Proposal for 3 types of Migration Controls under Species Rights in Utopia/Banks

[ManifestDestinySpace]

The following is a proposal to split Migration Controls as it appears under Species Rights in Utopia/Banks into 3 controls. This will in effect also replace Migration treaties entirely as each empire would be able to determine its immigration/emigration policies fully and precisely thereby rendering the need for migration treaties null.
These policy options would replace migration being diplomacy related and make it an empire policy matter (which makes much more sense, as immigration/emigration are surely matters of governmental policy, not diplomatic treaties).



The 3 controls would be as follows:

• Internal Migration Controls: for migration between planets/moons/habitats within the empire
• Immigration Controls: for migration into the empire from foreign empires
• Emigration Controls: for migration from the empire to foreign empires

Each of the controls would have the following options:

• Allowed: <Internal migration / Immigration/ Emigration> is allowed for all Pops of this species.
• Same Ethics Only: <Internal migration / Immigration/ Emigration> is allowed only for Pops of this species which have an Ethic that is the same as an Empire Ethic.
• Different Ethics Only: <Internal migration / Immigration/ Emigration> is allowed only for Pops of this species which have an Ethic that does not match an Empire Ethic.
• Banned: <Internal migration / Immigration/ Emigration> is banned for all Pops of this species.

This would allow the precise fine tuning of migration policy for each empire.

There will, of course, be consequences for empires that impose excessive restrictions on the different sorts of migration, which will anger Egalitarian and Xenophile factions (something that would be particularly problematic for democratic egalitarian/xenophile empires with influential and large egalitarian and xenophile factions).

 

[The Founder]

• Internal Migration Controls: for migration between planets/moons/habitats within the empire

• Immigration Controls: for migration into the empire from foreign empires

• Emigration Controls: for migration from the empire to foreign empires

1 Would simply be not singing any Migration Treaties.
2. Is already done by the species rights
3. would be done by simply not allowing Migration internally. The problem is that the moment you allow the pops in your empire the freedom to move, you can bet somebody will use it to flee. The civilian transports that bring them from Planet A to Planet B can bring them from Planet A to Planet A in your neighbours empire.

Between Resettlement, Migration and more detailed species rights I do not see what that would add.

• Same Ethics Only: <Internal migration / Immigration/ Emigration> is allowed only for Pops of this species which have at least one Ethic that is the same as an Empire Ethic and no opposing Ethics.

• Different Ethics Only: <Internal migration / Immigration/ Emigration> is allowed only for Pops of this species which have an Ethic that is in opposition to the Empire’s Ethics and/or no Ethics that match the Empire’s Ethics.

Limiting it by Ethics makes even less sense in 1.5 then it did before. Every pop will only have 1 non-Fanatic Ethos. If you are small and propserous enough, you will convert the bulk of your population to your Ethics. If they are "home grown" or "migrated" there does not realy mater.
If you are large enough, you will have issues with Ethos Drift and Factions. You are not supposed to dodge that bullet.

 

[ManifestDestinySpace]

1 Would simply be not singing any Migration Treaties.
2. Is already done by the species rights
3. would be done by simply not allowing Migration internally. The problem is that the moment you allow the pops in your empire the freedom to move, you can bet somebody will use it to flee. The civilian transports that bring them from Planet A to Planet B can bring them from Planet A to Planet A in your neighbours empire.

Between Resettlement, Migration and more detailed species rights I do not see what that would add.


Limiting it by Ethics makes even less sense in 1.5 then it did before. Every pop will only have 1 non-Fanatic Ethos. If you are small and propserous enough, you will convert the bulk of your population to your Ethics. If they are "home grown" or "migrated" there does not realy mater.
If you are large enough, you will have issues with Ethos Drift and Factions. You are not supposed to dodge that bullet.

1. Yes, but you seemed to have missed the purpose of this proposal: to allow seperate policies for internal migration, immigration and emigration rather than just a single migration policy without specific control over internal migration, immigration or emigration.
2. See above.
3. Again, see above.

Bear in mind that, for example, democratic egalitarian empires cannot pursue resettlement (which is a forcible action) and therefore would find slightly regulated albeit still largely laissez faire type policies useful.

The original post has been edited to reflect the way ethics are handled in pops in Utopia/Banks.

 

[lief1]

It would make more sense to discriminate based on pop statis: ie. Full Citizen vs partial citizen or cast, or slavery.

Changing it to allow:
1) Only Full Citizen
2) Partial Citizen or Full
3) Free Cast members, partial citizen, or full citizen
4) None

But keep the emigration/immigration distinction.

