Stellaris Dev Diary #247 - New Ways to Rule

[SeraphAscending]

One question about Secret Fealty (and the AI using it):

Will AIs take how well an overlord treats their subjects into account when it comes to "choosing" a new one?
if there are two in proximity with similar ethics, but one has very high subject loyalty and the other doesn't, will they pick the first one over the other? Or is that only a minor consideration compared to factors like borders/distance/ethics?

I am mainly asking, because i think intel on loyalties and stuff might not be known by the (potential) subjects. They may gamble anyway - thinking "it can barely be worse than this monstrous slave driver!".
Was just curious on how well the ai takes treatment of other subjects into account when submitting to vassalization or swearing secret fealty.

 

[Peepijeep]

Can subjects start communication with their xenophobe purist overlords?

 

[aono]

...and now you did it again. I wouldn't be able to play the game before Overlord is released and I'm able to make my subjects vote my way in GC.

 

[Millbot]

Other things that come to mind.

-Hoping we get some holdings or base contract stuff (the free patch content) that let's us make vassals less of a drag on federation cohesion. It's awesome that some builds are going to no have access to tools to drag their subjects ethics into alignment of their own and more easily keep them there. Only issue, is that only works for setups where both vassal and overlord are normal or megacorps. Once you get a setup where one is a gestalt and the other isn't, you're federation is taking a cohesion hit. Pretty sure it's the same deal if it's a machine and hivemind setup as well. Less sure if hive + hive and machine + machine avoid the maluses. Plus, you still have issues if you have an independent federation member with different ethics. Granted more concerned about gestalts here.

-Also IIRC the last war I attempt against a total war empire, which was a driven assimilator. I couldn't declare a subjugation war on them despite them turning down my demand to be my vassal. Will there be a pass on war goals to make sure things are consistent? If I an make someone my vassal, I should be able to go war to make it happen. On a QoL note, could we say get a new war goal called government overthrow that is only usable against fanatical purifier empires that are of a different species. I think current setup is that you have to conquer them out right and spin them off into a vassal, but it's kind of a pain because of how current sectors work. So would be nice to have an option to get around that quickly.

 

[Echo Candor One]

Embassies were actually on my wishlist as a "Diplomatic Holding" so it'd be easier to see them but were cut for scope reasons. (Overlord's pretty big!)

Might return one day in the future.

Honestly, if they were even just listed under Holdings on foreign capitals for now, it'd be a great placeholder.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

I'd rename the existing tree to "Order", and then have the new vassal tree be Domination.

I'd make it so that the force Vassalisation war goal is unlocked by (new) Domination as the opener. You can still diplomatically vandalize (possibly after an ideology war), or conquer then release, so the vassal playstyle is still available without the tree, but it's a lot easier with it. Similar to how federations are locked behind diplomacy.

Thoughts on some of your perks (those not mentioned I think are good):

• +5 monthly loyalty I think is way too weak, and +5 monthly loyalty would be OP. +2 monthly unity is probably around the right spot imo.
• I'm not sure spending influence to gain control of a vassal's navy would work well, and potentially opens up exploits, especially with disloyal vassals. The "take point" feature should allow most of what you would do with this, so I don't think it's a good option.
• I'm not sure if free unity on leaders works. For Feudal society they also have the restriction of not being able to fire leaders, and you really shouldn't add a restriction like that on a traditional. I'd change this to -75% leader unity upkeep, and maybe an xp bonus to governors, your ruler, or all leaders if that's not strong enough.
• I feel like 10% of your subject's unity could be OP, and overall is very variable in how strong it is. This would probably need some testing to make sure it's in a good spot. Also while I like the concept behind the name, I don't think it quite works.
• I'm not sure if this should be Holding capacity, or potential Holding capacity.

Ideas for other perks:

• Reduced loyalty cost per tick for things in negotiations (resource sliders or holdings make the most sense. Note this is maximum Holdings in the negotiations, not the cost associated with the Holdings once placed)
• Reduced influence cost to propose or deny changes to contract
• Increased diplomatic weight per subject (either something like 5% bonus per subject, or 10% of the subject's diplo weight)
• You always count as having 10 favors with subjects.
• +20 base intel on subjects (weak bonus, so probably has to get combined with something else)
• +2 codebreaking and +2 encryption against your subjects.
• +20 subjugation acceptance (to both surrendering in war and accepting a diplomatic subjugation)

