Best and Worst Traits, Civics, Ethics in 2.2 (and subsequent patches)?

[Zentay]

Have to agree with other posters that there are problems with traits/civics/perks/techs that increase maximum leader level.

Having more than +5 leader level cap is useless since it can't go higher. This is now very easy to reach because there are too many traits/civics/perks/techs that increase it.

Actually getting leaders to high level is difficult without heavily investing in things that increase leader lifespan.

Ruler level cap is something I don't care much about.

The Domination traditions are a bit weak because they give +2 ruler and +2 governor level. Taking them early in the game is completely useless, and later on when there are additional sources of increased leader level cap they may also be useless because rulers and governors will die before getting the experience that would make these two nodes relevant.

Philosopher King and Transcendent Learning are garbage tier.

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

My idea for philosopher king and or meritocracy would be to have it increase your leaders starting level rather than max level. +1 to starting level would be a game changer early game (especially for scientists and anomalies) without being game breaking or completely OP.

This makes a lot of sense for Meritocracy. It's quite intuitive that your leaders are more skilled starting out. For Philosopher King, autocratic rulers are almost always past level 1 by the time they take power, plus it feels a little . . . generic for something that is supposed to be specifically about abstract intelligence.

That's part of why I sorta balk at the straightforward +2 level cap, and suggest a unique trait, to flavor it and also work in parallel with the level system.

 

[evilcat]

Some Traditions could be buffed:
Supremacy : add +2 General levels so it poor generals will not be left behind
Domination:
-20% Leaders by and supply to mach governor level cap
+20% edicts duration to match ruler levels.

Right now just +2 levels is dead perk, making domination generally worse.

 

[ciurra]

I would really like if leader level would have no cap .

 

[serpentskirt]

My idea for philosopher king and or meritocracy would be to have it increase your leaders starting level rather than max level. +1 to starting level would be a game changer early game (especially for scientists and anomalies) without being game breaking or completely OP.

Funny enough, that's what Talented trait and Indirect Democracy government form was doing back in 1.0. That allowed for starting with level 3 leaders, which was quite powerful when anomalies had a failure chance.

 

[Ikael]

Philosopher King, Meritocracy and Feudalism are in dire need of complete reworks, yes.

- Feudalism: In addition to its current effects, add one or many of the bonuses for vassalization that used to be in the old supremacy tree. Also, serf "jobs"! A creative solution for unemployement.
- Philosopher King: What about powerful unique traits and edicts for your mighty emperor? The more unique flavour and the less "+5%" bonuses, the better, I say
- Meritocracy: Like many people have suggested here, leaders starting with an additional level would be a far more meaty effect than the current version. Faster XP gain could also be a similarily good bonus (or a complement to the aforementioned one)

 

[ciurra]

Philosopher King, Meritocracy and Feudalism are in dire need of complete reworks, yes.

- Feudalism: In addition to its current effects, add one or many of the bonuses for vassalization that used to be in the old supremacy tree. Also, serf "jobs"! A creative solution for unemployement.
- Philosopher King: What about powerful unique traits and edicts for your mighty emperor? The more unique flavour and the less "+5%" bonuses, the better, I say
- Meritocracy: Like many people have suggested here, leaders starting with an additional level would be a far more meaty effect than the current version. Faster XP gain could also be a similarily good bonus (or a complement to the aforementioned one)

Your post truly belongs in the suggestion forum! This are very nice things some of this are more plus than something really needed.
Also serf jobs pose a problem similar to that of the scavenger job that hive minds have it clash with the job assignment

 

[kolpo]

I enjoy the Syncretic evolution civic in 2.2. When you colonize a planet with your main species shall your subservient specie automatically grown on the planet and keep a 50/50 balance empire wide.

You can give the subservient specie traits for worker jobs and the main specie bonuses for specialized jobs. Because the subservient specie can only do worker jobs and the main specie will auto promote shall they automatically do the right type of job as long as you have spare specialized jobs. The subservient specie get a +10% bonus to worker jobs and also a +10 bonuses to happiness which often results in an additional worker bonus of 5%. They also raise stability which raises output even more.

"Weak" for the main specie and "slow learners" for the subservient specie are free trait points

Do NOT add other races to your empire, that will ruin this strategy.

EDIT: I have not tested this but you could use the slow breeders trait to change the main/subservient species ratio.

 

[Atreides]

In contrast, I think Byzantines are a top tier late pick (and fine from day 1). The bonuses scale nicely and stacking housing gets pretty handy into late game, while reduced amenities and a pair of admins tend to cure early-colony-stage woes for non-city ones. Or if, like me, you find every cartel ALWAYS throws a merchant at you that becomes a bum as soon as you close their shop, its 2 ruler jobs to fix that. Aristo is basically better ruler jobs (and spammable) but doesn't get the % bonuses.

