Stellaris Dev Diary #29 - Pop Factions & Elections

[GuyIncognito26]

Two questions:

1. What are the numbers on the left side of the faction screen? The loyalist faction in the first screenshot has 49/70. I assume that's total pops. But for the two factions, there is a number on the left (65) and a number on the right (20). I assume the one on the right is the pop support for that faction, but what's the one on the left?

2. When it comes to elections, the pop up says that if you don't influence the election, a leader will be "randomly" chosen. Is it really random, as in arbitrary? Or is the decision based on something? Would it ever make sense to speculate about what the voters will do without my "guidance," or is it purely random unless I intervene? Would it make sense to believe my militarist empire would choose a 4 star admiral over a 1 star scientist, or do I have to intervene to make it so?

 

[TheBeautifulVoid]

@Doomdark:
If a faction which has a different ethos wins the election, does their ethos become the new government ethos?

 

[StarGrazer]

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

I don't think that the win was 100%, only that the combination of higher level and the influence spent meant a near inevitable victory.

 

[CptWilly]

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?

Mostly 40k fans, I think. Acting out favorite scifi universes and tropes is something I think most of us will be doing at some point. Their bag just happens to be a tad on the grim dark.

 

[M. Pif Paf]

Since it's said that the pops might form factions to get the right to vote, I'm a bit confused by the election screen. Do the pops actually vote?

 

[grandad1982]

Two questions:

1. What are the numbers on the left side of the faction screen? The loyalist faction in the first screenshot has 49/70. I assume that's total pops. But for the two factions, there is a number on the left (65) and a number on the right (20). I assume the one on the right is the pop support for that faction, but what's the one on the left?

2. When it comes to elections, the pop up says that if you don't influence the election, a leader will be "randomly" chosen. Is it really random, as in arbitrary? Or is the decision based on something? Would it ever make sense to speculate about what the voters will do without my "guidance," or is it purely random unless I intervene? Would it make sense to believe my militarist empire would choose a 4 star admiral over a 1 star scientist, or do I have to intervene to make it so?

Numbers on the left are the attractiveness of the faction. I think wiz mentioned it in the blorg?

 

[GoetheFaust]

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?

For me it's because it's something that's not usually included in the games that I play. One of the reasons I'm interested in Stellaris is because it feels like a breath of fresh air.
There simply aren't a lot of games out there that let me build a empire on the back of slaves while ruthlessly executing everyone I don't like.

 

[Alextrasia]

I had Hopes for more details on all the goverment forms, which Leaders are Elected and so on :-/ oh well

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

It looks great! Only thing I would say about the elections is that it would be nice to have some sort of "opinion polls" rating for each of the candidates. So when there's one candidate with 95% popularity and 5 others with 1% you know you don't need to waste any influence trying to help out their election if you want them to win it. Obviously the numbers given don't have to be the true values of their chance of winning the election, just something representative.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid]

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?

Yeah, it worries me too. I love Paradox games, but some of their fanbase are a little worrying.

 

[Milten]

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?

You sound suspiciously like someone from pacifist-xenophile faction.

Mostly 40k fans, I think. Acting out favorite scifi universes and tropes is something I think most of us will be doing at some point. Their bag just happens to be a tad on the grim dark.

Not really, our passion for repressions, genocides and incest was known long before that. It just looks like WH when PD finally took it all to space.

 

[IIWW]

Yeah, it worries me too. I love Paradox games, but some of their fanbase are a little worrying.

It is just a game. Damn, we are also "fixated" about wars, in every PDS game. It's nothing to worry about.

 

[Nyrael]

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 think the The logical choice here would be to make POPs join factions less often in Individualist Empires.

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

The DD mentions a Democracy faction, so I guess it is possible.
What I wonder is if there is a royalist faction as well.

@Doomdark:
If a faction which has a different ethos wins the election, does their ethos become the new government ethos?

Hopefully not because this ISN'T government ethos, but national ethos. That is, the new government can't just waltz in and change the constitution.
The only thing that should change the national ethos should be if majority of the POPs of the primary species in and near the homeplanet change their ethos.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Doomdark . Am a huge fan of internal mechanics to match external mechanics, and this sounds like (and looks like, from what we've seen with the escapades of the Blorg) like a great way to do it. Down the track, I'd be a fan of more depth added via DLC as well. POPS IN SPACE .

 

[Madzai]

Yeah, it worries me too. I love Paradox games, but some of their fanbase are a little worrying.

It's not about loving genocide or something (aside from already mentioned WH40K fans). It's about utility. We have a mechanic - POP drifting from your initial ethos, sectors drifting even more because "we like making life harder for players". We are presented with a sad fact that we actually cannot really combat POP drifting even with appropriate Gov. form, ethos and traits - it going to happen anyway. And tools for dealing with the problem? Bribing a leader, agree to their demands, slavery, military intervention and genocide. And those aren't solutions at all.

No way to negotiate with Faction, no way to persuade them that staying in one Empire is for their best (that because all those big counties like Russia (NOT USSR), Germany, USA and China collapsed already IRL, right?), no way to give them limited rights or even simply allow them to spend more resources for their sector instead of taxes - nothing.
So people who are confronted with this problem are going with safest and simplest route - military suppression and purges of Pops who drifted too far.

 

[corny.1234]

Does the lenght of term change the influence cost for supporting a candidate? It would make sense that it's cheaper to choose a leader who will rule for 4 years than the one who will rule for 10 years (like the loss of reepublican tradition in EU4).

Hmm, it could get cheaper because the population is used to the current leader, but otherwise it could be more expensive in order to avoid a drift to a dictatorship (having the same ruler over and over in a democratie).

 

[Haldan]

Yeah, it worries me too. I love Paradox games, but some of their fanbase are a little worrying.

I'm sure that it's all for storytelling purposes.
Right?
Right?

 

[Red_warning]

Good to see some dilemmas in the choice of leaders! Will make things more interesting in the long run.

 

[henzington]

Looking forward to internal dynamics hopefully future dlcs don't make empires super stable like what happened with ck2 because of modifier creep.

 

[Asiak]

Loyalist factions are going to be amazing I wish CK2 had them.