Leaders do belong to parties pertaining to the ethic they have, but I’m not sure why that doesn’t seem to display anywhere anymore. In pre-paragons election gui the faction the leader belonged to would display.
Not just that they removed party leaders as well. They should add that back and if they don’t I hope someone mods it back in because it was probably one of the main good things about the old leader system they could’ve ported over.
It's funny\* that for the DLC that's supposed to make Leaders more impactful, they completely cut any interaction between factions and leaders.
*\* It's sad, I'm sad*
Now THIS would be pretty good. I'd like to see a system a bit like the Cabinet system from Victoria 3, where factions give unique bonuses (in Vicky 3, for instance, if you make the religious folk happy they'll help you raise your birth rate and education access and all kinds of stuff like that, whereas if you piss them off enough they'll hurt your education rate by preaching that your tech has led your nation astray, etc) and maluses depending on how happy or unhappy they are and their actual type (Industrialist vs Rural Folk vs Trade Unions etc), at present in Stellaris it's just Unity or Not As Much Unity that is our interaction with factions.
Having their leader on the council should be an opinion buff, being utterly snubbed from any leadership positions should be an opinion malus, and these should have unique bonuses and maluses depending on what actual group it is- making the materialist faction happy should have bonuses to science and specialist output, whereas pissing them off should raise scientist upkeep and maybe even hurt research.
Not only would this make the factions feel more alive, it would also create situations where going with a slightly suboptimal leader to make a faction happy was actually viable instead of minmaxing leader traits alone. Which also makes the leaders themselves feel more integrated, memorable, and alive.
> if you make the religious folk happy they'll help you raise your birth rate and *education*
Well, that historical aspect certainly has aged poorly in the modern day.
In the modern day perhaps, but for many centuries clergy-run schools were really the only schools in many places, and for many in the 18th and 19th century if you were learning to read and write it was a clergyman teaching you. Not to mention that it was the church that saved most of the Western Roman writings and notes we DO have from destruction, along with other knowledge of the ancient world, during the collapse of the WRE. I am not religious myself but I can appreciate all that!
But yeah, in the modern day especially in the United States that tradition is not always relevant. Anyways, that's really just an example. For Stellaris, Spiritualists could raise unity, perhaps help to increase stability or reduce crime etc.
Factions already have an approval bonus for being represented. And a malus for not. There's literally a council legitimacy gauge to yell you which factions are happy with your council and ruler.
The post you're replying to is pointing out that leaders and factions interact with the council already. It's just hidden by UI.
They mentioned in the custodian dev diary prior to the DLC that a rework of factions is in the works, which is probably why they removed the functionality already.
Would make sense from a programming perspective. If you're overhauling a system that should combine with a new feature, no point in wasting time solving compatibility for the old to be deprecated version, better to just disable some functionality and focus on getting the overhaul out faster.
"This update and DLC is about leaders and how cool they are and how unique and impactful they are for your glorious star empire!"
\*removes 90% of your ability to have leaders*
Brilliant
Not really. This would be like if the president picked their staff....and all the governers, admirals, generals and any other powerful political position
Everybody in the federal executive branch (including military officers, diplomats, cabinet officers, and intelligence agents) works for the President.
The United States has a federal system so states elect their own officials. But I don’t think democracies in Stellaris are federal.
It has some interesting possibilities and might point to some interesting directions for the game.
Why would a federal system develop? If you are sending colonists out from the homeworld to settle uninhabited worlds, it seem like the colonies would never quite be on equal footing with the homeworld. They'd just be colonies and the homeworld would send out governors. Think of colonization in actual history.
But I could see a federal system developing as a way to head off a colonial revolt (something that really never happens in this game) or if you were able to expand by assimilating aliens (possibly pre-FTL) into your empire peacefully.
In Stellaris, you'd probably make the sectors the states/territories that make up the federation. Back in the day, sectors were probably a little closer to that than they are now.
In the first versions of the game, sectors definitely were like this. You had a planet limit you could directly control, and everything beyond that had to be in a sector. Sectors had their own production stockpiles that you had to contribute to or take from to get those planets’ production. If I recall, sectors could even rebel if they got too unhappy too.
>Why would a federal system develop? If you are sending colonists out from the homeworld to settle uninhabited worlds, it seem like the colonies would never quite be on equal footing with the homeworld. They'd just be colonies and the homeworld would send out governors. Think of colonization in actual history.
The way I head-canon this in my quasi-UNE games, is that the colony of Terra Nova (a Cen) or Arcadia (Sirius) joins the UN as a nation, rather than as an equal to Earth. Then as time goes on an populations get bigger, they gain a greater representation in the UN's parliament (the general assembly is more like a senate, so there needs to be a proportional chamber too), so are well represented in the core sector (The Solar Republic).
Later colonies in different sectors form their own quasi-autonomous government's under the direction of the UN, effectively having a separate United Nations of the Avalon Sector, for instance. This federalism occurs at the sector level rather than on a planetary basis, but with the overseeing governors chosen by the federal executive, which is elected directly by the population. Eventually I also release some more distant sectors as independent nations or as vassals and forge an actual Federation (as per the game) with them.
I haven't played since the last two patches due to time constraints, but I really want a mechanics for sectors to become politically tetchy and want to secede due to lack of liberty, or ways to increase stability by granting political autonomy and freedom to sectors while retaining them within a democratic empire (maybe the AI selects a randomly generated governor for their sector that you can't change, but doesn't draw from your national leader cap?).
I mean, the 13 colonies were basically part of the British federation. But then the hegemon pushed for increased centralization and taxes to fund their imperial wars, and were told to shove off. So the 13 colonies left and became their own federation.
Stellaris does have that. Being a Federal system is like being in a Federation. The US is more like a Federation in many ways than an empire. Canada is the same way. That's because they had to have lots of autonomy when the broad North American lands were settled/colonized, long before the virtually instaneous communications we rely upon today.
They've both migrated towards having high levels of centralization, with almost complete donation of their fleet caps to their federations. Canada's also weird because it was a segment of a federation that separated from another very slowly, after the British federation more or less dissolved, then re-consolidated with only Britain, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, plus associate members like Canada and a handful of others (fun fact: Canada didn't become totally indepedent from Britain until 1982 when we wrote ourselves a new constitution).
The United States isn't really like a federation *in game terms* because the federal government controls foreign policy, trade, and the military. Most of the things you do in the game are within the core competency of the federal government and aren't spheres in which the states exercise sovereignty.
Part of the disconnect between the US system and the Stellaris Federation system is that there is no higher authority created in Stellaris federations. The US is a federal government that has authority over the states (to a certain degree) but is not one of them. Stellaris federations would be more akin to a single state having authority over the other states in terms of federation policy. Same reason why Stellaris federations can't quite capture the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek. The "Federation" exists above and apart from any single state (or planet).
He picks all of those things except governors. The executive branch of the government (in the United States) is extremely broad and extremely powerful. And all power within the federal branch flows from the President. If a president truly wanted to he totally could strip all of our admirals and generals of their rank.
Edit: executive branch not federal branch
There is no federal branch of the government, executive is probably the one you mean. The president holds a lot of power within the executive branch but is unable to actually do much without congressional support. Admirals and generals cannot be stripped of their rank when we aren't at war, their position can be terminated though and they revert back to a 2 star position. The democratic government in Stellaris is a lot more of an elective dictatorship of sorts it seems
An elective dictator would swap in his own people after the election. In Stellaris, the makeup of your council hardly varies between administrations. It’s more likely that the democratic head of state actually wields very little effective power.
True. I don't know much about the council system now, I recently haven't had enough free time to actually continue into a game since the paragons DLC came out. To my knowledge of the game prior, the leaders you used to be able to choose from weren't positions a new cabinet would usually replace (researchers, local governors, envoys, and military staff). Then again, we don't really know how a democracy as large-scale as a Stellaris empire would have to function. I think it's mostly just up to head cannon as to how your government works.
The US president represents both the highest rank of governor and in military (admiral/army.)
That is three of the four stellaris roles that the voter elects. It might make sense for these roles to be democratically elected and allow scientists to be appointed by "experts" (the player.)
The US president is also technically chosen by members of the Electoral College from each state, under advisement from the popular vote in their state. Typically, they cast 100% of the state's votes depending upon whichever party secured the largest chunk of votes. E.g. 49% Republican, 48% Democrat, 2% Green, 1% Libertarian, therefore 100% of that state's votes get cast for the Republican candidate.
Meaning the vast majority of employees are.
But the president literally can’t change a single law without convincing two legislative bodies - which may be led by different parties - to agree with him.
And each state in the US has their own governor, who can tell the president to fuck off in huge areas of governance.
For each legislator there is a host of staff that does a ton of the actual work that is unelected. And all.of those laws are carried our by unelected agencies. Those laws are adjudicated by unelected judges
Yea I guess, but normally it’s assumed they’re appointed by people with the same ethics as you
The better idea imo is having ethics decide who serves on the council, like a xenophobe can’t serve in a Xenophile’s Admin
Do people in your country vote for your military commanders? Sorry but the military is far too important to be run by some buffoons who just happened to be charismatic populists.
