Too much religion, too little ideology?

[Stormtrooper]

Is it just me or did others also notice that the new DLC feels way more like "adds a religion" rather than generic ideology?

It seems you can have all kinds of weird cults of all sorts, there's also an option to have more toned down belief systems like major relgions from the real world, but I feel like this DLC is severely lacking in terms of non-spiritual ideologies.

I don't see a clear option to build communism, socialism (no, "collectivism" is too broad of a term to be specifically related to those), capitalism ((no, "individualsim" is too broad of a term to be specifically related to this), technocracy, utilitarism, democracy... Basically feel like there's too little content regarding political, sociological and philosophical systems because of the focus on religions and cults.

Sure, there are supremacist memes so I think one could try to build facist regime or just some totalitarism in general, but they aren't as fleshed out as cannibal cults it seems.

There's also transhumanism, but even that feels more like a cult of people worshiping advanced machines and software as gods rather than a high-tech society fascinated with scientific and technological progress.

Even at the beginning of ideology creation when asked about the source you can choose several religions, I believe also archotech but again it's a cult of AI worshipers then and only one option left is the one that is actually atheistic, so it is in opposition to spiritual beliefs. Meanwhile there are exactly zero options to choose from when it comes to something based on politics or philosophy that just leaves religion as an individual thing for citizens and is neither for or against it.

Tl:dr; I feel like in the current state of DLC there's too little "ideol" and too much "igion". Would love to see more options regarding the former in the future.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by Stormtrooper:

And what if I told you I've never played cannibalistic melee only caver colony, be it 1.0 or whatever else? I know this is what the most vocal part of rimworld community enjoys, but that doesn't mean there aren't others. Personally I always preferred a more serious, toned-down and realistic struggles of a community among post-apocalypse, not to lead a group of maniacs and psychos who realistically wouldn't have much chance of lasting long before killing each other or having more sane members just flee the community.

And no, that's not how the game has always been. The way the game has always been was offering players choices regarding how they want to play, so if you didn't want organ harvesting, cave dwelling and human skin furniture you didn't have to go that route and the game was still fun. And it was so great about it. So many options for all the tastes and playstyles out there.

But with ideology DLC I feel that players with similar approach to mine were left out and skipped in favour of the most vocal ones. Not surprising it happened at all (they have been the most vocal, after all...), I'm just asking for more options for others, too.

For starters I would say you are only playing a fraction of the game, these kinds of restrictions and RP elements really add a lot to the game and the replayability, but ya not everyone is interested in that sort of thing. That was just an example though, another example is the charitable good guys that don't turn anyone away, the drug dealers that can't stop using their own product, the crafters that want to rely as much on trading as possible while avoiding as much labor as they can, etc. etc. Those concepts were all expanded on as well, in addition to new ones being added. Raiders, slavers, naturalists, basic farmers or ranchers, there are plenty of options that aren't evil or violent. Ideology doesn't take anything away from how the game was, it just adds more of the kinds of things that were already there.

The only time one of my pawns ate somebody was a misclick, and I don’t do organ harvesting. Like Stormtrooper I’m just not interested in it. Out of the thousands of possible rp experiences, even the huge number of ideologies are just a few -I’m not missing out, just as nobody’s missing out by not playing my way.

But as Stormtrooper said and I wrote above, the developers really spent a lot of time on things like slavery, cannibalism, and death matches. I mean there’s literally a new suppression mechanic so you can imagine abusing slaves and new menus that differentiate between colonists and slaves.

The charitable precept is just moodlets for random events. If you already took those as per of your playstyle there’s literally nothing new except a +4 mood buff. The new “charitable” event, available for every ideology, the beggars, appears to be intentionally ludicrous (unlike other unbalanced features it hasn’t been balanced). There isn’t even a single art asset for the charitable meme.

The transhumanists and the naturalists got lots of love, and the drug den and tunnelers, but on balance it’s a decidedly dark DLC, full of malice.

I’m not asking for more stuff, I’m saying it says a lot about the developer and their perception of the player base. I assumed (apparently wrongly) that playing as neutral or good was the silent majority’s position.

What’s telling is that it wouldn’t have been hard to make a few minor changes to provide some, well, family-friendlyish options.

For example, it wouldn’t have been hard to make a second, more positive, version of raiders. I’m playing a charitable raider colony that only attacks pirates and savage tribes. But the meme comes with the baggage of losing rep, skull spikes, respecting slavery, etc.

Here’s a wacky idea: how about an anti-slavery ideology where you help slaves escape? Surely wouldn’t be half as hard as all the new slave mechanics. You just need an interact option on the slave, a chance to get caught and incur a faction relationship penalty with the slaver, and a faction rep bonus if the freed slave exits the map safely.

Nor would it have been hard to allow players wanting a darker experience to choose options like constant rep hits to reflect how broader society feels about cannibalism and torture. Seems like the rp experience suffers from a lack of that.

Rimworld’s always made being a good guy hard, and I like that. I just think they could offer more things to do instead of making players like me define our rp as things we don’t do.

[SpaceThunder]

Originally posted by Talamare:

Originally posted by SpaceThunder:

It is doubtful that it is possible to model socialism or capitalism with a dozen of pawns.

I would like to think that my colony with 5 pawns in Golden Bedrooms with 20 slaves working the fields is a pretty idealistic model of Capitalism

For a "pretty idealistic model of Capitalism" Cannibalism MUST be involved somehow :-)))

[Lord Freedom]

Originally posted by SpaceThunder:

For a "pretty idealistic model of Capitalism" Cannibalism MUST be involved somehow :-)))

Mother Russia called, she wants her history back :P

[SpaceThunder]

Originally posted by Freedom:

Originally posted by SpaceThunder:

For a "pretty idealistic model of Capitalism" Cannibalism MUST be involved somehow :-)))

Mother Russia called, she wants her history back :P

Russia is surely the last you have to worry about :-)

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Freedom:

Originally posted by SpaceThunder:

For a "pretty idealistic model of Capitalism" Cannibalism MUST be involved somehow :-)))

Mother Russia called, she wants her history back :P

Might I remind you about that time that the Dutch lynched and partially consumed their prime minister[en.wikipedia.org]?

[Ingolenuru]

Honestly it sounds to me like you are playing the wrong game. Your post apocalypse role playing just doen't fit the game at all. You are survivors of a starship exploding that got jettisoned to the nearest habitable planet. You could play the game where no one is on the world except for you if you want post apocolypse. The real problem is that you want a handful of characters that you directly control to magically become a real society. That just isn't going to happen.

Oh and just a thing here. If you want a post apocolyptic game setting then why are you complaining that you can't do different types of governments that will make the colonists that you control do things on their own? No offense here but how can you make an autonomous gathering of toons that you directly control ever be anything other than your expression of your own ideals through a game that was never intended to be a post apocalyptic simulation. I have never seen a post a post apocalyptic movie, book or any other medium where complete devastation of a world led to a strong and orderly society with justice for all.

If you feel that your best game of Rimworld is like that then just take all of your player characters and crush them under the reality of a post apocalyptic world. You have a lot of tools in your arsenal already in your game and in your imagination. I don't see how your ideal society can work when you can't surrender control of the colony and characters in it.

https://culturedvultures.com/best-post-apocalyptic-games/ This sounds like your best shot at having fun doing what you want to do things the way you want to do it. Role play it in Rimworld using the rules as best you can or if it bothers you too much then change games. I hope this helps you see what your options are and shows you the directions you can take in the game to achieve somthing close to what you want out of the game.

[Doomdrvk]

Necro, locking.