Issue with Ideology

[rman88]

Now, i am playing naked and alone. As i liked the idea of playing a scientific outcast who experimented to much with gene modification and was banished to die on this planet. So bit of a fun time their.

But i created my own ideology. And yet when i recruited a new pawn to aid me in my endeavors to mutate everyone. This pawn came with its own... Ideology... One that i have no way to get rid of outside of just throwing them in prison and beating them senseless until they convert.

As for some stupid reason the higher the mood the harder it is to convert them to the core ideology. Even thou it should be backwards.

Its like, you join a new colony. Only for them to act crazy and make no sense. And make your life a living hell. Your most likely not going to want to join the cult.

Meanwhile if you join a colony. Which may be crazy but your life is overall better then wherever the hell you ran off from. So you most likely would be more inclined to abandoned your old ways.

So why is it that a high mood makes it impossible to convert new recruits? as right now the only way to convert someone is either threw a priest or imprisonment.

[Astasia]

The game is not balanced or designed to be started with 1 colonist, that's why naked brutality is a challenge scenario and has warnings on it. The normal starts you begin with 3-5 colonists following your ideology and can promote one of them to a moral guide to help convert new recruits.

As for why high mood increases certainty faster. If you are in a situation where you are feeling great and everything is going fine, you aren't going to be doing much inner reflection on your outlook on life. You can keep doing your own thing, other people are doing their own thing, everyone's happy, there's no problem. It's only when you are miserable and suffering that you begin to question what you believe in, maybe how you are looking at things is wrong, maybe if you change your opinions your life will become better.

At the end of the day though this mechanic doesn't really matter for these purposes, in normal gameplay conversion attempts with social pawns are going to easily overcome the daily certainty recovery no matter the pawn's mood. Daily certainty recovery exists more to prevent accidental conversions, so your own colonists don't flip because you recruited a single person with a different ideology, or so you can maintain a multi-ideology colony for the many bonuses that provides.

[rman88]

First of all, i really don't agree with that. Normal social interactions do not account for that much of your pawns overall time. In fact i get better social interactions recruiting people then i do just on a day to day basis. Literately made a pawn fall in love with my character even thou she was impassioned.

Further more, their is no guarantee your pawns will overcome it. From what i seen the overall change is like 1% per interaction. And really it could go either way. So really it is the most ineffective way of doing this. As even with them as a prisoner. it takes close to a season or two. And this is with multiple interactions a day. which usually rack up about 8-10%.


Furthermore you really have a bad reason for why someone would want to keep their ideology. Now considering 99% of the people who come to your colony.

A trying to kill you.

B. looking for a better life.

C. Running away from something that is trying to kill him.

D. were either enslaved either due to crash landing or being sold off.

Every single instance a pawn joins you that isn't forced. Really dose not imply that they had a good life were they were. in fact it makes me feel like they should be more vulnerable of conversion. as the reason they left home to begin with. Was because things wasn't going that well.

Like, take a quote from farcry 3.

Insanity, is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result.

This is like, leaving a tech obsessed city because robots took over. Joining an Amish community and then deciding you want convert them to being tech obsessed. So you can just you know build more robots and blah.

It makes no sense. the only reason they shouldn't be converting to your Ideology. Is if they are not content. As if this place is worse then where they started. as if you came from a technological cult that made your life a living hell. only to join up with a bunch of naked people that worshiped trees. only to find out that this life was worse. Why would this make you more inclined to join?

Further more from a game play perspective its kinda annoying you have to brainwash everyone who joins. because them being happy means your doing a bad job. as everyone in your cult has to be miserable so they will stay in your cult.

[Bathory]

I feel like it's reasonably realistic, not to get political. But I agree that it's frustrating and not my cup of tea. It's a fun drama story. Not fun when you just want to build a colony and fight off bandits. To cope, I just lower the difficulty and hang my head in shame.

It's your game, there's no cheating if you edit their ideology in dev mode.

Is your custom ideology bigoted, or is the recruit's ideology clashing with yours? If there's no problem, I say live and let live.

[rman88]

dude.. what are you talking about. Its a base loyalty cult... Further more that kinda has nothing to do with why pawns don't you know.. Assimilate into your colony culture because their to happy with your colony. Which isn't exactly how that works in real life...

Mind you... you could still have the most insane and horrific ideology you could make. The pawns don't really care either way. Its just a number they have to cross then bam they agree. morality isn't really that much of a thing..

[Astasia]

Originally posted by rman88:

From what i seen the overall change is like 1% per interaction.

Only if your colonist is terrible at social and/or the pawn you are converting has multiple traits reducing certainty loss.

A typical moral guide with decent social can reduce a pawn's certainty by like 20% with a single interaction. At max mood certainty is regained at 3% per day. It's not an issue.

