Complex Factions Brainstorming

[HFY]

This is for a future Suggestion post.

Here's the basic issue:

IMHO, Factions should not represent a single Ethic, that's boring and removes a lot of potential nuance.

More complex factions can offer more interesting entities to engage with internally, and having a different subset of factions spawn in different games (even for the same empire) can improve replay value. These complex Factions are intended to represent political parties, which are a package of policies -- and not every member needs to agree with every policy, but every member has decided that THIS Faction represents them best.

When two Factions overlap -- and almost all of them do overlap somewhat -- only one should spawn inside any given Empire at a time, unless there's some kind of internal crisis event ongoing for that Empire.

Which specific Factions your Empire gets should vary across games, even for identical starting Empires.

Spoiler: Specific Faction Ideas (so far)

• Military-Industrial Complex
  Traits: Militarist, Pro-Industry, Pro-Trade
  Likes: Commercial Treaties, Conquest Wars, Military Buildings, Hegemony Federation (if on top)
  Dislikes: Other Federations, Non-Aggression Treaties, Not Being At Naval Cap, Not Conquering While At Naval Cap
  .
• The Peace Dividend
  Traits: Pacifist, Pro-Industry, Pro-Trade
  Likes: Commercial Treaties, Non-Aggression Treaties, Federations (except Hegemony)
  Dislikes: Hegemony Federation, Conquest Wars, Being At Naval Cap, Losing Ships or Armies
  .
• Noble Vanguard
  Traits: Authoritarian, Pro-Ruler Stratum
  Likes: Oligarchy, Feudal System, Corvee System, Stratified Economy, Aristocratic Elite
  Dislikes: Dictatorship, Meritocracy, Imperial Cult
  .
• True Equality Committee
  Traits: Egalitarian, Xenophile, Materialist
  Likes: Many Species on Colony, Robots with Full Citizenship, Migration and Research Treaties
  Dislikes: Slavery, Servitor Sapient AIs, Stratified Economy
  .
• Equal Before the Lord
  Traits: Egalitarian, Xenophile, Spiritualist
  Likes: Many Species on Colony, Migration Treaties, Xeno Priests
  Dislikes: Slavery, Robots, Stratified Economy
  .
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Aliens
  Traits: Authoritarian, Xenophile
  Likes: Many Species on Colony, Slavery, Xeno Slaves have Social Welfare
  Dislikes: Egalitarianism, Lack of Xeno Slaves, Treaties with empires that are "unethical" in their treatment of Xenos
  .
• Xeno Friendship Alliance
  Traits: Xenophile, Pacifist
  Likes: Many Species on Colony, Existence of Free Xenos on Colony (Resident / Full Citizen), all types of Treaties
  Dislikes: Bombardment killing an Alien Pop
  .
• Friendship By Any Means Necessary
  Traits: Xenophile, Militarist
  Likes: Many Species on Colony, Wars of Conquest, Migration Treaties
  Dislikes: Not Being at Fleet Cap, Not Being at War while at Fleet Cap, Non-Aggression Treaties
  .
• (FOUNDER) Superiority Council
  Traits: Xenophobe, Authoritarian
  Likes: Xeno Slaves, Stratified Economy, Local Rival
  Dislikes: (FOUNDER) Enslaved anywhere in the galaxy, Existence of Free Xenos on Colony, Below-Average Diplo Weight
  .
• (FOUNDER) Purity Polity
  Traits: Xenophobe, Spiritualist
  Likes: (FOUNDER) Priests, (FOUNDER) Rulers, Gene-Tailoring (FOUNDER) Projects
  Dislikes: Robots, Any Xenos on Colony, Half-(FOUNDER) anywhere in the galaxy
  .
• (FOUNDER) March of Progress
  Traits: Xenophobe, Materialist
  Likes: "Our" Robots, (FOUNDER) Scientists, Gene-Tailoring (FOUNDER) Projects, Robomodding Projects
  Dislikes: Any Xenos on Colony, Being Behind in Science, Research Treaties

As an example of using this, if your empire has the Merchant Guilds civic, you ought to quickly get either the Military-Industrial Complex -or- the Peace Dividend. Which one you get should influence your play going forward.

Likewise, if your Materialist Empire gets True Equality Committee, that's going to play out differently from (FOUNDER) March of Progress.


Obviously I have not covered every Ethic combo, nor even most of them -- quite a lot of design space is open for this.

I'd like some help with that design.

Please propose complex Factions which could fit into this scheme, and I'll compile them into a Suggestion post later.

