Are the developers allergic to "Internal Politics" and "Ground Invasion"?

[Eladrin]

What about centering it around the presently static 'empire size' mechanic?

I would imagine that ideally, yielding power to your factions in semi-autonomous regions should decrease your overall effective empire size.

That's actually a 1.x feature which exists in the game today -- pops do have modifiers about being recently conquered or recently enslaved.

I think it's unfortunate that we lost the separatist factions and general crankiness of xenophobic pops being forced to toil under an evil oppressor. (Where the evil oppressor is actually a Xenophile Egalitarian, but they're aliens.)

Generally, my "not promising anything, just brainstorming" thoughts are:

1. We have to be careful with how we approach these sorts of things, since some loss of control is necessary to make internal politics impactful and interesting. That has to be entertaining and fun though, not "hey we added a lot of pain to empire management".
2. Internal and external politics are intrinsically linked.
3. Points 1 and 2 make this a gargantuan feature, which means it would probably have to be planned out carefully and built in phases.

 

[HFY]

I think it's unfortunate that we lost the separatist factions and general crankiness of xenophobic pops being forced to toil under an evil oppressor. (Where the evil oppressor is actually a Xenophile Egalitarian, but they're aliens.)

I mean, yeah, but that problem seems even deeper -- you've got Isolationists, Supremacists, Separatists, and Racists all shoved into the same label, and that's not a self-consistent group with similar goals. Isolationists and Supremacists are in direct contradiction on a lot of subjects.

IMHO the game has some great Phobe civics (Pompous Purists, Fanatic Purifiers, Selective Kinship, Inward Perfection) but the Phobe ethic itself is inconsistent and behaves poorly under many conditions.


It'd be a good start to break the pop demands into a larger number of consistent factions instead of shoving all three types into Phobe (main) / Phobe (xeno).

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

That's what sectors taking some of the income and having their own fleets etc is, it's a CK vassal.

I’ll respond to this part because it’s lifted directly from my last response.

Calling that CK is like saying having pops makes Stellaris a Victoria 2 clone.

We also already have a mechanic where your fleets do their own thing across a pre-determined map area: that’s what the patrol mechanic does.

However, nobody uses this mechanic and it’s overall a pain to setup for minimal gain. Even in the absence of a dedicated internal politics rework, doing something else with the concept is much better than letting the existing system rot.

And also as mentioned in the same post, we also previously had a mechanic where sectors had their own ships: sectors used to have their own AI-controlled construction and colony ships. It was cool seeing things happen autonomously with your empire, even if it wasn’t major things, and that’s the heart of why I think something like that should come back.

Regarding the part about sectors taking a little off the top, it doesn’t necessarily have to be sectors directly taking resources. It could alternatively be sectors increasing empire size for planets and systems unless specific steps are taken to mitigate that. The general idea is that additional layers of government should make your empire easier to manage but also come with some overhead cost. I guess in the extremely loose sense that could be considered CK-like, but dismissing anything you personally don’t approve of as CK-like is just silly.

 

[mrt1212]

play differently, huh, what an interesting way to describe the games current state that favors small empires extremely disproportionately and continues to move in that direction almost every update.

Lmao, you see a smaller sibling get a sandwich after starving, grab part of it for yourself and claim you been starving too?

Also, are you sure that the UI itself isnt just smaller empire favortism? How much would a UI pass favor wide over tall?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I don't have a clear idea of what internal politics should look like (besides linking factions, sectors and governors) but I think potential outcomes should be as game-changing as the end game crises or war in heaven. Have your empire change its government type against your will. Have it break up into smaller empires. Have it 'become the crisis' without you instigating it.

I think if outcomes were big and consequential then players would enjoy engaging with it. Especially if we could use espionage to foment Stuff in other empires.

 

[HFY]

Have your empire change its government type against your will. Have it break up into smaller empires. Have it 'become the crisis' without you instigating it.

These are excellent examples of what not to do.

I think if outcomes were big and consequential then players would enjoy engaging with it.

You list things that are "against your will" and "without you instigating it" and you think those would increase engagement?

I feel like your suggestions of RNG removing player choices would do the opposite.

 

[Dr. B]

Points 1 and 2 make this a gargantuan feature, which means it would probably have to be planned out carefully and built in phases.

Sounds like there are DLCs to create well into 2026 then. This is good. Stellaris never run dry of ideas (and micromanagement).