These are mostly good changes (love the proposed name change), with a few caveats:

• While I agree that a simple +5 loyalty isn't very compelling (numbers subject to change!), I don't like moving the Force Vassalization wargoal to require a tradition.
  • If it's the main draw of that tradition, then that tradition is useless for anybody who isn't vassalizing at gunpoint. Pacifist vassalization is possible - just be powerful enough - not to mention enlightened primitives, scared rebels of native empires, spun-off sectors, and so on. Having the main draw of a tradition be useless to many players when other things in the tree are still desirable is one of the major problems Domination used to have, and a few other traditions still do.
  • I don't like taking the option away from players. Yes, it was originally behind a tradition, but they they stopped that and I think that's for the best. With Federations, you'll note that they didn't actually take away any federation options. The base one - and only one available without paid DLC - is exactly as available as before. The other ones are more available than before, e.g. now everybody can make a Trade League just by going Merchantile, rather than needing to be a megacorp or have merchant guilds.
  • I was trying to avoid putting any essential / existing functionality in this tree at all, in case the devs decide to make it paid content.
• Note that I said a loyal vassal's military. If their loyalty falls below some threshold - probably about half of the max - control of the forces reverts to them.
  • Additionally, there'd probably be a monthly penalty to loyalty for using this option - possibly waived if you're both at war with the same enemy - so the lifetime of your control over the levied forces would typically be pretty limited.
  • There might be limits on how much of your forces they could take, or perhaps you'd get the existing ones but not any new ones built unless you paid again.
  • The goal was to try and bring back vassals providing you a portion of their naval cap, but in a way that is less exploitable than it used to be. I admit this is a complicated, somewhat messy solution.
  • "Take point" doesn't really do the job; even if they follow, I have to get a fleet over there first, and ensure it doesn't die in the fighting, and I can't control if the AI retreats or not, and I can't order stuff like bombardment stance or jump drive use or so on. Also, the systems would end up occupied / stolen by my vassal, not by me.
• Not being able to fire leaders doesn't seem like an essential aspect of Feudal past the early game. The only reasons to fire leaders are because you're cycling through looking for the one you want (very expensive in Unity now, and also less important with the automatic cycling shortened from 10 years to 1), or because there's somebody you don't want to keep employed (e.g. a Corrupt governor or Lethargic admiral... and can gestalt govs even get Corrupt?). For everybody else... it's often still worth parking a Stubborn or even Arrested Development scientist on an Assist Research mission somewhere. If you decide you don't want to, though, you can just leave them unemployed (but not outright removed) and pay their upkeep.
• Numbers subject to change, but... there are a decent number of ways to get +10% Unity. Most of them stack additively, so the benefit falls off percentage-wise, but no subject of yours should be generating nearly as much Unity as you are anyhow so 10% of that smaller amount wouldn't be that much anyhow. Still. Subject to change!
  • Also yeah, not super happy with the name... it would work way better for something relating to integration but with integration being both non-available by default and also a playstyle that this expansion explicitly moves away from, it feels very odd to propose having a tradition about it. Still, I feel that the general source of that name (if not necessarily the specific song, much less the specific lines "took away our native tongue" / "and taught their English to our young") is a good source of ideas.

Love the ideas you offered, though. Some are maybe too powerful, like the favors - I know they cost influence to use, but I'm not sure this expansion will change the status quo on "influence is basically free after early game"), and having them "restock" for free is valuable too - but you could do something like "+20 acceptance to anything you propose" instead, for a middle ground. I don't think encryption specifically against vassals makes sense outside of a gameplay perspective, but knowing what they're up to (assuming vassalization doesn't inherently give you tons of intel) and having an easier time running operations is good.

 

[styroler]

As for ideology, overlord ideology should impact the weight to ethics attraction. Secret fealty should do the same, but probably in a way that hides it unless the overlord has proper intel levels to realize that their vassal is becoming more authoritarian, once they realize it has sworn secret fealty someone. In short keep it hidden because in some games, knowing X is becoming more authoritarian from a secret fealty, could easily out the empire involved if they are the only one with an ethic. Also if a vassal become disloyal, that really should factor into making their overlords ethics less attractive. I wouldn't give the overlord full control because that would weaken some of the value behind holdings, since they wouldn't be needed as an option for influencing ethics attraction.

