Stellaris: Heroic Odyssey - A DLC Idea

[thevirgo]

I am new to the game and I'm loving it. Obsessed really. I've played over a hundred hours since I bought it during the winter sale on Steam. I'm nearing the end of my first campaign. Hopefully, my empire survives The Unbidden crisis that just popped up on the opposite side of the galaxy.

I just had an idea after three of my leaders got negative traits one after another.

I think it would be awesome if there's a DLC focused on Leaders. The game is so grand. The updates are usually focused on big galactic creatures, structures, and events. It would be awesome, IMHO, if we can get a glimpse of the heroes that lead the Empire. It would add a lot more depth and immersion if there are stories connected to how the Leaders acquire their new traits.

Here are some ideas for the DLC.

1. Events/storylines for ALL Leader types not just Scientists.
   > I can see Admirals triggering events while they are on patrol or when they go missing.
   > Same with Generals. Maybe an event would pop up during a planet invasion. Generals should also be able to lead Starbases.
   > Governors can deal with events caused by high crime rates or while creating planetary blockers.
   > I imagine Rulers may encounter events during an election or when your empire is trying to pass a law on the Galactic Union. Maybe an assassination storyline?
   
   
2. Envoys should be Leaders, too. I wish we can hire more of them and give them Diplomacy/Espionage-related traits. Imagine an event triggering when you're doing some spy work on another empire.
   
   
3. The seventh Leader type should be Architechs or Engineers. They should be able to command Construction Ships and some Megastructures. Events related to them can be triggered while they're constructing something.
   
   
4. Introduce a University building where Leaders can go to remove their negative traits or learn particular positive traits. Leader-specific events can happen there, too.
   
   
5. A game mechanic that discourages the hiring and firing of Leaders on the leader pool to get a better candidate. The University building can help with. Imagine Leaders start from scratch and then they can be trained to be Scientists, Governors, Generals, Admirals, Envoys, or Architechs.

Oooh. My head is spinning with story ideas. I wish I know how to code. I'd like to have this as a mod. But alas, I have almost zero-coding skills, so I'm just posting this here hoping that the dev team can make it happen as a DLC.

 

[Grobb]

Welcome! I don't necessarily agree with all of those ideas, but you're right that if we're going to have these named Leaders and this lean towards "narrative generation" in the game, said Leaders could stand to have a lot more "narrativeness."

1. Definitely agree that every Leader needs events. It would need a lot of writing but this seems like the low hanging fruit mechanically, compared to reworking how traits or hiring work.

2. Also agreed, somewhat. I don't exactly know what Envoys should look like when made into full Leaders and it'll probably be annoying when they die, but oh well.

3. I'm iffy about including Engineers, but I see the utility and honestly, I'd like it if we got some Construction ship automation to go with such a change.

4. I'm also iffy about removing negative traits, even if we need that so we don't just go back to the leader-cycling well at random, though I definitely think it shouldn't be a building. Maybe make it some sort of decision, or something that happens randomly or over time based on some sort of policy. Maybe make the removal of negative traits an event chain or something? Maybe turning out stronger than when they went in if it goes well? Not sure.

5. Definitely don't agree with Leaders starting generic and being specialized to a role. It seems pretty clear to me that Leaders are all people with previous experience in their areas, top of their fields, drawn from the undetailed greater population. I do agree we need to either eliminate or formalize leader cycling though. I choose formalization personally.

Good first post, glad you're having fun so far.

 

[thevirgo]

Welcome! I don't necessarily agree with all of those ideas, but you're right that if we're going to have these named Leaders and this lean towards "narrative generation" in the game, said Leaders could stand to have a lot more "narrativeness."

1. Definitely agree that every Leader needs events. It would need a lot of writing but this seems like the low hanging fruit mechanically, compared to reworking how traits or hiring work.

2. Also agreed, somewhat. I don't exactly know what Envoys should look like when made into full Leaders and it'll probably be annoying when they die, but oh well.

