Ranking the tradition trees

[Cat_Fuzz]

Now we’ve had a bit of time with these, what would people say are the best and worst tradition trees and why? Getting an idea to adjust a mod in making...

 

[Aepdneds]

The worst by far is subterfuge, while it does exactly what it is made for espionage is pretty much ignorable.

 

[sillyrobot]

Subterfuge is terrible because espionage is terrible and the tradition only makes you better at a useless thing.

Diplomacy is terrible unless you want to create/join federations which tend to be useless and worse yet make the galaxy even more politically static.

Mercantile offers too much value compared to its rivals of Prosperity and Expansion.

 

[Aepdneds]

Mercantile offers too much value compared to its rivals of Prosperity and Expansion.

Generally I agree, but why do you see mercantile competing with expansion? One is increasing the income, the other your growth.

 

[sillyrobot]

Generally I agree, but why do you see mercantile competing with expansion? One is increasing the incoming, the other your growth.

I see those three more as "In what way will the empire's peaceful strength grow?" Society can become richer, grow larger faster, or focus on internal trade. Internal trade currently offers more benefits faster than the other two barring a single pick in Expansion to reduce influence spend.

 

[Aepdneds]

Expansion has much more to offer than just the reduced influence spend for new systems, the 10 percent extra pop growth is big, the extra pop on colonization means that the robotist job is used by day one without the need for resetlement or waiting for demotion, if you are void dweller you are saving 30 influence and 300 alloys on each habitat which means that you can build your first habitat roughly 2 years earlier and that you can build much more habitats over the whole game which again means much more pops. In my opinion they are two synergising traditions and not competing ones.

 

[A2ch0n]

Subterfuge is terrible because espionage is terrible and the tradition only makes you better at a useless thing.

Diplomacy is terrible unless you want to create/join federations which tend to be useless and worse yet make the galaxy even more politically static.

Mercantile offers too much value compared to its rivals of Prosperity and Expansion.

The Subterfuge tradition on it's own is really good! And if espionage operations would be improved it could easily one of the best. but this is completely depended on the power of the operations.

In case of diplomacy i have to disagree. Diplomacy is extremely good actually!

- For each embassy you get unity, in a huge galaxy this should not be underestimated.
-The federation option speak for itself of course and with an extra envoy.
-The trade acceptance one is really good too and can even be used to exploit the AI (i don't like that, but you can convince them to make you small gifts).
-The trust cap is really nice too, especially if you play a diplo/pacifist empire.

So it depends on your playstile but in case of power both traditions are quite useful. I use both of them in any playthrough.

The one tradition i skip in every game since possible is expansion. This one is only good as a first pick and so it competes directly with Discovery. And in this case Discovery always wins.

My usual order for a normal empire is:

Discovery -> Diplomacy -> Subterfuge -> (Mecantile <-> Domination <-> Unyielding) -> Harmony/Supremacy

 

[Ryika]

Expansion has much more to offer than just the reduced influence spend for new systems, the 10 percent extra pop growth is big, the extra pop on colonization means that the robotist job is used by day one without the need for resetlement or waiting for demotion, if you are void dweller you are saving 30 influence and 300 alloys on each habitat which means that you can build your first habitat roughly 2 years earlier and that you can build much more habitats over the whole game which again means much more pops. In my opinion they are two synergising traditions and not competing ones.

All of that is completely dwarfed by the enormous economical power that comes from the Mercantile tree though. Especially for Void Dwellers, who can just spam Merchants and use that economic backbone to go on a never-ending conquest spree, or tech rush with 400+ Science in year 10.

As a second tree, Expansion is just generally not a good option in my opinion. It does a good job at kickstarting your empire as first pick, but after the first tree you usually want to transition into bonuses that play into your overall game plan - it's simply too late for a "kickstarter" tree to have the impact that it needs to have to be worth it. The way I see it, if Expansion isn't the obvious first pick, you're probably best off ignoring it until at least much later when you have already taken the other strong picks.

 

[sillyrobot]

Expansion has much more to offer than just the reduced influence spend for new systems, the 10 percent extra pop growth is big, the extra pop on colonization means that the robotist job is used by day one without the need for resetlement or waiting for demotion, if you are void dweller you are saving 30 influence and 300 alloys on each habitat which means that you can build your first habitat roughly 2 years earlier and that you can build much more habitats over the whole game which again means much more pops. In my opinion they are two synergising traditions and not competing ones.

All traditions compete. The competition is order of acquisition. Does Expansion have merit as a tradition? Certainly. I just find the merit offered in the most part pales when compared with Mercantile. That has to do more with Mercantile being excessively strong than Expansion weak.

 

[sillyrobot]

The Subterfuge tradition on it's own is really good! And if espionage operations would be improved it could easily one of the best. but this is completely depended on the power of the operations.

