Is this the reason why I’m unable to get my Xenophobe empire to become xenophile? I’ve developed relationships with other nations, promoted my xenophile faction, installed my xenophile faction leader as the nation’s leader, suppressed all other factions, and have watched my xenophile support rate drop from 19% to 17% after 10 years - despite the faction page telling me that the faction support should eventually climb to ~70% (would be higher, but another nation out there has enslaved one of my pops - not sure who or where). I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong...
Ethics and Ethic Switch in 2.6.3 beta
- Thread starter Dustman
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Yes, it's still clearly broken. Maybe it's temperamental, because I can't see how anyone would look at how it is currently working in my game and suggest that it's 'fixed'.
It's less broken than before. There's still something weird going on when there are many pops involved (>500, generally speaking), but at least unlike before for smaller populations (so start of the game) the basic system actually does something.
Yes, it is still PooPoo in 2.6.3. Its the only thing I actually miss from Stellaris Console - PITA to figure out for noobs as I was, but once you did, you could slowly move your empire, in all due time - on PC, its just an Influence Trap From Hell.
Less broken is still broken fyi.
You yourself have posted results which show the system doesn't work properly.
Full agreement from me - however, I have also posted results which show that the system does work properly. Different results under different circumstances, in fact - which is a very interesting observation to make since it helps narrow down the degree of brokenness. Before 2.6 ethics shift really didn't work whatsoever, now it seems that it does work as a baseline. However, there are factors which contribute to it getting bogged down and essentially stopping working with increases in population. This may even be just one of many issues (personally unsure on this one), but it is no longer factual to state that the system is broken to the point of not working at all.
Believe me, I want to see this working as much as anyone, I'm just beginning to think that might be an unrealistic expectation until we get an Internal Politics update, since just fixing the basic system (resolving the issue of pops not shifting ethics at all) so that it does what it was supposed to (presumably...) appears to be insufficient.
I've been imposing ideology on AI empires and releasing vassals to try and spread democracy. In both cases, even after decades, my vassals are still not growing egalitarian pops despite having substantial ethics attraction for egalitarianism. So, switching ethics still doesn't really happen.
Your results showed one ethic moving towards the expected number and one moving away from the expected number. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Seems to me the core design issue here is that the game wants us to have to deal with factions that conflict with our governing ethics. However, a faction can only exist when there are pops aligned to that faction's ethic.
If ethics attraction actually worked how those complaining about it in the thread expect it to work, you'd literally never see factions that disagreed with your governing ethics. (Sounds like most of you would be fine with that, though...)
Without digging into the code, my suspicion is that, like with almost all things in Stellaris, ethics attraction has some base value and a set of modifiers. The percentage we see for ethics attraction almost certainly represents the modifiers and not the final value. I think most of the inconsistencies could be explained if it turns out that certain conditions add to the base value while others add to the modifier. Especially if one of the conditions that adds to the base value is something like "ethic does not exist in empire".
If ethics attraction actually worked how those complaining about it in the thread expect it to work, you'd literally never see factions that disagreed with your governing ethics. (Sounds like most of you would be fine with that, though...)
Without digging into the code, my suspicion is that, like with almost all things in Stellaris, ethics attraction has some base value and a set of modifiers. The percentage we see for ethics attraction almost certainly represents the modifiers and not the final value. I think most of the inconsistencies could be explained if it turns out that certain conditions add to the base value while others add to the modifier. Especially if one of the conditions that adds to the base value is something like "ethic does not exist in empire".
In a clean setting with a countable and easily accessible number of factors I have not observed long-term trends away from the expected distributions. I have noticed some temporary fluctuations, which is to be expected of a random walk process. What I have definitely observed is that in more complicated settings, unexpected things start happening - most notably, everything that is weird starts happening once the game reaches a certain pop complexity. Across three games that I paid attention to things, everything worked as expected, if a teensy bit slow, in the first 50-80 years of the game. The exact variation had more to do with overall pop count that was being affected by the system than time elapsed, however. In the advanced game with materialists, with 3300ish pops, ethics *felt* like a glacier - but, being careful here, the game speed being slower might've also been a factor contributing to that.
