｢Stellaris｣ Traditions Guide - What to Choose and When!

greetings everyone i'm stefan and today we'll be finally answering the question of what tradition trees should you go for first but before we can cover that we first have to understand how the system works in general as well as what the different tradition trees actually do for you so let's get started with the basics and the basic is unity now unity is very similar to research output in the sense that you use unity to give permanent bonuses to your empire however unlike technology traditions are more customizable and are a little bit weaker than tech i would say that if you have an option of rushing tech or russian unity you really should be rushing tech because tech will give you a lot more and a lot more powerful bonuses to your empire than unity however even if you're not rushing unity you will still be getting a bit of it for example with a standard empire you're going to have administrators producing eight unity at the start uh you're gonna have your enforcer producing a bit of unity as well and uh overall if you just keep playing and keep building up more planets you will get more unity output over time there's a very similar thing with hyde mines and with mega corpse although if you're playing as machine empire maybe you should focus a bet on unity but as a normal empire you can generally ignore dedicated unity production you can just get it off your population as is and you can spend those unity points from your population into some great early game bonuses depending on which path you want to go for so as you adopt a tree for example prosperity you got to get the first adoption bonus plus 20 to mining station output then you go through yeah you take all the different uh traditions within the tree uh you will see the arrows mean that you really got to take one thing before you can take the other and after that you get the finisher bonus and an essential perk generally i would recommend finishing a tree uh before moving on to the next one but if you're going for something like diplomacy and all you want is to form a federation you can just go for the federation tradition and just you know continue on with a new tree there is a penalty to doing this though and that's that's first of all you don't get the extra ascension perk and uh the finisher effect and secondly that's uh the more traditional trees you adopt the higher the cost is so if we for example adopt uh adoptability discovery diplomacy etc it's gonna increase the cost of uh nutrition by five percent five percent isn't all that much but it really adds up so keep that in mind of course there's going to be a lot of caveats as they go into the traditions themselves because they are all specific to an aspect of your empire but even then some of them are simply better than others a good example is expansion you know being able to grow your empire faster and grow your population faster is very important the population aspect especially is what makes this tree very very good if you for example colonize 10 planets and you already have taken the expansion tradition called colonization favor you're going to get 10 extra pops and then if you take a new life those pops will breed a lot faster contributing to more uh raw population which means more resources and a bigger and more powerful empire however those are the primary benefits of expansion you're not gonna get a whole lot more than that and if you're not planning on just chilling in an area of space with a lot of planets for the first hundred years you might be better off going for something else such as for example discovery you will be getting some pretty nice bonuses out of discovery in particular plus 10 to research speed and plus one to research alternatives uh now many people underestimate the power of research alternatives but being able to select from more technologies in your tech tree is very essential especially if you know uh the ins and outs of techs because the more choice you have the more control you have over having your empire get good besides these research bonuses that will apply at any point in the game discovery also has some bonuses that are really good early on anomaly research speed and increased survey speed which is very helpful but not necessarily enough to make discovery your first pick if you're not going for a tech rush if you're just going for an economy rush you might instead go for something like prosperity and uh i i know it's crazy prosperity used to be a pretty metry uh back in the day but these days in 3.1 prosperity is amazing just take a look at the finisher effect for this thing resources from jobs was five percent and plus five stability uh if you add all the bonuses you get together you will essentially get 13 specialist output and eight percent worker output uh there's a reason why meritocracy a civic that gives plus 10 to specialist output is one of the best civics in the game specialist output is what makes your empire tick uh alloys allow you to conquer empires and research allows you to be very very dominant and also i guess if you're running culture workers like i didn't advise you to um the specialist output will apply there as well so you're gonna get faster unity production no matter what point you are in the game taking prosperity is always a good pick even if you have taken expansion or discovery as the first pick i would recommend taking prosperity is the second one if you don't take it as a second one it's a third pick and a fourth pick if you know etc etc the only situation where i personally wouldn't take prosperity is if i'm literally just gunning for a war in year 10 and i have to take supremacy to be able to build up some fleet bonuses and when it comes to fleet bonuses supremacy is definitely on top one thing to know about supremacy though is as of 3.1 it no longer gives you extra star bases it gives you plus 20 naval capacity instead which arguably is better in the early game but perhaps worse in the late game and uh also kind of worse if you're planning to use those star bases for farming stuff but that's another matter entirely when it comes to fleet power supremacy will firstly give you bonuses to your actual ships such as for example 10 extra fire rate and 20 extra damage to star bases and you will also be able to produce more ships because they are cheaper they can be built faster and you can contain more of them with extra naval capacity all in all you're probably looking at a 20 to 25 uh better fleet by just going