It's clear you are a bit confused about the reasoning behind the certainty system, I don't think I can do a better job explaining it, sorry. Needless to say it's worked the way it does for over a year and makes sense to most people and the developer, so trust me when I say everything is fine.

[Bathory]

Originally posted by rman88:

dude.. what are you talking about.

Me? For gameplay, I thought we were in agreement. There's no malicious intent behind this apparent dissenting opinion.

[rman88]

First of all, i do not have a priest yet as that requires 3 pawns. Second i have read multiple post saying it doesn't do that. The best way of converting pawns is just to arrest them and force a conversion.

Now, mind you i highly doubt you ever accomplished 80% in a single conversation. as my pawns are not anywhere near as bad as in social. Thou their not really that amazing. But hey 7 isn't that bad all considering.

Regardless thou it still takes a long time to convert someone.

Further more i just gave like 5 reasons why this don't make any sense. Like come on dude. Their is no reason why a Happy pawn shouldn't convert over to your culture. Likewise their isn't a reason why an unhappy pawn wouldn't either want to leave or try something else.

Its basic logic dude. I know its hard to understand but sometimes the devs can be wrong. This is one of the dumbest implication of a Very simplistic ideological system.

[Steelfleece]

To be honest, if it's just one member is it even a cult or is it a guy in a crazy hat spouting philosophy? Since it's probably a 50/50 split in work, is the crazy guy helping out out or are you helping him out? I mean, it's more like you're roommates.

Solution: if you're going to be the guy in the crazy hat spouting philosophy, go out of your way to pick for a high social skill and traits that may help your philosophy be more convincing. And sometimes you may need a literal captive audience.

[rman88]

Originally posted by Bathory:

Me? For gameplay, I thought we were in agreement. There's no malicious intent behind this apparent dissenting opinion.

O my bad. Thought you were implying something else.

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

To be honest,Solution: if you're going to be the guy in the crazy hat spouting philosophy, go out of your way to pick for a high social skill and traits that may help your philosophy be more convincing. And sometimes you may need a literal captive audience.

While i am not arguing that Forcing people to join isn't the best option. But really the issue isn't about conversions or anything like that. Issue is more just on the fact that a "good" colony wont convince your pawns to follow your ideology.

Which in reality would be the "logical" reason why your colony is good to begin with. Not because some God is giving you a command. But your leaders you know leading you.

In fact one could argue that you are being punished... for not having a horrible colony. As yo will be forced to deal with pawns that really don't want to follow you. as i highly doubt 10 socal will automatically cause the pawn to switch to your ideology.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by rman88:

First of all, i do not have a priest yet as that requires 3 pawns. Second i have read multiple post saying it doesn't do that. The best way of converting pawns is just to arrest them and force a conversion.

Now, mind you i highly doubt you ever accomplished 80% in a single conversation. as my pawns are not anywhere near as bad as in social. Thou their not really that amazing. But hey 7 isn't that bad all considering.

Regardless thou it still takes a long time to convert someone.

Yes, moral guide requires 3, there is a reason for that, and a reason why the normal scenarios start you with 3-5. If you start with 1, you are going to have issues.

I didn't say 80% I said 20%. That said, yes you can do a 100% conversion with a single action, it's called a masterful conversion ritual.

Arresting and converting in prison is the lazy way, it works, it's not very fast on its own, it has downsides like a mood penalty for arresting them and the fact they can't do any work or help out while in prison, but you just just tick a few buttons and it will get done. Using the convert ability and conversion rituals is more than enough in most cases and you don't have to arrest anyone for it, they can keep working and avoid the larger mood penalty. Using the moral guide ability and ritual is the intended way to do it and the way you normally should be converting colonists, unless you pick the Proselytizer meme which allows for completely passive conversion and you don't need to do anything but just watch your colonists convert everyone who joins automatically.

[rman88]

Dude i have already seen people complain that by the time the cool down ends. your already back to where you start. and by the logic of the game. Having unhappy pawns prevent them form regaining their "original" ideology. So you want unhappy pawns to convert them.

Remember unhappy pawns at 20% or lower only regain 1% of their "current" ideology.

The most efficient way to do this is just to arrest and convert. as unhappy pawns are converted faster. Just due to the fact that you can interact with them twice per day. And they only gain 1% of their ideology back each day.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by rman88:

Dude i have already seen people complain that by the time the cool down ends. your already back to where you start. and by the logic of the game. Having unhappy pawns prevent them form regaining their "original" ideology. So you want unhappy pawns to convert them.

Remember unhappy pawns at 20% or lower only regain 1% of their "current" ideology.

