Diplomacy Changes - Questions

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Eladrin

Stellaris Game Director
Paradox Staff
Apr 4, 2019
798
27.632
www.paradoxplaza.com
We're doing a series of Q&A sessions, as described in Dev Diary 165, and answered questions related to the Galactic Community in Dev Diary 167. The next one is related to changes we're making to the general diplomacy system.

Back in Dev Diary 162 we introduced some of the changes we're planning to Diplomacy.

Major changes include:

The addition of Envoys - a diplomatic "mini-leader" that can be sent on different assignments such as:
  • Improving Relations with an Empire
  • Harming Relations with an Empire
  • Representing your interests in the Galactic Community
  • Increasing Cohesion within your Federation
Diplomatic Relations are now a measure of how well empires get along with another, based on the combined opinion of the two empires. Diplomatic Actions now have Relations requirements - you can't make a Defensive Pact with someone you barely know, for instance, unless you assign one of your limited Envoys to seal the deal. This also means that empire opinion has some actual effects on player empires in multiplayer.

Diplomatic Stances are a new policy that determine the outward face that empires capable of diplomacy show the galaxy.

The normal set of stances include:
  • Belligerent - This empire will attempt to bully weaker empires into submission to their will.
  • Cooperative - This empire will attempt to find common ground and negotiate with other empires in the name of friendship.
  • Isolationist - This empire wishes to be left alone to their own affairs.
  • Expansionist - This empire seeks to grow peacefully, but has no specific diplomatic focus.
  • Mercantile - This empire desires the facilitation of trade above all else.
  • Supremacist - This empire demands that all will bow before them.
The use of Diplomatic Favors within the Galactic Community was touched on in Dev Diary 159 and briefly in Dev Diary 167, but can be also used as a "diplomatic currency" to encourage empires to accept Diplomatic Actions that they would otherwise refuse.

We've also made significant updates to the Diplomacy UIs, making it easier to gather information and know what the effects will be. No more tricking people into accepting vassalization in multiplayer.

If you have any questions related to these topics, post them here!
 
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Will diplomatic option be reduce after getting in a federation (mainly to guarantee little empire outside the federation and inviting empire outside my federation when I go to war)?
Can we close our border from a fallen empire? Can border be closed right after a war?
 
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A bit more long winded, apologies. Will Diplomatic deals get a similar treatment to Federations, in that they require higher “levels” before unlocking all mechanics? If not now, some other time?
Like if Defensive pacts started out as just that, and you needed to invest in your diplomacy with them until you could pull them into your wars as well.

This system would reward players who foster and maintain long-term relationships, and give mechanics that would mutually help Empires later on in the game. A player might not benefit from a research agreement by the mid-game because they already have most/every tech the other has. But if you eventually got overall research speed and such, it would give you an incentive to maintain it for longer. Or if you really don't want it, you could trade it in for another deal, like a one-way Com-pact which would be more useful (this could be available from the start).
Another thing could be multilateral treaties, like for Defensive pacts/Research agreements (I could see this boosting research for each member joined) could be a Federation lite in the most basic sense, without any of the other perks. This could have a max member no., where you need a Federation to pull more Empires in.

It could also be a requirement of starting a Federation (except for the Origins), where you need a max-level Defensive pact before establishing a Military Alliance, or a max-level Commercial pact before establishing a Trade League. Or if you require a mid-level agreement with a completed corresponding tree (as mentioned in a previous Q&A).

This would also help with cheesing the system by bribing the AI until they hit a certain opinion so you can instantly establish whatever deals you want - including establishing a Federation - which I’ve seen done in playthroughs, and have done myself a handful of times. Here, you need to have a long diplomatic history first, which costs you influence and takes time.
 
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Will there be new and more interesting deals and treaties to be made rather than the generic research agreement and commercial pact? For example treaties with proper conditions or incorporating the trade interface with the diplomatic actions to, say, pay for a research agreement in energy or alloys.
 
It seems like you can: increase diplo weight in GC, increase cohesion in Federation, increase relations with an empire, harm relations with an empire. And then you have diplomatic stances which apply some modifiers.

Does that cover all the diplomacy changes? What new strategies / emergent stories are opened up via these changes?
 
