Feedback Requested: Factions and Politics

[Cry_Havok]

Also, there NEEDS to be a way to enforce laws on subjects. This could both be a cludge for playing against ethic type with released subject, and a way to enact soft power (Oh, you're desperate for protection from a hostile neighbor, I will protect you in exchange for abolition and and freedom of movement). Forced laws should ignore ethics restrictions

This could also extend to federations with federation laws. Imagine a hedgemon lead by a slavers guild empire enforcing slavery through the federation. This wouldn't force any empire to enslave any pops, but could lead to events where slavers lording over non-slavers offer to buy criminals or the like. Or technophobes enforcing subservient AI at which point it's rebel or be destroyed for most empires. While liberatory applications of most laws are more obvious, there could be ways to make galactic threats and menaces beyond the standard.

Finally, when I say religions I do mean that Spiritualist MUST be reworked completely. Spiritualist will continue to be terrible and cut off so many RP paths as long as they are locked into technophobic demon worshipers without weird kludges that lock them different ways (and again, do not pass on when liberated, so the entire point of the evangelizing zealot/crusader spirit just doesn't work). Make Spiritualist have an official religion and follow it, and let those faiths be diverse. Sure, you can have Zarqlan worship as a standard faith, or demon slave, but please for the love of the worm let us do anything else that isn't locked behind an origin or being a machine.

 

[Imp0815]

Also, there NEEDS to be a way to enforce laws on subjects. This could both be a cludge for playing against ethic type with released subject, and a way to enact soft power (Oh, you're desperate for protection from a hostile neighbor, I will protect you in exchange for abolition and and freedom of movement). Forced laws should ignore ethics restrictions

This could also extend to federations with federation laws. Imagine a hedgemon lead by a slavers guild empire enforcing slavery through the federation. This wouldn't force any empire to enslave any pops, but could lead to events where slavers lording over non-slavers offer to buy criminals or the like. Or technophobes enforcing subservient AI at which point it's rebel or be destroyed for most empires. While liberatory applications of most laws are more obvious, there could be ways to make galactic threats and menaces beyond the standard.

Finally, when I say religions I do mean that Spiritualist MUST be reworked completely. Spiritualist will continue to be terrible and cut off so many RP paths as long as they are locked into technophobic demon worshipers without weird kludges that lock them different ways (and again, do not pass on when liberated, so the entire point of the evangelizing zealot/crusader spirit just doesn't work). Make Spiritualist have an official religion and follow it, and let those faiths be diverse. Sure, you can have Zarqlan worship as a standard faith, or demon slave, but please for the love of the worm let us do anything else that isn't locked behind an origin or being a machine.

I fundamentally agree. I think that with a robust rework and the prerequisite abolition of doomstacking snowball gameplay, a faction system that is versatile in portraying multiple groups (i.e., factions) as distinct entities with different bases should allow for the emergence of real religions.

To spitball a little: In a faction system, which I envision to be localized on a planet, factions should form based on multiple environmental factors and the overall empire's influence. For a spiritualist empire, this could mean that on the core world, we would start with a religion as a faction, where, based on our ethics, either all of our pops are members, or at least the majority are.

When we begin to spread, the religion would spread with us. Perhaps we could choose not to bring religious clergy to a new colony and develop it in a different direction. Alternatively, there could be movements based on diverging environments or distance from the religion's birthplace that lead to deviations from the base religion. Massive events, such as discovering precursors, could spark a Protestant-like movement within the main religion. Major setbacks in wars, diplomacy, or the discovery of empires could also have significant impacts.

In detail, this could lead to interesting gameplay dynamics. For example, if the main issues of factions are ignored for too long, it might lead to strikes, civil unrest, and eventually full-scale civil war, either between factions or against the empire itself. This concept could create engaging, emergent stories in the game and serve as a core system where other mechanics tie in and can be used as tools for interaction.

For instance:

• Espionage: Send spies to planets where a faction has its roots or a majority influence to manipulate them in specific ways.
• Terraforming: Altering a planet’s environment could impact factions. For example, if a faction worships a Desert Worm as their god, and this starts to negatively affect industries, terraforming the planet into a Gaia world could eradicate the worms. This might cause the faction to fizzle out as the populace sees the "god" was a hoax, or it could spark a revolution.
• Military Presence: Use displays of power, such as stationing fleets or destroying an inhabited planet in the same system, to instill fear in a faction or provoke their aggression.
• Edicts: Issue strong-arm edicts to reshape the environment or suppress factions.
• Economic Influence: The creation of lower-class jobs or targeted resettlement of pops on specific planets could have profound effects on faction dynamics.

