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With Xenophile/Xenophobe I think there's a problem with limitations in the game mechanics. In a game where pops are more or less interchangeable, you may as well think of xenos as humans in fursuits or whatever, and then behaving like a Xenophile becomes simply the rational course of action, while excluding xenos just seems like bigotry akin to racism amongst humans. But imagine if the aliens were really much more alien in how they live and how they think - at least as alien as, say, an octopus or an ant colony is to us (and given we still share the majority of our DNA with an octopus or an ant, maybe we should start from an assumption that extraterrestrial intelligence will be much *more* alien). How far would you be willing to go to integrate them into your society?

Stellaris makes gaining xeno pops a bit too much of a free win: compare and contrast with other Paradox games, where even a difference in human *culture* among the population can mean you don't get the full benefit of that population, and have to deal with additional political problems.
 
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With Xenophile/Xenophobe I think there's a problem with limitations in the game mechanics. In a game where pops are more or less interchangeable, you may as well think of xenos as humans in fursuits or whatever, and then behaving like a Xenophile becomes simply the rational course of action, while excluding xenos just seems like bigotry akin to racism amongst humans. But imagine if the aliens were really much more alien in how they live and how they think - at least as alien as, say, an octopus or an ant colony is to us (and given we still share the majority of our DNA with an octopus or an ant, maybe we should start from an assumption that extraterrestrial intelligence will be much *more* alien). How far would you be willing to go to integrate them into your society?

Stellaris makes gaining xeno pops a bit too much of a free win: compare and contrast with other Paradox games, where even a difference in human *culture* among the population can mean you don't get the full benefit of that population, and have to deal with additional political problems.
This is one of the reasons why I keep suggesting internal (planet level) unrests depending on number of different species. Xenophile should not be able to close borders, while xenophobes should keep closed borders and thus xenophile empire is more likable but struggle with keeping multispecies planets stable, while xenophobes could be less liked but much more stable.
Stellaris xenophile is too much egalitarian tho. It should not about being equal, and more about being multicultural so that xenophile authoritarian could be a thing, where our empire is diversed but we can enslave certain species because our empire love inequality and some species makes better leaders and some makes better servants (doesn't means that founder species are better than other).
 
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Xenophile should not be able to close borders,
My EgalMilPhile empire should absolutely be able to tell the AuthMilPhobe empire next door "no, you are not allowed to move your colony ships and warships and whatnot through my space".
 
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This is one of the reasons why I keep suggesting internal (planet level) unrests depending on number of different species. Xenophile should not be able to close borders, while xenophobes should keep closed borders and thus xenophile empire is more likable but struggle with keeping multispecies planets stable, while xenophobes could be less liked but much more stable.
Stellaris xenophile is too much egalitarian tho. It should not about being equal, and more about being multicultural so that xenophile authoritarian could be a thing, where our empire is diversed but we can enslave certain species because our empire love inequality and some species makes better leaders and some makes better servants (doesn't means that founder species are better than other).
Realistically, it should be that integrating the first three or four alien species causes the most infrastructural pain and societal instability, but in the long run your culture eventually adapts and adding more species causes less of an impact. Xenophobes avoid that early pain, but lose that long term benefit.

With regards to a Xenophile Authoritarian empire, I would say that they would be inclined to see aliens as individuals, not as members of castes, and then treat said individuals as each having their own place in the hierarchy. Sure, maybe for most members of a certain species their place is to be a poor labourer, but perhaps one in a million will rise above and prove themselves worthy of joining the ruling class, so pull yourself up by the bootstraps!
 
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I mean, that's more in line with the Meritocracy civic. Aka more Egalitarian. The point of view you just said was an Egalitarian one. Authoritarian would be... precisely not that.
I see your point, but I'd say Meritocracy isn't inherently Egalitarian or Authoritarian. It simply says that power should be held by those with merit, but not how much power; For Egalitarians this means the masses willingly lend only enough power to the meritorious to enact the will of the people, and for Authoritarians this means the meritorious are inherently better and thus deserve all the power they can get.

I would agree that the Fanatic Authoritarians might still consider any chance of upwards mobility too much, though, and my example would've been of a more mildly Authoritarian Xenophile. The point was more that being Xenophile necessarily involves seeing aliens as people rather than just species, and whether they view all people as being equal or not is another matter.
 
