Time for another thoughtpost, though I get the feeling not as many will agree with it. But enough pessimism, let's get on with it.
Today's Thoughts: Origins, Traditions, Habitability, and Xenophiles
Let's start with Origins.
No, I'm not going to go over all of them. That would be too long even for a longposter like me. And besides, I don't really have a lot to say about it. One of the questions posted in the journal was 'Which origins should be made into civics?' First off, I think if you're going to do that we should have a third civic or special civic slot just for that. But I'll come back to that later.
For now, I'll just straight answer the question. I think there's quite a few origins that could become civics or 'origin-civics', as they aren't really 'unique' enough to be civics. I'll just list them now:
- Mechanist: All it really does is give you robots early.
- Cannot be used with Gestalts, Robots, or Clone Army
- While the stats are good enough as is, I'd say it should be taken a step further by allowing us to customize the robot just like the syncretic species in Syncretic Evolution (subtle hint: that's next.) Either that or give us -100 robotic species modification cost for 2 months upon game start.
- Syncretic Evolution: Not only is this not really unique enough to be an origin, but it's also not that good.
- Start with 12 pops of the second species as normal.
- Whenever you grow/assemble a non-syncretic organic pop with full citizenship, 50% chance of a syncretic pop is created. Same in reverse.
- -30% pop growth
- Scion: Not only should this one be bumped down to a civic, but it should also be made available to vanilla users as a sort of 'tutorial'.
- Necrophage: Why this one is an origin is well beyond me. It's pretty much just Driven Assimilators for normal empires.
- Overtuned: Again, this really doesn't need to be an origin.
- Subterranean: Making it a civic over an origin would make a lot of sense. I mean, Subterranean Remnants or Subterranean Post-Apocalptic or even Subterrainian Clone Army would RP-wise make a ton of sense.
- Cannot be used with Shattered Ring, Knights of the Toxic God, or Void Dwellers
- Under One Rule: There's not much about this that really screams 'origin' in my opinion, and no reason it can't really be mixed with other ones.
- Must be dictatorial authority. With means no Gestalts.
- Riftworld: Again, all this does is add a rift to your system and give astral rift bonuses. This could just as well be a civic, and not even one of those 'special' origins I mentioned, it's that much of a nothingburger.
- Cybernetic Creed: Not really special enough to be an origin.
Okay. Now that I've gone over the ones I think should just be civics, that leaves the existing origins. Not to worry, I'm not going to be going over all of them like I did with the Federations last time, that would take too long and for a good chunk of them I don't have much to say at all. The biggest ones are Void Dweller and Shattered Ring, and what's sometimes refered to as the 'Minamar Block'. And regarding the last one, most of my thoughts are going to be on Minamar itself, not Broken Shackles and Payback (but I do have minor thoughts on them.)
First up, the two I have the biggest beef with: Void Dweller and Shattered Ring. And it's not the beef you might think it is. My problem with them is relatively the same: In both cases, the so called 'Habitat/Ring Preference' really just amounts to an early game speed bump which goes away as soon as you get your hands on a migration treaty (I'll have thoughts there later), and both end up just becoming 'A normal boring empire but with early habitats/a shat-upon ring' instead of being unique or interesting in their own right like the latter origins (like Knights of the Toxic God. AKA 'Void Dwellers but actually interesting'.)
Yes there's been attempts to patch both of them (especially Shat-Upon Ring after they nerfed it straight into the ground, which is another problem I have.) but both of these 'patch attempts' in my opinion attempt to cure symptoms instead of addressing the real issue of both of them. So my proposition is a complete overhaul of them that changes how both are played down to their very core.
There is some inspiration from Gigastructures here, namely from the Esylum origin, the Decayed Birch origin, and the Frameworld Origin. And in the former case, some inspiration from Clone Army, of all things. Yet I think the changes proposed here are more than unique enough to differentiate them from both.
I'll start with the former first.
Void Dwellers
The current problem as I said is that the cost of early expansion outweighs any benefit, and that the 'void preference' debuff does little but serve as an early game speedbump. You can still colonize normal planets, and you are subtly encouraged to do so as soon as you find away around said preference debuff (not that habitability is even much of an issue to begin with, but that's another topic down the line.)
In short, there is very little in the way of encouragement to play Void Dwellers
as void dwellers instead of just 'normal empire that gets habitats early'. And if that's what they're going for, it might as well be a civic. Which in this case, I
do not advocate.
So in short, here's my proposition:
- Instead of/In addition to Void Preference, there is a 'void empire' origin effect that reduces max habitability on normal worlds and severely reduces pop growth/assembly and resource output on non-habitats. This is to prevent the afformentioned cheap workaround to the habitability issue (migration treaties, primitives, conquest, slaves, etc).
- Also, Ring Preference and Void Preference are merged into one preference called 'Artificial Preference' which gives +100 to both, if they remain at all (under this system, preferences might not even be necessary.)
- Colony Ships can no longer colonize planets. Only habitats, Ringworlds, or other artificial worlds.
- Colony ships that colonize habitats refund their alloy cost upon completion.
- Major Orbitals and HCCs built over habitable planets will grant max districts and building slots depending on planet size. This is increased for Gaia or Ecus.
- When a normal planet is conquered or annexed, it will begin construction of a Habitat Central Complex automatically. This costs no influence, but does cost alloys. Upon completion, HCCs will be automatically colonized and pops will start moving there, eventually abandoning the world without influence cost.
- It will automatically destroy districts and buildings to cover the cost (conversion of minerals to alloys cost applies.) If it cannot, the alloy difference will be subtracted from your stockpile. If it cannot build one, it will wait untill it can be.
- If a HCC is present, a Major Orbital will be built instead.
- If the HCC fills up with too many pops +5 unemployed pops) they'll move to other HCCs instead.
- Your guaranteed habitables have ruined habitats and a few ruined orbitals which you can repair for half the alloy cost it would take to build new ones. One of these comes with a digsite that briefly explains what happened to them and how your empire became void dwellers in the first place (post-doomsday).
- After the digsite is completed, you can make a choice to abandon your void dwelling ways and become planetdwellers once more, or double down on your void dwelling ways. Doing the former removes all the formentioned restrictions (But also the benefits) of void dweller, and allows you to colonize planets. Doing the latter however will increase the void dweller origin effects and unlock special projects for habitats for certain AP Perks.
- Should you stay with your Void Dwelling ways, the following perks will have alternate effects via decisions:
- World Shapers: Allows you to 'Gaia-fy' your habitats giving them the bonuses of Gaia Worlds.
- Machine World: All Mining and Generator districts produce minerals and/or energy credits equal to one job's worth and are effected by miner/technician modifiers (IE energy grids) and give +1 job per disrtict (all)
- Hive World: gives +3 jobs in mining, generator districts. Food buildings produce +2 jobs.
- Arcology Project: +2 jobs from industrial and zero g research districts, +50% resources from artisans and metalurgists.
So all in all the idea is that your
forced encouraged to actually play a void dweller empire instead of a normal empire with early habitats.
Shattered Ring
Anyone remember when this origin was really strong? Well it used to be ridiculously strong. Though then people complained and then they nerfed it pretty much to death. To the point to where only machine mind or trade empires actually play it anymore. They tried to 'unnerf' it in a way but none of these changes have really brought it back into a 'not suck' position. And all of these again miss what I think could make for an interesting origin.
And again, just like with ringworld, it simply devolves into 'normal pro-uni playthrough but with an early game speedbump' except unlike with Void Dweller it doesn't really offer you any sort of benefits untill very late game. And Stellaris is not a 'wait untill late game' game, it's a snowball game.
Instead, my proposed overhaul of this would turn this into the quintessntial 'Tall' origin. Bringing back a good portion of its 3.0 power but with the cost of being (mostly) unable to make use of any other worlds. In other words: You get your powerful ring, but nothing else. Something unique instead of just 'normal empire witha speedbump' instead turning it into 'ringdwellers'
- Your home ring segment is restored to the 3.0 version with all the ring districts.
