@Gavril: If there's enough demand, I may reconsider. Currently have only 1 actual modded generic origin though and announced origins like "Prosperous Unification" would probably be something like the one I have anyway.

Wait Wait! I would love a developing ethics mod! And your origins may not be included! I really hope you will be willing to take another look at this after the 'patch' hits!

@Halo Violetta Zappa: I thought about it but chose against it because it might give democracies and oligarchies/corporations a big edge (especially oligarchies/corporations because of agendas and +1 ethic every 20 years). This also made me think about changing the files for factions again as well so I might actually consider reverting to the 6/5 version, which would still work fine with the current version except for a few random things to iron out.

what do you think of the idea of having elections also shift your ethics?
like, for example, if a leader which represents a faction wins the election, your ethics shift toward the ethic his faction represents. i suggest this because while i may have 70% of my empire xenophile, my ethics are not at all xenophlie and the xenophile ruler is constantly re-elected.

UPDATE:
-Idealistic Foundation civic now actually available for corporate empires.
-Changed Idealistic Foundation localization to say that it keeps all of your ethics at game-start.
-Created 3 opportunities for regular empires that don't have at least 3 ethics points used up to choose ethics as game goes on (because that's literally the point of this mod) when: 1) having a neighboring empire of any kind OR 15 years have passed since game start. 2) 5 years have passed after the Galactic Market is founded. 3) 1 year has passed after the Mid-Game start year.
-Removed changes for dealing with reform government and embrace faction influence cost for the sake of compatibility and because of the above change.
-The two previous changes fixes a version change oversight (used to work in another previous patch but didn't last patch) where the AI would not even try to embrace factions to gain any ethics.

Ah, that's it. Nevermind me then, mod's working a-ok!

@warriorandtoaster: If you picked the Idealistic Foundation civic, your ethics will not be wiped. I'll add localization to say that. Also, you have to wait a day for the ethics wipe to happen but I think you already did that since the AI was ethics-wiped.

To be even more precise, the player doesn't get their ethics wiped, but the AI players do.

Oh, to be more precise, the hidden event that wipes your ethics doesn't happen. I can still see the civic changes and faction embracing is cheaper than vanilla.

Beta patch stopped this from working, I think.

Thank you!

Never mind, found the error. Expect a patch soon.

I mean, I had a saved game with your mod running, then you patched it, and then I lost my one starting civic, which was Mechanist.

@warriorandtoaster: If you're talking about empire creation/selection, then that's normal since empires are restricted to one starting civic in this mod. Empire creation apparently doesn't count civics that are valid but not pickable as invalid so you may also see non-origin civics as your one civic when starting out (I have a countermeasure for this problem after game start anyway). If you're talking about an existing saves, this mod is designed for new games. Otherwise, I need more information to go on.

Uh, I just lost my Mechanist starting civic with the patch.

@warriorandtoaster: Good catch. Fixed, along with Technocracy being restricted to Fanatic Materialist as it should be.

How expensive is embracing an ethic supposed to be? It's 500 influence for me, which is definitely a sign the mod's not working completely.

This is such a cool mod i know pdx tryed to let you have some flexablity with the groups but thats a mess and most of the time you lose the one you wanan keep

UPDATE:
For Civic Modders: The compatibility template will have a small but significant change.

-All empires now have their generated AI personalities checked (and implemented as a flag, if needed) before clearing ethics. This will ensure that the AI will start off having a personality instead of being Despicable Neutrals for the most part. Once an AI empire has 2 or more ethic points used, the normal requirements for AI personalities will be used. (changes "common/personalities/00_personalities.txt")
-Changed so that the mod only starts clearing ethics after 1 in-game day. This is due to AI personalities triggering 1 day after game start for empires other than players.

@Melody: In terms of game mechanics, I see this as more of a policy/AI opinion issue than an ethic issue but I'll see what I can do without messing with compatibility.

psssssst

let gestalt conciousness have other ethics. that's one of my big complaints with vanilla stellaris. Just because they all have the same opinion doesn't mean they don't have an opinion.

like, they see other life forms capable of thought and decide "hey, we should treat these creatures like this".

you can nerf GC itself to compensate. They don't have factions so it may need to be event based. Say, upon contact with 3 other empires, choose an ethic, another 50 years later, only get two ethics b/c GC.
Devouring Swarm and the like may need some looking at.

Ahh okay, you've got it, I was using fanatic purifiers. That makes it possibly a little too powerful! But then you said you need to rebalance the civics.

@The Three:
Some civics require that you have all your ethics intact or else they would deactivate, like Fanatic Purifiers. Gestalt Consciousness empires will always keep that ethic as it'd make no sense to clear those either. And then there's certain ones that require only one or two ethics, like Agrarian Idyll or Inwards Perfection (Barbaric Despoilers is an example but I made it so that having that civic leaves your ethics intact).

If that civic was not one of those civics, tell me which civic you picked and I'll look into it as long as it's not a civic from another mod.

Doesn't seem to really be working for me for some reason. I'm restricted to one civic, but when I start the game I have all my ethics intact as I'd selected them.

To add to the faction/ethics development, I am likely going to change how/when factions spawn since at minimum, they spawn 11 years into the game AND require you to "encounter another species", which can potentially be around 30 years on some occasions (which seems too late for me in terms of getting influence as a regular empire).

@Anti-Bully Ranger:
-Ethics attraction on its own is mostly evenly split in the early game (assuming you're not picking the origin civics that require ethics) so you should be getting almost all of the factions after 11 years. If you pick Xenophile or Spiritualist during empire creation, you'll gain ethics attraction toward it, moreso if you pick the fanatic version.
-For the pacifist/xenophobe swap, it's mainly just to nerf Fanatic Purifiers since they would start with Fanatic Xenophobe, which would allow them to snowball a lot more quickly than a normal empire by default. I already directly nerfed civics with Total War CBs in general though, so I'm not sure if it's overkill. Would need to test things more.

This is most definitely an interesting mod that lets you build lore rich, fleshed out empires, but faction and ethic development is weird. Spiritualist and Xenophile being exceedingly difficult to gain early enough for it to benefit you.

Empire bonuses for being pacifist and xenophobe are swapped.
Why? What is your logic for doing this switch?

Awesome idea! Unfortunately I don't know how playable it will be until you get some of those things on the to-do list done.