Stellaris Dev Diary #29 - Pop Factions & Elections

[Mackus]

But ...you can?

There is no "assasinate leader" button here, but perhaps its available only to non-democratic empires.
"Purging" the way its portrayed in the game, is not classic political repression. Regimes generally do not purge entire populations, but only active subversives. And suspected subversives. And potential subversives.
The way purge works right now in game, is you exterminate billions of pops to get rid of small organised groups, when merely killing off their leadership in series of "car accidents" would work better while not pissing of rest of your population as much. Think "purging" half of USA population vs killing off half of Congress to get rid of Democrat or Republican "Factions".

 

[Abnwtwtud]

Cool dev diary! What I'm wondering is if individualist empires will be more difficult to keep together than collectivist empires. There's more ethics diversion that comes with individualist ethos which in theory means more factions due to differing ethos. Do individualists have mechanics to keep a very diverse empire stable other than getting a faction leader elected? Or is it just a lot harder to manage such an empire?

I have been wondering about this one as well.

 

[Latheloi]

Is the "random" selection if you don't spend influence completely random, or is it weighted by factors (like the size of factions supporting a leader, or the skill of the leader).

Because it would be a bit irritating to have to spend out to avoid a 1 in 4 chance of Thicky Mc Thick, leader of the insignificant Useless Faction from being elected over other better, more logical candidates.

(or, as in the screenshot, either the two nobodies having more of a chance of being elected than the quite skilled one.

 

[UnknownPekingDuck]

As a foreign empire can I support a faction inside a rival empire ? If so I guess that we’ve several possibilities such as monetary support, to covert operation, and even declaring war to overthrow the current leaders.

 

[IronFish]

Can a faction violently change the government type, à la Victoria II?

What about enforcing their Ethos?

 

[Brownbeard]

Why is everybody so fixated on genocide, mass murder, purging, and oppression? I mean it's cool that it is in the game, which makes it feel realistic given all the atrocities from human history, but hell it sounds like half the people here are gonna spend their free time with virtual genocide come 9th of may, which I find.. weird?

What better date for the return of Space Nazis? Two years early, but date is apropriate. They are there, on the dark side of the Moon.

I am more interested to see if ethics will beat race as game develops with emergence of multi-racial empires based on ideology rather than genetics.

 

[hsuzy1987]

Another important Faction is the Democracy Faction, whose member Pops might prefer a change of Government Form, or just the right to vote (for example in the case of alien Pops who are denied the vote through a Policy.)

Hopefully there will also be the reverse as well if government type changes. Reactionary Royalist faction anyone?

 

[GizahNL]

In the stream we saw stations flipping when systems rebelled: station ownership seems tied to ownership of the system.
What happens in systems where you have 2 planets and 1 rebels? Do the stations flip as well?
Also what happens with military stations that you have build to insure that uppity planets have no chance of getting fleets out of the system?
And last, what happens to soldiers you have stationed on the planet? We know from the stream that attacking an unbombarded planet gives attacker penalties, so if a planet flips do you instantly get all the penalties or are fortification bonuses negated because troops are already stationed there?

 

[Topias]

I'm a bit concerned about influencing an election result by spending currency (influence) not being a sure thing. Paying for something that's still just RNG seems like it might be less frustrating to just not pay and roll the dice. EUIV has an election mechanic as well, but you're always getting the candidate you want.

Knowing your odds of success might make the RNG less annoying, but it still probably wouldn't be ideal. I think you should remove the RNG and maybe increase the cost or give some other penalty to mitigate the change.

 

[Meraun]

@Doomdark

how do direct Democrazys work?

 

[Daffius]

What is the maximum number of 'pop types' a single planet can have?

Edit/Clarification: Can a planet have 15 different races each with 4 different issues in case of a huge empire? Or due to the tile system, there is a maximum number of variance that is hardcapped by the number of tiles on the planet.

