Stellaris Dev Diary #54 - Ethics Rework

[hagagaga]

TBH I feel like Xenophobia and Xenophile isn't really an ethos in the sense of fitting to be placed on the axis along with others. It also does not affect government types.

I feel like Xenophobia/phile should be a separate toggle on empire creation, while freeing up their axis to further flesh out the ethea model.

I agree. It should have its own situation apart from the rest of the empire's ethos.

 

[Yenzen]

I agree. It should have its own situation apart from the rest of the empire's ethos.

You could argue the same for all four ethos that they could all just be eithor/or. Ultimately only one ethos is required to be spent to unlock any government type, and three are unlocked without spending any at all. I don't see how not unlocking any governments is enough to set it apart from other ethoses.

 

[hagagaga]

You could argue the same for all four ethos that they could all just be eithor/or. Ultimately only one ethos is required to be spent to unlock any government type, and three are unlocked without spending any at all. I don't see how not unlocking any governments is enough to set it apart from other ethoses.

I definitely think that it should be like that for all of them.

 

[Chaos_TLW]

For historical monarchist societies, you're looking at pure collectivism i.e. feudalism. Remember that historical conservatism was largely based around communitarianism, where everyone had their place and worked together for the good of the whole. If you want to draw a line between monarchies and communists/fascists, you have to then add in spiritualist for monarchies and materialist for the modern government types.

So...

Xenophobic collectivist = Nazi Germany (also materialist)
Spiritualist collectivist = Feudal kingdom

So I guess I'm rather late for this one, but...

This works rather badly as an analogy because the Nazi party was heavily anti-materalistic, anti-science and anti-industrialist. They followed the Blood and Soil(Blut und Boden) conservative doctrine, which glorified and longed for a lost, glorious peasant state of living, where a specific ethnicity (Blood) was intrinsically and spiritually connected to the land it occupied (Soil), thus justifying the whole Lebensraun thing they had going on. The Nazi vision of a perfect colonist household was a veteran soldier-peasant, a barefoot pregnant wife ("Kirche, Kuche, Kinder"), and a litter of children around the house, all physically, racially and ideologically fit, living in a small self-sufficient farm.

Fascism in general is also somewhat spiritualistic, with the worship of the state and leader over all else rather than a god, and the blending of state and civil society into a single indistinguishable whole. In an encyclical from the 30s, the Pope once called Mussolini's fascist regime something along the lines of a "pagan worship of bureaucracy", which is an interesting way to look at the whole thing.

 

[Finnway]

Wow... you did it Wiz. You fixed the biggest underlying flaw in Stellaris.

Now, hopefully, governors will be tweaked to tie into ethics more. e.g. Governors' personality traits having an impact on POPs' likelihood of changing ethics and joining factions. If we reach that point, then Stellaris will begin to resemble the game I imagined it would be.

One thing is for sure. POPs are Stellaris's most unique mechanic, and they were dramatically under-utilized in the vanilla game.

 

[Spartanlemur]

So I guess I'm rather late for this one, but...

This works rather badly as an analogy because the Nazi party was heavily anti-materalistic, anti-science and anti-industrialist. They followed the Blood and Soil(Blut und Boden) conservative doctrine, which glorified and longed for a lost, glorious peasant state of living, where a specific ethnicity (Blood) was intrinsically and spiritually connected to the land it occupied (Soil), thus justifying the whole Lebensraun thing they had going on. The Nazi vision of a perfect colonist household was a veteran soldier-peasant, a barefoot pregnant wife ("Kirche, Kuche, Kinder"), and a litter of children around the house, all physically, racially and ideologically fit, living in a small self-sufficient farm.

Fascism in general is also somewhat spiritualistic, with the worship of the state and leader over all else rather than a god, and the blending of state and civil society into a single indistinguishable whole. In an encyclical from the 30s, the Pope once called Mussolini's fascist regime something along the lines of a "pagan worship of bureaucracy", which is an interesting way to look at the whole thing.

Any form of collectivism can be argued to be "spiritualist". Because the regimes which hold them together normally need some sort of mythos underpinning them.

But fair point. Perhaps spiritualism is what makes Fascism distinct from Communism. Though I would think it quite clear that monarchism is more spiritualist than fascism, albeit less collectivist (the individual is not asked to sacrifice their personal interests entirely, yet this is exactly what the Doctrine of Fascism indicates that people must do).

On a pure level, I'd say that monarchism is fanatic spiritualist and collectivist, while fascism is fanatic collectivist and spiritualist. But I think fascism is also likely to be xenophobic, unlike monarchism (the Russian Empire was among the most authoritarian of monarchies, though the aristocracy enjoyed French culture).

