Hello everyone!
In last week's dev diary we talked about the new Q&A format that we will be doing for the next couple of dev diaries. We asked you to post your questions regarding the federation rework, and we're glad to see so many questions!
Next week's topic will be the Galactic Community, and you can already post your questions here!
Anyway, let's begin with the Q&A:
Subjects:
Q: Are subjects forced to join some federation types (or all?) if you ask them to?
A: It’s up to your federation whether or not subjects are allowed in. If they are permitted, they will automatically follow their overlord in or out.
Q: Can you make/start a federation with your subjects?
A: Federations are (theoretically) alliances between equals, so independent diplomacy is required to initially form one. As noted elsewhere, vassals may be brought into federations (whether they like it or not) depending on federation law.
Q: Can you form a trade-league with a 1-planet sector you released as a vassal for just that purpose?
No and yes. Yes, you can release a 1-planet sector with the intention of starting a federation, but they would need to be independent for you to be able form it.
Federation Laws:
Q: Will there be any tools (laws, for instance) to combat ethics drift within a Federation? It would be nice to have a way to deal with an incompatible empire other than expelling them (then reabsorbing via a liberation war).
A: No, there is no way for you to influence the ethics of other empires. The cohesion penalty is meant to be offset by having to assign more envoys to the federation.
Q: Can you pass federation laws regulating member policies? For instance, decree that all primary species must have full citizenship throughout all federation empires? Or just outlaw slavery altogether? Because I hate seeing my own species enslaved by allies I have a migration treaty with.
A: There are currently no laws to influence other empires like that within the federation, but we’re certainly open to the idea. Once Federations is released we’ll be gathering your feedback as always
Q: Will we be able to pass laws that affect specific pop types? For example, I want to have all empires in my Hegemony, or all my vassal empires be forced to set Starfish pops to purge status (after all everyone seems to think that Starfish portrait represents fanatic purifiers the best).
A: Same as the answer above.
Q: How many federation laws are there?
A: There are currently 14 categories of laws, with each category having 2-5 laws.
Q: Can we get an Academic Debate succession type for Research Cooperatives?
A: There is in fact a Challenge Type called Thesis, which very much mimics what we think you are looking for. It’s available to all federation types.
Q: Could we get an example of more federation laws?
A: Yes we can! In dev diary #158 you could see most of the laws, but there are some things that have been changed or added since then. We now have the Strongest Succession Type, which is split up into different categories like Economy, Fleet, Tech or Diplomatic Weight. We have also added two new Challenge Types: one which is a bidding process where you spend ECs to become the president, and another one which is an academic thesis. We will definitely show off all these things in more detail on a stream sometime in the future.
Q: Can we have a federation succession type called weakest?
A: There are no current plans for it, but adding it wouldn’t be too difficult. If it becomes a very requested feature, it may be something we can add later.
Q: Would you consider adding elections for federation leader by a vote of the members? Would be really useful for multiplayer games. I am also curious why you did not make that that an option?
A: While we originally wanted to implement this, it ended up excessively costly to implement in a satisfactory way. We added Diplomatic Weight as an election option to represent the empires of your federation holding a democratic referendum.
Q: Will you have the ability to have a "One nations, One vote" policy when voting for policies in federations, or voting for leaders?
A: There is in fact a voting law that determines “Vote Weight”. By default, it is set to “Equal”, which means every member gets one vote. It’s possible to change it to Diplomatic Weight, however.
Q: Will there be an federation setting if the members have a defence pact or not? Currently all members have one but I could imagine a trade or science league to want a federation without the duty of defending each other.
A: Federations will always go to war together, and there are no current plans to change that. Although we can see why that could be cool in certain cases, we don’t think it's not worth all the issues it can potentially cause.
Q: Will there be disadvantages for higher levels of centralization? Or is there always incentive to just centralize more and more?
A: High Centralization will have a larger negative impact on monthly Cohesion, which means more Envoys will need to be assigned to maintain it.
Federation Fleet:
Q: Will we be able to build a Juggernaut to lead our Federation Fleet? Given the precedent that we can already build up to 3 Titans for our Federation Fleet, it would seem to make sense to me that we'd be allowed to build a Juggernaut for our fleet.
A: Yes, federations will be able to construct a Juggernaut.
Q: A more general Federation question - could it be at all possible to remove the 500 capacity limit for the Federation navy? By the late game, players can end up easily capping out the Federal naval capacity, and any extra capacity given over to the Federation is wasted. By all means, I don't think there's anything wrong with limiting Federal Fleets to a max 500 Command Limit, but I'd love to be able to see larger Federal navies if the fleet capacity donated by the member states supports it.
A: We are planning to tie the Federation Fleet max size to the Fleet Contribution Law. The higher the contribution – the larger the maximum size.
