Ethics, their attraction and what you can do with it

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

This is a question not an explanation / a guide.

I did realise a big difference between my spiritualist games and games where i took deviants on my race. It is easier to keep factions at bay with high governing ethics attraction.

But apart from that, ethics attraction seems very underwhelming. Like, is there ANY bonuses / tactics / gameplay options you have with it? I know other empires with the same ethics like you more and opposing ones dislike you.

Given that spiritualists focus on ethics attraction to some degree, wouldn't it make sense that you could spread that ethic and gain something from it? I know you can use liberation wars to impose your ethics on other empires i.e. spread the faith. But then again, what for? It will likely cause a lot of internal trouble for that empire, but other than slightly crippling your enemies, you achieved nothing. At all. They might start liking you a little bit better over time. But to what point? In the same war I could have just vassalized, eradicated or conquered them.

I know that with a migration treaty with an empire, the pops from your race will be of your ethics and they will attract more pops to join in from the other empire. But then again, you gain nothing from it.


I would like to be able to use ethics attraction to spread it throughout other empires simply by influencing – peacefully or forced – and have an actual benefit of it. Any ideas on that?

[Rodi]

You get mad influence if you only have your 2 or 3 factions.
If you manage to appease them fully and have all pops following them you swim in influence.

With influence you can either make exorbitant amounts of claims or keep spamming the number of edicts you can unlock every 10 years.

[Doctor Proteus]

I have found that no matter what I do, even as Fanatic Materialist with many buildings from mods that increase Materialist attraction, that it will always end up the minority to Egalitarian and Xenophile, even when I'm not meeting the demands of the two latter as much as Materialist. The game always gives me some bogus reason why I can't embrace Materialist.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by 187:

You get mad influence if you only have your 2 or 3 factions.
If you manage to appease them fully and have all pops following them you swim in influence.

With influence you can either make exorbitant amounts of claims or keep spamming the number of edicts you can unlock every 10 years.

I always get lots of influence from factions regardless of governing ethics attraction. The only time I did have trouble is when I went egalitarian and had migration treaties with other empires. I had 7 factions and most of them unhappy. But then again, Egalitarian is boring anyway >:D

[Glakken]

Governing ethics attraction gives you influence and influence is very useful for claiming systems, forming diplomatic solutions with other empires and of course, edicts. Having factions in your empire also allows you to embrace those factions which in turn will shift your empires attitude. I.E. if you embrace a spiritualist faction your empire will become spiritualist. Influence can also allow you to reform your government. This allows you to take early government perks that benefit you in the early game and swap them out for ones more suited to scaling to the late game down the line.

You should always be spending influence to claim systems, build starbases, use edicts etc. If you have a lot of monthly influence you can spend it on actually forming pacts/alliances with other empires if you are going down the diplomacy route. It all depends on your playstyle.

[Doctor Proteus]

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH:

Originally posted by 187:

You get mad influence if you only have your 2 or 3 factions.
If you manage to appease them fully and have all pops following them you swim in influence.

With influence you can either make exorbitant amounts of claims or keep spamming the number of edicts you can unlock every 10 years.

I always get lots of influence from factions regardless of governing ethics attraction. The only time I did have trouble is when I went egalitarian and had migration treaties with other empires. I had 7 factions and most of them unhappy. But then again, Egalitarian is boring anyway >:D

Egalitarian is when you willingly accept a lack of control. Damn Religious fools coming to a Science society and demanding we go live in caves. Sort of like in real life, really, where outsiders come to a new society and then try to tell that society to run itself like the place they just left.

I really hope Governments, Ethics, Civics, Factions, Vassalization/Protectorates and Diplomacy get a good overhaul if the game gets a new expansion.

[Karina]

Whatever you do- dont supress faction. Its a waste of influence.