- The post 3.6 segments still there. Those rings however use the current 'shattered ring' segments. Also instead of habitability blockers, they simply block pop growth and resources (mostly so AIs actually colonize them instead of leaving them sit like idiots.)
- -90% pop cost when relocating pops from one ring segment to another in the same system.
- +50% minerals and strategic resources from mining outposts.
- You cannot build colonization ships.
- Colonizing ring segments is now a decision.
- When you conquer a world, the pops are automatically moved over to the nearest Ring segment at a rate of 5 per month.
- There are 4 digsites in your home segment. These have you discover how your ring segment was built and unlock bonuses and abilities for your ringworld. These digsites become progressively harder, and this quest chain will take up to 75-100 years to fully complete.
- FIrst one appears on your home segment 5 years after game start. Once complted, it offers you +20% districts and pop growth/assembly on your home ring.
- Second one appears 2 years once you remove the last blocker from one of your other home ring segments. The first one must be completed first. This unlocks the 'Planet Mining Outpost' decision. This turns a habitable world into a non-habitable world (it will retain the same type) that gives +2 minerals for every mining district (and +0.2 strat resources per mining district if planetary deposits apply) on the planet and allows you to build a mining station over it. If an enemy annexes the system however, the mining station is lost and the world can be habitted.
- Third one appears 2 years after both ring segments are colonized and completely cleared. 2nd one must be completed first. This gives you a project to restore the other two ring segments into full ring segments early without the need for Megastructural Engineering. If you have ME already however, it reduces the cost and time by half.
- Fourth one is on the interloper and can only appear once the other two segments are fully restored. The reward for this is the decision to remove the Interloper and build a new ring segment. In addition, Ringworlds becomes a research option, bypassing the need for Galactic Wonders. You gain +25% cost reduction and build speed for ringworlds if you do have galactic wonders.
So that's those two. Now I'll talk about the 'Minamar Block' of origins. Payback, Broken Shackles, and of course, Ladder to the Sky. Spoiler, but most of my issues lie with the latter and not the former two. But I'll start with the former two and give my propositions there first.
Payback
Not really many problems with the origins istelf. It's kind of an unfair start but then again it's supposed to be and does that well enough. I just think it could be expanded a little further.
- One of your guaranteed habitables is replaced with a planet with primitives that are likewise trying to kick Minamar out, but aren't having as much success. There is an active Client Fullfillment Center acting as a defense platform in the system, which you must destroy (it's in the 1-3k range). After you do so, you will gain control of the system and be contacted by the primitves. After a brief discussion they ask 'what happens now?' and you are given four choices:
- 'I wouldn't say saved, more like 'under new management''. They turn hostile and you must invade them yourself. This will have the usual effects of invading primitives.
- 'We propose an alliance to defeat our mutual foe.' You form a Martial Alliance Federation called the 'Anti-Minimar Coalition'. You lose control of
- 'We've proven ourselves stronger. Let us protect you.' You vassalize them.
- 'Nothing for now.' Nothing happens. You can contact them again to revisit the options later. Once they reach FTL however, you must make a decision.
(In both 2 and 3, you lose control of the system and they are uplifted to your tech level.)
- If you choose to make the MSI asset into a ship, 10 years later (if it's not destroyed) and once you research cruisers, you can do a special engineering project to make more of them. Battleships and Titans both unlock new sections that give you more weapon, aux, and utility slots.
- If instead you choose to make it into a habitat, 5 years after you restore it, you are given Orbital Habitats as a research option, allowing you to play as hybrid void dwellers.
- If a custom 'Broken Shackles' empire is not forced to spawn, there is a 30% chance they will spawn as an alternate version called 'Reshackled' or 'Guilded Cage'. I will explain more about these... now.
Broken Shackles/Reshackled/Guilded Cage
Honestly, I don't have any real suggestions for Broken Shackles itself. But I did have ideas for a few alternate versions one could play if they are a xenophobe/assimilator or a Rogue Servitor. The origin will change accordingly if you meet the requirements.
- Reshackled: A slave ship of unknown origin crash landed onto your homeplanet, in the middle of a major metropolitan area, killing many people and doing significant damage. In recompense for this, you did what any sensible being would do in this situation: enslave them.
(Driven assimilator version) A long time ago, an alien ship of unknown origin crashed into a vital center of operations, dealing significant damage and destroying many drones and assimilated organics. Ironically, the ship was carrying escaped organic drones. You wasted no time in integrating them into your own to repair the damage. Efforts that are still ongoing to this day.
- Requirements: Xenophobic/Authoritarian OR Driven Assimilator
- (organic) Start with 2-11 enslaved Pre-FTL species.
- (Assimilator) start with less drones but more assimilated cyborgs, 2-11 of which are from FTL species.
- Start with 10% devastation
- (Organic) +50% xenophobic ethics attraction for 20 years.
- +20% slave/cyborg output for 50 years.
- (Organic) -50% happiness from slaves for 20 years.
- (Assimilator) +20% deviation for 20 years.
- -50 opinion to and from Payback empires.
- +50% damage against Pre-FTL ground armies.
- Slavery policy allowed.
- (Assimilator) +3 pops assimilated per year.
- Other stats are the same as Broken Shackles
- Guilded Cage: An organic slave ship of unknown origin crash landed onto your homeworld. Despite the damage, you quickly cared for the shellshocked organic ex-slaves, and giving them all the care they needed. Despite their initial fears, they have made an excellent addition to your biotrophy collection.
- Requirements: Rogue Servitor
- Start with 2-11 Pre-FTL biotrophies but less drones.
- Start with 10% devastation
- Start with normal tech.
- No opinion change with Payback empire.
- Bigger debuff with Minamar
- In both cases, Minamar will try to gain back its 'stolen' property. They will attempt to buy them off of you for a large sum of money (if you accept it ends that questline, and the payback empire gains a debuff with you while Minamar gains a buff). If they do not, they will send debt collectors to attack you.
Minamar (AI)
My problem with them is that they're kind of a crapshoot between being conquered by someone else early on and turned into someone's vassal, or being so powerful that no one stands a chance. And in all honesty, they're kind of done in a haphazard way and are wasted potential, so here's my proposition of a Minamar overhaul:
- Basic stats:
- Start with Tier 3 armor and weapon techs.
- +100% starbase influence cost.
- Starts with an Ecuminopolis (because them starting on a ruined relic world makes very little sense.)
- Counts as a fallen empire for the sake of 'Galactic Contender' and 'Oppose the Fallen'.
- Uses the fallen empire shipset instead of the mammilian one
- -50% ship build speed (does not apply to Client Fullfillment Center vessels)
- -25% naval capacity and fleet cap
- +50% district and building cost and time
- Starts with an 'ally' enclave called 'Minamar Defense Department' which has a good sized fleet that's about 40% as strong as a FE fleet. Minamar has a defense pact with this enclave, meaning it will assist Minamar in defensive wars but not offensive ones. This prevents Minamar from having too much fleet diplo weight early on but also prevents it from getting steamrolled and vassalized.
- Minamar cannot accept vassalization requests.
- Broken Shackles and Payback empires spawn 5-20 hyperlanes away from its borders depending on galaxy size. This is to prevent it from spawning on the other side of the galaxy and becoming a non-threat to these empires.
- Will periodically create new Client Fullfillment Center ship (every 2 years, or every 2 months if it's running low on them.) After it researches Battleships, Titans, and Juggernauts, they will gain new sections with new weapon slots.
- Empires with good relations with Minamar can rent Client Fullfillment Centers from Minamar for 5 years. When the term is up, they must return the vessels or pay an increasing contract renewal fee.
- Minamar has an exclusive Branch Office Building called 'Minamar Enlightenment Center'. This works like a Private Research Enterprise and Public Relation Firm combined with x2 the effects and jobs, but has an effect labeled 'fine print' that steals 0-2 pops from that planet every year.