Nobles give +5 stability EACH.

That is +3% production on all goods, all the time.
Getting to 90+ stability is difficult, unless you are getting +15 from Nobles, in which case it happens on every 80 pop colony you have.

 

[Atreides]

I think if the various traditions increased the minimum level instead of the max level everything would work better. That would leave space for some of the other effects to actually have value.

Meritocracy should do both. +2 minimum level, (so start at 3) and +1 max level.

Also, adjust the 10 cap to 15 for those people who really want to create long lived super leaders as their niche.

 

[MeowBeep]

Would +2 effective leader level be a good way to implement the replacement for level cap/starting level? That way it starts off and also remains relevant.

 

[Less2]

Great traits:
Nonadaptive: It's basically free points. Habitability is basically ignorable now. Before your pops might waste 10% of their productivity on upkeep, with this they'll waste max 11%. Ohnoes, +2 pointoes.
Repugnant: Amenities above 0 are basically not worth pursuing, and it's pretty easy to get 0 amenities even with this. Another great +2 points.

Rest is all fairly balanced IMO, nothing stands out except how much of a freebie these "negatives" are. Eventually you probably want Communal once your planets are reaching capacity, but it can wait.

Civics:
Aristocratic elite is literally a free +5/+10 stability with a building for a further +5 that also provides decent amenities. This is a potential +10% to all production.
Mining Guilds is even better than before. Minerals are king lategame.
Barbaric Despoilers: Just flat out OP. Pops = strength. DoW anyone whenever they are weak and suck away every pop they have.

Ethics:
Anything Authoritarian is a godsend because slavery and Stratified Economy are just so good. Far less CGs wasted, stability stays high because your upper class is happy, slaves use less housing. Combos with Nonadaptive well.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Great traits:
Nonadaptive: It's basically free points. Habitability is basically ignorable now. Before your pops might waste 10% of their productivity on upkeep, with this they'll waste max 11%. Ohnoes, +2 pointoes.[...]

While that doesn't seem too terrible at first glance, the increased upkeep is something you will definitely feel, particularly when it comes to consumer goods in non-stratified societies, given that there is quite an overhead for upkeep and the basic infrastructure of a colony. And the impact becomes even bigger once you employ specialists and not just labourers.

Is it worth 2 points to pick another trait? Yes. But it's not really free points.

 

[Nis Baggesen]

All the "substitute administrators for specialty ruler jobs" are very good actually.

Seems to me that Warrior Culture and/or Citizen service should have had a Marshal or a similar type of Soldier ruler, and possibly also a specialist. I don't know if it would fix those civics, but it would add some special flavour.

 

[Badesumofu]

I like Aristocratic Elite a lot. I combined it with Fanatic Pacifism and Inward Perfection and my planets are all super-stable all the time. Nobles are really good, especially on big planets.

Mechanist is really nice now that robot factories only consume 6M instead of 10. You start with 3 more total pops and a couple of very handy early techs already researched. You'll also reach 1000 food sooner to use the decision. All around pretty darn good now.

Arcology Project is really good - those districts are insane. Identify which planet(s) you're going to make into Ecumenopolises early on - obviously you're going to want a big planet that is lacking in deposits.

Egalitarian is interesting. Not being able to resettle is a big deal, a really big deal in fact. On the other hand bonuses to Specialist output are very powerful and pretty rare. Shared Burdens and Utopian Abundance mean you still have a way to handle unemployment that isn't resettling. Utopian Abundance can be quite manageable if you have loads of different species - you just switch species to it one by one as they begin to have unemployment problems. There are much cheaper ways to get stability (like Nobles) though, so I'm not sure it's really a great deal.

I want to like Xenophile, but I find the way different species grow to be a deal breaker. It's bizarre. It defeats the point of collecting different species to solve the problem of habitability because every planet ends up with every species on it anyway. I don't understand why species emigrate away from planets that they are happy on and well suited to when the place they are going is totally unsuited to them. I like the idea of having a cosmopolitan empire with huge population and melting pots, big growth, and cheap or free diplomatic arrangements.

Xenophobe is really powerful. All that pop growth and cheap expansion is amazing. Though with the weird way that all AI empires seem be overwhelming even on Captain difficulty when I meet them it would be scary to have too many hostile neighbors.