Q: Will it be possible to decide who gets to control the fleet/delegate it?
A: Although we have tossed around the idea of being able to delegate “war leader”, there are no current plans on changing that behavior. Currently the president controls the fleet, but we’re not against picking up the idea again in the future.
Federation Types:
Q: Have you considered alternate criteria for suggesting federation types? Right now, a Research Cooperative can only be suggested by a Materialist. An alternate criteria could be to have three active research agreements. Martial Alliance requires Militarist. An alternate criteria could be to have three rivals for 10 years. Trade League could be having three commercial pacts. All of these focus on building your diplomacy towards your federation type goal.
A: We’re discussing possibly opening up the federation types if you have finished certain Tradition trees. For example, if you finish Supremacy it would allow you to form a Military Alliance regardless of your ethics or civics.
Q: What kind of federations will gestalts be able to form? I guess the default one and maybe hegemony?
A: It depends on what type of empire it is. The default one is open to all, research is open to machine empires, and Hegemony is open to Rogue Servitors. (Even if Traditions would unlock certain federation types, the Prosperity tree would still not let gestalt empires start a Trade League.)
Q: Will different types of federations have different types of ethic attraction effects when joined or will all of them have Xenophile attraction?
A: Good question! Being in a federation will increase xenophile attraction, but being in certain federation types will increase attraction to certain ethics. Authoritarian for Hegemony. Militarist for Martial Alliance. Materialist for Research Cooperative.
Q: Is it possible to change the type of Federation as the game moves on (as in, can you reform Trade League into a Galactic Union)? A real life example is the European Union, which was formed as an economic union first, and then reformed into a sort of confederation.
A: Yes, it will be possible to change your federation type. Doing so will reset your progress, however.
Q: In Dev Diary #158, we saw that each different federation type had some sort of logo. But if more than one type of federation exists (eg, two Martial Alliances), will they have different logos, or will they just be the same?
A: The logos are tied to the federation types, so they would have the same logo in that case. It’s not really used as an empire flag, however.
Q: Why no spiritualist federations?
A: Because they have no game mechanics that are directly tied to the archetype. There is no reason that they wouldn't fit into one of the federation types that we already have. We have some ideas or mechanics we may want to add later, that would add some additional depth, however.
Q: In the Federation or Hegemon start, will you be able to make the empires in your federation/hegemon in the Empire creation, along with your own?
A: No, you will not be able to design the other empires. They will be randomly generated and will match some of your ethics.
Q: Will the different federations have unique leader requirements? It would be kind of a shame if the Tech federation wasn't based on who's the most technologically advanced.
A: There are federation laws that determine how the president is chosen. Setting the Succession Type to Strongest and the Succession Power to Technology would mean that the empire with the most researched technologies will be the president. These laws are not restricted to a tech federation
Q: I think it was mentioned before (maybe pdxcon) that hegemonies can force members in through wargoals, yet I didn’t see this in the dev diary, is it true and will it be implemented?
A: Yes, the president of a Hegemony can get a war goal to force other empires into the federation.
Federation Perks:
Q: Could you give us a preview/list of the different federation bonuses each federation type has? Right now information is super scant about this aside from the entry level passive; it would be nice to have a full list, like you did with origins.
A: Yes, we can share more of those. We will be streaming some time in the future to show off more some stuff in more detail.
Q: How many perks are there in a federation and are they ethics based?
A: The perks are tied to the different federation types, not ethics, and each type has 13 perks.
Fallen Empires:
Q: How will federations with Awakened empires be affected by the update? Will they gain special bonuses/options over normal empire Federations? Will it possibly lead to more complex interactions with Awakened/Fallen Empires as a result?
A: Depending on the federation’s succession laws, the awakened empire may seize control of the it. That could be good, or… not so good.
Q: Currently the War in Heaven creates a single large Federation for the Non-Aligned powers. This can result in the destruction of every federation that the "head" of the Non-Aligned Powers isn't a member of. This causes problems as-is (the destruction of federation fleets, diplomatic impact from leaving existing federations even between empires that both joined the Non-Aligned league, etc) and with more complex and differentiated federations that build out over time this impact will only increase.
A: There have been some changes made to the War in Heaven to interact in a better way with federations. For example, the leader of the strongest federation will now get the first chance to turn their federation into the League of Non-Aligned Powers.
Q: During a crisis, it is possible to invite the guardian fallen empire to the federation. How will they interact within the federation? A similar question is the league of non aligned factions (the alliance formed in war in heaven). How will the members of that federations interact?
A: See above answers.
Q: Would it be possible for a very powerful cohesive Federation to outright prevent/disallow their members from defecting to the Awakened Empires in a War in Heaven?
