GRM Ideology 1.2 Now Available

Egalitarianism Chains... Hopefully you can see that these are not "Benevolent" ... Cultural Diffusion, which aims to equate alien citizens with one's own... is insidious, Curiosity becomes callous, and Equality ends up stripping children away from their parents upon birth at level 4... but on the other hand has incorruptible leadership (lol).

Cultural Diffusion:

1. Economic Outreach: 2 Freighters, 1 License, -5% Colony Income
2. Borderless Trade: 2 Freighters, Shared Border Penalty Removed, -5% Colony Income
3. Cultural Economics: Starbase Influence, Luxury Trade Routes
4. Galactic Respect: 15% Influence, other races angry with races who declare war on you.
5. Unification: 15% Influence, Convert all planets and Starbases in your influence to your empire. 

Curiosity:

1. Adventurism: 2 Surveyors, -5% Resistance
2. Great Minds: 3 Scientists, -5% Resistance
3. Data Security: 3 Spies, 5% Research, -5% Morale
4. Decentralized Researchers: 500 Research Points, 10% Research, -5% Morale
5. Networked Sleep Processing: 500 Research Points, 15% Research, -5% Morale

Equality

1. Command Economics: 1 Farmer, 1 Worker, 1 Engineer, -5% Colony Income
2. Classless Politicians: 3 Leaders, 5% Morale
3. Militant Advocacy: 2 Generals, 1 Diplomat, 5% Morale
4. Unbiased Birthing: 1 Scientist, 1 Worker, 1 Farmer, 1 General, 1 Spy, -5% Colony Income
5. Collective Consciousness: 25% Resistance, 3 Base Morale to all Colonies, -5% Colony Income

Love to get feedback on whether these are appealing, too easy a tradeoff, too harsh/etc.

How would this affect diplomatic relationships? Can that be modded out?

That sounds great Although I won't play mods until I feel the game is "ready" (meaning there are no basic changes anymore).

Can there be more than 4 chains and 5 levels per chain?

Looks good Gauntlet. How will your changes affect the Diplomacy feelings?

@lyssailcor, after a couple of years many dlc and two expansions what are you waiting for to 'feel' that GCIII is finished? 

Haven't decided yet on diplomacy relationships... It's definitely moddable to a certain extent. Maybe ill leave it in, but half the effect? We'll see. 

It's certainly valid that a civ just dislikes Anyone who doesn't prioritize their primary beliefs. Regardless of what those might be arranged to.

Yesterday e. g. I discovered the population discussion on the Steam forum (here) what leads me to think that this mechanic will be rebalanced. Also there are discussions going on about the invasion mechanics. I'm still not clear what "Resistance" in Crusade really means, and others feel the same. So there are still some rough edges that I expect to get smoothed over the next couple of weeks. Then we'll see ...

Edit: btw, some of the DLCs still need work to comply fully with Crusade, e. g. Mercenaries.

Looks great. The equality seems a bit overpowered with citizens. quick feel seems like too many at each stage.

Also compared to the other two, the citizens could start effecting the civ immediately, where as the others you need to send out to explore before they can become useful. So this doubles the usefulness of them.

Possibly cut them down by one (per chain), also assume those to +5 moral should be -5 moral? (otherwise again they seem even more powerful).

Nope. Thats plus morale.  Communism makes ppl happy in that chain... It might have something to do with the pills or the not being human (necessarily).

Good feedback, I'll cut the leaders down a bit. 

The work continues... I've now finished the Egalitarianism and Survivalism pyramids! These replace benevolent and malevolent. I discussed how Egalitarianism isn't always nice... well now you can see how Survivalism isn't always "crush the slavelings under our heels!"

Gauntlet ..........  You have done it again, great work!

