I think I've found a way to rebalance unity, perks and techs.

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This is an interesting idea, but I'm concerned it would make certain traditions even more essential than they are now. If you can't even get Destroyers and UV Lasers without finishing Supremacy then it becomes a must to take Supremacy as your second tree. And Expansion would be nearly mandatory as the first tree because beyond the pop bonuses it already grants it would become a requirement to take Grasp the Void.

A couple ideas for fine-tuning in random order:
1) Impose the limit on tier 3 techs rather than tier 2.
2) Alterantively make the limit more progressive. For example tier 2 techs require you to have opened a tradition tree, tier 3 techs require you to have opened the tree and picked 2 further traditions, and tier 4 techs require you to have finished the tree. Or maybe tier 3 requires opener + 1 additional tradition, tier 4 requires opener + 3 traditions, and tier 5 is what requires you to finish the tree.
3) If you go that route maybe eliminate the tradition cost penalty for having multiple tradition trees open.
4) You probably want a few techs that aren't limited by tradition trees, so there will always be something to research. Alternatively make repeatables tier 2/3 techs, but let them keep their low weights. That way they'll show up to fill the gaps if you can't research any normal technologies, but any normal technologies that are available will be more likely drawn than the repeatables.
5) Ships components can be distributed among multiple tradition trees. For example weapons, armor, and shields require Supremacy, naval cap (logistics) requires Expansion, sensors and thrusters require Discovery. Hull sizes and reactors could be unrestricted by traditions or maybe they could require Prosperity, though it's a stretch. The idea is that you need a strong economy to afford big ships and reactors = energy = money.
6) Harmony is still pretty meh. Needs some cool techs associated with it.
 
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This is an interesting idea, but I'm concerned it would make certain traditions even more essential than they are now. If you can't even get Destroyers and UV Lasers without finishing Supremacy then it becomes a must to take Supremacy as your second tree. And Expansion would be nearly mandatory as the first tree because beyond the pop bonuses it already grants it would become a requirement to take Grasp the Void.

A couple ideas for fine-tuning in random order:
1) Impose the limit on tier 3 techs rather than tier 2.
2) Alterantively make the limit more progressive. For example tier 2 techs require you to have opened a tradition tree, tier 3 techs require you to have opened the tree and picked 2 further traditions, and tier 4 techs require you to have finished the tree. Or maybe tier 3 requires opener + 1 additional tradition, tier 4 requires opener + 3 traditions, and tier 5 is what requires you to finish the tree.
3) If you go that route maybe eliminate the tradition cost penalty for having multiple tradition trees open.
4) You probably want a few techs that aren't limited by tradition trees, so there will always be something to research. Alternatively make repeatables tier 2/3 techs, but let them keep their low weights. That way they'll show up to fill the gaps if you can't research any normal technologies, but any normal technologies that are available will be more likely drawn than the repeatables.
5) Ships components can be distributed among multiple tradition trees. For example weapons, armor, and shields require Supremacy, naval cap (logistics) requires Expansion, sensors and thrusters require Discovery. Hull sizes and reactors could be unrestricted by traditions or maybe they could require Prosperity, though it's a stretch. The idea is that you need a strong economy to afford big ships and reactors = energy = money.
6) Harmony is still pretty meh. Needs some cool techs associated with it.

There's some nice ideas here. I'll address them in turn:

As mentioned previously, really essential stuff like weapons, starbase upgrades, ship types, pop growth, food and energy are not restricted. I've done this to avoid the exact scenario you're describing. A side effect I've noticed with this when testing is that these techs are researched way quicker by AI empires, so they are more competitive early on.

For your other points, I had thought about the idea of making unlock tiers, so that tier 2 is accessible on adoption, and tier 3+ is for completion, but I'm unlikely to put these into a first version. I had also thought about any repeatable techs (where the pre-requisite tech the enables it are locked by traditions) are tier 3 so that they can be adopted earlier, but still maintain their cost. Maybe I'll get this into a first version.

In terms of distributing ship components elsewhere, I'm not sure this fits with the scope of the concept - you may end up in weird scenarios where empires are unable to learn fairly essential techs, or it could cause the aforementioned scenario where techs that lock say tachyon lances become essential.

I'm thinking of locking battleships to supremacy maybe (whilst removing their requirement for mega-engineering) but may leave this for version 1.

I'm hoping to get version 1 out the door in the next day or two - just want to run a few more tests first for balance.
 
