Stellaris Dev Diary #55 - Unity and Traditions

[Dalinski]

I would rather we fought HARD for stability than it be given to us on a platter.

And then for it to be taken from us again if we rest on our laurels. Such is then the endless churning of the galaxy as it cuts its way through space remorselessly.

 

[talon1de]

This looks great

 

[Hybrode]

Supremacy, Harmony and Purity? What is this CivBE?

seriously though i think this will be an awesome update.

 

[Xoatl]

Culture stuff has really good potential. I thought it might also be interesting to implement such thing as degradation of Culture - as Unity drops to a certain level, Culture begins to degrade, resulting in losing of traditions. That would be kind of realistic and also helps to more clearly separate culture from tech development.

What would Unity have to maintain to cause that? It can't just be traditions because as low as it can get is 0 monthly gain that way if each one cost 1 unity monthly to keep active.

EDIT: Unless you can get lump sum unity gains like you can with influence. Although many players would be smart enough not to go over the limit even then. This would only devastate empires that just suffered major territorial lose where their monuments and stuff were at.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Any particular reason it can't be done using existing influence resource? Since, you know, the original idea was to keep game simple?

 

[huru2judge1]

I wish you would add a trade/merchant mechanism. I would love to see merchant fleets that automatically trade between worlds and friendly empires that have trade agreements. It would be cool and add more diversity to the game and map.

Plus, it would be fun to have to ability to raid merchant fleets. You could probably incorporate merchant missions ... where merchantile minded people in an empire want the government to be more business and trade friendly.

 

[Jopetes]

Looking forward to it .

 

[scaper12123]

I personally think the increase of potential imbalance from this new mechanic is a good thing. If anything, this allows the player to become more specialized in what they want to do and find their own preference for winning the game. The more ways they can create for the player to win, the better off this game will be because, while one particular way might be imbalanced, a few modifications can make that same way just as viable as others

 

[jose2534]

(Remember that I have seen things that you have not seen.)

That was cruel, we are all here dying for news of the game and you tell us that, its not fair, hahaha
By the way: Marry Christmas to all of you!

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

Edit: also keep in mind, high physical growth empires have very volatile politics. They have a hard time keeping folks interested in being friendly with them, and thus, small empires should play that to their advantage. Rather than stripping out systems and rebalancing them entirely, the game should focus on building up systems that are already implied by the existing systems.

First of all, thanks for replying on topic. I consider your points as very valuable, in fact I share most of them.

- Regarding becoming volatile, you can do a lot about this when going xenophile or when using federation politics, but of course it will cost you to offset increasing border frictions - which is a mechanic working very well, in fact.

- Regarding your remarks about losing a debate: there was non. You have been the first downvoting person posting on topic. This actually is why I made that remark and this is why a lot of interaction on reddit just produces useless results. Simply up- and downvoting stuff may lead to completely erratic results.

I actually consider Fanatic Materialist / Pacifist to be the best combo in my past few games.


(Remember that I have seen things that you have not seen.)

This used to be my route since 1.1. Later on Individualism plus Materialist, lately in 1.3/1.4 I had a lot of success using Fanatic Individualism/Xenophile, based on strong immigration.

It could be the new federation mechanics make all this more viable, as prior to 1.3 I generally avoided using federations with AI. However, this also makes you highly dependent on forming the right federation at the right time of the game.

Now in 1.4 plus DLC, for the first time I am ever going Fanatic Spiritualism/Individualism, and it made me smile. I could do more than any other build, do it faster, decide in game which path to choose or to switch paths at any time I would want to.

On top of all the growth advantages, please have a look what other powers this empire has on top of this. This is a picture of Unity and their xenophobe pops, shortly after integrating into the empire. I opted for this since they were trying to throw over my vassal, now just look at happiness and ethics divergence.

Please note this is prior to finishing the hyper entertainment forum on the planet...

Spoiler: Unity Pop

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

You can. It is possible.

Go Fanatic Militarist, rush spaceports, dominate early. Never give them the chance to build up that powerhouse in the first place.

There should not be a problem doing this vs AI, however a human player may blow this to pieces. Also, it all depends on winning your initial war and having your power prediction spot on prior for this.

Of course you can initiate the snowballing fights and always stay on top of them from there on. Then again, this in fact is the only option you have versus a multitude of options Fanatic Spiritualism may give.

