Category Archives: Stellar Monarch 2

Stellar Monarch 2 Dev Diary #1: Colonies, Core Worlds and Megalopolises

One thing I really like about Stellar Monarch is the amount of planets. It really feels like a wast interstellar empire. You feel like you are ruling the stars. But the drawback is that, well, apart from Terra, the player simply does not remember any other planet by name after the empire reach a certain size…

So, my idea for the sequel is to make several grades of planets. From the most critical ones the player knows by name to the most remote unimportant rocks not worthy of the imperial attention at all.

Three grades of imperial planets (Colonies, Core Worlds, Megalopolises):

The Empire can have any number of Colonies. Those are not that important and typically distant from the center of the Empire, have no industry, a low population and are basically used to extend the territory and provide food and resources to more industrialized planets. Next come Core Worlds, those are industrialized worlds with decent population that are clumped together around Terra. Finally, there are Megalopolises, the centers of administration, science, culture and manufacturing. The Empire will have up to 5-8 of Megalopolises and losing one is an unthinkable disaster which causes a massive Prestige loss.

Deciding the status of a planet is purely an administrative decision made by the player, but with certain restrictions. For example, a Core World must be adjacent to another Core Word (so those will tend to clump around Terra), Megalopolis must be also a Core World and can’t be on Barren/Toxic, etc. The decision is final and the status can not be revoked, losing a planet does not change its status.

Cities:

The economy is based around Cities, it’s the most important economic asset. Cities process minerals to produce ships, pay taxes, etc. Basically, cities determine the wealth of the Empire. Well, technically those require also minerals and workforce but can still function quite well even with considerable shortages of those.

Each planet, depending on its type (Desert, Jungle, Terran, etc), can have a certain number of Cities (more hospitable planets tend to have more city slots). But Core Words have double number of allowed cities and Megalopolises have a whooping flat +50 City slots.

In a typical game like 50-70% of Cities would be on the few Megalopolises, 20-40% on Core Worlds and 10% or less on the hundreds of Colonies.

Efficiency of cities output rules:

Not only the number of cities counts, but also the efficiency bonus to the output of cities. It’s affected by the workforce availability, planet’s hospitability, technology and several other factors.

There are also various administrative rules. For example: Core Worlds get +50% but also -10% per adjacent non Core World (which promotes clumping those together), Megalopolis gets a flat +100% bonus (so not only Megalopolises have more cities but also those cities are much more efficient than those elsewhere), a planet adjacent to a Megalopolis gets +25%, Colonies get -50%.

Basically, it makes cities the most efficient near the administrative center of the Empire.

Minerals & Resources:

At that point you might ask, what’s the point in Colonies then? Those have barely any cities and population… So, here comes resources. Your population needs to eat and your industry needs minerals. Each planet provides those basic resources and typically provide those at 100% efficiency. So a distant minerals rich lava world or several faraway farmland colonies are quite useful to the Empire. Not to mention if those also contain rare resources.

But you are not forced to have lots of colonies. It’s definitely useful, but there are ways to get without those. You can expand horizontally if you choose too, for a price. You could simply replace the need for a high food/minerals input by mineral refining and food processing technologies which would drastically reduce the consumption of those. You can also engage in trade deals, tributes, etc with other civilized races (but only with civilized ones, if you stand by watching as those are consumed by The Hive or other without lending them a helping hand those planets will be taken over by xeno races and render useless for trade) which allows you to grab a percentage of their basic resources input.

Additional rules and gameplay effects:

  • Random disasters tend to start on or next to Megalopolises
  • Core Worlds are fiefs of Noble Houses (those have an imperial governor and a noble ruling it; while Colonies have just governors and no Noble House makes claims to those)
  • Noble Houses consider you responsible for protecting Core Worlds, if they lose a fief to aliens it’s your fault in their eyes
  • Colonies are prone to rebel (Core Worlds tend to stay loyal).
  • You will have have more options to directly interact with Megalopolises (like summoning the governor for an audience) compared to other planets
  • In a typical game around 10% of pops would live on Colonies, 30% on Core Worlds and 60% on a few Megalopolises worlds (so colonies are sparsely populated while Megalopolises are overcrowded)

Progress report (2020, Tech Demo and Pre-alpha):

A quick summary what has been done so far.

