Stalker0

Join Date 04/2009

+49

1.55 - Cultural Trait Feedback

Here are some notes on the cultural traits, both balance but a lot of it is text changes and clarifications.

Overall

In general the trees are more compact and I think "meatier". It was a bit too scattered before, overall the core of each tree feels a lot more solid.
Punctuation, some periods (.) wouldn't hurt, there are a lot of run-off sentences right now.
You use a lot of new terms in your traits that don't match other terms in the game. Its possible you are planning to shift other things to these new terms, but I am calling them out at the moment as "errors" until its noted otherwise.
The definitions are too wordy, we can clean and trim them down. I will give a few examples below, and you can copy them if you like the format.

Individualism

Private Property Rights: change to "+10% Gross Income and +5% expansion rate (core worlds only)". Expansion rate is a brand new term, what does it mean?

Self-Reliance: Productivity is a term that does not exist right now. Change text to: "+10% manufacturing and +5% gross income (core worlds only)

Autonomy: Happiness is a term that does not exist right now. Change text to: "+10% Approval and +5% influence (core worlds only)".

Privacy: What is espionage defense?

Competitiveness: All terms are not defined here. What is "military strength", is that weapons, defense, siege value....everything?

Self-Governance: This one comes too late in the tree to be competitive imo. Its great early one, but by this point I've normally solidified approval and I have the leaders I need.

Totalitarism

Purges: Unrest and security measures are two terms that don't exist right now.

Obedience: How much is unrest reduced by?

Conscription: Feels too late for this policy to be of good use.

Egalitarianism

Fairness: Probably too strong. It was already one of the best first trait picks, NOW you get a colony ship on top

Representation: How much influence do colonies generate?

Tolerance: Does the +100 influence mean I get an influence generation of 100, or a one time benefit? As a one time benefit its too weak.

Traditionalism

General: The title is a bit silly sounding, Tradition was perfectly fine a word for this.

Social Ties: Just noting there are a lot of policies that reduce crime in multiple trees, feels like overkill.

Progressivism

Innovation: Is there any difference between this and just saying +15% global research?

Breakthrough: Too weak at this point in the game.

Risk Taking: It would be good to at least summarize what the improvement grants.

Futurist: Same as risk taking

Pacifism

Kindness: What is the approval bonus? Compassion as an ideology no longer exists but this text still references it.

Empathy: This is a strange benefit for a ideology of pacifism. "oh we are at war.....eh that's fine"

Forgiveness: Similar to empathy, I'm getting diplomatic bonuses for being at war, that's really strange.

Serenity: +50% approval is bonkers good...like absolutely bonkers.

Peacefulness: A summary of the improvement would be nice.

Nihilism

Moral Relativism: +9% diplomacy seems rather weak compared to the straight up diplomacy bonuses of pacifism. I mean where can you even see your diplomacy score to know how good this is?

Fatalism: Did you mean resistance here rather than defense?

Collectivism

Mass Mobilization: What is a "system" in this context, do you mean planets?

Interdependence: What is a "all production types", what is a "connected system?"

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Thank you for making this comprehensive feedback report!

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2341

Great post. I'll forward this.

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scifi1950

Join Date 02/2005

+61

Didn't see anything reducing pollution. Unless you changed the pollution mechanic this is going to be a problem.

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scifi1950

Join Date 02/2005

+61

Well, you sure made picking traits a tougher decision by upping the base cost and then upping the cost of remaining picks dramatically with each new pick. I think it would help if you added culture points to the info at the top of the main screen and let us see how they're accumulating as with Control and Wealth.

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Quoting scifi1950,

reply 4

Well, you sure made picking traits a tougher decision by upping the base cost and then upping the cost or remaining picks dramatically with each new pick. I think it would help if you added culture points to the info at the top of the main screen and let us see how they're accumulating as with Control and Wealth.

Yeah the cost of culture inflation is such a great addition now I can completely ignore this feature after a hundred or so turns.

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As it is now I preferred the old system. The pacing for once was so much better with the old system and there was interesting and very useful perks to pick all over the place. A lot of them are now gone: starbase range increase, increase in culture point generation buildings, pollution reduction, etc. The old system was relevant for the entire game. Now you pick a couple of good perk in one tree and then that's it.

In all my years of gaming I usually go down the research route. In this new system, I'm back to my old habit of just going down a few perk in the progressivism tree and that's it. With the old system I actually went down other trees I wouldn't have before. Speaking of progressivism, Breakthrough should give you a one time 3000 Research or 60 research per turn for the rest of the game; that's just one example but with the cost of these perks, they really should give you an immense advantage in any specific trees.

It might just be a question of balancing the impact that event choices have on the the culture points cost, etc. But even then, I'm really missing some of the perks that were there before and are now gone. Imo, more work needs to be done here to bring back the fun and relevance of this game system.

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I keep telling the Devs if it ain't broke don't fix it the culture feature wasn't broke but they "fixed" it.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2341

Quoting scifi1950,

reply 4

The UI feedback on this screen is a train wreck. We need a lot more information on it.

