Well, lets see what Wiz says about it in the DD tomorrow morning. And I don't see how they'd be any more impossible to beat than any other ethos, there's nothing about them that gives a military advantage since combat is unchanged.
does hive mind belong in the ethos category?
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Well, lets see what Wiz says about it in the DD tomorrow morning. And I don't see how they'd be any more impossible to beat than any other ethos, there's nothing about them that gives a military advantage since combat is unchanged.
Yeah, because everyone knows mechanics can't be adjusted after creation.
The limited imagination of hive minds in sci-fi is mainly down to the limitations of human authors. There's no reason that a hive mind can't have ethics or morals, or that it would be unable to communicate properly with non-hive minds. It's the same story with superintelligent AI. In both cases, the problem is that we can't really imagine an intelligence that is much more powerful than an individual human brain.
The architecture of a hive mind is different from our brains, but it's not that different when you consider how a human brain is made up of neurons. It's just another layer of coordination on a much bigger scale.
The reason it doesn't translate to 'Ethics' in the Stellaris sense is that you can just play the hive mind how you want. Declared governing ethics are only needed for a society with internal politics, but there's no such thing inside a hive mind.
Eusocial insect hives obviously don't have sci-fi powers of instantaneous communication between individuals, but they do display a kind of intelligence far in excess of any individual insect, that emerges from the coordination of the individuals. The difference between a beehive and a sci-fi hive mind is quantitative rather than qualitative (i.e. the sci-fi hive mind has a lot more processing power/bandwidth).
The architecture of a hive mind is different from our brains, but it's not that different when you consider how a human brain is made up of neurons. It's just another layer of coordination on a much bigger scale.
The reason it doesn't translate to 'Ethics' in the Stellaris sense is that you can just play the hive mind how you want. Declared governing ethics are only needed for a society with internal politics, but there's no such thing inside a hive mind.
Eusocial insect hives obviously don't have sci-fi powers of instantaneous communication between individuals, but they do display a kind of intelligence far in excess of any individual insect, that emerges from the coordination of the individuals. The difference between a beehive and a sci-fi hive mind is quantitative rather than qualitative (i.e. the sci-fi hive mind has a lot more processing power/bandwidth).
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it doesn't matter if there's no ethics inside the hive mind. There's still ethics in relation to other civilizations. Are you saying there's no difference between a hive mind that wants to isolate itself and have peaceful trade with other peaceful civs, and one that wants to blob and purge? Ethics would differentiate between hive minds and apply the appropriate diplomacy opinion modifiers.
I know, I was just playing into the fact that insectoid/arthropoid hiveminds are a common sci-fi trope. There are exceptions to the insectoid/arthropoid though.
That's a little different though, pops represent a multitude, and you can assume that the pop ethos is just the most important one to a significant portion of the population. The population as a whole surely has positions that are all over the map, and constantly changing at that, the only reason the ethos stays constant is because for every pop that moves away from it there is one that moves toward it.
Similarly, government ethics represent an outlook or a set of policies that have cemented themselves in place. With Hive minds though, you essentially have one individual that can change their mind and the direction of government and society on a whim. Even though the hive mind might hold to a particular ethos, this liquidity demands a different sort of representation in the game mechanics - or at least I think it makes sense if it does.
The other concern is balance, I think. It wouldn't make sense for Hive Minds to put any sort of policy restrictions on themselves, and the bonuses you get from ethos aren't designed around a hive mind society, so some might be super useful and others close to useless. I suppose you could customize the bonuses from ethos to work differently with Hive mind, but I can understand the desire to treat Hive Mind as a holistic system and just balance one permutation against everything else that already exists.
Stellaris currently (through the Hive Mind AI personality) considers Hive Minds to be opportunistic expansionists who are relatively harmless so long as you're not in their way. They do not tolerate alien presences within them (they do not accept migration treaties and freely use purging on POPs that don't share their Ethos), they're a little reclusive (they don't like trading), and they're much more focused on expansion/colonization than military spending.
This provides a precedent for what Paradox thinks when they hear "Hive Mind" in relation to their game, and likely tells us about how Hive Mind AIs will behave. It also shows us the playstyle that Hive Minds are potentially built for- and honestly "will steamroll you to secure new planets the moment there's no longer claimable space" sounds pretty similar to most players' behaviour
I think the bigger issue rather than the ethics is how ai hive minds play. It would be disappointing if they all fall into the zerg/borg almost fanatical purifier style, especially when that ai type already exists.
Absolutely there should be some hive minds like that, but why not also have pacifist ones, maybe they dont even have a concept of war since they've always been totally unified in their will. You could have an ai type which is totally pacifist until attacked when it inmediately becomes obssesed with purifiying, or a spiritual one which abhors all violence. It would be a shame to have just one behaviour type especially when sci-fi has had many different treatments of hive minds.
