Stellaris Dev Diary #219 - Selectable Traditions

[evilcat]

If your going to make defense a tradition, are you going to buff defense stations? The time it takes to actually fill out the slots is too long since it builds the platforms one by one. The platforms themselves are weak. We can build titans but we can't build a damn battleship with no engines.

The time it takes to upgrade a station and fill out its platform slots, I can build enough corvettes to roll over it in seconds.

It fits my experience with defensive platforms, but maybe i have never trully specced into DF.

Platforms have little HP so they fall fast. Really fast. Generally there could be more mods to DP HP each time you spec into defence stations. This also apply to Eternal Vigiliance or this ascension perk nobody takes. Need more HP. At worst it will give time for rest of the fleet to come 3rd day at dawn.
Unlike fleets there are no one button to rebuild all my stations. So rebuilding lost DP could be tedious.
You build them one by one. 6 Battleship no problem, 6 DP which are litterally spread outside dock no way fella.
Battlestations (main unit) have problem with corvette, since they use medium weapons which are not good against neither BS or mass corvettas. At least you can equip spacecrafts (fighters) which are universal and have range, but...
Can we have megacannons and lances as our starbase modules?
Or equip Starbase with anticorvetta systems (autocannons or small gund). In early game there is not many cruisers and corvette swarm is riduculous powerful against space stations. Cant touch this.

 

[Blayze]

Repeatable traditions is unlikely to be a thing.

That's a pity; hopefully the Unity changes will make it the sort of resource you always want more of, no matter what point in the game you're at.

I was thinking more "some of the existing repeatable techs are now bought with Unity" than anything else, though, perhaps with specific ones unlocked by finishing specific Tradition trees or taking specific Ascension Perks, so as to further differentiate and specialise different empires.

For example, if you only unlocked Fortified Core Layers and Synchronised Firing Patterns if you finished the Unyielding tree or took either Grasp the Void or Eternal Vigilance.

 

[HFY]

Greetings and salutations space fans!

Today we’re back with another dev diary, and the topic at hand is the feature improvements coming to the Traditions system. Back in dev diary 214 when we announced the Lem Update and the Custodians Initiative, we also talked about how to make Selectable Traditions.

Attn. This post has been updated with some new changes following feedback from the community.

Selecting your Traditions
We know there’s been mods that have extended the amounts of traditions for some time now, and we also know that it's something that parts of the community have been asking for as well. For us, Traditions have always been an important part of customizing and specializing your Empire during play, and although we of course like giving players more customization options, we also need to maintain a balance. We didn’t simply want to keep adding new traditions without having the UI support it well, and we didn’t also want to give players too many options right away, which can lead to Choice Overload. We felt like it was a good time to review the Traditions system, because we wanted to add a few more Tradition Trees, and open up the avenue for doing more of that in the future, where it makes sense.

Let’s dive into the changes, and keep in mind that nothing is final and there’s missing art. Feedback is still very welcome though.

View attachment 747393​

This looks fantastic. The interface and script simplification should make it much easier to extend Traditions by modding, and may allow Tradition-adding mods to play nice with each other, which is really great news.

Some of the Tradition Trees, that were previously swaps of other trees (like Adaptability being a swap of Diplomacy), are now their own trees again. This means that Adaptability, for example, is now available to all non-machine empires. Synchronicity is still mutually exclusive with Harmony (one will appear if you are a gestalt empire, the other if you are a regular one). Versatility is available to all machine empires.

How many trees are available to default Hive Mind and Machine Intelligence empires?

Domination

• Judgment Corps: no longer increases crime prevention, but rather makes your Enforcers produce 1 Unity.
• Privy Council: now also increases Edict Cap by +1
• Finisher: no longer provides +1 monthly influence, but rather increases admin cap by 20%. This applies to all types of empires.

Little bit better, but still feels weak, and far too many of these effects become negligible by midgame.

- Blockers aren't a problem after the early game. Usually I will terraform the planet which makes them entirely moot.

