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Moonshadow101

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Apr 2, 2011
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So several upcoming changes to Ethics were mentioned on the stream today. I thought I'd post the changes for the sake of discussion. As a disclaimer, this list isn't necessarily complete or final. I rewatched the archive to check my facts, but it's not impossible that I misinterpreted something. Hopefully next week's dev diary will have a more comprehensive list.

At [1:40:46] in the archive he says "We have changed Ethics alot!" and most of these come soon after. Head to that point if you want to hear the discussion.

Pacifist:
1. Gets a flat happiness bonus.
2. Restrictions added to war: Regular pacifists pay more warscore for taking over a planet, Fanatical pacifists can't demand planets at all.
3. Huge (+5) bonus to core systems for the Peaceful Bureaucracy government, doubling to +10(!!!) in the advanced version.

Materialist:
1. Fanatical Materialist research bonus is now +15%. (Displayed on the screen at [16:41].)

Spiritualist:
1. Flat happiness bonus removed, transferred to pacifist.
2. Ethics Divergence bonus (negative, obviously) added.
3. Spiritualist Governments buffed, no details. (Theocratic Republic, Divine Mandate, Theocratic Oligarchy.)

Individualist:
1. Slavery Tolerance modifier reduced for non-fanatic (-50% to -33%, [16:41])
2. Energy Credit modifier reduced for fanatic (+20% to +15%, [59:14])

Xenophile:
1. Bonus embassies removed, since Embassies don't exist anymore.
2. Reduction to "Diplomatic Influence Cost." Defensive pacts and such now cost influence, Xenophiles pay substantially less. Since those treaties build trust over time, this is roughly the same as having embassies.

Xenophobe:
1. No explicit changes to the ethos mentioned, but a bug fix: Genetically modifying your entire race will now change you government's primary race to the new one, so you won't have everyone unhappy

Militarist and Collectivist were not mentioned. [1:00:40] They mention that something like a slave revolt system is starting to go in, so that's a concern for collectivists.
 
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Hum... i'm for slave revolts but it would not be availible for fanatic collectivist where everyone know where is his place, his role on the society... Hope they can't rebel coz that would be stupid.
 
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Hum... i'm for slave revolts but it would not be availible for fanatic collectivist where everyone know where is his place, his role on the society... Hope they can't rebel coz that would be stupid.
Except just cause your loyalist pops are fanatic collectivists doesn't mean all your pops are. Plus Xenophobe/Fn Collectivists that you conquer would still hate you, and their happiness should be the determining factor of whether to rebel or not. If a 0% happiness Fanatic Collectivist couldn't rebel that would be stupid.
 
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Does spiritualism gain anything else? Less divergence is great and all but if you don't have any other bonuses to actually lose it becomes less useful (i guess you have your other ethic pick but still...)
 
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Well, ethics divergence tends to result in unhappiness, so having a bound on that could be interpreted as ultimately being a happiness bonus. They didn't mention anything about new spiritualist stuff aside from the ethics divergence and the undefined government improvements.

Also, important happiness note:

1. "Base" happiness is now 50 instead of 60.
2. Every point above or below that line now affects output slightly. The "Happy" and "Joyous" thresholds no longer exist.
3. They're making it harder to stack happiness bonuses. No details.
4. Base habitability for planets two steps away from your preferred is now 40%, up from 20%.
 
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Well, ethics divergence tends to result in unhappiness, so having a bound on that could be interpreted as ultimately being a happiness bonus. They didn't mention anything about new spiritualist stuff aside from the ethics divergence and the undefined government improvements.

Also, important happiness note:

1. "Base" happiness is now 50 instead of 60.
2. Every point above or below that line now affects output slightly. The "Happy" and "Joyous" thresholds no longer exist.
Well that seems like a big nerfbat in the face to Spiritualists. Oh well, they were OP before. But now it sounds like Pacifists might be OP, except of course their restrictions on war. I think the changes sound pretty good. Although Militarist needs some love.
 
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So several upcoming changes to Ethics were mentioned on the stream today. I thought I'd post the changes that I remember for the sake of discussion. As a disclaimer, this list isn't necessarily complete or final. Hopefully next week's dev diary will have a more comprehensive list.

At [1:40:46] in the archive he says "We have changed Ethics alot!" and most of these come soon after. Head to that point if you want to hear the discussion.

Pacifist:
1. Gets a flat happiness bonus.
2. Restrictions added to war: Regular pacifists pay more warscore for taking over a planet, Fanatical pacifists can't demand planets at all.
3. Huge (+5) bonus to core systems.

Materialist:
1. Fanatical Materialist research bonus is now +15%. (Displayed on the screen at [16:41].)

Spiritualist:
1. Flat happiness bonus removed, transferred to pacifist.
2. Ethics Divergence bonus (negative, obviously) added.
3. Spiritualist Governments buffed, no details. (Theocratic Republic, Divine Mandate, Theocratic Oligarchy.)

