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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary will be about changes and new additions for Fallen Empires in the 1.8 'Čapek' update and its accompanying (unannounced) Story Pack, about which we cannot currently provide any information except what's in this dev diary (there will be info about other features in the pack coming in later dev diaries). We also cannot currently provide say anything about the release date for the update other than to say that it's not coming out anytime soon. After what happened with 1.6, we want to take our time with this one and make sure we get it to you in a good shape.

Ancient Caretakers (Story Pack)
Those with the Story Pack will be able to encounter a brand new Fallen Empire - the Ancient Caretakers. The Ancient Caretakers is a fallen synthetic civilization that appears to be the remnant of some great conflict in the distant past. From what they tell you, they appear to have been part of something called the 'Custodian Project', an initiative to construct and maintain a number of ringworlds as a refuge for biological sapients fleeing some unknown menace. Their erratic behavior and speech, however, suggests that something may be very wrong indeed with this Fallen Machine Empire.
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The Ancient Caretakers have a new attitude called 'Enigmatic' and an obscured opinion score to represent their bizarre and unpredictable nature. They may help you with gifts of ships of technology, request your assistance with tasks that may make little apparent sense, or even make demands of your empire that you would be unwise to ignore. They do not awaken like a regular Fallen Empire, but instead have a particular 'triggering event' that, if it happens during the course of the game, will automatically awaken them... though they will not always awaken in the same way. All in all, they behave quite differently from the other Fallen and Awakened Empires, and have their own backstory to explore, as well as unique interactions when dealing with other synthetic civilizations.
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Fallen Empire Tweaks & Changes (Čapek Update)
In addition to the Ancient Caretakers, there are also some changes coming to the current batch of Fallen Empires. First of all, because the Ancient Caretakers also make use of ringworlds, we decided that you'd end up with just a few too many ringworlds to conquer and restore kicking around. Thus, for those with the Story Pack, we made a new initializer for the Keepers of Knowledge with a more traditional Fallen Empire setup of Gaia Worlds and outlying colonies, including some unique features and buildings to suit their archivarian ways. The old initializer with its three ringworlds still exists, however, and will spawn for those that do not have the Story Pack, so those without do not have their Fallen Empire ringworlds taken away.
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Other than that, the following changes were done to the existing Fallen Empires:
- Keepers of Knowledge were changed to have their behavior (Hatred of AI) no longer directly conflict with their ethos (Materialist). Both their Fallen and Awakened variants no longer hold a grudge against AI, but instead have doubled down on their obsession with collecting and hoarding knowledge. Satellites of Awakened Keepers of Knowledge are no longer required to ban AI, but will have to contribute a major share of their research to their overlord.
- Holy Guardians were changed to be a bit more interactive, and are now able to offer tasks and give gifts to the younger races, though they will mostly only deign to do so to fellow Spiritualists. They have also taken over some of the Keepers of Knowledge's hatred of AI, and you can expect their Awakened variant to offer no quarter to synthetic civilizations.
- Militant Isolationists and Enigmatic Observers have mostly been left unchanged, asides from some updates to their initializers and ship designs, such as removing the Synths previously used by the Militant Isolationists and giving them to the Keepers of Knowledge instead. They will now also start with more trait points for their species than the other Fallen Empires, to represent their focus on the biological.

Finally, a change was done to the way you establish contact with Fallen Empires. Previously, unless you had done something to anger them (for example colonize a Holy World) FEs would open communications only when you directly entered their space. This has been changed so that Fallen Empires will now instead contact you when your ships enter any system adjacent to their space. This should make it harder to accidentally colonize next to Militant Isolationists and also make it so that your exploring science ship isn't immediately hurled back to your capital just because it happened to take a wrong turn after Omicron Persei.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be discussing some changes coming to Hive Minds and Devouring Swarms, as well as the addition of Dynamic Tradition Swapping in 1.8 'Čapek'.
 