Love the idea of +/- consequences on choices

Can things be adjusted based on map size?

just thinking of balance.  e.g. Typically play gigantic and by mid - late game i am making 200+ research per turn

so a #5  Networked Sleep Processing: 500 Research Points, 15% Research, -5% Morale seems kinda low (actually just the 500)

Diplo impact is a bit of a head scratch-er,  like the idea of some choices having an impact some not so much

e.g. Command Economics: 1 Farmer, 1 Worker, 1 Engineer, -5% Colony Income - why should anyone like me more or less for this?

vs: Unification: 15% Influence, Convert all planets and Starbases in your influence to your empire. -  You have courted our citizens and taken converted some of our holdings so i am pissed. 

Hey there! Thanks for the feedback... which helps because its very early into this process. Still, I'm quite happy with how things are shaping up and it should break up the incredibly immature good-vs-evil dichotomy that exists.

Now as for Command Economics... there is no diplomatic penalty? There is a gross income penalty. Essentially... you are proceeding with a command and control economy ala Communism... now granted in real life this failed miserably in the soviet era for a few reasons. 1) Inaccurate ability to calculate available resources... 2) Slow speed in reporting those resources to a centralized source, which then slowly reported back what to do, often, too late to realistically command, 3) human pressures... corruption/fear of being sent to a gulag if one reported less than ideal results/etc. etc.

In GC3 time... well data collection and speed of communication are no longer issues. All data can be collected with high fidelity accuracy in real time, and projections of economic results tested and simulated with incredible speed... so the only remaining factor is #3. I'm representing #3 by losing some Gross Income... there is still some corruption going around, but otherwise we are gaining some really useful state dictated control over the economy (represented by those citizens).

As for Unification... the point here is that your culture has so seamlessly integrated into the neighboring culture's infrastructure that basically... no one cares or even quite notices that you've taken over. Whilst a human player of course would be quite pissed... that is because they are a singular person in a short period of time being affected, and they are not subject to the very pressures and realities of living in the universe... in GC... I assume that the leadership of empires come and go just like real life, and that they too are subjected to the pressures and effects of your civilization. So basically... even the remaining leadership of the other civilization are still quite fond of you, even though you took over parts of their empire... at the end of the day, their own people are voluntarily switching to your empire... so who should they really be mad at? Besides... their summer home is in your empire and their 2nd wife happens to be your niece... not mention that their government owes you a ton of money and without your markets to sell their fleebs to they'd have an economic crisis....

You get the picture here?

That being said... it would be interesting to add a shared border penalty after you grab that skill... I'm definitely considering it.

Yes i get the picture and like your story lines.  But what i was trying to say (and not very well) was about diplomatic relations with other factions.  e.g Unification:- you might get a diplo + from factions that are at war with the civ(s) who's planets you you took but a negative from that civ.  and Command Economics might not have any impact on other faction diplo relations with you.    Just thinking of other ways to mix things up  

Well I just finished all the abilities and converting the icons/etc.

Egalitarianism: Proselytism, Intellectualism, Equality, Cultural Diffusion

Survivalism: Nobility, Obedience, Militarism, Enhancement

Individualism: Democratic, Attainment, Independent, Hedonism

Hopefully each of these has a little "good" and a little "evil" in them. For example, Attainment is basically greed and corporatism, Democracy actually has a Plutocracy point... Hedonism isn't exactly virtuous (and has slaves lol), whilst Equality and Cultural Diffusion have some insidious aspects.... Enhancement and Militarism are probably for those of us who think the word "ruthless" is truly noble...

So I'm pretty happy with how its turning out. Now its time to learn how to edit the events and anomalies and such... not to mention some improvements need to be re-done.

Here is the first new colony event...

1) New pictures when I have something appropriate.

2) You don't know what Ideology Points will be awarded. You'll find the order of choices are not consistent (benevolent (Egalitarianism) is not always first, etc.)

3) There are actually three versions of this event with different options and should make it harder for player's to memorize the Ideology bonuses.

4) Some choices provide 10 points in one ideology and 5 in another, some provide 5 in each, and some provide no ideology bonuses. Sometimes the practical benefits are the same, but the ideology awarded differs, and quite often you are faced with trade-offs in benefits.

