Environmentalist faction too OP?

[TheMustardTiger]

Am I just a dummy or is the environmentalist faction too OP? I generally work to compromise between all the factions as best as possible but found it is extremely difficult (as in IRL lol) to compromise with certain groups. Sure that's ok but I think the Eco-Protest is too much.

So here I am playing yesterday... I am doing reasonably well on my first Sandbox in T6 and I transition to the cold war era. I have a very diverse and effective agricultural and industrial base without causing too much pollution or having too many coal plants, etc. I am immediately hit with a popup by the Environmental faction with an ultimatum saying I need to change my constitution to severely restricting all industries and killing efficiency. It wasn't feasible at the moment so I declined, even with the 2000 day countdown. I am hit with the eco protests they threatened. At first I only saw 4 on the island I was working on. I dealt with it by promising change and went to make improvements. But no I wasn't out of it yet. I scrolled out to make some broad spectrum upgrades for the new era and my map was FLOODED with protestors (Asking for better housing and not eco goals interestingly enough). My bank balance was 350kish and I was making a lot of money from Rum and Cigar factories. The protests were so widespread that my economy and industries ground to a halt and I started hemmorhaging tens of thousands of capitol fast. Before I could figure out a way to appease them I was in the negative 60k range within 15 minutes. Helping one group had no effect on the 40+ others. I went bankrupt and had to reload an autosave. Then I immediately get another ultimatum. This time it was level up your mandatory recycling by 3 levels or get eco protests again. Reload again and it was another unreasonable demand. No compromises.

I tried the broker for that option to create a distraction but that option wasn't available at the time. I caved tho their ridiculous ultimatum and took a big economic hit for a long period. I found that as I played I was getting swarmed with more demands from the eco group on top of the many other new factions. Maybe 1+ a month So even though they had some of the most ridiculous demands they ended up being my happiest faction at 80+ relations because they wouldn't leave me alone. The whole experience left me really irritated with the game. I'm sure I was doing some stuff wrong as I am learning the new T6 mechanics after a long hiatus but this was getting to be too much. The different factions were such a pain to appease them all that my approval rating went from 60% to 28% and I couldn't keep anyone happy. All the randomly generated requests kept alienating the factions I just appeased 2 minutes ago and so on.

What am I doing wrong here? At this point I'd like to go full dictator A-hole and imprison the lot of them I'm so frustrated.

[jlking3rd]

I have never had the environmentalist be that much of a pain, although sometimes the game can get into a weird state. I once had coup after coup after coup and I could never figure out why. Liberty was at like 80%. I bet if you started a new game you would not see that happen.

But in general, demands do not time out like ultimatums do and you will never have two demands from the same faction at the same time. So you can accept a demand from a faction and just never do it until maybe you pick up a convincing talk from the broker.

I learned long ago to keep a stage a distraction in my back pocket, usually for the super powers. For some reason they have no sense of humor when it comes stealing their world wonders.

About the only other thing I bother to pick up from the Broker is the convincing talk. I buy every one of those as the pop up.

Media buildings can be use to increase a faction at the cost of the opposite faction. It does not sound like it would have helped you here, but you can set all your media builds to move people to the Industrialists and after a bit of time there would be almost no environmentalists left.

[Hex: Furry]

Get that monument thing which makes it so that die hard environmentalists (or anything for that matter) don’t exist.

If it’s too late for that get the asylum and institutionalise all the die hard environmentalists and their leader (which will make it so that moderate environmentalists may become indifferent)

Use all your media buildings and set them to industrialists. Over time you should have very few environmentalists left.

[TheMustardTiger]

Good advice all, thank you. Started a new game and will definitely try those suggestions. Thanks!

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Other things you might want to consider, especially in the area of preventing ultimatums from arising in the first place:

If the time allows you might want to consider amending the constitution (the 'time allows' here concerns waiting if you can't rescind the current one at the time) and then reverting using an amend constitution offer from the Broker. Sometimes you might even be lucky enough to get a double amend offer. The "Zero Emissions" constitution setting only costs you -10% efficiency from industry so you might even roll with their demands in the hope that you get such an offer to amend later; I'd consider that far cheaper than weathering political turmoil that tanks the economy even worse than that.

You could also just reload the game before the Broker refreshes his offers every year; I've done that once when the deadline for an ultimatum was coming up and I still couldn't get any distraction or constitution offers. On the third try I rolled the needed distraction offer and bought it right away. Not exactly the proper way to do things, but I'll do whatever's necessary.