3. I'm iffy about including Engineers, but I see the utility and honestly, I'd like it if we got some Construction ship automation to go with such a change.

4. I'm also iffy about removing negative traits, even if we need that so we don't just go back to the leader-cycling well at random, though I definitely think it shouldn't be a building. Maybe make it some sort of decision, or something that happens randomly or over time based on some sort of policy. Maybe make the removal of negative traits an event chain or something? Maybe turning out stronger than when they went in if it goes well? Not sure.

5. Definitely don't agree with Leaders starting generic and being specialized to a role. It seems pretty clear to me that Leaders are all people with previous experience in their areas, top of their fields, drawn from the undetailed greater population. I do agree we need to either eliminate or formalize leader cycling though. I choose formalization personally.

Good first post, glad you're having fun so far.

Thank you! I wish I got into Stellaris sooner. I'm loving it and the passion of the community.

I'm 100% on board with the idea of event chains that are focused on Leaders. I don't mind the negative traits, I even think that we can use some more variants of them, but there should be a way for Leaders to rehabilitate themselves. In a game where creatures can become androids or develop psionic powers, there must be a way to "retrain" someone out of their negative impulses.

I think Envoys are already basically Leaders. They are skilled individuals who are doing a special role for the Empire. They are not just on the Leader tab. Giving them events while they improve relations with other empires, or while their doing espionage, will bring more flavor to those game mechanics. I love me some thrilling spy stories and political intrigue.

Engineers can have traits that can lessen the cost of building and maintaining the structures they build. There should be a cost to rebuilding Outposts/Starbases after they have been attacked. Outposts that have been bombarded shouldn't automatically go to the attacking Empire. I think they should revert to neutral status before a Construction Ship rebuilds the Outposts. I think that'll make war and conquering more systems from other Empires more interesting.

It would be cool if we can follow a story thread about how a Leader got Arrested Development or became a Substance Abuser and how they can overcome their struggles. Getting players invested in the journey of their Leaders will make the playing experience richer, IMHO. The character investment will probably reduce Leader Cycling to some extent. I mean it'll be hard to just fire a cute green lizard governor who has developed a Substance Abuse problem after his Sector barely survived an attack from a Fanatic Purifier empire.

Good point on the generic thing. Yeah, that feels off. Maybe they can start with one generic trait and then they have to hire from the Leader Pool before they can be trained for a specialization?

Another way to remedy the Leader Cycling issue is maybe through a planetary Decision that scouts the Pops on the planet for individuals who can be added to the Leader Pool. Or maybe a rare society tech that would add more Leader alternatives?

This game is so cool. I'm obsessed with how complex it is. I want more.

 

[Bezborg]

I don’t agree with going deeper into micro and the particular, personally I wish Stellaris stopped dabbling in the micro svale and goes back to the grander scale… and does away with leaders entirely.
I wish armies were a complex entity like fleets, and had a command structure that is permanent, and not a named leader. Same for fleets, same for research branches.

That said, it’s fascinating to hear from a new player and how your instincts lead you to this observation very interesting

 

[DukeLeto42]

Events/storylines for ALL Leader types not just Scientists.
> I can see Admirals triggering events while they are on patrol or when they go missing.
> Same with Generals. Maybe an event would pop up during a planet invasion. Generals should also be able to lead Starbases.
> Governors can deal with events caused by high crime rates or while creating planetary blockers.
> I imagine Rulers may encounter events during an election or when your empire is trying to pass a law on the Galactic Union. Maybe an assassination storyline?

Personally I'd see this going just as well with something of an internal politics revamp (giving factions teeth and the like). For instance, a governor becoming locally beloved but also encouraging ethics divergence.

There's a couple rare admiral events (one that gives the -10% ship upkeep trait) and traits from killing Leviathans, but events that impact those leaders are underutilized and as you say, the rest deserve some attention. In general, new traits should also reflect what leaders do (governors doing a lot of building should be more likely to get an event for reduced build cost, and so on; this would be very useful for leaders with two broad categories of activities, such as scientists and envoys, assuming the latter become proper leaders as below).