The problem is that many of these interactions currently exist in isolation, within bubbles, and aren’t meaningfully reflected in the game. How could they be, when the game primarily demands players focus on the military-industrial complex and its R&D to keep up in the fleet power race? As long as this remains the foreground, the background systems—such as factions—cannot produce rich, story-driven, and interesting outcomes from player actions.

Perhaps it’s simply not a design priority, but I find myself aggravated by recent questionnaires, as they seem to avoid addressing the fundamental boring gameplay loop. Warfare, for example, was vaguely targeted as an issue, but the discussion largely seems to revolve around casus belli, war goals, and similar topics—seemingly avoiding the core problem entirely.

 

[Azar]

I think out of the three elements that devs have asked for feedback lately(crime+piracy, espionage and faction politics), factions function by far the best. I don't have huge demands. I like that player gains extra influence by keeping factions happy, and that sometimes will translate into potentially changing government type.

 

[Imp0815]

Yes exactly. It should be harder to project power across the galaxy and conquer other planets. We should have to station armies, maybe fleets in orbit, and other resources to stabilize a planet and integrate it into our empire.

I agree in principle, but without a proper system to handle such micro-intensive tasks, I think it might be poorly received to manually send armies and ships everywhere to maintain control over an empire. I believe we had, or still have, some impact from landing assault armies on colonies in terms of stability and such, but it hasn’t really been a major focus.

That said, I think we should have more underlying mechanisms that interact with planets and sectors in this way passively. However, I wish there were many more of these systems and more options for how we deal with these issues.

 

[Ikael]

Sabotage mechanics always run into the "That guy across the galaxy is taking a dump in my cheerios and military access rules mean I can't push his face in for it even though I could." problem.

In my view, any soft power mechanism worth its salt should also incorporate means of counterplay other than "trow doomstack at infractor". Especially when the military access mechanism is as crude as it is right now (which is another topic entirely, but one that should be tackled at some point). I don't like "ship exploded due to spies, hahah" either.

Following that logic, I had in mind two possible means of countering ethics exportation:

Option a): Espionage/propaganda actions conducted by spy ships, as some other posters proposed, thus making it impossible to mess with empires too far away from you.

Option b): Culture mechanics that would allow your planets to eventually become immune against those types of ethic export actions once they accrue enough local unity.

In either case, soft power mechanics, the same as any possible internal politics rework, should be all about interesting choices with both pros and cons, rather than adding mindless non-choices and powercreep to the game.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

Occupation plays a role in class and vice versa, though you're right that it's not the sole determinant and in a science fiction game it should vary. But stellaris does have systems beyond slave/not slave for class. You have living standards and citizenship rights. If the pop rework draws more from Victoria 3, where pops are grouped based on species, ethic, strata, and job then depending on other settings you can have a class system apt for science fiction. Though in a case like this I would like to see living standards impact more than they do. There should be issues if certain pops have utopian living standards along sides those that don't, especially as you can have situations where the workers of one species hold more political power and resources than a ruler of another in the same empire.

It does and there are two systems that sort of make classes, aside from slavery which explicitly does. If you have a xenophobic empire that doesn't enslave aliens but denies them citizenship, you kind of have a resident alien (literally) class and if you have an empire you kind of have a royal class consisting of two members, the present Monarch and their Heir.

The Ruling Class is the Class-That-Rules and not the Class-Of-Rulers. The actual rulers (in terms of occupational grade) are normally a subset of the ruling class, but they aren't the class in its entirety. A key way of describing this is the difference between Dictatorship and Monarchy/Empire.

A dictator has the same occupational grade as the Monarch. But the Monarch has something else, a Class position that establishes that they *should* have their occupational grade, as opposed to a Dictator who merely *has* the occupational grade without belonging to a Class that entitles them to have the occupational grade.

The Class-Dictator (Monarch) retains a right to rule even if he offsets the actual occupational grade onto his regent/viceroy/vizier/shogun (or whatever they are called), but the dictator, not constituting a class with a right to rule may not entirely stop ruling without ceasing to be a dictator at all.

You are saying this as though it self evidently true. At best you're right that we aren't told wealth levels and ownership specifically but it's clearly implied and probably the case unless you have shared burdens.

It is factually true, though not obviously so because of the occlusion created by the strong correlation in real-life between the two things.

This very confusion led to the devs trying to implement class by adding occupational ranks/grades, but they did not seem to realise that occupational ranks aren't actually classes, they failed to do so, crippling any realistic political simulation of a class society.

One specific example of this is how Shared Burdens isn't considered a big deal, which while completely insane in all real-world terms, is bizarrely logical given that Stellaris, aside from when we have slavery *is* (accidentally) a classless society.