- If Minamar is the target of a liberation war and loses, this completely ends the Payback questline the same as if it were annihilated.
- A few decades after midgame (or with certain triggers. IE: causing it to lose its slaves in the Galcom, losing territory during a war, a subject rebelling, or another midgame crisis showing up) Minamar will end in one of a few ways. They are as follows:
- Heel Face Turn: Minamar will suffer from an internal takeover, and will become a 'Reformed Corporation'. It will swap to egalitarian, and trade 'Indentured Assets' for 'Worker Cooperatives'. Any subjects are released, and it will lose some of its slave popuation which will return to their homeplanets. The 'Minamar Defense Department' is also disbanded and any restrictions and debuffs it had are lifted. The Payback questline is ended.
This outcome will happen if the majority of the galaxy is egalitarian and/or Xenophilic (Rogue Servitors also count towards this) and/or it has less than two subjects by the trigger year, and isn't awakend by hostile means. It also has a (smaller) chance of happening if too many Minamar-unfriendly bills are passed in the GC (Non-Interference/Equal Standing act, Ban Organic Slave Trade, Greater then Ourselves, etc.)
It will no longer produce CFVs and can no longer rent them out.
Both Broken Shackles and Payback empires have a special very long spy operation chain that can increase the likelyhood of this happening.
- Civil War: Much like the Feifdom, it will break up into 2-4 smaller empires with varying ethics, while Minamar itself only keeps its homesystem. A large winner-takes-all total war will start. The Minamar Defense Department will be disbanded and its fleet split amongst the beligerents. Subjects will be released, and they (and the payback and broken shackles) empires can choose to enter the war on a particular side or declare neutrality.
This outcome is likely to happen if Minamar reaches the trigger point undisturbed and has 2 or more subjects, and/or if the majority of the galaxy is not Egalitarian/Xenophilic. The Broken Shackles and Payback empires can also trigger this via the afformentioned spy op chain.
If by some chance Minamar wins the civil war and conquers its rebelling territories back, it will either have a heel face turn (30% chance) or mask off (70% chance)
- Mask Off: AKA Minamar will change into a 'Billgerent Corporation.' It will send a very angry message to all members of the GC and leave it. It will lose 'Public Relations' and gain 'Criminal Enterprise'. Its branch offices will be erased, allowing it to replace them with the criminal versions (including the 'Minamar Enlightement Center' which steals pops at an increased rate). Finally, the 'Minamar Defense Department' will be annexed into Minamar. It will lose its influence and ship build speed restrictions and instead gain a buff, and build CFCs faster.
It will become very aggressive towards Payback, Broken Shackles (of any variety), other corpos, and egalitarians/xenophobes.
This will happen if the Broken Shackles/Payback empire's spy op fails, or it loses territory during a war. It also has a (larger) chance of happening if too many Minamar-unfriendly bills are passed in the GC.
Your Ladder to the Sky (Player)
... Why should we not be allowed to 'play as the bad guy?' So here's my proposition for a playble Minamar:
- Requirements: Megacorp, must have 'Indentured Service' civic.
- Start as an Advanced empire
- Start with advanced techs
- Start with enslaved pops from 3-22 pre-FTL species
- Homeworld is a size 25 ecu
- Can use Raiding stance
- Start with (Your Empire Name) Defense Fleet enclave with a defense pact guarding your home system
- Can produce Client Fulfillment Centers. Can upgrade them with new sections once certain ship types are researched.
- Exclusive branch office that
Enslaves indebts pops from other empires and transfers them to your homeworld
- Broken Shackles and Payback empires deal +25% damage to you.
- +100% starbase influence cost
- +50% ship build time and cost (does not apply to CFCs)
- +50% district and building cost and time
- Situation at midgame that determines your fate.
Okay so those are my thoughts on the really big ones. Now for some not so big ones.
Common Ground/Hegemony/Imperial Fiefdom
Surprisingly, not much here. The only thing I propose here is a basic change to what happens if more than one empire spawns with it.
If two or three empires spawn with Common Ground, instead of spawning 9 empires with 3 federations, it instead spawns 3 empires with 1 federation and all the Common Ground users are a part of the same federation. If this is a single player game and the player is playing the origin, the player is automatically chosen as the president. If it's multiplayer and multiple players are playing the origin, one of the players is chosen randomly as the president.
Same goes with Hegemony.
And the Fiefdom, where all players with the Fiefdom are a part of the fiefdom instead of making several fiefdoms.
Life Seeded:
My problems with this: uninteresting, too much downside for too little gain. Sure, you gain a 30 gaia world, but due to the way habitability works that does little good. It's just really not fun nor interesting to play.
So my propositions:
- Gaia preference is modified so that it gives additional pop growth and job output on gaia worlds instead of just 100% habitability (which it has anyway), to help counteract some of the downsides.
- Instead of Guaranteed habitables, you get pre-ftl tombworld planets with unusually strong armies (1k-3k range) on them. Beyond this however you can interact with them the same way you do normal primitives.
- Gain a digsite on your homeworld that explores how it was made. The end reward is getting Gaia Seeders as a building (the same ones you get if you have Idyllic Bloom.) If you already have Idyllic Bloom, the cost of building and upgrading them are reduced by half.
But really, most 'life seeded' changes would hinge on habitability and Gaia World overhaul, so that Gaias are actually worth it instead of just being 'eh'.
So that's all for that. But I'll seguay into a related topic here:
Habitability, Migration, and Pop Growth
Let's face it, habitability right now is a
joke. Even if you ignore the plethora of habitability techs, civics, abilities, etc. The penalties for low habitability are quite simply too low. Especially the ones that actually matter: pop growth and output. Even at 0% habitability, you still get 50% pop growth and output.
This is first off, extremely silly. How exactly are pops working and bonking when they're literally choking and withering away? Makes no sense.
Second off, it too heavily encourages wide play and it too heavily contributes to the pop spam currently plaguing the game. Right now, it's way better to have 1 good world, 1 mediocre world, and 8 tomb worlds than it is to have 4 gaia worlds, simply because of pop growth.
And even if the effects were harsher, it wouldn't matter much anyway since Migration Treaties are a thing. They basically make habitabilty problems pointless. And there's all the techs, leader traits, repeatables, etc. All of this makes habitability trivial.
This needs to stop.
Now, I know the Victoria 3 pop system has been floated. I am not familiar with this system, so my thoughts won't revolve around it. This is what I'm proposing based on the current system.
First and foremost, habitability needs to have a much greater effect on pop output and growth, especially the latter. I think both should reach 0% at 30% habitability. Anything below that, and a pop simply cannot function at all. If a pop has less than 30 hability, they'll start trying to emigrate away. If they can't, they'll just start declining (the further below 30% habitability, the faster the decline rate). On the flip side, having more than 80% Habitability should give them more of a bonus to both, maxing at +10% at 100%). This would make Gaias, Ringworlds, Ecus, and other special worlds more desirable, and make it more of a 'quality over quantity' instead of the reverse at it is now.
And second, cut down on the amount of habitability bonuses, Make it so the habitability techs and Adaptable/Very Adaptable traits increase Habitability floor, not habitability itself.
And then there's the other elephant in the room: Migration Treaties. Right now they completely negate any fixes to habitability simply by being an 'all you can colonize buffet' courtesy of any empire you have a treaty with. Have a planet that's <30% habitabile with any species you have right now? No problem! Just sign a Mig Treaty and some pops that said empire owns will magically be available for you to stuff inside a colony ship to send to that world. What could be simpler?
Obviously, Migration itself needs a rework. No more of this 'Buffet Table of Species' colonization nonsense. No more getting free access to all the other empire's species types just by signing a treaty.