 

[Schimmelpfennig]

Now, onto your final point, which is using a system that is about to be completely overhauled since ethics divergence is being removed. Complaining about it being a facet still is like complaining about the fact there's a pot hole in the road while you're watching the construction crew fill it in. It cannot reasonably be used as a stick to measure any more since we have no idea what the changes are going to impart. Since ethics divergence is being removed entirely and replaced with Unity, which is an additive resource rather than something that is constantly grown overtime by outside factors, it very drastically changes how annexation and conversion of populations is going to play out. My guess is that Spiritualist Empires will likely gain a bonus to unity growth similar to other factions small percentile bonuses, thus making it more dependent upon how many unity producing structures you actually have, which grow weaker over time just as science does (their buying power decreasing as the number of pops increase), meaning that any such bonuses will be very likely to run into the same issues that science ethics bonuses gain, where they become negligible by the mid-game without serious dedication to science production structures.

Frankly admitted, I missed this point about Unity replacing ethics divergence and did not draw the right conclusions from that. Unity in this layout indeed may help solving some problems.

However, I think growth should be based on your technology advance in general and not on ethics. This will make gameplay a lot more diverse and balanced, also it should reflect realistic impacts of ethics and ideology. If you look closely, ethics surely can play a role in growth, but the most common factor in growth always has been technology.

Otherwise is will always be a very easy option to pick the growth-favouring ethics and offset their disadvantages by other means.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

Am I remembering right that spiritualists can't use robots w/o a happiness penalty? If so, that's one balancing factor right there.

 

[Elfwind]

I actually consider Fanatic Materialist / Pacifist to be the best combo in my past few games.


(Remember that I have seen things that you have not seen.)

Try xenophile and individually modify every planet in your empire so you have a bazillion species, then let them migrate around or resettle. You get the the crystal prism stuff and full happiness with ministry of culture and visitor centers.

 

[Makelovnowar]

Why i read this topick ... now i cant wait...

 

[stumason]

Funny, because the first thing my mind went to was that it'd be really neat if the mechanic encouraged you to redevelop your homeworld into a proper "bureaucratic hub" with all your tombs and ministries and such on it.

That's what I do anyway..... I am surprised others don't.

 

[Milten]

Looks like this is the update that makes the game. These mechanics were hinted at in the base game but we all know Paradox can do better. All their games have that one update/dlc that really makes it shine. For Stellaris this will be it. Can't wait!

You are quite

, aren't you? "Journey ahead" seemed like it, but ethics and traditions alone?

 

[Elfwind]

You are quite

, aren't you? "Journey ahead" seemed like it, but ethics and traditions alone?

Well at least things are moving forward, if they can make the combat more interesting then it'd already be a great game!

I'd also love trade and espionage as well as more fallen empires like the ones we thought of in my signature thread! (shameless plug).

 

[stumason]

I would suspect so. If they are adding option to use aliens as food, it would be of limited use if you would have to have a pop of your species present on a planet to benefit from it.

What? When was this said? Excellent!!

Finally, I can eat those little Gecko creatures..they look so tasty

 

[LizardCommander]

With the new faction system also coming out, I hope this is continued into a blend for when changing government types or a new ruler assumes their position, there would be additional dissent based on current dissent and how radical a change is occurring. For example, a massive subset across 3 worlds believes in the opposite values of the ruling government, and a new heir for the government comes into power, and so those factions might have a chance (depending on conditions) of declaring a war for secession. This would allow for some interesting developments, how do you handle it when your own people rebel, do you change your bombardment of the worlds, do you bombard them at all or do you negotiate a peace. It might have ramifications depending on what the main populous is, if they're independent-like thinkers, and a section of the empire wants to break off out of a desire for a different path (harmony vs war), you might have a bigger issue on hand later on if you roughly treat the separatists, and the same might go for other empires that are sympathetic to their cause.

Declaring that there can be no negotiations, and only war if they dare to attempt to leave your righteous rule might intimidate them into surrendering, might start off a war against them, or may lead to further diplomatic contact to see if a resolution more favorable to you could be reached. In doing this you will likely gain the respect and admiration of other authoritarian regimes, but will suffer in the eyes of more diplomatically inclined empires, or even pops in your own empire. If you handle it particularly badly, you could instigate a massive rebellion from within, and a war with all those empires that you were on uneasy terms with, as they would seek to liberate the people whom you were oppressing.