Why there is only one -2 negative trait?

[nrader]

Title pretty much explains itself. We have costly positive trait that cost up to 5 points, but we have almost no mean to buy them - well, unless you're OK with having only one positive overpriced trait.

• Why no "Very weak"?
• Or "Very non-adaptive"?
• Or something that is not present currently at all, maybe negative resource traits?
• Etc.?

I wish paradox will do something about costly trait, i dont really see much use for them currently.
Also, it's just me, or +1 skill trait doesn't worth 2 points, too?

 

[Kepler68]

I agree some of them deserve more than -2 than nonadaptive. For example fleeting is way worse than nonadaptive because you can never get a 5 star leader

 

[Druesling]

Fleeting should be -3.

 

[Karl244]

All in all they should include more traits.

 

[Nurgle84]

Fleeting is not worth -2. On Dictatorships its actually useful and with some traits/research the negativ is void and null. And the reason for no "very weak": "Weak" is a contender for the "most non-negative Negative award" -20% Army damage is non-consequential and the mineral malus can be easily offset. Of you have "Very weak" (-40% army damage and -10% minerals I assume) you can directly buy "industrious" for those 2 points, giving you 5% minerals bonus netto. Generally the lack of -2 negatives is there to keep min/maxing in check.

 

[aprogressivist]

Plus, Weak can be countered by Robots; they make both the army damage and the mineral deficiency irrelevant.

 

[Cat Crusade]

Fleeting is good for autocracies since you get to build the special buildings and ships/stations more often. Can be offset in multitude of ways by midgame even without expanding lifespan. Like getting leaders from a different species. Or give them faster learning or talented and they'll end up doing just as good a job. If you really want you can minmax with fleeting to create a race of fast learners or super talented talented leaders with the right government too.

Weak is barely a disadvantage at all, you can easily mine by robots, other species or slaves. Ground combat can also be done by those. And rarely does the ground combat disadvantage even decide a battle.

The others aren't a huge disadvantage either, nonadaptive is probably the exception cause it has the potential to hamper early colonization to a degree.

 

[Neodym]

I agree some of them deserve more than -2 than nonadaptive. For example fleeting is way worse than nonadaptive because you can never get a 5 star leader

Fleeting should be -3.

While it might be difficult to get a 5 Star governor with fleeting, getting 5 Star Scientists and Admirals is definitely possible as you can deliberately train them on science ships or your main fleet. Later in the game you have so many leader lifespan techs, that it really doesn't make a difference anymore or you just genemod the trait out.
So I think fleeting is okay where it is.

However, I do agree that there are too little -2 negative traits which leads to almost no customization if you want venerable. There are lots of good additional trait mods and I think the devs should put some of those in vanilla.

 

[Crissa]

Plus, Weak can be countered by Robots; they make both the army damage and the mineral deficiency irrelevant.

They took away droid armies and replaced them with some seriously overpriced robots.

 

[Angelshard]

All negative traits should be balanced for early game impact as don't really matter later.

I'd love to see more high value negative impact traits. But it's hard to justify due to min-maxing

 

[Cannes]

Mods are the answer! There are several mods which add all the traits you could wish for and many. more.

 

[Foefaller]

They took away droid armies and replaced them with some seriously overpriced robots.

Still not much of a hamper. You can land as many as 12-16 troops on a planet, and once all the defenses are bombarded away that's enough to take 80-90% of the early worlds and species you will ever try to invade, even with basic assault troops recruited from weak pops, and once you got your new conquest in, you can have them fight all your wars instead.

 

[Machofish]

In many cases, the negatives are a pain but have ways for you to soften, counteract or even take advantage of the effect they have on your earlygame through your ethics/gov choices; through the mid and lategame, technology tends to compensate for any of your species' flaws, or removes them entirely through genetics.

For instance, starting with the 'fleeting' trait is a pain, and it essentially rips a hole in your influence, but its effects can be balanced out if you're willing to pick theocratic oligarchy for the +20 lifespan, or indirect democracy for cheaper leader replacement (and the huge influence boosts of following through on election promises) for the early game. From what I can tell, I think 'nonadaptive' gives you the extra trait point because while some negative traits may not be viably counteracted through ethics or gov't choices, there are objectively no ethics/gov't choices to improve habitability in the early game.

 

[Crissa]

Fleeting only means you're burning 50% more influence on leaders; you can have better leaders by just getting better leaders.

