ES2 Politics Guide

Endless space 2

Politics guide

Intro. If you have read the original version you might have noticed some changes. They were necessary because typing out guides half asleep is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it. Each part except this one has a picture in the album (http://imgur.com/a/IsnFe) named after it. Use them for reference.


Part 1. Political Landscaping.

Politics in ES2 attempt to represent how your pops react to events and how that reaction reflects on your government. You could say "No shit", but I find that most people don't understand what that entails.

First and foremost: each system has it's own political landscape. It starts at 100% support for the faction of the coloniser's default pop preference, and then it's slowly eroded into a more diverse setup. There is no empire wide political landscape, each system acts independently and votes independently. So when trying to boost scientists don't bother building patrol ships on your fuck off colony, do it in the most populated hub world you have. In every hub world you have. It goes like this:

1. Event with political marker occurs.
2. Political marker applied to systems, and this is important, it is related to. And it isn't applied instantly but rather as a ticking modifier over 20 turns. This means that if you click a science event one day before elections, total effect on the election will be jack shit. Only 1/20th of the (un)desired science boost will take effect. With remaining 19/20 only applying by the time next election rolls in.
3. Each turn all existing modifiers on a system are summed up and applied to pops on that system. I'll call this a tick in future.
4. Each pop reacts to the tick, modifying it in accordance with their traits.
5. Modified tick is applied to the political landscape of the system.

Every 20 turns elections are held and each system votes in it's representatives according to the political landscape on that turn.

So why all this to explain how to get rid of militarists or do Mezari quest line? Because you must understand that system's political landscapes are very stubborn and won't change meaningfully in anything less than 20 turns, often you will have to wait 40, or even 60 to get results you want, if they are fringe. Tho having to wait more than 20 turns in all likelihood means that you re doing it wrong.


Part 2. Elections
Elections are important because ultimately they decide who is gonna write the laws, and not some pesky pops on planets in systems. They are not as simple as they look.

When election happens first thing that happens is you are asked who you gonna support. Unless you are willing to shill out money or influence over this, best you can hope for you is to be a tie breaker, and even that's unlikely.
The process goes like this:

1. Votes are tallied. If you did some rigging it will be reflected in the vote.
2. Two(three for dems) top parties are picked
3. All votes are distributed between the top parties according to the proximity on the political wheel, pic related. If equidistant vote's split in half between them.
4. The resulting summary produces a government.

Why is this important? It shows that if you want to get rid of militarists,vote for pacifists counts against militarists even if they aren't in the lead themselves. So when trying to get an outcome you want keep the wheel in mind. This also affects your decision making when rigging - if instead of trying to support particular party you support pacifists, which ever party opposes militarists will get their support too. This is useful when there are multiple parties fighting for second place and you don't particularly care which one of them will win. The rigging options are self explanatory, but just in case: You have a choice between Intimidate (Lobby for Reps), which reduces support of other parties and Support (Primaries for Reps) which gives a boost to the parties base. Rule of thumb: Use intimidate if desired party has <30% in polls,  support otherwise.


Part 3. Applied Politicking.

So if you read previous two parts you might have noticed I told you fuck all about how to actually do anything about it.This is because just switching to federation and rigging the elections isn't gonna work anywhere near reliably.

1. Set a goal. Lets say for example we want to get rid of militarists.
2. Recognise your circumstances, and change them. Dealing with reality can be hard, but no amount of careful rigging and planning will help you get rid of militarists in a middle of a war. You have to end it. The easiest way is either a quick victory or quick defeat. Don't let loss of 1 world lock you into war of attrition that will prevent you from ever getting who you want elected. This is important, but even if you sign peace deal you will still likely be stuck with militarists for a long while, and here's where next points will help you.
3. Open demographics screen and learn the hell is your pops are about. Generally you will be dealing with 1 major pop, but in the game I currently am running I have 2 so you are in luck.
4. Develop a strategy, aka select who you will be betting on. In case of the riftborn you can clearly see that industrialists are the easiest to boost as a weapon against militarists because they get a tonn of bonuses and stand between the militarists and scientists. So every riftborn boost for scientists or industrialists is 2 votes against Militarists. So those are factions we will be supporting globally since they are the dominant race, But one must not forget Lumis, they may be a minority, but they are a fat one. As you see, Lumis, are pacifist bunch, and their ecologists are hippies who support pacifism too, but since ecologists are opposed to our end goal of industrialists any vote for them is a vote for no one, as far as we are concerned, because their vote will go to mils and the vote generated by them for pacifists will cancel it out by going to indis. Lumi worlds we well be supporting Pacifists only. We can and will still support Indis and Scis there as across the rest of the empire, but we will not be focusing on them like elsewhere.


Part 4. Executing plans and getting stuck.

As I noted above, you can't fully get rid of militarists in a middle of a war. It's not going to happen. However because it would be a pointless guide w/o at least some help with keeping them down, here are some things you can do, some of them are general whilst others are specific to my races. So what can you actually do to Support industrial/scientific Riftborn and Pacifist Lumis?

0. War comes first. If you can't end the war quickly, winning it is more important than politics, as such do anything and everything you need for the war effort.
1. Be aware of your surroundings. There is more than 1 empire on the map. Every peace treaty generates A LOT of pacifism support. So if you can't get out of a war with 1 empire sign a peace with as many other empires as you can. But be forewarned, AI will often use it as a pretext for a sneak attack, tho it has little to do with politics, it's just AI being a dick. Trade and Research agreements help here too. Especially helpful are the alliances, because they serve dual purpose of making the war end quicker and adding pacifism support on top.
2. Pay attention to heroes and events. Each comes with a political affiliation, pick ones that are most useful, and place them where they can do most good. Pic related are my heroes, as You see one of them is indi another paci and two remaining are mils. You may want to ask me why the hell do I have so many mils? Well, that's cause I actually like having military party in power in a middle of a war. Helps with approval you know. But I also have heroes ready to move around when the war ends to support precisely the factions I mentioned in the systems where a lot of those pops live.
3. Don't do things that help your enemy. Fight smart, not hard. Don't lose ships, it helps the militants, don't trade systems, don't waste effort on a lost invasion, use tactical surrender if you have to, but avoid drawn out multi turn invasions.
4. Buildings, units, and the like. Most of those have a political affiliation. Keep it in mind when deciding what to spend industry on.

Afterword. Results.

Last picture shows you make up of my senate shortly after a major war. As you see the Indis are in power, despite overwhelming support for militarists. This is because, they are receiving support from Pacifists and Scientists, while Militarists only have Ecologists and Religious as their supporters. During the elections I chose to do primaries for Indies because it best fit my goal. Alternative would have been, to use Lobby for pacifists thus starving Militarists of support from their small buddies, but because of how small they were and risk of accidentally boosting Pacifists above Industrialists I chose not to take that route.