In addition to the tree changes and now also the events... there are three new Improvement available at the start of the game... you can only build ONE of the three, and it is only buildable once within an empire.

Planetary Data Core: Acts as a Farm and produces 1 point for Egalitarianism per turn.

Planetary Command Center: Acts as a Military Academy (doesn't unlock Legion construction) and produces 1 point for Survivalism per turn.

Planetary Congress Building: Acts as a market center and produces 1 point for Individualism per turn.

This allows you to set the tone of what your dominant Ideology will be right from the beginning and helps offset the issue of "I have no more planets to colonize" that occurs and stagnates your Ideology production. 

Love it Guantlet. Can't wait!!

Also having fun updating the anomalies...

1) Reducing Precursor Anomaly presence... to about 10/15% from 25%ish

2) Added back in the Graveyards, but reduced the common-ness of them and the common-ness of them producing ships. Adding some events, that will result in gaining Citizens and resources. Will eventually making Pirate battles tougher and more varied.

I see that Benevolent, Pragmatic, and Malevolent are still in use. Does this mean that the choices of Egalitarianism, Survivalism, and Individualism will eventually place you in one of the original 3 game categories or are you just not finished modding the screen?

Not finished modding the screen... actually haven't found where I can change those labels in that screen.

Eventually I want all labels of Benevolent/Malevolent/Pragmatic to be replaced with Egalitarianism, Survivalism, and Individualism respectfully. That being said the content changes should throw people for a bit of a loop.

A lot of the choices we would classically consider Malevolent end up being individualism (has a strong greed stance and a stance of "hey those people knew what they were in for/are on their own")... some of the benevolent decisions fall squarely on the new Survivalism or the new Benevolent tree... and then on top of this... while I'm not certain the new trees are wonderfully well balanced... they at least have me wanting certain traits from all three if I can get them.

I used to go heavy Pragmatic with a bit of Malevolent because frankly I'm a reasonable human and otherwise want a lot of production. Now I'm actually choosing things across a variety of all three branches.

I think I'll be able to release a beta version in a week... just need to keep grinding at replacing the various colonial events... which is time consuming.

Questions:

1. Anyone know how to change the labels in the Ideology Screen?
2. Anyone know how to make a pop-up appear after a Colonial Event (ala the same behavior you get when you pick a  culture trait that spawns a new planet).
3. Anyone know how to control the rate of Precursor Colonial Events showing up? Modding that file seems not to affect anything?

I thought I knew, but I was wrong.  Then I remembered finding some text in a different file, checked it and found it there.  Look in the English\Text directory for Crusade, and find the file UIText.xml.  The three Ideology labels are in there.

These two are next to each other.

  <StringTable>
    <Label>NEUTRAL_LABEL</Label>
    <String>Pragmatic</String>
  </StringTable>

  <StringTable>
    <Label>MERCILESS_LABEL</Label>
    <String>Malevolent</String>
  </StringTable>

The Benevolent one is later in the file

  <StringTable>
    <Label>BENEVOLENT_LABEL</Label>
    <String>Benevolent</String>
  </StringTable>

I have given this some thought, mostly because I don't tend to like mods that significantly change the game. However, upon deliberation, I think this is a good idea, and may dramatically improve game play. Like many other aspects of the GRM, I am slowly coming around to the idea that it being more than a race mod is ok. As long as you can keep things balanced, I won't mind.

Just please be sure you don't go so far that the rest of us can't integrate with your mod without sacrificing integration with the base game.

Well this one will be it's own little package and can be used with or without GRM

I love it. The choices present some really tough decisions that create real immersion in the ideology choices vs the "cartoonish" malevolent choices and the "goody two shoes" benevolent choices. Can't wait to try it.

I'm liking what I'm seeing but I have a quick question. Will you be keeping the original colony events? Cause I always like the shark colony event :>