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[Karnewarrior]

It's all punish punish punish seems to be the problem, and no reward. All negative results from playing wrong, but no positive results from playing right except for not being punished.

That's just not good design.

When it's just numeric differences, those are the same thing. You're rewarded for deleting superfluous stations, for example, with increased tech progress.

Which is why good game design says not to make the differences all numeric, and instead make the changes mechanical.

But even taking away all the mathematical bonuses and reasons to play tall, playing tall just isn't as fun as playing wide. Playing wide has a lot more sense of movement and motion, imo, than playing Tall does, unless playing a Tall suzerain. But then that's just Wide with an added constraint. There's still nothing really that shakes up empires, or really anything interesting to do in space you already own that doesn't have a feature locked behind a tech or large battle. Once all those have been exhausted, all that remains is plopping buildings on little grids, trying to eke out one more energy credit to add to your massive pile.

Note that CKII and Vicky II don't have this problem, but EUIV does (to a lesser extent). EUIV is also the most map-painterly game of the three, and the one most focused on expansion. The mechanics of Stellaris work to incentivize expansion with fun, rather than mechanical benefits, so when the devs respond by slapping negative modifiers on there all they end up doing is slapping the playerbase away from the fun things and pointing at the unfun things, which is not the point of a game to begin with. There needs to be not only mathematical but extra-game reasons to play Tall; there needs to be more involved governance, diplomacy, and politics. Otherwise, people will continue to blob because that's the only way Stellaris is really any fun. Special mechanics for small nations, or mechanics that grow more interesting the smaller the empire. That sort of thing. That's a real reward, not a +10% laser fire rate. Who gives a damn about that, the AI is pathetic anyway.

[Telgin]

New dev diary: link

Not terribly exciting stuff this time, although I'm really curious to see what the tradition rework ends up looking like.  I don't have very high hopes of this being the case, but I'm hoping they're going to actually give choices with traditions instead of them being something you'll always unlock by end game.  Or maybe reduce the incentive to play certain empire types specifically to swap out the more useless trees.

[Cruxador]

If that land clearance can be done repeatedly, Mastery of Nature just became a top-tier ascension perk.

Besides what's in the dev diary, one of the posts later in the thread has revealed that the infrastructure mechanic revealed in a previous dev diary has been scrapped, which seems like a bit of a shame to me, especially if scaling buildings are gone with it.

Not terribly exciting stuff this time

This is probably a sign that they're getting close to announcing the DLC.

[Teneb]

If that land clearance can be done repeatedly, Mastery of Nature just became a top-tier ascension perk.

Seems like a one-time deal. Would be way too strong otherwise. This way it's just respectably strong.

[Telgin]

The very high influence cost makes it kind of situational either way, although if it's repeatable then it's at least useful in end game since you could continue to grow despite having no more space.  I expect it to work like it does now where it opens up more space on smaller planets, but maybe not.  Even in the current version it's pretty situational since you get at most 3 tiles for a base of 100 influence, but could get 12 (or 15) tiles for 200 influence by building habitats.  Habitats cost lots of minerals though, I guess.

Didn't some teasers show a fallen empire world with 5 more districts than planet size?  That implies that it can be repeated that many times at least, or that there are other technologies that can increase the district size up to at least 5 times.

Besides what's in the dev diary, one of the posts later in the thread has revealed that the infrastructure mechanic revealed in a previous dev diary has been scrapped, which seems like a bit of a shame to me, especially if scaling buildings are gone with it.

Yeah, I think I liked the infrastructure mechanic more than basing it purely off of pops, but I do understand why they changed it.  The two numbers were largely hand-in-hand anyway, and apparently it gave too much incentive to build city districts without anyone living in them.  I think it had potential though, since there could have been other government or species traits that impacted it and made it decoupled from population.  Habitats also scaled differently from planets when it came to infrastructure, so it'll be interesting to see how that changes.

[Criptfeind]

I'm going to guess Mastery of Nature probably is just going to work how it currently does more or less. Nothing seen so far seems to point to a big change.

[Criptfeind]

New Dev Diary out.

It's about traditions getting rejiggled for the new economy system as well as changing domination from vassal focused to worker/slave focused and the diplomacy tree adding in stuff to do with trading (increased trade value and decreased market fee, which I guess are thematically related but mechanically have nothing to do with each other).

First thought is that all traditions that give unity are now gone which is an interesting choice, but I think it's a good idea. For me at least it always seemed like the best trees to break into at the start were the ones that gave good unity increases that you don't have to fuck around to get. Although there'll probably still be pretty obvious opening ones.

Also expansion is about having a big empire but it's domination and prosperity that give more housing, and diplomacy might very well give more pop growth mid game, depending on how immigration works. Kinda interesting.

