Stellaris Dev Diary #55 - Unity and Traditions

[Swuul]

It isn't "arbitrarily penalizing" the player to make a mechanic that gives you more points for a smaller, well-crafted and well-managed empire over a larger, sprawling one.

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!).

 

[Shock360]

Am I correct to assume that, at least for now, the policy on updates and dlc is that DLC packs will be mostly cosmetic and story expansions keeping mechanic changes in the free parts?
If so please accept my undying love, and shut up and take my moneyh!

He already said that it's only free because it's a needed mechanic and he wants to be able to improve it with DLC

 

[Milten]

I don't have the game and noticed that. Is it new?

That's species' name. Just like their planet.

 

[CarlVonClausewitz]

Looks like the well known Civ5 feature like it has already been mentioned... But looks veeeeeeery promising. So much excitement for the new patch.

 

[Xadie]

yay... sounds awesome

 

[Heretic Saint]

Anyway, like I mentioned already an umpteenton times, a small group is more in unision, and sure, they should get more Unity points. But if those Unity points are then used to buy Traditions which the small group has absolutely no history of, while the larger group with a long history in the Tradition in question is given a malus, then we are on weak ice. It fails logic, and it is a method to arbitrary punish a player doing well, both which are not signs of good game design.

I'd say the issue is less about small vs large groups, but that a group of any size can gain Traditions it has no history of.

I think I agree with StJimmyRocks92 in that it might seem more realistic and more rewarding if Unity points are invested automatically based on how they are acquired.

Then, once Factions or player actions result in an Ethos shift for the government, and certain Traditions become a nuisance for your reformed empire, you could spend Influence to suppress and reset them as part of your cultural revolution.

Just a suggestion, but maybe maybe change the name of "Domination", so that people won't get "confused" (as with the case of individual vs communitarian)? IDK, maybe something like "Domination" becomes "Sovereignty", "Governance", or something akin to stewardship.
Especially since, from the description of Purity, ".... and dominion over other species", doesn't this mean purity as an advanced form of domination?

Is there truly potential for confusion? "Domination" comes from dominating, in this case referring to your populace. Purity, meanwhile, is a matter of spiritual and genetic freedom from outside influences. I would think it is only natural that Domination can help with achieving Purity, and I would actually expect some overlap between the respective Traditions.

 

[Avian Overlord]

Domination seems like a natural fit for Authoritarianism (and I believe we saw last week that Domination traditions will increase Authoritarianism attraction). Purity for Xenophobia, Supremacy for Militarism, and Exploration for Materialism.

The others are a bit harder to pin down, and seven traditions for eight ethics means there isn't a 1:1 correlation. I would guess Harmony would go with Xenophilia, but could also be tied to Spiritualism, Egalitarianism, or Pacifism. Prosperity would match with the current Individualism, so might or might not be a fit with the reworked Egalitarianism. Expansion could be a fit for all play types, but could possibly mean specifically peaceful expansion, so Pacifism?

I suspect it's going to be:

• Domination - Authoritarian (Dev confirmed)
• Purity - Xenophobe (Duh)
• Harmony - Egalitarian (Content populace = happiness bonuses, which are a theme of Ind/Ega, no mention of aliens, seems to be the counterpart of Domination. Plus the two words just fit together)
• Exploration - Xenophile (Finding new things is a theme of Xenophile, and Xenophile already gets rewarded for contacting aliens, although I suspect they'll get Unity rather than influence now)
• Supremacy - Militarist (Is focused on military conquest. Another obvious one)
• Prosperity - Pacifist (Contrasts with Supremacy, pacifist has an internal development theme for all of its governments. Pacifist tends to look inward)
• Expansion - None (No counterpart, too important to the game to be tied to one ethic)

 

[loup99]

Seems like a really good addition to the game! It will allow for taking decisions that are more impacting and tree-structured than policies, and will add an additional progression to the game. With this and the factions 1.5 is shaping up very well.

 

[Gamengervi]

It would not be arbitrary, it would not fail logic, if overextension was handled like overextension.

Increased risk of civil war after a too rapid expansion. Lowered production because lack of proper society/bureucracy in place after too fast expansion. Lowered production because of increased corruption in newly conquered areas. Etc etc. There are many ways to properly handle overextension (ie the player being "too" successfull). Slapping on an arbitrary penalty to not gain new Traditions is *not* a proper way to handle successfull gameplay.

I used the term overextension for a lack of a better word, please don't be too concerned with it. The fact is that CiV uses the same system where social policies increase in price based on the number of cities you own and it works perfectly fine there. I'm not necessarily seeing how it's bad design. Giving larger and more powerful empires certain penalties is completely legitimate, tried-and-tested game design to limit snowballing and provide greater challenge as the game goes on. It gives the player an option to really think about their next move. Do I annex this nearby empire or try to rush this next tradition? Giving a player or AI benefits for growing more powerful and larger in addition to the benefits that already come with that and without giving them penalties such as these is actually 'bad' game design. In addition, slowing down tradition acquisition would give more meaning to the traditions adopted and make the choices you make slightly more important, as well as prevent modifier pileups from buffing already powerful empires too quickly.

I don't mind it being discussed (it's not like I can stop it anyway), but people have a tendency to take anything written in a DD thread as gospel and there were already arguments about details in numbers on a first iteration of a WIP feature so I don't want it discussed here.

I'm actually not sure what's going on. Could someone clue me in?

There are other things to life than work. Even when your job is as great as mine.

Surströmming?

 

[jju_57]

There are other things to life than work. Even when your job is as great as mine.

