Xenophile, pacifist and materialist ethics are largely neglected by Paradox

[Louco doido]

I've been looking at Stellaris's dev diarys and noticed that Paradox heavily favors some ethics while neglecting others. The xenophobic, authoritarian, and spiritualist ethics will be getting a LOT of content lately—while the xenophile, pacifist, and materialist ethics won't get anything of note other than balance and leadership traits.

As a player, this is a situation that worries me greatly, because with each DLC and free patch that comes out, certain ethics become increasingly versatile while others are being left behind, slowly falling into obscurity. I understand that paradox may have favored xenophobic, authoritarian, and spiritualist ethics because they were the most popular (more pops = more lag, so you must purge them, even with the rework they recently received). But you must also understand that the more content you add to certain ethics, the less relevant others become, and at this rate, no one will want to play with them except to build certain niche empires, such as the xenophile ethic, which for me at the moment is only viable for building trade-based empires.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

I've been looking at Stellaris's dev diarys and noticed that Paradox heavily favors some ethics while neglecting others. The xenophobic, authoritarian, and spiritualist ethics will be getting a LOT of content lately—while the xenophile, pacifist, and materialist ethics won't get anything of note other than balance and leadership traits.

As a player, this is a situation that worries me greatly, because with each DLC and free patch that comes out, certain ethics become increasingly versatile while others are being left behind, slowly falling into obscurity. I understand that paradox may have favored xenophobic, authoritarian, and spiritualist ethics because they were the most popular (more pops = more lag, so you must purge them, even with the rework they recently received). But you must also understand that the more content you add to certain ethics, the less relevant others become, and at this rate, no one will want to play with them except to build certain niche empires, such as the xenophile ethic, which for me at the moment is only viable for building trade-based empires.

actually their own stats that they provided showed most players literally prefer to play xenophile. the online xenophobes are just a very loud (and true, large) minority.

that being said, yes I want more for those ethics as well as for egalitarian. in the past they were pretty good at having a "good/bad" ethic balance in dlcs. hopefully they'll get back to that after the last ascension rework related DLC.

i REALLY want ethical federations for example.

 

[Wolfgang I]

I usually have pacifist mixed in and I'm kinda annoyed that a militarist civic is now far superior to Inward Perfection when it comes to tall turtleing.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

I usually have pacifist mixed in and I'm kinda annoyed that a militarist civic is now far superior to Inward Perfection when it comes to tall turtleing.

honestly, i don't see any reason why sovereign guardianship shouldn't have "either militarist OR pacifist" as its requirement.

 

[GhostDanny]

honestly, i don't see any reason why sovereign guardianship shouldn't have "either militarist OR pacifist" as its requirement.

Could it be stacked with Inwards perfection?

 

[Nikolai II]

actually their own stats that they provided showed most players literally prefer to play xenophile

Yea, my feeling/guess has always been that the others get a bunch of bonuses in an attempt to make all ethics equally used which would "show them to be balanced". (Which is kind of silly, since lots of people will no matter what want to play as benevolent overlords or try every ethos in turn, so you can't really judge whether they are balanced just through usage).

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Yea, my feeling/guess has always been that the others get a bunch of bonuses in an attempt to make all ethics equally used which would "show them to be balanced". (Which is kind of silly, since lots of people will no matter what want to play as benevolent overlords or try every ethos in turn, so you can't really judge whether they are balanced just through usage).

i think making an ethics wheel that includes genocide "balanced" is in itself unethical. it should be reasonable, but being a genocidal maniac SHOULD be harder.

 

[jedavis]

The xenophobic, authoritarian, and spiritualist ethics will be getting a LOT of content lately

Got some concrete examples for a clueless gestalt player?

 

[hart30]

Materialist have received massive love in the past with robots and synthetic. As well as a lot of science stuff.
Its good if they are left alone for a bit.

 

[Ikael]

Materialist ethics got tons of new toys and content with Synthetic Dawn and Cosmogenesis. They are fine for now, I think.

