Stellaris Dev Diary #201: Galactic Imperium

[NilsFabian]

We had it like that initially, but changed it because it seriously reduced the severity of the situation. It's potentially more interesting if you have to deal with it.

When is my last opportunity to leave the Galactic community? 1 day before the vote finishes or before it had been proposed?

 

[SS Boss]

There still questions about:

1. How Fallen Empires / Awakened Empires will deal with this ? War in the Heaven ?

2. The "Defender of the Galaxy" perk will still be the same thing ?

 

[Me_]

Like has been already mentioned, the action of taking such power is intrinsically incredibly authoritarian.

Not if you say that the opposing party tried to falsify election results.

 

[Devanor]

*Imperial Crusade starts*
Fanatical Purifiers and Endgame Crises: "Why do I hear boss music?"

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Shouldn't have become emperor then, I guess?

But seriously, though I like the new mechanics, all of this event triggered disbandment and creation of potentially galaxy spanning federations should be adressed with a federation XP catchup mechanic or some other way of saving (a portion of) the disbanded federations' accumulated XP and tiers, otherwise there's no way of reaching level 4 or 5 ever again unless you're willing to play till 2700. Any thoughts on that yet, devs?

Well, in all fairness, the Galactic Sovereign bonus massively outclasses what some of the federations give for their bonuses:

I mean, as a Galactic Union I can get +1 Influence, +1 Envoy, +10% Influence, etc. Getting 6 influence is pretty huge.

 

[Red Death]

We had it like that initially, but changed it because it seriously reduced the severity of the situation. It's potentially more interesting if you have to deal with it.

Though as a human player if you see the resolution is about to pass you could just leave the community right before that happens, correct?

 

[Nighzmarquls]

From an RP perspective - this is perfect. In an ideal world, this would be a great feature.
But, all my games are pretty much over way before this would even have a chance to happen. Typically, if players don't move the end game crisis date earlier, their game will be technically won before the crisis even happens. Even if you do move the end date closer, the crisis itself tends to be the final enemy, and while fighting it, all other AI empires are pathetically weak anyway. How would they even rebel after this point? You need all the stars in the multiverse to align perfectly for those new end game mechanics to happen as envisioned. In real situation, you will end up as the top one empire and defacto the Crisis and Galactic Imperium all in one, before all those new mechanics have a chance to fire. What's the point of playing if all the galaxy united can't win against you, and that is even before the crisis happens. And then, this mechanics is supposed to happen after the Crisis and Custodian mechanics? Unless you are bringing some MAJOR changes to how AI plays, it's easy to guess the outcome and how often we will see this happen.

Remember the midgame crisis like the khan and such can also trigger this. Honestly I think the game could use more midgame 'crisis' type situations. Also it looks like 'become the crisis' probably is an option that opens up more mid then late game?

That said has anyone seen the war in heaven occur in midgame like it's supposed too? That seems like another thing that should trigger the custodian.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

War in Heaven can't trigger until the endgame year. Crisis occurs 50+ years after endgame year.

 

[Lu Jo]

That would be interesting. Like Paul Atreides seizing the title of Emperor from Shaddam IV in Dune.

Of course that was only possible because of the spice.

Stellaris lacks a super unique, super rare but vital resource like spice to make such a coup possible.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Of course that was only possible because of the spice.

Stellaris lacks a super unique, super rare but vital resource like spice to make such a coup possible.

But there is (in principal) military force, if they somehow against expectations manage to beat the Imperial Core and its Emperor.

 

[Pale Blue]

War in Heaven can't trigger until the endgame year. Crisis occurs 50+ years after endgame year.

Maybe war in heaven should be moved to be a midgame crisis. By the time it can trigger you steamroll the fallene empires anyway, if they even exists at this point and arent destroyed already. The unaligned empires could then declare a custodian and the imperium/rbell thing becomes something to do between midgame and endgame.