I have to disagree with the logic here. Nations can already change ideology completely on there own without prompting so I doubt that a player would be able to piece together that their vassal is becoming that ideology because they have secretly pleged fielty. Even if it was though, theres a huge difference between having a suspicion that your vassal and being able to prove it, and I would actually like the idea of some subtle hints making you paranoid. Overall I think that the idea that a nation could migrate to another sphere of influence based on ideological changes is actually an interesting concept and has parallels to real life, but equally true is that some times those real life parallels were just coincidences that causes an overlord to react way out of hand (think how the US responded to Iran when Mohammad Mosaddegh became prime minister).

On a related note, I also think that overlords should have some mechanic to just replace the government of a nation. It would specifically work well as an operation or war goal which can only be conducted against your own puppets. Too many real life major powers have just replaced their puppets leaders out of hand for countries to just accept their own puppets slowly drifting away from their ideology. Overlords deserve a way to fight back, but with some potentially negative consequences (such as total loss of loyalty since the country is pretty much starting the government back up from scratch). Also when it comes to the values holdings, changing an empires ethics does not guarantee the population keeps those ethics so you will actually still need to shift public opinion if you want your new regime to stay in place (plus the consequences from changing the government on its own should be high enough to make the player think twice before going through with it). I think though this approach ultimately achieves the goals of making more fun and giving the player more to do while not making any one approach pointless.

 

[Millbot]

Given how the devs are moving away from a setup that gives us all the information. I wouldn't be surprised if secret fealty ends up being one of those things where you're less likely to get the whole picture. You might find out that a vassal did make a secret pledge, but you now have to do more to figure out who they picked. So if a secret fealty does influence ethics drift, you do want to pick a number where it's significant, but not so significant that someone can figure it out easily.

For example, if I'm running a gospel of the masses megacorp and I have a vassal that swears secret fealty to the galaxies sole materialistic empire that they don't have a migration treaty with. You want to make sure that if that does cause an ethics drift, it's not so significant that I can pull up the pop tab on my vassal's worlds and work out that they either have the secret pledge without doing an espionage operation to discover it or RNG event that is lucking into the discovery, nor allow me to skip the espionage or getting lucky with RNG events to then identify that empire because I can work it out by looking at the population tab. Granted this is the most extreme example because I can put a branch building on my subjects worlds to push spiritualist ethics attraction and not allowing the subject to import materialistic pops. That said, there is a level or two, where one is going to raise an eyebrow when they notice an usual number of pops with a certain ethic.

I'd also hope that as they try to make espionage more relevant that we do get a means to see which factions our vassals and possibly other empires are suppressing or promoting. Currently, I believe we only know when they embrace a faction, which is a little too late if you want to put your finger on the scale for someone's ethics and those would be things you could pick up on with basic intel stuff.

As for direct overlord control over ethics. I do believe we can declare war on subjects. So liberation war goal is already there for some overlords that decide they don't like their vassals current government. Perhaps that's a war goal that is opened to any overlord that decides to war on their subject or maybe we need a new one for that scenario. Regardless, direct control of a subjects ethics should come with an opportunity cost and be something that the overlord can't often do. If I as an overlord can constantly and/or cheaply make my vassal into what I want it, it kind defeats the purpose of it existing as a different entity because I am essentially running key parts of it. Sure I as the overlord should have some influence over my subjects ethics and maybe a CD or two to really shake things up, for a significant cost, if I don't like how their government is, but for the most part I should have to play with the expectation that I don't have full control over every aspect of my vassals' internal politics.

Edit: Worth keeping in mind that MP is a thing and while I roll my eyes at many different developers refusing to allows differences between PvE and PvP because it might confuse the player, by being two different games. I agree with the idea that there really shouldn't be a disparity in how we treat AI controlled vassals in comparison to player controlled vassals. A setup where a player overlord can dictate down to the letter how player vassals can play isn't going to be fun and misses a key element of this this expansion.

