Stellaris Dev Diary #129 - Tradition Updates

[Ball]

Some of these descriptions seem to imply some cultural values which are both unnecessary for the bonus being described and can wear on the willful suspension of disbelief given the fact that you're generally expected to take all of them by the end if you're making more or less 'correct decisions'. (Or has that changed?)

For example, there are a lot more ways than reinventing Judge Dredd to make combating crime more efficient, and I'd fathom that there are many empires interested in doing so that would like not to embrace dystopian authoritarianism in order to accomplish the task.

A similar argument can be made against worshiping the rich in prosperity. Fanatical egalitarians are supposed to feel how about that? It's not like fanatical egalitarians are opposed to the concept of 'prosperity', and the assumption that inequality leads to more prosperity is... well, I'm not sure how else to say it: it's derivative of plutocratic propaganda.

None of this would be as large an issue without the implicit expectation that you'll get all the traditions by the endgame; having strong ideological themes in each of these trees would make a lot more sense if you didn't cap out each with the adoption and five picks; to throw an opposite example out there, if there were ways to sink 42 points all into one tree while still getting all 7 ascension perks, that would make any cultural hang-up far less relevant because you could simply avoid all the dissonant traditions. But that is very much not how traditions are designed.

As it stands, traditions are in a sort of gray area between being addressed to more or less universal concerns (all empires will want to expand, explore, have a stronger military, and generally work more efficiently and have more stuff) and being about a 'play style'. The effect of traditions on play styles, such as they are (ascension perks, ethics, and civics are much more definitive), come from the order of picks rather than what you've picked by the end; the before and after snapshot is the same. As such, it seems reasonable that traditions should reflect a universal experience of space-faring civilizations (even if that experience is not always shared in the same order, it is still shared). Ethics and civics and ascension perks are still there to reflect the departures an empire can take from the universal experience.

Currently, the tradition system leaves much to be desired, and it seems in the future it will still leave much to be desired. Which is fine, not everything in the game has to be amazing. The fact that ethics, civics, and ascension perks exist makes traditions somewhat redundant from the perspective of flavor and empire differentiation anyway.

 

[Alluvium]

Looks like administrative cap is going to heavily favor tall empires that expand with lots of vassals.

 

[mrc92]

The changes seem great.

However this doesn't change the fact that you end up unlocking all of them for the Ascension perks.

This way it feels repetitive and players tend to follow a determined line of traditions, knowing you'll choose them all.

Why not add more traditions trees so that you can increase the depth of empire personalization? Even lock some traditions to Ethics

 

[Jarmenmoose]

I saw an admiral, governor, and leader level cap increase tradition, but will there be one for scientists?

 

[LeSingeAffame]

I saw an admiral, governor, and leader level cap increase tradition, but will there be one for scientists?

Maybe one in civics?

 

[Piotrzeci]

Does harmony increase stability by 5% or 5pp?

 

[The Founder]

think a tradition/perk that let you build defense platforms around planets/habitats would be really cool and useful. Then you could have properly fortified systems with many layers of defense. Maybe a starbase module that blocks jump drives within a certain number of jumps too? Read about the solar system in warhammer 40k and you'll know what im talking about!

That will not happen. Wiz talked about that en detail during the reworks leading up to 2.0. Such Defenses will either be:
- to weak to mater
- too strong to be overcome once you spam them
with very little room in between.

The current approach with Starbases (1 per System) surrounded by a limited (balanceable) amount of Defense platform is about the only one that worked in Stellaris since 1.0

Have you solved the problem of "getting to pick them all" ?

It is a lot harder without all those Tradition Unlocks to give you more Unity. But you really need to be a bit more specific. Not going to grab them all in what timeframe?
If I let the game run for 1000 ingame years I am sure I will still get them all. But that seems like a unreasoable timeframe.

Read the flavour texts on the traditions. You'll see. It might have been there already but I don't remember atleast.

I can still not make out any Blade Runner Reference.

The only new one is the "Justice Corps", wich is a obvious reference to the Judge Dredd universe.