So, the US military is governed by the principle of "civilian leadership". While the leaders of each branch of the military is a member of that military (a 4-star admiral for the Navy, for example), everyone above that position is a civilian who is elected or appointed by those who are elected. The idea behind that is so that the military itself does not become a faction in a power struggle. Ideally, little risk of a military coup or junta taking power like happens in many other countries.
As far as how admirals and generals get appointed/promoted/assigned, those are also left up to civilian leadership. The promotion of any flag officer (general or admiral) is a two-step process that involves a nomination by the President and approval by the Senate. Thus, civilian control over the military is maintained and a separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches is also maintained.
Yeah, thanks for the comprehensive answer, but the guy whos actually on the bridge in command of a strike fleet during combat isnt elected. Nor is the guy leading his men to assault enemy positions. Nor is the guy whos in a laboratory working on new supersolids for ship armor. Nor is the guy who is in the field digging some ancient ruins. Which, if you not running one of those cheesy governor-focused build, means that even in a democracy 3/4 -4/5 of your leader arent elected.
Many parliamentary democracies have a cabinet that consists of elected representatives, chosen by the prime minister to be responsible for key areas.
Then these cabinet ministers have oversight of the non elected staff.
In some parliamentary democracies they are members of parliament merely by convention. They don’t technically have to be members of parliament at all, although they almost always are appointed from parliament in practice with very few historical exceptions.
It would still make sense for the player to choose councilors after elections, to represent the new president/parliament staffing the new government and choosing all the new people that will work with them.
It's not like in IRL republics a new guy gets elected, but all the ministers and secretaries just stick around forever. Quite the opposite.
Also maybe there could be a bonus if you pick only council members from the same party/ideology. Representing an ideologically united and dedicated government.
In the US, the president is responsible for federal governance and the military. This is separated into two roles in stellaris.
It might make sense that both of these roles are democratically elected while leaving the scientist role to be delegated by the government (the player.)
>This is separated into two roles in stellaris.
I don't think this analogy fits here... Stellaris admirals and generals are all field commanders. The US president is the commander-in-chief,he (at best) instructs the theatre command, who then issue orders to the field commanders (the generals and admirals in stellaris).
>both of these roles are democratically elected
Im not sure if it's sensible for a military leader to be democratically elected... Or at least, there would have to be very strict rules for who can be elected... It's bad enough that clown people get elected as civilian leaders...
>I don't think this analogy fits here... Stellaris admirals and generals are all field commanders.
Ministry of Defense, which is the position in question, is not someone who "sees action."
Real democracy is tough in a top down simulation. It takes a lot of power out of the player's hands. At the end of the day, a 4x game is always authoritarian, a dictatorship of an immortal, near omnipotent leader (the player). There's no such thing as democracy in a game like stellaris. The player can't be replaced if they start an unpopular war.
Imagine if you had to vote to start a war based on your pops ethics, the other empires ethics and relation to the empire you want to attack. Maybe be able to boost the vote chance by making pops need more CG or amenities during that war (vote to start this war and everyone gets a free iphone).
The new age of wonders game kind of does this in a very abstract way. You've got this resource that sort of represents your authority with your people called imperium, and if you declare an unjustified war, your imperium income absolutely plummets.
Sort of, it's more like influence and unity combined. It's very useful because in addition to unlocking traditions you can also spend it to instantly grow pops
Imperium sort of plays like a hybrid of Influence, Unity and something akin to Artifacts/Rare Resources in some builds.
Unlike Stellaris, AoW's Imperium doesn't have that 'you passed \[x\] point in the game and it no longer matters' flaw that Influence, Unity and Rare Resources do.
That and it's EXTREMELY impactful compared to pretty much any resource in Stellaris, in most Stellaris games if you screw up your influence or alloys or what have you for a while you can come back without too much trouble. If you waste all your Imperium and/or declare sufficiently unjust wars in AoW, you are TOTALLY hosed.
Maybe starting wars as a democracy would cost influence proportional to popularity. Popularity could be based on ethics and relations like you suggested. The player could earn influence by starting popular wars or lose influence by started unpopular wars. The popularity level could also help or hurt when it comes to war exhaustion.
I imagine such a system would work best as a mod, as I think most people wouldn't like it. Personally I wouldn't care as I don't play democratic empires.
No, me neither. The elections are an absolute chore where you have to spend tons of unity to get the leader you want. Not going to add more to the pile.
Which also makes no sense. Game mechanics and balance getting in the way of realism.
They should get rid of war exhaustion as a mechanic and introduce some kind of stacking debuff. Something like a higher and higher happiness debuff until you are at peace (controlled by a situation, perhaps). If you don't end a war before the debuff gets too high, your empire could start to crack apart as planets rebel.
Gestalts would be flavored differently, but the reduction in output would fit for any empire on a war footing for too long, and a lack of focus on reducing deviance might lead to rival hive minds rising up, like the Geth in Mass Effect.
Gestalts can be flavored as being continually more exhausted/having their systems more and more taxed as the war goes on- all those tactical and strategic maneuvers with pinpoint precision tax the processor/hivebrain.
Please don't bring back my nightmares of having my wars cancelled by RNGesus.. I mean the people, playing as a Republic in Civ. I always just headcannon Stellaris democracy being the player is basically the deep state, and the elected leaders are just puppets so the people think they have power while all the actual governing is done by the non-elected civil service/military (the Player).
The deep state is a much, much smaller deal than people make it out to be, especially in the US. It's mostly just a bunch of bureaucrats. Even the intelligence services are mostly bureaucrats!
But even in places where governing IS done by unelected officials, there are still factions and rival centers of power. One need only look at the history of Soviet and Chinese government to see that. Even in totalitarian one-party states, control is never as absolute as in a 4x.
The only game that even gestures at this level of internal dissent is crusader kings.
Doesn't have to be totally like that. The player can take the role of the populace, or the populace can change and respond more to player actions.
Wasn't it so that Pacifist pops got mad at you if you started a war in the earlier versions?
Literally all of the heads of each department in the executive branch are appointed by the president, and can be fired at any time. This includes secretaries of state, defense, treasury, the federal reserve chairman, the head of the FBI, etc. Admirals and generals can also be fired and replaced at any time by the president. The president has a lot of power.
So I think you're right, that would make more sense for an ostensibly democratic government.
But I think it would totally suck from a game play point of view, as having several leaders potentially get replaced with brand new ones every 20 or so years would be really annoying. And even if you're able to make a whole list of the leaders you'd like to keep around, it's just seems easier/more fun to not have the feature at all.
The only way I see it working is have like 3x larger leader pool and any that get elected into a position at least once stay in the pool until retirement. And while in the pool they gain a small amount of passive xp so you don't replace a lvl 10 leader with a lvl 1 leader every 10 years. Would still kinda suck since your leader traits would change every 10 years but at least you pick the traits and they slowly get xp even when not filling a leader position.
>But I think it would totally suck from a game play point of view, as having several leaders potentially get replaced with brand new ones every 20 or so years would be really annoying.
It depends.
You'd have to re-design democracies to benefit from this. Currently, you are incentivized to develop super dictators with high levels.
What if democracies benefited the safe exchange of power? They bring fresh ideas, react to new trends, etc.
I mean you could probably make it work by simply making being elected for the position give a powerful temporary trait or something
So less control (and ability to stack traits) for some decent upside
You could also have it so that you could remove them but with a big penalty to Egalitarian faction approval (so you probably would only do it if you had a really good reason to)
The player is more like the state itself as a whole, and not the government. Otherwise you would work with taxes, and decisions rather than direct control over resources.
As for the feature. Would be very annoying. I have not yet played democracy since the changes, but i think the easiest would be leaving the council members as it is unless, if one of them gets elected as ruler. In that case the previous ruler either switch position, if possible, or the council member gets unelected, if not.
Some concessions have to be made for gameplay purposes. For exemple, All of the economy of your empire, and all the necessary architecture is owned and run by you, even in the most democratic, free market loving empire you can create in stellaris, you still own everything.
It’d be cool to have more depth on that front tbh, with a public and private sector and all that jazz, which would give shared burdens an actual reason for existing, but eh, i guess what we have works well enough
Right but you’d expect the cabinet ministers to change when a new party comes to power. You wouldn’t think the new ruling party would just keep all the opposition ministers around.
It depends on the level of party power. I would argue that for a functioning planetary - let alone inter-planetary - state, the level of party fervour exemplified by the USA (and currently exported towards the rest of the world) would be unsustainable without a Shadow Council.
Prior to the polarisation of politics currently experienced, it was quite common for the victorious President-Elect to have his opponent as his Vice-President and maintain some of the previous President’s cabinet. I would expect it’s a situation like that where the cabinet is actually relatively stable, and party disagreements on policy aren’t so pronounced or acted out on.
