Discussion thread about traditions and ascension perks.

[Drinko]

Would you rather see traditions work more like tech in that you pick one and it get unlocked over time?

Would like a more indepth integration process for ascension perks?

Latent traditions, that require you to have finished others first?

How do you feel about discovery for instance, is it a pick first or don't pick at all? Any changes you would like or maybe scrap completely?

Completely new traditions/ascension perks?

Would you like a system were you unlock certain mechanics such as automatic exploration after having picked your first ascension perk?

Something I didn't think of?

 

[GloatingSwine]

I would like tradition trees to be longer but to have a limit to the number that you could pick.

eg. you can pick three or four traditions and cannot take the remainder, but each one has ten nodes in rather than five.

 

[Annihilat0r]

I would like tradition trees to be longer but to have a limit to the number that you could pick.

eg. you can pick three or four traditions and cannot take the remainder, but each one has ten nodes in rather than five.

I agree with that, plus I would like more variety in terms of what tradition trees are offered. I like the dynamic traditions that they introduced a while back, but I think they don't go far enough. I just finished a game as a federation builder, and the domination tree was complletely useless for my playstyle. I would love it if you could swap that depending on your playstyle.

Or maybe offer more traditions than slots (with some being blocked due to ethics/tech requirements/certain milestones in the game such as forming a federation), so that you can pick one and fill the available slots yourself.

 

[WhiteKyubey]

Next big patch they will change a lot, but right now I feel they are not balanced too well. I hope 2.2 will deal with most of the problems.

1) As said before, having ability to unlock them all feels wrong.
2) Domination and Diplomacy are not very good, because AI vassals and AI federations are not good enough. Sure, they have a few tricks like +30% unity for 1 planet-size vassals or +30% research speed on repeatables because of dev oversight.
3) Unity edicts feels too strong to be true. Even covenants with Shroud gods give less bonuses, then some stuff there. Like +33% mineral production just because...
4) Some of the ascension perks are just awful. GFP, Synth age for ME (not Synth evolution) or Raiding Stance are the worst probably. But the rest are quite ok, so I guess just a little balancing and it'll be fine.
5) Adaptation tree is just too good. Actually each time I want to play something I start to think "can I get Adaptation tree...?". Like "I want to play some spiritualist psionics and conquer galaxy..."... "oh, I can play militarist-xenohobic-spiritualist barbaric despoilers"!

 

[Drinko]

I agree with both of you maybe the diplomatic traditions could be divided into subjugation and “regular” diplomacy. You find the balance that suits you. Prosperity divided between the current one and trade and so on.

4) Some of the ascension perks are just awful. GFP, Synth age for ME (not Synth evolution) or Raiding Stance are the worst probably. But the rest are quite ok, so I guess just a little balancing and it'll be fine.

Synth age for ME and raiding stance is probably getting better with the next patch because of the increased number of pops per planet etc.

 

[Death Dragon]

Of course we don't know what it will look like in 2.2, but currently I have a couple issues with traditions.
Like people said, it's too easy for empires to just pick all of them. This makes them less important of a decision and makes different empires less unique. Could be improved by either adding more or making some mutually exclusive, but of course that's not easy to balance.
Sorta important game features are locked behind traditions like the combat policies or the scientist assist research, which I don't really think is a good idea mainly because it encourages people to go for every tradition instead of specialising.
They don't really seem to have any theme to them that I can understand. I mean, we have civics which are the the way your society is structured and we have society research which is sociological improvement, but what exactly even ARE traditions? What is it supposed to mean when I unlock for example the "To Boldly Go" tradition? Why are they set in stone, unchangeable, but we can freely change (most) civics?

Would you rather see traditions work more like tech in that you pick one and it get unlocked over time?

What difference would that make?

 

[grandad1982]

I'd like to see more trees, more tightly focused, possibly with more traditions per tree.

Importantly I'd like to see some trees be mutually exclusive. So you couldn't take a very diplomatic peaceful tree as well as a 'we'll crush you under our heel' type tree.

 

[henzington]

Synthetic age would be much better if it unlocked advanced robot traits similar to biological ascension

 

[James Fire]

Synthetic age would be much better if it unlocked advanced robot traits similar to biological ascension

I have been experimenting with that. Granted, it currently comes with other stuff I wanted, but it does do that.

 

[Richard Dolder]

Remove gene modding and terraforming from the tech system and move them to ascensions entirely.
You should still unlock all your traditions, but more tradition swapping should happen. Pacifists should not get Domination, Militarists and Xenophobes should not get diplomacy.