Wiz seems to have been avoided answering any questions on this topic so im rather hoping they have something interesting planned.
Absolutely there should be some hive minds like that, but why not also have pacifist ones, maybe they dont even have a concept of war since they've always been totally unified in their will. You could have an ai type which is totally pacifist until attacked when it inmediately becomes obssesed with purifiying, or a spiritual one which abhors all violence. It would be a shame to have just one behaviour type especially when sci-fi has had many different treatments of hive minds.
Wiz seems to have been avoided answering any questions on this topic so im rather hoping they have something interesting planned.
He's avoided answering lots of questions related to hiveminds, but yeah, I'm hoping for varied hivemind personalities too.
Its already entirely possible to befriend, ally with, and form Federations that include Hive Mind AIs. Nothing forces them to murder their way across the galaxy- they're just predisposed to starting wars to further their need for expansion.
If the expanded Hive Mind system when applied to AI civilizations resulted in identical behaviour to the current Hive Mind AI personality, I wouldn't see a problem. But we do know they have unique Civics, and that Civics are a major way of differentiating the attitude and strengths/weaknesses of an empire.
That's the thing though, if two different hive minds behavior differs, that means they have different ethics. So far it doesn't look that way. In all honesty they just look like easy mode fanatical purifiers who can use diplomacy, don't have to worry about happiness, factions, unrest. Boring. As. Fuck.
I am wondering how to make them fun... their civics might make them more varied I suppose?
Thats what I'm hoping for, but there didnt seem to be anything in the (admittedly small) number visible in the dev blog and what they did wasnt clear so who knows at this stage.
Yes and no.
I would agree that it would have been much more interesting to have Hivemind alongside ethos on a EMPIRE level. Just to differentiate between different directions of Hivemind. Because why base that solely on a completely new, much less flexible system like Civics, when you already had a very diverse system in place?
But on the other hand, devs decided not to do that. So maybe they have something in mind we don't know. I would argue, until we have all played 2-3 runthroughs of 1.5, we shouldn't discuss whether mechanics we don't even playtested yet should be changed.
I would agree that it would have been much more interesting to have Hivemind alongside ethos on a EMPIRE level. Just to differentiate between different directions of Hivemind. Because why base that solely on a completely new, much less flexible system like Civics, when you already had a very diverse system in place?
But on the other hand, devs decided not to do that. So maybe they have something in mind we don't know. I would argue, until we have all played 2-3 runthroughs of 1.5, we shouldn't discuss whether mechanics we don't even playtested yet should be changed.
What would the "ethics" of a hive mind actually represent beyond slightly redundant flavour? What's the difference between a materialist or spiritualist hive mind beyond "one's a hive mind, but sciencey and the other's a hive mind, but mystical."
It would still be perfectly possible for hive minds to have several possible AI personalities, just as most ethos choices do, so it isn't necessarily a given that they will behave the same in game particularly given that much of the "flavour" of government is now tied to civics rather than ethos choices directly. However, why would individual moral or ethical limits apply to a being which has no individual limits at all?
One could argue that moral systems were developed to allow individuals to live together without mutually destroying each other. If we take the concept of a hive mind seriously, then that isn't a concern. Living together comes as easily as breathing, no rules are required to govern it.
It would still be perfectly possible for hive minds to have several possible AI personalities, just as most ethos choices do, so it isn't necessarily a given that they will behave the same in game particularly given that much of the "flavour" of government is now tied to civics rather than ethos choices directly. However, why would individual moral or ethical limits apply to a being which has no individual limits at all?
One could argue that moral systems were developed to allow individuals to live together without mutually destroying each other. If we take the concept of a hive mind seriously, then that isn't a concern. Living together comes as easily as breathing, no rules are required to govern it.
It's also not as if there's already only one variety of Hive Mind, and I've never seen anyone complain about them all being the same...
Nah, the point of being a hive mind is that you are the species, which means that you're not constrained by anyone else in the management of your empire. You can just pretty much do whatever. Want to be Space Bro #1, form a federation, uplift primitives, protect the weak, and all that good stuff? Cool, just do it. Change your mind after a century and decide to go conquering and purging? That's fine too; your pops/government won't stop you any more than your hand can stop you from committing a murder.
Adding an ethic point to hive minds would serve only to limit your options (and without factions, there'd be no way to change it unless the devs add some other method of doing so). Granted, you'll miss out on ethic specific tech, but I'll be astonished if hive minds don't get some cool unique techs of their own.
It is there simply to be exclusive with all other Ehtoi. It is not uncommon in Programming to put something into a category, solely so you can have no other selection in that Category.
There is no other point to put it into the Ethos mechanic, true. But that one argment is fairly good for putting it just there.