Do we really need to hide Subjugation and Federations behind Tradition wall?

[Technoincubus]

Europa Universalis IV. 90% of espionage options were available only when Espionage ideas are taken. So in the end, nobody used them because nobody took Espionage ideas.
Adding hard caps on certain game features proved to be a bad idea time and time again. Instead of improving existing features they are axed outright.
It's like hiding blockade feature behind Naval ideas in EUIV or locking Tactics to ideologies in HoIIV.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Europa Universalis IV. 90% of espionage options were available only when Espionage ideas are taken. So in the end, nobody used them because nobody took Espionage ideas.
Adding hard caps on certain game features proved to be a bad idea time and time again. Instead of improving existing features they are axed outright.
It's like hiding blockade feature behind Naval ideas in EUIV or locking Tactics to ideologies in HoIIV.

Well it's a tough scenario. My initial instinct is to make federations a tech and put bonuses to federations in the tradition tree, but if you do that, you're locking out people who rush diplomacy early from it being useful. Another option is to scrap the diplomacy traditions as they currently are and make new bonuses and make federations a tech. That's a bad solution largely because it eliminates the uniqueness of federations.

Anyways i think the current system is better than most systems which could replace it. You can already have defensive alliances without federations, and federations really only add ship bonuses and an offensive alliance. Locking it behind a tradition guarantees that there won't be too many federations and generally each of them will offer a unique choice. I have seen some mods that add federation laws and that would be cool to see.

 

[WkoD]

Subjugation is no longer a tradition pick and can be used from day 1, since patch 2.2 I belive.

 

[Lordlory95]

Remember that the next DLC (that hopefully will be realese after the devs patched the current mess) is the Diplomatic DLC, so probably this will change, along with the majority of diplo features

 

[kviiri]

Subjugation isn't, as has been noted, gated behind traditions (since 2.2 came out).

As for Federations, they're gated behind two traditions (Diplomacy adoption and the Federation tradition itself). I'm cool with people wanting it not to be gated at all, but it's not really a big investment and comparing it to the Espionage idea group is a bit clumsy in this respect.

 

[Technoincubus]

Subjugation is no longer a tradition pick and can be used from day 1, since patch 2.2 I belive.

No, beta patch still says tradition is required. As barbaric despoiler I had only two options - Conquest and plunder

 

[WkoD]

No, beta patch still says tradition is required. As barbaric despoiler I had only two options - Conquest and plunder

Then it sound like the description is wrong. You have to "ask" another empire to become your vassal and if they refuse you get the subjugation casus belli on them.

 

[kviiri]

Yeah, and it's been that way since warfare was overhauled in Cherryh/2.0. First you demand the enemies to submit, and if they don't do so peacefully, you have grounds for an invasion. No point in attacking if they'd yield peacefully.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

It's not like EUIV idea groups, though, where you only get a small selection from the large pool (like you do with ascention perks) - you can eventually (or sooner) get all the traditions; they aren't mutually exclusive choices - it's simply a question of "when" and not "if."

 

[CrowScape]

Not a fan of Federation being a tradition, simply because its only purpose in all of my play throughs where it's been presented has been to waste unity and inflate tradition costs. The only way to not waste that unity is to play as a Devouring Swarm or Fanatic Purifier. Even Determined Exterminators are saddled with this negative feature.

 

[AlanC9]

Hyperbole much? Any tradition you aren't using is a waste.

 

[kviiri]

I think a larger issue with Federations is that they kinda, sorta suck and aren't really that interesting to play. But I believe they'll get some love in the next major patch. I just hope it's good love, because a badly-planned redesign might be worse than the original.

 

[CrowScape]

Hyperbole much?

How so? I have never, ever, in 2000 hours of playing, formed a federation.

Wait... hold on... I'm sorry. I did it once for an achievement. But I don't think traditions even existed at that time.

Any tradition you aren't using is a waste.

There are very, very few traditions that every empire does not gain a benefit from. Federation is the rare exception. Let's do a rundown per category:

Expansion: The only questionable one is -10% starbase influence cost, as if you take this outside of the early game, you're probably not going to use it or, in the rare case where you do build an outpost, the cost savings aren't felt. That said, every empire could conceivably use it if they chose Expansion early.

