Hello everyone!

We’re back for this week’s installment of the Stellaris Dev Diary. This week we will covering a mix of paid and free features. More exactly, we’ll be talking about the Slave Market, Unity Ambitions and new Mandates. I bet I know which one you’ll want to read about first, so let’s start with that one.

Before we start I need to reiterate that this dev diary contains things that are WIP, with non-final numbers, interfaces or mechanics that might change.

The Slave Market (PAID)
To better facilitate slaver playstyles, we’ve added the Slave Market feature to MegaCorp. This will allow more easy transfer of slaves between empires. In MegaCorp, nothing can stand in the way of the pursuit of profit.

Access to the Slave Market is granted once the Galactic Market is founded. Only empires that also have access to the Galactic Market will be able to use the Slave Market. Only Pops that are currently Slaves are able to be sold on the Slave Market, but anyone can buy them (either to set them free or to put them to work). We're also considering making (non-Gestalt) robots that do not have citizen rights buyable and sellable on the market.

To sell a slave you select one or more Pop(s) on a planet (it must be enslaved). Right now the interface shows planets as the drop-down, but we will be changing it so that you first select a species, and then the list shows the different planets. We’re tweaking the interface right now, so some things might look a bit different as the next couple of weeks pass.

When you have decided which slaves to sell, they will be put on the market. The price of slaves is 500 ± the cost affected by traits. The traits that make them good slaves drives the price up, while things that make them bad slaves drives the price down. Many traits will not affect the cost of a slave.

To buy a slave, you select a destination planet and then simply click the buy button. This will complete the transaction and move the pop to your selected planet.

We are considering adding a simple bidding process as an additional step, but at this time we cannot promise that we will have time to add it before the release of MegaCorp.

Unity Ambitions (FREE)
Because of the changes to the economy system, with Unity coming from multiple sources and being a more integrated resource, we wanted to make sure that Unity is always useful. Previously a paid feature in Apocalypse, Unity Ambitions have now been made a free feature in 2.2 'Le Guin'.

Mandates (FREE)
Since we've added a bunch of new mechanics with 2.2 'Le Guin', we now have a lot more things that we can hook into. As a result of that, we have reworked and added a bunch of new mandates for democratic empires. They usually go along the lines of building more districts, building more stations to gather resource, to increasing monthly income etc.

That is what we have for this week. Next week we’ll return with a Dev Diary about what the community can expect in terms of new Modding capabilities for 2.2 (hint: It's a *lot* of new capabilities).

Don’t forget to tune into Twitch for the Dev Clash at 15:00 CET, so you can see us whack at each other with our new pointy sticks! You can also watch a summarized version on YouTube.

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

Playing despoilers will be now much more fun and profitable.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

that you sell them 1 pops at time or 100 , if you need 10 energy credits minimum to buy ANY other resources on the market , the worth of the slave will be reduced by 10 . you know how markets work right? not being able to put your price on slave , make this risky.

if 450 energy can buy 300 minerals, or 30 minerals it change things up . since by selling 30 minerals, you can buy a slave, and by spending 3000 minerals you can buy 100 .

edit, ofc this is a exageration to show worst possible case.

So the galaxy is mineral starved, and you are producing minerals, shouldn't this be a good thing? Isn't this how the market is supposed to work?

I'm a bit concerned about the state of Barbaric Despoilers with the advent of the slave market. While I get that they can function as slave takers and peddlers, beyond that, it doesn't seem like there's a niche for them any more. Even in the live version, it's hard to find a use for them outside a Life-Seeded build where you abduct pops to forcibly resettle them. Of course, now that a slave market exists, that seems like a much better way to get your settling pops if you were otherwise dedicated to a Barbaric Despoilers build.

So are there any real changes to Barbaric Despoilers that we know of coming down the line? It already feels like a muddled civic, and now the only real benefit for it that I could find is being rendered moot.

Abducting pops is plenty useful outside of life seeded, although it isn't the best part of despoilers. The despoilation CB, for one, is amazing in the early-mid game. Don't worry about taking planets too fast, you want that $$.

The market just gives these guys more options, you can buy, sell, and abduct. You also still have the tradition swap AFAIK.

They do work well as straight conquerors with a tradition swap, but that isn't their full potential.

 

[Lumanson]

Is there a mechanic that would prevent someone from selling all or most of the pops on a planet right before an enemy captured the world, like as they are attacking the starbase? I understand that you would have to wait for the pop to be bought, but going off of the dev clash, it doesn't seem like pops will stay on the market for very long. So a player could sell most of the pops, and then resettle the rest, given that there is no limit to how many pops can be on your other worlds, leaving the attacker with a planet with only a single pop on it.

 

[Calvax]

Is there a mechanic that would prevent someone from selling all or most of the pops on a planet right before an enemy captured the world

A pop has to be a slave to be sold on the market so this strategy would require an empire to change the species rights for every species on the planet to enslaved or stratified. The latter wouldn’t get everyone but beyond that the sudden instability and reorganisation of pops across the empire would be significant.

Maybe blocking sale of slaves on a planet being bombarded would still be good, if only to represent the blockade.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Most slaving empires in Stellaris wouldn't enslave for the purposes of making a profit off of slave sales, they do it as a consequence of conquest and the need to work their planets. However, they may well sell into the slave market more regularly if there's a steady income to be made (although that would probably require allowing slave pops to grow to be of any galactic consequence, which some slaver empires might not want to do).

