Stellaris Dev Diary #297 - Leaders, The Council, and Agendas

[SteelCrow]

You didn't give any details on military leaders, so I expect they are the same, so that we end up with 8+ Admirals and 1 (if any) General. I think it would be smart to merge the jobs, making army specialists a veteran class.

But, you probably thought of that already, so whatever. Should be fun anyway.

 

[A2ch0n]

Yes. You can groom them properly before they ascend the throne.

I expect they will have a certain leader roll and you can bring them to the council this way if you want to?

And i would like to repost my question from before because that would be very interesting given we have now a tradition tree that include leader cost reduction and a system wich increase cost for too much active leaders:

Can you explain if there is any change to the Feudal Society Civic? One main feature for it is to remove the leader influence cost if employed. Is that still a thing or is that changed?

Can you maybe give an aswer to this?

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Lots of underrated changes here.

Leaders having homeworlds and ethos is an awesome addition.

Also glad that the council is a base game feature and the new traits are paid DLC. Sounds way healthier for future development than if the council itself were locked beyond a paywall.

 

[Tamwin5]

Yes, the slots themselves have inherent bonuses that are multiplied by the leader's skill level. Ruler slots have powerful ones, and are different depending on the authority type. Quoting the dev diary above:

View attachment 973249

"Including unique Ruler bonuses depending on what kind of authority you have. For example the stronger an Imperial Ruler becomes, the more Power Projection they generate."





Yes, multiple similar Scientist Councilor Traits will stack.
But the Minister of Defense cannot be a Scientist, so it cannot possibly have an expertise trait.
The other 5 positions? Go nuts.

So if you have two level 5 scientists, it makes no difference which one is ruler and which one is the head of research? Since the slot bonus just scales based on level?

I think it would be cool if the Destiny traits all (or some) had a unique ruler only bonus. Show how those who have claimed their destiny might shape an empire in their image.

Wait, can your ruler take a position out in the field now? Since leaders can be both on the council and in other positions. Can my God-Emperor command my navy?

 

[G S Palmer]

the new DLC will be save compatible? or need restart the game

Absolutely no shot. With all the changes to leaders, the removal of the ruler leader type, and the addition of the council, there's no way the game will be able to parse saves from prior versions.

 

[FleetMaster]

Dunno about you lot but I've already picked my council:

But seriously (!), do vassals get their own councils? Or the option to have one via vassal negotiations?

 

[Idle America]

My two usual requests:
1. Base template for Fallen Empires' slaves, so we can remove the nerve-stapling without the Genetic Ascension perk
2. Nuclear War should be an event chain, instead of the RNG just going "Oop, everyone's dead now" without warning. At least some warning of rising tensions. Really, almost anything would be better.

 

[Zetesofos]

So if you have two level 5 scientists, it makes no difference which one is ruler and which one is the head of research? Since the slot bonus just scales based on level?

I think it would be cool if the Destiny traits all (or some) had a unique ruler only bonus. Show how those who have claimed their destiny might shape an empire in their image.

Wait, can your ruler take a position out in the field now? Since leaders can be both on the council and in other positions. Can my God-Emperor command my navy?

It sounds like your leaders will accumulate traits for their class And ruler traits. The ruler traits only apply if THEY are the ruler, so you may want one or the other to be head vs research depending on what those traits are.

Seems like a good way to do it too.

 

[G S Palmer]

A fair compromise, but i argue that there should be a vanilla alternative for manipulating tech odds.

Why not check the traits of scientists assisting research? So for every Expertise: Voidcraft scientist assisting research, you get a small boost to roll Voidcraft techs (you don't get any bonus to Voidcraft research speed, though). Or even just check if any scientist has the trait (a surveyor might be working on a theory in their spare time). Of course, you'd get a higher chance from one assisting research than one surveying, and a higher chance feom the head of research than from someone assisting research.

 

[G S Palmer]

Wait, can your ruler take a position out in the field now? Since leaders can be both on the council and in other positions. Can my God-Emperor command my navy?

That would be pretty cool. Would also get rid of the weird jank where there are technically two versions if the Great Khan (the ruler, and the admiral commanding the Chosen of the Great Khan fleet).