 

[mial42]

Two quick faction ideas:
1) Some sort of authoritarian/materialist faction that likes servitude robots, but not full citizens.
2) Spiritualist/Authoritarian "divine right" faction that really loves imperial cult, stratified economy, and priests. Agnostic to slaves and robots; they want divinely-sanctioned hierarchy but don't necessarily need slaves or hate robots.

Also, I would make your "likes filling navy cap," just require some high percentage (>90%) filled and your "dislikes filled navy cap" demands shouldn't exist, because that (perversely) incentivizes investing into even more navy cap so you can have a decent fleet without pissing them off. Instead, have them dislike the things that give you navy cap (like taking Supremacy without having all other trees, making strongholds, building a strategic coordination center, or building lots of anchorages. The last one would be best combined with letting everyone have solar panels, so there's a generalist "economy" starbase that everyone can build instead of having anchorages as the default).

 

[HFY]

Two quick faction ideas:
1) Some sort of authoritarian/materialist faction that likes servitude robots, but not full citizens.
2) Spiritualist/Authoritarian "divine right" faction that really loves imperial cult, stratified economy, and priests. Agnostic to slaves and robots; they want divinely-sanctioned hierarchy but don't necessarily need slaves or hate robots.

Also, I would make your "likes filling navy cap," just require some high percentage (>90%) filled and your "dislikes filled navy cap" demands shouldn't exist, because that (perversely) incentivizes investing into even more navy cap so you can have a decent fleet without pissing them off. Instead, have them dislike the things that give you navy cap (like taking Supremacy without having all other trees, making strongholds, building a strategic coordination center, or building lots of anchorages. The last one would be best combined with letting everyone have solar panels, so there's a generalist "economy" starbase that everyone can build instead of having anchorages as the default).

Great points.

Instead of looking at navy cap in particular, what about the faction wanting a stronger-than-average navy?

Similar to having a stronger-than-average research level, it's a thing which scales up with your neighbors. Perhaps also with a decay so losing some fleet in a war isn't necessarily penalized if you build it up again.

 

[BrokenSky]

Brainstorming, so no guarantees any of these are well thought out (feel free to scavenge through for ideas you like and rework whatever for your suggestion).

Lets say factions represent interest groups (both primarily political such as xeno friendship alliance and also non-political entities with a stake in politics such as the military industrial complex or Stockholder's Alliance). I feel like in support of this we probably want more policies which mostly exist to appease factions and provide minor bonuses (e.g. FTL Credit trading - also props to anyone who remembers that). It would also be interesting I think if factions liked certain GC resolutions and were happy if they were passed (and upset if you oppose / vote to repeal them) or upset if they pass (and happy if you oppose / vote to repeal them)

* The Civil Service
(primarily attracts Administrators and Beurocrats, regardless of ethic)
Likes: Building more administrative buildings, Byzantine Bureaucracy civic, being at (or better, over) edict capacity
Dislikes: Any Civics which replace administrators, Imperial authority type, Efficient Bureaucracy civic, running significantly less than max edicts, running no edicts

* National Worker's League
(Egalitarian, Xenophobe, Non-Materialist)
Likes: High living standards (social welfare or utopian abundance) for primary species, high living standards for all citizen species, Divinity of life GC at least level 1 passed.
Dislikes: Unemployment (unless living standards are high), migration treaties, robots allowed (regardless of rights)

* Populist Front
(Attracts: unhappy lower strata pops, especially unemployed without high living standards and unemployed ruler or specialist pops)
Likes: recent major government change (embrace an ethic or change authority type) - all likes should be temporary things ("recent ___")
Dislikes: The current government (malus cannot be removed, but can be mitigated via doing things the faction likes)
Additional: might get events on planets with a lot of pops in this faction reducing stability?

^This faction exists to compound existing political problems - you should be mitigating the issues which cause pops to join it, rather than appease it; in a similar vein, single issue factions might be good:
> Minor / single issue factions
[Non-primary species] right's league (want citizenship and/or higher living standard for specifically one species)
[Building] for [Planet] (if there are a lot of spiritualists, a temple. If amenities are low an entertainment building etc.)
[Species] independence faction (self explanatory - basically a separatist faction)

> Policies which mainly exist for factions to fight over might look something like:
* State policy on religion:
- State religion only (Spiritualist, Authoritarian, Xenophobe) (priests give gov. ethic attraction) [spiritualist req]
- State religion promoted but others tolerated (Spiritualist, Authoritarian) (priests give more amenities) [spiritualist req]
- State Pluralism (Spiritualist, Xenophile) (priests give more unity, culture workers give amenities - small amount)
- State Secularism (Materialist) (culture workers give more unity)
- State Atheism (Materialist, Authoritarian) (culture workers give gov. ethic attraction) [materialist req]

* FTL Credit Trading
- FTL Stock Trading (more trade value, higher chance of negative economy events, including worse events)
- Credit exchange only (slightly increased trade value, small chance of negative economy events)
- Prohibited (nothing)

 

[Jamaican Castle]

Perhaps also with a decay so losing some fleet in a war isn't necessarily penalized if you build it up again.

