Stellaris Dev Diary #219 - Selectable Traditions

[Andy_Dandy]

If you’re letting your Influence get that high, you’re not using it efficiently. You could be making so many habitats, megastructures, or ecumenopoli with that influence, or using it to pass helpful resolutions in the Community / swing the votes in your favor by calling in favors. The only reason I ever let my influence get that high is if I want to claim a very distant but strategic/valuable star system .

(Edit: Looks like I got ninja’d by Mimisbrunnr making the same point before I could.)

Yeah, but at this point, when I hit 1000, it's better for me saving up alloys to pump up Galactic Wonders faster - so having it at +1000 for a while isn't really a bad choice. My small empire (system wise, not settlement wise) might also be out of good spots for habitats, and need to invest more in its fleet by this point.

Another time I might see my influence hitting +1000 is earlier in the game if I for some reason aren't able to hit the Habitat-tech before year 2250.

But most importantly: I prefer this new bonus that will always be good for the rest of the game, instead of the +1 influence that will situationally be good at some point in the game, and then useless again.

 

[Anonim97]

It applies to both habitat and ringworld trade/commercial districts in addition to the buildings.

You mean all these commercial buildings will also give me Merchants in addition to Clerks?

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

This change is a bit of an air-breathing mermaid (introducing a solution to a problem in a game that didn't exist until the solution was added). I can't say I'm a fan of this change either, especially as others have pointed out that the the Tradition itself gets obsoleted if you're in a Trade League. And if you're going for the Mercantile tree, you're probably the sort of Empire that wants a Trade League as well.

A better option would be to have the Decision unlock a suite of new Economic Edicts that compliment our Economic Policies rather unlocking the policies themselves. Leaving the Policies for more long-term planning and the Edicts for more fine-tuning economic choices that make you more adaptable to the current situation. Things like Extended Shifts (from Domination) could also be unlocked by Mercantile, for example. I wouldn't want to remove it from Domination though, at least not without suitable compensation. Domination is always the one I go for last as it is.

The Economic Edicts that you propose would be another way of going about doing it, though Edict slots are quite precious.

Also, the matter of taking away long-held abilities from standard nations feels bad (loss of Consumer benefits, etc.), and as you noted its kind of self-defeating as the Trade Leagues that most want to use Mercantile won't even use those policies anyways.

 

[Arithmetician]

I think Trade Leagues (and trade in general) needs to be buff, under the reasoning that pretty much ALL trade is underpowered right now, given that the other basic resources get repeatable techs that can boost their effectiveness ad infinitum, as well as multiple 20% tech boosts much earlier in the game that leaves trade permanently in the dust.

Well, from my experience playing as Megacorps, the Trade League policy is extremely powerful in of itself. But trade without a Megacorp/Merchant Guilds (and hence access to that policy) is otherwise very underpowered at the moment, especially since it doesn’t scale well into the late-game.

I mean, in my last full play through, I stacked so many repeatable energy production techs that I saw my Generator Districts often producing 78+ energy each, and I think a few planets saw over 80 energy per generator district. By that point, unity is also far less useful, since you’ll have more than enough to keep all Unity Ambitions active at all times, making the Trade League policy become relatively less powerful the longer the match goes on. But it’s great early on for steamrolling through tradition trees.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

You mean all these commercial buildings will also give me Merchants in addition to Clerks?

Here's the in-game tooltip:

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Here's the in-game tooltip:
View attachment 747449

Perhaps the wording should also include the upgraded version of the building just to be more specific: "Commercial Zones and Commercial Megaplex buildings provide 1 Merchant Job" for the first sentence.

 

[HFY]

Here's the in-game tooltip:
View attachment 747449

Well that makes habitat Trade Districts much better.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

Most of the changes are really nice, but i’m not a big fan of the CG and Unity trade policies being gated behind the Merchantile tree, especially the CG one which i liked using for my egalitarian/xenophile playthroughs since the policy’s fluff is the empire giving some of the benefits from trade back to its citizens, and Diplomatic Networking is pretty weak since all flat unity bonuses are only good at the earlier stages from the game

Highly agreed. Consumer Benefits was something I saw as a staple of establishing the character of my Egalitarian Xenophile runs, with the idea that the Trade Policy, combined with Social Welfare living standards or above, really showed how the nation was trying to prioritize its people's well-being. That's a good reason to consider reverting this change.

 

[Liggi]

I just want to echo what a few others are saying: Domination is underpowered.

The time I spent going through it always felt like a waste, and I can't see myself ever taking it now.

 

[Reedstilt]

The Economic Edicts that you propose would be another way of going about doing it, though Edict slots are quite precious.

The rarity of Edicts is a fair point, though most of the time I'm using my Edicts for economic issues anyhow, especially in the early game when I'm still assembling my economic base. So getting some new Edicts that provide some viable alternatives to the various Subsidies could prove useful.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

I just want to echo what a few others are saying: Domination is underpowered.

The time I spent going through it always felt like a waste, and I can't see myself ever taking it now.

Pretty much agreed. Domination was consistently the last tradition that I'd take, mainly to get my final ascension slot, the worker bonus, and the +1 Influence finisher (maybe the only thing that could have tempted me to try taking it earlier) but its so much weaker now and we have alternate choices now. I'd probably never take it now.

 

[Mommy]

After taking time to think about them, going to give more thoughts on the new tradition trees

Mercantile

I think, most traditions here are great and I love the idea of focusing more on trade.

