What if Hive Mind had an ethics cost of 2?

[Frozen Yakman]

Just sort of a flight of fancy. What if Hive Minds had an ethics cost of 2? This would mean that you would have Militarist Hive Minds, Xenophile Machine Intelligences, etc. but no Fanatics. In essence more diversity to the types of Hive Minds. This could be further integrated into the game. Devouring Swarm could require Xenophobe or Militarist. Rogue Servitors could require Xenophile, all organics must be coddled, or Xenophobe, only my creators must be coddled.

 

[MK1980]

that's actually not a bad idea. would most add flavor i guess. their drones/bots should still have no ethics and so they still wouldn't have factions. but the ethos would have a minor effect on diplo relations (same ethos bonus / opposite ethos penalty) and could be used to distinguish different AI personality types

 

[metalosse]

Meh, many ethics don't make much sense for GC, turning choosing your ethic into choose your bonus.

How would a militarist GC differ from a regular GC, except that it is slightly better in military? Same question for spiritualist and materialist.

What is a egalitarian / authoritarian GC?

GC diversity should be handled by civics, not ethics.

 

[Kami-sama]

I've always liked this idea. In a hive mind there is no single individual, only the collective, but the collective itself can have its own guiding views. So can the central intelligence controlling everything in a machine empire although in this case most views were covered already with the origin civics.

The only exception would be egalitarian or authoritarian ethics since they don't have individuals to speak of.

 

[Valfoutre]

Meh, many ethics don't make much sense for GC, turning choosing your ethic into choose your bonus.

How would a militarist GC differ from a regular GC, except that it is slightly better in military? Same question for spiritualist and materialist.

What is a egalitarian / authoritarian GC?

GC diversity should be handled by civics, not ethics.

I agree with this. There is a lack in civic diversity ATM. Like, a pacifist hive (a bit like Dnote's RP in devclash) who don't want to fight, even when boxed in, and better at diplomacy with the fractured ("normal" empires). Or a psyonic-based hive, like the Gaia from Asimov's book?

 

[Strangedane]

These would be great concepts for non-gestalt hiveminds, but the game has us stuck with single entity hiveminds where some ethos just won't make sense.
Authoritarian vs Egalitarian is very obviously tricky, though could be made semi workable by handling relations to interdimensional politics instead of local.

Spiritual vs materialist is strange. Gestalts are by their very definition pretty close to many cultures version of godhood and/or ascenscion. Being one with everything is a common phrase, and this is precisely what the gestalt is. However, this is the normal state for the gestalt, and as such wouldn't be seen as spiritual by the gestalt itself. Best bet for a spiritual gestalt is one that fancies itself a god. Materialist makes no sense whatsoever, there is no need for materialism in a society of 1. While the research bonus would make sense as a sort of darwinistic approach to evolutionary randomization the flavour is off.

Pacifist vs militarist can work fine. This is the only one i don't have any comments on. I see no problem with a gestalt being either for or against violence as a whole.

Xenophobic gestalts are devourers basicly. All other lifeforms are food. We could have a theoretic purging gestalt as well, who doesn't even see other forms of life fit as food, but that's probably stretching it.
Xenophilic Gestalts would probably either want to integrate everyone into the hive (Xenophilic biological assimilators) or want to at least sample every species out there somehow.
Gestalts not on this axis is pretty much what we have now. Uninterested untill interests collide/align.

TL;DR. This would be great for non-gestalt hiveminds, which sadly aren't represented yet.

 

[Frozen Yakman]

Authoritarian vs Egalitarian isn't that hard to think of. In Egalitarian hive minds there could be a lack of physical diversity between the different individuals (like naked mole rats) and/or multiple hives within a given empire. In Authoritarian there would be actual physical differences between castes like honey bees having queens, drones, and workers. Think interstellar eusociality rather than mono-mindedness.

 

[Kravoka]

Would Xenophile or Egalitarian work better as Bob the Angry Flower's 27th century borg?

