Today we're going to be taking a first look at the Subterranean Origin with Nivarias!

Whether you were avoiding predators or seeking easier access to resources, your species evolved to live under the surface of your homeworld, leading to a more environmentally versatile society.

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Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord on May 12th for USD 19.99/GBP 15.49/EUR 19.99!

In Overlord, the next full expansion for Stellaris, gain access to new features designed to unlock the next level of your Empire. Guide a galaxy full of potential subjects to victory - or subjugation. In Overlord you will gain access to new mechanics to specialize your Vassals’ role within your Empire, new Origins to explore, new Enclaves to meet, and new Megastructures to build for the glory of your Empire.

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Use new vassalization mechanics and specialize your subjects into economic powerhouses, defensive bulwarks, or technological masterminds. Negotiate the terms of your subjects’ Vassal Contracts, with the ability to subsidize their income, restrict their expansion, construct buildings on their worlds, and more.

Explore five unique Origins, opening up more roleplay possibilities than ever. Start as the subject of an advanced AI empire with Imperial Fiefdom, or release your mind with the Teachers of the Shroud origin, where you start as a Latent Psionic species and contact with a mysterious Shroudwalker Enclave. Discover the source of ancient lights in the night sky with Slingshot to the Stars. Subterranean allows you to start as a civilization that excels at mining and archaeology, and thrives underground, or unleash the power of the progenitor with the Progenitor Hive origin.

Meet three new Enclaves, who will offer unique abilities in your galaxies. The Shroudwalker Enclave allows you to pull back the veil of the Shroud. What will be your fate? Meet the Salvager Enclave, who can offer to scrap ships for resources or debris. Perhaps you might be interested in some combat-proven starships? Or choose one of your own fleets to lease out to other Empires as a Mercenary Enclave, and be rewarded with dividends on your investment as they fight alongside the highest bidder.

Construct three new game-changing Megastructures. Build taller than ever before by constructing an Orbital Ring around your habitable worlds. Use it as extra starbase capacity, or to further boost your planetary economy. The Quantum Catapult sends fleets on a one-way trip across the galaxy, ignoring closed borders and hostile empires that would stand in your way, to launch the ultimate surprise attack. Or build a Hyper Relay network, allowing you to rapidly transfer fleets and resources across your empire.

Whether you rule from the bridge of your flagship or from the lavish capital of your homeworld, Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord!

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written by Eladrin

Hello again!

Last week’s dev diary examined the Orbital Ring, Quantum Catapult, and Scholarium. Today we’re going to look at another construction that has a massive impact on the game, the Hyper Relay. After that we’ll look at some other changes coming in Cepheus and Overlord, and finish off with another origin that was revealed yesterday by Nivarias.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


Long ago, back in Dev Diary #243 we showed you some concept art of Hyper Relays, and told you they had greebles, and were game changing. Now it’s time to fully reveal them.

Hyper Relays are a rare Tier 2 technology that require the Hyperlane Breach Points technology and access to Rare Crystals to discover. Once you have observed a functional Hyper Relay in use by another empire, the technology will appear much more frequently, causing them to spread in a pleasing manner across the galaxy.



Hyper Relays can be built by your Construction Ships outside the gravity well of systems, just like Gateways. They’re useless on their own, but a chain of Hyper Relays built in adjacent systems dramatically speeds up travel, allowing you to jump from Relay to Relay after a short windup rather than having to travel across each system at sublight speed, as long as neither endpoint is controlled by a hostile empire.




Once two Relays in adjacent systems have been linked, the hyperlane between those systems will become bolder, and ships traveling along them will show the route plotted in blue as they are using the bypass.

Hyper Relays can be built in your own space, or that of your subjects. For convenience, Relays can also be built directly from the Galaxy Map.



If an Empire’s capital is attached to the Hyper Relay Network, additional effects can be projected through the network using several Network Edicts. These add strategic resource upkeep to your Hyper Relays and an effect on all of your colonies that are connected to your capital.




Gestalts have a reflavored variant of Networked Amenities.

Specialist subjects each have a Network Effect available at Tier 1, which becomes active in the overlord’s Relay Network if a continuous chain connects their capitals.






As one could imagine, an expansive Hyper Relay network makes travel much faster during the mid-game while you do not yet have a comprehensive Gateway system built, and since such travel is permitted in neutral empires that have open borders, navigating the galaxy and responding to distant threats is easier than ever before.

