Jackal2233 wrote:

Great job with update 0.23 overall, however there seems to be an infinite loop in the new rebellion system:

It starts when an empire has all 6 political parties, and the empire rebellion level forces the empire into Anarchy. Since Anarchy follows with Dictatorship, there is a HUGE approval penalty due to the population feeling under-represented. So then it rebels again, and again - both politically and planetary, which also makes the ability to change government impossible due to the constant switching between Anarchy/Dictatorship and the inability to change governments for 10 turns per switch.

I'm unsure if this is a bug, an oversight, or intented. Save file here:

AutoSave 5245.zip

If intented, how is one supposed to counter this? I tried making the planets produce propaganda but it never works since the government keeps switching every 2 turns.

Update 0.2.3? Update to 0.2.5. That might fix the problem. My game is on 0.2.5. I ran your save. I didn't have anarchy issues.

Complete non-sequitur, but Dictatorship and the Infinite Rebellion would be a sweet name for a Smashing Pumpkins cover band

Jackal2233 wrote:

It starts when an empire has all 6 political parties, and the empire rebellion level forces the empire into Anarchy. Since Anarchy follows with Dictatorship, there is a HUGE approval penalty due to the population feeling under-represented. So then it rebels again, and again - both politically and planetary, which also makes the ability to change government impossible due to the constant switching between Anarchy/Dictatorship and the inability to change governments for 10 turns per switch.

This is a bug, yes - the approval penalty from under-representation is supposed to be disabled during anarchy. We will fix this for the next update

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

@willbefast : I think he talks about Anarchy switching your governement, not about this force / add problem in governement.xml.

If you had 50% one party in democracy then anarchy makes you switch to dictartorship of another party

=> you would have a lot of representatives from your democracy counting against your forced dictatorship : you would have 50% of a democratic senate counting against your new party in a dictatorship (so disapproval x15 instead of x5) => anarchy => yo-yo effect.

After elections, if you dodged a second anarchy, the situation is back to normal only if you choose the old party in place, or if you choose religious + content law.

But since the elements that lead to disapproval may not have changed (especially if over-colonization or over-pop), any other change than religious + content law lead to the same unrest as the democracy (3x less representatives but * 15 instead of *5) => yo-yo effect again

I think the issue you're describing here comes down to a large problem of political opinion becoming too spread, leading to limited support even for the winning party and a majority of people being uphappy, no matter the results (just like in real life).

This is something we're going to be tweaking for the next update: we're thinking of maybe having a sort of multi-round election system where the parties with the least support are eliminated and their votes are redistributed across those parties which are "closest" on the political spectrum. This would lead to fewer parties which a have higher support.

The issue of the approval penalties could be handled in a similar manner, with penalties depending on the distance between the population's desired political party and the "closest" party to have elected represetatives. So for instance a Pacifist will be very unhappy under a 100% Militarist dictatorship, but far more accepting of a 100% Industrialist one.

Ridiculi wrote:

Complete non-sequitur, but Dictatorship and the Infinite Rebellion would be a sweet name for a Smashing Pumpkins cover band 

That would be a nice name indead ! Is there rockers in Amplitude ?

I play the ukulele but this is not very rock-n-roll  You should talk to Tichau.

Yes, you are right - you can't change Governement , because there is always Anarchie !   But ES 2 is in alpha !

Great job with update 0.23 overall, however there seems to be an infinite loop in the new rebellion system:

It starts when an empire has all 6 political parties, and the empire rebellion level forces the empire into Anarchy. Since Anarchy follows with Dictatorship, there is a HUGE approval penalty due to the population feeling under-represented. So then it rebels again, and again - both politically and planetary, which also makes the ability to change government impossible due to the constant switching between Anarchy/Dictatorship and the inability to change governments for 10 turns per switch.

I'm unsure if this is a bug, an oversight, or intented. Save file here:

AutoSave 5245.zip

If intented, how is one supposed to counter this? I tried making the planets produce propaganda but it never works since the government keeps switching every 2 turns.

This is a good problem to have because it makes this game so unique from the rest. It is a defining characteristic and I applaude you, Amplitude, and other players who want to improve it.

I noticed this as well on the new update. No way to get out of the cycle outside of just nuking all your systems and starting over :|

Gvaz wrote:

I noticed this as well on the new update. No way to get out of the cycle outside of just nuking all your systems and starting over :|  

Have you tried building approval system improvements and suppressing/seducing the rebellious populations? You only need to keep them tame until an election, then, since you're a Dictatorship you can just vote in the Religious party and pass the "Content approval on all systems" law.  I know it took me a few cycles of Anarchy until I got my systems in check long enough (10 turns) for the next election to take place.

Granted, you will spend the next 20-30 turns building all the + approval improvements on your systems, but you should, eventually get them to a point where you can change the government back to what it was before.

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

It's not (only) a problem of spread.

The main problem is the flow of anarchy -> new gov -> anarchy -> new gov -> anarchy etc.

