Feedback Requested: Factions and Politics

[yikerman]

I realized that Factions and Politics is a great way to solve the midgame dullness. Larger empires are more likely to collapse from the inside. It also breaks the snowballing effect, allowing smaller empires to catch up.

 

[Lothar Warschau]

Per factions. One of the DLCs for CK2 (Holy Fury?) introduced that super cool system for pagan reformation, when you could customize your reformed religion. It would be quite easy to implement something similar for factions and their ideologies (and religion for spiritualists could be such an ideology), where you have a couple of modules which you fill with choices based on the ethics. Eg. "system of governance" and if the faction is democratic, it could be presidential vs parliamentary system, each with some perks, whereas militarists would have difference flavors of the Great Leader, while spiritualists would pick the level of centralization of the Holy Church.

 

[heliostellar]

I think the government forms need revisiting.

Democracies are just annoying. Elections are relatively expensive and happen too frequently. I used to play democracies way back in the day, but it's far more efficient to pick a young, well-qualified dictator or oligarch. The rewards of democracy are just not worth the constant work of dealing with elections. The bonuses you get are so temporary that they're not really worth it.

On the flip side, monarchies are almost always suboptimal to a dictator. Why have one heir when you can choice from 6? I can't think of any reason why you'd want a monarchy over a dictatorship.

 

[Roxsy]

My personal take is factions should be based on leaders.

Factions should not be tied to ethics, but to leaders. Instead all leaders should have their own ethics and be a member of a faction. Each faction should have a primary leader who determines the ethics of the faction, and other things like if the faction is a separatist movement.

Outside of that factions should have several more stats, Influence, Happiness, Loyalty, and Level.

• Influence is mainly based on pops, but factions also gain influence by having their leaders assigned to positions of power.
• Happiness is the short term satisfaction this faction has of your empire. The more of a factions agendas you push or don’t push, the more or less happiness they will have. Conversely doing things for or against a faction, such as removing their leaders from power, will make a faction more or less happy for a while.
• Loyalty is the long term satisfaction this faction has with your empire. When happiness is negative this will slowly go down, when happiness is positive, this will slowly go up. Above 50% loyalty a faction will start giving you unity based on its influence value instead of spending it on its own political agendas, like influencing elections. Below 50% loyalty a faction will start spending its influence on negative situations, like protests, coups, or even full on rebellions.
• Level decides the number of spacial traits a faction has, these traits can provide bonuses to their factions pops and/or leaders. The more influence a faction has, the higher max level.

There would be many ways to interact with your faction, some depending on your government type. Including: arresting its leaders, purging disloyalty, bribing them, asking for donations, allowing them to colonize independently, allowing them to build fleets independently, propaganda in support or against, integration with the government or separation of powers, etc. Some actions, like assassinations, will require leaders or factions with espionage skills.

Additionally you can interact with other empires factions with ambassadors or by spying.

Next up, Rebellions.

If a rebellion situation isn’t dealt with properly, a faction rebellion can occur. All pops and leaders belong to that faction will defect. Pops will spawn armies while leaders will take control of fleets and worlds, ambassadors will taint your reputation, scientists will steel research and sabotage your own.


All in all, my goal is to combine the idea of government institutions and independent factions. You might found and build up admiralty that specks its levels into fleet size reductions, but latter you decide to change your ethics, now you have to deal with an oldguard military who may not like the reforms being made.

Or you could have competing noble houses or corporations who each control their own planets and fleets, and they wouldn’t be too happy about you taking that from them.

Or you could be like the Soviets and control a vast diverse empire with solely the loyalty of the secret police.

This could also potentially allow Gestalt factions within normal empires.

 

[Shmeaty]

I would love for imperial governments to have an imperial family/dynasty mechanic and make the monarchy government form feel more like a monarchy with numbered rulers and everything. Maybe also be able to recruit members of the imperial family as assignable leaders. More can definitely be done with this as well, but I just would love this by itself to be a thing.

