Stellaris Dev Diary #55 - Unity and Traditions

[Schimmelpfennig]

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.

While I am glad individualism finally is an ethic which can compete with spiritualism (or add to it as well), I think this implementation will further increase balancing problems of ethics.

It seems totally clear to me anything spiritual plus harmony/expansion will still blow most other approaches out of the water. Also xenophobes/slavers will find some strong boosts again, while most middle of the road and reasonable approaches will take a lot more effort and totally fail in min-maxed multiplayer (...and is there any other but min-maxed multiplayer on Paradox games?)

Still fanatic spiritualism plus anything should rule and it looks like you will just create slightly more variants of playing this. It gives you more options to finetune your empire, but the variety in competitive approaches still is missing.



PS: If you want some real variety in ethics, you need to remove growth bonuses completely from ethics as growth/happiness combos alway outrun any other approach. Whatever other bonus you receive in your empire, in most cases it just matters as soon as you can work a tile.

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

^^ Surprised about the downvotes in my post above. I have tried many concepts in ethics, but at the end of the day it's a matter of maths.

No matter if I want to conquer, build federations or establish science domination: whatever ethics has superior growth, it will take you there faster. Also adding happiness to this build, and you will simply outmatch most production bonuses of any ethics and traits altogether.

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

OK. Never mind. Keep downvoting and Merry Christmas to you too.

 

[shadowclasper]

OK. Never mind. Keep downvoting and Merry Christmas to you too.

Disagreeing with friend, and complaining about downvotes always deserves to be downvoted.

 

[Jopetes]

Looking forward to it .

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

Disagreeing with friend, and complaining about downvotes always deserves to be downvoted.

I see why we are living in a post-factual world.

So seriously folks cannot see the link between growth and success in 4x strategy any more and realize whatever ethics offer advantages in this field will be more successful and become next to mandatory?

You may as well vote for earth being flat.

 

[lightvsdarkness]

Growing your empire is very important in any 4X strategy, although late intentions from developers are directed at punishing growing more and more. Which is kinda becoming. "Let's give small loosing empire more bonuses!" is fine when it's moderate, keeping the challenge and stuff. But do it too much - and you are killing game process.

P.S. People today don't like to think. They are spoiled by social networks and think they can make reality what they like just by voting and liking - like they do is social networks.

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

Growing your empire is very important in any 4X strategy, although late intentions from developers are directed at punishing growing more and more. Which is kinda becoming. "Let's give small loosing empire more bonuses!" is fine when it's moderate, keeping the challenge and stuff. But do it too much - and you are killing game process.

P.S. People today don't like to think. They are spoiled by social networks and think they can make reality what they like just by voting and liking - like they do is social networks.

At least as CIV introduced the options of building tall empires this became a viable option in 4X, and I think it's fine. But even if going tall, you still need to grow internally and work your tiles for making this effective.

Immigration can overcome some of those disadvantages you may have in growth, however immigration is something you can also put on top of a high growth if going fanatic spiritualism (adding your strong ethical conversion on top of that).

If they would add features like cultural victory to stellaris, other approaches may become more viable. I tried them all, but no game is easier than one giving you more planets, more population, more spaceports and hence - more ships.

Kudos if you can outrun a fanatic spiritualist empire on that road. I think if you are competing to a similar skilled human player, this will not be possible.

 

[shadowclasper]

I see why we are living in a post-factual world.

So seriously folks cannot see the link between growth and success in 4x strategy any more and realize whatever ethics offer advantages in this field will be more successful and become next to mandatory?

You may as well vote for earth being flat.

I didn't disagree with you on the basis of growth not being the most important factor. That is absolutely correct. What I disagreed with is that removing those growth bonuses entirely was a good idea. Instead you need different forms of growth. For example, the bonuses for science development should be exponentially stronger so that they counter act the amount of decay in spread at all, so that they very noticeably effect growth in the same way spiritualist empires have a very noticeable effect on growth.

This isn't a case of post factual or even headed thinking. it's a case of you whining when people downvoted you. People have opinions, they get to express them. Just because we're disagreeing with you does not mean our opinions are unreasoned or invalid, they simply mean that we disagree with you, and further downvotes come from folks who dislike somebody who whines about being downvoted. Don't complain about losing the debate, better reason your arguments or adjust your position to include opinions other than your own (think up counter arguments to your stance, and presenting the counter-counter arguments ahead of time, is generally an acceptable method of doing so in such a way that doesn't undermine your own position).

But to bring us back onto topic.

I agree with the general thrust of your argument. Growth based empires in Stellaris tend to be far more valuable than non-growth based empires. The more planets you have the stronger you are.

What needs to be included are ways of cultivating power that are not related to the number of planets you own. Rare resources being cultivated, making some technologies -actually- unique and more likely to happen to low pop empires. Having science focused empires force multiply their low number of planets better.