Adaptive Economic Policies like I said in my last post I think would be better if it gave stronger trade policies instead of unlocking the ones we have already been playing with. Like I suggested I think making each trade policy grant 0.1 research per trade value would be a great way to go. Wealth Creation providing Physics research, Consumer Benefits providing Industry, and Marketplace of Ideas providing Society. Trade League can provide 0.05 of each. Like a lot of posts have already pointed out Trade Value is of a far lower value than other resources, so I think making it provide a small amount of an extremely valuable resource like research would be pretty welcome, and each policy providing a different type of research would make choosing your policy more interesting.

Marketplace of Better Ideas is the only other one I have a problem with, I think making the finisher just provide +20% trade value and giving Marketplace a different effect would be a good idea. I think a really interesting ability could be something like a -25% discount with Enclaves, Caravaaners, and Marauders, the idea of a trade focused empire relying on mercenaries sounds fun to me!

Unyielding

I think a lot of people are underestimating this tradition tree, I love a lot of it's effects especially Never Surrender.

Resistance is Frugal I think just also needs an effect like +33% Defensive Army Morale, then it would probably be fine.

The finisher effect I love and am looking forward to combining with Eternal Vigilance for hopefully ridiculous results, but I do think it needs something reducing the build cost and upkeep of defensive platforms. Like -25% to both would probably help a lot.

Subterfuge

I think this one's problem is just, that espionage is not very strong right now, and even with all of these bonuses the operations that you can preform rn are just not that impactful.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

EDIT: Looks like @Mommy has similar ideas, and I was probably inspired when reading one of their earlier posts, so our conclusions on the subject are similar (though I came up with a few additional variations myself). I'll credit them for giving me the idea.

Oh, here's an idea for the Mercantile Tradition on the economic policies - rather than locking ANY of the economic policies behind the tradition, why don't you do something that adds a new resource onto the production of ALL trade types - including Trade League.

Then the regular nations can still keep Consumer Benefits and Marketplace of Ideas, and the Tradition doesn't become a "Dead Tradition" with a useless effect for Trade League Federations.

For example, a tradition that makes all Trade Policy type add a small amount of Science per trade (with the idea that its due to the exchange of scientific ideas through the gadgets the traders bring and from them talking to people on the planet and then mentioning it elsewhere) or a small trickle of food and minerals (not enough to complete with Farmers and Miners, but representing more exotic versions of these goods the traders spread throughout your worlds), or maybe even a tiny trickle of strategic resources.

Something that would really reward a trade style and encourage on to play in a different way.

 

[Arithmetician]

Yeah, but at this point, when I hit 1000, it's better for me saving up alloys to pump up Galactic Wonders faster - so having it at +1000 for a while isn't really a bad choice. My small empire (system wise, not settlement wise) might also be out of good spots for habitats, and need to invest more in its fleet by this point.

Another time I might see my influence hitting +1000 is earlier in the game if I for some reason aren't able to hit the Habitat-tech before year 2250.

But most importantly: I prefer this new bonus that will always be good for the rest of the game, instead of the +1 influence that will situationally be good at some point in the game, and then useless again.

This goes back to the idea of playing efficiently with your influence. There always SHOULD be some use for your influence. It doesn’t matter if there is a GOOD spot for habitats at that point, as long as there IS a spot, and you don’t have something more pressing that you want to do with the influence or alloys, you should eventually be building a habitat there rather than letting it go persistently over cap which does no good whatsoever.

Now, I usually don’t even get close to building habitats on every valid planetary body in every system, because there are so many competing uses for influence. In my last game, for instance, I was regularly using my power as Custodian/Emperor to conclude debates early and advance my agenda through the Senate faster, and that ate a lot of influence, to say nothing of all the claims I made.

Now granted, peaceful empires usually aren’t making much in the way of claims, but influence is still one of the most precious resources in the game, and thus one of the worst things you can do in terms of managing your resources is to squander it instead of making it work for you in some way.

 

[nikkythegreat]

I love the new tradition system

But with that said unity still feels a lot weaker than science plus it still doesn't solve the over abundance issue of unity.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Perhaps the Discovery and/or Diplomacy trees could also get +1 first contact skill added to the adoption effect?

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

I also want it to help me leverage my trade investments into bonuses for areas I'm investing in less

Yeah, I think that is an important think to do with Trade Empires - they need SOMETHING to make Trade stronger, as you have to do more work to collect it than other resources and its currently weaker.

Your Merchant Marine tradition idea is interesting, albeit later in the game you probably have less Trade Hubs due to Gateways allowing you to get away with one central trade collector.

 

[Mímisbrunnr]

though the unity from Embassies is practically nothing. Make it 10 or 50 to be a consideration.

I'd instead recommend making it a % multiplier so that it remains relevant for the entire game, as even 10 or 50 will eventually be outpaced by a galaxy-spanning empire that is gaining 10s, and big flat numbers (like 50) would be too titanic early in the game.

 

[Gaussia]

As someone who have created a tradition mod I'm very happy with these changes. This feels like a much better system than having a large UU with all options. Also happy to see the options being increased.

 

[Zxcpoi]

I kindly ask adding tradition tree for xenocide/FP empires
1. machine adaptability swap
'Refund per demolishing'.

2.new tradition like Plundering / 'Winner takes all' - when I destroy enemy empire by conquering ALL habitable worlds and systems I acquire all supplies.