 

[hsuzy1987]

Is the "random" selection if you don't spend influence completely random, or is it weighted by factors (like the size of factions supporting a leader, or the skill of the leader).

Because it would be a bit irritating to have to spend out to avoid a 1 in 4 chance of Thicky Mc Thick, leader of the insignificant Useless Faction from being elected over other better, more logical candidates.

(or, as in the screenshot, either the two nobodies having more of a chance of being elected than the quite skilled one.

Please refer to current US election campaign, thx. Unfortunately, the electorate doesn't always go for the better candidate

 

[greatmustachio]

I'm a bit concerned about influencing an election result by spending currency (influence) not being a sure thing. Paying for something that's still just RNG seems like it might be less frustrating to just not pay and roll the dice. EUIV has an election mechanic as well, but you're always getting the candidate you want.

Knowing your odds of success might make the RNG less annoying, but it still probably wouldn't be ideal. I think you should remove the RNG and maybe increase the cost or give some other penalty to mitigate the change.

I would argue that it makes sense. The democratic government types are only available if you are individualistic from your ethics (or atleast not collectivist), so your pops expressing their free will to choose the candidate they want instad of your choice does feel right to me.

 

[Madzai]

About candidates. If you have 2 sectors demanding autonomy(for various reasons) and one of them formed a faction with a leader and its goal is independence. So, in election, both sectors POPs are going for this "independence" leader (even if his goal is autonomy for his own sector not all sectors?) or only POP from leader native sector? Because if all independence-loving POP are going for the same candidate (and for the same faction), it's almost impossible to counter it as POP in sectors >> Core Sector POP and AFAIK there is no edicts or other policy rules to restrict voting for some groups (aside from slaves, but they don't quite fit in Democracy-like Empires anyway).

 

[Scobie]

The main point of the Faction system is that big empires should become unstable and challenging to keep together. You should see a lot of dynamism in the galaxy, with many big empires descending into civil wars and breaking up.

This is absolutely beautiful, it's just what I want out of this sort of game. I'm so glad they took POPs from Vicky 2.

 

[Mackus]

I'm a bit concerned about influencing an election result by spending currency (influence) not being a sure thing. Paying for something that's still just RNG seems like it might be less frustrating to just not pay and roll the dice. EUIV has an election mechanic as well, but you're always getting the candidate you want.

Knowing your odds of success might make the RNG less annoying, but it still probably wouldn't be ideal. I think you should remove the RNG and maybe increase the cost or give some other penalty to mitigate the change.

CK2 Merchant Republic election system would work here. There is random element, but you can guarantee election by spending enough money.
Each candidate would have base probability (depending on factors like skill, species, etc...), which would increase depending on how much influence you'd shove into him. When someone already has 95% chance of winning, give him extra 10 influence to make it guaranteed. If he has 5% chance, spend 100 influence just to give him 50/50 chance.

 

[ponasozis]

the way to make everyone happy
is by purging everyone unhappy

 

[TheDarkMaster]

How does the mechanics for a newly created rebel empire work? Such as, what is their founding race, what ethos do they have, what technology will they have, and what government will they have?

Also, is there a special set of names that such breakaway groups use for their empires?

 

[ss7877]

... Of course, a lot of this depends on your choice of Ethics and general play style (using slavery and purges, etc), which trades internal stability for increased external pressure…

Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean (с)

 

[Drow7]

If a sector is seeking independence how will it react if I rearrange sectors?

One of examples would be removing all planets from rebellious sector A and making new sector B that is mostly planets from now nonexistent sector A.

 

[Nikolai]

CK2 Merchant Republic election system would work here. There is random element, but you can guarantee election by spending enough money.
Each candidate would have base probability (depending on factors like skill, species, etc...), which would increase depending on how much influence you'd shove into him. When someone already has 95% chance of winning, give him extra 10 influence to make it guaranteed. If he has 5% chance, spend 100 influence just to give him 50/50 chance.

Yep, we saw this in the blorg stream. If you have the resources, you can guarantee the win of a candidate.