Stellaris Dev Diary #315 - The Velvet Glove

[Peter Ebbesen]

Any news on the reduction of "leader types" you mentioned some time ago?

Yes.

The dev. diary states outright that next week's diary will include information about the potential leader consolidation and teases us with the image of a scientist governing a planet and having a nearly worthless rebalanced Private Mines trait (+2 Miner jobs) that'll be of little or no use to scientists governing and no use at all to those on science ships, teasing a future with lots of dead traits that'll frustrate players.... UNLESS something else changes. It certainly might.

We can hardly wait.


...I certainly expect something else to change. It would be the height of folly merely to pool all admiral/general traits and assign at random to commanders, and likewise pool governor/scientist traits assigned at random to scientists, with the result that most leaders would end up with several traits utterly useless for the job they were assigned to.

There are any number of ways of doing things smarter than this simple pooling solution while still consolidating the leaders, and I am eagerly awaiting seeing which of them they have chosen.

 

[George Fernell]

and having a nearly worthless rebalanced Private Mines trait (+2 Miner jobs)

Yes, as much as I hate leader resource production this is not the solution!

Why not just make it 5/10/15% resources from miner jobs on the planet? And make these traits exclusive to governors, it will hardly be overpowered.

Planets function fine with no governor at all, meanwhile science ships and fleets basically require leaders, so we prioritize scientists and admirals!

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Planets function fine with no governor at all, meanwhile science ships and fleets basically require leaders, so we prioritize scientists and admirals!

No we don't. Fleets do well without admirals. Scientists and governors forever!

Spoiler: Digression explaining why; Irrelevant to the topic of the thread, hence spoiler

I prioritize scientists and governors. With the exception of games where I intend early conquest, where admirals can have great impact on the outcome, I use up to 3 admirals exploring in the very early game, and later on use one admiral, the minister of defense, or two council-specced admirals if playing psionics with composer/eater/whisperers to have one spare. (And they typically aren't allowed in combat as I don't want to risk losing them.)

My games typically end up with 1-2 admirals, 7-8 scientists, and lots of governors - because I like very wide play and love the empire size reducing benefits of Champions of the Empire.

2342: Rather extreme example from a July game

I would have different priorities for MP where I don't control the flow of the game, but for SP I prefer focusing on economics and burying the enemy under an avalanche of battle steel rather than boosting a few of my fleets with admirals, if I am not engaging in early warfare where individual admirals matter a lot more.

But that's just my preference, and I suspect more players share your preference than mine.

 

[Thiend]

I would like to suggest adding a  mistrust mechanic with this update, gating rivalry declarations. Currently, the AI will relatively consistently decide it hates you before you could possibly do anything about it even with similar ethics. I use favors to buy off short term AI snap decisions that make them declare rivalry even while actually friendly, which both isn't perfect and will no longer work.

I don't think it would need to be severe, just a requirement of 10 or so mistrust and make harming relations cause it at a rate of 1/month, rivalry a rate of 3/month, and maybe humiliation goals could require some, breaking pacts could cause some, etc.

 

[Letharion]

Transport ships being proper military ships, weaker than corvettes but not completely useless in combat would be neat.

They should be balanced to have extremely low odds of overcoming actual military fleets, and still avoid enemy ships in engagements, but be able to overwhelm unupgraded starbases for instance, so if they enter in a system with one they're not just completely stuck.

Make transport modules the same “H”- type as hangars et voila you have military useful but weaker ships.

 

[mrt1212]

I would like to suggest adding a  mistrust mechanic with this update, gating rivalry declarations. Currently, the AI will relatively consistently decide it hates you before you could possibly do anything about it even with similar ethics. I use favors to buy off short term AI snap decisions that make them declare rivalry even while actually friendly, which both isn't perfect and will no longer work.

I don't think it would need to be severe, just a requirement of 10 or so mistrust and make harming relations cause it at a rate of 1/month, rivalry a rate of 3/month, and maybe humiliation goals could require some, breaking pacts could cause some, etc.

I think this would more resemble an initial modifier to relations that in effect is 'We just met you and we dont know you' that draws down into nothing over time like a lot of the other modifiers to relations that do that. I think there's a few exceptional empire types where, if they're coming at you for the first time wearing one of the other empire's xenos heads as a hat, talking about how your kind make a good skin suit to compliment...ehhhhhhhhhh...I've heard enough, this seems to be going one direction.