First, during the Tech Demo stage I took the old code of Stellar Monarch and chopped it removing a lot of things I didn’t like (especially the combat code which was removed 100%), next I redesigned the interface, especially to allow more space (at the expense of starmap view, which to be honest, is not needed when you are examining your Court for example), also I upped a bit the minimum resolution (dropped support for 1024×768 since basically no one uses it anymore). All those changes gave me more space to work with. Next I redesigned planets (now planets come in 3 grades: colonies, core worlds and megalopolises) and tested how it all would look on the map, next introduced noble houses fiefs and again checked how it would look on the starmap.

Once I evaluated all this I decided to give it a green light and proceed to the Pre-alpha stage. In that stage I aimed to forge out all the core mechanics, how those work and how those interconnect together. The new court, noble houses, economy system, warfare, etc. Just focusing on the big things and ignoring details. Some of those were coded as a barebone functionality and some were designed on paper. Also, basic art assets were done. I would say, most of the design problems were solved, and I now have a general idea how to implement the “meat” of the game.

Therefore, I proceeded to the Alpha stage. Which will be for now an internal stage with very minimal testers involved. Eventually, ending with a Closed Alpha test and then going into public Beta as an Early Access.

Disclaimer: This is a development diary describing plans and intentions. The final implementation might differ or even be discarded (especially after taking into account player’s feedback).

You can wishlist Stellar Monarch 2 now!

The day has come, the Steam page for Stellar Monarch 2 has been set up. You can Wishlist the game now!

The game is a sequel to Stellar Monarch and the core premise is you are the emperor and do stuff from the heights of your imperial throne. In short, instead of building farms or factories on planets you deal with the court, imperial officials, noble houses, assassins, admirals, etc.

The game will undergo a traditional development cycle of mine. If you participated in the early days of my other project you should know what to expect, it will be handled quite similarly. First an early access with me being quite active on the steam forums fishing for ideas, feedback, comments. Then release and afterwards quite a long period of smaller improvements and of course fixes as needed. Maybe an expansion or two later (much later, also no promises here, my focus is on making the base game fully playable and finished and only after it’s done I would be thinking what’s next).

The game is scheduled to enter Early Access somewhere in 2021.

The primary means of communication will be via Steam Forums Discussion or our Discord.

I’m making a sequel to Stellar Monarch!

It’s time to announce my next project, it will be a sequel to Stellar Monarch. I have been thinking about it for a longer while, about the things I would love to change if I were to start from scratch. About things that could have been better. So, I have made a prototype and it looks solid enough to give it a green light. Stellar Monarch 2 is now officially in production.


Why a sequel?

There is this dilemma of a designer, should one improve & change the existing game or make a sequel? Or how much a game should be changed after a release? My philosophy is that I make games for players. And players, even fans of the same genre, might have different tastes, so not everything will equally cater to everyone. Trivial and everyone agrees… but not everyone acts on it. Too many times, as a player, I have seen a game I liked changed, or adjusted in the middle of the life cycle, in a way that would make the game no longer fun for me. It’s always so sad when a developers make a great game I liked and then change it to the extend that it no longer appeals to me. Maybe even it was objectively better or catered to more universal tastes, but for me, as a player, it’s always a disaster.

So, I have decided to make a sequel. This would allow me to change everything I like, without worrying about the expectations regarding the existing game. If you liked the the old mechanics better you can still play it, Stellar Monarch is not going anywhere and it will be patched as needed for the years to come. Now, with the creative freedom of making a completely new game, I can redesign everything, reevaluate every mechanic, throw out everything I can find a better replacement for and keep & polish the best parts of the old game.

Differences between Stellar Monarch 2 and Stellar Monarch 1

Basically, the feel of the game will be retained, you will still feel as the Emperor not a logistics officer. But most of the mechanics will be replaced, redone, adjusted or polished.

