Stellaris Dev Diary #101 - Marauders, Pirates and the Horde

[Hertzila]

The game has advanced enough that I'm sure a working model of the system could be developed. Starbases have replaced starports, sectors can quite adequately share certain resources directly, there's really nothing that'd prevent another go at having Strategic Resources be, well, more strategic.

I'd love it if shield tech were capped by the availability of the Shield Resource. Higher-tiers of component being locked behind having a particular Resource seems like a really cool idea.

Cool idea, but I worry for gameplay. While economic failure thanks to poor RNG migth be irksome, it can be migitated or nullified with competent empire design. Whereas simply not having a type of resource critical to building advanced components spawn anywhere near you thanks to RNG would be extremely frustrating. Not to mention a balancing nightmare. I'd much rather go the route of special resources that provide notable buffs or production, on the logic that empires without the resource found a way around the limitation. (Like how modern synthetic rubber was invented to migitate the lack of natural rubber production, IIRC.)

Maybe if a galactic trade economy would be implemented a la Victoria so you can buy the critical resource from others. In that case, you could usually buy the missing resource through the trading system. Without it, I highly doubt it would work well, even now.

 

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

Really a great Khan you couldn't come up with something original

It's Khan, man. It's an absolutely classic trope and doubles as a reference to one of the best sci fi films ever made.

Stellaris is not supposed to be 'original'. It's a tapestry of sci fi culture.

 

[methegrate]

The game has advanced enough that I'm sure a working model of the system could be developed. Starbases have replaced starports, sectors can quite adequately share certain resources directly, there's really nothing that'd prevent another go at having Strategic Resources be, well, more strategic.

I'd love it if shield tech were capped by the availability of the Shield Resource. Higher-tiers of component being locked behind having a particular Resource seems like a really cool idea.

Agreed. I feel like the model tends to break into three categories:

- Bonuses, which are resources that it's nice to have, but certainly don't make or break an empire.

- Strategic, which are resources without which you just can't build or do certain things. You often will plan an entire stage of your empire's evolution or build a military around access to or lack of strategic resources. (Iron vs. horses, for example, or in our case armor vs shields.)

- Critical, which are occasional resources critical to a society's evolution. Coal and oil in Civilization, for example. You absolutely need to secure a supply of these if your empire is going to remain competitive. Every now and again one of these hits the board and completely disrupts the status quo, forcing change and conflict.

As @Hertzila points out these do need to be balanced properly, and a better trade system would become even more important. But at the same time not having a resource spawn near you is actually the entire point. In Stellaris I think the best case scenario would be to balance resource generation to ensure that empires only ever have access to some strategic resources. The point should be to force decisions and drive asymmetric design around what the empire can and can't build. If you don't naturally get a supply of shield crystals, you have to decide whether you'll design your fleet in a different direction, or if you'll do what it takes to go get some.

If the next generation of critical resources hits the board and the RNG screws you there is no maintaining the status quo. You absolutely must go get some, whatever it takes. (If you do spawn some, you have to deal with the fact that a neighbor might absolutely need to acquire that resource.)

Idk... For me the idea has very strong appeal both because of the asymmetry it drives and because it would help kill the midgame slog by periodically forcing players to break up the status quo. I won't argue that to a certain degree it's unbalanced. Sometimes you'll get no resources at all. Maybe a shield-strong fleet is better than an engine-strong fleet, etc. But to be honest, for me that's a feature, not a bug. Asymmetry and unbalanced gameplay in a strategy game is fun when it's done well. It forces creative problem solving and drives conflict.

 

[Zarpaulus]

Are we ever going to be able to play as nomads or enclaves or are those relegated to NPCs for eternity?

