Phoenix

Stellaris Dev Diary #155 - Origins

Hi team! It's time for another Dev Diary and our Game Director Daniel has a cool new feature to share with you today!

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Hello everyone! 

I have just returned from a belated vacation in Japan, and although I had a great time there it is also fun to be back to work. Today I want to talk about some of the cool things happening with Stellaris this year. As many of you have probably guessed, Stellaris will announce a new expansion at PDXCon this year. This expansion will feature a lot of cool new things, most of which will be revealed at PDXCon. But I do also have something really neat that I want to share with you now!


Good ol’ civics. Gotta love ‘em.

Back in Utopia we introduced a lot of cool new features to improve how you could customize and specialize your empire. Civics were a great addition to the game (in fact I consider them to be one of the best), but they are also awkwardly split between “backgrounds” like Syncretic Evolution and “institutions” like Distinguished Admiralty or Imperial Cult. Civics have added a lot of really cool options to how you can play the game, and that is something I want to expand upon – this is where the Origins come in.


Materialistic, mechanist, mushroom madness?

Origins is a new feature that is very similar to Civics, and will now represent your empire’s background. An empire can only select one Origin, and an Origin cannot be changed. We will be adding a bunch of new Origins (some of them are really cool!) and we will also be changing some Civics into being Origins instead. Examples of Civics that will be converted into Origins are Mechanists, Post-Apocalyptic, Life-Seeded and Syncretic Evolution.


Life-Seeded Origin, now open to hive minds.

Certain types of empires were previously unable to access some of these backgrounds since they have their own set of Civics (Gestalts and Megacorps for example). Because some of those Civics have been turned into Origins, those backgrounds will now be available to more types of empires. This means that it should now be possible to have a hive mind with the Life-Seeded origin or a Megacorp with the Mechanists origin. We know this is something people have been asking for for a long time now, and it’s really great to be able to add Origins to the game.

Like I mentioned earlier, we will also be adding a whole lot of new Origins that will add interesting starting positions for your empire. Right now we have 16 in the current version of the game, and we will probably see a few more until it's finished. I think Origins will be a great addition to the game that will surely help to facilitate a lot more player stories and player fantasies.

We won’t be showing all of these yet, but it will probably be immensely hard for us to not tease a few every now and then


Who isn’t curious about Remnants and Scions?

PDXCon is rapidly approaching and Stellaris fans will have a lot of cool things to look forward to! In two weeks we will be back again with another dev diary, where we’ll talk a bit more about PDXCon. 

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As always, remember you can also read this Dev Diary on our forums and give us feedback in that thread: https://pdxint.at/DD155

 

 

Hello everyone!

We’re back with yet another dev diary to showcase some more fruits of summer experimentation. As with the previous dev diary, this involved a lot of work carried out during the summer and involves something I’ve wanted to explore for a good while now.

Today we’ll be talking about empire sprawl and administrative capacity. Do note that these changes are still fairly young in their development, so numbers and implementation details may not be representative of what it will look like in the end.

As a background, I can mention that I have a grander idea of where I want to take these mechanics, but it will not all happen at once. These changes aim to mimic state bureaucracy or overhead created by managing a large empire. As a minor aspect I also wanted you to be able to experience the funny absurdity of having a planet entirely dedicated to bureaucracy. The movie Brazil is a great source of inspiration here

Empire Sprawl
We wanted to expand on how empire sprawl is used, so that it becomes a more interesting mechanic. The largest change means that pops now increase empire sprawl. Most things in your empire should be increasing empire sprawl to various degrees, to represent the administrative burden they impose.



Empire Sprawl can now be modified from its different sources, and as an example, the Courier Networks expansion tradition will now reduce empire sprawl caused directly by the number of planets and systems. As another example shows, the Harmony traditions finisher now reduces the total empire sprawl caused by all your pops.

We are also able to modify how much empire sprawl each pop contributes, and we’ve added a couple of new species traits that affect it. There are also machine variants of these traits.



We have also increased the penalty for the amount of empire sprawl that exceeds your administrative capacity. The goal is not to make administrative a hard cap, but we want to make it necessary to invest some of your resources into increasing your administrative capacity. More on that later.



The current plan is for machine empires to be more reliant on keeping their administrative capacity in line with their empire sprawl, so machine empires will suffer a much harsher penalty for exceeding their cap. We want machines to feel “centralized” and to perhaps favor a more “tall” playstyle.



Hive Minds, on the other hand, should be more tolerant of a sprawling empire where unmanaged drones are able to fall back on their instincts whenever they cannot maintain a responsive connection to the hive mind. Therefore, hive minds should be more tolerant of a “wide” playstyle.

Administrative Capacity
With all these changes to empire sprawl, what about administrative capacity, I imagine you asking? Well, since empire sprawl is becoming an expanded concept, administrative capacity will naturally be a part of that. Increasing your administrative capacity will now be a part of planning your empire’s economy.



For regular empires, the bureaucrat is a new job that increases your administrative capacity at the cost of consumer goods. This is also a specialist job, and has needs accordingly. Administrators are unchanged, and do not currently affect administrative capacity or bureaucrats.

For machine empires, the coordinators have changed roles from producing unity to now increasing administrative capacity instead, and they are more effective than bureaucrats. A new job called Evaluators now produce unity for machine empires.

