Should Empires become more unstable?

[Kamakaze Panda]

Just quickly trying to gather some opinions on this concept, do people think Empires are currently too stable or easy to maintain over centuries, especially very wide Empires. I was thinking over the whole tall vs wide debate in the game and really there's little reason why wide Empires shouldn't have an edge of tall due to weight of numbers.

However, I think interstellar Empires in the game are far too stable, I think after 100-200 years there should be a lot more secessionist movements or unrest, especially based on your ethics. These don't necessarily have to be full on rebellions, but start out as movements for autonomy and reform, this could link into new factions systems.

More interesting pirates would help as well, give you a reason to patrol your systems, these pirates would need to have the ability to harry your more and be harder to simply squash, otherwise you'd just wait till they spawned and smack them when and where they appear with your doomstack.

Overall I don't want the game to become inevitably lead towards an unplayable empire which just collapses, but having colonies and sectors slowly increase in autonomy over time as their power and influence grows, giving your choices between appeasing them, decentralising your empire and giving more autonomy to colonies, or trying to hold them by force.

A natural progression towards more Federation style governance within your own Empire could be interesting as well, would it be possible for your empire to divide into several Empires in federation or similar alternatives in the later game.

 

[extrapancake]

Agree 100% with everything. One of the main reasons I was interested in this game was the idea of massive interplanetary empires falling apart and different galactic orders forming throughout time, and I wont even consider the game complete until it has fleshed out space piracy. The banks update is a huge step in the right direction so im not worried though.

 

[Qoff]

I think it really depends on how the empire was build. For example: I like to play Fanactic Spiritualist/Collectivist, this gives my empire a huge bônus on ethics convergence, which means that in few years every single pop conquered will think like the rest of the empire, which means that they will not have complains since they think the same.

Otherwise if you get empires without ethics convergence or the bonuses from individualists you'll suffer, for example: If you get a Fanactic Xenophile/Militarist government you'll not have any bonuses to ease the tension (individualist) of far systems and conquered systems or you'll not be able to brainwash them (spiritualist/collectivist), which means that you'll have a bad time dealing with rebels.

I think the way the game works today forces you to choose between Spiritualist/Collectivist/Individualist and that's a bad thing, however I think the game shouldn't punish you if you have a stable way to expand your empire, for example: Many times when you integrate a vassal with a different ethos it take several years and several influence points, however, even taking so long and so costly to integrate them into your society they will rebel in the first second after this annexation, which I think it's unffair, I mean, why the influence points and the time were expend if they will rebel anyway?

The game should punish the fast conquerors with something like Overextension (EU4) and should allow those who have a steady grow to have a stable empire.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

Separatism, harder-to-supress inpendence factions, overextension, so on - EUIV has all the tools. They just need to be fitted for Stellaris.

 

[Dalinski]

YES! Civil War, War's of Independence, Succession Wars, internal wars over bad table manners, Militarist wars just for the sake of it, wars within wars and lots and lots of Guerrilla build up and action on planets.

Bring it!

 

[Malonex]

The idea of civil wars and stuff is great but I don't think it should be so cut and dry, it wouldn't make much sense if your inner colonies suddenly wanted to cut away from your empire unless you changed policies drastically. Outer planets, absolutely reasonable but it would need a counter, and I feel like this sort of thing will be addressed in banks with things like unrest instead of ethics divergence and different political factions, it's certainly interesting : P

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Well, they sorta used to have that with the ethics divergence increase on sector space.

Not sure how that's going to work come Utopia.

 

[Darustet]

Seeing how the factions are reworked in Utopia, Paradox could be laying the groundwork for future expansions which address civil wars, proxy wars and such. Just the sector system is a great opportunity to implement separatist movements into. I only hope, that when they finally focus on internal conflicts, they introduce new mechanics, rather than the few particularly rebellious systems suddenly creating their own country no different from other empires. The diplomacy system is far too simplistic as it is, as civil wars are one of the most complex conflicts there is, especially when there are multiple different parties and groups both internally and externally influencing the conflict. I want my space Vietnam.

 

[Tennismellon]

If you go way back into the pre-release dev dairies, it mentions that monarchies have a chance of sparking a succession war when the heir inherits the throne. So ya, they probably want to do this type of stuff eventually.

 

[AndragonLea]

I don't really want big empires to be impossible or almost guaranteed to fall apart, but I DO want there to be a more than zero percent chance of it happening a time or two in the game.

I remember watching the Stellaris launch stream with the many streamers and having seen one empire splinter into several rebel groups that formed their own factions and thought "cool, so min-maxing everything into science or military might leave you vulnerable".
Sadly, that never really happened in my games and I've played for close to 400 hours now.

I'd love to see it changed so that people that plan on branching out hard and fast would actually have to keep an eye on cohesion and spend some of their beginning stat points (traits, government type, civics, whatever) on keeping the population unified.

Bonus points if there was actually a really good reason to let it happen. Say you are an empire that started at the edge of the galaxy - after a couple hundred years of conquest the farthest colonies in your empire might be pretty miffed at you and your core worlder policies.

It'd be fantastic if - rather than suppressing rebels - you could choose to cede a bunch of worlds to form a new empire that becomes a permanent or long term ally with a massive opinion modifier and/or some nifty unique benefits such as improved research pacts, permanent shared sensors or the like.

