Hello everyone!

Today we aim to shed some light on the upcoming changes for the 1.2 “Asimov” update.

Border Rework
Something we did not like with how Stellaris played out towards the mid-game previous to 1.2, was how that the player tended to get locked in and blocked from exploring or gaining access to the rest of the galaxy.

In the upcoming update we aim to correct that issue by reworking how border access works. By default, everyone will have open border access to other empires’ borders. An empire may close its border through a diplomatic action, and access is denied to your rivals by default.

We hope that this will make the game feel less constrained towards the mid-game.

Another valuable addition is that when you give your ships or fleet a Return order, but they cannot find a valid path home, you may set them as “Missing in Action”. While ships are missing in action, they will be invisible to you and reappear within your borders within a certain amount of time.

Expansion Cost
To reduce exploits of the open borders, we have chosen to introduce an Influence cost to colonizing planets or building Frontier Outposts. This cost will be based on the range to your closest owned system.

Embassies & Trust
A significant change in 1.2 is the removal of embassies and the passive opinion increase they provided. In the “Asimov” update, players will have to gain trust by cooperating with the AI. Trust is gained over time by having some sort of treaty with the AI.

Diplomatic Changes
A number of diplomatic statuses that were previously available through trade have now been changed into being Diplomatic Actions available through the diplomacy screen. We felt that some of these actions did not really feel in place, and that they were too hidden, in the trade interface.

We have changed how cooperating with the AI happens. It is no longer as easy to enter into an Alliance with the AI, and you have to start off by gaining their Trust through research agreements, guarantee independence, non-aggression pacts and defensive pacts.

Defensive Pacts are a new diplomatic action that allows two empires to be called into wars if any of them should get attacked.

Joint War Declarations
Another new diplomatic feature is the possibility to invite other empires to your wars. The AI will not join your wars if their Attitude towards you is not at least neutral and they have something they also want from the target.

All things combined we hope that these changes will make the mid-game feel less static and will open up more possibilities for interesting situations to occur.

Join us again next week for more details about the upcoming 1.2 "Asimov" update!

 

[VoodooEconomist]

Since the new Influence costs for expansion, is there any chance that new ways of gaining Influence are implemented? Preferably connected to the ethos/government form, since different values mean different forms of political capital (and this gives the opportunity to reinforce different styles of play)?

 

[Wizzington]

No details of how any of this works, and everything in this DD we already knew.

No mention of combat rebalancing - is this even a thing?

No mention of changes to how influence is gained since it seems to be used for many, many more things.

This was supposed to be the "Big Reveal" DD about Asimov, and it revealed nothing.

0/10. Two thumbs down.

There will be another DD about Asimov next week. This one ended up a bit rushed because we have to prioritize actually getting the patch done.

 

[Wizzington]

You still cannot append your own war goals to your alliance/federation war goals.... alliances are therefore still useless. You will continue to get spammed by war declaration that bring you nothing.

You still cannot kick factions out of your Alliance or get yourself kicked out.

You still cannot declare war against unaligned factions without involving your own alliance.

Federation rotating presidency (which basically removes you from the foreign policy aspect for length of time) is still in.

Sector AI is still bugged beyond belief.


... meh! I do not think Asimov will fix things much.

1) AI has been changed to be more fair when setting up wargoals, and less prone to accept unfair wars.

2) You can vote to kick members of alliances in Asimov.

3) No, and this is WAD, but you have diplomatic options without being in an alliance now.

4) Federations vote on wars and joining now.

 

[Wizzington]

Sadly, that you make further illogical limitations on creating of alliances, now it's nearly impossible to make them on difficulties higher than normal.

Difficulty penalty to alliances is gone, instead it'll be heavily dependant on your war philsophy policy setting (which determines if you're the conquering type or not).

 

[Duuk]

No details of how any of this works, and everything in this DD we already knew.

No mention of combat rebalancing - is this even a thing?

No mention of changes to how influence is gained since it seems to be used for many, many more things.

This was supposed to be the "Big Reveal" DD about Asimov, and it revealed nothing.

0/10. Two thumbs down.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Border access should be a multi-level system:

• open, go anywhere
• open, but stay out of our home world system
• open, but stay out of any system where we have a colony or outpost
• closed

 

[kazper]

Looks nice. I'm a little concerned what the removal of embassies will do to FE relations - while the embassies were too strong and kind of cheesy in placating an FE, some kind of placating seems necessary. Otherwise you can get awfully close to war with them just from negative ethics traits relative to theirs and then a slight bit of border friction.

