I've made pretty sizeable post regarding my take on improving one of the most controversial and disliked features of Stellaris - sectors - in relevant thread, but since I am here and it's not the only thing I, and a few others would like to see improved, I thought I'd share some feedback and issues I see regarding a couple of more things before stopping bothering you.
Yes, more of a wall of text. Sorry, that's the last one. For a bit. Unless instead of simply enjoying my copy of the game and look forward to future developments I will want to stick around. But maybe I won't be this cruel. We'll see.
Anyway.
ETHOS:
I understand that ethos traits chosen upon creation of new civilization describing overall attitude of the government and the people are a big part of the Stellaris. In fact, they're something that could be considered one of the more interesting features, with empires expressing certain attitudes not because someone forced them through fluff, but as dynamic result of chosen "character".
However, I think that at times it may limit certain really reasonable options. While I heard that one can mod the number of ethos traits available, I think it'd be quite nice to allow simply slightly greater variation and choice regarding the number. Ethos is meant to make races stand apart as unique, but sometimes they funnel chices available to them quite much. I'd like to see more races, races that simply are guided by varied number of strong opinions and attitudes about multiple aspects fo society.
Possibly cliche reminescent of oldschool sc-fi tropes and less ambitious, but I'd like to see, for example, a random race of fanatically materialistic engineers who don't feel strongly about war, importance of government on society and individual and so on as they see it all as fluctuating arrangements made and easily broken in the eternal pursue of research and mastery of surrounding (physical) world. Or a race of detached spiritualists whose life revolves around their faith and their detachment from other aspects of life made even the creation of FTL and coherent civilization merely an experimental test of their meditations. Or on the other hand, an inflexible race feeling strongly about each area of ethos (4 points), sure that they know absolute truth about each aspect of one's existence and others are merely more or less wrong in how lax they are in adherence to their dogma (by not being exactly like them).
I'd like to make anything in between, too. Civilizations that can choose just two ethos traits without being fanatic about them. Be it to reflect their still divided opinions despite united government or society where certain philosophies and attitudes flow and ebb dynamically, with government ready to and build upon acceptance of those fluctuations without complete restructurization every time (to a certain degree, of course).
WAR:
War demands are another rather interesting aspect. I like how they make conquest structurized, but sometimes they're also needlessly limiting. Too often I feel that by entering war I actually enter an arrangement with an oversight performed by other civilizations. While it fits more realistic games about multinational politics and warfare, in Stellaris we play as quite independent civilization.
First, war often changes a situation. Strategic goals viable at one point often change their value. New opportunities come and go. Even in case of aforementioned multinational politics, sometimes war can provide unexpected boons, intelligence (another thing a game seems to lack outside of fluff - intelligence, ability to send spies, sabotage projects, achieve goals stealthily, not just through official channels of diplomacy and warfare). I'd like to see that incorporated in the war demands - an ability to add, possibly at elevated cost new objectives as well as take old ones off the table. It wouldn't change the balance much - one still has to fight for their goals, whatever they'd be and possibly, should the battle be joined by some allies, those allies my disapprove of or outright veto certain changes, but those changes should be theoretically possible.
Currently, one can land in absolutely immersion-breaking situation when it turns out that war campaign went far better than expected, the enemy lay broken, their colonies occupied, their fleets slag drifting through space. Still, despite decisive victory against hated rival who thorough the conflict committed innumerable atrocities, the player is forced to leave it all and let said enemy rebuild easily since the conflict started with some important, but generally simple goal: allowing passage through empire's territory because said empire blocked all starlanes out of that part of the galaxy.
No matter what happened through all this time, that was the deal and even if the player is playing a warlike, fanatical civilization at the absolute peak of galactic military power, he's powerless and has to go away because.. what? His empire would benefit greatly and no one would be able to stop him. So, they're scared someone will wiggle their finger (or tentacle) cause it's not something a gentleman would do? What if in player's greedy, warmongering civilization a gentleman is just a guy with a bigger gun willing to use it as long as he can benefit from it?
So, while I understand there should be certain limitations to not make every war doomed to be a war of total dominance where surrender is more of a risk than desperate fight to the end, some flexibility here would be great. Same with surrender itself - it's absolutely silly how one's enemy before truce ever ends is willing and able to actively support some other declared enemy of the player or to send outright insults through official diplomatic channels every year or so and not fear any reprisal. What, just because I had to show someone their place not too long ago, they now have free right to threaten and insult me? Call it some "alien logic", but to me as a player it's plain bad.
