With a score system coming to Stellaris, what I would love would be if the things you score and lose points for varied according to your Ethics and Civics - a pacifist empire would view its wars as shameful, whereas a militarist one would think of them as glorious; xenophobes would gain points for exterminating alien species, while Xenophiles would gain points for the number of different species in their empire; Rogue Servitors would score points by pampering organics, Honorbound Warriors would gain points when their own ships died in battle, that sort of thing. Points for roleplaying, basically, so people playing to win get to enjoy more of the fun characterful side of the game.
Ethics-switching is where it would get interesting. The way I see it working is that your historical actions get re-assessed when you change Ethics, so those wars of aggression that used to give you points when you were a militarist might start dragging you down now you're a pacifist. There might then be ways to mitigate the negative effects of that, such as the newly-minted pacifist paying reparations to empires they invaded (which the recipient empire could choose to reject), or the Xenophobe-to-Xenophile switcher engaging in projects to clone species they exterminated. Interactions between empires might be a part of this, so you might have systems for historical revisionism and propaganda to alter the scores other empires get for their historical actions, and/or ways to try to shift the Ethics of other empires through subterfuge and thereby tank their scores. These systems could tie into the faction system, into future political conflict systems, and so forth. The idea is that your score isn't just a gamey win-condition but also simulates how your empire sees itself and how history is thought about, as well as enabling new, interesting tradeoffs and forms of conflict.
Ethics-switching is where it would get interesting. The way I see it working is that your historical actions get re-assessed when you change Ethics, so those wars of aggression that used to give you points when you were a militarist might start dragging you down now you're a pacifist. There might then be ways to mitigate the negative effects of that, such as the newly-minted pacifist paying reparations to empires they invaded (which the recipient empire could choose to reject), or the Xenophobe-to-Xenophile switcher engaging in projects to clone species they exterminated. Interactions between empires might be a part of this, so you might have systems for historical revisionism and propaganda to alter the scores other empires get for their historical actions, and/or ways to try to shift the Ethics of other empires through subterfuge and thereby tank their scores. These systems could tie into the faction system, into future political conflict systems, and so forth. The idea is that your score isn't just a gamey win-condition but also simulates how your empire sees itself and how history is thought about, as well as enabling new, interesting tradeoffs and forms of conflict.
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