Hive Minds currently have the hardest time to produce administrative capacity, but it has been added as a function of the synapse drone job.



Certain sources that previously increased administrative capacity by a static amount now increase is by a percentage amount instead. This doesn’t affect the output of the jobs, but rather increases the total administrative capacity directly.

Summary
Personally I’m very excited for these changes and I’m very much looking forward to taking it to its next step in the future. I hope you enjoyed reading about the changes that will come to Stellaris sometime later this year. As always, we’ll be interested to hear your thoughts.

As mentioned in last week’s dev diary, the schedule for dev diaries will now be bi-weekly, so the next dev diary will be in another 2 weeks. 

If you want, you can also read this Dev Diary and comment on our forums: Dev Diary #153[pdxint.at]

Disable Overlays

Disable Your Antivirus

Apocalypse - I Want To Run The Previous Version Of The Game

WHAT THEY DISABLED GAMEPADS! NOOOOO!

Verify the Integrity of the Game Cache

Game Crashing At 30% - Disconnect your Controller

Try Running Game Windowed - May Fix Stuttering

Run Steam and Stellaris as Administrators

Re-run Redistributables

AUGH! I Changed Some Video Settings Now The Game Won't Start!

Update Your Video Card Drivers

Laptop users should force their Nvidia/AMD cards

Try Restarting Steam

Low FPS on high end systems

UI scaling for High DPI Screens

Issues Finding MP games

Cannot Connect To MP - Wrong Version

Cannot HotJoin Friends When I Invite Them

Console Options to Disable Graphical Settings for Better FPS on Low End Systems

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Post your system specs and details about your issue

Hello, Civilization fans! As we revealed on the Sid Meier’s Civilization YouTube channel a few days ago, we have been hard at work on a new update for Civilization VI and it’s now ready for release. Watch the video below to see the developer rundown for this latest update:
   
Thank you all for your continued feedback on Civilization VI. This update automatically installs through Steam; if you’re having trouble, please restart your Steam client.
 

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will launch for Windows PC on February 14, 2019. Follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #OneMoreTurn, and be sure to follow the Civilization franchise on social media to keep up to date with the latest news and information on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

 

Please note: Unless otherwise stated, items in the list below are assumed to be Gathering Storm ruleset only.

[FEATURES]

• World Congress
  • 3 New World Congress Proposals
    • Public Relations: Target Player generates 100% more Grievances, and other players generate 100% more Grievances with the Target Player OR the Target Player generates 50% fewer Grievances, and other players generate 50% fewer Grievances toward the Target Player.
    • Espionage Pact: All Spies function +2 levels higher for the Target Operation OR Target Operation is unavailable (later game)
    • Military Advisory: Target unit promotion class gains +5 Combat Strength OR loses 5 Combat Strength
  • 1 New Request for Aid Type
    • Military Aid Request: If a civ that you have at least 200 Grievances against declares war on you, a Military Aid Request becomes available. This uses the gifting system (gold and/or project).
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] WorldBuilder Basic Mode is now “on” by default. Click on Additional Content from the main menu, and you will see the button on the upper-right.
    • Additional bugs and polish are listed in the WorldBuilder section below.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Unit Abilities
    • Added Unit Abilities tooltip to the Unit panel. Mouse over a unit portrait to see Unit Abilities that were previously hidden. Note that this will not include temporary or situational Abilities.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Diplomacy Ribbon Yields
    • We now have an interface option in settings to turn on all the player yields on the Diplomacy Ribbon. They are: Always Off, On via Mouse-Over, Always on.
    • Many thanks to modders for inspiring this change! We like it better this way as well.
  • Power Lens
    • Add a Power Lens when on the Power Tab of city-view with area highlights to easily see what is powered and what is not.
  • Body of Water Labeling
    • Add Map Labels to any body of water over a certain size (oceans, bays, lakes, etc.)

 

[BALANCE/POLISH]