TRADE:
Lastly, I think there's significantly limited number of alternatives to war. Some things should be manageable through diplomacy no matter one's ethos. For example, I often am able to offer quite much in trade, but demand less - what if despite my rather peaceful nature I need an ownership of certain system lest I face annihilation? I cannot even trade for it but, even more against my nature - I can fight to liberate it just so I can ask new government for cooperation as part of my civilization? What? Why can't I offer them data on some rare technology they would really use? Or request such as an alternative to said system?
Well, I understand that it's tricky since some empires have weightened access to different technologies but if both of us already go in similar direction, and for example, use laser weaponry, I am sure that offering them basic examples of the new tech translated to 10% of next tier of said non-rare laser technology wouldn't be a stretch?
One should be able to put some pressure during trade negotiations. Maybe "promise to not burn your worlds to the ground" won't look too nice in the "Offer" window, but such extortion is still a reasonable option than being forced to do that burning in war. Generally, trade needs lot of work - for example, if some empire offers some sort of treaty, I'd like to be able to request them to sweeten the deal. Or maybe they dislike me but recognizes that some treaty would really benefit both of us equally - then they should ask for token sign of good will (or more than a token should they not need my help as much as I need theirs). The same when trade or other deal is suggested, I should be able to haggle with counteroffers exchanged till one of the empires gives up - be it due to those counteroffers going back and forth for years now (and not look so appealing anymore) or because the other party demands became too great.
Connected to that is a problem of how much certain empires value certain things. Every civilization I've met so far had -1000 modifier for research cooperation, even if they were of roughly similar technological level to mine, or when I offered them some vital resource. Hell, I had empires less advanced than me reject my very generous offer of research cooperation for some reason (and in once case, offering me the same deal about half a year later on their own). So values are all weird, with me too often being offered pocket change for some powerful strategic resources by long-time allies and so on.
I will end this wall of text here. I kinda worry that it will be ignored anyway since I am no one special or more important for devs to check out than anyone else and I realize such long posts can be hard to get into even when someone notices them. Oh well, I've done what I could to share my ideas and opinions. Can't do more than that.
Yes, more of a wall of text. Sorry, that's the last one. For a bit. Unless instead of simply enjoying my copy of the game and look forward to future developments I will want to stick around. But maybe I won't be this cruel. We'll see.
Anyway.
ETHOS:
I understand that ethos traits chosen upon creation of new civilization describing overall attitude of the government and the people are a big part of the Stellaris. In fact, they're something that could be considered one of the more interesting features, with empires expressing certain attitudes not because someone forced them through fluff, but as dynamic result of chosen "character".
However, I think that at times it may limit certain really reasonable options. While I heard that one can mod the number of ethos traits available, I think it'd be quite nice to allow simply slightly greater variation and choice regarding the number. Ethos is meant to make races stand apart as unique, but sometimes they funnel chices available to them quite much. I'd like to see more races, races that simply are guided by varied number of strong opinions and attitudes about multiple aspects fo society.
Possibly cliche reminescent of oldschool sc-fi tropes and less ambitious, but I'd like to see, for example, a random race of fanatically materialistic engineers who don't feel strongly about war, importance of government on society and individual and so on as they see it all as fluctuating arrangements made and easily broken in the eternal pursue of research and mastery of surrounding (physical) world. Or a race of detached spiritualists whose life revolves around their faith and their detachment from other aspects of life made even the creation of FTL and coherent civilization merely an experimental test of their meditations. Or on the other hand, an inflexible race feeling strongly about each area of ethos (4 points), sure that they know absolute truth about each aspect of one's existence and others are merely more or less wrong in how lax they are in adherence to their dogma (by not being exactly like them).
I'd like to make anything in between, too. Civilizations that can choose just two ethos traits without being fanatic about them. Be it to reflect their still divided opinions despite united government or society where certain philosophies and attitudes flow and ebb dynamically, with government ready to and build upon acceptance of those fluctuations without complete restructurization every time (to a certain degree, of course).