with supremacy than with going with anything else and uh 20 to 25 is very conservative especially considering how with supremacy you unlock war policies as the finisher effect these war policies or as it says in game war doctrines uh allow you to select from a variety of bonuses uh there is of course no retreat if you're playing as a militarist which gives you plus 33 ship fire rate making your fleet not 20 stronger but 50 stronger at the cost of reducing this engagement i have done a video on disengagement specifically you can find that in the top right corner but this engagement can be quite good early on uh and so hit and run the policy that allows you to disengage more can be quite valuable other than that there's a defense depth and rapid deployment rapid deployment is extremely useful in the late game because the more ranger ships have the more of a chance they have to be the first ones to fire and if your ships are the first ones firing and they have massively destructive neutron launchers on them you're gonna be in a good spot uh defensive depth on the other hand is kind of lame uh i'm gonna be honest i don't think i've ever taken this uh perk myself but i guess if you're relying purely on star bases for defense defensive depth could be quite good because it does apply to star bases and speaking of star bases there's actually a brand new tree introduced in stars 3.1 that allows you to really really boost your star bases like uh you gotta get plus four to starbase cap you're gonna get plus 50 to upgrade speed and minus 50 to upgrade cost which means that you're gonna be able to build a lot more star bases very quickly and very cheaply uh unyielding can be great if you're for example a hive mind or machine empire and you're just using those star bases for solar farms or food farms but otherwise if you're in a defensive situation this is also amazing generally i wouldn't recommend unyielding as one of the first picks unless you're really really bent on just being a turtle for the first 30 or so years uh instead you should probably take this pic as like your third or fourth one uh where you're able to upgrade all your star bases and make them into very powerful and very cheap fortresses the only empire type where i would recommend going for this tuition tree early on is robots because there's actually a tradition in this tree which allows your strongholds to produce three unity without being actually manned it's kind of like the old memorialists the building itself produces unity for the cost of one upkeep and one building slot with robots it's pretty easy to have a lot of building slots so spamming strongholds can be pretty viable uh to help you boost your unity output and in fact it's not just a robot thing you can also do this with any normal empire but uh normally building slots are a bit more valuable and uh so on and so forth unyielding does also have a bonus to defensive platforms uh but defensive platforms suck so unless you're really desperate and you really need a star base to be stronger than what it is defensive platforms suck don't don't go for them and speaking of bad ideas uh let's take a quick look at substitute yeah subterfuge is essentially just uh what is it oh a waste garbage trash i don't know what to call it but it's uh one of those things uh espionage is a really really weak and underpowered mechanic in the game and if you even boost it by 200 or 300 percent it's still gonna be hot garbage so yeah don't go for this go for something like mercantile instead if you really do want a meme you see mercantile is another new tree added in stellars 3.1 and this one will give you a lot of bonuses to trade value now in previous versions i would have said that trade value is a complete joke and even in 3.1 it is mostly a joke but there is one thing that can make it very viable and that is merchants with mercantile you're biggest effect from this tree is going to be this tradition right here commercial enterprise plus one martian job per commercial zone uh commercial segment or trade district unlike clerks who are still a complete joke merchants are op they produce a base of 12 trade value each which with various modifiers can easily get up to 24 and with 24 trade value merchants and let's say a trade league policy which allows you to produce unity consumer goods and energy you've been making a grand total of 12 energy six unity and six consumer goods per merchant that's kind of broken and considering how you can get that up and running in the first five years of the game merchants are kind of meta trade value is not modified by ordinary output bonuses and so uh if you go for trade you go mercantile and you probably go for all the other trees because the amount of unity you're gonna be able to make is insane uh speaking of insane actually i can't really speak of insane that's all the good trees covered uh let's take a look at some of the other ones which can be useful situationally but are generally not as good starting with diplomacy which i hinted at earlier diplomacy gives you two primary benefits first you'll be able to do all diplomatic actions at a 50 reduced cost this means that forming commercial packs or defensive packs or federations costs 50 less influence per month and you're also able to form federations by picking the federation tradition uh this is very nice it also gives you an extra envoy and uh yeah that's honestly where the the whole diplomacy thing ends uh besides those two things diplomacy is quite bad uh there is a potential for uh this tradition right here it will give you plus three unity per embassy so in theory you could farm a lot of unity by making a bunch of embassies similarly adaptability is another tree that is good to dip into and not very good after that adaptability can give you plus one building slot to all your planets which can be quite useful but otherwise doesn't really give you all that much it gives you settlement cost reduction uh army bombardment damage reduction defensive army damage increase overall this thing is quite poor and even though by finishing adaptability you will get the bonus of planetary prospecting planetary prospecting kind of sucks now this isn't too bad on planets which are normally really poor in resources for example if you have a planet with no energy mining or food districts at all this can be quite nice but generally speaking you could just put those planets towards industry or something else and the cost of planetary prospecting really isn't worth what you get out of