Culture/Unity growth, I think, is a good way to begin implementing these systems, but it's a thorny problem that has to be considered in it's totality. Almost everything in the game right now is related to -some- form of growth in some form, that's pretty much what all grand strategy games are about; Growth Optimization. Spreading your culture/values/resource base/economy as wide as possible in order to outlast all other opposition. What's necessary is fine tuning that now.

 

[shadowclasper]

And also, there has to be some give in this. The success in a game is dependent on size, that is not going to change. Big empires, fast growing empires, will always be stronger than small ones as they can draw more resources, store more resources, support larger fleets. A talk empire should never be able to stand against a wide empire on it's own, no more than a single state of the United States should be able to take on China or Russia by itself.

But the ability for alliances to support one another, for political capital to influence wars, would be critical. The ability to buy and sell planets, tipping points mid game giving efficiency bonuses to small, closely knit empires, the ability for alliances to bring their force to a point, to not screw up their federation fleets, to trade planets, star systems, resource stations, and individual technologies (for example, what if you could give people an individual tech from your tree, but had to devote a certain amount of science to them to give them it each month, they have to also research it. This would let protectorates get into the game faster as well)

The issue is not growth itself, or ethics, it's that the effective forms of growth are limited.

And keep in mind, no matter what, there will be suboptimal methods of play. No matter what the devs include. There can be no such thing as perfect balance, only perfect imbalance.

Edit: also keep in mind, high physical growth empires have very volatile politics. They have a hard time keeping folks interested in being friendly with them, and thus, small empires should play that to their advantage. Rather than stripping out systems and rebalancing them entirely, the game should focus on building up systems that are already implied by the existing systems.

 

[scaper12123]

I personally think the increase of potential imbalance from this new mechanic is a good thing. If anything, this allows the player to become more specialized in what they want to do and find their own preference for winning the game. The more ways they can create for the player to win, the better off this game will be because, while one particular way might be imbalanced, a few modifications can make that same way just as viable as others

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Still fanatic spiritualism plus anything should rule and it looks like you will just create slightly more variants of playing this. It gives you more options to finetune your empire, but the variety in competitive approaches still is missing.

I actually consider Fanatic Materialist / Pacifist to be the best combo in my past few games.


(Remember that I have seen things that you have not seen.)

 

[Fawks]

Kudos if you can outrun a fanatic spiritualist empire on that road. I think if you are competing to a similar skilled human player, this will not be possible.

You can. It is possible.

Go Fanatic Militarist, rush spaceports, dominate early. Never give them the chance to build up that powerhouse in the first place.

 

[jose2534]

(Remember that I have seen things that you have not seen.)

That was cruel, we are all here dying for news of the game and you tell us that, its not fair, hahaha
By the way: Marry Christmas to all of you!

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

Edit: also keep in mind, high physical growth empires have very volatile politics. They have a hard time keeping folks interested in being friendly with them, and thus, small empires should play that to their advantage. Rather than stripping out systems and rebalancing them entirely, the game should focus on building up systems that are already implied by the existing systems.

First of all, thanks for replying on topic. I consider your points as very valuable, in fact I share most of them.

- Regarding becoming volatile, you can do a lot about this when going xenophile or when using federation politics, but of course it will cost you to offset increasing border frictions - which is a mechanic working very well, in fact.

- Regarding your remarks about losing a debate: there was non. You have been the first downvoting person posting on topic. This actually is why I made that remark and this is why a lot of interaction on reddit just produces useless results. Simply up- and downvoting stuff may lead to completely erratic results.

I actually consider Fanatic Materialist / Pacifist to be the best combo in my past few games.


(Remember that I have seen things that you have not seen.)

This used to be my route since 1.1. Later on Individualism plus Materialist, lately in 1.3/1.4 I had a lot of success using Fanatic Individualism/Xenophile, based on strong immigration.

It could be the new federation mechanics make all this more viable, as prior to 1.3 I generally avoided using federations with AI. However, this also makes you highly dependent on forming the right federation at the right time of the game.

Now in 1.4 plus DLC, for the first time I am ever going Fanatic Spiritualism/Individualism, and it made me smile. I could do more than any other build, do it faster, decide in game which path to choose or to switch paths at any time I would want to.

On top of all the growth advantages, please have a look what other powers this empire has on top of this. This is a picture of Unity and their xenophobe pops, shortly after integrating into the empire. I opted for this since they were trying to throw over my vassal, now just look at happiness and ethics divergence.

Please note this is prior to finishing the hyper entertainment forum on the planet...

Spoiler: Unity Pop

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

You can. It is possible.

Go Fanatic Militarist, rush spaceports, dominate early. Never give them the chance to build up that powerhouse in the first place.

There should not be a problem doing this vs AI, however a human player may blow this to pieces. Also, it all depends on winning your initial war and having your power prediction spot on prior for this.