Or even the reverse where you're the Fanatical Somethings and despite your best efforts to blow up the envoys making first contact, some blind adventures to kill construction ships, etc etc, all so that you can pretty quickly get rivalries going...I don't really know if gating a rivalry behind a modifier where mistaken analysis of or agnosticism of intent applies.

 

[Rafss]

Make transport modules the same “H”- type as hangars et voila you have military useful but weaker ships.

Hmmm and make current Transport Ships into size 1, single Hangar slot ships. That enables early use of amoeba strikecraft, which is useless by the time you reach larger hangar slot ships.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Yes.

The dev. diary states outright that next week's diary will include information about the potential leader consolidation and teases us with the image of a scientist governing a planet and having a nearly worthless rebalanced Private Mines trait (+2 Miner jobs) that'll be of little or no use to scientists governing and no use at all to those on science ships, teasing a future with lots of dead traits that'll frustrate players.... UNLESS something else changes. It certainly might.

We can hardly wait.


...I certainly expect something else to change. It would be the height of folly merely to pool all admiral/general traits and assign at random to commanders, and likewise pool governor/scientist traits assigned at random to scientists, with the result that most leaders would end up with several traits utterly useless for the job they were assigned to.

There are any number of ways of doing things smarter than this simple pooling solution while still consolidating the leaders, and I am eagerly awaiting seeing which of them they have chosen.

I thought about Private mines adding a deposit to the leader's home planet, and the trait not being offered if the home planet already has private mines or has no mines, with an event letting the mines stay open in some capacity after leader death... ditto with all other resource traits. That way they are connected to pops and planets without being useless for anyone not on a planet (scientists, admirals, idle leaders and your ruler).

Private mines (+1 deposit giving +2 jobs on home planet. Trait requires: no deposit exists, mining districts exist. Choose what happens to the deposit on leader death.)
The good:
1. No magic free resources, including no private mines/farms on an ecumenopolis
2. No sudden unemployment/deficit when a leader dies
3. Not offered useless traits that have no effects

So, while I wanted Private mines to change, I'm a little unsure about how well this change will be implemented.

Private mines (+2 jobs on local planet)
The good:
1. No magic free resources
The bad:
1. Conditional traits that often do nothing aren't fun. Dead Traits shouldn't exist, all traits should do *something* or they feel wasted.
2. Moving leaders will cause unemployment. And cause a reshuffling of jobs
(moving that scientist could lower energy output as technicians become miners/farmers/metallurgists/etc. depending on the resource trait)
3. Adding mining jobs to Ecumenopolis, Wentwork, Ringworlds etc. that shouldn't logically have Private mines.

So, I worry this change could be worse than what we currently have, and not a good solution to the problem.

Also I don't think negative leader traits are *fun*, so I hope they get improved.

Instead of permanent random negatives I'd rather be given options with how to help a leader facing problems (via events and situations, perhaps requiring leader trait related traditions). The act of fixing the leader could incur much higher costs for a limited duration (take part in retraining exercises, investing additional funds, giving them time off, building a gene clinic, entertainers or resort to help them relax). So you can keep your treasured leaders in top condition rather than randomly throwing them in the bin when RNG hits hard.

I just had a science leader get Destructor level 2, +15 science ship alloy upkeep early on and it feels odd that the only solution is to fire them, have the idle leader icon all game or make this Destructor scientist into the leader of my empire, where their lack of concern for the wellbeing of things around them causes absolutely no problems... because that makes perfect sense.

Traits should always do *something* no matter what the leader is currently working on. It feels deeply wrong to me to have lots of leader traits doing nothing on all my leaders, especially when I have to have several backup council position leaders in the event of RNG leader death/negative traits, so much anti-fun with how they work currently and how this trait has been changed. So... I'm a little worried about the leader rework.

 

[Kyou_Fujiwara]

Hey wait, who put you in charge of that planet?

Are we going to have a local election for the planet's governor? That would be a nice way to tie politics to the civil war mechanic.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I thought about Private mines adding a deposit to the leader's home planet, and the trait not being offered if the home planet already has private mines or has no mines, with an event letting the mines stay open in some capacity after leader death... ditto with all other resource traits. That way they are connected to pops and planets without being useless for anyone not on a planet (scientists, admirals, idle leaders and your ruler).

Private mines (+1 deposit giving +2 jobs on home planet. Trait requires: no deposit exists, mining districts exist. Choose what happens to the deposit on leader death.)
The good:
1. No magic free resources, including no private mines/farms on an ecumenopolis
2. No sudden unemployment/deficit when a leader dies
3. Not offered useless traits that have no effects

Seems to me that it would still be a dead trait in all cases except when the leader's home planet happens to be one where mining takes place and the player will benefit from increasing the mining presence, which, unless the player controls only a few planets, odds are it won't. Who builds mines all over the place rather than specializing planets? (Except for the AI and new players who don't know better?p) Even Lithoids don't do that.