 

[Red Death]

I agree, but I believe we can already set immigration rights for each individual species in 1.5 from what we've seen. The change I would like to make is simply adding emigration rights, and removing migration treaties. It has always seemed to me like emigration should normally be allowed, and only blocked through a policy setting, possibly requiring authoritarian ethic. Allowing emigration could be one of the demands of the egalitarian faction.

The fact you're not having people emigrate means you are forcibly keeping people from leaving after all. That shouldn't just be the "default" if you don't have migration treaties. This would also make immigration-based empires a lot more fun to play.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Bear in mind that, for example, democratic egalitarian empires cannot pursue resettlement (which is a forcible action) and therefore would find slightly regulated albeit still largely laissez faire type policies useful.

Your idea is to allow supposedly Egalitarian empires to restrict rights based on ethos. I understand why that may be convenient from a mechanical standpoint, but in the abstraction of the game you want an Egalitarian empire to have a record of what every citizen thinks and to only allow travel to those who have proven themselves ideologically dependable, or ideologically undependable in the case of emigration. In the case of immigration, the abstraction for this would be, well, "extreme vetting" but where the state instead actually does the work to not just prevent criminals but to confirm what the immigrants think before allowing them entrance, and does it fast enough and well enough to still allow immigration.

I'd be okay with this in game, but only if it came with an associated influence cost to represent all the extra work performed by the state, and only if it were not available to Egalitarians, possibly only available to Authoritarians. To allow this for free would be to allow people to side-step too much of the game mechanics, to allow this for Egalitarians would be almost humorously immersion breaking.

 

[ManifestDestinySpace]

Your idea is to allow supposedly Egalitarian empires to restrict rights based on ethos. I understand why that may be convenient from a mechanical standpoint, but in the abstraction of the game you want an Egalitarian empire to have a record of what every citizen thinks and to only allow travel to those who have proven themselves ideologically dependable, or ideologically undependable in the case of emigration. In the case of immigration, the abstraction for this would be, well, "extreme vetting" but where the state instead actually does the work to not just prevent criminals but to confirm what the immigrants think before allowing them entrance, and does it fast enough and well enough to still allow immigration.

I'd be okay with this in game, but only if it came with an associated influence cost to represent all the extra work performed by the state, and only if it were not available to Egalitarians, possibly only available to Authoritarians. To allow this for free would be to allow people to side-step too much of the game mechanics, to allow this for Egalitarians would be almost humorously immersion breaking.

The cost for democratic egalitarian empires imposing excessive migration restrictions would be making the egalitarian and xenophile factions unhappy.

 

[The Founder]

1. Yes, but you seemed to have missed the purpose of this proposal: to allow seperate policies for internal migration, immigration and emigration rather than just a single migration policy without specific control over internal migration, immigration or emigration.
2. See above.
3. Again, see above.

You want migration interally, rather then using Resettlement.
And draining other empires pops, without risking your pops being drained.

You want to eat two cakes, without paying the price for them.

You either have migration (inlcuding the danger of loosing pops with a Migration treaty) or use Resettlement internally.
And you have to actually risk loosing your pops to migration treaties, to get pops out of them.

Allowing pops to migrate into your empire but not out again? Yeah, you just explaien why Egalitarians have a higher Migration atraction. Because they can not easily spring that kind of stuff on you.

It would make more sense to discriminate based on pop statis: ie. Full Citizen vs partial citizen or cast, or slavery.

Enslaved pops can not migrate or be affected by many events. In turn they can always be resetteled (same with T1+T2 Robots).
As you could just move a pop to a tile it is enslaved on (or move it towarsd a tile it will be enslaved on), I asume you can always resettle pops under Caste System.

 

[Mackus]

I mostly agree with the proposal, but NOT with idea to give an option to restrict pop migration by their ethics. Because of how ethic shift works right now, it'd be entirely useless and superfluous part of this new feature.

 

[ManifestDestinySpace]

You want migration interally, rather then using Resettlement.
And draining other empires pops, without risking your pops being drained.

You want to eat two cakes, without paying the price for them.

You either have migration (inlcuding the danger of loosing pops with a Migration treaty) or use Resettlement internally.
And you have to actually risk loosing your pops to migration treaties, to get pops out of them.

Allowing pops to migrate into your empire but not out again? Yeah, you just explaien why Egalitarians have a higher Migration atraction. Because they can not easily spring that kind of stuff on you.


Enslaved pops can not migrate or be affected by many events. In turn they can always be resetteled (same with T1+T2 Robots).
As you could just move a pop to a tile it is enslaved on (or move it towarsd a tile it will be enslaved on), I asume you can always resettle pops under Caste System.

Banks introduces the concept of Consumer Goods as well as partisan political Factions that affect happiness so having a large amount of Pops is no longer simply just beneficial without a cost. Not to forget in addition to this, Unity/Traditions as well as research will be slowed down the more Pops there are in an empire.