In case of diplomacy i have to disagree. Diplomacy is extremely good actually!

- For each embassy you get unity, in a huge galaxy this should not be underestimated.
-The federation option speak for itself of course and with an extra envoy.
-The trade acceptance one is really good too and can even be used to exploit the AI (i don't like that, but you can convince them to make you small gifts).
-The trust cap is really nice too, especially if you play a diplo/pacifist empire.

So it depends on your playstile but in case of power both traditions are quite useful. I use both of them in any playthrough.

I'm drowning in unity already. More isn't better. By the end of the first century, I have all traditions complete and all useful ambitions running. There's no further value to unity.
As I wrote, if you want a federation it's fine, I guess. Federation play is its own punishment though.
Trade is mostly meaningless.
Trust cap rarely if ever matters. Even trust growth barely matters.

 

[Ryika]

Diplo Acceptance has also been patched, it no longer applies to Trade Deals. So no gifts, unless there's an exploit I'm not aware of.

 

[Archael90]

* My personal point of view, ill try to put it in order, from first to last pick in vanilla:
1. Mercatile for trade politics unless you will get trade federation.
2/4. Diplomacy fo peacefull gameplay and federation, especially if its trade federation.
2/3. Expansion for reduced sprawl and faster pop growth.
3/4. Prosperity for district and building upkeep, and additional housing.
5. Harmony for stability.
6. Unyelding for defence with eternal vigilance ap.
7. Supremacy / Domination for doctrines or influecnce, depending on situation.

Why i ignore discovery? Mostly because in sp it does not much for human player. In mp i would take it as first pick, followed by expansion, ignoring unyelding, diplomacy or domination/supremacy depending on situation, but still starting with mercantile and opening marketplace of ideas asap.

 

[Quinzal]

I ranked the tradition trees in my guide (shameless plug heheheh) and I still stick with my ranking:

S: Discovery, Expansion
A: Domination, Supremacy
B: Prosperity, Mercantile
C: Adaptability, Versatility
D: Diplomacy, Subterfuge
E: Unyielding
F: Synchronicity
G: Harmony

Discovery has been an almost de-facto first pick just because how powerful getting that tech boost is early in the game. Same with Expansion, since pops are king in the vast majority of builds.

Domination has a lot of buffs that will see a lot of use throughout the entire game, especially as a gestalt or void dweller. Supremacy is a no-brainer unless you're running hardline isolationist.

Prosperity is definitely nice to have, especially if you need to rush buildings early game as Clone Army, and Mercantile is definitely a megacorp go-to. Probably my first picks as filler.

Adaptability definitely helps if you grab it, but it's a lot of stuff that you'll get anyway just by climbing the tech tree. Versatility is just a mishmash of Diplomacy, Harmony, and Prosperity, and is only really as useful as a combination of those trees can be.

Even if Diplomacy wasn't niche by definition, which it definitely is, it's suited more for federation play than for diplomacy in general. Subterfuge is putting sprinkles on the garbage pile that espionage currently is.

When it comes to Unyielding, it will likely never see use unless you're sandwiched between genocidal empires. Remember, the best defense is a good offense.

Synchronicity is slightly better than Harmony since it's bonuses are more tailored to gestalt gameplay, and the edict capacity is certainly nice, but otherwise it's snoresville.

I never liked picking up Harmony at all even before 3.1, and I will continue not to.

 

[Franton]

I Take:

1. Expansion
2. Discovery
3. Prosperity

Others:
- Supremacy and/or Domination depending on the game
- Adaptability and/or Mercantile as available, specifically for Void Dwellers

I don't take:
- Diplomacy (but I understand it's good for people who prefer the pacifist/diplo style)
- Harmony (is there anyone out there who actually likes it?)
- Subterfuge (at least in its current state)

Those not mentioned I have either never seen or are just so lackluster I've forgotten about them

 

[sillyrobot]

I Take:

1. Expansion
2. Discovery
3. Prosperity

Others:
- Supremacy and/or Domination depending on the game
- Adaptability and/or Mercantile as available, specifically for Void Dwellers

I don't take:
- Diplomacy (but I understand it's good for people who prefer the pacifist/diplo style)
- Harmony (is there anyone out there who actually likes it?)
- Subterfuge (at least in its current state)

Those not mentioned I have either never seen or are just so lackluster I've forgotten about them

Harmony isn't completely terrible. +1 leader cap, 75% reduction in demotion time, +1 edict capacity, +5 stability, -10% pop sprawl.

The rest is mostly pointless.

