Well it wont be since they will have a harder time working all the planets in their space.
Diversity: Overpowered?
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Just a crazy idea I just had in a micro-drunk state. I hope there is a mind-control tech or brainwashing tech such that you can work on conquered species such that you can force them to become your ethos. I imagen the great drawback is that while it probably gives an immense happiness boost shortly after to a pop, it'd give a more significant penalty afterward on a more "normalized" pop that has been through a few generations, so your native population is pissed. I imagen it'd be an edict you can use.
Uhh, I kinda doubt that one of the pillars of the world's economy is "based on a lie".
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Ok a bluff if you will, the bluf that japan can actually pay that debt back. Than again the same goes for the US.
![[Q]uik](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/styles/paradox/owneditems/avatars/v2avatars/s/SWE_communist.png){kind=avatar}
Sure you may get a "production boost" (let's for argument sake say you get +20% to your core species - but -20% to all the others)
Having more people to cover a wider array of planets will still give you better production rates. That's just how it works.
Having more people to cover a wider array of planets will still give you better production rates. That's just how it works.
As for the whole xenophobia vs xenophilia is productive argument, I think is coming from the wrong angle. It is economically growing and abundant that tend to grow more xenophilic and welcoming, whereas stagnating or collapsing economies grow more xenophobic. It is more apparent for the ones hit hardest by economic downturns who always find something to blame, that someone is often a xeno. It also worth noting that this is all from a human perspective and there is no gaurantee it will hold true for aliens.
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That assumes that the debt will ever be called in, which it will never be because then everyone will be in the shit. Debt works differently for countries than it does people, especially big important countries.
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We'd all like to have this, but unfortunately the current game doesn't support it--you either target all xenos or not at all. You can individually purge/resettle, but that's it.
Ehh, I don't know about using those places/cities as examples of "safest" parts of Murica... I was there during the LA Riots, and Chiraq has been a sick running gag for quite some time.
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If you think about the world economy today, RGOs in remote regions (oil rigs, wells, mines) actually have very few workers. They're mostly mechanised. Meanwhile, the amount of GDP created in cities like New York, Tokyo, or Hong Kong far outweighs that of less populated, more resource-intensive regions.
In space, you're likely to see "tall" planets (Coruscant), and those where machines do most of the work (Mustafar). What I'm basically saying is that the output of a ship production factory would be mostly affected by how well the engineers, technicians, and end-users can communicate and understand each other's needs, along with how standardised they can make each design (remember that diverse empires need to make adjustable cockpits which fit mushrooms, galactic goop, and giant reptiles, and systems in multiple languages).
In the areas where production matters, you get better results. Plus, it would work well within the context of the game, having a trade-off between research, and production. Obviously there would be other factors influencing both, but it's a reasonable trade-off.
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Marxists are powerful in the forums i see.
Look, regardless of one's silly ideology there must be some balance between ethos or everyone will take one over other in multiplayer, degrading the experience for everyone.
Xenophiles might care that someone is purging a planet but non xenophiles... Why? Specially xenophobes, why should they care that they are cleansing a planet from a infestation? Diplomatic impact should be balanced around ethos. Internally a homogeneous society should be both more productive and stable PER POP(think like tall vs wide) But xenophiles should be able to grow faster albeit less efficient, because they are integrating more pops directly
Assimilating them shouldn't also be so fast that second pops are perfectly fine. If something show us Europe or america state right now is that idea is utopic fantasy, but let's forget it for the sake of the game and lest assume they integrate somewhat. The furthest an alien ethos is from the host ethos, the longer and the less likely is for that alien to integrate.
It might not sound utopic enough for you but it's both realistic, balanced and each gives different play styles and "diversity" in the game.
Look, regardless of one's silly ideology there must be some balance between ethos or everyone will take one over other in multiplayer, degrading the experience for everyone.
Xenophiles might care that someone is purging a planet but non xenophiles... Why? Specially xenophobes, why should they care that they are cleansing a planet from a infestation? Diplomatic impact should be balanced around ethos. Internally a homogeneous society should be both more productive and stable PER POP(think like tall vs wide) But xenophiles should be able to grow faster albeit less efficient, because they are integrating more pops directly
Assimilating them shouldn't also be so fast that second pops are perfectly fine. If something show us Europe or america state right now is that idea is utopic fantasy, but let's forget it for the sake of the game and lest assume they integrate somewhat. The furthest an alien ethos is from the host ethos, the longer and the less likely is for that alien to integrate.
It might not sound utopic enough for you but it's both realistic, balanced and each gives different play styles and "diversity" in the game.
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You're literally just describing human nature, and then trying to apply it to aliens, which seems absurd. If this is a galactic rule, why not just get rid of it as a value, because there would be a "right" answer?
No, logic dictates that homogeneity itself (not what drives manyt people to want homogeneity) has benefits, as does heterogeneity. They may not actually be all that big at all, and are statistically unproven (where are we going to find 100 other species to measure how it affects lifeforms "in general"?
) so we may as well just go with something which makes sense, and is balanced for game purposes.There's a tendency to use human society as evidence for how alien societies should function, but this misses the point a bit.
I agree, and it's a shame because they seem to want to turn the game into some sort of political propaganda piece, rather than something balanced and fun to play.
In a good strategy game, there is no universal "right choice". There are only trade-offs, which may or may not be right for a given situation.
Let's leave our own politics out of this thread and try to think like neutral game designers.
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state dept is not meant to be paid back (just meant to be backed by political / economical / military power), never was if you´d could ask the inventors of this system and they would give you an honest answer. only YOU have to pay your depts.
