Leaders - how could they be more interesting?

[Critical Ethics]

Well yeah, we already have that for scientists, anomalies, archaeology, and special projects. They're things that only work if there's a scientist doing them and so having a cap actually matters.

But it's much harder to have a consistent set of those things that works throughout the game for any of the other leader types, and if you don't have that for all of them then you might as well not have the other leader types because the player is not having any interesting interactions with them.

So don't. Just have one new leader type that does Interesting Leader Stuff and automate all the things that are a boring stat stick.

Governors are easy. Sectors, terraforming, colonisation, habitat construction, megastructure construction. It's only military that's an issue, and assuming you merge generals and admirals (no real reason not to) then that's three out of four leader types covered by one guy half-assedly posting in one thread.

Assign military leaders to manage conquered planets? Remove the empire cap on Really Big Ships and instead require a military leader to crew them? Making leaders a shared pool has exactly the problem you described earlier, where all possible Cool Things need to be globally comparable as opposed to just being comparable within their own lane.

 

[xking]

Some ideas:

- A drastic increase in the number of traits, positive and negative, so that Leaders are more unique, memorable and interesting. In the same vein, more dynamic traits: admirals / generals may receive unique traits when fighting in wars in various circumstances, rulers may receive traits based on things that happen while they are in charge, faction leaders may gain traits based on events (ie. losing an offensive war may cause the militarist faction leader to become more radical, or the pacifist faction leader to become more vocal).

- Leaders should have ethics.

- Remove the requirement that you have to manually assign Leaders. All positions will be automatically filled by an auto-generated Leader. You can override this selection to a preferred candidate from a much larger Leader Pool using Influence.

- The Leader pool for Governors / Rulers should be expanded, and should be generated in a random, weighted way based on the characteristics of your worlds. Having a heavy commercial-focus will tend to generate business-type Leaders, for example.

- Separate Faction Leaders out so that they aren't always randomly picked from your Scientists / Governors / Admirals (although they can be).

- I also firmly believe the Leaders should be generated from real worlds, and have a "homeworld". This could be a dynamic trait that provides them some bonuses based on where they grew up.

What would people like to see reworked?

Post here https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/stellaris-suggestions.943/

 

[tribnia]

Let the leaders interact with factions more. It would cost you more if the scientist you are to assign belongs to a faction that have lost the election and may probably anger your pops. Let the election affect the attraction of a faction.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Let the leaders interact with factions more. It would cost you more if the scientist you are to assign belongs to a faction that have lost the election and may probably anger your pops. Let the election affect the attraction of a faction.

**cough***governors***sectors***tosstoss

 

[Liggi]

Post here https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/stellaris-suggestions.943/

I opted to post here and frame it as a discussion, instead. I think there's more value that way. I'm sure the devs have seen this topic by now.

 

[Ikael]

I have thought a lot about Leaders and their predicament. If I would remake the leader system, I would take the following actions:

- Greatly increase the number of positive and negative traits, as well as their starting traits. Make it so you can rarely have a clear "best leader" in your pool
- Give them their own personal ideas and loyalty, aligning them with factions. As long as your empire follows their ideas, everything will be fine. Deviate from them, and leaders might resign or even betray you. Note how loyalty cannot be leveled up, thus making the choice between expertise VS political obedience an interesting one
- Reduce their number, so you can't fill every single rank with them. Make having positions without leaders (meaning, just covered by regular, faceless bureaucrats) a common occurrence
- Make leaders come from a common pool, so you not only need to recruit leaders, but you also need to assign them to a post once recruited

With these tweaks you achieve the following:

- You make choosing leaders and assigning their jobs an actual interesting decision
- Leaders act like resources: their limited nature ensures that you can't boost every empire area at once. Consequently, they do matter, as well as leader-related civics
- You give leaders more distinctiveness just by restricting options, thus avoiding choice paralysis and interchangeable, irrelevant decisions (no more "there are at least 3 leaders in my pool that would be great for this job")
- You don't need to babysit leaders nor to turn this into a space soap opera either. You take very few decisions regarding leaders, yet very important ones
- You make factions and sectors actually relevant

There is room for improvement, but I think that as a general layout, this might work.

