Detailed Ethos Analysis or What Devs Must Fix Before Its Too Late

[Faycron]

1. Collectivism vs Individualism

Collectivism makes pop prefer direct control of them, so they are ok with manual relocation, slavery (fanatic collectivists have 100% tolerance to slavery) and other authoritarian methods of governing. Considering the fact, that collectivists consume less food and its easy to use slaves, that have bonus to food and minerals, collectivists enjoy great population growth and better mineral output than other nations. Normal collectivists have no downsides, but they have slight problems with slavery (only 50% tolerance) and fanatical collectivists' only disadvantage is inability to get anything besides authoriatian governments, hence they lack agenda bonuses and instead get pathetic prestige things.

Individualists have only one innate bonus: more energy. Considering that energy is rarely used and mostly needed for maintenance its way weaker than food and mineral bonuses collectivists get. Individualism also is hampered by increased ethic divergence (more factions, less happiness) and inability to use slaves or (if u got decadent) to tolerate slaves, which will make your pops unhappy if you do use them that way.

Verdict: Collectivism is vastly overpowered. 10 to 1

2. Materialism vs Spiritualism

Materialism provides you with bonus to research, two best government in the game (Scientific Directorate and Despotic Hegemony) which let you outtech all you opponents easily, also Materialists are the only people who will accept robot rights, which will make you empire able to colonise every planet easily with minimum hassle.

Spiritualists are decent with happiness bonus, psy techs, strong Divine Mandate, but compared to Materialist still a bit luckluster without a good deal breaking buff.

Verdict: Materialism wins slightly. 6 to 4

3. Militarism vs Pacifism

Militarists get strong armies, people being happy when in war. Considering that you will have to fight wars almost every game at least a few times, militarists are in a greatly advantageous position: they can sustain long wars because of people being happy from war and tolerant to WE, while your armies will be competent and strong to capture planets with minimal support compared to non-militarists.

Pacifist pops get a great deal of negative modifiers to war happiness and tolerance and bonus to food. Pacifism is very weak as it is, considering, that unless you play in a depopulated galaxy you will hit maximum pops per you planets with extra food, but you wont be able to get new once, because your armies will be very weak and your people will start rebelling if you dont win fast enough.

Verdict: Militarism trumps pacifism. 10 to 1.

4. Xenophile vs Xenophoby

Xenophile is a strong ethos if you dont plan on using slaves, because it makes your people ok to integrate aliens and makes them happy to have alien friends nearby. Considering that having aliens is beneficial to your empire (you can colonize every planet with right set of aliens) and that you will probably have some nearly every game its one of the strongest ethoses.

Xenophoby gives you bonus to slave tolerance but your people will have trouble living alongside aliens, so enslaving them will still lower your pops happiness. On the other hand you can purge aliens, but those aliense will hate you for that, so no allies, pop revolutions and other negative stuff. So unless xenophoby gets lots of strong unique techs, it's a useless ethos compared to collectivism, that hampers you more than helps.

Verdict: Xenophiles win. 10 to 1.


TOTAL CONCLUSION:
Buff individualism, spiritualism, xenophoby, and pacifism, unless you want every competetive game devolve into 90% materialist/collectivist/militarist/xenophile scientific directorates/despotic hegemony.

 

[Incomptinence]

Xenophobes don't care about other species nearby if they are enslaved. Also unlikely to migrate to enemy colonies due to they greater unhappiness there.

 

[Yenzen]

"Must"?

Play the bloody game before making demands, you don't know how ethoses really affect the game beyond the tidbits we've seen. Actually, don't make demands at all, make polite discussion.

 

[Amightypie]

make this request/complaint when the game comes out and we actually get hands ons what the balance is

 

[vipic]

LOL I love that you've made this thread. With the massive amounts of experience you have in playing the game AKA: watching the one Blorg stream that has been released im sure you know exactly how all these factors will play out.

Like this lovely tidbit here "Verdict: Collectivism is vastly overpowered. 10 to 1." Considering you have never played any of these and are just randomly guessing I find this quite funny.

This is like me watching the beta builds of Europa Universalis and going, look admin tech is vastly overpowered compared to the other techs because it gives you ideas and they are the most important part of the game.

This would indicate id never played the game, just like you have never played Stellaris.

Just wait, put 500+ hours in the game, than comment on what needs to be changed.

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

Come back in three weeks. Then a productive conversation about any potential imbalances might actually be possible.
You know, when there's solid facts (many things may have changed since they went on the wiki) and people's actual experiences with playing the game to inform our opinions.
Until then this can only be another flame thread full of wild conjecture.

