Stellaris Dev Diary #321 - Origins and Civics

[Calvax]

Man, I hope they touch on GD to be interesting. It has so much potential and just stubs its toe on the the doorstep with three events and a digsite. The end reward is nice, but I feel like there should be a bit more to it!

100%. Whenever I’ve played GD I’ve hoped to have an empire that has pockets throughout the galaxy early in the game. But half the time when I’ve finally unlocked the gateway it leads to only one location in someone else’s territory.

 

[Beauty Nova]

100%. Whenever I’ve played GD I’ve hoped to have an empire that has pockets throughout the galaxy early in the game. But half the time when I’ve finally unlocked the gateway it leads to only one location in someone else’s territory.

Funnily enough, my first win ever was with a galactic doorstep hivemind bent on making the entire galaxy one. The idea was a gateway in every system and bio ascend to assimilate every organic.

Though the newly introduced ability to declare other empires a crisis with the galactic community had far more to do with that win.

 

[kidwiz0101]

Riftworld is the rich cousin of Galactic Doorstep

On the shoulders of giants is middle class cousin of Galactic Doorstep. They're kind of the go between since Riftworld and GR aren't on speaking terms at the moment

 

[Gorehuchi]

Should this require Militarist? The Militarist ethic generally lends itself towards expansionist, offensive warfare, whereas this ironically lends itself more towards a Pacifist playstyle – fighting defensive wars only.

I feel like it's aggressive territorialism, which maybe could justify militarist. Also if it wasn't you could pair it with inward perfection, which could fit thematically but I think might be a bit too much...

Also, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone talking about that council position. It does so many things! Too many things?!

 

[Beauty Nova]

On the shoulders of giants is middle class cousin of Galactic Doorstep. They're kind of the go between since Riftworld and GR aren't on speaking terms at the moment

Shoulders of giants is surprisingly good I've heard, and with the recent change to digsites making completed ones give relic deposits might be even better now.

 

[DevWolf]

How do the rifts work in regards to the new relics? Do certain rifts contain specific relics that require specific choices? Is it a case of each relic only having a single rift it can be found in or can they be found in a handful of rifts based on choices?

 

[Turnil]

I think Sovereign Guardianship is too similar to Inward Perfection.

 

[Ajacoba]

I think Sovereign Guardianship is too similar to Inward Perfection.

They're completely different, one intentionally wants to be left alone because they hate aliens and conflict, the other is a bunch of tribes that can't really expand because then the groups would just start fighting over who gets what again

On that note, it may be silly to combine it with despoilers and just be an annoying little empire with mercenaries and regular raids on neighbours

After all it's easier to just raid a planet and book it back to safety than actually fight and win a war

If that's actually possible it would be the perfect marauder build

 

[Dr_Gentech]

If I understand this correctly, every Civic variant for Gestalt Consciousnesses is strictly worse than their bio equivalents? The Sovereign Guardianship variants look really, really bad for that in particular, because it looks like the majority of the defensive power of the civic comes from that council position, which GCs don't get. Guardian Matrix looks particularly bad for this, because Machine Intelligence's already have increased Empire Size from planets. Is there any reason for this?

 

[luanmameili]

The Certeran Covenant (New Portrait)​

View attachment 1042907

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So this is a Humanoid Empire using Arthropod ships?

 

[SeekingEtermity]

It's nice to see the devs trying to throw a bone to tall players, but for reasons already pointed out, I think this new civic will do very little for it.
I also think that "turtling and only playing defensively" is not necessarily what interests people most about tall, so I doubt this will see much use.

I can see a use for it, which is that I sometimes like to build an empire that is alone in a galaxy of allied xenocidals (either all machine exterminators, or all same-species purifiers). This is an extremely difficult start even on relatively modest difficulty settings, but it's fun to try and optimize for defense just for a change of pace.

With that said, the civic does have major issues.

