More unity from factions for Utopian Abundance

[Gui10]

Utopian abundance is generally consider a weak living standard, since it consumes a lot of consumer goods. Unity from factions has increased the problem, since it is calculated from the total political power and the lack of modifiers to increase the political power of strata means it produces less total unity than more unequal living standards.

My suggestion is simple, give Utopian Abundance a +400% political power modifier to all strata. This wouldn't change the balance of power between strata, but would make its unity generation similar to Academic Privilege (which consumes the same amount of consumer goods for rulers and specialists). This would mean that Academic Privilege rulers produce twice as much unity as Utopian Abundance's, but specialists produce the same under both living standards and workers produce five times as much unity under Utopian Abundance (while costing 4 times as many consumer goods).

This would fit with the theme of Utopian Abundance, since it means pops contribute more voluntarily as long as it is something they agree with (so as long as their factions are happy, they contribute more unity). It would also mean that Shared Burdens empires have a reason (beyond roleplay) to switch to Utopian Abundance, since it would increase their consumer goods consumption 2.5 times, but it would also increase their unity from factions 5 times.

 

[The5lacker]

Another benefit for bumping up the Political Power to all strata to 400% is that it means in mixed-living-standards empires, you don't wind up with your Utopian species being outweighed by Specialist Xenos with a different living standard. Not that Xenophobe/Egalitarian empires are terribly common, granted, but it happens.

 

[HFY]

Shared Burdens is even worse, at 60% instead of a whole 100%, let alone being able to compete with the 400% / 900% lifestyles.

Materialists STRONK.

 

[civ_v_freak]

It would also mean that Shared Burdens empires have a reason (beyond roleplay) to switch to Utopian Abundance, since it would increase their consumer goods consumption 2.5 times, but it would also increase their unity from factions 5 times.

Maybe you don't know this, but the Shared Burdens civic now doubles the faction unity from the Egalitarian faction (which I assume is multiplicative) as of I think 3.6. This has the effect that, depending on how many egalitarian pops you have, it might be more or less beneficial to ditch the civic and switch to UA (for example via ethic switching from Fanatic Egalitarian -> Egalitarian) versus keeping the civic and switch to UA. If I still have a sense of mathematics and my maths is correct, according to my calculations the TL;DR is it is beneficial to keep the civic if you have ~34% or more egalitarian pops, while it is beneficial to ditch the civic if you have ~33% egalitarian pops or below.

Effectively your suggestion, depending on the distribution of pops between factions, losing the civic would result in anywhere from zero relative gain in faction unity gained relative the increased CG cost (in a hypothetical 100% egalitarian society) due to losing the effect from Shared Burdens cancelling out the benefit from increased political power of UA to double faction unity gained relative the increased CG cost (in a hypothetical, and pretty illogical, 0% egalitarian society).

But... if you instead kept the civic and just switched to UA, that would change the outcome to double faction unity gained relative the increased CG cost (in a hypothetical 100% egalitarian society) versus double faction unity gained relative the increased CG cost (in a hypothetical, and pretty illogical, 0% egalitarian society), due to the Shared Burdens effect not affecting non-Egalitarian pops.

CONCLUSION: I think OP's suggestion could actually be interesting as, depending on the size of the egalitarian faction, it would be more or less efficient to either keep or ditch the Shared Burdens civic when you switch all your species to having Utopian Abundance. Governing Ethics attraction modifiers could really help here with maximizing faction unity gain overall via the Egalitarian faction, by keeping the Shared Burdens civic. The one gripe I have with the suggestion is that it utilizes what I consider a flaw in the design of the faction unity system, i.e. pop political power for some reason meaning certain pops are more "unifying" than others, with the pops generating most faction unity being e.g. rulers under Stratified Economy living standard. I think political power as a mechanic in the game is fine, it's just the way it interacts with faction unity that I think is quite arbitrary and non-sensical.