Stellaris Dev Diary #162 - New Diplomatic Features

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grekulf

Stellaris Game Director
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Hello everyone!

Today we thought we’d talk about some of the smaller changes coming to diplomacy with the free 2.6 update. Although the Galactic Community and the reworked federations are sure to have a large impact on galactic diplomacy, it's also important to talk about the smaller things!

Envoys
One of the more important things we’ve added are the Envoys. Envoys function very similar to Diplomats in EU4, and they are required for certain diplomatic actions such as:
  • Improve / Harm Relations – it is now possible to send an Envoy to improve or harm relations which can affect Opinion by up to (-400 / +400 ). More on Opinion and Relations later.
  • Assigned to Federation (to increase monthly Cohesion by +1)
  • Assigned to Galactic Community (to increase Diplomatic Weight)
upload_2019-11-28_10-28-45.png upload_2019-11-28_10-29-6.png upload_2019-11-28_10-29-20.png

Although Envoys are characters, they do not currently have any character-mechanics such as traits. We didn’t think it would be fun to have to micromanage and switch Envoys around to better fit certain jobs depending on their traits.

Diplomacy Interface Updates
We’ve finally gotten around to give a bunch of diplomacy-related interfaces a facelift! First up, let’s talk a little about the general diplomacy screen.

You are now able to more clearly see things such as Civics, Origins, Relative Power breakdowns, your ongoing diplomatic agreements, and also the new diplomatic stances!

upload_2019-11-28_10-30-2.png

This Hegemonic subordinate was kind enough to act as a model for the new diplo screen!

upload_2019-11-28_10-30-30.png

Declaring rivalry never looked so appealing.

upload_2019-11-28_10-30-57.png

The diplomatic offers are now a bit more clear on what is going on (not final text). A downside, however, is that it's now much harder to fool colleagues into becoming your vassal in our internal multiplayer sessions.

Diplomatic Stances
Sometimes we like concept that our colleagues have put into some of our other games, and the diplomatic stances from Imperator: Rome were a good example. Although not exactly the same, we like the general idea. We wanted empires to be able to set a diplomatic stance that dictates their behaviour towards other empires on a galactic stage.

upload_2019-11-28_10-31-19.png

Diplomatic Stances are Policies and can be changed once every 10 years. There are a bunch of different stances, and some may also be unique to certain empire types (e.g. Isolationist is called Mercantile for Megacorporations).

upload_2019-11-28_10-32-17.png upload_2019-11-28_10-32-7.png upload_2019-11-28_10-31-55.png upload_2019-11-28_10-31-37.png upload_2019-11-28_10-32-27.png

Stances are designed to be quite different, and to facilitate different playstyles. Perceptive readers might notice that the Belligerent stance seems very similar to Supremacist, and that is true, except that Supremacist stance is designed for all empires that want to be “a big player”. Supremacist empires will dislike other empires with the same stance, so it is almost like a soft rivalry of sorts.

Stances also have some effect on internal politics, as some of your factions may have certain preferences when it comes to your foreign policy.

Relations and Opinion
We wanted an easier way to measure how the diplomatic relations between two empires is doing, so we’ve added a new aggregate value called Relations. Relations exists in different levels ranging from Terrible <- Tense <- Neutral -> Positive -> Excellent, and they do have an effect on which type of diplomatic actions that are available.

We want diplomacy to be less fickle, and more mechanical. Players should now have more ability to influence what other empires’ opinions are of them. Overall diplomacy should feel less static and more prone to evolving over time.

Form Federation requires Excellent Relations, and pacts like Migrations, Research or Commercial require Positive Relations. Similarly, Rivalries require Terrible Relations. This is also the case in player-to-player diplomacy, so it’s important to maintain a good standing.

Some of these restrictions can be bypassed by having an Envoy to harm or improve relations.

upload_2019-11-28_10-32-53.png

Favors
Finally we want to talk about Favors. Although Favors were primarily added to give players agency within the Galactic Community, they can also be used to influence the AIs likelihood of accepting certain diplomatic agreements.

upload_2019-11-28_10-33-11.png

Favors is a new mechanic that allows you to increase your Diplomatic Weight for certain votes or proposals in the Galactic Community. An empire can owe another empire up to 10 Favors, and each Favor will increase Diplomatic Weight by “10%”.

