Pacifist always win on the first election. Even with oficial suport to the scientist partie

Did a Voydani run where I tried to take advantage of righteous fury, only to have it derailed by an overwhelming militarist influence that rooted itself in my government by turn 40. I just tried keeping a fleet with each arc to bat off the Craver invasions, and building these ships spiked their support by like, 80 percent.

Didn't have this problem when I did Cravers though. In fact, if my government wasn't a dictatorship, the pacifists would of taken over. You think eating two minor civilizations would of prompted more aggression.

Parties and voting

The way the parties' support is influenced by decisions is backwards at the moment. Voters should react against decisions they disagree with by voting for the party that is closest to their views, but the way the system is designed at the moment, populations basically just shrug and say 'meh' to decisions they should completely hate. 

For example, build a science improvement, and Religious-inclined voters react with a small increase in their support for the Scientists party. That makes no sense. They should react by increasing their support for the Religious party.  

In the real world, people tend to vote against things they hate more than they vote for things they like. And building this dynamic into the game would create political consequences for decisions that are unacceptable to your population.

So:

• If you start a war, or build lots of warships, pacifists in your population should switch support to the anti-war party in protest. But militarists in your population will be filled with jingoistic fervour and increase their support for the militarist party. Everyone else should more or less get on with their daily lives and continue voting for the status quo (i.e. it's not that much of an influence on them)
• If you build factories all over nice green countryside, voters who care about the environment should switch to the Ecologist party. But the people who want to work in those factories (i.e. industrialist populations) should be delighted and increase support for the industrialist party. Everyone else shrugs and carries on.
• If you knock down a church to build a laboratory in its place, religious folk should be outraged and vote for the religious party. But scientific populations should be delighted and vote for the scientific party. Everyone else says 'meh' and carries on more or less as before.

Political effect of laws

This should also be reflected in some laws. Passing a controversial law should create consequences in terms of political support ('Dust not Rust' should increase support for Ecologist and Industrialist parties among populations already inclined toward them). Some laws should even directly undermine the support of the party whose law it is (e.g. the Industrialists' 'Work not Shirk' Bill should hurt the support for the Industrialist party among Industrial-ish voters - as it is an example of a party directly attacking the interests of the voters who support it - i.e. factory workers).

Local politics

Here's an idea to make things even more interesting: depending on the system of government, the dominant party in each system should affect build costs of system developments or ships. E.g. there should be a penalty on building science improvements in a system with a lot of Religious representatives, but a bonus in a system with lots of senators for the Scientist party.

Party names

Wishful thinking here, but for the purposes of immersion, please could we have faction-specific names for the parties (alongside their Mil/Ind/Sci/Rel/Eco/Pac logo)? They could even be linked to the Heroes leading them.

idlih10 wrote:

Ridiculi wrote:

The Vodyani don't seem to have this issue, to that point where at turn 44 I still have 100% Religious... which to be honest is probably a bug of some sort.

I think I read somewhere (was it the game manual?) that the Vodyani do not tolerate other races in their population as a faction trait. But what I don't understand is how do the militarists get a part in the government despite this trait? It doesn't make sense.

The Vodyani can and will divert from the Religious path as I've seen in my playthroughs. The fact that religious triggers have double the effect on them is no guarantee that they won't turn Militarists or Industrialists or whatever at some point.

It may happen later in game in comparison with the more "democratic" races, but it will happen. 

See the picture of the population census that I posted above, where the Militarists have the upper hand and there are even a few Scientists (supposedly difficult for the Vodyani). At that time the Militarists had won 2 elections in a row. 

I managed to bring the Religious back in power only by intimidating their rival parties. Financial campaign wasn't even close to being enough.