- Leader levels cap out mid-game and these Tradition boosts are often wasted, especially if I take the +2 Ascension Perk.

- Judgement Corps was one of the reasons I used to take Domination -- when a Criminal Syndicate spawned nearby
The only thing I see here worth taking is the +20% admin cap, and that's not always worthwhile.

Suggestions: -10% upkeep (one for workers, one for specialists); Martial Law decision spawns +3 more Soldier jobs (niche but makes that decision more useful when invading large planets); Administrators reduce Crime by -5

Diplomacy

• Open Markets replaced with Diplomatic Networking: Embassy pacts now produce 3 Unity
• Secure Shipping replaced with Eminent Diplomats: Diplomatic Acceptance increased by +5, and your Envoys that are Improving Relations have a 1% chance per month to gain a Favor from the target empire.
• Insider Trading replaced with Trust or Bust: Trust Cap +50, Trust Growth +33%
• Finisher: no longer increases Trust Cap or Trust Growth, but rather increases Diplomatic Weight by +10% and +1 Envoy.

This looks good.

Harmony

• Mind and Body: now also increases Leader Skill Cap by +1
• Kinship: effect on demotion time buffed from -50% to -75%
• Bulwark of Harmony moved to Unyielding, replaced with Harmonious Directives: +1 Edict Cap

Kinship + Shared Burdens (-25%) = 0 time demotion? Cool.

It used to net out to 5% time demotion.

Supremacy

• Adoption: no longer increases Starbase Cap by +2, but instead increases Naval Cap by +20
• The Great Game: old effects removed, now increases damage done to Starbases by +20%

Starbase Cap was valuable even in the mid-game, +20 naval cap is not. What's the thinking behind this change?

Not really sold on the new Great Game effect, because by the time I'm finishing my 2nd or 3rd Tradition usually I have L-slot weapons which "solve" enemy starbases. What's the thinking here, too?

Overall the new policies are definitely worth the tree so I'm going to pick it anyway, but I'm curious what motivated these alterations.

Prosperity

• Finisher: no longer provides Merchant Jobs per Pops on a planet, but rather increases Stability by +5 and Pop Resource Output by +5%. This applies to all types of empires.

Hmm, I do see the value in generalizing the tree, but the jobs-per-pop did have some benefits on absurdly high-population colonies (e.g. a Ringworld with tons of "unemployed" utopian pops who were productive and had a bunch of their CG supported by the Merchant jobs they created just by existing).

Will there be a way to get back those jobs-per-pop Merchants? Perhaps through an AP?

New Tradition Trees
We are adding 3 new Tradition Trees to the game: Mercantile, Unyielding and Subterfuge. Subterfuge is currently unlocked by Nemesis, Unyielding is unlocked by Apocalypse, and Mercantile (originally supposed to be unlocked by Megacorp) is available to everyone. The reason being that we wanted to see how it felt to have the Trade Policies unlocked through this tree. It will therefore no longer be possible to convert Trade Value into Energy + Consumer Goods/Unity unless you have the (3) Adaptive Economic Policies tradition.

View attachment 747731​

Mercantile (Free)

• Adopt: Starbase Collection Range +1, Trade Protection +5
• (1) Trickle Up Economics: Clerks provide an additional +1 Trade Value
• (2) Commercial Enterprises: Commercial Zones Building now provides 1 Merchant Job. Also applies to Commercial Districts for Ring Worlds and Habitats.
• (3) Adaptive Economic Policies: Can convert parts of their Trade Value into Unity or Consumer Goods.
• (3) (swap) Federal Trade Fleets: Tradition swap for empires that are members of a Trade League Federation. Increases fleet contribution to the federation fleet by +50%, similar to Entente Coordination.
• (4) Marketplace of Better Ideas: increases trade value by +10%
• (5) Insider Trading: moved from Diplomacy Traditions, -10% Market Fee
• Finisher: increases trade value by +10%

I'd really like it if the Adoption benefit were to unlock the Unity / CG trade policies. You pay opportunity costs to lock in the tree, you're committed to focusing on trade just by unlocking the tree, let the early game benefit happen immediately if you choose this Tradition over Expansion.

