for buildings.

3.9.3 is currently planned for a few weeks from now, and will include some more bugfixes as well as some diplomacy changes that we’ve pulled in. The recommended DLC screen updates I mentioned a few weeks ago have shifted to 3.10 at the earliest.

Let’s talk about Diplomacy now.

Diplomacy and Trust​

A common complaint since the release of Overlord and the 3.3 ‘Cepheus’ update is that the galaxy frequently degenerated into a handful of powerful vassal blocs, and things like Federations only formed rarely. A significant cause of this was due to the willingness of AI empires to quickly diplomatically submit to more powerful empires, even if the difference in power really wasn’t all that high. This then led to a snowball effect, as newly encountered empires would generally be less powerful than this already established bloc.

We’ve made a few minor adjustments to AI Acceptance in past releases, but decided that we need a more impactful change to delay this sort of behavior. We do want it possible for these political formations to form, but it shouldn’t be a fast and virtually guaranteed phenomenon.

Trust is an existing concept that grows over time between empires that have diplomatic ties. It grows up to a Trust Cap based primarily on the magnitude of those diplomatic ties, but is also affected by traditions and other sources of modifiers. Since the release of Federations and the 2.6 ‘Verne’ update, Envoys could be assigned to Improve Relations to waive most of the requirements for diplomatic pacts - this has now been largely shifted over to Trust and having an Embassy with the target or the Diplomatic Networking tradition.

Diplomatic Networking tradition, now also allows Advanced Diplomacy without an Embassy

The Centralized Yibrak Systems would like to join your network.​

These requirements will change the initial flow of the game quite a bit - it’ll be harder to meet someone and have a Commercial Pact, Research Agreement, and the like a few days after finishing first contact, but similarly as a MegaCorp it’ll be rarer to encounter an AI Empire that already has their fill of Commercial Pacts and refuses to enter any more. It takes a bit of getting to know one another before they’re willing to entwine their economies or swear eternal allegiance to one another.

Form Defensive Pact requires Positive Relations or 20 Trust, and either an Embassy or the Diplomatic Networking tradition.

Let’s not be too hasty, maybe get to know one another first.​

Balance
  • Rebalanced requirements for diplomatic treaties to require trust.
  • Having less than 50 Trust with an empire imposes a -100 Acceptance to them becoming your subject or overlord.
  • Removed the ability to trade favors.
  • Insulting someone decreases their Trust of your empire.
  • The Intimidation menace perk now allows you to ignore diplomatic requirements for proposing subjugation.

AI
  • The AI will no longer request to become the subject or overlord of another empire unless they have 50 Trust with the other party.
  • Certain AI personalities (Federation Builders, Spiritual Seekers, Migrating Flocks, and Peaceful Traders) are now 25x more likely to select Diplomacy traditions.
  • The AI will no longer request to be subjugated by empires that are equivalent or weaker than them.
  • Trust between nations is now visible in the main diplomatic screen.

As another general diplomatic change, we’ve removed the ability to trivially trade favors between Empires. The traditions related to them and the Extort Favors operation will be the most consistent source of favors going forward, though in time we plan on adding more to various events that feel like they really should include a favor exchange. (This pass will not be complete in 3.9.3.)

A spreadsheet of diplomatic requirements

All values are subject to change, but we’re generally pretty happy with them so far.​

Internal testing has shown these changes to be pretty effective at reducing the vassalization blobs while still allowing them to form either over the long term or through judicious application of violence. (Subjugation wargoals do not require trust.) This also gives a potentially interesting hook for the Smear Campaign operation when we revisit Espionage sometime in the coming updates.

Next Week​

Next week we’ll be examining a potential 3.10 feature - the Leader Consolidation and trait balancing.

A scientist is governing a planet, and the Private Mines trait provides Miner Jobs instead of minerals from nothingness

Hey wait, who put you in charge of that planet?​

See you then!
 
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Masked Ermine said:
I still say the bigger issue with Federations getting outcompeted by vassals is....Federations require at least ONE member to take the Diplomatic ascension, which largely is only useful for Federation making/building.
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An interesting view, that I happen not to share. For SP, at least.

In current Stellaris the Diplomacy tradition is arguably the strongest early-game economic tradition, and the tradition that helps most with early-game survival in GA/non-scaling/DAAM games because of the two envoys you gain from the opener edict + Federations, making you rake in first contact influence much faster and hence allowing you to expand faster peacefully as well as manipulating AI factions to leave you alone or buddy up with you, allowing you to skimp on an early fleet the first 2-3 decades in favour of investing in your economy.

Forming a federation is certainly a strong bonus on top of that, but even if you don't form one, those two envoys are worth their weight in gold. Or credits, as the case might be.