 

[Verx90]

These are mostly good changes (love the proposed name change), with a few caveats:

• While I agree that a simple +5 loyalty isn't very compelling (numbers subject to change!), I don't like moving the Force Vassalization wargoal to require a tradition.
  • If it's the main draw of that tradition, then that tradition is useless for anybody who isn't vassalizing at gunpoint. Pacifist vassalization is possible - just be powerful enough - not to mention enlightened primitives, scared rebels of native empires, spun-off sectors, and so on. Having the main draw of a tradition be useless to many players when other things in the tree are still desirable is one of the major problems Domination used to have, and a few other traditions still do.
  • I don't like taking the option away from players. Yes, it was originally behind a tradition, but they they stopped that and I think that's for the best. With Federations, you'll note that they didn't actually take away any federation options. The base one - and only one available without paid DLC - is exactly as available as before. The other ones are more available than before, e.g. now everybody can make a Trade League just by going Merchantile, rather than needing to be a megacorp or have merchant guilds.
  • I was trying to avoid putting any essential / existing functionality in this tree at all, in case the devs decide to make it paid content.
• Note that I said a loyalvassal's military. If their loyalty falls below some threshold - probably about half of the max - control of the forces reverts to them.
  • Additionally, there'd probably be a monthly penalty to loyalty for using this option - possibly waived if you're both at war with the same enemy - so the lifetime of your control over the levied forces would typically be pretty limited.
  • There might be limits on how much of your forces they could take, or perhaps you'd get the existing ones but not any new ones built unless you paid again.
  • The goal was to try and bring back vassals providing you a portion of their naval cap, but in a way that is less exploitable than it used to be. I admit this is a complicated, somewhat messy solution.
  • "Take point" doesn't really do the job; even if they follow, I have to get a fleet over there first, and ensure it doesn't die in the fighting, and I can't control if the AI retreats or not, and I can't order stuff like bombardment stance or jump drive use or so on. Also, the systems would end up occupied / stolen by my vassal, not by me.
• Not being able to fire leaders doesn't seem like an essential aspect of Feudal past the early game. The only reasons to fire leaders are because you're cycling through looking for the one you want (very expensive in Unity now, and also less important with the automatic cycling shortened from 10 years to 1), or because there's somebody you don't want to keep employed (e.g. a Corrupt governor or Lethargic admiral... and can gestalt govs even get Corrupt?). For everybody else... it's often still worth parking a Stubborn or even Arrested Development scientist on an Assist Research mission somewhere. If you decide you don't want to, though, you can just leave them unemployed (but not outright removed) and pay their upkeep.
• Numbers subject to change, but... there are a decent number of ways to get +10% Unity. Most of them stack additively, so the benefit falls off percentage-wise, but no subject of yours should be generating nearly as much Unity as you are anyhow so 10% of that smaller amount wouldn't be that much anyhow. Still. Subject to change!
  • Also yeah, not super happy with the name... it would work way better for something relating to integration but with integration being both non-available by default and also a playstyle that this expansion explicitly moves away from, it feels very odd to propose having a tradition about it. Still, I feel that the general source of that name (if not necessarily the specific song, much less the specific lines "took away our native tongue" / "and taught their English to our young") is a good source of ideas.

Love the ideas you offered, though. Some are maybe too powerful, like the favors - I know they cost influence to use, but I'm not sure this expansion will change the status quo on "influence is basically free after early game"), and having them "restock" for free is valuable too - but you could do something like "+20 acceptance to anything you propose" instead, for a middle ground. I don't think encryption specifically against vassals makes sense outside of a gameplay perspective, but knowing what they're up to (assuming vassalization doesn't inherently give you tons of intel) and having an easier time running operations is good.

i just want to say that you should remember that they want to make playing vassal as an enjoiable experience . removing the idea that vassalization is a "lost game" .

the more you add to overlords and force vassals to do something (even if they need to actualy pass the contract) , the less playing vassals is enjoiable.

 

[kwheeler]

There should be a checkbox near the map modes to enable sector view.

This. A thousand times, this.

 

[kwheeler]

The problem with the current sector system is that it is greedy in assigning ownership. All systems within the 4 hyperlane radius are added to the earliest created sector. For example, the Lane system in the screenshot below was added to my capital sector. This blocks the southern sector from accessing the two planets on the lower right as sectors can't extend THROUGH another sector even if it would be in range:
View attachment 822578

To fix this I would have to unclaim the Tirramore system completely (including giving up the investment i've made in the starbase). If I could simply move the Lane system into the Cyban sector, this would resolve the issue completely. We used to be able to do this type of management.

I've never been able to get my map view to show lines between sectors since version 1.9. Doesn't seem to matter what colors I use for my flag or what view options I toggle off or on. What am I missing out on? What does every other player do to get the sector boundaries to show up?

 

[kwheeler]

Devs: It would be really, REALLY cool if these negotiation mechanics included the ability for us to choose the names and flags for our Vassal Empires!

I second that. Let's go the heraldry route so I can color-code or color-coordinate with my vassals.

