The xenophile faction in this game were displeased with my empire that I was keeping alien slaves. Certainly, it was true that I had recently acquired a few thrifty alien pop from the Subterranean race event chain and was using them to generate energy credits.
RP-wise, I considered them to be semi-tolerated alien race inside my empire: residency but not full citizenship, so that I could continue to take advantage of their thrifty nature to boost my energy production.
My Empress at the time was part of the xenophile faction, however, and xenophillic pops started growing like wildfire, clamoring for the end of alien slavery. As my Empress was part of the xenophile faction and thus had xenophillic sympathies, I figured that it would suit the RP to grant them equal rights as the rest of my citizens.
So I granted them the exact same rights and obligations as my normal pop: Full citizenship with full military service expected and caste system.
The xenophile faction was still not satisfied with this tremendous victory: of winning equal rights with the rest of the empire's citizens, and still clamored for the end of alien slavery. An insane proposition: granting aliens full citizenship would actually place them above my main species, who lived in stratified caste system that I was certainly not going to reform due to it being part of my collectivist ethos. In short, the faction system in Stellaris failed to account for the complexity of situations that arise from natural play.
The current system would hit the xenophile collectivist empire particularly hard, as keeping aliens enslaved, even under equal treatment with the main race in a caste system, would anger the xenophiles, while collectivists would be incensed if you liberated them both and granted them equal citizenship. While happiness debuffs may be remedied, you cannot remedy the influence drop from this as much.
There are few other times when faction systems fails to account for the complexity that arise from natural play. For instance, due to the fact that synths are considered sentient race, their slavery angers the egalitarians in your empire. If you are not playing materialist, you cannot grant AI citizenship rights, and thus egalitarians are permanently angered, which reduces your influence gain from factionalism.
TL;DR: Xenophile factions should, instead of checking for aliens kept in slavery, check whether or not aliens have the same citizenship rights as main species, and also be happier if they are also given same living conditiions.
Egalitarian factions should not seek out synth liberation.
RP-wise, I considered them to be semi-tolerated alien race inside my empire: residency but not full citizenship, so that I could continue to take advantage of their thrifty nature to boost my energy production.
My Empress at the time was part of the xenophile faction, however, and xenophillic pops started growing like wildfire, clamoring for the end of alien slavery. As my Empress was part of the xenophile faction and thus had xenophillic sympathies, I figured that it would suit the RP to grant them equal rights as the rest of my citizens.
So I granted them the exact same rights and obligations as my normal pop: Full citizenship with full military service expected and caste system.
The xenophile faction was still not satisfied with this tremendous victory: of winning equal rights with the rest of the empire's citizens, and still clamored for the end of alien slavery. An insane proposition: granting aliens full citizenship would actually place them above my main species, who lived in stratified caste system that I was certainly not going to reform due to it being part of my collectivist ethos. In short, the faction system in Stellaris failed to account for the complexity of situations that arise from natural play.
The current system would hit the xenophile collectivist empire particularly hard, as keeping aliens enslaved, even under equal treatment with the main race in a caste system, would anger the xenophiles, while collectivists would be incensed if you liberated them both and granted them equal citizenship. While happiness debuffs may be remedied, you cannot remedy the influence drop from this as much.
There are few other times when faction systems fails to account for the complexity that arise from natural play. For instance, due to the fact that synths are considered sentient race, their slavery angers the egalitarians in your empire. If you are not playing materialist, you cannot grant AI citizenship rights, and thus egalitarians are permanently angered, which reduces your influence gain from factionalism.
TL;DR: Xenophile factions should, instead of checking for aliens kept in slavery, check whether or not aliens have the same citizenship rights as main species, and also be happier if they are also given same living conditiions.
Egalitarian factions should not seek out synth liberation.
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