And that's ignoring minerals from vassal taxes, trade, or late-game matter decompressor, that for many play-styles obviates the needs for any miners at all after the early decades.

Same goes for "private energy deposits", "private farms", and whatever.

Perhaps that's going too far.

I must concede that the PDX implementation shown as well as your suggestion would give the trait a marginal use in the early game, saving you the cost of construction and upkeep of a district assuming you actually need the jobs (in whatever location), but odds are this won't be the case outside the first decade or two (and for private farms, never), and even if they do they'll become dead traits once you transition to a specialist economy.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Seems to me that it would still be a dead trait in all cases except when the leader's home planet happens to be one where mining takes place and the player will benefit from increasing the mining presence, which, unless the player controls only a few planets, odds are it won't. Who builds mines all over the place rather than specializing planets? (Except for the AI and new players who don't know better?p) Even Lithoids don't do that.

In my hypothetical "Add deposit to home planet" version of the traits:
Private mines check if miners already exist on a planet, if they do the trait can be offered (adding a deposit adding mining jobs).

So you don't get mines in stupid places. I think mining an Ecumenopolis is silly as is farming an Ecumenopolis with no hydroponics, you think mining a non-mining specialist world is silly and I can see where you're coming from as it's much less efficient... my point is that there are ways to mitigate any sillyness by checking first before offering the trait as a level-up option. So you wouldn't get Private mines everywhere but someone who has more self-supporting planets, perhaps for roleplay would get more private mines show up on those more generalist worlds, which could make them feel more alive.

I suspect Private mines adding miners to whatever planet the leader is currently governing is going to be a little silly. A wandering temporary district with all the miners going out of work the moment the scientist decides to investigate an asteroid then picking up shovels and returning to work the day the leader instantly teleports back, and mining on worlds that can't support miners or have penalties to mining output. It's not a great solution, that's why when I thought about converting it to jobs I wanted it to have a fixed location, chosen in a way intended to makes sense.

I must concede that the PDX implementation shown as well as your suggestion would give the trait a marginal use in the early game, saving you the cost of construction and upkeep of a district assuming you actually need the jobs (in whatever location), but odds are this won't be the case outside the first decade or two (and for private farms, never), and even if they do they'll become dead traits once you transition to a specialist economy.

Adding jobs also has the benefit of scaling.
+2 Jobs is +8 minerals early game, then +12 minerals, then +20 minerals with techs and modifiers.
While +32 minerals is 8 free jobs early game and eventually is a rounding error when you have +2k matter decompressor and vassal taxes.

If I could I'd love to completely rework the traits to never be "Dead" and instead to always have some value no matter what role the leader is currently performing. Something thematically appropriate to the flavour text of the trait.

Also negative traits can make entire leaders feel like dead weight, so I'd give negative traits fun interactions and events to take the RNG sting out of it.
Rehab for a Substance Abuser (if you are a normal empire) or amusing special interactions when using chemical bliss, or with civics and council positions like: Mutagenic Spas/Warden of the Baths, Pleasure Seekers/Minister of Extravagance or Pharma State/Pharmaceutical Executive where the leader is commended for their diligence in testing new and experimental treatments.

 

[ashbery76]

I don't like the idea of getting rid of governor's and just having any leader do anything,that it thematically bad.

Know your station.

 

[Masked Ermine]

The most common suggestion is "Any Tradition Finisher that unlocks a Federation Type should ALSO unlock federations if they're not already unlocked".

I still say Federations should be the third tech in a line with 'Embassy Complex', 'Embassy Super complex' with the third tech being an upgrade of the super complex to 'Federated Hub' with the tech being like 'due to our research into xenodiplomacy we can create a supernational federation with friendly peers and their attendants, this new federation needs a hub to help lubricate the diplomatic entreaties of member civilizations, building gives 1 new envoy'. Then Diplomacy tree could just be 'reduce influence cost for pacts' as a starter and 'increase Federation experience build by *insert percentage here*' as a finisher, maybe with some sort of special 'station component that increases diplo-weight' like a mini version of the diplo Mega-structure that I am failing to remember the name of.

 

[-Marauder-]

They do, to a degree. They apply their level based bonuses to the entire sector unless a local governor is overriding them.