Will we be able to get custom settings to chose which diplomatic notifications we are interested in recieving, and perhaps nuance to such a system such as "nations of interest" and "nations of total irrelevence".
 
Diplomatic Stances are Policies and can be changed once every 10 years. There are a bunch of different stances, and some may also be unique to certain empire types (e.g. Isolationist is called Mercantile for Megacorporations).
What are the other unique Stances?
Will Civics give you unique Stances (exterminators civcs for example)
 
Is there anything planned to stop the current polarization of empire opinion? Right now, barring extreme circumstances, it's all too easy for +5 or -5 to escalate to +500 or -500 due to a phenomenon of "I like you, so I do things that make me like you more/I hate you, so I do things that make me hate you more."
 
Please give us an overview of all the current laws/resolutions you can pass in the diplomatic community and in a Federation. We need to be able to asess how good diplomatic weight actually is, and how we can use it to improve our situation. Currently we have no idea if giving Hiveminds +2 envoys as a civic is worth anything. They desperately need that big civic overhaul which non-Gestalts got and a bunch of additional civics. Both for sake of balance and for flavour.
 
How will empires with the mercantile stance be different on trade compared to a normal empire? will they be more willing to make long term trade deals or any trade deal for example.
 
Will we be able to also use envoys to improve or harm relations between another empire and a third party?

If the answer is no consider this a request to implement that feature at some point. It annoys me to have two friends who dislike each other and being unable to do anything about it. Likewise it would be really cool if we had some tools for disrupting hostile alliances. And given how this would use up an envoy it seems to me it would automatically be balanced.
 
1. Does envoys exist only to limit the number of diplomacy?
Is there any reason why a system that dispatches envoys rather than simply increasing the functions of the existing diplomacy system would be more interesting?

2. Can players or AI empires reject envoys who came to the empire?

3. Does the diplomacy interface have an icon that lets you know immediately that player empire envoys have been dispatched?

4. Can I use envoys to agitate and impair other empire factions?

5. Is there a way to know which empire the AI empire is sending envoys to?

6. Do biological traits affect envoys? (In the case of charismatic, improve relations may be easier)

7.Does the AI empire try to get the missing resources with diplomacy?
 
How expensive will a favor be in terms of energy credits (roughly)?

Will the AI's decision making regarding regular trade deals be improved? As in, it doesn't just give away ludicrous amounts of resources for next to nothing anymore?

Can we still insult other empires to lower opinion? If yes: What's the point of having envoys harming relations?

Can envoys be modded to be "proper" leaders with traits and stuff?

Do you want to give some details on how the diplomatic stances interact with factions?

How easy will it be to overcome the xenophobe opinion penalty with envoys improving relations? Can I expect to no longer be boxed in with everyone closing their borders to me when playing xenophobe?

Can we spend favors to get another empire to open their borders?

Does diplomatic weight have any application outside of the galactic community and federations?
 
Will there finally be some federation-level diplomacy? (alliances, rivalries and such)
Will this system influence AI in a meaningful way? (like make it more aggressive, or predictable)
Will this "fix" end-game stalemate, where wars only happen until federation blocks form?
 
1. Is it possible, that an AI Empire would left his Federation to sign up a defense pact, if his relation to my empire is big enough and his relation with the other federation members are low?

2. Is every defense pact with an AI Empire dammed to break after some time? (I always lost my partners, no matter what I do or how the galaxy look like.)
 
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1) How are wars declared? Do you need a bad relationship for starting one? E.g. is it possible to prevent someone from declaring a war on you similar to prevent beeing rivaled by using envoys/good relations?

2) Will there be some new (diplomacy related) Ascension Perks?

3) Will Psionic Ascension have any diplomacy related benefits? Reading minds could be very useful for an envoy ;)

4) Is there a way to get more diplomatic weight that is not related to civics, fleetpower, science output, Economy, megastructures or diplomatic stances? E.g. can a diplomatic fleetless player surpass a economic stronger, warfaring one with a huge fleet in diplomatic weight?
 
Diplomatic Actions now have Relations requirements - you can't make a Defensive Pact with someone you barely know, for instance, unless you assign one of your limited Envoys to seal the deal.
Is this referring to using an envoy to improve relations, or is it possible to bypass the relations requirement?

Also, is declaring war restricted by relations?