You can land... even with basic assault troops recruited from weak pops...

Yes, you can spend more to get around it. Your defensive troops, though, will be the weak ones.

I realize this doesn't usually matter with the current weak AI, but.

 

[grommile]

I agree some of them deserve more than -2 than nonadaptive. For example fleeting is way worse than nonadaptive because you can never get a 5 star leader

This statement is only true if you reject one or more of the Indirect Democracy government, the Selected Lineages / Capacity Boosters line of policies, and the Talented species trait.

 

[Cat Crusade]

This statement is only true if you reject one or more of the Indirect Democracy government, the Selected Lineages / Capacity Boosters line of policies, and the Talented species trait.

I'll only add if you start the game with talented and indirect democracy you get 3 star leaders at -15% influence cost.

Now let's add tech:
By midgame you can go to 4 star leaders at -30% influence cost with democratic utopia. Add selected lineages and you get 5 stars out the door and still are left with -5% influence cost. Not counting repeatable techs for lowering leader costs further or adding to their lifespan in lategame. Those -15 years are no problem and easily offset if you plan for it.

However nonadaptive is going to hamstring you for a long time without much to help you with it. There's no government that adds habitability and even with habitability increase tech like frontier clinics, the +5 habitability tech and the resource to increase habitability of planets by another +5, its still possibly leaving you behind and capping your happiness lower than other races who don't have the disadvantage. You might need to go to genetic engineering to get rid of non-adaptive and by then you have other races as an alternative anyway. Terraforming also takes to much later till its researched and affordable.

Either way I think there should be more traits with more interesting effects, if anything the fact that we can offset most of these tends to make the lategame feel more samey than it maybe should.

 

[Angelshard]

I've already made some suggestions to high value negative traits in another thread. Problem with making them is to be sure they have an impact that can't easily be worked around with ethos or science/other races.

Some of my suggestions. A trait that makes a pop cost 2 food.
A trait that gives -15% penalrty to survey speed.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I agree some of them deserve more than -2 than nonadaptive. For example fleeting is way worse than nonadaptive because you can never get a 5 star leader

With Talented + Direct Democracy you can recruit leaders at level 3. 4 when you get your advanced government, and 5 with Selected Lineages.

By the end you can be hiring five star leaders for super cheap influence, making their lifespans somewhat irrelevant.

 

[AlphaAsh]

Why there is only one -2 negative trait?

They didn't have time to finish and balance some other traits before release.

 

[The Founder]

Title pretty much explains itself. We have costly positive trait that cost up to 5 points, but we have almost no mean to buy them - well, unless you're OK with having only one positive overpriced trait.

• Why no "Very weak"?
• Or "Very non-adaptive"?
• Or something that is not present currently at all, maybe negative resource traits?
• Etc.?

I wish paradox will do something about costly trait, i dont really see much use for them currently.
Also, it's just me, or +1 skill trait doesn't worth 2 points, too?

Welcome to the difficulty topic of managing options for the player.
In particular they have to keep a Balance between Population Traits (only mater if lot of population of that species), Leader Traits (only mater if you do/do not allow Xeno Leaders), and Primary Species traits (like Resilient).

Why no Very Weak? Because weak is pretty much a free point and effortlesly dodged just conquering any other species or using Robots. Armies do not mater enough in this game.

No Very non-adaptive? Adaptive is already a big limiter. Keep in mind that population under 50% happiness will join factions. And dropping the Habitability low enough will cause that state forcefully. Plus you are propably planning to just dodge it using another Species/Robots as colonists anway, no reason giving you more traits for Primary Species/leader Traits.

No negative Resource Traits? First t would affect the game Start too much. Sure +20% Minerals does not mater 50 years into the game, but early game it does. Why do so many people stay on full Slavery early game otherwise? And secondly, it could again be easily dodged.

With Talented + Direct Democracy you can recruit leaders at level 3. 4 when you get your advanced government, and 5 with Selected Lineages.

By the end you can be hiring five star leaders for super cheap influence, making their lifespans somewhat irrelevant.

Heck, for Autocracies Fleeting is Plain a Bonus. More Leader Uniques buildable.


One issue with the system might be the lack of granularity. Try the following:
Multiply number of free trait points, trait points from GE tech and cost of Traits by 10.
I do agree that venerable is useless on top of Overpriced. 5 Star Leaders are not that important outside of Science. Where you can just hire a Curator with the DLC.