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Their trees mostly deal with tech that is a swap for regular empires, differences being the last two habitability techs are now exclusively for adaptability trees, along with tomb world habitability, and versatility is locking off the robomodding techs for machine empires.

Just so I am understanding this, a small number of techs would be unavailable to standard empires, yes? I am cool with this and leads to an additional thought. A number of events, archeology outcomes, etc. provide access to certain techs. If those tech are locked away, it makes these outcomes more interesting (which I like).

I'm thinking of locking battleships to supremacy maybe (whilst removing their requirement for mega-engineering) but may leave this for version 1.

Just a quick thought here. Maybe just lock titans and juggernauts.
 
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This looks to me like a really flavorful and interesting rebalancing, that would be great for more experienced players. So brilliant for a mod. I imagine there would be challenges implementing something like this into the main game, in terms of how to communicate to new players what the different traditions actually unlock, and what the implications of this are. But I think it wouldn't be insurmountable. There would also be issues balancing the perk assignments for all the different DLC states of the game; it might need the invention of a couple of new perks to balance it out.

I'd be tempted to assign some more of the perks to the tradition trees. For instance, I feel Voidbourne and maybe Master Builders might work well with prosperity, given its focus on more efficient infrastructures. Consecrated worlds might be a good fit with Harmony. You could also place Worldshaper there (as harmony has a particularly utopian feel), alternatively you could put it in diplomacy as part of the idea of a Gaia world is that it's a paradise for all species. Colossus should probably be behind Supremacy - it is a better fit that Galactic Contender I think.
 
How does the AI handle your approach?

From testing so far, they seem capable of handling it. It's effectively forcing some tech picks from being chosen, so weapons / ship types are prioritised, meaning stronger fleet capability earlier, then they specialise in the early mid game, so supremacy adopted will have bigger fleets, prosperity will have stronger economies etc.
 
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From testing so far, they seem capable of handling it. It's effectively forcing some tech picks from being chosen, so weapons / ship types are prioritised, meaning stronger fleet capability earlier, then they specialise in the early mid game, so supremacy adopted will have bigger fleets, prosperity will have stronger economies etc.
Cool!
I guess the follow up to that is how does the AI handle picking unity traditions? And do they always try to fill out a tree before moving on, or is it more of a random walk?
I've never looked into it. I know the ascension perks themselves have ethos weights, but not sure about individual trees.
 
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Cool!
I guess the follow up to that is how does the AI handle picking unity traditions? And do they always try to fill out a tree before moving on, or is it more of a random walk?
I've never looked into it. I know the ascension perks themselves have ethos weights, but not sure about individual trees.

I've not messed with the AI-weighting yet, but it's in the works with a government mod I'm making.

As it stands now, it uses the default AI-weighting, which means that once it adopts a tradition tree, it will finish it first before adopting another. The mod is currently balanced around this process.

I might give it a try. We'll see how much time I'll have to actually play.

Please do if you find the time! I would be very grateful of feedback.
 
I guess the follow up to that is how does the AI handle picking unity traditions? And do they always try to fill out a tree before moving on, or is it more of a random walk?
I've never looked into it. I know the ascension perks themselves have ethos weights, but not sure about individual trees.

Tradition trees have AI weights too. This one for example is for Discovery:

Code:
    ai_weight = {
        factor = 10
        modifier = {
            factor = 5
            years_passed < 10
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            has_ethic = ethic_materialist
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 3
            has_ethic = ethic_fanatic_materialist
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0
            OR = {
                AND = {
                    has_tradition = tr_diplomacy_adopt
                    NOT = { has_tradition = tr_diplomacy_finish }
                }
                AND = {
                    has_tradition = tr_domination_adopt
                    NOT = { has_tradition = tr_domination_finish }
                }
                AND = {
                    has_tradition = tr_expansion_adopt
                    NOT = { has_tradition = tr_expansion_finish }
                }
                AND = {
                    has_tradition = tr_harmony_adopt
                    NOT = { has_tradition = tr_harmony_finish }
                }
                AND = {
                    has_tradition = tr_prosperity_adopt
                    NOT = { has_tradition = tr_prosperity_finish }
                }
                AND = {
                    has_tradition = tr_supremacy_adopt
                    NOT = { has_tradition = tr_supremacy_finish }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

I know you understand the code, but for those that don't it basically means AI has an increased chance to pick Discovery during the first 10 years, an increased chance to pick Discovery if it's materialistic, and the AI will always finish it's current tradition tree before opening a new one.