 

[lasator]

I've never been able to get my map view to show lines between sectors since version 1.9. Doesn't seem to matter what colors I use for my flag or what view options I toggle off or on. What am I missing out on? What does every other player do to get the sector boundaries to show up?

What does your map look like when you toggle the highlighted button on?

 

[kwheeler]

What does your map look like when you toggle the highlighted button on?
View attachment 823817

Thanks. I have that toggle, when I click it on or off, nothing happens. I may have to file some sort of bug report (or else maybe I have a mod causing UI problems).

 

[lasator]

Thanks. I have that toggle, when I click it on or off, nothing happens. I may have to file some sort of bug report (or else maybe I have a mod causing UI problems).

I'm betting it's a mod issue. I only run tiny outliner as far as UI changes go.

 

[Echo Candor One]

Hello everyone!

In the Overlord Announcement last week we mentioned that vassalization mechanics will be undergoing some significant changes in the 3.4 “Cepheus” update. (Click here to wishlist!)

Previously in Stellaris, subjugation was rarely a more compelling option than simple conquest, and being subjugated often essentially meant a permanent decline of your empire and a “Game Over” screen in your near future. Subjects did not offer sufficient benefits nor had the freedoms necessary to be enjoyable to play.

The Scion origin from Federations was somewhat of an exception with most of the restrictions on both subjects and overlord being waived for them, but we felt that while the system was good, it could be even better. It would also be nice for the Scion to work within the rules rather than being so “special-cased”.

Some people noted that as part of the unity changes in Libra, a bit more of an argument for spinning off sectors into vassals could be made, but with the current numbers it’s generally more valuable to control those systems directly.

For today’s dev diary, I’ll start by delving deeper into the new rights and responsibilities that can appear in agreements, and some ways this makes keeping subjects more valuable.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.

Negotiating Terms​

Both the overlord and subject will be able to propose alterations of the exact terms of their vassalization contract if it’s a contract with another “regular empire”. The Khan, Awakened Empires, and the like do not haggle about the terms of their minions, but are much clearer about those exact terms.

Subject contracts start with a “preset”. These are the basic subjugation types that you know from before, plus a few new ones - Vassal, Subsidiary, Tributary, Protectorate, Bulwark, and so on. Presets have a list of default terms, and can have additional unique effects tied to them, like how Protectorates gain a massive bonus to research until they catch up to their overlord.

The default terms of contract presets may have changed a bit from the old system to better fit the new. We’ve done our best to ensure that anything you can do right now with your vassals remains possible. The core Negotiation system is part of the free Cepheus update, though many of the brand new terms are part of the Overlord expansion.

Negotiable terms include things such as:

• Can the subject be integrated?
  • As a major change from current gameplay, there are no vassalization contract presets that have integration enabled by default. It must be explicitly turned on in contract negotiations.
• Does the subject have independent diplomacy?
  • Subjects can be given complete diplomatic freedom, none, or they can have most freedoms except are forced to vote with their overlord in the Galactic Community or Federations.
• Can the subject expand freely?
  • Once exclusively the province of Feudal Society, now you can grant your subject the ability to freely expand. You can also bar them from expansion, or impose an Influence tithe, making them spend extra Influence (which goes to the Overlord) for the right to expand into empty systems.
  • Most presets will start with controlled expansion with the influence tithe as the default term.
• Various subsidies from the overlord or tribute from the subject.
  • These are broken into Basic, Advanced, or Strategic resource groups, and Research.
  • The values are percentages of the production of the subject - in the proposal below, our vassal is offering 15% of their basic resource production as tribute, but is receiving a research subsidy equal to 15% of the subject’s research from the overlord.
• Are the overlord and subject drawn into one another’s wars, and if so, which ones?
  • None, Offensive, Defensive, or Both can be selected in both directions.
  • Yes, this means that wars can be declared on subjects.
• Can the overlord build holdings on the subject’s worlds, and if so, how many?
  • The Vassal preset has a holding limit of 1, allowing you to use some holdings without Overlord. (Though you can lower it to 0 if you need to squeeze out an extra bit of loyalty.)
  • This value is an empire-wide limit - with a holding limit of 3, you can build 3 holdings across a particular subject’s worlds, not on each of their planets.
• Does the overlord share sensor information with their subject?

View attachment 821353​

Some subject types have fixed, minimum, or maximum terms - Tributaries, Subsidiaries, and Prospectoria, for example, must always provide their overlord at least 30% of their basic resources (energy, minerals, and food) in tribute.