I'll be living in this thread over Memorial Day as I'm going to be focusing on the Cultural Progress trees. The idea is that they should be pretty infrequently gotten but extremely powerful. Much more so than currently.

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 8

Quoting scifi1950,

reply 4

The UI feedback on this screen is a train wreck. We need a lot more information on it.

I'll be living in this thread over Memorial Day as I'm going to be focusing on the Cultural Progress trees. The idea is that they should be pretty infrequently gotten but extremely powerful. Much more so than currently.

I think the new format is fine, I just think the cost increase formula is too unforgiven. I can generally get 2 perks "relatively easily", but then by number 3 the cost gets really steep.

The thing I did miss was that the cost was impacted with how deep in the tree you have gotten. The idea seems to be that perks deeper in the tree are meant to be "stronger", so it makes sense that cherry picking from several trees (which will already have a price because I won't have discounts in that many trees) should give me less benefit but be cheaper overall. That has been lost in the new formula, and I think that part should be reconsidered.

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Quoting Stalker0,

reply 9

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 8

Quoting scifi1950,

reply 4

I think the new format is fine, I just think the cost increase formula is too unforgiven. I can generally get 2 perks "relatively easily", but then by number 3 the cost gets really steep.

The thing I did miss was that the cost was impacted with how deep in the tree you have gotten. The idea seems to be that perks deeper in the tree are meant to be "stronger", so it makes sense that cherry picking from several trees (which will already have a price because I won't have discounts in that many trees) should give me less benefit but be cheaper overall. That has been lost in the new formula, and I think that part should be reconsidered.

Agree the formula would work if it applied separately to each tree. and there were more ways (many more) to get points.

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Another way of putting it would be: how many tress should you expect to be able to maximize throughout an entire game on the largest maps ? 2-3-4-5-All of them ? Depending on how you answer this question, you could calculate the amount of points needed to reach that goal and set the pacing of culture gain according to this amount.

Personally, my preference is to be able to max most of them in the longest games. I understand that this might not be the goals here, but that's what I like the most in these kind of games. At the very least, you should be able to pick some really good low hanging fruits from all the trees and be able to max 3-4 all the way. Or, lock out the highest perks so that the only ones available are those based on the choices you made when creating your civ in the beginning of a game; this way you could make them extremely powerful while still allowing us to max out most of the other trees for the fun of it. Give us plenty of good choices and let us have fun along the way (dopamine mechanism )!

One way this could work is to make the link between event choices and the cost stronger (I'm just following your current idea here). Like lets says I've mostly plated the scientific card for most of the game and now I start selecting more malevolence event choices as I progress, the cost of the malevolence tree should drastically go down and let me max it out much much more easily. I want to emphasize though that with time I should still be able to "max out" (with the above caveat) another tree even without choosing the corresponding events.

You could also play with the amount of culture points you get per turn somehow (you mentioned based on your capital I think before, etc.) to help us get there.

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I'm with Draver and Gypsy2299, I really enjoyed the previous culture system and found myself bouncing around teh various different options depending on how the game was going e.g. Need that Starbase Extension, need to remove pollution, need to buff my Governors now I've got more planets. It felt my culture was evolving depending on the differing challenges in each game and was 'interesting'. Balancing my preference for 'fair and demographic' with the challenges of pragmatism, authority in times of war etc was fun and felt like my culture was evolving in line with the game. Now you essentially need to pick from a limited choice at the start and stick with it given the cost of changing. I just uninstalled the insider build to go back and load a previous save game and definitely prefer the increased opportunity to choose in the previous version.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2341

Trait	Benefits	Status
Self-Determinism	+3 new leaders	Done
Private Property Rights	All planets get +1 Orbital Improvement Slots, Unlocks Entrepreneur	Doesn’t work yet
Self-Reliance	Citizens with Individualist Trait get +3 to their stats
Autonomy	Governors get +10 loyalty, +1 Policy Slots
Privacy	All individualists get a 25% approval bonus.
Competitiveness	New Policy: Reduced Regulations, Individualists on a planet provide +1 raw ealth.
Self-Governance	Governors will never rebel
Prestige	Prestige Victory Progress +25%
Purges	Unlocks Orbital Gulag
Obedience	Citizen Expectations lowers by 20%
Secret Police	Makes Secret Police Policy Available
Representation	Colony Culture increased by 1
Labor Rights	Unlocks Union Center Improvement
Diversity	Citizens now increase core world influence by their social skill
Social Ties	Citizens of our species no longer generate crime
Preferred Culture	Citizens of our species get a +10% bonus to approval
Innovation	Unlocks Innovation Complex Improvement,Citizens with the Progressive Trait generate +1 raw tech per turn.
Breakthrough	Hyperion Shrinker unlocked, +100 free research
Risk Tasking	Unlocks Shark Tank Planetary Achievement
Quantum Leap	+1000 Research
Collaborative [new]	Unlocks Hyperion Braintrust [first to build this gets 1% of all research of friendly civs]
Trustworthy [new]	Unlocks Nebulon Monetary Trust Wonder [first to build gets 1% of all gross income of friendly civs]
Moral Relativism	All event choices give awareness into every ideology.
Fatalism	Unlocks Death Commandos Executive Order, annihilate target enemy fleet.
Exploitation	Unlocks Exploit Workers Executive order. Increases target planet manufacturing by 500% for 6 months.
Criminal Ties	Also unlocks Crime Wave Executive Order which increases crime on a target planet for 24 months by 200%.
Shared Belief->Communal LIving	Housing Districts provide +1 more housing.
Consensus	Citizen Expectations reduced by 50%
Cooperation	All Colonies receive +1 to Fertility
Unified Coordination	Logistics +12
MassMobilization	Unlocks Mobilize Executive Order which spawns a Transport when used
Interdependence	Minor worlds in our influence provide 3X the resources to their sponsor world.
Solidarity	Every non-core world provides +1% approval