• Civs
  • England
    • Iron and Coal Mines accumulate 2 more resources per turn. +100% Production towards Military Engineers. Military Engineers receive +2 charges. Buildings that provide additional yields when powered receive +4 of their respective yield. +20% production towards Industrial Zone buildings. Harbor buildings increase Strategic Resource Stockpiles by +10.
  • Canada
    • Last Best West: Add +1 Production to Tundra/Tundra Hills/Snow/Snow Hills Lumber Mills and +1 Food to Camp in these terrains. 
  • France
    • Château's adjacency for each wonder doubles at Flight.
  • World Congress
    • Increase Diplomatic Victory requirement to 25 Diplomatic Victory Points (DVP), and increase ability to gain DVP in-game.
      • Players gain 1 DVP when voting for the winning option/target combo of any Resolution.
      • Statue of Liberty gives 4 DVP (doubled).
      • Potala Palace Gives 1 DVP.
      • Mahabodhi Temple Gives 2 DVP.
      • Aid Requests (including new Military Aid Request) grant 2 DVP (doubled).
      • Non-Emergency Scored Competitions grant 1 DVP to first place.
    • Change current DVP Resolution to +2/-3 DVP for the Target Player.
    • Buffing starting DVP for existing saves and late starts.
      • Saves from “the wild” should now double their DVP upon load, making the victory more achievable with existing saves.
      • Advanced starts now have a more reasonable number of starting DVP.
    • Scored Competitions now end one turn before World Congress meets again (to lower the noise threshold by all of it happening on the same turn).
    • Update to vote tie breaking for World Congress – Now, instead of awarding the win by player ID once all other values are calculated, determine it based on player with LEAST remaining favor.
    • Send Aid Project now sends Gold to all accepting ongoing Emergencies
  • Eras
    • Add light scaling to Era Score by game speed.
    • Dedications for later eras:
      • Sky and Stars Golden Age (updated):  Unlocks the Eurekas for Satellites, Nuclear Fusion, and Nanotechnology if in the Information Era. When chosen in the Future Era the Eurekas for Smart Materials, Predictive Systems, and Offworld Mission are unlocked. +100% XP earned for all Air Units. Aluminum mines accumulate +2 more resources per turn.
      • Automaton Warfare Golden Age (new): Gain a Giant Death Robot. Receive 3 Uranium per turn. Uranium mines accumulate +1 more resource per turn. 
      • Automaton Warfare Normal and Dark Age (new Gain +1 Era Score for each non-Barbarian unit killed with a GDR.
    • New Dark Age Policies for later eras
      • Cyber Warfare: +10 Combat Strength against units from the Information and Future Eras. BUT: Grievances against you do not decay.
      • Automated Workforce: Your cities get +20% Production towards city projects. BUT: -1 Amenity and -5 Loyalty per turn in your cities.
      • Disinformation Campaign: +3 Favor per turn for each Broadcast Center. BUT: -10% Science and Culture in all cities.
    • Great People
      • Great Works of Writing are now +2 Culture and +2 Tourism.
      • If a player cannot earn a Great Person of a class (ex. Great Prophet after they already have one or after they run out), Great People points are converted into Faith at a 1 to 1 ratio.
        • Great Person points from the Holy Site Prayers project (and other city projects) now count as excess points and generate Faith if no GP of that type can be earned.
      • Map Gen
        • New Maps
          • 7 Seas
          • Small Continents
        • Generation
          • Decreased the number of one-tile mountains on XP2 Archipelago maps by about 15%.
          • Generate more Woods on Tundra.
          • Allow Coal to be on Woods and Aluminum to be on Rainforest.
        • Building/Improvements (tied to the Tech Tree rebalance)
          • Building production cost balancing. Decreasing costs of later game buildings and their civ unique variants by roughly 20%.
            • Medieval Walls: 220 (was 225)
            • Renaissance Walls: 300 (was 305)
            • Tsikhe: 260 (was 265)
            • Factory, Electronics Factory, Stock Exchange, Military Academy: 330 (was 390)
            • Zoo, Thermal Bath, Aquarium, Oil Power Plant: 360 (was 445)
            • Hangar, Food Market: 380 (was 465)
            • Seaport, Broadcast Center, Film Studio, Research Lab, Tier 3 Government buildings, Shopping Mall, Hydroelectric Dam: 440 (was 580)
            • Nuclear Power Plant, Airport: 480 (was 600)
            • Stadium, Aquatics Center: 480 (was 660)
          • Buffing the yields and amenities of certain mid and late game buildings to make them more worth the production cost investment. Adding small Power requirements to some buildings as well.
            • Workshop: 3 Production (was 2).
            • Armory: 3 Production (was 2).
            • Ferris Wheel: 3 Culture (was none).
            • Factory: 3 regional Production, 6 when powered (was 2, 5).
            • Electronics Factory: 3 regional Production, 8 when powered (was 2, 6).
            • Military Academy: 4 Production (was 3).
            • Food Market: Adds 1 to city power requirements (was none). 4 Food, 6 when powered (was 3).
            • Shopping Mall: Adds 1 to city power requirements (was none). 1 Amenity, 2 when powered (was 1). 2 Gold, 4 when powered (was none).
            • Airport: Adds 1 to city power requirements (was none). 4 Production, 6 when powered (was 3).
            • Stadium: Adds 2 to city power requirements (was 3).
            • Aquatics Center: Adds 2 to city power requirements (was 3).
          • Tier 3 buildings in districts that can support worker citizens ("specialists") now increase the yields for each citizen working that in that district tile.
            • Coal Power Plant, Oil Power Plant, Nuclear Power Plant: +1 Production per citizen
            • Stock Exchange: +2 Gold per citizen
            • Military Academy: +1 Production per citizen
            • Seaport: +1 Food per citizen
            • Broadcast Tower, Film Studio: +1 Culture per citizen
            • Research Lab: +1 Science per citizen
            • Religion-specific buildings: +1 Faith per citizen
            • These values are all viewable in the Civilopedia
          • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Changing the yields of citizens working district tiles ("specialists") to better fit the balance and flavor of certain districts.
            • Harbor, Royal Navy Dockyard, Cothon: 2 Gold and 1 Food (was 2 Gold and 1 Science).
            • Encampment, Ikanda: 2 Gold and 1 Production (was 1 Culture and 1 Production).