 

[Incomptinence]

I will say I disagree with almost all of this other than individualism.

Sacrificing your own freedom as a player for an unstable bonus is pretty wonky and the only government that also increases energy bonus is incompatible with fanatic individualist.

 

[Chaos_TLW]

Another Faycron(TM) quality post, I see.

2. Materialism vs Spiritualism

Materialism provides you with bonus to research, two best government in the game (Scientific Directorate and Despotic Hegemony) which let you outtech all you opponents easily, also Materialists are the only people who will accept robot rights, which will make you empire able to colonise every planet easily with minimum hassle.

Spiritualists are decent with happiness bonus, psy techs, strong Divine Mandate, but compared to Materialist still a bit luckluster without a good deal breaking buff.

Verdict: Materialism wins slightly. 6 to 4

I'll have to disagree with this. On the surface Spiritualist actually seems to be a very very good choice. The happiness boost will decrease rebelions and increase all of your productions, including, apparently, research output, so you actually get the bonus of Materialist and *more*. I think Materialism will get the upper-hand through indirect bonuses, such as cybernetics and earlier/cheaper/easier robot pops.
In terms of government, all of Spiritualist governments seem quite strong, but we'll need to see what fluff differentiates Theocratic Oligarchy and Republic from each other. Science Directorate is pretty powerful in a vacuum(+33% chance of drawing rare techs? Yes please!) but you need to take into account the opportunity cost. I am personally attracted to the potential flexibility of democracies, although we haven't actually seen one in action.
Direct Democracy is potentially a very strong buff for early expansionism and snowballing is the most basic strategy there is, but I saw mentioned around the forums that it has been nerfed. No confirmation, though.
Despotic Hegemony seems a bit lackluster, IMO. The research speed bonus is nice, but you are stuck with a life-long ruler(no flexibility) and a... special assault army? Doesn't seem particularly important compared to the -10% ethics divergence Mausoleum from Divine Mandate or the massive +10% happiness Park from Enlightened Monarchy.

4. Xenophile vs Xenophoby

Xenophile is a strong ethos if you dont plan on using slaves, because it makes your people ok to integrate aliens and makes them happy to have alien friends nearby. Considering that having aliens is beneficial to your empire (you can colonize every planet with right set of aliens) and that you will probably have some nearly every game its one of the strongest ethoses.

Xenophoby gives you bonus to slave tolerance but your people will have trouble living alongside aliens, so enslaving them will still lower your pops happiness. On the other hand you can purge aliens, but those aliense will hate you for that, so no allies, pop revolutions and other negative stuff. So unless xenophoby gets lots of strong unique techs, it's a useless ethos compared to collectivism, that hampers you more than helps.

Verdict: Xenophiles win. 10 to 1.

Has been disproven by a recent Wiz tweet. Again, you are just looking at surface numbers, when Ethos has deeper effects than that. For starters, you get cheaper military conquests and a supposed super-duper special OP unique tech.

 

[Hull-Tanker]

Hahahha, OP you are truly a shitposter that keeps on delivering

 

[tilcir]

I am not sure what I expected

 

[corny.1234]

"Must"?

Play the bloody game before making demands, you don't know how ethoses really affect the game beyond the tidbits we've seen. Actually, don't make demands at all, make polite discussion.

But he said it's 10 to 1 overpowered!

 

[Caspoi]

I thought that he was banned.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Didn't Faycron get banned?

 

[Njordin]

I thought that he was banned.

i thought that, too. maybe 24h ban? ban again plz, forever. obvious troll is obvious, and no i´m not "fanboying" but OPs posts are just not very constructive and often impolite/hateful.

 

[Gaussia]

I think it is very naive to that the Ethos stats that we latest saw quite a while back is even meant to be the final one.

The yare currently in that stage of development were they balance things like this. What we saw earlier on most likely only illustrated what types of bonuses one could expect. We have no ide what so ever how thoose bonuses acctually will look at release.

 

[Oscot]

1. Collectivism vs Individualism

Collectivism makes pop prefer direct control of them, so they are ok with manual relocation, slavery (fanatic collectivists have 100% tolerance to slavery) and other authoritarian methods of governing. Considering the fact, that collectivists consume less food and its easy to use slaves, that have bonus to food and minerals, collectivists enjoy great population growth and better mineral output than other nations. Normal collectivists have no downsides, but they have slight problems with slavery (only 50% tolerance) and fanatical collectivists' only disadvantage is inability to get anything besides authoriatian governments, hence they lack agenda bonuses and instead get pathetic prestige things.