 

[Chaos_TLW]

Any form of collectivism can be argued to be "spiritualist". Because the regimes which hold them together normally need some sort of mythos underpinning them.

But fair point. Perhaps spiritualism is what makes Fascism distinct from Communism. Though I would think it quite clear that monarchism is more spiritualist than fascism, albeit less collectivist (the individual is not asked to sacrifice their personal interests entirely, yet this is exactly what the Doctrine of Fascism indicates that people must do).

On a pure level, I'd say that monarchism is fanatic spiritualist and collectivist, while fascism is fanatic collectivist and spiritualist. But I think fascism is also likely to be xenophobic, unlike monarchism (the Russian Empire was among the most authoritarian of monarchies, though the aristocracy enjoyed French culture).

Oh yes, fascism in general is rather hard to pin down to specifics in a lot of matters, it has a shitload of ambiguities and unespecifics and general vagueness. According to Mussolini, that's a feature, not a bug, it shows "vitality" and "dynamism" and "masculinity", etc.

I think fanatic collectivism + militarism, fanatic collectivism + spiritualism and collectivism + militarism + spiritualism can all be argued to represent specific aspects of Fascism.

 

[SurrealGoblin]

I skipped over the last like ten pages, so this may not be new or relevant, but maybe collectivist-individualist ethos could be re-added (far) down the road in a "Stanley-Robinson" patch/expansion that includes trade mechanics(patch), and (mega)corporations vs state controlled economies (dlc)? I think that could have some really interesting game play, as well as open up a new swath of sci-fi cannon for RPing.

 

[fetusthebard]

I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

This was absolutely brilliant by the way.


I am extremely happy about the change of Collectivism and Individualism. Collectivism should *not* have been about slavery, and the same goes for Individualism and democracy. Well done Paradox, this works well.

 

[loup99]

The faction and pop ethic reworks look like great additions to the game! I believe the new faction system will add a lot of replayability, make the game more dynamic as well as engaging while also being more realist. Looking forward to hear about Traditions and Unity next week! Traditions remind of the national ideas from EU4, while unity connects to national unity from HoI4. Those associations are however probably completely wrong.

Concerning the ethos change, hopefully you will be able to add more ethos dimensions later on, maybe for a future update, to cover more aspects and have better wordings.

 

[Ephafn]

Another late post from someone who didn't read most of the thread:

First, I have to say that I find the new Pop ethic system much cleaner, and I hope it will lead to further improvements (such as ethics on leaders).
Second, the change in Collectivist-Individualist is pretty meh to me. It goes from a bad axis to a slightly less bad axis. So an improvement, but not by much.

I feel that a problem with the ethics is that many of them are very rooted in current Earth ethics/politics. I could see the exact same axis being added to a game like Victoria, for example. The Xenophobe-Xenophile axis is the only exception to that rule (as long as we interpret Xeno = different species). I would much prefer to see ethical axis that only make sense in a space sci-fi game. For example a Home World vs Colonies axis could fit where the Authority/Equality debate is not between individual, but between planets.

Finally, I would move away same-species slavery tolerance away from ethics, mainly because it feel like a "you must play like that or you don't get all your bonuses" that fit more with species traits than with ethics. I would put it strictly on Decadent and a new "Hive/Collective" species trait.

 

[MasterChief]

Excellent, richer mid-game experience based on internal politics and managing population dynamics. I'm hoping that external politics will eventual receive the same love.

 

[Sturmir]

I think my biggest problem with the change itself is it's done through the lens of humanity, thus collectivism/authoritarianism as we define it are imperfect from the gate. Collectivism doesn't need to be authoritarian by any means, so the re-branding of that was certainly good, but Authoritarianism supporting slavery is kind of weird. Say for example, a bug hive, where the queen is the authoritarian monarch (in this case, I suppose the hive is also Collectivist) - What use would a biological caste-society have for classical slavery when this sort of mindset would have been ingrained into them through evolution? How would this also impact a xenophobic society? Egalitarian is a pretty generic term, but it doesn't necessarily cover views to othering and slavery, and how they impact things. (The Xenophile and xenophobic line covers that to some degree) so would a xenophobic and egalitarian society still care about slavery at all under the new system as long as it is done to Alien races or would they get some sort of unhappiness from it?

As for the factions - Is there any positive aspect to them besides an influence boost? Bonuses to production for keeping them happy or anything? ie - A higher base happiness? I'm hoping it's not going to be just a negative aspect just for the sake of adding some complexity to a system.

