Suggestion - bio ascension linked to authoritarian/egalitarian ethics

[Koizumi]

I was recently thinking about the three ascension paths, and about how the bio one feels much less "flavorful" and interesting compared to the other two (please note that I am not talking about effectiveness).

In fact, compared to the other 2 ascension paths, the bio one simply allows you to do something all empires can (gene modding), just to a better degree. It is not as transformative as making all your pops synths, does not affect the opinion of other empires, does not give access to something as flavorful as the shroud, and is not linked to any ethic.

I was wondering if it would be more interesting for this ascension path to be linked to specific ethics, so that you could use it to follow a certain "vision" for your empire. In particular, I think it may be interesting to link it to the authoritarian/egalitarian ethic divide. It could work like this:

1. The first ascension perk in the path could remain the same.
2. There could be two versions of the second perk.
   1. The first one would be the "authoritarian" one, which could be very similar to the current one: providing new perks which incentivise you to specialise pops.
   2. The second version of the perk would be of egalitarian flavour: it would give you a single new perk, very expensive but powerful, enhancing the capabilities of a pop across the board (e.g., a perk costing 6 trait points increasing output from all jobs by 10%). This perk would be incompatible with all traits providing job-specific boni and mali (so that you could not stack it with traits such as intelligent or thrifty). For flavour/balance, it could also provide additional benefits, such as unity generation from the pops given such trait.
3. The first version of the perk would be ideal for authoritarian/xenophobic empires, who believe that specific members of society have to fit a specific role. The second would be ideal for egalitarians and xenophiles, as it would ensure "equality of opportunity" between every pop.
4. Taking the authoritarian version of the perk could be associated with a diplomatic bonus with xenophobes/authoritarians, and with a malus with egalitarians/xenophobes The opposite diplomatic effects would be associated with the other version.

I was wondering if other players would think such changes interesting and/or worth it.

 

[Tacticus101]

Its a good suggestion, but i think that at least aspects of this are already covered by existing species traits that are unlocked by Evolutionary Mastery.

Nerve stabling is already a very Authoritarian/Xenophobe trait. Eruidite can be as well.

Meanwhile, the new Xeno-compatability perk is sort of a third Bio Ascention perk for Egalitarian/Xenophile empires.

 

[Surimi]

I've actually had similar thoughts myself. Right now, genetic ascension has a very "dystopian" flavour, with mass-cloning being a core benefit and nerve stapling being available to everyone. It would indeed be nice to have variant flavour for more utopian empires too.

I think it would be nice, as a long term goal, to have "variant" ascension paths. At the same time, removing diversity of traits from egalitarian empires just makes them less interesting and I'm not sure it's the best idea. Instead, I think egalitarians should have some very powerful general traits (drug glands, anyone?) to encourage generally boosting the entirely population while still allowing for a degree of specialisation and playing around with the trait system.

 

[SteelCrow]

I love biology/living things and glory in developing them to their apex, so I often pick bio-ascension. But I never use gene-modding to specialize or differentiate pops. It sounds like tremendous busywork for small gains. I suppose if you wanted to perfect society, you would do that, but my intent instead is to make the best biological form possible, emphasizing overall competence and physical prowess. I want each individual in my empire to be amazing in their own right and not just parts fit into a big machine. Thus, I pick the traits I like best and just gene-mod everyone all at once.

You might be able to tell I often run Egalitarian ethics, and rarely Authoritarian.

I agree there are contrasting ideologies that are both interested in biological ascension.

Since differentiating pops takes multiple projects, I'd say the Authoritarian style should have reduced base project cost, while the Egalitarian should cost less per Pop.

 

[Dëzaël]

IMO, giving Egalitarians an all jobs trait would just be redundant as well as bypassing the inability to ressettle. Making it kind of a specialist focused Authoritarian, from a min/max balance perspective. Egalitarians are somewhat expected to be a lil' weaker and to rely on ganging up to compensate.

There's already a differenciation indirectly made with the fact as Egalitarian you can't go far, or at all, with enhanced leaders. I could see nerve stappling a species giving an opinion debuff with Egalitarians, but it's already the case with slavery, and those are destined to be enslaved. Having a single template for the entire species could be forced onto Egalitarians, but this is kind of the same with Xenophobes and their faction disapproval, barring habitability trait IIRC.