Of course you can initiate the snowballing fights and always stay on top of them from there on. Then again, this in fact is the only option you have versus a multitude of options Fanatic Spiritualism may give.

 

[shadowclasper]

First of all, thanks for replying on topic. I consider your points as very valuable, in fact I share most of them.

- Regarding becoming volatile, you can do a lot about this when going xenophile or when using federation politics, but of course it will cost you to offset increasing border frictions - which is a mechanic working very well, in fact.

- Regarding your remarks about losing a debate: there was non. You have been the first downvoting person posting on topic. This actually is why I made that remark and this is why a lot of interaction on reddit just produces useless results. Simply up- and downvoting stuff may lead to completely erratic results.

On your first point, yes, which is the system I feel they should expand upon, not simply remove all growth related mechanics from ethics at all.

On your second, there didn't need to be, you made a conclusion I felt was invalid, as did others, and thus we put in a polite disagreement mark. You responded to this, almost immediately, I might add, with a complaint about people down voting you, and then tried to compare me to a flat earther. All I did afterwards was outline for you the invalidity of your remarks, and you still seem blind to the fact that it's just poor sportsmanship to complain about people adding a little red X to your post without feeling the need to comment further. It's childish. If you're still not getting it after reading this, I'll just drop it. There's no more reason to clutter up the thread with a discussion on semantics and debate etiquette.

Now, onto your final point, which is using a system that is about to be completely overhauled since ethics divergence is being removed. Complaining about it being a facet still is like complaining about the fact there's a pot hole in the road while you're watching the construction crew fill it in. It cannot reasonably be used as a stick to measure any more since we have no idea what the changes are going to impart. Since ethics divergence is being removed entirely and replaced with Unity, which is an additive resource rather than something that is constantly grown overtime by outside factors, it very drastically changes how annexation and conversion of populations is going to play out. My guess is that Spiritualist Empires will likely gain a bonus to unity growth similar to other factions small percentile bonuses, thus making it more dependent upon how many unity producing structures you actually have, which grow weaker over time just as science does (their buying power decreasing as the number of pops increase), meaning that any such bonuses will be very likely to run into the same issues that science ethics bonuses gain, where they become negligible by the mid-game without serious dedication to science production structures.

All of which, of course, is conjecture based around how the current resource systems function, and the mechanics of unity as they were explained. I also suspect that unity will feedback loop much less powerfully than ethics divergence reduction did with happiness boosters (since high happiness already decreased ethics divergence considerably), since happiness has to go through a two fold filter before it starts effecting unity production. First it has to be generated by policies and a very few structures (many of which have been stated to be being switched to straight unity production rather than happiness production), which then checks the happiness of all pops of the same ethics to figure out how satisfied that entire faction is, and THEN checking to see how that checks against the average happiness of all the other factions. The more happy factions you have in balance with one another, the faster your unity production. You can't just focus fire on one faction, you gotta keep as many of them happy as possible, even one majorly unhappy faction is going to screw your unity production due to being an outlier if it follows what they're talking about. So sure, have a base line unity buff, that +5% isn't going to be doing you much good if you don't balance it against various other feedback loops and alternate policies, which will be tricky to pull off while building wide.

My one worry is actually that tri-normal ethics factions will have a harder time building wide than fanatic/normal ethics factions.

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

Now, onto your final point, which is using a system that is about to be completely overhauled since ethics divergence is being removed. Complaining about it being a facet still is like complaining about the fact there's a pot hole in the road while you're watching the construction crew fill it in. It cannot reasonably be used as a stick to measure any more since we have no idea what the changes are going to impart. Since ethics divergence is being removed entirely and replaced with Unity, which is an additive resource rather than something that is constantly grown overtime by outside factors, it very drastically changes how annexation and conversion of populations is going to play out. My guess is that Spiritualist Empires will likely gain a bonus to unity growth similar to other factions small percentile bonuses, thus making it more dependent upon how many unity producing structures you actually have, which grow weaker over time just as science does (their buying power decreasing as the number of pops increase), meaning that any such bonuses will be very likely to run into the same issues that science ethics bonuses gain, where they become negligible by the mid-game without serious dedication to science production structures.

Frankly admitted, I missed this point about Unity replacing ethics divergence and did not draw the right conclusions from that. Unity in this layout indeed may help solving some problems.

However, I think growth should be based on your technology advance in general and not on ethics. This will make gameplay a lot more diverse and balanced, also it should reflect realistic impacts of ethics and ideology. If you look closely, ethics surely can play a role in growth, but the most common factor in growth always has been technology.

Otherwise is will always be a very easy option to pick the growth-favouring ethics and offset their disadvantages by other means.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

Am I remembering right that spiritualists can't use robots w/o a happiness penalty? If so, that's one balancing factor right there.

 

[Alexthe666]

This post in one video.