Alright, time for round 2.
Simple premise: Go for Psionic Ascension, and have a 100% unified Spiritual-Authroritarian Population. Sounds easy enough, right?
Now, I did ensure that a Temple was the first thing to be built in each Colony. Additionally, the Information Quarantine edict was active from the start of the game and I stacked every other possible Governmental Ethic Attractiveness stat I could find.
How did my empire's ethics turn out?
Why is it, that a spiritualist empire focussed on uniting goverment ethics (including ConfirmistsTrait), ends up with % all over the place, including MATERIALISTS, and 5 different factions?!
To put things into context, and to debunk the people saying "You're not supposed to have no factions";
why is it that my Spiritualist-Control empire has this many (contradicting) attractions, whilst my previous-run egalitarian 'everyone go do whatever' empire had exactly 2, later 3, all intentionally wanted and supported, factions over the entire game.
Read: +155% Governmental Attraction causes wide ethical variations, -25% Governmental Attraction (from the Open Mind Edict in the mentioned 'other playthrough') ensures conformity.
I feel like either there's a severe glitch with Governmental Attraction CAUSING Ethical Divergence, Governmental Attraction being worth nothing, or some other hilarious design oversight.
Now, some beef with Imperialism:
Didn't some dev diary state that a player should have some form of intervening with Heirs & Heritage?
Because opposed to all other government forms, where you pick a leader and can therefore affect his skill, I kept getting new level-1 rulers.
And, to make things worse, isn't Imperial government the Authoritarian thing. Where you are supposed to have a strong, unified guiding hand.
Then why is it that this is the only goverment where you'll have RANDOM FACTIONS promoted by your randomly generated Heirs becoming Ruler?
Shouldn't they at the very least pick their faction from the governmening ones?
Somehow, this all doesn't add up. Democratic multi-species-cultural empires have super-uniform ethics, but a single (well, dual with the 3 uplifted pops) Spiritualist Confirmist Authoritarian empire ends up with countless factions? Shouldn't it be EXACTLY the opposite way?
Anyways, here are some other impressions from my game:
Why is Influence Production from Planets still a thing in the interface?
There literallyis nothing in the game anymore that can produce Influence planet-side. Yes, even the Galactic Complex (which afaik was the only building to ever produce Influence in first place) generates Unity instead.
At some point, I colonized a planet with some Pre-Sentients. Nice little ape's, I would go and englighten them at some point.
By the time I had the tech for that, I had a Xenophile faction.
Now, in respect of the religious foundation of my empire, I decided to give aliens the same default rights as my own species.Which are, Caste System and otherwise normal Authoritarian rights.
After uplifting the Pre-Sentients,it turned out that the Xenophile faction strongly disapproved of that logic:
So, apparently, Caste System on Xenos is intolerable, even if it is the default for your primary species as well?
I strongly feel that Xenophiles should only complain about Caste System 'Slaves' if your primary species has better living standards/citizen rights.
As well, didn't they claim to have added a bandaid against same-colored empires, by making each new empire that uses the same color a different shade?
Pretty sure these are the same shades of dark teal:
And why is it that, still, Genetic Modification is a mess that doesn't seem intuitive or reasonable at all:
After unlocking it, I naturally went ahead and started adopting my species to the various sub-planet-types it livedon.
And I was once again reminded that it is still cheaper to modify the habitaton AND REMOVE A NEGATIVE trait, than just altering former.
I mean, this is old news for anyone who ever played Stellaris, but I kinda expected them to check and fix this whilst adding Genetic Ascension.
(Note, I obviously did not have Genetic Ascension here, but that doesn't matter for the existence of this oversight.)
A hilarious note on slave rebellions:
Throughout the entire game, my 10 built Psy Armies rocked anything I threw them at. The only thing even remotely an obstacle was a particular custom-made species (aka, one of my former playthroughs) with Resilent+VeryStrong.
