Stellar Monarch 2 News

Very feature heavy release. A lot of new bugs introduced (I can bet) and many unfinished and unpolished features see the light of the day for the first time. Possibly a very messy and untested version (but not necessarily). First, rebellion is there, yes fully functional. Do not let the single "Rebellion" log entry deceive you, if I were to list all the changes it would be 50 or so items long (but since this feature was never available I did not have to list the "changes"). I was working on rebellion, secretly, in the last months, but it was always in production and always disabled. Now it's the day where it reached enough maturity to be left in the wild (still it will additional design). I also made the long due ship modernizations. Just very bare bone feature, functional but not pretty, enabled it only because I wanted to gather your feedback. The last big item is Grand political events and political agendas fine-tuning. That one is polished and balanced, also possibly quite fun and providing many strategic dilemmas on the political front. Oh yes, I also did what I love to do recently which is removal of unfinished features. New ones were slated for deletion or to be disabled till I figure out how those should work. The usual tiny interface improvements and two small fixes end the list.

To make it clear, this version introduced new features which are potentially very fragile (I already can see how the upcoming v0.78 will be one big bug fix and rebalance) and require a lot of love (read: your feedback) since those definitely need to be improved and rebalanced. So, make sure to post some comments!

Steam topic about rebellion mechanic: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1437750/discussions/0/3471730015121196263/
Steam topic about ships modernizations mechanic: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1437750/discussions/0/3471730015121200899/


- [feature] Rebellion fully functional! When you reach 100% readiness a rebellion will start. Since it's an untested (and unbalanced) first iteration of the feature you will have an option to opt out (via audience options) if you wish.
- [feature] Ship modernizations. It a very, very crude and totally unbalanced version of modernizations feature. Included purely so I can gather some feedback. So feel free to take a quick look at those and ignore (but still those fully work if you wish to deal with their extremely unpolished state).
- [feature] Grand political events (audience events) focusing on political agendas. Also added new political agendas, rebalanced those, made a more accessible display of those, etc.

- [remove] House traditions removed. After fleshing out political agendas I realized that's what I actually wanted to make, so those kind of replaced traditions.
- [remove] House perks removed (those were getting on my nerves for too long, accused of being not fun, slated for deletion). I might go back to this concept later, if I get a reasonably fun idea how thouse should actually work.
- [remove] Edicts tab removed (maybe it will be back once edicts are implemented, no need for it to hang there empty and useless).
- [remove] Fief tab from planet interface removed (since it's useless right now, might be back later or might be integrated with Administrate screen).
- [remove] Removed planet Administrate tab since it's accessible from the below portraits button anyway, which left only Overview tab... so I removed it as well since just one tab is totally unneeded. Yay! Extra space for future use, me very happy.

- [balance] Political agendas distribution rebalanced. You start with just one Rival and new ones can appear via Grand Politics events, but you can avoid those, usually at a high cost, if you wish. There are also "Reconciliation"events which let you get rid of undesirable political agendas. In practice, you can either go for very hostile houses with deadly political agendas or to almost or all friendly ones (for a high price) if you wish. Therefore, you can shape the political landscape to a great degree via your choices.

- [content] Event "FED Directorship meeting" (positive, triggered up to 3 times per game), can be used to issue new FED shares.

- [interface] Reform up/down buttons now have small up/down icons.
- [interface] "Find" button replaced with magnifying glass icon button.
- [interface] Beautified planet list, also added "Find" button for convenience if you just want to locate the planet, not open it.
- [interface] Improved slightly minimap button tooltips.
- [interface] Better tooltips on audience noble visit (so you have all the info at your fingertips).

- [fix] Projects which were unlocked by technologies were auto stopping upon end turn.
- [fix] Tiny bug where you could access Administrate section on non core planets and therefore have an option to "illegally" summon a minor governor.


Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

This version is one big fix and finetuning of the noble houses related mechanics and events based on the feedback you provided. Tons of small fixes, tooltips improvements, rebalance of events, rebalance of houses finances, etc. There are two new features. A political marriage option where you can marry a member of your house to another house to strengthen the ties and get rid of the annoying grudges. The second feature is shares of the Feudal Economic Directorate. Each house has number of shares in the F.E.D. which are partially tied to the house rank and determine what share of income from imperial fiefs the house gets (in future most likely there will be options to trade shares with other houses). This feature complements nicely with the new rule that house related options are usually (with exceptions) tied to the income of such house, therefore if a house is poor you can get stuff done cheaper since they basically expect a smaller financial compensation.

All this was possible thanks to the great feedback you provided! I know I mentioned this before, but again, I love making an Early Access game under such conditions. Not only you forgive me the myriad of not working things, which let me focus on experimentation and forging out the best mechanics, but also you provide valuable feedback which allows me to direct my attention to the critical areas and basically make me aware what exactly needs to be looked into and adjusted or redesigned. Thanks a lot!