As a personal anecdote, after playing with these and the new subjugation mechanics internally, it was almost difficult to go back to 3.3 for the Dev Clash. Made me almost want to blow up the galaxy.


As with every update, there are a number of balance or quality of life changes and adjustments in Cepheus. Here’s a handful of interesting changes:

• Successful Force Ideology wars with a corporate aggressor now result in the target (or created) empire having the Oligarchic authority and Merchant Guilds civic. This is also true for Status Quo resolutions of Establish Hegemony, Subjugation, and the Scion’s Bring into the Fold wargoals.
  
• Corporate subjects can now open branch offices in subjects of their shared overlord, as long as their overlord is not also a MegaCorp.
  
• AI Subjects of Player Empires now receive AI bonuses as if the difficulty level of the game were one level lower, rather than losing their bonuses entirely.
  
• The Parliamentary System civic now allows factions to be generated much earlier in the game.
  
• You can now nominate other empires to Custodianship, provided they meet the requirements.
  
• The Unbidden can no longer spawn in pulsar systems (as the star will disable their Dimensional Portal's shields - Heavy Metal, Inc. sends its regards…)
  
• Low Military Intel is now gained at 30 Intel instead of 40 and Medium Military Intel is now gained at 60 Intel instead of 70. The effects of Medium and High Military Intel have been swapped. Medium now allows you to view ship loadout. High now grants visibility of location of military fleets.
  
• Gateways (and Hyper Relays) can now be built in vassal space.
  
• The Grasp the Void Ascension Perk now grants increased draw weight for FTL travel techs.

Some improvements have been made to automated migration:

• "Ideal" worlds such as ring worlds, gaia worlds, hive worlds and machine worlds now have a 50% higher score when pops are deciding where to automatically resettle to. So they are more likely to want to move to your newly-founded ring world, for instance. Capital world planet designations also have a +10% score, and freshly founded colonies have 25% from their designation.
  
• Pops will now pick which planet to auto-migrate to based on which planet has the most free jobs, rather than the least. They also now take free housing into account better.
  
• The Outliner will now differentiate between unemployed pops that are migrating and those that are not. A yellow briefcase will be shown for planets that have unemployed pops that are in the process of migrating to another planet. A red briefcase will be shown if your attention is required to resolve the unemployment. On the planet view, the tooltips will now show where the pops are most likely to move to, or explain why they are unable to move.

We have eleven new achievements in Overlord. Here are the icons, I’m curious what people think they are.


Cheevos!


Some eagle-eyed readers have noticed some flags that aren’t possible in 3.3. You’re correct! The art team has added some new colors to the flag palette…



…over seventy flag emblems…



…and forty-five new flag backgrounds.



These will all be part of the Cepheus update as part of the May anniversary celebrations.




Bordergore? Bordergore.

Those born under the Slingshot to the Stars find their desires to explore fulfilled by a nearby Quantum Catapult, which replaces one of their Guaranteed Habitable Worlds. Their eagerness to explore into the unknown reduces the distance penalty for building starbases in remote systems by 75%.


Next week the totally human programmer Narkerns will take over for an update on AI and automation improvements coming in Cepheus, and I’ll add a little bit about a fourth Origin at the end.

Video versions of these dev diaries are available at the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

In the meantime, keep your eyes on our social media channels. There'll be an announcement later today.

Today we're going to be taking a first look at the Slingshot to the Stars Origin with Nivarias!

Strange lights in the night sky drove your species' curiosity to develop interstellar travel and explore the stars. Now you stand on the precipice of discovery, as you stand to answer a question that your species has asked for eons: What secrets will the Quantum Catapult reveal?

Wishlist Overlord!

As for this week's Dev Diary Tease, when we initially had the idea of doing a tease to get our Community excited for Thursday's Dev Diary, we had no idea that it would be taken quite this literally.

See the rest of this expertly cropped screenshot in Thursday's Dev Diary!

written by Eladrin

Greetings!

Last week’s dev diary went through the new Enclaves in Overlord, the Bulwark, some more Holdings, and the Imperial Fiefdom Origin. This week we’re going to look at two constructions, the Scholarium, Specialist Holdings and a summary of the origin revealed by Nivarias earlier this week.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


Orbital Rings are a Tier 3 Voidcraft Engineering technology requiring Starholds, Galactic Administration, and Ceramo-Metal Infrastructure. Like Habitats, they do not require Mega-Engineering.

They are treated as a variant of Starbases, and while system control is still primarily determined by the actual Starbase of the system, the planets they surround cannot be invaded until the Orbital Ring has been disabled.





