Stellaris Dev Diary #326 - 3.10.4 "Pyxis" Released [e9b6] + Upcoming Holiday Tech Beta

[Foxosaur]

As it said this was just a bugfix for the tooltip. It has been acting like this for months.

I realise that (and to Peter), I completely forget I’ve selected all crisis so never hung around to see what the strength increase is.

For clarity I was literally asking if it’s:

(Crisis multiplyer * 2) * 2 for the third spawn

Or something else.

And commenting at how that would be insane and in a funny difficulty kind of way, nothing more.

Anyway, who cares and merry Christmas.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

"Under One Rule" origin has several final decisions that depend on ascension . And it depends on your technology.

Does it, though?

Under One Rule has one final decision after "The Fall" that has a default option available to everybody regardless of tech and traditions (apparatus immortality), and an extra option if you have completed an ascension path (which requires completing a tradition and an enabling tech, as well as an ascension perk if not Teachers of the Shroud origin.)

And that is it with regards to tech, as far as I recall, unless something has changed since I played it this summer or my memory fails me, both of which are possible.

But if not, nothing depends on your technology unless you want a specific final outcome other than the default.

Thus "The Fall" event works regardless of tech settings - it is just that some tech and tradition settings will make it easier to get the additional option from completing an ascension path and some harder.

2) I decided to play with a higher price of technology - the time of the origin chain of events did not change and I did not have time to make an ascension due to the inconsistency of these 2 moments.

The current tech/tradition slider is split in two, one for tech, one for traditions, in the beta, according to last week's dev diary. Thus unlike playing with a higher price of technology now, the higher tech costs will not impact the tradition costs and thus not slow down traditions.

---

For what it is worth, my expectation based on the information given in last week's developer diary is that, just like now, somebody making a reasonable investment in both unity and science will have completed an ascension path many decades before the 2280s.

Indeed, I expect that some players who play low-unity builds currently might end up completing ascension paths earlier than they are used to, as more players start investing in unity for faster traditions and earlier and more planetary ascension, to strengthen agendas, research, and output. But let's see how it goes. It has to be weighed against the risk of players doubling down on science production to the detriment of unity, something that has been an inferior approach since 3.3.

 

[PDS_Iggy]

I realise that (and to Peter), I completely forget I’ve selected all crisis so never hung around to see what the strength increase is.

For clarity I was literally asking if it’s:

(Crisis multiplyer * 2) * 2 for the third spawn

Or something else.

And commenting at how that would be insane and in a funny difficulty kind of way, nothing more.

Anyway, who cares and merry Christmas.

If you are asking if you were to select the 25x crisis multiplier then the 2nd crisis would be 50x and the third crisis is 100x then the answer is yes.

 

[CWJameson]

Development Team,

I believe I found a bug, The Divine Sovereign event is removing Oppressive Autocracy. I do not believe this is intentional because the tooltip doesn't mention it being in conflict.

Could you all take a look at this?

P.S.

I appreciate yalls hard work.

 

[DarkSafire]

If i understand correctly Breakthrough Technologies are per area (physics etc.) and not per category (field manipulation etc.). Please make them the latter, it would be more thematic.

 

[Millbot]

Trying to think of which origin would be best for really testing to how the research changes feel.

-Remnant, grants progress to random technology clearing certain blockers. Faculty of Archaeostudies is a mixed bag, not sure if the jobs have been touched, but on a relic world you get only 2 each of engineering and physiucs research, while getting 5 society research. So it's a bit weaker than a normal lab, but in theory it could give your access to the reverse engineering artifact option quicker. Even if RNG shafts you there, depending on ethics you do get two other actions that cost 100 minor artifacts each, which give you a decent chunk of unity, that could be put forward speed rushing your traditions, so in theory you could still get the discovery tree done quicker. I'll admit there is a bit of RNG and since I"m looking to see how the research changes feel as a research rush build, the only consistent thing is that I'll get some free research from clearing blockers, a little more society research, less of the other two research and I can pop celebrity diversity pretty early to speed up my discovery tree completion.

-Ont he Shoulder of Giants: Free random technology progress, can't remember if any of it's full completion. Also minor artifacts for speed rushing traditions, namely discover as first pick.

-Clone soldier: Quick pop growth to quickly buildup core worlds and optimized clones for crazy specialist output.