- [feature] Political marriage. Over time you get audience events that young ones from your family are ready for arranged marriage. This can strengthen the ties with other noble houses and let them forget old grudges.
- [feature] Feudal Economic Directorate shares for noble houses (determine percentage of fiefs income the house gets). Shares are based on rank.

- [misc] Relations of houses naming altered to make them sound more logical.
- [misc] Your spouse actions changed to "Progressively expensive action" and the base cost of those actions significantly reduced.
- [misc] Proxy (non functional) option on the Emperor's dialog box to embark the imperial flagship (to test how the feature would feel).

- [balance] Rebalanced costs of noble house actions (those called by clicking on a noble portrait), now those costs are based on income of the house.
- [balance] Each house gets additional flat +X income depending on rank (+160/+140/+120/+100). Useful for Young Empire start.
- [balance] Grudges removal cost (average one, affected also by other factors) equals 20 turns worth of income of the house that has the grudge (therefore removing grudges from poor houses is cheaper).

- [content] Event "Ambition of house X" rebalanced so the option to avoid getting grudge is more reasonable to select (much lower Administrative points cost and lower opinion with other houses penalty) but on the other hand now it grants higher Authority to the house.
- [content] Event "Dishonorable deed of the nobles" now has an additional option which let you resolve this issue by paying money.
- [content] New noble house event with mild effects (for a bigger variation of events and to not get you bombed with the high consequence ones all the time).

- [interface] Added notes to summoned nobles audience events about options availability depending on favors/secrets.
- [interface] Added breakdown of houses income in tooltips (rank income and fiefs income).
- [interface] Finetuned head & spouse of the house action tooltips.
- [interface] House member dialog box auto closes if the house window changes to another house (for any reason).

- [fix] Audience option selection bug which made in some circumstances wrong effects to trigger.
- [fix] Upon new game some core planets had no noble lord (auto corrected on first turn).
- [fix] Stability glorious achievement incorrect.
- [fix] Stability from imperial count incorrect upon game start (was correct only after the first turn).
- [fix] Incorrect planet attack report (switched description who was the attacked and who was attacked).
- [fix] One audience allowed using an option which required favors without having any left.
- [fix] Small spelling fixes.
- [fix] Other smaller fixes.


Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

This version focuses on noble houses. Finally the long due heraldic bureau was designed and implemented (turned out to be quite simple, useful and straightforward, which I like a lot). Houses spying system redone and finished (now it's spymaster centric). Removed house servants and added multiple new options to various nobles (rank dependent). Oh yes, also added house estates, a tiny feature that fits the game mood and other mechanics quite well. Note that due to the amount of changes the houses relations/opinion balance might be quite unbalanced in this version.


- [feature] Spymaster audience event with reports about houses spying actions (which replaced individual spies among house servants). Also, houses chance of being spied on is affected by relations (low relations houses being more likely to have a spymaster event generated), so you will tend to gather more secrets of houses that are unfriendly to you.
- [feature] Heraldic Bureau which issues honorary titles which you can grant to minor nobles for opinion, authority and monarchism boost.
- [feature] Grudges of noble houses mechanic (opinion penalty and relations cap).
- [feature] Political agendas of noble houses mechanic (houses now can have their own wants, goals and desires which can heavily affect opinion and relations).
- [feature] Estates of noble houses which increase authority. Royal house estate can be upgraded by interacting with the Emperor's chat options. Non player houses auto upgrade their estate if the have ample funds.
- [feature] Emperor options (on house screen): House estate upgrade and extraordinary effort (can be called 3 times per game, boost Emperor's Focus points).
- [feature] Royal spouse options (on house screen): making the Emperor rest properly and option to change administrative points into emperor focus points.
- [feature] Additional Head of the house options (on house screen): start official investigation (summoned to answer about secrets).
- [feature] Spouse of the house head options (on house screen) aimed at removing grudges and turning secrets to favors.
- [feature] Minor noble option (on house screen): "Find scandalous materials" to gain secrets, can be done once per noble.

- [remove] Removed house servants. At first I was thinking of removing them temporarily till I figure out how they should exactly work, but when I saw how much better the spymaster centric house spy events were compared to previous individual spies and how much more clear the houses screen became I concluded it will be most likely a permanent removal.

- [misc] Monarchism now also provide direct opinion bonus.
- [misc] Non player noble houses waste a bit of money each turn on luxuries.

- [content] New audience events related to nobles (aimed to add/remove grudges and overall make managing opinion of nobles harder).

- [interface] Authority & Monarchism tooltips list all effects which those provide (votes & squadrons, stability & opinion).
- [interface] Cleanup of various house related tooltips.

