Unsatisfied with the promise of Indoctrination

[GC13]

Right now Indoctrination feels like a box to check before you enlighten a species—something that could literally be a box you check on the observation post, having you make less progress per month but change their ethics to yours by the time they are made a spacefaring species.

I guess when I saw that option I hoped for something a bit more cool, like your empire literally presenting themselves to the primitives as gods. I guess you can't use observation points to generate Influence, because then Influence would scale with size and we don't want that, but what if an observation post that had been on Indoctrination long enough could slowly recruit armies straight from the planet? Imagine the flavor of "Savage Armies" that are kind of like a reversal of slave armies: high morale and high morale damage, but only okay health and damage. The description they could have, of religious zealots given rudimentary training and weaponry...

Add that on top of some basic stuff, like an indoctrinated populace over time building some crude special buildings and working them for you, even providing a base you can work as the repair facilities on a planetside spaceport? That's what I'd love for it to become.

 

[TerrBear]

Right now Indoctrination feels like a box to check before you enlighten a species—something that could literally be a box you check on the observation post, having you make less progress per month but change their ethics to yours by the time they are made a spacefaring species.

I guess when I saw that option I hoped for something a bit more cool, like your empire literally presenting themselves to the primitives as gods. I guess you can't use observation points to generate Influence, because then Influence would scale with size and we don't want that, but what if an observation post that had been on Indoctrination long enough could slowly recruit armies straight from the planet? Imagine the flavor of "Savage Armies" that are kind of like a reversal of slave armies: high morale and high morale damage, but only okay health and damage. The description they could have, of religious zealots given rudimentary training and weaponry...

Add that on top of some basic stuff, like an indoctrinated populace over time building some crude special buildings and working them for you, even providing a base you can work as the repair facilities on a planetside spaceport? That's what I'd love for it to become.

I was hoping for a Goa'uld style playthrough playing as the gods to primitives, so yeah i totally agree.
it's a bland mechanic that adds nothing really to the game it could of gave the primitives a trait of 'awe-struck' or something like that making them massively happy and loyal but a risk percentage every year of them realising you're not gods and doing an uprising.

 

[nweismuller]

It occurs to me that the specific tactic of 'pretending to be gods' is liable to be counterproductive for Indoctrination towards materialism, which some people will be doing. I suspect that, to some extent, the tactics of Indoctrination will vary depending on who's doing it.

 

[TerrBear]

It occurs to me that the specific tactic of 'pretending to be gods' is liable to be counterproductive for Indoctrination towards materialism, which some people will be doing. I suspect that, to some extent, the tactics of Indoctrination will vary depending on who's doing it.

Asgard pretended to be gods and they are heavily materialist but i see your point that game mechanics wise it only fits one ethics choice.

 

[Lothmar]

Asgard pretended to be gods and they are heavily materialist but i see your point that game mechanics wise it only fits one ethics choice.

I mean at least until a civilization was advanced enough to know the truth allegedly, if you believe the thors trial thing.

 

[Dalinski]

I have this feeling that a lot of this coming expansion is going to be glossy things to look but not much interaction, including factions.

I don't mind so much because this ground work had to happen at some stage.

 

[AlphaAsh]

Right now Indoctrination feels like a box to check before you enlighten a species—something that could literally be a box you check on the observation post, having you make less progress per month but change their ethics to yours by the time they are made a spacefaring species.

I guess when I saw that option I hoped for something a bit more cool, like your empire literally presenting themselves to the primitives as gods. I guess you can't use observation points to generate Influence, because then Influence would scale with size and we don't want that, but what if an observation post that had been on Indoctrination long enough could slowly recruit armies straight from the planet? Imagine the flavor of "Savage Armies" that are kind of like a reversal of slave armies: high morale and high morale damage, but only okay health and damage. The description they could have, of religious zealots given rudimentary training and weaponry...

Add that on top of some basic stuff, like an indoctrinated populace over time building some crude special buildings and working them for you, even providing a base you can work as the repair facilities on a planetside spaceport? That's what I'd love for it to become.

One would assume that if all the current vanilla observation post missions have related events, so will Indoctrination. @Wiz Able to confirm?

Edit - May want to check this out too: Gods & Guardians http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=756110740 has some of what you want.

