I like the ethics change, but... (add new ethics, don't change)

[scaper12123]

Based on Martin Anward's logic, he has a point when he says collectivist and individualist are misleading. In his own words, it does basically boil down to slave lovers and slave haters in the end. So a means to make the ethics lean more towards the clear intended goal, preferring authority or preferring freedom, is well justified

HOWEVER, I will not say collectivism and individualism should be removed outright. I like the idea of a society that has ethical roots deeply concerned for everyone as a whole rather than themselves, and that sentiment is not exactly encapsulated in a desire for a ruling authority. Likewise, individualism does not necessarily encapsulate egalitarianism. Somebody who wants to have their own goals and ambitions might not give two damns about somebody's freedom or rights.

Therefore I think authoritarianism and egalitarianism should be ADDED as ethics rather than serve as a replacement for collectivism and individualism. If you agree, bump up this thread so there's a good chance the devs will see and take this into consideration.

I would be disappointed if collectivism went away. My empire of goats may be a tough military dictatorship, but they are just and give freedoms because their concern is for their people as a whole.

 

[Ezumiyr]

More words are always welcome to describe our empires. But ethics need to have a gameplay behind to support them.
The new ones will probably be rather similar to collectivism/individualism, they were designed to replace them by making the things clearer. It seems that you are playing collectivist without using slaves, but you're the first one doing so that I'm hearing of. Most people picked collectivist because they wanted to use slaves.

Also, authoritarian isn't more evil than collectivism was, and egalitarian isn't more good than individualism was. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to give rights to your people just like you already did.

 

[bingbangbong]

More words are always welcome to describe our empires. But ethics need to have a gameplay behind to support them.
The new ones will probably be rather similar to collectivism/individualism, they were designed to replace them by making the things clearer. It seems that you are playing collectivist without using slaves, but you're the first one doing so that I'm hearing of. Most people picked collectivist because they wanted to use slaves.

Also, authoritarian isn't more evil than collectivism was, and egalitarian isn't more good than individualism was. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to give rights to your people just like you already did.

I always play as a collectivist, and rarely use slaves. The main benefit to collectivism was psionic tech, not slavery.

 

[GamingHUD]

Psionic tech has never been a benefit of collectivism though. It's spiritualist.

 

[bingbangbong]

Psionic tech has never been a benefit of collectivism though. It's spiritualist.

Right you are. Suppose it was the reduction in food usage and reduced faction suppression costs that made it preferable to individualism for me then.

Ahhh and the reduced ethics diversion build techs! That's the real benefit.

 

[klopkr]

I agree with you OP. Maybe they can be rebranded to do something else. Individualists sound liek the type of people that would not care about the ethics of your other pops to me. Maybe something could be done with that? Collectivists sound like people that don't mind being a cog in he machine but that doesn't really mean slavery. Maybe an ethics along the lines of reducing negative situations such as shortages, larger fleet size in exchange for production efficiency, population growth regardless of happiness, cheaper leaders, etc. A group of people that can get together to bounce back from trouble by working together.

 

[scaper12123]

More words are always welcome to describe our empires. But ethics need to have a gameplay behind to support them.
The new ones will probably be rather similar to collectivism/individualism, they were designed to replace them by making the things clearer. It seems that you are playing collectivist without using slaves, but you're the first one doing so that I'm hearing of. Most people picked collectivist because they wanted to use slaves.

Also, authoritarian isn't more evil than collectivism was, and egalitarian isn't more good than individualism was. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to give rights to your people just like you already did.

The main gameplay reason to use collectivist for me was getting the ethics divergence reducing tech and buildings. (I also use spiritualist for those same reasons.)

 

[SolarGuy]

I agree with you OP. Maybe they can be rebranded to do something else. Individualists sound liek the type of people that would not care about the ethics of your other pops to me. Maybe something could be done with that? Collectivists sound like people that don't mind being a cog in he machine but that doesn't really mean slavery. Maybe an ethics along the lines of reducing negative situations such as shortages, larger fleet size in exchange for production efficiency, population growth regardless of happiness, cheaper leaders, etc. A group of people that can get together to bounce back from trouble by working together.

Collectivists should get much lower penalties for bad situations in my opinion. If it serves the state (and, because they are the state, also serves themselves) then why should they care so much about wether or not they go to war, or have food shortages? (should only be slightly influenced by their other ethics). They wouldn't like individualists very much because those (in their view) want to seperate the population instead of having all of them work on one, common goal.
They say something like "I am part of the nation. If the nation needs to give me less food but can therefore make life happier for everybody (including me) in the long run, then I'm fine with it."

Individualists on the other hand should get less penalties for things like species with the Repugnant trait, and should diplomatically be more tolerant of other beliefs. They like it if people can do whatever they want after all, so even materialistic individualists shouldn't hate someone else for being spiritualist, but they may keep an opinion bonus for other materialists (just not the malus for spiritualists). They would dislike collectivists though, because those don't want people to be "free" in the individualist sense.
They basically say "It's your own choice, I don't hate you because you believe in certain things. The one thing I don't like though is slavery, because that goes directly against my individualism, but other than that you're free to do anything."

 

[Demarque]

I totally agree. The individualist/collectivist ethos should remain, and represent the social mentality of an empire, while a new authoritharian/egalitarian ethos would repersent the power structure and the level of control the state has over its people, and it is this that would block or allow democratic or autocratic government types. Basically, collectivists would value the idea of doing great deeds for the greater good, and that the lives of the many or of the whole are the main concern. It is in no way a hivemind, just a society where people would, for example, more willing to sacrifice their own lives in war for the glory (or survival) of their civilization. Think of Japan in the past.