 

[Ikael]

Some thoughts regarding traditions and ascension perks:

- Ascension perks should be dramatic game-changing advantages that alter core mechanics and possibly how societies works, rather than flat bonuses (at least, whenever possible)

- I agree with the mutually exclusive tradition trees. Unlocking every single tradition tree makes every empire feel the same. Give us deeper tradition trees and force us to choose instead: Trade vs self-sufficiency, Diplomacy vs subjugation, Development vs early expansion... the more interesting choices, the better.

- Turning Unity ambitions into tradition finishers would be a cool way to introduce them on a more granular, organic fashion, and would give an edge to unity builds, me thinks

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I'd like Traditions to have more mutually-exclusive options, so that a high-tier empire doesn't have all the same traditions as another high-tier empire.

This would probably require Ascension Perks to be reworked a tad, but I think the game would be a lot better if a pacifist empire and a militarist empire had fundamentally different Traditions from one another- either through swaps or through mutually-exclusive trees.

 

[PirateJack]

I'd like to see more tradition trees, but with the same limit so that you don't end up getting all of them in every game.

 

[James Fire]

Some thoughts regarding traditions and ascension perks:

- Ascension perks should be dramatic game-changing advantages that alter core mechanics and possibly how societies works, rather than flat bonuses (at least, whenever possible)

- I agree with the mutually exclusive tradition trees. Unlocking every single tradition tree makes every empire feel the same. Give us deeper tradition trees and force us to choose instead: Trade vs self-sufficiency, Diplomacy vs subjugation, Development vs early expansion... the more interesting choices, the better.

- Turning Unity ambitions into tradition finishers would be a cool way to introduce them on a more granular, organic fashion, and would give an edge to unity builds, me thinks

The whole point of the ambitions is that you have something to spend unity on after all your traditions are filled.

 

[James_K]

I'd like Traditions to have more mutually-exclusive options, so that a high-tier empire doesn't have all the same traditions as another high-tier empire.

This would probably require Ascension Perks to be reworked a tad, but I think the game would be a lot better if a pacifist empire and a militarist empire had fundamentally different Traditions from one another- either through swaps or through mutually-exclusive trees.

Something I think could work is having seven tradition slots, with each slot being fillable by one of two options. That would make the choice of traditions much more significant.

 

[henzington]

Remove gene modding and terraforming from the tech system and move them to ascensions entirely.
You should still unlock all your traditions, but more tradition swapping should happen. Pacifists should not get Domination, Militarists and Xenophobes should not get diplomacy.

Having Gaia locked by an accession perk is enough since terraforming currently just removes penalties

 

[Richard Dolder]

Having Gaia locked by an accession perk is enough since terraforming currently just removes penalties

Let's go down the list of ways to remove those penalties.
Terraforming.
Genegineering.
Habitability bonuses
Robots.

Having all those routes? Good.
Not having a clear route for your empire? Messy.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

2) Domination and Diplomacy are not very good, because AI vassals and AI federations are not good enough. Sure, they have a few tricks like +30% unity for 1 planet-size vassals or +30% research speed on repeatables because of dev oversight.

Diplomacy is pretty strong for the first 3 points as it can discount defensive pacts and give you 10% habitability, but federations are just OK except when you use it as the permanent president for a free fleet Domination feels pretty underwhelming past unlocking the wargoal, which is sad because the tradition swap trees are pretty good (although, still not the best).

Domination and prosperity trees are changing for sure, IIRC domination will be about 'pacifying' the masses while prosperity will be about districts and probably also trade.

Given all the big changes, the only tree I expect to remain completely intact is Discovery, as the balance is pretty good and it should work fine in the new paradigm. Supremacy might get a little attention with the trade changes, but I'll bet it's mostly the same. I predict the other trees are getting a serious rework though.

 

[Ikael]

Lots of tradition trees are getting changed due to the economic rework, I betcha. But more traditions are still needed in order to create choices, I think.

The whole point of the ambitions is that you have something to spend unity on after all your traditions are filled.

I know, but they could fulfill that purpouse as well even if they are introduced earlier. I believe that having multiple ways to spend unity rather than traditions by default would be an interesting choice to make.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

My approach for traditions which I tested in a personal mod, was making them mutually exclusive via tradition swaps mechanics which can be controlled through policies and unity edicts.

As example, domination is separated into aggression, liberation and protection with appropriate bonuses for this three distinct styles related to militarist/pacifist dichotomy. One can choose, which tree is active by selecting the right policy. However, the already taken traditions do not change after the swap. So that ex-inward-perfection do not become instantly good at diplomacy and for the general sake of common sense. To change the already take tradition, one needs not only to select the right policy, but also activate a special unity edict called "renovation". So if some one want to min-max the profit from the traditions, taking those which are more usefull early game and then swapping them to more end-game profitable ones, he would have to pay extra cost.