Suggestions on More Radical Factions and Pop Actions

[sauron_33]

Hello everyone,

With the very promising new depth to pops and their factions, I wanted to suggest another layer for those pops who are "disgruntled". I do not want this to be a political discussion of any kind, but something that is quite appropriate, and certainly appears in many sci-fi tropes (including some of the stated inspirations for Stellaris) is terrorism and assassination.

Perhaps it's somewhere in the code, but I have never seen a leader be assassinated and I think if a pop becomes radicalized enough there should be other aspects of terrorism beyond damaging a building on a planet. It should include military terrorism not just in the form of piracy, but of sabotage, and I suggest it should include potential assassination of governors, research scientists (less likely for those scientists on science ships, since they're ostensibly out of the reach of these terrorists), army generals, and of course the empire's leader.

The final target, the empire's leader, could also lend itself to other effects on the empire. Consider as an example the situation of Cleon II in Asmiov's "Foundation" series: an emperor is assassinated and not replaced by a new emperor, but by a military junta. A sudden regime change might open up a series of semi-scripted events for opportunity, but also present significant reductions to pop happiness.

Thus, perhaps you are a peaceful democracy but your president is assassinated and a group of military officers seize control in the ensuing chaos and you are now a junta or military dictatorship. Perhaps you are a dictatorship and on the death or your ruler - or in the middle of a devastating war - there is a "spring" and various pops uprise to create a democratic government.

Perhaps there could be other more insidious pop factions as well: a group of technological zealots who wish to have your entire population wired into the matrix or some such thing, or a group who want all robots (including ones you've already built) outlawed and disassembled.

 

[Chilled Legumes]

While i like the idea of assassinations/terrorism as a game mechanic, i think any situation where your government is changed outside of your own personal (as the leader) control, that should instead result in a loss. You've completely lost control of your empire, and have been deposed or otherwise eliminated.

 

[SolarGuy]

While i like the idea of assassinations/terrorism as a game mechanic, i think any situation where your government is changed outside of your own personal (as the leader) control, that should instead result in a loss. You've completely lost control of your empire, and have been deposed or otherwise eliminated.

But you don't play as your nation's ruler (and even if you did, a president could still crown him/herself emperor), so that wouldn't make any sense.

If that was a thing, then you would get an immediate game over every time your initial ruler doesn't get elected again, or dies from old age.

 

[sauron_33]

Precisely. If you have a rebellion in EUIV or a coup against you in HoIIV your country doesn't cease to exist. It's just under new management.

 

[Chilled Legumes]

But you don't play as your nation's ruler (and even if you did, a president could still crown him/herself emperor), so that wouldn't make any sense.

If that was a thing, then you would get an immediate game over every time your initial ruler doesn't get elected again, or dies from old age.

I'm aware that you don't play as your ruler, but that's kind of what i meant anyways, you play as your nation. I just don't see any difference between having your leader assassinated and your government overthrown via a coup, or having a sector rebel, rise up, and overthrow your government by force (secession, and then 'civil' war).

Why should one scenario result in a defeat, and the other not?

 

[SolarGuy]

I'm aware that you don't play as your ruler, but that's kind of what i meant anyways, you play as your nation. I just don't see any difference between having your leader assassinated and your government overthrown via a coup, or having a sector rebel, rise up, and overthrow your government by force (secession, and then 'civil' war).

Because, as @sauron_33 already said, your nation is simply under a new administration but the geopolitical structure "this bunch of planets" does NOT cease to exist at all. The planets are still there, the people too, there is basically no change except for who is ruling the people.

Why should one scenario result in a defeat, and the other not?

I actually do think that civil war should allow you to play as the rebels if you are completely defeated by them, but at least outside of Ironman Mode you just need two commands to play as them anyways.
But to answer your question: In a coup or something similar, the nation is still the same (just some ruler replacement going on, and maybe different type of government, but nothing else changes), while with a civil war, you basically have two nations fighting for supremacy within the empire so that's technically nothing else than a normal war.

 

[sauron_33]

I actually do think that civil war should allow you to play as the rebels if you are completely defeated by them, but at least outside of Ironman Mode you just need two commands to play as them anyways.
But to answer your question: In a coup or something similar, the nation is still the same (just some ruler replacement going on, and maybe different type of government, but nothing else changes), while with a civil war, you basically have two nations fighting for supremacy within the empire so that's technically nothing else than a normal war.

It would be a nice mechanic to, at the very least, play as the rebels when a civil war breaks out. If for nothing else than the challenge, or maybe you would view it as a way to quickly make some changes in your empire, even if it is done in a painful way.

 

[Chilled Legumes]

I actually do think that civil war should allow you to play as the rebels if you are completely defeated by them

I can agree in that we need consistency, though I personally disagree that you shouldn't be defeated in this scenario.

But to answer your question: In a coup or something similar, the nation is still the same (just some ruler replacement going on, and maybe different type of government, but nothing else changes), while with a civil war, you basically have two nations fighting for supremacy within the empire so that's technically nothing else than a normal war.

