atejas wrote:
There are currently 2 laws that militarists have that boost happiness. One that gives a flat happiness bonus per war declared and another that boosts happiness on every planet that has a fleet over it.

The problem is that, taken together, these give you about 30-50 (iirc) while the happiness penalties from election results combined with overexpansion and slave driving are often -70 or more.

But they're fine for non-craver species, who don't have to deal with overexpansion and slave driving.

Switching parties as the cravers just to function is poor design because you're forcing the player to forego all the combat and military production bonuses they get just to have a functioning empire at all.

Agreed!  Cravers should be just fine as a military dictatorship, though switching should, of course, be an interesting option for a unique strategy (as opposed to a must-have to fix a broken species)

I suggested in another thread that the Safe Skies law should be reworked so that it's a less powerful version of the Religious law -- that is, every planet that has a fleet orbiting above it has its happiness locked to minimum 20.

While that doesn't sound like a bad idea, what happens when you switch to a different party (Say, Ecologist Cravers or Scientist Cravers or Industrialist Cravers)?  You lose access to the law.

No, I don't think you'll fix the Craver problem by a militaristic law. If the problem is overexpension and slave driving, fix overexpansion and slave driving.  For example, if you implement Vahouth's "reduced overexpansion for cravers" and "non-cravers don't get to vote in craver elections" rules, or you allow my "You can abandon unnecessary/depleted colonies" idea, or both, then happiness management doesn't become such an utterly cripplingly concern.

Remember, militarism and dictatorship are not innate to Cravers.  Cravers can change those, if they wish.  They cannot change their need to continuously expand or their slave driving. Those are inherent parts of what they are, and they're the core of what's contributing to their death spiral.

In my opinion, dictatorships should not be immune to its people being upset because their party can't win elections. It makes sense. After all, if you are a militaristic dictatorship, but most of your people are pacifist, they would certainly be unhappy and the approval would be low.

The cravers issue isn't one of dictatorship, but that minor factions have any kind of impact on the Craver society in the form of approval and their opinion. Both should not matter at all to cravers. I don't ask my steak what it thinks about the ruling class either. I do agree that the Cravers themselve should be immune to political changes. A craver pop should always be militant, no matter what.

Asuzu wrote:

Mailanka wrote:

Romeo wrote:

The Vodyani already have access to enforce a level of contentedness, and the Sophons typically are completely happy anyways, so it wouldn't affect them much. Putting it under military does make a lot of sense, to be perfectly honest.

Point of order: The Vodyani do not have access to a law that enforces a level of contentedness, the religious party does.  There seems a lot of confusion between political party and race in this thread.  The Cravers can be religious and gain access to the same law that the Vodyani have, and the Vodyani can become a military dictatorship if they wish, at which point they have the same sorts of legal options that the Cravers do.  But the Cravers alone have this problem where they need to keep colonizing new worlds because they keep depleting old worlds.  Vodyani don't have this problem (and neither do the Sophons).

Man, good luck keeping your people religious considering how much militarist points building ships give.

And Cravers have to build lots of those.

If you're a dictatorship, you can declare yourself religious and then the only thing you have to deal with is unhappiness, which isn't a problem, because you're religious.

(Which actually makes it a really good solution to the problem, but highlights some other issues)

To declare yourself Religious, you have to unlock it first. ;)

Right, so, practice rather than theory: I started up a game on Normal with the Cravers.  Their free sub-race was the Kalgeros, a religious faction (I always seem to end up with them.  Is it random, is it set so that you always get the Kalgeros?), meaning I already had religion unlocked.

In the first election, I have the following polling:

You can see Military is far ahead of Religion.

Nonetheless, I get my own choice in the matter:

And I choose religion.  The people choose Military:

But it doesn't matter: the will of the dictator is all.  The result is I have some happy Kalgeros and some pissed off Cravers, but they can suck it.  I can build as many warships as I want, I can build all the industry I want, I can do whatever I want, and I can always have the party I want, provided that party is unlocked.  If you want ecologists and your ecologist party is unlocked, then you can be all ecology all the time, no matter what anyone else says about it.

If you remove the happiness penalty from Dictatorship, you remove all disadvantage to dictatorship.  Every other government requires the navigation of the opinions of the people to get the party you want.  Dictatorship does not.  In a dictatorship, you always get the party you want, and the only cost is happiness.  It's already very powerful that the religious party gets to set everything to contented, because once you have a theocracy, you can always have a theocracy, no matter what, because you neither suffer the flaws of low happiness, nor can political opinion reshape your policies.  If you expand that out to the other parties, then dictatorship is always free to choose the party it wants with no real repercussions (except, it should be noted, that your people will never be especially happy either).

Asuzu wrote:

Guys ofc I tried that as well.

As soon as I got religious reps, I paid for next elections and got them elected. Got religious hero as well for senate.