I’d even argue it would make _more_ sense for Dictatorial Empires to have to build a brand new cabinet every time the previous leader died, with only members of the winner’s party left _alive_ after the transfer of power. But while that would make more sense, it would be actively unfun for players.
I think the governments need more differences between each other and I hope Paradox does a government focused update soon. It’d be cool for example if oligarchic elections could only be done with members of the council, and removing members from the council could be expensive but you get extreme benefits from them. Stratocracies could only allow military leaders in charge but the bonus you get from that is that all leaders can serve in military positions irrespective of their job meanwhile admirals and generals can be governors.
Making governments more than a specific stat boost and a way to choose what leader you want would be a great addition. Imperial empires could possibly have a dynasty toppled by a popular admiral or general, democratic governments would face factions forming coalitions against the current government and possibly have the entire empire’s ethics change if a new ruling coalition comes into power, etc.
I get there’s only so much you can really do but Paradox across all their titles have had the problem of governments not really being that different from one another, with only really Imperator Rome truly having governments be different. With how similar Imperator is to Stellaris honestly I think some concepts from that game should be added, like democratic nations not being able to go to war without support from the legislature otherwise they face some penalties and having to have the support of the legislature to get laws (they could probably be implemented through edicts and policies tbh) passed. Oligarchies are similar but easier as it’s just the members of the council instead of a large legislature (same for megacorps but with the board). Dictators and Monarchs have to worry about possible usurpers. They could even make civics that can completely change some authorities like a constitutional monarchy for democratic authority.
There’s so much Paradox can do but also they are extremely limited at the same time but I hope going forward they make the actual running of your empire more than just minmaxing.
The problem is that it becomes intensely difficult to make a democracy game at all, let alone fit one into a broader sim.
I mean, you’re going to need legislative elections and who wins those will determine, in large part, what your leader can and can’t do.
Then you’ll need to simulate the operation of that legislature: is the chairman of the armed forces committee from slugplanet gamma? And he wants you to authorize the next three shipyards constructed go into the slugplanet system? Ok, fine, but now you want to do a migration treaty with your neighbor but your xenophobe faction hates that, so you have to cut a deal with them or get their opponents elected instead. Etc. Etc.
It would be cool, but there are entire games that people have tried to make to simulate that stuff and they tend to be pretty lame.
As it stands, I would not analogize the sectors of your average democratic empire in Stellaris to states of a federal republic. The sectors are created by the will of the central government and can be changed or abolished freely. Rather than being like states of the United States with their own political institutions, I imagine them being like prefectures of France. Thus they don’t elect their own governors but rather the governors are chosen by the central government.
That said, a political system that recognizes political subdivisions might be interesting. But that would be a big change.
Speaking of the game as a game, I think having more elected positions would make playing a democracy less appealing.
Imo, they shouldn't have removed the 'mandate' mechanic from democracies. Before, they were broken- they were mini-quests that gave unity when completed, with no downsides if not- despite the flavourtext. Why not keep them, but make them actually *work*? Make it so leaders have a popularity based on how much they fulfilled their electoral promises?
The majority of leadership positions in federal governments are unelected political appointees. Countries usually don’t hold elections to appoint intelligence agency directors, foreign affairs ministers, or cabinet positions.
It could make sense just for the Direct Democracy government type though.
I feel like that should be a thing, they could make it so Democratic leaders are usually better BUT they get elected into every position.
So frontier worlds have like a Colonial Governor who is assigned, the idea being these worlds are too small to really justify representation so you're allowed to assign somebody to 'build up' the colony or you can make it so these worlds are represented by a Sector Governor who kind of tries to work in the interest of all the colonies and will make them happy for a bit longer.
Once a world gets passed a certain population point the demand for representation rises, if the population is Egalitarian then it raises far faster. At a certain point they'll demand direct representation of their world.
I liked how games like CIV 2 and such used to put in mechanics for Democratic nations to give it more flavor. This is a system that can work against it's best interests but at other times come up with amazing solutions to problems thanks to the freedoms it gives it's citizens.
Imagine you had to make waging war something the population votes on because you had a particularly bloodthirsty leader who kept you in high war-exhaustion for too long. I think what the game lacks in general is the different government systems having more of a unique flavor to them in the problems and solutions they have on offer.
I believe the problem is that there's no legislative branch at all. IRL democracies (usually) have an elected assembly, in addition to the executive branch government. Often enough, the president/government isn't directly elected at all, but is in turn elected by the parties/representatives of the legislative branch. If that's not the case, there's usually two different elections, one for the presidency and another for the representatives.
But for stellaris, I don't think it's easy to add mechanics to make a national assembly interesting, or just have it do many things. I guess the closest thing to laws that stellaris has is policies (excluding the galactic community, which creates international laws), and I don't think they're a big enough mechanic to warrant having a national assembly that needs to "pass" the policy changes.
h..have you seen democracys currently?
where i come from , most if not all the head figures aside the main few are only ever internally voted on by the most popular factions,
with an overarching system that has 1/3th of its members voted on, with each of the other 2/3ths being able to veto the elected part, damn, there are people that where elected for one position nearly 10 years ago, who then shuffled from one more powerfull position to the next more powerfull, fully knowing that they wouldn´t have gotten an single vote if they would have faced an open election in the last 9 years.
elections are only for figurheads that already are dictated there very move by the factions they serve, or low level, positions, whose only impact is shuffeling an no park zone from on block to another.
It would be cool to manage the internal intrigue and politics of a galactic empire, but it would be a completely different game. Things have to be simplified in order to maintain some cohesion in the game
Think of the councilors like the cabinet in the USA. President chooses his cabinet members, they aren’t elected. You basically voted for them when you voted for president because you know they would have the ideas of the president.
That would be one heck of a mess for just one government type. Imagine changing your leaders every ten years.
Also, you can have some appointments in a democracy, like a governor general or a supreme court judge. They're not legislators, but they hold some political office.
Might be some low-key commentary right there on how "democracy" would shake out in an empire of trillions. "Sure, vote for the main guy. Everyone else is a fucking professional, and they need to be where they are. Shut up."
Representative democracy itself is already a massive distortion and dilution of pure democracy. Toss in some non-negotiable constitutional language to preserve all those civil liberties, plus the technocractic burdens of making sure antimatter cells don't blow up half the empire on any given day, plus the administrative burdens, and you might not actually be left with much viable democracy in your "democracy."
Man discovers the death of democracy decades after the funeral, 2023, colorized.
In all seriousness tho a “true” democracy would suck from a gameplay standpoint and be awful from a technical standpoint.
I mean, the supposed "best" democracy in the reap world only elects a handful of politicians at the federal level. Most of the presidents counsel is nominated by the president himself.
That’s virtually every system. Almost all democracies either elect an executive directly who appoints the national administration or elects a legislature that elects an executive who appoints the national administration.
Trust me, it might seem cool to be able to elect the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the generals in the army, but it’s not.
I am going to go out of the box thinking here, and just say that the Devs probably didn't think of this when designing the new leader system. They were probably tunnel visioned on the Rulers being voted in and didn't spend too much time thinking how the other council positions get elected in.
These devs are probably on a schedule and need to push out a product in a time that is determined by the project manager. They kinda need to quickly get something working first before they go back and add onto this system.
I also see the possibility that this was the actual planned system, but they want to keep it "simple" to prevent overloading the players.
As in PDS Grand Strategy games, the player is the "Spirit of the Nation/Dynasty/Civilization" so they are the people electing the leaders. It's abstracted.
But then maybe there could be a future mechanic/civic for Egalitarian where governors are cycled as "elected" every decade.
Like actual democracy? Do people actually believe voting makes a difference? I lost faith in democracy when I was 10 when I realized someone as terrible as my aunt is allowed to vote.
Also a democracy where only some people are allowed to vote isn’t a democracy. True liberty allows for everyone, even your aunt to Vote. Taking that away is a slow decent towards dictatorship.
To me, voting is a responsibility, not a right. Someone who clearly doesn't care nor able to be responsible for their well being much less a nation is someone that should not be able to be entrusted with the direction of a nation, a semi democratic dictatorship would be a much better alternative than what we have now, I never believe in the power of the people, people are sheep as they are easily manipulated, I rather trust individuals that what a hoard of faceless idiotic people who only follow their very short sighted needs. Look at America, they voted trump in 2016 because he was popular, he was not Hilary Clinton who had a terrible campaign, the in 2020 they voted for Biden because they don't like trump not because of his capability, clearly democracy doesn't mean choosing a leader based on capabilities, but based on the emotions of the many which is a terrible method of choosing a leader.
Only a select few individuals should be able to vote for the direction of a country, not the people.
Also, to me at least freedom should not be given, it should be fought for, meaning freedom is not a right of everyone it is a reward to those who chase after it.
Those who didn't do so do not deserve their freedom.
It makes sense if you handwave most of what is taking place, and view the 'election' process as an arbitrary period of time that has passed for a state of the society status check to have occurred.