The most efficient way to do this is just to arrest and convert. as unhappy pawns are converted faster. Just due to the fact that you can interact with them twice per day. And they only gain 1% of their ideology back each day.

That's false though. You have seen other people like you complaining about a system they don't understand and saying it's broken simply because they are doing it wrong. This was a pretty common thread when Ideology came out as many people had no idea how the system worked.

3% certainty gain per day is nothing when your moral guide is converting for 30-50% per attempt.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2897212205

That's with only 10 social skill, 28% certainty loss per attempt. At 20 social skill it's 49% certainty loss.

Why the heck would you throw a colonist in jail for a week to convert them the hard way when you can just click the convert ability 2-3 times over a 3-6 day period?

[druzilsupreme]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by rman88:

Dude i have already seen people complain that by the time the cool down ends. your already back to where you start. and by the logic of the game. Having unhappy pawns prevent them form regaining their "original" ideology. So you want unhappy pawns to convert them.

Remember unhappy pawns at 20% or lower only regain 1% of their "current" ideology.

The most efficient way to do this is just to arrest and convert. as unhappy pawns are converted faster. Just due to the fact that you can interact with them twice per day. And they only gain 1% of their ideology back each day.

That's false though. You have seen other people like you complaining about a system they don't understand and saying it's broken simply because they are doing it wrong. This was a pretty common thread when Ideology came out as many people had no idea how the system worked.

3% certainty gain per day is nothing when your moral guide is converting for 30-50% per attempt.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2897212205

That's with only 10 social skill, 28% certainty loss per attempt. At 20 social skill it's 49% certainty loss.

Why the heck would you throw a colonist in jail for a week to convert them the hard way when you can just click the convert ability 2-3 times over a 3-6 day period?

Re: the OP's issue, I believe if you're a single pawn you won't have the convert ability since that comes with being a spiritual guide (which kicks in at 3 pawns)

[Jack Niggleson]

Originally posted by rman88:

Now, i am playing naked and alone. As i liked the idea of playing a scientific outcast who experimented to much with gene modification and was banished to die on this planet. So bit of a fun time their.

But i created my own ideology. And yet when i recruited a new pawn to aid me in my endeavors to mutate everyone. This pawn came with its own... Ideology... One that i have no way to get rid of outside of just throwing them in prison and beating them senseless until they convert.

As for some stupid reason the higher the mood the harder it is to convert them to the core ideology. Even thou it should be backwards.

Its like, you join a new colony. Only for them to act crazy and make no sense. And make your life a living hell. Your most likely not going to want to join the cult.

Meanwhile if you join a colony. Which may be crazy but your life is overall better then wherever the hell you ran off from. So you most likely would be more inclined to abandoned your old ways.

So why is it that a high mood makes it impossible to convert new recruits? as right now the only way to convert someone is either threw a priest or imprisonment.

Event pawns (wanderer joins, etc) spawn with a random ideology, so it's not impossible to obtain other pawns with your ideology even if you start with a single guy (and thus unable to convert). You're basically at the mercy of RNG though. If you want avoid this you have a couple easy options, although both of them involve a new start.

1. Start with ideology disabled (Assuming you don't want this).

2. When creating your ideology click one of the ideologies already in the world first, then alter it accordingly or load an existing custom ideology. This will change the ideology of that faction, meaning that there will already be a sizable pool of like-minded recruits on world. Then you just start your game, wait for them to raid you, or for another opportunity to nab one of their guys and you're golden.

[martindirt]

Originally posted by druzilsupreme:

Originally posted by Astasia:

That's false though. You have seen other people like you complaining about a system they don't understand and saying it's broken simply because they are doing it wrong. This was a pretty common thread when Ideology came out as many people had no idea how the system worked.

3% certainty gain per day is nothing when your moral guide is converting for 30-50% per attempt.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2897212205

That's with only 10 social skill, 28% certainty loss per attempt. At 20 social skill it's 49% certainty loss.

Why the heck would you throw a colonist in jail for a week to convert them the hard way when you can just click the convert ability 2-3 times over a 3-6 day period?

Re: the OP's issue, I believe if you're a single pawn you won't have the convert ability since that comes with being a spiritual guide (which kicks in at 3 pawns)

But Astasia described at her first reply, the game is not balanced around solo starts. Solo start is a challenge scenario.
Op started the challenge, and now crying because the game is... Challenging.
To op:
All you want to hear is agreement with your statement. Everybody who tries to explain the conversion mechanism is false in your eyes.
Take your time, learn how the game works, learn conversion mechanism, learn the difference between the starting scenarios, and you will see everything is fine.
When I'm start solo, I don't accept any random joiners, I'm recruiting only converted pawns until I have 3-4 pawns of the same ideology. After I'm established my cult, I can convert randoms ezly, without arresting them.