What do you think of the new traditions?

[evilcat]

Expansion and Prosperity seems to be the strongest.
I generally start with Expansion, so i can start colonizing nearby planets. But Prosperity is second.
There is this thing that at very beginning space mine rush just gives faster benefit, but colonization takes a while. So the whole prosperity is less effective.

Technology...is good, the general research bonus pays off. But i end with something else. Once i finished Expansion Prosperity there is something else to grab, and then Technology doesn matter anymore.

Harmony is ok, especially if are egalitarian/parlament system, we really care about ethic atraction.
Diplomacy is good if we want federation, federation gives free ships, and that is always good. Nice bonus of trade protection and market discount.
Supremacy is situational, if there is agressive neighbour it may be the pick, but otherwise it brings nothing essencial, so may be picked late. Very bad that it has no General leader bonus.

Dominance... I do not really like it. Somehow it has nothing important.

Overall there is good thing that they removed Traditions giving unity back, you could really stack them in 2.1
Weird thing that Leader cap is very popular now. Which makes Transcendent Learning worthless, as well as racial perks. And you need long lasting race, otherwise you will never reach that 10 level leader.

 

[Bouchart]

I play on huge galaxies so I tend to go for Discovery first. Getting more anomalies, closer to your starting systems, is a really big help. It also gives research alternatives and that's most useful early.

 

[#Tukuro]

Early science is a lot weaker IMO now that there's far less need for tile blocker-removal and most of the building upgrades aren't directly improving your economy (only giving more jobs per building). This means early game science is primarily about better ships and warmongering.

There's still the job improvements. Which can be significant depending on the type of economy you're running. It also no longer requires building any upgrades...
Growth is also more important now as it takes more time before a planet fills up: Instead of hitting the cap within decades it can easily take over a century for your capital to hit the max, and even longer for colonies.
Hell, even with 17+ growth +robots it was going to take nearly two centuries to fill up my ecumenopolis...

 

[Medu Salem]

I still go for the Discovery tree first for the anomaly and research benefits... then halfway into expansion for the colonization stuff. After that still for prosperity/harmony. Only exception is when I am bordering some ugly and aggressive AI empire and need every ace up my sleeve to push them back. Then maybe supremacy becomes a priority. But so far the AI in 2.2 is a pushover anyway so I am usally getting the supremacy/diplomacy stuff last.

 

[Black_Shade]

I play on huge galaxies so I tend to go for Discovery first. Getting more anomalies, closer to your starting systems, is a really big help. It also gives research alternatives and that's most useful early.

I still go for the Discovery tree first for the anomaly and research benefits... then halfway into expansion for the colonization stuff. After that still for prosperity/harmony. Only exception is when I am bordering some ugly and aggressive AI empire and need every ace up my sleeve to push them back. Then maybe supremacy becomes a priority. But so far the AI in 2.2 is a pushover anyway so I am usally getting the supremacy/diplomacy stuff last.

They completely changed discovery in 2.2, it no longer gives anomaly bonuses. Well, it increases anomaly research speed for unlocking it but that's it. The increased anomaly chance doesn't exist anymore.

 

[Spaceception]

I really do like the new changes to the tree. It's harder to pick which one I want. But I've started to like Expansion over Discovery for +1 pop and 10% growth speed, which is now pretty important in 2.2 The influence cost is really nice as well.

Something I thought of though, is making different trees based on ethics. And the tree you get is based on your fanatic ethic if you have one, or a random one if you don't. This could add more variability to empires; and depending on the ethic (Militarist, Materialist, etc) they could be made to be stronger than they would normally be to give each empire an edge in some branch (Materialists getting a stronger discovery tree, Xenophiles getting a stronger diplomacy tree, and so on for example).

And by stronger, I don't mean +10 output instead of +5% output, I mean something different. A new policy, new leader type, even techs! Imagine militarist empires rolling a new ship slot (it could either be a weapon, or auxiliary module, etc) option via the supremacy tree only they could get, or something like that.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Expansion is easily the best tradition tree at the moment. growth speed is great, cheaper star bases are great, faster colony development is great, more initial pops is great.

Discovery is imho the worst pick now (if you aren't xenophobe, then it's obv Diplomacy), while a lot better leaders are always nice (especially for cracking those high-level Precursor anomalies in any semblance of reasonable time, and the finisher is as good as always, the rest is decidedly eh. I still take it second just to get it of of the way because it gets worse the more the game progresses, but unless I'm not finding a lot of specifically First League anomalies I never feel that good picking it.

The other 5 are all in this state of "I want them all right now but can only pick one" I usually go Domination early because cheaper blockers, better workers and free influence are great. The rest of its bonuses are ... eh, but god damn do I love those three others. Usually my 2nd or 3rd pick.

Prosperity is also really really good, but in contrast to Domination more geared towards the later stages of the game when you have a mature economy. There's like not a single tradition in there that I find bad.

Harmony is ok. I've never found Amenities to be that big a deal, but lesser Food usage is great later. Stratum demotion time is also neat, as is +5 stability. Older leaders remains eh though and I'm still not a fan of Bulwark of Harmony.

Supremacy is the same old thing. Good if you want to go to war, but I'm constantly tempted to instead pick an economic tradition to make my economy better to get a larger fleet this way.

Diplomacy is interesting. The opener is really strong, especially for Fanatic Xenophiles (no more diplomatic upkeep costs, yay!), and he trade branch is also pretty good. Don't underestimate the power of trade, especially later in the game after having picked and completed Prosperity. All those clerks and merchants and highly populated planets are gonna add up (sadly trade is broken in the current beta build). Federations are less eh than before, but still eh.

 

[Turnil]

I start with supremacy so I can get a bigger fleet at a lower cost.
Also, the policy to increase the survival rate of your ships by a lot.

 

[Medu Salem]

They completely changed discovery in 2.2, it no longer gives anomaly bonuses. Well, it increases anomaly research speed for unlocking it but that's it. The increased anomaly chance doesn't exist anymore.

I know... I still get it in the beginning where it does at least something because later when there is nothing to survey it is even more useless.

 

[evilcat]

I have a repeating story with Discovery, that first i go expansion for my first colonies, but promise to take Discovery seccond for anomalies clear.
But always something happens. Devauring swarm and i need Supremacy, friendly neighbour and federation, mid game economic crisis so prosperity.

I miss that Supremacy has no bonus to Generals as well, it is their thing.
On the other hand i am a bit disappointed with leader cap as tradition, since i generally pick all tradicions just with different order, and there is technology for leader cap.
Which leaves all civics, ascesions, traits changing leader cap even more useless. Especially if your race is not inmortal.