 

[mrt1212]

I don't have a clear idea of what internal politics should look like (besides linking factions, sectors and governors) but I think potential outcomes should be as game-changing as the end game crises or war in heaven. Have your empire change its government type against your will. Have it break up into smaller empires. Have it 'become the crisis' without you instigating it.

I think if outcomes were big and consequential then players would enjoy engaging with it. Especially if we could use espionage to foment Stuff in other empires.

This is the difference between a Static Character who shows their character by being impervious to choices, events and outcomes and does as they do and a Dynamic Character who starts out one way but is developed by choices events and outcones.

And Static Characters mostly get their way in the game and are supported over Dynamic Characters even if players getting their way with it dont think its enough (due to game system limits, their own impression of what roleplaying and supported roleplay even means, the weasel word of immersion) and shriek at being heckled and molested in telling their empire's character story.

Like, if you wanna 'play the board' in all ways, you have to purposefully go out of your way to define your empire as that being their motivation, the game doesnt lay it out there strongly enough or make it interesting with support or nudges.

I keep thinking back to the old days of Stellaris when the factions gave quests to fulfill if elected and how that obviously didnt stick, but its stuff like that where every nearly every single big thing in this game is your own choice to do it without much national discussion or reckoning for it, and how it creates an interactive void. I would love more internal questing, situations and national discussion just as some way to point us in the direction of characterful decisions beyond 'i play pirate havens and choose these stacks to make it go because these stacks work given their rules and game rules' which is mostly what I do now - charismatic as hell to get out of predicaments but all the tools and training to fight if we have to, and the diplomilitary adeptness to mostly choose our own fights when its advantageous. Every pirate in the empire finds this overwhelmingly wise and goes along with it, rather than grousing about lack of raids for a long while because Im rigging a whopper of an Allegience War for a 4 on 1.


This is why I keep thinking Internal Politics as a subsystem that touches a lot other subsystems has to be self selected - those that want to tell a specific story without much impediment should get that and mostly already do, those that want the board to provide positive and negative feedback should be able to bite that off for story telling effect, but barring origins and some civics, you cant gate it off so easily.

I wanna play the Roguelike Stellaris every so often where the story is making chicken shit into a chicken sandwich through interactions, but not every single time and not by obligation, especially because we know a huge portion of the playerbase is into this game to tell Static Character stories.

related, but this is what happens with a "choose your own bonus" game system enjoyed as such - if you start trying to introduce rakes to spice things up, youve going against the character of the game being very forgiving to whatever you choose to do not screwing you over or being fought against tooth and nail. If Stellaris was different from the get go and not forgiving with choose your own bonus stacks, i dont know if actively fighting the game over decisions to make and made decisions would be so bewildering. But would we be 8 years deep into Stellaris?

 

[Oimes]

One of the existing mechanics that could be used to simulate internal politics are Holdings.
If factions had the ability to build buildings using the holdings mechanic, it would definitely add flavor to every empire.
Governors faction affiliation is also an obvious choice.

Whatever it looks like mechanically in the future, we should not forget that it should be integrated with the existing mechanics.
I'm looking at espionage in particular.

 

[mrt1212]

Hate to double post, but in general, isnt it kinda weird that the character of your empire is completely top down decided by you via Tradition and APs, rather than the informed discussion between the entire empires demos with respective political weight and you, the supposed instrument of their will.

"so our new bag is going to be building cityplanets" in taking Arcology Project wasnt a stated factional desire, a State Desire, a private business interest desire, an ideological desire or anything, it was you going 'holy crap, look at all these size 25 planets in my territory, this is gonna be goooood, muahahahahahhaha' and the demos going 'sure, okay, thats us now I guess, cityplanet people'.

None of us write flavor rich AARs and we shouldnt have to, and not everything has to be spelled out in-game cause thats also a huge ask with limits, but some of the way we develop an empire, decidedly dont resemble 'an empire encounters a societal cultural question for the first time and talks about it'

 

[PK_AZ]

I'm not sure any political faction getting concessions can make up for having been conquered. I can't think of a real-world example where the conquered have been truly pacified except by ceasing to exist.

Early Roman Republic and its Socii system. It worked so great that at some point some of conquered communities started rebellion with a goal to bully Rome into annexing them fully.

I would imagine that ideally, yielding power to your factions in semi-autonomous regions should decrease your overall effective empire size.