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Trying to soften the idea of xenophobia in Stellaris to something nicer sounding would be propaganda.
The idea, as I think of it, was not to make xenophobia "nicer sounding", but rather to make it a subset of a bigger ethic called "Realist" (or perhaps "Nationalist", which in hindsight might have been a better alternative than the less well-known "Realist" school of thought in international relations).

Thirdly, I don't see idealist-realist as true ethical axis. There are idealists and then there are self-serving sociopaths.
Are you using "idealist" in reference to the everyday meaning of the word, or in the international relations meaning?

You'd need a far more complex ethic/civic system for that, the current ethic/civic system would not do well in supporting this. Each civic comes at an opportunity cost, and requiring a specific civic to unlock those mechanics would not work well.

Let's assume there is some kind of option to choose between Supremacist and Isolationist Xenophobe that does not impinge on the current ethic/civic systems. That still leaves the question of what gameplay mechanics would define the Isolationist playstyle.

When you take away the slavery, purging, and single-species citizenship, what would define the Isolationist playstyle?
My current "draft" for Xenophobe/Whatever and its subtypes would look something like this:
  • -20% Starbase Influence cost and +50% Political Power for Citizens (per level of the ethic).
  • Fear Campaign (ethic edict) modifies Governing Ethics Attraction, or allows one faction suppression free of cost (if a cost is added), or something else related to ethics and factions.
  • Cannot use Refugees Welcome (Refugees policy),
    Fanatic must use No Refugees (i.e. not even a citizen species is allowed in, for fear of cultural/ethic contamination).
  • Displacement of xenos is enabled.
  • Purging of xenos is not enabled.
    • Nationalistic Zeal and Fanatic Purifiers unlocks purging of xenos.
  • Species slavery is not enabled.
    • Slaver Guilds unlocks species slavery.
  • Livestock is not enabled.
    • I have not yet figured out when Livestock could reasonably be unlocked.
  • Can grant Full Citizenship to xenos, i.e. they are now accepted and not xenos anymore, but not necessarily as easily as other empires.
    • For instance, granting citizenship to another species could cost a substantial amount of Unity; either the same amount for every species, or a bigger cost for each additional citizen species. This cost could be scaled by the difference in Political Power between Residence and Full Citizenship. With the bonus Political Power for Citizens, the leap from Residence to Full Citizenship would be greater and the cost would consequentially be substantially bigger, and Xenophobe empires would therefore tend to be more restrictive with who they choose to integrate.
    • Under a model like that, the Residence tooltip would finally be accurate:
      "They have yet to prove themselves worthy of all rights afforded to others. Perhaps they never will."
  • Isolationist is the default faction.
    • The pacifist issues are replaced with something else; pacifism should not be forced onto non-Pacifists.
    • Supremacist is unlocked by Nationalistic Zeal and Fanatic Purifiers.
  • New federation type: Confederation
    • The Isolationist faction would tolerate membership because it is a Confederation, which is totally not a Federation and is only used to secure the independence of the members from external forces that threaten their precious self-determination.
    • Distinguishing gimmicks: difficult to centralize, blocks membership in the Galactic Community.
(P.S. I think Nationalistic Zeal and Militarist should swap the War Exhaustion bonus in exchange for the Claim Influence cost reduction; Nationalistic Zeal would then have a massive Influence cost reduction for claims, while Militarist gets better at enduring wars instead of its current hunger for conquest. Nationalistic Zeal would also fit better as a Xenophobe civic, rather than a Militarist civic.)

As for the resulting Isolationist playstyle:
  • There would not be just one Isolationist playstyle, as there would be Militarist Isolationists and middle-of-the-road Isolationists, in addition to the current Pacifist Isolationists (i.e. Inward Perfectionist).
    • (IIRC, Xenophobe Spiritualist empires can already end up with the Isolationist diplomatic stance, while getting the Supremacist faction which does not want Isolationism. But I may misremember.)
  • Non-Pacifist Isolationists could now expand via conquest without upsetting the Isolationist faction, albeit slower than empires with the Belligerent or Supremacist diplomatic stances. They would need to be more picky, and would also tend to give more attention to the digestion of their conquests.
  • Xeno-exploitation could still be done even if the xenos are not slaves. Normally Citizens have 2x the Political Power of Residents, but with +50% PP for Citizens per level of Xenophobe, Citizens will have 3x or even 4x the Political Power of Residents. The feelings of the Residents impact Stability much less.
  • One thing all Isolationists would have in common is that they would be more restrictive about which xenos they trust enough to integrate as citizens.
    • Their socioeconomic structure and the traits of the xenos may also influence this choice. If the xenos make good physical workers in a stratified economy, granting them more political power could prove destabilizing, whereas more egalitarian societies would be more egalitarian in citizenship matters.
  • Another thing all Isolationists would have in common is that they tend to avoid foreign entanglements.
    • However, under the Confederation suggestion above, they would be able to join forces and together leave the meddlesome Galactic Community that infringes on their rights to self-determination.
 