View attachment 821354
Tributaries have many locked terms.​

Others can be restricted by civics or for other reasons - for example, overlords with the Feudal Society civic cannot select the Expansion Prohibited term, must join in their subject wars to some degree, and must allow their subjects some degree of diplomatic freedom.

View attachment 821355​

Different terms affect a subject’s Loyalty, and have an immediate impact as well as over time. For example, the Independent Diplomacy term grants 5 Loyalty and another +0.5 Loyalty per month. This may prove important later.

If you’re asking your subject to do something they are ideologically opposed to, those terms may cost extra loyalty, though the reverse is also true in a few cases.

View attachment 821356
The pacifists don’t like being forced into offensive wars.​

Empires can propose a change in terms with a five year cooldown at a cost of some Influence. Exact costs are still being adjusted.

View attachment 821357
We are feeling beneficent today, and want you to catch up to us faster, Protectorate.​

How can you influence them into accepting your generous offer? Giving them a good deal is certainly helpful, and just like before, empire relations and relative power go a long way as well.

The terms themselves are heavily moddable, I look forward to seeing what some of you come up with.

The Benefits of Loyalty​

Loyalty is the “currency” used between overlord and subject, and while the Specialist empires make more use of it than regular vassals, it’s still beneficial to keep your minions loyal since it gives you more options. Loyalty is largely determined by the contract between overlord and subject, but ethical compatibility will come into play as well.

Loyal vassals will agree to more onerous terms during negotiations, and will generally support their overlord. You can also “spend” their loyalty as part of trade agreements, strong-arming them into granting you better than normal trades.

You can request a public Pledge of Loyalty to you from a loyal vassal, making them even more loyal over time.

View attachment 821358​

Pledge Loyalty has greater effects if the subject actually likes you for some reason.

Disloyal vassals will look for ways to be free of your tyranny, seizing the chance for rebellion should you falter.

They may also swear Secret Fealty to one of your rivals in hopes that they’ll be able to follow them in an Allegiance War.

View attachment 821359​

In an Allegiance War, you seek to wrest control of the vassals that have pledged Secret Fealty to you, and they will join in on the attack on their former Overlord.

Gotta Subjugate Them All​

Like herding cats, having many vassals is hard work. Constantly vying for your attention, keeping multiple subjects happy can be difficult as jealousy ruins everything. “Divided Patronage” is a modifier that reduces the loyalty of all of your vassals, and increases based on the number of vassals you have.

You can mitigate this by offering them better terms, or by taking a vassalization related civic or the Shared Destiny ascension perk.

View attachment 821800

View attachment 821361​

Overlord Holdings​

In Cepheus, we’re expanding the branch office system from MegaCorp to be more flexible.
The corporate tab on planets is being replaced with a more versatile “Holdings” tab. For now, we have corporate and overlord holdings available here, but we have more future plans for this screen.

Much like branch office buildings, holdings are built on another empire’s colonies and can provide benefits to both empires. Much like criminal syndicate branch office buildings, some holdings might be far more beneficial to one side than the other. Each particular holding is planet-unique,

Corporate overlords can build both holdings and branch offices on their subjects’ colonies.

View attachment 821362​

The Ministry of Truth provides two Overlord Propagandist jobs to the planet, which turn the subject’s Unity into Influence for their overlord…

View attachment 821363​

…While holdings like the Material Ministry are disliked by subjects as the overlord claims a portion of the planet’s production for themselves…

View attachment 821364​

…Still others, like the Aid Agency, are welcomed on the planet.

View attachment 821365​

Hive overlords can build the most universally disliked holding (tied with one other), which takes a portion of the subject’s planet and dedicates it to a spawning complex.

We’re also adding some holdings associated with civics or origins.

View attachment 821366​

The Noble Chateaus of the Aristocratic Elite allow them to send troublemakers off to bother someone else’s planet instead of their own, much to the dismay of their hosts…

View attachment 821367​

…Shared Burdens empires can spread their message through Communal Housing projects. How this is received depends largely on the ethics of the subject…

View attachment 821368​

…And Gaia Seeders, who are gaining more terraforming flexibility in Cepheus as described in Dev Diary #243, can also beautify the worlds of their subjects. The subjects tend to like that - unless they’re Hydrocentric, of course.