Initially your Orbital Ring will have two module slots and no building slots. As you gain additional Starbase technologies (Star Fortress and Citadel) and improve the planet’s capital building you can upgrade the Orbital Ring through two additional tiers, adding one module and building slot at each tier.



Most of the Orbital Ring modules are similar to Starbase modules. Defensive modules trade piracy protection for extra hull and armor, and the Habitation Module is a Ring specific module that adds a district slot to the planet below.








Systems with multiple habitable planets can become an exceptionally thorny obstacle if you build multiple defensive orbital rings supporting a bastion starbase at the center.

Having a large conveniently placed ring around your planet provides an opportunity to enhance the planet with some interesting buildings. These stack with similar planetside buildings.











Many standard starbase buildings can also be placed on an Orbital Ring - though some are now limited to one per system.

Orbital Rings fill the same “orbital slot” as habitats, so you’ll have to decide which of the two you want over your worlds, and they can only be built around colonized habitable planets.


There comes a time in every overlord’s reign when a faraway crisis suddenly requires your attention. Things are going on halfway across the galaxy, a rival in the way has closed borders to you, and the Galactic Community is debating something about Tiyanki. Again.

A true galactic overlord has to be able to project their power at will, and doesn’t let these little things stop them from enacting their plans.



Built around Neutron Stars or Pulsars, Quantum Catapults can hurl fleets across incredible distances of space, but these megastructures have accuracy issues over long distances.




The maximum range of a Quantum Catapult is significantly longer than jump drive range but there’s a risk the fleet may not land exactly where they intended. The further the launch, the wider the scatter radius.

Higher tiers of the Quantum Catapult are both more accurate and have longer maximum range, with a well-placed fully-constructed Catapult able to threaten virtually anywhere, even in a huge galaxy.

After selecting a desired target system, a short windup later your fleet will arrive somewhere in a nearby system, without any lingering jump debuffs... But there is a chance, especially on spiral maps, that this “nearby” system is quite a few jumps away from your intended destination when traveling the hyperlanes.


There’s no clear route to this system, but the Catapult doesn’t care.

Quantum Catapults also have a passive effect that reduces MIA time for your missing fleets, which comes in useful when moving reinforcements to the front line, using experimental subspace on your science ships, or if your launched fleet lands in a system with Closed Borders.


The Scholarium is the last of the Specialists coming in Overlord. Dedicated to the advancement of science, the Scholarium relies on their overlord to defend them from enemies.

The State of Saathuma are our Scholarium minions, bringing us the secrets of the universe in exchange for our benevolent protection.



As with the other specialist empires, the penalties and benefits both grow as they tier up.





Where the Prospectorium could discover valuable deposits in their space, the Scholarium instead finds opportunities to learn.






The advisor perk, as you likely expected, improves your overlord’s scientific research.



And like the others, they have a Hyper Relay Network effect at Tier 1.


Next week? Yeah, why not, let's show it next week.

At Tier 2, the Scholarium also gains a set of special traits for their leaders, and the ability to trade their Scientists to their overlord.




Finally, at Tier 3 the Scholarium gains an advanced variant of the Science Ship, the Arctrellis. Like the Prospectorium’s Battlewright, it provides an aura in combat, but this time the scientists aboard the ship can cripple opposing ships piloted by AI - whether they be machine intelligences, sapient combat computers, or the Contingency.



It should be noted that as a Scholarium, the military penalties make it difficult to free yourself from under your overlord’s control. You may need some powerful friends to help you out.


Each of the Specialist empires has a unique holding that their overlord can build on their worlds.

Prospectoria can host the Offworld Foundry, which converts subject minerals into alloys for the overlord.



Bulwarks can have the Vigil Command, which grants additional Defense Platforms to their overlord. As the Bulwark increases in tier, these values increase.



Scholarium worlds can build the Ministry of Science. Surrounding their planet with additional Science Ships increases the effect of the building.



One extra holding we’ll show this week is for the Tree of Life origin. It lets you share your blessings with your subjects, improving both the habitability and food production of your subject’s world, though a fair bit will be consumed by the sapling itself.





It seemed natural that with such a large focus on subjugation, the Galactic Community would want to regulate things in different ways. Two more minor resolution lines are coming, in the new Suzerains and Sovereignty category.



The Intergalactic Directives line of resolutions protects the rights of subjects and encourages the preservation and release of weaker societies.




You can’t take the sky from me.

