Internal Politics - what do you NOT want to see?

[TrotBot]

I rather not remove more player freedom. The ethics already forces you to play a certain way. Xenophobic prevents you from treating xenos as equals, spiritualist prevents you from treating robots as equals, and egalitarian prevents you from being a dictatorship or imperial.

what? those are choices you made. i agree with decoupling spiritualist from anti-ai xenophobia, but being a xenophobe is by definition treating xenos as lesser. being egalitarian is by definition being opposed to dictatorship and empire. that "removal of choice" can be made more organic by letting people do what they want, but, it impacts your empire ethics. you're a xenophile, but don't have the same living standards for your main species as your xenos? xenophile faction (or whatever it merges into, because factions should be mergeable in my opinion), should be unhappy and protest. enslaved some xenos? they should revolt. fanatic egalitarian but you have shadow council? your egalitarian faction should be preparing for revolution. escalating from protests, to strikes, to rebellions. or the shadow council itself should be preparing for a coup which will remove your fanatic egalitarianism. you see where this is going? sure, more choice, but also, more consequence.

 

[apples951]

what? those are choices you made. i agree with decoupling spiritualist from anti-ai xenophobia, but being a xenophobe is by definition treating xenos as lesser. being egalitarian is by definition being opposed to dictatorship and empire. that "removal of choice" can be made more organic by letting people do what they want, but, it impacts your empire ethics. you're a xenophile, but don't have the same living standards for your main species as your xenos? xenophile faction (or whatever it merges into, because factions should be mergeable in my opinion), should be unhappy and protest. enslaved some xenos? they should revolt. fanatic egalitarian but you have shadow council? your egalitarian faction should be preparing for revolution. escalating from protests, to strikes, to rebellions. or the shadow council itself should be preparing for a coup which will remove your fanatic egalitarianism. you see where this is going? sure, more choice, but also, more consequence.

I'm not suggesting that we remove the restrictions already in place. A xenophobic empire that treats xenos as equals isn't xenophobic. However, I have a issue with how the game considers somethings as bring pro x ethic or anti y ethic.

Why should an authoritarian empire be punish for having welfare living standard?
(Welfare increase egalitarian attraction)

Why should a spiritualist empire be punish for having NON-SAPIENT robots despite that fact that they are only meant be to against sapient ai only.
(Robots boost materialist attraction and lowers approval for the spiritualist faction)

I wouldn't mind having more consequence if Stellaris was clear on the ethics.

 

[Cry_Havok]

I don't want it to be ignorable, that's my main concern. Espionage matters exactly zero, I fear internal politics will be the same

 

[Cassilda]

I don't want ethics to be too much fixed, I think the actual system should be made more "gradual", roughly like HoI 2, in which the ethics were the extremes and there was a slider the player could move. I think also that the state ideology should be tailored by the player with some set of ideological foundations: I definitely not want too many "set in stone" principles, especially on grey areas.
For example, authoritarians or xenophobic empires should be allowed to grant a very high standards of life to the founder species, and maybe to a couple of "assimilated loyal subjects" species, as long most of the other subjects aren't allowed to the same standards. Because that's a stratified colonial society, not egalitarianism.
Also, I don't really want to see revolts spring up from nothing like it happens now with piracy, since Stellaris is not EU or CK and you can't really have jacqueries in space as I personally find difficult to believe that disgruntled citizens can make a space fleet from nothing, being something that should require an industrial base.

 

[methegrate]

Don't make it too event-driven. In threads about internal politics I always feel like some people want it to be a lot of narrative thrown at you all the time, but imagine how frustrating that would become in no time. There is a balance to be struck between events making things more interesting, and events just getting in the way of the things you actually want to be doing.

So I believe the core of such a system needs to be gameplay-based, with a solid backbone of systems that are tied into the rest of the mechanics and stay relevant throughout the game. Events and event chains should be the spice that adds extra flavor. And when impactful changes are on the horizon, that's when events should take over to tell the story.

This.

 

[TrotBot]

I don't want ethics to be too much fixed, I think the actual system should be made more "gradual", roughly like HoI 2, in which the ethics were the extremes and there was a slider the player could move. I think also that the state ideology should be tailored by the player with some set of ideological foundations: I definitely not want too many "set in stone" principles, especially on grey areas.
For example, authoritarians or xenophobic empires should be allowed to grant a very high standards of life to the founder species, and maybe to a couple of "assimilated loyal subjects" species, as long most of the other subjects aren't allowed to the same standards. Because that's a stratified colonial society, not egalitarianism.
Also, I don't really want to see revolts spring up from nothing like it happens now with piracy, since Stellaris is not EU or CK and you can't really have jacqueries in space as I personally find difficult to believe that disgruntled citizens can make a space fleet from nothing, being something that should require an industrial base.