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

Even if it's just events which add a little flavour it's still a shame that it isn't taken any further. That said it took the EU4 team 3½ Years to finally figure out what to do with Japan.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

One would assume that if all the current vanilla observation post missions have related events, so will Indoctrination. @Wiz Able to confirm?

Edit - May want to check this out too: Gods & Guardians http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=756110740 has some of what you want.

I agree, I'm hoping that the Indoctrination missions have events as well.

 

[GC13]

One would assume that if all the current vanilla observation post missions have related events, so will Indoctrination. @Wiz Able to confirm?

Events will help with the flavor a bit, but right now Indoctrination is only something you do as a prelude to enlightenment or infiltration. It's a DLC feature, so it should be something cool. Giving the ability to recruit one Savage Army every 360 days would be something cool, I'd say.

 

[Elfwind]

It occurs to me that the specific tactic of 'pretending to be gods' is liable to be counterproductive for Indoctrination towards materialism, which some people will be doing. I suspect that, to some extent, the tactics of Indoctrination will vary depending on who's doing it.

Spiritualists would definately need unique mechanics. Maybe pretending to be angels or messengers?

 

[Angelshard]

How would pacifist indoctrination work then?

 

[GC13]

I can see pacifists getting savages to fight their wars for them working well enough... Besides, I think it would be another Unrestricted Studies thing, which under 1.4 rules would be a no-no for pacifists anyway.

 

[Alblaka]

It's a fix for a broken mechanic (aka, enlightening primitives not being worth it because of ethics).
It's still not mandatory, if you just want a new slave race anyways, or got ethic supporting diversity.

But hey, until we get an in-depth expansion focussing on pre-FTLs, that's a fine addendum.

 

[Kilmantor]

Just for the game mechanics, I love indoctrination.
I hate all these new empires popping up in my empire in the mid-/lategame.
You can't purge them if you are an democracy, if you integrate them (later) you get dozens of unhappy citizens because they don't share your ethics, and if you conquer them before you get harsh penalties. And if you leave it like it is your empire becomes a large patchwerk.
Right now, pre-warp-civs are mostly budding me as often there is no "positive" way to deal with them. Indoctrination would be a good way to intetrate a species into your empire where everybody is happy in the end.

And I'm sure they implement some crisis so that indoctrination is not just a "I click here until they become like me"-button.

 

[dskod1]

It occurs to me that the specific tactic of 'pretending to be gods' is liable to be counterproductive for Indoctrination towards materialism, which some people will be doing. I suspect that, to some extent, the tactics of Indoctrination will vary depending on who's doing it.

 

[Stadhouder]

Just for the game mechanics, I love indoctrination.
I hate all these new empires popping up in my empire in the mid-/lategame.
You can't purge them if you are an democracy, if you integrate them (later) you get dozens of unhappy citizens because they don't share your ethics, and if you conquer them before you get harsh penalties. And if you leave it like it is your empire becomes a large patchwerk.
Right now, pre-warp-civs are mostly budding me as often there is no "positive" way to deal with them. Indoctrination would be a good way to intetrate a species into your empire where everybody is happy in the end.

And I'm sure they implement some crisis so that indoctrination is not just a "I click here until they become like me"-button.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could not only enlighten them, but also stagnate them.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

How would pacifist indoctrination work then?

The Childhood's End way, obviously.

Somebody holds a bullfighting ring? Make everybody that attends feel the terror and pain of the bull.

 

[Repeats]

This is just a minor component of the otherwise broken primitives in the game right now. Currently, 95% of primitives aren't worth uplifting because they will be a drain/riot force within your empire. This allows you spend resources and your time to slowly shift them towards being useful. I am perfectly happy with it the system they made and I think its balanced. Could it offer a few events to spice it up? Sure. But to say you are unhappy with a mechanic you have never tried is going overboard.

 

[GC13]

But to say you are unhappy with a mechanic you have never tried is going overboard.

Well that is why I said I was unhappy with the promise of Indoctrination.

But really, it's a very simple mechanic. Even if it has interesting events for flavor (and we saw two ethics shifts but no flavor events), those events will likely be equivalent to the covert infiltration events (i.e. neat flavor, but don't affect the mechanics). The mechanic itself should do something different, not make two preexisting options more useful at the expense of delaying them a bit.