Please: "Hive Lite" option for synth ascension

[tangled axile]

I understand that the devs have decided not to intermix the specific Hive Mind mechanics with synthetic ascension, and I'm not going to try to argue otherwise.

Even without those, I think there's still great opportunities to do something stylistically similar! Perhaps some possible exclusive civics, available only after synth ascension, and maybe also requiring a tech. To minimize balance issues, they could even just be renamed versions of existing civics. Here are a few examples:

• "Slaved Subroutines" - serves as a mutually exclusive upgrade to "Police State", providing, eg, -30 Unrest instead of Police State's -20.
  
  This can reflect the different and vastly expanded ways that brutal, repressive police states could monitor, suppress, and even reprogram their synthetic subjects/slaves.
  
  
• "Digital Consensus" - democracies only. Upgrade to (some democratic civic we haven't seen.), focused on making cross-ethos pops less unhappy, or just general happiness.
  
  Some love for less evil empires. I had the Geth in mind, and the general Egalitarian conceit of having more ethos diversity, but less penalties from it. This iterates and improves on that. Through the unprecedented levels of communication and collaboration available to the synths, people can more easily reach common ground. There are still major ideological differences, but those differences are much less polarizing.

And one that's much bigger:

• "Resistance is Futile" - authoritarians only. ALL synth pops are enslaved; unrest is massively reduced (-50%?). Must be your only civic.
  
  This, I feel, really gets as close as possible to a Borg or Cybermen situation without using the specific Hive Mind mechanic. The pops still HAVE happiness, and they'll generally be horribly unhappy, but it's almost impossible for them to actually revolt. Would definitely need balancing; ideally, it'd be inefficient compared to a 'normal' synth caste system (perhaps it also increases energy consumption per pop), and more about RP purposes than min-maxing.

Finally, one unlockable civic that wouldn't be specific to synth-ascension, but still locked behind lots of AI-related techs; this one is PARTICULARLY suited to Banks:

• "Great Minds" - locks Leadership Policy to an otherwise-unavailable new option, "AI Overminds." Only Synths can be recruited as leaders, but they all have +5 Leadership levels. -Happiness to Egalitarians, Xenophiles, Spiritualists, and non-Materialist organics. +Happiness to Materialists, and Synth Authoritarians/Xenophobes.
  
  Trying to get something along the lines of Banks' Minds here. Also loosely fits the AIcracies of Orion's Arm. Not really happy about the name, and naturally this could be very unbalanced.

I really hope something like these can be implemented! I feel like, even if there were just some renamed versions of existing civics, they'd add a whole lot of flavor, reflecting ways an all-synth society could be reorganized. They could also result in new gov type names. And they definitely wouldn't require rewriting/overhauling the actual Hive Mind mechanics.

And after all - this is Banks. Do it for the hegswarms!

 

[Fourthspartan56]

"Resistance is Futile" - authoritarians only. ALL synth pops are enslaved; unrest is massively reduced(-90%?).
This, I feel, really gets as close as possible to a Borg or Cybermen situation without using the specific Hive Mind mechanic. The pops still HAVE happiness, they'll generally be horribly unhappy, but it's almost impossible for them to actually revolt. Might need balancing; ideally, it'd be inefficient, and more about RP purposes than min-maxing. Starting to implement this should result in frantic, last-chance uprisings and escaping refugees.

That sounds incredibly overpowered, the only meaningful downside to low happiness is the unrest it creates. Take away the unrest and you take away any reason to care about the happiness of your pops.

"Slaved Subroutines" - authoritarians only. Enslaved synth-pops have a big reduction in unrest (-50%?).
A smaller-scale, less-extreme version of the above; also a backup idea in case the former can't really work out. Might be reallly OP, though. Again, starting to implement this should result in panicked slaves trying to revolt or escape while they still can.

This is less horribly overpowered but still overpowered, ignoring unrest should not be an option for non-hive minds.

"Will Suppression" - non-(Fanatic?)Egalitarians. Significantly reduces synth unrest (-25%?), but also lowers Happiness (-5%?). (Happiness malus could be reduced or eliminated for Authoritarian pops, doubled for Egalitarian pops)
Much smaller-scale, and available to non-slavers. Certain blocks in mental processing reduce the risk of armed revolt. Would probably need some careful tweaking to make sure it doesn't lead to a net increase in unrest.

I cannot imagine egalitarians tolerating this, unless they were xenophobes and it was against aliens. Otherwise it would be completely antithetical to their ethics.

"Digital Consensus" - democracies only. Reduces the ill effects of unhappy Factions (but also reduces the boni from happy factions?).
Finally, a cyber hive-ish option that's not horribly dystopian. Had the Geth in mind here, and the general Egalitarian conceit of having more ethos diversity, but less penalties from it. This takes that to a new level; the whole population's ability to communicate and collaborate makes reaching a common ground easier. There are still major ideological differences, but via the consensus-building process, those differences are much less polarizing. Not sure how well-balanced it'd be.

This isn't bad, but balance wise it could seriously help Democracies in a way that could be bad.

I really hope something like these can be implemented! I feel like they'd add a whole lot of flavor, at the least, while not requiring a big rework of the whole Hive-Minded system to allow for synths.

I think that while your ideas aren't bad they would be massively overpowered, unrest is not something that polities should be able to just ignore unless they're hive minds.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Honestly, I think all this "Let Synths be hiveminds too!" stuff is kind of futile.