A: Subjects won’t defect, but others may. You can punish them for their treason if you can beat their new overlords.
Breaking Federations:
Q: How would one play against Federations? Any way to actually start influencing the member's ethics and affiliations to eventually break that Federation or break out a specific country in it?
A: The focus on Federations is mostly on cooperation, so there are no new mechanics for subterfuge in that manner. It would have to be in another expansion with another focus. You do have some ability to engage enemies in a non-warlike fashion, but that is done through resolutions and the Galactic Community.
Q: Will it be possible to influence or pull federation members out of a federation from the outside without the use of direct warfare?
A: There are no new mechanics that allows you to do that directly, but it may be doable through resolutions in the Galactic Community. If you get the president denounced and sanctioned, perhaps the other members will dislike them enough to try to get rid of them, or leave the federation.
Q: Can I overthrow the whole federation government and use it to expand my territory (like Palpatine in Star wars)?
A: Sounds like you successfully changed the federation type from Galactic Union to a Hegemony. (This does reset the progress of the federation however.)
Misc.:
Q: Will you expand the Federations types/mechanics in the future or will it remain in a relatively final state once the DLC is released?
A: Although we’re very happy with the reworked Federation system, nothing is certainly set in stone. We are very open to making changes due to popular requests.
Q: The trailer showed a number of empires unifying into a single entity. What are the exact mechanics?
A: The trailer is a representation of the federation being formed. Although there is no mechanic to merge them into one empire, they will change colors on the map to match each other if the Unions mapmode is on.
Q: Will it be possible to “merge” federations that have similar structure and ethics without losing a federation fleet, or progress on the upgraded
A: No, it’s currently not possible to merge federations.
Q: Will trade lanes be possible for at least Federations?
A: There are no current plans to tie the trade lanes into federations or subjects.
Q: Will it ever be possible, at max cohesion level perhaps, to fully "merge" a Federation into one single entity controlled by the player the same way we control our normal empires now?
A: There are no current plans to add functionality to merge federations. Although the idea is cool, it's a complex and costly thing to implement and therefore hasn’t been a priority.
Q: What are your general thoughts about 2-empire federations consisting of one very large empire and one very small empire, where the smaller empire just exists for the purpose of giving the larger empire the federation bonuses?
A: It is possible. We have no current plans on imposing any limitations on the player’s ability to do that, but we will have to see what the future holds.
Q: Any plans on changing the 'gamey' terms Level I, Level II etc to something more immersive?
A: No current plans.
Q: Can i be in several Federations at the same time like with NATO and EU (Presumably no, but still)?
A: No, you can only be a member of one federation.
Q: What if you are not a leader of Federation, but just a member, what kind of gameplay would that provide beside just following the leader?
A: You are still able to propose changes to federation laws, assign envoys or work to improve your standing. Most of the federation perks will benefit you as well.
Q: What is the planned interaction between federations and the Feudal Society civic?
A: There are no special interactions at this time.
Q: Currently there’s no way to influence the opinion two AI empires have of each other. This can make it difficult to get new federation members if one current member doesn’t like them. Will there be mechanics for influencing the relationships of AI empires within and outside of a federation?
A: Although it is something we have discussed and we want to improve at some point, it will not be coming in the next update.
Q: Will there be Federation related events? like a Xenophobic uprising or Pacifist uprising maybe?
A: We did discuss the idea, but ended up dropping it due to other priorities. Although federation-related events will not be in the next update, we’re very open to the idea and it may be something we want to do in the future.
Q: Will it be possible for a player to influence AI empires to let the player empire join an AI formed federation, even in case of not really compatible ideology?
A: Yes, it's possible to improve diplomatic relations with the new Improve Relations diplomatic action.
Q: If #1 is true, can you form the hegemony through a wargoal? Or do you always need a “willing” participant, even for hegemonies?
A: While you need a “willing thrall” to initially form the federation, hegemons do have a wargoal to force additional empires into their fold.
Q: Will we be able to make a federation with only 1 empire (ours), and invite members later on?
A: No, you cannot form or be in a federation with only 1 member.
Q: Not sure if this would go here or for the Q&A for Galactic Community but will resolutions passed in Galactic Community affect Federations?
A: There are currently no resolutions that only affect federations.
Q: Will Federation members be able to benefit from passive observations with Crystalline Entities and Space Amoebas so your Federation members don't get attacked!?
A: Not at this time.
Q: What measures are you taking to ensure that the solo empire play-style will remain viable with the Federations update? I personally do not want to feel forced into a Federation to remain competitive in the game. Can we take unilateral actions against the will of the federation/space UN at the expense of cohesion and possibly temporarily the bonuses we get?