Domination: Everything is used by everyone.

Prosperity: Everything is used by everyone.

Harmony/Synchronicity: Everything is used by everyone.

Supremacy: Everything is used is used by everyone. Yes, even pacifists gain benefits, as they still need to have some navy.

Discovery: Like Expansion, only one questionable one that is only really beneficial in the early game (33% survey speed + disengage chance), but everyone can still conceivably use it.

Diplomacy/Adaptability/Versatility: 10% Habitability stops being useful by the time you get to mid-game, but it is relevant longer than those talked of in Expansion and Discovery, and it still does a little tiny bit while waiting for a colonized planet to teraform. Completely negated by those going for synthetic ascension, but that's mid-late game. The only other questionable one is the -33% cost reduction for resettlement, as that is something a player can choose to never engage in. Whether it's wise is a separate question, but for those who don't want to touch it, it's another Federation.

Federation is the only one that is flat out useless 99.5% of the time from my play experience. Nothing comes close.

 

[Highlordelliot]

Europa Universalis IV. 90% of espionage options were available only when Espionage ideas are taken. So in the end, nobody used them because nobody took Espionage ideas.
Adding hard caps on certain game features proved to be a bad idea time and time again. Instead of improving existing features they are axed outright.
It's like hiding blockade feature behind Naval ideas in EUIV or locking Tactics to ideologies in HoIIV.

I think making traditions give significant bonuses to abilities works better then unlocking them through traditions.

From an ic standpoint something becomes a tradition because you’ve done it for quite some time across generations of society. It’s weird that you make it a tradition upon first getting it.

In terms of gameplay. By giving bonuses rather then the abilities themselves. It allows you to really specialize into strategies which you focus on.

 

[The Founder]

"Do we really need to hide Subjugation and Federations behind Tradition wall?"
If you go for Federations, the Diplomacy Tradition is not a "wall". It is the logical thing to take, for the cost reduction alone.

And Subjugation was not behind a tradition wall since 2.2 came out last year. So that part of the question does not even make sense anymore.

Europa Universalis IV. 90% of espionage options were available only when Espionage ideas are taken. So in the end, nobody used them because nobody took Espionage ideas.

And there is a huge mistake. You somehow mistook the 8 Traditions of Stellaris with the 10x3 Idea Groups of EU 4.

You can not take all EU 4 Ideas. The math simply prevents that.
You will however take all Stellaris Traditions eventually. It is only a mater of Priority.

 

[Tim_Ward]

Having federations locked behind diplomacy tree is bad because:

A) the federation mechanics are terrible - despite being a diplomacy feature they take diplomacy options away from the player and don't give much back in return - so two traditions are wasted if you take the diplomacy tree
B) But when they're made Not Terrible, why would you want to hide an awesome feature you just spent loads of time on behind a tradition tree?

 

[Tim_Ward]

"Do we really need to hide Subjugation and Federations behind Tradition wall?"
If you go for Federations, the Diplomacy Tradition is not a "wall". It is the logical thing to take, for the cost reduction alone.

And Subjugation was not behind a tradition wall since 2.2 came out last year. So that part of the question does not even make sense anymore.


And there is a huge mistake. You somehow mistook the 8 Traditions of Stellaris with the 10x3 Idea Groups of EU 4.

You can not take all EU 4 Ideas. The math simply prevents that.
You will however take all Stellaris Traditions eventually. It is only a mater of Priority.

Well, you can't take all EU4 ideas because the math prevents it and also because there's a finite number of slots for idea groups, and it's less than the total number of ideas in the game.

And this should be how traditions in Stellaris work too, because honestly it's kinda shitty that you end up with everything at the end. In Eu4, you pick your idea groups based on you planned play-style and position in the game. Planning to do a colonial empire with GB results in a very different set of ideas to doing a world conquest with Prussia, but in Stellaris everyone has the same stuff by the end game and it's just blah.

They've added unity sinks, but that's still no good because you still often want to unlock all seven ascension perks.