Trickle Up is a bad name but a good mechanic. Easy enough to mod the name I guess.

Commercial Enterprises looks amazing for Trade Habitats, and I might actually use the Commercial Zones building on planets. Kudos, this is a great boost.

The +1 range for all upgraded stations could be problematic, since oftentimes I don't want any collection outside of my one big Gateway-boosted capital-adjacent trade citadel. Could you move the Collection Range +1 to something else? Perhaps give Hyperlane Registrar a +2 range increase instead? Or +2 range from the Offworld Trading building (and remove the Hyperlane Registrar entirely)?

Marketplace of Better Ideas: sensible chuckles aside, this name will cause confusion when someone asks about "that ideas marketplace thing" in the forum. Do yourself a favor and pick an unambiguous name. The effect is solid.

The rest of the tree is solid.

View attachment 747397​

Unyielding (added to Apocalypse)

• Adoption: Starbase Cap +2 and Starbase Upgrade Speed +50%
• (1) Resistance is Frugal: Stronghold buildings now produce 3 Unity and Defense Army Health is increased by +33%
• (2) Never Surrender: reduces Planet Bombardment Damage by -25%, war exhaustion by -25% and increases hostile claim costs by +25%
• (3) Bulwark of Harmony: moved from Harmony Traditions, effects are as before
• (4) Fortress Doctrine: increases the Hit Points and Damage of Starbases and Defensive Platforms by 33%, and reduces the upkeep cost of starbases by -20%
• (5) Defense in Depth: increases Starbase Cap by +2 and reduces Starbase upgrade cost by -50%. In addition, owners of Nemesis will also increase Hostile Operation Difficulty by +4 for the Sabotage Starbase Operation.
• Finisher: Max Defensive Platforms +50%

Everything here looks good EXCEPT the extra Defense Platforms, which are already too numerous and horrible in terms of UX. Seriously, upgrading means missing notifications, since they crowd out the top bar AND overwhelm audio alerts. Adding 50% more horrible is, of course, more horrible.

Suggestion: finisher adds +50% hull and armor to all Defense Platforms.

Also the name "Resistance Is Frugal" should relate to frugality, which it does not. Consider choosing a more descriptive name? "United We Stand" for example.

View attachment 747398​

Subterfuge (added to Nemesis)

• Adoption: +1 Codebreaking
• (1) Information Security: +1 Encryption
• (2) Operational Security: +1 Codebreaking, +2 Operation Skill
• (3) Non-Disclosure Agreements: Hostile Operation Difficulty is +1, and Hostile Operation Cost and Upkeep is increased by +50%
• (4) Double Agents: Whenever a Hostile Operation targeting us fails, we gain 10 Intel on the offending empire
• (5) Shadow Recruits: increases Infiltration Speed by +50%
• Finisher: Successful Operations refund half of their cost on Infiltration Level

Double Agents is great, both as a mechanic as as UX -- knowing how often my enemies are trying (and failing) will inform me as a player about the expected frequency of Espionage.

Shadow Recruits is nice, really makes doing espionage more accessible, given how long it takes to get infiltration up to a reasonable point when you first meet a valid target. Suggest moving it up the tree so I can actually start doing espionage earlier. This mechanic would be a better Adoption effect.

The +1 from adoption and Info Security are weak and uninspired. Suggest boosting or replacing those.

Suggestion: Let me see information about when someone fails an op in a foreign empire, either one I've infiltrated or even just one where I have an Envoy. Replace one of the +1 effects with that, and move the +1 to stack with another effect.

Suggestion: Let me protect my Federation allies somehow, perhaps by infiltrating them and then my infiltration can block foreign operations -- and every time I block one, I get a Favor.


Overall, I see a lot of value in this update.

