I never said that traditions should be leading the way, I said that they should in some capacity reflect to what the player is doing because then they would actually be traditions. I agree my critique is also partly that it is a clash of how they are themed and how they work, but lets not forget the opportunity cost which makes 'bad' traditions even worse. As for the theme, this problem spans multiple mechanics in this game. Factions, leaders, sectors, pops, strata, traditions are just some examples. Some of these mechanics in this game that can be ignored partially and some even entirely. So what value do they add to the game in that case? The only interesting choice that traditions provide is which bonus you want to have at what time and which traditions you want to end up with. I'm suggesting that maybe tying up some of those dead end mechanics in a way that the potentially can create more intersting decisions for the player would make for a more interesting strategy game.
You misunderstood me here. It's not that you said that traditions should lead the way, it's that traditions are currently "leading the way": You pick your tradition tree and fill in it preparation for what you're going to do next. Then you go to war, and because you're at war, your pops become more militaristic.
This is entirely backwards in my opinion. You'd expect traditions to grow out of the way of life that the previous generations have had, and you'd expect an empire that attacks other people to be at least somewhat militarist to begin with. Which is why...
Isn't this partly proof of my point that traditions are flawed thematically? I don't know if ethics should only drift to what you want. Maybe they should drift to what you are doing instead
...I said that it would make some sense to give players more control over where the ethics of your pops shift towards to "reorder" things and, for example, make pre-war propaganda something that helps you lead a military campaign without your pops getting angry at you. But no, in my opinion the flaw isn't with traditions, the flaw is with the Ethics system.
but what you are doing could also include picking traditions and many other things. If you would pick supremacy for example but end up only building fortresses maybe there could some random events in that game that are centered arround this conflict of interests.
Sure, it could, but I still don't really see why the systems _need_ to be connected. I don't see the benefit, it just seems that all you're essentially asking for, is to restrict gameplay artificially. It is already the case that we pick traditions that fit the playstyle we're going for - why would I pick Supremacy and then build fortresses? That is already not a good use of the tradition tree.
Perhaps there could be a slightly higher chance to get governors that give the ship build cost reduction bonus or other things that only slightly nudge the game into a direction.
And why can't that just be a tradition effect?