-Ringworld: Been a bit since I've done this one, but done right ringworlds can be great for research. Also off chance to being able to get a science nexus up earlier, since the ringworlds up the odds of drawing techs that are needed to get megaengineering. The big thing here is the research rings, but I'm not sure how quickly those can be gotten online.

-Riftworld: There are things that astral threads enable and well more rifts means more rift events that grant research points and possible other goodies that help with tech rushing.

-One Rule: Only did it once, but want to say there are aspects of the origin that can really lend themselves well to tech rushing.

Ethics
-Fanatical materialist obviously and then probably egalitarian for the specialist boost. Government would probably be oligarch for the agenda speed.

Civics would be technocracy, even though I'm pretty sure that requires a scientist ruler and well expertise traits on rules suck, given that they are dead weight on a ruler, but maybe they are allowed to have officials. It's a bit of a debate for the second civic with dark consortium, sovereign guardianship and mastercrafters all having some compelling points, but leaning towards dark consortium, given that RNG might make staying tall not that appealing and/or practical. Second would probably be mastercrafters.

No idea on ascension path. Though bio seems like the best option, not going to do the whole min/max micro nightmare and the devs probably should look into making that not a thing with species modification.

Anyways, I think my biggest concern with the changes is going to have more to do with perks, given that a few are gated behind having technologies and that many of might be stuck leaving perk slots open because the perks we want are unavailable as a result of lacking certain techs. Also a bit worried this might greatly devalue building your own megastructures from scratch.

 

[Farbros]

I think that one of the extremely crucial bugs is applying 3rd civic, which resets the leaders. While regular empires can simply pick all positions again, hive minds are completely screwed after that and I hope that this bug will be fixed in the next patches. (bug report was done already)

 

[Harvey_James]

4th civic would be great ... devs .. so many choices now.. it hurts too have ignore so many great ones

 

[Dr Pippy]

• Significantly reduced the yearly chance for leaders to gain negative traits.
• Due to player feedback, the Micromanager negative trait for Commanders now increases fleet upkeep instead of reducing command limit.
• The Lethargic negative trait for Commanders now also reduces fleet upkeep.
• The Nervous negative trait for Commanders now also increases disengagement chance.

All of these look like great changes! I especially appreciate seeing some negative traits that are trade-offs; those should make for interesting gameplay choices.

I understand the wisdom of waiting to test the tech changes in the open beta before formulating an opinion. My concern here is that there have been so many drastic changes that it'll be difficult to tell what effects each of them has had in terms of actual gameplay. I think a more incremental approach would be more informative.

Without making any judgments pro or con, it does seem feasible at least to estimate the effects on tech costs of the individual changes being proposed. They are... massive.

• Increased the effects of Empire Size on Technology to match its effect on Traditions.

This will obviously depend on empire size; for a relatively typical end-game empire with size 1000, this will increase tech costs by a factor of 1.5. (+300% to tech costs instead of +200%.)

• The Technology curve has been changed from 1000 × 2^n to 500 × (2^n + 3^n), making the difference between an early and late-game tech more distinct.

This is tough to say precisely without knowing how the techs are weighted between the different tiers. A reasonable estimate is to add up the costs of one of each tech from T1 through T5. Under the old curve, that's (2k+4k+8k+16k+32k)=62k. With the new curve, it's (2.5k+6.5k+17.5k+48.5k+137.5k)=212.5k, which is a factor of 3.4 larger. Obviously this is approximate, but the overall effect of this change is therefore in the neighborhood of a 3x increase in tech costs.

• Researchers and their gestalt equivalents now produce 3 of each research instead of 4

This one is a straightforward increase in (effective) research cost by a factor of 4/3.

• Replaced basic research technologies such as Quantum Theory with Breakthrough Technologies. Breakthrough Technologies will only appear once you have researched enough techs of your current tier and are required to research to reach the next tier.

This is a loss of +60% research from jobs. This is significantly diluted by the number of other +X% from jobs modifiers that you can get by mid/late game, which might reach something like +100% (+35% from other tech, +20% from scientist governor (potentially more depending on traits), let's say +30% from stability, +10% from designation if you're on a research ring world). This would mean that you're getting +100% research from scientists rather than +160% research from scientists—a slowdown by a factor of 2.6/2=1.3.

There were some other changes as well; e.g., the changes to research speed, etc. But I'm less confident that I can come up with even a ballpark numerical estimate for how much of an effect those will have at this point. And hopefully I've managed to capture all the big ones.