The Monoclass divides itself into occupational grades (worker, specialist, ruler) and then internally decides what the various grades are worth. Therefore, it is no big deal for them to introduce Shared Burdens, because this is simply them collectively deciding that all their occupational grades should receive equal payment. There is no opposing class that defends the inequality in society, but a single class deciding if its members should be internally equal or not.

With actual classes, we have a sense of what folks *should* have, which is semi-independent of what they *do* have. Classes are supposed to have certain things and will fight ideologically and politically for those things. I am no longer an individual that merely has the good fortune of having a certain occupational rank with a certain salary, I am rather part of a group that *should* have this rank because of the class we are.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

-> The aftermath of an invasion should be much, much more costly and complex than it currently is. Independentist factions, rebels, and guerrillas could be quite beneficial in order to slow down snowballing

It should be even more difficult for purgers. Because pops lose all their political power while being purged, a freshly conquered world can be instantly pacified by putting all the unhappy pops in a long waiting line for an extermination camp. This would not be the case if Crime reduced Stability; a planet-wide purge would then quickly cause a rebellion if the number of Enforcers/Soldiers is insufficient. However, this would also necessitate a new occupation mechanic, to minimize micromanagement and be AI-friendly. Possibly involving resettlement of Soldier/Enforcer pops to the occupational force.

 

[Ebrelian]

Splitting zealous and anti robot as two separate spiritualist faction, instead of the current amalgam, would a first step, but there is still a lack of religion and spreading (which is in itself a lack of soft power)

All spiritualist pop belongs to a religion, which by default would be planetary folk (non affiliated)
Spiritualist ethic would give establish religion +1, with regular having the guaranteed tech Clergy unification and fanatic having the guaranteed tech Galactic religion

• Clergy unification: Tier 1 society research, cost 2000 and requires Planetary Unification; Give a lump sum of unity and Edict Fund +10
• Galactic religion: Tier 2 society research, cost 4000 and requires Clergy unification and establish religion of at least 1; Allow for the establishment of religion
  • I'm putting religion as something unlocked early, but not from the start so you have time to establish yourself on the galaxy map to better select what kind of religion and bonus you want and you usually don't have an immediate neighbor to try and influence yet
    • Could alternatively be a single tech already unlocked by fanatic and guaranteed for regular spiritualist that requires 10 in game year to activate like faction
  • Origin or civic could have it from the start and / or with unique effect and twist

Established religion would be a vassal enclave available in new religion UI next to policy and edicts (think of mercenary enclave with vassal terms)

• • Enclave contact UX would benefit from a rework, regular enclave dialogue is annoying as click close and reopen window, but trying to find a mercenary fleet to not be in breach is terrible. Selecting effects and name for mercenary enclave would give it more personality, and if we also get pirate enclave ...
• You would select the name of the religion, spiritualist pop effect, the kind of organization and outlook (policy)
  • Pop effect could be extra extra unity, amenity, output or reduced upkeep
  • Kind of organization could knight order (navy to help in war), preacher (half effect on all pop and extra spiritualist attraction), faithful (extra effect on spiritual pop) and missionary (spread by itself, creating religion mission minor enclave without player intervention, with trade deal, and embassy effects)
  • Outlook would include who's divine (local god (default), toxic god, psionic trait leader, luminate trait leader, the worm, shroud entity, etc.), Shroud approach (open, controlled, banned), Bio enhance, psionic and cyborg pop acceptance (divine, normal, heretic) other religion (kinship, tolerated, heretic) and other things.
• The religion UI would list all known religion on the left (with number and % of pop and leader from your empire in it) and when click on, it would show it's effect and controller on the right, with controller being able to initiate contact to change options at the cost of unity and non controller being able to adopt or reject (not limited to one).
  • Spiritualist pop would select a religion affiliation amongst in empire present or adopted religion

Empire would have a new policy of religion to guide interaction

• Enforced atheist (All religion as rejected)
• Open minded (religion can spread in through treaty and embassy giving other empire the ability to build religion mission structure and all considered adopted)
• Dogmatic (only adopted religion can spread)

Now that you have a religion, you might want to spread it (or not, xenophobe empire religion for example), so there is a need for some soft power to push around your will in negotiation. The first is through diplomacy and the second through war.