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Realistically, it should be that integrating the first three or four alien species causes the most infrastructural pain and societal instability, but in the long run your culture eventually adapts and adding more species causes less of an impact. Xenophobes avoid that early pain, but lose that long term benefit.

With regards to a Xenophile Authoritarian empire, I would say that they would be inclined to see aliens as individuals, not as members of castes, and then treat said individuals as each having their own place in the hierarchy. Sure, maybe for most members of a certain species their place is to be a poor labourer, but perhaps one in a million will rise above and prove themselves worthy of joining the ruling class, so pull yourself up by the bootstraps!

I mean, that's more in line with the Meritocracy civic. Aka more Egalitarian. The point of view you just said was an Egalitarian one. Authoritarian would be... precisely not that.
Problem is that current xenophile is too close to egalitarian where both are about equality. While it should not be, at least that was my statement.
Xenophile/phobe should be about diverse society.
Xenophile should go for most diverse society they can, and mechanically should be forced to allow all aliens, while xenophobes should be about monospecies.
Authoritarian and egalitarian should be only ethics about equality.
Xenophile authoritarian should have multispecies empire but place every race in their exact spot. While xenophile egalitarian should treat every xeno exactly the same.
 
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I see your point, but I'd say Meritocracy isn't inherently Egalitarian or Authoritarian. It simply says that power should be held by those with merit, but not how much power; For Egalitarians this means the masses willingly lend only enough power to the meritorious to enact the will of the people, and for Authoritarians this means the meritorious are inherently better and thus deserve all the power they can get.

I would agree that the Fanatic Authoritarians might still consider any chance of upwards mobility too much, though, and my example would've been of a more mildly Authoritarian Xenophile. The point was more that being Xenophile necessarily involves seeing aliens as people rather than just species, and whether they view all people as being equal or not is another matter.

Nowadays there's a sect of "libertarian" types (the so-called "Dark Enlightenment") who claim that freedom is their highest priority, but they are so elitist that they wrap around to a kind of techno-feudalism as their ideal state, where government as we know it ceases to exist (because "freedom is incompatible with democracy"), but that means ordinary people become effectively 24/7 employees, ruled over by managers and the all-important CEO (ideally the company founder) who is some sort of <1 in a million talent (as proven by his being chosen by the one true deity, the Free Market), and his word is law. These people also tend to consider themselves ruthlessly meritocratic, but believe that there's such a large genetic component to talent (and also tend to think top leadership skills are overwhelmingly found in men, again for some sort of evo-psych reason) that of course the the next generation of executives will mostly be the sons of the previous generation, that's just the natural outcome of a fair competition. (They acknowledge the declining social mobility in society, but see it as a sign that the genetically superior have already mostly risen to the top.) In Stellaris, that's technically a Megacorp government, but where is it on the Authoritarian-Egalitarian scale?
 
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I have only read the title, and I already have to say:

I don't want to idealistically reproduce with xenos, nor realistically assume I shouldn't because incompatibility, I want to be the xenophile who likes the xenos very very very~ much, or the xenophobe that wants them to work on the mines :V
 
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Xenophobia and xenophilia are already realism and idealism within the setting, with a couple caveats;

1. Xenophiles are currently technically correct, because no species in Stellaris is inherently anything - even when they actually should be. A Fanatical Purifier citizen abducted into an alien society should turn into a serial killer within a week, but doesn't because FP is only actually mechanically represented in the government, not the population.

They SHOULDN'T be correct in this way, but they are.

2. Xenophobes should have degrees of phobia. As I've said before, no xenophobe isn't down for putting lithoids into a smelter for alloy, or having some mammalian species with coleslaw. This, like the above phile example, SHOULD logically exist - there should be xenophobes that just don't want to get entangled with xenos because they don't trust them. You can do this with policies (disallow citizenship, but otherwise treat them fairly), although the ethic itself is essentially the same at fanatic and regular.

