Stellaris Dev Diary #129 - Tradition Updates

[A Cat]

Yes, Judge Corps. will get you crime reduction. Via extremely authoritarian, brutal, and merciless methods of law enforcement.

No, no. These methods are highly egalitarian methods in egalitarian empires. AND highly efficient. Each judge is randomly selected from the pool of people who have strong egalitarian principles and won't abuse their power. That's an egalitarian justice system right there. Anyone who merits it has equal chance. Have you heard, "You can beat the rap, but not the ride"? Basically it let's innocent people be punished by arrested them and then making them fight draining their finances and so forth. Allowing the ruination of innocent people like this authoritarian. Worse, people who lack the resources go to jail while innocent, while the rich go free. That's Authoritarian. Judges system completely eliminates these problems by ensuring that only people the judge has witnessed committing crimes are punished and high powered lawyers can't get their clients off by bull methods.

Even better this places the laws entirely in the hands of the people! What could be more egalitarian than that?

Some people are probably wondering: how do they only pick egalitarian judges? Simple! They check the pop's ethics! All egalitarian judge equipment has built in ethics detectors and only functions for egalitarians.

Now you might be wondering what about authoritarians? Simple! Their equipment only works for authoritarian pops and they only choose authoritarian judges.

In summary, when you can classify 100% of your population's ethics with 100% accuracy you don't need to worry about people abusing (or failing to abuse) their power!

 

[Tisifoni12]

Depends on your social, political and economic position; whether you perceive it as 'oppression' or 'providing security'. Is this 'tradition shrub' labelled by the government or by their dissidents/unfortunates?

 

[Dudas Drakaan]

One thing you guys never addressed and I really hope you add in is a way to spend unity in the super late game. On stream you guys said, "Oh it shouldn't happen..." to people taking all the traditions, but I remember Wiz saying that on stream when traditions were first announced, and people who are good at min-maxing planets are very good at grabbing all the traditions before the end-game crisis now. It's inevitably going to happen again. So something, anything, to spend unity on would be a very nice addition to the base game.

 

[Pinstar]

I love the changes, but fear there is still some timing specific traits left. If you replaced every time-specific perk with one that would remain relevant early, mid and late it would push us closer to the dream scenario of all trees being equally attractive on a baseline level.

Discovery Opener: Replace Anomaly Research Speed with +10% research station output. If you've already got high level scientists and researched most of the anomalies by mid game, that makes this bonus useless unless you take it early. A flat station output bonus would be on par with Prosperity's mining station bonus and remain useful the whole game.

To Boldly Go: Replace with "Savant Program" +2 max scientist leader level, +50% research speed when researching wreckage. Survey Speed is another bonus I'd label as timing dependent, as it becomes useless once you've pretty much surveyed everything. This bonus would give the missing leader level cap bonus that other leader types have as well as make it more possible to ninja-analyze wrecks which is a science ship activity that can happen even into the late game.

Colonization Fever: Replace With "Migration Fever" The planet in your empire with the most open housing space gains +15% immigration attraction from your other worlds and from any migration treaties you might have. Depending on the size and density of the universe and your neighbors, colonization is something that cannot be done at all at some point, rendering this useless unless taken early. This change would make sure that whatever world of yours wants more people the most (be it newly settled or established but growing bigger) will get what it wants.

Expansion Finisher: Give it the Admin cap bonus of Courier Network.

Courier Network: Replace with "Field Marshals". Your colony capital building provides +1 free defensive army per level of the capital (so 1 extra for a ship shelter, 2 MORE extra for a planetary admin). Generals get their leader cap raised by 2. This makes your rapid expansion more defendable from opportunistic attacks as well as gives you a chance to buff your generals the way all the other leader types get.


I'm just spitballing with the suggested replacement traits. The main thing I want is to have all the traits that eventually become useless to be replaced so there is no "First or never" pressure to pick a specific tree, freeing us to pick ones that suit our empire's playstyle.

 

[Tindalosihound]

Seems very nice reworks ! Great idea to have adoption and finisher effects too, it was indeed a bit annoying to have to "waste" unity to aopt a tree without any more immediate effect. Amazing !