          • Change Industrial Zone adjacency bonus
            • +1 Production for every 2 adjacent districts; +1 Production for every 2 adjacent Lumber Mill; +1 for every 2 adjacent Mine (Minor adjacency).
            • +1 Production for the Strategic Resource, Government Plaza and Quarries. (Standard adjacency).
            • +2 Production for Aqueducts, Canals, Dams, and Bath Districts. (Major adjacency).
          • Increase value of Quarries, Pastures, and Lumber Mills (to have similar output to Mines, which are dominant right now)
            • Lumber Mill (unlocked with construction, classical): +2 Production. +1 Production from Steel (Steel), +1 Production from Cybernetics (Future).
            • Allow Lumber Mills on Rainforest tiles (Unlocked with Mercantilism)
            • Remove River adjacency.
            • Pasture (unlocked with Animal Husbandry, Ancient): +1 Production and 0.5 housing. +1 Food from Exploration (Renaissance), +1 Production with Replaceable Parts, +1 Food from Robotics (Information).
            • Quarry (unlocked with Mining, Ancient Era): +1 Production, +1 Production with Gunpower (Renaissance), +1 Production with Rocketry (Atomic), +1 Production Predictive Systems (Future).
          • Misc
            • Hansa: Add +2 Production for Aqueducts, Canals, and Dams. (Major adjacency)
          • Religion/Pantheon
            • Remove Goddess of the Harvest.
            • Add Goddess of Fire which gives +2 Faith for every Volcanic Soil and Geothermal tile.
            • Divine Spark: +1 Great Person Points from Holy Sites (Prophet), Campuses with a Library (Scientist), and Theater Squares with an Amphitheater (Writer). (Before just the Great Scientist and Great Writer facet didn't require buildings)
            • Craftsmen: +1 Production and +1 Faith from improved strategic resources. (Before just +1 Production on Mined improvements)
            • Earth Goddess: +2 Faith from tiles with Breathtaking Appeal. (Before +1 Faith from tiles with Charming or better Appeal)
            • Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food and +1 Production from camps. (Before just +1 Food)
            • Remove Oral Tradition.
            • Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture from Plantation. (Before Goddess of the Festival was +1 Food to half of the Plantation types and Oral Tradition was the other half of plantation improvements +1 Culture)
            • Religious Settlements: When chosen and you have at least 1 city receive a Settler in your capital. Border expansion rate is 15% faster. (Before just 15% Expansion)
            • Fertility Rites: When chosen and you have at least 1 city receive a Builder in your capital. City growth rate is 10% higher. (Before just 10% Growth)
            • River Goddess: +2 Amenities and +2 Housing to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River. (Before just +1 Amenity)
            • Initiation Rites: When a Barbarian Outpost is cleared receive +50 Faith and the unit that cleared the Barbarian Outpost heals +100 HP. (Before just +50 Faith)
          • Technologies and Civics
            • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Rebalance Antananarivo suzerain bonus to have a maximum bonus of +30% Culture (was no limit).
            • Additional Tech prerequisites
              • Stirrups requires Apprenticeship
              • Chemistry requires Replaceable Parts
            • Tech cost increases
              • Early Renaissance costs 600 (was 540)
              • Late Renaissance costs 730 (was 660)
              • Early Industrial costs 930 (was 845)
              • Late Industrial costs 1070 (was 970)
              • Early Modern costs 1250 (was 1140)
              • Late Modern costs 1370 (was 1250)
              • Early Atomic costs 1480 (was 1410)
              • Late Atomic costs 1660 (was 1580)
            • Civic cost increases
              • Early Medieval branch costs 220 (was 200)
              • Early Medieval trunk costs 300 (was 275)
              • Late Medieval branch costs 340 (was 290)
              • Late Medieval trunk costs 420 (was 385)
              • Early Renaissance branch costs 440 (was 400)
              • Early Renaissance trunk costs 600 (was 540)
              • Late Renaissance trunk costs 720 (was 655)
              • Early Industrial branch costs 800 (was 725)
              • Early Industrial trunk costs 1010 (was 920)
              • Late Industrial branch costs 1050 (was 870)
              • Late Industrial trunk costs 1210 (was 1060)
              • Early Modern branch costs 1540 (was 1255)
              • Early Modern trunk costs 1540 (was 1410)
              • Middle Modern branch costs 1580 (was 1560)
              • Middle Modern Ideology costs 1640 (was 1500)
              • Late Modern government branch costs 1640 (was 1500)
              • Late Modern Nuclear Program costs 1715 (unchanged)
            • Units
              • Increased Anti-Air strength of naval units to be on par with increases made on land AA units.
              • Several strategic resources required unit changes:
                • Cuirassier changed from Niter to Iron.
                • Cavalry changed from Niter to Horses.
                • Cossack changed from Niter to Horses.
                • Huszar changed from Niter to Horses.
                • Nuclear Submarine no longer requires Uranium per turn.
              • Reduced upfront resource cost of remaining unique units from 20 to 10. Mamluk, Conquistador, Redcoat, Black Army, Huszar, Cossack, Mandekalu Cavalry, Legion, and Janissary.
              • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Corps and Army Gold purchase costs now take into account the 25% Production discount awarded by building the Military Academy. Upfront resource costs also consider the 25% discount.
              • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Increased movement ranges of some late game units from 2 to 3. (Modern AT, Mobile SAM, Rocket Artillery).
              • Military Engineers can contribute production to Flood Barriers and Aqueducts.
              • Update Battering Rams and Siege Towers to only work with Melee and Anti-Cavalry units.
              • Medieval and Renaissance Walls are immune to Battering Rams. Renaissance Walls are immune to Siege Towers. Battering Rams upgrade into Siege Towers.
            • Policies
              • Policy: Music Censorship: Rock Bands from other players may not enter your territory. BUT -1 Amenity in all your cities with 10 or more Population.

