Stellaris Dev Diary #129 - Tradition Updates

[Strigoi Tyrannus]

Nice Blade Runner reference.

 

[DaydreamerGPSA]

The changes are about what I expected, just a minor rework of bonuses and flavor text, so can't exactly say that I'm disappointed. The Le Guin update is already a handful as it is, so I understand leaving the much needed major rework of Traditions for later. I just hope they deliver something great when the time arrives.

 

[The Founder]

Nice Blade Runner reference.

We always had one with Void Kampff, wich relates to detecting Infiltrating Synthethics.
So wich one do you mean exactly?

 

[sr999]

Changing the discovery starter to reduced anomaly research time from increased chance to find an anomaly feels like a significant reduction in fun. I take discovery because I like finding anomalies.

Concur - to me that's sufficient incentive to stick with the old version.

 

[Emperor_Vindicare]

I think a tradition/perk that let you build defense platforms around planets/habitats would be really cool and useful. Then you could have properly fortified systems with many layers of defense. Maybe a starbase module that blocks jump drives within a certain number of jumps too? Read about the solar system in warhammer 40k and you'll know what im talking about!

On that note, some ground based defenses that shot down transports and fired on fleets bombarding them would be pretty cool too.

 

[Mavkiel]

I guess they did a good job on the new traditions. None of them make me think I gotta go one route first. The downside is, none of them excite me either. I used to be torn between harmony and getting that unique farm, or discovery and getting more events..

 

[evilon]

I can confirm that now it is really hard to decide what you want to pick.

Have you solved the problem of "getting to pick them all" ?

 

[BrokenSky]

Lets get started then! Updating the traditions was of course a necessity with the reworked economy, but a secondary objective was also to make the themes of each tradition tree be more well-defined. A tradition tree should stick to a theme or a playstyle, while also making sure the bonuses are as unique and fun as possible.

If traditions are meant to reflect certain playstyles, shouldn't there be more than 6 unlocks per, so that you can, if you want to, go deeper into specific playstyles, rather than unlocking all the traditions? One of the big things 4Xs often suffer from is each faction feeling the same and I believe in stellaris traditions are meant to be part of a way to mitiage that? If that's the case, surely you should never unlock all the tradition trees in one game?

One way around this might be to have each tradition tree have a repeatable tradition, unlocked as part of the finisher, which could provide a large upfront bonus every time you unlocked it (e.g. a bunch of research points), give a strong tempory modifier (bonus research gain from pops), give a permanent stacking bonus (e.g. +research speed) or some combination of these.

Alternatively you could have more tradition trees which are unlocked by completing earlier trees (or earlier combinations of trees), which could provide stronger bonuses or focus on later game mechanics (like terraforming or robo/gene modding)?

Of course there's also just adding in more traditions per tree as an option, which might by itself be enough?

 

[Zweistein000]

I wonder if the devs have ever considered making certain tradition trees mutually exclusive? Diplomacy vs Supremacy would be interesting. Expansion vs a new tree focused for tall empires would be interesting.

It would make more sense to me rather than having an empire that is "focused" on galactic peace and supremacy over other empires, while simultaneously acknowledging that they are staunch pioneers, born traders and insatiable explorers, who want a harmoniums society while dominating others.

Obviously this would require a full tradition rework and is outside the scope of LeGuin.

 

[pieman]

A tradition tree should stick to a theme or a playstyle, while also making sure the bonuses are as unique and fun as possible.

This isn't gonna be a thing as long as you have the "everyone eventually picks everything" approach.

I think you've painted yourself into a corner with linking ascension perks to tradition tree completion, because if you want the traditions to feel unique, then picking some needs to necessarily lock off others.

I think you need to either make ascension perk unlocks disconnected from tradition tree completion, or you need to make more trees, so you can still pick your 7 without feeling forced to break playstyle or theme by picking traditions your empire would never pick from an RP or playstyle perspective.