I'm pretty sure they've had openers and finishers since traditions were introduced.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Consider Devouring Swarms for example, they are depicted as "eternally hungry" and the only way to satisfy that hunger is to devour other specious wholesale, but in practice you really don't have to do that at all. All you really need to do is build a few farms and BAM! no more food problems.

That is something I thought about but I'm not really sure how to implement it in game.

What I had in mind was some slider representing your Hunger, which could change the way your Hive behaves.
Have a middle Hunger and your Hive is military stronger, have a low Hunger (your Hive is VERY well fed) and your Hive is better at collecting resources, and have a high Hunger (your Hive is craving your food), and you can either get crazy bonuses or devastating maluses (your Hive is going crazy due to the lack of food).

Your Hunger would raise over time, according to your number of pops, and would be reduced by consuming sentient pops - which would be the only way to get food, farms aren't an option. You can however build farm-like buildings, but instead of growing corn you're consuming pre-sentient species.

Now, a Devouring Swarm that chooses to stay on high Hunger should have a way to tame it, and lose its Devouring Swarm status - but doing so could also backfire and lead to your Swarm going crazy and out of control (internal revolt maybe?).

A similar concept could also be given to regular Hive Minds, if they consume a high number of sentient pops and then "starves", they could have access to the Hunger and become a Devouring Swarm - but we know that giving access to purifier civics mid-playthrough can be ridiculously broken, so I don't know how to do it.

 

[Norrell]

One thing you guys never addressed and I really hope you add in is a way to spend unity in the super late game. On stream you guys said, "Oh it shouldn't happen..." to people taking all the traditions, but I remember Wiz saying that on stream when traditions were first announced, and people who are good at min-maxing planets are very good at grabbing all the traditions before the end-game crisis now. It's inevitably going to happen again. So something, anything, to spend unity on would be a very nice addition to the base game.

Such a thing has been in the game for quite some time. Researching Ascension Theory unlocks Unity Ambitions, which are more like more powerful edicts, and they cost the same amount of unity as your next tradition would. I suppose if you left quite a few traditions locked, you could generate enough unity to run all the ambitions at once, that might be cool. Only then would you have nothing more to spend unity on.

 

[DarwinPon_y]

@grekulf

A little bit off topic, but may I suggest there be a time requirement to promote menial drones to complex drones for machine empires? It would make sense that in order for a simpler drone to do more complicated tasks it needs time to be upgraded into a more complex model.

 

[WhiteKyubey]

Such a thing has been in the game for quite some time. Researching Ascension Theory unlocks Unity Ambitions, which are more like more powerful edicts, and they cost the same amount of unity as your next tradition would. I suppose if you left quite a few traditions locked, you could generate enough unity to run all the ambitions at once, that might be cool. Only then would you have nothing more to spend unity on.

In my games on x1.0 tradition cost there is no problem to keep all ambitions on with all traditions taken.
-35% edict costs (works on ambitions) where -20% is civic and -15% is tech + all unity stuff make it easy enough.
Unity ambitions actually come too late, when I finish 6 or 7 tree.

Ofc 2.2 will probably change this a lot, with much less unity production without +unity traditions. But I also hope, that some stuff with unity cost happen earlier.

P.s. And I don't like the idea to drop traditions, which I don't like before going to ambitions...because there is no other way to get all ascension cension perks, but to finish all traditions!

 

[Tisifoni12]

I do find myself questioning whether it should be possible to acquire 'all the traditions'; doesn't this conflict with 'ethics' ?

 

[Vainfall]

I love the changes, but fear there is still some timing specific traits left. If you replaced every time-specific perk with one that would remain relevant early, mid and late it would push us closer to the dream scenario of all trees being equally attractive on a baseline level.

Discovery Opener: Replace Anomaly Research Speed with +10% research station output. If you've already got high level scientists and researched most of the anomalies by mid game, that makes this bonus useless unless you take it early. A flat station output bonus would be on par with Prosperity's mining station bonus and remain useful the whole game.

To Boldly Go: Replace with "Savant Program" +2 max scientist leader level, +50% research speed when researching wreckage. Survey Speed is another bonus I'd label as timing dependent, as it becomes useless once you've pretty much surveyed everything. This bonus would give the missing leader level cap bonus that other leader types have as well as make it more possible to ninja-analyze wrecks which is a science ship activity that can happen even into the late game.