Honestly speaking, that sounds awfully game-of-thronish. Player sit on his iron throne and decide which piece of land will he throw at which of eight vassals so they shut the blorg up.
Just spitting idea: why not JUST local autonomy? I imagine a system where sectors differ strongly in its ethics composition, where they can (with proper laws setup) elect who actually govern them, and then that governor - being from faction representing ethos of most POPs in given sector - would add to faction power in central government, similar to the way generals in Victoria 3 add to their interest group influence.
Yes, that would mean laws mechanics would have to be basically rewritten to something like Victoria 3. Yes, that generates a lot of problems, as victorian equation of time * factories => democracy can not be copied to Stellaris. I said I am just spitting ideas, didn't I?

I don't have a clear idea of what internal politics should look like (besides linking factions, sectors and governors) but I think potential outcomes should be as game-changing as the end game crises or war in heaven. Have your empire change its government type against your will. Have it break up into smaller empires. Have it 'become the crisis' without you instigating it.

I think if outcomes were big and consequential then players would enjoy engaging with it. Especially if we could use espionage to foment Stuff in other empires.

Civil war simulator. Don't treat it personally, please, I'm taking your post as counter-argument to argument that nobody wants to make internal politics into civil war simulator.

but its stuff like that where every nearly every single big thing in this game is your own choice to do it without much national discussion or reckoning for it, and how it creates an interactive void.

As i wrote, I think copypasting Victoria 3 law mechanics to Stellaris would be hard, probably prohibitively hard (as Victoria is rigged for one direction, i.e. getting from agrarian aristocracy-led monarchies to liberal industrial states to social republics, with alternatives in form of fascism and communism; such clear direction IMHO do not work with what Stellaris is about, nor with what I want it to be).
But I DO think that, from static perspective of single separated mechanics, Vic3 laws are better than Stellaris laws.
I can imagine - again, just spitting ideas - such legislature being extended to handling new issues starting. For example, you just get technology to genetically alter POPs. Now you have to decide on law regulations, and then push them through your factions in legislation process, or else you are in quasi-anarchistic state that spawns random events left and right.

 

[HFY]

Hate to double post, but in general, isnt it kinda weird that the character of your empire is completely top down decided by you via Tradition and APs, rather than the informed discussion between the entire empires demos with respective political weight and you, the supposed instrument of their will.

So, the way I would prefer is BOTH.

I want decisions to be in my hands, with decent information about consequences, and the internal & external factors should influence me (by having consequences) but not take away the decision.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Civil war simulator. Don't treat it personally, please, I'm taking your post as counter-argument to argument that nobody wants to make internal politics into civil war simulator.

I'm not seeing it that way. Civil Wars don't have to be the result of internal politicking.

 

[mrt1212]

I can imagine - again, just spitting ideas - such legislature being extended to handling new issues starting. For example, you just get technology to genetically alter POPs. Now you have to decide on law regulations, and then push them through your factions in legislation process, or else you are in quasi-anarchistic state that spawns random events left and right.

Interestingly, playing cybernetics for the first time, this national discussion exists and is contained within an ascension Situation, and I love that we get little bonus tweaks along the way, alarmism about it, and it generally presents as National Discussion front to back. I have gripes with its integration with Augmentation Bazaar but I like Situations and the presentation of a National Discussion for it.

The choices arent especially tethered to your empire's character except as you playing a the Volkgeist medium about it, but it works and ive leaned towards anything goes choices.

And if there is any commendation to the devs for anything over time in small mechanical facet, it is the introduction of Siuations to handle character building choices and questions with effects on speed/costs/outcome. i even think the UI presentation is fine with them, that counts double, right?

So theres obvious potential to use Situations as the seed to some Internal Politics gameplay

 

[Edorath]

It doesn't quite works that way in real life...

yeah, in real life we just send the space dragons to nuke a country until it surrenders, just like zarqlan intended

 

[Ikael]

This is quite an interesting discussion, so here are some thoughts:

- Internal politics is something so intrinsical to all kinds of empires, that such a thing will necessarily be a task for the Custodians, rather than a separate DLC. A major internal politics rework can, however, be launched alongside a DLC focused on the cool parts of the inner workings of empires like, say, their cultures and religions or institutions *wink wink*

- Most of us wanting internal politics do not want game-breaking civil wars, less player agency, or CK in space (well, the latter would be a cool game, albeit not Stellaris). But if you ask me, I personally think that this game lacks soft power, that it needs anti-snowball mechanisms and ways to spice up the mid-game and break up mega feds / vassal swarms really bad, and internal politics can be a fun way to kill two or even 3 birds with the same stone.