Also, you can enact the "Happy Meat" edict which at level 3 guarantees a base 20 bonus favor with the environmentalists. You even get the edict immediately upon entering the Cold War era. I frankly never go one game without having it enacted since I also love the job quality bonus and that the favor given is double that lost from the industrialists. Upgrades, generous budgets, capitalist Minister of Economy, Prohibition, and proper location of ranches with pasture prohibition set negate the penalty to productivity.

Childhood Museum with "Raised by Llamas" gives you +15 to their faction on base efficiency, though you'd have problems with international relations instead (which would not be an issue if you're on top of your game with regards to trade, praising, and fulfilling delegation demands). Not entirely useful if you need the bonuses from the other modes, but there you have it.

Since you also had quite the monetary reserves, you can even placate them with cheap 1x1 parks to avoid further ultimatiums; each offers +1 to favor, is only $25 at base cost (paying for more expensive parks doesn't increase the favor given), and in sufficient numbers counters the penalties caused by building things like Hospitals (-5) and Tenements (-2). Just pick an empty area of the island and drop parks like no tomorrow; even better if you place them where you want to build cocktail bars and other beauty-sensitive structures so you can also benefit those as well. No other faction gives you favor for so cheap a price when it comes to "build-to-satisfy".

Finally, I'd like to point out that if they're shooting towards 80+ favor due to all the stuff you've done for them then you can afford to favor their opposing faction for the time being during dual demands, or to ignore demands entirely; the ultimatums only start around the 20-30 range so you have enough of a buffer to take hits. You don't need them to be deliriously happy; you just need them content enough to not cause trouble as long as you have enough support from the other factions. I usually have bad relations with the religious and conservatives (~30 or so) but I still get 100% of the votes due to the economy and having the other factions on my side while throwing them a bone or two now and then to keep them content.

If you for some reason can't take any of the above measures, then space out your construction so you aren't annoying them with structures they don't like.

[Kuromiya]

Originally posted by Aturchomicz:

And how is level 3 resycling "unreasonable"??
You sounds exactly like the boomers wich are destroying the planet right now with no real thought behind it!

Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys!

Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing? Well, I say 'hard cheese.'

[Kuromiya]

Originally posted by Aturchomicz:

Originally posted by KickySonichu:

Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys!

Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing? Well, I say 'hard cheese.'

Thats the most ignorant and agressivley dumb thing Ive read all day. In conclussion I think your playing the game wrong if your having constant ultimatums from faction you dont like besides the religous faction, feck em their bad effect after you ignore their stupid demand is barley importent anyways like come on what are "fires" gonna do anyway?

Sorry, can't hear you over the sound of my marvelous Tropican omninet sweeping the sea clean.

https://youtu.be/J-QeTbmchvQ?t=50

[Someguyinhere]

Environuts make real life hard, too. They make it nearly impossible to upgrade infrastructure, which ironically includes upgrades that reduce our carbon footprint.

[Jewbacca]

If you are a militaristic island. Then you just send out the army, and make them dissappear. On the other hand that kind of gameplay requires a lot of money to maintain the military, but hey.

It feels like a TRUE DICTATOR.

From ultimatums Communist is the absolute worst. It puts almost EVERYONE on strike. And unlike protesters you can't even use military.

Eco is second. They disable pretty much everything aren't tourism related, but military can handle them.

Capitalists are third. All expenses doubled, and all income halved. You need a serious economy to counter that. Though you can put all on lowest budget to somewhat combat it.

Industrialism is fourth. It may have not seem much, but it triggers a chain reaction. Huge pollution makes the ecos mad, and bad health makes the communists mad. Which are the two strongest, but if you can keep them happy despite this, then you can make it fairly simply.

Conservatives are fifth. Losing a lot of support, and early election can harm, but martial laws can easily solve it. Also strong propaganda to a preferred faction can negate it.

Religious folks are the weakest. Beyond losing support there isn't much. Especially true, if you have no religious buildings on the island.

Last but not least comes the nerds who are a wild card. Depending on the set goals, and your economy it can be strong to nothing. If you have no swiss money goal, and have no tourism, then the effect is pretty much minimal. If you based a lot on tourism, or set big swiss money as goal, then YOU GONA HAVE A BAD TIME.

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by Aturchomicz:

Originally posted by Someguyinhere:

Environuts make real life hard, too. They make it nearly impossible to upgrade infrastructure, which ironically includes upgrades that reduce our carbon footprint.

Gah who feed you with this propaganda?

Real life, where not many people live these days.

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by Aturchomicz:

Originally posted by Someguyinhere:

Real life, where not many people live these days.

Well then whats your suggetion to an unssolvable problem???

What's your solution to the cure for cancer? Are you one of these progress halting Envirolobbists who hold up basic upgrades and development? Why are you so upset?

The answer would be compromise, but hardcore lobby groups rarely compromise.