Since the inventing of lending, lending was used to also put pressure on states / humans. Dept is an substantial motor for our current progress, as it is brutal and "natural selecting" the "weak".
to the topic itself:
i want this game to be free of political correctness or ideology. no in fact i want it full of ideology, all ideologies and please proper balanced for gameplay and not for the satisfactory of some individual sjws. i trust in the player of paradox titles that he/she has his/her own moral compass and censorship or premade opinions were never good for educating people.
Since the inventing of lending, lending was used to also put pressure on states / humans. Dept is an substantial motor for our current progress, as it is brutal and "natural selecting" the "weak".
to the topic itself:
i want this game to be free of political correctness or ideology. no in fact i want it full of ideology, all ideologies and please proper balanced for gameplay and not for the satisfactory of some individual sjws. i trust in the player of paradox titles that he/she has his/her own moral compass and censorship or premade opinions were never good for educating people.
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There should be a balance between the two (though they may be balanced currently already because I don't really see much going for xenophilia besides home-population happiness for foreigners, and they can always get pissed off by other things easily). The mindset to balancing xenophobia and xenophilia should be in likes of comparing the British Empire with Japan, rather than comparing the United States with Nazi Germany. The latter comparison insinuates a definite "good guy" and "bad guy", while the former comparison is pretty neutral because both the British and Japanese did reprehensible and admirable things around their beliefs. The British were indeed xenophilic because they incorporated a lot of the culture they conquered as much as they enforced their culture upon them (especially when noting the popularity of orientalism in Britain in the 19th and 20th century). Meanwhile Japan is very xenophobic, but they also don't actively hate everyone else. Hell, I even consider myself liberal, but I would also hate any pushing of political position in this game. After all, this is SPACE politics, between SPACE ALIENS, not HUMAN politics between HUMANS.
It should work similarly in space. You are xenophilic because you WANT foreign culture in your empire, and you will even go to war for it. You are xenophobe because you DON'T want anything to do with foreigners, embodying "xenophobia" in its most literal sense "fear of what is foreign or alien" as opposed to the stereotypical domineering attitude that is associated with xenophobia. Naturally, as a result, game-play wise this should reflect that xenophiles are better adapted for expansion and conquest, while xenophobes are better adapted to building tall, and making a sole homeworld as powerful as a medium sized space empire.
It should work similarly in space. You are xenophilic because you WANT foreign culture in your empire, and you will even go to war for it. You are xenophobe because you DON'T want anything to do with foreigners, embodying "xenophobia" in its most literal sense "fear of what is foreign or alien" as opposed to the stereotypical domineering attitude that is associated with xenophobia. Naturally, as a result, game-play wise this should reflect that xenophiles are better adapted for expansion and conquest, while xenophobes are better adapted to building tall, and making a sole homeworld as powerful as a medium sized space empire.
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Remote regions are remote planets are very diffrent things, also you take what humanity has done which is very much based in our culture and our inherent mental aspects and rising it up to common law.
Note that I am not referring to human nature here, but economic efficiency, which is more or less a universal law (nothing about my argument involved the human psychology - it was purely material in that it relies upon the assumption that machines are better at crafting spaceship parts than lifeforms). And look, if you want to go into the abstract realms of super-productive aliens, or such, we may as well just give up on the concept of this being a "game" altogether, because there would be no hard mechanics to speak of.
I also gave the Star Wars example.
Consider it this way: I've proposed a way to make a game mechanic both easy to understand and balanced, and I've provided a very logical rationale behind it. Why are you reaching so hard to find some abstract flaw in it? I suppose you plan on making all of your empires "xenophiles" and want to win easily?
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But couldn't you argue that being less creative leads to less technological growth and with it lower long-run economic growth? In the short-run, homogeneity would be better for production, but by having less creativity, you get less long-term economic growth. You're right that there should be a diplomatic penalty though, but you could also argue that xenophobia = less intergalactic trade = less production as well.
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Who needs diversity when you can enslave/purge your Xenos? Their "diversity" won't matter when they are working in your mineral mines and fighting your wars!
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Absolutely!
Your ships may not be as high-tech, but you'll be able to make more of them!
Obviously this would again need to be balanced so it's not an unreasonably large difference (and yes, so growth doesn't mean that tech research is OP). Basically, I'm saying that if this were GalCiv 3, xenophobic would get more "red"/production points and xenophiles would get more "blue"/research points. You get a nice quantity vs quality mechanic going on.
As for trade, I think it's a needless complication. It's a fair point, but I just think it's one which is hard to quantify, and theoretically, any race which doesn't trade is ripe for conquest in the long run anyway, given its tremendous benefits to growth. It's a game at the end of the day, and balancing the mechanics takes precedence over being economically accurate (especially in a space game which already includes strong elements of fantasy).
If you can think of a more perfect balance between xenophobia and xenophilia as ethic choices, then be my guest. I'm not a game designer, but I did my best!
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But consider also that some races are just shy.
Their societies will always be homogenous (which I think requires xenophobia in the game), but they might be peaceful.
The Nox from Stargate are a prime example of this.
"Isolationist and non-interventionist in the extreme, they feel morally obligated to help both sides of an argument, no matter if one side is thoroughly evil."
So they would not benefit from slavery.
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Well, from the perspective of game mechanics, the main benefit of being xenophobic is heightened tolerance to alien slavery. So a xenophobic empire that refuses to take slaves is clearly not playing optimally; it suffers the xenophobia penalties without getting any bonuses in return.
In good strategy games, there should be many different strategies that work. There is no "right choice", but there ARE "wrong choices". Any strategy which incurs the cost of a trade-off without taking advantage of the benefit will be suboptimal.
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