 

[UI]

• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Gossip and Combat Status UI
  • Reduced size of gossip messages that appear during AI turns and gave them their own column of screen space to the right of combat status messages.
  • Reduced size of combat status messages.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Reports
  • Added new Gossip Report to reports menu.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Front-End
  • Added toggle for drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Add mini-map preview to saves so you can see what your game looks like before loading. Only works for new saves created post patch.
  • Hot-Key text fields in the Options menu now have tool-tips on each item.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] City Recommendations UI
  • Refactor recommended Settlement location system to take more factors into account aside from growth.
  • Added easy-to-read Settler recommendation tooltip (with thumbs up/down icons) that reflects why the game is recommending a given location (growth potential, presence of new resources, distance from friendly cities, etc.).
  • Increase number of recommendations and spread them out based on the players explored area.
  • Back port settling recommendations changes to base and XP1.
• World Congress
  • Adding notification for when the player earns DVP.
  • Implementing "Previous Results" for resolutions in the World Congress (tooltips added to resolutions where the same resolution has come through the World Congress in the past. Gives the player an idea of how everyone voted the last time the resolution was up for a vote).
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Production Queue
  • Add user interface option to always open to the production queue even if the queue is empty.
  • Open directly to the production queue if a city has any items currently queued.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Religion
  • New Pantheon Chooser (left side of screen instead of center of screen). Now the player can see the map when choosing what Pantheon will apply to their civ.
  • Religion Screen style update designed to show more data and waste less space.
• Misc
  • Floating text for Power Plants when a turn ends will now only show the amount of Power that is actually used, rather than the total amount it generated from the resources.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Add espionage missions to the Spy Civilopedia page.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Add Terrain and Feature defense modifier to the Civilopedia. Also include the movement change in the terrain section of the Civilopedia .
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fix overlays not being cleared unless the map updated, enabled map search results on the mini-map and full map.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Right click to close full screen movie-based popups, and Historic Moments.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] There is now a notification that appears when a new Barbarian Camp appears in the mid-fog near the player. Unique notification icon added.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Policy Panel: We are now using slightly wider cards to allow more room for text to avoid as many text overflows.
  • Units: Allow GDR to be namable
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Colors: Change Gitarja (Indonesia) colors to not conflict with Kupe (Maori).
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Notifications are now properly serialized/localized. If 2 individuals with different language settings are playing Play-By-Cloud, they will no longer see notifications in the opponent language.

 

[AI]

• Civs
  • Give Matthias additional alliance favoritism to support the Huszar unit
  • Correct issue in Eleanor's alliance favoritism.
  • Allow Kupe to settle further from his own cities to stop him from getting island locked.
  • John Curtin now favors liberating cities.
• World Congress
  • AI support added for new Resolutions.
  • AI Aid requests: AI now offers aid every 10 turns, at 3 times previous value. This won't change existing saves/running emergencies.
  • Improve AI vote prioritization, looking at all resolutions available in a given World Congress.
  • Adjust AI so it doesn’t regularly overvalue some resolutions.
  • Don't choose Great People for Patronage resolution if they're no longer available (Great Prophet for example).
• Combat and Operations
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Korean Hwacha - Remove siege designations from unit so that AI uses them properly
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Improvements to city defense tree when trying to get units into defensive positions.
  • Improve religious units understanding to retreat from stronger opposing religious units.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fix bug in tactical (non-coordinated) ranged units with attacking unguarded combat districts.
  • Improvements to operational movements around mountains and other terrain.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Barbarians: Fix bug stopping raids from starting.
• Trade
  • Use correct stockpile limits when deciding how much of a resource to trade. AI could have offered 0 if they were over their stockpile limit, even if the person they're trading to was not.
  • When the AI does not have a good enough reserve of a strategic resource they want, they won't trade it away rather than undervaluing it.
  • Trade for strategics up to double what is needed, then stop. Makes for consistent valuation.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fix problem putting together peace deals where they want to return a city.
  • Don't let AI try to trade resources that would take either side beyond their stockpile caps.
  • Don't count both sides of the deal against the amount, this was causing deal amounts to go negative in some situations.
  •  
• Misc
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Inner ring and total yield scoring changed to use all yields (previously only production and food) - This makes the AI a bit more aggressive and expand more quickly.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Unit combat analyzers only check for hostile major powers. Makes oligarchy less favored when not at war with majors.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Don’t send non-combat Great People to scout the civilization they are at war with during gameplay (they’re gonna have a bad time).