A: There are no new mechanics that directly allow you to mess with a federation, but it is certainly possible to target certain empires through the Galactic Community and the resolutions. For example, you can collect favors to pass resolutions that make your enemies in Breach of Galactic Law, which leaves them open to sanctions.
Q: How will you be able to keep up with federations - they already pose a huge danger due to accumulated power in fleets and being able to attack you on several borders, now gaining even stronger benefits from forming an alliance?
A: Many tools exist to deal with a stronger entity than you in Stellaris. You could form your own federation with their rivals, you could focus on tech or economy and overwhelm them, you can interfere with them diplomatically through the Galactic Community, or you could consider joining them. (Or you can make a covenant with the End of the Cycle out of spite.)
Q: With Federations becoming the apparent new "standard" mode of play, will there be any adjustment to the Inward Perfection civic to keep them competitive?
A: We believe that Inward Perfection is a very strong civic, and that it will continue to be strong even after Federations.
Q: Will there be a mechanic to dissolve federations in the same way in EU4 that you can dismantle the HRE?
A: There is no current plan on adding a specific mechanic to dissolve federations. (Though removing federation members through subjugation or other CBs could cause it to dissolve.)
Q: Will the traditions trees be changed in any way, given all the changes coming to federations? Also will there be any new accession perks that are federation specific?
A: There are some changes to traditions. Certain civics that were previously locked out of most diplomacy options, such as Barbaric Despoilers and Criminal Syndicates, have had these restrictions reduced to varying degrees, which affects the traditions available to them.
Q: Can federations have a federation land army, like one federation uses only clones and the other only robots etc?
A: No, there are not any current plans for it.
Q: Will there be any new technologies to learn with the changes to federations?
A: Although there will be new technologies coming with the update, there are no new technologies that directly affect federations.
Q: Will there be any buildings or anything that can designate you being in a federation? What I mean is can we build federation specific buildings like: Federation fortress, Federation Naval Command, Federation Research lab etc etc. im imagining incase we leave or the federation ends these buildings go back to their normal self. or maybe these are just passive effects to being in certain federations.
A: There are no current plans for buildings that would only exist if you are a part of a federation.
Q: Will it be possible to build gateways in the territory of other Federation members? Or just your own space?
A: Currently it's only possible to build in your own space, but we’re looking into if it’s not too much trouble to allow building gateways in federation space as well.
Q: Is there anything about Federation budgets and federation projects - build ships or maybe a mega-project like a Dyson Sphere?
A: As much as we’d want it, there are currently no plans for shared projects like Dyson Spheres.
Q: Will Criminal Syndicates be able to create Trade Leagues? If so, does this mean that their restriction on Commercial Pacts will also be stripped? Will there be special mechanics for Federation members to not be affected by/tolerate crime on their planets?
A: Criminal Syndicates will be able to join and form federations, including Trade Leagues. They retain the current restrictions on Commercial Pacts, and there are no mechanics preventing them from tormenting other federation members or suffering the consequences.
Q: Will there be some rework to how wars are conducted between federations? For example, in the current system war goals can only be used against a single empire in the federation. Kind of makes it a major pain trying to subdue an aggressive federation, often taking several wars over the course of many decades, even if you're routinely conquering their entire federation.
A: There is no current plan on making any changes to how wars are conducted between federations.
Q: Will there be anyway to quickly gain information about stored resourced, net income, etc. of federation members and vassals so that it would be easier for players to help ally ai when they are in economic decline?
A: There are no current plans on adding that type of information, but it is something that we have discussed. It would be useful to be able to see requests from subjects and allies.
Q: What is your favorite or most memorable experience you've had testing out Federations? (the mechanic, not the patch)
A: We've all had funny and cool things happen, but @Eladrin probably takes the win with something that happened in an internal MP game: While playing an aggressive hegemon in a multiplayer game, forcing all the nearby empires to become my megacorp’s subsidiaries, my subjects changed the succession law to Challenge by Combat while I wasn’t paying attention. Boy was I surprised when my term ran out. This also lead to the AI kicking out another player from the federation, and then declaring war on them!
Q: Will Federation members simply treat other member's territory as their own, or will the members be able to designate Federation Neutral Zones: zones owned directly by the Federation rather than by a member?
A: We’ve made no changes to how territory is controlled.
Q: For the Federation origin, the teaser image showed a possible situation where the Earth empire could box in one of the other empires. Will there be any changes to hyperlane generation for this origin to prevent situations where one empire will have no directions to expand in?
A: The empires created by the Common Ground and Hegemon origins take two of the guaranteed habitable worlds around your homeworld (generating them as necessary if you reduced them in the game settings). As such they’re almost guaranteed to encroach on your borders, which compensates for the generally strong start. Your AI minions will follow normal expansion rules, generally being willing to create an outpost in a system two jumps away from another system they occupy.