So taking all these together, you're increasing research costs by a factor of 1.5 x 3 x (4/3) x 1.3 ≈ 8. Even without doing any testing, this seems like an awful lot.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Development Team,

I believe I found a bug, The Divine Sovereign event is removing Oppressive Autocracy. I do not believe this is intentional because the tooltip doesn't mention it being in conflict.

Could you all take a look at this?

P.S.

I appreciate yalls hard work.

That might actually be intended behaviour depending on faction support before you performed the change, since Oppressive Autocracy requires you to stay Fanatic Authoritarian - or it might be an oversight.

My guess is that you ended up Authoritarian/Fanatic Spiritualist, as that is a frequent end state for the event in spiritualist psionic empires, and psionics is mostly played spiritualist - am I right or wrong in that? If I'm right, it is definitely the intended behaviour that you ended up with these ethics and that, as a consequence, you can't benefit from Oppressive Autocracy, and it is removed along with other invalid civics by the event.

If you ended up Fanatic Authoritarian/Spiritualist but lost Oppressive Autocracy, you should definitely bug report it, as there is no way that is intended behaviour.


Explanation:

The Divine Sovereign event is popularly assumed to set your ethics to "fanatic authoritarian/spiritualist", because that is how it worked many years ago, but this is wrong.

What it does is perform a fanatic authoritarian ethics shift (a double authoritarian shift) followed by a spiritualist shift. So all it guarantees is that the resulting government ethics are at least authoritarian/spiritualist. After those shifts, it changes governing authority to imperial and removes any invalid civics. So if your ethics aren't Fanatic Authoritarian at that point, Oppressive Autocracy is eliminated. (At least, I assume it is eliminated in that purge. It is a brute force remove_invalid_civics = yes. Haven't tried it myself.)

After the Fanatic Authoritarian shift, and before the spiritualist shift, your empire is definitely fanatic authoritarian since you started out that way; no changes there... But that spiritualist shift? it shifts whichever of your government ethics at that point has the lowest faction approval towards spiritualist.

EDIT2: It is possible I remember the shift to spiritualist wrong when starting from fanatic authoritarian. See this comment below. I won't have time to check before the weekend, so for now I'll leave it standing.

Thus, if after the first shift you have:

FanAut/Spi and Aut has higher faction attraction that Spi, you get FanAut/Spi
FanAut/Spi and Spi has higher faction attraction that Aut, you get Aut/FanSpi - no Oppressive Autocracy for you

Or to take an example where you were very militarist (or whatever), say that you had been running FanAut/Mil in your Oppressive Autocracy.

FanAut/Mil and Aut has higher faction attraction than Mil, you get FanAut/Spi
FanAut/Mil and Mil has higher faction attraction than Aut, you get Fan/Mil/Spi - no Oppressive Autocracy for you


EDIT: Can't believe I forgot to write this helpful bit of advice. REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN MANIPULATE FACTION ATTRACTION.

My standard approach when I get the Divine Sovereign event is to pause the game, check faction attraction, and if the ethics won't end up the way I want, selectively repress ethics and see if by doing so I can ensure that the ethics shifts will play out the way I want it. This isn't always possible, and especially if I am aiming for a tri-part ethic of aut/spi/ethic-of-choice it can get tricky if I haven't been actively working to keep that ethic strong by supporting it earlier in the game, but it is often possible.

In your case, since you want to end up with Fanatic Authoritarian, unless Spiritualism's attraction is extremely dominant it ought to be enough to ensure that authoritarian has the highest attraction by repressing all other ethics, accepting becoming Divine Sovereign in the event, and then stop repressing the other ethics.

 

[Nevars]

Development Team,

I believe I found a bug, The Divine Sovereign event is removing Oppressive Autocracy. I do not believe this is intentional because the tooltip doesn't mention it being in conflict.

Could you all take a look at this?

P.S.

I appreciate yalls hard work.

I don't think so, divine sovereign always remove all your civics and replaced them with it own set of civics.

In fact, it is the only way to remove, unremovable civic such as inward perfection.

So removing oppressive autocracy is intended behaviour I think.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

This is a loss of +60% research from jobs. This is significantly diluted by the number of other +X% from jobs modifiers that you can get by mid/late game, which might reach something like +100% (+35% from other tech, +20% from scientist governor (potentially more depending on traits), let's say +30% from stability, +10% from designation if you're on a research ring world). This would mean that you're getting +100% research from scientists rather than +160% research from scientists—a slowdown by a factor of 2.6/2=1.3.