 

[MODDING]

• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Worldbuilder Editor Basic Mode
  • UI
    • New UI on WorldBuilder HUD (left-hand tool panel, right hand info panel with icon-driven placement).
    • Show resources in the plot tooltip in World Builder even if the plot has no owner assigned.
    • Don't allow loading or saving World Builder maps to the cloud, it's not supported.
    • Additional error messages for successful and failed placement (Basic Mode), and for setting visibility (Advanced Mode).
    • Impose a delay so the UI can breathe in between instances of the resource scatter. This prevents the scatter code from getting jammed and showing resources that don't exist.
    • 'Restart' disabled when in WorldBuilder.
    • Show results for resource placement in UI.
    • Properly sort out input states so left and right clicks and drags work as documented.
    • Update the cursor color immediately when placing or removing an item to show the hex's new status.
    • Save and restore brush size when entering and exiting a mode where it's not valid and show it as "small" when in the invalid mode.
    • Sort all the lists of items alphabetically in Place Mode.
    • Chunk undo/redo (previously, when you used a large brush to paint, it would only undo a single hex at a time).
    • Full screen map support to easily preview your continent shapes.
    • Place/Plot
      • Re-enabled allowing user to place Natural Wonders on tile types outside of gameplay rules.
      • Fix and issue causing Bananas and other valid resources to be missing from placement lists.
      • Lock start position editing completely out in Basic mode.
      • Fix an issue that was preventing you from selecting a strategic resource tile when in “Plot” mode.
      • Don't allow plot selector to set improvements that aren't valid for the tile.
      • Plot editor now ignores existing resources and features when deciding what you're allowed to place.
      • Only coastal tiles are shown in green now for Cliff placement.
      • Don't show resources that can't be placed, such as Toys.
    • Front-End
      • For WorldBuilder map mods, show the filename in the details view.
      • Tiled map importer improvements: Support CSV format for tile layers & do something with transparent tiles, plus register World Builder in Standard rules games for Game Core side scripts to match XP1/XP2 behavior.
      • Tiled maps now import from the saves/worldbuilder directory.
    • Front End
      • When deleting a WorldBuilder map, refresh available mods.
      • 'Restore Defaults' will no longer clear the WorldBuilder editor flag.
      • 'Restore Defaults' for WorldBuilder will default to Standard Rules rather than the latest expansion.
      • When importing a map, the setup screen will no longer be missing options if the user backs out and goes to create a standard game.
    • Misc
      • Fix an issue that was preventing City States from spawning on World Builder maps.
      • Allow custom text tags to be edited outside of Advance Mode.
    • Crash
      • Fix an issue that would cause the game to crash when valid starting positions could not be found.
    • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Worldbuilder Editor Advanced Mode (Unsupported)
      • UI
        • City States are now a slider starting at 0 rather than fixed for most world builder maps.
        • Remove cities, improvements, and units from the map when their owning civ is changed.
        • Editing a city's population in the Player Editor now works.
        • Improved status reporting for player editor building placement.
        • Better status/error reporting for Unit placement, and a special message for the Spy.
        • Don't allow editing gold/faith for barbarians.
        • Show a red placement cursor for Districts and Buildings on plots that aren't part of the selected city.
        • Show more accurate errors when unable to place districts and buildings and turn off workarounds.
        • Remove Projects from buildings list.
      • Configuration
        • City states can now be chosen at random based on their starting positions, allowing several city states to be defined while only using a few.
        • Mods can now add starting positions for worldbuilder maps such as TSL earth by populating the MapStartingPositions tables located either in Config or Gameplay database.
        • Instead of just merging mods that do not affect saved games (UI mods, normally), merge mods that only have active components AND do not affect saved games. This will remove map mods from being included in saves.
        • Added extra validation before attempting to set improvement type.
        • Do not place goody huts if 'GAME_NO_GOODY_HUTS' is set.
        • Do not place barbarian camps if 'GAME_NO_BARBARIANS' is set
      • Perf
        • Back-port an XP1/XP2 requirement into base game to allow certain popular mods to write significantly faster implementations of their natural wonder modifiers.

 

[PERF]

• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Multiple misc check-ins to reduce memory allocations.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Additional graphics performance improvements.

 

[BUGS]