Meanwhile, individualists would be more concerned with personal ambition and autonomy from the group; a society where the main concern is my own well being and progress. But it should be said that this doesn't mean that people would screw each other for their own benefit, as individualism isn't the same as selfishness.

This way, you can have individualist autocracies and collectivist democracies. Everyone's happy.

 

[Demarque]

(Bump)

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

It seems that you are playing collectivist without using slaves, but you're the first one doing so that I'm hearing of. Most people picked collectivist because they wanted to use slaves.

A bunch of my species/civilizations are non-slaver collectivists- community comes before personal ambitions, and the reduction to ethics divergence represents that effectively.

EDIT: Huh, ethics divergence is a Spiritual thing? Weird. Memory sure screwed me on that one.

Either way, the flavour text alone definitely has had me pick Collectivist a lot.

 

[milamber81]

A bunch of my species/civilizations are non-slaver collectivists- community comes before personal ambitions, and the reduction to ethics divergence represents that effectively.

Same here. Had more than one collectivist play-through. But used slaves only in one of them...

 

[I am Sovereign]

I also welcome this coming change but I would also rather see them as additional ethoses.

I just love to think of my empires of being collectivistic hives.
A robot/cyborg hive mind like the geht or the Borg.
Or being an insectoid hive mind like the Zerg or just being a regular hive like bees.

I need that term collectivism because I cant RP or using my imagination with "authoritarianism"

For example the Geth from Mass Effect (which for example I realy love to play as)
Are a gigantic network building a consenus to make decisions.
Thats not authoritian at all.

There are a lot of exmpales in Sci-fi of many peacful societies which are collectivists but also very democratic.

For the sake of not circumcising our fantasy and imagination I also pledge to just add authoritarianism and egalitarianism to the ethos wheel instead of just replacing
collectivists and individualists.

 

[JO'Geran]

I'm all for keeping the Collectivist/Individualist divide, however adding authoritarian/egalitarian as seperate ethos's seems kind of redundant.

Isn't it kind of obvious whether or not an empire is authoritarian or egalitarian. I mean, if you are a despotic empire or a military dictatorship, obviously your empire is going to be authoritarian, similarly if you are more democratic, your empire is going to be more egalitarian.

I vote for removing the authoritarian/egalitarian ethos's altogether.

 

[Wizzington]

More is not always better. We should not have ethics that lack clearly defined mechanics and roles.

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

I agree with OP. I already find Stellaris very restrictive in ethos (you can't be spiritualist AND materialist for exemple) and ethos don't seems to other that much. Just one or two exclusive technologies rather than unique governements (aka Hive mind for exemple) meh...

I also find that collectivism isn't equal to authoritarian and shouldn't be merged. Collectivism is likely the band mentality, or swarm mentality for fanatic. I don't know why they have merged it with authoritarian... it's absolutly not the same here. Collectivism is likely a way to live in communities or the need to live in community where authoritarism is a restrictive governement behind the iron grip of a king/leader.

I would really find Strange if they change collectivism for authoritarian... those two have Nothing to do each others.

I would also like to have more freedom with ethos choice. I don't see why a society can't be courageous,diligent (like the first state of militarist say) and pacifist too (ex: monks, jedi etc...)
Or having faith in materialist but be spiritualist too (like protoss who use Advanced technology for enhance their psionic powers)

 

[Wizzington]

The whole point of the change is that the current mechanics do not fit 'Collectivism' and 'Individualism'. If we thought Collectivism and Authoritarianism was the same thing there'd be no need for a change.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I agree with OP. I already find Stellaris very restrictive in ethos (you can't be spiritualist AND materialist for exemple) and ethos don't seems to other that much. Just one or two exclusive technologies rather than unique governements (aka Hive mind for exemple) meh...

I also find that collectivism isn't equal to authoritarian and shouldn't be merged. Collectivism is likely the band mentality, or swarm mentality for fanatic. I don't know why they have merged it with authoritarian... it's absolutly not the same here. Collectivism is likely a way to live in communities or the need to live in community where authoritarism is a restrictive governement behind the iron grip of a king/leader.

I would really find Strange if they change collectivism for authoritarian... those two have Nothing to do each others.

I would also like to have more freedom with ethos choice. I don't see why a society can't be courageous and diligent (like the first state of militarist say) and pacifist too (ex: monks, jedi etc...)
Or having faith in materialist but be spiritualist too...

"Collectivism" in-game already had more in common with Authoritarianism than its namesake- it was primarily distinguished by slavery and by restricting you to the Autocratic governments.

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

"Collectivism" in-game already had more in common with Authoritarianism than its namesake- it was primarily distinguished by slavery and by restricting you to the Autocratic governments.

I know that but collectivism is not the same that authoritarism that's why i was trying to say. Right now in the game collectivism =authoritarism. But that's not really what collectivism is (band,swarm mentality). I find that these two ethos are completly differents normaly but aren't in the game.

The whole point of the change is that the current mechanics do not fit 'Collectivism' and 'Individualism'. If we thought Collectivism and Authoritarianism was the same thing there'd be no need for a change.

We have faith in your Martin and in the Stellaris team. Please look forward ethos, they are very clunky now (restrictive to each others spiritualist/materialist etc...). We need unique goverments types (like Hive mind) and more impact on the gameplay for each ethos we choose (unique technologies etc...). Right now, i find that, ethos don't really have impact in the way of playing and that, i can take any ethos, i will play in the same way. I don't feel that of each ethos is unique.

 

[Wizzington]

I agree the ethics are not unique enough but adding more ethics without the mechanics to support them will only make that worse.