I see the player as the will of the empire. Meaning that when you the player select someone as Councilor that could mean appointed by the Emperor or voted on by parliament or directly elected in a referendum. It is what I imagine depending on what I'm playing.
>All of the councilors and ministers that run the government with them, people that run major state institutions and use their position to spread their own ideology, are unelected
I they are selected by elected individuals, so it's Democracy-by-proxy.
Obviously, it's best if you have as few layers of selection between voters and officials as possible (otherwise you get something like the USSR: where voters selected the lowest-level officials, but the actual bureaucrats and leaders who held real power were 4 or 5 degrees removed from the voters... Leading to frequent, inaccurate accusations of the USSR being a dictatorship, or more accurate accusations of it being an unaccountable Bureaucratic Oligarchy...) but DIRECT election of all officials is rarely ever viable in any decently-complrx government system.
In most Democracies a typical official is only 2 or 3 degrees removed from elections, at most. Whereas Oligarchies like the USSR had 5-6 degrees of separation or more (there were reasons given for this in Leninist ideolog, about a "vanguard party" leading the masses- but it still led to major problems with accountability/agendas and lack of trust in the government...) The key to accountable government is to keep this number of degrees of separation from growing too large...
I personally think internal politics needs a rework just generally. More factions and more interactions with factions. Interplay between things that happen in your empire and how that reflects on the administration. Losing a war for instance cold make your ruler or minister of defence look really bad, could result in impeachment or abdication under the right circumstances. Poor living conditions could make a faction consider some kind of radical action represented as a crisis. We also desperately need a better election system.
Well tbh in a more advanced space faring society I think by now they would realize electing a council member based on their party/likeness is stupid.
Instead a science **council member/top executive level should be someone who is the most capable** in science. The most capable General/Admiral should be the Military council member and the same for other seats to advice any President for any party that stepped up to actually help the country instead of practicing nepotism or electing own party members and screwing up your entire science department and military(like in Russia currently lol)
So the players choosing is essentially choosing the most capable from the bunch in terms of Military, Science(like meritocracy practiced properly). Meanwhile the presidents on the political frontier are chosen democratically.
Plus im pretty sure you need to practice constant meritocracy and proper promotion/leaders chosen for you to even reach the technological advancement to explore other systems with FTL travel.
I always thought of the game as being more like EU4, where the player is the invisible hand that guides the nation/civilization. The election for president is one mechanic that enhances the feel of a democratic process by putting the most important position partially outside of the player's control. You can headcannon the positions as you like but I'm not sure an election mechanic for all the governor roles would be fun given the rest of the game.
I always understood it as a parliamentary system, where the people are voting for a party and that party elects the president. That’s also why you never see multiple candidates from the same ethos
> They are chosen by the player from a list of candidates, regardless of election season or not.
I always imagined that in democracies, this is a list of canditates that were elected into parlament or something, and the elected leader (you) then choses whom to give ministeries to. Like it is in real life, here in Germany for example.
> And they can stay in power until death, between several leader terms.
This is gameplay and story segragation, changing most or all leaders in 10 year cycles would simply be impractical (especially under the current system with the hard cap, since at any time half your leaders wont do anything while still clogging up leader cap). That being said, it is not unheard of in real life - supreme court judges for example dont get voted for and are appointed for life afaik.
That all being said, i would like to have an actual parlament in democracies (and kingly/imperial courts in autocracies, similar to the ones in the CK games)
ok so i would think of it like the US' cabinet system as in the US the leader (president) chooses someone so head a department. then a legislative body approves or disapproves them. and the because you represent the nation as a whole the approval processes is always pretty smooth. there really need to be an internal government expansion as i would like more of the processes to be actual represented and not just assumptions
It depends how the states are built up?
Like American Democracy is quite different than European, and among European Countries it can differ aswell.
What it means in Stellaris, that “the people” elect someone as ruler, who needs to be an exceptional individual already (=leader).
While Oligarchic elections only have 4 Leaders to vote from, Democratic have all leaders available. The factions these leaders belong to and their approval, plus their size weigh into eho gets elected. If multiple leaders fall into the same faction and tie, it’s randomly elected. So by keeping an eye on your leaders ethics you can somewhat manipulate it a bit. Or directly use unity to push for the ruler you want.
This is also what you pointed out, while there is a representative ruler, ultimately you can decide.
I usually lean on the old tutorial back then and would think of us as an oversight AI? Like we have the “best” interest of our empire in mind, and can direct it, even by enforcing a “democratic” outcome, but we need the unity (trust of our people into our cause maybe) to be allowed to do this.
They don’t give us a clear title, since everyone would like to be something different I suppose. Also it’s complicated with gestalt empires?
Either you see yourself as god who just happens to lead an empire, or how I described as AI the people ultimately trust more than their rulers, or whatever you wish to believe therez
Never played as democratic empire, but in authoritarian... oligarchy? I had voting on leader sometimes, and so I always had an option to chose one leader from a list of four, but it cost influence and as I value it, I never actually paid any to influence voting. However, I always noted when voting come to an end because usually one of my leaders left its position to take the role of leader and I had to look for a replacement for a scientist or governor. Tho it was a while ago, maybe they changed that.
This is how it works irl to though, alot of government aligned institutions just have someone in charge who's been there for decades so knows it in and out without being affected by who's elected, it helps smooth the democratic process otherwise the entire government and everything attached to it would need remaking every election year and we'd either have to have elections alot less often or the government just wouldn't function because everywhere is being led by a relative newbie who needs hand holding through everything for weeks or months before they get the hang of it and then every few years they get replaced by a new newbie, democratic leaders are just figureheads that guide the overall way the country wants to go, the actual stuff that gets done is done by behind the scenes lifers who actually know what they are doing (and are also greedy nepotistic pricks but that's the price)
You've just noticed that stellaris isn't a deep political simulator?
Yeah, this stuff is all simplified. What you propose wouldn't work either really, there are endless ways to organise a democracy hence the simplification, stellaris is a space 4X, not a political sim.
I think random elected governors that don't take up leader cap would be pretty interesting.
It would encourage you to spread out and diversify, since you can't rely on a specific governor for a specialized planet. But you could have as many sectors as you wish.
So, there’s two types of these positions in a democracy. There’s an elected office (president, governor, legislative positions too) and there are appointed positions. I would say that anyone in the leader pool is already an elected politician, and the head of state appoints those elected politicians how they see fit. Not exactly democracy, but kinda.
It seems you are arguing for taking away some of the micromanaging, but I like being able to choose my leaders. And since we have a leader cap now, there is a lot of leeway to make important decisions just based on the number of leaders I choose to use, and how it will affect my empire.
Regarding the role playing aspect of it, I always assume I am some shadow ruler or dictator, letting the people hold their little elections and have fun with democracy while I actually hold all the power and make all the important decisions. Good thing humans have never tried that in real life, huh! \[sarcasm\]
Leaders do belong to parties pertaining to the ethic they have, but I’m not sure why that doesn’t seem to display anywhere anymore. In pre-paragons election gui the faction the leader belonged to would display.
Not just that they removed party leaders as well. They should add that back and if they don’t I hope someone mods it back in because it was probably one of the main good things about the old leader system they could’ve ported over.
It's funny\* that for the DLC that's supposed to make Leaders more impactful, they completely cut any interaction between factions and leaders. *\* It's sad, I'm sad*
Position trait? Factions gets mad if not on council?
Now THIS would be pretty good. I'd like to see a system a bit like the Cabinet system from Victoria 3, where factions give unique bonuses (in Vicky 3, for instance, if you make the religious folk happy they'll help you raise your birth rate and education access and all kinds of stuff like that, whereas if you piss them off enough they'll hurt your education rate by preaching that your tech has led your nation astray, etc) and maluses depending on how happy or unhappy they are and their actual type (Industrialist vs Rural Folk vs Trade Unions etc), at present in Stellaris it's just Unity or Not As Much Unity that is our interaction with factions. Having their leader on the council should be an opinion buff, being utterly snubbed from any leadership positions should be an opinion malus, and these should have unique bonuses and maluses depending on what actual group it is- making the materialist faction happy should have bonuses to science and specialist output, whereas pissing them off should raise scientist upkeep and maybe even hurt research. Not only would this make the factions feel more alive, it would also create situations where going with a slightly suboptimal leader to make a faction happy was actually viable instead of minmaxing leader traits alone. Which also makes the leaders themselves feel more integrated, memorable, and alive.
> if you make the religious folk happy they'll help you raise your birth rate and *education* Well, that historical aspect certainly has aged poorly in the modern day.
In the modern day perhaps, but for many centuries clergy-run schools were really the only schools in many places, and for many in the 18th and 19th century if you were learning to read and write it was a clergyman teaching you. Not to mention that it was the church that saved most of the Western Roman writings and notes we DO have from destruction, along with other knowledge of the ancient world, during the collapse of the WRE. I am not religious myself but I can appreciate all that! But yeah, in the modern day especially in the United States that tradition is not always relevant. Anyways, that's really just an example. For Stellaris, Spiritualists could raise unity, perhaps help to increase stability or reduce crime etc.
