This is an idea for making empires feel more unique by adding more variety in how planets are developed, what jobs pops have, and other such things.
In short, "ceremonies" are perks that an empire can pick, unlocked in a similar fashion as ascension perks, except that instead of being limited by technology, the available ceremonies you can pick are determined by what tradition trees you have adopted(and potentially ethics, but we'll get to that later). Each tradition tree has three different ceremonies to pick from, although an empire can adopt more than one ceremony from each tree if they want. In total, each empire can adopt 7 ceremonies.
What makes ceremonies more unique than other similar systems is that instead of giving an empire either big, gameplay altering abilities(like turning everyone into cyborgs or allowing you to build megastructures), or just simple "X% extra (resource)", they're moreso meant to be somewhere in between those two, unlocking new buildings, edicts, or similar features. Some examples for these ceremonies would be: (better suggestions would be appreciated. I am not a game designer)
Domination
- a building which creates "sentinel" jobs, a special form of enforcer who, instead of giving a flat -25 crime, decrease the amount of crime pops produce by a percentage, and also gives amenities.
- creates a new "overeer" ruler job, one per planet, who gives amenities, stability, and increases ruler output, meant to represent a sort of "leader of leaders"
- a potentially controversial one, but the penal colony designation could be moved here, because "let's send all the criminals to this other place" is not so much a matter of technology, but of ideology. Would require some balancing.
Prosperity
- a planet-unique building which makes it so that clerks produce +1 consumer goods
- like above, but with +0.5 alloys. Cannot be built on the same planet as the above
- unlocks a new "trader" ship type, which can be moved onto another empire's planet if you have a commercial pact with them. While there, the ship gives its owner resources equal to X% of all resources produced on the planet(possibly with a maximum capacity for each resource), and increases the trade value on the planet based on how much it collects. There can only be one ship per planet and you can only maintain X trader ships.
Discovery
- a physicist building, which gives a mix of researchers and "physicists" jobs. Physicists produce 6 physics and 3 engineering and society research, allowing an empire to specialize in physics research. Can later be upgraded once you unlock the next tier of the normal research building.
- like above, but with engineering.
- also like above, but with society.
Alternatively, the last one could be moved to the harmony tree, and be replaced with something else here.
Ethics-based ceremonies
Potentially, some ceremonies could be unlocked by ethics instead, to make different empires more unique. These would work under the same principles as the normal ceremonies, but with the following "caveats":
- each ethic only has two ceremonies
- if an empire has picked one of these ceremonies, they can only pick the other one if they are fanatic in that ethic
- if an empire has a certain ethic-related ceremony, but they shift to another ethic, they still keep the ceremony and gain its bonuses
I don't really have any ideas for what ceremonies each ethic would have though.
Why should we add ceremonies?
Have you ever looked at a fallen empire's planet, or that of a primitive? They both have their unique sets of jobs and all that, but normal empires kinda don't. Barring a few swaps from civics and ethics, all empires have more or less the same set of jobs, and I think that kinda limits how unique each empire can feel. Ceremonies would change this by adding multiple new buildings that cannot be used by all empires.
Other people have suggested doing "facelifts" to boring civics instead to solve the same problem, but I think tying the improvements to the unity system would, from a balancing perspective, be easier to implement, because if something's overpowered, then at least the overpowered thing is accessible to everyone.
In short, "ceremonies" are perks that an empire can pick, unlocked in a similar fashion as ascension perks, except that instead of being limited by technology, the available ceremonies you can pick are determined by what tradition trees you have adopted(and potentially ethics, but we'll get to that later). Each tradition tree has three different ceremonies to pick from, although an empire can adopt more than one ceremony from each tree if they want. In total, each empire can adopt 7 ceremonies.
What makes ceremonies more unique than other similar systems is that instead of giving an empire either big, gameplay altering abilities(like turning everyone into cyborgs or allowing you to build megastructures), or just simple "X% extra (resource)", they're moreso meant to be somewhere in between those two, unlocking new buildings, edicts, or similar features. Some examples for these ceremonies would be: (better suggestions would be appreciated. I am not a game designer)
Domination
- a building which creates "sentinel" jobs, a special form of enforcer who, instead of giving a flat -25 crime, decrease the amount of crime pops produce by a percentage, and also gives amenities.
- creates a new "overeer" ruler job, one per planet, who gives amenities, stability, and increases ruler output, meant to represent a sort of "leader of leaders"
- a potentially controversial one, but the penal colony designation could be moved here, because "let's send all the criminals to this other place" is not so much a matter of technology, but of ideology. Would require some balancing.
Prosperity
- a planet-unique building which makes it so that clerks produce +1 consumer goods
- like above, but with +0.5 alloys. Cannot be built on the same planet as the above
- unlocks a new "trader" ship type, which can be moved onto another empire's planet if you have a commercial pact with them. While there, the ship gives its owner resources equal to X% of all resources produced on the planet(possibly with a maximum capacity for each resource), and increases the trade value on the planet based on how much it collects. There can only be one ship per planet and you can only maintain X trader ships.
Discovery
- a physicist building, which gives a mix of researchers and "physicists" jobs. Physicists produce 6 physics and 3 engineering and society research, allowing an empire to specialize in physics research. Can later be upgraded once you unlock the next tier of the normal research building.
- like above, but with engineering.
- also like above, but with society.
Alternatively, the last one could be moved to the harmony tree, and be replaced with something else here.
Ethics-based ceremonies
Potentially, some ceremonies could be unlocked by ethics instead, to make different empires more unique. These would work under the same principles as the normal ceremonies, but with the following "caveats":
- each ethic only has two ceremonies
- if an empire has picked one of these ceremonies, they can only pick the other one if they are fanatic in that ethic
- if an empire has a certain ethic-related ceremony, but they shift to another ethic, they still keep the ceremony and gain its bonuses
I don't really have any ideas for what ceremonies each ethic would have though.
Why should we add ceremonies?
Have you ever looked at a fallen empire's planet, or that of a primitive? They both have their unique sets of jobs and all that, but normal empires kinda don't. Barring a few swaps from civics and ethics, all empires have more or less the same set of jobs, and I think that kinda limits how unique each empire can feel. Ceremonies would change this by adding multiple new buildings that cannot be used by all empires.
Other people have suggested doing "facelifts" to boring civics instead to solve the same problem, but I think tying the improvements to the unity system would, from a balancing perspective, be easier to implement, because if something's overpowered, then at least the overpowered thing is accessible to everyone.
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