- Unlike most people, I think that the game already has some really good fundamentals for building up compelling internal politics. Council legitimacy, factions, sprawl, espionage, rebellions, invasion shock... the thing is, they are kinda irrelevant for the most part. And they tend to interact very little with each other, too.

Ok, so what do I want out of internal politics?

- Extensively revised, balanced, coherent faction demands
- Bigger rewards for pleasing factions, bigger punishments for angering them
- Suppressing and promoting factions becoming an actual costly decision with consequences
- Far punchier invasion penalties
- Making integrating conquered pops into your empire an actual investment and challenge
- Empire sprawl forcing you to turn sectors into autonomous regions, rather than turning them into vassals for zero sprawl and tribute exploits
- Geography becoming important when it comes to economy and stability
- Council legitimacy being actually important
- Turn your empire ruler into an actual important figure, rather than being a worse councilor type
- Internal policies that present you with hard choices rather than no-brainers
- Espionage not sucking balls, and being tied to the previous points (factions, council legitimacy, sectors, your internal policy decisions, etc)
- Vassal loyalty being far harder to obtain and maintain
- Vassals that actually want to fight for their independence
- The identification and annihilation of all the terribad interactions between vassals and federations
- Make federations more exclusionary/unstable the bigger bonuses they grant, so they don't become more stable the longer they are around

Things like institutions or galactic religions or getting foreign systems to join my glorious empire out of sheer cultural dominance would just be the cherry on top, really. Most of my former wish list could be done without needing to add any content whatsoever (tons of work for Custodians, tho).

 

[nweismuller]

CK in space (well, the latter would be a cool game, albeit not Stellaris).

Star Dynasties is indeed a very cool game, as you accurately predicted.

 

[PK_AZ]

ocused on the cool parts of the inner workings of empires like, say, their cultures and religions

Ok, I think I have to finally ask. Is there ANY reason for space grand strategy game to have religions? Any at all, other than 'because Civ V had it'?

 

[HFY]

Ok, I think I have to finally ask. Is there ANY reason for space grand strategy game to have religions? Any at all, other than 'because Civ V had it'?

Yes, because we have had wars around religions for ages, and we see religious justifications to both pacify and radicalize populations -- to manufacture consent and justify injustice, but also to unify and accept each other.

Religions would give new CBs, new ways to inflict warcrimes, and also new ways to politically manipulate pops both inside and outside your empire.

---

Also, different ethics might interact with them differently, giving more distinct playstyles, and thus more replay value.

- Egalitarians might allow all religions, meaning a subversive cult would have an easy time getting a small foothold, but would never take over since it would never be more than a drop in a bucket of diverse viewpoints.

- Authoritarians might be more difficult to get a foothold, but once you convert one influential person (get the right Assets?) then you can subvert whole planets and sectors at once.

- Materialists might be impossible to subvert while they're happy, but an unhappy Materialist pop might be easier than usual to gain an Asset.

- Spiritualists might be the most difficult to subvert from the outside, but the easiest to convert if you conquer them.

- Megacorps / Shadow Councils / Necrophages / Imperial Cult / etc. might have two religions -- one secret one for the rulers, and a different one for the masses.

 

[Ikael]

Ok, I think I have to finally ask. Is there ANY reason for space grand strategy game to have religions? Any at all, other than 'because Civ V had it'?

First, because religion is far from being a niche thing in sci-fi, it is a central, major force in a lot of major science-fiction works. As in, a lot, A LOT. If it were just a "yet another Warhammer 40K thing spreading like a tumor", you would need to also ignore Hyperion, Dune, Stargate, Halo, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, just to name a few.

Additionally, it would be quite strange to have a game with institutions or cultural systems, where religion is oddly absent from those.

Third, it could be the kind of feature that can be easily skipped if it annoys you. Just pick up materialist ethics, or go Gestalt so you don't have to endure those silly, insufferable superstitions.

And finally: Man, there is a whole ethic axis called "spiritualism" here, in this very game (with an extremely limited, narrow interpretation of religion that leaves out a ton of roleplaying fantasies).