For example – Empire B owes 10 Favors to Empire A. Empire A spends influence to call in all 10 Favors and adds 100% of the Diplomatic Weight that Empire B has. Empire A will add the Diplomatic Weight from Empire B, for a specific vote, without Empire B losing their Diplomatic Weight.

In effect, Favors allows an empire to manipulate vote results towards their point of view. It is not possible to Call in Favors when an empire is already voting the same way as you are. Multiple empires can call in favors from the same empire, and it's designed in this way to reduce the complexity of having to figure out which favors should have priority, or which favors should matter more.

upload_2019-11-28_10-33-30.png

Pretty please. You owe me.

In addition to the Galactic Community, Favors can also be called in to increase acceptance chance by +5 when offering certain diplomatic deals.

Favors can be gained through diplomatic trades, or or some cases randomly through events.

---

That is all for this week! Next week we’ll be back with some more details on the Juggernaut and the Mega Shipyard.
 
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If I send one to my pal, and he sends one to me, will the effects stack? Show two empires working hard to be friends.

Likewise, can I improve relations while someone tries to harm them with me? Are we effectively keeping a status quo on our current relationship?
Yes to all of the above.
 
Why does Isolationist stance increase Border friction so much?
The Xeno smell terrible. (And more importantly, it reduces relations with empires that are encroaching on your territory, similar to how the Xenophobe Fallen Empire reacts.)

A has 100 DW and will vote Yea, B has 120 DW and will vote Nay. A calls 10 Favors on B. Now A has 220 DW and will vote Yea, and B still has 120 DW and will vote... Yea? Nay? Abstain?
B will still vote Nay with their 120 Diplomatic Weight. The favors and influence expended represent some behind the scenes wheeling and dealing. (This also avoids a situation where you as a player are forced to vote against your will, or where the first person to call in favors has an advantage or disadvantage.)

I assume Inward Perfection empires are going to be locked into Isolationist diplo-stance, is that correct?
They have a reduced set of diplomatic stances, but do still have more than Isolationist.

Is it possible to change another country's diplomacy stance...by force?
It's possible to knock a Supremacist back down to Belligerent by humiliating them.
 
Is this not potentially exploitable? E.g. you want to pass vote for option A, you give 10 friends 10 favors each, and cast your vote for B, but all your friends cast vote for option A. Effectively you just voted with 9x your weight for option A.
There's an influence cost to calling in favors for a Galactic Community vote.

Wait, so it's _the isolationist_ the one who will get Border Friction towards the neighbors, not the other way around?
Yes, they view border friction as more important. Yes, this does mean that as a player, your empire's opinion of others (which was previously completely hidden) matters to a degree.
 
you can no longer see the other empire's opinion and trust of you without hovering over "Friendly" and enabling the tooltip. This makes the UI less informative at a glance.
You can still see opinions of your empire on the Contacts list. All of the Diplomatic actions are gated by Empire Relations (the new aggregate opinion), so that seemed like the more important value to focus on.

Hovering over the five smaller relations bars will show your current Relations value, as well as how far you are from the next tier and last month's change.

I hope likewise you haven't removed the green birdie or red cross showing you at a glance what deals the AI will accept, without having to actually propose them.
It'll also show you what deals the AI would reject, but you have enough favors to get them to approve.
 
Also how do we get Envoys?
You'll start with a few. Less if you go Inward Perfectionist, more if you take certain civics. At the moment you can get a couple more from Empire-Unique buildings, Federation Perks, and the Interstellar Assembly.

Will Envoys be subject to leader lifespan traits (if they are not considered leaders) or would they in essence be immortal?
They are subject to leader lifespans like other characters. Their deaths are mostly for flavor since they are immediately replaced.
 
Maybe I'm being a dumb dumb, but what is the little icon to the left of the planet count? The one that looks like a migration treaty icon?
Empire Sprawl.

What about Branch offices? Will they get a new building - Such as a Lobbyin Bureau - which grants an extra envoys on the planet owner or is this deemed too powerful?
Envoys are pretty powerful so we've tried to be careful with how many you can have simultaneously.

They do have a Corporate Embassy that increases the Diplomatic Weight contribution their empire gets from Economy and the... less-rules-oriented... instead get a Disinformation Center that does the same while also giving a louder voice to those who wish to share their alternate truths.