 

[xkdl]

Earlier factions had been removed connections with specific leaders, it's not bad because the leaders' system in game is changed, but just like the leaders, at least those who came from the players' empire, it has no communications with planets or all the empire but a simple static modifier. I think the factions shall have more directly influence to players' empire, such as the scientists' association (not materialistic because spiritistic empires also have scientists, so that shall have different deposits) can add a training class as a kind of planet deposit to a technology center where is it's base (I used to experience one), other like nobles' estate in the village planet, politicians' office in the city. In this way the leaders who have needed ethics can be connected with an empire's politics again. Ai should need these aspects enhanced though.

Besides the capital of a empire shall have more unique......things, now it's not very unique compared to the other planets, why not add a new page which contains archives and some other completely new upgrade options (like the estates in the ck3), to be a more immersed ruler sounds wonderful.

Well, I just thought a new suggestion that if needed the archives room on the capital can collect the archaeology sites' reports and astral rifts' also instead of showing too many icons on the galaxy map, especially when they are all in a single system with other things with icon---- it looks quite annoying.

 

[Red Earth]

I wrote this suggestion on what a machine spiritualist faction should want a few years, and I still think about it...

Xenos with xenophobia ethics have the alternate political party that promotes isolation for the empire rather than one that persecution of xenos, since as xenos that's not in their interest.

The spiritualist faction disapproves of synth rights, but pops ascended via The Flesh is Weak can result in spiritualist machine pops. So what would a spiritualist mechanical pop want that isn't against their interests? They're already trapped in a mechanical body, so what's the only non-suicide way out? Become the Crisis. The end involves ascending out of this plane of existence and so it's the only way that a spiritualist machine will see to redeem themselves, as far as I can imagine.

So here's some faction issues for this apocalyptic mechanical cult :

Positive approval for getting closer to the conclusion:
Ascension perk slot currently available if haven't already taken Become the Crisis
More for each crisis level

Negative approval for things that prevent you from taking Become the Crisis perk:
Xenophile governing ethics
Pacifist governing ethics
Subject
Corporate sovereign
Galactic sovereign
Galactic custodian
Used all ascension perk slots - big negative because their last chance is gone.

 

[bronze Void poison]

I wrote this suggestion on what a machine spiritualist faction should want a few years, and I still think about it...

disturbing but brilliant.
but we need one for the other crisis

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I don't know how you are defining Spiritualism except by the circular argument of Stellaris' current usage. Idealism is certainly against science, because what of use can science tell us about a world that is illusory, or secondary at best? See that when you change 'Spiritualism' to Idealism, the balance you're missing appears, and the whole thing makes more sense.

And it now clearly points towards a gameplay preference for each ethic: Materialists seek to materially perfect their being, while Idealists seek a connection with the world beyond -- towards Synthetic and Psionic ascensions respectively, as I already suggested. Which is why these two ascensions should be ethic-locked.

You seem to be using a Materialist strawman of Idealism there.

To Idealism the concept of Illusion doesn't really exist, since everything that exists is a projection of the human mind, including Science and the data/experiments that it engages in; Science is not opposed but is merely seen as studying the depths of a universal mind rather than studying something existing outside of our minds. This is *not* however what the majority of Theistic religions believe in, since they believe in an objectively existing universe created by a God that also objectively exists, with objective rules created by said God.

There are interests behind Spiritualism, the actual interests of the religious organisations and their clergy. There are no corresponding interests behind Materialism, they oppose the material interests of the religious organisations, but they represent no *specific* material interests themselves; since there is no Church of Unbelief to speak of, their conflict is asymmetrical. Another example of this asymmetry is PacifismVSMilitarism, while the latter represents the definite interests of soldiers, military spacefarers, generals, admirals and the alloy foundries, the former has no core group interests behind it.

Renaming Spiritualism to Idealism is entirely the wrong direction to go in, because we are coaching politics even more as a philosophical argument than it already is by occluding the material interests behind Spiritualism. The core problem with the way we model politics is precisely that it over-idealised, that it treats every philosophical position as independent both from itself and from the interests it represents or opposes.