However, cruising about, leading 1-3 wars at once, at one point I dropped my Psi-Armies on the FULLY BOMBARDED planet of a 1-planet-minor.
A few days after landing, I suddenly got a report of my general dieing and I managed to take a screen of it. Apparently, this 1-planet former-slave-rebellion is the only planetin the entire galaxy able to defend against my elite psychic assault armies (15er stack with PSI Commando upgrade)
Because they're an absurd boatload of former slaves with +80% army damage for magical reasons.
Sidenote, shouldn't the maxcap of armies on a planet equal the planet's size?
Now, as I ended up capping out Unity anyways, finishing my 6th Tradition around 140 years in, I ended up picking Discovery (intentionally late, because, duh, that's Materialism).
I feel like, maybe, someone didn't think that 'Survey to get Bonus Tech Points' mechanic through:
Then again, eventually I will have surveyed the whole galaxy and then the points will start decreasing.
I hope.
But turns out my gameplay was ended rather apruptly by another mechanic I didn'T quite expect.
You see, opposed to going Pacifist, or Conquering, this game I went for early Domination and proceeded to Vassalize/Tributary all otehr empires.
I had ~70% of the galaxy under my Spiritual Boots, when War In the Heaven triggered.
Well, I didn't exactly expect to have too big of a chance here, since my fleet measured ~50k, but hey, maybe me and my impromptu vassal swarm could do it?
Well, no. Turns out that triggering the War In Heavens instantly (and without notification) dropkicked most of my vassals away and into AFE sattelites, leaving me only with the Hivemind and two Xenophobe Isolationist vassals.
I REALLY think that subjects shouldn't be able to bypass their subject status that easily. Especially because it makes the concept of ruling by Dominion completely impossible.
(Needless to say, this was game over, because I lost a large portion of my fleet cap and an excessive amount of my tributary-income-based energy supply.)
But hey, at least I got to mess around with the Shroud. Which proved entertaining, albeit VERY underwhelming compared to both other Ascension paths.
Albeit I'll be fair and not spoiler anything here.
Simple premise: Go for Psionic Ascension, and have a 100% unified Spiritual-Authroritarian Population. Sounds easy enough, right?
Now, I did ensure that a Temple was the first thing to be built in each Colony. Additionally, the Information Quarantine edict was active from the start of the game and I stacked every other possible Governmental Ethic Attractiveness stat I could find.
How did my empire's ethics turn out?
Why is it, that a spiritualist empire focussed on uniting goverment ethics (including ConfirmistsTrait), ends up with % all over the place, including MATERIALISTS, and 5 different factions?!
To put things into context, and to debunk the people saying "You're not supposed to have no factions";
why is it that my Spiritualist-Control empire has this many (contradicting) attractions, whilst my previous-run egalitarian 'everyone go do whatever' empire had exactly 2, later 3, all intentionally wanted and supported, factions over the entire game.
Read: +155% Governmental Attraction causes wide ethical variations, -25% Governmental Attraction (from the Open Mind Edict in the mentioned 'other playthrough') ensures conformity.
I feel like either there's a severe glitch with Governmental Attraction CAUSING Ethical Divergence, Governmental Attraction being worth nothing, or some other hilarious design oversight.
Now, some beef with Imperialism:
Didn't some dev diary state that a player should have some form of intervening with Heirs & Heritage?
Because opposed to all other government forms, where you pick a leader and can therefore affect his skill, I kept getting new level-1 rulers.
And, to make things worse, isn't Imperial government the Authoritarian thing. Where you are supposed to have a strong, unified guiding hand.
Then why is it that this is the only goverment where you'll have RANDOM FACTIONS promoted by your randomly generated Heirs becoming Ruler?
Shouldn't they at the very least pick their faction from the governmening ones?
Somehow, this all doesn't add up. Democratic multi-species-cultural empires have super-uniform ethics, but a single (well, dual with the 3 uplifted pops) Spiritualist Confirmist Authoritarian empire ends up with countless factions? Shouldn't it be EXACTLY the opposite way?