Design philosophy adjustments:

  • I will be more trusting my own designer’s guts – There was a funny thing when developing Stellar Monarch 1. I have thought on a mechanic to make fleets autonomous but I discarded it as too daring and too different from other 4X. Then players proposed “why don’t you make those fleets autonomous”? Facepalm, why I have not made it from the start? Why!!! If I were trusting my own instincts I would made it earlier without the hassle of maintaining two systems (manual and autonomous). This time I will totally disregard how other games are made and go for my own vision 100% taking into account only feedback of my loyal players.
  • Less mechanics but more depth & interaction – I would strive to make it easier to grasp and easier to learn while at the same time make it harder to master and give more tools into the player’s hands. I will try to put fewer building blocks in the game but make more connections between those. For example in SM1 there are 3 basic resources (food, minerals, gas). In SM2 there will be only 2 basic resources (food and minerals) but you would be able to do more with those. Food will start as raw food which is harvested from planets, you will be using processing technology to make processed food which will be consumed by the population, you would be making trade deals with other civilized races to get a portion of raw food/minerals extracted on their territory, etc. So, while there will be fewer things to care for you would be able to do more with those which should result with an easier to grasp mechanics and at the same time allow more decisions and interesting combinations.
  • Even higher level of abstraction – Yes, SM1 was pretty high level where you ruled from the heights of your throne. Still some things were a bit too low level. Like numerous battle reports, ability to see where individual squadrons are, etc. I will strive to make it even more high level, for example for battle reports I would rather provide things like “On the front against The Hive we lost 3 planets (names), conquered 2 planets (names) while inflicting X casualties to enemy forces and suffering Y casualties. Do you want to replace the Admiral YES/NO?”.

What will change in the game:

  • Feudalism & noble houses – In the sequel the world will be modeled more like a feudal monarchy with great houses, claims, usurpers and dynasties. There are 7 noble houses and you need to deal with them. Nobles are both an asset and a threat. You don’t want to just crush them because you need someone to lead the military and fight against aliens, but you want to keep them in check. Preferably if the noble houses are strong and wealthy but also obedient and loyal to the Emperor, which would be tricky to pull off. There will be fiefs, claims, estates, houses homeworlds, voting, charters, etc.
  • Completely redone military system – While SM1 combat system was abstract and served its purpose I would make it quite differently now. Primarily, I would go for a higher level of abstraction, without simulating where each individual ship is but just keep it on a strategic and operational level with a more statistical approach. Also, I have an idea how to introduce ships obsolescence and even allow designing ships! Now you will have generations of ships with a possibility of using bunch of old, obsolete ships if your manufacturing can not pump up new ones fast enough. Overall, this part of the game will be more complex but at the same time easier to understand. All without introducing micromanagement of course.
  • Logistics system – In SM1 you operated on the “frontlines” in SM2 it will be modeled more like “point to point” defence as it was in the middle ages with fortresses. Logistics system with starbases will be an important part of it. So, instead of moving individual squadrons around you would worry more about ground infrastructure to support efficient conquest and border defence.
  • Court redesign – I actually liked the old SM1 court a lot but I think I have a better idea. More connected with noble houses and allowing a more personalised approach to individual courtiers.
  • And more…

What will probably not change:

  • Audience – I will redo a lot of the events (maybe even all of them) but the overall audience mechanic was quite fun so I don’t plan drastic changes here.
  • Asymmetric aliens – You will be facing The Hive again. Sure, all those races will change and will behave differently (especially combat wise), but I wanted to keep the feel of all those aliens which play by different rules and feel unique and weird.
  • Technology system – It will be adjusted a bit (for example research points will be generated separately for each field of science and prioritization will be done slightly different), also all techs will be most likely done from scratch but overall I liked the research mechanic and I would like to keep it.
  • Other smaller things.

When the game will be out?
I think in the next month or so I will put a Steam page so you can wishlist the game. Then I will continue working on the pre-alpha. Maybe around summer I will be able to start with Early Access, but no guarantees here. A full release should be ready several months afterwards.

To be notified about the availability of the game on Steam go to:
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/SilverLemurGames and click “Follow”.
Steam should send you an email upon all major milestones then.