Since there are over twenty different holdings, I’ll share some more in next week’s dev diary (including a machine specific one), and some more on social media as the Overlord reveals continue (though I’ll repost those in that week’s dev diaries as well).

It’s a very versatile system that we look forward to exploring more in the future.

The Future is Ours​

That’s long enough for today. Next week we’ll talk about the advanced form of vassalization coming in Overlord called Specialist Empires.

Also, starting with this dev diary, we’re creating video versions on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel for those of you that prefer listening to them. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and let us know what you think!

Stellaris Overlord - Video Dev Diary - #247 New Ways to Rule

Welcome to the first of our Video Dev Diary! This week Stephen Muray will walk us through some of the new cool vassalization mechanics, coming in Overlord. I...

pdxint.at

Click here to wishlist Overlord!

I need to schedule my sick time. When is this coming out?

 

[Saladin87]

This is getting out of hand mates! Just wow! I hope, wish and pray the devs keep up the fantastic work and bring many more additions as amazing as these.

I really wish EU4 team took notes from the Stellaris team.

 

[Tamwin5]

These are mostly good changes (love the proposed name change), with a few caveats:

• While I agree that a simple +5 loyalty isn't very compelling (numbers subject to change!), I don't like moving the Force Vassalization wargoal to require a tradition.
  • If it's the main draw of that tradition, then that tradition is useless for anybody who isn't vassalizing at gunpoint. Pacifist vassalization is possible - just be powerful enough - not to mention enlightened primitives, scared rebels of native empires, spun-off sectors, and so on. Having the main draw of a tradition be useless to many players when other things in the tree are still desirable is one of the major problems Domination used to have, and a few other traditions still do.
  • I don't like taking the option away from players. Yes, it was originally behind a tradition, but they they stopped that and I think that's for the best. With Federations, you'll note that they didn't actually take away any federation options. The base one - and only one available without paid DLC - is exactly as available as before. The other ones are more available than before, e.g. now everybody can make a Trade League just by going Merchantile, rather than needing to be a megacorp or have merchant guilds.
  • I was trying to avoid putting any essential / existing functionality in this tree at all, in case the devs decide to make it paid content.
• Note that I said a loyalvassal's military. If their loyalty falls below some threshold - probably about half of the max - control of the forces reverts to them.
  • Additionally, there'd probably be a monthly penalty to loyalty for using this option - possibly waived if you're both at war with the same enemy - so the lifetime of your control over the levied forces would typically be pretty limited.
  • There might be limits on how much of your forces they could take, or perhaps you'd get the existing ones but not any new ones built unless you paid again.
  • The goal was to try and bring back vassals providing you a portion of their naval cap, but in a way that is less exploitable than it used to be. I admit this is a complicated, somewhat messy solution.
  • "Take point" doesn't really do the job; even if they follow, I have to get a fleet over there first, and ensure it doesn't die in the fighting, and I can't control if the AI retreats or not, and I can't order stuff like bombardment stance or jump drive use or so on. Also, the systems would end up occupied / stolen by my vassal, not by me.
• Not being able to fire leaders doesn't seem like an essential aspect of Feudal past the early game. The only reasons to fire leaders are because you're cycling through looking for the one you want (very expensive in Unity now, and also less important with the automatic cycling shortened from 10 years to 1), or because there's somebody you don't want to keep employed (e.g. a Corrupt governor or Lethargic admiral... and can gestalt govs even get Corrupt?). For everybody else... it's often still worth parking a Stubborn or even Arrested Development scientist on an Assist Research mission somewhere. If you decide you don't want to, though, you can just leave them unemployed (but not outright removed) and pay their upkeep.
• Numbers subject to change, but... there are a decent number of ways to get +10% Unity. Most of them stack additively, so the benefit falls off percentage-wise, but no subject of yours should be generating nearly as much Unity as you are anyhow so 10% of that smaller amount wouldn't be that much anyhow. Still. Subject to change!
  • Also yeah, not super happy with the name... it would work way better for something relating to integration but with integration being both non-available by default and also a playstyle that this expansion explicitly moves away from, it feels very odd to propose having a tradition about it. Still, I feel that the general source of that name (if not necessarily the specific song, much less the specific lines "took away our native tongue" / "and taught their English to our young") is a good source of ideas.