 

[Zagreb 887]

I have thought a lot about Leaders and their predicament. If I would remake the leader system, I would take the following actions:

- Greatly increase the number of positive and negative traits, as well as their starting traits. Make it so you can rarely have a clear "best leader" in your pool
- Give them their own personal ideas and loyalty, aligning them with factions. As long as your empire follows their ideas, everything will be fine. Deviate from them, and leaders might resign or even betray you. Note how loyalty cannot be leveled up, thus making the choice between expertise VS political obedience an interesting one
- Reduce their number, so you can't fill every single rank with them. Make having positions without leaders (meaning, just covered by regular, faceless bureaucrats) a common occurrence
- Make leaders come from a common pool, so you not only need to recruit leaders, but you also need to assign them to a post once recruited

With these tweaks you achieve the following:

- You make choosing leaders and assigning their jobs an actual interesting decision
- Leaders act like resources: their limited nature ensures that you can't boost every empire area at once. Consequently, they do matter, as well as leader-related civics
- You give leaders more distinctiveness just by restricting options, thus avoiding choice paralysis and interchangeable, irrelevant decisions (no more "there are at least 3 leaders in my pool that would be great for this job")
- You don't need to babysit leaders nor to turn this into a space soap opera either. You take very few decisions regarding leaders, yet very important ones
- You make factions and sectors actually relevant

There is room for improvement, but I think that as a general layout, this might work.

I really like your idea, I just think we should have a few tools to increase a bit leaders loyalty, could be one perk of the domination tree or a tech from psionic ascension, or simply a bonus for the Psi corp?
It should not be a way to max out loyalty for every leaders, but just a way to mitigate bad loyalty. Not OP in game mechanics and nice RP wise

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I have thought a lot about Leaders and their predicament. If I would remake the leader system, I would take the following actions:

- Greatly increase the number of positive and negative traits, as well as their starting traits. Make it so you can rarely have a clear "best leader" in your pool
- Give them their own personal ideas and loyalty, aligning them with factions. As long as your empire follows their ideas, everything will be fine. Deviate from them, and leaders might resign or even betray you. Note how loyalty cannot be leveled up, thus making the choice between expertise VS political obedience an interesting one
- Reduce their number, so you can't fill every single rank with them. Make having positions without leaders (meaning, just covered by regular, faceless bureaucrats) a common occurrence
- Make leaders come from a common pool, so you not only need to recruit leaders, but you also need to assign them to a post once recruited

With these tweaks you achieve the following:

- You make choosing leaders and assigning their jobs an actual interesting decision
- Leaders act like resources: their limited nature ensures that you can't boost every empire area at once. Consequently, they do matter, as well as leader-related civics
- You give leaders more distinctiveness just by restricting options, thus avoiding choice paralysis and interchangeable, irrelevant decisions (no more "there are at least 3 leaders in my pool that would be great for this job")
- You don't need to babysit leaders nor to turn this into a space soap opera either. You take very few decisions regarding leaders, yet very important ones
- You make factions and sectors actually relevant

There is room for improvement, but I think that as a general layout, this might work.

sounds kind of like picking your cabinet in Democracy. that's a fun minigame

 

[Ikael]

Glad to see that you guys like my idea! Yep, it is similar to picking your cabinet in Democracy, that's the gist of it. A way of making internal politics in Stellaris its own thing while turning leaders interesting, rather than copying CK in space (albeit that might be a great template for an improved feudal society civic).

I really like your idea, I just think we should have a few tools to increase a bit leaders loyalty, could be one perk of the domination tree or a tech from psionic ascension, or simply a bonus for the Psi corp?
It should not be a way to max out loyalty for every leaders, but just a way to mitigate bad loyalty. Not OP in game mechanics and nice RP wise

Yup, there should be ways to increase your leader's loyalty. Giving loyalty bonuses to leaders could be a great way to boost the Spyionage Tradition tree or extremely weak civics such as Shadow Council. Just don't make it inevitable, make it a conscious investment for the player that forces him to forego other areas (no loyalty bonuses from leaders levelling up, nor technologies increasing loyalty, for example).