How easy is it for your nation to split?

[Reezy]

We've read from dev diaries that factions can form and divergant nations can emerge from the original nation, so that every game won't just be one nation per race. How often does this happen? On one hand, it would be fantastic to see a plethora of various ideologies and nations populate your game from the original races. On the other hand, players generally hate to see their own nation split and diverge. So, will nation splitting be something that the expert player can effectively prevent from happening once they know the game well enough like CK2? Will it be something that basically never happens to an average player, like EU4? Is it something that the player has very little control over and is left up to chance, like in every strategy gamer's worst nightmare? What kind of behavior can we expect from the AI and its ability to deal with internal politics?

 

[Faycron]

will nation splitting be something that the expert player can effectively prevent from happening once they know the game well enough like CK2?

You can't prevent splitting in CK2 when your genius strong attractive sons die from accidents and/or diseases and that inbred imbecile cousin inherits everything.

 

[Eldoran]

You can't prevent splitting in CK2 when your genius strong attractive sons die from accidents and/or diseases and that inbred imbecile cousin inherits everything.

I thought the same. Even as most experienced players of ck2 how should you ever prevent the typical inheritance crisis in ck? I mean I would know some very very very gamey solutions but they run close to exploits and you wouldn't use them if you are experienced enough cause then cheating is no fun for you. So in short I belive they are not avoidable and I think that's part of the fun of ck. I don't agree that players hate to see their empire fall, all of the dwarf fortress community disagree on this and probably most of pds gamers

 

[Ingros]

we'll probably see rebellions based on ideology and opinions... you anger some of them to much and they will try to overthrow you or get independend like in all games

i would think that as soon as you integrated multiple races and evolve multiple ideologies in your pops you will anger one or the other if you concentrate to much on one part... e.g. war, trade, diplo..
also based on the size of your realm, people living far away want their own realm and not pay taxes to you.. or they get harrassed by pirates and you don't have enough ships in that part of the universe etc. lots of possibilties for them to become unhappy....
of course i fear that that game becomes like euIv late game where you just ship your troops from one part of the world (universe) to the next one to crush stupid rebellions

but let's see how paradox will implement it this time.. i hope due to the fact that we all live in a high technical future it should be possible for those rebells to coordinate with other unhappy rebells to create multiple rebellions at the same time if you anger them all...

btw. i read about this lately in some german scifi series called SPQR - Der Falke von Rom.. i don't know if it's availabe in english yet not how it's called there.. but in this series the different cultures of earth colonized different areas around Sol and where "united" under the so called hegemony but still they maintained their culture etc..... after several time the major powers in this hegemony got angry about not being able to spread out as they wanted (e.g. invade the smaller nations).. so the different ideologies, religions, cultures etc. combined their different strenghts to force the hegemony to let them go... afterwards and some years later of course they all fight against each other.. i like this approach.. there are also interesting ideas about boarding enemies, how to deal with them etc. different ideologies have different strategies and they also have different opinions with glassing planets

 

[Reezy]

You can't prevent splitting in CK2 when your genius strong attractive sons die from accidents and/or diseases and that inbred imbecile cousin inherits everything.

You leave the imbeciles alive?

I don't agree that players hate to see their empire fall, all of the dwarf fortress community disagree on this and probably most of pds gamers

Players do hate to see their empires fall...but they hate to see them fall most obviously to randomized, uncontrollable factors like I said. DF is a game where your failures lead you to better prepare your next fort. Therefore, a DF analogy doesn't apply for what I'm talking about.

When players get to know the game well enough, we figure out how to prevent the controllable factors from splitting us up. CK2 is the perfect example. Even an imbecile king can hold together a gargantuan empire with enough knowledge of normal non-exploitative game mechanics. (Not that they would become king in the first place, but anyways...)

So when game mechanics are mastered, I assume players will always be able to keep their empire together unless the events that split it are uncontrollable and random...aka what many players consider to be frustrating.

I'm wondering if Paradox is thinking of this and is leaning more towards controllable or non-controllable nation splitting events.

i would think that as soon as you integrated multiple races and evolve multiple ideologies in your pops you will anger one or the other if you concentrate to much on one part... e.g. war, trade, diplo..