Xenophiles are okay if only for how all galaxies tend to converge into massive monoblock federations and/or vassal swarms. They did not get too much new content since Federations and Overlord, true (and sad), but they still hang in there.

Now, pacifists are, indeed, forever and ever shafted. Even some of their ethic bonuses vanish into thin air after a while (that is, you reach maximum stability cap and your nifty pop sprawl reduction gets copied everywhere). The higher development ceiling of this new economic rework is going to indirectly benefit them in the long term, but for now, they are still in a rough spot, since their bonuses and civics haven't adapted yet to the fact that you now need to employ actual resources into developing your planets, instead of coughing up a couple of minerals into buildings and then invest everything you have into fleets, as you did pre 4.0

That being said, the problem lies in the fact that the ratio of "good scify guys" content VS "terrible dystopian nightmare" content is very, very skewed. Well, at least those of us who like to play utopian got the Educator civic, which is amazing, and civilian builds (which need to be fine-tuned). But if you look at the bulk of new content, we got a new way of blowing up the galaxy and a plethora of new Orwellian governments. And I am not particularly optimistic about where the new Shroud expansion will be going (yes, we will probably see a majority of new content for authoritarian, xenophobe, and spiritualist builds).

 

[Zergor]

Sovereign guardianship was indeed the biggest attack at the pacifist ethos.

Having a reduction to the worst sprawl offender that is better than the fanatic version of pacifist at the cost of increase to ones that are easily manageable makes pacifist tall empire feel useless compared to militarist ones.

And inward perfection feel like it was never updated.
Agrarian Idyll was at least a bit changed because 4.0 mandated it (they are still barred out of orbital rings habitations with no compensation though).

 

[Drachasor]

That being said, the problem lies in the fact that the ratio of "good scify guys" content VS "terrible dystopian nightmare" content is very, very skewed. Well, at least those of us who like to play utopian got the Educator civic, which is amazing, and civilian builds (which need to be fine-tuned). But if you look at the bulk of new content, we got a new way of blowing up the galaxy and a plethora of new Orwellian governments. And I am not particularly optimistic about where the new Shroud expansion will be going (yes, we will probably see more authoritarian, xenophobe and spiritualist content).

I think there probably needs to be more interactive content for good guys. Being warlike has a lot of stuff to do, but if you are diplomatic and peaceful, there's not nearly as much going on to really engage with, react to, and make real decisions about if don't get into a defensive war or the like.

 

[Ikael]

I think there probably needs to be more interactive content for good guys. Being warlike has a lot of stuff to do, but if you are diplomatic and peaceful, there's not nearly as much going on to really engage with, react to, and make real decisions about if don't get into a defensive war or the like.

I have always thought that some kind of soft power cultural system could really add up a lot to Stellaris, especially to the poor ol' pacifist ethoi.

In the meanwhile, one of the virtues of the new economic rework is that developing your planets now does cost a ton of hefty resources, so there is a trade-off between building your fleet VS building up your economy.

A lot of the pacifist civics could surely get a rework in order to lean harder into the "being better at building infrastructure" part (say, Inwards Perfectionists getting +1 extra district specialization, or civilian economy buffing civilian output instead of consumer goods output).

 

[Zergor]

I think there probably needs to be more interactive content for good guys. Being warlike has a lot of stuff to do, but if you are diplomatic and peaceful, there's not nearly as much going on to really engage with, react to, and make real decisions about if don't get into a defensive war or the like.

I feel that the problem of xenophile and pacifists is also that egalitarians are THE good guys. Nothing comes close to utopian abundance and there is no real alternative. Egalitarian are really powerful with the combo of specialist buff + happiness + 0 crime + utopian.

If there was a "communal life" living standard for agrarian Idyll that gave minor bonuses to happiness and made that citizen produce something useful, egalitarian would probably not feel so much above pacifist options (and similar additions could be made to other pacifists civics so they have something for them).