Bureaucratic Surveillance, on the other hand, focuses more on the rights of the overlords, requiring a short leash on their subjects and encouraging the use of holdings. Resolutions in this line can only be proposed by empires that are overlords of another empire.





Borderless Authority and Personal Oversight force extra holdings into subject contracts, but since the total limit remains 4 the highest Holding Limit terms become redundant.




With the Teachers of the Shroud origin, your civilization was identified as a civilization of interest long ago by the Shroudwalkers, and they carefully guided you as their visions instructed. Your species begins with the Latent Psionics trait and in contact with the Shroudwalker coven.

Your civilization is treated as if it already has the Mind over Matter Ascension Perk, meaning Transcendence is not far away. (And you cannot pursue Synthetic or Biological Ascension.)


Next week we’ll take a ride on the Hyper Relay Network, finally see those three Specialist perks, look at some other balance changes and additions coming in Cepheus and Overlord, and reveal another Origin.

Video versions of these dev diaries are available at the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

This week we explore the mysterious Teachers of the Shroud Origin with Nivarias!

Lift the veil that covers the Shroud, and entangle yourself in the strange processes of the Shroud Beacon. Interstellar exploration will now be quicker and infinitely more mysterious for those who choose to take a shortcut through the Shroud.

Wishlist Overlord Now!

As for this week's Dev Diary tease:

There's nothing that will make a Stellaris player jump to the wrong conclusion like a giant crosshair and 10 highlighted stars. ​😅



So.. What do you think this does? Find out in this Thursday's Dev Diary!

written by Eladrin


Watch on the Stellaris Official YouTube channel

Hi again!

Last week’s dev diary introduced the Specialist Empires with a detailed examination of the Prospectorium and showed off a few new holdings.

This week we’ll meet the three Enclaves coming in Overlord (examining one of them closely), take a deep dive into the Bulwark, and finish off with a few more Holdings and a summary of the origin Nivarias revealed earlier this week.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


The Salvagers are a friendly and pacifistic bunch of scrappers and mechanics. Focused on engineering, these tinkerers love nothing more than scrapping old ships, refurbishing them, and sending them on to find new homes.



Though eager to help, they’ve been burned in the past and are thus cautious at first, offering only a few services - scrapping old fleets you no longer require, or offering you bargains on slightly used ships.



As you gain their trust, they’ll provide a wider array of options.



From providing their insights regarding Engineering Research to offering salvage services for debris fields following battles, the Salvagers do their best to please their valued clients.


The Shroudwalkers are a monastic enclave that delve into the deepest mysteries of the Shroud, seeking to understand the unknowable. Their true natures and desires are difficult to divine.




I won’t spoil too much about this very story focused enclave, but their prophecies and visions make use of the Situations system described in Dev Diary #245.

They’re willing to instruct others in the ways of the Shroud…



…and just as they are willing to look into possibilities of your future, they’re quite willing to gaze into the Shroud, to provide insights about other empires.



The bravest can also seek knowledge about travel through the Shroud itself, asking them to create a wormhole-like bypass from one of your systems to their own.


Everything will be fine.

One of the Origins, the Teachers of the Shroud, has a close link to this Enclave, but that too, is someone else’s tale to tell.




Unlike other enclaves, Mercenary Enclaves are not found randomly in the depths of space. Instead, they can be founded by regular empires that are not Fanatic Purifiers.



There’s a long list of requirements to release a fleet in this way - it must be at least size 50, have an admiral, be in a system under your control with no other enclave in the system, and have an appropriate place for them to build their station.




By default, Mercenary Enclave Capacity starts at zero. In addition to their normal effects, the Warrior Culture, Barbaric Despoilers, and Private Military Companies civics each add one potential Mercenary Enclave, while the Naval Contractors civic adds two.



The Lord of War Ascension Perk also allows one additional Mercenary Enclave, increases Diplomatic Weight from Fleet Power, and increases the rate at which you receive dividends from your Mercenary Enclaves.

The newly formed Mercenary Enclave has a few options for those interested in procuring security services. The empire that controls the primary starbase of the Mercenary Enclave’s system is considered their Patron, and has additional interactions with them. If business is going especially well, the Patron will even receive dividends from the Enclave.



Anyone that has communications with the Mercenary Enclave can rent their fleet for ten years if they can afford the cost. Prices may vary depending on what the Mercenaries think of you, and whether you are their Patron or not.



As time goes on, the Mercenaries will research technologies, reinforce, and build up their fleet, but their Patron can reach out and provide a helping appendage.