WAR:
War demands are another rather interesting aspect. I like how they make conquest structurized, but sometimes they're also needlessly limiting. Too often I feel that by entering war I actually enter an arrangement with an oversight performed by other civilizations. While it fits more realistic games about multinational politics and warfare, in Stellaris we play as quite independent civilization.
First, war often changes a situation. Strategic goals viable at one point often change their value. New opportunities come and go. Even in case of aforementioned multinational politics, sometimes war can provide unexpected boons, intelligence (another thing a game seems to lack outside of fluff - intelligence, ability to send spies, sabotage projects, achieve goals stealthily, not just through official channels of diplomacy and warfare). I'd like to see that incorporated in the war demands - an ability to add, possibly at elevated cost new objectives as well as take old ones off the table. It wouldn't change the balance much - one still has to fight for their goals, whatever they'd be and possibly, should the battle be joined by some allies, those allies my disapprove of or outright veto certain changes, but those changes should be theoretically possible.
Currently, one can land in absolutely immersion-breaking situation when it turns out that war campaign went far better than expected, the enemy lay broken, their colonies occupied, their fleets slag drifting through space. Still, despite decisive victory against hated rival who thorough the conflict committed innumerable atrocities, the player is forced to leave it all and let said enemy rebuild easily since the conflict started with some important, but generally simple goal: allowing passage through empire's territory because said empire blocked all starlanes out of that part of the galaxy.
No matter what happened through all this time, that was the deal and even if the player is playing a warlike, fanatical civilization at the absolute peak of galactic military power, he's powerless and has to go away because.. what? His empire would benefit greatly and no one would be able to stop him. So, they're scared someone will wiggle their finger (or tentacle) cause it's not something a gentleman would do? What if in player's greedy, warmongering civilization a gentleman is just a guy with a bigger gun willing to use it as long as he can benefit from it?
So, while I understand there should be certain limitations to not make every war doomed to be a war of total dominance where surrender is more of a risk than desperate fight to the end, some flexibility here would be great. Same with surrender itself - it's absolutely silly how one's enemy before truce ever ends is willing and able to actively support some other declared enemy of the player or to send outright insults through official diplomatic channels every year or so and not fear any reprisal. What, just because I had to show someone their place not too long ago, they now have free right to threaten and insult me? Call it some "alien logic", but to me as a player it's plain bad.
TRADE:
Lastly, I think there's significantly limited number of alternatives to war. Some things should be manageable through diplomacy no matter one's ethos. For example, I often am able to offer quite much in trade, but demand less - what if despite my rather peaceful nature I need an ownership of certain system lest I face annihilation? I cannot even trade for it but, even more against my nature - I can fight to liberate it just so I can ask new government for cooperation as part of my civilization? What? Why can't I offer them data on some rare technology they would really use? Or request such as an alternative to said system?
Well, I understand that it's tricky since some empires have weightened access to different technologies but if both of us already go in similar direction, and for example, use laser weaponry, I am sure that offering them basic examples of the new tech translated to 10% of next tier of said non-rare laser technology wouldn't be a stretch?
One should be able to put some pressure during trade negotiations. Maybe "promise to not burn your worlds to the ground" won't look too nice in the "Offer" window, but such extortion is still a reasonable option than being forced to do that burning in war. Generally, trade needs lot of work - for example, if some empire offers some sort of treaty, I'd like to be able to request them to sweeten the deal. Or maybe they dislike me but recognizes that some treaty would really benefit both of us equally - then they should ask for token sign of good will (or more than a token should they not need my help as much as I need theirs). The same when trade or other deal is suggested, I should be able to haggle with counteroffers exchanged till one of the empires gives up - be it due to those counteroffers going back and forth for years now (and not look so appealing anymore) or because the other party demands became too great.
Connected to that is a problem of how much certain empires value certain things. Every civilization I've met so far had -1000 modifier for research cooperation, even if they were of roughly similar technological level to mine, or when I offered them some vital resource. Hell, I had empires less advanced than me reject my very generous offer of research cooperation for some reason (and in once case, offering me the same deal about half a year later on their own). So values are all weird, with me too often being offered pocket change for some powerful strategic resources by long-time allies and so on.
I will end this wall of text here. I kinda worry that it will be ignored anyway since I am no one special or more important for devs to check out than anyone else and I realize such long posts can be hard to get into even when someone notices them. Oh well, I've done what I could to share my ideas and opinions. Can't do more than that.