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Stellaris Dev Diary #55 - Unity and Traditions

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll be talking about a new feature coming in the 1.5 'Banks' update called Traditions and Unity. As before, I can't talk about when Banks will be coming out, only that it's a while away and we have quite a few dev diaries to go through before we get there :)

Traditions and Unity
One thing we have mentioned as a big priority for Stellaris is adding more empire customization and more ability to roleplay diverse empires. We have also talked about our desire to allow for the existance of 'tall' empires. Traditions and Unity is a feature that aims to tackle both these topics by adding 7 new Tradition trees and a resource called Unity that is used to unlock them. Unity is an accumulative resource that increases each month, and is primarily gained through the construction of government buildings such as monuments, mausoleums and temples. Unity is spent on adopting Tradition trees and purchasing individual Traditions. Each Tradition tree has a starter bonus, five unlockable bonuses and a finisher bonus that is gained once the entire tree is filled out.
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The seven Tradition trees are as follows:
Expansion: Focuses on growth through rapid colonization.
Domination: Focuses on maintaining control over your population and subjects.
Prosperity: Focuses on economic growth.
Harmony: Focuses on maintaining a happy and diverse population.
Supremacy: Focuses on growth through military conquest.
Purity: Focuses on strength through homogenity and dominion over other species.
Exploration: Focuses on exploration and scientific discovery.
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The cost of unlocking a Tradition depends on the size of your empire, as well as how internally stable it is. Unhappy factions, minority species and slaves all increase the cost of adoption Traditions further, though these effects can be offset or even canceled out entirely by adopting the right Traditions for the empire you intend to build. Overall, small harmonious empires will unlock Traditions more quickly than large, expansionistic ones. Which Traditions you unlock also has a significant impact on the ethics of your population, and so can be a useful tool to either strengthen your existing empire ethics or further a planned empire-wide shift towards a different set of ethics altogether.

You may have noticed a certain part of the Traditions screen that I have not yet mentioned in this dev diary. That's because it's actually the subject of the next dev diary! However, since the Christmas holidays are coming up, most of the Stellaris team will be away, so dev diaries will be on hiatus until January 12th. Tune back in then to find out all about the Ascension Perks and how you can use them to build the empire of your dreams.
 
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Wiz said:
The last one wasn't because of vacations, it was because we couldn't talk about 1.5 until 1.4 was out. It's really just unfortunate timing that you get two long hiatuses so close together.
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Still more holiday time than I get.
Well I think it balances out by the lack of sun and Denmark being nearby.
 
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Make happen an ecologist tradition please!

5 bonuses (hope they are policies and buildings) seems a bit weak. Hope they are going to add more in future updates!
 
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Gamengervi said:
Awesome feature. The social policy trees were one of my favorite parts of CiV and I'm glad you guys are adopting the same sort of idea. I have a couple of thoughts though. Firstly, I feel like the harmony and purity tree contradict each other. One promotes a diverse and happy population while the other promotes species domination. Obviously we can't read the tradition descriptions right now, but if they're not going to be exclusive please try to make it so that the descriptions from one don't contradict the descriptions from the other.
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Again, it's been specifically noted that your Traditions relate to your civilization's ethos- if you take Purity traditions with a xenophilic population, they will be Upset.
 
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BlackUmbrellas said:
Again, it's been specifically noted that your Traditions relate to your civilization's ethos- if you take Purity traditions with a xenophilic population, they will be Upset.
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That wasn't stated in the original post and I haven't read the thread up to this point yet. I will get back to that after I've read the thread. Thanks though.
 
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BlackUmbrellas said:
Funny, because the first thing my mind went to was that it'd be really neat if the mechanic encouraged you to redevelop your homeworld into a proper "bureaucratic hub" with all your tombs and ministries and such on it.
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I was thinking the same thing. Right now, homeworlds get maybe an empire unique or two; other than that, i's just higher level production. It'd be nice to see home worlds, and even core worlds, get more distinct function and flavor. Homeworld as bureaucratic hub, core planets as cultural centers or pillars of industry, etc.
 
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This looks actually way more like National Ideas from EU4. Which is both good and bad thing. Good because it's nice mechanics. Bad because I'm afraid a bit that all Paradox titles will eventually turn into single crazy conglomerate like EUCKVikiHoIStellaris or something :/
 
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Looking good. I was thinking that it wouldn't be till 1.6/1.7 that Sellaris would finally reach a stage that I felt it would start to really shine but the last coule of DD have made very hopeful that 1.5 might do the trick!
 