So, since you say the Great Khan can be killed in battle I assume he's treated as an admiral or general with an event tied to him?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Cool idea, but I worry for gameplay. While economic failure thanks to poor RNG migth be irksome, it can be migitated or nullified with competent empire design. Whereas simply not having a type of resource critical to building advanced components spawn anywhere near you thanks to RNG would be extremely frustrating. Not to mention a balancing nightmare. I'd much rather go the route of special resources that provide notable buffs or production, on the logic that empires without the resource found a way around the limitation. (Like how modern synthetic rubber was invented to migitate the lack of natural rubber production, IIRC.)

Maybe if a galactic trade economy would be implemented a la Victoria so you can buy the critical resource from others. In that case, you could usually buy the missing resource through the trading system. Without it, I highly doubt it would work well, even now.

You'd definitely want to integrate it into the trade system, yeah (although it wouldn't really require a trade overhaul, just appropriate use of the current model), but I think that certain technologies not being viable without access to a certain resource would be fine and encourage less symmetrical gameplay- which in my books is a very good thing.

I do think Strategic Resource generation would need some adjustment, though. The current system creates a lot of mono-clusters (which I was never a fan of, given the resources don't stack to provide cumulative effects, so its just trade-fodder which is useless if you're a more aggressive empire), and ideally you'd want things a tad more spread out and varied if Strategic Resources unlocked certain technologies or tiers of certain technologies.

Another option to consider would be if Strategic Resources were changed to be a "monthly generation" thing like Minerals and Energy instead of a "do you own a deposit Y/N" thing- that would allow components to add a Strategic Resource cost to ships built using them. So if you don't use any shields and rely on armour, it doesn't cost any, but if you make a full-shield ship it'd cost a lot.

IMO, anything would be an improvement, though. Stellaris' supply economy is really rather lackluster.

 

[Tim_Ward]

Are we ever going to be able to play as nomads or enclaves or are those relegated to NPCs for eternity?

Why on earth would you want to play an enclave?

 

[Devanor]

Why on earth would you want to play an enclave?

You know, that sounds pretty cool. Sit in a random system, waiting to make contact with a young empire, constantly at max speed to make time move forward, until a young empire or endgame crisis decides that your time is up and turns your station into a massive firework

 

[Hyomoto]

The AI doesnt cheat on normal, what are you talking about?

It depends on your view of 'cheating'. The AI gets a mineral and energy credit bonus on higher difficulty levels, but it also has 'perfect' information. Is that cheating? It also gets free fleets and buildings from time to time to make up for it's inability to prioritize or adjust it's empire as needed. Some people have ran tests that suggest it also ignores certain penalties such as unrest, negative credit balance or too high of a fleet score. As far as I know it basically relies on several forms of, what would be considered for a player at least, cheating in order to just run it's government.

However, this is offset by the fact even with those cheats it can barely run it's government. I'm not sure if the developers have ever made public exactly what the AI can/can not do, so my information is based on what I've read over the years. But as far as I've ever known, it "cheats" quite a bit regardless of difficulty.

 

[Dan_Daniel2000]

No, it doesnt. It doesnt get free stuff, it doesnt ignore mechanics. The only thing it gets is perfect Vision, but thats because of some technical Limitation, and it still behaves as if it didnt know. Wiz, the lead AI developer, has said this multiple times.

 

[Ganggreenkhan]

I own civ5 but don't play it. My least favorite thing about the game is not being able to build a unit because I lack the rresource. Like iron and especially oil. You can't see it until you develop the tech and there's no way to plan your empire around it. Usually by the time you discover oil the map is fully colonized and either you were lucky enough to have it or putting a new city in a weird place just to have access to oil.

If you needed access to the proper resource to have shields that would be game breaking and the only empires that would be players would be those who had the resource.... everyone else would be boned.

Terrible idea.

 

[Zarpaulus]

Why on earth would you want to play an enclave?

Same reasons someone would want to play a merchant republic in CKII

 

[Timjames]

Is there any way to get Pirate Pops for my worlds, or does destroying all the Pirate Stations automatically equal Space Genocide?

 

[JosunUrashima]

Ah, I see. Apologies for misunderstanding.