Thanks for listening, hope my feedback helps!

 

[Balesir]

I had originally thought about changing the conversion rates (+0.05x for example) from Trade Value, but that is also essentially just a more convoluted way of just giving you more Trade Value instead. I agree that double-dipping in the +10% Trade Value is boring, but it we had to default to that when some ideas we had fell through. We kind of ran out of time to really do anything more involved there.

Maybe there could be a buff to trade protection range - a boost to that would be pretty handy and is effectively hard-capped at number of weapon slots now.

That is unlikely to change as it hard for us to change at this point due to localization. Some effects we can change without requiring new localiztion, while others we cannot easily change.

In addition we're also considering buffing Domination's Colonial Viceroys to give +0.50 monthly influence.

Could it not even be a % boost to unity? That would add scaling easily, except that it would depend heavily on galaxy size/number of empires. The complex but best option would be a maximum % boost divided by total number of (other) empires in the game, maybe?

 

[Casko]

That Domination loosing its influence boost sure is sad thing and a nerf it did not need in my mind, as this finisher was what made it most useful in particular when playing a feudal empire and you were at some point constantly integrating vassals and thus locking your influence gain at near zero without it. too bad I suppose. :/

 

[Weyird]

There are two +10% trade output traditions. Here's an idea for the 2nd one; make trade pacts have no influence costs.
For that matter, why not let there be a tradition in discovery that lets research pacts have no influence cost?
And adaptability could make migration treaties have no influence cost?

 

[lagi08]

Is Unyielding now Nemesis exclusive or not? It says so at one point but the decription of one of the perks with "nemesis players get...." which hints the tradition itsel is not.
Clarification please.


I as ME player without nemesis look at the tradition trees and somehow think "Well... does not look like I have a new tree to pick because I dont do trade (I guess gestalts cannot pick Mercantile) and the two other traditions are not available " *shrug*

Would have been cool if there was another new free tradition which is specifically available to gestalts. (with Hive/Machine Swaps)

 

[Bremen]

More trees is definitely good, and I'm glad to see this change. That said, I'll add my voice to saying that having lots more is better than more.

In addition, and I realize it's probably a bit late to make major changes, but something from the blog struck me: "Traditions have always been an important part of customizing and specializing your Empire during play." You see... I never felt like this is true, because the tradition trees don't really specialize an empire; instead they're full of bonuses that are about equally useful for everyone. The choice between Harmony and Prosperity never felt like something that changed my empire, it felt like the choice between two sets of generic bonuses where I have to decide which is slightly more useful. I thought that choice was made deliberately for balance reasons, to be honest.

If you actually do want to award specialization, and it's not too late to shuffle things around, how about designing trees around that? Like, make a tree for leaders and call it Meritocracy or something. Give it the leader xp bonus from discovery, the leader lifespan from harmony, and the level cap bonuses from Discovery/Domination. Invent a few more - maybe new leaders are hired at level 3, and a finisher that they get an additional trait specific to their type or something, and you've got a tree that rewards specialization.

Similarly, make choices matter. Expansion and Discovery are already sort of rivals in that they both have bonuses that fall off quickly - Expansion with its discounted claims and extra pop on new colonies, Discovery with its bonuses to surveying. I'd suggest playing that up and setting it up as a choice you make at the start of your game - Expansion could give bonuses to the colonist job, Discovery could have a tradition that gives you x months of production when you survey a world with resource production, etc. Now empires are getting some variety right out of the gate. If you also take the big persistent bonuses (like 10% pop growth and +1 district for expansion, +10% research and +1 research alternative from Discovery) out and move them to other trees, then there's little reason to come back to the one you skipped, making it a one and done choice.

Meanwhile if Discovery gets split up so the surveying bonuses and science bonuses are different trees, and Expansion into, well, expansion and economic bonuses, it becomes more reasonable to specialize in research or big planets later.

