Lol, purging is evil but we can send xenomorphs to eat everyone, including children, during war.
Purge Penalties
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Not literally immediate, but comparatively immediate. Certainly doesn't take decades to solve.
I do play Individualist in my latest game, but that doesn't help when freshly conquered pops take an additional -20% happiness because they disagree with 5 of your policies (and that's for only moderate ethos disagreements; this easily goes up to -40% for fanatical axis clashes). Sure, fanatic individualists get a much bigger -60% unhappiness reduction from policies -- but that's TWO of your ethos points and denies 2/3 of government options ingame.
As a result, something like 80% of my war gains are liberations (only strategic planets get conquered) so I don't have to deal with ethic differences. That really slows down rate of expansion.
Why do you think the propaganda war (i.e. syria) that accompanies modern warfare is all about trying to make civilian casualties of war look unintentional rather than deliberate?
When you purge, there is no question about the deliberate-ness of it. When you kill them in war, at least you have a level of pausable deniability ("oops, we totally didn't mean that... even though anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that we totally did, but you can't prove it.")
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It's true that the penalty is harsh but the changes in 1.5 makes discussion a bit obsolete.
shame the thread didnt have a poll added 
penalty is high but im ok with it.
My big issues is this - how the **** does the ai always know? and why dont we get notifications as the player then an AI purgers so we know who to - 200 !!!!!
penalty is high but im ok with it.
My big issues is this - how the **** does the ai always know? and why dont we get notifications as the player then an AI purgers so we know who to - 200 !!!!!
It will be interesting based on current purge penalities how livestock/feeding off another species directly for food will be handled. Surely that will be pretty much the same penalty wise. Maybe more so.
Purging should have penalties but right now it locks down too many options too fast.
I'm hoping this and the new options for purging/food don't have the same penalty as they do now. I can see some scaling maybe depending on what option you choose. As it stands unless you're the biggest kid on the block already these gameplay options should be avoided.
(Aside: I've allied with Fanatic Purifiers, in 1.3 i believe, before and helped them expand and yikes did they get huge fast. Seeing previously 3-5 conquered planets become empty was a good way to enforce the notion of NOT getting on their bad side.)
Purging should have penalties but right now it locks down too many options too fast.
I'm hoping this and the new options for purging/food don't have the same penalty as they do now. I can see some scaling maybe depending on what option you choose. As it stands unless you're the biggest kid on the block already these gameplay options should be avoided.
(Aside: I've allied with Fanatic Purifiers, in 1.3 i believe, before and helped them expand and yikes did they get huge fast. Seeing previously 3-5 conquered planets become empty was a good way to enforce the notion of NOT getting on their bad side.)
As it stands now (from what I've seen on the forums) taking as many Ethics Divergence reducing traits/gov't/ethos choices specifically to avoid Ethics Divergence seems to be popular. I'll grant ED is a pain and it thankfully seems like it's being changed to where the player has to deal with it and not avoid it in 1.5.
Slavery too is a method of avoiding penalties. It gives as well penalties but it doesn't completely lock out options the way purge does.
AI instant awareness of what is happening in your empire is a bit bizarre as it's very hard to tell what goes on in another empire unless you have sensor range so why should anyone who can't see it know?
Now with refugees and migrations sure that makes sense. There really needs to be am information game in this. Where information trickles in and out and it takes effort to determine internal politics/happenings of another empire. Especially in regards to distance (across galaxy)
Now with refugees and migrations sure that makes sense. There really needs to be am information game in this. Where information trickles in and out and it takes effort to determine internal politics/happenings of another empire. Especially in regards to distance (across galaxy)
Diplomatic purge penalties are way, way too high, from both a gameplay perspective (not like xenophobes are super strong strategy) and also arguably from a roleplay/realism perspective.
It seems like opponents are largely unable to get the thesis here.
The idea is that *small* amounts of purging should not radically affect *all* empires. As it is purging one or two planets means that diplomacy is essentially unavailable to you, even with monstrous dictatorships.
This seems excessive to me (the OP), and clearly some people also think so.
The fact that everyone knows about your purge and 'believes it' is, as mentioned by another poster, also part of the problem.
The idea is that *small* amounts of purging should not radically affect *all* empires. As it is purging one or two planets means that diplomacy is essentially unavailable to you, even with monstrous dictatorships.
This seems excessive to me (the OP), and clearly some people also think so.
The fact that everyone knows about your purge and 'believes it' is, as mentioned by another poster, also part of the problem.
lol good luck pitching this to the devs. The next gaming convention they attend when someone asks... I can just imagine their answer now:
"Yes, our game supports the use of genocide as a political and administrative tool to keep your empire running efficiently. Players are not penalized in any way when using this, and in fact, the current game meta encourages this."
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I know saying "world is ok with purges and genocides" is strongly against any kind of political correctness, but it is exactly how it is in the real world.
If citizens of Earth do not care of extermination of their own spieces, how could entire galaxy care of purge of unknown species on random planet?
BTW you are 100% correct:
"use of genocide as political and administrative tool to keep empire running efficiently" was exact way of thinking of many leaders in last 100 years - and world didn't care.
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I do recognize this is a delicate issue, and I do think some people should care (particularly xenophile pacifist democrats and neighbors).