I like this idea. It effectively puts a cap on the number of fully-effective warships that the entire galaxy can have, and thus makes it vital to fight over certain areas if you want to have a combat-capable fleet.

(Then again, it might lead to the situation where you can't build shields due to lacking Shieldeca Crystals and I can't build hangar bays due to not having Fightera Powder, so both of us are going into battle with deeply suboptimal fleets. That's kinda cool.)

It would create an experience very different to Stellaris, that's for sure, because in Stellaris every part of the galaxy is pretty much equally important. However, not every game needs to be the same, and there should always be room for experimentation.

That last bit is the biggest and most important part of such a change to me, because honestly one reason why I haven't been playing Stellaris so much lately is because... every game kind of seems like the last, with just a new coat of paint over it. Sure, RPing some things out adds a little bit to each game, but it doesn't make each round feel unique. Civilizations 5 has games I can easily recount because of both the randomness of the map and geography and the placement of resources.

It's something I hope Stellaris get's in the future, as it's something that for me at least would add a great deal to the game.

 

[JosunUrashima]

I own civ5 but don't play it. My least favorite thing about the game is not being able to build a unit because I lack the rresource. Like iron and especially oil. You can't see it until you develop the tech and there's no way to plan your empire around it. Usually by the time you discover oil the map is fully colonized and either you were lucky enough to have it or putting a new city in a weird place just to have access to oil.

If you needed access to the proper resource to have shields that would be game breaking and the only empires that would be players would be those who had the resource.... everyone else would be boned.

Terrible idea.

As someone who has loved playing Civ 5 for the very reasons you are saying it's terrible, especially because it actually mirrors and reflects how things went throughout history, I say you are horribly and terribly incorrect on it being a terrible idea. It added variety to games and made it so I had to think more and react far more then I do in Stellaris. The pop up of resources would change entire games for me, sometimes admittedly to ones where I lost, but it was still fun.

 

[methegrate]

I own civ5 but don't play it. My least favorite thing about the game is not being able to build a unit because I lack the rresource. Like iron and especially oil. You can't see it until you develop the tech and there's no way to plan your empire around it. Usually by the time you discover oil the map is fully colonized and either you were lucky enough to have it or putting a new city in a weird place just to have access to oil.

If you needed access to the proper resource to have shields that would be game breaking and the only empires that would be players would be those who had the resource.... everyone else would be boned.

Terrible idea.

Respectfully, that's the entire reason why these systems exist. If you can plan every empire out in advance, the game starts to feel rote. These resource systems introduce both scarcity and unpredictability, which forces you to plan around things you didn't expect. Not being able to build a unit because you lack something is a feature, not a bug. Same with resources popping up. It all forces you to come up with alternative solutions. If you can always follow the optimal build, you will. Scarcity forces alternative thinking.

 

[Ganggreenkhan]

Respectfully, that's the entire reason why these systems exist. If you can plan every empire out in advance, the game starts to feel rote. These resource systems introduce both scarcity and unpredictability, which forces you to plan around things you didn't expect. Not being able to build a unit because you lack something is a feature, not a bug. Same with resources popping up. It all forces you to come up with alternative solutions. If you can always follow the optimal build, you will. Scarcity forces alternative thinking.

You make a good point. Everything you've said is true. The thing I don't like about the execution of it in civ5 is that it put to much weight on random luck. You have to be lucky enough to have it within reach, either uncolonised or something you can conquer.

I'm mean don't get me wrong it was great fun that one game where my equatorial empire sent a colonist to the north pole to claim the one and only piece of oil unclaimed by the time oil was discovered.

But what about all those other games where it just was not available? What about the snow balls chance in hell you have of getting someone to trade it to you?

It doesn't work like this in real life. If you don't have it you just buy it on the free market. It's easy, in fact most of the world does it.

Unless you're a rogue nation state and then you just buy it on the global blackmarket.

I think it would be a bad idea to make something as critical to the game a shields resource dependent until improvements are made to the galactic economy.

