How much should Stellaris be about Characters?

[Liggi]

I'm thinking on a scale of other PDX games:

<--- Crusader Kings ------ Imperator: Rome ------- Hearts of Iron --- Victoria 3 ------ Europa Universalis ------->

(And feel free to disagree with my scale).

Where would you place Stellaris on this? How much do individual characters matter in the context of the game and what it should be focusing on?

For me, I think I'd put it around the same area as Hearts of Iron and Victoria 3, in that... although they are relevant, they aren't the driving forces of the story for the most part. I'd say it's not quite Imperator: Rome where the story is revolving around individuals / families, and not quite all the way to Europa Universalis where characters are simply modifiers.

 

[Mastikator]

I'd prefer

EU -----> Stellaris

on that scale, characters can be a part of stellaris but it should not be about them.

 

[Liggi]

I'd prefer

EU -----> Stellaris

on that scale, characters can be a part of stellaris but it should not be about them.

I'm honestly not sure how you could get less about characters than EU!

Characters in EU are faceless rulers (that provide modifiers), or Advisors (which provide modifiers), or they are just resources you can spend like Diplomats or Merchants.

I would say that Stellaris is currently more about characters than EU is. Would you disagree?

 

[Mastikator]

I'm honestly not sure how you could get less about characters than EU!

Characters in EU are faceless rulers (that provide modifiers), or Advisors (which provide modifiers), or they are just resources you can spend like Diplomats or Merchants.

I would say that Stellaris is currently more about characters than EU is. Would you disagree?

Actually I've never played EU and only seen very little of the actual gameplay.

Sounds like it's the same though, leaders cost energy and give modifiers, envoys are resources. One point to the left for Stellaris for showing the ruler's face though.

Either way I'm cool with the current level of "about characters", I'd be okay with it being less about leaders and unokay about it being more about leaders.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

I think if it were to be more about characters, there would need to be a system in place to make them matter, be that some political mechanism or for leaders to provide more than just bonuses.

As it stands though, they do what they’re meant to do.

 

[Archael90]

I think Stellaris should be about space empire, where decades ends so quickly You simply cant care about individuals. Whole empire should be treated as individual character we are immersing with, not leaders nor pops on their own. Yes, we could take some more about individuals, but its story about country, about empire, about people, not individual heros.
Only thing i would like to see is the chronicle that shows all our leaders from past and info about what they did, and how they contributed for empire.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I think Stellaris should be about space empire, where decades ends so quickly You simply cant care about individuals. Whole empire should be treated as individual character we are immersing with, not leaders nor pops on their own. Yes, we could take some more about individuals, but its story about country, about empire, about people, not individual heros.
Only thing i would like to see is the chronicle that shows all our leaders from past and info about what they did, and how they contributed for empire.

Eh, the game is only about 4-5 generations long even if you don't make it a point to stack leader lifespan.

It's short enough to go through few enough characters that giving them at least some personality that interacts with your empire would have a meaningful outcome.

 

[Frozen Yakman]

I'd prefer nearer the CK scale to get real internal politics.

 

[Archael90]

Eh, the game is only about 4-5 generations long even if you don't make it a point to stack leader lifespan.

It's short enough to go through few enough characters that giving them at least some personality that interacts with your empire would have a meaningful outcome.

One generation is about 25 years. Leaders changes when they die around 100 years, yet starting when around 40, so 60 years, each leader. Endgame is stet to 2400, and game ends in 2500 which is 300 years from start, which translates to 12 generations, or 5 leaders per position. So You are right.
Yet, there is more than 1, 2, 3, 4 leaders, and rulers of democracy, and oligarchy changes much more frequently, and we just cant immerse wioth them. If we would have just rulers, then changing them for 60 years would be about characters, yes!

 

[apples951]

If leaders were to be expanded upon, I believe that gestalts should get the most out of it. Why? Well because that's their whole thing.

"Hive Minds operate as a single organism more than as a state."

"Machine Intelligences are immense artificial group minds that have been networked into a single conscious entity."

