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.

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.

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.

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'.

 

[kgptzac]

I honestly don't know why I even have to explain this but yes, there will be plenty of other content in the Story Pack besides Fallen Machine Empires. More info in future DDs.

Not trying to singling you out, but if you just add that one line regarding more content to the original post then you don't even need to wonder! I also wonder how many readers such as myself don't follow everything devs say on this forum and assume things are better left unsaid, than said.

 

[Princess Stabbity]

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.

Hnggg!

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.

HNGGG!

Yay! Thank you, I've always been annoyed with the Keepers and their agenda going completely counter to the ethos they were supposed to represent. I'm so happy about this change! <3

as well as the addition of Dynamic Tradition Swapping in 1.8 'Čapek'.

I assume it's the same thing we saw on stream? If so this is probably the thing I'm excited about the most! If the dynamic replacements can be modded in cleanly, without having to overwrite any vanilla files, this feature may be huuuuge!

 

[Wizzington]

Not trying to singling you out, but if you just add that one line regarding more content to the original post then you don't even need to wonder! I also wonder how many readers such as myself don't follow everything devs say on this forum and assume things are better left unsaid, than said.

Fair enough. I edited the OP with a line about future features.

 

[Brent15]

Sound like good additions/changes. Look forward to it.

 

[Playwars]

A nice thing to have would indeed be more background and interactions with FEs, after all, they're a big feature for the game, and yet are given little attention, which is sad, they have so much potential !

 

[baldrs]

What's still unclear, but I hope would be answered in future DDs:

1. Synth hive mind for players
2. New synth portrait for players
3. Selection of synth portrait at game start
4. Selection of syncretic species name and portrait at game start
5. Improvements in synthetic ascenscion regarding upgrading other races and synthetics that are somehow were left behind to be upgradeable in vanilla without mods
I had this situation when special project has been completed just month before synth colony ship has finished colonizing a planet, and as result I've got 2 synth pops, and xenophile
faction(in 1.6.2) still was unhappy despite giving all synths Full AI rights and the event regarding the AI uprising was still triggered so I had to give them rights again.

 

[Wizzington]

There will be a way to assimilate Pops into a ascended Synthetic Empire in 1.8.

 

[thisisbossi]

Yet another update I'm eagerly looking forward to! Though I wish there was more backstory interplay between the Fallen Empires... some of the anomalies hint at past empires which no longer exist, but it'd be great if some Fallen Empires might have more active relations between each other -- either positively or negatively -- with the rest of the galaxy listening in.

Positively- perhaps ancient federations and the like (though I think I heard some variant of Galactic Senates might delve into this in this or future updates). Negatively- in the current version sometimes they'll go to war with each other (even without War In Heaven), but there doesn't seem to be any Wow factor to it or necessarily a sense of Why, even though it'd seem that some potentially major galactic powers would be big news to the galaxy's denizens.

While some anomalies hint at empires in the deep past (Precursors), anomalies might uncover backstory dealing with what happened to the Fallen Empires, or what happened between FE's as well as Precursors... perhaps anomaly findings might even affect the FE's current relations with each other or toward the player, such as uncovering a lost ship/crew/artifact, or uncovering information dealing with a sensitive issue between the empires, and how the player chooses to handle those finds.

...Basically I think I want a Dwarf Fortress backstory, but in space. The sense that we're an emerging empire in a galaxy that isn't suddenly empty and seemingly unexplored, but really does have a rich history that is still very much active & alive.

[I say this all having not explored all Precursor events & refusing to spoil them by reading Wiki... so maybe all this is already in the game, as often seems to happen with the assorted ideas that pop into my head]

 

[NilusBavarius]

There will be a way to assimilate Pops into a ascended Synthetic Empire in 1.8.

Finally! Thank you very much!

 

[SaphireSeas]

- 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.

So the Keepers of Knowledge are much more like the Xenophiles, But What do they want? What will annoy them?

Keepers of Knowledge no longer hating synthetics isn't because we changed the lore to make them more benevolent, but rather because their personality simply clashed with their ethos (for example, in a War of Heaven between Materialist AE and Spiritualist AE, siding with *either* part would result in your robots being dismantled). That part of their personality was simply shifted to the Spiritualists instead, since Spiritualist ethos is explicitly anti-robot.