• Trade deal need to be expanded to have diplomatic (unequal) treaty and serve as the basis for all negotiation and soft power. Current bilateral treaty commercial, science, migration, defensive, etc. would be moved here so you can now sweated or extort value out of the proposal, as well as new one way term like abolished slavery, religious control exemption, vassal, one way treaty, etc.
  • I don't recall if trade length is already modifiable or it's always 10 years, but it should be with an option of indefinite.
• Those should bypass ethic restriction, displeasing those ethics
  • Which would now join revanchist or independentism faction
• Diplomatic weight and neighbor should be considered in negotiation as it serves well enough as a soft power value number, giving some positive acceptance to trade deal at base value. Non neighbor would ignore the diplomatic weight bonus, as you're far.
  • For example, if you have 10k diplo weight compared to the target 5k diplo weight, you could start with 5 acceptance with nothing proposed, letting you have for example (with random numbers) 50 mineral per month for nothing, a non aggression treaty which also pays you credit, getting a free science treaty with somebody that you would have paid for instead, enforcing religious control exemption to get your religion to flow in, etc.
• In war it would be similar, but for peace negotiation.
  • Reuse the trade deal window for the peace negotiation, with occupied sector prefilled for both side and acceptance balance at 0.1. Not sure if AI offer trade deal, so they might now really used it, but they have weight in trade deal, so they would participate even if played lead.
    • AI personality with desires certain treaty might simply auto add a treaty and give the other points for them to select what they want, with AI on AI, defaulting to the most populous planet, so most value, and closest to their capital with in empire sector, to not be cut off; while player choose.

As such, now you can pay, diplomatically bully or military enforce to have your religion in an other empire. Religion providing spiritualist attraction, some of their pop and leader would slow convert ethic and take your religion, and creating the zealous faction. The empire could embrace the faction, ethic and your religion, become your co religionist; let it live and suffer minor inconvenience (additional faction, thus less unity and happiness) but having enough ethic attraction to counter balance (which could require one of the policy that reduce happiness happiness, thus less output, or simply costing more edict fund / unity); or repress the religion and faction, leading to smaller faction, but with negative unity and happiness and those pop also joining the reactive faction for independence (which you could then support (operation?) to increase their strength, forcing the empire to act, giving them freedom and you a new friend, letting it build in civil war that you can help or accept demands which prop back the zealous faction, thus conversion of the empire)

With enough friend, you form a federation, probably the spiritualist one, which should now have a slot for religion to put your religion (or none if want to be open spiritualism) as a galactic church organization to help incorporate more empire into your sphere of influence (new empire in federation would convert with time, with or without bloodshed; and federation president would have more diplo weight to push for religious agreement, thus easier religious agreement).

In case of more than one religion, like trying to covert another spiritualist empire, secondary religion, like your own spreading in, it would join in an existing core spiritualist faction, but depending if you religion wants to coexist, no additional faction effect and would slowly increase appeal with the power of the religion controller empire, or dominate, in which the pop would also be in a reactive faction to push it as the main religion while creating core faction internal strife.

 

[TheArid]

It would be cool to get a corporation faction that tries to take over your empire. They'll gradually gain control over your planets (like they can establish a headquarters on a planet, ask for increased autonomy in exchange for some resource production buffs, etc).

Factions that are dynamic and impactful like this would add a lot of story-telling potential.

 

[Ebrelian]

Sectors should be soft limited in number, like star base, so that actual frontier region exist in the galaxy for non planet based empire to work in (pirate and nomad), with limited ways to increase the number or size of the sectors. This favor taller and compact empire compared to too wide empire. Sector would reduce autonomy, reduce piracy, give full map intel, reduce enemy cloaking and increased yours (in empire ambush in war mostly) and put pop in the core ethic factions.

Planets should have an autonomy value (which would reduce output by half its autonomy value to represent the lack of connecting infrastructure and local keeping part of the resources, increase stability and increase attraction to independence faction). There should also be a unrepresented faction for frontier world pop that are happy to be in the empire, but desires representation, but from which pop could drift to the independence faction. 0% autonomy planet would give the same benefit as sectors (reduce piracy, give full map intel, reduce enemy cloaking and increased yours, and put pop in the core ethic factions)

• Core sector planets would have zero max autonomy.
• Frontier world would have 50% base autonomy.
  • Could be further changed by distance from nearest sector capital with +5% autonomy for each sector between
    • 50% autonomy on the edge of a sector, 0% autonomy 11 sector away from a sector capital

Way to change autonomy level

• Sector -30% autonomy
  • If sector is connected to core sector -50% total autonomy
• Putting a governor reduce autonomy through level (half value across sector)
  • Governor as the most efficient at -2% per level compared to -1% for scientist and military
  • though military governor brings stability through troops, so it doesn't reduce autonomy as well, but as more base stability.
• Leader trait
  • Autonomy -/+ 5% per trait level
    • Alternatively, tacked on another niche trait with reduced effect
  • There could be a governor trait that increase autonomy in exchange of complete loyalty, making an autonomous sector, where the planet / sector would have forced automation (you still control designation) and it's kept resource would go to its stockpile to use. Not a vassal, but a federal state.
• Ethic Authoritarian -5/10% autonomy
• Tradition domination -10% autonomy
• Policy and edicts -10% autonomy for hyper relay connected world
• Star base in sector giving -10% autonomy with black site giving an additional -10%
• Disconnected sectors +30% autonomy
  • extra +20% autonomy if you can't reach the planets because of closed borders
• Devastation increase autonomy at +50% autonomy at 100% devastation, the government couldn't protect us!
  • devastation already reduce output and destroy building (thus job), so it's more for independence and revanchist appeal
• Covert operation
  • Causing devastation to increase autonomy
  • Increase faction appeal for independence faction on high autonomy world

With the leader rework done, a potential faction rework and an empire territory management rework, I would argue the game has it internal politics done.