Spread prevents you to go in anarchy the first time, but once you're there, you'll be here forever :

- You're in a democracy with 100 elected rep (50 industrialist, 25 science, 20 ecologists, 5 religious) -> 50 * 5 disapproval = -250

- Anarchy because of "whatever problem"

-> you're in a dictatorship with 100 elected rep (because last time I checked (in 0.23), reps in senate did not update), forced to use science, with 75 * 15 disapproval = -1125

-> Anarchy

-> you're in a dictatorship with 100 elected rep, forced to use industry, with 50 * 15 disapproval = -750

-> Anarchy

-> you're in a dictatorship with 100 elected rep, forced to use science, with 75 * 15 disapproval = -1125

-> Anarchy...

A lot of things are going to change in the next update to deal with this kind of issue. For a start anarchy will probably result in an election rather than swapping the political party. The political system will also cycle, so you'll invariably end up in a democracy and so be less vulnerable to approval penalties because you have more parties in power (instead of getting stuck in a dictatorship). We'll be changing the way support is calculated to avoid the late-game political divergences, and we'll be changing how the approval penalties are calculated too, if not removing them entirely for empires which aren't dictatorships (ie. "hey, don't blame me, the people have spoken!").

wilbefast wrote:

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

It's not (only) a problem of spread.

The main problem is the flow of anarchy -> new gov -> anarchy -> new gov -> anarchy etc.

Spread prevents you to go in anarchy the first time, but once you're there, you'll be here forever :

- You're in a democracy with 100 elected rep (50 industrialist, 25 science, 20 ecologists, 5 religious) -> 50 * 5 disapproval = -250

- Anarchy because of "whatever problem"

-> you're in a dictatorship with 100 elected rep (because last time I checked (in 0.23), reps in senate did not update), forced to use science, with 75 * 15 disapproval = -1125

-> Anarchy

-> you're in a dictatorship with 100 elected rep, forced to use industry, with 50 * 15 disapproval = -750

-> Anarchy

-> you're in a dictatorship with 100 elected rep, forced to use science, with 75 * 15 disapproval = -1125

-> Anarchy...

A lot of things are going to change in the next update to deal with this kind of issue. For a start anarchy will probably result in an election rather than swapping the political party.

Desynching elections between players in the process, or that would just be just partial elections ?

The political system will also cycle, so you'll invariably end up in a democracy and so be less vulnerable to approval penalties because you have more parties in power (instead of getting stuck in a dictatorship).

This is nice !

We'll be changing the way support is calculated to avoid the late-game political divergences, and we'll be changing how the approval penalties are calculated too, if not removing them entirely for empires which aren't dictatorships (ie. "hey, don't blame me, the people have spoken!").

I wouldn't remove disapproval (tbh, to my opinion, that's almost removing approval aswell) : I really think this is fixable.
You only need to give some more means of control to the player before anarchy begins and avoid spiraling into anarchy, and I do think it's perfectly feasable.

It can be done through laws, because they are a direct player lever.

One week ago, I wanted to make a mod giving approval or disapproval price on top of the inf to each law depending of senate composition, for democracy/federation/empire.
You can promulgate any law, the one coming from the party in power get approval, and the other less approval. The ones from the last parties get disapproval.
If things start to go bad, the player can remove an unpopular law and enact a popular one (corresponding to the population or the senate).

Like just before the elections, to boost a little the party in place by removing non-party-in-power laws and put party-in-power laws. Revolutions starts because people are against regimes and / or their laws imho. So law should get an importance there.

If law gave a small boost to the party aswell, this would emulate what is happening in France / maybe other countries right before the elections : "hey guys, remember we are right/left wing ! look to this new tax law ! yay ! so, vote for us again ? please ?" :D

Seriously, it's like this since I vote (95...).

Anyway : I think you could profit of the unique feature of senate & laws there.

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

I wouldn't remove disapproval (tbh, to my opinion, that's almost removing approval aswell) : I really think this is fixable.
You only need to give some more means of control to the player before anarchy begins and avoid spiraling into anarchy, and I do think it's perfectly feasable.

It can be done through laws, because they are a direct player lever.

Ah, watch out though: if laws can provide approval then more slots means more approval - if the goal is to provide tools to escape the endless cycle of anarchy then we need something that works for anarchies, dictatorships and democracies.  

One week ago, I wanted to make a mod giving approval or disapproval price on top of the inf to each law depending of senate composition, for democracy/federation/empire.
You can promulgate any law, the one coming from the party in power get approval, and the other less approval. The ones from the last parties get disapproval.
If things start to go bad, the player can remove an unpopular law and enact a popular one (corresponding to the population or the senate).

Like just before the elections, to boost a little the party in place by removing non-party-in-power laws and put party-in-power laws. Revolutions starts because people are against regimes and / or their laws imho. So law should get an importance there.

If law gave a small boost to the party aswell, this would emulate what is happening in France / maybe other countries right before the elections : "hey guys, remember we are right/left wing ! look to this new tax law ! yay ! so, vote for us again ? please ?" :D

Seriously, it's like this since I vote (95...).

Anyway : I think you could profit of the unique feature of senate & laws there.

This is an interesting idea  My only concern would be that, because you're effectively replacing the hard restriction on which laws can be voted with a soft approval-based incentive, you're making the political system less chunky: choice of option A or B or C is generally more comfortable and satisfying to the human mind than the choice of X = aA + bB + cC where a + b + c = 1. Creating too many links to and from the approval system may also cause cognitive overload. You should definitely give the mod a try though: see how it play, do a little introspection, maybe try to get some people to test it and see how they feel