I like this. It makes me think of the current excellent eu4 rebel system where you might not always be able to prevent them from spawning, but you can use some resources to determine when, where, and what type will spawn.

 

[Maarten99]

I like this. It makes me think of the current excellent eu4 rebel system where you might not always be able to prevent them from spawning, but you can use some resources to determine when, where, and what type will spawn.

Yes, I like current EUIV system a lot, because, while you have a problem to deal with, you have a lot of tools to decide how and when you'll do that. It's a great system, and I hope Stellaris will use something like it and not the arbitrary "x% chance to spawn rebels" CKII uses !

 

[RoboticManiac]

I hope the factors that lead to civil war are fairly frequent- I hope there'll be a large amount of nations per race rather early on.

 

[Ingros]

question is... in eu IV your vasall states are very limited and most of the time just a phase until you annex them.. of course the different cultures and religions still want to break free, but it's very limited... i would like to see the possibilities to let them govern their own realm within your realm (like in ck2) but still be happy and be part of your realm... in ck2 it's always a pain when you're under attack by a horde of unbelievers which want to crush your religion and your stupid uncle thinks it would be a great idea to rebell despite having +80 opinion and be religious fanatic...
in euIV it's a bit better, but still a pain... and also unrealistic that you always know when a rebellion is starting (or at least if you hit 90% you should have your troops ready)

next thing is always... rebelltroops in euIV just pop up... with your latest technologie.. even if you just conquered that land from primitives... how did they get the newest weapons so fast... also the numbers don't add up... sometimes in some backwater province you have 20+ stacks...

in stellaris i hope to see some kind of EU IV rebellion stuff, without so clear numbers when it will break out... also i think they should need to build up troops and ships in some backwater system and try to hide it from your intelligence etc. (not just spawning 5 carriers, 10 battleships etc.) so if you notice this up front and it's somehow against your law that those people have ships on their own, you can crush the rebellion upfront...
i would somehow treat them like a foreign power ... with a leader, with their own diplomatic connections to other rebells or foreign powers (especially if you have multiple species in your realm and there is a "free" realm from that species with the same ideology).. with even maybe hidden research on their own to get the edge over your troops.. with espionage, sabotage etc.
don't know if this is feasible

 

[Maarten99]

and also unrealistic that you always know when a rebellion is starting

Ehm, even IRL it's somewhat obvious when an armed rebellion will pop up - these men don't get angry and armed from one day to the other. You may not know who's involved or when they'll strike, but it's clear something is brewing among the populace...

And in EUIV, unless you've crazy revolt risk, even at 90% you don't know when they'll revolt. It might be in a month, it might be in a year.

 

[Milten]

Judging by inclusion of pops, it will be something close to V2. Don't form troops and fleets from outer rim colonists.

 

[JudicialReflex]

I'm curious to see if new factions can generate spontaneously from successful rebellions. Like if my human empire fractures and there end up being five, instead of one, human factions thanks to my mismanagement.

If I can fight the Human Reunification Wars in Stellaris I will buy a copy for everyone I know. Everyone I know.

 

[yerm]

Ehm, even IRL it's somewhat obvious when an armed rebellion will pop up - these men don't get angry and armed from one day to the other. You may not know who's involved or when they'll strike, but it's clear something is brewing among the populace...

And in EUIV, unless you've crazy revolt risk, even at 90% you don't know when they'll revolt. It might be in a month, it might be in a year.

Nonsense. How do you predict that the CIA decided your pipeline veto means a regime change is in order? How do you predict that a militant rebel group from a neighboring nation just got done migrating to yours? How do you predict that your huge neighbor will decide it's time for a referendum that they will control? Real life armed rebellion only seems obvious when you have the clear advantage of hindsight and analysis both to look backwards at it. In the moment, and especially when planning for the future, it's not so simple.

Personally I'd like if revolts were less of a net bad. For example, I have this distant region that's unruly and rebellious. If I play well and manage them successfully, I keep them, if I play badly or fail to respond in time, I lose them. Why not do better? If I choose to make sacrifices and concessions that have far-reaching consequences, I keep them. If I decide that it's not worth jeopardizing my empire's stability, I cut them loose. Decisions like the Roman Empire to split things rather than keep them untenably united and unmanageable to the British decision to walk away from distant territory, I want a situation where it can be the right play to have the empire split, and breakaways aren't always some net bad.

