Does suppressing a faction do anything?

[Cellar_Cat]

I've always had the impression it was virtually useless, but this time I'm actually starting to think it straight up does not function. I began to suppress a xenophile faction as soon as it formed, literally when I got the announcement for it, and yet with a xenophile attraction of 3% in my empire this faction has grown over the years to 21% support. So not only has its total % gone up from its fairly minor start, but the number of pops is much larger too since my empire pop is probably over double what it was. I'm not importing any new ones, either.

Am I missing something? Is the 'we expect around 3% of our pops to embrace this ethic' thing just wrong? Seems like in practice this is just a way to waste influence, no more useful than ignoring the faction entirely and letting it be miserable.

[John]

You can pretty much consider it wasting 1 influence per turn while also reducing the happiness of the faction's followers. Ethic shifting is a huge pain.

[Red Earth]

Was supporting one to get authoritarian up to 20% so I could switch for an achievement. In 20 years it got from from 6% to 7%. It's no good.

[climbingeastofwinter]

I believe it does work, but you still need to take into consideration any "+x% governing ethics attraction" modifiers you may have picked up from traditions / ascension perks, technologies or the like. You also need to consider whether the factors drawing your citizens towards the suppressed faction are present and to what degree.

Faction suppression can help tip the balance, but it isn't a magic one click button to change everyones' hearts and minds. Read up on the wiki about ethics attraction and see if there isn't some political/developmental actions you can take to prod your people into shifting their ideals, and use sppression as a supplement rather than as a stand-alone solution.

[Mistfox]

That and the fact that governing ethics are applied usually only once, on pop creation. The "attraction" only shows you the percentage chances of a pop spawning with that ethic, it does not change the ethics of a population.

Let me give an example. For example, if by some miracle or other, you start with a 100% authoritarian in your empire and 10 pop grew during this time, you got 10 pop with authoritarian ethics. Then you suddenly switch to 100% egalitarian and grew 10 pop. Your empire will not be 100% egalitarian, it would be 50% authoritarian (from the 1st 10 pop) and 50% egalitarian from the later pop.

To "clean out" a faction, you need to wipe out the population believing in that faction too, either by exterminating them or expelling them (shove them on a planet then give it away).

[climbingeastofwinter]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Mist, I wasn't aware of the bit about governing ethics only being applied to newly generated pops.

[Cellar_Cat]

What surprised me is that they had to actually be getting made as xenophiles still even after the attraction was at like 3%, or else the pop growth would have left them behind long ago. Instead, it dropped into the teens (still with the same tiny attraction) by the time the game ended. Even with the governing ethics edict, xenophobe campaign, gov ethics asc perk, and eventually 'hearts and minds', plus whatever bonus my leader conveyed.

Maybe it does have some effect, but at that rate, being that useless combined with all those other things, I simply may as well pretend factions don't exist rather than try to manipulate them for any reason.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Cellar_Cat:

Maybe it does have some effect, but at that rate, being that useless combined with all those other things, I simply may as well pretend factions don't exist rather than try to manipulate them for any reason.

it has some effect but not enough to make it worth spending the influence that you have several much greater uses for. factions you pretty much just make happy through their demands if you want or ignore their demands if it's counter to what other factions you care about more want.

[Nightmyre]

The biggest problem with suppressing factions is the happiness debuff, really. If that were removed, I could see the influence cost being worth spending, assuming you have enough of it.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Originally posted by Cellar_Cat:

Maybe it does have some effect, but at that rate, being that useless combined with all those other things, I simply may as well pretend factions don't exist rather than try to manipulate them for any reason.

It's true, I suppose.. considering your species tends to go from newly warp-capable, to jump-drive equipped, master of all technologies and conqueror of all threats from all realities within a span of about 100 years, it does seem kind of odd that it can take 20-30 years to see serious ethics change even when you're putting your back into it, so to speak.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by climbingeastofwinter:

Originally posted by Cellar_Cat:

Maybe it does have some effect, but at that rate, being that useless combined with all those other things, I simply may as well pretend factions don't exist rather than try to manipulate them for any reason.

It's true, I suppose.. considering your species tends to go from newly warp-capable, to jump-drive equipped, master of all technologies and conqueror of all threats from all realities within a span of about 100 years, it does seem kind of odd that it can take 20-30 years to see serious ethics change even when you're putting your back into it, so to speak.

I can show the change in 1 month
Just colonize a hellhole planet, shift all the dissidents there, then either vassalize or give it away lol. Any new pop should follow your new ethics attraction.

You just need to cull the population.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Originally posted by climbingeastofwinter:

It's true, I suppose.. considering your species tends to go from newly warp-capable, to jump-drive equipped, master of all technologies and conqueror of all threats from all realities within a span of about 100 years, it does seem kind of odd that it can take 20-30 years to see serious ethics change even when you're putting your back into it, so to speak.

I can show the change in 1 month
Just colonize a hellhole planet, shift all the dissidents there, then either vassalize or give it away lol. Any new pop should follow your new ethics attraction.

You just need to cull the population.

:/ Thats cheating. Though, it isn't unlike what I've seen on the forums of some other games by out-of-control moderator/developers. Release a line of nonsense, then ban everyone who disagrees with you, and just like that you've cleaned up the forums and 'convinced' everyone of your point. So hell, maybe what bothers me is that it's too close to reality for my liking!

[Red Earth]

Originally posted by climbingeastofwinter:

Faction suppression can help tip the balance, but it isn't a magic one click button to change everyones' hearts and minds. Read up on the wiki about ethics attraction and see if there isn't some political/developmental actions you can take to prod your people into shifting their ideals, and use sppression as a supplement rather than as a stand-alone solution.

Mkay, I didn't think it was a magic button, because it costs resources in the form of influence. I pay for an effect. At one point I was paying 8 influence a month to support one faction and suppress six others and it still didn't move the needle. That's a lot to put in for no results.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by climbingeastofwinter:

Originally posted by Mistfox:

I can show the change in 1 month
Just colonize a hellhole planet, shift all the dissidents there, then either vassalize or give it away lol. Any new pop should follow your new ethics attraction.

You just need to cull the population.

:/ Thats cheating. Though, it isn't unlike what I've seen on the forums of some other games by out-of-control moderator/developers. Release a line of nonsense, then ban everyone who disagrees with you, and just like that you've cleaned up the forums and 'convinced' everyone of your point. So hell, maybe what bothers me is that it's too close to reality for my liking!

...... dude... cheating my ass. Use the damn resettle button. it's in vanilla. Exile your dissidents like a proper autocrat! lol. It's the button here

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821586861

And call your new planet "Australia" for context lol.