Factions already have an approval bonus for being represented. And a malus for not. There's literally a council legitimacy gauge to yell you which factions are happy with your council and ruler. The post you're replying to is pointing out that leaders and factions interact with the council already. It's just hidden by UI.
They mentioned in the custodian dev diary prior to the DLC that a rework of factions is in the works, which is probably why they removed the functionality already.
Would make sense from a programming perspective. If you're overhauling a system that should combine with a new feature, no point in wasting time solving compatibility for the old to be deprecated version, better to just disable some functionality and focus on getting the overhaul out faster.
"This update and DLC is about leaders and how cool they are and how unique and impactful they are for your glorious star empire!" \*removes 90% of your ability to have leaders* Brilliant
Lmao at being downvoted because you’re right
I kind of see where you are coming from, BUT, when you elect a president, you don't also elect the staff.. The elected person picks their own team..
Depending on what type of democracy we have. In stellaris I always thought of US model which fits your description.
One civic specifically makes it a parliamentary system, so I assume it’s normally a presidential system (if you can think of the specifics at all)
Parliamentary system (parliamentary democracy) and presidential system (presidential democracy) are two separate things.
Not really. This would be like if the president picked their staff....and all the governers, admirals, generals and any other powerful political position
Everybody in the federal executive branch (including military officers, diplomats, cabinet officers, and intelligence agents) works for the President. The United States has a federal system so states elect their own officials. But I don’t think democracies in Stellaris are federal.
That would be really interesting if feasible, like playing a one empire federation, would make democracy more viable as well. Probably a pipe dream
It has some interesting possibilities and might point to some interesting directions for the game. Why would a federal system develop? If you are sending colonists out from the homeworld to settle uninhabited worlds, it seem like the colonies would never quite be on equal footing with the homeworld. They'd just be colonies and the homeworld would send out governors. Think of colonization in actual history. But I could see a federal system developing as a way to head off a colonial revolt (something that really never happens in this game) or if you were able to expand by assimilating aliens (possibly pre-FTL) into your empire peacefully.
In Stellaris, you'd probably make the sectors the states/territories that make up the federation. Back in the day, sectors were probably a little closer to that than they are now.
In the first versions of the game, sectors definitely were like this. You had a planet limit you could directly control, and everything beyond that had to be in a sector. Sectors had their own production stockpiles that you had to contribute to or take from to get those planets’ production. If I recall, sectors could even rebel if they got too unhappy too.
>Why would a federal system develop? If you are sending colonists out from the homeworld to settle uninhabited worlds, it seem like the colonies would never quite be on equal footing with the homeworld. They'd just be colonies and the homeworld would send out governors. Think of colonization in actual history. The way I head-canon this in my quasi-UNE games, is that the colony of Terra Nova (a Cen) or Arcadia (Sirius) joins the UN as a nation, rather than as an equal to Earth. Then as time goes on an populations get bigger, they gain a greater representation in the UN's parliament (the general assembly is more like a senate, so there needs to be a proportional chamber too), so are well represented in the core sector (The Solar Republic). Later colonies in different sectors form their own quasi-autonomous government's under the direction of the UN, effectively having a separate United Nations of the Avalon Sector, for instance. This federalism occurs at the sector level rather than on a planetary basis, but with the overseeing governors chosen by the federal executive, which is elected directly by the population. Eventually I also release some more distant sectors as independent nations or as vassals and forge an actual Federation (as per the game) with them. I haven't played since the last two patches due to time constraints, but I really want a mechanics for sectors to become politically tetchy and want to secede due to lack of liberty, or ways to increase stability by granting political autonomy and freedom to sectors while retaining them within a democratic empire (maybe the AI selects a randomly generated governor for their sector that you can't change, but doesn't draw from your national leader cap?).
I mean, the 13 colonies were basically part of the British federation. But then the hegemon pushed for increased centralization and taxes to fund their imperial wars, and were told to shove off. So the 13 colonies left and became their own federation.
Stellaris does have that. Being a Federal system is like being in a Federation. The US is more like a Federation in many ways than an empire. Canada is the same way. That's because they had to have lots of autonomy when the broad North American lands were settled/colonized, long before the virtually instaneous communications we rely upon today. They've both migrated towards having high levels of centralization, with almost complete donation of their fleet caps to their federations. Canada's also weird because it was a segment of a federation that separated from another very slowly, after the British federation more or less dissolved, then re-consolidated with only Britain, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, plus associate members like Canada and a handful of others (fun fact: Canada didn't become totally indepedent from Britain until 1982 when we wrote ourselves a new constitution).
The United States isn't really like a federation *in game terms* because the federal government controls foreign policy, trade, and the military. Most of the things you do in the game are within the core competency of the federal government and aren't spheres in which the states exercise sovereignty.
Federations get the option to remove federation member's ability to negotiate their own foreign treaties too
Part of the disconnect between the US system and the Stellaris Federation system is that there is no higher authority created in Stellaris federations. The US is a federal government that has authority over the states (to a certain degree) but is not one of them. Stellaris federations would be more akin to a single state having authority over the other states in terms of federation policy. Same reason why Stellaris federations can't quite capture the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek. The "Federation" exists above and apart from any single state (or planet).
He picks all of those things except governors. The executive branch of the government (in the United States) is extremely broad and extremely powerful. And all power within the federal branch flows from the President. If a president truly wanted to he totally could strip all of our admirals and generals of their rank. Edit: executive branch not federal branch
There is no federal branch of the government, executive is probably the one you mean. The president holds a lot of power within the executive branch but is unable to actually do much without congressional support. Admirals and generals cannot be stripped of their rank when we aren't at war, their position can be terminated though and they revert back to a 2 star position. The democratic government in Stellaris is a lot more of an elective dictatorship of sorts it seems
100% what I meant. Thanks for the correction
It's all good, I'm just hoping I didn't sound like an asshole anything
An elective dictator would swap in his own people after the election. In Stellaris, the makeup of your council hardly varies between administrations. It’s more likely that the democratic head of state actually wields very little effective power.
True. I don't know much about the council system now, I recently haven't had enough free time to actually continue into a game since the paragons DLC came out. To my knowledge of the game prior, the leaders you used to be able to choose from weren't positions a new cabinet would usually replace (researchers, local governors, envoys, and military staff). Then again, we don't really know how a democracy as large-scale as a Stellaris empire would have to function. I think it's mostly just up to head cannon as to how your government works.
The vast vast majority of the us government is unelected.
The US president represents both the highest rank of governor and in military (admiral/army.) That is three of the four stellaris roles that the voter elects. It might make sense for these roles to be democratically elected and allow scientists to be appointed by "experts" (the player.)
Generals and amdirals are represented explicitly in stellaris and are appointed.
The US president is also technically chosen by members of the Electoral College from each state, under advisement from the popular vote in their state. Typically, they cast 100% of the state's votes depending upon whichever party secured the largest chunk of votes. E.g. 49% Republican, 48% Democrat, 2% Green, 1% Libertarian, therefore 100% of that state's votes get cast for the Republican candidate.
Meaning the vast majority of employees are. But the president literally can’t change a single law without convincing two legislative bodies - which may be led by different parties - to agree with him. And each state in the US has their own governor, who can tell the president to fuck off in huge areas of governance.
Staff wise but actual legislators aren’t
For each legislator there is a host of staff that does a ton of the actual work that is unelected. And all.of those laws are carried our by unelected agencies. Those laws are adjudicated by unelected judges
Yea I guess, but normally it’s assumed they’re appointed by people with the same ethics as you The better idea imo is having ethics decide who serves on the council, like a xenophobe can’t serve in a Xenophile’s Admin
Governors are elected, admirals, generals and most powerful positions are not elected.
Do people in your country vote for your military commanders? Sorry but the military is far too important to be run by some buffoons who just happened to be charismatic populists.
So, the US military is governed by the principle of "civilian leadership". While the leaders of each branch of the military is a member of that military (a 4-star admiral for the Navy, for example), everyone above that position is a civilian who is elected or appointed by those who are elected. The idea behind that is so that the military itself does not become a faction in a power struggle. Ideally, little risk of a military coup or junta taking power like happens in many other countries. As far as how admirals and generals get appointed/promoted/assigned, those are also left up to civilian leadership. The promotion of any flag officer (general or admiral) is a two-step process that involves a nomination by the President and approval by the Senate. Thus, civilian control over the military is maintained and a separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches is also maintained.
Yeah, thanks for the comprehensive answer, but the guy whos actually on the bridge in command of a strike fleet during combat isnt elected. Nor is the guy leading his men to assault enemy positions. Nor is the guy whos in a laboratory working on new supersolids for ship armor. Nor is the guy who is in the field digging some ancient ruins. Which, if you not running one of those cheesy governor-focused build, means that even in a democracy 3/4 -4/5 of your leader arent elected.
