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Stellaris Dev Diary #102: Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we continue talking about the Apocalypse expansion and 2.0 'Cherryh' update, on the topic of Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions.

Edict Changes (Cherryh Feature)
There will be a number of changes coming to Empire and Planetary Edicts in 2.0 'Cherryh', with the aim of both making Edicts more attractive to use, and increasing the number of useful things players have to spend their pooled Influence and Energy resources on. Firstly, we have moved most of the edicts out of the Planetary Edict category, keeping only a handful of Edicts that are either about dealing with a specific short-term problem (such as Unrest-reducing edicts) or executing a long-term or permanent effect (such as Consecrated Worlds or the new Land Clearance edict given by Mastery of Nature). Instead, a number of these edicts have become Empire Edicts.
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Empire Edicts have also been changed to work in the same way as Planetary Edicts, with an upfront cost and a duration rather than a monthly cost. The reason for this is that we wanted to ensure players always have a use for their pooled influence - an empire that is not using that influence on expanding through Starbases or Claims will be able to boost their empire in a variety of ways, including powerful resource-boosting edicts such as Production Targets and Capacity Overload. We decided to move away from the monthly cost because players tend to shy away from monthly costs that bring them into a negative balance, even if they are consistantly hitting their stockpile cap, and so ended up using Empire Edicts far less than they could actually afford to.

To make managing and renewing Edicts less of a hassle, we have added a message when an Edict (Empire or Planetary) expires.
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Campaigns (Cherryh Feature)
Campaigns are a new type of edict added in the Cherryh update. Campaigns are edicts that are unlocked by the Planetary Unification technology and cost energy instead of Influence. They typically have fairly situational effects, and are meant to be an additional use for stored energy.
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Unity Ambitions (Apocalypse Feature)
Unity Ambitions is another new type of edict added in the Apocalypse expansion. These are extremely powerful edicts that last 10 years and cost Unity to activate. You will get access to Unity Ambitions after researching the Ascension Theory society technology, and activating a Unity Ambition has a dynamic cost that is calculated in the exact same way as the cost for unlocking a new tradition (though activating an ambition will not raise the cost of future ambitions/traditions). Unity Ambitions are meant to give a use for Unity after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock, and to ensure the resource is never completely without use.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and the Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Civics and Ascension Perks.
 
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You don't have to finish all the tradition to get the ambitions. You can take the one that are critical for you playstayle, get the tech and activate an Ambition. Imagine being in mid game with decent Scientists and expect no war in 10 years. And now you can take +20% for Science for a cost of one tradition. For me, it looks super powerful.
I would like to see more traditions that’s the seven we already have. And perhaps some mutually exclusive ones in that if you have X you can’t have Y
Well your unity ambitions will be cheaper.
By the time this is posted someone might have already answered. But if I understand things right, since the ambitions cost as much to activate as a tradition does to unlock, that means they'll be cheaper the less traditions you have. So there should be situations where you for example have all the ascensions you want and rather than opening a new tree with little use to you (most likely diplomacy and/or dominion depending on type of game) you instead put your unity into ambitions.
For example the Diplomacy tree when I play as a Divine Empire. Pretty much all the stuff there is useless to DE. You don't need federation, you have vassals (and some defensive pacts), habitability is a non issue (unless you massively colonize tomb worlds),. Visitor Centre? You mean for the xeno slaves? Etc etc....

Now I will be able to take that's actually useful to me, instead of a bunch of traditions that do nothing.
There are already plenty of traditions you don't need to unlock in most games, but you do anyway because you have unity to spend.
Now you'll even be able to use ambitions instead. So the answer is yes, obviously.
If the unlocked tradition penalty also applies for unity ambitions, then yeah, after 2.0 there will be. Unlocking domination if you have no vassals and never plan on gaining any will immediately and forever make the unity ambitions you might actually want (20 % more science? Yes please!) more expensive.
Not filling a tree means you miss out on an Ascension Perk, though. My experience has been that the only Tradition trees that can be "useless" to a playthrough are Domination and Diplomacy, but given how useful a one-planet vassal can be so long as you have the ability to form Vassals you might as well take the tree.

Still- that's 2/8 Ascension Perks gated behind those trees, and the Ascension Perks are generally pretty valuable, so why wouldn't you try to fill the trees?

Unless there's ever a reason not to fill all the trees to get all the Ascension Perks, the original phrasing of "after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock" seems kind of redundant- you should usually want to unlock all the Traditions.
 
Unless there's ever a reason not to fill all the trees to get all the Ascension Perks, the original phrasing of "after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock" seems kind of redundant- you should usually want to unlock all the Traditions.

That's my thinking as well; Diplomacy often feels useless if you don't want to form a federation, domination is often situational but generally can by made useful in some fashion, but I grit my teeth and grind through them anyhow, just to get at the extra perks. If nothing else, I'll just spam ringworlds with them.

That said, Wiz did close the diary with:

Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and the Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Civics and Ascension Perks.

So maybe, just maybe, we won't have to fill every tree to get our maximum perks anymore. Probably not, it's probably just the addition of even more perks and thus more reasons to push through every tree, but eh, can always hope.
 
Not filling a tree means you miss out on an Ascension Perk, though. My experience has been that the only Tradition trees that can be "useless" to a playthrough are Domination and Diplomacy, but given how useful a one-planet vassal can be so long as you have the ability to form Vassals you might as well take the tree.

Still- that's 2/8 Ascension Perks gated behind those trees, and the Ascension Perks are generally pretty valuable, so why wouldn't you try to fill the trees?

