Aristocratic Elite is a must have because the game is lying

[Kryndude]

Two different but related topics here.

First, civics discussion. Aristorcate Elite is mandatory if you're planning to enslave everyone you conquer or use syncretic evolution. It'll be difficult to maintain positive stability without it, and even if you can you'll have to make huge investments just to prevent unrest from spinning out of control if you don't have AE. So AE isn't really a late game pick but rather an early game pick for slave empires that don't yet have nerve staples option.

Second, about the game not telling what the REAL game rule is. Now if the game worked as explained in the tooltip then slave empires should have absolutely no problem managing huge number of slaves without AE and the civic would've been worthless. Stratified economy means ruler pops have 1000% political power and specialists 200%. So as long as you keep them happy and build slave processing facility to further decrease slave political power, your planets should be very stable, like at least 70+ stability.

However currently the game limits happy pop's (51+ happiness) political power to 200%, and unhappy pop's (50- happiness) political power to 50%, and you have to search into game files to know that. What this means is that the in-game tooltip is lying in terms of what each stratum's political power is. It also tricks players into building slave processing facility when in fact it has no effect in improving planet stability because slave political power will be capped at 50% reagardless. It's just a slave output 5% building which is very weak.

There are individual threads that discuss each topic thoroughly, but I thought the two are worth mentioning again together in a seperate post. Also as you can probably see I'm kind of pissed that the game tells me inaccruate info. I know it's a PDX game so I'm okay with it being a bit incovnenient, but giving wrong info is just inacceptable imo.


How political power really works:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...roval-political-power-weighting-math.1138232/

Aristocratic Elite discussion:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tic-elite-is-not-strong-in-late-game.1148163/

 

[Urza1234]

However currently the game limits happy pop's (51+ happiness) political power to 200%, and unhappy pop's (50- happiness) political power to 50%, and you have to search into game files to know that.

Is that what those values are doing? I'm not so sure. I saw the values you're talking about, I thought they were values intended to be ceilings or floors on the stability impact of political power of pops on extremely small/unpopulated planets.

IE a single ruler in stratified society might be 100% happy, and he might have 1,000% political power, but that single ruler cant shift stability up by more than that factor of 2 by himself. Certainly none of the formulae discussed in that thread seem to work on my large planets. I think that might be the oversight in that thread.

 

[Kryndude]

IE a single ruler in stratified society might be 100% happy, and he might have 1,000% political power, but that single ruler cant shift stability up by more than that factor of 2 by himself.

This esseantially means that the ruler doesn't have 1000%. Take any planet in your game as an example. Try calculating according to what the game says, and then try it again with max 2 and min 0.5 applied (which btw isn't mentioned in the game at all).

 

[trojan1234]

So AE isn't really a late game pick but rather an early game pick for slave empires that don't yet have nerve staples option.

Besides noble job's efficiency (I said in other thread), downside of AE in early game is lack of base unity production. It really takes forever (almost double) to unlock tradition because AE has base 4 unity production from 1 admin and 1 enforcer. Technocracy, merchant guild have alternative base unity production to catch up basic ruling civic, but AE doesn't. This happens in every single planet of pop 10 -40, while it can increase stability in few planets with slaves. Why early unity is important? Because you need 3 or 4 perks to unlock key ascension such as arcology, colossus, three ascension paths. Early game AE delays the time to unlock those perks on top of expansion and other best tradition trees.

 

[Kryndude]

Besides noble job's efficiency (I said in other thread), downside of AE in early game is lack of base unity production. It really takes forever (almost double) to unlock tradition because AE has base 4 unity production from 1 admin and 1 enforcer. Technocracy, merchant guild have alternative base unity production to catch up basic ruling civic, but AE doesn't. This happens in every single planet of pop 10 -40, while it can increase stability in few planets with slaves. Why early unity is important? Because you need 3 or 4 perks to unlock key ascension such as arcology, colossus, three ascension paths. Early game AE delays the time to unlock those perks on top of expansion and other best tradition trees.

That is absolutely true. It's also the reason why I've picked spiritualist to make up for lack of unity source. It gives some extra amenities for populating low habitability worlds with slaves too.

 

[M@ni@c]

I was able to keep stability near 50% in my Commonwealth of Man game by using enforcers. In my current Aristocrat Elite game, I too find they are a bigger drawback than advantage because of the lack of Unity.