Everyone seeks to materially perfect their being, Spiritualist or Materialist. The Spiritualists however (may) see the being they presently have as sacred and oppose drastic modifications to it because it runs the risk of modifying it into something that God did not intend to be their species form. An Atheist Idealist by contrast perceives the body as simply a projection of the mind and so it is perfectly fine with 'modifying it' since the new form is no less a projection of the mind than the original, natural form.

 

[Kava]

I'd love to see some true ideological wars being waged across the galaxy as a way of indirectly fighting other empires, developing soft power and what not. I don't know how it would look exactly, but it might tie in with espionage, diplomacy, and ethics attraction.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I'd love to see some true ideological wars being waged across the galaxy as a way of indirectly fighting other empires, developing soft power and what not. I don't know how it would look exactly, but it might tie in with espionage, diplomacy, and ethics attraction.

We might want to define specific subgroups beloning the general ethic, so can have religious wars between Rival Spiritualists or fights between two groups of Xenophobes.

 

[Obeliskkai]

Whilst I initially focused on internal politics, a recent playthrough left me somewhat unsatisfied with external politics as well.

It occurred to me, Stellaris is the perfect game for an analogy of real world international relations which no other Paradox game can really manage.

Sanction busting for states sanctioned by the Galactic Community for example (perhaps you could get could a diplomatic opportunity to help a state avoid sanctions). Or intervening in a war if certain laws are breached (perhaps indiscriminate planetary bombardment can be made a war crime with a certain resolution?).

Rivalries could also be more substantial depending on the powers involved. Two minor states could backbite over territory, but imagine if you were a 'Great Power' (we really should have great powers in Stellaris) able to interfere in smaller states, perhaps by supporting factions that like you (the Vic 3 lobby system?) or supporting rebels if the state government is opposed to you, either secessionist or full blown take overs.

Plenty of opportunities for espionage to support a rivalry system, particularly a great power rivalry which could mainfest as a cold war.

Your rivals, who would also be a 'Great Power', could be informed as to what you are doing and could react accordingly. A great power game could really liven up the mid-game in the years leading up to the crisis beyond conquering/vassalising everything in sight.

Speaking of which, the game really should see Empires that conquer a certain amount of the Galaxy through aggressive warfare declared a crisis, perk or not.

 

[DesertKyote]

So I might be the wrong player entirely for some of these. Like, I love empire building but factions and politics don't matter to me, at least in the current version of the game. And honestly neither does pops in the grand scheme of it all. I'm not the kind of player that enjoys that level of micro-managing, trying to make various pointless political groups 'happy' when I can just bypass any penalties they give me via various buildings/decrees/research. Doesn't matter if they are reducing my minerals income by 10% if I'm making enough that the flow is barely impacted.

Sadly, I seem to be more '4x' player than 'empire simulation' player. I just want my buildings to produce, population to grow, and for the empire to do as I wish. Maybe if there's a way to make them interesting without making entire sections of the game pausing it to address a dozen requests every two minutes, lest you get deposed because you forgot Granny's Grove Syndicate was mad at you because you missed their request 3 hours ago. But as things stand, I have no interest in factions or internal politics.

 

[Aoreyzus]

Currently the Materialist faction in my empire doesn't function logically, we researched the sea of consciousness event, got psi theory, and even experienced some shroud storms that switched a barren planet to a shrouded planet from parts unknown. Yet when other empires psionically ascend, we call them crooks? Maybe have the materialist faction's attitude towards psionically ascending or psionically ascended empires change upon the research of psi theory?

This is just a suggestion, and I am so glad that the wonderful dev team is listening to our vox populi about factions and politics!

 

[Calvax]

Currently the Materialist faction in my empire doesn't function logically, we researched the sea of consciousness event, got psi theory, and even experienced some shroud storms that switched a barren planet to a shrouded planet from parts unknown. Yet when other empires psionically ascend, we call them crooks? Maybe have the materialist faction's attitude towards psionically ascending or psionically ascended empires change upon the research of psi theory?

