Stellaris Dev Diary #237 - Reworking Unity, Part One

[Shaeliss]

The kind of Pacifism that I practice in Stellaris is something I refer to as "Big Stick Pacifism".

Others might refer to it as "Culture-style Pacifism (post-Idiran War)".

Then again, unless you end up in a 100% Pacifistic Galaxy, it's the only viable Pacifism style in Stellaris.

 

[Edorath]

Kind of sad to see culture workers go, will we get anything representing our pops taking more artistic/cultural pursuits? It was nice to have as roleplay.

 

[Reedstilt]

WOn't this get in the way of Militarist and expansionists, that enjoys war?

Why wouldn't Militarists and Expansionists enjoy unity as well? As militarists, your culture is united by its martial traditions. It builds memorials to its great battles and heroic warriors. Its bureaucrats ensure the smooth operation of the empire's vast military apparatus. There's nothing inherently peaceful about Unity.

Hum. So Spiritualists don't have anymore The citadel of Faith ? Or they keep it but with no workers ? Or we now have temples, citadel of faith (like before) and memorials (with no workers) ?

I'm guessing they'll get Monuments, but the temples will replace the Administration centers, with Priests replacing Bureaucrats.

 

[Pancakelord]

Interesting stuff @Eladrin

I like the idea of monument output scaling with chosen APs and being planet unique.
Could we get some more flavour for the imperial cult Civic?
Maybe once per leader (i.e. once per dead ruler or heir) you can "commemorate" them, via planet decision, in an existing memorial (changing its name 'Heritage site to [Random Dead ruler /heir name]') whilst giving some specific bonuses to that planet either

• random, or
• lets you pick one - if the rulers are living gods, you could have a monument commemorating them as a god of farming, causing the monument to increase food output on that planet] -

magnitude could even scale with ruler rank-on-death. {so you can have many short lived rulers with small monuments, or fewer, long lived ones with bigass bonuses}

Seeing they can't be dismissed reminded me of a modding test I did a while back - I was able to apply the Envoy-style "lock-in" to other leaders [but couldn't disable de-assigning them with RMB in some UI screens]. do you think this could be worked in as a mechanic as a part of situations?

• Like if a planet has low stability or a sector is angling for independence, you cannot fire your governor (and it might escalate the situation) -
• Or admirals opposing you firebombing worlds [maybe if they had a "vicious/average/cautious" kind of personality etc] - you cheese them off and cant dismiss them or modify the fleet composition for a while. Giving some reason to not always use the most devastating bombardment setting at your disposal for every fleet.

Re Power projection, just so i understand, maximising fleet power whilst minimizing empire size, will increase/maximise power projection? (i.e. small country big fleet)

I really like this, but are there any thoughts on improving the leader pool system? e.g. building a military academy lets you get (some, not all) generals and admirals starting at rank 1 - and probably some special empire unique building for scientists and governors that does the same thing. Or maybe an edict that lets you weight candidates in the pool for X or Y traits [for a fee] for 5-10 years.

Culture Workers have been removed.

I feel like they should still exist in some capacity, even if not tied to unity ... Maybe as a special job on tourism worlds(which dont feel too special)? or as part of a special civic.

I'm sure someone's mentioned it in bug reports already but also want to highlight that faction support is broken and always treats all pops as 1, when pops of different legal status/social classes should probably be treated differently (e.g. a resident supporting a faction shouldnt be as valuable, politically speaking, as a full citizen, and a slave should be less valuable, still).

• With factions giving out unity, and unity getting more important, this is probably going to lead to high-growth stratified societies being slightly overpowered (vs egalitarian ones) particularly if they have a spiritualist or militarist (or both) edict too.

 

[Reedstilt]

Kind of sad to see culture workers go, will we get anything representing our pops taking more artistic/cultural pursuits? It was nice to have as roleplay.

We still, presumably, have Entertainers.

 

[DeanTheDull]

First thoughts on implications, as well as information that we need more of to really evaluate.



-The change of factions to unity rather than influence generators is going to slow-down early-game expansion. It will be countered by the change in edicts to unity upkeep, which will make high-cohesion empires better at running more pop-efficiency edicts.

*This will be a buff for Xenophobes with their expansion discounts, as well as the influence-cost reduction ascension perk.