Unless there's ever a reason not to fill all the trees to get all the Ascension Perks, the original phrasing of "after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock" seems kind of redundant- you should usually want to unlock all the Traditions.

Well, no one said that you have to never finish your trees. I just think that sometimes, gaining that giant bonus right now can be more important than finishing a tree. Ofc, in the end you'll need all Ascension Perks, but postponing getting a perk for X time to get big bonuses for ten years right now can be viable option (especially for some builds that have huge amount of unity gain/low tradition cost). If i get the initial idea right.
 
Seems like good changes and makes a lot of sense. The only problem I have is that I don't like seeing the ambitions as expansion only. That means people who don't buy the expansion won't have anything to spend unity on after they've unlocked all traditions. Considering unity is a base game feature, something else to spend it on should also be available in the base game. Just my opinion.
 
@Wiz

I would highly recommend to make the costs of campaigns also scaling.
(Not final numbers are not final but I have to say this in advance)

850 energy might be an investment in the early game but later on its nothing especially considering they last 10 years.

Also I am with the other folks who beg for a food costing version for hive minds to make playing them more unique.
 
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Wait... so if unity ambitions are an apocalypse feature, what will stop unity from becoming useless in the base game?
Normally I agree with paradox's decisions on what should be in the base game and what is ok putting in the DLC, but I really think this one is something that should definitely be in the base game, unless another use for unity that makes it so it will never be useless is added.
 
Unity Ambitions (Apocalypse Feature)
Unity Ambitions is another new type of edict added in the Apocalypse expansion. These are extremely powerful edicts that last 10 years and cost Unity to activate. You will get access to Unity Ambitions after researching the Ascension Theory society technology, and activating a Unity Ambition has a dynamic cost that is calculated in the exact same way as the cost for unlocking a new tradition (though activating an ambition will not raise the cost of future ambitions/traditions). Unity Ambitions are meant to give a use for Unity after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock, and to ensure the resource is never completely without use.

That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and the Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Civics and Ascension Perks.

Are unity ambitions all available to everyone or are they based on something like ethics, civics or traditions (including tradition tree openers and finishers)?
 
By the time this is posted someone might have already answered. But if I understand things right, since the ambitions cost as much to activate as a tradition does to unlock, that means they'll be cheaper the less traditions you have. So there should be situations where you for example have all the ascensions you want and rather than opening a new tree with little use to you (most likely diplomacy and/or dominion depending on type of game) you instead put your unity into ambitions.

I really like that I dont like how I take every unity tree in every game. Now I just take the ones I really want for the Empire I'm playing and then consider whats left and may just say im good and start using the new campaign unity stuff. Thats awesome!

Then next game I play a different type of Empire and take different unity trees (Well some will be same but still...). I think that is great! Maybe add a few more unity trees that are quite different to aide in having more options for what you take... and do not take for every play through!
 
The problem with using Unity for these edicts even after you have all traditions you want is that you still might want to unlock Ascension Perks, despite going down the undesirable trees to get them...unless how you get Perks is changing somehow.

@Wiz
Shoot I was all excited thinking I wouldn't have to take every unity tree every play through anymore. Taking different trees each play through would rock. And it sucks to take ones that can be useless for some empires. However I forgot about the perks.....

Giving up 1 or even 3 of those perks is probably not worth it.

Although that would keep the cost of those edicts down alot... Hmmm maybe trying to change how ya get those ascension perks is the way to go, though I have no idea how you would do that.

Oh well having a hard decision in game isn't necessarily a bad thing. Still maybe something to ponder on?
 
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Influence cap is still 1000.

Droning Optimizations is a slightly better version of Production Targets (and replaces it in the list if you have both).

I am starting to pronounce your screen name as 'Whis.'

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@Wiz just a few questions some not related to this dev diary but Apocalypse in general.

1. Will the ship build limits on the Colossus and Titans be moddable that you can apply it to other new ship classes added in mods?

2. The starbase design itself that upgrades weapons, will that be moddable to where you can enable it in the designer to design your own starbase instead of relying on the auto generated design?
 
A) Wormholes that lead off the map (in the darkness between galaxies) to a single secluded system that may be full of ruins, an active empire, or a crisis race that doesn't know how to use the wormhole. Think pocket dimension feel. Maybe the system doesn't even have a sun, or is orbiting a black hole, or is a broken ringworld just floating without a sun. They should never be untouched as the fallen empires were sure to have been here before.

B) Can we please have these Max Tier Techs (maybe as Structure Project or Colossus Ships):
1) Regain the ability to recolonize planets & rebuild ringworld sections that are currently permanently destroyed by a Crisis and Colossus Ships.
2) Ability to create and destroy hyperlanes, Wormhole Pairs, Off the map Wormholes (see above), Nebulas, Pulsars, Neutron Stars, Black Holes.
3) Create New small planets from a unique subset of Asteroids (broken debris field from World Cracker).
4) Ability to move Stations, Starbases, Habitats, and Mega Structures (Ring worlds) to a different planet or even a different system.
5) Create and Destroy Metrolanes (Hyperlanes with extra movement speed & generates some resources from civilian trade):
5.1) Either a Structure that gives speed boost to Owner & Allies.
5.2) Either a Permanent change that boosts everyone, even foes.
 
Can you do a dev diary on how you decide what is going to be a paid feature and what isnt at some pont?
90% of the time I feel like your descisions follow an intuitive path (Adding more choices to a system or content to the game? Usually DLC. Fixing bad game play? Usually free). But then, once in a while, you bring out a DLC feature, that clearly fixes a problematic mechanic - which just seems weird to me.
(This is not an outraged hulk posts, I´m generally interested in how you decide those things)