 

[The Founder]

Banks introduces the concept of Consumer Goods as well as partisan political Factions that affect happiness so having a large amount of Pops is no longer simply just beneficial without a cost. Not to forget in addition to this, Unity/Traditions as well as research will be slowed down the more Pops there are in an empire.

That is the same as saying "maybe you do not want a high population growth rate?"
And it makes about as much sesne.

What you want is a mechanic to get rid of "unwanted" Ethics via Emigration or more conformity via Imigration.
Purge and Slavery got the ability to just solve Ethic divergence removed intentionally. Do you really think they will add a 3rd option, in the same step as removing the first 2? What would be the point of that?

On top of going against one of the core goals of the Ethics and rights rework, it would also not be effectively useable by the AI.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

The cost for democratic egalitarian empires imposing excessive migration restrictions would be making the egalitarian and xenophile factions unhappy.

Yeah, that should totally happen too, when this move is used by a nonegalitarian government that happens to have egalitarians and xenophiles.

But the only people who get to call themselves "The People's Republic of Squidland" while engaging in thought monitoring are those who show the appropriate level of irony and do so as an Authoritarian.

 

[ManifestDestinySpace]

What you want is a mechanic to get rid of "unwanted" Ethics via Emigration or more conformity via Imigration.

The game currently gives numerous tools for authoritarian xenophobes to create racially 'pure' (and therefore more stable) empires and plenty more such tools will come with Utopia/Banks.

Why not give democratic egalitarians at least one new way to attempt to create ideologically united (and therefore more stable) empires through a tool which they may often use (migration) with Utopia/Banks?

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

The game currently gives numerous tools for authoritarian xenophobes to create racially 'pure' (and therefore more stable) empires and plenty more such tools will come with Utopia/Banks.

And nonauthoritarian xenophiles one.... what on earth could the Authoritarian/Xenophobe trade off that allows them to sacrifice population have to do with anything in this thread?

Why not give democratic egalitarians at least one new way to attempt to create ideologically united (and therefore more stable) empires through a tool which they may often use (migration) with Utopia/Banks?

Ohhhh.... you're appealing to fairness. When discussing two unrelated systems, the first of which already coming with a significant drawback. Well, your question has already been answered.

To allow this for free would be to allow people to side-step too much of the game mechanics, to allow this for Egalitarians would be almost humorously immersion breaking.

Purge and Slavery got the ability to just solve Ethic divergence removed intentionally. Do you really think they will add a 3rd option, in the same step as removing the first 2? What would be the point of that?

On top of going against one of the core goals of the Ethics and rights rework, it would also not be effectively useable by the AI.

 

[The Founder]

The game currently gives numerous tools for authoritarian xenophobes to create racially 'pure' (and therefore more stable) empires and plenty more such tools will come with Utopia/Banks.

Why not give democratic egalitarians at least one new way to attempt to create ideologically united (and therefore more stable) empires through a tool which they may often use (migration) with Utopia/Banks?

A large point of the Ethic rework was giving every Ethics significant convergence if you just play according to the path of that Ethic.
Egalitarians do not NEED the "-60% policy happiness" of 1.4 anymore, because now even they can converge pops. Just by being themself.

If you want conformity:
Either play according to the Ethics you picked.
Or change the Ethics you picked to better fit your actuall playstyle.
You do not need any new fancy tolls that the AI could not use and that would disrupt the existing mechanics.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Thinking about this further, and trying to think about this from a fresh perspective, this would actively work against at least one new mechanic mentioned in Banks. Come banks, having friendly relations with someone you disagree with increases the attraction of their ethos. To put another way, if you're friends with an authoritarian, your people are more likely to become attracted to authoritarianism, if you're friends with a xenophile your people are more likely to become xenophilic and so on. However, to have a system like this ideologically clean your people, you'd need immigration treaties with people who disagree with you which would be a type of close diplomatic relationship.

On the one hand, I can see this creating a more cosmopolitan universe, which has a charm to it. On the other hand, the game is actually moving in the opposite direction proposed here, in a couple of different ways.

 

[ManifestDestinySpace]

@sherrif & founder
Clearly you guys have issues with the option to control the various sorts of migrations by ethics, but leaving that aside, even simply having binary options (i.e. minus the options for regulating these policies by ethics) for allowing or disallowing internal migration, immigration and emigration as 3 separate policies would still be immensely useful in allowing empires to craft their migration policies precisely without having to pick something too broad.

However, to have a system like this ideologically clean your people, you'd need immigration treaties with people who disagree with you which would be a type of close diplomatic relationship.

The implementation of these controls would render the need for migration treaties null. These policy options would replace migration being diplomacy related and make it an empire policy matter (which makes much more sense, as immigration/emigration are surely matters of governmental policies, not diplomatic treaties).