Though with the new system we'll have some governor traits that are explicitly sector wide again. They'll be listed as either Planet or Sector as appropriate. (For example, the Private Mines trait shown above affects the planet that they are governor on.)

I'm aware that their level still affects the sector, but it was virtually always about the traits. And the traits aren't anywhere near strong enough to justify them being planet exclusive.

With the huge cut to leader numbers the simultaneous nerf to governors outside of some absurd stacking/exploits lead to governors not being worth the investment and sacrifice anymore.

 

[Millbot]

I'd also agree that federation leveling probably needs another look. It's another hurdle that keeps federations from being competitive and given how long it can take to lay the ground work to get some up and running, it can be too long.

I do think federation holdings could be a good lever; especially, if overlords, in federations, have to jump through some hoops with opportunity costs, that exist to curtail egregious double dipping. That way you can create a setup where there is an equal benefit to going all in on a federation, even as an overlord that has to make some sacrifices, over just putting together a vassal block. The trick is make sure that both have some nuances in the pros and cons.

I would also suggest that maybe the enmity tradition tree be tweaked to be your go it alone path. If you pick it, you're not going to find anyone that wants to be in a federation with you and it will be impossible to ever have loyal vassals, they'll always hate. That of course means that disloyal vassals should come with some downsides. Maybe in the case of the enmity tradition tree those downsides are worse because the tree is designed so that you're better able to stand on your own. I know that is something that some have asked for, given that the cooperative and hegemon models are in place thanks to federations and vassal blocks. We just need the solidary setup, but in a way that prevents it from being OP.

I would say that ship upkeep needs another look. It really does feel like a lever that could be added in to reign in some of the snowballing is that it probably should account for what it would cost to actually properly defend your territory. This wouldn't just be a lever that could equal things out some between tall and wide empires, but also between federations, hegemons and stand alone empires. I'd argue that an empire should see an increase in ship upkeep each time they get another system because that is more territory that you have to defend. Same deal for each vassal they get, either they expect you to actually defend them or you need more resources to prevent them from getting their independence back. This means there is an actual cost for empires when they undertake expansion in a certain way. So a tall empire might not have as many systems to exploit for resources, but they are also spending less resources on securing their systems against others taking their resources, where the wide empire might have more systems to get resources from, but they do have to defend those systems. Similar deal with the overlord, they might have vassals to exploit, but it's not instantly free if they manage to get a tributary that is still loyal (as mentioned disloyal vassals should have downsides and part of that should be that they find ways to evade their overlord's taxes). Where federations will have cheaper ship upkeep because each member is expected to pull it's fair share. So they are only paying an upkeep cost that accounts for the systems they control and not the systems of other members. This also is a good way to weaken the cheese strategy of "I'll grab a good choke point and load it down with thousands of ships and it's good enough to defend my 100 system empire from being invaded by anyone that doesn't have jump drives or the quantum catapult. Beef up the starbase there. Then build a some separate doomstacks for actual invasion" You could still do it, but that's going to be a pricy and maybe given the smaller empires something they can exploit or at least slow down your ability to snowball from there.

 

[wildhuntblue]

In my hypothetical "Add deposit to home planet" version of the traits:
Private mines check if miners already exist on a planet, if they do the trait can be offered (adding a deposit adding mining jobs).

So you don't get mines in stupid places. I think mining an Ecumenopolis is silly as is farming an Ecumenopolis with no hydroponics, you think mining a non-mining specialist world is silly and I can see where you're coming from as it's much less efficient... my point is that there are ways to mitigate any sillyness by checking first before offering the trait as a level-up option. So you wouldn't get Private mines everywhere but someone who has more self-supporting planets, perhaps for roleplay would get more private mines show up on those more generalist worlds, which could make them feel more alive.

I suspect Private mines adding miners to whatever planet the leader is currently governing is going to be a little silly. A wandering temporary district with all the miners going out of work the moment the scientist decides to investigate an asteroid then picking up shovels and returning to work the day the leader instantly teleports back, and mining on worlds that can't support miners or have penalties to mining output. It's not a great solution, that's why when I thought about converting it to jobs I wanted it to have a fixed location, chosen in a way intended to makes sense.


Adding jobs also has the benefit of scaling.
+2 Jobs is +8 minerals early game, then +12 minerals, then +20 minerals with techs and modifiers.
While +32 minerals is 8 free jobs early game and eventually is a rounding error when you have +2k matter decompressor and vassal taxes.

