Stellaris Dev Diary #184 : Fwd: Notice of Termination

[Eladrin]

Congratulations, [Employee.GetFirstName]!

Due to consistently meeting or exceeding performance goals and receiving high marks from both your manager and colleagues, you have been selected for termination at the end of this quarter! Your sacrifice is greatly appreciated by all of us here at Dodacorp™, and we’re lucky to see you go!

Your manager will be in touch with you to provide instructions related to termination benefits, reallocating your Dodacorp™ retirement credits to your next of kin, and the necessary paperwork for your desired post-termination arrangements. As a valued member of Dodacorp™, remember that you have an employee discount on cremation services from our partners at Burnatech™ and don’t forget that you can claim your complementary Eternal Interment™ urn from our Repositrexx™ subsidiary.

Ask your manager about securing a spot for your urn on the Wall of Honor™, the most desirable places are going fast!

Please make sure to complete all of the requisite forms by the first of [Employee.TerminationDate.PreviousMonth] so you don’t miss this exciting opportunity.

We’d like to thank you again for your service here at Dodacorp™, and appreciate that your sacrifice today will lead to record profits tomorrow!

Sincerely,
[Employee.Division.Supervisor.GetFullName]
[Employee.Division.Supervisor.GetFullJobTitle]

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Inspired by the extreme popularity of CK2’s Sunset Invasion, we continue our exploration of mortality with two more civics that we’re planning for an upcoming release, the Death Cult and Corporate Death Cult.

Death Cult civic - sadly the Curators aren’t allowed to secretly be a death cult

Corporate Death Cult civic - ritual murder for funds and prophet

Available to Spiritualist empires, empires with either of these civics replace the Temples that Spiritualists can normally build with Sacrificial Temples that provide both Death Priest and Mortal Initiate jobs.

Sacrificial Temple building - funny how there always seems to be a Help Wanted sign in the window

Death Priest job - dedicated to improving game performance

Mortal Initiate job - the benefits are to die for

Death Cults that have Mortal Initiate positions filled gain access to three new Sacrifice Edicts that let them perform the ritual slaughter to the gods (or whatever force your empire’s pops believe in). They’re a bit fickle though, and the magnitude of the benefits varies, but the more blood that is shed, the more likely you are to get the better blessings.

Sacrifice: Togetherness edict - let’s remember the good times we had together

Sacrifice: Harmony edict - you can finally get that corner desk and red stapler you wanted

Sacrifice: Bounty edict - it’s like voluntary purging that doesn’t get you yelled at by the Galactic Community

Sacrifice: Togetherness and Sacrifice: Harmony each have a base cost of 50 influence, Sacrifice: Bounty costs a base of 100 influence. These are, as usual, modified by things that affect Edict costs (such as the Spiritualist modifier).

When the Sacrifice is made, the Death Priests will inform you as to how it was received by the divine.

Sacrifice: Harmony - should have built more Sacrificial Temples, these are rookie numbers

Despite being societies revolving around ritual murder (and the Sunset Invasion joke), the theme of these civics is intended to be one of voluntary sacrifice, where the sacrifices are appreciated and honored. As such, it is not open to Fanatic Purifiers, who would probably have a more... uh... aggressive policy.

I know last week I said that we would try to take a glimpse into life in the Mishar Cabal, but they spaced the journalist sent to interview them after they "saw too much". We'll see what we can share about them soon.

Next week we’ll reveal what’s hidden under the blurred text in the Death Cult civic and maybe even meet

.

 

[Eladrin]

You weren't kidding when you said you were pursuing all avenues of improving game performance, were you ...

Hey, I learned a lot from playing so much CK2 after Reaper's Due came out.

 

[Eladrin]

Can we also kidnap pops from other empires to sacrifice them to the blood gods?

That would be horrible!

So... Uh... Yes.

(If you have the Raiding bombardment stance available.)