 

[verybad]

I want to see Religion Culture and Ethnicity be a part of Stellaris. I want being born on a planet affect how someone grows up, with shipping lines bringing planets together and differences in culture/religion forcing them apart. I want diseases making shipping lines need to be cut and I want to see young religions ravaging the galaxy and making new empires suddenly capable. I want to see particular planets being the center of tourism from species across the universe, where some ask their leaders to conquer a planet because they lived there 10,000 years ago. I want to see a galaxy that people affect other people through the traveling and economic lines. Cultural lines affected by actions inspired (or ignored) by what is done.

I want people to hate or love particular species because of the war that happened, or simply because they're racist, because they're bugs, or because they're tasty. Have cultural or religious buildings in different like capital buildings. Have ethnicity affected by birth planets (i.e. a big planet with a lot of mining would affect the way you grow up compared to an engineering planet, or the capital (those arrogant jerks). Have sector leaders want to be the big man and coup your emperor. Have factions caring more about what they so care about and having those factions affected by the galaxy around them.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Finally, when I say religions I do mean that Spiritualist MUST be reworked completely. Spiritualist will continue to be terrible and cut off so many RP paths as long as they are locked into technophobic demon worshipers without weird kludges that lock them different ways (and again, do not pass on when liberated, so the entire point of the evangelizing zealot/crusader spirit just doesn't work). Make Spiritualist have an official religion and follow it, and let those faiths be diverse. Sure, you can have Zarqlan worship as a standard faith, or demon slave, but please for the love of the worm let us do anything else that isn't locked behind an origin or being a machine.

Some random thoughts...

1) In my opinion, ethics currently do a decent job of approximating the values and principles of a dominant religion in an empire, for the level of abstraction used in Stellaris.


2) If specific religions are added, they should be represented as factions. The Manifesti is already an example of a not-quite-ethic-specific movement being represented in that manner. The cybernetic origin factions are another example that goes against the old "one ethic, one faction" model.


3) Spiritualism =/= religion, just like Materialism =/= science.

• Even if Stellaris, and past developer communication, is contradictory on this one.
  • The developers have stated that Spiritualist is not religion, and the ethic description concerns the nature of reality relative to the mind (without any reference to religion).
  • But: a number of civics, dialogue options and government types use Spiritualist as a sign of an empire being very religious.
  • And then there is also the fact that Spiritualist swaps out bureaucrats for priests.
  • Though an ambiguous case is the Holy Covenant federation type, which can be unlocked by Spiritualist ethics - or Harmony traditions.
  • The current rules cause some issues in this regard.
    • Spiritualist often assigns you a theocratic government type, even if you pick civics associated with your other ethics (which then really should be considered more important for your government type). This makes it difficult or impossible to play as a nominally "mostly secular religious" empire, short of picking civics (or fanatic ethics) that affect government type.
    • Similarly, it is not possible to play as a pluralistic non-Spiritualist government that allows Temples to be constructed.
• Why Spiritualist and religion are poor fits for each other:
  • One problem with equating Spiritualism with religion is that there are beliefs that are spiritualistic without being religions; new age, crystals having magic powers, astrology, or believing in the existence of spirits, angels and/or demons in general without any religious/theological framework.
  • There are also religious beliefs that are not very spiritualistic, such as classical Christianity rejecting disincarnation/disembodiment (your existence essentially consists of your body, no soul departs it upon bodily death), and also rejecting witch powers as pagan superstition.
  • If we take things further and consider the description of Spiritualist and Fanatic Spiritualist, they are difficult to reconcile with any religion that asserts there is a shared material reality governed by objective laws that can be studied with logic. Real religions can thusly be fundamentally closer to Stellaris Materialists than Stellaris Spiritualists, who argue that reality is subjective.
  • In some sci-fi examples, religions can even be excessively materialistic (at least in the broader sense of the word). Just consider the Ferengi and their religious pursut of profit.
  • A further complication here is that the definition of religion is unclear.
    • Does it require one or more deities?
    • Does belief in a subjective, fluctuating reality without a deity qualify as a religion?
    • Does belief in an objective, material reality qualify as Spiritualism in the Stellaris sense, if there is also belief in a supernatural deity that does not actively interfere with that reality?
    • Depending on which definition of religion is used, it could encompass those who believe that we live in a simulation, that the universe is cyclical, or that there exists a multiverse, which are non-scientific beliefs commonly associated with real-life "materialists" (no matter how science-sounding the words in their rationales are, those ideas are not scientific ideas until an actual scientific test is proposed, and produces a scientifically useful observation in regards to the null and alternative hypotheses).
• In conclusion:
  • Religions are better represented by combinations of ethics, rather than the Spiritualist ethic alone, and can in some cases be better represented without the Spiritualist ethic at all.
  • Factions may be a good way to introduce "religions" (and other intranational organisations / movements / moods).