 

[Tamwin5]

Ruler traits have mostly (if not all) been turned into Councilor traits, and can be acquired by all leaders with the right class. They have been re-balanced as such.
When playing with the DLC, picking a veteran class geared towards the Council (each class has one) increases your chances of acquiring these Councilor traits, on top of some exclusive ones that are unique to that veteran class.

It sounds like your leaders will accumulate traits for their class And ruler traits. The ruler traits only apply if THEY are the ruler, so you may want one or the other to be head vs research depending on what those traits are.

Seems like a good way to do it too.

Quoting a dev, most/all ruler traits have been turned into council traits for various types of leaders (with generic ones being available for anyone). There might be a few ruler only traits, but it sounds like if they do exist they will be few and far between.

 

[BrokenSky]

They keep their scientist traits. "Ruler" as a class, has been removed - a ruler now retains their original class (and all traits) upon ascension, and keeps the traits gained during ruling if and when they are no longer the ruler.

I have been waiting for this since 1.0

 

[Zetesofos]

So, one question at the devs (if you can). Is there any downside to firing a leader with negative traits? Feels like if they get one, its just better to get rid of them ASAP. Any downsides to that?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

This may seem like a small nitpick, but exploration (and the story elements that come with it) is a huge portion of the game:

If total scientists are heavily limited now, surveying is going to be significantly slower. But it's not going to be equally slower for everyone. How many scientists you can afford to have surveying is going to have a huge impact on whether a given empire gets any anomalies at all.

I already regularly find myself spamming tons of scientists to survey for those precious anomalies, because even with the number of empires turned down, the AI with its absurd unity and alloys bonuses will survey everything before you can get to it. Is this patch going to make it worse?

You explicitly call out that you can no longer hire a billion scientists to survey the entire galaxy in the dev diary. But... there was a reason that players did that. What have you added to fill that void, or eliminate it?

Since leaders are precious and science ships are cheap, is it going to optimal to micro a single survey scientist between multiple ships? Previously, it was much easier to just hire more scientists, but if the choice is between "do a bunch of annoying micro" and "get half the anomalies you otherwise would and have the AI beat you to every chokepoint", there's not much of a choice, is there?

Are you planning on revisiting the inability for the player to get anomalies on systems that other empires have already surveyed? Possibly with a new Explorer class trait? "If you have a neighbor, everything outside of 3 hyperlanes is a barren wasteland where nothing interesting ever happened in the entire history of the galaxy" is already a problem (especially with Common Ground or Hegemony), and this seems like it (will? might?) make it worse by removing the main tool that players had to mitigate it (hiring a ton of scientists).

I love anomalies. I love the stories (even if I've seen them a bunch of times, my empire/pops/leaders haven't). There's a ton of good writing there. Are we still going to be able to experience it, or are we going to be capped at ~20-30 anomalies for the entire game, like you are if you don't aggressively build science ships now (on high difficulties)?

Edit: to add on to this, a few features are mostly broken without enough anomalies. I often find myself stuck at 5/6 precursor artifacts because there just aren't enough "Signs of Precursor Activity" anomalies found (waiting 30+ years for the random events to fire which give a few more), this could cut that down to 3/6, or 2/6. Or stuck with basically no L-Gate insights.

 

[Zetesofos]

This may seem like a small nitpick, but exploration (and the story elements that come with it) is a huge portion of the game:

If total scientists are heavily limited now, surveying is going to be significantly slower. But it's not going to be equally slower. How many scientists you can afford to have surveying is going to have a huge impact on whether a given empire gets any anomalies at all.

I already regularly find myself spamming tons of scientists to survey for those precious anomalies, because even with the number of empires turned down, the AI with its absurd unity and alloys bonuses will survey everything before you can get to it. Is this patch going to make it worse? Are hive minds (with 3-4 fewer leaders) going to crush your surveying ability?

You explicitly call out that you can no longer hire a billion scientists to survey the entire galaxy in the dev diary. But... there was a reason that players did that. What have you added to fill that void, or eliminate it?