*Unclear on the implication of Authoritarian/Egalitarian influence bonuses. Egalitarian generates additional influence through factions as a % modifier. Is this changed to unity, or is influence generation compensated for in another faction? If it's pure unity, does authoritarian change as well to keep the thematic balance?

*Unclear on the nature of the faction unity. There could be some very interesting implications.

-If faction unity is capped to a small amount like how influence works, it will struggle to be relevant.

-If faction unity scales with the % of your empire that follows state ethics, then ethics attraction could be extremely relevant. Whether it's 'state ethic pops gives .X unity a month' or 'monthly unity is multiplied by a % based on state ethics membership,' increasing unity generation to reward cohesion could then be leveraged into more edicts to get more edicts for power boosts.

-If anti-state ethics take away unity- say that the Spiritualist faction removes unity in a materialist empire- this would have huge implications for the current wide/conquest meta. Not only would wars of conquest increase your sprawl penalties, but they would disproportionately harm your empire's ability to generate unity, since unity jobs would be off-setting anti-state ethic pops unhappy with being conquered.





The change to using unity for things like leader recruitment and pop movement have significant implications, if you're willing to delay those traditions.

-Leader unity recruitment makes your species lifespan a significant impact. Short-lived species with significant lifespan penalties (ie, clones) will have major unity costs over time replacing. Replacing leaders to get 'great' leaders will be a significant stepback.



-Pop movement through unity could greatly affect the colonial development meta. Instead of growing pops and maybe a robot factory, it may become optimal to build a temple/unity building to cover the cost of migrating from the homeworld, and race to set up a colony to the size 10 upgrade for the unity-producing ruler pops, or at least get the better amenity/pop growth economy started.

*Unclear on how ruler-pop unity will be affected.





The reduction in incidental unity will greatly slow tradition growth. This will increase the meta-pressure for early traditions that provide game-long benefits, since these will be the only benefits you have for a longer frame of the game. This will be a debuf to the normal role of Expansion- whose colony ship and expansion bonuses only matter as long as you are expanding and colonizing, and a buff to traditions with continually scaling benefits.



The slowdown in traditions will also impact the balance of ascension paths. Psionic Ascension will have a longer time of being the earliest possible ascension, while Synthetic Ascension's pop-efficiency dominance will come much later in the game and be much less useful.





Power projection where influence comes from fleets will support building fleets earlier than just colonies. A fleet could become enough to offset diplomatic engagement costs for diplomatic deals. It'll also affect the Power Projection ascension perk, in enabling you a much larger fleet for your sprawl capacity. On the other hand, this also leaves you vulnerable to early rivalries, meaning early emphasis on defense, meaning more economic focus on protection than expansion. Which further boosts the value of already-powerful envoys.




OVERALL-

As I've suspected for awhile, this meta will shift to a much slower tech growth game. With admin sprawl being a major limiting factor, but edicts being powered by monthly unity, unity will be a much larger part of your early-game economy to afford those edicts, which will boost the pop-efficiency to hire more scientists to mitigate the sprawl. Mix that with unity-powered migration betweeh habitable planets, unity will become a much stronger pop-efficiency mechanic than it previously was, and in 3.0 pop efficiency is king.

 

[xGhost4000x]

I think my only suggestion is that leaders should still be able to be hired with energy. Perhaps at a much higher price than they previously were. This could model the difference between a unity hire (which would be society heavily encouraging these leaders to work for the state) or an energy hire which would just be the state throwing a lot of money at them to get them to join.

Obviously they'd still have their unity upkeep.

Other than that this sounds like a great change.

 

[avsbes]

Overall sounds good, but I do wonder if this is taking too much away from influence?

For example, influence now only seems to be used for:

• Starbase building
• Claims (which can be circumvented through total wars)
• GC resolutions (which are a finite influence sink)
• Relic activation (though thematically this would make more sense with unity)

And that’s it?

So once you’ve built all of your starbases and the galaxy fills up, influence doesn’t really do anything, and also now makes you wonder why does it exist?

I also fear that making influence generation modified by fleet size again places emphasis on warmongering empires, so reduces pacifist playstyles ability to compete when expanding

Influence will still be used for Gateways, Habitats etc. though and i'd guess that you can blow quite a lot of influence on that, especially considering that Influence Generation will probably be lower than before.