4) In philosophy, the opposite of Materialism is actually not Spiritualism - it is Idealism, and its description fits the Stellaris description of Spiritualism perfectly.

• Thus spaketh Wikipedia on Materialism and Idealism:

Materialism (...) holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are caused by physical processes (...) without which they cannot exist. Materialism directly contrasts with (...) idealism, according to which consciousness is the fundamental substance of nature.

• The original design choice to replace Idealism with Spiritualism, and the subsequent "religion-creeping" of the ethic, plus the additional tying of specific ascension paths to specific ethics, are causes of the weird situation with religion, psionics, spiritualism and materialism in Stellaris. Spiritualism, psionics and religion are shoe-horned into the same box and forced to get along, and it is not a great fit for any of them.
  • Does anyone know why Spiritualism was used instead of Idealism?
• One hypothetical alternative would be to rename "Spiritualist" to "Idealist" and finally divorce religion from the ethic (including Temples, Priests, government types and certain civics).
  • If we additionally fluffify the definitions of Materialist and Idealist to encompass their everyday meanings as well, Idealist could pick up a number of civics to replace the religion civics. Potential candidate civics for Idealist include Idealistic Foundation, Environmentalist, Philosopher King, Fanatic Purifiers (similar to Spiritualist), Heroic Past, Crusader Spirit (kept), and Natural Design.
  • Temple buildings (and Priests) could be made available for everyone, OR require one of the now-ethically-unaligned religious civics (Exalted Priesthood, Imperial Cult, Death Cult, Dimensional Worship) instead of Spiritualist.
  • The theocratic government types could require religious civics.
  • A number of dialogue texts would need to be rewritten to ensure consistency.
  • I write this without actually expecting such a change to happen. The changes would take a lot of work, for a not entirely clear benefit, and much of the above can be countered with the simple observation that Stellaris is a sci-fi game and that Spiritualism may be a better fit for sci-fi than Idealism, when considering the availability of tropes in sci-fi - and that as far as Stellaris is concerned, the capacity for trope reenactment can be more important than "realism".

 

[Dayknight]

Honestly as long as new developed system don't fall into "Yet another civil war printer", I'm fine with that. Eariler iteration of Machine rebellion already shows how bad that is, so it would be wise to avoid that.

 

[SeaPirate]

Some ideas I have:

---

1. Faction Customization from the Start​

• Players should be able to create and customize their factions at the beginning of the game.
• This includes defining the faction’s name, ethics, core values/traits, and flag.

---

2. Faction Identity and Continuity​

• Unique Icon and Immutable Laws
  Factions should have a unique icon and immutable laws or values that define their identity.
• Shared Identity Through Conquest
  If a faction is installed in another nation via war, the two nations would share the same faction.
• Faction Evolution
  If the faction evolves or changes, it would form a "brother faction" with a new name, but the flag and core ethics would remain unchanged. Only laws would be flexible, preserving the faction's identity.

---

3. Flexible and Nuanced Faction Rules​

• Avoid rigid faction stereotypes. For instance:
  • A spiritualist faction could choose to grant full rights to AI.
  • A xenophobe faction might ban slavery while remaining isolationist.
• Factions should reflect a spectrum of values, avoiding oversimplified labels like "xenophobe = racist."
• Realistic Alien Policies
  It’s illogical for conquered aliens to favor xenophobic policies that diminish their rights; this should be re-evaluated for greater realism.

---

4. Revamped Diplomacy Based on Actions and Rules​

• Relationships between nations should be influenced by their actions and faction rules, not just static ethics alignment.
  For example:
  • Spiritualist nations wouldn’t automatically like each other simply because they share the same ethics.
• Dynamic Attitudes
  Diplomatic attitudes should consider faction-specific laws, traits, and in-game actions.
  • Default modifiers would still exist (e.g., spiritualists typically opposing materialists), but these would be augmented by a dynamic system.

---

5. Faction Rivalries and Traits​

• Factions shouldn’t inherently get along even if they share broad ethics.
  For example:
  • A spiritualist faction with a "fundamentalist" trait might despise other spiritualist factions while still being friendly with other nations.