• Lack of a means for pop growth. You can get around this to an extent by raiding (though that costs either a civic or an AP) but your economy will struggle.
  • An alternative to adding pop growth could be improving pop efficiency, perhaps by boosting stability (directly, or indirectly by boosting happiness on non-gestalts).
  • Another would be to directly improve alloy output, that being the most relevant resource for defense.
• The empire size modifiers are really harsh in the early game. Ever since the change to pop growth scaling, it just isn't practical to squeeze hundreds of pops onto most planets anymore, and it takes too long to get there anyhow. An ecu or ringworld, yes, but one is mid-game and the other late-game (possible to get much earlier than 2300/2400, to be sure, but still not planet types you'll have access to when you need them). The rework to habitats does help them be useful too, but it's still going to be a rough time for anybody during the early game. By the time you can afford to build really heavily populated planets, your economy will be disastrously behind and/or your empire size will have ballooned awkwardly anyhow.
  • I'd suggest pushing the scaling on systems higher but lower it on planets. For example, +300% on systems (4x), +50% on planets (1.5x), or even something more extreme in the same direction. This makes it viable to obtain a small chunk of space and then fill it with habitats/ringworlds, without crushing your empire size and inflicting the very penalty that this civic is supposed to avoid.
• This does nothing to address the biggest problem with starbases as defenses: there is functionally always a maximum power level they can reach, whereas there is no such limit for ships, so a concentrated fleet can always overwhelm any starbase. Sure, you can use your fleets defensively, but if you're pumping alloys into bastion starbases, you're going to have a hard time fielding a very large fleet especially early on, and even a small empire will need a lot of these starbases (relatively speaking).
  • One elegant solution here would be to add a way to scale defense platform limits. For example, every soldier adds 0.2 defense platform limit, or something like that. This ties in to the focus on soldiers, and lets players scale starbases into truly mighty fortresses. You could even reduce the naval capacity from soldiers to compensate.
  • Alternatively, add scaling defense platform limits based on naval capacity directly, similarly to how titan capacity scales. This might not be possible to do elegantly with the current game engine, but it would give a way to let players turn naval capacity from all sources into defenses.

With all that said, I do see some ways to make this civic work. Take one of the origins that gives you a large homeworld, or maaaaybe habitats (which start very small but can in theory get big... though they nerfed that hard with the change to how the district count scales). Remnants, Shattered Ring, or Life-Seeded are all ideal here because you're going to want high habitability across species. Be either despoiler, or take nihilistic early. Do a lot of non-conquest wars; you want resources, vassal empires, and/or allies (plus of course pops), not territory. Use vassals or federations to wield great power without great population (even with all that raiding, you'll fall behind an equally militaristic empire that both expands normally and conquers). Keep your sprawl low, let vassals or slaves handle your basic resources, and go all in on tech (which goes fast because small empire size) and alloys. You are still going to have a problem with getting enough building slots - there simply isn't any way to get those other than colonies, and habitats help less than they used to - so you'll want to get research and maybe unity from districts whereever possible (though you'll also be able to run the influence->unity edict, and your edict costs should stay pretty low).

 

[SkyGuy7617]

A civic about worshiping the rift seems like the first step to full-blown religion mechanics. I hope, at least.

 

[Beauty Nova]

A civic about worshiping the rift seems like the first step to full-blown religion mechanics. I hope, at least.

If the literal death cult civics weren't already, I don't know what makes this more of one.

 

[Ajacoba]

there is functionally always a maximum power level they can reach, whereas there is no such limit for ships,

fleets are also capped though
there's only so much fleet size you can get and even if you bring several fleets there is still fleet capacity, also if you're fighting a defensive empire you do not only have defeat their starbase but also the fleet(s) supporting it

 

[StragaSevera]

Paradox, will you make a comment about issues of the Sovereign Guardianship civic that were mentioned here? I.e. incompatibility with Inward Perfection, no solution to the pop growth, being front-loaded with penalties and only back-loaded with positives?

I think this issues deserve to be talked about, rather than silently ignored.

 

[Eladrin]

I think this issues deserve to be talked about, rather than silently ignored.

Most responses occur while we're in the office.

I.e. incompatibility with Inward Perfection, no solution to the pop growth, being front-loaded with penalties and only back-loaded with positives?

Complex civics are allowed to have challenges that need to be overcome, or vary in power during different points of the game.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

So this is a Humanoid Empire using Arthropod ships?

It is.

 

[Ajacoba]

It is.

I occasionally do that too >w<
Like human clones on an ocean world called caminoo with aquatic architecture and ship designs

Or plantoids with avian architecture to accommodate their feathered little pets

And of course a lot of my human empires use the mammalian shipset because it just looks human, like the ships in those old Alien movies or in stuff like 2001

 

[Calvax]

And of course a lot of my human empires use the mammalian shipset because it just looks human, like the ships in those old Alien movies or in stuff like 2001

I find the reptilian shipsets are good for an industrial, no frills aesthetic too. I have a couple human and humanoid empires that it fits with.

 

[cerberus189]

Complex civics are allowed to have challenges that need to be overcome, or vary in power during different points of the game.

I would disagree with you if you here. The civic is called a tall civic by your team; however, it is not. It does not help you be competitive with wide play; it actually promotes wide play since most empire sprawl is from pops when playing wide, and this makes it easier to manage. u say its a complex civic that gives challenges to overcome, but it's just not what it was said to be, ie a tall civic There is no challenge to overcome, just the same old growth faster than the debuff from the empire sprawl, and with pops getting a -50%, thats going to be easier than ever.

it needs something to actually reward u playing tall like more jobs on districts or more pop output hell even something like increased pop output on ur first system and decreased output on all other systems would promote a tall play style