If they have an excellent relationship with the Mercenaries, a Patron can even ask them to break an active contract - but they’ll have to provide some recompense to their current client and won’t be very happy about it. Reputations are everything in this business.



Naturally, the Mercenary Enclaves have lobbied the Galactic Community to regulate their trade.

One of the new resolution categories in Overlord is Defense Privatization.



This line of resolutions focuses on encouraging the empires of the Galactic Community to leave the fighting to professionals. It allows empires to create more Mercenary Enclaves, increases the rate Mercenary Dividends are paid out, and places significant limits on non-Mercenary navies.





Like most other major resolution categories, Federations adds two extra tiers…




…and as usual, the final tier is perhaps a bit extreme.

That’s not all the GalCom is up to, but we’ll go into more detail on their other resolutions another time.


Standing firm against the overlord’s enemies is the Bulwark, the second of the Specialists coming in Overlord.

The Tebbran Citizen Regime serves our glorious republic as a Bulwark.



With strong benefits when it comes to defense, the Bulwark is a natural shield against the overlord’s enemies, but relies on overlord subsidies for basic resource acquisition.





We’ve made some adjustments to Defense Platforms - while everyone will benefit from their faster build speed and increased range, fire rate, tracking, and hull points, Bulwarks receive additional bonuses when using them.

Having a Bulwark advisor improves starbase costs and upgrade times.



The Bulwark Watch perk is another Hyper Relay Network effect so we’ll hold off on revealing all of that just yet.



Fighting in a Bulwark’s systems is extremely advantageous...



…and like the Prospectorium, they too gain access to some technologies - this time those most useful for defense.





Like the Prospectorium, at tier 2 the Bulwark also adds special traits to some of their leaders. Admirals, in their case.



And they can trade them with their overlord as well.



At tier 3, the Bulwark can create an improved variant of the Construction Ship, which repairs other friendly ships in the system and are a bit sturdier than regular Construction vessels.



And they also have managed to turn the Shield Magnifiers from Tier 1 against invaders. If they have completed the Unyielding tradition tree, this effect is increased.



Don’t worry - if you don’t have Apocalypse, the Unyielding traditions will also unlock with Overlord.


This week’s holdings include the Emporium, which forces the subject to buy Consumer Goods from the overlord, providing Amenities in exchange for Energy Credits.



More holdings also exist that tax subject production, such as the aptly named Ministry of Production and the Ministry of Energy.




The Materials Ministry revealed two weeks ago has been renamed the Ministry of Extraction, and now has Volatile Motes upkeep.

Constructive overlords can help build up a world using the Orbital Assembly Complex and a small fleet of Construction Ships.



And Reanimators can bring out the dead to defend a subject’s world…



…while Megacorps with Permanent Employment can ensure that nobody is just lying around when they could be working.



Lastly for today, Megacorps with the Franchising civic can choose to exert direct control and micromanage subject planets where they also have a Branch Office, much to the dismay of the workers there.



The Ethics Attraction on this holding will change to match any fanatic ethic the overlord may have. (Non-fanatical overlords aren’t quite as thorough with the indoctrination during the team-building exercises.)

As a reminder, these previews are still subject to change and balancing. (Prices and upkeep on several of the holdings have changed since I took the screenshots.)




In the Imperial Fiefdom origin, your first steps into space were brutally short. Immediately subjugated alongside several others, you can begin the game as a Specialist Empire of your choice, with a few additional gifts from your overlord.

Will you ever break free?

If multiple players select this origin, they will all start as minions of the same Advanced AI Empire.


Next week we’ll examine some of the new constructions you’ll be able to build, research the Scholarium, look at Specialist holdings, revisit the Galactic Community, and reveal another Origin.

We’re doing video versions of these dev diaries on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

Stellaris: Overlord introduces five new origins that add new flavor to your next game. In this video Nivarias is highlighting the Imperial Fiefdom origin - You may be just a Specialist Empire now, but someday, the galaxy may need a new ruler… shouldn’t it be you?



Also, here's a little teaser for this Thursday's Dev Diary:



"When we started this, one of our founders had a dream: to do for Galactic Security what MegaCorps have done for inequalities. Today, I am excited to say that this goal is within our reach."
-High Admiral Shirip

What do you think this means? Let us know in the replies!

And if you haven't, Wishlist Stellaris: Overlord!

written by Eladrin


watch on the Stellaris Official YouTube channel

Hello again!

