Does ethics divergence *actually* apply to slaves?

[SolarGuy]

I'm playing with so many mods that I don't even know their exact number anymore, but I doubt that this "bug" is caused by those mods.


Anyways: I've had an event (from a mod) where an Alien Trespassers pop would be generated on your homeworld. I also had all the means necessary to make them have -35% ethics divergence while enslaved, +5% while emancipated. Which is actually quite low considering that my own species is somewhere around -165% without enslavement

But for some reason, those Alien Trespassers never seem to change their ethoses at all. They never did, and after 15 years of Hasp'Inaxi history of having them I don't think they will ever convert to my ethics.
By the way, they have maximum happiness of 5% due to their planet type being Arctic while my homeworld is Tropical.

They never started converting EVEN after I started an entire religious renaissance within my empire and the Executive of my plutocratic avian corporation-state crowned herself Holy Emperor!!! And this change gave me a bonus to ethics divergence because of the fanatic spiritualism!

Even though that knowledge won't be of any use to me because the Trespassers would have +5% divergence if I emancipated them and I don't have space on the homeworld for a mausoleum, I still do wonder:
Do slaves actually get affected by (negative) ethics divergence?

 

[Madisel]

Ethics divergence does have an impact on slaves. My current custom empire is a divine mandate, fanatic spiritualist and collectivist, so I have some very nice natural negative ethics divergence. What I usually do with it is conquer some neighbors or covertly infiltrate pre-space civilizations and enslave them until one of the pops converts to my ethics. It's all probability based, so it can happen extremely fast or extremely slow. I've had some convert on their first year, others have taken 30 years or so of having to deal with malcontent slaves, but it does happen.

Remember, the calculation is done every year and 35% still leaves a 65% chance of no change each year.

 

[SolarGuy]

Ethics divergence does have an impact on slaves. My current custom empire is a divine mandate, fanatic spiritualist and collectivist, so I have some very nice natural negative ethics divergence. What I usually do with it is conquer some neighbors or covertly infiltrate pre-space civilizations and enslave them until one of the pops converts to my ethics. It's all probability based, so it can happen extremely fast or extremely slow. I've had some convert on their first year, others have taken 30 years or so of having to deal with malcontent slaves, but it does happen.

Remember, the calculation is done every year and 35% still leaves a 65% chance of no change each year.

Every YEAR!? I didn't know that, and I have quite a lot of playtime... So basically, unless they have less than -100% ethics divergence they have a certain chance of just never accepting my empire in the slightest way?

Okay, I must admit, it might be justified a little tiny bit considering that I immediately enslaved those refugees after I noticed that they might cause harm to my corporation-state's integrity
Oh, and that one time where I purged their growing second pop and then replaced them with robots to run my military academy

Interestingly they count as Docile Slaves even though they only have 5% happiness. That might be a bug, or they count as docile because of a) their ethics divergence or b) because without the happiness cap they wouldn't actually be so unhappy.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

I have found that Slaves ethically diverge faster than normal pops because being enslaved takes away many of the normal happiness penalties, so if they're already pissed off at you enslaving a pop will likely decrease their ethos divergence.

 

[SolarGuy]

I have found that Slaves ethically diverge faster than normal pops because being enslaved takes away many of the normal happiness penalties, so if they're already pissed off at you enslaving a pop will likely decrease their ethos divergence.

Yep. That's what I used (exploited?) to make them have -35% instead of 5% ethics divergence.

 

[GC13]

Remember, the calculation is done every year and 35% still leaves a 65% chance of no change each year.

It's not that simple. With -90.1% ethics divergence, I still had six out of sixteen Pops have no change in ethics after ten years. If it was really ten rolls of the dice at a one-in-ten chance to not change, then there would only be a one in ten billion chance for each Pop to stay the same (and with sixteen Pops just over a one in six hundred twenty-five million chance that any Pops at all would not change).

So basically, it's worse than a 65% chance of no change each year. Much worse. In the -25 to -45% range I got 3/4 of my Pops not changing at all after ten years.

 

[GC13]

Running the numbers, it looks like the listed negative ethics divergence is ten times the actual probability of changing each year: with -90.1% ethics divergence meaning a 9% chance of changing each year, with ten years and sixteen Pops you'd expect six as your over/under point (56% chance of six or fewer Pops changing, 63.4% chance of six or more changing); twelve not changing with -25% ethics divergence is also at the proper over/under point, and isn't too out of bounds for what I'd expect at -45% either (there's still almost a one-in-four chance of twelve or more Pops failing to change after ten years at that ethics divergence).

 

[Philthy]

Insightful, but it does kind of make me cranky to think that huge negative ethos divergence builds are less bang for buck. :-(

Running the numbers, it looks like the listed negative ethics divergence is ten times the actual probability of changing each year: with -90.1% ethics divergence meaning a 9% chance of changing each year, with ten years and sixteen Pops you'd expect six as your over/under point (56% chance of six or fewer Pops changing, 63.4% chance of six or more changing); twelve not changing with -25% ethics divergence is also at the proper over/under point, and isn't too out of bounds for what I'd expect at -45% either (there's still almost a one-in-four chance of twelve or more Pops failing to change after ten years at that ethics divergence).

 

[makapse]

the change chance for positive divergence is the same as stated but for negative one, its 10 times less. And the chance is not to be converted to expactly your ethos, but be changed slightly to your ethos. So even at -100% for 10 years, you cannot expect all the pops to be of your ethos, but you can expect them to be atleast shifted to your, with some more than the others.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

Yep. That's what I used (exploited?) to make them have -35% instead of 5% ethics divergence.

Personally I would not consider it a exploit, because logically slaves would be easier to indoctrinate then (relatively) free people.

 

[GC13]

the change chance for positive divergence is the same as stated but for negative one, its 10 times less.

No, positive and negative ethics divergence are both divided by ten. Ethics just drifts very, very slowly (to the point where I'm not sure about the mechanic as-implemented).

 

[makapse]

Positive divergence changes pops too quickly even at 5-10% for it to be not divided. 5 years at 10% are enough to change all 5 of my pops but -50 % is not enough to revertit back

 

[GC13]

Positive divergence changes pops too quickly even at 5-10% for it to be not divided. 5 years at 10% are enough to change all 5 of my pops but -50 % is not enough to revertit back

I find that very hard to believe. I did a test on sixteen Pops at 49.9% ethics divergence for ten years and only seven of them changed their ethics. So that's twice as long at five times the odds, and less than half the observed likelihood of change.

 

[SolarGuy]

Personally I would not consider it a exploit, because logically slaves would be easier to indoctrinate then (relatively) free people.

But it also does give them worse ethics divergence if they are already quite happy (>50% happiness). And that's with a collectivist pop that is perfectly fine with being enslaved because they don't even care for personal freedoms.