The "Artificial Intelligence Ban" wargoal

[Amplify]

First up; let me quickly say Stellaris is a great game that's constantly improving, but there's one flaw that would be extremely easy to overlook when it comes time to rework how warscores work, and if I can get a single Paradox dev to think of it when the time comes, then my time here will have been well spent.

As it stands right now, you can quite literally play a 100% Synthetic population (pic), and go full 'Terminator' on the entire galaxy as you purge all of the organics.

And yet, for a mere warscore of 20 in the face of an opposing AI Fanatic Spiritualist, a huge collective of 200+ Synthetics across a dozen plus worlds (pic) who have had their rights permanently granted and are the only beings on those worlds, will happily ban + dismantle all AI and completely exterminate themselves.

Please, make 20 warscore the base cost for the wargoal with +1 to it for every two happy Synthetic population and remove the option as an availability past a certain percentage of Synthetics vs other population or some similar solution, it simply makes no sense that a primarily or all Synthetic race would happily disassemble themselves so easily.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Secret Master]

First up; let me quickly say Stellaris is a great game that's constantly improving, but there's one flaw that would be extremely easy to overlook when it comes time to rework how warscores work, and if I can get a single Paradox dev to think of it when the time comes, then my time here will have been well spent.

As it stands right now, you can quite literally play a 100% Synthetic population (pic), and go full 'Terminator' on the entire galaxy as you purge all of the organics.

And yet, for a mere warscore of 20 in the face of an opposing AI Fanatic Spiritualist, a huge collective of 200+ Synthetics across a dozen plus worlds (pic) who have had their rights permanently granted and are the only beings on those worlds, will happily ban + dismantle all AI and completely exterminate themselves.

Please, make 20 warscore the base cost for the wargoal with +1 to it for every two happy Synthetic population and remove the option as an availability past a certain percentage of Synthetics vs other population or some similar solution, it simply makes no sense that a primarily or all Synthetic race would happily disassemble themselves so easily.

Thanks for your time.

I think the war score cost should be entirely dependent on the number/percentage of thinking machine POPs you have (robot or droid or synthetic). If you are the Galactic Republic from Star Wars, being forced to dismantle 500 trillion R2-D2s, effectively killing 500 POPs, should cost more than telling a galaxy spanning empire with 5 robots to dismantle theirs.

And if you only have thinking machines and no biological POPs, AI Ban should be disallowed completely via war goal, as it is more powerful than militarists who can purge POPs via cleanse war goals.

 

[Amplify]

I think the war score cost should be entirely dependent on the number/percentage of thinking machine POPs you have (robot or droid or synthetic). If you are the Galactic Republic from Star Wars, being forced to dismantle 500 trillion R2-D2s, effectively killing 500 POPs, should cost more than telling a galaxy spanning empire with 5 robots to dismantle theirs.

And if you only have thinking machines and no biological POPs, AI Ban should be disallowed completely via war goal, as it is more powerful than militarists who can purge POPs via cleanse war goals.

Yeah, I absolutely love that it's possible to play an AI empire, I just wish it was a little better supported, maybe having you join forces as allies with the AI rebellion if it happens and things like that? I don't know.

As for warscore in general, can't wait for that to be changed as it's the last big bugbear I have with Stellaris. In the late game you can attack a small race of aliens on your borders that are 10% of your size, crush every piece of military they own and use their king as a footstool; but they will treat it as a minor annoyance simply because their coalition of allies on the other side of the galaxy are combined about as large as you and you haven't destroyed their military yet.

Seriously, if you already took over the planet then why can you not start purging them or start doing SOMETHING about them? You can sit on their planets for 20 years and they won't care even though said allies aren't coming to save them, until you fight your way across the galaxy to beat them up too. It's a bit ridiculous.

 

[Erei]

While I understand the absurdity of the situation, Paradox never intended to have full synth civilization. The whole "built synth-purge meatbags" was not intended. As such, the wargoal is meant for "regular" civilization with synth and meatbags.

I agree however that the wargoal should have a cost associated to the number of pop purged. A materialist is likely going to have more synth, and rely on them much more than another empire. Including tomb worlds and whatnot, which would mean losing worlds.

 

[Secret Master]

which would mean losing worlds.

Yep. Like those 100% droid worlds I create to mine sometimes.

 

[Elothan]

I agree on this one, number/percentage of Droids+ used should factor into the Warscore.

 

[vonriel]

Yep. Like those 100% droid worlds I create to mine sometimes.

Yeah, this is the big issue to me. I feel like the Outlaw AI wargoal should be increased in warscore by an amount equal to how much it would cost to force me to abandon that planet, but only if my AI have rights. Otherwise, it should be some fraction, say 25%-50%, since I'm still losing territory, but none of my citizens are 'dying.'

I mean, that's what outlawing AI as a wargoal does to a player who is using droid/synthetic worlds, so it would make sense for it to have a similar impact on warscore costs.

 

[Adamsrealm]

I think that some wargoals need changing to a commitment system as oposed to outright static effects.

The commitment system would allow you to scale the effects of the wargoals e.g.
(The time they are enforced should be adjustable as opposed to just 10 years, this would effect the warscore required though)

Dismantle AI (adjustable from 1-100%, also bans new robot pops from construction)
-note: growing ai pops wouldn't be included in the percentage calculation but would be canceled/purged regardless

Emancipate slaves (adjustable from 1-100, also prevents creation of new slaves, including through pop growth)
-note: growing slave pops would not be taken into account but would be emancipated regardless

On the other hand we could have the ban ai and emancipate wargoals on a planet by planet basis though this would clog the wargoal menu up more than it already is.
(speaking of which a drop menu or tab system for different wargoal effects would be nice)