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Stellaris Dev Diary #102: Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we continue talking about the Apocalypse expansion and 2.0 'Cherryh' update, on the topic of Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions.

Edict Changes (Cherryh Feature)
There will be a number of changes coming to Empire and Planetary Edicts in 2.0 'Cherryh', with the aim of both making Edicts more attractive to use, and increasing the number of useful things players have to spend their pooled Influence and Energy resources on. Firstly, we have moved most of the edicts out of the Planetary Edict category, keeping only a handful of Edicts that are either about dealing with a specific short-term problem (such as Unrest-reducing edicts) or executing a long-term or permanent effect (such as Consecrated Worlds or the new Land Clearance edict given by Mastery of Nature). Instead, a number of these edicts have become Empire Edicts.
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Empire Edicts have also been changed to work in the same way as Planetary Edicts, with an upfront cost and a duration rather than a monthly cost. The reason for this is that we wanted to ensure players always have a use for their pooled influence - an empire that is not using that influence on expanding through Starbases or Claims will be able to boost their empire in a variety of ways, including powerful resource-boosting edicts such as Production Targets and Capacity Overload. We decided to move away from the monthly cost because players tend to shy away from monthly costs that bring them into a negative balance, even if they are consistantly hitting their stockpile cap, and so ended up using Empire Edicts far less than they could actually afford to.

To make managing and renewing Edicts less of a hassle, we have added a message when an Edict (Empire or Planetary) expires.
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Campaigns (Cherryh Feature)
Campaigns are a new type of edict added in the Cherryh update. Campaigns are edicts that are unlocked by the Planetary Unification technology and cost energy instead of Influence. They typically have fairly situational effects, and are meant to be an additional use for stored energy.
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Unity Ambitions (Apocalypse Feature)
Unity Ambitions is another new type of edict added in the Apocalypse expansion. These are extremely powerful edicts that last 10 years and cost Unity to activate. You will get access to Unity Ambitions after researching the Ascension Theory society technology, and activating a Unity Ambition has a dynamic cost that is calculated in the exact same way as the cost for unlocking a new tradition (though activating an ambition will not raise the cost of future ambitions/traditions). Unity Ambitions are meant to give a use for Unity after the player has unlocked all the traditions they want to unlock, and to ensure the resource is never completely without use.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about Cherryh and the Apocalypse expansion, on the topic of Civics and Ascension Perks.
 
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Neat. When the message about an edict expiring pops up can it please have an instant renew button? Tiny QoL request but if I'm busy doing something like managing a war it would be nice if I can just one click to renew rather than have to navigate through a couple of menus.
 
Yes, it costs a full tradition worth (with increased cost from traditions and everything else that causes tradition cost), no it does not increase future cost.

A full tradition worth of unity is a lot though. Especially late game. Might I humbly suggest considering a 50% cost or even a 33% cost. I understand they're supposed to be late game -after traditions- but they sound like a cool unity concept to just put them behind that. I think people would be much happier to see ambitions more as a mid to late game system rather than a system that comes when the game is practically done.
 
What's the thinking behind the unity ambitions being an Apocalypse feature? As the issue of having no use for unity at end game is one for anyone with the base game.
 
i like the unity powered ambitions. i think i posted something similar a while back (not saying it was my idea - i think the idea is simple enough that anyone who thinks about it for a bit can come up with it)

my idea was to unlock the edict-like unity sink as a function of the individual tradition trees (for example as the finisher effect of each tree) - so you'd unlock for example the science-related ambition when you finish the discovery tree. so the unity sink would directly be related to the cultural traditions your civ developed over the course of its history and not just the same set of powers that is unlocked for everyone who reaches a specific tech.

anyway - i like the change :)
 
Recall that colonizing doesn't cost Influence any longer either

But claiming a system costs 75, so to reach a planet 3 systems away you already pay more than today. Influence is hard to come by, especially now that you have to pay the (higher) edict costs upfront.
 
While you were inventing new and exciting ways to spend influence/unity, do you also put new ways to gain these resources in machine empires which are already having difficulties earning both of these goodies.
 
Will there ever be a reason not to unlock all the traditions?

Don't think so? You sorta need all the traditions to unlock the powerful perks. So I feel the unity ambitions are something too late in the game. I get that it's a unity dump. But it's a cool unity dump :(
 
By the time I finish all of my traditions, I will have all technologies researched, so ambitions won't be helpful in any way... :(
You don't have to finish all the tradition to get the ambitions. You can take the one that are critical for you playstayle, get the tech and activate an Ambition. Imagine being in mid game with decent Scientists and expect no war in 10 years. And now you can take +20% for Science for a cost of one tradition. For me, it looks super powerful.
 
This is the perfect solution to the unity problem.
Please, consider add some special campaigns to hive minds that cost food instead energy, this would be very thematic, flavorful and would make the playstyle of hives more different and unique (like the fact that the lack of food make the playstyle of machines be very different).

Good idea.
 
Just wanna get this out here:
We need the end of the cycle in multiplayer. I mean how amazing would that be? Watching your mates burn from your nice exil planet at the end of the galaxy? Can you make it a setting at least?
 
Will there ever be a reason not to unlock all the traditions?
I would like to see more traditions that’s the seven we already have. And perhaps some mutually exclusive ones in that if you have X you can’t have Y
 
Yes, it costs a full tradition worth (with increased cost from traditions and everything else that causes tradition cost), no it does not increase future cost.

Wouldnt then just not picking many traditions be a thing? Like the boni seem to be pretty good, I could see myself focusing on those and keeping them cheap, instead of unlocking more traditions. Would strongly encourage cherry picking