This was always the idea behind them - read the original dev diary and dev comments from that time, you were never supposed to be able to get all traditions in each game, but they've never accepted the simple truth that if they want that to be the case then they need to make it so there are more than seven tradition trees but only a finite number of slots.

For some bizarre reason they've been really resistant to adding more tradition trees to the game. Maybe back when they made utopia that was justified because, honestly, the game did not have enough mechanical depth to support more than seven trees.

But it's a different story today - already we have half of the diplomacy tree doing the work of what should really be an entirely separate 'trade' tree, the domination tree has been reworked into something that clearly should also be a new tree and when they add espionage we'll really need a tree for that, when the rework diplomacy they'll need to add some traditions for that so it can't share it's tree with trade anymore and when, god willing, they overhaul ground combat to be more mechanically sophisticated that, ideally, would get a tree too.

 

[AlanC9]

How so? I have never, ever, in 2000 hours of playing, formed a federation.

Wait... hold on... I'm sorry. I did it once for an achievement. But I don't think traditions even existed at that time.

I've never waited for a pop to demote. (I suppose it's conceivable that one did sometime in the late game when I wasn't paying attention.) And I don't think I've ever seen a democratic leader stick around long enough to get the ruler cap bonus. Other traditions expire -- if you don't take Expansion early and didn't get any terraformable dead worlds, you'll never get any use from +1 pops on new worlds. Still others are marginal at best --crime reduction, governing ethics attraction, trade protection. Actually, I've played games where I never saw any crime, so that one may have to move into the wholly useless category. Others are situational; fire rate within the empire's borders may never come up at all, though of course that depends on what Crisis you draw and where it arrives.

What's our criterion for uselessness?

 

[CrowScape]

What's our criterion for uselessness?

Actual uselessness.

I'll give you the ruler level cap bonus. I can see how that is completely useless for democracies. Ruler experience gain would likely be better, as then your leader at least gets an XP boost while running the show.

The rest, though, not useless. Crime? Your default enforcers are getting the benefit of the tradition (and it would probably be a bigger factor if you had Megacorp and were dealing with criminal syndicates). Trade protection? There are threads talking about how difficult it is to keep your trade routes pirate free, and if you're devoting any resources to keeping lanes clear (such as having fleets patrol them), you're making use of it.

Federation is not marginal. It is not situational. It does not have an expiration date. It's not something to chose "just in case." Whenever I have chosen it, it was because it was a tile blocker, nothing more. I don't want to be in a federation. Period. Maybe if the AI wasn't trash, I might occasionally want to dabble in it, but it's not worth the price of admission, and there are still lots of playstyles where being in a federation wouldn't mesh even if federations weren't garbage. That is uselessness.

At least if it was a technology it could be a late game re-roll.

 

[Daedwartin]

Actual uselessness.

I'll give you the ruler level cap bonus. I can see how that is completely useless for democracies. Ruler experience gain would likely be better, as then your leader at least gets an XP boost while running the show.

The rest, though, not useless. Crime? Your default enforcers are getting the benefit of the tradition (and it would probably be a bigger factor if you had Megacorp and were dealing with criminal syndicates). Trade protection? There are threads talking about how difficult it is to keep your trade routes pirate free, and if you're devoting any resources to keeping lanes clear (such as having fleets patrol them), you're making use of it.

Federation is not marginal. It is not situational. It does not have an expiration date. It's not something to chose "just in case." Whenever I have chosen it, it was because it was a tile blocker, nothing more. I don't want to be in a federation. Period. Maybe if the AI wasn't trash, I might occasionally want to dabble in it, but it's not worth the price of admission, and there are still lots of playstyles where being in a federation wouldn't mesh even if federations weren't garbage. That is uselessness.

At least if it was a technology it could be a late game re-roll.

In MP, a federation fleet is basically a extra fleet for no maintenance.

Also, the expansion influence cost reduction is almost always useful because you are stupid to not to take expansion in pretty much any game you arent doing a one planet challenge...and even then expansion is going to be strong because of the 20% pop growth speed.