Armed Pacifism is a thing (even though it's a weird one), basically following the old saying "If you want peace, prepare for war.". I would however guess that they'll give us some method for full on pacifism to work, maybe tied to a Civic or maybe to the Ethic itself. I'd assume that it'll simply be a modifier that shifts the Power Projection Factor massively in Favor of a smaller fleet.

 

[Feynvask]

So in Feudal Society you won't be able to change resarchers until they die? I don't know if that's worth the extra unity.

The wording is that leaders "cannot be dismissed". This leaves the ability for them to be reassigned and unassigned (but now they claim their upkeep, which they wouldn't if they were employed as the civic states).

 

[Calvax]

Yeah, wth happened there with the logic :/ are scientists some sort of noble titles and every researcher will have an heir or something? Clunky

It makes sense when you think of scientists (the main three at least rather than ship captains) as the head of large research institutions. They're not PIs running individual labs, they're the Directors for Physics/Society/Engineering for the whole empire. A role like that certainly seems like the type of thing that a feudal society would reserve for nobility.

 

[cylordcenturion]

my concerns:

first, artists, where are they now? do leisure districts now produce beaurocrats? it paints a fairly universally bleak picture of every empire. im not the biggest RPer but i still would like to be able to have an empire that has art raither than bland beaurocracy.
additionally while administration is important to the integrity of a nation it os not somethign that can/should be centralized. uder to current model you want to have some planets (maybe even entire sectors) dedicated to admin cap. meaning that some planets have an absolute glut of admin offices and most have none at all. this is not how provinces work. each distinct area needs their own administration. you cant say "need a drivers license? go half way accross the galaxy to the admin planet" you need one there. and we dont get our unity from beaurocracy and administration, i dont say "i love and support my nations and its endeavors because my forms get processed quickly" its because of culture, art, media, and ethics. no amount of rubber stamps and forms are going to make me support a war i disagree with. but media might make me agree with the war. culture workers, not beaurocrats should remain the unity producers.

second, aggression. it feels like with influence being tied to fleets that unchecked early aggression is being hyper-prioritized. and that pacifist empires are getting the absolute shaft. is there any intention to rework the ethics bonuses as most of them are about influence and expansion at least partially?

third, factions. i dont know without playing it but my concern is that relegating factions from an (ironically) uninfluential mechanic but that is important-ish becasue it is the only manipulatable source of influence for most of the game, to another source of unity, when we can produce unity from jobs will undo the benefits of no longer making manipulating factions prohibitavly expensive.

fourth, the leader unity cost. i do not oppose a unity upkeep, but unless it is drastically cheaper, paying unity upfront is not something i want to do early game. it already feels like an investment, 200 EC in the early years is not chump change. it feels like i have to make an investment in order to make my fleet of surveyors. and a unity cost on that is... not appealing.

finally. i m nervous that in trying to make unity "more important" you're making it overwhelmingly central. that tech focuses wil be unviable wothout technocracy, and spiritualism (of which unity being meh was the least of its problems) will be necessary to have a stable empire.

my suggestiosn:

give differernt empire types different influence generation. millitarists, get it from fleet, egalitarians from factions, authoritatians from average stability, pacifists fom... peace? idk and so forth

byzantine beaurocracy can chance culture workers to beaurocrats.

admin offices (and upgrades) add more bonuses similar to the "capital" designation.

a shipset that looks like classic pirate ships, masts, cannons, all that. (unrelated)

assuming it dosent change form entirely no more 1000 cap on the unity from fulfilling mandates for democracy. its always been stupid.

 

[Shadowstrike]

I really like the direction these ideas are going in. Unity seems like it will be a much more important resource, and the decisions that used to cost influence which were never taken because "expansion mana" was paramountly important are suddenly more viable again. I particularly like how going "unity-heavy" becomes a more viable path of play, and hopefully that will really buff spiritualist empires.

One concern I have is that influence is still too nakely just "expansion mana", and becomes the rate-limiting step of your entire empire (since you need it for both colonizing and claiming systems). Perhaps some thought about how that might be reworked into a unity system (or even made costless, at the price of being able to lose colonized, but unpopulated systems) is worth pursuing?

 

[MathyM]

Will the Open Beta be compatible with achievements?

 

[Cassilda]

I feel that giving meaning to unity as a resource is a step in the right direction, even if I think that at least the administrative tech should still mitigate a little the empire sprawl. In my opinion removing them as repeatable ones should be enough. I'll be surely trying the open beta.

