Stellaris

Stellaris

*Outdated—remake in progress* Balanced Political Power (& unity gained from factions)
30 Comments
K0rruptedYouth 16 May, 2023 @ 11:26am 
Love the mod! Will need to be updated to 3.8.
Tsundak  [author] 19 Apr, 2023 @ 2:58pm 
Sorry for the wait peeples, it's been a while, but this has been updated now.

@Wintermist, no promises but I may have a look into that at some point.

@Celestial Tesla, hopefully you'll be getting that unity now and you're welcome! It is silly how little unity Utopian abundance makes without this mod.
Celestial Tesla 2 Apr, 2023 @ 12:29pm 
Yep, mod not working right, my Utopia abundance citizens just are not feeling that unity despite having all their needs meet. And Thank you for all the work you to do fix obvious bullshit like this, that the devs just ignore, cause this game is just too frustrating to play vanilla for reasons like this.
Wintermist 29 Mar, 2023 @ 1:26pm 
If you are updating these, would it be possible to add Ethics & Civics (bug branch etc) support too?
Tsundak  [author] 29 Mar, 2023 @ 5:12am 
@Chocola
Yeah, it was silly how messed up political power was, your welcome!
I need to check, edit (if necessary), and update all my Stellaris mods. I'll be doing this soon.
Chocola 28 Mar, 2023 @ 2:39pm 
In 3.7 (assuming 3.6 worked), living standards were moved from /common/species_rights to /common/species_rights/living_standards, looks like the only thing needed to update the mod to 3.7
Chocola 28 Mar, 2023 @ 1:59pm 
Pretty sure vanilla's values were designed when the absolute political power didn't matter, only relative within a living standard, it hits utopian abundance so hard it's funny, thank you for this!
Tsundak  [author] 14 Oct, 2022 @ 7:06pm 
Yes, sorry. Long story short, I updated it but I didn't have the original files anymore and it became an empty mod that wouldn't do anything, so I just had to delete it. Same thing happened with my old district & building refunds mod but I've got a new & improved version of that out now too. Annoying but hopefully people can find these new ones.
mtry240700 14 Oct, 2022 @ 6:18pm 
the original mod disappear?
Tsundak  [author] 14 Oct, 2022 @ 1:30am 
No, you can put it anywhere in the mod list
Orionox 14 Oct, 2022 @ 1:28am 
does load order matter?
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 11:35pm 
I've added a consumer goods upkeep chart to images above, so you and others can compare the upkeep difference between living standards.
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 11:34pm 
On top of that, you have access to utopian abundance. So, once you have enough consumer goods for that, you'll be swimming in unity.
Utopian abundance + Egalitarian factions double unity (from the shared burdens civic) = biggest profit. I don't think there's any other way to get more faction unity income than this.
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 11:34pm 
That being said, the shared burdens civic doubles unity from the Egalitarian faction, so your pops (with shared burdens living standards) 1.6 (+60%) political power will be worth 3.2 (+220%) for that faction, whereas pops under social welfare only have 2 (+100%) political power (except rulers, but they are few in number). Chances are the majority of your pops will be in the Egalitarian faction, since your empire will be fanatic Egalitarian (you have to be for shared burdens). So you should still have a good amount of unity from factions coming in. Hard to say how it compares to social welfare overall, but I think you'll be at least as well off.
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 11:34pm 
This is because social welfare has higher consumer goods upkeep, if I increase shared burdens political power it would break balance. I haven't chosen the specific amounts of political power, I used the following formula:
At an upkeep of 0.25 consumer goods, pops receive no modifier. For every 0.05 upkeep less than 0.25, pops receive -10% of their base political power. For every 0.05 upkeep more than 0.25, pops receive +20% of their base political power. This formula ensures balance.
doctornull 12 Oct, 2022 @ 10:18pm 
Glad to help.

So, for your version of Shared Burdens, it looks like total faction unity is going to be lower than Social Welfare, which is rough since Shared Burdens only gets the lifestyle and the housing building.

Could you adjust Shared Burdens to be better at faction unity than Decent Conditions & Social Welfare (but still inferior to Utopian Abundance)?
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 6:23pm 
Thank you for pointing this out to me. I've updated the mod description accordingly.
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 6:04pm 
Oh that's a surprise to me too! I hadn't thought about the new unity rework. I've done some testing and, you're right, this does effect unity gained from factions. All my pops have utopian abundance & so, my factions gain a significant amount more unity from those pops supporting them. Which, I feel, makes sense because of their very high living standards. A happy coincidence, that my mod fixes this too!
doctornull 12 Oct, 2022 @ 5:10pm 
According to some smart people on the PDX forum, faction unity is multiplied by political power -- so vanilla Shared Burdens is under-powered in terms of faction unity since it's got less total political power (across all faction-capable pops) than any other lifestyle.

This was a surprise to me, so I went looking for a mod to balance political power better, and here we are.
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 3:14pm 
@Arievilo You're welcome, enjoy! :)
arieviloj 12 Oct, 2022 @ 2:52pm 
@Tsundak no p i just have time r now will start a save many tnx!
Tsundak  [author] 12 Oct, 2022 @ 2:37pm 
It doesn't affect the faction unity buff, only the amount of political power pops have.
With the shared burdens civic, you won't feel the effect of this mod very much because the only living standards you can use is shared burdens, utopian abundance & chemical bliss.
Because pops with utopian abundance or chemical bliss have more consumer goods upkeep, they will have more political power than those with shared burdens (in unmodified Stellaris, there was no difference between them).
doctornull 12 Oct, 2022 @ 1:39pm 
How does your buffed Shared Burdens stack up with the vanilla buff to faction unity?
Tsundak  [author] 11 Oct, 2022 @ 6:44pm 
Sooo... I put a 000_ prefix on the name file which makes it load first but obviously we want it to load last. I've now put a zzz_ prefix on the file name & just to make sure I tested the game with just Starnet AI & Pops Political Power Expanded. It's definitely working now & it doesn't matter where you put it in the mod launcher.
Tsundak  [author] 11 Oct, 2022 @ 6:19pm 
okay, it should work now
Tsundak  [author] 11 Oct, 2022 @ 6:17pm 
Just realised I need change to the name of the living standards file so that it can load after Starnet AI. I'll do that now
Tsundak  [author] 11 Oct, 2022 @ 6:10pm 
You're welcome :)
arieviloj 11 Oct, 2022 @ 6:09pm 
great, tnx!
Tsundak  [author] 11 Oct, 2022 @ 5:46pm 
I've had a look at the files and Starnet AI does edit living standards. I only edited 2 files, but that is one of them.
It's looks like all they've done is make some changes to AI decision weights, so it should be safe to play with both Starnet AI & Pops Political Power Expanded. Just load Pops Political Power Expanded after Starnet AI (put it lower down the list in the launcher).
arieviloj 11 Oct, 2022 @ 4:33pm 
Awesome idea. Its ok to use w starnet AI?