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That's all for today! Next week we'll be discussing some changes coming to Hive Minds and Devouring Swarms, as well as the addition of Dynamic Tradition Swapping in 1.8 'Čapek'.

Does this mean that the Swedish summer sleep phase is delayed a bit, or you'll just lovingly crack on with Stellaris despite your respective vacations?
 
Does this mean that the Swedish summer sleep phase is delayed a bit, or you'll just lovingly crack on with Stellaris despite your respective vacations?

Most of us will be on vacation, but there will still be dev diaries posted throughout July.
 
The change on the keepers of knowledge was most welcome :)

Hmmm...so...what about the different robotic portraits?

Will these cool plantoid like synthetics be available to other empires?
 
Before Awakening, what will Keepers of Knowledge actually do? Like, what will anger them or please them? Researching too much?


Also, I assume you can't tell us anything about the new robotic portrait?
 
I think its interesting how the robots/droids/synths all produce 22 minerals, despite having 10/15/20% production bonuses currently. They also all have happiness. I guess these portraits are just color variations of a synth portrait in the new version, and that we will get new portraits for robots and droids.
 
I detect some Matrix inspirations here.
 
I like the concept. Some longer story events that develop with more depth than just a linear "do this - then that - now get reward"
and even span over ingame decades would really add something to each playthrough!

Still I'm very curious about what core mechanic(s) you are overhauling in 1.8. Can't wait to hear a little teasing about it.
Pretty sure the community would give back something in return in the form of more convergent discussions.
 
Fallen Empire Tweaks & Changes (Čapek Update)
In addition to the Ancient Caretakers, there are also some changes coming to the current batch of Fallen Empires. First of all, because the Ancient Caretakers also make use of ringworlds, we decided that you'd end up with just a few too many ringworlds to conquer and restore kicking around. Thus, for those with the Story Pack, we made a new initializer for the Keepers of Knowledge with a more traditional Fallen Empire setup of Gaia Worlds and outlying colonies, including some unique features and buildings to suit their archivarian ways. The old initializer with its three ringworlds still exists, however, and will spawn for those that do not have the Story Pack, so those without do not have their Fallen Empire ringworlds taken away.
Wiz, could the Keepers of Knowledge also retain their Ringworlds if the Ancient Caretakers don't spawn in that game? We all love Ringworlds after all.
 
Will these cool plantoid like synthetics be available to other empires?
That's a squid, not a plant. See the tentacles?

But the fact that its phenotype is listed as "machine" suggests a synthetic portrait pack is coming with the update. Probably this fallen empire won't be restricted to that specific portrait, but it's the only portrait that Paradox has chosen to reveal at this stage.
 
I hope those Fallen Empire changes include not declaring war against a Pacifist Player Faction with a 650 fleetpower, with their 140k fleetpower after 30 minutes of game.
 
I think its interesting how the robots/droids/synths all produce 22 minerals, despite having 10/15/20% production bonuses currently. They also all have happiness. I guess these portraits are just color variations of a synth portrait in the new version, and that we will get new portraits for robots and droids.

For the post-organic pops I would rather saw multiple synth variations instead, ranging from stereothypical post-human android to constructs looking like cybernetic trees.
 
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Interesting to note that this update seems to make synths much more benevolent (the ones you create at least) they no longer start trying to kill everything of their own accord and there is no fallen empire hatred of them (suggesting they weren't too bad in the past either), kind of odd given that the capek novel which popularised "robots" primarily concerns them rising up and that this update is called capek.
 
As much as I'd like to enthuse about the idea of new content, I sincerely hope that there is significantly more content for Player-Ran Synthetic Empires, as it's honestly quite lacking and boring to play.
 
Before Awakening, what will Keepers of Knowledge actually do? Like, what will anger them or please them? Researching too much?


Also, I assume you can't tell us anything about the new robotic portrait?

Similar to the Enigmatic Observers, they don't really have a 'berserk button' anymore, and will mostly only be angered if you refuse or flub their requests.