Since leaders are precious and science ships are cheap, is it going to optimal to micro a single survey scientist between multiple ships? Previously, it was much easier to just hire more scientists, but if the choice is between "do a bunch of annoying micro" and "get half the anomalies you otherwise would and have the AI beat you to every chokepoint", there's not much of a choice, is there?

Are you planning on revisiting the inability for the player to get anomalies on systems that other empires have already surveyed? Possibly with a new Explorer class trait? "If you have a neighbor, everything outside of 3 hyperlanes is a barren wasteland where nothing interesting ever happened in the entire history of the galaxy" is already a problem (especially with Common Ground or Hegemony), and this seems like it (will? might?) make it worse by removing the main tool that players had to mitigate it (hiring a ton of scientists).

I love anomalies. I love the stories (even if I've seen them a bunch of times, my empire/pops/leaders haven't). There's a ton of good writing there. Are we still going to be able to experience it, or are we going to be capped at ~20-40 anomalies for the entire game, like you are if you don't aggressively build science ships now (on high difficulties)?

I don't think this is actually as bad as some people think. Most people start the game with 4-6 scientists, with half being research heads. If you only need one lead researcher, that still leaves you 3-4 slots for researchers.

I'm curious how many people have more than 5 scientists early game out surveying and researching anomololies - as I get this sense this is part of some multiplayer meta that most players don't do.

 

[BramBora8]

[Includes suggestion]
Hello. 1st Thank you for the work you do. I genuinely believe 4/5 updates hit the mark, where, when I read the focus of it, it is like “that is a great idea, why have I not thought about it?” Implementation is solid , bugs of course happen, but relatively rare*. I would say it can be seen you care about the game.
I would also call out Custodian team being almost godsent.

this update does hit the “this is a great idea”. I will skip over what I like, since Its the most of it and go to what is bugging me. Which is “people who payed, get bonus every level”. I get that DLC must sell, this does leave a bad taste in my mouth however .
[Suggestion]
Lock the ability to get skill every level to the “transcendental learning”(I think that is the name) ascention perk, and put that as DLC locked. (Maybe a couple related civics too)
Is it almost the same thing? Yes. It just feels less scummy.

 

[zZander56]

I've got a couple of out there questions:

Can we plant/recruit leaders in other empires via espionage?

Can we apply leaders to Branch Offices?

Can we hire admirals from Mercenary enclaves?

Now some more realistic questions:

Will leaders in any way interact with federations or overlord/subject relationships? Same question for the galactic community.

Will leaders react to the actions of the player? (Think the opinion modifiers empires get based on the use of a colossus for example.)

What changes have been made to modifiers that raise leader level cap? (The Ruthless Competition civic, Talented trait, etc.)

 

[Spaceception]

Leaders are now vastly more powerful than before, so we decided to introduce a soft leader cap - just like with the naval cap, leaders will grow more expensive when empires are above the cap. It might take some time to get used to, but no longer are the time when in the early game it is viable to send out 20 science ships to explore the galaxy, but it also allows for players to take meaningful choices - creating an economy based on strong governors is a viable strategy, just as well as making strong navy based on many high level admirals.

Will the new Aptitude tradition tree boost this cap, or reduce the penalty? And wIll this cost be unity, and replace current leader upkeep?

How do faction leaders interact with the new system? Will council members who are also faction leaders boost their faction in some way?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I don't think this is actually as bad as some people think. Most people start the game with 4-6 scientists, with half being research heads. If you only need one lead researcher, that still leaves you 3-4 slots for researchers.

I'm curious how many people have more than 5 scientists early game out surveying and researching anomololies - as I get this sense this is part of some multiplayer meta that most players don't do.

I'm not even talking about multiplayer, just GA where you find your neighbor and they immediately send 6 science ships in your direction to scan everything before you can.

 

[Zetesofos]

I'm not even talking about multiplayer, just GA where you find your neighbor and they immediately send 6 science ships in your direction to scan everything before you can.

I would be curious if that is a common occurance - it doesn't mantch my playthroughs.

Often, racing to planets has more factors that just # of sciencists. And also, that should maybe be a trade off.

Its a soft cap, so you CAN go over your scienist limit if you need to rush frontier surveying for a few years.