 

[DarkSafire]

If all means of increasing Administrative Capacity have been removed does it mean its cap will increase dynamically/automatically? Otherwise after colonizing few planets or just by building districts you could very fast get to, as example, 200/30 AC and get something like +100% tech cost in early game, leading to same tech lab rush you want to avoid.

 

[ASGeek2012]

Please base the military-generated influence on fleet strength rather than fleet size. That way we can finally put the last nail in the coffin of the cheese mechanic of stripping your opening ships of armament for a quick alloys boost.

 

[Mik_C]

Kind of sad to see culture workers go, will we get anything representing our pops taking more artistic/cultural pursuits? It was nice to have as roleplay.

I can see a new civic changing artisans to artists that produce consumer goods, amenities and a bit of unity.

It would be a nice reintroduction of culture workers.

 

[Strangedane]

Yeah, wth happened there with the logic :/ are scientists some sort of noble titles and every researcher will have an heir or something? Clunky

You can't fire them, but you can reassign them to a science ship and have them assist research precisely like we do now.

Not seeing an issue here, care to elaborate?

 

[Jourin]

I currently love playing spiritual empires and going the unity route. The Theory behind most of the changes sounds great, but in the effort to make unity more important don't dilute it so much it is no longer fun to play. Why get rid of culture workers? What about sending artifacts to the museum?

Why have scientists cost unity? That does not make sense at all and actually dilutes from the unity play. You don't pay scientists in unity, you pay them with money (energy in this game). Please don't make illogical game decisions to turn unity into a form of cash. I can see some things costing unity (edicts) but not paying leaders. What next, buildings cost unity to maintain, then ships, then starbases, then what does energy do? Also, don't make changes to achieve some mythical theoretical balance that is impossible to achieve but by trying to accomplish you ruin the game ((e.g. creating some sort of early game conflict between unity and leaders, making tall as good as or better than wide. History shows that wide always beats tall. Playing tall is a challenge that can be fun and you can win against the AI. Don't dilute the challenge to achieve some mythical balance, that will only ruin the game. Please limit the BS changes.

 

[Eladrin]

Aside from factions not generating influence anymore, can we expect more changes to them?

I'd like to go more in depth into empire institutions, factions, and the like in a future release. The scope of factional changes will be minimal for now.

I just hope wide playstyle is not killed on the spot with those sprawl change.

From my experience with the systems thus far, wide is still very effective (and if I want to be less diplomatic, it's still more powerful overall) but these changes give tall play some niches that skilled players can exploit.

Playerbase appeased: +10 unity per month

Time to activate some more edicts!

The wording of this suggests that the changes outlined above in this DD won't be released to coincide with the 3.3 Update, but sometime later as a point update to 3.3.x, is that correct?

Unless the Open Beta overwhelmingly tells us "Ship it! No additional changes needed", I ideally want to move it live in a 3.3.x patch. We can gather so much more data with even a week of player testing and feedback than we can do internally, and these are touching so many systems that I'd like to be able to iterate on it some more before taking it live.

For rogue servitors, how will this affect bio-trophies and will Servitors get access to Coordinator Drones?

In the current build, Servitors rely on Bio Trophies for incidental unity, and are blocked from the normal Machine unity buildings. If the goal is to reduce incidental unity, will bio-trophies be rebalanced to less unity and servitors able to focus planets on unity production?

Bio-trophies will remain the primary source of Unity for Rogue Servitors. (And they'll remain cut off from the other normal Machine sources.)

Will planets get a unity-cost reduction designation akin to the industrial designations, or will your unity worlds still be best as the urban world designation for building upkeep reduction?

The Bureaucratic designation will be turned into a Unity based designation.

If factions no longer give influence, how will the Authoritarian influence roles be adjusted? The current balance is Egalitarians get more influence over time thanks to factions, but authoritarians have a flat influence buff at game start. If Egalitarian goes unity-boons, will authoritarian also get a flat unity boon, or will it keep influence but have fewer internal things to spend it on?

Currently Authoritarians retain their Influence bonuses, and Egalitarians get extra Faction Unity rather than Faction Influence.

If factions give unity, will non-state ethics reduce unity, since they are ideologically opposed to the ruling government?

Not at this time, but we've discussed things along those lines, including rebellious pops gaining Unity upkeep. We may explore such ideas more in the future.