Yeah the flavour text doesn't match what's going on in game. It would make more sense if materialist text either expressed some frustration that the shroud only responds to sentient faith, or some bold claim that one day they will master the metaphysical realm.

 

[Aoreyzus]

I think we should have a combination of different types of factions that allows pops of different type of ethics to all join in

Xenophile + Egalitarian = Wants freedom and equality for all sentient life

Egalitarian + Miltarist = Wants a crusade to bring liberal democracy/ liberal oligarchy to the majority of the galaxy by force

Spiritualist + Xenophile = Want to unlock the psionic abilities of every organics in the galaxy

Pacifist + Authoritarian + Xenophobic = Wants to lockdown the country like a Shogunate of Japan

Authoritarian + Xenophile + Miltaristic = Like the Roman empire wants to expand into Xeno terror ties and take slaves.

Also, have leaders belong to a faction, and if a faction has more than 20% of the population join in, then a council position must include a leader that belongs to the faction, like how a coalition government works

This is just some ideas

 

[SolarChallenger]

Also, have leaders belong to a faction, and if a faction has more than 20% of the population join in, then a council position must include a leader that belongs to the faction, like how a coalition government works

I like this being in the game but think it should be limited based on government. Maybe not having influential factions on your council gives scaling maluses depending on how free your government is and in a full democracy or republic it it actually forced to have influential factions represented on council.

 

[GeneralObvious21]

Yes, I know there is an official suggestion form for this, and I've already filled it out. I'm repeating what I wrote there to see the community's opinion.

First and foremost:

INTERNAL POLITICS​

The current faction system is not a bad one but an insufficient one. It lacks depth and nuance and has little to no consequences on your empire. Here's what I believe can be added to this system:

• More multi-ethic factions and have them actually affect multiple ethics instead of just one. E.g. a xenophile-materialist faction would want to research xeno-compatibility asap; a xenophobe-materialist faction would see xenos as nothing but possible test or research subjects; an egalitarian-militarist faction who is all for crusading for democracy and unhappy when you ally with an autocrat, etc. Or even three ethic factions if the ethic limit is increased.
• Fanatic-ethic factions. These guys could be more demanding and ask you to work towards changing society in their direction. They could even represent extremists or dissidents.
• The effect on happiness should be increased and vary from faction to faction. For example, fanatics should become angrier than moderate factions the more you ignore or suppress them.
• Factions should periodically make demands, and your choice should affect their happiness.
• Give leaders a loyalty level like in many other strategy games out there. Their loyalty should be determined by how well you treat them (e.g. promoting or demoting them) or their factions.
• Multi-ethic leaders would be backed by their faction (refer to the first point) and even supported by factions with similar ethics. Dismissing leaders without a good cause (like bad traits or scandalous events) should anger their factions.
• Leaders should periodically have their own demands or recommendations depending on the authority type. In democracies and oligarchies, leaders should frequently ask for concessions (e.g. policy shifts, resources, etc). In dictatorships or empires, they should ask rarely for it.

RELIGION​

Currently, the only semblance of religion in gameplay is the spiritualist ethic. Within the lore, there are mentions of several faiths and even prophets. So, why not make that a proper gameplay feature?

• The feature itself should be independent of any other feature (like ethics), and each pop should follow a single religion (or however it will work in the future since the pop system is being scrapped).
• Nations should have a general policy toward religions - ranging from religious politics, secularism, state-sponsored atheism, and any other stance a country can take.
• A spiritualist ethic could be a requirement for adopting religious politics. Conversely, a materialist ethic could be a requirement for adopting state-sponsored atheism.
• If a nation chooses religious politics, it should have a policy called "state religion," which determines which religion the country subscribes to.
• I recommend starting with five religions before making more.

EXTERNAL POLITICS​

These parts are going to be changes and additions to the current system.