Next elections after that when religious party wins my entire militant Empire gets -75 happiness and game over. 

I didn't even get the chance to get to the law to equalize my empire on "content".

It's just broken, plain and simple.

Yeah, I'm not sure what it takes to get that law activated either.  It seems that over time, new laws just unlock, or perhaps you need a level of influence, or a technology (Adaptive Bureaucracies?).  It might be ideal to wait for that before you make your switch.

But note that we're not the first people do it.  Other people have successfully done it, and it was advised over in my death spiral thread.  So it's a viable solution, you just need to learn to make it work.

To be clear, the larger point here is that dictatorship is not broken, and that militarism is not broken.  The problem is that Cravers are broken and that military victory is broken. Trying to change dictatorship ("No happiness penalty" for dictatorship means you get to choose your own party with no drawbacks, making it a superior form of government to all over forms) or Militarism (giving it the schtick of Religion means that Religion stops being a viable option compared to militarism) isn't going to fix the Cravers, because they still desperately need some kind of happiness solution due to the fact that they must necessarily over-expand, while nobody else needs these ridiculous shenanigans to make it work.  That is, I could play a Sophon military dictatorship and not suffer the crippling happiness penalties that the Cravers do, because I don't need to colonize every system in the galaxy.  If you change military dictatorships to fix Cravers, then you over-power the hypothetical Sophon (or Lumeris, or Vodyani) military dictatorship.

The problem is with Cravers and the fact that we cannot abdicate systems or move our populations around, both of which are planned features.  My recommendation would be to see how those shake out before suggesting more radical solutions.

I agree. The happiness penalty from dictatorship is not the problem, it is actually fitting.

The problem lies with the Cravers and the way they're supposed to play. 

I've already said that in another thread, but for me the Cravers need only 3 things:

1. The over-expansion penalty needs to either be removed entirely, or at least be half as severe.

2. They MUST be able to consume foreign pop in their empire.

3. Foreign pop should not be represented in the Senate. Food doesn't get to vote.

vahouth wrote:

1. The over-expansion penalty needs to either be removed entirely, or at least be half as severe.

Perhaps as a unique bonus for Cravers.  Or perhaps we handle it differently.  The ability to abdicate systems might work if you have no population left in them.

2. They MUST be able to consume foreign pop in their empire.

Isn't this already supposed to be the case?  I thought the foreign populations were supposed to slowly dwindle, but they don't.  I've actually seen them regularly increase.

3. Foreign pop should not be represented in the Senate. Food doesn't get to vote.

But they can fight back, and I think that's supposed to be represented in happiness penalties (Though you can make the case that this is already covered by the slavery happiness penalty).  On the other hand, let's say you switch to a Democracy (it's an option).  Should the slaves get a literal vote?

For the "fighting back" part, as an aside, I think it would be nice if rebelling systems could, you know, Rebel.  We have a mechanic for minor races, why not allow systems to break off from your empire if they've been in rebellion too long and become a "minor faction" until they're conquered of bribed back into joining.  Then you could have civil wars or fracturing empire.  It would also take care of the over-extension problem itself, since as you lost systems, you'd lose over-colonization problems.

The problem is that, taken together, these give you about 30-50 (iirc) while the happiness penalties from election results combined with overexpansion and slave driving are often -70 or more.

Switching parties as the cravers just to function is poor design because you're forcing the player to forego all the combat and military production bonuses they get just to have a functioning empire at all.

I suggested in another thread that the Safe Skies law should be reworked so that it's a less powerful version of the Religious law -- that is, every planet that has a fleet orbiting above it has its happiness locked to minimum 20.

Mailanka wrote:

Romeo wrote:

The Vodyani already have access to enforce a level of contentedness, and the Sophons typically are completely happy anyways, so it wouldn't affect them much. Putting it under military does make a lot of sense, to be perfectly honest.

Point of order: The Vodyani do not have access to a law that enforces a level of contentedness, the religious party does.  There seems a lot of confusion between political party and race in this thread.  The Cravers can be religious and gain access to the same law that the Vodyani have, and the Vodyani can become a military dictatorship if they wish, at which point they have the same sorts of legal options that the Cravers do.  But the Cravers alone have this problem where they need to keep colonizing new worlds because they keep depleting old worlds.  Vodyani don't have this problem (and neither do the Sophons).

Man, good luck keeping your people religious considering how much militarist points building ships give.

And Cravers have to build lots of those.

Funny how the safe skies law is more fitting for the Vodyani than the Cravers...

vahouth wrote:

Funny how the safe skies law is more fitting for the Vodyani than the Cravers...

I had a game where I was getting my butt kicked as the Sophons and the Militarists won an overwhelming victory in the senate, and between Safe Skies and Jingoist Paradise, I was able to unify my empire behind me and turn things around and kick butt!