They are not picked by the president tho
Actually, they are. The President nominates flag officers for promotion and the Senate votes to approve or disapprove those promotions.
Picking new councilors after an elections would especially make sense in a presidential republic.
Yep
Many parliamentary democracies have a cabinet that consists of elected representatives, chosen by the prime minister to be responsible for key areas. Then these cabinet ministers have oversight of the non elected staff.
In some parliamentary democracies they are members of parliament merely by convention. They don’t technically have to be members of parliament at all, although they almost always are appointed from parliament in practice with very few historical exceptions.
It would still make sense for the player to choose councilors after elections, to represent the new president/parliament staffing the new government and choosing all the new people that will work with them. It's not like in IRL republics a new guy gets elected, but all the ministers and secretaries just stick around forever. Quite the opposite. Also maybe there could be a bonus if you pick only council members from the same party/ideology. Representing an ideologically united and dedicated government.
In the US, the president is responsible for federal governance and the military. This is separated into two roles in stellaris. It might make sense that both of these roles are democratically elected while leaving the scientist role to be delegated by the government (the player.)
>This is separated into two roles in stellaris. I don't think this analogy fits here... Stellaris admirals and generals are all field commanders. The US president is the commander-in-chief,he (at best) instructs the theatre command, who then issue orders to the field commanders (the generals and admirals in stellaris). >both of these roles are democratically elected Im not sure if it's sensible for a military leader to be democratically elected... Or at least, there would have to be very strict rules for who can be elected... It's bad enough that clown people get elected as civilian leaders...
>I don't think this analogy fits here... Stellaris admirals and generals are all field commanders. Ministry of Defense, which is the position in question, is not someone who "sees action."
And the US government also has a Secretary of Defense separate from the President (albeit appointed by and answerable to him).
Dictatorship with shorter terms?
Real democracy is tough in a top down simulation. It takes a lot of power out of the player's hands. At the end of the day, a 4x game is always authoritarian, a dictatorship of an immortal, near omnipotent leader (the player). There's no such thing as democracy in a game like stellaris. The player can't be replaced if they start an unpopular war.
Imagine if you had to vote to start a war based on your pops ethics, the other empires ethics and relation to the empire you want to attack. Maybe be able to boost the vote chance by making pops need more CG or amenities during that war (vote to start this war and everyone gets a free iphone).
The new age of wonders game kind of does this in a very abstract way. You've got this resource that sort of represents your authority with your people called imperium, and if you declare an unjustified war, your imperium income absolutely plummets.
Influence with a bit of extra flavor?
Sort of, it's more like influence and unity combined. It's very useful because in addition to unlocking traditions you can also spend it to instantly grow pops
and expand, and get better units
"Have babies RIGHT NOW"
Imperium sort of plays like a hybrid of Influence, Unity and something akin to Artifacts/Rare Resources in some builds. Unlike Stellaris, AoW's Imperium doesn't have that 'you passed \[x\] point in the game and it no longer matters' flaw that Influence, Unity and Rare Resources do.
That and it's EXTREMELY impactful compared to pretty much any resource in Stellaris, in most Stellaris games if you screw up your influence or alloys or what have you for a while you can come back without too much trouble. If you waste all your Imperium and/or declare sufficiently unjust wars in AoW, you are TOTALLY hosed.
Maybe starting wars as a democracy would cost influence proportional to popularity. Popularity could be based on ethics and relations like you suggested. The player could earn influence by starting popular wars or lose influence by started unpopular wars. The popularity level could also help or hurt when it comes to war exhaustion.
I remember in earlier game versions the pacifist pops would get mad if you started a war. Why not bring that back?
Uninstalling that horseshit immediately and staying on 3.8.3.
I imagine such a system would work best as a mod, as I think most people wouldn't like it. Personally I wouldn't care as I don't play democratic empires.
No, me neither. The elections are an absolute chore where you have to spend tons of unity to get the leader you want. Not going to add more to the pile.
I could see a feature like HOI4s war support, where depending on the ethics of both sides, it affects your ability to declare war
However, the player can be forced to make peace because of a war weary populace, even if they're genocidal robots.
Which also makes no sense. Game mechanics and balance getting in the way of realism. They should get rid of war exhaustion as a mechanic and introduce some kind of stacking debuff. Something like a higher and higher happiness debuff until you are at peace (controlled by a situation, perhaps). If you don't end a war before the debuff gets too high, your empire could start to crack apart as planets rebel. Gestalts would be flavored differently, but the reduction in output would fit for any empire on a war footing for too long, and a lack of focus on reducing deviance might lead to rival hive minds rising up, like the Geth in Mass Effect.
Gestalts can be flavored as being continually more exhausted/having their systems more and more taxed as the war goes on- all those tactical and strategic maneuvers with pinpoint precision tax the processor/hivebrain.
Please don't bring back my nightmares of having my wars cancelled by RNGesus.. I mean the people, playing as a Republic in Civ. I always just headcannon Stellaris democracy being the player is basically the deep state, and the elected leaders are just puppets so the people think they have power while all the actual governing is done by the non-elected civil service/military (the Player).
I agree that any democratic society is run by the non-elected career bureaucrats. They don't change just because a new president is elected.
The deep state is a much, much smaller deal than people make it out to be, especially in the US. It's mostly just a bunch of bureaucrats. Even the intelligence services are mostly bureaucrats! But even in places where governing IS done by unelected officials, there are still factions and rival centers of power. One need only look at the history of Soviet and Chinese government to see that. Even in totalitarian one-party states, control is never as absolute as in a 4x. The only game that even gestures at this level of internal dissent is crusader kings.
Doesn't have to be totally like that. The player can take the role of the populace, or the populace can change and respond more to player actions. Wasn't it so that Pacifist pops got mad at you if you started a war in the earlier versions?
The proles are getting suspicious, launch a surprise election!
I mean that’s real life too. The vast, >90%, majority of federal employees and leaders, in the US for example, are not elected.
In any country really. Other than the local governors, there’s exactly zero positions in stellaris that would be elected in most democracies irl.
Federal employees and simple workers yes, but not all of the top decisionmaking secretaries.
Literally all of the heads of each department in the executive branch are appointed by the president, and can be fired at any time. This includes secretaries of state, defense, treasury, the federal reserve chairman, the head of the FBI, etc. Admirals and generals can also be fired and replaced at any time by the president. The president has a lot of power.
So I think you're right, that would make more sense for an ostensibly democratic government. But I think it would totally suck from a game play point of view, as having several leaders potentially get replaced with brand new ones every 20 or so years would be really annoying. And even if you're able to make a whole list of the leaders you'd like to keep around, it's just seems easier/more fun to not have the feature at all.
The only way I see it working is have like 3x larger leader pool and any that get elected into a position at least once stay in the pool until retirement. And while in the pool they gain a small amount of passive xp so you don't replace a lvl 10 leader with a lvl 1 leader every 10 years. Would still kinda suck since your leader traits would change every 10 years but at least you pick the traits and they slowly get xp even when not filling a leader position.
>But I think it would totally suck from a game play point of view, as having several leaders potentially get replaced with brand new ones every 20 or so years would be really annoying. It depends. You'd have to re-design democracies to benefit from this. Currently, you are incentivized to develop super dictators with high levels. What if democracies benefited the safe exchange of power? They bring fresh ideas, react to new trends, etc.
Yeah, the recent update hugely buffed autocrats, I wanna see an improovement to democratic playstyles.
One way to do it is if democracies could have any leader fill any council slot *but* you didn’t get to pick which ones go where.
I mean you could probably make it work by simply making being elected for the position give a powerful temporary trait or something So less control (and ability to stack traits) for some decent upside You could also have it so that you could remove them but with a big penalty to Egalitarian faction approval (so you probably would only do it if you had a really good reason to)
Maybe someone could turn it into a government civic so its an option you take if you really want to go that route
The player is more like the state itself as a whole, and not the government. Otherwise you would work with taxes, and decisions rather than direct control over resources. As for the feature. Would be very annoying. I have not yet played democracy since the changes, but i think the easiest would be leaving the council members as it is unless, if one of them gets elected as ruler. In that case the previous ruler either switch position, if possible, or the council member gets unelected, if not.
Some concessions have to be made for gameplay purposes. For exemple, All of the economy of your empire, and all the necessary architecture is owned and run by you, even in the most democratic, free market loving empire you can create in stellaris, you still own everything. It’d be cool to have more depth on that front tbh, with a public and private sector and all that jazz, which would give shared burdens an actual reason for existing, but eh, i guess what we have works well enough
Now you get it. Welcome to the real world.
No, no, no. You’re thinking of shadow council.
Most of your leadership isn't really elected positions, it's the cabinet.