Anyways, here are some other impressions from my game:
Why is Influence Production from Planets still a thing in the interface?
There literallyis nothing in the game anymore that can produce Influence planet-side. Yes, even the Galactic Complex (which afaik was the only building to ever produce Influence in first place) generates Unity instead.
At some point, I colonized a planet with some Pre-Sentients. Nice little ape's, I would go and englighten them at some point.
By the time I had the tech for that, I had a Xenophile faction.
Now, in respect of the religious foundation of my empire, I decided to give aliens the same default rights as my own species.Which are, Caste System and otherwise normal Authoritarian rights.
After uplifting the Pre-Sentients,it turned out that the Xenophile faction strongly disapproved of that logic:
So, apparently, Caste System on Xenos is intolerable, even if it is the default for your primary species as well?
I strongly feel that Xenophiles should only complain about Caste System 'Slaves' if your primary species has better living standards/citizen rights.
As well, didn't they claim to have added a bandaid against same-colored empires, by making each new empire that uses the same color a different shade?
Pretty sure these are the same shades of dark teal:
And why is it that, still, Genetic Modification is a mess that doesn't seem intuitive or reasonable at all:
After unlocking it, I naturally went ahead and started adopting my species to the various sub-planet-types it livedon.
And I was once again reminded that it is still cheaper to modify the habitaton AND REMOVE A NEGATIVE trait, than just altering former.
I mean, this is old news for anyone who ever played Stellaris, but I kinda expected them to check and fix this whilst adding Genetic Ascension.
(Note, I obviously did not have Genetic Ascension here, but that doesn't matter for the existence of this oversight.)
A hilarious note on slave rebellions:
Throughout the entire game, my 10 built Psy Armies rocked anything I threw them at. The only thing even remotely an obstacle was a particular custom-made species (aka, one of my former playthroughs) with Resilent+VeryStrong.
However, cruising about, leading 1-3 wars at once, at one point I dropped my Psi-Armies on the FULLY BOMBARDED planet of a 1-planet-minor.
A few days after landing, I suddenly got a report of my general dieing and I managed to take a screen of it. Apparently, this 1-planet former-slave-rebellion is the only planetin the entire galaxy able to defend against my elite psychic assault armies (15er stack with PSI Commando upgrade)
Because they're an absurd boatload of former slaves with +80% army damage for magical reasons.
Sidenote, shouldn't the maxcap of armies on a planet equal the planet's size?
Now, as I ended up capping out Unity anyways, finishing my 6th Tradition around 140 years in, I ended up picking Discovery (intentionally late, because, duh, that's Materialism).
I feel like, maybe, someone didn't think that 'Survey to get Bonus Tech Points' mechanic through:
Then again, eventually I will have surveyed the whole galaxy and then the points will start decreasing.
I hope.
But turns out my gameplay was ended rather apruptly by another mechanic I didn'T quite expect.
You see, opposed to going Pacifist, or Conquering, this game I went for early Domination and proceeded to Vassalize/Tributary all otehr empires.
I had ~70% of the galaxy under my Spiritual Boots, when War In the Heaven triggered.
Well, I didn't exactly expect to have too big of a chance here, since my fleet measured ~50k, but hey, maybe me and my impromptu vassal swarm could do it?
Well, no. Turns out that triggering the War In Heavens instantly (and without notification) dropkicked most of my vassals away and into AFE sattelites, leaving me only with the Hivemind and two Xenophobe Isolationist vassals.
I REALLY think that subjects shouldn't be able to bypass their subject status that easily. Especially because it makes the concept of ruling by Dominion completely impossible.
(Needless to say, this was game over, because I lost a large portion of my fleet cap and an excessive amount of my tributary-income-based energy supply.)
But hey, at least I got to mess around with the Shroud. Which proved entertaining, albeit VERY underwhelming compared to both other Ascension paths.
Albeit I'll be fair and not spoiler anything here.
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