I'd advocate for making these, rather than a replacement axis, the fanatic version of xenophile and the non-fanatic version of xenophobe. Eating or extermination an intelligent species should require fanatic xenophobia, while regular xenophobia would represent a softened form of it (this would track with other ethics escalating their policy requirements for faniticism). Fanatic xenophiles could have a similar refusal to acknowledge real differences if, as an example, genocidal xenos on the same colony actually acted genocidal, while non-fanatics would be capable of working around such problems rather than refusing to acknowledge them.
 
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Nowadays there's a sect of "libertarian" types (the so-called "Dark Enlightenment") who claim that freedom is their highest priority, but they are so elitist that they wrap around to a kind of techno-feudalism as their ideal state, where government as we know it ceases to exist (because "freedom is incompatible with democracy"), but that means ordinary people become effectively 24/7 employees, ruled over by managers and the all-important CEO (ideally the company founder) who is some sort of <1 in a million talent (as proven by his being chosen by the one true deity, the Free Market), and his word is law. These people also tend to consider themselves ruthlessly meritocratic, but believe that there's such a large genetic component to talent (and also tend to think top leadership skills are overwhelmingly found in men, again for some sort of evo-psych reason) that of course the the next generation of executives will mostly be the sons of the previous generation, that's just the natural outcome of a fair competition. (They acknowledge the declining social mobility in society, but see it as a sign that the genetically superior have already mostly risen to the top.) In Stellaris, that's technically a Megacorp government, but where is it on the Authoritarian-Egalitarian scale?

Yeah IMHO this US-local re-definition of "Libertarian" is just an authoritarian telling a lie.

"I'm not free to enslave you, therefore this isn't real freedom!"

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one, and all that.

They don't care about freedom, they care about power.

========

In Stellaris terms, that would be very much a good use for Shadow Council to rule a fake Democracy while actually being owned & operated by a Mega-Corp.

That sounds like a potentially interesting use for "Liberation War" -- where you re-make a government not into your own mirror, but into something to puppet for relations while you retain all the power.
 
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Fanatic xenophiles could have a similar refusal to acknowledge real differences if, as an example, genocidal xenos on the same colony actually acted genocidal, while non-fanatics would be capable of working around such problems rather than refusing to acknowledge them.

I was with you until this. This is just grasping at straws. You can't both sides genocide, and "collective punishment is objectively correct" is a wild take.

Art is allowed to make points, and having an editorial stance of like, the most mild ethic being the objectively correct one is fine. (Xenophile isn't even the mechanically the best ethnic, it just likes the most advantageous things). I could see a case for "phiłe-2 gets to use residence to manage political power, phile-2 has to give everyone full citizenship).

As for your initial little point, that's an absurd take. No state, even maximally permissive one, is going to put up with folk doing mass murders of citizens, but we are looking at planetary populations. Some schmuck doing a bunch of murders is getting dealt with by local officials at a level the player is not concerned with, even a large number isn not going to be an enough to dent a pop.
 
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I was with you until this. This is just grasping at straws. You can't both sides genocide, and "collective punishment is objectively correct" is a wild take.
Good thing it wasn't a take I took! That sounds awful! Far better to acknowledge that some people from a fundamentally genocidal nation are probably themselves genocidal.

Don't try to tar me as a horrible person because I think the ethic described as "fanatic" should be wrong, then turn around in the same post and try to pontificate from some moral high ground.


Read posts for what they say, not what you read into them.
 
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Having survived the walls of text above, what are your thoughts on the topic?
Agree, disagree, alternate suggestions, better ideas?

I think you're saying two true and accurate things:

- Ethics try to do too much. Ethics currently try to touch many parts of the game, and try to model multiple conflicting variants of an Ethos. Interactions between Ethics with conflicting flavor implications are ignored.

- Xenophobe and Xenophile aren't great as Ethics. We have some amazing Xenophobe Civics, each of which gives distinct and interesting play styles -- Selected Kinship is both Phobe and Phile, Pompous Purists are very fun in a diplomatic galaxy, Fanatic Purifiers are the best genocidal with a lot of fun Origin interactions (e.g. Necrophage), Inward Perfection is a distinct way to play even if it's showing its age and could use a glow-up, etc. -- but the base Phobe package is just an unfriendly target of mutual rivalries and early DoWs. The basic Phile is just Federation bait and quickly becomes part of a power bloc while having no agenda.