Envoys should be Leaders, too. I wish we can hire more of them and give them Diplomacy/Espionage-related traits. Imagine an event triggering when you're doing some spy work on another empire.

100% agree - Envoys are in a weird limbo as named and with death notifications but otherwise not leaders at all. The only caveat is that making envoys tied only to income (be that energy or, as it soon will be, unity) is currently a path to massive diplomatic capacity for already-large empires, so some thought would need to go into how that system would be reworked.

The seventh Leader type should be Architechs or Engineers. They should be able to command Construction Ships and some Megastructures. Events related to them can be triggered while they're constructing something.

Makes good sense, having construction ships operate like science ships do now. Since there's generally a gap between the early-game colonization and the late-game megastructures, perhaps they also need an equivalent to the "Assist Research" action - perhaps a trade-off where you can either park an Engineer or a Scientist in orbit to boost the planet, encouraging specialization?

Also, I wouldn't be averse to something like the archaeology / espionage system when it comes to Megastructure projects. It's a useful way to simulate complex processes with unexpected snags.

Introduce a University building where Leaders can go to remove their negative traits or learn particular positive traits. Leader-specific events can happen there, too.

Personally, I see leaders as coming from pops in the Ruler stratum, so buildings that provide ruler jobs would help unlock options for better leader recruitment and retraining.

A game mechanic that discourages the hiring and firing of Leaders on the leader pool to get a better candidate. The University building can help with. Imagine Leaders start from scratch and then they can be trained to be Scientists, Governors, Generals, Admirals, Envoys, or Architechs.

Yes to making the pool more of a pool, but I don't agree with the latter. By the time a prospective leader rises to the point of being a prominent member of society, they have already gotten the training for one leader track, as Grobb notes. Sure, some people switch jobs, but there's a reason any leader can become your Ruler.

Instead, I'd keep each leader track separate but make the pool persistent. As a simple fix, the pool replenishes at 1/month and fired leaders return to the pool (and the pool doesn't decrease back down to the pool size until leaders in it die / shift out of the pool at a very slow rate). This would at the very least make leader cycling slow and exorbitantly costly, encouraging players to make do. A much more complex fix would do away with hiring costs, keeping leader upkeep while also making expanding the pool size cost more unity upkeep for leaders.


Also, as someone who has been a wandering nuisance on the forum since the game's release, welcome, and look forward to many more hours of Stellaris fun!

 

[thevirgo]

I don’t agree with going deeper into micro and the particular, personally I wish Stellaris stopped dabbling in the micro svale and goes back to the grander scale… and does away with leaders entirely.
I wish armies were a complex entity like fleets, and had a command structure that is permanent, and not a named leader. Same for fleets, same for research branches.

That said, it’s fascinating to hear from a new player and how your instincts lead you to this observation very interesting

A hundred percent with you on the armies. That game mechanic is in need of development. I think it's a daunting task to introduce an elaborate ground battle system to an already complex game but it would be so neat. But even a little graphic sequence with some text post-army battle, to me, will be an appreciated improvement.

I'm an avid Sci-Fi and Fantasy reader. I gravitate towards stories. I'm the kind of player who imagines stories about the adventures of my Science Ships. Or the tragedies of losing the brave crew of a measly Corvette to war.

For me, there is a sublime beauty when those little stories contrast to the vast and grand scope of the galactic nature of Stellaris.

That said, I'm as fascinated to know the opposite perspective on this. To you, what's the pull of losing the Leaders?

 

[Bezborg]

A hundred percent with you on the armies. That game mechanic is in need of development. I think it's a daunting task to introduce an elaborate ground battle system to an already complex game but it would be so neat. But even a little graphic sequence with some text post-army battle, to me, will be an appreciated improvement.

