Stellaris Dev Diary #129 - Tradition Updates

[Twimak]

what is happening to the buildings that used to be unlockable through traditions?

 

[Kai Lae]

Feedback I'd add is that for fanatical egalitarian that "judgement corps" and possibly workplace motivators the text would be radically opposed to the ethics of those empires. Would evaluating changing the flavor text (or bonus) depending on the empire type be possible?

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

I'll chime in as another disappointed fan. As others have pointed out, there are several profound problems with the tradition trees system:
1) If you are a halfway competent player, you will get all of the trees by later mid-game. Maybe unity production has been nerfed with the new pop system, so it's possible this has been somewhat or completely mitigated.
2) Most of the traditions add little bonuses or give a special building at best. They don't really change how your empire works on a fundamental level. An empire that picks expansion first should look different than an empire that picks prosperity. I want to feel like I need to change my playstyle if I pick a different set of trees in a game. Perhaps there should be maluses as well. And also traditions you can't take based on your ethos and civics (i.e. a lot more tradition swaps).
3) Some of these traditions don't make sense. Why is research assistance in discovery? Discovery should be about exploring new worlds, finding anomalies, surviving against space aliens, boldly going where nobody has gone before, and not...sitting in orbit around your home planet helping out with research like some underpaid undergrad.
4) Many of the trees are only important for part of the game. Expansion and discovery are particularly bad in this regard. Are these trees really traditions or just an extra tech tree that should be researched in an ideal order according to when I am in the game?

All in all, it just feels like another tech tree that has a different cost mechanism. It rarely if ever changes the way the game is played or the way my empire works. I agree that this is a missed opportunity. Y'all should have made more swaps, more expensive traditions, much more profound effects (including maluses -- there are always tradeoffs in life and this is also a common mechanic in video games, including parts of stellaris!). I'm guessing maybe this just wasn't that important for 2.2 so this is just a tweak. Perhaps a future update will make a bigger difference.

 

[DickerSandmann]

a quick question: will the inward perfection civic still trigger special traditions?

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

All in all, it just feels like another tech tree that has a different cost mechanism. It rarely if ever changes the way the game is played or the way my empire works. I agree that this is a missed opportunity.

Can be said about pretty much the entire game, really: it afraids to be different (except for announced gesalt rework, I guess); ultimately, everything plays exactly the same, safe for odd 5% bonus here and there. Understandable, 'cause it's nightmare to balance, but still kinda boring.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

Hello everyone! Today you will be able to enjoy yet another Stellaris development diary, so that the drudgery of ordinary life gets momentarily replaced with excitement and joyous anticipation. As promised we will continue by detailing the features in the free 2.2 'Le Guin' update, and the topic will be the traditions and how they have been updated to work with our new game systems.

As per usual I of course have to reiterate that we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ is coming out, and that images may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

Lets get started then! Updating the traditions was of course a necessity with the reworked economy, but a secondary objective was also to make the themes of each tradition tree be more well-defined. A tradition tree should stick to a theme or a playstyle, while also making sure the bonuses are as unique and fun as possible.

Expansion
The Expansion Traditions are themed around colonizing faster, growing a large population, and generally having a large empire.
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Domination
The Domination Traditions are no longer focused around vassals, but are instead focused around reducing crime, better workers and slaves, and better rulers and governors.
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Prosperity
The Prosperity Traditions are themed around improving planets and making specialists better.
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Harmony
The Harmony Traditions are themed around sustainability, amenities, and stability.
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Supremacy
The Supremacy Traditions are themed around domination of space. You will be able to field larger fleets and upgrade more starbases, while both of them will also be stronger.
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Diplomacy
The Diplomacy Traditions are themed around federations, the galactic market and trade.
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Discovery
The Discovery Traditions are themed around research and space exploration.
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That covers most the traditions and how they have been updated to the new system. As you saw, some of them still have some work that needs to be done. They are also still prone to change and numbers are non-final and all that.

Tune in for a short stream today where I’ll be talking some more about the traditions, and perhaps showing up some the more unique traditions for gestalt empires and purifiers.

Next week we will continue to mercilessly tease you about the upcoming update by showing some of the New Technologies, so make sure to mark it in your calendars!

Thanks for posting all of the values for our viewing pleasure

I'm actually glad to see all the +unity traditions gone, now you just get traditions based on what bonuses you want to aim for.

Very interesting that + habitability is no longer in traditions for regular empires.

 

[Masoz]

Ascension perks are really where the game changing bonuses are anyway, not traditions.

Anyway, I (still) really don't like where the diplomacy tree is at. So many inconsequential at best, useless at worst bonuses. Also, you've gotten rid of vassalization needing a perk, so why not do the same for federations? Especially since you don't even need the perk to join one, and being the creator doesn't give you squat. Market stuff seems tacked on there to make it slightly better, but it seems vastly inferior to going the prosperity tree instead.

I can only hope they are just placeholder traditions for an eventual diplomacy rework.