I'm more jealous than anything. You know; misery loves company.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

Hmm, seems very interesting. One little note. I notice there really isn't a tradition for a spiritualist empire. Sure you could say Harmony but the description is pretty broad and might not quite fit. I would argue that domination and supremacy are very much alike and one of the two could be replace by a more spiritualist focused tradition. Anyway, just a thought, this seems like a good addition to the game overall.

 

[BeastSoulEyes]

Wait wait, so tradition resource is gained by...waiting and mining? Shouldn't Purity be gained by purging and enslaving xenos because, that kinda what tradition means - doing something often? It's not that fun to sit for years and then instantly became fanatic purifiers overnight or peacefully exist for ages and then suddenly you realize you have a long tradition of conquests

That's a very good point actually.

I guess a bit more granularity could have happened here, for example that acquiring the tradition is free for a very small basic bonus, but then you have to pour Unity into the Tradition for its effect to become better.

Like, Starter Bonus:

 

[Chaos_TLW]

I am not sure what you are refering to. But PDOX games have a well-established history on how to make games more challenging if you grow too fast. Be it increased corruption as seen in EU:Rome, be it friction between nationalities as in Vicky2, be it demesne juggling like in CK2, etc.

This Unity -> Tradition is quite comparable at how fast you gain leaders or diplomats in Vicky2. If we took the Unity -> Tradition to Vicky, Haiti would have the greatest military leaders and the smoothest diplomats in the world, because as a small peaceful country it would have high Unity generation and thus could pick the suitable Traditions with Unity. Meanwhile a Prussia which turned to Germany through diplomacy and wars would have lousy diplomats and lousy generals, because obviously a rapidly expanding country will have low Unity and thus can't pick up the required Traditions for good diplomats or leaders.

A game with such a mechanic would just stink, wouldn't it?

You assume seem to assume size is the only such factor. No reason to believe it is so, in fact it was quite explicitely stated the opposite. I'd imagine homogeneity of your population, speed of expansion, means of expansion, actions such as purging, enslaving, declaring war, forming feds, etc all influence the generation of Unity according to state ethos. Size only seems to model *cost* of unlocking new Traditions, which is a reasonable way to model societal and bureaucratic inertia.

Running with the literacy metaphor by @wthree, compare the starting literacy rates and sizes of Belgium and Russia in Vic2 and tell me in which you think will have an easier time reaching high (>85%) literacy levels

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Yes, because that is what Wiz said.

Ignoring the bit that comes immediately prior to what you quoted, sure.

Unhappy factions, minority species and slaves all increase the cost of adoption Traditions further, though these effects can be offset or even canceled out entirely by adopting the right Traditions for the empire you intend to build.

That sure sounds like a lot more influencing factors than "just" size...

 

[I am Sovereign]

CIV V was watered down (still decent but compared to previous titles). Pls dont get your inspirations from that game.

fan boys incoming.

Know what?
CIV VI is a even more watered down version of CIV V.
But thats just btw.

 

[Swuul]

Ignoring the bit that comes immediately prior to what you quoted, sure.

That sure sounds like a lot more influencing factors than "just" size...

I can't understand why you are trying to refute the exact words of Wiz. Wiz said size is the most important factor, and small empires will be able to unlock Traditions faster. Between two equally small empires thus the other factors would kick, but as per Wiz words a smaller empire will be able to unlock Traditions faster than a larger one. Which is just silly regarding most of the Traditions.

Now if Wiz had said smaller empires will be able to generate Unity faster, but certain Traditions require other actions to be able to open the Tradition in question (get flagged for having conqured or purged etc for certain actions before you can spend Unity to open that Tradition), that would have been a different statement. But that is not what Wiz said, he spesifically said smaller Empires are able to open Traditions faster than larger empires.

 

[Swuul]

Oh, absolutely. Not like that's easily refutable, no sir.

I'm done here. So long as you're going to be dishonest in how you go about this discussion, there's no point.

Ok, so now you *did* actually provide the first actual fact! So far you have been refuting what Wiz said, you have been refuting facts, coming up with "I don't remember where I heard about this" -thingies and pure fantasies, and this is the first real fact you brought to the table. Next time remember to do that from the start, so that your words don't seem so shady. Because you know the opposite of being dishonest is basing your words and actions on known facts, and I am not the one who have been coming up with fantasies and shady excuses so far

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

The real issue here, I think, is the amount of dev work a system requires.

Agreed. Sure, generating Unity points and then investing those into Traditions is a bit of a "game-y" view of how something like that works- obviously the more realistic version would be to have Traditions just sort of attached to your empire based on how you're playing the game.

But that's also kind of unintuitive to a player and removes the ability for a player to take a grander, more broad-spectrum perspective to planning their empire, and also far more complicated to balance. Accumulating points and then investing them into something is pretty standard fare for a game and infinitely easier to implement in a balanced fashion for devs juggling other concerns and upcoming game features. I hardly see it as that immersion-breaking.

Anyhow, I am curious about how deep the trees might go eventually, since they are a bit small right now.

 

[PirateJack]

If I were to guess at how this will work, I'd go with the cost of Traditions increasing with empire size, the number of POPs with ethics different to your government's and the number of slaves in your empire. Large, hostile factions would probably affect it too.

Unity, on the other hand, will be gathered per month and will be increased by capital and cultural buildings, much like influence is now. This means that while larger empires with diverse ethics and/or slaves will have a much higher cost per Tradition than a small empire with a homogenous set of ethics.

Tradition costs will likely be reduced by certain Traditions, such as (I imagine) a Domination one that reduces the penalty for larger empires or a Purity one that gives a discount per Xeno purged.

 

[Omega-14]

Really off-topic here, but are there plans to add better outfits for the human (not humanoid) species? Maybe a robotic exosuit or even the option to use the outfit that some of the humanoid species use? Currently, the human outfit is rather off-putting.