I would be happy to contribute actual, rigorous numbers if we agreed on a testing process.
To that end, so far, based on anecdotal evidence (including mine), it appears that:
-The starting pop distribution is semi-random (also confirmed by a dev)
-The ethics shift at the start of the game works, it tends to eliminate ethics minorities on your homeworld within 50-60 years (govt. ethics attraction modifiers help)
-The ethics shift gets wonkier when there are more than 2 empire ethics in play
-The ethics shift gets even wonkier when there are all the factions in play from having conquered another empire's stuff
-The ethics shift seems to slow down with total pop count increasing (needs verification)
The first point, having been confirmed by a dev as intended in another thread, requires no further investigation.
I looked into ethics shift on the empire capital to check whether pops were actually shifting ethics, not simply ethics being adjusted due to population growth, in one of my previous posts, anyone else is welcome to do the same. Start a galaxy where you won't have outside interference, observe your capital's ethics for the first 50-80 years, just let time pass.
To further troubleshoot this I would love to see not only the expected ethics distribution within the empire, but also THE EXPECTED YEARLY CHANGE. This is critical information that is currently MISSING from the game UI entirely. Now, we can of course still measure the actual yearly change, in absolute numbers and in percentages.
This would require a test with a fixed population, so ideally an empire where population controls have been enacted to stop any pop growth. Furthermore, I propose to compare the results of such a test for empires with 50 pops, 100 pops, 250 pops, and 500 pops. (Higher numbers also welcome, but tedious to execute, so). In addition, it would help if all affected planets had the same local ethics attractions - so Black Sites, Temples, local Xeno slaves all have to either be provided, or entirely avoided. Again, still with only 2 governing ethics to keep things clean.
Another thing to observe would be an empire with 3 or 4 ethics present, for this having a non-spiritualist empire pick up psionic ascension should do the trick to get four factions without outside interference.
@Tobasco da Gama here's the thing: when I bring up the pop information for a pop on e.g. my capital and look at the tooltip for ethics attraction, and I see that only two ethics are present in the list, I expect that long-term, once the system has had time to work, only those two ethics will be present in that kind of pop on that planet. That is what is in dispute, all other issues with the ethics nonwithstanding (*)
(*) "Hello my name is a happy Authoritarian Ruler Pop on the Imperial Capital. We have xeno slaves serving us, so now I embrace equality, even though I'm happy with the status quo!" (Actual thing in the game right now >_>)
So you're saying opposing factions should arise even when your actions shouldn't lead to an increased support in their ethic? That sounds bad to me.
The tooltip says something along the lines of "currently we would expect x% to follow this ethic". If that is just a modifier and not the actual number it is moving towards, then why not give us the actual number? It would be infinitely more useful.
In my opinion it seems that, for whatever reason, the system doesn't make it likely that your pops will shift to the expected distribution, and that is something that should be changed.
According to the wiki, if a faction exists for an ethic that no pop follows, that ethic gets a significant bonus toward its weight until the condition is no longer satisfied. Depending on how often the weights are updated and when they're checked for a new pop, that could result in several pops appearing at once that share the new faction's ethics.
Also, there are individual pop modifiers that are checked when deciding what ethic a pop should have, in addition to the overall empire modifiers. Very Strong pops will have occasionally be Militarists even if your Empire is Pacifist, etc., etc.
You're supposed to occasionally have some conflicts that arise within your borders that you need to manage. If you want total thought control of all your pops at all times, that's what Gestalts are for. Otherwise, they will sometimes act independently of your desires. See also: most of recorded history.
That doesn't explain how I have factions growing/staying the same size for 100 plus years when I'm doing everything in my power to reduce them, and the game says I should expect 0% following that ethic.
As I said in my previous comment, if the numbers it shows aren't displaying the distribution the game is moving towards, then that is pointless information. Just show the distribution that takes into account individual pop modifiers.
It's not about having mind level control over my populace, it's about the gameplay not rewarding you when you put in the effort to try and interact with mechanics and they don't work as advertised. That's a very different issue.
how about it works in the way the game says it's supposed to work
Has anyone seen a dev response to this issue everywhere? I really hope the are not planning to just say it's "fixed" and ignore it.