I'm an avid Sci-Fi and Fantasy reader. I gravitate towards stories. I'm the kind of player who imagines stories about the adventures of my Science Ships. Or the tragedies of losing the brave crew of a measly Corvette to war.

For me, there is a sublime beauty when those little stories contrast to the vast and grand scope of the galactic nature of Stellaris.

That said, I'm as fascinated to know the opposite perspective on this. To you, what's the pull of losing the Leaders?

Well, to me the leaders are a placeholder mechanic from the initial game development, put there with the vague possibility of developing it later. It has not happened.
So there they remain, static, irrelevant platforms for static percentage bonuses. No storyline potential, no immersion, just a little portrait fot +10% this or that.

Over the years, playing this game, I’ve just developed a belief that no amount of leader development will add anything if value to the game, as it has only grown in scope and scale and ambition… we got dyson spheres and galactic empires and galactic invasions… so worrying about who’s sitting at the helm of a single science ship seems unnaturally small and irrelevant to me. I mean, I’m sitting in a throne dominating trillions of citizens, deciding whose entire civilization will be absorbed next…and I’m clicking through leaders for my ships?

To be perfectly honest, I widh warfare itself was entirely hands-off and automated, with me just defining long-term strategic direction, like what they’re doing with victoria 3 now…

Stellaris just never decided what it wants to be, amd that’s to its detriment, I feel. Are you a galactic emperor of trillions, or a logistics officer clicking on individual corvette orders..

There’s my perspective, hope you continue to enjoy the game

 

[thevirgo]

Personally I'd see this going just as well with something of an internal politics revamp (giving factions teeth and the like). For instance, a governor becoming locally beloved but also encouraging ethics divergence.

There's a couple rare admiral events (one that gives the -10% ship upkeep trait) and traits from killing Leviathans, but events that impact those leaders are underutilized and as you say, the rest deserve some attention. In general, new traits should also reflect what leaders do (governors doing a lot of building should be more likely to get an event for reduced build cost, and so on; this would be very useful for leaders with two broad categories of activities, such as scientists and envoys, assuming the latter become proper leaders as below).

100% agree - Envoys are in a weird limbo as named and with death notifications but otherwise not leaders at all. The only caveat is that making envoys tied only to income (be that energy or, as it soon will be, unity) is currently a path to massive diplomatic capacity for already-large empires, so some thought would need to go into how that system would be reworked.

Makes good sense, having construction ships operate like science ships do now. Since there's generally a gap between the early-game colonization and the late-game megastructures, perhaps they also need an equivalent to the "Assist Research" action - perhaps a trade-off where you can either park an Engineer or a Scientist in orbit to boost the planet, encouraging specialization?

Also, I wouldn't be averse to something like the archaeology / espionage system when it comes to Megastructure projects. It's a useful way to simulate complex processes with unexpected snags.

Personally, I see leaders as coming from pops in the Ruler stratum, so buildings that provide ruler jobs would help unlock options for better leader recruitment and retraining.

Yes to making the pool more of a pool, but I don't agree with the latter. By the time a prospective leader rises to the point of being a prominent member of society, they have already gotten the training for one leader track, as Grobb notes. Sure, some people switch jobs, but there's a reason any leader can become your Ruler.

Instead, I'd keep each leader track separate but make the pool persistent. As a simple fix, the pool replenishes at 1/month and fired leaders return to the pool (and the pool doesn't decrease back down to the pool size until leaders in it die / shift out of the pool at a very slow rate). This would at the very least make leader cycling slow and exorbitantly costly, encouraging players to make do. A much more complex fix would do away with hiring costs, keeping leader upkeep while also making expanding the pool size cost more unity upkeep for leaders.


Also, as someone who has been a wandering nuisance on the forum since the game's release, welcome, and look forward to many more hours of Stellaris fun!

I love how you broke that down. I think we agree on a lot of things.

