Missing Council position AND missing Minister of State - Can someone explain whats happening here?

[Captrench]

Quick summary - I pushed the Council Agenda "Expand the Council" a number of times, and got my Council to 6 members. All good so far.

I then did this one more time, as pretty sure I was able to get 7 Council positions active at one point in the past. So, eventually my Council Agenda dings and I click on the notification to select my new Councillor slot. But there isn't one.

I let it go and think that maybe its bugged, after all why have a notification if there is no available space, or why allow the option to Expand the Council if you have already reached capacity? Anyway, I decide the ignore the annoying ever present notification and carry on with the game.

Roll on a few decades of in game time and I've now become the Galactic Custodian (again... yay!). And while hovering the mouse over my vote strength tally I notice a negative modifier that I wonder if its related. One of the modifiers listed is "Missing Minister of State: -25%".

In the screenshot below the first red circle on the left is notification that a new Council position can be selected, after I completed the "Expand the Council" agenda decades ago. The red circle on the right is where i notice the negative vote strength modifier due to "Missing Minister of State".

And just to confirm that no Council position can be selected, here is what I see when I select the notification (circled on the left above). Six positions filled, no room for another that I can see.

I always play Representative Democracy as a Government type so if there anything that changes due to different government types this shouldn't be an issue as I always play the same.

So, all that said, can someone confirm this is bugged, or is this as intended and I'm missing something key and/or obvious? It seems wrong that you can run the agenda item to expand the Council, despite you already being at max capacity, but if I am at max capacity why do I have a "Missing Minister of State" modifier in my diplomatic strength?

No mods, latest patch. Steam version.

As I started this game prior to the latest version it could just be a version mismatch/snafu, but wondered if anyone could explain any of the above if not.

please help, my gaming ocd be tripping.

 

[Morchaste]

Hello there,

Originally, regular empires started with 3 people on the council (President/Chairman/Emperor/etc, Minister of Defense and Head of Research). You could then expand the council a number of time equal to your current number of Civics you currently had (so 3 times max).
As far as I know, the Sovereigns civics or the

Spoiler

Fear of The Dark Origin 4rth Civic

did not give an extra Councillor slot, so you ended up with 6 people on the Council max.

The new update introduced the Minister of State role for regular empires (except Purifiers and Isolationists, for obvious reasons), which mostly focuses on improving relations with other Empires. But they haven't increased the max Council size.
On the other hand, you can now replace the Minister of Defense/Head of Research/Minister of State by your Civics positions... At a -25% fleet cap/research speed/diplo weight malus, respectively.

Which you did.

On your screenshot, you can clearly see there's no Minister of State position. So you get the diplo weigh malus.

Apparently, the devs are considering to at least lower the maluses in a future patch. But for now, this is what we have do work with.

TL;DR: You replaced the Minister of State position with one of your Civics position, which gives you a diplo weight malus.

 

[Beauty Nova]

You've never been able to get to 7 council positions. I suspect that the agenda you ran was Reorganize Council rather than Expand Council, as that allows you to re-pick your council positions.

If indeed it was the Expand Council agenda it being available would be a bug.

As Morchaste said, you getting the malus from not having a minister of state is intended, and your ability to not have one not a bug. I'm not a fan of us being saddled with this borderline useless position and being heavily punished for not using it, personally, but it is what it is.

 

[Dragatus]

If you use the Reorganize the Council agenda or reform the government (for example when adding the 3rd civic after you've researched Galactic Administration) the game will reset all council positions and you get to pick them all over again. The issue is that after you've added your 3rd civic you will have 6 types of councilors available, but only 5 slots to put them in, so you will always be missing out on one. It's on the player to make sure to select all three initial ones or get a major penalty. However, the game does a terrible job of communicating it and unless you read all the dev diaries and paid attention to details it's entirely possible to get a nasty surprise, which looks like it might have happened in this case. It's actually possible to even have more than 6 possible councilor types if you hire a leader from an enclave. So it's actually entirely possible to have a council that's lacking all three original positions and get royally screwed by unexplained maluses.

tl;dr - When adding 3rd civic you get to choose 5 out of 6+ possible council positions for your council and if you don't include all three of Minister of Defense, Minister of State and Head Researcher you'll get a penalty.

 

[Captrench]

Hello there,

Originally, regular empires started with 3 people on the council (President/Chairman/Emperor/etc, Minister of Defense and Head of Research). You could then expand the council a number of time equal to your current number of Civics you currently had (so 3 times max).
As far as I know, the Sovereigns civics or the

Spoiler

Fear of The Dark Origin 4rth Civic

did not give an extra Councillor slot, so you ended up with 6 people on the Council max.

The new update introduced the Minister of State role for regular empires (except Purifiers and Isolationists, for obvious reasons), which mostly focuses on improving relations with other Empires. But they haven't increased the max Council size.
On the other hand, you can now replace the Minister of Defense/Head of Research/Minister of State by your Civics positions... At a -25% fleet cap/research speed/diplo weight malus, respectively.

Which you did.

On your screenshot, you can clearly see there's no Minister of State position. So you get the diplo weigh malus.

Apparently, the devs are considering to at least lower the maluses in a future patch. But for now, this is what we have do work with.

TL;DR: You replaced the Minister of State position with one of your Civics position, which gives you a diplo weight malus.

Thank you @Morchaste, as well as @Beauty Nova and @Dragatus for the detailed replies. Despite having played since launch, every day is a school day in Stellaris

I also did some proper reading of the recent patch notes after @Morchaste's reply and saw the Minister of State position mentioned there also. Right then, so a bit of Reorganise Council and I'll have a think which of my current Council positions is living on borrowed time.

Cheers again peeps.

 

[-Marauder-]

Man, I hate the Minister of State position, NGL.