On the other hand, I could see factions (especially isolationists) who want you to have a big fleet that you sit on and don't overuse. After all, if they think you need a fleet to repel the hordes of Empire A, they're not going to be happy with you risking that fleet in combat with Empire B, even if you think there are long-term benefits.

 

[Pancakelord]

every Ethic combo

wouldnt there be 48+56 = 104 possible combinations?
48 fanatic combos (8 ethics, with 6 valid minor ethics, per fanatic ethos, so 6*8)
and I want to say 56 possible unique non-fanatic (or triple ethos) combos? [56 = 8!/{3!*(8-3)!}]

[As, 8*6*4 = 192 non-unique, valid, triple-ethic combos]​

These complex Factions are intended to represent political parties, which are a package of policies -- and not every member needs to agree with every policy, but every member has decided that THIS Faction represents them best.

I'd also argue that some policies could be contingent on a given political party being dominant. Maybe a trade conversion policy gives you 50% alloys, 50% EC "Military-civil fusion" - but requires the industrialists (or maybe one of a few similar ones) to be a majority party in your empire, for it to be a valid pick (hard-defaulting back to pure energy if they lose their political dominance).

• As, the parties would need to offer more than influence for me to engage with them on an active level.
• The other side being "negative parties" that you want to suppress, but frequently rise up - e.g. populists on any worlds with unhappy [<50%] pops AND <150% amenities.

When two Factions overlap -- and almost all of them do overlap somewhat -- only one should spawn inside any given Empire at a time, unless there's some kind of internal crisis event ongoing for that Empire.

There may be one way to more intelligently resolve which one spawns - weight them by planet specialisation [or present jobs of category X on a world] & potentially average stability over the last year (to decide if its a positive or negative faction).

• So industrialists are more likely to arise on stable Forge/factory worlds,
• whilst, IDK, an Anarco-Vegetarian movement that wants to consume plantoids might arise on an agri world with low stability.

Could this be exploited by flipping specialisations or building/demolishing certain jobs? Sure, its practically a tradition at this point to game the mechanics.
But Ignoring the flipping issue for a moment, this could lead to people thinking beyond just min-maxing resource worlds, instead thinking about the political bonuses, or politically-locked mechanics they could get, too.

• You might want to get a refinery world going early just to lock in that tasty mote-trade conversion,
• or a special "clear borders" CB (basically what the Xenophobe FE gets) from the "Ultranationalist party" - usable even by pacifists.
• Having a strong "Banking Lobby party" might lead to their members only working trade jobs - at lower TV output/efficiency, but each one then increases the efficiency of all other jobs on that world (clerks and merchants lending to businesses).

 

[HFY]

* The Civil Service

Eh, Edicts are so good in 3.0 that I can't justify not running max all the time. Seems like a freebie for most empires, or a hassle for a few concepts.

* National Worker's League

Why does a 'Phobe want other non-founder citizen species?

* Populist Front

Hmm! This is good. It's always vaguely unhappy. It might be happy when a new ruler takes over, and then slowly becomes less happy with that ruler over time. Tolerable in a Democracy, horrendous in a Imperial empire.

* FTL Credit Trading

Hmm, some good ideas in this. The negative Economic events would cause unhappiness disproportionately on the Worker stratum, driving them into the Populist Front (or other revolutionary Factions).

> Minor / single issue factions

This system is replacing those

I'm interested in single-species factions (like the various FOUNDER stuff I posted above) but not if the species is their only issue.

e.g. here's a horrible one for example:

SPACE ELF LOVE UNION
Traits: Xenophile, Authoritarian, Space Elves
Likes: Space Elf Domestic Servants on Colony, Xenocompatibility perk, Half-Elf Species in Empire
Dislikes: Domestic Servant lifestyle below Decent Conditions, Species with the Repugnant Trait on Colony
​

On the other hand, I could see factions (especially isolationists) who want you to have a big fleet that you sit on and don't overuse.