In last week’s dev diary, we discussed the basics of negotiating subjugation contracts and showed you some holdings. This week we’ll present Specialist Vassals and do a deep dive into the Prospectorium, reveal more holdings, and share the names of the five Origins that are coming in Overlord.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


We felt that it would be useful to have a centralized screen for keeping track of all of your subjects, and added a summary screen tab next off the Contacts panel.

The Agreements tab shows all of your vassals (or all of your overlord’s vassals if you’re a subject) and lets you examine the terms of the agreements. It also lets you know whether or not you’re taking full advantage of the number of holdings you could have, and lets you get more details on subsidies or tithes through tooltips of those terms.

It also provides you with a convenient way to go to the negotiations screen we showed you last week.

Work in progress - there’s still a bit of placeholder stuff.




Specialist Empires are an advanced form of subject contract that excel at certain tasks but are deficient in others.

We are introducing three Specialist Empire types in Overlord.

• The Bulwark: A bastion of defense that leaves basic resource acquisition to others.
  
• The Prospectorium: Excels at resource acquisition but has weaker research.
  
• The Scholarium: Specializes in research but relies on their allies for military support.

Similar to how Federations advance or degrade based on Cohesion, Specialist Empires improve based on loyalty, gaining additional perks and strengthening their bonuses and penalties as they level up through three tiers.

After negotiating a specialist agreement, it takes some time for the subject to convert into tier 1 of their specialty. This is based on their ethical compatibility with the specialist type and the empire size of the subject.

Several agreement terms are locked or have minimum values - a Bulwark contract, for example, must include basic resource subsidies from their overlord and a defensive pact from the subject, and the Prospectorium must provide a resource tithe to the overlord in exchange for research subsidies. These minimum terms ensure that at least some of their deficiencies are covered so they can thrive and fulfill their intended obligations to their overlord.


Let’s take a deeper look at the Norillga Citizen Compact. Our snailian friends are a tier 3 Prospectorium.



Prospectoria are all about resource acquisition, and this is reflected in their abilities and perks.





Even when they were just beginning, they had a large penalty to scientific research and a handful of production based bonuses. As they became more specialized, the magnitude of each increased.





Prospectoria have a chance of discovering caches of resources or even new deposits each year, and the variety of things they can discover increases as they tier up. These discoveries produce a special project that must be exploited by a Construction Ship.

As might be expected, over time it’s helpful for them to have control of a reasonable area of space if you want them to keep finding things.



The overlord also gains a bonus for having at least one “advisor” of each specialist type. Having a dozen Prospectoria will not increase the Prospectorium Advisory benefit.

The third tier 1 perk, Prospectorium Supply, is tied to the Hyper Relay Network, so we’ll get back to that one in a future dev diary when we talk about that.




At tiers 2 and 3, Prospectoria gain several permanent research options that are of potential interest to them.



Their leaders, including those already employed by them, also gain some additional special traits. These are in addition to any other traits they may have…



…and they can trade them to their overlord through diplomatic trade deals. Higher skill leaders are, of course, worth considerably more than new ones that just came out of the leader pool.



Their last Tier 3 perk lets them replace agricultural features with more mining districts, helping them feed the forges as they become industrial powerhouses.

Internally, we’ve found that Specialist Empires provide an interesting cooperative playstyle where multiple empires can work together to cover for each other's deficiencies.


A question that came up many times last week related to deprioritizing Overlord jobs from holdings. Any of these that provide benefits for the overlord behave like Criminal jobs and cannot be deprioritized. Specific numbers on them are also still subject to balancing and change.

This week we’ll start with a mostly beneficial holding.



With the Overlord Garrison, you can help your subjects if they’re having problems with crime. Having a strong military presence on your worlds forces loyalty, but the populace of the planet might not be quite as happy about the occupying presence.



The Satellite Campus holding produces research for both overlord and subject, paid for by the subject. If the planet owner is gestalt, these will consume energy or minerals as appropriate rather than consumer goods.

This week’s civic and origin based holding previews are all about spreading the defining traits of your civilization to your subjects.



Overlords with the Citizen Service civic can build Recruitment Offices to spread their message of patriotic service to their subjects.


Zero cost, zero upkeep, free science! No real downside!

The Experimental Crater is unlocked by the Calamitous Birth origin, and allows the lithoid overlord to “test” asteroid colony ship designs by hurling them at a convenient space on their subject’s planet. They usually don’t miss the test site.


Except for when they do.



