Stellaris Dev Diary #200: The Custodian

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grekulf

Stellaris Game Director
Paradox Staff
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Aug 13, 2012
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Hello everyone!

Today we’re back again with yet another dev diary; number 200 in fact. It sure has been a very exciting journey for Stellaris, and I think it is only going to get better! Nemesis is shaping up to be a very interesting addition to Stellaris, and today we thought we would talk about another headline feature for our upcoming expansion – namely the Custodian.

While some empires seek to set the universe on fire, others need to find their destiny as its defender. As we mentioned last week, the Galactic Community will get their own tools to fight the crisis, and that is what they can do by electing their chief crisis fighter.

We are setting the stage for these two nemeses to battle over the fate of the galaxy, and it is up to you who will win.

Becoming the Custodian
As soon as there is a Galactic Council, the Galactic Community can propose to elect one of the council members to become the Custodian. It is possible to have multiple proposals going at once, but as soon as a resolution is passed that elects a Custodian, others cannot be proposed anymore, as the choice has already been made.

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Concrete evidence that my lithoids should rock the Custodianship.

The AI is more likely to vote for a Custodian when there is some sort of crisis going on, which can be a Marauder crisis, end-game crisis, “Become the Crisis”-crisis or any of the other things that can happen.

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Time to get to work.

Powers of the Custodian
In order to be effective at their role, the Custodian must gain access to some special powers. The Custodian may need to be able to affect which resolutions move to the Senate Floor, so they have extended powers to be able to influence that more directly.

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The Custodian in the Galactic Community.

Prematurely End Session: A Custodian can end the current session after half of its voting period, which will pass or reject the resolution being voted on depending on the voting situation at the time.

Emergency Measures: The Custodian can use the Emergency Measures power to send a proposal to the Senate Floor, but has a much lower cooldown than regular council members.

Shared Intel: The Custodian will gain some Intel on all other members of the Galactic Community, such as knowing their Relative Fleet Power.

Freezing proposals: The custodian can pay 200 influence to freeze a resolution for 4 years, making it impossible for the resolution to move to the Senate Floor for the duration.

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Brrrr. Will you be resolute and wait it out..?

Custodial Resolutions
There are a number of new Resolutions that are tied to the Custodian. Let’s take a look at some of them:

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Galactic Defense Force
In order to protect the galaxy from threats from within and from beyond, the Custodian is able to construct ships for a Galactic Defense Force. The GDF is very similar to a federation fleet in the way it works, with the exception that it’s under the control of the current Custodian.

Should there cease to be a Custodian, the GDF will become an independent entity until a new Custodian is established.

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Once again, similar to federation ships, the GDF ships can be designed in the ship designer., which can be accessed from the Galactic Community UI.

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GDF? Ship just got real.

A Galaxy on Fire
After you have gloriously hammered the crisis into obscurity, your service as a Custodian is no longer needed, and the powers that came with the responsibility could be returned.

Maybe it was a really tough fight, a war the galaxy is sure to remember, and maybe you needed to ask the Galactic Community for more powers in order to win against the crisis – powers that you may not want to give up so easily...

This very much captures what we are trying to do with Nemesis. After one crisis has been defeated, maybe the next one is just around the corner… and this time it's a diplomatic one.
 
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What if a Custodian becomes the crisis? :rolleyes:

That will not be possible. At a certain point, a crisis player cannot be a part of the Galactic Community.

From what I understood they persist true, but they require Custodian first to have them created. And they are in "CUSTODIANSHIP" tab in Galactic Community.
Yes, only the Custodian can propose those. All members can propose repeals though.
 
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