Some of the trait work.

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I don't like the new handling of culture at all. Already from the second selection it plays then almost no more role, since one can select for a long time nothing more.
Better back to the old handling - I want to be able to select an advantage more often. Not only every 10 hours.

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Yeah, in general I think you are spot on with this. Overall, I reall do not like the new culture trees.

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My thoughts on these below.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 13

Trait	Benefits	Status
Self-Determinism --Is this you gain 3 leaders? Or you get 3 leaders show up in recruitment (text clarification)	+3 new leaders	Done
Private Property Rights --Entrepreneur being the worker option? This looks cool.	All planets get +1 Orbital Improvement Slots, Unlocks Entrepreneur	Doesn’t work yet
Self-Reliance --Is individualist something that all my citizens get with a specific policy? Seems like your giving out a lot of goodies to these individualists, would hate is that is just based on raw luck.	Citizens with Individualist Trait get +3 to their stats
Autonomy --Solid	Governors get +10 loyalty, +1 Policy Slots
Privacy	All individualists get a 25% approval bonus.
Competitiveness	New Policy: Reduced Regulations, Individualists on a planet provide +1 raw ealth.
Self-Governance --These feels too weak to be its own policy, or at least too situational.	Governors will never rebel
Prestige --I'm worried this will become too "necessary" for proper prestige victories, forcing tree choice.	Prestige Victory Progress +25%
Purges	Unlocks Orbital Gulag
Obedience --How is this fundamentally different than an approval bonus? Unless expectation does anything else, it just muddies the waters.	Citizen Expectations lowers by 20%
Secret Police	Makes Secret Police Policy Available
Representation	Colony Culture increased by 1
Labor Rights	Unlocks Union Center Improvement
Diversity --So 8 social = +8 influence? That seems crazy good, I'm guessing its more a % increase, which should be clarified in the text.	Citizens now increase core world influence by their social skill
Social Ties --Seems awefully good, its weird to have a policy taht literally removes a core mechanic in the game.	Citizens of our species no longer generate crime
Preferred Culture	Citizens of our species get a +10% bonus to approval
Innovation	Unlocks Innovation Complex Improvement,Citizens with the Progressive Trait generate +1 raw tech per turn.
Breakthrough	Hyperion Shrinker unlocked, +100 free research
Risk Tasking	Unlocks Shark Tank Planetary Achievement
Quantum Leap	+1000 Research
Collaborative [new]	Unlocks Hyperion Braintrust [first to build this gets 1% of all research of friendly civs]
Trustworthy [new]	Unlocks Nebulon Monetary Trust Wonder [first to build gets 1% of all gross income of friendly civs]
Moral Relativism --So each choice is like +1% to all ideologies?	All event choices give awareness into every ideology.
Fatalism	Unlocks Death Commandos Executive Order, annihilate target enemy fleet.
Exploitation	Unlocks Exploit Workers Executive order. Increases target planet manufacturing by 500% for 6 months.
Criminal Ties	Also unlocks Crime Wave Executive Order which increases crime on a target planet for 24 months by 200%.
Shared Belief->Communal LIving	Housing Districts provide +1 more housing.
Consensus	Citizen Expectations reduced by 50%
Cooperation	All Colonies receive +1 to Fertility
Unified Coordination	Logistics +12
MassMobilization	Unlocks Mobilize Executive Order which spawns a Transport when used
Interdependence --So a colony with 2 mineral now provides 6 mineral to the core world? That's pretty bonkers.	Minor worlds in our influence provide 3X the resources to their sponsor world.
Solidarity	Every non-core world provides +1% approval

Some of the trait work.

As others noted, you removed the pollution reduction one, and there is definitely a community desire to bring that back in some form.

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Was playing around again with Insider last night, and it seems that the Starbase range seems to have been extended. If this is true then it makes sense that the cultural trait to extend starbase range was removed. But the choices to reduce leader cost really need to be there. Both of them and un-nerfed. The cost for leaders is rather obnoxious. And then I noticed what others have been saying---I wasn't getting any culture points.

Also, I find it odd to have to spend a culture point to get an additional survey ship. Need the culture points for other things.

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