 

[InvisibleBison]

For clarity:
View attachment 410199

Are these penalties static, or do they scale based on how far over the administrative cap you've gone?

 

[Calvax]

Sorry I know I'm getting off topic, but thinking back to the purpose behind all of this stuff otiginally makes me question whether the stated goals were met.

The goal of traditions I'd guess is to flesh out empire specialisation along cultural lines, creating different playstyles for different empires. I think the main issue is that ascension perks, which are a powerful and effective way of specialising empires, are tied to completing trees. Virtually every game you want to get 8 perks, there's not a lot of downside to not doing it, which requires 7 trees plus the one research slot.

Traditions are quite similar to how culture worked in Civilisation 5 and I think more could be taken from how that game does it. There are 7 culture trees that you can unlock and complete, completing them all is theoretically possible but very expensive. There is an 8th "tree" which unlocks in the late game when you choose an ideology. From that latter point you begin spending your culture points on your ideology tree rather than the main 7. If something like that was adapted to stellaris it could work by ascension perks not being unlocked by traditions at all. Instead perks would be directly purchased with unity at a high cost, perhaps the option for purchasing them coming only after the empire has progressed to a 3-civic advanced government type.

That way by the mid game you should have finished 3 tradition trees and then have the choice of whether to finish more trees or spend unity on ascensions.

 

[Longherin]

I'll chime in as another disappointed fan. As others have pointed out, there are several profound problems with the tradition trees system:
...
2) Most of the traditions add little bonuses or give a special building at best. They don't really change how your empire works on a fundamental level. An empire that picks expansion first should look different than an empire that picks prosperity. I want to feel like I need to change my playstyle if I pick a different set of trees in a game. Perhaps there should be maluses as well. And also traditions you can't take based on your ethos and civics (i.e. a lot more tradition swaps).
3) Some of these traditions don't make sense. Why is research assistance in discovery? Discovery should be about exploring new worlds, finding anomalies, surviving against space aliens, boldly going where nobody has gone before, and not...sitting in orbit around your home planet helping out with research like some underpaid undergrad.
4) Many of the trees are only important for part of the game. Expansion and discovery are particularly bad in this regard. Are these trees really traditions or just an extra tech tree that should be researched in an ideal order according to when I am in the game?

All in all, it just feels like another tech tree that has a different cost mechanism. It rarely if ever changes the way the game is played or the way my empire works. I agree that this is a missed opportunity. Y'all should have made more swaps, more expensive traditions, much more profound effects (including maluses -- there are always tradeoffs in life and this is also a common mechanic in video games, including parts of stellaris!). I'm guessing maybe this just wasn't that important for 2.2 so this is just a tweak. Perhaps a future update will make a bigger difference.

You have the most thorough breakdown of what you liked/disliked so I'll be using you as a sounding board. Apologies in advance if I misrepresent your arguments~
2) I feel like traditions that fundamentally alters how your empire works would cause the tradition picking path to be incredibly narrow. Example: A nation that picks a powerful economy tradition versus a neighbor that picks a powerful military tree = the military guy rolls over the economy guy. It can be argued that the two trees provide bonuses that are powerful enough to counteract each other (like, say, the military tree resulting in powerful ships versus the economy tree resulting in more ships) but at that point it would just be bigger numbers that still result in zero.
Point being, stronger traditions feel like it would very clearly define the path you should take to avoid being rolled over by someone else with a tradition that takes advantage of your weaknesses.
...Plus if traditions came with a malus, then I feel like players would hoard unity and not take traditions until they absolutely need to. MP games might resolve down to who takes the 'correct' series of traditions first.

3) Why can't research assistance be in discovery? Psychic, Gene engineering, and Cyborging are all examples of discoveries that would come about as a result of sitting in orbit with an army of undergrads.