---

6. Dynamic Faction Generation​

• At the game’s start, the player would create their faction, while two additional factions are randomly generated based on ethics.
• Emergent Factions
  As the game progresses, new factions could become available to choose from due to conquest, immigration, or refugee influxes from other nations, adding depth and variety.

---

7. Faction Stability and Leadership​

• Faction shifts should be rare without external pressures or significant upheaval.
• Nations would greatly prioritize leaders from their ruling faction.

---

8. Faction Influence in War​

• Not all factions should be able to assert themselves in other nations through war.
  For example:
  • Isolationists would be an exception.

 

[passeris]

Some random thoughts...

1) In my opinion, ethics currently do a decent job of approximating the values and principles of a dominant religion in an empire, for the level of abstraction used in Stellaris.


2) If specific religions are added, they should be represented as factions. The Manifesti is already an example of a not-quite-ethic-specific movement being represented in that manner. The cybernetic origin factions are another example that goes against the old "one ethic, one faction" model.


3) Spiritualism =/= religion, just like Materialism =/= science.

• Even if Stellaris, and past developer communication, is contradictory on this one.
  • The developers have stated that Spiritualist is not religion, and the ethic description concerns the nature of reality relative to the mind (without any reference to religion).
  • But: a number of civics, dialogue options and government types use Spiritualist as a sign of an empire being very religious.
  • And then there is also the fact that Spiritualist swaps out bureaucrats for priests.
  • Though an ambiguous case is the Holy Covenant federation type, which can be unlocked by Spiritualist ethics - or Harmony traditions.
  • The current rules cause some issues in this regard.
    • Spiritualist often assigns you a theocratic government type, even if you pick civics associated with your other ethics (which then really should be considered more important for your government type). This makes it difficult or impossible to play as a nominally "mostly secular religious" empire, short of picking civics (or fanatic ethics) that affect government type.
    • Similarly, it is not possible to play as a pluralistic non-Spiritualist government that allows Temples to be constructed.
• Why Spiritualist and religion are poor fits for each other:
  • One problem with equating Spiritualism with religion is that there are beliefs that are spiritualistic without being religions; new age, crystals having magic powers, astrology, or believing in the existence of spirits, angels and/or demons in general without any religious/theological framework.
  • There are also religious beliefs that are not very spiritualistic, such as classical Christianity rejecting disincarnation/disembodiment (your existence essentially consists of your body, no soul departs it upon bodily death), and also rejecting witch powers as pagan superstition.
  • If we take things further and consider the description of Spiritualist and Fanatic Spiritualist, they are difficult to reconcile with any religion that asserts there is a shared material reality governed by objective laws that can be studied with logic. Real religions can thusly be fundamentally closer to Stellaris Materialists than Stellaris Spiritualists, who argue that reality is subjective.
  • In some sci-fi examples, religions can even be excessively materialistic (at least in the broader sense of the word). Just consider the Ferengi and their religious pursut of profit.
  • A further complication here is that the definition of religion is unclear.
    • Does it require one or more deities?
    • Does belief in a subjective, fluctuating reality without a deity qualify as a religion?
    • Does belief in an objective, material reality qualify as Spiritualism in the Stellaris sense, if there is also belief in a supernatural deity that does not actively interfere with that reality?
    • Depending on which definition of religion is used, it could encompass those who believe that we live in a simulation, that the universe is cyclical, or that there exists a multiverse, which are non-scientific beliefs commonly associated with real-life "materialists" (no matter how science-sounding the words in their rationales are, those ideas are not scientific ideas until an actual scientific test is proposed, and produces a scientifically useful observation in regards to the null and alternative hypotheses).
• In conclusion:
  • Religions are better represented by combinations of ethics, rather than the Spiritualist ethic alone, and can in some cases be better represented without the Spiritualist ethic at all.
  • Factions may be a good way to introduce "religions" (and other intranational organisations / movements / moods).

4) In philosophy, the opposite of Materialism is actually not Spiritualism - it is Idealism, and its description fits the Stellaris description of Spiritualism perfectly.