Instead, I propose something else. I propose that Immigration (which is currently a kind of tacked on system, and is itself kind of silly. A race of people in a city don't suddenly stop having kids just because another one is immigrating in,) as a separate system from pop growth entirely, a '4th pop growth/decline' slot, like Pop Growth or Assembly. However, instead of going from left to right like how the other three types do, instead it goes from center edge, as it would comver both Immigration and Emigration. If it goes to the right, it means a pop has immigrated. If it goes to the left, it means that a pop is emigrating. This would make Immigration pull/push actually a thing instead of an ignorable thing like it is now.
To make up (and better balance) the concept of migration treaties, empires can offer a 'foreign exchange' trade. You trade a few of your pops or resources for the empire in question's pops. This makes migration treaties more manual and actually requires you to give something up rather than just being a simplistic 'all you can colonize buffet'. If the trade goes down and they accept, you lose (X pops of that kind) from your empire, while pops from the other empire show up in a colony vessel (more than one if you traded more than one type). They can either 'colonize' an existing planet (Add the pops directly to said planet) or colonize a planet as normal.
There are some restrictions. Pops cannot be exchanged if one or the other would become enslaved (but they can be exchanged if they would become unenslaved or if they both are slaves to begin with.) Rogue Servitors can also 'pop trade' with organics but they can only trade robots (which will turn into regular robots) in exchange for other robots or organics, they cannot trade organics for organics. Machine/synth empires can trade robots with each other. Hives can only trade pops with other hives or if both sides have the appropriate ascension path perks (genetic or cybernetic).
And finally, pops would be required to build a colony ship. No more free pops from colonization, unless you have that exploration tradition perk. This also means that the 200 influence for abandoning planets cost can be reduced or abandoned entirely since that was introduces _explicitly_ to prevent exploiting.
Basically, it all translates to quality over quantity. Less pops, but pops that do more when better managed. But there's two more topics I need to briefly mention here:
Ecus and Gaias... and Rings.
They're in a strange place right now. Both give you +100% habitability. Gaias give pop resource bonus but no growth bonus, while ecus give both. and neither are limited.
This seems a little off to me, so I'm going to propose here. First off, Ecus no longer give Growth or Assembly bonuses (at least not on top of the ones that good habitability already have), and Gaias don't directly give resource bonuses.
Instead, 'naturally occurring' Gaia worlds (IE: Life Seeded homeworld, Holy Worlds, ones you find out in the wild, etc.) all have a max habitability of 150 while 'created' ones (world shaper terraformed, gaia seeder, etc.) have a max cap of 120. Rings get a max habitability cap of 110.
Secondly, Ecus have a new quirk: Industrial districts lower habitability. TO balance this out, there's a new district called 'waste management' that increase habitability, meaning you have to more carefully balance it back out.
And finally, Ecus are capped at 1 plus one per every 500 pops in your empire.
Finally, it's time I took a whack at one particular Ascension Perk. A perk that is so reviled and hated that they had to add an option to turn it off. Something which 95% of players turn off and forget it's even there. You all know which one I'm talking about. The one... the only...
Xeno Compatibility
Ah yes. How long has this stinker been with us? And there's a reason no one uses this. The Immigration Pull and Pop Growth bonus is ... okay. But the hybrid system. Honestly, I'm sure this looked good to someone somewhere on paper, but let's face it, no one likes this. It's bad, it causes lag, it fills your species menu with garbage, its uncontrollable, and there's ultimately no point to it.
So let's have a small whack at it to it. First, let's take the problematic element of it, the 'hybrid species', and relocate it to the nearest trash receptacle. Then, we'll introduce some new items to it.
- +10% base immigration pull
- +5% immigration pull per additional species on a world. (Additional species meaning every species besides the first one.)
- +5% base pop growth
- +5% pop growth per additional species on a world
- Researchers gain +0. society research per additional species on the planet.
- Non-Xenophobe pops gain +2.5% happiness and +1% resource output per additional species on the planet. Double for xenophile pop.
- Non-Xenophobe pops on a planet with no additional species receive -25% happiness and -5% resources output. This penalty is doubled for Xenophile pops.
There. Keeps the original intent of the perk, while removing the hybrid system.
With that out of the way, let's segue into my final topic of today.
So this is yet another long one. As if the previous ones weren't long enough. Since yes I'm going to go over (almost) all of them. But first, let's talk the elephant in the room:
The Tradition Limit
More and more Traditions are being added, but we still have the same 7 traditions and 8 ascension perks. Now, I know many have proposed increasing this to 8, 9, or even 10 (and increasing ascension slots with it) but I've come up with a much more creative solution:
The ability to overwrite your tradition and ascension perks.
Right now we have some stinkers for traditions (which I will address later on), and some are really good early on but crap late game (looking at you Enmity). Some ascension perks you simply can't do without (have fun playing without Galactic wonders).
So I propose that when you fill up all 7 tradition slots, instead of the game simply going "Welp that's it, no more trees for you. Next time go watch Montu and learn which ones to pick and not pick and make more META choices, sucker!" it will instead allow you to delete one of your trees, allowing you to put another one in its spot. Or even better, _prestige the tree you deleted._
This would give more room for players to explore, and while choices would be still important, they wouldn't be
binding. you could take discovery and/or enmity early game, then when you fill up your tree and need to take something else, delete them when they've outlived their usefulness. This would help reduce the overreliance on metagaming/ultra optimizing when it comes to tradition picks and allows players more breadth to explore and experiment without having to resort to save scumming.
Ironically, this would make some currently bad tradition trees
more useful since some of them could be early game focused (emity, discovery, etc) and being able to discard them later would give said trees an actual function instead of simply being ignored out of fear of not being able to take your ascension tree (another idea with them later.)
Same with ascension perks. Instead of them being permanent, once you fill up all 8, when you get another ascension perk unlock you could delete one you already have. This would make some of them ironically more useful as they could be used early game and then discarded late game instead of having to carefully horde your ascension perks purely for the latter. Like you could take Executive Vigor, which is useful early game, and then when you have more unity than you know what to do with, get rid of it in leu of Defender of the Galaxy or Galactic Contender of Colossus Project, as opposed to skipping over the former entirely and putting it into the 'F rank' because it blocks your late game choices.
As for ascention trees, they're a good idea, but I don't think they should be a part of this. Instead, I proposed they get their own special 8th tradition slot. A special 'ascention tree' slot if you will, completely separate and cannot be overriden or prestiged. Unless you have Natural/Innate Design, in which it just straight up becomes an 8th slot.
Speaking of, another neat concept I thought of is if you delete a tree and then start the same tree over again, you 'prestige' the tree. You have to pick all the perks from scratch, but they become 10% stronger.
So enough about the tradition limit, now my thoughts on the traditions themselves. Keep in mind some of this is a bit dated as I've had this sitting in a doc for a while and some of it I haven't got back to until recently.
Discovery:
It's supposed to be 'the science one' but it really only does this halfway. It's decent-ish, but bar some special cases I almost never take it anymore. Partically due to the 'early game-late game usefulness problem' I mentioned earlier.
Proposed changes: Now keep in mind I won't propose changing every single tradition of every single tree. If I don't mention it, I don't have any propositions on it.
- To Boldly Go: The survey part is okay. However, the Science Ship Disengage Chance is... kinda useless since science ships already have infinite disengage opportunities, especially if you have cloaking where you don't even need it in the first place.
- +35% Survey Speed (same as is)
- +35% Anomaly discovery chance
- Database uplinks: By itself, Research station output is... meh. And there's only two Research starbase buildings and both are niche. So this needs adding onto.
- +20% Research Station Output
- +40% Chance to uncover research deposits on survey
- Unlock research subsidies
- Unlock research starbase modules (increase research output of one type by 15% each.)
- Unlock data processing starbase building (increase research output of all research stations in systems by +25%. Increase minor artifacts from research stations by 50%)
- Polytechnic Education: Out of place, as this is already covered by aptitude. So I propose some readjustment to refine it better.