• Civs
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Changed Royal Navy Dockyard to apply the +1 naval unit movement bonus as an ability so that it carries through when upgrading.
  • Environmentalist agenda modifiers were reversed. This is now corrected.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Aircraft
  • Air units are now correctly using their standard movement range instead of embarked movement range when based on Aircraft Carriers.
  • Fix rebasing air units if the rebase target is the current base of the air unit. If the base was full, it would think it couldn't rebase there. Rebasing to the same base is done when an air unit is requested to return to base.
  • Add very simple concept of a parent/child relationship to the app side Unit System. This is to fix the ugly look of an aircraft carrier moving with air units as cargo.
  • Air units now properly have an unobstructed view (added ability for units to be able to see 'through' terrain as well as features).
  • Units marked as DOMAIN_AIR no longer increase city strength values.
  • Fixed a bug preventing aircraft from deploying if based in an airstrip.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Units
  • Fixed issue with Hungarian Huszar not correctly requiring Horses for production.
  • Removed CLASS_MELEE tag from GDR. It was incorrectly giving the GDR a bonus vs. anti-cavalry units.
  • Fix an issue with the Jong not working properly with Press Gangs and International Waters.
  • Fixing the Naturalist model staying behind after the unit is destroyed by creating a park.
  • Update the text for Rockefeller so that it states that strategics do not need to be improved.
• Climate
  • Make sure all unit layers (including the Spy Layer) are checked for units that need to be displaced from a submerged tile.
  • Make sure you can't start a new wonder on a tile suffering from coastal flooding.
  • Make sure submerging tiles properly wipes out Great Wall tiles.
  • When sea level rise consumed a wonder or district, sometime the incorrect wonder or district would be removed from the map, leaving the submerged version in place (for example, a neighborhood was submerged, but a completely different neighborhood in your empire was removed).
• UI
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fixing an issue that could cause a black screen to appear when human player was defeated while multiple pop-ups were present (user could “ESC” out of it).
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Unit Panel: Disable the settler lens if a selected settler is killed.
  • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Production Panel: Made failure text for damaged walls. We now display text explaining that the prerequisite wall type must be repaired and the number of turns before the walls can be repaired.
  • Diplo Trade
    • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] In a peace deal, can add a return or cede city, as well as right-clicking existing cities in trade deal, to switch them out.
  • World Congress
    • Some fixes to prevent players with negative score from gaining rewards in Scored Competitions
    • Fix an issue where players were being injected into ongoing Emergencies
  • Governors
    • Governor Liang's "Reinforced Materials" promotion now also prevents damage to city HP and walls HP from natural disasters.
  • Power
    • Changing the rules for which Power Plant resources are used first. Uranium, as the most power-efficient resource (16 power per unit), will now always be used before Oil (4 Power) and Coal (4 Power), if it is available.
  • Scenarios
    • When playing the Black Death scenario in Hotseat, a new plague icon appears on a City Banner every turn the city has plague.
    • If a scenario has no historical rankings information, do not show the rankings tab. This makes historic rankings an optional feature for scenarios.
  • Map Search
    • Slow down the map search to do at most 35 tiles per frame instead of 128. This prevents us from hitting worst-case map search times that can make the game unplayable, at the expense of slower search results. Modders can always turn it back up if they want to.
    • Disable auto-updating the map search, make progress bar more visible. Was causing CPU issues on lower-end hardware. Will not only update when the user performs a search.
  • Misc
    • Liberated players who return to the game no longer have to build their own Palace.
    • Fixing an issue where Civic boost amounts were not accounting for era bonuses or penalties (Civics can be cheaper or more expensive when they are outside the current game era). Tech boosts were doing this already, as intended. This led to a case where earning the boost for the Near Future Governance civic (a 90% boost) would grant the whole Civic, even when the proper prerequisites had not been obtained.
    • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Make Demand Tribute work for human whether they view the AI as Friendly, Neutral or Unfriendly.
    • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fix city-state clumping problems when generating the map.
    • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fixing an issue where large amounts of Culture overflow (ex. from Moon Landing project) could apply more than once to increase domestic tourists if it was used to complete more than one Civic. Culture only converts into domestic tourists when applied to researching a particular Civic, and now that amount is capped to the cost of the Civic itself. This means that overflow will no longer be counted more than once towards tourists, but also that the increase in tourists may be spread across several turns as the overflow is applied piece by piece.
    • [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Removing Norway's palace for the Viking scenario so that all three Viking civs will have the Ancient Viking palace

 

[CRASH]

• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Stop circular rivers from crashing the game on load.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Fix multi-GPU bug that could cause the game to crash.
• [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Misc crashes reported in the wild via bug collector.

 

[EXPLOITS]

• Exploit: Fix a trading issue which would allow you to give a gift of negative resources to an AI, essentially giving a gift that grants their stuff back to you.

 

[ART]

• Fixing the Panama Canal movie not going through the time of day cycle.

Hello everyone! We're ready to announce that we're releasing 2.3.3 with a few extra fixes as a live build before going on vacations. Below you'll find the traditional patch notes, with the extra fixes since the beta in underlined text.

We hope you enjoy the balances, tweaks and changes we introduced with this build!

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.3.3 ##########################
#################################################################

###################
# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
###################
* A number of archaeology sites have been overhauled to give more interesting rewards for completion, with new techs, empire modifiers, and ethics-based outcomes

###################
# General
###################
* Updated localisation for all languages

###################
# Balance
###################
* Further changed Precursor system spawning to always connect to an owned system, if possible, to reduce them appearing in inaccessible places
* More archaeological site events will grant minor artifacts
* Zroni chain grants Psionic Theory tech option for non-gestalts
* The Surveyor relic now has a chance to find multiple deposits during its activation time. It has also been reduced to a five year timer
* Adjusted the rate at which Admirals gain XP when patrolling and when in combat
* Daily patrolling XP is now based on the max piracy in a system rather than the current piracy
* Disengaged ship now also give xp, they have their own define: LEADER_ADMIRAL_FLEET_COMBAT_SHIPS_DISENGAGED_CONVERSION
* Zro is slightly more common
* Marketplace of Ideas trade policy unity per trade value increased from 0.15 to 0.25
* Grand Herald site is less common. When the Grand Herald is found it may be damaged to some degree, if so there is a special project to restore it to full power
* Finishing Arc Sites may yield Technology Research Options/Boosts
* Lowered the chance of archaeology sites being discovered when planets are surveyed
* Non-genocidal gestalt empires may now also seize the galatron from those who would withhold access to its glory

###################
# UI
###################
* Added MP DLC ownership icon for Ancient Relics
* Fixed line break in Zro Deposits causing unnecessary truncation of text
* Fixed displayed Army Recruitment time not including build speed modifiers
* You should no longer be able to see the orders of the fleets of other empires
* Fixed the resources going haywire in the trade view. Hopefully for the last time
* Added a country modifier to remind you that you can safely colonize Holy worlds as the chosen of Zarqlan