Yeah, some kind of Peace Through Power Party which demands that you have a big stick and also speak softy.

wouldnt there be 48+56 = 104 possible combinations?
48 fanatic combos (8 ethics, with 6 valid minor ethics, per fanatic ethos, so 6*8)
and I want to say 56 possible unique non-fanatic (or triple ethos) combos? [56 = 8!/{3!*(8-3)!}]
[As, 8*6*4 = 192 non-unique, valid, triple-ethic combos]

Some of the two-ethic combos will be subsumed into a three-ethic combo, and some three-ethic combos might not be worth making.

I do not expect to fill out every possible combo, please don't feel like you'd need to do that much work in order to participate.

I'd also argue that some policies could be contingent on a given political party being dominant. Maybe a trade conversion policy gives you 50% alloys, 50% EC "Military-civil fusion" - but requires the industrialists (or maybe one of a few similar ones) to be a majority party in your empire, for it to be a valid pick (hard-defaulting back to pure energy if they lose their political dominance).

Hmm, and then perhaps part of the price is that the faction you "edict-ify" becomes significantly more influential so long as the edict is in effect -- you make them a de fecto part of the government by leveraging them for the edict effect.

This might be considered "boosting" a faction.

its practically a tradition at this point to game the mechanics

I mean it is a game.

Gaming the mechanics should be valid when doing so tends to be fun.

 

[TrotBot]

this would be great, and I'd love to see it tie into the empire mechanics in some late game commie crisis kind of way hint hint, like you form a galactic federation based on the fanatic version of all of the politics of whichever faction you decide to elevate on the galactic scale and start a universal liberation war with. if an egalitarian faction, it's a federation with an elected president, if authoritarian it's an empire.



as for the local politics, I would like for the player to also be able to form the faction they prefer if they want to spend the influence on it and it didn't spawn, with the complexity that it would now lead to the political events/crises you spoke of.

 

[BrokenSky]

Eh, Edicts are so good in 3.0 that I can't justify not running max all the time. Seems like a freebie for most empires, or a hassle for a few concepts.

Potentially. Mostly what I was thinking was "they like stuff which gives the Beurocracy more stuff to do, and hence power", for which this seemed thematic, but if you think it's too easy maybe have "above edicts cap = good", "at cap = nothing", "below cap = bad", "far below cap / at zero = very bad"?

Why does a 'Phobe want other non-founder citizen species?

Yeah, you right that doesn't make much sense - what I was thinking was "they want rights for all citizen species, but not for, say, residence species", but there are better ways of doing that. As I said, feel free to take the ideas apart and just steal the good bits : P

This system is replacing those

I'm interested in single-species factions (like the various FOUNDER stuff I posted above) but not if the species is their only issue.

e.g. here's a horrible one for example:

SPACE ELF LOVE UNION
Traits: Xenophile, Authoritarian, Space Elves
Likes: Space Elf Domestic Servants on Colony, Xenocompatibility perk, Half-Elf Species in Empire
Dislikes: Domestic Servant lifestyle below Decent Conditions, Species with the Repugnant Trait on Colony
​

I mean the main idea of single-issue factions is that that don't have "likes" - similar to populists, they're unhappy by default, but unlike populists instead of temporarily appeasing them, you'd either give them what they want (at which point pops would be attracted to other factions where they could be appeased) or you try to remove the reason they're attracted to the faction.

So like for example a "Temple for Mog-Saperon" faction wants you to have at least one temple building on the planet Mog-Saperon, and will be unhappy until this issue is fulfilled. It strongly attracts spiritualist pops on the planet Mog-Saperon, with a weaker attraction if happy (although stronger if they're priests), as well as a weak attraction for spiritualist pops in nearby planets (same system has low attraction, same sector even lower but you might get a few pops in support). You can of course appease them by building the temple (which will set the attraction to zero so they faction will disband quite quickly), or alternatively you can convert the pops away from spiritualism or make them very happy in other ways to get them to leave the faction. Or you tolerate the unhappy faction because it is by its nature always going to be small (but since many of its pops are concentrated on a single planet it may cause unrest there).

That's sort of the idea for minor factions I was thinking of - I was mainly influenced by single-issue-parties (other examples might be things like "get this GC resolution repealed or leave the GC" factions). To be honest some of the examples I gave yesterday weren't the best at representing what I was talking about.

 

[Iosue Yu]

I'd actually say that one Faction should only have 1 agendum. It'd be way too complicated to manage.

So if your group is a Commerce Union, then anything to increase Trade Values and commercial freedom. If it's a Trade Union, then anything to make workers happy.

The way it is right now that Factions are assigned to 1 Ethic would be very compatible with each Faction having multiple agenda, because those things are things those Factions want.

But if you want to decouple Factions and Ethics, then each Faction may just want 1 thing as their primary Agendum, like what we have today. Having a clear theme would make things more memorable.