Although I don't see a way to do it right now, it would be interesting if empires could interdict slave trade in some way - in theory, slaves have to make their way from seller to buyer somehow, and if they should need to pass through territory where slavery is illegal they may end up being caught (and becoming either refugees or free - in both senses of the term - citizens in the liberating empire, depending on policy). More zealous anti-slavery empires might even help fund enforcement efforts in other empires to put more of a cost/risk on the slave trade.

@grekulf : Does the slave market take a cut of the price, or does the selling empire get the entire fee paid by the buyer?

You make a good point about interdicting the slave trade. In our actual history here, Britain did that after it made slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire in 1807 (it did not make slavery itself illegal, that came later). It used its Royal Navy to interdict the slave trade with varying effects during the long peace between Napoleonic Wars and the World War I. Would be interesting to see how this would work in peace-time, though.

But I wonder if warfare could have an impact on slave trade. It could disrupt some usual routes used for selling / buying slaves. Could slightly hurt the economy that was too reliant on slavery itself. But probably not that much.

On the other hand, if a war was declared for liberation of the slaves, the slave POPs could be encouraged by the news of this war to deliberately slow down their work, thereby helping the war efforts indirectly in a small bit against that slave-holding empire. Especially where slavery are a crucial component in producing goods needed for the war efforts. And a such impact could increase or decrease depending on the war score.

Unfortunately, it look like trade routes are not taken into account for Slave Market, or at least it wasn't mentioned, so interdiction might not be possible right now but that could change in the future.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Is there a mechanic that would prevent someone from selling all or most of the pops on a planet right before an enemy captured the world, like as they are attacking the starbase?

The time it takes the galactic market place to decide it wants to buy your slaves?

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Would it be possible for empires with observation posts over primitive worlds to abduct slaves for the market?

I can see Authoritarian/Xenophobe Megacorps doing that, currently it looks like you would need to invade or bombard as Despoilers to take primitive slaves.

Nihilistic Acquisition ?

 

[Lumanson]

The time it takes the galactic market place to decide it wants to buy your slaves?

However, as we saw in the dev clash, this can be almost instantaneous.

 

[Pinstar]

Does the market ever get/start with pre-seeded slaves or are there ever any 'private sector' slaves that you can buy. I'm picturing a galaxy with a lone slaver empire, everyone else being either anti-slave or gestalts. In that scenario, would the slave market be completely useless for an empire looking to *buy* slaves. (I know they could sell slaves and some non-slavers could buy the sold slaves to free them)

 

[Bandy About]

Question I havent seen anywhere:

Will MegaCorps get Mandates also? seems like it would fit well with them.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

However, as we saw in the dev clash, this can be almost instantaneous.

For one or two population maybe.. my hope would be that an entire planet takes longer to depopulate via slake market than a starbase takes to fall.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

Question I havent seen anywhere:

Will MegaCorps get Mandates also? seems like it would fit well with them.

MegaCorps have oligarchic elections, and we’ve seen them with agendas on the dev clash. Only democratic governments get mandates, but they don’t get agendas.

Perhaps we will get some kind of system that has a little of both in the future, but for the moment MegaCorps are classic oligarchies.

 

[DerGrößteRitter]

I have been waiting for this dev diary! I am actually somewhat excited for this DLC/Update.

 

[Badesumofu]

I like the moral quandary this will create for Egalitarian and Xenohpile empires. Do you buy slaves from the market to free them (and get yourself some useful pops) or do you boycott the market altogether because you don't want to create the demand the drives interstellar slavery?

I'll probably buy some to colonise planets my main species is poorly suited to. But in my head-cannon it will be controversial within my empire!

 

[asaz989]

Are slaves held under non-chattel forms of slavery (e.g. a caste system) allowed to be sold? This seems like it would be immersion-breaking.

 

[Zalmoxis]

A very interesting market, I'm looking forward to seeing more of it and playing with it. Definitely glad that Hive Minds also get access to it, sometimes you just need a little more food to go around...

Or giving a hivemind access to more pope to give the hive-minded trait. Imagine that, being sold to an entity that will take over your mind?

 

[Zarpaulus]

I like the moral quandary this will create for Egalitarian and Xenohpile empires. Do you buy slaves from the market to free them (and get yourself some useful pops) or do you boycott the market altogether because you don't want to create the demand the drives interstellar slavery?

I'll probably buy some to colonise planets my main species is poorly suited to. But in my head-cannon it will be controversial within my empire!

Maybe a return of the "underground railroad" event?

Perhaps you'll have the opportunity to intercept slave ships.

Are slaves held under non-chattel forms of slavery (e.g. a caste system) allowed to be sold? This seems like it would be immersion-breaking.

Authoritarianism doesn't enslave half your POPs anymore, remember? Unless you have Slaver Guilds (or Indentured Assets for Megacorps) they're just underpaid Workers.

I can see domestic servants or battle thralls getting sold on the market, and definitely livestock.

 

[Zalmoxis]

I'd like to be able to make a species into a pet species, since while we are talking about types of slavery. This sounds like a way to buy pops as pets. I'd like for non-gestalts to have 'mandatory pampering' allowed as a living standard.

 

[Detjen]

I am glad anyone can buy slaves! I am totally going to do a run as a Pacifist group that is anti-slavery but dosen't want to get invovled in other peoples business. so instead they set up sanctuaries and buy pops off the market whenever they can.

 

[TechPriest90]

I can see it now - the United Nations causing prices to skyrocket by buying slaves off the market as a way of liberating the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free (Free Haven civic).

Market speculation never was this morally satisfying.