Stellaris Dev Diary #55 - Unity and Traditions

[Wizzington]

So ... what's the art department working on?

Art.

 

[LeeDub]

Straight up rip-off of Civ5, then? Good, I love that game.

 

[Gamengervi]

Awesome feature. The social policy trees were one of my favorite parts of CiV and I'm glad you guys are adopting the same sort of idea. I have a couple of thoughts though. Firstly, I feel like the harmony and purity tree contradict each other. One promotes a diverse and happy population while the other promotes species domination. Obviously we can't read the tradition descriptions right now, but if they're not going to be exclusive please try to make it so that the descriptions from one don't contradict the descriptions from the other.

On that note, the only thing I am kind of disappointed in is the lack of exclusivity. I'm not sure how long it takes to adopt one complete tree so maybe the fact that there are only five traditions per tree are alright, but the fact you can adopt every tree sort of irks me. Because of that, the choice of which tradition to adopt is only short-term. We can always grab the other option later and, if we play long enough, eventually we will adopt all the traditions. I hope that in the future we can make more difficult choices when customizing our empires.

Other than those two gripes, this is probably going be my most favorite feature so far.

One last thing: is this blank area going to be used to display the finisher? If not, it seems like wasted space.

 

[Wizzington]

An early version of the Traditions was accidentally translated and included in the 1.4 Russian translation. Since nothing there is final I don't want this thread to descend into a bunch of arguments about the balance of numbers that are likely to change anyway, so I banned discussion of it here. You can look up the info on the Stellaris reddit if you want to check it out for yourself.

 

[Wizzington]

Another hiatus? It almost makes me want to move to Sweden.

The last one wasn't because of vacations, it was because we couldn't talk about 1.5 until 1.4 was out. It's really just unfortunate timing that you get two long hiatuses so close together.

 

[Wizzington]

Will the AI Personalities be weighted to favor certain traditions, for instance, Fanatical Purifiers will prefer Purity or Supremacy?

Yes, of course.

 

[Paul31264]

Well, since Civ 6 now has casus belli I don't see why not

Civ: Beyond Earth introduced Paradox-style War Score, Civ 6 introduced CBs, EU4 announced this week that they'll bring Endless Legend's "Legendary Deeds" (era-specific challenges giving certain bonuses) feature to EU4, and now Stellaris is getting Civ 5's Social Policies. There's definitely a lot of cross-pollination going on between 4X and Grand Strategy nowadays.

 

[Krebsig]

Also, those ascension perks look mighty suspicious. Ascension victory condition confirmed?!

 

[Inner Circle]

how moddable is this feature? could we add more than 7 traditions?

 

[Heretic Saint]

This looks as it'll be an interesting feature! Additional empire customization is always good in my book, as it'll increase personality and attachment to the realms and cultures we come up with.

I do have some concerns, however:

As this Dev Diary again hinted at, we will finally be able to induce a change of empire Ethos and thus open up potential for considerable societal changes (such as going from autocracy to democracy, or pacifists taking up arms and militarizing). If so, wouldn't it make sense that an empire's "Traditions" change accordingly as well? A formerly militant empire that renounces aggressive expansion and morphs into a peaceful republic, for example, may look weird if it still sticks to Supremacist and Domination Traditions. Will there be a way to let go of Traditions no longer considered suitable? Perhaps by "trading them in" for a partial return of invested Unity?

The above might also tie into Gamengervi's post about potentially being able to unlock everything, which would inevitably result in empires becoming less and less unique as time moves on, rather than more. Perhaps some Traditions could be incompatible with others, or there is a hard limit to them? It'd incentivize the aforementioned ability to rescind them.

... I have a hunch that these Ascension Perks may actually have to do with unlocking all Traditions (seeing how there's eight slots and seven Traditions), but I hope I'm wrong, as having everything does not feel as if it'd make you more unique, it'd just become a mechanical reward, which sounds a bit arcade or MMO'ish.

Also: I guess it makes sense that the development of Traditions is an ongoing process as a culture evolves, especially ones that have just taken their first steps into space and made first contact with other species. However, surely a culture as evolved as this would already have embraced some Traditions as part of their cultural heritage? Will we be able to pick one or more Traditions right away and unlock others as our culture evolves further (allowing access to greater empire customization as we begin a game), or do we have to unlock everything via Unity? The latter might be ironic, given that it'd make all of a galaxy's civilizations more similar before they actually meet one another.

Bad because I'm afraid a bit that all Paradox titles will eventually turn into single crazy conglomerate like EUCKVikiHoIStellaris or something :/

To be fair, I think Stellaris could take a page or two from HoI when it comes to warfare. *coughLogisticscoughDoomstacks*

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

You would be right, if it it wasn't the very definition of what arbitrary penalty means.

Look, it is one thing to feel unity. By default, a small group will be more united than a diverse large group, there is no question of that. But why a small united group should have Traditions in something it has never engaged in is silly, and it is more silly if the large but diverse group next to you has a long and well established history of things which should unlock that Tradition but they can't because the game designer has decided there is an abitrary limit which penalises the larger group from unlocking the tradition.

It is not who needs what, it is about game-design. It is not good game designing practice to come up with such silly non-logical arbitraries. As long as I remember this has been one of the leading stars in PDOX game design, and this Unity -> Tradition is something breaking that tradition (sic!).

I don't think you grasp game design as much as you think you do.

Accumulating Unity points slower when you're a big massive conquest-driven empire is an entirely reasonable means of balancing broad vs. tall empires.

 

[Wizzington]

I think that's enough arguing about what I said or didn't say. People are capable of reading for themselves.

 

[Alectron]

So, apart from reworked ethics and factions we also get a completely new mechanics? Love it.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

Why not? Have two races work tirelessly on exterminating other species. Like a crusade, where lots of countries united for a single goal.

Im imagining "Mammalian superiority" instead of "Human superiority" when considering Harmony and Purity.

 

[D3m0]

Is there a limit to the amount of tradition trees an empire can adopt?

 

[Lord Milutin]

Another hiatus?
Daaaamn, I really look forward to Thursdays because of dev diaries...

 

[The_Meme_Man]

Unless explicitly said otherwise, free update. Everything detailed in this DD is free.

Hot damn, if this is free, I'm excited to see what features you have in store that have a price tag attached to them

 

[EvilTom]

Do I understand right, if I play a conquering empire and wish to go for the Supremacy traditions, I am in fact shooting myself in the foot by actually doing the conquests? Ie I would gain Supremacy tradition faster if I actually did play it small and harmonous, not conquer anybody, until one day I have enough tradition of not being a conqueror to declare myself as the Supremacy conqueror of the known universe?

Wiz said that unity can be obtained by other methods than just sitting and waiting for it to build up.

A possible interpretation of this is that actually conquering as a supremacy tradition will give unity points.

 

[CharonX2003]

This looks actually way more like National Ideas from EU4. Which is both good and bad thing. Good because it's nice mechanics. Bad because I'm afraid a bit that all Paradox titles will eventually turn into single crazy conglomerate like EUCKVikiHoIStellaris or something :/

*sits down and waits for the Hoi4-to-Stellaris converter*
Play from 769 to the far future - for an truely EPIC game.

 

[domein]

Will this tall traditions somehow keep your 250k fleet neighbor from coming over and punching you in the face with invitation to vassalize?