The four other traditions in the group are - by comparison - pretty weak in the early game, and often taken later, but taking the Diplomacy opener + Federations some time within the first 5-7 tradition picks is one of the strongest general-purpose openings in SP play on the higher difficulty levels.

As far as I am concerned, Diplomacy is the tradition group I consider of highest value in high difficulty SP play, the one group I only give up on when I want a truly challenging game based around early aggression rather than diplomatically neutralizing threats.

The announced changes suggests I might be taking the other four traditions in the group rather earlier in the future.
 
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DC E1G said:
I think I'd need to play with it more to be sure, but I don't know if I feel that diplomatic gameplay will be too difficult, but rather perhaps it will just stop being so easy. In the current version of the game, particularly if you're a xenophile, it's trivial to make someone you just met your friend unless you have very opposing ethics.

I think it's a bit more reasonable that an empire you came into contact with last year might not want to enter into a defensive pact this year, they barely know who you are. You'd need to maybe start with a non-aggression pact first and then in a few years' time take the next step forward once there's more trust.

I don't see an empire that wants to play diplomatically feeling like they need diplomatic traditions to accomplish their goals more quickly as a bad thing.
Click to expand...

The only caveat I'd put to that is that, it makes perfect sense if two governments who meet each other within a year, both bordering say a devouring swarm or fanatic purifier (or maybe even a shared more powerful rival) would almost immediately form some kind of mutual defense pact simply to ensure they don't get consumed by the demon they know will consume them....
 
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Masked Ermine said:
The only caveat I'd put to that is that, it makes perfect sense if two governments who meet each other within a year, both bordering say a devouring swarm or fanatic purifier (or maybe even a shared more powerful rival) would almost immediately form some kind of mutual defense pact simply to ensure they don't get consumed by the demon they know will consume them....
Click to expand...
I'd say it should be easier, but not a given. That aspect of different empires growing to acknowledge a threat as mutual should remain a factor because it helps create the narrative in each game, a sort of story progression. It should still be possible for one or both empires to fall because they didn't trust each other
 
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Peter Ebbesen said:
An interesting view, that I happen not to share. For SP, at least.

In current Stellaris the Diplomacy tradition is arguably the strongest early-game economic tradition, and the tradition that helps most with early-game survival in GA/non-scaling/DAAM games because of the two envoys you gain from the opener edict + Federations, making you rake in first contact influence much faster and hence allowing you to expand faster peacefully as well as well as manipulating AI factions to leave you alone or buddy up with you, allowing you to skimp on an early fleet the first 2-3 decades in favour of investing in your economy.

Forming a federation is certainly a strong bonus on top of that, but even if you don't form one, those two envoys are worth their weight in gold. Or credits, as the case might be.

The four other traditions in the group are - by comparison - pretty weak in the early game, and often taken later, but taking the opener + Federations within the first 5-7 tradition picks is one of the strongest general-purpose openings in SP play on the higher difficulty levels.

As far as I am concerned, Diplomacy is the tradition group I consider of highest value in high difficulty SP play, the one group I only give up on when I want a truly challenging game based around early aggression rather than diplomatically neutralizing threats.

The announced changes suggests I might be taking the other four traditions in the group rather earlier in the future.
Click to expand...

Which I find interesting because I often times will play like Megacorps and find myself really hating taking the Diplo tradition because I'd rather take Mercantile, and Prosperity and Leader cap tradition, the ascension tradition and the station tradition and the military tradition. Largely because I tend to only grow to a manageable amount and then focus on externalized growth to make money, and whilst Diplomacy tradition makes that 'easier'...it does seem to be largely a 'win more' in that case rather than 'this is vitally necessary or else I won't win at all.

Or even when I play non-megacorp, outside of the federation perk, the rest of diplomacy feels...weaksauce. I rarely use envoys, or if I use them I shuffle them around. I don't engage the galactic community that much, and I don't tend to use espionage because...why? Once you have pacts with other governments it doesn't take much to keep them happy...and once again....once I'm chugging along....I tend to vassalize (if not create my own vassals) which doesn't require me to do take a tradition, and I reap larger economic bonuses and have more distinct control of the vassals than I do federation members and bonus points, if an AI takes the diplo tradition and asks me to join, I de facto take control of the federation because I have majority vote share.

Which leaves being in a federation in a similar place that 'going psionic' was before the most recent patch.... I'll do it, if it makes itself available but I'm not going to sit there and take a tradition that otherwise is pretty meh to do it. Federations are like diplomatic megastructures, if there's one laying about I'll probably invest in it, but I rarely build my own....
 
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Please for the love of everything that is Stellaris make it so that Governors affect sectors again.
 
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RhysTheT00n said:
I'd say it should be easier, but not a given. That aspect of different empires growing to acknowledge a threat as mutual should remain a factor because it helps create the narrative in each game, a sort of story progression. It should still be possible for one or both empires to fall because they didn't trust each other
Click to expand...

