The Wiz Doctrine

[Strager]

Behold! The Great @Wiz has spoken....

The way I view it, you can have one and only one of the two following things:
1) Distinct ethics that have their own unique playstyles.
2) No ethics restrictions on mechanics.

I consider #1 to be more important, so that's the direction we'll be going. It'll be fully moddable, of course.

With this in mind, what differences would you like to see between ethics beyond having different ascension perks?

 

[Drakonn]

Would love to see more rewards for Xenophobes from doing things unique to them. Right now it seems a lot is just penalties for them.

Something more for Xenophile other than Federation play. Honestly, I'd love to see anything that isn't rewarding Materialist or Spiritualist play but maybe that's just been the discussions lately is why I'm leaning away from those two right now. No suggestions of my own atm on exacts

 

[Meneliki]

Behold! The Great @Wiz has spoken....



With this in mind, what differences would you like to see between ethics beyond having different ascension perks?

Well, I'm fine with ethics having unique mechanics, but tbh I hope they implement *traits* with unique mechanics.

 

[Derp]

Xenophile at the very least needs some kind of pop migration-swap mechanic; right now, once a planet fills up, it's done. You can still resettle of course but that only works for ethos combinations that allow it.

 

[V3N0M1300]

I think the ethics bonuses/penalties need to be significantly more drastic than they are now. Or more numerous to the point where each ethos affects almost every gameplay mechanic. For example:

militarists should have reduced fleet/army maintenance (instead of damage bonuses or flagships) quicker weapons/military science research, a few free armies when you found a new colony, the ability to make vassals add to your fleet cap instead of paying taxes and a variety of other bonuses to represent military service being part of everyday life.

Materialists would get a "tech theft" wargoal (effectively a one-way research agreement,) the ability to "debunk" spiritualists (using diplomacy to spread materialist ethics in spiritualist empires) free physics and engineering research points from every battle (especially against fallen empires and crisis enemies) free sociology points from alien pops, and the ability to build habitats around pulsars and black holes.

 

[Dëzaël]

and the ability to build habitats around pulsars and black holes.

This. And ringworlds too. And maybe having them get a physics or engineering research bonus.
Rest of the ideas are nice too. Like your style!

 

[aono]

I think the ethics bonuses/penalties need to be significantly more drastic than they are now. Or more numerous to the point where each ethos affects almost every gameplay mechanic.

I just want to remind it would be quite possible to change your empire ethics through faction system, and that you haven't full control about your population ethic change.
So ethics should be balanced to be possible to play an empire build "for" one ethic with another one, or actually gorgeous feature will be ignored by players.

 

[scaper12123]

Would love to see more rewards for Xenophobes from doing things unique to them. Right now it seems a lot is just penalties for them.

Definitely this. It seems like the Xenophobes are the most likely to be decimated early on in the game, or at the very least are likely to be slowly chewed up by every other empire. Their ethics need to support making them more unpredictable; like knowing that they are the bad guys, but not knowing how they're going to fulfil that role.

 

[Agamemnic]

I think the ethics bonuses/penalties need to be significantly more drastic than they are now. Or more numerous to the point where each ethos affects almost every gameplay mechanic. For example:

militarists should have reduced fleet/army maintenance (instead of damage bonuses or flagships) quicker weapons/military science research, a few free armies when you found a new colony, the ability to make vassals add to your fleet cap instead of paying taxes and a variety of other bonuses to represent military service being part of everyday life.

Materialists would get a "tech theft" wargoal (effectively a one-way research agreement,) the ability to "debunk" spiritualists (using diplomacy to spread materialist ethics in spiritualist empires) free physics and engineering research points from every battle (especially against fallen empires and crisis enemies) free sociology points from alien pops, and the ability to build habitats around pulsars and black holes.

I made a personal mod that tripled the attributes of each ethos. Definitely interesting. Fanatic xenophobes had 90% border extrusion and this changed gameplay entirely. Ultimately though it wasnt balanced but I'm optimistic that Wiz is cooking up summin good

 

[henzington]

The changes are quite useful as it brings up the same debate that happens in EU4. Do I pick idea groups or traditions to enhance my bonus from base abilities or do I use them to balance out my bonuses.