If I could I'd love to completely rework the traits to never be "Dead" and instead to always have some value no matter what role the leader is currently performing. Something thematically appropriate to the flavour text of the trait.

Also negative traits can make entire leaders feel like dead weight, so I'd give negative traits fun interactions and events to take the RNG sting out of it.
Rehab for a Substance Abuser (if you are a normal empire) or amusing special interactions when using chemical bliss, or with civics and council positions like: Mutagenic Spas/Warden of the Baths, Pleasure Seekers/Minister of Extravagance or Pharma State/Pharmaceutical Executive where the leader is commended for their diligence in testing new and experimental treatments.

It is okay for a couple of mining jobs to exist on a non-mining planet. It is okay if a trait isn't perfectly optimized for a planet's designation. You'll still get free jobs. And you'll have a choice whether or not to take that trait when you hire or level up a leader. If you don't want it, don't take it.

Plenty of events in-game give extra jobs or bonuses to planets which aren't optimized for those jobs or bonuses. That's how the game has always worked, and how many games work. It is okay.

If you are utilizing a scientist as a governor, and giving them planet and sector bonus traits, I doubt you'll be willing to relinquish an entire planet's and sector's bonuses for a simple anomaly investigation. If you did that, that wouldn't be a perfectly optimized decision, after all.

I appreciate that playing Stellaris is especially satisfying when lining up the synergies, but part of the challenge and thrill of the game is working to achieve that. That calls for making decisions and investments--such as traits or leader placements--which have opportunity cost, short-term impacts, and long-term impacts. To you, those extra job traits might be the least useful trait options--options you will never, ever take. That's fine. Others might use them situationally, or figure out a way to use them optimally. That's fine, too.

On a side note, I always find it fascinating to watch how, whenever new content is released, people complain about how something is "worthless," and then two weeks later, people say that thing is actually very useful in many situations, especially when you build for it. ‍

 

[CocoCincinnati]

I'm really excited about these changes, thank you for addressing this issue. I especially like to see some AI types much more likely to choose the diplomacy tradition making them more likely to form federations. Will they also be more likely to go after traditions for specialized federations as well? Maybe the seekers and traders at least would be much more likely to after holy covenant and trade league respectively.

I do have one idea for federations. One big limiting factor for me is that in almost every case, I want a specialized federation instead of just the basic one. I know you can change federation types but there is a cost involved. What if, you had one free change from the basic federation to one of the specialized ones. This could only happen once and could only happen from the basic type to a specialized type. This would allow the player more freedom to go ahead and form a federation instead of waiting until they fill out the required tradition tree and perhaps losing that perspective member to someone else.

 

[Nevars]

I'm really excited about these changes, thank you for addressing this issue. I especially like to see some AI types much more likely to choose the diplomacy tradition making them more likely to form federations. Will they also be more likely to go after traditions for specialized federations as well? Maybe the seekers and traders at least would be much more likely to after holy covenant and trade league respectively.

I do have one idea for federations. One big limiting factor for me is that in almost every case, I want a specialized federation instead of just the basic one. I know you can change federation types but there is a cost involved. What if, you had one free change from the basic federation to one of the specialized ones. This could only happen once and could only happen from the basic type to a specialized type. This would allow the player more freedom to go ahead and form a federation instead of waiting until they fill out the required tradition tree and perhaps losing that perspective member to someone else.

Outside of perhap non-megacorp trade build, do people actually choosing specialized federation that is outside of their ethic thus needing to wait for another tradition before they can forming one?

In fact, my favorite federation is hegemon and I never need to take domination cuz being authoritarian already fulfilled the requirement.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

Outside of perhap non-megacorp trade build, do people actually choosing specialized federation that is outside of their ethic thus needing to wait for another tradition before they can forming one?

In fact, my favorite federation is hegemon and I never need to take domination cuz being authoritarian already fulfilled the requirement.

Yes that is an excellent point, it is really only the Trade League that has this problem. It is the one I like the most and I don't own mega corp so I have to either pick civics that I don't want or wait until I fill out the mercantile tree. Maybe an easy change is to make trade league available to xenophiles.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

It is okay for a couple of mining jobs to exist on a non-mining planet. It is okay if a trait isn't perfectly optimized for a planet's designation. You'll still get free jobs. And you'll have a choice whether or not to take that trait when you hire or level up a leader. If you don't want it, don't take it.

Plenty of events in-game give extra jobs or bonuses to planets which aren't optimized for those jobs or bonuses. That's how the game has always worked, and how many games work. It is okay.

