On "leader trait cycling" and how to fix it

[Franton]

These three leader traits would either be neutral or if you don't want to or lack the time, you could also make the pool for level one traits just eager, resilient and adaptable. Those three traits seem like the closest to neutral traits we have right now and could be decent for pick your preference, while essentially killing the desire to cycle.

Indeed. While it's not unreasonable for leaders to have one area of expertise, scientist specializations are way too tasty to be offered on hire: they are the main reason this entire problem exists!

IMHO, scientists specialized on some area of tech should either not be available during hiring, or cost much more than unspecialized scientists!

Moreover, after hiring a leader it should take some time for the pool to be refilled - at least one year.

I'd also suggest that arrested development get nuked, it has be just obnoxious. Part of this is that it's way too common, but also something that kneecaps a leaders potential. The negative traits really should be results of events.

Indeed. It's painful enough when occcasionally a scientist gets killed while you're trying to learn the language of another empire, but getting an effectively catastrophic trait while assisting research on some planet is outright ridiculous! When you look at the real world, less than 1 in a thousand scientists ever develop traits as detrimental as even the weakest of the negative Stellaris leader traits, but in Stellaris it's more like 1 in 5! These traits should go, or at the very least their effects be massively reduced.

 

[Paul93]

Let's start from some considerations:
- Cycling is not fun. I mean, clicking repeatedly on a button and then scroll up and down in a menu to elimitate useless leaders? I prefer to employ my time in other ways, sincerely;
- Not cycling is inefficient. Since there is no cap whatsoever to leaders and resource production tend to grow well beyond scarcity in mid and late game, there is no strategic counter-argument to sift through that ugly menu to search for exactly the person you need;
- There are a lot of useless traits, but they are not uniformly distributed between different leader classes;
- The impact of good traits vary decisively between different leader classes. Finding good scientists is more important than finding good generals.

As such, in my opinion, the devs should stop thinking about leaders as a unified game feature. Let's keep them but let's give each category a different game mechanics to hire and use them. Also, let's make choosing them an actual strategic choice instead of a chore.

Generals: usually one doesn't have a ton of generals. A small number of them are sufficient. Also, their traits are not so important. These two features help to maintain the "cycling" thing under control. As a game mechanics, it doesn't need a revision.

Admirals: usually one doesn't have a ton of admirals either, but good admirals are generally needed. Also, I think that the number of traits in this regard should be expanded with several specializations for types of ships and maybe class of weapons, but this would make the cycling problem even worse. For them a solution could be the following: at recruitment, they have a single "personal" trait like increased lifespan or increased experience gain, taken from a small pool of traits. Then, each two levels, you can choose for them a new one (like in HoI).

Scientists: they are maybe the class of leaders where the problem is worse, in my opinion. For them, a solution could be this: every empire have a "research council" with 4 or 5 positions. Civics, traditions and other things can increase this number, but not above 7. Each time a scientist dies you can choose a new one from a list that includes all the possible traits (or you can personalize them with a single trait, it is the same in the end) for free, but firing them would cost something like 100 influence (or another steep price). Now for research, archeology and anomalies you have to use this limited amount of scientists, so you have to choose carefully. On the other hand, basic exploration & survey would not require scientists anymore.

Governors: they are the second worst class of leaders in term of cycling, mainly due to the large amount of useless traits. Here the solution could be remove entirely the initial traits. All of them are acquired through working. Also, these traits should really be linked in some way to those that the same person would have if elected as national leader.

 

[Farbros]

I'd just go with Leader Modification.

Let us pay some resource (unity? energy? food? research?) to "retrain" a leader, or, instead, let us pick their traits on level up (with an optional "auto-level" button - mostly for generals).

Could even use the species modification screen as a base. its already somewhat similar to what this would need.
View attachment 794172

Of course, if you're doing this, I'd say go all out and make leader upgrades more structured, maybe with some higher-tier versions of leader traits gated behind certain conditions (e.g. "Corvette Commander - Admiral must lead a fleet and have the corvettes in that fleet kill X enemy vessels = +corvette stats).
View attachment 794173

• You could also opt to take negative/positive traits e.g. corrupt admirals add piracy to their current system, but reduce upkeep (offbook supply lines).
• Whilst other negatives currently in the game could become timed traits (e.g. "nervous breakdown" for 1800 days this admiral has reduced stats, with a chance to gain this during combat).
• Certain traditions, ethics or civics might unlock special traits too. E.g. Pacifists might get the "Peacekeeper" trait option for Generals, any planet-side armies they lead add 0.5 stability, each, on worlds during defensive wars.

