Land Appropriation

Pre-Sapient Policies

Initial Border Status

Robotic Workers

Manual Purging

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is a continuation of the feature round-up in the 1.8 'Čapek' update that we started in last week's dev diary . In this one, we'll be talking about some new policies being added to the game. Everything mentioned in this dev diary is part of the free update.The first new policy added is called 'Land Appropriation'. This policy is available to all ethics and governs whether or not newly conquered planets should have land appropriated from non-citizen species. If this policy is on, any newly conquered planet with less than 5 tiles of unblocked free space will have some non-citizen pops removed to clear way for citizen pops. These pops are either simply removed outright (simulating being driven into slums and fringe regions) or become refugees that will attempt to flee to an empire that will have them. Additionally, any planet that has land seized will get a temporary 'Land Appropriated' modifier that massively increases migration attraction and prevents non-citizen species from reproducing and migrating there while in effect. Non-multispecies AI empires will make use of this policy, meaning that even regular wars of conquest will generate refugees, indirectly boosting refugee haven empires.The policies for Pre-Sapients (previously Pre-Sentients, we have changed the Sentient/Sapient terminology in 1.8) have been expanded in 1.8. The following policies are now available for choosing how to deal with pre-sapients:Pre-Sapients are quickly and efficiently exterminated to make room for your Pops.Pre-Sapients are hunted and eaten, producing food for your empire, though this will slowly deplete their population. They can also be manually purged at will. Depletion is mostly done for balance reasons, as otherwise there would be no reason *not* to eat them.Pre-Sapients are tolerated and will generally not be interfered with, though they can be manually purged or killed off via terraforming.Pre-Sapients are protected from purging and worlds they are living on cannot be terraformed.A new policy has been added that controls the initial border status you have towards other empires: open or closed. This only affects the status of borders after establishing communications and has no effect on empires you have not contacted. It also does not prevent manual opening or closing of borders towards select empires.The last new policy ties into the changes to artificial intelligence policies discussed in dev diary 78 and is simply a blanket policy for whether robotic workers should be permitted to be built and maintained. If banned, all robot pops in your empire will automatically be disassembled.Finally for today, also as a result of feedback given after dev diary 78 , we have brought back the manual Purge button for organic pops as well, though its use is highly restricted. You can manually purge selective Pops only if they are Slaves, non-protected Pre-Sapients, or robotic Pops without citizen rights. The rules for which Pops can be Purged/Disassembled are fully moddable.That's all for today! Next week we'll continue the feature roundup by talking about changes to Ascension Paths and Megastructures and the addition of Awakened Empire Decadence.