Noo, why would you do this to me after I carefully calculated the numbers for you in the other thread when discussing science output modifiers: The realistic factor is something in the range of 1.17-1.32, depending on governor development and planetary ascension.

1.3 is definitely at the high end, for players that don't engage in planetary ascension of research ring worlds and don't have governors with good traits, but at least have highlevel governors.

Anyhow, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

And I really, really, hope that nobody goes away from your post dreading a factor 8 increase to research time because of the factor 8 increase to total research costs of your estimate. Would you please, pretty please, add just a few lines explaining how the research cost factor 8 does not in any way reflect a factor 8 to research time?

 

[Enailios]

All of these look like great changes! I especially appreciate seeing some negative traits that are trade-offs; those should make for interesting gameplay choices.

I understand the wisdom of waiting to test the tech changes in the open beta before formulating an opinion. My concern here is that there have been so many drastic changes that it'll be difficult to tell what effects each of them has had in terms of actual gameplay. I think a more incremental approach would be more informative.

Without making any judgments pro or con, it does seem feasible at least to estimate the effects on tech costs of the individual changes being proposed. They are... massive.


This will obviously depend on empire size; for a relatively typical end-game empire with size 1000, this will increase tech costs by a factor of 1.5. (+300% to tech costs instead of +200%.)

This is tough to say precisely without knowing how the techs are weighted between the different tiers. A reasonable estimate is to add up the costs of one of each tech from T1 through T5. Under the old curve, that's (2k+4k+8k+16k+32k)=62k. With the new curve, it's (2.5k+6.5k+17.5k+48.5k+137.5k)=212.5k, which is a factor of 3.4 larger. Obviously this is approximate, but the overall effect of this change is therefore in the neighborhood of a 3x increase in tech costs.


This one is a straightforward increase in (effective) research cost by a factor of 4/3.


This is a loss of +60% research from jobs. This is significantly diluted by the number of other +X% from jobs modifiers that you can get by mid/late game, which might reach something like +100% (+35% from other tech, +20% from scientist governor (potentially more depending on traits), let's say +30% from stability, +10% from designation if you're on a research ring world). This would mean that you're getting +100% research from scientists rather than +160% research from scientists—a slowdown by a factor of 2.6/2=1.3.

There were some other changes as well; e.g., the changes to research speed, etc. But I'm less confident that I can come up with even a ballpark numerical estimate for how much of an effect those will have at this point. And hopefully I've managed to capture all the big ones.

So taking all these together, you're increasing research costs by a factor of 1.5 x 3 x (4/3) x 1.3 ≈ 8. Even without doing any testing, this seems like an awful lot.

I like the maths, thanks! So running with that, that would mean at the end game stage (where I would currently) research the science nexus in 3 months, it would now take 2 years?

(Going off of Peter’s above comment, this would be at high end of the estimate and still not very terrible…)

Seems to me that most of those big numbers would apply later in the game as ES goes up and tech cost goes up and lost opportunities for bonuses are felt. So in the early game, tech cost changes are what? ES wouldn’t apply at day 1 so the 1.5 factor is out. The 2000 tech cost v 2500 tech cost is an increase of 1.25. Researcher output would still be 4/3. Bonuses not yet felt so no 1.3. That gives us 1.25x4/3=1.67. Which would almost double the time of researching tech in the early days. That does hurt and I suspect the numbers impacting the early game will be tweaked. And, granted, this will also impact the overall snowball effect, but it seems to me that these hefty penalties to stem the floodgate opening in the endgame would have the desired effect. (If such is desirable to y’all) I eagerly await y’all’s testing!

 

[arosenberger14]

Really like the new tech changes, for years I've thought tech needed to be rebalanced, especially to make it harder to breeze through higher tier techs. The new breakthrough technologies and re-scaling of the higher tier tech costs should hopefully help make this possible.

The more I look at the tech changes, the more I think a sledgehammer was brought instead of a scalpel. We're talking 100% reduction if my match is right coupled with up to a 500% increase in costs. Not sure I'm in love with that math. I guess we'll see.

