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!

 

[Drage]

Happy to see imporant improvements being done but I still believe that making border access a policy as a general rule with possibility to be changed for particular empires via diplomacy would be more viable and elegant.
I very much like the addition of cost to colonization, have you considered adding a relation change derived from it? I. e. colonizing close to a xenophobic empire would apply relations penalty and the contrary for xenophiles, possibly with the effect NOT ticking away at all for the fanatic variants of these. This could also be perceived in variant ways depending not only on ethics but also government type and the 'role' the AI empires have, like imperialists, purifiers, etc.

Still, I love how the game develops, keep up the good work!

EDIT: Added a fanatic instance to colonization part and typos.

 

[ross-g]

Hi @Wiz ... has "Non-aggression pact" been made into an action rather than a tradable item in Asimov? How will this affect it being a prerequisite for some things?

Currently it's possible to get into a situation where you need something that requires a non-aggression agreement (ie if I need military/sensor access) but are unable to trade it away to another empire because it's already in place with them.
(example: I liberate some planets in a war and end up with guarantee independence and non-aggression pacts with them. When they are attacked I cannot defend them, because they will not grant me access and I no longer have the option to trade non-aggression to get it... because the agreement is already in place, I cannot re-offer it !)

I understand border access issues in general are taken care of with Asimov, but non-aggression is a prerequisite for a few things. How is this affected by it being a status rather than a trade deal?

 

[Tim_Ward]

I don't see how it would affect it at all, things can still require a non-aggression pact whether it's a trade deal or diplo-status. They might choose to rebalance that stuff, though

 

[Duuk]

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.

Thanks for the reply. Could you at least give us a teaser, even if it's not details:

How much of the patch will be balance/rebalance?

How much, if any, new content will be added? I know the 3rd patch might be the target for a lot of content infusion, but it would be nice to know if anything is coming.

Will the diplomacy overhaul replace the current system or just enhance? ie: Can we still bribe people to be our friends?

 

[Memoryjar]

(Me)------ (Gaïa World) ------ (Fallen Empire)
So... you said, no more embassies.

Ok, let's go chat to enforce our relationship :
«Hey, big dad civilization, want to trade ?
- Sure, son
- What about a tech agreement.
- Sure, son : - 1000
- Star map ?
- Sure : - 1000
- Minerals for energy : - 1000 ?
- You're growing son.


Later :
«Heu... Sorry dad, but, you know my borders are growing in your direction, because I colonized a planet some years before we met. So, you're not angry for that, are you ?
- Sure son, give 6 of your planets and there'll be no point.


Actually, I hope they think about FE in this new diplomatic system.

 

[Kayden_II]

I guess, There is an other Possibility to improve the Relation/Trust with an other Empire by Gifts (Energy-Credits, Minerals ...) ?

Nevertheless, I find this Dev-Diary reasonable.

 

[CplKatie]

One of the things that I think need to be changed that was showcased during the stream, is that Private colony ships should create vassal empires not divergent planets automatically included into the empire. If you want to gamble with cheaper easier colony ships then you will have to deal with a vassal system and diplomatic annexation as the cost offset.

 

[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.

 

[pablocampy]

Thanks for the update guys, good to know what we can look forward to in Asimov.

One thing I've been wondering about is how much intel are we going to be able to gather with the access to neighbours space. Are we going to be able to waltz in with a science vessel to a neighbours core worlds to take a look at their ship's builds?

 

[Battlenelf]

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.

Just two words - Influence Game.
Who needs minerals, or credits? All we need is influence! Devs, seriously, what are you doing? Just look, how many people in steam play with no outpost maintenance mod!
Also, i has many situations, while the planet i can colonize is far away. Now I must wait 30 years to get enough influence for it?

 

[Serenity84]

instead it'll be heavily dependant on your war philsophy policy setting (which determines if you're the conquering type or not).

What exactly is included in that anyways? That's something that isn't explained in the game. Is it orbital bombardment and first contact policy? Is native interference included?

 

[N Katsyev]

Just two words - Influence Game.
Who needs minerals, or credits? All we need is influence! Devs, seriously, what are you doing? Just look, how many people in steam play with no outpost maintenance mod!
Also, i has many situations, while the planet i can colonize is far away. Now I must wait 30 years to get enough influence for it?

Prioritize.

 

[SpakAttack]

The whole declaring war goals thing should be a map overlay like sector management where you click systems to select for cede or release, or empires for vassalization, that then populates the existing UI table.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

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.

Unless there's more ways to get influence, I'm not a fan of this at all.

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.