###################
# AI
###################
* Fixed so that the AI uses their idle science ships to assist research rather than just drawing salaries and doing nothing like typical freeloading intelligentsia
* AI empires will finish tradition trees before starting new ones
* Changed AI weight for consecration decision, so that it's actually used
* AI will now build city districts on planets if needed even if not many pops live there
* AI no longer juggles leaders back and forth, and also makes sure there is always at least one leader assigned to a ship
* Fixed the AI declaring war on empire they can't reach, or empires on the other side of the galaxy
* AI no longer needlessly upgrades starbases if they still have unused module or building slots
* Removed ostensibly arbitrary pop requirement for research buildings, also capped holo-theatres to one per planet
* Increased alloy expansion budget to allow machine empires to do early expansion
* AIs in federation have finally discovered ship types other than "corvette"
* AI will no longer maniacally press the "build army" button in order to make armies building faster


###################
# Modding
###################
* add_anomaly effect now adds the anomaly to the scoped country instead of the first country to survey the planet
* Added "min_jumps" and "max_jumps" parameters to the "spawn_system" command for better control of where and to what world spawned system appear
* min_jump and max_jump now use -1 to be ignored, so that you can make systems that attach directly to your base system
* Added `steal_relic = { target = TARGET_COUNTRY relic = <all/random/RELIC_NAME>` effect
* The `on_arrival_effect` is now properly called with a fleet scope
* Replaced hard texture limit with hybridarray for people that have excessive amounts of textures due to mods
* Added 'is_last_lost_relic' and 'is_last_received_relic'. Both trigger return true if the relice passed as a parameter is the last (lost/received) relic by the country from the scope country scope: is_last_lost_relic = <relic_key> / is_last_received_relic = <relic_key>

###################
# Stability
###################
* Fixed a freeze when editing trade routes from a system you stole
* Fixed a crash when using mature galaxy in observer mode

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Colony automation now has a 3 day cooldown after a building completes in order for recently completed constructions to take effect
* Increased weighting of favorited jobs so that they're properly prioritized
* Made the logic for buy/selling slaves better. AI is now more likely to both buy and sell slaves, wrote someone in the 21st century
* Fixed automation not working on planet capitals or new colonies if you don't change the designation
* Conquered habitats will now convert districts that are not permitted by their new empire type
* Fixed so that rogue servitor AI will no longer just build organic sanctuaries
* All non-Exterminator Machine Intelligences should now be able to make Farming Colonies
* In MP only the first player to discover the Baol or Zroni precursor will begin their chain. Others are free to discover different precursors
* Fixed overflow issues in AI diplomacy due to relative strength calculations
* The result of "Reverse-Engineer Minor Artifacts" is now properly randomized
* Disabled map-ping for finished arch sites
* Admiral XP is based on the total cost of ships instead of just minerals
* Fix for all buildings swapping issues
* Secrets of the Irassians will no longer sometimes give machine intelligences a tech they can't use
* Changed so that arch sites and certain events use the correct GFX files
* Fixed Growth species disappearing every other month in some cases
* Ship build speed modifiers are no longer applied twice
* Fixed Build Speed modifier being applied twice to buildings
* Fixed some new Tutorial Lines not playing VO (VO for a bald eagle flying out of an explosion with a pistol grasped in its beak didn't arrive in time for today, alas)
* The Caravaneers roam space once again instead of sitting in orbit ringing your doorbell for all eternity with an "offer you can't refuse"
* Deficit modifiers are properly applied again
* Master Builders no longer ever affects Habitat size
* Rare resource tech will also be researchable if any planet you own contains an Industrial sector deposit
* Primitives living on Ring Worlds will no longer build normal districts on them when invaded, enlightened, or if they naturally develop spaceflight, because inscrutably we have created a game where apparently such things are possible
* Maintenance Drones again have a positive weight for the Emotion emulators trait
* Fixed ships not going MIA when they can't return because they don't have access
* Presapients can now be found again to be uplifted/exploited/devoured as your whim decrees
* Upgraded buildings are no longer moved after ruined buildings
* Fixes the rubricator system appearing without hyperlanes
* Pop Growth is now based on the pop growing rather than the fastest growing species on the planet
* Gateways and habitats can now built while other megastructures are being built
* Fixed Habitats and Ring worlds getting modifiers meant for non artificial planets
* Fixed planet view not changing image correctly after planet class change
* Add modifier effects to planet class tooltip
* Reduced the late game stutter
* You can now steal relics when you're not in the galatron war, rather than only during the galatron war, though why you would steal any relic other than the Galatron is beyond me.

The stellaris_test version is still there as 2.3.3 (checksum: 70ef), the only difference being it uses our experimental crossplay MP layer. Steam users need to be on stellaris_test to crossplay with GoG and Paradoxplaza. The stellaris_test version also has the "Legion" flag set as a thank you to people helping us test the mp layer.

You can check the forums patch thread here[pdxint.at].

With this, and without further ado, we wish you all, on behalf on the Stellaris team and all of Paradox, a great summer, full of new fanatic friendships and platypi!