- Scholars and Explorers: -25% contribution to leader cap
- Scientists +20% experience gain
- Faith in science: Researcher upkeep reduction is... nice, but not a game changer. In fact, the same could be said of most of these 'upkeep reducers'. Besides, upkeep reduction doesn't really fit the title.
- (If Rogue Servitor): +0.1 engineering and physics and +0.2 social research from biotrophies.
- (If other Gestalt): +1 Unity from Researchers
- (If anything else): +25% resources from Materalist faction. +25% Materialist push
Ending Policies: One other concept I am going to pitch here is the concept of split 'policies'. Instead of a flat finisher effect, you get a choices of policies that can be switch around every 10 years. If you delete the tree, the policies are removed with them.
- Policy of Exploration:
- +33% anomaly rewards
- Increased chance to discover basic, strategic, and rare reources on survey (30, 20, and 10% each)
- Can resurvey systems you already scanned once every 30 years to discover additional deposits as well as uncovering missed anomalies. This chance is reduced with every resurvey.
- +25% minor artifacts and astral threads from dig sites or astral rifts
- Unlocks Orbital Surveying and/or Planetary Prospecting Decision (yes I'm yanking it away from Adaptability.)
- -10% Research Speed
- Policy of Study:
- +10% research from researchers
- +20% research from research outputs
- +50% effect from Research Institute and science nexus
- (Rogue Servitor only): Biotrophies produce -0.3 unity and +1% calculator drone scienty output, and +0.5% physics and engineering output.
- -20% anomaly, acheology, and astral speed
- Policy of Peer Review:
- +20% effects from Scholarium and Research Cooperatives. Both level up 20% faster.
- +20% effects from Research Agreement.
- -20 Loyalty from scholarium subjects and -20% cohesion in research cooperatives
Domination Administration:
First off, the name change from 'Domination' to 'Administration' as it just fits better.
- Judgement Corps: let's face it, Enforcers are underused and that's a good thing. The only time anyone ever uses them is if the criminal enterprise moves in, or if the planet is really packed (Ecus, Rings, or very large worlds). And even then, you don't use them enough to make them a unity source.
- +25% crime reduction from enforcers
- Criminal situations (including branch office closure) resolve 25% faster.
- Imperius Architecture: This is stupid, plain and simple. No one uses housing buildings except in very niche cases.
- -25% empire sprawl from Districts and Branch Offices.
- -10% building and district cost
- Workplace Motivators: ... It's just a repeat of the opener. That's lazy.
- -5% Upkeep from jobs (Yeah it's interstellar franchising. FIts better here than there.)
- Colonial Viceroys: Administration should be about efficiency and reducing costs, while prosperity should be about number go up.
- -10% building and district upkeep
- Privy Council: That belongs in
AptitudeLeadership. Enough said.
- Sector governors take up -20% leader capacity regardless of type.
- Planetary Governors take up -50% leader capacity regardless of type.
Ending Policies:
- Policy of Reduction:
- Worker/menial drones have -20% base upkeep and -20% job upkeep
- Specialists have -10% base upkeep and -10% job upkeep
- +30% more likely for leaders to gain the 'corruption' trait
- -10% stability
- Policy of Efficency:
- -20% empire size from all sources (each source gets -20% bonus separately instead of just being a flat bonus)
- -10% resources from jobs
- Policy of Domination:
- +10% stability on occupied worlds
- Defense armies produce -0.5 crime and -0.5% happines. Stationed assault armies produce -1 crime reduction and -5% happiness
- Rebellion situations advance 25% slower and reduce 25% faster
- -10% happiness throughout the empire
Expansion:
It's good, only problem is one or two traditions, and that it gets overshadowed by TEH META. But I'll tackle that later on.
- Reach for the Stars:
- -10 starbase Influence cost
- Colonization Fever: Concept is good, but the execution is... eh? Free pop out of nowhere?
- Newly established colonies get +50% pop growth and assembly for 2 years. +70% on Gaia worlds. Only applies once.
- A New Life:
- +10% Pop Growth and assembly speed. Does not stack with Colonization Fever bonus.
- Additional +5% pop growth/assembly on Gaia worlds (+10% for Life Seeded) and Ring Worlds (+10% if Shattered Ring)
- (Void Dweller) +5% Pop Growth and Assembly on Habitats
- Courier Network:This would be nice if empire size from systems was ever a real source of sprawl. But given that sprawl mostly comes from pops, it's not.
- -25% Empire Size from Colonies
- -25% Resettlement cost
- Galactic Ambition: Maybe upkeep was more of a problem back in the day or in the first 10 years, but now this is just poop.
- -30% Starbase build and upgrade speed
- -25% starbase build and upgrade cost (yes I know Unyielding covers starbase cost, but it shouldn't. Unyielding should be about making starbases and planets more defensible, while expansion should be about building them.
Ending Policies:
- Policy of Colonalism: Expand or die. That is the name of the game. There are so many worlds out in the galaxy waiting for our flag. We have no time for so-called artificial worlds.
(Not available to Void Dweller or Shattered Ring)
- +10% districts for non-artifical worlds.
- +10% pop growth speed on non-artifical planets
- -30% clear blocker time and cost
- 3x Build cost and time for ringworlds and habitats
- Policy of Inward Expansion: Expansion need not be outward. For us, the best direction to expand is up, not out. Let others overextend themselves and scrap over every planet they can get their hands on, we will fortify ourselves at home.
- +40% build speed and -30% costs in your home sector. This applies to districts, buildings, megastructures, etc.
- -25% ecuniopolis decision time and cost inside your home sector.
- +30% terraforming speed and cost inside your home sector
- +5% more districts and +1 building slot inside your home sector
- +200% empire size from planets, districts, and pops outside your home sector
- +50% build speed and cost outside your home sector
- Policy of the Void:Artificial Habitats and Ringworld Wonders are the way of the future. We must unshackle ourselves the unruly whims of planetary nature. (Note: this replaces voidborne perk. Requires Orbital Habitats, Ringworld technology, or be Void Dwellers or Shattered Ring)
- +25% districts on artifical worlds.
- +10% pop growth and assembly on habitats (double on ringworlds)
- +1 jobs from districts on habitats (+2 on ringworlds)
- Minor orbitals provide +0.25 building slots. Majors provide +0.5
- Ring world max habitability goes up to 125 instead of 110.
- Unlock Decision: Planetary Migration. Every month, 5 pops are moved from a planet to the nearest ringworld or habitat (priortizing the former over the latter). Planets abandoned this way will become a Nature Reserve, occupied by a 'primitve' empire of your species. Nature preserves provide unity, social research, and +1% amenities to all habitats and ringworlds. Worlds with special resource deposits produce those as well. Nature Preserves can be built on onocuppied habitable planets via a decision.
- +200% empire size from non-artifical colonies
- +50% empire size from pops on non-artificial colonies
- -25% resource output from jobs on non-artificial colonies.
- -50% pop growth on non-artificial colonies.
Prosperity:
- Opener:I was going to replace this entirely but the addition of the arc furnace made me change mind.
- +20% Mining Station Output (current)
- +2 minerals and +1 Alloys per deposit from Arc Furnace
- Administrative Operations:
- +5% Worker and slave output (swaping it with Administration's effects)
- Unlock Extended Shifts edict
- Pursuit of
Profit Excellence: The name sounds like something that should be in Mercantile.
- +10% Non-Research, Non-Unity Specialist outut
- Interstellar Franchising: Yet another upkeep one, and a bad one at that.
- +10% Non-Research, Non-unity resources from Districts, Buildings, Mining Stations, and Megastructures (basically anything that isn't a job)
- Public Works Division: Okay, seriously, when was the last time anyone really had any problems with housing? Except on habitats. And this doesn't help much there.
