Any suggestions on what to do with Factions?

[NimrodX]

I can't seem to figure out when it's worth supporting or suppressing factions. It seems like the influence cost is too high to make it worthwhile.

It seems like these things have no point unless you want to switch ethics, or if some faction is trying to switch your ethics when you don't want it to?

So far I'm just not seeing what you're supposed to do with this other than embrace a faction to switch ethics so I'm wondering what sort of situations are typical where you might need to pay attention to this.

[Nightmyre]

You're basically correct. Suppressing or promoting factions is really only worthwhile if you're trying to force a faction to a certain level in order to embrace it to switch ethics.

Beyond that, you should try to just maximize how much faction approval you get, especially from the factions with the majority of your pops. Having a high faction approval boosts happiness for the pops of that faction, while having a low approval results in a happiness penalty.

[Mistfox]

Note also that having treaties with other empires cause some of your population to slowly embrace their ethos, so choose your friends carefully.

[-Lu-]

This is what governing ethics attraction is for.

[NimrodX]

Thanks

I read this https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Population#Ethics_attraction_modifiers but I'm still having trouble understanding how this works.

Like in my current game I conquered a whole empire that I think was fanatic xenophobe militants or something. (My casus belli was something like "end threat" and theirs was "exterminate".) I bombed their capital into extinction but every other planet was untouched and they were immediately integrated with full citizenship. (playing the default UN of Earth here) But I didn't have any fanatic xenophobe faction appear. Around that time I think an isolationist faction appeared but I wasn't keeping track too carefully. I don't think I had much of a governing ethics attraction bonus either as I did the Harmony tradition group last (much later on) and didn't take the ascension perk because I didn't know what it did so it seemed useless (which I think it would have been).

It didn't seem like it had that much effect but both imperialist (militarist) and isolationist (xenophobe) factions did appear at some point with human leaders, but relatively small populations.

So lets see...

"Suppressing a faction gives Mod pop ethic shift.png -75% Ethic Attraction for the chosen ethic"

"Supporting a faction gives Mod pop ethic shift.png +100% Ethic Attraction for the chosen ethic"

So if you felt the need to "convert" everyone in other factions to your governing ethic faction then increasing governing ethics attraction (harmony stuff, ascension perk, edict, etc) + the +100% bonus for supporting faction would max that out but how long would it take if you didn't suppress any others? And can you realisticly "convert" everyone or is there a diminishing returns curve to make that kind of impossible?

[NimrodX]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Note also that having treaties with other empires cause some of your population to slowly embrace their ethos, so choose your friends carefully.

How does this work? I can't find anything on the wiki but you mean even without a migration treaty you'd get a faction appearing that matches the ally's governing ethics? I would have thought only a migration treaty would cause that due to migrating pops. (I did get a spiritualist faction appearing at one point after some sort of agreement with a spiritualist empire but I don't remember if it was migration-related.)

[galadon3]

Originally posted by NimrodX:

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Note also that having treaties with other empires cause some of your population to slowly embrace their ethos, so choose your friends carefully.

How does this work? I can't find anything on the wiki but you mean even without a migration treaty you'd get a faction appearing that matches the ally's governing ethics? I would have thought only a migration treaty would cause that due to migrating pops. (I did get a spiritualist faction appearing at one point after some sort of agreement with a spiritualist empire but I don't remember if it was migration-related.)

I THINK it doesnt do it for all ethics (not sure if that is still correct, tbh factions were usually that insignificant for me that I never really bothered to look them up any more, I usually already do the stuff I need to get the approval of some up and the others want at least some stuff I don't want to do, so I don't)
But for example xenophile always got a lot of attraction bonus if you were cozy with other xenophile empires and afaik its the same for some others. Not sure if xenophobe actually gets that bonus, think not.

[Microsoft EXCELSIOR!]

To make it worthwhile? I haven't seen that do anything at all! Regardless of how much I suppress a faction it just grows, granted as population increases, but also by percentage. At some point I just go down the Harmony tree for the governing ethics attraction bonus and the One Vision enlightenment perk I've been warming up too.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by NimrodX:

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Note also that having treaties with other empires cause some of your population to slowly embrace their ethos, so choose your friends carefully.

How does this work? I can't find anything on the wiki but you mean even without a migration treaty you'd get a faction appearing that matches the ally's governing ethics? I would have thought only a migration treaty would cause that due to migrating pops. (I did get a spiritualist faction appearing at one point after some sort of agreement with a spiritualist empire but I don't remember if it was migration-related.)

Yes, the biggest ethos that benefit from these are xenophiles, spiritualists and militants. Any agreement has a "pull" factor.

[NimrodX]

Oh I think I finally found it on the wiki, it's under Pop Ethic Weights. For Xenophile it says "+1.33 In a defensive pact, commerical pact or Federation with a xeno empire" also "+2.00 Any non-subject Egalitarian.png Egalitarian or Fanatic Egalitarian.png Fanatic Egalitarian Empire has migration access "

So when the condition is met, each pop gets this added to their attraction to this ethic, and then I guess there's some sort of die roll

[Elitewrecker PT]

Yes, there are regular rolls for a pop to shift ethics, monthly I think, or maybe yearly.

[The Bored Chairman]

Promoting factions is really the only worthwhile investment, even if you're trying to suppress another.

Suppression does basically nothing (pops will still join the faction regardless) and costs more influence than promoting them. In addition, it also generates unhappiness for the factions following that ethos, whereas promoting another faction does not do this and increases the draw towards the desired faction.

If you spawn a conflicting faction, just promote existing ones. It's better to lose pops from other factions to a faction you actually want by promoting that one, rather than losing them to a conflicting one. I've had Xenophobic factions spawn during my games, WHILE I had a migration treaty, was Federated, and had free xenos in my empire, which puts a huge dent in your economy, considering the stupidly powerful draw the faction gets while in a defensive war (even if you actually WIN that war). I've also had Spiritualist factions pop up because of friendly relations with Spiritualist empires while already having robots and the majority of pops following other ethos, making them spawn at approximately 20% happiness.

Ethos draw has been rather annoying for a while now, and that hasn't changed much in the recent patches. There's also word through the grapevine that the feature is currently bugged, so compound that as well.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Makes sense that some people will get tendencies, despite your overall actions.

[NimrodX]

Thanks for the advice. I wouldn't be surprised if this was bugged somehow because the mechanics seem a bit complicated, hidden, and what visibility there is into them is not that obvious. It also seems like they need some features like different degrees of suppression (like just counter-propaganda vs throwing people in the gulag) or promotion. Like the options aren't much different for authoritarian vs egalitarian whereas in reality each would tend to use different tactics.