Also look at free haven vs beacon of liberty. Happiness for xenophiles that probably don't need it if you play good guys vs sprawl reduction and unity for the egalitarians. Two of the best resources of the game.

Yes you can always add egalitarian to your build but it feels a bit too mandatory as its so much more powerful than regular pacifists / xenophiles

Note : Xenophiles and Pacifists don't have to be the good guys. It's just that for that they aren't great. Basically xenophile feel like an easy faction to please but basically useless to take as an ethic as it doesn't give anything really. Pacifist don't get enough compensation for what they sacrifice. Both are also opposed to xenophobe and militarist which are both good powerful ethics.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

I feel that the problem of xenophile and pacifists is also that egalitarians are THE good guys. Nothing comes close to utopian abundance and there is no real alternative. Egalitarian are really powerful with the combo of specialist buff + happiness + 0 crime + utopian.

If there was a "communal life" living standard for agrarian Idyll that gave minor bonuses to happiness and made that citizen produce something useful, egalitarian would probably not feel so much above pacifist options (and similar additions could be made to other pacifists civics so they have something for them).

Also look at free haven vs beacon of liberty. Happiness for xenophiles that probably don't need it if you play good guys vs sprawl reduction and unity for the egalitarians. Two of the best resources of the game.

Yes you can always add egalitarian to your build but it feels a bit too mandatory as its so much more powerful than regular pacifists / xenophiles

Note : Xenophiles and Pacifists don't have to be the good guys. It's just that for that they aren't great. Basically xenophile feel like an easy faction to please but basically useless to take as an ethic as it doesn't give anything really. Pacifist don't get enough compensation for what they sacrifice. Both are also opposed to xenophobe and militarist which are both good powerful ethics.

fanatic egalitarian pacifist is one of my favourites

i don't think pacifist's issue is egalitarianism though, i think it's capped planetary ascension and capped planetary stability.

and also, non-egalitarian pacifism is still a dystopia.

 

[Wolfgang I]

It is a shame there is no meme civic in the spirt "I say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways… by force!" that gives some kind of bonus if you are attacked and does not get an unhappy faction in defensive wars.

 

[jedavis]

Fanatic anything should be Bad Guys IMO. Any philosophy in excess begets atrocities.

 

[Foxosaur]

Very thought provoking post really and I agree, some work to be done.

Im glad people have said about Sovereign Guardianship, it totally suits me really but I have to pick militarist? Pfft.

Fruitful Partnership should totally be buffed for Pacifists too.

 

[DarkHelmet110985]

I'd argue that because those Ethics are getting new content means they aren't getting as much playtime than those you highlighted(not to mention Phobe/Authoritarian/Spiritaulist players tend to be a very vocal minority). Xenophile, Materialist and Pacifist are all quite strong when it comes to Civilian and -100% Pop Sprawl builds. I even have a build that can achieve -100% in Pops **AND** Districts and all without the restrictions of Sovereign Guardianship(-100% Districts is "bugged" too, feel free to look up my posts on the build in the Empire Size thread). Xenophile starts with 100 Traders and applies Pop Upkeep reduction to Civilians(which is pretty strong). Materialist has you start with a Lab(putting you ahead Tech wise compared to 3.14) while applying a Tech boost to Civilians(which as I said is stupidly strong in Civilian builds). Pacifists enjoy a free Luxury Residence, which is really, really good at game start since its basically free Entertainers and bonus Housing buffs Pop Growth. The extra Stability and -%Pops is also really, really good. Civilians gain an Amenity bonus and I didn't even mention the Peace Festivals Edict.

Do they **need** new content? Eh perhaps but I'd argue they need to polish/update existing stuff first. Agrarian Idyll could be made much better if they simply permit Orbital Rings(Weather Control Systems + Anti-Gravity Tech) and maybe give Idyllic Bloom a x3 Multiplier for Gaia Worlds w/ Phase 4 Gaia Seeders(that and having your Pops start with Bloomed Trait(only applies on Gaia Worlds anyway)).