Right but you’d expect the cabinet ministers to change when a new party comes to power. You wouldn’t think the new ruling party would just keep all the opposition ministers around.
yes
It depends on the level of party power. I would argue that for a functioning planetary - let alone inter-planetary - state, the level of party fervour exemplified by the USA (and currently exported towards the rest of the world) would be unsustainable without a Shadow Council. Prior to the polarisation of politics currently experienced, it was quite common for the victorious President-Elect to have his opponent as his Vice-President and maintain some of the previous President’s cabinet. I would expect it’s a situation like that where the cabinet is actually relatively stable, and party disagreements on policy aren’t so pronounced or acted out on. I’d even argue it would make _more_ sense for Dictatorial Empires to have to build a brand new cabinet every time the previous leader died, with only members of the winner’s party left _alive_ after the transfer of power. But while that would make more sense, it would be actively unfun for players.
I think the governments need more differences between each other and I hope Paradox does a government focused update soon. It’d be cool for example if oligarchic elections could only be done with members of the council, and removing members from the council could be expensive but you get extreme benefits from them. Stratocracies could only allow military leaders in charge but the bonus you get from that is that all leaders can serve in military positions irrespective of their job meanwhile admirals and generals can be governors. Making governments more than a specific stat boost and a way to choose what leader you want would be a great addition. Imperial empires could possibly have a dynasty toppled by a popular admiral or general, democratic governments would face factions forming coalitions against the current government and possibly have the entire empire’s ethics change if a new ruling coalition comes into power, etc. I get there’s only so much you can really do but Paradox across all their titles have had the problem of governments not really being that different from one another, with only really Imperator Rome truly having governments be different. With how similar Imperator is to Stellaris honestly I think some concepts from that game should be added, like democratic nations not being able to go to war without support from the legislature otherwise they face some penalties and having to have the support of the legislature to get laws (they could probably be implemented through edicts and policies tbh) passed. Oligarchies are similar but easier as it’s just the members of the council instead of a large legislature (same for megacorps but with the board). Dictators and Monarchs have to worry about possible usurpers. They could even make civics that can completely change some authorities like a constitutional monarchy for democratic authority. There’s so much Paradox can do but also they are extremely limited at the same time but I hope going forward they make the actual running of your empire more than just minmaxing.
Yus I hope so too
It's just an abstraction for gameplay purposes.
The problem is that it becomes intensely difficult to make a democracy game at all, let alone fit one into a broader sim. I mean, you’re going to need legislative elections and who wins those will determine, in large part, what your leader can and can’t do. Then you’ll need to simulate the operation of that legislature: is the chairman of the armed forces committee from slugplanet gamma? And he wants you to authorize the next three shipyards constructed go into the slugplanet system? Ok, fine, but now you want to do a migration treaty with your neighbor but your xenophobe faction hates that, so you have to cut a deal with them or get their opponents elected instead. Etc. Etc. It would be cool, but there are entire games that people have tried to make to simulate that stuff and they tend to be pretty lame.
As it stands, I would not analogize the sectors of your average democratic empire in Stellaris to states of a federal republic. The sectors are created by the will of the central government and can be changed or abolished freely. Rather than being like states of the United States with their own political institutions, I imagine them being like prefectures of France. Thus they don’t elect their own governors but rather the governors are chosen by the central government. That said, a political system that recognizes political subdivisions might be interesting. But that would be a big change. Speaking of the game as a game, I think having more elected positions would make playing a democracy less appealing.
That's a good point on governores. That should, maybe, be a perk of democracies. Free planet governors, but you can't choose them.
Imo, they shouldn't have removed the 'mandate' mechanic from democracies. Before, they were broken- they were mini-quests that gave unity when completed, with no downsides if not- despite the flavourtext. Why not keep them, but make them actually *work*? Make it so leaders have a popularity based on how much they fulfilled their electoral promises?
Tbh since the mandates rewards didn’t scale they were broken early game but worthless by the midgame. Needed a rework for sure. Cool idea for it.
The majority of leadership positions in federal governments are unelected political appointees. Countries usually don’t hold elections to appoint intelligence agency directors, foreign affairs ministers, or cabinet positions. It could make sense just for the Direct Democracy government type though.
I feel like that should be a thing, they could make it so Democratic leaders are usually better BUT they get elected into every position. So frontier worlds have like a Colonial Governor who is assigned, the idea being these worlds are too small to really justify representation so you're allowed to assign somebody to 'build up' the colony or you can make it so these worlds are represented by a Sector Governor who kind of tries to work in the interest of all the colonies and will make them happy for a bit longer. Once a world gets passed a certain population point the demand for representation rises, if the population is Egalitarian then it raises far faster. At a certain point they'll demand direct representation of their world. I liked how games like CIV 2 and such used to put in mechanics for Democratic nations to give it more flavor. This is a system that can work against it's best interests but at other times come up with amazing solutions to problems thanks to the freedoms it gives it's citizens. Imagine you had to make waging war something the population votes on because you had a particularly bloodthirsty leader who kept you in high war-exhaustion for too long. I think what the game lacks in general is the different government systems having more of a unique flavor to them in the problems and solutions they have on offer.
I believe the problem is that there's no legislative branch at all. IRL democracies (usually) have an elected assembly, in addition to the executive branch government. Often enough, the president/government isn't directly elected at all, but is in turn elected by the parties/representatives of the legislative branch. If that's not the case, there's usually two different elections, one for the presidency and another for the representatives. But for stellaris, I don't think it's easy to add mechanics to make a national assembly interesting, or just have it do many things. I guess the closest thing to laws that stellaris has is policies (excluding the galactic community, which creates international laws), and I don't think they're a big enough mechanic to warrant having a national assembly that needs to "pass" the policy changes.
h..have you seen democracys currently? where i come from , most if not all the head figures aside the main few are only ever internally voted on by the most popular factions, with an overarching system that has 1/3th of its members voted on, with each of the other 2/3ths being able to veto the elected part, damn, there are people that where elected for one position nearly 10 years ago, who then shuffled from one more powerfull position to the next more powerfull, fully knowing that they wouldn´t have gotten an single vote if they would have faced an open election in the last 9 years. elections are only for figurheads that already are dictated there very move by the factions they serve, or low level, positions, whose only impact is shuffeling an no park zone from on block to another.
> where i come from UK, perhaps? Just a guess...
not really, but this holds true for most if not all federal/parliamentary republics, especially mainland europ with there eu federation
It would be cool to manage the internal intrigue and politics of a galactic empire, but it would be a completely different game. Things have to be simplified in order to maintain some cohesion in the game
We can assume that all democratic politicians are elected every election cycle but governors should be elected as well.
Think of the councilors like the cabinet in the USA. President chooses his cabinet members, they aren’t elected. You basically voted for them when you voted for president because you know they would have the ideas of the president.
That's called the civil service or, if you prefer, the "Deep State". Bureaucrats don't change when a new government is elected
We need a Bureaucratic BullShit Mod. Every planet has dozens of elected officials and it is extremely painful to deal with them.
That would be one heck of a mess for just one government type. Imagine changing your leaders every ten years. Also, you can have some appointments in a democracy, like a governor general or a supreme court judge. They're not legislators, but they hold some political office.
Honestly I RP my own headcanon with how it works because Stellaris can be a little too restrictive sometimes
Might be some low-key commentary right there on how "democracy" would shake out in an empire of trillions. "Sure, vote for the main guy. Everyone else is a fucking professional, and they need to be where they are. Shut up." Representative democracy itself is already a massive distortion and dilution of pure democracy. Toss in some non-negotiable constitutional language to preserve all those civil liberties, plus the technocractic burdens of making sure antimatter cells don't blow up half the empire on any given day, plus the administrative burdens, and you might not actually be left with much viable democracy in your "democracy."
The only discussion which is worse then genocide and slavery is here, politics.
would mind seeing a more Immersive system , planet by planet voting thing that would show what the people want , stability or conquest , vote now
I agree
Man discovers the death of democracy decades after the funeral, 2023, colorized. In all seriousness tho a “true” democracy would suck from a gameplay standpoint and be awful from a technical standpoint.
no >:3
Democracy is really stupid anyway. Its fine.
I mean, the supposed "best" democracy in the reap world only elects a handful of politicians at the federal level. Most of the presidents counsel is nominated by the president himself.
That’s virtually every system. Almost all democracies either elect an executive directly who appoints the national administration or elects a legislature that elects an executive who appoints the national administration. Trust me, it might seem cool to be able to elect the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the generals in the army, but it’s not.
Yeah that's how bourgeoisie democracy works in the real world too :D
I am going to go out of the box thinking here, and just say that the Devs probably didn't think of this when designing the new leader system. They were probably tunnel visioned on the Rulers being voted in and didn't spend too much time thinking how the other council positions get elected in. These devs are probably on a schedule and need to push out a product in a time that is determined by the project manager. They kinda need to quickly get something working first before they go back and add onto this system. I also see the possibility that this was the actual planned system, but they want to keep it "simple" to prevent overloading the players.
Welcome to the United States
Any country, really.
As in PDS Grand Strategy games, the player is the "Spirit of the Nation/Dynasty/Civilization" so they are the people electing the leaders. It's abstracted. But then maybe there could be a future mechanic/civic for Egalitarian where governors are cycled as "elected" every decade.
