Ethics modifiers [Suggestion]

[gusti1]

Currently each ethos has an empire modifier and a pop modifier. I think it would be more fun, if there would be more modifiers to make the different ethos more distinct. In particular, each ethos should give one special bonus for each aspect of the game like colonisation or warfare, such that players are more encouraged to use different playstyles for different ethos, but are not restricted to it.

Lets first look at colonisation. If I want to land on a planet, where my species has low habitability, I have the following options: Terraform, send droids, gene mod pops or send xeno with right habitability. Right now the last options is almost always the best one if I have some xenos in my empire, regardless of my ethos. The other options are expensive or are time consuming and in the end not really better than xeno planets.

My suggestion would be to add a modifier to each ethos that favours one type of colonisation. For this to work, I would reduce the base productivity of each xeno pop to around 75%(non slaves) because of communication problems they might have with the primary species. So everyone can still use them, but they might not be the best choice anymore.
I suggest the following empire modifers. All numbers are only examples and should first be properly balanced.

Xenophobe: Terrafroming cost and time reduction (20%,60%)
Xenophile: Production bonus to xeno pops (10%,30%)
Materialist: Energy and science production bonus to robot and droid pops (10%,30%) and (5%,15%) for droids
Spiritualist: Not sure about this one. Open for suggestions
Egalitarian: Cost and time reducation of gene modding (20%, 60%) (maybe add tech to build gene modded colonyships)
Authoritarian: Energy and science production bonus to slaves (10%,30%)
Militarist: Outpost influence cost reduction (20%,60%) and increased borders (10%,30%)
Pacifist: Peacetime production bonus to all pops (3%,10%)

So now everyone can still use the xenos to colonise, but it might be more efficient to just terraform for a xenophobe or to send robots for a materialist. For Xenophiles its still best to use xenos as before but authoritarians might want to enslave all of them because it gives more minerals and energy and science is not that much reduced as it is now.

That was only one aspect of the game. Now lets look at warfare. By adding more modifiers, we can make the ethos distinct from one another also in other aspects. Here my suggestion for modifiers concerning the warfare/conquest that should be seen as an addition to the modifiers above.

Xenophobe: Wargoal cost reduction for cleanse planet (10%,30%)
Xenophile: Cost and time reduction for subject integration (20%,60%)
Materialist: Wargoal cost reduction for Make Tributary(10%, 30%)
Spiritualist: Again not sure about spiritualists...
Egalitarian: Wargoal cost reduction for Liberate planet(10%,30%)
Authoritarian: Wargoal cost reduction for Vassalise (10%, 30%)
Militarist: Wargoal cost reduction for Cede planet (10%,30%)
Pacifist: Increased wargoal cost for opponent (15%,45%)

Right now the wargoal cost are too high anyway in my opinion. With this modifiers we have a way for faster conquest in different ways that are tied to an ethos and therefore encourages different playstyles more than it is now.

Another aspect is how an empire makes his pops happy and productive. Here another set of modifiers that I suggest in addition to the ones above.:

Xenophobe: Happiness bonus for primary species.
Xenophile: Happiness bonus for all xenos (they are treated nicely)
Materialist: Increased Science Production (but no happiness bonus)
Spiritualist: Increased spiritualist ethos attraction (less unhappy pops because most have your ethos)
Egalitarian: Decreased negative modifiers from policies
Authoritarian: Decreased faction suppression cost (I dont care if my slaves are happy)
Militarist: War time happiness bonus
Pacifist: Peace time happiness bonus

Thats all I can think of at the moment. I did not mention any pop modifiers because I think the pop ethos should only determin his happiness and nothing else, because otherwise you would need to micro manage all your pop to maximise your production by placing all your materialists on science buildings etc. and I am not a fan of too much micro management.
The list of modifiers could clearly be extended even futher like increased ship damage for militarists etc. but I leave that out for now.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think about this.

 

[Elfwind]

It'd be super hard to balance all that but I would love more stuff behind ethics! I think Authoritarian should have resettlement cost reduction.

 

[gusti1]

I think that balancing all of this might be even easier than balancing only one or two modifiers as we have now. The effects of imballanced ethos are much larger though, because the modifiers are much larger than they are now.

For example how do you balance current xenophobe border extrusion with Materialist bulding cost reduction? The modifiers cannot easily be compared to each other because they affect different aspects of the game. If each ethos has a modifier for each game mechanic as I suggested, the modifiers can be balanced separatly for each mechanic.

Eg. its much easier to balance Terraforming cost reduction and xeno pop production bonus because we can make an analysis of my colonisation costs and time as well as my production by using one of the two methods (terraforming or xeno colony).

 

[I am Sovereign]

What is balanced in this game atm if we are honest about it? Not so much.

So for me thats no reason to dislike this nice ideas and suggestion. Actually I think they are well thought.