The Iconians have Secrecy as their "starting" ideology. The Onyx have Tradition. Why not flip them?
-The Iconians benefit from Tradition ideology because it compensates for their horrible Influence penalty. Having all that research doesn't help you if your planets are getting culture flipped. Having +2 awareness in this ideology would really help the Iconians in my opinion.
- The idea of the Onyx going back at least to GC3 has been that they are masters of sneaky plots and backstabbing. With their potential for early aggression in GC4, the GC4 Onyx feel very different now. Giving them a boost to Secrecy awareness early on would help keep their old identity intact.
-The Tradition tree does not feel very helpful for playing the Onyx. (What the Onyx really want is the traits that give free citizens.) Admittedly, the Secrecy tree is also lackluster.
-I feel like Secrecy might actually be useful for the Onyx. I like the idea of allying with the pirates to free up your command ships to fight a war of attrition early, so that you can get easy conquests once transports come online. I also think the 50 turns of immunity to war declarations could be a very good way to let things cool off after possibly overextending from early expansion.
-Indirectly, making these changes would be a way to nerf the Mimots and other OP civs. I don't think anybody would consider the Iconians and Onyx to be top tier civs right now, so they probably deserve a little boost.
