Is the Ethos based game system too restrictive?

[Frederick III]

Doesn't mean they want to hug them and be friends either. There's difference between a war among human states, and a war with alien fanatic purifier that treats humans as livestock.
"Hello, conquered fanatic purifiers! We're not authoritarian so you'll going to live with us now. What is your diet? Human flesh? Oh well, i'll start asking for volunteers."

This is ridiculous. No one's forcing you to be all lovey dovey. If you want to be, play Xenophile. The key is the median human being (and the median person/plant/fungi by extrapolation) is neither Xenophile nor Xenophobe, and thus neither is interested in persecuting nor hugging the greater universe. So, if you want to persecute, play Xenophobe. If you want to hug, play Xenophile. If you're in the middle, you shouldn't have the option to do either.

Even if my ruler is worshiped like god?
Limitations come in different forms. If my people will get upset and i'll have to deal with unrest or other consequences, i'm fine with it. But simply not being able to do it?

The Imperial Cult civic requires authoritarianism. If you take it, you can go ahead and expel them all to refugee status to your heart's content.

Doesn't mean it will or should let you kill them all, though. The ancient world had all kinds of dictators who were worshipped as gods, didn't mean they could come out into a room full of decent people and declare that all the foreigners should be executed without getting pushback.

What i want is not to be forced to take xenophobic ethos on each playthrough.

Right, that's what I said. You want to be able to do things without taking the prerequisites for them. Sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too, to me. How about a playthrough without purging, that would allow you to not need Xenophobe, yes?

And you're already getting a huge penalty to relations. If you cleanse one planet everyone and their dog is going to hate you for the rest of the game. Is it not enough of a compromise?

No. Because the restriction is not in place purely for gameplay reasons. It's in place because it makes logical sense and in broad strokes matches history.

 

[Riftwalker]

Please guys, no real world politics.

Displacement or generally marking others as undesirables is a prime example of how restricting ethos is. Even as fanatic spiritual or militarist with a dictatorial government you can not displace people unless you also tolerate slavery or hate xenos.
And if you chose one of those two options just so that you can use displacement you will have a large political party which you won't be able to please as the authoritarian party wants a caste system and can't be pleased otherwise.
In the worst case you can end up influence starved as your RP playstlye does not fit into any of the ethos boxes and you end up with all political parties at around 50 happiness giving you a stable government but 0 influence.

I just RP slavery in my empire as something other than Chattel slavery. I just wish i could change living standards to show their exact conditions, wage slaves have home computers afterall.

 

[faljen_isus]

So far this expansion has fulfilled 80-90% of what i wanted my empire to be like (in the future i know i will get to 100%, but so far so good):

The Hieararchy of Mantar worships the immortal Chosen-One God-Emperor - the Hieararch, worshiping while everyone is living in a stratified society, knowing which is their role in the Empire. People from all walks of life are content with the often humble living standards they live in, for they need not more than that. The aristocracy goes to the same arenas and parks as the scientists, the nuclear engineers, even the slaves benefit from everything thus living an average happy life. Even that bug-eyed big-headed worm species on the far edge of the empire is happy, despite none of them ever being free or seeing anything except the farm, except working the land. They got so good at it that it has come to be their dominant trait, so dominant that it became irrelevant to them that they had special treatment when it came to population control.

The minor species of the empire are glad they need not carry the burden of leadership not that of serving in the military. The only service they see is the one they go to to defend their own land, their own planet, for they only need defend their homes. Although, there has been word that the God-Emperor has set his sights on a pre-sentient species to be uplifted as his own personal guard, but as of yet no words have come to the wide ranges of the Empire if that will truly come to pass.

The Hieararchs Will turns worlds to cold arctic wastes, the natural biome of the Mantari, for there they can best engage in deep meditation, in a near-slumber state where they attempt to harness their, once a thing of myth, psionic abilities. If it were not His guiding hand the empire would have surely fallen to the half-translucent invaders from the nether-realm. The price the Hieararch deemed acceptable in the lengthy war against the Accursed Ones was a single fledgling colony, which by His Will shall again see the Mantari roam its cold dead wastes and have its surface filled by cities upon cities housing billions.

And all those who are fortunate enough to live in the Empire are graced by His Edicts. Almost effortlessly his education reforms come in waves, they come with promises of spiritual unity and news programs that emphasize the happiness of the Empires denizens. To make things even more unbelievable, the Ministry of Benevolence openly encourages the Science division to embrace free thought, once more showing the love the Hierarch has for his subjects.

The unity of the People has become such that you can almost feel the One Vision path the Hiearach has bestowed upon us through his many Temples.

There is but a small portion of those who defy the path before us, but they will be dealt with. Some vile upstarts have even gone so far into heresy to say that the Hierarch Himself is covertly leading this movement... Impossible... Utter heresy!!!


PS the story of the empire that wants to give souls to machines is a truly romantic one, i hope a patch comes that enables it one day.

 

[Nobelissimos]

America doesn't give a shit about promoting freedom and democracy. If it suits their imperialist goals they'll promote democracy. And if it suits their goals they'll promote authoritarianism. See South America.

Edgy!

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

This is ridiculous. No one's forcing you to be all lovey dovey. If you want to be, play Xenophile. The key is the median human being (and the median person/plant/fungi by extrapolation) is neither Xenophile nor Xenophobe, and thus neither is interested in persecuting nor hugging the greater universe. So, if you want to persecute, play Xenophobe. If you want to hug, play Xenophile. If you're in the middle, you shouldn't have the option to do either.

Not wanting to expel aliens that seek to destroy your entire species doesn't look neutral to me. Not wanting to persecute someone you have all reasons to persecute is not being median human being. Seems to me like you're playing xenophilic by default unless you pick xenophobe ethos.