 

[Urza1234]

This esseantially means that the ruler doesn't have 1000%. Take any planet in your game as an example. Try calculating according to what the game says, and then try it again with max 2 and min 0.5 applied (which btw isn't mentioned in the game at all).

It seems to fall apart on my larger planets. Try it yourself on a big ecumenopolis or something.

 

[Kryndude]

I was able to keep stability near 50% in my Commonwealth of Man game by using enforcers. In my current Aristocrat Elite game, I too find they are a bigger drawback than advantage because of the lack of Unity.

In my experience crime is easy to deal with, but unfortunately that's not the main reason of low stability. If I conquer a fully xeno-inhabited world, for example, I'll be running a planet with 20~30 slaves while my main species ruler/specialist pops are only few because I want to minimize upkeep cost hit due to low hab (I'm talking about early to early-mid game here btw, once you have the right techs managing things get easier so no point discussing). On paper the situation should be fine with stratified economy and slave processing facility, but in reality it's not. It's usually way below the 40 stability line that prevents unrest events from happening. Before I wondered why, now I know it's because of a hidden game rule.

 

[Kryndude]

It seems to fall apart on my larger planets. Try it yourself on a big ecumenopolis or something.

Interesting. So if your assumption that it's a cap for small worlds is correct, what could be the threshold for it to no longer apply? Even so, I'm mainly concerned with early to early-mid game and as long as the cap applies till then (which they did in my last game), AE starter fits well to my early aggression build I'm working on. Although I'm thinking of Police State as a substitute for unity reasons, but then I have to use influence on martial law and stuff so... idk, I'm still figuring things out.

 

[Pacifer]

Is stability a real issue in early? Because slaves have like 5% of overall political power so its kinda irrelevant isn't it? I actually prefer byzantine bureaucracy for slave empire because it have a unique building what you actually want to build. And +2 ruler but not +1 is significant bonus because rulers have tremendous political power in slave empires, so you get this stability by happiness anyway. And if we speak about xeno-slavery so well, manage it.Watch stratum, get a thralls, servitors. Maybe residency for some of guys. Just enslaving everyone almost same ineffective as genocide everyone. And yes slave processing facility is useless.

 

[Slynx]

First, civics discussion. Aristorcate Elite is mandatory if you're planning to enslave everyone you conquer or use syncretic evolution.

since I've never taken this civic (and probably never will, cuz I mostly play megacorps or spiritualist(with exalted priesthood) if I play organics...and I always play with slavery or purges...
I guess I can safely say that this statement is not true. AE may be a strong pick but it's not mandatory.
as for stability - just go full crime. it's +10 stability for starter

 

[Matoro_TBS]

I tend to keep stability up with a lot of extra amenities from domestic servants. They don't need buildings, create their own jobs and take only little upkeep. Enough positive amenities -> rulers and specialists have close to 100% happiness -> stability is good. Aristocratic Elite is nice, but I don't usually take it because there's just so many other fun fun choices, including ones that don't gimp your unity.

In my experience crime is easy to deal with, but unfortunately that's not the main reason of low stability. If I conquer a fully xeno-inhabited world, for example, I'll be running a planet with 20~30 slaves while my main species ruler/specialist pops are only few because I want to minimize upkeep cost hit due to low hab (I'm talking about early to early-mid game here btw, once you have the right techs managing things get easier so no point discussing). On paper the situation should be fine with stratified economy and slave processing facility, but in reality it's not. It's usually way below the 40 stability line that prevents unrest events from happening. Before I wondered why, now I know it's because of a hidden game rule.

Wait, stratified society? Wouldn't you get better results if you actually enslaved the aliens? That way their opinions would matter even less. Authoritarians can enslave xenos just like xenophobes, and their faction is okay with that.

 

[Kryndude]

Wait, stratified society? Wouldn't you get better results if you actually enslaved the aliens? That way their opinions would matter even less. Authoritarians can enslave xenos just like xenophobes, and their faction is okay with that.

I was talking about rulers and specialists under stratified economy. Xenos are enslaved but they still get 50% political power which causes early game stability problems for slave empires.

 

[Adolf - Finite War]

Good rule of thumb with the new pop system is have 1 ruler (sub)species for every (domestic)slave (sub)species.
From what I have seen the game tries to balance the species so with two 50/50 with four 25/25/25/25 if you find a species you don't like just toggle population controls for them (and eventuall purge them) so that the don't fall into the pop ratios above...
I have worlds with 50-75% slaves and that works just fine - decent living conditions, a charismatic ruler and a tree of life + any other happiness bonus you can find also helps a lot.