If you are utilizing a scientist as a governor, and giving them planet and sector bonus traits, I doubt you'll be willing to relinquish an entire planet's and sector's bonuses for a simple anomaly investigation. If you did that, that wouldn't be a perfectly optimized decision, after all.

I appreciate that playing Stellaris is especially satisfying when lining up the synergies, but part of the challenge and thrill of the game is working to achieve that. That calls for making decisions and investments--such as traits or leader placements--which have opportunity cost, short-term impacts, and long-term impacts. To you, those extra job traits might be the least useful trait options--options you will never, ever take. That's fine. Others might use them situationally, or figure out a way to use them optimally. That's fine, too.

On a side note, I always find it fascinating to watch how, whenever new content is released, people complain about how something is "worthless," and then two weeks later, people say that thing is actually very useful in many situations, especially when you build for it. ‍

Leaders have been a bit all over the place since the introduction of envoys as blank pseudo-leaders, and the last big rework that added a lot of traits that don't do anything half the time at the same time as cutting leader numbers dramatically. I don't think it flows very well to have my scientist assisting research and avoiding all the assist research traits so that I can have a backup council leader ready, or skipping paragons because half their traits will be non-functional no matter where I place them as they have the wrong scope.

It seems logical to add constructive feedback and suggestions for how to improve things as and when we have information on what's changing, and a bit pointless to discuss something that's done and dusted and will never change, much better to talk about something before it's final in the hope of sparking fruitful debates.

Also, free resources in any form is far from "worthless", instead I find the free resource traits a little too powerful early, dull and disconnected from the rest of the game. I would never have added lots of generic 'free stuff' traits for several reasons, but now that they're here I don't like content being deleted as there's a lot that's been cut from the game already in previous patches, and most of those losses made me and a lot of other people quite sad at the time. So I try to consider ways of reworking features to make them fit the game better, even if I personally hate them I'd rather improve than cut content.

Private mines is one of those traits where the theme of it highlights flaws in the current economic simulation:

Spoiler: Private industry and the internal market

Private industry doesn't really exist, so it's a bit sad to have any references to it.
1. Internal market is fixed size, identical for all empires
2. Market prices snap back to default levels
3. Market prices tending towards max/min values in an unstable equilibrium
4. No visual indication of any non-state activities (because they don't exist), or price trends (because they don't exist)
5. No interaction with Trade value, so having more trade doesn't let you buy more stuff... you'll just push the prices up faster
6. Inconsistent resource collection mechanics (why is TV the only thing we collect manually? Why don't we need routes to other empires?)

And the future change has quirks:

Spoiler: Relocating leaders

Most leaders stay put doing one task... almost forever if there's no reason to move them. So obviously if you never move a leader you'll never see any problems.

But I do move leaders around sometimes. I have the nearest science leaders assisting research head over to complete anomalies that pop up (precursor insight usually) or to collect debris and then head home. On elections a leader will get unassigned when becoming the ruler. I train up governors on my first few worlds then move them over to new sectors to pass on their higher level bonuses to more planets when expanding beyond my core sector.

My deposit suggestion for the trait was a way for a Private mine to have a fixed physical location when leaders are mobile. A way to avoid them appearing to be part of the travelling entourage of a leader, setting up shop in rather odd locations.

My issue with the private mine trait change, (from a single picture in the dev diary) is that the new mines will wander around, potentially moving to worlds that cannot support mining only to randomly vanish when the leader moves or gets elected. And getting offered the trait when all planets already have a governor will prevent it from ever doing anything. It's not terrible, you could think of it as a bit of a local Gold-rush that follows the leader around. The leader was once successful and now has a cult following. But it will be annoying for any traits give specialist jobs, but that's more because demotion times are annoying.

I just personally hate how most of the new traits can end up doing nothing when the same personality traits or core defining feature of a leader could easily have been designed to apply no matter the role, or be automatically swapped to appropriate equivalents when changing leader roles. (Like deposits automatically change when terraforming).
e.g. a mineral trait adding miners when governing, adding minerals from mining when ruling, adding chance to find minerals when surveying, adding trade value from miners or boosting branch office output when acting as a diplomat etc. Just make sure it does something appropriate whatever the leader is currently doing.

It's worst with paragons, being offered a higher level leader with a random mix of traits when half aren't going to be functional no matter what role you put them in feels bad to me. There's a lot about leaders that makes me confused as to why it was designed that way... and it makes me sad every time I turn down a useless Paragon or have a leader doing nothing more than providing their skill level bonus despite having an interesting character based on their eclectic mix of traits.