- [fix] Uniforms of some noble houses were incorrect color.


Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

This version was a big redesign of the Great Council. I reviewed how it works, disassembled it and basically redid it from scratch using the parts that worked. Now it's all more clear and logical, plus you can make a speech to alter the voting! Another feature is robots and androids population (build your own citizens). There is also a bunch of very nice interface improvements, the traditional removal of several features that were assessed as too weak and rebalance.


- [feature] The Great Council redesign.
- [feature] Three additional glorious achievements from Centralization.
- [feature] Robots (population type) introduced. Must be enabled via technology "Mechanical Servants", this population is automatically manufactured depending on number of cities and provide labor only (everything explained in tooltips).
- [feature] Added option to mass order to mark for conquest even unexplored planets of that race.

- [misc] Aristocracy tax now affects opinion of noble houses.
- [misc] Adjusted initial budget points allocation.

- [removed] Ministry actions removed (only one action was implemented and it was not very useful anyway, better is such things are handled via audience events).
- [removed] Removed planetary markers concept (it looked great on paper but I could not find a way to make those work in game, those might be back in future in some other form).
- [removed] Removed unused Intriguer and Easy to Bribe traits.

- [balance] Rebalanced reforms (houses support and popular support grant higher bonus, reforms take longer to finish by default). Which means that now assuring a proper house support before attempting a reform is much more important.
- [balance] Number of glorious achievements required for coronation increased from 12 to 15 (because of additional sources of glorious achievements).
- [balance] Administrative points for audience events rebalanced (overall, on average audience options now require more administrative points).
- [balance] Opinion of houses for audience events rebalanced (on average audience options now affect houses opinion more). This change is intended to better reflect the opinion needed per reputation tier and make it more meaningful.

- [content] New technologies (robots related).

- [interface] Added mass orders tab on diplomacy screen (according to feedback many numerous first time players had trouble finding this option on the planet screen, it should be much easier to find now).
- [interface] Option to rename fleets and ships.
- [interface] Ships quick selector on Ships screen (ships marked as obsolete will be skipped by quick selector).
- [interface] Aliens quick selector on Intelligence screen.
- [interface] Beautified encyclopedia slightly (note: encyclopedia has no content yet).

- [fix] Incorrect population summary.
- [fix] Banquet option window now was not reacting properly to ESC key.


Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

This version focuses on combat mechanic. Some rules were redesigned (like ground combat), some missing mechanics finished and many rebalanced or altered. More like many small changes to many rules than anything groundbreaking. Introduced defensive installations which are somewhat similar to those in the prequel but provide a flat bonus to squadrons rather than a bonus on itself. It has not that much of an effect on a tactical level, but much bigger on a strategic one since it makes defense easier than offense. The last thing was a slight redesigned the ground combat, which now should be more intuitive and work better with other mechanics, which includes merge of the combat reports, now you would be getting just one report per planet and it would include all the information related to combat over that planet (always the highest category is reported, so if planet was lost you would be getting only planet lost report and no more additional combat progress report). Oh yes, there were also some combat balance changes (missiles less effective, since it was needed due to extra missiles provided by defensive installations).

NOTE: Custom options have been reset to default (due to introduction of a new option "Screen Edge Panning"). You need to set them again.


- [feature] Implement several smaller missing combat effects (like officers competence, extra tactical maneuvers chance, etc). Also altered some minor combat mechanic (like jamming).
- [feature] Defensive installations introduced. Those are ground installations which provide extra fighters and missiles to squadrons fighting over the orbit of the planet. Can be destroyed by invading troops. Constructed and reinforced similarly to ground troops (the cap and pace determined by the Army budget).

- [misc] Changed Fortress World mechanic, now it adds more defensive installations, more ground troops and provide faster reinforcements.
- [misc] AI fortress works identical to player Fortress Worlds. Also AI fortress is now always destroyed on planet takeover.
- [misc] Ground combat redesigned. Now there are no ground combat casualties and the planet is taken over when the invader accumulate at least twice ground power than defender (and controls space orbit). Invading troops start to retreat rapidly if the invader lost orbit control.

- [balance] Missiles are less effective (deal less HP, Point Defense is more effective at shooting them down, easier to be jammed, etc).
- [balance] Unguided missiles are now slightly more resistant to Point Defense fire.

- [interface] Added Screen Edge Panning (Disable Edge Scrolling) option in Options Menu.
- [interface] Improved tooltips on planet military to explain invasion mechanic better.
- [interface] Merged space and ground battle reports (also won/lost). Which means that each planet is reported only once (using the most important report, so for example if the planet was won only this will be reported and the space/ground battle report will be omitted).


Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.70+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).