When the inevitable political rework dlc comes out, I see gestalts (mostly Hive minds) being ignored. So it will only be fair that gestalts would be the center of a leader rework.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

I don't think I would like it. If I want to play a character driven game there are plenty of great RPG's for that. I play stellaris for:
1. the awsome map
2. Empire building
3. Economic planning
4. Space warfare
5. and the strategy involving all of this

 

[Mastikator]

Eh, the game is only about 4-5 generations long even if you don't make it a point to stack leader lifespan.

It's short enough to go through few enough characters that giving them at least some personality that interacts with your empire would have a meaningful outcome.

If you take Venerable you can easily keep your initial leaders the entire game, with only getting deaths from murder. I like to take Enduring so that I can keep ~70% of my leaders, if I make it to year 2400 I can even get some level 10 scientists.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

I would love for Stellaris to do this.

Probably needs to be Stellaris 2 tho.

Wouldnt just change chatacters.
Would annihilate the Recruit Leader function, so...

 

[Zenicetus]

I like it the way it is, and wouldn't want characters to be more important or developed. First, because they don't live long enough. Second, because there's already enough to do in this game without having to manage family trees or equivalent relationships. It would just add more micro.

Character development would also be difficult to program in a way that would fit the very wide variety of alien civilizations. It would probably feel too human-centric, and there is already too much of that in the game. Keeping characters as basically just leader markers accommodates more roleplay options.

 

[Janx14]

Why people's leaders dieing so much?

WIth all the anti-agining techs and some ways to immortality, I usually only get 2 generations, maybe 3, by the end.

 

[klopkr]

The problem with characters right now is that you have to hire them rather than promoting existing people.

There's basically no relevant characters even though there should be with emperor, important scientists, past presidents, special science crew (you're almost supposed to care about them) and great generals.

If characters auto filled in your roles and you had to change and adjust them you could actually track the growth and promotions of characters and it'd be interesting.

This game needs characters the way Vicky 3 and Imperator rome have characters. They should be unique and you should be compelled to be interested in them while they're around, maybe you even want to lengthen their lives. Factions should have recognizable leaders and you should be able to look at a character and say 'well he loves the xeno but I can't risk removing him because he's the best damn scientist we have!' or something like that.

There's an entire aspect of this game related to characters that we should care about but never got touched or update so I think people got use to them being irrelevant. I know I pick the fleeting trait specifically because leaders don't matter. I'd love to care who my emperor is or who might win an election. Right now they're all the same though.

 

[Strangedane]

One generation is about 25 years. Leaders changes when they die around 100 years, yet starting when around 40, so 60 years, each leader. Endgame is stet to 2400, and game ends in 2500 which is 300 years from start, which translates to 12 generations, or 5 leaders per position. So You are right.
Yet, there is more than 1, 2, 3, 4 leaders, and rulers of democracy, and oligarchy changes much more frequently, and we just cant immerse wioth them. If we would have just rulers, then changing them for 60 years would be about characters, yes!

Playing rocks puts me squarely at 1 generation per game.

I might lose a scientist or 2 to space encounters but leaders dying of old age simply doesn't exist for rocks.

 

[Archael90]

Playing rocks puts me squarely at 1 generation per game.

I might lose a scientist or 2 to space encounters but leaders dying of old age simply doesn't exist for rocks.

You know, that we are talking about whole game, not only lithoids/machines?

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Depends on government type, really. Doubt devs would go that far to differentiate gameplay, though.

 

[Ironking]

I definitely don't want CK character level in Stellaris. Maybe just a touch up from what is is now but not too much. Keep it vague and alien.

What I would like to see though is a much deeper and varied Government system. Like having different positions based on Government type and Civics along with a reworked faction system for a start. Institutions where hinted which sounds interesting.

Thinking about it maybe the factions should become to Stellaris what Characters are to CK. Imagine Factions sharing the same ethos but from different Empires working together behind your back. Like during a War your pacifists and the enemy pacifists band together to try and stop the bloodshed by causing more Attrition on both ends.