It would be viable to trim down Ethics and put more fun stuff in specific Civics, and it might be great to remove Phobe and Phile as Ethics and put their effects into policies and Civics.

Xenophile Civics could be buffed up to get the benefits of the Ethic, like Free Havens could give a diplomacy bonus and +% TV from pacts in addition to the immigration bonus, and the "All Refugees Welcome" and "No Purge Ever" could be part of the Civic instead of the Ethic. More Phile Civics should be added, too, like an Auth Phile mechanic ("We love xenos. They're so cute that we can't stop buying them!")

Xenophobe Civics could buff their current mechanics, and some new Phobe Civics could be added for any cases the current Civics don't cover, but overall the current Phobe Civics are pretty great.


Moving the effects of the current (poor) Ethics into (better) Civics would make room for a new axis.

I don't like the Realist - Idealist axis proposed. It feels too much like a government policy which isn't shared by the people. Idealistic governments could exist, and Realist governments could exist, but it's not a thing that I would expect to see in the population.

======

As a replacement Ethical Axis, what I'd propose is Ascetic - Hedonic.

- Ascetic pops use fewer Amenities, but are harder to distract. You can't manipulate them with bread & circuses. They are cheaper to maintain, but more difficult to manage if they become unhappy. Temporary hardships might be easier at first, but they have a hard breaking point.

- Hedonic pops use more Amenities, but are easier to dis-- Hey is that a new circus?! Their base happiness is higher as long as their amenities are supplied. They can be induced to adapt more easily, albeit at cost. Temporary hardships are immediately felt, but they hae a soft breaking point.

The key thing is that neither is objectively wrong, but they disgust each other and can't get along, and empires with one or the other will look different and play different.
 
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Fanatical Purifier citizen abducted into an alien society should turn into a serial killer within a week, but doesn't because FP is only actually mechanically represented in the government, not the population.

Nah, your average FP citizen hears about xenos on the propaganda broadcasts and just feels grateful that their brave troops are out there purging the menace. If they were willing to purify anyone themselves, they'd be in the military. Granted, there are those who would become more fanatical once the xenos are actually in their homes, but that's more part of the general difficulties with occupation (which, admittedly, are severely understated in the current game).

And that's not accounting for the effects of actually meeting the menace outside of propaganda. It's like how postwar Japan became a lot less fanatical once the foreign devils showed up and didn't start raping and pillaging everywhere.
 
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Nah, your average FP citizen hears about xenos on the propaganda broadcasts and just feels grateful that their brave troops are out there purging the menace. If they were willing to purify anyone themselves, they'd be in the military. Granted, there are those who would become more fanatical once the xenos are actually in their homes, but that's more part of the general difficulties with occupation (which, admittedly, are severely understated in the current game).

And that's not accounting for the effects of actually meeting the menace outside of propaganda. It's like how postwar Japan became a lot less fanatical once the foreign devils showed up and didn't start raping and pillaging everywhere.
On a whole? Yes. On some? Guaranteed there are going to be problems.

I doubt every single citizen of an FP would be a long-term problem, but expecting there to be no problem at all is just not realistic. And that's before accounting for stuff like the Noxious trait existing, which justifies xenophobia as partly rational without a single other example being required.

That doesn't mean its the most rational (neither xenophobia nor xenophilia is, just like neither spiritualist nor materialist are as presented in Stellaris). But it's not wholly irrational on a per-pop basis like it would be in reality.
 
Good thing it wasn't a take I took! That sounds awful! Far better to acknowledge that some people from a fundamentally genocidal nation are probably themselves genocidal.

Don't try to tar me as a horrible person because I think the ethic described as "fanatic" should be wrong, then turn around in the same post and try to pontificate from some moral high ground.


Read posts for what they say, not what you read into them.

If I am incorrect then please correct me on how I parsed it, because this is how I did

1: citizens from a genocidal state are likely to hold those views, and therefore create problems (sure, this is unrest, and an existing but underpowered mechanic)
2: Xenophile, especially fanatic versions thereof, are ill-equiped to deal with this (and mechanically they are forbidden from purges, ergo the 'correct' way to deal with this is purging?)

Even if I misunderstood what I said that does not change my secondary point: it is not bad for art (such as a video game) to make a point, and therefore it is not a bad thing for a certain path to be more advantageous and ergo correct. The fact that Xenophile play is advantageous is not a flaw.