- +1 Building slots (yeah more salvaging from Adaptivity)
Ending Policies:
- Policy of Automation:
- Generator, Agriculture, and Mining Districts produce a job's worth of their resource (Ringworlds produce the equivalent of 3). This is affected by modifiers that affect the appropriate job (IE: Mineral purification plants, Climate Opt stations, Planetary Features, Orbital Ring buildings, etc)
- Machine and Hive worlds gain +50% resources from districts
- +50% mining station production
- Generator, Agriculture, and Mining districts have -1 job (-3 for ringworlds)
- Ecuminopolis cost +50%
- -40% pop growth and pop assembly.
- Unavailable to Virtual Ascention empires.
- Policy of Merit:
- Specialist districts produce +50% more jobs
- +15% job output from specialists
- -30% ecuminopolist build time and cost
- +20% specialist upkeep
- Policy of Imperialism:
- +35% resources from taxes from vassals
- Prospectorums level +25% faster
- +30% resources from slaves
- -50% happiness from slaves and -25% loyalty from subjects that are taxed
- -25% (non-research) resources from workers and specialists
Supremacy:
Okay, this needs a bit of a nerf. Like, badly. Unfortunately I do not do nerfs well. So the idea here is that I'm going for quality over quantity: instead of allowing you to crank more ships or have more of them, it lets you do ships better.
- Opener: First off, no more naval capacity changes for any of these. Even 20 Naval Cap change is too much early game as it's essentially just double your starting capacity. And the army modifier has the opposite problem: it's worthless. I know army will get a change eventually, but I'll base these based on what we have now. So for now, I'll just give the opener what the ending bonus gives it now: the war doctrines.
- Unlocks the War Doctrine Policies
- Overwhelming Force: Both too good and too useless. The fire rate is the former, the latter is too useless because bombardments are just worthless. So let's do something interesting.
- Assault armies deal +1% damage and morale damage for every 200 fleet power currently bombarding the planet.
The Great Game Mixed Unit Tactics: Starbases aren't that much of a threat to fleets unless they take unyeilding (and even then, the threat is from defense platforms, not from the starbase itself). So basically this just acts like a cancel to unyeilding, which is bad enough in that department as it is.
... So again, let's make this more interesting.
- Corvettes and Frigates gain +3% evasion and speed for every battleship in the fleet
- Destroyers gain +2% Point Defense damage for every corvette in their fleet
- Cruisers gain +1% Fire Rate for every Destroyer in their fleet
- Battleships gain +2% Range and +5% Orbital bombardment damage for every cruiser in their fleet
- Titans gain +5% fire rate for every other ship type in the fleet
(Cap to all of the above is +50%)
- Assault Armes gain +10% Morale and Deal +10% damage for every other type of assault army invading alongside them.
TL;DR: Basically meant to encourage mixed fleets over mono fleets by giving them a bonus for mixing ship types.
- Master Shipwrights: Again, quality over quantity. There's plenty of crap that lets you crank out ships faster and cheaper, so let's make ships better instead.
- +15% Shields, Armor, and Hull.
- Fleet Logistics Corp: Yet another Naval Capacity boost, and this one is even worse since it's a percent so it boosts allsources of naval capacity. More ships = more lag. And if there's one thing that's not needed, not's more lag.
- -10% Ship Upkeep
- +100% out of combat sublight speed for ships en-route to reinforce fleets
- +20% out of combat sublight speed for fleets.
- Wargames: I fail to see how 'Wargames' translates to 20 more fleet cap. And the other half is
AptitudeLeadership territory.
- Admirals and Generals gain more experience when idle.
- Admirals take up -25% leader cap when assigned to fleets
- Generals take up -25% leader cap when assigned to assault armies, and -50% leader cap when assigned to defense armies.
Ending Policies: All the paths are basically based around weapon doctrines. This not only makes normally 'useless' weapons viable, but 'specialized weapon roleplay builds' more viable. Plus one who prefer 'Kitchen Sink' ships like the auto-builder wants you to have for some reason.
- Policy of Flexibility: To chain ourselves to one weapon type is a surefire path to defeat. A true warrior must learn to use all weapons at their disposal.
- All ships gain +5% fire rate, damage, and weapon range for every type of weapon (Explosive, Energy, or Kinetic) used, but suffer -25% to all of them if only one type is used. Strike Craft do not count towards these.
- Policy of Explosives: Missiles have always held the advantage in any combat situation in our history. We so no need to bother with esoteric energy weapons or outdated kinetic projectiles.
- +25% damage and flight speed to missiles
- +50% (non energy) torpedo ship size effect.
- Strike Crafts have their weapons replaced with missiles. (+10% ship size effect and 10x range, but -30% speed and fire rate).
- Strike Crafts have -25% shields and armor
- Thrusters and afterburners provide +25% more speed.
- -75% damage and fire rate for Kinetic and Energy weapons
- Policy of Energy:Energy Weapons are the way of the future. Accurate, instant, and deadly. Pay no mind to arcaic kinetics or interceptable missiles.
- +50% tracking and accuracy to all energy weapons.
- +25% hull damage to all energy weapons
- +10% shield penetration from lasers (trayceons give +20% and Perditions beams give +30%)
- Plasma Throwers gain +30% range and +10% ship size effect
- Energy Torpedoes gain +100% ship size effect
- Distruptors reduce ship speed and fire rate by 20% on hit
- Arc Lightning gains "chain lightning" effect: 70% chance to chain to another target within range. Subsequent arcs have -10% chance to jump to another target. Targets cannot be hit twice. Cannot arc to a friendly target.
- Strike Craft have +50% more shields
- Power cores produce +25% more energy.
- Shield items are +25% more effective
- -75% damage and accuracy for kinetic weapons and explosives.
- Policy of Kinetics: There is no point in time in which the amount of accelerated firing proficiency could be considered to be satisfactory. As such, we must invest in more kinetic firing proficency, nevermind those slow energy weapons or unreliable missiless.
- +25% fire rate for all kinetic weapons
- +50% range for Autocannons
- +10% armor penetration for Kinetic Artillery (+20% for mega cannons)
- +30% more armor from armor slot items
- +50% more hull from hull items.
- Strike Crafts have +25% more armor and -25% more shields.
- Strike Crafts gain +50% fire rate, but swap their +100% shield penetation for +100% shield damage and -50% armor damage.
- -75% damage and accuracy from Energy weapons, -75% damage and fire rate from missiles.
Diplomacy:
I already covered last time about how Diplomacy should not be a simple gate for federations and should stand on its own merits. Sadly, right now that's all it's really useful for, since the rest of the tradition is weak at best, and an afterthought at worst. So let's change that.
The Federation Cohesive Negotiators:Tying Fed creation to this particular tradition may have made sense once upon a time, but those days are long gone. The real problem isn't the ease of forming a federation (trust cap and two tradition requirements do that well enough), but their permanency. But I already covered that in my diplomacy thoughts post, so I won't do so again here.
- Diplomats assigned to federations contribute +10% more XP
- Envoys improving relationships with subjects produce +1 loyalty per month
- Entente Coordination: Federation Naval Capacity is worthless as it will always be capped by the total naval capacity. And if you're taking this, odds are border friction is the least of your problems.
- +25% federation cohesion when you are president
- +20 base loyalty from subjects
- Diplomatic Networking: Even in the most packed of galaxies, embassies are not even an eigth-decent source of unity, not even early game, let alone later.
- -25% agreement influence upkeep
- Eminent Diplomats: It's... fine. If a little weak. Plus favors need to be binned, as I mentioned in the diplomacy post.
- +5% Diplo acceptance.
- Envoys improving relationships increase trust by +1 per month.
- Delegates contribute -50% towards Official leadership cap.
Ending Policies: Again, Diplomacy should be about
all diplomacy, not just federations.
- Policy of the Federation: United we stand, divided we fall. We were always meant to lead our peers in a glorious federation to a better tommorow.
- +25% federation effects while you are president. +5% when you are not.
- -20% Level requirement when you are president. -5% when you are not.