In last week's dev diary we talked about the new Q&A format that we will be doing for the next couple of dev diaries. We asked you to post your questions regarding the federation rework, and we're glad to see so many questions!
Next week's topic will be the Galactic Community, and you can already post your questions here!
Anyway, let's begin with the Q&A:
Subjects:
Q: Are subjects forced to join some federation types (or all?) if you ask them to?
A: It’s up to your federation whether or not subjects are allowed in. If they are permitted, they will automatically follow their overlord in or out.
Q: Can you make/start a federation with your subjects?
A: Federations are (theoretically) alliances between equals, so independent diplomacy is required to initially form one. As noted elsewhere, vassals may be brought into federations (whether they like it or not) depending on federation law.
Q: Can you form a trade-league with a 1-planet sector you released as a vassal for just that purpose?
No and yes. Yes, you can release a 1-planet sector with the intention of starting a federation, but they would need to be independent for you to be able form it.
Federation Laws:
Q: Will there be any tools (laws, for instance) to combat ethics drift within a Federation? It would be nice to have a way to deal with an incompatible empire other than expelling them (then reabsorbing via a liberation war).
A: No, there is no way for you to influence the ethics of other empires. The cohesion penalty is meant to be offset by having to assign more envoys to the federation.
Q: Can you pass federation laws regulating member policies? For instance, decree that all primary species must have full citizenship throughout all federation empires? Or just outlaw slavery altogether? Because I hate seeing my own species enslaved by allies I have a migration treaty with.
A: There are currently no laws to influence other empires like that within the federation, but we’re certainly open to the idea. Once Federations is released we’ll be gathering your feedback as always
Q: Will we be able to pass laws that affect specific pop types? For example, I want to have all empires in my Hegemony, or all my vassal empires be forced to set Starfish pops to purge status (after all everyone seems to think that Starfish portrait represents fanatic purifiers the best).
A: Same as the answer above.
Q: How many federation laws are there?
A: There are currently 14 categories of laws, with each category having 2-5 laws.
Q: Can we get an Academic Debate succession type for Research Cooperatives?
A: There is in fact a Challenge Type called Thesis, which very much mimics what we think you are looking for. It’s available to all federation types.
Q: Could we get an example of more federation laws?
A: Yes we can! In dev diary #158 you could see most of the laws, but there are some things that have been changed or added since then. We now have the Strongest Succession Type, which is split up into different categories like Economy, Fleet, Tech or Diplomatic Weight. We have also added two new Challenge Types: one which is a bidding process where you spend ECs to become the president, and another one which is an academic thesis. We will definitely show off all these things in more detail on a stream sometime in the future.
Q: Can we have a federation succession type called weakest?
A: There are no current plans for it, but adding it wouldn’t be too difficult. If it becomes a very requested feature, it may be something we can add later.
Q: Would you consider adding elections for federation leader by a vote of the members? Would be really useful for multiplayer games. I am also curious why you did not make that that an option?
A: While we originally wanted to implement this, it ended up excessively costly to implement in a satisfactory way. We added Diplomatic Weight as an election option to represent the empires of your federation holding a democratic referendum.
Q: Will you have the ability to have a "One nations, One vote" policy when voting for policies in federations, or voting for leaders?
A: There is in fact a voting law that determines “Vote Weight”. By default, it is set to “Equal”, which means every member gets one vote. It’s possible to change it to Diplomatic Weight, however.
Q: Will there be an federation setting if the members have a defence pact or not? Currently all members have one but I could imagine a trade or science league to want a federation without the duty of defending each other.
A: Federations will always go to war together, and there are no current plans to change that. Although we can see why that could be cool in certain cases, we don’t think it's not worth all the issues it can potentially cause.
Q: Will there be disadvantages for higher levels of centralization? Or is there always incentive to just centralize more and more?
A: High Centralization will have a larger negative impact on monthly Cohesion, which means more Envoys will need to be assigned to maintain it.
Federation Fleet:
Q: Will we be able to build a Juggernaut to lead our Federation Fleet? Given the precedent that we can already build up to 3 Titans for our Federation Fleet, it would seem to make sense to me that we'd be allowed to build a Juggernaut for our fleet.
A: Yes, federations will be able to construct a Juggernaut.
Q: A more general Federation question - could it be at all possible to remove the 500 capacity limit for the Federation navy? By the late game, players can end up easily capping out the Federal naval capacity, and any extra capacity given over to the Federation is wasted. By all means, I don't think there's anything wrong with limiting Federal Fleets to a max 500 Command Limit, but I'd love to be able to see larger Federal navies if the fleet capacity donated by the member states supports it.
A: We are planning to tie the Federation Fleet max size to the Fleet Contribution Law. The higher the contribution – the larger the maximum size.