Individualist:
1. Slavery Tolerance modifier reduced for non-fanatic (-50% to -33%, [16:41])
2. Energy Credit modifier reduced for fanatic (+20% to +15%, [59:14])

Xenophile:
1. Bonus embassies removed, since Embassies don't exist anymore.
2. Reduction to "Diplomatic Influence Cost." Defensive pacts and such now cost influence, Xenophiles pay substantially less. Since those treaties build trust over time, this is roughly the same as having embassies.

Xenophobe:
1. No explicit changes to the ethos mentioned, but a bug fix: Genetically modifying your entire race will now change you government's primary race to the new one, so you won't have everyone unhappy

Militarist and Collectivist were not mentioned. [1:00:40] They mention that something like a slave revolt system is starting to go in, so that's a concern for collectivists.

I'm currently watching the archive (well, listening to it while doing other stuff.) I'll edit this post to add time references and anything else that's relevant.
Thanks a lot of the data. Intersting read.

Pacifist:
Happiness was something I thought as fix too. Persistent bonus to happness, penalty while at war. After Diplomacy went to Xenophilia, it was underpowered.
Not sure what to think of the conquest parts. I guess that means Liberation, federations and vassalisation for everyone?

Materialist:
More bonus makes it more distinct.

Spiritualist:
Huh, not so sure I like those changes. I always felt it is collectivists job to keep population in line, but Collectivist and Spiritualist kinda do overlap in this regard.
With the previous changes solid individualists should be possible (ones without ethics divergence). Should making the "Star Wars Republic" easier to do.

Individualist:
No opinion on that, looks like basic rebalancing

Xenophile:
Intersting new system.

Xenophobe:
That is good to hear.
However the "big" issues was always the concept of subspecies tracking. That Humans (Continental) would be considered a Xeno towards Humans (Desert) and vice versa. If the only thing that changed is thier preference, they should consider each others at least "brothers from other mothers".
 
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I wonder how they go about deciding that these things need changing?
 
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So that means my zealot/militaristic build is going kaput.... Thanks Paradox for ruining my games.

I have just transferred some of the happiness lost from spiritualist to myself and now I'm "joyful" for this. </sarcasm>
 
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I kind of think they overestimate usefulness of slaves - nerf-bating slave-driven ethics that hard. Sure ability to control any "un-needed" POP seems fine along with early minerals but mid-late game with "default" settings such Empires become nothing but backward blob - if they can - because slavery and purges makes everyone hates you.
And nerfing slavery tolerance for collectivists kind of make Divine Mandate a bad gov. - you still get penalty with collectivists (and don't forget lower basic happiness!) in it's basic form and with fanatic collectivists additional tolerance is useless as slaves aren't affected by happiness from it at all.
 
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Interesting changes. I think the removal of happiness thresholds is a good thing. A scaling happiness bonus is much better IMO.

While I thought that happiness overload builds were too strong, I wonder if this is too much of a nerf for spiritualist. I also am not sold on the ethics divergence modifier for spiritualist (it always seemed to me that collectivist was the ethos that mainly dealt with that).

The changes to pacifist and xenophile are welcome and intriguing. I think it will be hard to determine balance for the pacifist wargoal restrictions without playing it.

I would like to see a little buff for militarist though. It seems milquetoast in comparison to pacifist now.
 
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LOL happiness was basic the only reason why people play Spiritualist, they have no idea what they doing.

So that means my zealot/militaristic build is going kaput.... Thanks Paradox for ruining my games.

I have just transferred some of the happiness lost from spiritualist to myself and now I'm "joyful" for this. </sarcasm>
Wow, exagerating much?
If you do not like the changes you are free to use a previous version or modded version for your private games.

Multiplayer games have to be held to a higher standart of balance, or they are wasted development time.

And Achievments have thier own purpose anyway:

I wonder how they go about deciding that these things need changing?
Extra Credits:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB9B0CA00461BB187

Somewhere in those 295 Videos (and counting) there should be something about how balance. The ones about Bartles Taxonomy might be intersting in particular. As are the ones dealing with Heartstone as example for expansion/power creep.
 
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Don't like using spiritualist governments to cover for spiritualism being nerfed to oblivion. There's a huge opportunity cost here. If the primary bonus from an ethos is that people don't diverge from the ethos, that ethos is pretty bad. A spiritualist Indirect Democracy should not be penalized for not picking a Theocratic Republic, while a Despotic Hegemony with Materialism is good because both the government and ethos are good.

That is to say: Ethos and governments should be balanced separately. The balance for a government compared to others should not be uneven, because it needs to compensate for the fact that the ethos to unlock is terrible, as people picking that ethos might not necessarily pick the government it unlocks!

People are already favoring materialism greatly, does it really need to become even stronger?!
 
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