- Federation effects from the following when you are president:
- Galactic Union: All members gain +20% Xenophile pull
- Martial Alliance: +5% Naval Cap
- Holy Covenant: +0.5 unity from priests and +1 unity from high priests.
- Research Coop: Gain +5% of the research from every other federation member (is not a tax, so it will not be deducted from them.)
- Trade League: +1% trade value for every merchant and +2% trade value for every trader and merchant in the federation.
- Burden Bloc: All members gain +20% egalitarian pull
- Collection of Conciousness: All members gain +1 unity from maintaince drones
- Gain 'Propose Federation Merge' Diplomatic option to merge another federation into your own. Votes must pass on both sides.
- Gain 'Federation War' Casus Belli (War is waged to absorb one federation into another. Upon victory, the opposing federation is dissolved and its members merged into the current federation. Status quo will result in seperate nations being formed out of the occupied territories and made to join the federation.)
- -You may not vassalize any other empires nor become Galactic Emperor (you may still become Custodian however.) Upon selecting this, existing vassals are automatically released and votes to invite them into the federation are taken.
- Unavailable for Hegemonies (they get Policy of Domination instead)
- Policy of Domination: Ours is the will to dominate. Whether benevolent or curel, all must bend knee and acknowledge our lordship. There is no room for flimsy alliances or federations.
- +25% loyalty from subjects
- +25% overlord effects from subject specialization
- -25% influence cost in terms of negotiation
- 1 free holding
- +20% damage to enemies during a vassalization or tributary war
- integration takes -50% less time and costs -20% influence
- You cannot ask to become a subject, nor can you form a federation (other than a Hegemony)
- Policy of Submission: Some call submission to a greater power weakness. We prefer to call it 'ruling from below'. They think they dominate us, but we will twist their ego and hubris to work for us.
- You must be a subject
- +25% opinion gain from your overlord
- -25% influence cost for negotations
- +50% subject effects from specializations
- +2 secret fealties
- Your overlord gains +5% specalization effects.
- Your overlord gains +1 holding. Holdings have +25% effects for you.
- Policy of Neutrality:Friends with all, ally of none. Let the tyrants and idealists fight with each other, while we reap the benefits of neutrality.
- Cannot form or join federations, propose subjugation, accept secret fealties, engage in subjugation/tributary wars. Cannot proclaim Galactic Imperium.
- +25% effect from improving relations
- -25% influence cost from commercial, research, and migration treaties.
- +25% effects from commercial and research pacts (stacks with mercantile and discovery effects)
- Can exit a war you did not start at the cost of energy credits
- Can negotiate Status Quo in a direct, non-total war for energy credits, even if they would normally not accept status quo
- Peace Treaties last twice as long.
- 2x influence upkeep from defensive pacts and guaranteeing independence
Harmony/Sinchronicity:
It's... kind of a confused mess of a tradition. Not as bad as Adaptation or what domination was, but still. Also I will cover both the machine and normal empire versions since they're basically the same tree.
- Opener: Tradition cost -5%
- Mind and Body/Cloned Organs/Self Preservations: Another thing that should go under
AptitudeLeadership.
- Entertainers and Maintaince drowns provide +10% amenities
- Kinship: Statwise it's not bad, themewise it should go under
DominationAdministration
- -10% Empire size from pops (current)
- (Normal): Culture Workers produce +10% more effects
- (Rogue Servitor
Evaluators produce +2% more unity from jobs per biotrophy species on the planet
- (Driven Assimilator Evaluators assimilate an extra pop per cycle, increasing assimilation speed
- (Other Gestalts): +1 Stability from Evauators/Synapse drones
- The Greater Good: Another thing that belongs in
DominationAdministration.
- +10% unity and +1% stability from Bureaucrats/Coordinators
- Utopian Dream/Collective Reasoning:
- +5 Stability
- -10% Planetary Ascention cost
- (Normals +5% happiness from Culture Workers
- (Rogue Servitors): +1% resources from biotrophies per 20% happiness
- Harmonious Directive: This is just halfway executive vigor. Especially now with councilor traits this is really not necessary. So let's try to approach this effect with something more interesting.
- Bureaucrats/Coordinators reduce edict unity cost by -1%
- Culture Workers/Evaluators reduce edict unity upkeep by -1%
Ending Policies: Yeah I'll admit I'm kinda flying on the seat of my pants on this one.
- Policy of Ascention
- Ascention costs for planets is now indvidually based instead of collectively
- +25% planetary ascention effect
- +10% effects from species ascention path traditions
- +50% planetary ascention cost
- -20 happiness and stability from non-ascended planets
- Policy of Spirituality
- -0.20% empire size from every spiritualist pop. double if they're psionic.
- Spiritualist pops produce +1 priest output
- +25% spiritualst push
- Reduced happiness and increased crime from non-spiritualist pops.
- Policy of Tradition
- Can overwrite a tradition at any time instead of requiring all tradition trees to be filled
- Prestiging a tradition increases the effects by +15% instead of +10%
- +25% tradition cost when prestiging a tradition tree.
- Policy of Xeno Brotherhood
- Xenophilic popare are +5% happier and produce +2% more resources per other species on the planet.
- +25% Xenophilic pull
- -10% happiness and +10% crime from xenophobic pops
- -2% pop growth (but not assembly) for every other species on the planet (unless xenocompat is taken)
Yeah this one I didn't have a lot of ideas for.
Mercantile:
Funny part is that it's more or less fine. But I do find it odd that it doesn't help megacorps as much as one might think. So most of the following propositions will revolve around Megacorps, especially since Megacorp branch offices deal in credits and not trade value (which is itself extremely odd) and therefore see little to no benefit from this tradition tree.
- Opening: Like I said back in the starbases thought thread, trade value deposits need to go the way of the dodo. Instead, all non-enslaved pops gain +0.2 base trade value.
- Trickle Up Economics:
- (Non-Megacorps): SAIN
- Megacorps: Clerks produced by branch offices produce +2 trade value and +2 amenities for the host.
- Adaptive Economic Policies:
- SAIN
- Megacorps: Clerk and trader jobs produced by branch office buildings also produce +1 and +2 consumer goods
- Marketplace of better ideas:
- Non-MC: SAIN
- Megacorps: Branch office value output +10%
- insider trading:
- -15% market fee (increased)
Ending Policies:
- Policy of the Internal Economy: Spend locally and keep the money at home.
- If you are a megacorp, you may put branch offices on your own planets (they are eliminated if you unselect this policy)
- +25% trade value from jobs and internal branch office buildings
- -50% resources from commercial pacts
- +50% cost and build time to open branch offices outside your borders.
- Policy of Franchising:The stars are made of trade value. Blorgcorp guide to profit tip 75
- -50% trade value from jobs
- If you are not a megacorp, +50% resources from commerical pacts
If you are a megacorp, the following applies:
- -25% branch office building cost and build time
- +33% host effects from branch offices
- +20% income from branc offices
- Branch offices deal in trade value instead of energy credits
- +50% jobs from branch offices.
- Policy of the Customer:The customer is always right. Even when they aren't.
- +50% income from commercial pacts
- +50% jobs from branch offices inside your empire.
- Cannot take if you are a megacorp.
Unyielding:
The basic idea of this one is good. But it doesn't go near far enough to be a valid counter to supremacy or hyper aggressive empires.
- Opening:
- Starbase cap +4 (up from 2 since I'm taking that away from fortress doctrine)
- Defensive Zeal: The basic jist is good, but lacking since starbases on their own are just that badat thier jobs.
- +50% Starbase health and damage
- Fortress Doctrine:The only truely 'bad' one of this tradition. First half is just a repeat of the opener, 2nd half I already put under expansion. And the last part... well... who even uses that?
- Starbases:
- weapons gain +100% range on weapons that have <50 base range (autocannons, disruptors, etc)
- +20% fire rate on weapons that have >49 base range
- Weapon modules and buildings produce +2 weapon slots
- Armor and utitlity module and buildings produce two more slots
- +5/10/15/20% armor and shield hardening per stage.