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Wiz said:
Unhappy factions, minority species and slaves all increase the cost of adoption Traditions further, though these effects can be offset or even canceled out entirely by adopting the right Traditions for the empire you intend to build. Overall, small harmonious empires will unlock Traditions more quickly than large, expansionistic ones.
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Do I understand right, if I play a conquering empire and wish to go for the Supremacy traditions, I am in fact shooting myself in the foot by actually doing the conquests? Ie I would gain Supremacy tradition faster if I actually did play it small and harmonous, not conquer anybody, until one day I have enough tradition of not being a conqueror to declare myself as the Supremacy conqueror of the known universe?
 
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Swuul said:
Do I understand right, if I play a conquering empire and wish to go for the Supremacy traditions, I am in fact shooting myself in the foot by actually doing the conquests? Ie I would gain Supremacy tradition faster if I actually did play it small and harmonous, not conquer anybody, until one day I have enough tradition of not being a conqueror to declare myself as the Supremacy conqueror of the known universe?
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Wiz said that unity can be obtained by other methods than just sitting and waiting for it to build up.

A possible interpretation of this is that actually conquering as a supremacy tradition will give unity points.
 
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Pyramid_Head said:
Wait wait, so tradition resource is gained by...waiting and mining? Shouldn't Purity be gained by purging and enslaving xenos because, that kinda what tradition means - doing something often? It's not that fun to sit for years and then instantly became fanatic purifiers overnight or peacefully exist for ages and then suddenly you realize you have a long tradition of conquests
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You might not have heard about something important when designing games called opportunity costs.
 
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Ratstranger said:
This looks actually way more like National Ideas from EU4. Which is both good and bad thing. Good because it's nice mechanics. Bad because I'm afraid a bit that all Paradox titles will eventually turn into single crazy conglomerate like EUCKVikiHoIStellaris or something :/
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*sits down and waits for the Hoi4-to-Stellaris converter*
Play from 769 to the far future - for an truely EPIC game.
 
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EvilTom said:
Wiz said that unity can be obtained by other methods than just sitting and waiting for it to build up.
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Yeah, but in another thread he also said Sectors are working ok, so I am not sure if he is always serious with his comments.
 
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This looks as it'll be an interesting feature! Additional empire customization is always good in my book, as it'll increase personality and attachment to the realms and cultures we come up with.

I do have some concerns, however:

As this Dev Diary again hinted at, we will finally be able to induce a change of empire Ethos and thus open up potential for considerable societal changes (such as going from autocracy to democracy, or pacifists taking up arms and militarizing). If so, wouldn't it make sense that an empire's "Traditions" change accordingly as well? A formerly militant empire that renounces aggressive expansion and morphs into a peaceful republic, for example, may look weird if it still sticks to Supremacist and Domination Traditions. Will there be a way to let go of Traditions no longer considered suitable? Perhaps by "trading them in" for a partial return of invested Unity?

The above might also tie into Gamengervi's post about potentially being able to unlock everything, which would inevitably result in empires becoming less and less unique as time moves on, rather than more. Perhaps some Traditions could be incompatible with others, or there is a hard limit to them? It'd incentivize the aforementioned ability to rescind them.

... I have a hunch that these Ascension Perks may actually have to do with unlocking all Traditions (seeing how there's eight slots and seven Traditions), but I hope I'm wrong, as having everything does not feel as if it'd make you more unique, it'd just become a mechanical reward, which sounds a bit arcade or MMO'ish.

Also: I guess it makes sense that the development of Traditions is an ongoing process as a culture evolves, especially ones that have just taken their first steps into space and made first contact with other species. However, surely a culture as evolved as this would already have embraced some Traditions as part of their cultural heritage? Will we be able to pick one or more Traditions right away and unlock others as our culture evolves further (allowing access to greater empire customization as we begin a game), or do we have to unlock everything via Unity? The latter might be ironic, given that it'd make all of a galaxy's civilizations more similar before they actually meet one another.

Ratstranger said:
Bad because I'm afraid a bit that all Paradox titles will eventually turn into single crazy conglomerate like EUCKVikiHoIStellaris or something :/
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To be fair, I think Stellaris could take a page or two from HoI when it comes to warfare. *coughLogisticscoughDoomstacks* :p
 
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Swuul said:
Do I understand right, if I play a conquering empire and wish to go for the Supremacy traditions, I am in fact shooting myself in the foot by actually doing the conquests? Ie I would gain Supremacy tradition faster if I actually did play it small and harmonous, not conquer anybody, until one day I have enough tradition of not being a conqueror to declare myself as the Supremacy conqueror of the known universe?
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The point of the mechanic is that massive expansionist empires can utilize it less than smaller ones, yes. It's partly there to help make small ("tall") empires competitive.
 
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Ratstranger said:
This looks actually way more like National Ideas from EU4. Which is both good and bad thing. Good because it's nice mechanics. Bad because I'm afraid a bit that all Paradox titles will eventually turn into single crazy conglomerate like EUCKVikiHoIStellaris or something :/
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A Paradox take on Spore? But good = P
 
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