And just as the lithoids can spread their love of explosions to their subjects, the subjects of Death Cults can enjoy the same right to become Mortal Initiates that their own citizens can. As is right, they get to partake in some of the benefits of the sacrifice.

Last week I promised one machine holding, but I’ll share two instead.



The first is a bit of a mean one, with four jobs that produce research for the overlord. Organic brains aren’t very efficient or orderly though, to be honest.


“Mind Thralls” sounds like a great job, right?



More benevolent machines (specifically Rogue Servitors) can instead give their subjects a taste of what awaits them should they allow full integration. Hive-minded pops don’t quite understand what’s going on, but find the experience quite novel.


We revealed the icons for the Origins in the Overlord Announcement diary, but now it’s time to attach names to them.



Each week one of these will be previewed in detail by one of our friends in the community, with summarized details included in that week’s dev diaries.


Next week we’ll be visiting the new Enclaves in Overlord, looking at the Bulwark, revealing even more holdings, and maybe even an Ascension Perk.

Don’t forget that we have video versions of these dev diaries on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

written by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

In the Overlord Announcement last week we mentioned that vassalization mechanics will be undergoing some significant changes in the 3.4 “Cepheus” update.

Previously in Stellaris, subjugation was rarely a more compelling option than simple conquest, and being subjugated often essentially meant a permanent decline of your empire and a “Game Over” screen in your near future. Subjects did not offer sufficient benefits nor had the freedoms necessary to be enjoyable to play.

The Scion origin from Federations was somewhat of an exception with most of the restrictions on both subjects and overlord being waived for them, but we felt that while the system was good, it could be even better. It would also be nice for the Scion to work within the rules rather than being so “special-cased”.

Some people noted that as part of the unity changes in Libra, a bit more of an argument for spinning off sectors into vassals could be made, but with the current numbers it’s generally more valuable to control those systems directly.

For today’s dev diary, I’ll start by delving deeper into the new rights and responsibilities that can appear in agreements, and some ways this makes keeping subjects more valuable.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


Both the overlord and subject will be able to propose alterations of the exact terms of their vassalization contract if it’s a contract with another “regular empire”. The Khan, Awakened Empires, and the like do not haggle about the terms of their minions, but are much clearer about those exact terms.

Subject contracts start with a “preset”. These are the basic subjugation types that you know from before, plus a few new ones - Vassal, Subsidiary, Tributary, Protectorate, Bulwark, and so on. Presets have a list of default terms, and can have additional unique effects tied to them, like how Protectorates gain a massive bonus to research until they catch up to their overlord.

The default terms of contract presets may have changed a bit from the old system to better fit the new. We’ve done our best to ensure that anything you can do right now with your vassals remains possible. The core Negotiation system is part of the free Cepheus update, though many of the brand new terms are part of the Overlord expansion.

Negotiable terms include things such as:

Can the subject be integrated?

• As a major change from current gameplay, there are no vassalization contract presets that have integration enabled by default. It must be explicitly turned on in contract negotiations.

Does the subject have independent diplomacy?

• Subjects can be given complete diplomatic freedom, none, or they can have most freedoms except are forced to vote with their overlord in the Galactic Community or Federations.

Can the subject expand freely?

• Once exclusively the province of Feudal Society, now you can grant your subject the ability to freely expand. You can also bar them from expansion, or impose an Influence tithe, making them spend extra Influence (which goes to the Overlord) for the right to expand into empty systems.
  
• Most presets will start with controlled expansion with the influence tithe as the default term.

Various subsidies from the overlord or tribute from the subject.

• These are broken into Basic, Advanced, or Strategic resource groups, and Research.
  
• The values are percentages of the production of the subject - in the proposal below, our vassal is offering 15% of their basic resource production as tribute, but is receiving a research subsidy equal to 15% of the subject’s research from the overlord.

Are the overlord and subject drawn into one another’s wars, and if so, which ones?

• None, Offensive, Defensive, or Both can be selected in both directions.
  
• Yes, this means that wars can be declared on subjects.

Can the overlord build holdings on the subject’s worlds, and if so, how many?

• The Vassal preset has a holding limit of 1, allowing you to use some holdings without Overlord. (Though you can lower it to 0 if you need to squeeze out an extra bit of loyalty.)
  
• This value is an empire-wide limit - with a holding limit of 3, you can build 3 holdings across a particular subject’s worlds, not on each of their planets.

Does the overlord share sensor information with their subject?