Love the ideas you offered, though. Some are maybe too powerful, like the favors - I know they cost influence to use, but I'm not sure this expansion will change the status quo on "influence is basically free after early game"), and having them "restock" for free is valuable too - but you could do something like "+20 acceptance to anything you propose" instead, for a middle ground. I don't think encryption specifically against vassals makes sense outside of a gameplay perspective, but knowing what they're up to (assuming vassalization doesn't inherently give you tons of intel) and having an easier time running operations is good.

The main draw of the tradition is bonuses for having vassals, as well as some stuff to make getting vassals easier. So I disagree firmly that having the main draw of the tree be the vassalization war goal would make it useless to a peaceful vassalizer. Specially since at least one of the perks should be making it easier to diplomatically vassalize people, either through just a simple bonus to their acceptance or something more fancy.

The other main concern I was trying to address is how people always complain that traditions are just some +10% this, -20% that, never anything that actually alters gameplay. While I’m not the biggest fan of restricting options, this did seem the best way to go about it, as the other option would be restricting a mechanic associated with the upcoming expansion or DLC. All of those feel FAR more essential to the vassal experience then the vassalize war goal. Paradox has also done this already when they moved trade policy to mercantile, so there is precedent.

The reason old Domination was bad and was changed was because it used to be every empire used every tradition tree. This meant that an empire who didn't go for the vassal strategy (most of them) had to take an entire tree worth of dead perks. Having a single perk within a tree isn't the best of course, but it's fine. Prosperity is one of the strongest trees in the game, and one of its perks is "+1 clerk per city district". The best way to solve a perk being a dead pick is to put two modifiers on it, so that at least one applies. For example, you could have "Unlocks Vassalize War goal. +20 to diplomatic Vassalisation acceptance". Then no matter which path you are going for your vassals, the perk would be useful.

You are probably right about the 10% unity being fine. I had in my head an image of someone going full vassal swarm, with their vassals added together 2-5 times the size of the overlord empire. That's a very unlikely scenario, and someone able to take that many vassals could probably have just conquered them instead, or just be integrating them. One thing I will note is that the AI will be retaining a portion of their bonuses even while a player vassal, so this would need to be tested on high difficulties to make sure that it's still balanced there.

For choosing between free favors and +10 acceptance, the free favors is much more interesting and engaging as an option. If it was too strong the number could be adjusted down to only 5 free favors, but I really don't think it would be. iirc, you can spend loyalty on trade deals, so even if for some reason you don't have any rare resources to buy the favors off of them you could still get them easily. And you only get the favors at the point where they are already your vassal, it's not like there are many other deals you'd need to pressure them into at that point.

I'm admittedly a little biased in this, but the main reason I threw in an espionage related perk is that I think espionage needs some serious buffs. Having some dedicated operations between overlord and subject would help with that, and add some more dynamics to the potential for secret fealty and other cloak and dagger stuff. Thinking about it some more though, it might be better to have the defenses be more specific: something like "+4 hostile operation difficulty for sabotage vassal loyalty"(or whatever the operation is called) a la unyielding.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

Paradox has also done this already when they moved trade policy to mercantile, so there is precedent.

I agree with most of what you say (especially the "have multiple effects, ensuring at least one is always relevant" approach to designing traditions; I wish they did that all over), but I just want to ask: do you feel that the quoted change was a good or popular one?

Like, nerfing food policies was kind of necessary because it was too much of a gimme, but even then, they could have just made it a less-trivial tradeoff rather than locking it behind a tech (seriously, who ever heard of a starfaring civilization that hadn't figured out the concept of "if you end hunger, people are happier and more of their kids reach adulthood"?). With trade policies, there was an argument to be made for each option. They made the move when Unity became more valuable than ever, but during the time when it was 0.25/TV that was still arguably the best policy in the early game (crank out those first few high-impact traditions FAST). They could have (and did) reduce that efficiency - to even lower than the 0.15/TV that it used to be - when they made Unity a more important resource. Meanwhile they made several empire builds less viable, because you have to go Mercantile to get the ability to get Consumer Benefits, which allows you to reorganize your economy significantly (with pops producing alloys, and running Military focus policy, or pops producing science, and going low industry in general).

 

[smeznaric]

I'd like to suggest that federations could leverage some of the similar mechanics. It'd make a huge amount of sense to have federation members pay some kind of a federal tax to pay for the federal navy and other services. The ability to enable full integration would also be cool. I think the federation and vassalisation mechanics could be very similar except that in a federation anybody can have a go at being the president. I think it'd also make sense to introduce a special imperial navy for the vassalage contracts.