Game balance issues feedback

[nrader]

Hello there, everyone!
I'm mostly play stellaris in MP and thus have to be competitive unless i want to die horribly. Which worries me for a long time is that large chunk of gameplay mechanics became bad or even totally useless when you try to maximize output of your empire. So i'd like to point some issues and also suggest tweaks to some of them. Hope @Wiz will read this

Well, first is Diplomacy:

• 1. Migration treaties - no matter how many migration-related bonuses you have, the other party just wont let you to use them. Yet we have similar-working treaty that actually work - research agreements. The only difference is that you cant offer something in return with migration treaties - they are separate button. Why don't we place it in trade window so you can, say, offer it with something to other party in time when they need that something?
• 2. Vassals - what the point in them if they can do whatever they want and there is no game mechanic that force them to abide your orders? Vassal player can say "**** off with your order" without starting war for independence and you cannot do anything about it. If there were a way to give orders directly to vassal's fleet, for example, vassals might became a bit useful....; And as consequence of this issue, the dominance tradition tree is pretty bad - why spending unity on trying to make vassals a bit viable when you can just go supremacy and conquer them all which will give you more benefits? Also, dominance doesn't give any fire-rate bonuses so winning wars is more difficult in comparison to supremacy tree.

The second is Xenophile bonuses: situation itself quite similar to diplomacy issues above - if other party doesn't want it to work, it wont work. So bonuses need either work without other's wish for it to work, or other player should have a reason for actually wanting it to work(reason worthwhile enough for being friendly to xenophile). I'm not sure what exactly might work better, but option diversity is always good so i hope xenophiles get some rework in order to be playable not only in SP.

 

[nrader]

Wanted to post only MP-exclusively-related stuff at first, but then i tried to make a little list of most useful bonus combos for myself for my future MP matches.
Guess what was the result? Instead of increasing the number of viable options, there is even less than in 1.4.

I mean, currently usefulness difference of ethics and traditions is even bigger than in 1.4; Since i dont like to be baseless, the examples below:

• 1.1. Some ethics like Spiritualism or Individualism in 1.4 relien on pop-based bonuses, which were removed yet we didn't get equally useful substitute. Sure, having a bit less POP maintenance and bit of influence after picking egalitarian is not an "no bonuses" nor having a bit of ethic attraction on Spiritualism is same, but is it really bonuses worth of paying that 1 or 2 ethic points? A fanatical edicts are not free, too. I can understand. And materialist is now bad, too, thanks to construction cost bonus being removed - since science lead cannot give you enough advantages in face of neighbours that rely on numbers. Lvl5 weapons being five times costly yet giving only ~60% more firepower explains it very well.
  
• 1.2 Okay, there is still civics that can compensate the ethic bonuses being weak.... or not? If we exclude civics that is not ethos-restricted(as they can be picked with some other, more viable ethic) we have only several that actually better than non-ethos-restricted ones: Both pacifistic ones, which make pacifist not that bad, though not the best; And Militarist ones, but hey, militarist ethos bonuses isnt bad even without those. All the other can be replaced by non restricted civics without much harm (Like, there is egalitarian civic that gives more influence from faction, but you can just pick +1 influence civic instead without picking egalitarian)

I hope this stuff will be also looked at in 1.6. Because having Militaristic Xenophobes as the only viable start option is sad.