Then it would not much matter what your starting leader traits are (starting age is already pretty negligible). You could just have them all start with a free skill point, gaining more as they rank up, or do special things (like lead the fleet slaying a drake), letting you customise to your needs.

I totally love that idea, hope it will be one day in the game.

 

[Shark7]

The biggest cause of leader cycling is the negative effects, particularly the three: Arrested Development, Corrupt, and Substance Abuser. And it seems like every time I get a leader to gain a random trait through leveling it is one of these three. Why is it I am always getting bad traits instead of good?

Of course #1 on that list is arrested development. If I get this on a leader of level 5 or less it is an automatic "You're Fired!" at the instance they get it. Why would I keep a level 2 leader that is never going to grow at all? At least stubborn leaders can still grow, but arrested development? I'd be better off assigning a ham sandwich to the task than that leader.

If you are playing a criminal empire, then corrupt may not be a big deal. I don't like crime in my empire. Again, fire that leader as I don't want to increase crime, I want to reduce it.

Substance abuser just shortens the life span, but it also shortens the useful duration of a leader.

These traits, and there are others I'm sure, do not need to be in the random pool until a leader is level 6 or higher. At least make it a harder decision than it currently is. I have zero reservations about firing a level 5 scientist with arrested development, but I might think twice if it were a level 9 scientist that got that bad trait.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

"Here's 3 leaders you can buy" with instant refresh when one is bought is absolutely stupid, basically a placeholder mechanic that should've never made it into the final game.
I get this isn't a Crusader Kings title where we're expected to care about individual people's stats or whatever, but wow, it would be nice if at least like, there was a randomly-filling pool of up to a dozen leaders at any given time so we had more selection, with them costing more if they had better traits. It would also make sense if firing a leader costed unity, rather than hiring, so that we couldn't cheese cycling easily, but weren't penalized heavy for having to buy some early on.
Even just making it so that we could pay unity to cycle the leader pool, and it didn't instantly refill on buying a leader, would be fine.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

I think a strong case can be made that researchers should gain expertise traits based on their research.
Scientists researching computers get better at researching computers, and so on.
Hiring a scientist with an expertise trait is less important if you can expect them to gain it, by just pointing them in that direction.

This should alleviate the leader cycling issue, at least for scientists.
As a bonus side effect, it would probably help the AI even more than it would help human players.

Suggestion thread: Scientists should gain research expertise traits from their specific fields of research

 

[Shadowstrike]

Why not have the option to have the three random leaders as you do now, and then have the option to "design a leader" (i.e. find someone in your empire who has those traits), but for double the unity cost? That would get rid of the incentive for leader cycling entirely.

I also agree with the idea of leader costs increasing with sprawl. It should be just as expensive (relatively) to recruit a leader at the beginning of the game, as at the end. Right now, leader recruitment is about just right at the very beginning, and then entirely trivial after two decades.

 

[Shark7]

I think a strong case can be made that researchers should gain expertise traits based on their research.
Scientists researching computers get better at researching computers, and so on.
Hiring a scientist with an expertise trait is less important if you can expect them to gain it, by just pointing them in that direction.

This should alleviate the leader cycling issue, at least for scientists.
As a bonus side effect, it would probably help the AI even more than it would help human players.

Suggestion thread: Scientists should gain research expertise traits from their specific fields of research

This would actually make a lot of sense. Maybe you start with a scientist with no traits at all, so no need to recycle the pool. The longer you have a scientist doing a job, the more likely they develop the trait related to it.

So if I buy a scientist and send him out in a ship to see the galaxy, Then at every check he has the opportunity to gain one of the surveying/anomaly research traits.

On the other hand I put that scientist into the physics research slot, then they are open to getting a physics related trait (and more weighted to the actual school that scientist has done more research in).

Other good traits, like Maniacal, Spark of Genius, etc could be thrown into that mix at random as well, so instead of just getting Expertise: Particles, we might instead get the Spark of Genius trait making that a very good research scientist. Bad traits could still happen, but should be more likely to happen if failures or idle time are high, etc.

There would certainly be no need to cycle through 300 scientists to find "the right one" since none of them would have any bonuses until you develop them.

Quick Edit: This would work for governors as well.

Imagine getting the corrupt trait if you crime rises above (for example) 20% and stays there for 5 years. Or getting the Righteous trait for keeping crime at 10% or less for 5 years. In all honesty, governor traits are probably even better suited to a system such as this as you usually place a governor in charge and leave them there.

 

[Bezborg]

Maybe researching cloning should add a button next to leaders that says "clone".