 

[WC with 100 clone pops]

1. discovery (obvious)
2. diplomacy (for +unity)
3. unyielding (for the starbase upgrade cost reduction)
4. supremacy (war doctrene)
5. mercantile/prosperity/adaptability/expansion/harmony/domination/harmony (situational)
6. subterfudge (lol)

 

[Mastikator]

S
A	Discovery, Expansion, Supremacy, Mercantile
B	Prosperity, Adaptability
C	Harmony, Synchronicity, Versatility
D	Domination, Unyielding
E	Diplomacy, Subterfuge
F

I'm glad the S and F tiers are empty, this tier list is definitely wrong and only based on my own limited experience with the new system. But I've not found a reason to pick Diplomacy, Subterfuge, Domination or Unyielding yet

 

[theBigTurnip385]

S
A	Discovery, Expansion, Supremacy, Mercantile
B	Prosperity, Adaptability
C	Harmony, Synchronicity, Versatility
D	Domination, Unyielding
E	Diplomacy, Subterfuge
F

I'm glad the S and F tiers are empty, this tier list is definitely wrong and only based on my own limited experience with the new system. But I've not found a reason to pick Diplomacy, Subterfuge, Domination or Unyielding yet

You can't put Mercantile in A and then Diplomacy in E

If you go Mercantile you need to go 2 points into Diplomacy and create your perfect federation, they are a combo

They are required building a trade build and not going trade federation is a waste

It gives you trade league and extra trade % from leveling up the federation

 

[Ryika]

You can't put Mercantile in A and then Diplomacy in E

If you go Mercantile you need to go 2 points into Diplomacy and create your perfect federation, they are a combo

They are required building a trade build and not going trade federation is a waste

It gives you trade league and extra trade % from leveling up the federation

Not really required. The trade league build certainly has the long-term efficiency, but you can also just ignore it and focus entirely on the early game snowball.

If you go with Merchant Guilds, you can just use the trade conversion for Consumer Goods and will gain enough Unity from the Merchants alone.
So you open with a quick tech rush fueled by the merchants, and at around year 30 when you finish the Supremacy tree, you just roll over the galaxy.

 

[Tamwin5]

You basically always want to pick Discovery or Expansion as a first pick. The two main exceptions I can think of are Supremacy for an early rush, Prosperity for Clone Army, and Mercantile for Merchant spam build. Personally, I tend to go Expansion -> Discovery, or sometimes only one of the two and moving on to a different tree second. Either way, both of these traditions are quite good, although they both fall off as the game goes on.

Prosperity is probably the best tradition right now. 13% specialist output is amazing. Basically, as soon as you don't need to grab a different pick, you should be picking up prosperity.

Diplomacy is basically only picked to get a federation, although 2 extra envoys and free favors are also useful if you plan on playing the diplomacy game. If you want to be friendly or play the GC, go diplomacy. If not, skip it.

Supremacy is still the fleet civic, so whenever you end up about to go to war (or already in a war) supremacy is good. Still, it doesn't provide any benefits unless you are already at war/have a large fleet, so only get it right before war. Even for a peaceful game I'll grab supremacy before the end though, to fight off FE/AEs and the Crisis.

Domination and Harmony kinda fall into the same sorta niche for me. Kinda meh, will maybe pick one up towards the end. Generally one if not both of these end up not making the cut. Synchronicity (which is basically harmony) is a fair bit better, at least for hive minds, since the 2 amenities from synapse drones really helps.

Adaptability is interesting. +10% habitability and the building slot are very good, and the reduced housing is nice as well. I generally pick this second for doomsday, since the habitability effects your homeworld and stacking reduced resettlement, nomadic trait, and evacuation protocols civic lets you get free resettlement. There is also the fact that stacking adaptability, unyielding, and a planetary shield gets you to -100% bombardment damage, meaning your planets can't be bombarded at all.

Mercantile I think most people in this thread are mis-rating. Yes, if you are going for the void dweller merchant guilds functional architecture spam merchants build, of course the tradition is going to be amazing. If you aren't doing that, then it's not that good. Still probably worth being picked, but getting the trade policy isn't necessary by any means.

Unyielding I think is chronically underrated. Relying on starbases as a deterrent/protection while tech rushing is commonly done, and so if I was going full tech rush I'd probably grab this after discovery and prosperity. For an empire going full war aggression unyielding is also good, since the -50% starbase upgrade cost will result in a savings of tens of thousands of alloys. And finally there is the combo with adaptability for 100% bombardment damage reduction, meaning you can have practically unbreakable fortress worlds.

Subterfuge is just horrible. Even if espionage was good, it would still be bad. The only time I'd ever pick this tradition would be for an RP espionage build, and even then I'd probably go diplomacy first since the extra envoys will be more useful.

Finally, Versatility. Generally, this tradition is just kinda meh. Nothing is bad(well, besides the finisher), but all together it just falls a little short. If I do end up with space for this tradition, it's last.