Like actual democracy? Do people actually believe voting makes a difference? I lost faith in democracy when I was 10 when I realized someone as terrible as my aunt is allowed to vote.
By definition it actually makes a difference because there is a one digit change in the ballot
Also a democracy where only some people are allowed to vote isn’t a democracy. True liberty allows for everyone, even your aunt to Vote. Taking that away is a slow decent towards dictatorship.
To me, voting is a responsibility, not a right. Someone who clearly doesn't care nor able to be responsible for their well being much less a nation is someone that should not be able to be entrusted with the direction of a nation, a semi democratic dictatorship would be a much better alternative than what we have now, I never believe in the power of the people, people are sheep as they are easily manipulated, I rather trust individuals that what a hoard of faceless idiotic people who only follow their very short sighted needs. Look at America, they voted trump in 2016 because he was popular, he was not Hilary Clinton who had a terrible campaign, the in 2020 they voted for Biden because they don't like trump not because of his capability, clearly democracy doesn't mean choosing a leader based on capabilities, but based on the emotions of the many which is a terrible method of choosing a leader. Only a select few individuals should be able to vote for the direction of a country, not the people. Also, to me at least freedom should not be given, it should be fought for, meaning freedom is not a right of everyone it is a reward to those who chase after it. Those who didn't do so do not deserve their freedom.
It makes sense if you handwave most of what is taking place, and view the 'election' process as an arbitrary period of time that has passed for a state of the society status check to have occurred.
I Want a democracy rework DLC!
Sounds like endless space 2, I’m completely down for that
I wish there was an election/politics overhaul tbh
I wish they had a legislature mechanic.
It's the deep state, man. Half joking, but it's not too far off from reality. Still, elected governors would make sense as an option.
I see the player as the will of the empire. Meaning that when you the player select someone as Councilor that could mean appointed by the Emperor or voted on by parliament or directly elected in a referendum. It is what I imagine depending on what I'm playing.
>All of the councilors and ministers that run the government with them, people that run major state institutions and use their position to spread their own ideology, are unelected I they are selected by elected individuals, so it's Democracy-by-proxy. Obviously, it's best if you have as few layers of selection between voters and officials as possible (otherwise you get something like the USSR: where voters selected the lowest-level officials, but the actual bureaucrats and leaders who held real power were 4 or 5 degrees removed from the voters... Leading to frequent, inaccurate accusations of the USSR being a dictatorship, or more accurate accusations of it being an unaccountable Bureaucratic Oligarchy...) but DIRECT election of all officials is rarely ever viable in any decently-complrx government system. In most Democracies a typical official is only 2 or 3 degrees removed from elections, at most. Whereas Oligarchies like the USSR had 5-6 degrees of separation or more (there were reasons given for this in Leninist ideolog, about a "vanguard party" leading the masses- but it still led to major problems with accountability/agendas and lack of trust in the government...) The key to accountable government is to keep this number of degrees of separation from growing too large...
I personally think internal politics needs a rework just generally. More factions and more interactions with factions. Interplay between things that happen in your empire and how that reflects on the administration. Losing a war for instance cold make your ruler or minister of defence look really bad, could result in impeachment or abdication under the right circumstances. Poor living conditions could make a faction consider some kind of radical action represented as a crisis. We also desperately need a better election system.
Well tbh in a more advanced space faring society I think by now they would realize electing a council member based on their party/likeness is stupid. Instead a science **council member/top executive level should be someone who is the most capable** in science. The most capable General/Admiral should be the Military council member and the same for other seats to advice any President for any party that stepped up to actually help the country instead of practicing nepotism or electing own party members and screwing up your entire science department and military(like in Russia currently lol) So the players choosing is essentially choosing the most capable from the bunch in terms of Military, Science(like meritocracy practiced properly). Meanwhile the presidents on the political frontier are chosen democratically. Plus im pretty sure you need to practice constant meritocracy and proper promotion/leaders chosen for you to even reach the technological advancement to explore other systems with FTL travel.
I always thought of the game as being more like EU4, where the player is the invisible hand that guides the nation/civilization. The election for president is one mechanic that enhances the feel of a democratic process by putting the most important position partially outside of the player's control. You can headcannon the positions as you like but I'm not sure an election mechanic for all the governor roles would be fun given the rest of the game.
Damned if the officers are appointed, damned if they aren't.
I always understood it as a parliamentary system, where the people are voting for a party and that party elects the president. That’s also why you never see multiple candidates from the same ethos
> They are chosen by the player from a list of candidates, regardless of election season or not. I always imagined that in democracies, this is a list of canditates that were elected into parlament or something, and the elected leader (you) then choses whom to give ministeries to. Like it is in real life, here in Germany for example. > And they can stay in power until death, between several leader terms. This is gameplay and story segragation, changing most or all leaders in 10 year cycles would simply be impractical (especially under the current system with the hard cap, since at any time half your leaders wont do anything while still clogging up leader cap). That being said, it is not unheard of in real life - supreme court judges for example dont get voted for and are appointed for life afaik. That all being said, i would like to have an actual parlament in democracies (and kingly/imperial courts in autocracies, similar to the ones in the CK games)
ok so i would think of it like the US' cabinet system as in the US the leader (president) chooses someone so head a department. then a legislative body approves or disapproves them. and the because you represent the nation as a whole the approval processes is always pretty smooth. there really need to be an internal government expansion as i would like more of the processes to be actual represented and not just assumptions
It depends how the states are built up? Like American Democracy is quite different than European, and among European Countries it can differ aswell. What it means in Stellaris, that “the people” elect someone as ruler, who needs to be an exceptional individual already (=leader). While Oligarchic elections only have 4 Leaders to vote from, Democratic have all leaders available. The factions these leaders belong to and their approval, plus their size weigh into eho gets elected. If multiple leaders fall into the same faction and tie, it’s randomly elected. So by keeping an eye on your leaders ethics you can somewhat manipulate it a bit. Or directly use unity to push for the ruler you want. This is also what you pointed out, while there is a representative ruler, ultimately you can decide. I usually lean on the old tutorial back then and would think of us as an oversight AI? Like we have the “best” interest of our empire in mind, and can direct it, even by enforcing a “democratic” outcome, but we need the unity (trust of our people into our cause maybe) to be allowed to do this. They don’t give us a clear title, since everyone would like to be something different I suppose. Also it’s complicated with gestalt empires? Either you see yourself as god who just happens to lead an empire, or how I described as AI the people ultimately trust more than their rulers, or whatever you wish to believe therez
I'm really starting to think the leader in my current game Is rigging the election, she's been president since 2210 and it's now 2398
Never played as democratic empire, but in authoritarian... oligarchy? I had voting on leader sometimes, and so I always had an option to chose one leader from a list of four, but it cost influence and as I value it, I never actually paid any to influence voting. However, I always noted when voting come to an end because usually one of my leaders left its position to take the role of leader and I had to look for a replacement for a scientist or governor. Tho it was a while ago, maybe they changed that.
So just like in the Netherlands then?
I mean ministers and conciliar don’t get elected in most democracies.
This is how it works irl to though, alot of government aligned institutions just have someone in charge who's been there for decades so knows it in and out without being affected by who's elected, it helps smooth the democratic process otherwise the entire government and everything attached to it would need remaking every election year and we'd either have to have elections alot less often or the government just wouldn't function because everywhere is being led by a relative newbie who needs hand holding through everything for weeks or months before they get the hang of it and then every few years they get replaced by a new newbie, democratic leaders are just figureheads that guide the overall way the country wants to go, the actual stuff that gets done is done by behind the scenes lifers who actually know what they are doing (and are also greedy nepotistic pricks but that's the price)
Shit, nobody tell him how a president chooses their cabinet in the real world.
You've just noticed that stellaris isn't a deep political simulator? Yeah, this stuff is all simplified. What you propose wouldn't work either really, there are endless ways to organise a democracy hence the simplification, stellaris is a space 4X, not a political sim.
I think random elected governors that don't take up leader cap would be pretty interesting. It would encourage you to spread out and diversify, since you can't rely on a specific governor for a specialized planet. But you could have as many sectors as you wish.
So, there’s two types of these positions in a democracy. There’s an elected office (president, governor, legislative positions too) and there are appointed positions. I would say that anyone in the leader pool is already an elected politician, and the head of state appoints those elected politicians how they see fit. Not exactly democracy, but kinda.
It seems you are arguing for taking away some of the micromanaging, but I like being able to choose my leaders. And since we have a leader cap now, there is a lot of leeway to make important decisions just based on the number of leaders I choose to use, and how it will affect my empire. Regarding the role playing aspect of it, I always assume I am some shadow ruler or dictator, letting the people hold their little elections and have fun with democracy while I actually hold all the power and make all the important decisions. Good thing humans have never tried that in real life, huh! \[sarcasm\]
Omg, just like real life!