Some subject types have fixed, minimum, or maximum terms - Tributaries, Subsidiaries, and Prospectoria, for example, must always provide their overlord at least 30% of their basic resources (energy, minerals, and food) in tribute.


Tributaries have many locked terms.

Others can be restricted by civics or for other reasons - for example, overlords with the Feudal Society civic cannot select the Expansion Prohibited term, must join in their subject wars to some degree, and must allow their subjects some degree of diplomatic freedom.



Different terms affect a subject’s Loyalty, and have an immediate impact as well as over time. For example, the Independent Diplomacy term grants 5 Loyalty and another +0.5 Loyalty per month. This may prove important later.

If you’re asking your subject to do something they are ideologically opposed to, those terms may cost extra loyalty, though the reverse is also true in a few cases.


The pacifists don’t like being forced into offensive wars.

Empires can propose a change in terms with a five year cooldown at a cost of some Influence. Exact costs are still being adjusted.


We are feeling beneficent today, and want you to catch up to us faster, Protectorate.

How can you influence them into accepting your generous offer? Giving them a good deal is certainly helpful, and just like before, empire relations and relative power go a long way as well.

The terms themselves are heavily moddable, I look forward to seeing what some of you come up with.


Loyalty is the “currency” used between overlord and subject, and while the Specialist empires make more use of it than regular vassals, it’s still beneficial to keep your minions loyal since it gives you more options. Loyalty is largely determined by the contract between overlord and subject, but ethical compatibility will come into play as well.

Loyal vassals will agree to more onerous terms during negotiations, and will generally support their overlord. You can also “spend” their loyalty as part of trade agreements, strong-arming them into granting you better than normal trades.

You can request a public Pledge of Loyalty to you from a loyal vassal, making them even more loyal over time.


Pledge Loyalty has greater effects if the subject actually likes you for some reason.

Disloyal vassals will look for ways to be free of your tyranny, seizing the chance for rebellion should you falter.

They may also swear Secret Fealty to one of your rivals in hopes that they’ll be able to follow them in an Allegiance War.



In an Allegiance War, you seek to wrest control of the vassals that have pledged Secret Fealty to you, and they will join in on the attack on their former Overlord.


Like herding cats, having many vassals is hard work. Constantly vying for your attention, keeping multiple subjects happy can be difficult as jealousy ruins everything. “Divided Patronage” is a modifier that reduces the loyalty of all of your vassals, and increases based on the number of vassals you have.

You can mitigate this by offering them better terms, or by taking a vassalization related civic or the Shared Destiny ascension perk.






In Cepheus, we’re expanding the branch office system from MegaCorp to be more flexible.

The corporate tab on planets is being replaced with a more versatile “Holdings” tab. For now, we have corporate and overlord holdings available here, but we have more future plans for this screen.

Much like branch office buildings, holdings are built on another empire’s colonies and can provide benefits to both empires. Much like criminal syndicate branch office buildings, some holdings might be far more beneficial to one side than the other. Each particular holding is planet-unique,

Corporate overlords can build both holdings and branch offices on their subjects’ colonies.



The Ministry of Truth provides two Overlord Propagandist jobs to the planet, which turn the subject’s Unity into Influence for their overlord…



…While holdings like the Material Ministry are disliked by subjects as the overlord claims a portion of the planet’s production for themselves…



…Still others, like the Aid Agency, are welcomed on the planet.



Hive overlords can build the most universally disliked holding (tied with one other), which takes a portion of the subject’s planet and dedicates it to a spawning complex.

We’re also adding some holdings associated with civics or origins.



The Noble Chateaus of the Aristocratic Elite allow them to send troublemakers off to bother someone else’s planet instead of their own, much to the dismay of their hosts…



…Shared Burdens empires can spread their message through Communal Housing projects. How this is received depends largely on the ethics of the subject…



…And Gaia Seeders, who are gaining more terraforming flexibility in Cepheus as described in Dev Diary #243, can also beautify the worlds of their subjects. The subjects tend to like that - unless they’re Hydrocentric, of course.

Since there are over twenty different holdings, I’ll share some more in next week’s dev diary (including a machine specific one), and some more on social media as the Overlord reveals continue (though I’ll repost those in that week’s dev diaries as well).

It’s a very versatile system that we look forward to exploring more in the future.


That’s long enough for today. Next week we’ll talk about the advanced form of vassalization coming in Overlord called Specialist Empires.

Also, starting with this dev diary, we’re creating video versions on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel for those of you that prefer listening to them. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and let us know what you think!