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Spiritual vs materialist is strange. Gestalts are by their very definition pretty close to many cultures version of godhood and/or ascenscion. Being one with everything is a common phrase, and this is precisely what the gestalt is. However, this is the normal state for the gestalt, and as such wouldn't be seen as spiritual by the gestalt itself. Best bet for a spiritual gestalt is one that fancies itself a god. Materialist makes no sense whatsoever, there is no need for materialism in a society of 1. While the research bonus would make sense as a sort of darwinistic approach to evolutionary randomization the flavour is off.

On spiritualism, while humans invented spirituality for a number of reasons that wouldn't apply to a hive mind, I don't see any reason why some alternate path couldn't result in a hive mind that still believes in a higher power (or, in the context of Stellaris, the very real psionic world.) The only barrier would be that hive minds already are a little psionic (of course head cannon will differ but I think a dev suggested that.) Which kind of relates to the trope used for the Tyrannids: their use of psionics could be antithetical to psionic entities.

As for materialism, no idea what you mean. Except, of course, the inherent psionic link that hive minds may have, there's no reason they can't approach the world otherwise materialistically.

If you're talking from the POV of the bonuses, +unity makes more sense if it thinks it's a god, and +research is just fine. The governing ethics attraction and the reduced robot upkeep end up being useless though...

If we're applying this to machine empires too, spiritualism and materialism are off the books. Obviously, you can argue that a machine gestalt consciousness searching for its soul is both possible and really cool, but the materialist robot upkeep bonus would be what everyone goes for But, we could reduce the outpost influence cost reduction for DE and DS since they'd get -20% for being xenophobe already.

 

[Typee]

These would be great concepts for non-gestalt hiveminds

What the hell is a non-gestalt hivemind?

 

[Slynx]

I will disagree.
hiveminds are perfect as a 3 point ethics. cuz they have no factions and problems that other ethics bring: hate for robots from spiritualist. unable to enslave xenos as a xenophile. no normal wars as pacifist and etc. but hiveminds are so perfect that they can be whatever they like. you want to befriend everyone - do it. you've changed your mind and now you wanna purge - your choice. you wanna play with robots - cool. wanna break them - even better. no restrictions unlike normal empires

 

[klopkr]

What the hell is a non-gestalt hivemind?

That would be a consensus.

Kinda like brainwashing the preprogramming into a being so they all always act the same/correctly together as a unit.

I was actuallyhoping to see them as a way of ascending from a regular empire into a gestalt one. Your pops would lose their individuality and start working towards one goal.

Think of ants or maybe a super brain washing cult. They’re not really a hive mind but from the outside persoective they act as a single unit.

 

[jaredstanko]

I will disagree.
hiveminds are perfect as a 3 point ethics. cuz they have no factions and problems that other ethics bring: hate for robots from spiritualist. unable to enslave xenos as a xenophile. no normal wars as pacifist and etc. but hiveminds are so perfect that they can be whatever they like. you want to befriend everyone - do it. you've changed your mind and now you wanna purge - your choice. you wanna play with robots - cool. wanna break them - even better. no restrictions unlike normal empires

i think this was the original intent but i think it leaves the AI personalities for hiveminds to be incredibly stilted.

 

[208]

At a minimum, you would need to lower the existing bonuses for gestalts to account for the added bonuses from 1 level of ethic. And not all of the ethic bonuses would be suitable (nor even all of the ethics - egalitarian/authoritarian make no sense when there's only one "citizen"). So it would probably make more sense to have a separate set of "hive-mind ethics" with their own properly-balanced bonuses and effects. One could argue that the special civics already do that; but I think the concept of distinguishing gestalts by both aptitude (civics) and inclination (ethics) separately is an interesting one.

 

[Typee]

i think this was the original intent but i think it leaves the AI personalities for hiveminds to be incredibly stilted.

That's a valid concern.
At the very least AI hiveminds could have some clearer inclinations, "asshole hiveminds", "nice guy hivemind" and so on.

 

[Slynx]

At the very least AI hiveminds could have some clearer inclinations, "asshole hiveminds", "nice guy hivemind" and so on.

what's the difference?

also you can distinguish hiveminds by their attitude towards you: if it's positive - it's a "good hivemind". if it's negative - it's "bad hivemind". and if it's -1000 or less - it's a swarm\exterminators. kill it ASAP.