 

[Cri11e]

Would love to see more rewards for Xenophobes from doing things unique to them. Right now it seems a lot is just penalties for them.

Something more for Xenophile other than Federation play. Honestly, I'd love to see anything that isn't rewarding Materialist or Spiritualist play but maybe that's just been the discussions lately is why I'm leaning away from those two right now. No suggestions of my own atm on exacts

iirc Wiz had to swap his ethoses to xenophob to be able to make aliens into livestock and process the aliens also. Can someone confirm more detailed?

EDIT: In the stream that is.

 

[Razzlie]

I'm in favour of unique mechanics.

 

[Xoatl]

Here's some ideas an Authoritarian (or Militaristic) AP (probably requiring that one imperial AP first) that alongside some other modifiers and features gives you a CB to completely annex an empire at 100% warscore. Can't think of anything for Egalitarian at the moment. But a Pacifist AP should make it so empires that attack you suffer attrition, their POPs should be angry, and in general make it a more costly move for an empire to declare war on you (like Switzerland).

 

[Madzai]

I would be in favor of 1) only if, there would be more unique playstyles, and PDX don't have a very "unique" vision of some ethics. F.e., in yesterday DD it was clear that Spiritualists should go down Psi path. Authoritarian should go on conquest, etc. That Authoritarian paradise is impossible, it would be a s***hole no matter that. That Xenophobe are supposed to be ruthless bigots. Instead of combining ethics, traits and traditions to support each other and balance out weakness of particular build, we just select a path we want to follow, while ignoring things that aren't a part of selected path.

 

[Xoatl]

I would be in favor of 1) only if, there would be more unique playstyles, and PDX don't have a very "unique" vision of some ethics. F.e., in yesterday DD it was clear that Spiritualists should go down Psi path. Authoritarian should go on conquest, etc. That Authoritarian paradise is impossible, it would be a s***hole no matter that. That Xenophobe are supposed to be ruthless bigots. Instead of combining ethics, traits and traditions to support each other and balance out weakness of particular build, we just select a path we want to follow, while ignoring things that aren't a part of selected path.

The majority of APs aren't linked to ethos, just two of the three seemingly end game paths (psi and synth).

 

[Madzai]

The majority of APs aren't linked to ethos, just two of the three seemingly end game paths (psi and synth).

You're probably right. The question is: for the builds that aren't rich on Tradition gain, selecting AP that don't lead to Major changes like Psi or Bio, is viable or not? From Shroud DD it seems like Psi is very strong, and not selecting it is a waste (unless for RP reasons).
Same goes for AI - if all nearby Spiritualistic AI goes down Psi path how "fun" it would be? If going down PSi path would require a particular AI personality, wouldn't it handicap they other AIs with Spiritualism?

 

[Rabid]

I would be in favor of 1) only if, there would be more unique playstyles, and PDX don't have a very "unique" vision of some ethics. F.e., in yesterday DD it was clear that Spiritualists should go down Psi path. Authoritarian should go on conquest, etc. That Authoritarian paradise is impossible, it would be a s***hole no matter that. That Xenophobe are supposed to be ruthless bigots. Instead of combining ethics, traits and traditions to support each other and balance out weakness of particular build, we just select a path we want to follow, while ignoring things that aren't a part of selected path.

You're basically arguing that you agree with the first premise while also wanting the second mutually exclusive one to be true...

If some ethics have unique selling points which other ethics can't access, of course it's going to feel like that ethos is 'supposed' to use that feature. If these distinctions didn't exist then there wouldn't be anything meaningful to distinguish between them (as the game is currently, where your ethics choices basically come down to "do you want robots" and "do you want to choose one of the 2 ways to effectively counter ethics divergence")

Re: the OP, I hope each ethos has at least one thing which makes me think "that is super cool, I want to be able to do that!". Psionics and robots are already there, I think the different factions will also play a big part in this (some factions being easier to please than others...) but I don't really care what kinds of features distinguish between the ethics as long as they're meaningfully impactful on the game and preferably have some cool flavour which makes them feel like a reward.