I see the drive for it, but I think it is somewhat hard to achieve whithout redundancy, and anyway, I think it's more the other 2 ascension pathes being the odd ducks. They're tied to the ethos axis Sp/Ma really closely and even gives massive ethics attraction to these. While there are 6 ethoses left and they don't have each their own ascension path, only Bio Ascension as a "fallback".

Which is fine, the question being "What to do of our beings?". Mind? Flesh? Matter? Sp/Ma are clearly the extremists here, while the last solution is more tame, middlegrounded, at least for the context. And I don't know what else could we do with our pops to give more ascension pathes that would not be oddities. Unless we go out of the sole pop enhancement consideration.

So to me, this should stay out of the Au/Eg dichotomy. Maybe the use of certain traits getting disapproval from faction, like nerve stappled, or conformist, just to underline the concern. Having your faction asking you to surgically remove the natural conformism of some refugees simply because you have the means to "help" them would be very Democratic Crusaders, actually.

 

[pryr]

Personally i would like to see some kind of social ascensions for authoritarian/egalitarian. Not sure how exactly they should look though.

 

[Currywurst44]

Good idea but it lacks flavour. The Egalitarian version sounds strictly inferiour to the authoritarian perk. It feels like if they wanted to, the authoritarians could easily achive what the egalitarians did.
To make the egalitarian perk more interesting you could say something like them applying some aspects of a hive mind to their population to achive perfect direct democracy. Also, the problem of the original Bio path lacking flavour doesnt get solved just by adding some ethics attraction towards authoritarian. The path could still use something more.

I see the drive for it, but I think it is somewhat hard to achieve whithout redundancy, and anyway, I think it's more the other 2 ascension pathes being the odd ducks. They're tied to the ethos axis Sp/Ma really closely and even gives massive ethics attraction to these. While there are 6 ethoses left and they don't have each their own ascension path, only Bio Ascension as a "fallback".

Which is fine, the question being "What to do of our beings?". Mind? Flesh? Matter? Sp/Ma are clearly the extremists here, while the last solution is more tame, middlegrounded, at least for the context. And I don't know what else could we do with our pops to give more ascension pathes that would not be oddities. Unless we go out of the sole pop enhancement consideration.

There are a few options left. You could explore the aspect of phsychological or phylosophical ascension.
For phsychological ascension your species could try to completly understand and control the inner workings of the brain. Thats something the paths dont explore. Bio ascension just makes you smarter, Synth ascension just copies your brain withour really understanding it and Spiritual ascension searches for something beyond the brain and their whole existence.
For philosophical ascension your species could try to search for meaning outside of ideologies and ethics. Focusing on harmony between different ethics and on the happyness of your population.
I think you could immagine a few other paths your species could take.

 

[Koizumi]

Thanks for the feedback! Thinking about it, after reading the replies of @Surimi, @Dëzaël and @Currywurst44 I agree that my proposal for an "egalitarian" version of the bio ascension path would be quite boring, and not necessarily a great improvement.

Still, I do think that, while you can genemod pops in a uniform way (as @SteelCrow says), to get the full benefit of the bio ascension path you should specialise your pops. After all, the new traits unlocked by the final bio ascension perk give highly specialised boni. In addition, while micromanagement was a bit of a problem in past versions (as again @SteelCrow says), version 2.2 could resolve this by automatically assigning the best pops to all jobs - even though job priorities are currently still a bit off. Thus, I believe that the current bio ascension still feels closer to an authoritarian ethic.

Therefore, while I understand the benefit of having a "plain" ascension path for non-materailsts and spiritualists, as @Dëzaël says, I agree with @Surimi that the current bio ascension path feels somewhat evil/dystopian, giving you tools to exploit and more easily oppress the lower classes. It would be good to have some option better tailored for "nicer"/more egalitarian empires.

Still, not sure what it could be. I like the idea of @Currywurst44, regarding the possibility of creating a quasi-hive mind: maybe instead of traits giving you better specialised outputs you could get options increasing government ethics attraction, providing unity generation, and increasing happiness, to give the idea that your population has become more cohesive.

Still, the idea that you can gene mod your population to increase its cohesiveness might still feel quite dystopian...

 

[Dëzaël]

I would stress the fact you're not forced to nerve staple species.

