How does government ethos change work in Stellaris?
In Stellaris government ethos works on four scales:
- Pacifist-Militarist
- Authoritarian - Egalitarian
- Xenophobe - Xenophile
- Materialist - Spiritualist
At any stage empire can have only three ethics or one fanatical and one regular (i.e. you can be Pacifist-Egalitarian-Spiritualist* or Militarist-fanatical Xenophile**)
But you can change the ethos in game, either by rare and special events ("Shrines of the Old Gods" for example can make you more spiritual) or by embracing a faction within your empire (embracing pacifists would make you go towards "fanatical pacifist" for example)
But how is it determined which of the ethics you would loose? If I am xenophobe-pacifist-materialist and now want to go somewhere in the egalitarian-authoritarian scale, which ethic will I lose? Is it a random one or is there a specific rule?
*AKA "Space Hippies"
** They will love you, whether you want it or not! And they will make you love them!
1 Answer
You lose the ethos with the least population support. Or the opposing one if you have, for example, pacifist and are going to embrace militarist.
Here is a dev diary about it:
In particular: "Which ethic is lost or added is determined by attraction, so if you are Spiritualist, Xenophobe and Authoritarian and make a shift towards Militarist, whichever of Spiritualist, Xenophobe and Authoritarian has the lowest attraction in your empire will be lost as a Governing Ethic."
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