- Defense Platforms:
- Unlock Upgraded Defense Platform Segments. Upgraded Defense Platform segments have 1.5x the weapons, utility, and auxilary slots but also higher cost.
- Resistance is Frugal
- SAIN
- incoming Assault armies deal -30% less collatteral damage.
- Never Surrender: It's ... okay. But orbital bombardment damage right now isn't really much of an issue unless they're using the Armageddon stance. And war exaustion isn't really that much of an issue unless you're severely losing.
- -33% devastation
- +25% hostile claim influence (SAIN)
Ending Policies:
- Policy of the Maginot: Static Defenses are the graveyard of invading armies
- +10 Starbase capacity
- Starbase weapon modules and buildings +50% weapon slots
- starbase defense modules and buildings +50% armor/utility slots and effect
- +50% starbase defense platform capacity
- -20% defense platform build cost and time
- -40% naval capacity
- +100% ship build time
- -20% ship fire rate and damage
- Policy of Defense in Depth:The best defense is a massive fleet
- During a defensive war, gain +25% naval capacity and +50% ship build speed and -25% ship build cost. If in a total war or crisis, this is doubled.
- -25% ship upkeep in home/allied territory
- If ascended or have upgraded assault armies, Planetary defense armies are replaced with defense army equivalents to them. (IE: If you have Gene Warriors, they turn into them. If you have Psionic Defeners, planetary defense becomes those. If you have battleframes, they become those. If you have Megawarforms or the Cybrex relic, planetary defense armies will be reduce by half but will all be MWFs/CWFs, etc. If you have cybernetics, defensive armies will no longer be affected by morale.)
- +25% ship upkeep and -20% outside of home territory
- +50% war exaustion gain in an offensive war.
- Policy of the Pakt: There is no defense like a good friend.
- +25% effects from bulwarks or martial alliances (the former applies to both overlords and subjects)
- +10% naval capacity for every defensive pact.
- You and allied ships gain +10% fire rate and sublight speed when inside friendly territory, and +10% more if together in the same system.
- -15% stability if you do not have any defensive pacts, are not part of a federation, nor have no/are not a bulwark(s).
Aptitude and Statecraft Leadership:
They gave us two traditiosn when just one could have sufficed. Especially with my ending policys system there's no reaon to keep them separate. Renamed Leadership as its more appropriate here.
- Opener:
- +1 Leader traits option
- +10% Agenda speed
- The Empire Needs you:
- Psychological Profiling:
- -25% Leader Upkeep
- -1 Leader max neg traits.
- Amongst Peers:
- (Non-Gestalt) Councilors take up -50% leader capacity. Rulers do not take up any leader capacity.
- (Gestalt) +1 leader pool size
- Specialist Training:
- Champions of the empire
- +1 Leader Starting Skill Levels
- +1 Effictive Councilor Skills
Ending Policies:
- Policy of Statecraft: Contrary to ancient belief, the government that governs least is the government that governs worst. Let us focus on our council.
- +25% Agenda Speed, Duration, and effects
- +200 Council experience per skill level per launched agenda
- +35% Effects from Strategists, Advisors, Ambassadors, and Statitians
- +1 effective councilor skill
- -30% non-councilor experience gain
- -20% effects from all other types of leaders
- -10 years non-councilor lifespan
- -2 Leader pool (Floor of 1)
- Policy of Aptitude: Real leadership is shown in the field, not in the council chambers. Let us empower the more local leaders, or, with the right technolgy, createthem.
- +25% effects and experience gain from leaders if their role corresponds with thier current assignment (Admirals in fleets, governors on planets, etc)
- Specialization choices are granted at L3 instead of L4
- +2 Leader Pool size
- Unlocks Create-a-Leader. For those who used Machine and Robots Expanded leader crafting functions, you should know how this works. If not, brief exlaination: it lets you craft a leader from scratch, starting from the level of your highest level non-paragon leader. Requires Syntheti or Genetic trees completely finished. For machines, requires one machine ascention tree finished (any will do.) Not available for hives or psionics.
Crafted leaders gain a -50% experience gain and upkeep debuffs. They will also add -1 leader to your pool and cannot be crafted if there is <2 leaders available in your local pool, meaning you are limited.
- Psionics and Hives: Whenever a leader levels up, all leaders of that class (scientist, official, commander) gain +75% of the experience gained.
- -50% experience gain and +30% upkeep if leaders are in a role does not correspond to their current assignment (IE: Admirals governing a planet, Industrialists in a federation or Galcom, explorers governing a planet, etc)
- -20% effects from strategists, advisors, and staticians
- -30% agenda speed, duration, and effects.
- -25% councilor experience gain
- -2 effective councilor skill
(Other notes: Rightful Claims Agenda moved to starter or Supemacy. Oppose the Fallen agenda moved to Galactic Contender ascention perk.)
Subterfuge:
I already went over Espionage in the diplomacy thoughts thread. And the only real problem with this tree is the the fact that it's married to the currently bad espionage system. So as such I'll keep this one short.
- Informational Security:
- (SAIN)
- Can Perform 'Counter-Intelligence' espionage operation. Doing this will reduce the target's infiltration, max infiltration, and cause any ongoing operations to fail.
- Double Agents:
- When an empire is doing an operation against you, there is a chance of you being notified. This chance is dependent on your encryption vs their codebreaking
- Shadow Recruits:
- (SAIN)
- +25% more likely to acquire an asset during operations.
Ending Policies:
- Policy of Counter-Intelligence: Our intelligence must be concentrated on defending the hearth and home from foreign infiltration, not doing shroud-knows-what elsewhere.
- Enemy Espionage operations are +25% more likely to fail
- When an enemy espionage operation fails, gain intelligence on them and gain the influence they spent on it.
- +50% influence cost on espionage operations (excluding counter-intelligence)
- -2 Envoys (min of 1)
- Policy of Espionage:To get ahead, our espionage efforts must become second to none. We will steal, sabotage, and demoralize our enemies without firing a shot.
- +30% more effects from successful Epsionage operations.
- +30% epionage speed
- -25% influence cost on epionage operations
- Enemy espionage operation is +30% more likely to succeed.
Okay so that's it for the Tradition trees I have solid ideas for. The rest of them I have.. not so much.
Adaptivity:
I will admit, in my original draft my solution was simply to bin this one. Right now, it's pretty much just a garbage bin for rejected effects from other trees. I'd
still not miss this if it was simply removed.
Though with the habitability change pitch, I think it might have a bit of a chance if completely revamped. Though I hadn't put as much thought into it as the others. As such, no finisher edicts.
In fact, I reall only have concepts here. These concepts being:
+ Reduced terraforming cost (even though that's kinda more expansion)
+ Increased habitability floor
+ Small increased habitabilty
+ Increased immigration from habitable pops
+ Increased effects from good habitability
+ (Ending effect) Add 'auto-preference' trait that automods a pop every few months to the planet they're on. Requires synthetics or glandular aclimation.
Versatility:
My only toughts here: Yeah, this is a genuine turd with no theme and no future. Get rid of it.
Emnity:
Honestly, this is really only good early/mid game. Or if you're new to the game. Or if you're playing multi. Otherwise it's pretty useless. And I can't really see it being useful in any other context. Might be good if you could overwrite traditions like I mentioned. Otherwise this will pretty much forever be 'Supremacy for noobs'.
Politics:
Just like Subterfuge, it's married to a bad system. This time, the Galcom. And since the Galcom is slower than a crippled tortoise, there's no reason whatsoever to take this. And even if it wasn't, the things it offers are just kinda... meh. Honestly not sure what they were thinking when they introduced this one. The only thing I have to offer is one effect, and not sure where it should go:
+ -10% Galactic Community session and recess time. This effect stacks up to 90%
Archivism/Domestication:
I do not have Grand Archive. So no thoughts.