I'm still not convinced. You say that the components of the empire have not changed, but I think that matters little. What actually matters is what is being done with those resources (pops, planets, structures, fleets, etc). Don't forget, your ethics will need to change in order to accommodate a new government type. You say that a civil war is two nations "within" the empire. Well, sure that can exist in real life, but again i am not convinced that something like this shouldn't result in a loss. I would like to clarify what i meant in my original comment, as I chose my words poorly. What I meant was, I believe that anything resulting in a change to your government, outside of your will as the player, should result in a loss. (

I could be wrong, but I'd be willing to guess that a sizable chunk (if not the majority) of people playing Stellaris would rather restart their game if they suddenly had to work around a new government type. Scenario: Lets say you're a slaving despot. You've spent decades conquering species and integrating them into your empire. One day, a coup arises, and your empire is overthrown, and replaced with a democratic government. All pops are emancipated, and all of the laws are changed to outlaw slavery, enable migration, disable relocation, etc, the works. And to top it all off, now all of your ethics are different now, meaning you need to deal with new bonuses and maluses.

The entire empire, to this point, was built on the backs of slaves, and things like building choice, where pops are located at, maybe you had a massive slave army that had to be disbanded. Not to mention ethics/traits (Congratulations! Your decadent species rose up and outlawed slavery. Enjoy the malus until gene therapy, my friend). Point is, now you as the player have a mess to clean up. Your alliances have completely flipped. Allies that you've allowed to be near to you are suddenly hateful enemies vying to conquer your planets. All of your new friendly empires are far away, considering you conquered all the potential ones nearby already when you were a slaving empire. The suggestion, as is, would just make a huge empire restructuring required in order to move forward from this negative scenario happening in your game. You'd lose years, if not entire decades having to fix your empire and deal with the new set of rules you were given. I'm not saying its a bad idea, I'm just saying that I personally would not be happy if they implemented this into the game as is.

I realize there are people who would salivate at the chance to take on this challenge. But not everybody. If my empire was forced to change and there is nothing more that i could do to prevent it (meaning that I've already failed to manage pop happiness or radical factions), I would consider that a loss. Certainly feels like it, to me, at least.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I could be wrong, but I'd be willing to guess that a sizable chunk (if not the majority) of people playing Stellaris would rather restart their game if they suddenly had to work around a new government type.

You can quit the game at any time.

Also, considering the game is going to support changing your civilization's Ethos (and, implicitly, the family of governments you can choose from) fairly soon, "playing with a new government type" is 100% viable. It probably even has benefits in certain situations.

I very strongly feel that allowing the player to continue under a new government in the case of Liberation and the like would be a good addition to the game- provided the diplomatic framework to help enforce it was in place, I don't see why it should fail to be an option. Hell, I think it'd be nice if getting absorbed by an AI empire while a vassal let you play as a sector within that empire- it's certainly require a rework of some mechanics to be viable, but I don't see why it should be forbidden as an option. That'd go a long way towards allowing multiple play styles and scenarios, something people have been requesting fairly consistently. Stellaris doesn't let you play as a random duke- but it very well could with a few tweaks.

 

[sauron_33]

Basically, I support anything that gives challenges and options to the player. I realize Stellaris aims for a symmetrical start (more or less) but this would allow an assymetrical challenge to be introduced. Many players, including myself, would embrace this I think.

 

[Oscot]

I could be wrong, but I'd be willing to guess that a sizable chunk (if not the majority) of people playing Stellaris would rather restart their game if they suddenly had to work around a new government type.
...
The suggestion, as is, would just make a huge empire restructuring required in order to move forward from this negative scenario happening in your game. You'd lose years, if not entire decades having to fix your empire and deal with the new set of rules you were given. I'm not saying its a bad idea, I'm just saying that I personally would not be happy if they implemented this into the game as is.

I think you guess extremely wrong.
I really, really want exactly the kind of challenge you describe.
A Stellaris game that's a repeating cycle of rise and fall; you surge out into the stars, get too big, politically crumble, spend a century fighting your way back from anarchy, surge out to the stars again, get big but learned your lesson this time, get rekt along with everyone else by a crisis, crumble, spend a second century fighting your way back from anarchy, etc. etc.

It'd be amazing. And it's such a massive trope in sci-fi, with:

• WH40K: Dark Age of Technology, get rekt by warp storms, Imperium of Man
• Xeelee Sequence: First Expansion of Man, get rekt by Squeem, Second Expansion of Man, get rekt by Qax, Third Expansion of Man, get rekt by Xeelee
• Dune: Old Empire, gets rekt by Titans, who get rekt by Omnius, who gets rekt by the Butlarian Jihad, who fracture into the Lansraat, who get forcibly united by by the Golden Path, which fractures on the death of the God Emperor, then rekt by the Honoured Matres, who get rekt by Omnius again
• Hyperion Cantos: Human Hegemony, gets fractured by the destruction of the Worldweb, reunites under the Space Pope
• And there's Foundation, and the various Republics of Star Wars, and I think Halo had one somewhere, etc, etc...

Given that Stellaris has an open-ended timescale I'm moderately astonished that this sort of cyclical build-up-smack-down-build-up-smack-down model of space imperium wasn't the default game-trajectory of Stellaris from the get-go.