While I play Authoritarian these days, I do my gene-mod as @SteelCrow. My template is Very Strong, Robust, Erudite, Sedentary. Bonus to Jobs, Worker Jobs and Science alike. We're a kind of Einstein-like Supermarines, happy where they live, able to live anywhere without destroying entire ecosystems by terraforming, and living 150 years on average. We tend to target Swarms and Purifiers, and try to make it work with Egalitarians. We do not take offense easily however, and it's the only case we can use slavery. But usually even then we fight our own wars without using slaves for that, and we do not nerve staple them.

There's eugenics involved and slavery as punishment, but I hardly find that really dystopian. Not more and not worse than reality already is actually. We're a bit rude, rigid and picky, that's all. And you can be way nicer using Gene-mod. In fact I would rather play Egalitarian if I could go full on leader enhancement.

 

[SteelCrow]

I would stress the fact you're not forced to nerve staple species.

While I play Authoritarian these days, I do my gene-mod as @SteelCrow. My template is Very Strong, Robust, Erudite, Sedentary. Bonus to Jobs, Worker Jobs and Science alike. We're a kind of Einstein-like Supermarines, happy where they live, able to live anywhere without destroying entire ecosystems by terraforming, and living 150 years on average. We tend to target Swarms and Purifiers, and try to make it work with Egalitarians. We do not take offense easily however, and it's the only case we can use slavery. But usually even then we fight our own wars without using slaves for that, and we do not nerve staple them.

There's eugenics involved and slavery as punishment, but I hardly find that really dystopian. Not more and not worse than reality already is actually. We're a bit rude, rigid and picky, that's all. And you can be way nicer using Gene-mod. In fact I would rather play Egalitarian if I could go full on leader enhancement.

It's actually not hard at all to create leader traits that depend on the leader's species having a particular species trait. The mod I first saw showcasing this, (Xenology : Traits Expansion Reborn), is still one of my favorites. Frankly, I'm shocked the vanilla game doesn't do it. The creator has made some very awesome traits covering a variety of effects unique species traits could have on an interstellar nation. The leaders extend the capabilities of my species throughout my whole empire, not just Pops and armies. So many possibilities.

btw I like how you think about your people.

 

[Koizumi]

I would stress the fact you're not forced to nerve staple species.

While I play Authoritarian these days, I do my gene-mod as @SteelCrow. My template is Very Strong, Robust, Erudite, Sedentary. Bonus to Jobs, Worker Jobs and Science alike.

OK, I admit I actually never tried to use genemodding in such a way - I always end up specialising my pops.

I guess I am weak to the evil side of stellaris... I mean, I could NOT nerve staple some pops, but I always end up doing so Maybe I should ask myself some questions.

Still, quite like how you genemod your pops! I'll try to have an egalitarian bio-ascension run sooner or later.

 

[Dëzaël]

It's all about being on top of the food chain. Fending off predators, defending territory, attacking only if really in need of preys, dominance within the pack, adaptation to environment, not being unnecessarily cruel to other animals.

Not good, not bad either. Being a spacefaring species does not put us above natural laws, and we embrace our instincts instead of fighting them to "be civilized". Quite a philosophical path now that I think about it. Egalitarian would just be a softer version of this. Maybe you just have to embrace your instincts.

In fact I often end up ganged up by Egalitarians from whom I or my pops asked nothing, and that are well happy that I am between them and that quarter-of-a-galaxy sized Devouring Swarm. Their agressiveness even sparks Xenophobic and Militaristic factions in my empire. Their hypocrisy is a shame for organics, and an incentive to become a machine instead.
(Role-play intensifies)

The mod I first saw showcasing this, (Xenology : Traits Expansion Reborn), is still one of my favorites. Frankly, I'm shocked the vanilla game doesn't do it.

True this could be expanded. Though this seems nice, I don't like to tinker much with mods that add things able to alter balance. From my modding experience it's easy to loose track with game and mod updates and end up with a mess you don't even know what it does anymore. I stick with Graphics, QoL, and AI. Any game is lacking in AI. If I have to go with rebalancing, I prefer getting a mod that rebalances the whole game at once. Way easier to keep a consistent game without it becoming work.

But this one would go well in a "Stellaris Overhaul Megapack" sort of thing.