THe clone would have the same traits, but be level 1.


Sounds a bit dumb, but hey...

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Rulers traits aren't too bad but there are balance problems as well.

Gestalts don't even have ruler traits. They used to, but for some reason Paradox decided that once again Gestalts are supposed to be unique! In the sense that Gestalts being unique means they miss out on basic functionalities which are only very slowly getting added back to the game (Necrophage Hiveminds, Federation types unlocked by Traditions, basic ressource bonus buildings).

I have been writing this over and over again, having the ability to choose Ruler traits and Agendas would make sense for Gestalts, after all you also have the ability to select Edicts. Whereas for non-Gestalts the traits represent the type of ruler be it a scientist or a governor or and admiral and depending on your government type you have some options to influence the election.

 

[Catteraine]

Make leaders cost influence. Problem solved. No one is going to cycle this.

And make leader traits more useful. Instead of clear blocker or crime when there is mainly no crime give them +X alloys, consumer goods, energy, minerals, etc.

For scientists, don't mix up traits from different fields of study. An engineer should not suddenly become a biologist. He should get something from the engineering tree.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

The best suggestion I’ve seen with this so far (can’t remember who initially posted it, sorry!) is reverting back to EC for hiring leaders, but have a similarly expensive cost to remove leaders via unity.

In that way, it’s more logical to use EC as a spend resource, but the unity cost prevents leader cycling - either take on too many leaders and have a large upkeep, or pick and choose your leaders as and when they come.

 

[Nevars]

The best suggestion I’ve seen with this so far (can’t remember who initially posted it, sorry!) is reverting back to EC for hiring leaders, but have a similarly expensive cost to remove leaders via unity.

In that way, it’s more logical to use EC as a spend resource, but the unity cost prevents leader cycling - either take on too many leaders and have a large upkeep, or pick and choose your leaders as and when they come.

People would simply just not firing them, eat pitiful EC upkeep (unless dev bring back leader upkeep scaling with sprawl ofc but then people would change to complaining about leader high upkeep) and keep on rerolling leader again.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

People would simply just not firing them, eat pitiful EC upkeep (unless dev bring back leader upkeep scaling with sprawl ofc but then people would change to complaining about leader high upkeep) and keep on rerolling leader again.

They wouldn’t if it meant they had to scroll through several leaders to find the right one.

 

[DanielPrates]

arrested development

There's always money in the banana stand.

 

[fourteenfour]

We could also add leaders to each enclave which each specializing in a particular research category, if they sell crystals they hire out physics leaders, gases hire out society, and motes have engineers. then change curators to hire out specials alongside their unique leader type. Specials would be random among archaeologist, maniacal, and such.

I do think the techs that increase leader lifespan should increase the leader pool when hiring by one or more

 

[fourteenfour]

Not just fired leaders, but also those left unassigned. We should be allowed to swap leader assignments though, to prevent a swapped out leader to immediately get removed to the pool before getting the chance to reassign them.

then people who have them simply assisting research where ever possible or on patrol.

 

[Franton]

then people who have them simply assisting research where ever possible or on patrol.

I already do that anyway. Besides I think that mechanic should be removed: it adds nothing to the game than more micromanagement for people who try to optimize their economy. It's boring, and tedious.

 

[Mastikator]

Stop trying to find "clever" solutions. Just make cycling less of a hassle, if you can afford the cost of cycling then you should be allowed to cycle.

Just make an "Dismiss" button next to the "Recruit" button that dismisses them immediately, costs the same as "Recruit". First time you press it there should be a "confirm dismiss Y/N" box, then you may dismiss and flush all that unity down the toilet until you have the leader you want.

 

[Paul93]

Stop trying to find "clever" solutions. Just make cycling less of a hassle, if you can afford the cost of cycling then you should be allowed to cycle.

While I agree with you that adding a dismiss button right next to the recruit one is the simplest way to make the thing less annoying, I think that the length of this thread signals another and deeper problem with leaders: they are a bad game mechanics overall.

Some traits are useful in every situation, others are always useless. Some type of leaders are absolutely mandatory, others can safely be ignored for the entire game. They are supposed to help the game narrative, giving a face and a name to some special events or heroic deeds, but they are also completely soulless. PDX have tried to hard cap them (initial versions), to give them nearly for free in an unlimited fashion (up to 3.2) and now to scale their cost (which is better than the previous choices but doesn't solve none of the issues).

As such, I think that people are fully entitled to propose ideas to fix this mess, especially starting from the total hassle which is cycling. The probability of having them fixed is low anyway, independently of the complexity of the proposed solutions...