 

[Foefaller]

It *could* work, but you would probably have to tweak what each of the ethics mean for a Hive Mind vs. a regular empire.

Like Xenophobe and Militarist as a normal empire understands them would come out as almost the same thing for a Hive Mind. Xenophobe (sans devouring swarm) would have to be retooled as more like Inward Perfection; reticent with no desire to interact with the rest if the galaxy.

I think the earlier suggestion of more Hive Mind civics that change up gameplay is a better idea. Have a civic for the Tall Hive Mind that wants to be left alone, another for the one curious of other sentients, etc.

 

[Riftwalker]

Authoritarian vs Egalitarian isn't that hard to think of. In Egalitarian hive minds there could be a lack of physical diversity between the different individuals (like naked mole rats) and/or multiple hives within a given empire. In Authoritarian there would be actual physical differences between castes like honey bees having queens, drones, and workers. Think interstellar eusociality rather than mono-mindedness.

sure, but what happens with the ethic bonuses?

they'd have to a little bit of extra coding and not just slap the ethics on to make it work. (like making ethics conditional)

imo, authoritarian should make your leader cap higher or something while egalitarian makes your worker drones slightly more productive.

spiritualism versus materialism makes sense, i don't get people's idea on how it doesn't work. a hive mind is still a mind that can hold beliefs, such as materialism or spirituality, spirituality don't necessitate god worship, merely non-materialistic beliefs, such as karma or feng shui, etc. a spiritualist ME, would likely just have everything about it the same, but it believes it is a separate entity from all of it's robots and the CPU it's running on, etc.

Militartist versus pacifist is pretty easy to follow, it's how the hive reacts to war.

xenophobia versus xenophilia is also pretty easy to grasp.

I think is they did do this rework, they should give hives a single "faction", and hive pops all are part of this faction with happiness. you can ignore factions by simply not picking an ethic other than GC. the faction represents the hives personal happiness with what it's doing. to balance this, the factions for hives would probably be different than normal ones, being slightly more restrictive, so you'll have to take a happiness hit if you need something done, but it'll still allow you.

in fact maybe not make it a faction, but a system that gives your empire stability modifiers for completing certain tasks or upholding your beliefs. you don't get happiness for like, just being friendly with people, but getting a new NAP, or winning a war, will give you temporary bonuses. a PAcifist will get upset when war happens, but especially it if has to declare war, etc. a spiritualist, will become upset when it colonizes gaia worlds but happy when it wins a war versus a ME or synth empire. etc.

 

[Secret Master]

What the hell is a non-gestalt hivemind?

A good example I can think of from fiction would be Gaia/Galaxia from the Foundation series by Asimov.

The humans that form this collective intelligence certainly have a hive mind (they are all connected telepathically and can read each others minds), but members of the society maintain some individuality in the sense that they are not meat puppets of the hive mind.

 

[Slynx]

I think is they did do this rework, they should give hives a single "faction", and hive pops all are part of this faction with happiness. you can ignore factions by simply not picking an ethic other than GC. the faction represents the hives personal happiness with what it's doing. to balance this, the factions for hives would probably be different than normal ones, being slightly more restrictive, so you'll have to take a happiness hit if you need something done, but it'll still allow you.

that'll basically ruin the best thing about hiveminds: NO FACTIONS.

imo, authoritarian should make your leader cap higher or something while egalitarian makes your worker drones slightly more productive.

spiritualism versus materialism makes sense, i don't get people's idea on how it doesn't work. a hive mind is still a mind that can hold beliefs, such as materialism or spirituality, spirituality don't necessitate god worship, merely non-materialistic beliefs, such as karma or feng shui, etc. a spiritualist ME, would likely just have everything about it the same, but it believes it is a separate entity from all of it's robots and the CPU it's running on, etc.

Militartist versus pacifist is pretty easy to follow, it's how the hive reacts to war.

xenophobia versus xenophilia is also pretty easy to grasp.

but why? you already can decide what you believe, how you react to wars and xenos. why you should show this to someone who is not part of a hive? if they wanna know they can either join your hive, or telepathically read your(player's) mind. much like they already know all your policies and react to them.

and btw policies already shows your attitude towards certain things.​