That's why I'm a little frustrated with people trying to fix Militarists.  Militarism is fine!

Mailanka wrote:

vahouth wrote:

Funny how the safe skies law is more fitting for the Vodyani than the Cravers...

I had a game where I was getting my butt kicked as the Sophons and the Militarists won an overwhelming victory in the senate, and between Safe Skies and Jingoist Paradise, I was able to unify my empire behind me and turn things around and kick butt!

That's why I'm a little frustrated with people trying to fix Militarists.  Militarism is fine!

Well minilarism in democracy is fine, but militarist dictatorship not so much.

Mailanka wrote:

Point of order: The Vodyani do not have access to a law that enforces a level of contentedness, the religious party does.  There seems a lot of confusion between political party and race in this thread.  The Cravers can be religious and gain access to the same law that the Vodyani have, and the Vodyani can become a military dictatorship if they wish, at which point they have the same sorts of legal options that the Cravers do.  But the Cravers alone have this problem where they need to keep colonizing new worlds because they keep depleting old worlds.  Vodyani don't have this problem (and neither do the Sophons).

You're right, I used the terms interchangeably, that was in poor judgement on my own part. But the point of it still stands. Thus far, every race except the Cravers can manage their expansion. On top of that, solving over-expansion seems like the kind of thing that is custom-tailored to a military law. A species that appreciates war, should logically appreciate conquest.

vahouth wrote:

To declare yourself Religious, you have to unlock it first. ;)

Yeah, which is a pretty big issue to deal with. lol

Romeo wrote:

Mailanka wrote:

Point of order: The Vodyani do not have access to a law that enforces a level of contentedness, the religious party does.  There seems a lot of confusion between political party and race in this thread.  The Cravers can be religious and gain access to the same law that the Vodyani have, and the Vodyani can become a military dictatorship if they wish, at which point they have the same sorts of legal options that the Cravers do.  But the Cravers alone have this problem where they need to keep colonizing new worlds because they keep depleting old worlds.  Vodyani don't have this problem (and neither do the Sophons).

You're right, I used the terms interchangeably, that was in poor judgement on my own part. But the point of it still stands. Thus far, every race except the Cravers can manage their expansion. On top of that, solving over-expansion seems like the kind of thing that is custom-tailored to a military law. A species that appreciates war, should logically appreciate conquest.

More than that, you have to expand.  The game punishes you for not doing so by depleting your planets.  The point of the Cravers is to devour and move on.  But if they do so, the game punishes with a crippling weakness.

I don't think that's a point of contention, really.  I suspect we all agree that Cravers need to be fixed in this regard.  The question is "How?"  Personally, I'd like to see how they fair with migration and system razing.  Where the Sophons might have 5 systems and the Vodyani might have 5 systems, I'm curious if it's manageable for the Cravers to have 5 systems... and it's just that those systems keep changing as they sweep through the galaxy (for example).

The other point I'd like to make about that is that depletion doesn't seem to be punishing enough. If I understand the mechanic correctly, Cravers get a flat +50% to all FIDS created, and depletion gives a -50% to all pops on that planet. This means that Cravers can enjoy 150% FIDS for a while and then just drop down to 100%! They have no reason to abandon depleted planets from a FIDS perspective.

Getting rid of the +50% bonus once a planet has been depleted so that Cravers have the same -50% malus as other pops would really drive home the need to abandon depleted planets (or maintain them as non-resource systems)

atejas wrote:

The other point I'd like to make about that is that depletion doesn't seem to be punishing enough. If I understand the mechanic correctly, Cravers get a flat +50% to all FIDS created, and depletion gives a -50% to all pops on that planet. This means that Cravers can enjoy 150% FIDS for a while and then just drop down to 100%! They have no reason to abandon depleted planets from a FIDS perspective.

Getting rid of the +50% bonus once a planet has been depleted so that Cravers have the same -50% malus as other pops would really drive home the need to abandon depleted planets (or maintain them as non-resource systems)

I'm pretty sure they lose the +50% as soon as the planet is depleted. Depleted planets become basically worthless.

atejas wrote:

The other point I'd like to make about that is that depletion doesn't seem to be punishing enough. If I understand the mechanic correctly, Cravers get a flat +50% to all FIDS created, and depletion gives a -50% to all pops on that planet. This means that Cravers can enjoy 150% FIDS for a while and then just drop down to 100%! They have no reason to abandon depleted planets from a FIDS perspective.

Getting rid of the +50% bonus once a planet has been depleted so that Cravers have the same -50% malus as other pops would really drive home the need to abandon depleted planets (or maintain them as non-resource systems)

In my experience, the -50% isn't additive to the +50%, it replaces it. Playing with the Cravers, you'll find planets become basically worthless after depletion, way worse than they'd have been undepleted.