Q: Will it be possible to decide who gets to control the fleet/delegate it?
A: Although we have tossed around the idea of being able to delegate “war leader”, there are no current plans on changing that behavior. Currently the president controls the fleet, but we’re not against picking up the idea again in the future.
Federation Types:
Q: Have you considered alternate criteria for suggesting federation types? Right now, a Research Cooperative can only be suggested by a Materialist. An alternate criteria could be to have three active research agreements. Martial Alliance requires Militarist. An alternate criteria could be to have three rivals for 10 years. Trade League could be having three commercial pacts. All of these focus on building your diplomacy towards your federation type goal.
A: We’re discussing possibly opening up the federation types if you have finished certain Tradition trees. For example, if you finish Supremacy it would allow you to form a Military Alliance regardless of your ethics or civics.
Q: What kind of federations will gestalts be able to form? I guess the default one and maybe hegemony?
A: It depends on what type of empire it is. The default one is open to all, research is open to machine empires, and Hegemony is open to Rogue Servitors. (Even if Traditions would unlock certain federation types, the Prosperity tree would still not let gestalt empires start a Trade League.)
Q: Will different types of federations have different types of ethic attraction effects when joined or will all of them have Xenophile attraction?
A: Good question! Being in a federation will increase xenophile attraction, but being in certain federation types will increase attraction to certain ethics. Authoritarian for Hegemony. Militarist for Martial Alliance. Materialist for Research Cooperative.
Q: Is it possible to change the type of Federation as the game moves on (as in, can you reform Trade League into a Galactic Union)? A real life example is the European Union, which was formed as an economic union first, and then reformed into a sort of confederation.
A: Yes, it will be possible to change your federation type. Doing so will reset your progress, however.
Q: In Dev Diary #158, we saw that each different federation type had some sort of logo. But if more than one type of federation exists (eg, two Martial Alliances), will they have different logos, or will they just be the same?
A: The logos are tied to the federation types, so they would have the same logo in that case. It’s not really used as an empire flag, however.
Q: Why no spiritualist federations?
A: Because they have no game mechanics that are directly tied to the archetype. There is no reason that they wouldn't fit into one of the federation types that we already have. We have some ideas or mechanics we may want to add later, that would add some additional depth, however.
Q: In the Federation or Hegemon start, will you be able to make the empires in your federation/hegemon in the Empire creation, along with your own?
A: No, you will not be able to design the other empires. They will be randomly generated and will match some of your ethics.
Q: Will the different federations have unique leader requirements? It would be kind of a shame if the Tech federation wasn't based on who's the most technologically advanced.
A: There are federation laws that determine how the president is chosen. Setting the Succession Type to Strongest and the Succession Power to Technology would mean that the empire with the most researched technologies will be the president. These laws are not restricted to a tech federation
Q: I think it was mentioned before (maybe pdxcon) that hegemonies can force members in through wargoals, yet I didn’t see this in the dev diary, is it true and will it be implemented?
A: Yes, the president of a Hegemony can get a war goal to force other empires into the federation.
Federation Perks:
Q: Could you give us a preview/list of the different federation bonuses each federation type has? Right now information is super scant about this aside from the entry level passive; it would be nice to have a full list, like you did with origins.
A: Yes, we can share more of those. We will be streaming some time in the future to show off more some stuff in more detail.
Q: How many perks are there in a federation and are they ethics based?
A: The perks are tied to the different federation types, not ethics, and each type has 13 perks.
Fallen Empires:
Q: How will federations with Awakened empires be affected by the update? Will they gain special bonuses/options over normal empire Federations? Will it possibly lead to more complex interactions with Awakened/Fallen Empires as a result?
A: Depending on the federation’s succession laws, the awakened empire may seize control of the it. That could be good, or… not so good.
Q: Currently the War in Heaven creates a single large Federation for the Non-Aligned powers. This can result in the destruction of every federation that the "head" of the Non-Aligned Powers isn't a member of. This causes problems as-is (the destruction of federation fleets, diplomatic impact from leaving existing federations even between empires that both joined the Non-Aligned league, etc) and with more complex and differentiated federations that build out over time this impact will only increase.
A: There have been some changes made to the War in Heaven to interact in a better way with federations. For example, the leader of the strongest federation will now get the first chance to turn their federation into the League of Non-Aligned Powers.
Q: During a crisis, it is possible to invite the guardian fallen empire to the federation. How will they interact within the federation? A similar question is the league of non aligned factions (the alliance formed in war in heaven). How will the members of that federations interact?
A: See above answers.
Q: Would it be possible for a very powerful cohesive Federation to outright prevent/disallow their members from defecting to the Awakened Empires in a War in Heaven?