 

[aruon]

i hope species have a permanant instability modifier or slider unique to them to represent how some races are simply just more stable than others. like how some races like the asari or forerunners have always had a highly peaceful existance, some races have had only the occasional war or massive uprising (turians, san'shyuum), while other races always seem to have some level of adversity coming from themselves (namely humans from any and every universe) while othes like the jiralhanae just seem to have no capacity for widespread governmental stability.

 

[Maarten99]

How do you predict that the CIA decided your pipeline veto means a regime change is in order? How do you predict that a militant rebel group from a neighboring nation just got done migrating to yours?

How can thousands of people get 1. extremely angry and 2. well-armed enough for a rebellion, without you noticing anything ? I mean, it's not like a planet was contempt on Thursday, but revolted on Friday. Such things require planning, and can't possibly go unnoticed.

How do you predict that the CIA decided your pipeline veto means a regime change is in order? How do you predict that a militant rebel group from a neighboring nation just got done migrating to yours? How do you predict that your huge neighbor will decide it's time for a referendum that they will control?

You know the american government dislikes you, and considers you a threat to their national security - you know a militant rebel group was active near one of your borders, and that that group wasn't exactly supportive of you either - you know your huge neighbor wouldn't mind having that territory for himself, if he can fabricate some reason to go get it.

Also, none of these are internal rebellions; they all are provocked by external factions trying to influence your country.

 

[Sinister2202]

I don't think you can expect your empire to satisfy all represented POPs with a central policy and ethos. Sooner or later, there will be groups of POPs who disagree with your leadership and become angry enough to form their own.

 

[joe9594]

Personally I think that stopping large breakaways should be essentially impossible. I really dont think that blobbing gameplay will enchance the experience. The game needs different mechanics to allow people to feel satisfied. For example an expansionist player/empire might have as a goal getting their ideology and species into as much of the galaxy as possibly while an economic player might just try to build up their local area to create a utopian paradise. If the only fun thing to do is blob then this mechanic will never work well.

 

[yerm]

How can thousands of people get 1. extremely angry and 2. well-armed enough for a rebellion, without you noticing anything ? I mean, it's not like a planet was contempt on Thursday, but revolted on Friday. Such things require planning, and can't possibly go unnoticed.



You know the american government dislikes you, and considers you a threat to their national security - you know a militant rebel group was active near one of your borders, and that that group wasn't exactly supportive of you either - you know your huge neighbor wouldn't mind having that territory for himself, if he can fabricate some reason to go get it.

Also, none of these are internal rebellions; they all are provocked by external factions trying to influence your country.

Discontent segments of a population are part of EVERY nation, ever. No nation has a completely happy and pacified population. There is always discontent. The government can't just magically ESP know that they've crossed the line to violent or been supplied or merged with an actually violent group, or any number of other possibilities causing open revolt. If it was trivial to do, it would be done. Look at every great empire in history. Look at every major nation today. Every single one, without exception, has faced unexpected armed revolt at some point in its history.

Purely internal rebellions are all but a fantasy. There's almost always outside factors. Real life is not EU4. Major rebellions, including the ones going on today, almost always involve external factors. This notion that the population gradually gets fed up, arms itself, trains itself, and acts by itself, is only normal in video games - it's a very rare exception outside them.

Personally I think that stopping large breakaways should be essentially impossible. I really dont think that blobbing gameplay will enchance the experience. The game needs different mechanics to allow people to feel satisfied. For example an expansionist player/empire might have as a goal getting their ideology and species into as much of the galaxy as possibly while an economic player might just try to build up their local area to create a utopian paradise. If the only fun thing to do is blob then this mechanic will never work well.

I sorta half agree. Blobbing should have costs or drawbacks. Extending your reach and influence should weaken your grip overall. Catering the various outliers and minorities and frontiers should hurt the core interior. If you want to hold it all together, I'm totally ok with that... just at a cost.