• Drone exchange treaties between hiveminds or machine intelligences.
• Bio-trophy migration pact for rogue servitors.
• Population exchange treaties between gestalts and individualists.
  • To elaborate, a gestalt could sever a small amount of drones and allow them to live as individuals within the other nation.
  • In exchange, individualists could send certain prisoners to the gestalt as a punishment. It could even be a new purge type where you give an allied hivemind the population you don't want.
  • Maybe some people might even voluntarily give up their individuality for a higher purpose because they have no meaning or purpose in their lives.
  • In general, there should be less population exchange than a standard migration or drone exchange pact can do.

This part is about meshing external politics, internal politics, and religion.

• Religious states should be neutral towards secular states (unless they're fanatic spiritualists) and should dislike atheist states.
• Atheist states should be neutral towards secular states (unless they're fanatic materialists) and should dislike religious states.
• The relationship of religious states should depend upon the ethics and state religions in question. (Note that opposing ethics means barring spiritualism in this particular context)
  • If two nations have the same religion and similar ethics, they should get along very well (yes, even xenophobes. Especially xenophobes because they're united in their hatred of others).
  • If two nations have the same religion but opposing ethics, they would view each other as bastard sects and have animosity toward each other.
  • Some religions should dislike certain other religions and be neutral towards the rest.
  • If two nations have antagonistic religions but similar ethics, they should have a very mild annoyance towards each other.
  • I don't think I need to say what kind of relationship two religious states with antagonistic religions and opposing ethics should have.
• Nations should be able to influence factions within other nations. Supporting or suppressing factions within other empires with your influence depends on several factors.
  • Espionage level and relative tech.
  • Diplomatic agreements and trust.
  • Your and the faction's ethical compatibility. As in, it is easier to support like-minded factions and suppress opposing factions than the inverse.
  • However many resources (both material and unity) you're willing to spend for this. This figure should be determined through a slider.

 

[Spododo]

If factions get a rework or additional features, I'd prefer to got with impactful but few. While I love EU and Victoria, I feel like I'm already having enough little modifiers in Stellaris to keep track of (or ignore). I could imagine a few ways to go about it.

• As some mentioned, factions could bring more active demands to the table instead of just a hidden list affecting happiness, potentially including their own council agendas. And like in Victoria 2, you'd have to secure the loyalty of (some) factions to keep control as monarchs/dictators, while in oligarchys/democracies, the factions aligned with your leader will get to choose which goals your next government should fulfill to maintain belief in the system - you fail, the faction happiness and popularity drops and maybe so does the trust in your overall government type (similar to Republican Tradition in EU), making change more likely or starting a situation that, if failed, forces you to change government style.
• As mentioned in DevD#364, internal medium-sized crisis might be interesting, triggered by the most unhappy factions, leading to decay in diplomatic relations with alike-minded empires, to strikes in the respective social class or impeding traditional reforms etc.
• Factions could persue actions, through a situation for example, like trying to "convert" councilors to their side, with them then making demands for their faction etc. (which, if denied, could make the leaders less effective, make them resign or incite open rebellion - an admiral going rouge, a gouverneur petitioning for secession etc.). This could also help making factions more tangible - I personally would prefer not to track a hundred pops thinking X, but rather their representatives and the faction actions overall and maybe extend the council system a bit as well (why have a council after all, if they're just mindless X bonus puppets).

Edit: Now that I think about it, why not also have factions be a possible endgame crisis - if they robots can rise, why not the most unheard and suppressed citizens as well? Band together militaristic xenophiles and make those friends - the Blorgeddon shall happen!

 

[Jashkar]

I think would be fun to have factions that work both like Worker's Unions and Interstellar Incorporated: Space Corp mods...I mean...to have factions and politics actually become "more alive"...like having little ships showing up and are for this or that corporations or holding office show up and being a worker union...

...however, to limit the impact on game, I think would be a good idea to put a restraint on their creation within AI empires and, even, possibly, post-poning their generation inside the AI empires the player hasn't come across (sure...less realistic, but after all AIs wouldn't truly "enjoy" the extra complexity...)...

P.S.: Actually I feel would be fun if a faction could work a bit like a plant or a tree...in the sense that it could exist as a very basic form with just a little description and then develop...have a few ships, holdings or stations...and be more visible...