I saw an admiral, governor, and leader level cap increase tradition, but will there be one for scientists?

Maybe one in civics?

Pretty sure we do not have one right now. Indeed I do not think I ever saw one since the whole Leader Level Cap System has been added to the game.

Of course we have to see if Modifiers like the Selective Bloodlines, Eye for Talent and Taleneted Trait still do their same thing. There is now a dedicated Ruler Stratum on the planets and their Function there might be affected by those modifiers from now on.

Does harmony increase stability by 5% or 5pp?

It clearly says 5% for me. No idea how you would even know what happiness those 5 Political Power would have?

 

[Piotrzeci]

It clearly says 5% for me. No idea how you would even know what happiness those 5 Political Power would have?

Pp stands for percentage points.

 

[The Founder]

Pp stands for percentage points.

Oh, I used it for "Political Power", that new Pop stat.

I think in that case it means 5 percent Points, like it does right now with Happiness.

 

[FleetingRain]

I suggest in the future that Trees have two tiers, each with five traditions, Tier 2 needing Tier 1 in the same Tree to be unlocked, and each completed Tier giving one Ascension Perk.

This way the Trees can be further specialized, and players can choose between being jack-of-all-trades (say, getting all seven Tier 1s) or specializing in 3 Trees.

 

[Pale Blue]

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

Edit: Can't find it anywhere.

It is the Cities Skyline stream, at like 1 hour 15 min it becomes the stellaris stream, afterwards it is a colonizing mars stream.

I have some more questions for the stuff shown in the stream.
1. Does the reduced star base build cost and increased damage of the supremqcy tradition affect the build cost/damage of the defense platforms that wield the majority of weapons?
2. It looks like the finishing bonus for domination and syncronity is now the same. Both give +1 monthly influence.
I would prefer if domination would be changed to help you get more faction influence, eg. by cheaper suppressing of unwanted factions or cheaper edicts/planetary decisions. In my opinion normal empires should get most influence by factions while gestalts already have a low influence income so it would be nice if their +1 finisher stays.
3. Is Purity now gone completely? I didn't see it for the exterminator and hive. I actually liked the increased resource gain from purging. What happened to the purging gains unity for purifiers, is it now enabled by default like swarms gain food and robots energy for purging without the need for a special tradition?

 

[Zabik]

I am personally concerned about how supremacy got buffed. It was a must have in 2.1. But in 2.2 it gets all the possible modifiers for ships in it, making it near to op. It is hard to judge yet, since the game is not out, but it will mostly result in multiplayer getting swarmed by supremacy ascension even more, shifting it from 2nd-3rd pick, to 1st-2nd pick

 

[Nuboed]

Woah it's soo goood!
But me need a skeleton race in october)
It's will be epic spookyctober))

 

[Verx90]

just to be sure, you guys remember that 2.2 is not a patch that as the core about tradition rework right?

 

[TheGrinningMan]

With traditions being dynamic, I'd argue some of them -- most prominently the controversial "Judge Dredd" one -- should have dynamic ethos-based descriptions, even if the effects are the same for most empires who don't have "game-changer" civics.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Have you fixed the unswappable tradition icon bug?

 

[MAHak]

Read the flavour texts on the traditions. You'll see. It might have been there already but I don't remember atleast.

It has been there for a while, I think it used to be the descriptive text for the 'new worlds protocol' tech, back when it was not already researched upon starting a game and traditions were just ideas on Paradox's drawing board.

 

[ArmokGoB]

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.

I feel like anything that gives permenant buffs to fleet strength becomes the meta because the entire game is focused on domination. I would very much like to see different victory conditions so that every game doesn’t boil down to “Get big stick, hit neighbors with big stick.”

 

[Epher]

day you will be able to enjoy yet another Stellaris development diary, so that the drudgery of ordinary life

moving pops around one at a time

gets momentarily replaced with excitement and joyous anticipation

 

[HAL 8000]

"Workplace Motivators"
GATHER YOUR TOOLS AND MARCH TO WORK, PRAISE OUR GLORIOUS LEADER!