Yeah, when referencing the pirate mechanics, I just meant they should be able to fight over territory without immediately taking it and becoming an independent empire. There should be riots represented as soldiers, but not planetary takeovers right away even if they win, basically. and fleets eventually, but even then they should not start taking over space with it, just being a nuisance that gets gradually more serious. i want the military aspect of the revolutions to be something ongoing you're dealing with (presence of riot troops on a planet gives debuffs and escalates the risk of open revolt on the planet), rather than a one and done "oh no i lost this planet and these starbases and there's a new empire i have to reconquer".

 

[MadCow94]

Absolutely agree with not "over eventing" it. Events should be the end-zones of (either end of) stability on a planet/sector. If your people love you, maybe once in a great while a positive event fires or something "lucky" happens. If you're at the bottom end... pirates, random 2-army rebellions (which scale the longer you're in the danger zone) until a faction leader with a faction that hates you because you ignore them.... breaks away with a sector.

 

[TrotBot]

breaks away with a sector.

i think this should be one possible result, i think them taking over and flipping your ethics should be another. also, breaking away should be very much last last result in an impasse where he can't defeat you and you can't fully defeat him. i think the other types and results of rebellion are more interesting and need to be developed much more.

 

[gyutop]

I don't want whatever systems are introduced to be heavily resourced based. This will probably be hard to do with Unity and Influence already being a thing, but the game already feels like a spreadsheet manager. Don't get me wrong, I love a good spreadsheet, but I think Stellaris needs some more story based gameplay.

 

[TrotBot]

I don't want whatever systems are introduced to be heavily resourced based. This will probably be hard to do with Unity and Influence already being a thing, but the game already feels like a spreadsheet manager. Don't get me wrong, I love a good spreadsheet, but I think Stellaris needs some more story based gameplay.

yeah definitely agree with you there. there should be some consequences tied into the unity system, and tied into happiness, which should be expanded to be more logical. like slaves should not become authoritarian and happy because of slavery. happiness needs to make more logical sense for the conditions of each layer, worker, specialist, ruler. but other than unity and happiness being given deeper interactions with rebellion, it should be as you said not about resources.

it should be about ethics, about species rights, about whether you give utopian abundance to one (making them happy) and slavery to another (making them unhappy of course, but even more so because of the jealousy question that they see others living in utopian abundance), etc... it should be about designing a faction, or a sect for the spiritualists. it should be about tying your factional ethics to the federation system and letting you impose species rights, living standards, ai rights, refugees welcome, and specific ethics on your federation. it should be about designing the governing system you're imposing in a liberation war, so that i don't have to remove someone's quirky pacifism to impose my mandatory fanatic egalitarianism on the galaxy. etc... etc... it should be about molding the galactic community into a new institution based on those chosen ethics you wanted, the way the imperium does to some extent.

it should be about tools for inserting your roleplay into every part of the game, and having the game react to it with deep consequences. as you said, not about excel sheets.

 

[Quinzal]

Of all the possible DLCs I can think of, the"internal politics" one makes most sense to ignore gestalt empires.

I think at best, they couldn expect to benefit from possible changes to the crime/deviancy system.

It's been established that Machine Empires are not centralized consciousnesses, but networks of robots. Additionally, deviancy causes networks of robots to splinter off from the main collective, so it wouldn't be off the table for such a network to try to influence the rest of the collective.

Additionally, Hive Minds have been said to be a lot more fluid than they are gameplay-wise, and with there being semi-independent drones in the positions of leaders, who's to say one of them wouldn't have an idea for bettering the mind?

 

[TrotBot]

It's been established that Machine Empires are not centralized consciousnesses, but networks of robots. Additionally, deviancy causes networks of robots to splinter off from the main collective, so it wouldn't be off the table for such a network to try to influence the rest of the collective.

Additionally, Hive Minds have been said to be a lot more fluid than they are gameplay-wise, and with there being semi-independent drones in the positions of leaders, who's to say one of them wouldn't have an idea for bettering the mind?

it would be nice to have a minor type of faction system within gestalts, the way you had the true geth, and the heretic geth. then we could roleplay things like "voluntary driven assimilators" joining a federation for migration lol, and you could have the nice type of rogue servitors and the pop raiding type. it would add depth, and then it would even allow for servitors to impose ideology on the organics instead of conquering them, cause if they have some sort of politics it makes sense they would do what the culture did and impose it and uplift the organics into automated moneylessness. if you aren't gonna let us pamper you, then you must at least pamper yourselves according to the living standard list of the final egalitarian GC resolution. is what my servitor faction would say. maybe yours would say differently lol.