Each Ascension Path is going to be different (as they should be), and since Hive Minds are a thing you can only mess with if you take the Genetics Ascension Path (or start as one), it seems entirely likely to me that the developers specifically do not want a similar mechanic for Synthetic or Psionic Ascension Path followers.

Stellaris uses organic hive minds, that's just how it is. I'm sure there'll be drift-reducing techs available for Synth empires, but access to the Hive Mind mechanics? Nah.

 

[tangled axile]

('Resistance is Futile') sounds incredibly overpowered, the only meaningful downside to low happiness is the unrest it creates. Take away the unrest and you take away any reason to care about the happiness of your pops.

Counterpoint: All slaves have penalties to energy/science, and after synth ascension, they all 'eat' energy and not food. Presumably, on top of that, it'd have really big ongoing costs (maybe pops 'eat' 1.1 energy instead of 1 or something). So, in all ways but mineral production, enslaving your entire population should actually be MUCH less efficient than a synthed slaver empire that doesn't do this.

(Also: I was under the impression that unhappiness still has some effect on slave production, just not as much? Is this wrong? I don't actually play slaver empires, so I could be pretty seriously underestimating the balance issues, I'll certainly admit that.)

('Slaved Subroutines') is less horribly overpowered but still overpowered, ignoring unrest should not be an option for non-hive minds.

I think that while your ideas aren't bad they would be massively overpowered, unrest is not something that polities should be able to just ignore unless they're hive minds.

That's a fair point. However, from what we've seen in the stream, unrest is already extremely weak and relatively easy to suppress anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, and/or they'll tweak it up. But I still think this could be somewhat balanced (even if that means very different numbers from what I'm suggesting).


... you know, come to think of it, some of these might be better suited for exclusive civics, which actually is a much better fit thematically as well as being somewhat more balanced.

EG, the "Police State" civic currently gives -20 Unrest; "Slaved Subroutines" could be a -30 Unrest (or whatever) mutually exclusive civic only available after synth ascension (and possibly also a tech?). "Digital Consensus" could similarly be an 'upgraded' version of some democratic civic.

If that's still too strong, they could just be renamed versions of a few existing civics.

This, I think, would help a LOT with balance issues. It'd be great fluffwise, too - these reflect a reordering of governance and society, after all, AND could give unique govtype names. Gonna edit the OP to reflect this.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

Counterpoint: All slaves have penalties to energy/science, and after synth ascension, they all 'eat' energy and not food. Presumably, on top of that, it'd have really big ongoing costs (maybe pops 'eat' 1.1 energy instead of 1 or something). So, in all ways but mineral production, enslaving your entire population should actually be MUCH less efficient than a synthed slaver empire that doesn't do this.

(Also: I was under the impression that unhappiness still has some effect on slave production, just not as much? Is this wrong? I don't actually play slaver empires, so I could be pretty seriously underestimating the balance issues, I'll certainly admit that.)

I'm thinking of slavery in 1.5 which causes serious unrest and taking away that unrest would likely be incredibly overpowered. And I can see what you mean that enslaving your population when you're a synth empire could be inefficient but in spite of that I'm not sure it would be any less unbalanced.

That's a fair point. However, from what we've seen in the stream, unrest is already extremely weak and relatively easy to suppress anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, and/or they'll tweak it up. But I still think this could be somewhat balanced (even if that means very different numbers from what I'm suggesting).

Maybe, but making a weak thing even more inconsequential does not sound like a winning strategy to me.

... you know, come to think of it, some of these might be better suited for exclusive civics, which actually is a much better fit thematically as well as being somewhat more balanced.

Hmm, interesting idea. In general the ideas you're giving aren't bad and would absolutely provide more variety and interesting fluff it's just the gameplay effects that I'm leery of.

EG, the "Police State" civic currently gives -20 Unrest; "Slaved Subroutines" could be a -30 Unrest (or whatever) mutually exclusive civic only available after synth ascension (and possibly also a tech?). "Digital Consensus" could similarly be an 'upgraded' version of some democratic civic.

That seems reasonable.

If that's still too strong, they could just be renamed versions of a few existing civics.

Fair enough.

This, I think, would help a LOT with balance issues. It'd be great fluffwise, too - these reflect a reordering of governance and society, after all, AND could give unique govtype names. Gonna edit the OP to reflect this.

I'm still uncertain of the gameplay viability of this but fluff wise it's certainly fascinating.

 

[tangled axile]

I'm thinking of slavery in 1.5 which causes serious unrest and taking away that unrest would likely be incredibly overpowered. And I can see what you mean that enslaving your population when you're a synth empire could be inefficient but in spite of that I'm not sure it would be any less unbalanced.

Maybe, but making a weak thing even more inconsequential does not sound like a winning strategy to me.

Hmm, interesting idea. In general the ideas you're giving aren't bad and would absolutely provide more variety and interesting fluff it's just the gameplay effects that I'm leery of.

That seems reasonable.

Fair enough.

I'm still uncertain of the gameplay viability of this but fluff wise it's certainly fascinating.

Thank you! I definitely admit that the 'Resistance is Futile' suggestion is, well, still quite a reach, probably not going to happen outside of mods, and would have serious balance issues. Including civic 'upgrades' at all may be too unbalancing, at that.