Colonization Fever: Replace With "Migration Fever" The planet in your empire with the most open housing space gains +15% immigration attraction from your other worlds and from any migration treaties you might have. Depending on the size and density of the universe and your neighbors, colonization is something that cannot be done at all at some point, rendering this useless unless taken early. This change would make sure that whatever world of yours wants more people the most (be it newly settled or established but growing bigger) will get what it wants.

Expansion Finisher: Give it the Admin cap bonus of Courier Network.

Courier Network: Replace with "Field Marshals". Your colony capital building provides +1 free defensive army per level of the capital (so 1 extra for a ship shelter, 2 MORE extra for a planetary admin). Generals get their leader cap raised by 2. This makes your rapid expansion more defendable from opportunistic attacks as well as gives you a chance to buff your generals the way all the other leader types get.


I'm just spitballing with the suggested replacement traits. The main thing I want is to have all the traits that eventually become useless to be replaced so there is no "First or never" pressure to pick a specific tree, freeing us to pick ones that suit our empire's playstyle.

The man gives good talk. Please consider his viewpoint.

 

[GloatingSwine]

To Boldly Go: Replace with "Savant Program" +2 max scientist leader level, +50% research speed when researching wreckage. Survey Speed is another bonus I'd label as timing dependent, as it becomes useless once you've pretty much surveyed everything. This bonus would give the missing leader level cap bonus that other leader types have as well as make it more possible to ninja-analyze wrecks which is a science ship activity that can happen even into the late game.

Survey speed has always been secretly rubbish anyway because vastly more of surveying is driving the science ship around to all the planets than actually fondling them.

 

[Dudas Drakaan]

Such a thing has been in the game for quite some time. Researching Ascension Theory unlocks Unity Ambitions, which are more like more powerful edicts, and they cost the same amount of unity as your next tradition would. I suppose if you left quite a few traditions locked, you could generate enough unity to run all the ambitions at once, that might be cool. Only then would you have nothing more to spend unity on.

I've beaten the game three times since the FTL changes and I have never once seen this tech. (Then again I typically win by 3050 on Grand Admiral so maybe I just didn't go far enough into repeatable tech?) I actually didn't know it even existed until now. That could be a good reason to add another means of spending unity though, or just making the "Unity Ambitions" auto-unlock once you've gotten all the traditions. It's strange that you have to sit there accumulating millions of unity before you can do anything with it.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I've beaten the game three times since the FTL changes and I have never once seen this tech. (Then again I typically win by 3050 on Grand Admiral so maybe I just didn't go far enough into repeatable tech?) I actually didn't know it even existed until now. That could be a good reason to add another means of spending unity though, or just making the "Unity Ambitions" auto-unlock once you've gotten all the traditions. It's strange that you have to sit there accumulating millions of unity before you can do anything with it.

You need Apocalypse for them.

 

[Dudas Drakaan]

You need Apocalypse for them.

I just googled it and some people are calling that a bug. Though it's probably Paradox doing a completely reasonable move of blocking core gameplay content behind DLC. I really feel it was a missed opportunity by companies like Blizzard to not do something similar in their strategy games. Imagine in Starcarft II: they could have made it where people stop getting minerals and vespine once capped on food unless you buy the Legacy of the Void DLC. What a missed opportunity! This news totally encourages me to buy the DLC and isn't making me rethink continuing to play this game at all.

 

[Tyrax Lightning]

Well, obviously it won't fit if you are looking at the bonuses only, and completely ignoring the flavor and theme.

Yes, Judge Corps. will get you crime reduction. Via extremely authoritarian, brutal, and merciless methods of law enforcement.

Yes, Colonial Viceroys will give you more powerful politicians. Politicians that are cherry-picked loyalists enforcing the will of the state instead of representing the people.

Currently you'll have to use your imagination for Workforce Motivators since it has no description yet. But I have a sneaking suspicion it won't be just better bonuses and longer vacation time.

