Stellaris Dev Diary #55 - Unity and Traditions

[Chief of Staff]

I also should add that this new mechanics outlined here seem to remind me of Policies in Civ 5. Or was I thinking of something else? I can't quite put my fingers on this.

 

[Kinkness]

I haven't been this excited for Stellaris since pre launch.

 

[CarlVonClausewitz]

Looks like the well known Civ5 feature like it has already been mentioned... But looks veeeeeeery promising. So much excitement for the new patch.

 

[Seomis]

So ... what's the art department working on?

 

[Roddo]

The HYPE flows.

 

[Xadie]

yay... sounds awesome

 

[djkris105]

1 month with no dev diary? Can't you just write some blorg poetry about friendship and post it next week? xP

 

[carthe]

You're doing great job constantly upgrading your game (even without paid DLC). That's why I've always trusted your
company.

Keep doing it, cause you're doing it good!
Can't wait for the upcoming changes.

Cheers

 

[Wizzington]

So ... what's the art department working on?

Art.

 

[Heretic Saint]

Anyway, like I mentioned already an umpteenton times, a small group is more in unision, and sure, they should get more Unity points. But if those Unity points are then used to buy Traditions which the small group has absolutely no history of, while the larger group with a long history in the Tradition in question is given a malus, then we are on weak ice. It fails logic, and it is a method to arbitrary punish a player doing well, both which are not signs of good game design.

I'd say the issue is less about small vs large groups, but that a group of any size can gain Traditions it has no history of.

I think I agree with StJimmyRocks92 in that it might seem more realistic and more rewarding if Unity points are invested automatically based on how they are acquired.

Then, once Factions or player actions result in an Ethos shift for the government, and certain Traditions become a nuisance for your reformed empire, you could spend Influence to suppress and reset them as part of your cultural revolution.

Just a suggestion, but maybe maybe change the name of "Domination", so that people won't get "confused" (as with the case of individual vs communitarian)? IDK, maybe something like "Domination" becomes "Sovereignty", "Governance", or something akin to stewardship.
Especially since, from the description of Purity, ".... and dominion over other species", doesn't this mean purity as an advanced form of domination?

Is there truly potential for confusion? "Domination" comes from dominating, in this case referring to your populace. Purity, meanwhile, is a matter of spiritual and genetic freedom from outside influences. I would think it is only natural that Domination can help with achieving Purity, and I would actually expect some overlap between the respective Traditions.

 

[NiLib]

I'm happy about every Stellaris-Update and I'm looking forward for new stuff!

 

[feezec]

Lots of cool food for thought here.

Monuments, mausoleums etc generate Unity mana. Does this mean it is advantageous to get three different ethics to unlock more Unity buildings? Or do Fanatic empires generate extra Unity from their special buildings?

I wonder if democracies and oligarchs will generate Unity during elections to balance out autocrat buildings. Or maybe autocrat are meant to generate more unity, which kinda makes sense I guess. Then again, America is not feeling very unified after our recent election so I dunno

What if you capture a planet that contains a different ethic's unity building? Will Unity buildings be available from start or will you need to research them?

Dominion and Exploration hopefully come with a rework of vassal and anamoly mechanics. I don't see a Tradition for diplomatic Federation builders. Will some traditions/trees be mutually exclusive?

Mana discounts for small empires is all well and good. But are their mechanics/victory conditions for tall empires that don't involve Blobbing?

Ahhhh so many questions! So many shiny new toys! I'm gonna have blue balls all the way to January 12 goddammit.

 

[Ingros]

Its a nice Feature but to be honest:
stellaris needs more interaction with other empires but war... we need spies and diplomats to cause revolts... or peaceful seperations ... hell even factions to join nearby empires if they are more like their ethics...
And we need more diplomatic talk... federation or alliance councils.... more internal politics (and not this boring edicts screen etc.)
And what about real trade... not this instant stuff... manual or automatic created trade routes between planets which can be raided by pirates or privateers...
Special raider warships (not aligned to our empire) to raid and destroy enemy bases or capture slaves... even during peace time

When will one of that come?

 

[Avian Overlord]

Domination seems like a natural fit for Authoritarianism (and I believe we saw last week that Domination traditions will increase Authoritarianism attraction). Purity for Xenophobia, Supremacy for Militarism, and Exploration for Materialism.

The others are a bit harder to pin down, and seven traditions for eight ethics means there isn't a 1:1 correlation. I would guess Harmony would go with Xenophilia, but could also be tied to Spiritualism, Egalitarianism, or Pacifism. Prosperity would match with the current Individualism, so might or might not be a fit with the reworked Egalitarianism. Expansion could be a fit for all play types, but could possibly mean specifically peaceful expansion, so Pacifism?

I suspect it's going to be:

• Domination - Authoritarian (Dev confirmed)
• Purity - Xenophobe (Duh)
• Harmony - Egalitarian (Content populace = happiness bonuses, which are a theme of Ind/Ega, no mention of aliens, seems to be the counterpart of Domination. Plus the two words just fit together)
• Exploration - Xenophile (Finding new things is a theme of Xenophile, and Xenophile already gets rewarded for contacting aliens, although I suspect they'll get Unity rather than influence now)
• Supremacy - Militarist (Is focused on military conquest. Another obvious one)
• Prosperity - Pacifist (Contrasts with Supremacy, pacifist has an internal development theme for all of its governments. Pacifist tends to look inward)
• Expansion - None (No counterpart, too important to the game to be tied to one ethic)

 

[loup99]

Seems like a really good addition to the game! It will allow for taking decisions that are more impacting and tree-structured than policies, and will add an additional progression to the game. With this and the factions 1.5 is shaping up very well.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

Then, once Factions or player actions result in an Ethos shift for the government, and certain Traditions become a nuisance for your reformed empire, you could spend Influence to suppress and reset them as part of your cultural revolution.

Ahh, that would be a great feature!

 

[Soranya]

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.
View attachment 224377

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.
View attachment 224376

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.

Purity and Harmony seem to be oposing each other - will there be limits on how we can combine the Traditions? Or is the Descriptive text missleading? (aka how does a Pure homogen diverse empire work both mechanically and from a imerseion point of view?)

 

[Shock360]

Art.

BUT IF THEY WORK ON ART THEN THAT MEANS THAT THE PROGRAMMERS CANT FIX THE AI WHICH MEANS THE DESIGNERS CANT PLAN DLC WHICH MEANS ONLY COSMETIC DLC WILL COME OUT! I KNOW ITS TRUE BECAUSE PEOPLE SAID SO!

 

[Moonshadow101]

My issue with the system as described is that while it is a buff to smaller empires and a neat customization feature, it only accomplishes those two things on a temporary basis. Over the course of a long game, larger empires will inevitably catch up with their smaller counterparts, and when everyone eventually has every tradition, there's no customization.

If you want the system to have any meaning in the long run, it needs hard caps, not just throttles.

 

[Shock360]

My issue with the system as described is that while it is a buff to smaller empires and a neat customization feature, it only accomplishes those two things on a temporary basis. Over the course of a long game, larger empires will inevitably catch up with their smaller counterparts, and when everyone eventually has every tradition, there's no customization.

If you want the system to have any meaning in the long run, it needs hard caps, not just throttles.

Im pretty sure the intent is to not be able to get every tradition except for very rare situations