Also- when you synthetically ascend spiritualist faction will be DESTROYED. Robots cant join spiritualist degenerates, and robot of ANY ethic can join technologist faction.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by Glacen:

Governing ethics attraction gives you influence and influence is very useful for claiming systems, forming diplomatic solutions with other empires and of course, edicts. Having factions in your empire also allows you to embrace those factions which in turn will shift your empires attitude. I.E. if you embrace a spiritualist faction your empire will become spiritualist. Influence can also allow you to reform your government. This allows you to take early government perks that benefit you in the early game and swap them out for ones more suited to scaling to the late game down the line.

You should always be spending influence to claim systems, build starbases, use edicts etc. If you have a lot of monthly influence you can spend it on actually forming pacts/alliances with other empires if you are going down the diplomacy route. It all depends on your playstyle.

Hmm I usually end up having all edicts active, the numer of political treaties active I feel comfortable with and still cap the 1000 influence very easily. I also usually go for vassalization or plain eradication if I go to war, so I very very rarely even use claims. And I also usually don't expand too crazy (like tall better than wide) because of the empire sprawl...

[stadtpark-hartmut]

As you mentioned liberation wars / ideology wars: if you are in a federation and force your ideology on enemy empires, you will be able to invite them to your federation and get all sorts of treaties with them the day after they switch ethics and "personality".


But I get where you (Original Post) are coming from: there are other space empire games out there where culture helps you win independently from waging wars: in Sins of a Solar Empire culture pushes back borders so to speak / you can take over ownership of enemy systems, no matter how hard they are fortified militarily, if you have more "culture push" than the enemy (- and have time to wait it out, as it only works very slowy as the enemy will try to build culture stuff to push back.)

And I think it was in Sword of the Stars that you could win a culture victory, when a certain percentage of the universe was following your culture. (Like you can win a culture victory in Civ V and VI by meeting certain victory conditions.)

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by stadtpark-hartmut:

As you mentioned liberation wars / ideology wars: if you are in a federation and force your ideology on enemy empires, you will be able to invite them to your federation and get all sorts of treaties with them the day after they switch ethics and "personality".


But I get where you (Original Post) are coming from: there are other space empire games out there where culture helps you win independently from waging wars: in Sins of a Solar Empire culture pushes back borders so to speak / you can take over ownership of enemy systems, no matter how hard they are fortified militarily, if you have more "culture push" than the enemy (- and have time to wait it out, as it only works very slowy as the enemy will try to build culture stuff to push back.)

And I think it was in Sword of the Stars that you could win a culture victory, when a certain percentage of the universe was following your culture. (Like you can win a culture victory in Civ V and VI by meeting certain victory conditions.)

Yes I was hinting towards something in this perspective. I am not even necessarily saying it should be a way to forcefully take them over or win the game or anything, but It does feel underwhelming. Maybe one can do something with small bonuses from other empires if your influence over them is great. I don't know :)

[Shahadem]

War!? What is it good for!? Absolutely nothing! because capturing planets just means you will be tortured with more micromanagement hell.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH:

This is a question not an explanation / a guide.

I did realise a big difference between my spiritualist games and games where i took deviants on my race. It is easier to keep factions at bay with high governing ethics attraction.

But apart from that, ethics attraction seems very underwhelming. Like, is there ANY bonuses / tactics / gameplay options you have with it? I know other empires with the same ethics like you more and opposing ones dislike you.

Given that spiritualists focus on ethics attraction to some degree, wouldn't it make sense that you could spread that ethic and gain something from it? I know you can use liberation wars to impose your ethics on other empires i.e. spread the faith. But then again, what for? It will likely cause a lot of internal trouble for that empire, but other than slightly crippling your enemies, you achieved nothing. At all. They might start liking you a little bit better over time. But to what point? In the same war I could have just vassalized, eradicated or conquered them.

I know that with a migration treaty with an empire, the pops from your race will be of your ethics and they will attract more pops to join in from the other empire. But then again, you gain nothing from it.


I would like to be able to use ethics attraction to spread it throughout other empires simply by influencing – peacefully or forced – and have an actual benefit of it. Any ideas on that?