ALL HAIL JEFF

PRAISE JEFF.

so can the mortal initiates be slaves?

No. They have to be volunteers. People forced into it don't taste as good.

        is_sapient = yes
        is_enslaved = no
        is_being_purged = no
        is_being_assimilated = no

 

[Eladrin]

How about a comment on that new but unredacted civic, “ancient preservers”?

That's the Curator civic. We really didn't want them becoming Death Cults, since it makes it much more sinister when they ask you for your Scientist. Of course, since they have to be Materialist, it was a bit of overkill explicitly banning them from it, but oh well.

Not sure if that really is the intended reference, but it would fit the theme.

No, ours is different. There are many divergent paths to Jeff.

Will the AI be able to make proper use of those Civics?

It's a pretty easy one for them to use, build a building, use an edict once in a while.

They will only use the Sacrifice edicts if they're at least semi-relevant to the situation at hand, rather than murdering people every chance they can.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

No, ours is different. There are many divergent paths to Jeff.

Praise Jeff.

 

[Eladrin]

So, is this just a Civic for the Curator Enclaves from the Leviathans Story Pack, similarly to how primitives have Civics that basically only serve as placeholders and have no gameplay effect, or did I miss a Dev Diary between this one (#184 : Fwd: Notice of Termination) and the previous one (#183 : Memory Allocation) that talked about an actual new Materialist Civic? Because I'm pretty sure there is no 'Ancient Preservers' Civic in 2.7.2 'Wells' and the previous four DD's since after the summer break didn't talk about one either, so you simply saying "That's the Curator civic." and offering no further explanation makes it sound like I am missing something really obvious here.

The Curator Enclaves have the Ancient Preservers civic, it's part of how they get created. I don't think it is shown anywhere, since they have a modified contact panel. But I did admittedly mix up the Curators and the Materialist Fallen Empires a bit while joking around.

The enclave related civics are civic_ancient_preservers, civic_trading_conglomerate, and civic_artist_collective.

 

[Eladrin]

I was legitimately confused by Eladrin saying that Ancient Preservers "Is just the Curators Civic" and then talking about them asking for your Scientists, which is a Keepers of Knowledge thing to do

You're correct, I confused the two of them momentarily, which didn't help. Sorry!

I don't think there's a secret reason for the civic to be listed there, but I'll ask around.

 

[Eladrin]

Can we have both the civic from last week and this one?

We remember the sacrifices of those who... sacrificed themselves, yeah, that's it.

Yes, you can take both.

 

[RaygunGoth]

Do edict duration buffs affect this?

They do — the edicts and their associated modifiers are both extended.

Not a fan of the implementation of the civics. The civic and job descriptions reference very specific ritual practices which limit RP use, but at the same time the civic's gameplay effects were clearly designed to not align with any specific ethic. Perhaps I want to play a militarist empire that captures aliens to sacrifice, or a cutthroat megacorp that ritually kills poorly performing employees. These are really basic and restrained examples, yet under the current implementation they contradict the flavour text! The fact that this is mutually exclusive with fanatic purifiers is particularly shocking, the two concepts seem to go hand-in-hand. It really seems like a missed opportunity to expand on an interesting and oft-requested concept.

Sorry to hear! However there are various reasons for points you raise here, some of which will be answered in announcements yet to come (hence some blurring-out on the tooltips shown here).

On the matter of willing sacrifices: it's kind of a two-part decision. Similar to the way Memorialist is not available to purifier-type empires: even outside of spiritualist civics, what works for purifier-type gameplay doesn't always suit everyone else, and we would likely be better off creating a whole other civic in order to do explore idea properly. More than that, though: there is a distinct, ideological gulf between sapient sacrifice undertaken by willing devotees of their faith, and the ritualised slaughter of undesirable 'others'. The latter is an unquestionably evil act with some particularly stark, real-world parallels. Put simply: in this instance we chose not to make it completely evil, and instead leave room for what we hope are other, interesting takes.