Not everyone should hate you for an act that doesn't affect them, particularly self-interested xenophobic dictators who do not fear your military.
I just think that it broadens gameplay if it's not an instant switch from neutral to hatred for every species in the galaxy. 'Badboy' is a recognized feature of Paradox games and has value in simulating the court of public opinion. I'm just suggesting tweaking the numbers.
Not everyone should hate you for an act that doesn't affect them, particularly self-interested xenophobic dictators who do not fear your military.
I just think that it broadens gameplay if it's not an instant switch from neutral to hatred for every species in the galaxy. 'Badboy' is a recognized feature of Paradox games and has value in simulating the court of public opinion. I'm just suggesting tweaking the numbers.
Personally, I love how high the penalties can get. I've made it a "game" in my playthrough's to see just how high I can get people to hate me through genocide, slavery, and other generally evil actions.
So, pacifist suffer penalties for what they are and everybody is fine...
But when the xenophobes suffer for what they dont have to do, evebody whines about balance. And now proposition to give only MODERATE diplo penalties for wiping (not resetling) ENTIRE population of another empire.
Thats perfect.
Every empire wants to murder you becouse you called them ugly in the last insult you sent.
But beeing mildly anoyed becouse you purged their species from entire planet...
If this must look like that than I dont want any happiness penalties to the pacifists for defensive wars.
But when the xenophobes suffer for what they dont have to do, evebody whines about balance. And now proposition to give only MODERATE diplo penalties for wiping (not resetling) ENTIRE population of another empire.
Thats perfect.
Every empire wants to murder you becouse you called them ugly in the last insult you sent.
But beeing mildly anoyed becouse you purged their species from entire planet...
If this must look like that than I dont want any happiness penalties to the pacifists for defensive wars.
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I don't want to get into detail on this, as it is essentially a derailing of the thread, but I don't believe that it is a reasonable suggestion to remove the penalty altogether.
There are in fact examples of people stepping into conflicts to prevent war crimes (the Bosnian War comes to mind), and there are in fact people on Earth who care about war crimes. It is at least possible for those people to be in charge of a nation, or of a planet or galactic federation. Bashir al-Assad, right now, clearly suffers diplomatic penalties for perceived war crimes (though not with every nation).
The example of Germany has been brought up repeatedly - while people are diplomatically allied or friendly to Germany, many people would be extremely alarmed if they took such steps again.
The question is scaling. Yes, people only cared slightly about the Tutsi. But if the Hutu had moved across Africa exterminating society after society, a broad consensus *would* have developed.
There are in fact examples of people stepping into conflicts to prevent war crimes (the Bosnian War comes to mind), and there are in fact people on Earth who care about war crimes. It is at least possible for those people to be in charge of a nation, or of a planet or galactic federation. Bashir al-Assad, right now, clearly suffers diplomatic penalties for perceived war crimes (though not with every nation).
The example of Germany has been brought up repeatedly - while people are diplomatically allied or friendly to Germany, many people would be extremely alarmed if they took such steps again.
The question is scaling. Yes, people only cared slightly about the Tutsi. But if the Hutu had moved across Africa exterminating society after society, a broad consensus *would* have developed.
Obviously you are not actually reading the discussion, as literally everyone has agreed that you should get penalties for purging their species. And everyone but Exarian has agreed that you should get severe penalties for wiping out the population of an empire. So, no. Just no.
That is pretty absurd, I agree. Exarian seems to be determined to carry the straw man banner, though.
If we even ignore fact we are talking of species from different corners of galaxy, with absolutely different biology, history, religion, culture and "meaning of life", and limit to Earth analogies:
- 80%-85% of "nations" should ignore your purge completely (no penalty in any area)
- 10-15% of nations should be moderately angered because of combination of purge and another political reason (examples - you are purging their species, you have border tensions, you were at war, you are rivals),
- 0%-5% of nations should be angered because of pure moral reasons (for example - pacifist democratic xenophiles who are ruling peaceful freedom-loving federation)
- All purge related penalties should vanish after 20-50 years since end of last purge.
Purges was only casus belli, support reason to join the war. Syria is actually area where Russian, American, Turkish, Saudi Arabia and Iran interest cross. Each of these powers wish to control Syria, and Assad purges is just the excuse for bombardment and war. Yes, he is murder, just like many other rulers in middle east - and his actions were not a problem for international society for years.
Things I suggest are based on real world history. If we scale thing us to galaxy level, we may expect extraterrestrial civilizations care even lees on purges then humanity, infinitely less. Even if they are our neighbors, they may think, purge is integral part of our culture, and they will not interfere because of some kind of "1st directive"...
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This conversation is specifically about purging so of course there's no talk about the balance of pacifists, just like there hasn't been any discussion on any of the other ethics either.
The fallacy of your argument is that by us saying that the xenophobic game needs rebalancing DOES NOT mean that the pacifist game doesn't (I personally wouldn't know as i can imagine it being boring as fook).
For the pacifist strategy to be equally as broken it would need all of your citizens to down tools when you're at war (as obviously pacifists wouldn't support military action) and all your military ships surrender instantly and then we can just say that to play pacifist you're meant to avoid wars entirely...