#1 One advantage to having different ethics in your empire is that you can switch ethics if you want to. You could do this to unlock new edicts (e.g. Research Grants, Land of Opportunity, Peace Festivals etc.), open up new policies (No Retreat, Robotic Workers, Resettlement, Slavery, Purging etc.) or open up new living standards (Utopian Abundance, Stratified Society, Xenophage etc.)

#2 Liberating rival empires and shifting their ethics to your own is a good way to gain new allies for your federation. It is also one way to conquer smaller empires without raising your threat level with other empires. Liberate them, wait a decade or so, build enough trust, vassalize the empire, then integrate. If you conquer or vassalize them by force, you will build up threat that will hurt your diplomatic ties with other empires. Having them voluntarily vassalize virtually eliminates this threat, preserving positive relations with other empires.

#3 Liberating your rival empires also nerfs them heavily. Planets full of unhappy pops will see low stability, possibly rebelling and offering to join your empire if the rebel's ethics match your own. As previously mentioned, you could always just conquer them outright, but then you'll have to deal with the threat penalty.

#4 Do not underestimate the power of migration treaties. They can seriously boost your pop growth, especially on habitats/ringworlds/ecumenopoli/gaia worlds (think 10-15 organic pop growth a month.) This alone is worth fighting liberation wars with hostile empires.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originally posted by Kodesh:

Originally posted by Zlorfik CH:

This is a question not an explanation / a guide.

I did realise a big difference between my spiritualist games and games where i took deviants on my race. It is easier to keep factions at bay with high governing ethics attraction.

But apart from that, ethics attraction seems very underwhelming. Like, is there ANY bonuses / tactics / gameplay options you have with it? I know other empires with the same ethics like you more and opposing ones dislike you.

Given that spiritualists focus on ethics attraction to some degree, wouldn't it make sense that you could spread that ethic and gain something from it? I know you can use liberation wars to impose your ethics on other empires i.e. spread the faith. But then again, what for? It will likely cause a lot of internal trouble for that empire, but other than slightly crippling your enemies, you achieved nothing. At all. They might start liking you a little bit better over time. But to what point? In the same war I could have just vassalized, eradicated or conquered them.

I know that with a migration treaty with an empire, the pops from your race will be of your ethics and they will attract more pops to join in from the other empire. But then again, you gain nothing from it.


I would like to be able to use ethics attraction to spread it throughout other empires simply by influencing – peacefully or forced – and have an actual benefit of it. Any ideas on that?

#1 One advantage to having different ethics in your empire is that you can switch ethics if you want to. You could do this to unlock new edicts (e.g. Research Grants, Land of Opportunity, Peace Festivals etc.), open up new policies (No Retreat, Robotic Workers, Resettlement, Slavery, Purging etc.) or open up new living standards (Utopian Abundance, Stratified Society, Xenophage etc.)

#2 Liberating rival empires and shifting their ethics to your own is a good way to gain new allies for your federation. It is also one way to conquer smaller empires without raising your threat level with other empires. Liberate them, wait a decade or so, build enough trust, vassalize the empire, then integrate. If you conquer or vassalize them by force, you will build up threat that will hurt your diplomatic ties with other empires. Having them voluntarily vassalize virtually eliminates this threat, preserving positive relations with other empires.

#3 Liberating your rival empires also nerfs them heavily. Planets full of unhappy pops will see low stability, possibly rebelling and offering to join your empire if the rebel's ethics match your own. As previously mentioned, you could always just conquer them outright, but then you'll have to deal with the threat penalty.

#4 Do not underestimate the power of migration treaties. They can seriously boost your pop growth, especially on habitats/ringworlds/ecumenopoli/gaia worlds (think 10-15 organic pop growth a month.) This alone is worth fighting liberation wars with hostile empires.

All I got so far from migration treaties is a chaos of factions, which dropped my nearly 2 influence down to 0.8. I had 7 factions within a short period of time. You can't make it right for everybody. You'll have very unhappy pops.

#2 sounds interesting. But as you said that mainly works for small empires. And i have no interest in crippling enemy empires. That's not rewarding.