A: Subjects won’t defect, but others may. You can punish them for their treason if you can beat their new overlords.
Breaking Federations:
Q: How would one play against Federations? Any way to actually start influencing the member's ethics and affiliations to eventually break that Federation or break out a specific country in it?
A: The focus on Federations is mostly on cooperation, so there are no new mechanics for subterfuge in that manner. It would have to be in another expansion with another focus. You do have some ability to engage enemies in a non-warlike fashion, but that is done through resolutions and the Galactic Community.
Q: Will it be possible to influence or pull federation members out of a federation from the outside without the use of direct warfare?
A: There are no new mechanics that allows you to do that directly, but it may be doable through resolutions in the Galactic Community. If you get the president denounced and sanctioned, perhaps the other members will dislike them enough to try to get rid of them, or leave the federation.
Q: Can I overthrow the whole federation government and use it to expand my territory (like Palpatine in Star wars)?
A: Sounds like you successfully changed the federation type from Galactic Union to a Hegemony. (This does reset the progress of the federation however.)
Misc.:
Q: Will you expand the Federations types/mechanics in the future or will it remain in a relatively final state once the DLC is released?
A: Although we’re very happy with the reworked Federation system, nothing is certainly set in stone. We are very open to making changes due to popular requests.
Q: The trailer showed a number of empires unifying into a single entity. What are the exact mechanics?
A: The trailer is a representation of the federation being formed. Although there is no mechanic to merge them into one empire, they will change colors on the map to match each other if the Unions mapmode is on.
Q: Will it be possible to “merge” federations that have similar structure and ethics without losing a federation fleet, or progress on the upgraded
A: No, it’s currently not possible to merge federations.
Q: Will trade lanes be possible for at least Federations?
A: There are no current plans to tie the trade lanes into federations or subjects.
Q: Will it ever be possible, at max cohesion level perhaps, to fully "merge" a Federation into one single entity controlled by the player the same way we control our normal empires now?
A: There are no current plans to add functionality to merge federations. Although the idea is cool, it's a complex and costly thing to implement and therefore hasn’t been a priority.
Q: What are your general thoughts about 2-empire federations consisting of one very large empire and one very small empire, where the smaller empire just exists for the purpose of giving the larger empire the federation bonuses?
A: It is possible. We have no current plans on imposing any limitations on the player’s ability to do that, but we will have to see what the future holds.
Q: Any plans on changing the 'gamey' terms Level I, Level II etc to something more immersive?
A: No current plans.
Q: Can i be in several Federations at the same time like with NATO and EU (Presumably no, but still)?
A: No, you can only be a member of one federation.
Q: What if you are not a leader of Federation, but just a member, what kind of gameplay would that provide beside just following the leader?
A: You are still able to propose changes to federation laws, assign envoys or work to improve your standing. Most of the federation perks will benefit you as well.
Q: What is the planned interaction between federations and the Feudal Society civic?
A: There are no special interactions at this time.
Q: Currently there’s no way to influence the opinion two AI empires have of each other. This can make it difficult to get new federation members if one current member doesn’t like them. Will there be mechanics for influencing the relationships of AI empires within and outside of a federation?
A: Although it is something we have discussed and we want to improve at some point, it will not be coming in the next update.
Q: Will there be Federation related events? like a Xenophobic uprising or Pacifist uprising maybe?
A: We did discuss the idea, but ended up dropping it due to other priorities. Although federation-related events will not be in the next update, we’re very open to the idea and it may be something we want to do in the future.
Q: Will it be possible for a player to influence AI empires to let the player empire join an AI formed federation, even in case of not really compatible ideology?
A: Yes, it's possible to improve diplomatic relations with the new Improve Relations diplomatic action.
Q: If #1 is true, can you form the hegemony through a wargoal? Or do you always need a “willing” participant, even for hegemonies?
A: While you need a “willing thrall” to initially form the federation, hegemons do have a wargoal to force additional empires into their fold.
Q: Will we be able to make a federation with only 1 empire (ours), and invite members later on?
A: No, you cannot form or be in a federation with only 1 member.
Q: Not sure if this would go here or for the Q&A for Galactic Community but will resolutions passed in Galactic Community affect Federations?
A: There are currently no resolutions that only affect federations.
Q: Will Federation members be able to benefit from passive observations with Crystalline Entities and Space Amoebas so your Federation members don't get attacked!?
A: Not at this time.
Q: What measures are you taking to ensure that the solo empire play-style will remain viable with the Federations update? I personally do not want to feel forced into a Federation to remain competitive in the game. Can we take unilateral actions against the will of the federation/space UN at the expense of cohesion and possibly temporarily the bonuses we get?