Good change. Does this mean that Holy Guardians will be annoyed by robotics and holy/tomb world colonisation?

 

[Insane Commander]

Will this mean with the new story pack the largest Galaxy could have 5 different fallen Empires?

Will the galaxy setup menu be tweaked to allow 5 max FEs if you have the story pack? Or will it be 4 and kinda luck based

I hope so.

 

[scaper12123]

It's looking like Capek is going to be robot-focused, if that wasn't already evident from the name. I hope the new robot portraits won't be locked behind the story DLC. I also hope we won't be seeing the Caretakers spawn with every game. That works for the Leviathans because there's lots of them so they can vary up which ones appear (although including more would create more variety in terms of what we see game to game), but it wouldn't work so well for the Caretakers because we'd expect to meet them at some point.

Also, I was kind of amused by the fact that the Isolationists would suddenly appear if you accidentally colonized next to their space. It created a surprise twist that you never would have expected. It's just I wish we could apologize for our mistake and cancel the colony rather than immediatley get ourselves and our allies pulled into war and subsequently have to cheese the fight by sending a corvette in and out of their space, only to discover they were dead-set on invading a certain planet and, because their transport ships always followed them, we could destroy their transports when the main fleet left a system in our space and destroy said transports and subsequently gain enough warscore to enforce demands upon them.

That was a very interesting game.

 

[SgtHydra]

- 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.

Why are you removing the only interesting thing about the Keepers of Knowledge? I completely understood why they wanted lesser races to ban AI, because they think nobody else but them could ever handle it. The Sentient AI tech itself is marked in red and risks a crisis, after all. Their hatred of that tech was important foreshadowing for the AI Conciousness, and gives a certain mystery surrounding the Keepers of Knowledge and whether they dealt with a rebellious AI like the Cybrex before. It gave the KoK a unique flavor.

But, to be fair to the change, there was the issue that the KoK would run into problems with their fellow materialists as you have stated - an ethos that they ought to be supporting among the younger races. Even so, now they have no reason to really ever get mad at anyone. Nothing to be against, unless you want spiritualists to be their enemies, and I'd really prefer if that wasn't the case because the last thing this game needs is more kneejerk 'I hate you just because of your ethos and no other reason, and nothing you do will change my opinion' diplomacy. Still, you're taking away something that characterized the KoK heavily.

So how bout it be relationship dependent?

If your relationship with the KoK is extremely high - you've been a good little lab assistant and have stayed away from dangerous tech all on your own and didn't need to be told 'no' - then they'll come to you and give you a choice of which dangerous technology you'll be allowed to research without incurring their wrath. I say 'pick one', because really the number of techs they dislike they should be expanded - Sentient AI, Jump Drive, Psi Drive, Psionics, the construction of Robotic Armies or Synth Armies (civilian droids = okay, military droids = too dangerous), the construction of xenomorph armies, and the Chemical Bliss policy (because they're Narcs that way). Some of their banned techs might not make them as mad at you as others, but sentient AI, Unbidden summoning Drives, and chemical bliss should be their big 'no-no' techs, the ones that cause the big drop in relationship. And insofar as the choices, you get to pick a lifting of the ban on AI and Robot Armies, lifting the ban on FTL that summons Unbidden, lifting the ban on Psionics, or lifting the ban on Xenomorphs. They'll never agree to chemical bliss being unbanned, because they consider such a repression of mental faculties to be worse than death. If you keep being a good boy, and they awaken and join their side, then they'll give you the choice to unban something else. But these unbannings will be for your empire and your empire alone, because it's a mixture of special treatment for the teacher's pet as well as a sort of recognition that your species is 'ready' for the technology.

Now if you're neutral, obviously all that is banned as per normal. But if they really hate you but not enough to declare war, then they'll start adding more to the 'banned list' randomly. Because it's not a matter of the tech itself at that point to them, they just want to bully you around. This will help create a downward spiral, creating emergent conflicts between them and other empires pre-awakening.

