So I posted this in the dev diary that introduced the concept of hiveminds and in the suggestion thread and I'm a little worried I might get marked for spamming at this point but the main forum by far catches the most eyes and I'd like to see what people this of this idea so I'm dropping this here too assuming I don't get flagged for it.
Okay, so the reason theres so much backlash over the hivemind thing is because of how forced the purging is. I understand you want hiveminds to play differently and it makes sense in my mind that hiveminds would have a hard time dealing with people outside of the collective, but creating a situation where the game purges outside pops with no input from the player rips away agency.
I would recommend instead creating a situation that pushes a player to behave in that way with a few alternative options.
So if you want players to get rid of their non-hivemind pops make them garbage. Base -100% to mineral, food, science, and energy production for not having the hivemind trait while in a hivemind empire. While that doesn't guarantee the pop will produce nothing, what little it could possibly produce will be so much less than that of a proper hivemind pop that it will probably make overly efficient players purge them all. For flavor, a hivemind pop should get a -20% penalty to all production for every neighboring non-hivemind pop because not only are they useless but their meddling disrupts the collective's efforts even if they don't mean to.
So how should a player be able to handle these useless pops?
The easiest way would be the purging or ejecting them from your system as the game forcibly is set to do for you. They aren't useful so why keep them?
Second option should be slavery. Give hiveminds a slavery efficiency +100% to negate their own penalty but disallow them the ability to make slaves of anyone with the hivemind trait within a hivemind empire and we create a situation where using them as cattle, either for hard labor or as food livestock, is the only way to get value out of them. Sci-fi is flush with hiveminds that enslave other races to integrate them into the collective when they don't have the means to technological means to properly integrate them.
Third option would be releasing them as vassal states. I imagine this will probably actually be possible in game but a great way to deal with useless pops would be to round all of them all up to one planet and have them run themselves and pay tribute. I think a good way to help facilitate that would be if relocation costs for hiveminds were super cheap. Although that may not at all be necessary since presumably when you come into possession of such pops they'll all be on one planet. But it opens the door for some of the brutal efficiency a hivemind empire would theoretically be able to employ for situations where you conquer a planet and there were less pops on the planet than it had slots so you move all the non-hivemind pops to a small planet to be released as a vassal and keep the bigger planet for yourself.
The fourth option for dealing with non-hivemind pops would be catering them. Now bare with me, this last one is admittedly a stretch. While a hivemind doesn't have to worry about its own happiness or internal politics for garnering influence there's no reason it couldn't keep non-hivemind pops separated and cared for as a means of garnering influence. Where influence from factions normally comes from getting the faction to play nice with the government, in the hivemind's case they are broadcasting out to the world how they're keeping the people they have in their care happy thus garnering influence from abroad instead. Once a hivemind has enough non-hivemind pops in their empire those pops could start and join factions. While these pops would be a burden on the empire requiring food and providing basically nothing in return this would enable sentimental players to express their agency while rewarding them at least somewhat for their efforts with influence.
I imagine it's more complicated than that. Many of the revolt events would probably need to be rekeyed or excluded from hivemind empires to accommodate for the fact that hivemind citizens don't have happiness or ethics beyond being a hivemind. And from what I've seen of factions they seem to be specifically keyed to government type and require a leader to head them which would need they'd need an exception if within a hivemind thus requiring their own factions specific to pops living in hiveminds and their own events because the normal faction events seem to name the faction leader.
Even still, I think it's very doable and worth it to give back that agency and give those options. Perhaps not before Utopia comes out since the release is so close but it's something to think about and consider moving forward.
Okay, so the reason theres so much backlash over the hivemind thing is because of how forced the purging is. I understand you want hiveminds to play differently and it makes sense in my mind that hiveminds would have a hard time dealing with people outside of the collective, but creating a situation where the game purges outside pops with no input from the player rips away agency.
I would recommend instead creating a situation that pushes a player to behave in that way with a few alternative options.
So if you want players to get rid of their non-hivemind pops make them garbage. Base -100% to mineral, food, science, and energy production for not having the hivemind trait while in a hivemind empire. While that doesn't guarantee the pop will produce nothing, what little it could possibly produce will be so much less than that of a proper hivemind pop that it will probably make overly efficient players purge them all. For flavor, a hivemind pop should get a -20% penalty to all production for every neighboring non-hivemind pop because not only are they useless but their meddling disrupts the collective's efforts even if they don't mean to.
So how should a player be able to handle these useless pops?
The easiest way would be the purging or ejecting them from your system as the game forcibly is set to do for you. They aren't useful so why keep them?
Second option should be slavery. Give hiveminds a slavery efficiency +100% to negate their own penalty but disallow them the ability to make slaves of anyone with the hivemind trait within a hivemind empire and we create a situation where using them as cattle, either for hard labor or as food livestock, is the only way to get value out of them. Sci-fi is flush with hiveminds that enslave other races to integrate them into the collective when they don't have the means to technological means to properly integrate them.
Third option would be releasing them as vassal states. I imagine this will probably actually be possible in game but a great way to deal with useless pops would be to round all of them all up to one planet and have them run themselves and pay tribute. I think a good way to help facilitate that would be if relocation costs for hiveminds were super cheap. Although that may not at all be necessary since presumably when you come into possession of such pops they'll all be on one planet. But it opens the door for some of the brutal efficiency a hivemind empire would theoretically be able to employ for situations where you conquer a planet and there were less pops on the planet than it had slots so you move all the non-hivemind pops to a small planet to be released as a vassal and keep the bigger planet for yourself.
The fourth option for dealing with non-hivemind pops would be catering them. Now bare with me, this last one is admittedly a stretch. While a hivemind doesn't have to worry about its own happiness or internal politics for garnering influence there's no reason it couldn't keep non-hivemind pops separated and cared for as a means of garnering influence. Where influence from factions normally comes from getting the faction to play nice with the government, in the hivemind's case they are broadcasting out to the world how they're keeping the people they have in their care happy thus garnering influence from abroad instead. Once a hivemind has enough non-hivemind pops in their empire those pops could start and join factions. While these pops would be a burden on the empire requiring food and providing basically nothing in return this would enable sentimental players to express their agency while rewarding them at least somewhat for their efforts with influence.
I imagine it's more complicated than that. Many of the revolt events would probably need to be rekeyed or excluded from hivemind empires to accommodate for the fact that hivemind citizens don't have happiness or ethics beyond being a hivemind. And from what I've seen of factions they seem to be specifically keyed to government type and require a leader to head them which would need they'd need an exception if within a hivemind thus requiring their own factions specific to pops living in hiveminds and their own events because the normal faction events seem to name the faction leader.
Even still, I think it's very doable and worth it to give back that agency and give those options. Perhaps not before Utopia comes out since the release is so close but it's something to think about and consider moving forward.
