[2020] Stellaris Dev Diary #177 - Edict Rework

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/281990/announcements/detail/2191507623474536862]here[/url].

Greetings!

Today we’ll touch upon a subject dear to the hearts of many galactic rulers - namely Edicts!

Background
Edicts are meant to be a way for your empire to focus on certain issues without necessarily taking a permanent stance on them. More permanent stances on issues would be covered by Policies.

Although we felt that Edicts do fit this role pretty well, there were a couple of issues with the system that we think could be improved. The fact that Edicts would always time out felt like a little bit of unnecessary micromanagement at times, and didn’t really emphasize the feeling of “I am choosing to focus on these 2 things right now”. We felt that it would fit better if Edicts had a greater emphasis on making choices that you can go back and change, rather than being things you constantly go in and refresh.



An old friend with a slight makeover. Some Edicts are now toggled on/off instead of being on a timer

Edict Capacity
Enter Edict Capacity – a new mechanic that puts a soft limit on how many Edicts of a certain type that you can have active at once. Similar to Starbase Capacity, your empire will suffer penalties if you exceed it, and the penalty in this case being Empire Sprawl. For every toggled and active Edict above the Edict Capacity, your Empire Sprawl will be increased by +25%.

By default, an empire will start with an Edict Capacity of 2, and can be modified by things like Authority, Civics and Ascension Perks. These values are very prone to being changed as more balance feedback comes in.



Dictatorial and Imperial Authority now increases Edict Capacity by +1.



The God-Emperor knows best.



You can now vigorously enact more Edicts.

Not all Edicts will use Edict Capacity, but rather only the ones that last until cancelled will. Edicts that can be toggled will have an Activation Cost and a Deactivation Cost, which is usually Influence. This means that you are paying the Influence when you are making changes, rather than paying to upkeep the Edicts you want.

Edicts that last until cancelled will be marked with a different icon from the edicts (and campaigns) that expire once their duration runs out.




An example of two different Edicts. Red: toggled - lasts until cancelled and uses Edict Capacity. Blue: temporary - lasts for 10 years and does not use Edict Capacity.

Edicts
Some of the Edicts have changed and we have added a couple of new ones, to better fit with the Edict Capacity. Let’s take a look at a few of them:



Whenever you need to stimulate your economy, subsidies can be the way to go. There are Farming, Mining, Energy and Industrial subsidies.



Neighbors suddenly turned hostile? Need to secure your borders? Pass this Edict to refocus your efforts!



Has the galaxy become more hostile? Do you need to build a powerful fleet to project your power? Focus on Fleet Supremacy for a more powerful and imposing fleet.

Pop Growth is problematic, so we have made some changes in the upcoming patch that will reduce Pop Growth from different sources across the board (more on that later). Food Policies are no more, and the popular Nutritional Plenitude is now a toggled Edict instead.



No longer a food policy (they don’t exist anymore). There are different versions for Hive Minds and Rogue Servitors.

Resource Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions
The model for the new Edict Capacity doesn’t fit very well for all types of Edicts, which is why the rare resource Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions remain unchanged and keep working like you are used to. This is also better for modding purposes, so that modders have the opportunity to use Edicts however they see best.

Finishing thoughts
Overall we feel like the new system better allows us to structure how the players get the tools they need to focus their empires for certain tasks. As we make more additions to the game in the future, this new system will also allow us to give the players more tools to address certain issues.

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That is all for this week! We will be back again next week with another dev diary, this time about some federation-related content!