Overall, I think it made perfect sense for Keepers of Knowledge to not like a race that just learned how to fly a spaceship straight rushing towards an AI uprising. They should appreciate caution and be playing favorites to those that indulge their obsession with cataloging the universe's secrets. Perhaps they should not be 100% against sentient AI, but they certainly shouldn't be for it at the game's start. They shouldn't be for a lot of things, really, because their entire deal as a Fallen Empire is they get to play with the shiny toys and no one else is smart enough to play with them correctly.

Basically, this needs to be the KoK in a nutshell:

 

[Jorlem]

Why would they take them though? They don't need someone to lead their country' research (they have it themselves), they need those billions of scientists who are not represented as characters but do exist. I mean, you don't really think that you have only three people doing your research, right?

There is that event where a FE asks to take one of your scientists, so there is precedent. And while I would prefer my actual suggestion instead of the off-the-cuff response regarding them taking scientist leaders, either of them would be better, at least in my mind, than a generic numerical penalty. Simple numerical penalties are boring and samey, the penalty could be coming from an AE, from a trait of my ruler, from some event, or something else, and no matter what was applying it, it would act in exactly the same way. I want this sort of thing, signing my empire to be under a AE, to feel distinct, unique, but without something unfun like the hard removal of options like some AEs currently impose.

 

[SgtHydra]

There is that event where a FE asks to take one of your scientists, so there is precedent. And while I would prefer my actual suggestion instead of the off-the-cuff response regarding them taking scientist leaders, either of them would be better, at least in my mind, than a generic numerical penalty. Simple numerical penalties are boring and samey, the penalty could be coming from an AE, from a trait of my ruler, from some event, or something else, and no matter what was applying it, it would act in exactly the same way. I want this sort of thing, signing my empire to be under a AE, to feel distinct, unique, but without something unfun like the hard removal of options like some AEs currently impose.

It'd be nice if FE's asked you to be their gopher from time to time.

So for KoK, one of their requests might link in to the Species Collection Quest. After you've completed the collection quest, they might come to you wanting one of the animals from that list fresh from the wild, so you have to go to the planet it's on and bring it back to them. And the other FE's could easily have similar "send a science ship to this planet, because we can't be bothered to make the trip ourselves" type stuff.

While maybe KoK demanding the handover of scientists or stealing some of your research output could be dickish but not overly crippling requests, there really needs to be more requests that establish a positive rapport. FE's should be aloof, lazy, and patronizing at their best; but they also should have some likable qualities as well. One of the inspirations for the Fallen Empire concept, the Vorlons, had likable qualities and were indirectly helpful at times prior to Babylon 5's War in Heaven - and you could argue the same for the Shadows, who helped many races grow stronger and more ambitious. A 'go get me this' or 'go research this for me' randomly generated FE request system might convince you to maybe actually want to keep a FE around, while the current "Hey, can I have some of your pops? Oh, btw, ban slavery or else" type interactions just makes you hate them and want nothing to do with them. So you end up just treating all FE's like Militant Isolationists. They're totally devoid of reasons to even so much as speak to them, which makes them the ones coming to you when it should be a younger race looking up (in fear, envy, or awe) to the FE and courting their aloof haughty support.

Next to no interaction with a neighboring empire - fallen or normal - is the worst possible thing a game like Stellaris could have.

 

[PirateJack]

There will be a way to assimilate Pops into a ascended Synthetic Empire in 1.8.

Man, you're doing everything right so far with this update.

 

[Balesir]

Someone has been playing (or reading) the Paranoia roleplaying game. As a backer of the recent Kickstarter, I heartily approve. Carry on, comrades!

 

[youstas]

I hope we will see playable AI species.

 

[Yukka]

Don't click on the spoiler!

Spoiler

The Contingency is the famous menace and they are old enemies of Ancient Caretakers. When the Contingency appear Caretakers wake up and start eat the refugees in preparation for the combat.

 

[Serenity84]

I completely understood why they wanted lesser races to ban AI, because they think nobody else but them could ever handle it.

I assumed that they couldn't handle it before and that's why they are a fallen empire. Now they want to prevent younger races from falling into the same trap they did