 

[M@ni@c]

In my experience crime is easy to deal with, but unfortunately that's not the main reason of low stability.

I was more referring to the fact that enforcers are specialists, and so the combo of rulers plus enforcers seemed enough to offset slave unhappiness.
Anyway, I am currently playing a modded game where the 200%/50% limits on political power have been removed, and then it's way too easy to keep stability high, making nobles even more useless. So while I am in favour of removing the limits on how political power affects stability , in that case the effects of living standards on political power should be reduced.

 

[Kryndude]

I was more referring to the fact that enforcers are specialists, and so the combo of rulers plus enforcers seemed enough to offset slave unhappiness.
Anyway, I am currently playing a modded game where the 200%/50% limits on political power have been removed, and then it's way too easy to keep stability high, making nobles even more useless. So while I am in favour of removing the limits on how political power affects stability , in that case the effects of living standards on political power should be reduced.

Yes I agree. I wasn't complaining about the fact that it can be difficult to manage slaves at times but rather how the game doesn't explain its mechanism properly. Your suggestion would work fine.

 

[Slynx]

not sure that slaves can cause problems with stability. even with 300+ slaves on a planet (in vanilla) there is positive (50-70) stability. especially in the early game.
but in the worst case you can just resettle them. or purge. or release them as vassal, set them free and conquer\use colossus\etc. these variants usually solve all problems.

the only problem with slaves I've encountered is their ethics shift. sometimes even spiritualism can't solve it fast enough and it forces to spawn unneeded factions.

 

[AlanC9]

Two issues here, right? One is that the tooltip's wrong -- that's been reported as a bug, right? The other is that AE may be a bit overpowered. I've never played a slaver race without it, but I don't tend to play slavers too often.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

Two different but related topics here.

First, civics discussion. Aristorcate Elite is mandatory if you're planning to enslave everyone you conquer or use syncretic evolution. It'll be difficult to maintain positive stability without it, and even if you can you'll have to make huge investments just to prevent unrest from spinning out of control if you don't have AE. So AE isn't really a late game pick but rather an early game pick for slave empires that don't yet have nerve staples option.

Second, about the game not telling what the REAL game rule is. Now if the game worked as explained in the tooltip then slave empires should have absolutely no problem managing huge number of slaves without AE and the civic would've been worthless. Stratified economy means ruler pops have 1000% political power and specialists 200%. So as long as you keep them happy and build slave processing facility to further decrease slave political power, your planets should be very stable, like at least 70+ stability.

However currently the game limits happy pop's (51+ happiness) political power to 200%, and unhappy pop's (50- happiness) political power to 50%, and you have to search into game files to know that. What this means is that the in-game tooltip is lying in terms of what each stratum's political power is. It also tricks players into building slave processing facility when in fact it has no effect in improving planet stability because slave political power will be capped at 50% reagardless. It's just a slave output 5% building which is very weak.

There are individual threads that discuss each topic thoroughly, but I thought the two are worth mentioning again together in a seperate post. Also as you can probably see I'm kind of pissed that the game tells me inaccruate info. I know it's a PDX game so I'm okay with it being a bit incovnenient, but giving wrong info is just inacceptable imo.


How political power really works:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...roval-political-power-weighting-math.1138232/

Aristocratic Elite discussion:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tic-elite-is-not-strong-in-late-game.1148163/

I only use AE as an efficiency boost to get my stability to 100%. Realistically, a society with more than half its population as slaves is doomed to fail. Expecting this kind of government to succeed is only possible with some kind of extreme control, ie nerve stapling.

 

[The Founder]

However currently the game limits happy pop's (51+ happiness) political power to 200%, and unhappy pop's (50- happiness) political power to 50%, and you have to search into game files to know that. What this means is that the in-game tooltip is lying in terms of what each stratum's political power is. It also tricks players into building slave processing facility when in fact it has no effect in improving planet stability because slave political power will be capped at 50% reagardless. It's just a slave output 5% building which is very weak.

Can somebody please translate this for me? Right now I can not tell if he is making something up or just on the wrong way in the wrong reality

The idea behind the opressive Living Conditions is to have stability be more reliant on Ruler and Specialist Stratum.
There will be plenty of Specialists to begin with. And the Enforcers you need to counter the crime explicitly count as well.