A: There are no new mechanics that directly allow you to mess with a federation, but it is certainly possible to target certain empires through the Galactic Community and the resolutions. For example, you can collect favors to pass resolutions that make your enemies in Breach of Galactic Law, which leaves them open to sanctions.
Q: How will you be able to keep up with federations - they already pose a huge danger due to accumulated power in fleets and being able to attack you on several borders, now gaining even stronger benefits from forming an alliance?
A: Many tools exist to deal with a stronger entity than you in Stellaris. You could form your own federation with their rivals, you could focus on tech or economy and overwhelm them, you can interfere with them diplomatically through the Galactic Community, or you could consider joining them. (Or you can make a covenant with the End of the Cycle out of spite.)
Q: With Federations becoming the apparent new "standard" mode of play, will there be any adjustment to the Inward Perfection civic to keep them competitive?
A: We believe that Inward Perfection is a very strong civic, and that it will continue to be strong even after Federations.
Q: Will there be a mechanic to dissolve federations in the same way in EU4 that you can dismantle the HRE?
A: There is no current plan on adding a specific mechanic to dissolve federations. (Though removing federation members through subjugation or other CBs could cause it to dissolve.)
Q: Will the traditions trees be changed in any way, given all the changes coming to federations? Also will there be any new accession perks that are federation specific?
A: There are some changes to traditions. Certain civics that were previously locked out of most diplomacy options, such as Barbaric Despoilers and Criminal Syndicates, have had these restrictions reduced to varying degrees, which affects the traditions available to them.
Q: Can federations have a federation land army, like one federation uses only clones and the other only robots etc?
A: No, there are not any current plans for it.
Q: Will there be any new technologies to learn with the changes to federations?
A: Although there will be new technologies coming with the update, there are no new technologies that directly affect federations.
Q: Will there be any buildings or anything that can designate you being in a federation? What I mean is can we build federation specific buildings like: Federation fortress, Federation Naval Command, Federation Research lab etc etc. im imagining incase we leave or the federation ends these buildings go back to their normal self. or maybe these are just passive effects to being in certain federations.
A: There are no current plans for buildings that would only exist if you are a part of a federation.
Q: Will it be possible to build gateways in the territory of other Federation members? Or just your own space?
A: Currently it's only possible to build in your own space, but we’re looking into if it’s not too much trouble to allow building gateways in federation space as well.
Q: Is there anything about Federation budgets and federation projects - build ships or maybe a mega-project like a Dyson Sphere?
A: As much as we’d want it, there are currently no plans for shared projects like Dyson Spheres.
Q: Will Criminal Syndicates be able to create Trade Leagues? If so, does this mean that their restriction on Commercial Pacts will also be stripped? Will there be special mechanics for Federation members to not be affected by/tolerate crime on their planets?
A: Criminal Syndicates will be able to join and form federations, including Trade Leagues. They retain the current restrictions on Commercial Pacts, and there are no mechanics preventing them from tormenting other federation members or suffering the consequences.
Q: Will there be some rework to how wars are conducted between federations? For example, in the current system war goals can only be used against a single empire in the federation. Kind of makes it a major pain trying to subdue an aggressive federation, often taking several wars over the course of many decades, even if you're routinely conquering their entire federation.
A: There is no current plan on making any changes to how wars are conducted between federations.
Q: Will there be anyway to quickly gain information about stored resourced, net income, etc. of federation members and vassals so that it would be easier for players to help ally ai when they are in economic decline?
A: There are no current plans on adding that type of information, but it is something that we have discussed. It would be useful to be able to see requests from subjects and allies.
Q: What is your favorite or most memorable experience you've had testing out Federations? (the mechanic, not the patch)
A: We've all had funny and cool things happen, but @Eladrin probably takes the win with something that happened in an internal MP game: While playing an aggressive hegemon in a multiplayer game, forcing all the nearby empires to become my megacorp’s subsidiaries, my subjects changed the succession law to Challenge by Combat while I wasn’t paying attention. Boy was I surprised when my term ran out. This also lead to the AI kicking out another player from the federation, and then declaring war on them!
Q: Will Federation members simply treat other member's territory as their own, or will the members be able to designate Federation Neutral Zones: zones owned directly by the Federation rather than by a member?
A: We’ve made no changes to how territory is controlled.
Q: For the Federation origin, the teaser image showed a possible situation where the Earth empire could box in one of the other empires. Will there be any changes to hyperlane generation for this origin to prevent situations where one empire will have no directions to expand in?
A: The empires created by the Common Ground and Hegemon origins take two of the guaranteed habitable worlds around your homeworld (generating them as necessary if you reduced them in the game settings). As such they’re almost guaranteed to encroach on your borders, which compensates for the generally strong start. Your AI minions will follow normal expansion rules, generally being willing to create an outpost in a system two jumps away from another system they occupy.
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