As an aside, I'm kind of interested to see how fanatic ethics are balanced now, as the stream yesterday showed that they only receive double bonuses compared to 'single' ethics, as opposed to triple bonuses in the current patch. I assume that the benefit of having more ethic attraction towards a single ethic, and the resulting ease of handling your most influential factions, probably plays a part in this.

 

[Xoatl]

You're probably right. The question is: for the builds that aren't rich on Tradition gain, selecting AP that don't lead to Major changes like Psi or Bio, is viable or not? From Shroud DD it seems like Psi is very strong, and not selecting it is a waste (unless for RP reasons).
Same goes for AI - if all nearby Spiritualistic AI goes down Psi path how "fun" it would be? If going down PSi path would require a particular AI personality, wouldn't it handicap they other AIs with Spiritualism?

Everyone focuses on the shroud 50 year boost. But we have NO clue what the drawback is. Likely you spawn an unbidden type race WITHIN your empire, pretty much fucking that play through and ending it unless you are VERY prepared. Whats the point of 100%+ everything if you're dead?

Also if you look at the previous dev diary on AP there are some very potent one off APs, like megastructures. I'd like to see more APs and/or less AP slots. 7 slots with like 14 APs to choose from (maybe less)? That seems like every empire will auto-fill the most min-maxxy APs and by end game everyone will look pretty much the same. Maybe finishing traditions unlock AP slots up to certain limit (like 4). But I'd prefer to see a ton more APs to play around with instead.

 

[Madzai]

You're basically arguing that you agree with the first premise while also wanting the second mutually exclusive one to be true...

If some ethics have unique selling points which other ethics can't access, of course it's going to feel like that ethos is 'supposed' to use that feature. If these distinctions didn't exist then there wouldn't be anything meaningful to distinguish between them (as the game is currently, where your ethics choices basically come down to "do you want robots" and "do you want to choose one of the 2 ways to effectively counter ethics divergence")

No, that i'm saying is: with an approach PDX took to "Distinct ethics that have their own unique playstyles", i'd rather prefer 2).

And you example about ED is actually very good. In current version the question "how would i deal with POPs ED" is the only question you have to answer before start playing. In all other areas you totally free in your choices. And the question "how would i deal with POPs ED" have a whole bunch of answers. While in 1.5. i feel that my goal and path are way more on "rails".

Everyone focuses on the shroud 50 year boost. But we have NO clue what the drawback is. Likely you spawn an unbidden type race WITHIN your empire, pretty much ****ing that play through and ending it unless you are VERY prepared. Whats the point of 100%+ everything if you're dead?

Also if you look at the previous dev diary on AP there are some very potent one off APs, like megastructures. I'd like to see more APs and/or less AP slots. 7 slots with like 14 APs to choose from (maybe less)? That seems like every empire will auto-fill the most min-maxxy APs and by end game everyone will look pretty much the same. Maybe finishing traditions unlock AP slots up to certain limit (like 4). But I'd prefer to see a ton more APs to play around with instead.

Actually i'm not. I'm more interested in Psi leaders bonuses and techs. Shroud itself feels more like last resort, or a good way to get a shrouded planet and present it to your Enemy. If it's possible.

And mega-structures, they didn't impress me at all. Looks like a boxed loser choice or a tool for someone who pursue diplo-victory.

 

[Rabid]

No, that i'm saying is: with an approach PDX took to "Distinct ethics that have their own unique playstyles", i'd rather prefer 2).

And you example about ED is actually very good. In current version the question "how would i deal with POPs ED" is the only question you have to answer before start playing. In all other areas you totally free in your choices. And the question "how would i deal with POPs ED" have a whole bunch of answers. While in 1.5. i feel that my goal and path are way more on "rails".

Oh OK, that makes sense, we just disagree; I hate that ethics choices aren't very meaningful, and would ideally like every ethic to make a significant difference to how the game is played (much like how Fanatic Pacifist does at the moment, but without being super weak and boring to play...)