Still kinda wish they'd do something more interesting with traditions and make them exclusive or something. But eh.

Edit: Oh, and on the stream they showed that there's going to be a new authority. On the forum people are wondering if it's megacorporations. Which seems like a reasonable place for the DLC to go, so sounds like that might be what is next.

[Telgin]

Still kinda wish they'd do something more interesting with traditions and make them exclusive or something. But eh.

Same.  I was really hoping for that, but didn't really count on it in this patch given the other complexities they're dealing with.  At least the rework does look like it will make many traditions more useful to take so that I don't always go the same route.

Edit: Oh, and on the stream they showed that there's going to be a new authority. On the forum people are wondering if it's megacorporations. Which seems like a reasonable place for the DLC to go, so sounds like that might be what is next.

Yeah, that would make a lot of sense too.  I'm just hoping they announce it soon so we can get a release date too.  It'll be interesting to see what new features or game mechanics get locked behind the DLC.

[Mephansteras]

Happy to see that the traditions are now all fairly useful for at least the majority of empires. Dominion, especially, used to be basically useless for a lot of empires. I've had quite a few games where it was only ever taken because I had nothing else to use the Unity on.

[Cruxador]

And next week is technologies. They're really scraping the barrel for things to talk about without announcing the DLC. They've also now revealed that the game compares empire size to a new administrative cap, which penalizes unity and tech, among other things. Hopefully this is a replacement to the scaling tech penalties, rather than an addition. Presumably its main purpose is to make Swiss cheese empires no longer optimal.

Happy to see that the traditions are now all fairly useful for at least the majority of empires. Dominion, especially, used to be basically useless for a lot of empires. I've had quite a few games where it was only ever taken because I had nothing else to use the Unity on.

With the focus on Federation, diplomacy is probably the most subject in utility now.

[Criptfeind]

Presumably its main purpose is to make Swiss cheese empires no longer optimal.

Probably won't do that. Sectors still increase empire size. So unless you are small enough that you are below your admin cap, you'll want to swisscheese your empire to reduce the penalties still.

[Mephansteras]

Happy to see that the traditions are now all fairly useful for at least the majority of empires. Dominion, especially, used to be basically useless for a lot of empires. I've had quite a few games where it was only ever taken because I had nothing else to use the Unity on.

With the focus on Federation, diplomacy is probably the most subject in utility now.

Yeah, although the Trade stuff is still useful for some non-federated empires I assume. I wonder how that'll work with Devouring Swarms and the like, though.

[Criptfeind]

They'll get the traditions swapped out for ones that work with them as per normal I assume. Devouring swarm in particular gets (as of the livestream)
Opening effect replaced by 10% reduced housing needs
Federation swapped with +10% food
Entente coordination replaced with +1 gene mod point and -15% mod speed
Insider trading replaced with 30% terraforming cost reduction (<Interesting one since potentially insider trading might be more useful for a devouring swarm forced to use it's internal market for trade rather then trade deals with AI. If making trade deals with AI wasn't a bit of a pain that is.)
Secure shipping replaced with 50% lower resettlement costs
Open markets replaced with +10% habitability

[Telgin]

Wait, do devouring swarms get an internal market?  I've never played one, but aren't they gestalt consciousness only?  I think those don't get an internal market.

Anyway, I'm curious to know what Inward Perfection will get now.  Supposedly one goal of this rework was also to make unity producing buildings less common, so things like the symbol of purity might get the axe.

[Criptfeind]

Wait, do devouring swarms get an internal market?  I've never played one, but aren't they gestalt consciousness only?  I think those don't get an internal market.

Difference between the internal market and the galactic market. The internal market is the market before you meet anyone, it represents your own internal civilian economy (or in the case of the gestalt consciousness it represents (weakly imo) the ability to inefficiently reprocess resources internally) and it costs more to interact with. Galactic market replaces it once the various nations have met with each other and it costs less to buy and sell on it. Afaik numbers of the difference between the two aren't out yet, but I expect it comes in the form of a higher market fee at the internal market.

Genocidal races like Devouring Swarm, Determined Exterminator and Fanatic Purifiers can't access the galactic market but they still get access to the internal market. I can't recall if it's been said if all gestalt consciousness (and/or diplomatic blocked nations like Inward Perfectionists) can get access to the galactic market. My vague recollection is that that's been mentioned as something they've not decided on, but I'm too lazy too look for a quote so that could be totally wrong.

You might have been thinking of Internal Trade? Which is of course something totally different then Internal Market (totally.) The production of trade value that turns into energy in your capital (as the trade ships dump their molten gold bullion into the giant waterwheels that stretch up to space on top of your imperial palace). Gestalt do not get access to that.