I'd prefer "hidden in trade" to cluttering the diplomacy screen, and as others pointed out this looks like it's going to remove the option to go full mafia and have them pay your protection money for non-aggression.

THIS for everyone complaining about it being stuff that was announced already, it had been announced yes but spread over multiple twitter accounts and a 2 hour stream.

I don't watch the streams or follow developers' twitters and I still already knew all of this.

 

[The_Fylkir]

Echoing an above post - what exactly IS War Philosophy? I've not heard any concrete, certain info on what it actually means. I can't seem to effect it no matter the variations of policies I try with war economy and bombardment and the like. I do vaguely remember it changing in my second ever game, but I might be misremembering. So what is it, what effects it? If we're having stuff tie into it more weshould at least know what War Philosphy represents

 

[ashbery76]

I am not totally sure about this default open border policy particularly if military ships are allowed.I think ethos should matter.

 

[Mezmorki]

FWIW - there isn't much of anything here that wasn't hinted at previously in the road map - and information on the nuts and bolts of these changes is not in the Dev Diary. For me - these changes really are going to come down to the details of how they are implemented. I can see them causing new frustrations for some people, and maybe not quite solving the right problem in other instances.

1) Border Access by default

I hope this is an improvement. It could also be opening the door for more forward settling opportunities, and if you want to avoid it, require closing borders for each and every empire you come across. How does your border state affect colonization within your territory?

Also - I think something like this would've been better handled based on the ethics and starting policy conditions. Different ethical starting positions could have had different "default policies" regarding bordering control. If I'm playing a xenophobic race - I don't want anyone in my territory, ever. Now I will (I'm assuming) have to close borders with each and every race I encounter. Will this add a diplomatic micro-management headache? I don't know. Maybe it would've been better if all their borders are closed by default. Xenophilic races are maybe the opposite, etc.

I'll remain cautiously optimistic on this one - but I'm worried not knowing the details of what's being proposed and how it will work out.


2) Influence cost on Colonization

This is reasonable - although influence is so tight in the early game we'll have to see how it plays out. I think the pacing and flow of influence needs to be looked at - with more ways of making strategic investments that provide influence generation in the early game. As is, influence restrictions often makes the game pacing, especially early game, less dynamic - and I don't see how this change would make it more dynamic. It's likely to have the opposite effect and slow the early game down more.

3) Removal of Embassies

I thought the implementation on Embassies was sort of half-baked - but I would've rather see something more interesting done with Embassies (require influence consts to set them up, but have more freedom with them, add the ability to reject or remove embassies but risk war, etc.).

Basically, it sounds like they removed embassies, and attached the equivalent amount of relationship benefit to other treaties/trade actions. But if you don't have a good enough relationship to initiate other treaties, then you have little recourse for improving your relationships. If you do, then good relationships just get better, faster?

With embassies - I actually liked the choice and strategy it provided. Often times I found myself wrestling with whether to maintain an embassy with a close ally to ensure that we stayed on good terms and had an easier time trading, versus using embassies to try and improve relationships for a new potential ally or to even smooth over relationships with a potential threat.

Embassies were/are one of the few strategic diplomatic tools - and those being removed and replaced with shifting modifiers around doesn't leave me terribly excited.

4) Moving diplomatic states to the deceleration panel rather than the trade panel

Yes, a reasonable quality of life improvement. I don't know why they didn't just say replace the "-1000" text with an "IMPOSSIBLE" tag or something more descriptive in the first place though.

5) Making it harder to ally and federation

Really? Seriously?

The problem is not that it was too easy to form an alliance/federation (I'd argue it is too hard on higher difficulties actually). Rather, the problem was that once alliances / federations formed they were too stable. This stability is what led to the mid-game being uninteresting. There were no shifting sides or changing alliances once the lines were drawn in the sand. Making it harder to form alliances just drags out the early game more (as with slowing down colonization) - but once the lines are drawn it might not be any more or less interesting as it is right now. Potentially this changes nothing other than make the progression even slower.

Worried about this one TBH.

6) Joint War Deceleration

Yeah, this is good. The game really needs some temporary / war-limited alliances to make combat, and especially long protracted wars, more interesting and dynamic.

 

[ABuster]

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

the last one should be: open, but with great impact of relations.... how should a fleet get stopped ANYWAY in OPEN SPACE???

 

[Wrymn]

How about end game stutter issues? I had to stop playing because it was unbearable even on high-end PC. Was this fixed, or is it included in this patch?

Thanks!

 

[Mezmorki]

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).

Thank god. This was one of my biggest gripes with the game. I'm glad the dev's recognize that the arbitrary penalty was railroad'ing your playstyle on higher difficulty levels. Much rejoicing.