Version 1.17 released

This version fulfills one of my secret desires as the designer. It finally gets rid of diplomatic corps as a separate entity and integrates diplomats directly into the court. I know, I know, it’s not that important to you as a player but for me it’s super nice. I mean it’s very clean design wise, I no longer need to take into account loyalty of diplomats to rebel points generation (since now they are courtiers and standard rules apply), it also, indirectly, allowed me to improve tooltips of personnel (since now I can say “In addition to being a Courtier, those additional rules apply because the character is appointed as a Diplomat)”. Next, I was watching some YouTube videos and read through various forum posts and based on those I incorporated several small changes and improvements to the interface and the game balance. Overall, the game is now slightly more streamlined without losing any depth (actually a bit of depth was added), which is always a desired outcome. Only one fix, if we not count spelling corrections, which is kind of nice since it seems I start to run out of bugs to fix, even the most obscure ones.

– [feature] Removed Diplomatic Corps, now you appoint diplomats among courtiers (there is one diplomat position for All Minor Races and one for each major race). Note: You need to appoint Diplomats among courtiers if you have an old save (otherwise you will have no diplomats).
– [feature] Extra optional rule “Visible Technologies”. When selected will make all technologies visible regardless of level.

– [misc] Removed bonus to All Ministries Efficiency from the court (the Administrative points gain is more than enough to make you care for Competence of courtiers, so the effect was redundant and was not affecting any decisions anyway and was just adding to the interface and mental clutter).
– [misc] Banishing a Courtier from the Court requires stripping the Courtier of all positions first.
– [misc] Level of Ministry renamed to Efficiency of Ministry (more logical and consistent with other similar effects).
– [misc] Color of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Justice switched (for more intuitive Diplomats color, since they use a variant of the color of the Foreign Affairs Ministry).

– [balance] Technologies rebalance (effects slightly adjusted, tier of some technologies adjusted), one new technology added.
– [balance] Budget (Administration) grants Administrative points (+5 per tier).
– [balance] Budget (Administration) reduced Tax Efficiency bonus.
– [balance] Budget (Administration) increased All Ministries Efficiency bonus.
– [balance] Agricultural Standards Act and Mining Standard Act (laws) made significantly stronger.
– [balance] Will Of The People Act (law) increases reform speed by additional +25% instead of +10%.

– [interface] Summary/Empire list all dynastic perks.
– [interface] Bonuses tab on Summary/Empire which lists all bonuses (identical to stats on Technologies screen).
– [interface] House button tooltip shows wealth, FED shares and has proper colors for Authority and Monarchism.
– [interface] Authority and Monarchism on Houses summary screen.
– [interface] Tax changes are instantly updated (to see how it affects happiness without waiting for the next turn).
– [interface] Top bar tooltips improved.
– [interface] Court screen shows stability bonus from houses.
– [interface] Better tooltips for courtiers competence, loyalty and charisma (with extra notes depending on the role like minister or diplomat).
– [interface] Various small interface improvements (colors, tooltips, etc).

– [fix] Removed incorrect aliens aggressiveness report (this was leftover from first Stellar Monarch mechanic which was never used in the sequel).
– [fix] Minor spelling fixes.

And one more thing… it’s not official yet but there are quite high chances the next project would be an expansion to Stellar Monarch 2. Drop by Discord or Steam forums to discuss possible expansion.

Reminders
You can follow my Steam Developer Page if you wish to be notified each time a new game or expansions is being released.

Also, if you have a moment to leave a Steam review of the game it would be appreciated. It makes a big difference to an indie developer like me. Thanks!

Version 1.16 released

My personal vendetta against weak and confusing or unclear features continues. This time diplomacy system was the target. Removed agents and Xeno Experts, redesigned diplomats statistics to make it work similar to ministries. Now both Competence and Charisma is added up and used as a base of the Diplomat’s efficiency and displayed as a separate number. It’s much more clear how it works now. Next, a small thing but a very nice one, you start with 3 megalopolises (Old Empire start) and additional Megalopolises are unlocked via laws. This is the kind of of adjustment I love very much as a designer, very logical and intuitive, no additional complexity and solves various oddities and adds new decisions for the player. The last feature, which was requested like by everyone, is the option to replace leaders of the rebellious noble house during the tribunal. Now, finally, you will get your much desired justice to those traitors! Oh yes, the usual interface tweaks and small fixes are present as usual. Have fun!

– [feature] House who betrayed during rebellion has the house leadership replaced (unless explicitly pardoned by the Emperor).
– [feature] Efficiency of diplomats introduced (similar to Ministries). Now, average of Competence and Charisma of diplomats is used for all diplomatic calculations (treaties, diplomatic perks, infiltration). The value is displayed on Alien/Diplomacy screen (similar to Ministers) with all bonuses in a tooltip. This makes it more clear how it works (no longer separate Competence and Charisma effects) and overall look prettier. Technologies and laws which affected Competence/Charisma of diplomats directly were adjusted accordingly.

– [remove] Removed agents (there was just one technology that affected Agents and overall the mechanic was insignificant and not worth the additional complexity and UI clutter).
– [remove] Removed Xeno Experts (those were of marginal usefulness and added needless clutter with the need to explain what works for Diplomats and what for Xeno Experts, now only civilized races have Diplomats which is clear and straightforward).

– [misc] Now start with 3 megalopolises and can unlock additional 4 via laws (City Rights and Imperial Supremacy, +2 maximum megalopolises each) for a total of 7 megalopolises.