For ethics and weights:
- Xenophiles like Diplomacy
- Materialists like Discovery
- Authoritarians and Egalitarians both like Harmony
- Pacifists like Prosperity
- Militarists like Supremacy

Xenophobic and Spiritualist ethics are not associated with any tradition tree. Expansion and Domination tradition trees are not asociated with any ethics.

As a final note the ethics weight are a bit low IMO so the selection is still semi-random. An empire with Fanatic Militarist + Authoritarian would have a 30% chance to pick Supremacy, 20% chance to pick Harmony, and 10% chance for each of the remaining traditions. That's a 50% chance to make an ethic based pick and 50% to make a random pick. (I've chosen to ignore the increased chance for Discovery during the first decade to simplify calculations.)
 
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As a final note the ethics weight are a bit low IMO so the selection is still semi-random. An empire with Fanatic Militarist + Authoritarian would have a 30% chance to pick Supremacy, 20% chance to pick Harmony, and 10% chance for each of the remaining traditions. That's a 50% chance to make an ethic based pick and 50% to make a random pick.
This gives me an idea for a second set of checks.

Seeing as tech is tied to unity in this If an Ai starts in a federation/hygemony origin or joins a research federation, it might be interesting to issue a check against all other current fed members and partially de-weight trees they already have, encouraging that AI to pick something the others are deficient in, in this way the federation could better benefit from tech sharing, it might make fighting ai feds a little more spicy as they'd have a wider range of techs than someone without research agreements. Likely by nesting weighting blocks under a set of checks/ a decision tree.

@Cat_Fuzz Also just to confirm.
If a tech is locked behind, say, harmony for me, but not for an ai and I tech-share with it, will I have a chance to draw that harmony-locked tech anyway?
(If not, the above idea with AI federations sharing tech, to make them more well-rounded, can be ignored).
 
This gives me an idea for a second set of checks.

Seeing as tech is tied to unity in this If an Ai starts in a federation/hygemony origin or joins a research federation, it might be interesting to issue a check against all other current fed members and partially de-weight trees they already have, encouraging that AI to pick something the others are deficient in, in this way the federation could better benefit from tech sharing, it might make fighting ai feds a little more spicy as they'd have a wider range of techs than someone without research agreements. Likely by nesting weighting blocks under a set of checks/ a decision tree.

@Cat_Fuzz Also just to confirm.
If a tech is locked behind, say, harmony for me, but not for an ai and I tech-share with it, will I have a chance to draw that harmony-locked tech anyway?
(If not, the above idea with AI federations sharing tech, to make them more well-rounded, can be ignored).

This is a really nice idea, but it would entirely hinge on whether you can call a function to check if a federation member has a certain tech. I don't think it does, but if this can work, I'll look into adding something to this.
 
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According to the wiki there is an any_federation_ally scope. So it should be as simple as adding the following weight modifier:
Code:
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.1
            any_federation_ally = {
                has_tradition = tr_discovery_adopt
            }
        }

The example is for Discovery and the naming for tradition openers all follows the same pattern. You don't want to set the modifier to 0 because you'd then risk getting a situation where all tradition trees have a weight of 0 and the AI will stop taking traditions. But 0.1 should work given how the base weight is 10.
 
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According to the wiki there is an any_federation_ally scope. So it should be as simple as adding the following weight modifier:
Code:
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.1
            any_federation_ally = {
                has_tradition = tr_discovery_adopt
            }
        }

The example is for Discovery and the naming for tradition openers all follows the same pattern. You don't want to set the modifier to 0 because you'd then risk getting a situation where all tradition trees have a weight of 0 and the AI will stop taking traditions. But 0.1 should work given how the base weight is 10.
Super helpful, thanks!
 
I generally don't like the idea of locking perks or techs behind some bars. it always, ALWAYS works poorly. Hard cap is always worse than soft cap. We experienced it with Espionage ideas debacle in EUIV and other features
 
What a pity, would had liked to try it out. One more mod locked behind steam.

Ah, I hadn't thought to upload it elsewhere - would the Paradox mods or Nexusmods be a better place to download? I can always add a link in the steam description.

I generally don't like the idea of locking perks or techs behind some bars. it always, ALWAYS works poorly. Hard cap is always worse than soft cap. We experienced it with Espionage ideas debacle in EUIV and other features

In fairness, give it a go and see what you think?