 

[horgoz]

The edict cap +1 and +10% pop output for Domination certainly gives it a needed buff after that stupidly huge nerf, if you add in so that it gets that +0.5 influence as well it will actually be a very worthwhile pick, certainly something that will be competitive instead of being either your last or second to last pick as it is right now.

There are two +10% trade output traditions. Here's an idea for the 2nd one; make trade pacts have no influence costs.
For that matter, why not let there be a tradition in discovery that lets research pacts have no influence cost?
And adaptability could make migration treaties have no influence cost?

This sounds great to me, would do so much for them!

 

[lagi08]

Weyird said:


There are two +10% trade output traditions. Here's an idea for the 2nd one; make trade pacts have no influence costs.
For that matter, why not let there be a tradition in discovery that lets research pacts have no influence cost?
And adaptability could make migration treaties have no influence cost?

This sounds great to me, would do so much for them!

What would the swaps for gestalts be since they cannot establish these very pacts?

 

[Mr. Morague]

How does planet bombardment reduction work? We've currently got 50% from planetary shield generators, 25% from Survival of the Fittest (Adaptability), and now another 25% from Never Surrender (Unyielding). So can an empire achieve 100% bombardment damage reduction, or am I misunderstanding?

 

[Serenity84]

Is Unyielding now Nemesis exclusive or not?

The tree as a whole is part of Apocalypse. And Nemesis owners will get an extra benefit from "Defense in Depth"

 

[lagi08]

The tree as a whole is part of Apocalypse. And Nemesis owners will get an extra benefit from "Defense in Depth"

Ah they changed it. Yesterday it was still nemesis written there. Thanks^^

 

[Daurien]

While this might be too late to be added, I think that a powerful diplo stance should be added to every finisher, similar to the Supremacist stance from Supremacy. Having the option to direct the course of your empire's policy through tradition makes an awful lot of sense. Also, it will make diplomatic themed games easier to stick with that theme as the largest increase to diplo weight from a stance will not come from saying that your intent is to own the galaxy.

 

[horgoz]

What would the swaps for gestalts be since they cannot establish these very pacts?

That is the question, isn't it? While gestalts can make research pacts they can indeed not make the other two.

Perhaps some percentage of automatic resettlement chance to replace the migration treaty and an energy/mineral/food production bonus?

 

[majikero]

While this might be too late to be added, I think that a powerful diplo stance should be added to every finisher, similar to the Supremacist stance from Supremacy. Having the option to direct the course of your empire's policy through tradition makes an awful lot of sense. Also, it will make diplomatic themed games easier to stick with that theme as the largest increase to diplo weight from a stance will not come from saying that your intent is to own the galaxy.

That makes sense though since you focus a lot of effort to push your own agenda at the cost of antagonizing everyone else. It's not just saying you want to own the galaxy, you focus your diplomatic efforts to support such a claim.

 

[lagi08]

That is the question, isn't it? While gestalts can make research pacts they can indeed not make the other two.

Perhaps some percentage of automatic resettlement chance to replace the migration treaty and an energy/mineral/food production bonus?

A discount on manual resettlement would be easier to implement I guess.
If the trade pact perk is in Mecantile, you would not need a swap there. If its in an other... maybe that Federation has no/halved Energy upkeep? Since trade is also excluded from the 15% federation energy cost.

 

[Daurien]

That makes sense though since you focus a lot of effort to push your own agenda at the cost of antagonizing everyone else. It's not just saying you want to own the galaxy, you focus your diplomatic efforts to support such a claim.

You bring up a valid point. I just want a way to match the power of Supremacist with my friendshiping skills.

 

[TalyonUngol]

Okay this is awesome. More traditions to play with and figure out how to make the best empire. Can't wait to see what is next week. I hope to see some post apoc stuff for humans. Post apoc is my favorite roleplay gameplay.

 

[Objulen]

Assuming that anyone can get Adaptability now will be a good buff for Void Dweller empires - the Orbital Survey Decision is a major improvement for Void Dwellers.