• Thus spaketh Wikipedia on Materialism and Idealism:

• The original design choice to replace Idealism with Spiritualism, and the subsequent "religion-creeping" of the ethic, plus the additional tying of specific ascension paths to specific ethics, are causes of the weird situation with religion, psionics, spiritualism and materialism in Stellaris. Spiritualism, psionics and religion are shoe-horned into the same box and forced to get along, and it is not a great fit for any of them.
  • Does anyone know why Spiritualism was used instead of Idealism?
• One hypothetical alternative would be to rename "Spiritualist" to "Idealist" and finally divorce religion from the ethic (including Temples, Priests, government types and certain civics).
  • If we additionally fluffify the definitions of Materialist and Idealist to encompass their everyday meanings as well, Idealist could pick up a number of civics to replace the religion civics. Potential candidate civics for Idealist include Idealistic Foundation, Environmentalist, Philosopher King, Fanatic Purifiers (similar to Spiritualist), Heroic Past, Crusader Spirit (kept), and Natural Design.
  • Temple buildings (and Priests) could be made available for everyone, OR require one of the now-ethically-unaligned religious civics (Exalted Priesthood, Imperial Cult, Death Cult, Dimensional Worship) instead of Spiritualist.
  • The theocratic government types could require religious civics.
  • A number of dialogue texts would need to be rewritten to ensure consistency.
  • I write this without actually expecting such a change to happen. The changes would take a lot of work, for a not entirely clear benefit, and much of the above can be countered with the simple observation that Stellaris is a sci-fi game and that Spiritualism may be a better fit for sci-fi than Idealism, when considering the availability of tropes in sci-fi - and that as far as Stellaris is concerned, the capacity for trope reenactment can be more important than "realism".

So 'Spiritualism' was Idealism all along. That makes so much more sense, and explains the connection to the Shroud. All this time I was left thinking it was some dumb 'science vs religion' dichotomy. Yes, this is the change Spiritualism-Materialism needs, just for clarity's sake (I don't know if it would change gameplay). Religions should be civics and locked behind Fanatic along with Temples. Same for Academic Privilege and Fanatic Materialism. Maybe Psionic ascension should be unavailable to Materialist empires without an ethics shift, and likewise Synthetic to Spiritualists.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

So 'Spiritualism' was Idealism all along. That makes so much more sense, and explains the connection to the Shroud. All this time I was left thinking it was some dumb 'science vs religion' dichotomy. Yes, this is the change Spiritualism-Materialism needs, just for clarity's sake (I don't know if it would change gameplay). Religions should be civics and locked behind Fanatic along with Temples. Same for Academic Privilege and Fanatic Materialism. Maybe Psionic ascension should be unavailable to Materialist empires without an ethics shift, and likewise Synthetic to Spiritualists.

Well, obviously it was because it is the opposite of Materialism. But it is also more than Idealism, hence the name (I support the present naming).

Really though, the whole dichotomy sticks out from other ethics because there really isn't any clear gameplay preference for the ethic. All the other ethics have a clear gameplay preference, the pacifists want you to keep the peace, the militarists want you to wage war.

Those two however, they just seem to want you to promote themselves, for the sake of keeping them happy and have asymmetrical ends. Spiritualism is not against Science, though Materialism is I guess against religion, it isn't their members problem unless the religion is imposed on them by the government, which is pretty extreme even by Spiritualist standards.

So Spiritualism wants to promote itself and Materialism just wants to stop them?

 

[Calvax]

All the other ethics have a clear gameplay preference, the pacifists want you to keep the peace, the militarists want you to wage war.

IMO pacifist is a poor ethic because it doesn't open up any game play. All it does is lock you out of features, it's an ethic that says more about what your culture doesn't like than what it does like.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

IMO pacifist is a poor ethic because it doesn't open up any game play. All it does is lock you out of features, it's an ethic that says more about what your culture doesn't like than what it does like.

If you play pacifist then you aren't interested in said features.

I used to play Pacifist a lot, but maybe a lack of war led to my noticing the lack of depth or realism in the game's politics and stop playing the game, so pacifism ethic was a bad idea.

 

[Calvax]

If you play pacifist then you aren't interested in said features.

I don't really agree. You can play as spiritualist but build robots and deal with the consequences, you can be authoritarian and not be locked to making your worker lives a misery. But beyond that the main point was that each ethic gives you something to focus on whereas pacifist is a purely negative space ethic. It takes something away and gives you nothing, you do the exact same that anyone else can choose do do but with more restrictions.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I don't really agree. You can play as spiritualist but build robots and deal with the consequences, you can be authoritarian and not be locked to making your worker lives a misery. But beyond that the main point was that each ethic gives you something to focus on whereas pacifist is a purely negative space ethic. It takes something away and gives you nothing, you do the exact same that anyone else can choose do do but with more restrictions.

There are two senses of the word negative Calvax. A Pacifist considers the lack of ability to engage in war and strife (a negative in one sense) not to be a negative in the other sense.

So if Pacifism makes our warmongering options limited, then things are as they should be. The actual problem is that the other ethics in the game aren't restrictive *enough* about the things they don't agree with.

The game encourages hypocrisy, in that you take the ethic for the bonuses/civics and then violate its tenets. Problem with Materialism, is that as a purely negative concept (the lack of Spiritualism) it doesn't have any negative *or* positive tenets whatsoever.