Question about special buildings and ethics change

[Dementor4]

So when your empire's ethics change as a result of the Shrines to the Old Gods quest, what happens to ethics-specialized buildings and other ethics-gated research?

Let's say you were an individualist and a materialist and you've got a Research Institute and a Galactic Stock exchange on your capital, and Hyper Entertainment forums on some of your planets. Do you get the keep them when you become a Spiritualist/Collectivist Divine Mandate? Can you continue to build Hyper Entertainment Forums on new worlds you colonize?

 

[RossMorris]

I'd like to know the answer too.

 

[Emraldis]

AFAIK it changes the ethics of your pops, not the ethics of your government.

 

[scaper12123]

As long as you have the buildings researched, you keep the ability to construct them. With this in mind, it's helpful to obtain the buildings early on in case of this exact scenario. Case in point, in my most recent pacifist campaign I came upon the shrine of the gods chain and, since it's so early in the campaign, I decided to roll with it and changed up my government. I lost my xenophile and pacifist ethics and gained fanatic spiritualism, but I'd already unlocked the xenophile visiter center - a SUPER helpful building for me since my species is non-adaptive. Now I also get the symbol of unity! yay! Although this does mean I won't get the paradise dome, which is unfortunate.

 

[Randwarf]

AFAIK it changes the ethics of your pops, not the ethics of your government.

okay, but in 1.5 we will be able to change ethos of our empire as well. What will happen then?

 

[scaper12123]

okay, but in 1.5 we will be able to change ethos of our empire as well. What will happen then?

You keep any buildings you researched. Any you hadn't will become unobtainable

 

[Dementor4]

I just tested it. You get to keep the buildings AND you can build more of them!

I started as a pacifist/materialist/individualist. I hid behind a pacifist advanced start and teched up as hard as I could getting the Paradise Dome, Stock Exchange, Research Institute, and Entertainment Forum before researching the last shrine. Now I'm a fanatically spiritualist/collectivist empire but with some pretty awesome happiness, research and energy generation features.

AFAIK it changes the ethics of your pops, not the ethics of your government.

This particular quest changes the ethos of your government as well as your pops. AFAIK it's the only way to change your government's ethos currently.

okay, but in 1.5 we will be able to change ethos of our empire as well. What will happen then?

Hopefully they'll figure something else out: if they leave it how it is it's pretty OP. IMO, they should make ethics-reliant buildings have scaling bonuses based on your current ethics, so a Stock Exchange would give you it's full bonus if you're Egalitarian, no bonus if you're Authoritarian, and a half bonus if you're neither.

 

[mighij]

IMO, they should make ethics-reliant buildings have scaling bonuses based on your current ethics, so a Stock Exchange would give you it's full bonus if you're Egalitarian, no bonus if you're Authoritarian, and a half bonus if you're neither.

Cool idea, perhaps even 2 or 1.5 times the bonus if your fanatic.

 

[tobias.mb]

Doesn't anyone else think the ethos specific techs will get a change with the patch?
I mean if you can just switch to authoritarian (collectivist), get frontier commisars and ministry of benevolence and than switch back to your original ethos, what's the point of locking it behind a specific ethos in the first place...

 

[Sopbucket]

Doesn't anyone else think the ethos specific techs will get a change with the patch?
I mean if you can just switch to authoritarian (collectivist), get frontier commisars and ministry of benevolence and than switch back to your original ethos, what's the point of locking it behind a specific ethos in the first place...

We have been told that Psionic Theory will only be researchable for Spiritualists now, so they aren't getting rid of that design entirely it seems.

Presumably it won't be that easy to switch back and forth between ethics though. You have to wait 20 years after embracing a faction to embrace another, and you can only do it if the ethic holds at least 20% attraction, which might take some work. A divided population means it'll be harder to gain tradiions, and embracing a faction will likely hurt your influence gain and happiness for a while, plus it takes 250 influence per switch and might deactivate some of your civics until you swtich back. And you could get really unlucky and not have the techs show up for a long time. Hopefully it'll be a viable strategy but not an obvious one.