I think it should be almost instantaneous if the swarm or the purifier (less so a mutual rival) is superior to or greater in strength than both the meeting empires. But I also think that once the 'threat' is contained or eliminated that if the two governments have diverging philosophies or ethics there should be an exceptional trust penalty. (think USSR and the rest of the allies after/in the late stages of WW2)
 
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Eladrin said:
They currently tend to form vassal blobs rather than Federations, since the latter requires the Diplomacy traditions.
Click to expand...
Maybe Federations shouldn't be locked behind the Diplomacy Tradition? That was a big topic some time ago. Many people dislike the tradition, and locking Federations behind it just feels incredibly bad. So either you're forced to pick it really early, take over a Federation someone else formed, or better off with vassals.
 
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One of the most important changes that should revitalize diplomacy is the correction of the calculation of the strength of allies by AI. He does not sum up the forces of his allies well, because of this, in the current version there are feudal empires whose vassals hate their overlord, but nothing happens. Sometimes you can even see that one of the empires offers rebellion to all the other vassals, but they reject, as I understand it, because they are individually weaker than the suzerain. Although this is logical behavior, for some corporatists, but for those bound by the honor of war, it is definitely absurd. Are there any plans to fix this?
P.s. sorry for bad english
 
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I'm really really happy to finally see some diplomatic weight re-balance. Easy vassalization instead of alliances/federation forming was a serious issue in my opinion as I felt empires frequently giving up independence instead of forming a federation was not really the most politically plausible outcome.
 
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Good to see, but is anything also planned for the 'polarization' of opinion? "I like you, so I do things that make me like you more" and vice versa?
 
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Masked Ermine said:
because...why? Once you have pacts with other governments it doesn't take much to keep them happy...and once again....once I'm chugging along....I tend to vassalize (if not create my own vassals) which doesn't require me to do take a tradition, and I reap larger economic bonuses and have more distinct control of the vassals than I do federation members and bonus points, if an AI takes the diplo tradition and asks me to join, I de facto take control of the federation because I have majority vote share.
Click to expand...
Whereas if you take Diplomacy, you can create an early federation with an AI amenable to it or spin off a 1 system vassal, release it, and federate with it, if there are no AIs you can buddy up to nearby, guaranteeing that you get all your vassals into your own vassal-federation, reaping the benefits of both vassals and federation from the early game regardless of whether any AIs pick Diplomacy, and as an added bonus you get the federation type you prefer.

Anyhow, different strokes for different folks. I appreciate you doing the lengthy write up explaining your position even if I ended up nitpicking the ending. :)
 
-Marauder- said:
Please for the love of everything that is Stellaris make it so that Governors affect sectors again.
Click to expand...

I agree about this. I love it that leaders have a home planet and back story but I much preferred sector governors than planetary and the overlap of the too, could do with improvement I think.
 
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Peter Ebbesen said:
Whereas if you take Diplomacy, you can create an early federation with an AI amenable to it or spin off a 1 system vassal, release it, and federate with it, if there are no AIs you can buddy up to nearby, guaranteeing that you get all your vassals into your own vassal-federation, reaping the benefits of both vassals and federation from the early game regardless of whether any AIs pick diplomacy, and as an added bonus you get the federation type you prefer.

Anyhow, different strokes for different folks. I appreciate you doing the lengthy write up explaining your position even if I ended up nitpicking the ending. :)
Click to expand...

IE "Win More". It doesn't leave Federations in any better position than the Ascension perk that let's you build Dyson Spheres.

I'd rather have the production bonuses or the cost reductions that come with other traditions heck even the 'halves your influence cost for pacts' perk is swamped out by vassal spam that creates influence for you....
 
Also, isn't it, like, very easy and basic thing to establish an embassy with someone? If they don't want to establish embassies they probably wouldn't agree on anything else. It's not like embassies are capped in any way, they don't cost anything either. I think it could use some further explanation
 
-Marauder- said:
Please for the love of everything that is Stellaris make it so that Governors affect sectors again.
Click to expand...

They do, to a degree. They apply their level based bonuses to the entire sector unless a local governor is overriding them.

Though with the new system we'll have some governor traits that are explicitly sector wide again. They'll be listed as either Planet or Sector as appropriate. (For example, the Private Mines trait shown above affects the planet that they are governor on.)
 
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HMS Enterprize said:
Federations formed rarely???

In most of my games there is barely any independents. Almost every joins a federation. It’s one of my pet peeves with this game.
Click to expand...

Yeah, because everyone got vassalised because that was free and immediate and federations need a particular tradition.

So as soon as an AI loses a war and has no fleet its acceptance to be vassalised shoots way up, even if it was fighting to keep itself from being vassalised the remnant will look for a sugar daddy.
 
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