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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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BlackUmbrellas said:
I don't think you grasp game design as much as you think you do.

Accumulating Unity points slower when you're a big massive conquest-driven empire is an entirely reasonable means of balancing broad vs. tall empires.
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I would like to know your credentials in game design to have such certain opinions. Your opinions quite frankly defy logic, and it would be very cool to know in which development group(s) you have been in. I am not a game designer, but I have history from 1980's of being an alpha and beta tester in various games, so I have had the privilege to follow quite a few game designs (some of them very successful, some went down the drain before they even got released).

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.
 
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Wiz said:
The seven Tradition trees are as follows:
-snip-
Domination: Focuses on maintaining control over your population and subjects.
-snip-
Purity: Focuses on strength through homogenity and dominion over other species.
Click to expand...

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?
 
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@Wiz can you add console command similar to "attackallfleets", which will work only in star system scale, not whole galaxy, please? Or make a shortcut - order to attack your own fleet (like all RTS games have). I asking because there are many players on this forum (including myself) who love to make different ship designs, pack them with different weapon combinations and test them against each other on the battlefield, searching for "ultimate" design for each class or just analysing battle mechanics and how weapons work. Some kind of millitary drill. Problem with "attackallfleets" is that all fleets, spaceports and battlrstations in every corner of Empire are involved in the battle. So, instead of local millitary drill we have f*cking CIVIL WAR.

May be it is weird, but it is part of gameplay to)
Example: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/battleships-are-weak-tested.988594/page-3
 
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Swuul said:
I would like to know your credentials... ...but I have history from 1980's of being an alpha and beta tester...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
With that out of the way.

Swuul said:
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.
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If we were to assume that a player performing well is rewarded by gaining Unity points faster, while a larger group being slower to adopt a common tradition (social inertia if you will) is represented by the higher cost of buying a tradition. Then is that still failed logic?

(Assuming that the balance is not entirely out of whack of course. I am more asking about the general concept of Unity and Tradition presented here.)
 
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Swuul said:
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.
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I have my own issues with the way this system works and how it isn't realistic from a real-world perspective, but it's not bad game design, even if it could be improved in some ways. It allows smaller empires to excel in certain areas when they lack strength in others. A big issue in Stellaris is snowballing, where certain empires just get larger and larger with very little that can stop them. This not only gives the player some incentive to play tall and expand cautiously — less they sacrifice unity, but is a very, 'very' minor nerf to larger empires that have enough firepower to level half the galaxy anyway. The problem I think you're having is mixing real-world logic with game design, something I'm often very guilty of even in this thread. Regardless, choices are important and giving players options is good game design. You can have less unity and more land or you can have more unity and less land. Think of it as... overextension.
 
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Wiz said:
Unless explicitly said otherwise, free update. Everything detailed in this DD is free.
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Am I correct to assume that, at least for now, the policy on updates and dlc is that DLC packs will be mostly cosmetic and story expansions keeping mechanic changes in the free parts?
If so please accept my undying love, and shut up and take my moneyh! ;)
 
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Haldan said:
Xenophobic isolationists.
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Judging by the Monument to Purity, it's a fair guess that the Purity will have domestic bonuses to reward a homogeneous empire. Whether that homogeneity comes from cleanse-purge-kill conquests or simply remaining isolationist need not matter, although a xenophobic isolationist may have traits on the tree that they can ignore in favor of, perhaps, Prosperity picks.
 
GizahNL said:
Am I correct to assume that, at least for now, the policy on updates and dlc is that DLC packs will be mostly cosmetic and story expansions keeping mechanic changes in the free parts?
If so please accept my undying love, and shut up and take my moneyh! ;)
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He already said that it's only free because it's a needed mechanic and he wants to be able to improve it with DLC
 
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Will the AI Personalities be weighted to favor certain traditions, for instance, Fanatical Purifiers will prefer Purity or Supremacy?
 
GizahNL said:
Am I correct to assume that, at least for now, the policy on updates and dlc is that DLC packs will be mostly cosmetic and story expansions keeping mechanic changes in the free parts?
If so please accept my undying love, and shut up and take my moneyh! ;)
Click to expand...
Prepare to withdraw you love then.

Since many people don't care that much about the cosmetics having all mechanical changes in the free patch would mean that they never made enough money.
 
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Nice, these are very much like the EU4 national ideas and traditions! A good way to add more flavour to your empire.
 
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Alectron said:
Well, since Civ 6 now has casus belli I don't see why not :)
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I seem to recall that Civ BE had an expansion pack that incorporated something similar to war score system used by Paradox games, at least the latest ones. Did Civ 6 also used that? I'm a bit out of the loop at the moment. :p

Honestly, though, the more games incorporating each other's concepts, as long as it makes sense, the more merrier for everyone. ;)
 
Alectron said:
Well, since Civ 6 now has casus belli I don't see why not :)
Click to expand...

I seem to recall that Civ BE had an expansion pack that incorporated something similar to war score system used by Paradox games, at least the latest ones. Did Civ 6 also used that? I'm a bit out of the loop at the moment. :p

Honestly, though, the more games incorporating each other's concepts, as long as it makes sense, the more merrier for everyone. ;)
 
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