It's too easy to create a tolerant interstellar empire

[Dagorad]

Want to create a tolerant empire where all species are equal and work together for a bright future? To achieve this ideal, almost utopian state you need to:
1. Not be genocidal
2. Set the highest laws for everyone as default
3. ...

The easiest challenge ever, you don't even have to unpause the game.

Of course I'm joking a bit, it's just how it looks in the game and that's it. But personally this is what stops me from playing such an empire, it's too easy, I would like to achieve a state where everyone is equal to be some kind of challenge. And I don't even mean that accepting everyone and simply having as many pop(s) as possible is the most obvious meta in this game (all pros, no cons), but that roleplaying an empire that wants to unite the galaxy on the basis of equality comes down only to conquering/subordinating the rest, you don't have to work out this equality at the level of your empire in any way, you don't have to deal with the problems that a multi-species empire would probably have (or at least this is a common theme in space fantasy that I would like to face in a game someday).

I know that a lot of people have been playing like this (accepting everything and collecting pop(s) in every possible way) for a long time, I wouldn't want the game to suddenly become less attractive to them, I'm just writing something that seems to me to be very "flat" in Stellaris and which could be a satisfying challenge

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Well, yes, you can set such an empire up before the game starts. So you're suggesting...?

 

[Dagorad]

Well, yes, you can set such an empire up before the game starts. So you're suggesting...?

So that it wouldn't be so easy and accessible to almost everyone. So that accepting more species would create some problems that could be overcome in one way or another. Achieving a situation where everyone is accepted, equally efficient and there are no problems with it could be really satisfying and include many mechanics that are already in the game (civis, relics, megastructure, focus tree, ascension perk, origin etc.; of course not necessarily all at once). At this point, it is enough to choose the right ethic, or rather not choose one that has it (highest rights for others) blocked

Even whether we accept a species similar to ours or diametrically different could be important

 

[Calvax]

I think this is more of a problem with how easy it is to change the rights of entire species, without much reactivity, and how ethics of pops don't really matter. It's one of the reasons I don't play military rush empires because it's too easy to conquer another homeworld, double a population, and suffer no real problems for it.

The pop group system is a good foundation for fleshing out internal politics, so it would be good if it wasn't so easy to reduce the rights of people and if factions were more dynamic, with reactive events, so you can't just absorb tonnes of people into your xenophobe empire/tones of xenophobes into your empire with no issues.

 

[Nyrael]

I think this is more of a problem with how easy it is to change the rights of entire species, without much reactivity, and how ethics of pops don't really matter. It's one of the reasons I don't play military rush empires because it's too easy to conquer another homeworld, double a population, and suffer no real problems for it.

Yeah, newely conquered POPs should be far unhappier, especially if they were the Primary Species in the old Empire. And giving such POPs positions in Jobs above Workers should destabilize the Planet unless they are happy. Perfectly, there would also be Rebel Factions that can destabilize all of your Planets if you have too many unhappy POPs in higher positions of power.

Giving aliens high positions should make them happier, but also come at risk of creating dangerous enemies if they are not happy enough.

 

[Guthuk Gaming]

Conquered populations are probably a bit too eager to jump in to their invader's arms, but I see no issue with a multicultural space empire by itself. It's literally one of the starting ethics you can choose.

 

[Dagorad]

It's literally one of the starting ethics you can choose.

Actually, it's the other way around. The ability to give full rights is default, only choosing Xenophobe blocks it (and Gestalt Consciousness), so you don't even have to choose Xenophile

 

[prismaticmarcus]

So that it wouldn't be so easy and accessible to almost everyone. So that accepting more species would create some problems that could be overcome in one way or another. Achieving a situation where everyone is accepted, equally efficient and there are no problems with it could be really satisfying and include many mechanics that are already in the game (civis, relics, megastructure, focus tree, ascension perk, origin etc.; of course not necessarily all at once). At this point, it is enough to choose the right ethic, or rather not choose one that has it (highest rights for others) blocked

Even whether we accept a species similar to ours or diametrically different could be important

So why don't you start as a fanatic xenophobe and take it from there? Sounds like an interesting story to tell yourself...

 

[Sweeze]

I agree, and this particularly makes snowballing with conquest too easy. The only penalty being a temporary happiness penalty from being conquered makes it trivially offset with living standards, or with faction happiness, or just ignored because its not a big deal and will wear off eventually anyway (only getting 80% of a conquered planet's production for a decade is not a big deal, that's still a huge influx of resources).