 

[methegrate]

You make a good point. Everything you've said is true. The thing I don't like about the execution of it in civ5 is that it put to much weight on random luck. You have to be lucky enough to have it within reach, either uncolonised or something you can conquer.

I'm mean don't get me wrong it was great fun that one game where my equatorial empire sent a colonist to the north pole to claim the one and only piece of oil unclaimed by the time oil was discovered.

But what about all those other games where it just was not available? What about the snow balls chance in hell you have of getting someone to trade it to you?

It doesn't work like this in real life. If you don't have it you just buy it on the free market. It's easy, in fact most of the world does it.

Unless you're a rogue nation state and then you just buy it on the global blackmarket.

I think it would be a bad idea to make something as critical to the game a shields resource dependent until improvements are made to the galactic economy.

That's completely fair. Certainly, to work well a system like this has to get the balance right.

Placement needs to be seeded so that there are enough resources on the game board to not feel starved. Trade needs to provide a reasonable alternative to conquest. (Generally. Although there's nothing wrong with backing a pacifist into a corner or forcing a warmonger to pay through the nose.) Too, asymmetry has to work well enough to allow you to plan around scarcity of strategic resources. If you can't build shields, then armor or engines or cloak or what-have-you all need to be reasonable alternatives. Critical resources you just have to obtain, which drives conflict, but strategic resource scarcity should offer multiple viable solutions.

So 100% agree, balance is key. Admittedly I use Civ as the example because I've had a better experience with it I think. My time with that game has felt more challenging than hamstrung.

And I'd also say, while I like the three-tiered resource model, it isn't the only option. I think it addresses two critical issues with the Stellaris midgame:

- Scarcity: Except for ascension perks you can have all of everything. Empires are wealthy enough that they generally don't have to plan around a lack of resources or make choices between mutually exclusive options.

- Disruption: Once the status quo sets in, nothing really challenges or changes that. The game needs something to occasionally disrupt the equilibrium and force players/empires out of their comfort zones.

So again, I think the three-tiered resource model works very well to achieve both of those goals, but it's certainly not the only way to do that.

 

[Ganggreenkhan]

You know I was thinking and maybe the free market is a bad example. There have been periods in history where it has existed on a nation state lvl to one extent or another. And periods where it hasn't. In every point where it was more or less global it was at the end of pointy sticks. There have been many wars fought over the last 2 centuries to bring about the global market we have today.

I would be fine with limited trading prospect s for resources in the early game. But at least by late game there should be some better economic options. As the system stands now you have to be super lucky to click on the trade deal screen when an AI actually has strategic resources available. That's not cool when strategic resources become something that can make or break an empire.

On a side note it would be really funny if when they make the space UN you could buy strategic resources from them whether you were in good standing or not, even have the same screen with the same diplomat. The only difference being one screen charges 5 times as much that would be a hoot.

 

[Razzlie]

I like the resources idea, in fact it's what I've been hoping, and what Wiz has expressed previously they should be like. i.e. that resources should be valuable enough for you to consider them strategically and value them enough to go to war for them.

Plus, who doesn't like Dune? The Spice must flow.

I'm guessing there were too many problems with making resources more important than they are right now, which is why they're now just good but not critical, for balance reasons. Maybe they will be touched up some more in the future?

 

[Ganggreenkhan]

I just had an idea to make necessary resources viable. The trader enclaves could broker auctions for your extra resources when they become available. This might lead to some things you don't like, like your rival getting shields. But it might make necessary resources more viable. You could check with different enclaves to see when what resources were coming up for auction. I think this would be a viable simulation of a galactic economy. Not to mention if someone were brokering a large amount of strategic resources and you wanted to stop it you can always blow up the enclave. Maybe even you can exclude empires from the bidding when you put the resource up. Refusing to entertain someone s bid could even lead to war. Enclaves could even develop malice for selling to an empires rivals and the different enclaves could cater to different trading blocks eventually.