IMHO Workforce Motivators has good room for flexibility... Egalitarian Motivator: Hostess-like peoples serving Refreshments & as needed, coffee to the Workers to combat Work Fatigue... Authoritarian Motivator: Whips of course... maybe Tasers for extreme measure... Spiritualist Motivator: Mood Music... Materialist Motivator: Helper Bots... Xenophilic Motivator: Cuddly Alien Pets... Xenophobic Motivator: Anti-Xeno Propanda boost elevating fears...

They did reduce the amount of unity we can get. They explicitly stated in the recent stream that was one of the goals of removing the unity bonuses in the tradition trees. So while getting all traditions is still inevitable it will be happening much later in a game. That makes the selections more meaningful in the way the people here want since you spend a longer period of time with less than them all.

Meh, probably a temporary band aid fix till they can work on something better. Devs can do only so much in so much time... totally fair.

 

[Snowskeeper]

Has anyone reposted the unique Gestalt Consciousness traditions anywhere? Can't find them via Google, and I'm not able to watch the stream at the moment.

 

[AlphaAsh]

I just googled it and some people are calling that a bug. Though it's probably Paradox doing a completely reasonable move of blocking core gameplay content behind DLC. I really feel it was a missed opportunity by companies like Blizzard to not do something similar in their strategy games. Imagine in Starcarft II: they could have made it where people stop getting minerals and vespine once capped on food unless you buy the Legacy of the Void DLC. What a missed opportunity! This news totally encourages me to buy the DLC and isn't making me rethink continuing to play this game at all.

I'm shaking my sarcasm detector and it just keeps outputting "dunno, probably".

Unity ambitions are a DLC feature of Apocalypse. Not a bug. There was some 'debate' about this at the time it was announced in a DD.

 

[Sifer2]

This is actually part of a deeper problem with the 4X genre in general. The biggest thing holding back civics/traditions in this game and the genre itself is lack of game changing ways to play. All most of the civics/traditions do is add some bonuses which might make you slightly better at a particular thing, but the overall strategy remains the same. This is why the truly game changing civics, such as the purifier type empires or the Life Seeded civic, as well as the Synthetic/Psionic Ascension paths are so appealing to me. These don't just give you some bonuses, they change the way you must play the game. This, in my opinion, is also what makes the bio ascension path so boring. You get better at a thing most empires can already do, but nothing really changes about your strategy.

If Stellaris had more civics and aps that didn't just give you some bonuses, but actually changes your approach to the game and how you interacted with the galaxy, we would see a lot more variety in gameplay and this game would go from amazing to legendary. I don't think such changes could come to the game anytime soon; however, with the economic changes coming in 2.2 I think going forward the devs will have a golden opportunity to really add some interesting new playstyles to the game. Consider Devouring Swarms for example, they are depicted as "eternally hungry" and the only way to satisfy that hunger is to devour other specious wholesale, but in practice you really don't have to do that at all. All you really need to do is build a few farms and BAM! no more food problems. What is hives in general, and DSs in particular, had to also spend food (with a reduced mineral cost) to construct armies and buildings? Or better yet, an entirely new resource like "Bio-Mass" that can be produced internally but can be produced very quickly by eating/farming organic pops? This is theoretically possible with the economic changes coming in 2.2. This is just a rough example of how gameplay could be made more diverse and interesting by not just giving an empire a set of bonuses, but actually changing how they function.

Yeah I agree. Most game changing strategy stuff right now is picked before the game even starts. Like you can be genocidal or start on an odd planet type. And that's about it. Only exception is Xenophobes which actually do get two playstyles supported in game they can move between during gameplay. Would love to see at least each government type getting two playstyles, and the Bio ascension path being fleshed out some more with stuff like organic buildings/ships that need food upkeep. With Authoritarian/Egalitarian I can already see those having alternate playstyles involving something similar to feudal society just more fleshed out.

 

[Jmes Snowscoran]

Looking forward to the update as much as the next guy, and I'm glad to see the domination tree in particular get some changes from being so vassal-oriented, but to be blunt I'd hoped that a tradition overhaul would see them reworked to be a bit deeper. My main issue with traditions as is is that all my space empires end up unlocking every tradition eventually, killing much distinctiveness in the process. Would much have preferred to have each tree be twice as deep and being limited to selecting four in total.