IMO at the very least different species types could have a larger persistent penalty. Humanoids getting along better with humanoids and so one. Maybe tech/traditions could open up "accepting" other species types over time.

 

[Casko]

joining the crowd and saying I do also agree.

This made worse by fact that internal factions and internal politics do not exist in Stellaris. so you can, as Phile Spiritualists, conquer purifier materialists. and due to how busted xenophile pull is as an ethic, the purifier's pops just instantly love and adore being conquered by xenos. with zero ways to resist being assimilated into the Phile-Borg.

not to mention, just putting few of your pops as enforcers on a massive world can easily negate all negatives unless you are purging the pops. and even then, its not like planets revolt ever. (and if they do, just put few assault armies there when the situation fires...)

 

[Ferrous Will]

I basically always play some version of xenophile so I wouldn't know for sure.
But am i understanding correctly that the argument here is that currently being neutral on the phobe-phile axis feels like playing non-fanatic xenophile? And that everything on that axis should be deranged/moved one step over?

 

[Voidian]

Agreed, they should cause more problems, depending on the species, possibly permanently.

This is something I wished for a long time, that species groups were not just aesthetic choices, some species groups are simply incompatible with others, I mean, just imagine how most of humanity would react to giant cockroaches or spiders walking among them, they would NEVER fit in human society, but furry fox-people? Not a big deal.

It seems like the devs are starting to head in this direction, adding specific traits for certain species and adding a civic component that makes an empire hate all other species groups, which is neat, but I do think there should be something more innate, in the organic or even spiritual level.

This would also play into how valuable empires are to conquer, just like planet habitability, conquering a bunch of radioactive bugs living in tomb worlds would be 2x less appetizing for a human democracy.

 

[Sweeze]

I basically always play some version of xenophile so I wouldn't know for sure.
But am i understanding correctly that the argument here is that currently being neutral on the phobe-phile axis feels like playing non-fanatic xenophile? And that everything on that axis should be deranged/moved one step over?

Way more penalties than that.

Right now xenophile does nothing impactful and you can have fully happy pops with zero xenophilia. In fact you can have fully happy pops even with xenophobia, with proper setup the penalties are a few marginal % of production which makes the drawbacks of slavery (what xenophobes are presumably supposed to use) look like a joke.

The penalties for multiple races should be permanent and xenophile/fanatic xenophile should only negate a portion of those penalties. Maybe fan xenophile + tech should be able to fully negate them but no species should be able to start the game treating other species pops as if they were their own. I don't care how much you want to sex the aliens you should not be able to organize a government for them and manage their economics/production as well as they could on their own.

 

[Cry_Havok]

joining the crowd and saying I do also agree.

This made worse by fact that internal factions and internal politics do not exist in Stellaris. so you can, as Phile Spiritualists, conquer purifier materialists. and due to how busted xenophile pull is as an ethic, the purifier's pops just instantly love and adore being conquered by xenos. with zero ways to resist being assimilated into the Phile-Borg.

not to mention, just putting few of your pops as enforcers on a massive world can easily negate all negatives unless you are purging the pops. and even then, its not like planets revolt ever. (and if they do, just put few assault armies there when the situation fires...)

Conquest being too easy is different however than soft xenophile being the default/best. In general paradox games are fairly materialistic. Pops is pops resources are resources, this is a design decision. It's also an opportunity cost, you are dealing with a more complicated economy, and giving up the most farsically overpowered civics.

The idea that everything should be space Nazis and space bigots is a lingering taint from 40k. we need to abolish this default.

 

[TheGrinningMan]

There's a certain amount of infrastructure and logistics that's entirely ignored, and it could be interesting to play with.

Let's say you're human fanatic xenophiles. And you make a migration treaty with your lovely, amiable neighbors, who are car-sized centauroid insects. Even if there's little social tension, the old Earth infrastructure just isn't going to be comfortable for them. Humans migrating to their world will also have issues navigating a city built for and by large, chitinous creatures. New colonies might consider accessibility for both species, especially if they're xenophiles, but there will be choices, expenses, and trade-offs that could be represented and that non-xenophile, non-xenophobes just might not bother with.

 

[Ferrous Will]

It does feel like part of the issue is that there isn't a lot of room for the game to express the nuances of inter-species relationships, especially internally.