You could form the united states of space by having several such subject states that shape their own interior policy, but otherwise closely work together with you as the progenitor empire.

 

[MaP_Prime]

I certainly want to see more internal politics for empires. I don't want it to turn into a constant internal battle for control though, that could frustrating like playing faction wack-a-mole in CK2, or at least how it used to be. That could get frustrating and tedious over time. I do agree how empires are formed and governed should play a role in it, and with the internal policies we see coming with Banks and Utopia should also play a role as well. Giving the additions to your empire rights and what not should make them feel more included and the like, but you can have nationalist movements as well, species or sectors or worlds who wish to rule themselves. I think there is a lot of potential here.

I'd also like to see this idea combined with an expanded diplomacy and espionage system that can allow us to try and stir things up with our neighbors and rivals. I used to love watching a big rival empire who I Was nervous about suddenly implode under its own weight and break apart into a mish mash of smaller factions. I think there is a lot of potential here for that sort of thing to happen.

 

[safe-keeper]

I agree, and I guess this might be what they're going for with Utopia and features like ethics divergence, shifting traits, each character having their own "issues" they press, and a reworked faction system. A good piracy system, though I get that that's hard to make, would help, too. As another user said, EU4 has some very good mechanics that would suit Stellaris very well - not neccessarily exactly the way they work in EU4, but made to fit Stellaris, as was said.

Would be fun to have to balance how much force you apply, too. Being too naïve and passive frees people to scheme, while being too brutal would be considered tyrannical and be harmful in the long run -- "the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers".

My dream is still more autonomous sectors whose desires and goals you have to "juggle", but Utopia will be interesting either way.

 

[safe-keeper]

Come to think of it, HOI4 has some nice ideas, too, like inciting coups, sending volunteers and expeditionary forces, and even lend-leasing equipment, tanks, and aircraft. Obviously Stellaris doesn't model the production of blasters, star fighters, and so on, but I still feel there should be some more ways to help others who are fighting without getting involved yourself.

 

[Ixal]

Yes, having a large empire and keeping it together should be quite a challenge.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

It should be a challenge, but not impossible, to keep an empire together.

I think it really depends on how the empire was build. For example: I like to play Fanactic Spiritualist/Collectivist, this gives my empire a huge bônus on ethics convergence, which means that in few years every single pop conquered will think like the rest of the empire, which means that they will not have complains since they think the same.

Otherwise if you get empires without ethics convergence or the bonuses from individualists you'll suffer, for example: If you get a Fanactic Xenophile/Militarist government you'll not have any bonuses to ease the tension (individualist) of far systems and conquered systems or you'll not be able to brainwash them (spiritualist/collectivist), which means that you'll have a bad time dealing with rebels.

I think the way the game works today forces you to choose between Spiritualist/Collectivist/Individualist and that's a bad thing, however I think the game shouldn't punish you if you have a stable way to expand your empire, for example: Many times when you integrate a vassal with a different ethos it take several years and several influence points, however, even taking so long and so costly to integrate them into your society they will rebel in the first second after this annexation, which I think it's unffair, I mean, why the influence points and the time were expend if they will rebel anyway?

The game should punish the fast conquerors with something like Overextension (EU4) and should allow those who have a steady grow to have a stable empire.

That makes sense. I've played a Xenophile/Militarist/Spiritualist empire and it was pretty easy to keep together. So hopefully, Banks will add some challenge to the mix.


As one person mentioned earlier, an espionage system (and a reworked diplomacy system) would also contribute to the challenge of keeping an empire stable.

 

[KopiG]

I would say no. I dont want an inevitable/high-risk empire management game. I want it to be fun. I think the reworked factions will do just fine. I dont really want to see even more risks/challenges from those right now. First, lets see how they work out, how to manage their issues in 1.5, then we can talk about maybe further building on that. But from what I have seen, it should be enough for me.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

I would say no. I dont want an inevitable/high-risk empire management game. I want it to be fun. I think the reworked factions will do just fine. I dont really want to see even more risks/challenges from those right now. First, lets see how they work out, how to manage their issues in 1.5, then we can talk about maybe further building on that. But from what I have seen, it should be enough for me.

That sounds reasonable. Hopefully the reworked faction system will make things interesting.

My concern is that the pretender faction is fixed as I've played many autocratic governments and not once did I have a pretender war, which was a big let down for me. I even tried to actually force the computer to start a pretender war and that didn't help. So I'm hoping that the reworked faction system will fix that and make Empire management fun and challenging.

 

[Slynx]

i only hope that if Empires will become more unstable Devs will also give us the way to counter it. like planet-destroying capital ship (no planet - no problems. and others obey out of fear)

 

[Nyrael]

I don't think they should be unstable, both for gameplay reasons (would be annoying to constantly have to deal with stability issues) and for plausibility (people are more likely to cheat the system than revolt anyway, not to mention that the societies should be advanced enough to know how to properly deal with most issues).

Instead, what I'd like is to have some kind of "Disaster Chains". Basically, your state is usually stable enough, but then you do something or something happens which triggers an event chain that gradually pulls your nation into chaos and you need to fight to not only restore order, but also to sacrifice as little as possible to restore the said order.

 

[Slynx]

you need to fight to not only restore order, but also to sacrifice as little as possible to restore the said order.

what and interesting way to spell "purge\enslave everyone"
though i kinda liked that idea... reminds me "subterranean aliens" event chain