 

[Grand Historian]

So with the removal of the vassal stuff from Domination, will this mean that the Feudal Civic will be getting some extra stuff to compensate?

 

[DominusNovus]

It doesn't literally have to be that exact thing for your empire. You are allowed to come up with your own idea of how it would work.

But it has a literal description. You guys didn't just type up an a description with alien letters and ask us to translate it, you typed up a description of a specific type of society, one that is famous for being dystopian. You've also already got plenty of examples of specific traditions (or whole trees) being tailored to certain types of empires.

If you could just toss us a bone and come up with an alternate non-authoritarian version of that tradition, even if its the same modifiers but with different flavor text, it would go over really well.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Those are all very nice, but it is disappointing not to see a more in-depth rework of the mechanic.

Looking forwards to the day when it gets overhauled and we got some either/or exclusive choices and more swaps and such for different ethics.

 

[SweatyPenguin]

I'm wondering if a change to the system of actually acquiring traditions was considered?

I find the current way of purchasing them rather lackluster. After all they are traditions, they are something your empire should grow into through it's journey ascross the stars. An Agrarian Idyl ought not to be able to simply buy a supremacy centered tradition first thing in the game. That should be something earned through clashing with your rivals and defeating them in wars of humiliation and other. An empire proud of it's fleets should have a reason to be. And they should just as well lose said pride if they spend a 100 years at peace.

To give an example of what I envision. Say you're a peaceful civ, you keep your unrest low across the board for a period of time, you get rewarded with a harmony tradition lessens the impact of differing pop ethics for example. Or say you're a slaver/conqueror, you naturally deal with high unrest and often issue edicts to surpress it, you get rewarded with a domination tradition that let's you do it more effectively, perhaps through a policy. And so on and so forth. Ascension perks ought to recieve similar treatment in my opinion. How can I be voidborne when 95 percent of my pops are planet based. Makes no sense.

Now obviously this would require a major overhaul, but in the long run I'm convinced it would be far more rewarding than the simple "buy whatever you want every dozen years" we have now.

 

[The Founder]

What about Paradise Domes?

With only about 16 Slots it hardly served any purpose anymore.

Plus they wanted to get rid of a lot of Untiy Producing/Buffing effects, and seem to ahve done so entirely. Like Material Analysis was +Unity, but now it is -10% Market Fee.

 

[DmUa]

Could this be locked behind authoritarian ethics? It doesn't make much sense in a free society. There can still be the same effect simply by something like "Efficient Police" or "Law and Order". Just investing more in police that still operate under regular laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_frontier#Law_and_order

 

[Jean-Luc]

With only about 16 Slots it hardly served any purpose anymore.

Plus they wanted to get rid of a lot of Untiy Producing/Buffing effects, and seem to ahve done so entirely. Like Material Analysis was +Unity, but now it is -10% Market Fee.

No reason why PD has to provide unity, it could be stability or something. The machine empire equivalent is still in the game.

 

[AlphaAsh]

All in all, it just feels like another tech tree that has a different cost mechanism. It rarely if ever changes the way the game is played or the way my empire works. I agree that this is a missed opportunity. Y'all should have made more swaps, more expensive traditions, much more profound effects (including maluses -- there are always tradeoffs in life and this is also a common mechanic in video games, including parts of stellaris!). I'm guessing maybe this just wasn't that important for 2.2 so this is just a tweak. Perhaps a future update will make a bigger difference.

Pretty much sums up my disappointment as well. Honestly, this feature might as well have been left as it was, considering what little (bare minimum) effort appears to have gone into updating it. Ah well, at least tradition mods will still have a slack to pick up.

 

[The Founder]

No reason why PD has to provide unity, it could be stability or something. The machine empire equivalent is still in the game.

A buildablke Stabilty building would be inherently non-scaling. Wich makes it less usefull for Larger Planets. Wich does seem like a Focus of Harmony.
The Symbol is propably re-used for something or the other. I think i saw it used on planetside Hydroponics Farms (the building based Food Source)

If you truly miss it, you can propably mod it back into the game. But it seems it no longer serves any game purpose in the new meta. That happens. Apparently 2.2 sees the removal of a bunch of 1.5 additons.

 

[Tavior]

Hmm you are missing some of the traditions that are replaced for unique government such as purity, Synchronicity, and Adaptability/Versatility. I assume those will also get an update tradition tree?

 

[Calvax]

Hmm you are missing some of the traditions that are replaced for unique government such as purity, Synchronicity, and Adaptability/Versatility. I assume those will also get an update tradition tree?

That's basically all the stream was today. They looked at and read out the traditions for hive minds and gestalts.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

Hmm you are missing some of the traditions that are replaced for unique government such as purity, Synchronicity, and Adaptability/Versatility. I assume those will also get an update tradition tree?

They showed them off in the stream

 

[Tavior]

Hmm should have read ahead. Will go watch the stream now.

Edit: Can't find it anywhere.