 

[Airowird]

I can't believe I actually made an account for this, but here it goes:

Should we not start first by defining the influence level of the axis in question?
We know that Collectivism-Individualism is mostly about serving the 'greater good' (define that as you wish) vs a more liberal approach to the individual.
As it is evident by the initial post, this isn't really well defined within the Stellaris game mechanics. So Paradox wants to change this focus.

To me, it seems that the intended focus is government involvement.
Authoritarian as an ethic favours the guiding government, which seeks to directly influence the daily lives of its subjects to enforce the 'common ideas'. Both communism and fascism, with Soviet & Nazi being the common base references, are in fact forms of authoritarian governments.
That does mean that Egalitarian is wrong. The opposite of the above Authoririan is, in fact, Libertarian.
Libertarian in the non-political-party sense, means the state's main purpose is to safeguard the freedom of its subjects.

If anything, Egalitarian is a socialist view, because it favours equality among individuals.
Elitism is the opposite, favouring a certain a certain group above others based on certain defined criteria (usually based on other ethoi)

I'll put it into an ice cream example: (who doesn't love ice cream?)
Authoritarian is telling your sister to share her ice cream with her brother. (active involvement)
Libertarian is only/not even preventing the brother from stealing a scoop. (passive involvement)
Egalitarian is offering both the choice of receiving an ice cream. (equality)
Elitism is only offering your daughter the ice cream, because you love her more. (inequality)

This means that, from a classical political view:
Authoritatirian/Egalitarian = Communist regime (government actively enforces social & economic equality)
Authoritarian/Elitism = Fascist regime (government says which people are socially above others)
Libertarian/Egalitarian = Liberal state (most western democratic nation fall somewhere around here I'ld say)
Libertarian/Elitism = Some form of tributary electoral system ... although one could argue the US electoral system comes close, due to winner-takes-all system (elite here being the dominant political parties)

My personal preference is that we do change the naming scheme to Authoritarian-Libertarian, if only to make the authority/liberty distinction more clear. It also is an easier POP ethic, compared to egalitarian being "I'm equal to my neighbour, even though he hates my pacific xeno guts!"
If you could also change the Materialist into Technocratic, that would be grand! (Materialist in common society often refers to an economical focus, not a technological one)


**The definitions and explanations above are my personal views and opinions on the matter. As Authority & Liberty itself have rather subjective definitions, your personal definition may differ. The above is neither an insult or an attempt to 'adjust' your views. Regardless, please consider the stated concepts as exaggerated extremes, to clarify the game mechanics in sociological terms**

 

[Tichy]

Will it be possible, after selecting "Authoritarian" ethics, to choose one gender as ruling? So the only one could be leaders and the other would be treated as, let's say, subordinate.
Just asking.

 

[bronze Void poison]

Will it be possible, after selecting "Authoritarian" ethics, to choose one gender as ruling? So the only one could be leaders and the other would be treated as, let's say, subordinate.
Just asking.

why?

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

presumably so you could make Space Nazis or Space Amazons

 

[extrapancake]

why?

So you can better roleplay empires like the talarians, judging by decisions on similar situations like discriminating by phenotype Im guessing it wont happen though.

 

[monkofmimmir]

Will it be possible, after selecting "Authoritarian" ethics, to choose one gender as ruling? So the only one could be leaders and the other would be treated as, let's say, subordinate.
Just asking.

In some alien races such as hive races this actually might make legitimate sense, even in more normal races you could have sexual dimorphism extreme enough to proclude a gender for leadership roles. For example, in some insect species the male only live long enough to procreate a sentient species with that trait may not educate it's males because they don't live long enough to make it worthwhile.

That said I'd imagine that paradox would only include this if they were doing a whole dlc centered around the biology of races (such as dimorphism between castes/sub-races/genders style of mating and birthing etc) which seems very unlikely to me because the biology would have relatively little in game mechanical effect, wouldn't be that popular a choice of dlc compared to other options and frankly anything that even has a passing resemblance to gender politics Is like charging into a minefield armed only with a pogo stick.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

So let me see if I understand the ethics change.

The conceptual problem that the "we love money" ethic was diametrically opposed to the "we love slavery" ethic, which didn't make sense because there are surely a lot of ruthless space cartels that love both money and slavery. So they pulled away the "we love money" part and made it just "we love slavery" versus "we hate slavery". Am I on the right track?

If so, is "we love money" just gone for now? Until they get a more robust economic and trading system in place, perhaps? Or should we consider Materialism to be it? In short, what ethics would our ruthless space cartel have now?

So I'm a bit confused and concerned about that change. In contrast, the other changes to population, ethics drift, and factions sound like unqualified positives to me. So keep up the good work!