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The Greater Insult - Let's Play Stellaris





What exactly is Stellaris?

Stellaris is (as many of you know) one of the latest additions to the line of Paradox Interactive Grand Strategy Games. More specifically, Stellaris is a 4X game set in space, where you explore the universe, carve out your own part of the universe, and befriend the exciting alien races of/purge the xenos from the remaining parts of the universe.





One of the neat things about Stellaris is how much you can customize your starting race/faction. Not only do you get a wide variety of cosmetic choices (the name and aesthetics of the species you start off and the home system where they live, what their buildings and ships look like, etc), but you also get to decide their form of government your faction has, the mechanical traits of our race, and their preferred forms of ethics. We will be exploring the latter in great detail in just a bit.




Pretty much all of the mechanics in Stellaris pertain either to habitable planets, or to other stuff in space.

On planets, you have population units (pops) who slowly breed new pops over time, and gather resources for you, depending on the tile they live on (moving pops from tile to tile on the same planet is a simple click and drag process that you can do instantly while paused. You can also construct buildings on a planet to facilitate the gathering of resources, or to provide some other effect (for instance, making people happier). Resources are represented by an icon and number that represent the type of resource, and the amount of that resource being extracted. Resources can include Minerals, Energy and Research.

Out in space, you have ships moving around, some of which are for fighting and some of which are for exploring, building, etc. There are also fixed facilities you can build that extract resources from planets and asteroids. Of course, you aren't alone in space - the universe is filled with dangerous anomalies, void-faring aliens ranging from harmless sea cows to eldritch horrors that live in black hole, and (this is a Paradox game after all) alien empires that are vying for the same finite space you are.

While I enjoy Stellaris immensely, and defend it on its merits, it is a newer title without any real expansion packs released as of this date. As such, it suffers from a mild lack of mechanical content.

Therefore, this will be a primarily narrative LP



So where do we fall into this?



Like I said before, all empires in Stellaris have a set of Ethics that determine how a race/faction acts and reacts. This mechanic takes the shape of a set of four spectrums with two opposing traits.

On each spectrum exists two opposing ethics, and two fanatical variants of those ethics. You have three points to assign to your ethics choices. Picking a standard ethic costs one point, and picking a fanatical ethic (which are are generally far more beneficial) costs two points. You cannot pick two ethics that are opposites of each other.

This means you could pick Militarist-Individualist-Spiritualist (which would cost three points) but not Fanatic Militarist-Individualist-Spiritualist (which would cost four).

It also means you could pick Fanatic Xenophile-Materialist (which would cost three points) but not Fanatic Xenophile-Xenophobe (which would cost three points, but have two opposing ethics.



Militarist-Pacifist:
Militarists have ships that are slightly better in combat, and generally their population is suited to war - they get happier during war, and their faction gets more of a bonus from declaring rivalries with other factions.

Pacifism Is unusable garbage makes your pops happier during peacetime, but sadder during war. You also get some slight diplomatic bonuses.



Xenophobe-Xenophile:
Xenophobes are totally fine with enslaving alien races. Also, the border range of their faction will be larger, and their faction can rival more opposing factions. This comes at the price of other factions liking you less. It's harder to make friends and easier to make enemies.

Xenophiles are incredibly simple: Other factions like them more. It's far easier to forge alliances and make economic deals if you are a Xenophilic species.



Individualist-Collectivist
Individualists gather more energy credits (this game equivalent of money) and have less problems with coexisting with other aliens (particularly those with different ethics). Aliens are also more likely to migrate to an Individualistic empire (all other things being equal). Basically, Individualism is better for an empire that intends to integrate Xenos peacefully and without too much friction.

Collectivists are cool with other people being enslaves and being enslaved themselves (at least, comparatively). Collectivists require less food, and are easier to pacify with an iron fist. Also, a Collectivist empire is far more likely to get away with things like purges, forced migrations, etc, etc.

On a soon-to-be-relevant note, Individualism and Collectivism have a major role in the types of governments available to you.

Off topic, the terminology for these ethics caused enough of a fuss on the internet that their names are being changed to Egalitarian and Hierarchical. Fun stuff!



Materialist-Spiritualist
Materialists are better at researching technology, and can build structures at a lower cost. It's another simple, but major bonus.

Spiritualists breed quicker, and spiritualist pops have less ethical divergence, meaning they are less likely to change ethics over time (which can be an annoying problem to deal with).



There are a bunch of other differences between ethics. Certain decisions, technologies and buildings are available to some factions, but not others, based on their chosen ethics. These differences are far too numerous to list here. You can check out http://www.stellariswiki.com/Ethos and other various pages on the Stellaris Wiki for more details.

However, ethics do determine what kind of governments you have access to*. There are fifteen types of basic government in the game; five are democracies (you can't be a democracy if you are Collectivist, and are forced to be a democracy if you are Fanatical Individualist), five are oligarchies (you cannot be an oligarchy if you are a Fanatical Individualist or Collectivist) and five are monarchies (you can't be a monarchy if you are Individualist and are forced to be a monarchy if you are Fanatic Collectivist).

Then there are 5 other categories: Neutral governments (which you have access to no matter what), Militarist governments (which you cannot pick if you are Pacifist, and are forced to pick if you are Fanatic Militarist), Pacifist governments (which are vice versa), Materialist governments (which you cannot pick if you are Spiritualist, and are forced to pick if you are Fanatic Materialist) and Spiritualist governments (which are vice versa). Each of those five categories has a democracy, oligarchy and monarchy.

The wiki explains this far more succinctly:


http://www.stellariswiki.com/Government_types has a detailed description of the rules for each form of government.


*I will be using a single mod for this LP, which restricts the governments that can be taken by fanatical factions. This is why Fanatic Individualists/Collectivists are forced to use democracies/monarchies respectively. It is also why Fanatic Militarists/Pacifists/Materialists/Spiritualists are forced to pick from their line of governments.



So what I want you to do is vote for your preferred combination of ethics and government. You can do this by posting in this thread, or by sending me a private message if you would like a secret ballot.

To recap the mechanical restrictions that apply here:

- You must pick either three non-fanatic ethics, or one fanatic ethic and two non-fanatic ethics
- You cannot pick two ethics that are opposite each other
- Fanatic Individualists most choose a type of democracy/Fanatic Collectivists must choose a type of monarchy
- Individualists cannot choose a monarchy and Collectivists cannot choose a democracy
- A moderate Militarist/Pacifist/Materialist/Spiritualist MAY choose one of the governments attached to that ethic
- A fanatical Militarist/Pacifist/Materialist/Spiritualist MUST choose one of the governments attached to that ethic

Vote for ethics now, and in a couple of days, I will end the vote, pick whatever has the most votes, and then begin the vote for form of government

It is important to bear in mind that there are literally hundreds of possible combinations here, so it will be both permissible and expected to change votes to an option that is doing well and/or try to convince your fellow goons to change their vote to your own superior opinion.

If there are any questions, just ask. This is a Paradox game, so it has a lot of mechanics and variables (despite being new).

Once both rounds of voting are over, I will begin updating regularly (but not too regularly).