Greetings and salutations space fans! Today were back with another dev diary, and the topic at hand is the feature improvements coming to the Traditions system. Back in dev diary 214 when we announced the Lem Update and the Custodians Initiative, we also talked about how to make Selectable Traditions. Selecting your Traditions We know theres been mods that have extended the amounts of traditions for some time now, and we also know that it's something that parts of the community have been asking for as well. For us, Traditions have always been an important part of customizing and specializing your Empire during play, and although we of course like giving players more customization options, we also need to maintain a balance. We didnt simply want to keep adding new traditions without having the UI support it well, and we didnt also want to give players too many options right away, which can lead to Choice Overload. We felt like it was a good time to review the Traditions system, because we wanted to add a few more Tradition Trees, and open up the avenue for doing more of that in the future, where it makes sense. Lets dive into the changes, and keep in mind that nothing is final and theres missing art. Feedback is still very welcome though.
We are improving the traditions system so that you are no longer locked to the same set of 7 traditions (with some swaps), but you can rather pick which Tradition Tree you want to go into one of these 7 slots.
All the Tradition Trees currently available to the United Nations of Earth. Some of the Tradition Trees, that were previously swaps of other trees (like Adaptability being a swap of Diplomacy), are now their own trees again. This means that Adaptability, for example, is now available to all non-machine empires. Synchronicity is still mutually exclusive with Harmony (one will appear if you are a gestalt empire, the other if you are a regular one). Versatility is available to all machine empires. Changes to existing Traditions Other than allowing you to select your own Traditions trees, weve also changed some of the traditions within the existing trees. Lets take a look at some of those changes:

Domination

• Judgment Corps: no longer increases crime prevention, but rather makes your Enforcers produce 1 Unity.
• Finisher: no longer provides +1 monthly influence, but rather increases +10% ruler output for regular empires, or +10% admin cap for gestalts

Diplomacy

• Open Markets replaced with Diplomatic Networking: Embassy pacts now produce 3 Unity
• Secure Shipping replaced with Eminent Diplomats: Diplomatic Acceptance increased by +5, and your Envoys that are Improving Relations have a 1% chance per month to gain a Favor from the target empire.
• Insider Trading replaced with Trust or Bust: Trust Cap +50, Trust Growth +33%
• Finisher: no longer increases Trust Cap or Trust Growth, but rather increases Diplomatic Weight by +10% and +1 Envoy.

Harmony

• Mind and Body: now also increases Leader Skill Cap by +1
• Kinship: effect on demotion time buffed from -50% to -75%
• Bulwark of Harmony moved to Unyielding, replaced with Harmonious Directives: +1 Edict Cap

Supremacy

• Adoption: no longer increases Starbase Cap by +2, but instead increases Naval Cap by +20
• The Great Game: old effects removed, now increases damage done to Starbases by +20%

Prosperity

• Finisher: no longer provides Merchant Jobs per Pops on a planet, but rather increases Stability by +5.

New Tradition Trees We are adding 3 new Tradition Trees to the game: Mercantile, Unyielding and Subterfuge. Unyielding and Subterfuge are currently unlocked by Nemesis, while Mercantile (originally supposed to be unlocked by Megacorp) is available to everyone. The reason being that we wanted to see how it felt to have the Trade Policies unlocked through this tree. It will therefore no longer be possible to convert Trade Value into Energy + Consumer Goods/Unity unless you have the (3) Adaptive Economic Policies tradition.
New art is still coming in.

Mercantile (Free)

• Adopt: Starbase Collection Range +1, Trade Protection +5
• (1) Trickle Up Economics: Clerks provide an additional +1 Trade Value
• (2) Commercial Enterprises: Commercial Zones Building now provides 1 Merchant Job.
• (3) Adaptive Economic Policies: Can convert parts of their Trade Value into Unity or Consumer Goods
• (4) Marketplace of Better Ideas: increases trade value by +10%
• (5) Insider Trading: moved from Diplomacy Traditions, -10% Market Fee
• Finisher: increases trade value by +10%

Unyielding (added to Nemesis)

• Adoption: Starbase Cap +2 and Starbase Upgrade Speed +50%
• (1) Resistance is Frugal: Stronghold buildings now produce 3 Unity and Defense Army Health is increased by +33%
• (2) Never Surrender: reduces Planet Bombardment Damage by -25%, war exhaustion by -25% and increases hostile claim costs by +25%
• (3) Bulwark of Harmony: moved from Harmony Traditions, effects are as before
• (4) Fortress Doctrine: increases the Hit Points and Damage of Starbases and Defensive Platforms by 33%, and reduces the upkeep cost of starbases by -20%
• (5) Defense in Depth: increases Starbase Cap by +2 and reduces Starbase upgrade cost by -50%. In addition, owners of Nemesis will also increase Hostile Operation Difficulty by +4 for the Sabotage Starbase Operation.
• Finisher: Max Defensive Platforms +50%

Subterfuge (added to Nemesis)

• Adoption: +1 Codebreaking
• (1) Information Security: +1 Encryption
• (2) Operational Security: +1 Codebreaking, +2 Operation Skill
• (3) Non-Disclosure Agreements: Hostile Operation Difficulty is +1, and Hostile Operation Cost and Upkeep is increased by +50%
• (4) Double Agents: Whenever a Hostile Operation targeting us fails, we gain 10 Intel on the offending empire
• (5) Shadow Recruits: increases Infiltration Speed by +50%
• Finisher: Successful Operations refund half of their cost on Infiltration Level

---- That is all for this week folks! Let us know which Tradition Trees you like to pick, and why. Any feedback is very welcome. Next week well be back to talk about the additions were making to the Humanoids Species Pack.