it the adaptability tree is something i don't generally go for similarly to domination and harmony both of these trees give you various bonuses that can be useful in certain circumstances but are generally quite weak but the only notable thing about these two trees is that they both share plus one eating capacity on one of their traditions and this plus one eating capacity is relatively good uh it's quite good i'd say but doesn't justify taking these trees not really harmony and domination are both trees that i would generally go for in the late game uh but if i were to choose one that is slightly better than the other i'd probably go for domination this one gives you plus 20 admit cap plus 0.5 influence and some extra bonuses to your workers and slaves however even then i'd go for this only as a late game option after going for good stuff like supremacy discovery uh prosperity and stuff like that and speaking of those trees let's take a look at what you normally would go for as far as order goes if you were to play for example this empire right here this right here is my fungus and mogus clone army rush build and here i would go for prosperity as the first tree for those sweet speed economy bonuses and then transition into a military focus with supremacy by the time i'm done with supremacy i would probably go for my first war and conquer some territory at which point i would either go for domination to get bonuses to you know influence eating capacity and worker bonuses or discovery for the research bonuses typically i'd go for discovery and also get that extra research alternative at any point i want to go and make a federation i would go for diplomacy and just pick the federation perk otherwise i go for domination harmony or unyielding to build up star bases another example we'll be playing as a more peaceful empire with this sort of build i would go for expansion first and foremost to ensure that i get as many planets early as possible and get a lot of pop growth on them expansion does pay off very handsomely in the first hundred years and considering how as a peaceful empire you probably aren't gonna attack anyone in the first hundred years uh expansion is very very nice after expansion i would either go for discovery or prosperity discovery would allow me to survey stuff faster and get more of a tech base up and running quicker prosperity on the other hand as i mentioned before is just quite good and we probably go for that as a second perk and discovery as our third perk if at any point though we are threatened by another empire that is bigger than us i would drop whatever i'm doing and instead go for unyielding with unyielding you're able to fortify your empire very very quickly and very very powerfully and uh going for all these juicy juicy starbase bonuses could really pay off if however the surrounding situation is peaceful and the neighbors are friendly i would go for adaptability domination or harmony uh not in any particular order but mostly dependent on uh what circumstances arise within the empire if i'm lacking influence i would go domination uh if i want more leader lifespan i'd go harmony and if i have a lot of low habitability planets i'd go for adaptability and if for whatever reason you want to transition out of peacefulness and into war going supremacy is always going to be a good idea all this is relatively straightforward but what about a more wacky build such as for example this right here the merchant man with this build i would definitely go first and foremost for mercantile now you will notice that i haven't gone for mercantile with the other to build because mercantile doesn't give you much of a benefit for an empire that is not focused on trade the only thing useful to those other empires for mercantile will be insider trading which gives you minus 10 market fee but with a merchant focused build we of course want commercial enterprise as early as possible and in fact that's exactly what we're gonna gun for first and foremost we're gonna take adaptive economic policies to actually be able to change our trade policy from wealth creation and then we would just spam merchants as we spam merchants we'd probably do one of two things either we would go to war and try to get more planets and therefore more merchants or we would want to just expand our habitats and live relatively peacefully in the first option i would go supremacy in the second option i would go prosperity after these first two trees which generally will be completed very very quickly if you use the marketplace of ideas and a lot of merchants i would go for diplomacy and try to gun for a federation as quickly as possible with a merchant focus build you do want to be in a trade league and being able to form one is very very useful in actually being in a trade league after that i would go for discovery for those nice bonuses and then most likely supremacy for uh you know the military aspect of things if i don't go for supremacy as the second tree i would definitely go for it as one of the lighter ones because those fleet bonuses do be kind of nice though for the last two traditional trees i would go for harmony domination and adaptability depending on what you need at the time and now with habitats it is viable to go for expansion early on uh with this build you want to go for merchants early on not necessarily expansion but just fyi with expansion as a void dweller start you will get a minus 20 habitat build cost which is quite significant and if you want to go for just pure habitat spam going expansion as the first thing and then going with other stuff later is also a very good option anyways that's gonna do it for today special thank you to my patreon supporters and i hope you guys learned something in this video if you did please do consider dropping a like anyways thanks for watching and i'll see you guys in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Stefan Anon

Views: 122,224

Keywords: stellaris, stellaris guide, stefan anon, stefan stellaris, stellaris gameplay, stellaris update, stellaris nemesis, stellaris lem, stellaris 3.1, stellaris 3.1 meta, stellaris 3.1 lem, stellaris origins, stellaris builds, stellaris meta, stellaris traditions, stellaris traditions 3.1, stellaris traditions order, traditions tier list, traditions order, stellaris traditions tier list, stellaris traditions update, traditions, traditions lem, traditions 3.1, update 3.1

Id: ENEF5-LucnY

Length: 19min 36sec (1176 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021