4) Isn't that normal though? You can have a tradition of discovery and have nothing new to discover, and it wouldn't change the fact that you are a nation of discoverers. You would just have to destroy everybody else before 'discovering' their land again, which has the added benefit of being very true to life.

Overall, I'd say that a galaxy of empires constantly interacting with each other (whether if they like it or not) will result in empires that resemble each other in broad strokes, and traditions (I think) represent the very broad strokes of an entity spanning tons and tons of planets. The Judge, Jury and Executioner might be a kill squad in one country and internet doxxing in na

 

[Princess Stabbity]

View attachment 410198

For clarity:
View attachment 410199

Interesting, I like it!

Are there also empire modifiers that increase or reduce the weight of individual factors?
For example, could I mod in a civic/tech/tradition/policy/whatevs that halves the impact of colonies and doubles the impact of systems?

And if not, could that be a thing please? n_n

 

[DaydreamerGPSA]

My personal approach to Tradition rework would involve this:

1 - Add more of them. The only way you can keep Ascension Perks locked with Traditions, and not make this "eventually pick them all" system permanent, is to just add a bunch more of them. But if you decide to disconnect those two parts of the game, just a few more would be enough. There are several aspects of an empire and playstyles it can still cover, so I think adding, let's say, 10 more shouldn't be much of an issue.

2 - Make them longer. Doesn't need to be too long, but their current size can make them feel very underwhelming for something that is supposed to define your empire. Even making it something along 8-10 can already make them feel more unique and give the feeling you're making a long-term investment for your nation.

This is kind of a mix of two ideas I saw before: either making the traditions really long or adding a whole bunch of them. I feel that a balanced approach between the two would be best for the system.

 

[mwyeoh]

These are looking nice, but I would really like more choices to choose from as by endgame every empire ends up being the same since you unlock everything. Having more choices for unlocks (Like idea groups in EU4) really help distinguish your empires from others.
I hope in the future you add more for us to choose from

I know there are mods which already do this, but it would be nice of the base game had it too

 

[Strigoi Tyrannus]

We always had one with Void Kampff, wich relates to detecting Infiltrating Synthethics.
So wich one do you mean exactly?

Read the flavour texts on the traditions. You'll see. It might have been there already but I don't remember atleast.

 

[pieman]

1. Supremacy: seems OP.
   • There's nothing else to do in this game but fight and you decided to put all the military-related buffs (along with cost reductions) in a single place? Convenient, but OP.
   • Of course, planetary bombardment bonus is still useless while you have it hard-capped.

I know! Surely cost reductions should be over in prosperity or something right? The traditions dont even branch playstyles into things like quality vs. quantity, because with the supremacy tree you just get both.

There should be at least 2, but probably a few more, military focused trees based on different styles.

Large numbers of cheap ships, small numbers of strong ships, a defensive tree focused on stations and defensive oriented fleets, one focused around piracy reduction.

Theres plenty of ideas for different types of fleet strengths, but don't slap them all in the one tree.

 

[Skyhunteren]

I am happy to see that traditions are overhauled for the new mechanics, but it doesn’t change the fundamental problem with traditions as they are now.

I think that stellaris in many ways are about how you want to play your race and it give us a large number of choices. You can play xenophile catfolks, capitalistic birds, warrior snails or pleasure bots. There is a large number of etics combinations, insane number of races, many traits, a dosen civics of which several will change the way you play the game.

But when it comes to traditions then there is two handfulls and you will almost get all of them in every game. The question is more about order than anything else and I honestly hate that.

I hate that my warrior snails and capitalistic birds end up taking harmony or that my pleasure bots end up having to take dominion. It might not seem importent for some, but for me it is. I would either like many more traditions to choose betwen like in EU4. It would also be nice with more traditions that actuelly really change your playstyle. Like diplomacy with its federation or adaptability with its mineral farms.

 

[tapewormlondon]

We need more traditions. Deciding which order to complete all 6 is much less intriguing than say, EU4s choose a select number at the expense of others.