Doesn't mean it will or should let you kill them all, though. The ancient world had all kinds of dictators who were worshipped as gods, didn't mean they could come out into a room full of decent people and declare that all the foreigners should be executed without getting pushback.

Coming into a room of decent people and fighting with aliens when survival of your entire species is at stake is not quite the same thing, is it?
And, once again, i'm fine with pushback. I'm NOT fine with simply not having an option.

Right, that's what I said. You want to be able to do things without taking the prerequisites for them. Sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too, to me. How about a playthrough without purging, that would allow you to not need Xenophobe, yes?

I want prerequisites to be broader than just one ethos. What if you'd be able to declare war only if you have militaristic ethos? Would it be more fun? That's what happening with xenophobe/xenophile scale.

T
No. Because the restriction is not in place purely for gameplay reasons. It's in place because it makes logical sense and in broad strokes matches history.

Well, that's where we disagree. I don't think it makes logical sense. And as for human history i don't think it applies to sci-fi war between different species on the galactic scale.
It doesn't make sense to me that authoritarian can't purge.

 

[Ultimuh]

Yes I do agree that some of the restrictions are a bit too restrictive.
For example, I can't seem to make that xeno processing megacorporation empire I had in mind.
Because the Corporate Dominion civic is unfortunately tied to Egalitarian. So no xeno livestock to process for me.

 

[Deantwo]

Not sure I understand or agree with either side in this thread, roleplay or not.

The next logical step in improving factions would probably be to change policies to affect faction happiness/attraction rather than simply being impossible. It would make it easier to change your empire's government ethos, but at the cost of creating a lot of unhappiness.

If nothing else, it should be possible to change this using modding.

 

[ashbery76]

When you think about it with the new factions system you don't really need any restrictions.Your people will just get pissed and rebel if you go too extreme in policies.

 

[scaper12123]

I honestly feel like the ethos improve the roleplay rather than degrades it. Other than the possible conflict between what ethos you want and what civics you want, the ethos do a great job of defining how your race acts.

 

[TempusxX]

there is no restrictions at all with the way new faction system is in place and with the new faction system you can easily change your ethos anytime you want as long as you have a faction in play and a faction has the ethics you want. Plus as others have said it improves roleplay potential and doesn't degrade it at all

 

[krios41]

g as you have a faction in play and a faction has the ethics you want.

It took me 200 years to get an authoritarian faction
now i can't get it to have enough suport to embrace it.

you can easily change your ethos anytime you want

So i cal bulshit to this

 

[Emraldis]

It took me 200 years to get an authoritarian faction
now i can't get it to have enough suport to embrace it.

So i cal bulshit to this

well, you have to play in such a way as to get those factions support. For example, declaring a lot of wars gives you a lot of militarist support, so even if you're not a militarist, you'll be able to build up that support and start embracing the militarism ethos. The issue is that some factions/ethos are harder to garner support for without already being of that ethos. (xenophobia, authoritarianism, spiritualism and materialism coming to mind)

 

[misterderp]

It took me 200 years to get an authoritarian faction
now i can't get it to have enough suport to embrace it.

So i cal bulshit to this

If your pops are not joining the authoritarian faction you should take a look at this.

It could either be you do not do the things that make pops authoritarian or you do far more things that make pops other ethics.
It does look that the authoritarian attractions is mostly based around slavery. I don't see anything about unemployed pops (I though wiz mentioned (somewhere) pops being unemployed made them more likely to become authoritarian).

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

there is no restrictions at all with the way new faction system is in place and with the new faction system you can easily change your ethos anytime you want as long as you have a faction in play and a faction has the ethics you want. Plus as others have said it improves roleplay potential and doesn't degrade it at all

The problem is, you'll have to ditch one of your ethos to make room for new one. For example, I may want to become egalitarian, but it doesn't mean that i've stopped being materialistic.

 

[krios41]

If your pops are not joining the authoritarian faction you should take a look at this.

The only thing i can thus do more is have slaves.
But i can't have slaves before i become Authoritarian.

 

[Emraldis]

The only thing i can thus do more is have slaves.
But i can't have slaves before i become Authoritarian.

You can become xenophobic to get slaves.

 

[kviiri]

The only thing i can thus do more is have slaves.
But i can't have slaves before i become Authoritarian.

Well, while I agree this is quite a pickle in practice, you *could* use xenophobe as a stepping stone to get xeno slaves, who then contribute to the social demand for autocracy.

Hmm, I wonder if there's a real life example of an autocrat who used xenophobia as a means of getting power in the government...

-- Joking aside, I think it'd make sense if failed democratic mandates increased the demand for autocracy. However, that'd only work for proper democracies, not egalitarian oligarchies.

 

[krios41]

You can become xenophobic to get slaves.

Yes, one problem.
I'm a charismatic species.
Only valid leftover is a defensive war (wich is very unlikly seeing i'm in a very strong defensive pact) and getting a race with teh repugnant trait in my empire.
I have checked the species tab and tehre is no species in teh galaxy with the repugnant trait.

 

[Emraldis]

Yes, one problem.
I'm a charismatic species.
Only valid leftover is a defensive war (wich is very unlikly seeing i'm in a very strong defensive pact) and getting a race with teh repugnant trait in my empire.
I have checked the species tab and tehre is no species in teh galaxy with the repugnant trait.

Then that's unfortunate. Why are you trying to get slaves suddenly?

 

[krios41]

Then that's unfortunate. Why are you trying to get slaves suddenly?

To become authoritarian. Al so i can displace this one race of aliens that are suposed to be my nations ethernal rivals