Honestly, I just want more events to occur.
They just bring a lot of color to the game. I love reading those narrative flavors on the anomaly research pop-ups. I wish we can get those, too, for other Leaders, not just the Scientists.
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of interesting events that can happen when you're governing a galactic sector, or when you're commanding an interstellar war fleet.

Thank you for the welcome! And wow! I can only imagine how many hours you've put in this game. I just bought this a couple of weeks ago and I've already logged almost two hundred hours. I read that Stellaris years ago is very different than the Stellaris today. And will be a bit more different with the new patch. What was it like before?

 

[Unseelie]

<tear>

Over the years, playing this game, I’ve just developed a belief that no amount of leader development will add anything if value to the game, as it has only grown in scope and scale and ambition… we got dyson spheres and galactic empires and galactic invasions… so worrying about who’s sitting at the helm of a single science ship seems unnaturally small and irrelevant to me. I mean, I’m sitting in a throne dominating trillions of citizens, deciding whose entire civilization will be absorbed next…and I’m clicking through leaders for my ships?

<clip>

Stellaris just never decided what it wants to be, amd that’s to its detriment, I feel. Are you a galactic emperor of trillions, or a logistics officer clicking on individual corvette orders..

<snip>

Well, as for what we are...I don't think we're the emperor or the logistics officer. I think we're the nation. We outlive all of those people. I really believe we're something like the collective story that nation is telling its children. How's that for confusing abstraction?

But uh...I feel very much the same way, that leaders are just...clicks. But I don't think that means we walk away from them. It makes me yearn for them to be fleshed out. For admirals to retire to science ships, for megastructures to hire my governor. For two or more of them to be in conflict with one another politically, and have that cause the factions to froth. I want these people to have lives. I want them to want to porkbarrel for their homes in some way. Every anomalies this guy does, he sends 1% boost to something back to his planet.

But these are all just...suggestions for code hooks. what I really wish we had more of was writing.
And there are tools for automating writing these days. I do wonder if stellaris or stellaris 2 will ever use such.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Thank you for the welcome! And wow! I can only imagine how many hours you've put in this game. I just bought this a couple of weeks ago and I've already logged almost two hundred hours. I read that Stellaris years ago is very different than the Stellaris today. And will be a bit more different with the new patch. What was it like before?

Steam says almost 1200 - I tend to come back and do a new run or two each patch. I'd probably have a lot more if I weren't running it on computers not really up to the task until a few months ago (late game lag would take a lot of fun out of the game).

There have been a lot of changes, but the big two boil down to FTL and planets:

1. Way back when, territorial ownership wasn't claimed per system, but an influence bubble spreading from planets and the occasional outpost. If you've played any of the Galactic Civilizations games or Endless Space 2, you've got a pretty good idea what it looked like. Additionally, there were 3 different types of FTL - hyperlanes as we know them now, warp (range within which you can go to any planet), and wormhole stations (a constructed station in a system that ships can go to and from within its range). The thing is, cool as the variety was the systems didn't play well together - for example, your border bubble might cut off a nearby bit of hyperlane route, while non-hyperlane empires would have to guess where the hyperlanes were and warp was just too slow to catch either. It also meant it was hard to plan and play defensively. There was a lot of griping when the change happened, but while it took away variety in the short term I think it has paid off in the long run (expect an angry reply from someone who has remained angry with the change since its implementation in February 2018).
2. Planets used to run on tiles - planet size defined the total number of tiles, generally capping at 25. Each tile could have underlying production, had to be worked by a pop, and could sport a building; planetary blockers literally blocked access to a tile for both pops and production. Think of it a bit like your civ-style "pops work tiles" system. It had some fun adjacency opportunities, but it also set a very hard cap on population sizes - after all, these days your starting empire has almost as many pops as your worlds could ever support. In those days there were no alloys (everything was minerals), consumer goods, or trade value. This change was way less controversial than the first, but I will admit I do kind of miss the planet puzzle for placing all the buildings.