Individualists have only one innate bonus: more energy. Considering that energy is rarely used and mostly needed for maintenance its way weaker than food and mineral bonuses collectivists get. Individualism also is hampered by increased ethic divergence (more factions, less happiness) and inability to use slaves or (if u got decadent) to tolerate slaves, which will make your pops unhappy if you do use them that way.

Verdict: Collectivism is vastly overpowered. 10 to 1

2. Materialism vs Spiritualism

Materialism provides you with bonus to research, two best government in the game (Scientific Directorate and Despotic Hegemony) which let you outtech all you opponents easily, also Materialists are the only people who will accept robot rights, which will make you empire able to colonise every planet easily with minimum hassle.

Spiritualists are decent with happiness bonus, psy techs, strong Divine Mandate, but compared to Materialist still a bit luckluster without a good deal breaking buff.

Verdict: Materialism wins slightly. 6 to 4

3. Militarism vs Pacifism

Militarists get strong armies, people being happy when in war. Considering that you will have to fight wars almost every game at least a few times, militarists are in a greatly advantageous position: they can sustain long wars because of people being happy from war and tolerant to WE, while your armies will be competent and strong to capture planets with minimal support compared to non-militarists.

Pacifist pops get a great deal of negative modifiers to war happiness and tolerance and bonus to food. Pacifism is very weak as it is, considering, that unless you play in a depopulated galaxy you will hit maximum pops per you planets with extra food, but you wont be able to get new once, because your armies will be very weak and your people will start rebelling if you dont win fast enough.

Verdict: Militarism trumps pacifism. 10 to 1.

4. Xenophile vs Xenophoby

Xenophile is a strong ethos if you dont plan on using slaves, because it makes your people ok to integrate aliens and makes them happy to have alien friends nearby. Considering that having aliens is beneficial to your empire (you can colonize every planet with right set of aliens) and that you will probably have some nearly every game its one of the strongest ethoses.

Xenophoby gives you bonus to slave tolerance but your people will have trouble living alongside aliens, so enslaving them will still lower your pops happiness. On the other hand you can purge aliens, but those aliense will hate you for that, so no allies, pop revolutions and other negative stuff. So unless xenophoby gets lots of strong unique techs, it's a useless ethos compared to collectivism, that hampers you more than helps.

Verdict: Xenophiles win. 10 to 1.


TOTAL CONCLUSION:
Buff individualism, spiritualism, xenophoby, and pacifism, unless you want every competetive game devolve into 90% materialist/collectivist/militarist/xenophile scientific directorates/despotic hegemony.

I agree with almost all these analyses. I think you have assiduously and correctly identified some glaring differences in ethos strength and should be applauded for your perspicacity. It is truly beyond my why everyone downvoted you, other than perhaps jealousy that they weren't as perceptive.

However, I don't care about balance, and in fact prefer that there be underpowered builds available for the challenge. Playing collectivist/militarist/xenophile is like starting a CK2 game as the Abbasids: you're just here for the steamroller. Playing individualist/pacifist/xenophobe is like starting an EUIV game as the Shawnee: you're a masochist and enjoy the taste of defeat.

So I agree with your analysis, but disagree with your solution. Still 10/10 analysis though.

 

[tilcir]

I think it is very naive to that the Ethos stats that we latest saw quite a while back is even meant to be the final one.

The yare currently in that stage of development were they balance things like this. What we saw earlier on most likely only illustrated what types of bonuses one could expect. We have no ide what so ever how thoose bonuses acctually will look at release.

You are wrong.

Feycron obviously already know everything there is to know about the game.

 

[Hull-Tanker]

You are wrong.

Feycron obviously already know everything there is to know about the game.

Yes, you can even read it in his OP.

Collectivism is obviously OP.

DONT YOU GET IT YOU PLEBS?

 

[SobakenKusaken]

Well, everything is still purely speculative.
But from what we've seen so far, I think individualism indeed looks underpowered, two negative modifiers and just one positive. Maybe they have some cool edicts though.
And xenophobia/xenophilia are both quite strange, you don't really need either to be able to populate worlds of other types than your own with aliens.

 

[vipic]

Wow, I was actually lame enough to read through OPs previous posts. I dont think he is trolling, he really does belive he understands how the game works just from watching one stream, of one game, in the beta build.

Edit: @OP I mean there is so much we have no idea about, for example there are many other gov types that depend on ethos you can only switch to later (We have no idea what those are by the way), there are late game techs that depend on ethos, which surprise, we have no idea about.