I'm also a fan of the influence cost for remote colonies, but perhaps puzzled by the base 30 cost, which seems *high* for what I assume would be a colony inside your existing borders?

 

[VoodooEconomist]

I can't possibly be the only one that feels majorly let down by this DD.

Asimov was supposed to add so much content and so many reworks. Instead we get more required things to spend the least available resource on, and no attention to the actual issues that exist in the game.

What makes you think this is all that Asimov has to offer? Usually Paradox paces their Dev Diaris and shows content gradually. Your reaction seems like this was supposed to be all there is to Asimov, when we in fact know that's not the case - a rough outline for Asimov was given before and this DD states this is just a piece of the patch that is presented.

I may not be content with only this information (which is why I asked some questions) but it doeasn't mean one has to get upset. Getting upset over devs not telling us all when the patch is so far away and still being developed and balanced seems... unreasonable.

 

[Gaussia]

Will there be any influence cost for expanding within your borders?

 

[poot]

I hope that scroll bar is gone in the final.

Speaking of scrolling things... war goals. Oh dear space-lord above. Trying to scroll through available war goals against an alliance or federation is just a nightmare. I'm really hoping Asimov comes with a heaping pile of relevant UI improvements. If you could somehow use a combination of the galaxy/system maps and the Declare War panel to assign goals... mmmph. That'd be so nice. Right now I can barely find a single planet I want ceded or liberated, and then once I manually drag it over, the darn list resets itself.

 

[orochi2k]

"We are surrounded by enemy fleets! We are doomed!"
"Fear not! Let's go missing in action"

 

[Duuk]

I can't possibly be the only one that feels majorly let down by this DD.

Asimov was supposed to add so much content and so many reworks. Instead we get more required things to spend the least available resource on, and no attention to the actual issues that exist in the game.

 

[Tim_Ward]

Not everyone watches the stream or has time to scour through twitter and reddit.

 

[Cannes]

Question is why are they keeping in the "rival" mechanic when removing the "embassy" mechanic? Seems a bit lopsided to me. Rivaling should also be a more or less automatic result of the interactions and relations, no?

 

[Dunaedine]

Question is why are they keeping in the "rival" mechanic when removing the "embassy" mechanic? Seems a bit lopsided to me. Rivaling should also be a more or less automatic result of the interactions and relations, no?

Rivalry is more a mechanism of internal politic with effect on external politic than a real relation construction. You use propaganda based on hate of others to gain influence on your people. It's a classic in politic. The actual mechanism seems to correctly simulate this.

 

[Wizzington]

Will all Stellaris DD-s be on Tuesday from now on?

No, this one was delayed due to illness.

 

[Numahr]

When you are rival or when you have closed the border to an empire, I think borders should not be physically closed. It is space, after all. The analogy in our world is Renaissance oceans, Spain could not *physically* close the Caribbean Sea to English and Dutch navies in spite of rivalry. In a SF context, there is a long history of ships sneaking in forbidden space and avoiding being detected.

So you should be able to actually trespass these borders, only the trespassed empire would then be authorized to destroy your ships without prior notice and without declaration of war.

Or something equivalent.

But please consider giving the possibility of trespassing "closed" borders, it is so much a SF trope.

Of course this should be then further expanded with more actions in a "pirates & smugglers" Han Solo Patch/DLC.

 

[thegiffman]

I like the idea of joint war declarations, but actually what makes a lot more sense to me is being able to have a "war of pity" war declaration mechanic, and a "beg for help" diplomatic mechanic to go with it. Basically, I see some bully in an aggressive war against a weaker neighbor. He begs me for help, and promises various things in exchange for me coming to the rescue. Then I come and save the day, changing the tide of the war. The weaker state might even agree to vassalage in exchange for rescue against a foe bent on their annihilation. This seems like something that could be fairly common, and it could really make things diplomatically interesting. Saving someone in their hour of need ought to earn gratitude and loyalty for decades, if not centuries.

 

[Stadhouder]

I kinda liked to 'trade' my non-aggression and guarantee of independence for a monthly sum of energy and minerals. A little extortion now and then is a good thing!