 

[The Founder]

Clearly you guys have issues with the option to control the various sorts of migrations by ethics, but leaving that aside, even simply having binary options (i.e. minus the options for regulating these policies by ethics) for allowing or disallowing internal migration, immigration and emigration as 3 separate policies would still be immensely useful in allowing empires to craft their migration policies precisely without having to pick something too broad.

Those 3 options are the problem. Reducing your proposal to them does not make them less of a problem.

If you want internal Migration without danger of empire flight just allow migration, but do not sign Migration treaties (that asumes Migration treaties are even still a thing in 1.5, with the species rights rework). You literally have to do NOTHING to have that 1st Option.

If you want to have immigration from outside, you have to life with the danger of having emigration too. That is the price you pay for access to those additional populations. That is why a migration treaty does not cost influence.

What you propose is not removing Migration treaties, but turning them into a unilateral agreement you can just declare without any downside.


How would those Policies even interact?
What if you want the pops (allow Imigration), but thier current empire is not willing to part with them (Emigration disallowed)?
Would the Emigration disallow just have no effect?
Would the other side still have to allow Emigration, effectively meaning they still have to agree they can come to you? (That actually sounds exactly like what the Migration Treaty mechanic is doing already right now. So congrats for reinventing the wheel in your quest to never use the wheel again).

For Emigration only scenarios there IS Undesireables/Displacement already.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

@sherrif & founder
Clearly you guys have issues with the option to control the various sorts of migrations by ethics, but leaving that aside, even simply having binary options (i.e. minus the options for regulating these policies by ethics) for allowing or disallowing internal migration, immigration and emigration as 3 separate policies would still be immensely useful in allowing empires to craft their migration policies precisely without having to pick something too broad.



The implementation of these controls would render the need for migration treaties null. These policy options would replace migration being diplomacy related and make it an empire policy matter (which makes much more sense, as immigration/emigration are surely matters of governmental policies, not diplomatic treaties).

Still no thanks. For one being that migration is a government AND diplomatic policy. If you don't think so, just check any recent news feed within the United States. Two, because this is taking a strategic decision that needs to be made actively after developing a positive relationship with a neighbor and replacing it with a passive policy selection.

It's not to the betterment of the game.

 

[Sopbucket]

Those 3 options are the problem. Reducing your proposal to them does not make them less of a problem.

If you want internal Migration without danger of empire flight just allow migration, but do not sign Migration treaties (that asumes Migration treaties are even still a thing in 1.5, with the species rights rework). You literally have to do NOTHING to have that 1st Option.

If you want to have immigration from outside, you have to life with the danger of having emigration too. That is the price you pay for access to those additional populations. That is why a migration treaty does not cost influence.

What you propose is not removing Migration treaties, but turning them into a unilateral agreement you can just declare without any downside.


How would those Policies even interact?
What if you want the pops (allow Imigration), but thier current empire is not willing to part with them (Emigration disallowed)?
Would the Emigration disallow just have no effect?
Would the other side still have to allow Emigration, effectively meaning they still have to agree they can come to you? (That actually sounds exactly like what the Migration Treaty mechanic is doing already right now. So congrats for reinventing the wheel in your quest to never use the wheel again).

For Emigration only scenarios there IS Undesireables/Displacement already.

My first reaction to hearing this proposal was "it wouldn't be worth the extra clutter on the species rights screen." I think, though, you've convinced me that there are ways of preserving some of the features here without compicating the system too much.

Setting a species citizenship to undesireable should by default prevent ALL immigration to your empire by that species, whether as migrants or as refugees. The undesireable status should be an option for all empires, except perhaps to xenophiles, even if no purge types are allowed.

This gives most empires a degree of control over their population make-up without requiring them to be xenophobic or authoritarian. While in the early game you can simply choose not to have a migration treaty with a certain empire, later you find species migrating to you anyway by first migrating to an empire you have a migration treaty with. This closes that loophole. I've argued in the past that displacement should be more widely available for the same reason, for some manner of control over the population make-up in non-xenophile empires, but this seems like a better solution imo. If you combine this with population controls and other discriminatory practices it could eventually lead to the self displacement of a species by its own free will.

Likewise, internal only migration isn't a bad idea, but it could simply be an option within migration controls itself (Allowed, Internal Only, or Banned). What you seem to be forgetting is that migration controls are at the species level now. If you want species A to be able to emigrate but species B to stay put, you can do that with the current setup, this just allows you to let species B migrate to your own planets too. You can't simply cancel your migration treaties because that would affect species A as well.

With these two changes, you basically have the same controls that are proposed here, aside from the case where a species can get in but can't get out, which I agree is silly.