[Mauer]

Are you going to tackle the subject of cybernetic augmentation with traditions?, could be nice to have the option of cyborgificating your empire's pops by steps and make them much more productive (with some drawbacks maybe) for tall gameplay.

 

[Bayes]

LOVE IT! I was so sad to see it gone from civ 6, this is such a awesome feature. Hopefully this patch will get me back to stellaris.

 

[Swuul]

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?

Why would a larger empire have to gain a Tradition (which are in Stellaris to be opened with Unity) faster than smaller ones? It is equally bad design a larger empire automatically just by being larger get new traditions faster than small ones as is the vice versa version suggested by Wiz. That would be equally arbitrary punishment towards empires wishing (or having to) stay small at first, and start the steam roll only when technology/fleets/whatever are at the levels the player intends them to be at.

Arbitrary penalties are bad. No matter if they hit large or small empires.

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.

It would not be arbitrary, it would not fail logic, if overextension was handled like overextension.

Increased risk of civil war after a too rapid expansion. Lowered production because lack of proper society/bureucracy in place after too fast expansion. Lowered production because of increased corruption in newly conquered areas. Etc etc. There are many ways to properly handle overextension (ie the player being "too" successfull). Slapping on an arbitrary penalty to not gain new Traditions is *not* a proper way to handle successfull gameplay.

 

[purplegamer]

This sounds awesome!

 

[Wizzington]

You're surely aware that this sort of thing is just going to guarantee an in-depth discussion of said content on Reddit and Steam, probably choc full of references to this very post and jokes about you, personally, not understanding that once a document hits the internet it can't be taken back, right?

I don't mind it being discussed (it's not like I can stop it anyway), but people have a tendency to take anything written in a DD thread as gospel and there were already arguments about details in numbers on a first iteration of a WIP feature so I don't want it discussed here.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Arbitrary penalties are bad. No matter if they hit large or small empires.

Good thing the throttle factors aren't arbitrary, then, and that they're implemented with very specific reasons in mind both mechanically and thematically.

 

[jju_57]

January 12th? That a month off. Gee what gives in Sweden?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

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

Yeah.

My feeling is that they're probably something you can turn on and off- they'd need to be for the "use them to encourage a shift in empire-wide ethos" mechanic- and that different trees are in places mutually exclusive. Taking the Purity Traditions about enslaving aliens will go down fine if you have a lot of xenophobe pops, but if you then also take the xenophile-friendly Traditions from another tree, those same pops are going to be upset and probably cancel out whatever bonus you'd be getting.

It's entirely possible that by the late game, every empire could theoretically have every Tradition unlocked- but they can't use them all at once, they'd need to specialize in the ones that benefit their empire and don't turn it against itself.

 

[Wizzington]

January 12th? That a month off. Gee what gives in Sweden?

There are other things to life than work. Even when your job is as great as mine.

 

[Gamengervi]

It would not be arbitrary, it would not fail logic, if overextension was handled like overextension.

Increased risk of civil war after a too rapid expansion. Lowered production because lack of proper society/bureucracy in place after too fast expansion. Lowered production because of increased corruption in newly conquered areas. Etc etc. There are many ways to properly handle overextension (ie the player being "too" successfull). Slapping on an arbitrary penalty to not gain new Traditions is *not* a proper way to handle successfull gameplay.

I used the term overextension for a lack of a better word, please don't be too concerned with it. The fact is that CiV uses the same system where social policies increase in price based on the number of cities you own and it works perfectly fine there. I'm not necessarily seeing how it's bad design. Giving larger and more powerful empires certain penalties is completely legitimate, tried-and-tested game design to limit snowballing and provide greater challenge as the game goes on. It gives the player an option to really think about their next move. Do I annex this nearby empire or try to rush this next tradition? Giving a player or AI benefits for growing more powerful and larger in addition to the benefits that already come with that and without giving them penalties such as these is actually 'bad' game design. In addition, slowing down tradition acquisition would give more meaning to the traditions adopted and make the choices you make slightly more important, as well as prevent modifier pileups from buffing already powerful empires too quickly.

I don't mind it being discussed (it's not like I can stop it anyway), but people have a tendency to take anything written in a DD thread as gospel and there were already arguments about details in numbers on a first iteration of a WIP feature so I don't want it discussed here.

I'm actually not sure what's going on. Could someone clue me in?

There are other things to life than work. Even when your job is as great as mine.

Surströmming?

 

[Wizzington]

An early version of the Traditions was accidentally translated and included in the 1.4 Russian translation. Since nothing there is final I don't want this thread to descend into a bunch of arguments about the balance of numbers that are likely to change anyway, so I banned discussion of it here. You can look up the info on the Stellaris reddit if you want to check it out for yourself.

 

[Philthy]

There are other things to life than work. Even when your job is as great as mine.

I wish companies here in the states understood that...

 

[jju_57]

There are other things to life than work. Even when your job is as great as mine.

I'm more jealous than anything. You know; misery loves company.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

Hmm, seems very interesting. One little note. I notice there really isn't a tradition for a spiritualist empire. Sure you could say Harmony but the description is pretty broad and might not quite fit. I would argue that domination and supremacy are very much alike and one of the two could be replace by a more spiritualist focused tradition. Anyway, just a thought, this seems like a good addition to the game overall.

 

[BeastSoulEyes]

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

That's a very good point actually.

I guess a bit more granularity could have happened here, for example that acquiring the tradition is free for a very small basic bonus, but then you have to pour Unity into the Tradition for its effect to become better.

Like, Starter Bonus:

 

[Fawks]

An early version of the Traditions was accidentally translated and included in the 1.4 Russian translation. Since nothing there is final I don't want this thread to descend into a bunch of arguments about the balance of numbers that are likely to change anyway, so I banned discussion of it here. You can look up the info on the Stellaris reddit if you want to check it out for yourself.

I can get behind this. It would have perhaps been better to lead with a post like the one above than a direct threat in all caps, though. :/

EDIT: Just tossing in my 2 cents - Traditions seem cool and I'm looking forward to them. I personally don't mind that they seem lifted from Civ, if anything even more good mechanics could be lifted from other games to make Stellaris better: use what works, regardless of where the ideas came from. (I also agree with the others here that Civ lifted some stuff from your games recently, and fair is fair o_0 )

 

[PirateJack]

So are we looking at Tradition groups that span over multiple ethoses? So Domination would be good for Militarist and Xenophobic, while Harmony would be good with Spiritualist/Xenophile and so on?

 

[fizikus]

Nice mechanic! However, why not use the EU4 system, where at start each empire would get a random set of national ideas, that can be acquired by unlocking these traditions? That would help roleplaying, diversity, etc

 

[cybrxkhan]

Yes, of course.

Thank you!

 

[Rubido]

An early version of the Traditions was accidentally translated and included in the 1.4 Russian translation. Since nothing there is final I don't want this thread to descend into a bunch of arguments about the balance of numbers that are likely to change anyway, so I banned discussion of it here. You can look up the info on the Stellaris reddit if you want to check it out for yourself.

Damn them Russian hackers! They are everywhere!