If anything I worry that they're not enough; a couple years ago I made a personal mod where I rebalanced the tech tier costs to try and keep the amount of time to research a technology roughly constant from early game into endgame. With all the bonuses and massive growth you could get, the cost of T5 techs ended up having to be increased by at least two orders of magnitude to make an average empire in 2400 research them in a time comparable with the T1 techs at the start of the game.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I don't think so, divine sovereign always remove all your civics and replaced them with it own set of civics.

In fact, it is the only way to remove, unremovable civic such as inward perfection.

So removing oppressive autocracy is intended behaviour I think.

Divine Sovereign most certainly does not remove civics and replace them with its own civics. It did once upon a time, but that is long ago.

These days it does the following, in order:

1. If playing Under One Rule with Dictatorial Leader, go Imperial Leader
2. Performs a fanatic authoritarian ethics shift
3. Performs a spiritualist ethics shift
4. Changes your government to Imperial
5. Removes all civics that are now invalid (typically caused by the ethics or authority shift, but in case you had any invalid civics that had somehow stuck around, they'll get removed too)
6. Force adds the Divine Sovereign civic
7. Replaces the current ruler with the Chosen ruler, if he doesn't already rule

 

[Enailios]

Divine Sovereign most certainly does not remove civics and replace them with its own civics. It did once upon a time, but that is long ago.

These days it does the following, in order:

1. If playing Under One Rule with Dictatorial Leader, go Imperial Leader
2. Performs a fanatic authoritarian ethics shift
3. Performs a spiritualist ethics shift
4. Changes your government to Imperial
5. Removes all civics that are now invalid (typically caused by the ethics or authority shift, but in case you had any invalid civics that had somehow stuck around, they'll get removed too)
6. Force adds the Divine Sovereign civic
7. Replaces the current ruler with the Chosen ruler, if he doesn't already rule

(Inward perfection still sticks around but the bonus/penalties would not apply again until you get the ethics back into place. Until then, you would just be locked out of a useful civic. So i suspect the civics that couldn’t be manually added/removed mid-game would also stick around too)

 

[King Harkinian]

One potential balance issue, especially for AI empires:
About half of the ascension perks are currently gated behind technologies. With technological progress becoming slower, the number of ascension perks available at each new AP slot will be lower. This will especially impact two categories of empires:

1. AI players.
   Unlike human players, who can delay their ascension perk picks, AI players pick from the ascension perks available when a new AP slot is obtained. AI players will get the more powerful technology-gated ascension perks much less frequently than currently, weakening AI players versus human players.
2. Unity-focused (Tradition-focused) empires.
   Human players will need to wait longer until they can fill an AP slot with the intended ascension perk, but AI players will be hit especially hard due to their inability to plan their AP picks in advance (and wait patiently when no desired ascension perk is available). Unity-focused AI empires may end up having mostly, perhaps only, basic ascension perks.

This can be avoided in two ways:

1. AI players are "taught" to plan their AP picks in advance, i.e. only pick ascension perks from a small pool of selected ascension perks.
2. Ascension perks are changed to never require technologies to be picked.
   • Optionally, they could also help focus research in that direction. A real-life analogy could be that when the USA picked the Manhattan Project and Lunar Program ascension perks, they did not yet possess the necessary technologies - rather, these undertakings focused research in those directions.
     • For instance, "Eternal Vigilance" currently requires the Star Fortress technology (tier 3 engineering). With this change, "Eternal Vigilance" could instead be picked regardless of whether that technology had been researched. Additionally, Starhold and Star Fortress could become guaranteed research options once their prerequisites are fulfilled (similar to the advanced Habitat technologies becoming guaranteed research options after picking Voidborne).
     • "Arcology Project" could similarly be picked early, and add "Weather Control Systems" and "Anti-Gravity Engineering" as guaranteed research options, but the planetary decision "Arcology Project" could require that "Anti-Gravity Engineering" has been discovered. Essentially, players could pick "Arcology Project" early, and face a time period where the ascension perk is effectively useless, but ultimately get the necessary technologies sooner than they otherwise would have.
   • It would become more important for ascension perks to be relatively balanced versus each other, so that all of them are (situationally) attractive options.
   • Suggestion thread:
     Ascension Perk picks should never require technologies to pick, but instead...

I absolutely hate the idea of Ascension Perks not requiring technologies. It would legitimately ruin the game for me. The complex interplay between the Unity and technology systems has always been one of my favourite game design aspects of the game, and every time it is weakened it disheartens me, such as when the relationship between Master Builders, Mega-Engineering and Galactic Wonders was simplified, and when Ascension Paths were changed to not require techs and to give Agendas that provide you with the techs you need to progress the Tradition Tree.

