Are factions completely irrelevant nowadays?

[Pacifer]

When factions was defining happiness and happiness was defining resource output it was really important to keep them happy. Now unless something severe is happening it doesn't affect happiness almost at all. And happiness almost doesn't affect resource output due to going true stability filter. I don't even need to please factions to gain influence anymore. So I am finding myself not caring at all what is going on faction screen. Is it just me or they really do nothing now?

 

[Badesumofu]

You still get more influence from happy factions. It’s just not binary now.

But yeah, they are overall somewhat less important now.

 

[gathomas88]

When factions was defining happiness and happiness was defining resource output it was really important to keep them happy. Now unless something severe is happening it doesn't affect happiness almost at all. And happiness almost doesn't affect resource output due to going true stability filter. I don't even need to please factions to gain influence anymore. So I am finding myself not caring at all what is going on faction screen. Is it just me or they really do nothing now?

Eh, I dunno. I still get a fairly substantial production and influence hit when I suppress several of my less "desirable" factions.

They do appear to have some influence on pop happiness.

 

[Pooks1]

I don't think i even bothered with looking up the factions screen during my current megacorp gameplay, perhaps in the early game for some influence boost.

 

[Angelic_Daemon]

I've never really paid attention to them, the only time I did was when I flipped a passive empire.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Maybe we'll get something like EU4-style estates in the future where factions have influence over planets/sectors, for now, yeah, they seem kinda unimportant.

 

[Chthon]

Full citizens have their faction happiness matter more than enslaved or stratified citizens. If you're running with one of those economies, you might not see much difference in happiness, but if everyone is equal, you will see a major difference.

That is of course if you have kept your ruler factions happy. If those get upset, all bets are off.

 

[Todie]

Full citizens have their faction happiness matter more than enslaved or stratified citizens. If you're running with one of those economies, you might not see much difference in happiness, but if everyone is equal, you will see a major difference.

That is of course if you have kept your ruler factions happy. If those get upset, all bets are off.

I second this. Its by design; a hiererchal society needs a satisfied ruling class above all else, the rest can be managed. In theory some things can still be stirred up in some ways, but it wont happen mich without shifting some key policies or embracing factions to shift ethics.

For societies with less stratification who give citizenship for all, there is more room for ethics -> factions to have significant impact on stability & productivity. Depending on what pops live where, strata and faction various notable local interactions between game systems may occur....

 

[Bouchart]

There are several ways to increase happiness and now happiness has only an indirect effect on production, through stability. I largely ignore factions now unless I really need to squeeze out every point of influence I can.

 

[AlanC9]

I mostly ignored factions anyway. The major factions you have should like the stuff you're doing anyway, unless something's gone wrong for you or you're changing strategy.

 

[redrum68]

You still get more influence from happy factions. It’s just not binary now.

But yeah, they are overall somewhat less important now.

This. Influence is still very important so making your factions as happy as possible and trying to rival 3 empires really helps boost it especially early game when there aren't a lot of other ways to increase influence.

 

[Pacifer]

You dont actually have +3 influence early game anyway because there is not much possibility to fulfil the requirements especially for factions like militarists or xenofobes.

 

[Badesumofu]

You dont actually have +3 influence early game anyway because there is not much possibility to fulfil the requirements especially for factions like militarists or xenofobes.

Egalitarian and Materialist can easily have 70+ approval from the moment the factions spawn.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

When factions was defining happiness and happiness was defining resource output it was really important to keep them happy. Now unless something severe is happening it doesn't affect happiness almost at all. And happiness almost doesn't affect resource output due to going true stability filter. I don't even need to please factions to gain influence anymore. So I am finding myself not caring at all what is going on faction screen. Is it just me or they really do nothing now?

I'd like to have a more comprehensive government system. Right now, the only difference between Oligarchy,Dictatorship, and Monarchy is how long the ruler will serve for. Democracy has the unique agenda system, but I'd like the government system in general to have more detail.

Like, If I'm running a parliamentary democracy, I'd like to know which factions are running the governing coalition, and see if I can't force a party out the coalition in favor of another party, make factions actually matter. If a faction is angry enough, it'd be cool if maybe they'll try a coup d'etat, or force an election. A civil war mechanic would be interesting, and then once it's resolved give it a 50 year cooldown before it could happen again, or maybe you can avoid the civil war by adopting the ethic of the rebelling faction and dropping your least powerful ruling faction ethic. Maybe an alliance can be sealed by an event chain which has a princess from your government marry a state official of another, and both empires have events try to reconcile their differences of aristocracy vs meritocracy and maybe the alliance falls apart or one empire adopts an ethic or government type of the other.

 

[The Founder]

Eh, I dunno. I still get a fairly substantial production and influence hit when I suppress several of my less "desirable" factions.

They do appear to have some influence on pop happiness.

Factions do still have a Approval Impact:
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Factions#Approval

Less then being the Base Happiness, but still a impact. Having Faction and Pop Happiness only loosely coupeled allows the values to be a bit more volatile.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

There are several ways to increase happiness and now happiness has only an indirect effect on production, through stability. I largely ignore factions now unless I really need to squeeze out every point of influence I can.

Pretty much this. But it's not like i felt them really useful or significant in the past: i always found trivial to satisfy a good enough portion of my empire through buildings instead of changing my policies to satisfy political factions.

 

[Kuronan]

Pretty much everyone besides Militarists and the Xeno ethics no longer require actively appeasing to them, most now only having demands regarding policies. You likely feel they are "Irrelevant" because you almost never need to go out of your way any more. Materialists and Spiritualists are definitely the easiest, mostly just
"Do we allow Robots, and if so, do we allow them to Think?"

I personally like having to do less to appease them considering how planet management can take up a lot of focus later in the game, but I understand people might also want more Active political ideologies.