Anyone else pretty much "ignoring" ethos drift now?

[-Marauder-]

It feels like most of the "promote government ethos" modifier to very little if anything at all. Usually unless war is waged constantly pacifist grows extremly quickly in attraction. Then again, it feels as if it matters very little.

With the various happiness boni and how armies reduce unrest by 10 each, it feels as if one can almost entirely ignore it or at the very least simply station a few armies and then ignore it. Which also makes the police state civic hilarious pointless, because -20 unrest is pretty much two cheap armies, versus 10% increase mineral production or other usefull boosts.

 

[Almaravarion]

Currently ethos can provide great opportunity to get more influence; one resource that isn't scaled insanely fast in the late game; If your nation's ethos and game style are in synch, you can easily get not only extremely high happiness population from get go; you can also get more influence in general, which can be useful when expanding your empire [or just getting more outposts out]

P.S. ethos drift can enforce more pops to be naturally happy and provide you more influence.

 

[Alblaka]

Let's say that it seems much less harmful to ignore ethic drift now.

Previously, pops switching to an opposing ethic would promptly form a faction and either cause rebellions or at the very least eat influence.

Now, pops of opposing ethic are 'meh' until that ethic is strong enough to form a faction, at which point pops may become slightly upset (compared to going batshit crazy over conflicting policys), and produce some unrest, which can be instantly countered by throwing army-ized minerals at them.


So, yes, I can see the truth in the statement 'You can entirely ignore ethic drift now.'
Of course, as Almaravarion mentioned, NOT ignoring the drift but putting effort into pleasing a specific array of factions, whilst ensuring most of your pops are in that faction, will give you relatively significant boosts to happyness and influence.

Therefore I would argue, whilst you can ignore ethic drift without seeing explicite repercussions, you will still have a far more suboptimal empire.

 

[apoc527]

Not in my experience. I got private colony ships and had a huge energy stockpile, so naturally I went to town colonizing. It worked, but man, did I end up with a far more diverse group of pops than I wanted. Now I have a damn Spirtualist faction that's at 15% happiness. It matters. My impression is that if you play to the factions you have, you do fine...which is kind of the point. It's when you start seeing other factions arise that have conflicting desires that you have issues. That's what makes it fun though!