 

[GloatingSwine]

You can tell who are the Hearts of Iron fans and who are the Crusader Kings fans (I have a theory that Stellaris draws from both and that both sides are constantly at war). HOI fans are like, "Rebellions suck", CK fans are like, "If my empire doesn't collapse so I have to rebuild it every 50 years the game gets boring."

The question is does a rebellion lead to or proceed from interesting gameplay. In Stellaris the answer is no. You don't have any systems or levers to use which affect a rebellion, it's not attached to anything like a relationship between characters in the game, nor is it driven by anything that can be read as a perceptible desire on the part of those doing the rebelling. It's entirely one-dimensional based on a single abstract (stability) so it has no variance in causes or outcomes which can lead to gameplay.

 

[Liggi]

The question is does a rebellion lead to or proceed from interesting gameplay. In Stellaris the answer is no. You don't have any systems or levers to use which affect a rebellion, it's not attached to anything like a relationship between characters in the game, nor is it driven by anything that can be read as a perceptible desire on the part of those doing the rebelling. It's entirely one-dimensional based on a single abstract (stability) so it has no variance in causes or outcomes which can lead to gameplay.

This ties into something else I've been thinking. Rebellions shouldn't be something that are purely bad and to be avoided.

I want there to be situations where fostering a rebellion of a particular type within my empire might be a good idea. If I'm playing a Fanatic Materialist, and I find myself surrounded by Spiritualists, I might decide that my best option is to deliberately foster a Spiritualist rebellion within my own empire so I can team up with them. Or, I might decide not to, maybe I want to suppress all Spiritualism and try to become powerful enough to impose it on all of my neighbours. Or maybe I don't want to do it through military power, I want to do it via more subtle methods like diplomacy and espionage. All of those should be valid approaches, including the rebellion one.

Rebellions shouldn't just be an annoying mechanic with no benefit (like piracy).

Likewise, internal politics shouldn't be something I just have to keep maintained or bad things will happen, like spinning plates. It should be the place for genuinely interesting and dynamic stories to play out. Within your own empire and within others.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, it's important to make sure that the prize for interacting with a system isn't no longer having to worry about it. That always makes it feel like a chore not an opportunity for gameplay.

See: Politics in Rome 2 Total War.

 

[Foxosaur]

- I don't want a politics rework to be intrusive to a casual playstyle. I rarely pause the game out of choice, aside when in a significant war or the game forces me too (which is all the time) but I do want internal relationships and an overall happiness of sectors/planets to be more "apparent" and important. Equally it should work that way for AI.

Maybe there should be such a thing as "Loyalty" penalties when a planets and system have a new owner, not just based on opposing ethics etc. Something that takes time to harmonize and can potentially punish land-grabbing empires that expand too quickly and don't compensate.

- I don't want things like things like a roaming pirate fleet to spawn and interrupt my supply chain of energy still to be going on by late / end game. I would like this particular aspect to be more interesting but also handled "eventually" handled by an "internal force" and it be automated. Again could be linked to "loyalty" and pop happiness.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

The question is does a rebellion lead to or proceed from interesting gameplay. In Stellaris the answer is no. You don't have any systems or levers to use which affect a rebellion, it's not attached to anything like a relationship between characters in the game, nor is it driven by anything that can be read as a perceptible desire on the part of those doing the rebelling. It's entirely one-dimensional based on a single abstract (stability) so it has no variance in causes or outcomes which can lead to gameplay.

well, that's exactly why players are asking more internal stuff/politics

it's not about getting more modifiers or rng cards to spend mana on, that level of abstraction is already fleshed out, even dominating. we need more engaging and story telling gameplay stuff on a more concrete and immersive level

 

[Pancakelord]

I don't want an 'island' mechanic.

Whether it's narrative driven, modifier driven or mechanics driven (slotting in leaders or whatever), I don't want another waiting simulator (Galactic community 2.0) with some poorly setup maths (fleetpower dominating Diplo power) totally undermining the entire system.

This I think is the most important thing, irrespective of what is/isn't added. If the system can't be actively engaged with, it'll never be engaging - and the midgame really needs a non-conquest, engaging, gameplay loop (I don't count megastructures as engaging either for what it's worth).

Ideally I wouldn't want it to be divorced from planets either - planets have stability, pop political power, political classes, an ethical distribution. That should not be ignored (in favour of some isolated 'internal politics screen a la GC) in an internal politics overhaul.

 

[Ashantai]

A reminder to keep posts on topic and productive please.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

I'd hate to see it become a grab bag of random 'gotcha' type events that simply add flow breaking interruptions that look like depth and variety until you've seen them all.

Or pushed the way Mega corp spawns are if you start as one to 'create conflict' artificially.