What is Government Ethics Attraction?

[Game Programmer]

I am not sure if I understand this at all, I am fairly new and understand most of the civics but not this one. Does this mean that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ religions try to take over my goverment to fetch absurd ideals or is it actually viable civic? What does it do? Help please, why would I want this? Thanks

[A Big Hairy Monster]

So Ethics Attraction (of any kind) causes a slow drift in Ethics towards whatever the particular Ethic in question is. In the case of Government Ethics, it's towards the 2-3 Ethics types that you picked for your national ethics. (More explanation coming)

[Game Programmer]

but is it good or bad or it depends on what focus it takes?

[Ficelle]

It is generally good as it is often better to have your pops agreing with governmental ethos (unless you want to change starting ethos)

If you are playing a pacifist xenophile, you dont really want many pops militarist or xenophobe as an example.

[A Big Hairy Monster]

Each pop has one ethic they follow. Note that Civics are not the same as Ethics - Ethics are things like Fanatical Materialist, Xenophobe, Spiritualist, Hive Mind, etc; Civics are the bonus perks you pick on the far right in the government screen when you make a custom nation - the Ethics are the ones on the same screen on the far left. You can get new Civics via technology; your government's Ethics are hard to change (though not impossible)

Each tick of time (I'm not certain of the scale - it could be a day or a month - the wiki may know, but I don't), there is a small chance that a pop will change their ethics. I'm *fairly* sure this is checked for each pop, so it's not like 1 per tick max or anything, but I could be wrong.

There's a variety of factors that govern how likely a pop is to change, which is all rolled into how 'attractive' each ethic is for a given pop. A lot of this information is hidden - for instance, having lots of treaties with Xenophile nations will increase the attractiveness of the Xenophile ethic. Having an elected leader who belongs to a Spiritualist ethic will increase the attractiveness of Spiritualist, and so on.

The point of 'Government Ethics Attraction' is to have a blanket stat that pushes your populace towards the various ones you picked at the start of the game, rather than need to push individual ethics. Presumably, because that's the playstyle you're going for - things like Propaganda Broadcasts and Orbital Mind Control Lasers are essentially there for Nations that like to go to war - its a way to slowly convert conquered population to your own way of thinking (as opposed to eating / murdering them all and replacing the planet with your own).

As a side effect, the new Factions system is tied heavilly into Ethics Attraction - suppressing a faction gives a big penalty to the attractiveness of its associated ethic, and by stacking heavilly on Governement Ethics Attraction, you can force people out of those factions as they slowly change ethics.

Keep in mind - its a pretty slow process. And often, if you're a 'nice guy' empire, it can be very VERY hard to keep everyone the ethics you want, because things like Migration Treaties, Refugee Allowances, and general trade agreements with other nations jack up the attractiveness of various Ethics super high. I've got a game now where I have research treaties with half the galaxy, and I've just given up on managing ethics for my species. Originally they had a lot of points in "-% other species happiness", and I've just given up and bio-engineered those traits away for other stuff, haha.

[A Big Hairy Monster]

Originally posted by xFantasy:

but is it good or bad or it depends on what focus it takes?

More in depth comment above, but in generally, it is good, because usually your government ethics lock you out of (or into) certain government policies, and the factions that spawn due to ethics in you population want certain things. High government attraction pushes out the guys who REALLY don't like the things you're doing - unhappy factions cause unhappiness on your planets, which lowers income and can cause unrest, which can lead to revolts.

Generally, as long as you keep factions moderately happy (like ~40-50% or better), you can make due with various edics, policies, buildings, and tech that boosts happiness, and avoid any real major headaches. So you dont HAVE to push Ethics Attraction. But it sure as hell helps.

[Game Programmer]

well this actually help as I was really clueless thank god!

[Xcorps]

The basic purpose behind factions and ethics is to give you influence income. What we have now is so much better than what we did, but it still needs some depth.

[XistenZ]

Originally posted by A Big Hairy Monster:

(as opposed to eating / murdering them all and replacing the planet with your own).

I don't know why but this part made me actually lol.
Also, nice explanation, thanks!