What's up with that, by the way? I end up massively out-classing the AI by mid-game (which is fine, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that PDS could make an AI that is better than a competent player) but they seem to be getting some sort of extra bonus early on. It's the opposite of what I want. What I want is to play Scaling, but be able to set both the year 0 bonus and the year 200 bonus. It doesn't matter how many resources the AI get by 2400 because I've already lapped them several times over due to them having started with no bonuses. I want them to start at Commodore and scale to Grand Admiral but not get whatever weird early game super-bonus they currently seem to get.

 

[Tavior]

While that doesn't seem too terrible at first glance, the increased upkeep is something you will definitely feel, particularly when it comes to consumer goods in non-stratified societies, given that there is quite an overhead for upkeep and the basic infrastructure of a colony. And the impact becomes even bigger once you employ specialists and not just labourers.

Is it worth 2 points to pick another trait? Yes. But it's not really free points.

You are forgetting at least two possible combination that might make non-adaptive somewhat tolerable and both are pretty niche strategies. I think it would be better off showing the combination in screenshots as opposite to say it out loud. I put picture in spoiler tag to keep this post short and tidy.

Spoiler

The first component is life-seeded.

Second component is having non-adaptive and gaia preference. Most of the lower housing/amenities came from the second civic I pick and I didn't change anything on day one.

Your actual species' habitability on Gaia worlds end up 100% which completely nullify the downside making non-adaptive essentially a free 2 trait point for those with life-seeded.

Same story with post-apocalyptic starts. Tomb preference have 80% + survivor trait which give 70% tomb world habitability giving you 50% excess habitability and you can feel "guilty-free" to take non-adaptive to knock it down another 10%.

This does mean that your primary species will suffer bit worse on other world outside of your preference range but for those who preference a tall one-world this isn't an issue. As soon you open up ringworld/habitat or start terraforming or even modify non-adaptive out once you have enough sparse trait points. Although you can colonize with robots which don't have any drawback from your primary's species non-adaptive.

However do be aware that there is an issue with how immigration/minorities work which will over-ride your species' planet preference and put Gaia species on desert world and desert species on alpine etc... Which will most likely kill you slowly with extremely high amenities/housing/upkeep. Don't say I didn't warn y'all![/spoiler]

 

[Ikael]

Seems to me that Warrior Culture and/or Citizen service should have had a Marshal or a similar type of Soldier ruler, and possibly also a specialist. I don't know if it would fix those civics, but it would add some special flavour.

Warrior culture having a "Warlord" type of leader that generates naval capacity, elite troops and ship building speed to its planet would be quite fitting, I think!

Your post truly belongs in the suggestion forum! This are very nice things some of this are more plus than something really needed.
Also serf jobs pose a problem similar to that of the scavenger job that hive minds have it clash with the job assignment

Pheasant Hamlet: +1 housing, +1 serf (crappy) job per agricultural district

Hmmm, I have an idea for a mod...

 

[Madzai]

While that doesn't seem too terrible at first glance, the increased upkeep is something you will definitely feel, particularly when it comes to consumer goods in non-stratified societies, given that there is quite an overhead for upkeep and the basic infrastructure of a colony. And the impact becomes even bigger once you employ specialists and not just labourers.

With how slow POP growth is, the effect of non-adaptive start to really kick-in much later(or if you have really bad draw with nearby planets). Later you just either terraform or genemode. It's even better for GC that may use low-hab planets as hatchery worlds.

Something like +Charismatic, Rapid Breeders, Communal, - Non-Adaptive, Quarrelsome (compensated by One Mind).

 

[GAGA Extrem]

You are forgetting at least two possible combination that might make non-adaptive somewhat tolerable and both are pretty niche strategies. I think it would be better off showing the combination in screenshots as opposite to say it out loud. I put picture in spoiler tag to keep this post short and tidy.[...]

Even in those cases it does still matter - for Life Seeded it reduces the habitability on your homeworld and for the rest it makes the first 10% habitability you gain useless. For the Tomb world its less impactful, although I'd assume that the whole habitability stacking thing is a wee bit unintentional and might change in the future.

If anything, the one scenario where it matters the least is the mass-use of robots with something like Mechanist and particularly as a Driven Assimiliator machine empire.

With how slow POP growth is, the effect of non-adaptive start to really kick-in much later [...]

I mean, you could also argue here that given that you are so limited in terms of pops, it is really bad that you increase the upkeep overhead of your existing population. Having to produce +2F because of lower Habitability for 20 pops is still (a bit less than) half a farmer's job, but that pop could do other important stuff.

 

[GothicEmperor]

Feudal Empire doesn't seem to actually work in allowing subjects to expand, at least not for Protectorates.