 

[Tindalosihound]

okay, but in 1.5 we will be able to change ethos of our empire as well. What will happen then?

I think most of those buildings will be unlocked using Traditions rather than ethics in Banks. I remember seeing at least one of the buildings as an option there.

 

[tobias.mb]

I think most of those buildings will be unlocked using Traditions rather than ethics in Banks. I remember seeing at least one of the buildings as an option there.

Yes, I hope that will be the case. I have seen the paradise dome in the Harmony Tradition and other buildings would fit well with other Traditions. (e.g. the stock exchange in Prosperity)

We have been told that Psionic Theory will only be researchable for Spiritualists now, so they aren't getting rid of that design entirely it seems.

If I'm not mistaken psionics will become an ascencion perk. You might still need spiritualist to pick that perk though.

Presumably it won't be that easy to switch back and forth between ethics though. You have to wait 20 years after embracing a faction to embrace another, and you can only do it if the ethic holds at least 20% attraction, which might take some work. A divided population means it'll be harder to gain tradiions, and embracing a faction will likely hurt your influence gain and happiness for a while, plus it takes 250 influence per switch and might deactivate some of your civics until you swtich back. And you could get really unlucky and not have the techs show up for a long time. Hopefully it'll be a viable strategy but not an obvious one.

Of course you're not going to do it for every single tech / building.
But some are definitly worth it. Like ministry of benevolence + frontier commisars. After you have those it gets easier to pull your pops to your new ethos anyways, and it will stabilise your empire in the long term.
I'd say the stock exchange and the research institute are also worth it. And from going Individualist for a bit you can pick up the entertainment forum along the way.

Also you don't even have to change your ethics very often. Once is actually enough. Start the game with ethics that allow you to unlock the buildings you want, and then switch to your favorite ethics after you have them.
For example: Your goal is an individualist & materialist, synth based empire. But at the start you actually pick collectivist + pacifist + materialist. Wait until you get paradise dome, frontier commisars and the ministry of benevolence, and then switch to individualist ethics.
If you run with individualist policies from the start of the game you should have enough individualist attraction to make this happen (and your slaves will have even more individualist attraction!).

 

[Sopbucket]

If I'm not mistaken psionics will become an ascencion perk. You might still need spiritualist to pick that perk though.

The dev diary says that:

1. Psionic Theory will be a researchable tech whether or not Utopia is activated
2. Without Utopia, Psionics will be as currently implemented (through techs)
3. The Psionic path requires you to be spiritualist with or without Utopia
4. Once you start down the Psionic path, you don't have to remain spiritualist to continue it (upon re-reading it though, it isn't clear whether this applies with Utopia as well)

While it isn't entirely clear, this makes me think that Psionic Theory will have a spiritualist requirement, but other psionic techs won't (without Utopia), and likewise the Ascension Perks will just have Psionic Theory as a requirement, not spiritualist itself (with Utopia). Otherwise, It would seem kind of pointless to keep Psionic Theory around as a tech with Utopia activated. I could be wrong though.

Also you don't even have to change your ethics very often. Once is actually enough. Start the game with ethics that allow you to unlock the buildings you want, and then switch to your favorite ethics after you have them.
For example: Your goal is an individualist & materialist, synth based empire. But at the start you actually pick collectivist + pacifist + materialist. Wait until you get paradise dome, frontier commisars and the ministry of benevolence, and then switch to individualist ethics.
If you run with individualist policies from the start of the game you should have enough individualist attraction to make this happen (and your slaves will have even more individualist attraction!).

You're right, that sounds like a good strategy, and authoritarian is probably the best example because they have strong techs and an easy path to transition. I'm just saying that there's enough of a disincentive to switch from one government ethic to another that ethos requirements still have a purpose, in general.