– [interface] Improved several tooltips related to diplomacy.
– [interface] Fleet “C” zone tooltip clearly states it covers Terra only.
– [interface] Unlock project tooltip on technologies screen lists effects of the project to be unlocked.
– [interface] Minor improvements to the description of some audience tooltips.

– [fix] Tooltip position incorrect in some rare cases.
– [fix] Main menu Load screen stays open in some cases.
– [fix] Reforms screen incorrectly closing audience dialogue screen in some cases.
– [fix] Spelling corrections.

Reminders
You can follow my Steam Developer Page if you wish to be notified each time a new game or expansions is being released.

Also, if you have a moment to leave a Steam review of the game it would be appreciated. It makes a big difference to an indie developer like me. Thanks!

Version 1.15 released

This version is a result of digging out stuff from very old forum posts, reviews and comments to reviews. I have analyzed the most common complains over last year (even dug through some ancient Early Access posts as well) and tried to track and examine what are the key and recurring things that should be improved. I made some interesting changes based on this analysis. First, a small change with big repercussions, now the number of Core Worlds is tied to Centralization. This solves micromanagement issue when it comes to making cores, especially in a huge galaxy settings, which also improves the late game balance since it reduces the number of cities in the late game without affecting the early game. Next, High Command Staff mechanic was removed, it got an enormous number of complains and the consensus was that the game would be better without this feature. Rules selection was streamlined and made more clear, now there is an Imperial Mode (default one) and Throne Mode (for people who wish even more “rule from the heights of the imperial throne” gameplay). Modernizations mechanic, which split the community into lovers and haters, got more automatization options (for those who do not enjoy that part of the game), this automatization is also now enforced in Throne Mode. Next comes a bunch of interface improvements, bug fixes and rebalance of ministers.

One request, if you find a bug please post it on the Steam forums. I had to dig through a lot of reviews to find those and those would have been fixed much earlier if I know about them. So, when you find a bug, please post on the forums. Also, if you have certain suggestions, please copy the stuff from your review to the forums as well. It’s much easier to find (plus it allows a discussion).

Note that because of the heavy changes in this version I made v1.14 Beta branch available in case you wanted to finish your old game using the old rules.

– [feature] Automatic ship hulls modernization option (if you select the appropriate checkbox in Options AI will automatically decide on ship hulls modernizations and report it each time).
– [feature] Throne Mode (previously called Hands Off ruleset) now enforces “Automatic ship hulls modernization” (regardless of option selected), so you don’t deal directly with modernizations in this mode.
– [feature] Now there is a more strict limit to Core Worlds (maximum 30 + 3 Core Worlds per point of Centralization but no more than 50% of planets).

– [removed] Removed Imperial High Command staff mechanic (replaced with a simple static image showing high command in work). Basically, no one liked it and most people voted that the game would be better without it. In future the feature might return in some other form.
– [removed] Removed Total Control ruleset (I feel no one was using it anyway, if requested the effects of this ruleset can be added as “Extra rules” in future versions), now the rules selection looks much more intuitive. If you have a save that runs on this ruleset it will work correctly.

– [misc] Less suicidal diplomacy of minor civilized aliens towards the Empire, they are now much more reluctant to declare war if the Empire is much bigger than them.

– [balance] SpecOps gain per turn scaled to the game length (to make rebellions equally difficult regardless of the game speed settings).
– [balance] Drastically increased ministry expansion cost (it was way too low), also adjusted expansion administration points cost.
– [balance] Adjusted ministry efficiency effect on ministry events chances (was geared too much towards positive events) and added difficulty level bonus/penalty. Also changed the caps to minimum 10% and maximum 90%.

– [art] New Rebellion report image.

– [interface] Civilized races which lost all planets are clearly marked as dormant and have diplomacy options disabled.
– [interface] Improved “Summon head of the house” and “Summon to investigate” tooltips, to make it more clear what it is used for.
– [interface] Military / High Command screen now show maximum squadrons and squadrons production (and loses, in a tooltip), similar to Squadrons screen.
– [interface] Made it more clear that F.E.D. income comes from both fiefs and colonies, also renamed the tab on finances to “F.E.D. Income” for consistency.
– [interface] Rulesets renamed to modes and made much more prominent on the News Game screen. Also renamed “Balanced” to “Imperial Mode” and “Hands Off” to “Throne Mode”.
– [interface] Improved New Game screen.
– [interface] Experimental feature (need to enable Experimental Features in Options) report notice buttons have a different color depending on report type.
– [interface] Most reports have a bigger text now (because there was space and bigger is better, especially on small monitors).
– [interface] Legislation and Research reports now have a button to access the appropriate screen (with [SPACE] hotkey).

– [fix] Small spelling corrections.
– [fix] Support reform option still appears when all reforms already completed (in Summon to discuss option only).
– [fix] Incorrect larvaes displayed on exactly one special planet (Early Access leftover).
– [fix] Civilized alien races asking for peace when when they have no planets anymore (aliens with no planets now are considered dormant/extinct).
– [fix] Meaningless and incorrect display “at War with Empire” on aliens overview screen next to Empire.
– [fix] Admiralition still sending forces to unclaimed planets, planets with withdraw order or planets controlled by a race you are at peace with in some circumstances.

Reminders
You can follow my Steam Developer Page if you wish to be notified each time a new game or expansions is being released.

Also, if you have a moment to leave a Steam review of the game it would be appreciated. It makes a big difference to an indie developer like me. Thanks!