What if empire size affected governing ethics attraction?

[Tannhäuser Cake]

It seems reasonable that it would become more challenging to maintain a cohesive identity and shared set of values as an empire grows bigger. Empire Size currently affects at least 7 other values, ranging from technology and tradition costs to infiltration speed, so it does not seem like a modifier to Governing Ethics Attraction would be entirely out of place.

If Empire Size affected Governing Ethics Attraction, bigger empires would need to direct more efforts and resources towards maintaining internal control. Otherwise, divergent ethics cause decreased Faction Unity and decreased Happiness from factions, which in turn increases Crime and reduces Stability, which in turn reduces outputs and Trade Value and potentially leads to revolts. (A secondary implication could then be that if an empire loses a substantial share of its Empire Size due to war, the remaining part of the empire would have an easier time achieving ethics cohesion and Stability, and become stronger relative to its size. Essentially, a rubberband effect.)

Would the game be more fun if Empire Size affected Governing Ethics Attraction?
Are there any issues not sufficiently considered in the "analysis" above?
Any other thoughts?

 

[-Marauder-]

Given there are limited ways to cause Government Ethics Attraction and how destructive it is, this feels like it would push a Vassal Play style even more while overly punishing wide for no good reason. It would also massively benefit some ethics over others. Xenophiles and Egalitarians for example who can produce lots of attraction towards their ethics very easily simply by conquering and mixing a bunch of aliens.

 

[A2ch0n]

Government Ethics Attraction and how destructive it is

Tbh i never had the feeling that ethic attraction matters in any way. Or at least i never felt a negative impact. So why do you think it is destructive?

 

[-Marauder-]

Tbh i never had the feeling that ethic attraction matters in any way. Or at least i never felt a negative impact. So why do you think it is destructive?

It's not destructive because it's relatively easy to handle unless you mess up, a lot. It's not a very interactive mechanic outside of stacking modifiers that will push pops to your preferred ethics and thus factions. If suddenly attraction to factions you absolutely don't want to would become the norm across your Empire, you'd be pretty screwed.

Ever had some ruler pops who're part of factions with 0% approval, it'll wreck your stability.

 

[A2ch0n]

Ever had some ruler pops who're part of factions with 0% approval, it'll wreck your stability.

In fact i never had. I normaly play at least with one degree authoritarian in any game and i never had the feeling to loose ethic attraction (Maybe because of the stratified living standard) . I even have most of the time many migration treatys and species. But thats rarely a problem too. The only faction that i really dislike is the egalitatian one (most of the time only appears with the manifest event and that can easily blocked by "arresting this so called artists").

Since it's upgrade i often use the One Vision AP too. So i guess i will never have problems with that.

 

[Pancakelord]

Are there any issues not sufficiently considered in the "analysis" above?

Unless vassals (a % of their sprawl, based on the resources they feed you - somehow) and federations (e.g. an averaged percentage of each members sprawl, linked to fed fleet size, or even federal centralisation level) also add to empire sprawl I think trying to do more with empire sprawl, is just going to cause more problems, as it further incentivises either vassal play, or hegemonic(without vassal) play. Vassals are already defacto the best way to go as it is - hegemonic fleets are a solid fighting force, too, if you know what youre doing.

Separately, I don't like the way effects are implemented for empire sprawl. At under 100, you have no effects, over 100 it linearly scales.
Meaning, it's essentially got 2 tiers of effects, at a 100 sprawl threshold. (With 100 being - basically - 1-3 systems worth of starting empire development and pops).

IMO If we're going to see harsher effects - such as reducing stability on non-core sectors, we'd need additional tiers (e.g. X effect starts scaling from 500 sprawl - and possibly capping out at a higher threshold e.g. 1000) - but that would also require a very good think about what those tiers should be set to -- and (this is a problem with several parts of stellaris) consideration should be given to if the tiers are static, or if they float relative to galaxy size, so they can scale up and down based on the size of the game you are playing.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Given there are limited ways to cause Government Ethics Attraction and how destructive it is, this feels like it would push a Vassal Play style even more while overly punishing wide for no good reason. It would also massively benefit some ethics over others. Xenophiles and Egalitarians for example who can produce lots of attraction towards their ethics very easily simply by conquering and mixing a bunch of aliens.

It would be easy to make empire size penalize ethics attraction in a non-linear way.

E.g. If you have 2x tech costs because of sprawl, then your base governing ethics attraction is 1/2x.

 

[-Marauder-]

In fact i never had. I normaly play at least with one degree authoritarian in any game and i never had the feeling to loose ethic attraction (Maybe because of the stratified living standard) . I even have most of the time many migration treatys and species. But thats rarely a problem too. The only faction that i really dislike is the egalitatian one (most of the time only appears with the manifest event and that can easily blocked by "arresting this so called artists").

Since it's upgrade i often use the One Vision AP too. So i guess i will never have problems with that.

Yep, Government Ethics attraction is, not a fan mechanic. It's almost entirely passive too. And techs, policies massively influence it. But ultimately there's a cap on it in total. If it suddenly scaled with Empire size you'd eventually reach a breaking point where the opposite occurs. And stuff would unravel. Which means we'd likely get another repeatable tech for it.

Which, just in my personal opinion really adds absolutely nothing to the game.