You are not supposed to be able to brainlessly focus on a single resource and have success with that, it is important to have interconnected systems of locks and keys so that you have to balance your economy to some extent to reap the full benefits from each focus area. Efficiently navigating those pathways of locks and keys is one of the most satisfying aspects of the game to me.

 

[Dr Pippy]

Noo, why would you do this to me after I carefully calculated the numbers for you in the other thread when discussing science output modifiers: The realistic factor is something in the range of 1.17-1.32, depending on governor development and planetary ascension.

1.3 is definitely at the high end, for players that don't engage in planetary ascension of research ring worlds and don't have governors with good traits, but at least have highlevel governors.

Haha, I was thinking about that post but was a little too busy and/or lazy to go look it up. +300% seems like a lot more than I ever get. I think my estimate is pretty consistent with your low end, and I'm not overly inclined to argue too strenuously about 1.2 vs 1.3, which realistically is the range you're likely to find yourself in end-game.

Would you please, pretty please, add just a few lines explaining how the research cost factor 8 does not in any way reflect a factor 8 to research time?

Your points from the earlier thread about longer research times meaning that more research will happen when you have a larger population is well taken. However, if you're using the default pop growth settings, your pops aren't growing very fast. (Once you've maxed out the worlds you'll colonize, population roughly ends up going as N~sqrt(t).) Combining that with empire size effects, I don't think this effect will be nearly as large for the average player as you seem to.

Of course, if you've mastered the wide ascensionist playstyle, you'll probably get more bang for your buck here! In any case, it doesn't look like a super easy calculation, and I'm procrastinating too much on real work as it is!

Seems to me that most of those big numbers would apply later in the game as ES goes up and tech cost goes up and lost opportunities for bonuses are felt. So in the early game, tech cost changes are what? ES wouldn’t apply at day 1 so the 1.5 factor is out. The 2000 tech cost v 2500 tech cost is an increase of 1.25. Researcher output would still be 4/3. Bonuses not yet felt so no 1.3. That gives us 1.25x4/3=1.67. Which would almost double the time of researching tech in the early days. That does hurt and I suspect the numbers impacting the early game will be tweaked. And, granted, this will also impact the overall snowball effect, but it seems to me that these hefty penalties to stem the floodgate opening in the endgame would have the desired effect. (If such is desirable to y’all) I eagerly await y’all’s testing!

You get the 20% bonuses usually within the first decade or two, and you haven't yet diluted with other effects, so the day 1 effect is 1.25x(4/3)x1.2=2. As you say, this would hurt, especially because early game tech already seems pretty slow (at least to me). In the late game, the empire size penalty will be in full effect, and you'll be at the steep part of increased tech costs: a T5 tech will be 4.3x in the new model, so at that point you're at 1.5x4.3x(4/3)x1.3=11x. Typical late-game research time for me is usually more like 12-18 months, so now I'd be looking at 10-15 years researching it at the same game year. (Which, as Peter points out, wouldn't be the case; presumably research output would be at least somewhat higher as you get further into the game.)

 

[Mech_infect]

extra option if you have completed an ascension path (which requires completing a tradition and an enabling tech, as well as an ascension perk if not Teachers of the Shroud origin.)

Yes, I'm talking about extra options. The time of the chain of events is always fixed and does not depend on the technology price scaling.

And this is the connection.
the price of technologies and traditions has been increased -> changes the time it takes to achieve the ascension technique -> You can easily not make it to the end of the chain of events and will not be able to get the desired extra option.

I would like to somehow scale the prices of technologies and traditions to take into account this type of event chains

 

[Mcgan]

But that spiritualist shift? it shifts whichever of your government ethics at that point has the lowest faction approval towards spiritualist.

That's only if you don't have a fanatic ethic at that moment. If you do, then that ethic is replaced by the non-fanatic variant (regardless of support).
And since you're always Fanatic Authoritarian at that point...

Edit:

Thus, if after the first shift you have:

FanAut/Spi and Aut has higher faction attraction that Spi, you get FanAut/Spi
FanAut/Spi and Spi has higher faction attraction that Aut, you get Aut/FanSpi - no Oppressive Autocracy for you

I forgot to mention: shifting to Spiritualist while already being Spiritualist means you will become Fanatic Spiritualist no matter what.