 

[Wise Strategist]

Can we please get a special origin start that let's begin a game with a Galactic Imperium already in place?
Or
How about creating an option that allows us to two choose whether to get behind the initial creation of the Galactic Community or a Galactic Imperium?

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Maybe war in heaven should be moved to be a midgame crisis. By the time it can trigger you steamroll the fallene empires anyway, if they even exists at this point and arent destroyed already. The unaligned empires could then declare a custodian and the imperium/rbell thing becomes something to do between midgame and endgame.

War in Heaven used to happen much earlier (as did crisis), early in the game's history.

These days I normally set the Endgame year to 2350 instead of 2400 so that I'm not quite so crazy strong by the time the Fallen Empires awaken.

 

[Skyfus]

Revoke the privilegia broke free of Europa Universalis

 

[SilentReflection]

Dumb question but when the Galactic Imperium is formed, all federations inside it are disbanded. Does this also prevent you from forming new federations inside it?

 

[King Harkinian]

Maybe war in heaven should be moved to be a midgame crisis. By the time it can trigger you steamroll the fallene empires anyway, if they even exists at this point and arent destroyed already. The unaligned empires could then declare a custodian and the imperium/rbell thing becomes something to do between midgame and endgame.

You're just playing on bad settings. The balanced way to play Stellaris is to set the endgame start date at 2300 or 2325 and the victory date to 2400. Every crisis and War in Heaven will be a close call this way.

I hope the devs simply change the default dates to these since a lot of people don't seem to realize that they should change them, and just proceed to play with the default dates and then complain that it's too easy.

 

[DrNukeLear]

We had it like that initially, but changed it because it seriously reduced the severity of the situation. It's potentially more interesting if you have to deal with it.

Actually. I'm going to disagree here.

If you're the emperor to be and you're watching the days tick by.... you've got the votes, you're going to be emperor! But who will stay?
If you're in a level 5 federation and you can see that there's three days until Empire Day, who's going to stay in the federation and leave the galactic community?

Do you stay in the new empire or go it alone and lose all those nice bonuses you've helped build as part of the community?

There's a lot of tension that you're losing going down the path which robs the player of agency.

If you stay in the empire and try to bring it down from within, possibly working underhanded with those who have left it's no less exciting.
If you're emperor of the new mighty galactic empire, the only AI federations likely to go there own way are unlikely to be small. So yes, you're emperor, but you're also trying to keep your imperial authority high while bringing others back into the fold.

There's also a whole gameplay/narrative experience of "The Federation which wouldn't submit" fighting Overwhelming Odds^tm against your former galactic community.

 

[namewhichisnottakenyet]

We had it like that initially, but changed it because it seriously reduced the severity of the situation. It's potentially more interesting if you have to deal with it.

How about: All empires except for the new Imperium can choose between leaving and staying for a short time (one month?). After that time, a war between the leaving empires and the Imperium starts unless the Imperium declines that war. If the Imperium wins or white peaces, the Imperium annexing every system they occupy at the end of the war. If the Imperium wins, every empire that tried to leave becomes a vassal of the Imperium. If the Imperium loses, the leaving empires merely retain their independence and annex claimed systems if they are occupied.

AIs should heavily lean towards staying in the empire but consider their ethics, opinion and balance of powers as well; i.e. if they're egalitarian, hate the Imperium or if an empire that rivals the Imperium in terms of overall power declares its intention to leave, they will seriously consider leaving as well. Also, the presidents of existing federations (federations will only get resolved after this grace period uf they join the empire) should have some sway over the other members of their federation.

Just a thought to add some more player agency and chaos... the additional mechanics of this might be too much to implement before release.

 

[Ulmaramlu]

Megacorps gaining access to 2 of the 4 civic lists is just...
Can finally be a subversive cult with a shadow council. Secrecy all the way down!

 

[Liggi]

I'm wondering what the "Pax Galactica" and "United Front" reforms do. The latter is available for both the Imperium and the Custodian.