IGs suffer from a few issues:
1) They are too static
2) Their non-static element, leadership, is too random, and takes too little input from the state of your pops.
3) The non-random elements of determining leadership ideology are too opaque. The game doesn't explain in most cases what contributed to my new leader having ideology X.
Here are my suggestions to fix these issues:
1) Title. In particular, a leader who manages to implement all or part of their agenda should be able to add their ideology to their IG for good (replacing any ideology(ies) that directly conflict. This seems like a very organic way for IGs to change over time with only a minor tweak to the existing system. I'm not quite sure if this should always happen if the agenda was implemented, or only sometimes.
2) here is a good post on some pop-based factors that seem like they ought to affect how IGs see the world. For example, trade unions should be more likely to get leaders who care about cultural issues if there are tons of discriminated laborers. I diverge from the OP on that thread a bit in that I don't think they necessarily should support multiculturalism - sometimes they should swing the other way and double down on nativism as the accepted pops fight to keep their advantages. But anyway the leader selection system should take into account that having a majority of urban workers discriminated would be a huge issue one way or the other. Similarly with other cases; it's not so much that it has to cut one way, but that the things that lots of pops ought to care about are coming up a lot.
3) When a new IG leader arrives, the game should tell you why they believe what they do. I see this as a parallel to the new diplomatic catalysts feature. If I see "your new rural folk IG leader is an abolitionist - they were influenced by 39% radicalism in your slave population and the 2.7 million laborers (18% radical) who are employed in subsistence farms alongside slaves" that it much more immersive than it just happening for no apparent reason. Leader cards should show this in tooltips also so you can check later. (I half want to suggest leaders could change ideology over time but I suspect that would probably not be a good choice in practice).
With these changes I think IGs would be significantly more immersive and dynamic. I think people have problems with IG leaders because they seem like "oh they're just some random character, why are they changing the whole IG?" But if you can see the forces that made them believe what they do, it makes it much more intuitive that they're not just some person, they're the product of x, y and z that are huge issues and that's probably why they're now the IG leader.
One final thought. 1 and 3 are fairly small changes, while 2 is very open-ended. I think we probably won't ever have all of 2 to our complete satisfaction. But I would strongly advocate for adding 1, 3, and whatever starting point the devs think makes sense for 2. Even if it's not perfect it would be a huge improvement and leave room for more to be added later.
1) They are too static
2) Their non-static element, leadership, is too random, and takes too little input from the state of your pops.
3) The non-random elements of determining leadership ideology are too opaque. The game doesn't explain in most cases what contributed to my new leader having ideology X.
Here are my suggestions to fix these issues:
1) Title. In particular, a leader who manages to implement all or part of their agenda should be able to add their ideology to their IG for good (replacing any ideology(ies) that directly conflict. This seems like a very organic way for IGs to change over time with only a minor tweak to the existing system. I'm not quite sure if this should always happen if the agenda was implemented, or only sometimes.
2) here is a good post on some pop-based factors that seem like they ought to affect how IGs see the world. For example, trade unions should be more likely to get leaders who care about cultural issues if there are tons of discriminated laborers. I diverge from the OP on that thread a bit in that I don't think they necessarily should support multiculturalism - sometimes they should swing the other way and double down on nativism as the accepted pops fight to keep their advantages. But anyway the leader selection system should take into account that having a majority of urban workers discriminated would be a huge issue one way or the other. Similarly with other cases; it's not so much that it has to cut one way, but that the things that lots of pops ought to care about are coming up a lot.
3) When a new IG leader arrives, the game should tell you why they believe what they do. I see this as a parallel to the new diplomatic catalysts feature. If I see "your new rural folk IG leader is an abolitionist - they were influenced by 39% radicalism in your slave population and the 2.7 million laborers (18% radical) who are employed in subsistence farms alongside slaves" that it much more immersive than it just happening for no apparent reason. Leader cards should show this in tooltips also so you can check later. (I half want to suggest leaders could change ideology over time but I suspect that would probably not be a good choice in practice).
With these changes I think IGs would be significantly more immersive and dynamic. I think people have problems with IG leaders because they seem like "oh they're just some random character, why are they changing the whole IG?" But if you can see the forces that made them believe what they do, it makes it much more intuitive that they're not just some person, they're the product of x, y and z that are huge issues and that's probably why they're now the IG leader.
One final thought. 1 and 3 are fairly small changes, while 2 is very open-ended. I think we probably won't ever have all of 2 to our complete satisfaction. But I would strongly advocate for adding 1, 3, and whatever starting point the devs think makes sense for 2. Even if it's not perfect it would be a huge improvement and leave room for more to be added later.
- 5
- 5
- 3
- 1
