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Stellaris Dev Diary #83: Čapek Feature Roundup (part 1)

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is a round-up of some minor changes and reworks coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update. Though most of what's in these round-ups will already have been discussed on stream or twitter, we still want to make sure that people whose primary source of Stellaris information is dev diaries are aware of what's changing. Everything mentioned in this dev diary is part of the free update.

Democratic Election Changes
We've taken some time to make a variety of changes and fixes to democratic elections in 1.8. Rather than being a confusing mess of candidates from the entire leader pool, elections in 1.8 will be centered around factions and faction leaders. Instead of a candidate's vote share being based on their mandate, candidates from faction now get election support directly based on the strength of their faction, so a candidate from a powerful faction has a much better chance of securing an electoratal victory than one from a fringe party. Election candidates will be generated from all faction leaders, with independent candidates added into the mix if there are less than 4 factions that are able to provide candidates. We've also made some changes to the way faction support is calculated when there are species that lack Full Citizenship (and thus the ability to vote and be leaders): Though free Pops without Full Citizenship can still join factions, their support count for only 1/5th the amount that a Full Citizenship pop does when calculating the overall political strength (and thus also vote share) of a faction. We had hoped to also spend some time adding more Mandates for 1.8, but unfortunately didn't end up being able to fit it into our scheudle. However, it's something we're going to revisit as soon as we can spare the time for it.
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Leader Max Level
Another change to leaders in general in 1.8 is the rework of the Leader Skills modifier. Where previously Leader Skills modifiers (such as the Talented trait) would increase the base skills of leaders, this has now been reworked into a Leader Max Level modifier that increases the potential skill level cap of your leader. The default skill level cap is still 5, but this can now be increased all the way up to 10 with the right combination of traits, civics, traditions and policies. This will allow empires that focus on raising leader level cap to have extremely powerful leaders, and since all leaders now start at level 1, will also make the Leader Experience Gain modifier far more valuable, especially in synergy with level cap increases.

Core Sector Governors
We've made some changes to governors in 1.8. First of all, the core sector has been changed so that only a single Governor is needed to govern it, rather than one Governor per planet. Also, the effect of Governor skill level has been changed to provide a direct bonus to all resource production in their sector, meaning that highly skilled Governors are now a valuable asset that will significantly strengthen the economy of their sector.
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Vassal Creation
Lastly for today, we've reworked the Create Vassal button. Where previously it was hidden away in the Demographics screen and would only let you release entire species whose homeworld you had conquered, the Create Vassal button is now prominently displayed in the planet interface and will allow you to release any (non-capital) planet you own as a vassal, under the governance of any species of your choice that is present on that planet at the time of release. Released vassals will get your empire ethics and authority, but will pick their own civics. In combination with other changes and additions in 1.8 (such as reworking the Domination tree to be all about having subjects rather than annexing them, and the new Feudal Realm civic that lets you control far more vassals without having them rebel), this should make a subject-oriented playstyle far more viable.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue the feature roundup by talking about new and changed policies in 1.8.
 
1 governor per core sector is very appreciated :)

Leader level changes also sound more interesting and varied then it is currently - better have them living a long time!
 
Those are nice changes. Did you fix the bug with curator scientist being the only one option in elections?

Yes, that bug and its variants are fixed.
 
Cool! Always felt like the elections were strange! Really nice that you make leaders more interesting.

I missed the announcement of the release date (must also be on twitter):p
 
I can't remember if this has been covered, but when AE wake up, do your vassals still get to become their vassals? This is what ruined my last vassal-based run. I had a nice empire with all sorts of vassals, most of which were enlightened from primitives, but as soon as the War in Heaven broke out, half joined one side, half joined the other, I was left with none.
 
We had hoped to also spend some time adding more Mandates for 1.8, but unfortunately didn't end up being able to fit it into our scheudle. However, it's something we're going to revisit as soon as we can spare the time for it.
:(

Has anything been done about the Arrested Development trait? -100% XP will be horrible now for someone with a max level of 10.
 
This all sounds great. This change to Leader experience gain/cap was unexpected and seems exciting. I guess I would prefer an ability to change a vassal government's Ethos and Authority (and thus "specializing" them, such as a Militarist culture intentionally creating Pacifist vassals to increase dependency on military protection, or a Democratic overlord creating Dictatorships for improved control of the populace, like in certain historical real world examples), but that would just be icing on the cake.

Though I have a question on elections: I seem to recall that the bonus from Supporting a candidate with Influence would persist throughout several elections, making it possible to end up with a candidate "hogging" an almost pre-determined election for as long as they lived. Has this been changed?

Can't wait to hear more about those new Policies too! :3
 
This sounds great, but too bad that you could not find the time to add more mandates, as the current ones become almost impossible to realiste in the late game. Build X Mining / Research stations... tough!
 
Will independent elected candidates be able to join factions if they win? Because at the moment independents are just wildcards.
Also will the civic meritocracy change?
Thanks.
 
Thanks for the changes! I don't suppose it's easier to see how old a candidate is from the elections screen now? Having to check the pool to see if it's worth spending the influence or not is a little lengthy especially in MP games.

I am looking forward to working with more dynamic leaders - have the anomalies needing level 3-5 scientists also been scaled up to the 10s or are 5-10 viewed as bonus experience?
 
With 1.8 I only need one Governor for all of my core worlds, no matter if I have 3 or 15 core planets?
That is exactly what Wiz said, at least that is how I interpreted it which I think is the correct interpretation, otherwise I should revise my English language skills.
So yes, one governor for 1 -> infinite core worlds
 
I can't remember if this has been covered, but when AE wake up, do your vassals still get to become their vassals? This is what ruined my last vassal-based run. I had a nice empire with all sorts of vassals, most of which were enlightened from primitives, but as soon as the War in Heaven broke out, half joined one side, half joined the other, I was left with none.

This bug should be fixed in 1.8.
 
So only to be sure I understand it correctly.
With 1.8 I only need one Governor for all of my core worlds, no matter if I have 3 or 15 core planets?

Correct.
 
I am thrilled about the addition of a slider for pre ftl civilization shown in the games con q and a.

If you change civics or remove traits via genetic engineering and leaders are above the new cap of skill level what will happen?