Maybe Stellaris can take something from the acceptance systems of CK3/Vic3?

So that even xenophilic empires might need to deal with the initial inter-species friction, it's just that they are much better at getting over it.
And maybe even xenophobic empires could overcome it after literal decades of effort, at least partially/selectively and at a steeper price.

 

[Sweeze]

The idea that everything should be space Nazis and space bigots is a lingering taint from 40k. we need to abolish this default.

Having penalties managing other races is not equivalent to space nazis. Its simply representing that there are cultural (or...speciesual) things that are hard to match up and this is represented by a penalty in production in some way.

Even the United Federation of Planets was exactly that, a Federation. Not a unified government. The most well known xenophile organization in sci fi history properly realized that having humans directly manage other species like Vulcan or Klingons would lead to too many troubles which would be represented in Stellaris as production penalties and unrest. And this is for a sci fi universe (star trek) where the other races are other humanoid species with funny rubber mask-like facial differences, the problems would be even larger if there was a race like Necroids or giant bug monsters or w/e involved with entirely different biologies and communication methods and so on.

(also I would like to point out that the "space nazis" of 40k is also effectively a federation and that other species in the imperium are largely left alone to prosper in whatever way they see fit so long as they pay their taxes on time, supply military resources when needed, and don't endanger the empire by involving themselves in chaos. The 40k Imperium is actually relatively neutral on the xenophobe/phile axis so long as you praise the emperor.)

 

[Voidian]

It does feel like part of the issue is that there isn't a lot of room for the game to express the nuances of inter-species relationships, especially internally.

Maybe Stellaris can take something from the acceptance systems of CK3/Vic3?

So that even xenophilic empires might need to deal with the initial inter-species friction, it's just that they are much better at getting over it.
And maybe even xenophobic empires could overcome it after literal decades of effort, at least partially/selectively and at a steeper price.

Yes but some of them should be permanently incompatible, not killing each other on sight is the maximum improvement you could hope for after a century of acceptance.

IE: Any pops you conquered from an actual genocidal empire.
These should create issues for your empire, should you chose to accept them, permanently, triggering assassination attempts against your rulers, killing other pops, increasing crime, joining opposing factions and generally being stuck close to 0% happiness forever.

Then there are those that just can't work, like the example I've given above, giant cockroaches or spiders living among humans are something that would NEVER be accepted, most people would desire their complete extinction, the mere sight of them would invoke visceral disgust or terrifying fear and that's something biological that can't be changed unless you change humanity into something else, having cute short fox-people walking among us however wouldn't be that big of a deal.

There's also the issue with traits, some, like decadent, weight a species, naturally, towards authoritarian governments, so spcecies with certain traits would never, ever, accept certain government types and always push for changing or deposing democratic governments, this isn't about acceptance or tolerance, they are naturally wired towards not understanding certain moral systems and given the choice they should always chose the opposite of what your empire wants.

Psionic ascended pops should never be able to simply shrug and accept that they are now living in an empire full of sentient machines either.

Which ties back to factions, they are too toothless and act like nothing but resource providers, they should really push to destabilize your government if you have too many supporting opposing factions within your empire.

 

[Ferrous Will]

Yes but some of them should be permanently incompatible, not killing each other on sight is the maximum improvement you could hope for after a century of acceptance.

yeah hence "partially/selectively"

I picked my words very carefully

 

[drawar]

Above all, the pops would need to have a "culture" and possibly a "national" and "religious" identity.

Culture: lifestyle, likes and dislikes, how their culture is respected in other empires (purging their alien neighbors may not be widely accepted as a practice).

Nationality: Do they feel subject to a "state" or do they consider themselves free citizens of the galaxy or the "Eladrin Zealots" federation? If they are in another, but friendly, empire, they could be a good pop, but in an enemy empire, they could be more disruptive...

Religion (or more vaguely Spirituality): how the pop sees themselves in relation to the universe in all its facets. Do they believe in one or more higher deities/forces? Do they believe in universal virtues? Do they believe that the universe has no purpose, no specific destiny, everything is just the product of chaotic chance? Does he believe he belongs to a kind of chosen one who must lead the universe to its ultimate destiny?


Obviously, a multicultural/national/religious empire would be more complicated than a unified one.
This diversity could have a cost in Unity.
Populations with restricted rights (even more so for slaves) could have a smaller impact, but limiting rights also has an impact on happiness/crime...