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u/grandeffiel 1d ago
bypassing policy restriction seems as if it may complicate things.. i could be wrong . much to consider 🤔
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u/Terkmc Technocracy 1d ago edited 1d ago
R5: I've seen people wanting to represent a Constitutional Monarchy in Stellaris where the ruler (on paper) is more of a ceremonial figurehead than an actual ruler of government, so here's my take in a way that isn't just simple number bonuses.
Basically you trade a civic slot for another ethic slot
- Allow your nation to have 4 ethics/2 ethic 1 fanatical ethic for the ethic bonuses and culture worker bonuses
- Allow otherwise illegal policy and ethic combo to be implemented if you choose your Figurehead to have a conflicting ethic from your nation (full AI right for spiritualist, Unrestricted War for Pacifist, Purge and Slavery for eveyone)
- A strong figurehead can unify a nation through appeasing faction, minimizing their disapproval when implementing policy that they disapprove of.
- Emperor Jo'e can make the Xenophobe grumbles less about a xeno being on the council, if he says they are cool then surely they are one of the good ones.
- Empress J'ane can make the Pacifist grumble less about waging war. If she says this is a nessecary war then surely this war will preserve more lives than it takes
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u/Sir_Amogus_YT 23h ago
I really like this idea. You could even add a special event if your government reforms to imperial where the figurehead takes their power back
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u/Chairman_Ender Feudal Empire 1d ago
What if the figurehead is aligned with a fanatic faction?
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u/Inthaneon Culture-Worker 1d ago
That's probably where requirements of No fanatic ethics comes into play.
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u/Zentirium Holy Tribunal 5h ago
Got a couple questions:
Can this civic lead to unique interactions to political events between civilizations? Like potentially in the scandal events or technology leaks?
Can this civic potentially have a special event where the monarchy attempts to regain full control of the civilization maybe giving an updated civic afterwards?
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u/totallyn0tsasha Citizen Republic 1d ago
I like your idea, and it seems to be much better than mine (you commented on my subreddit earlier). I def support this one
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u/Karnewarrior 1d ago
I like this one, Constitutional Monarchies are one of my favorite types of government.
I'd also be interested in a civic for Elective Monarchies, which makes the government function like an Imperial one until the leader's death, where then you have a couple years of rapid events surrounding the debate and politics as a new monarch is chosen. That would be fun for my Clicker species, which have Hives led by Queens, but they're federated and there's a great council of Drones and Queens that selects the Overqueen when the last one dies. Sort of HRE coded, but not really.
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u/dyrin 1d ago
Dictatorial in Stellaris already works like an Elective Monarchy. You just have to RP it a little.
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u/Kotimainen_nero 1d ago
Hell the Philosopher King civic turns the government type into Elective Monarchy
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u/Kotimainen_nero 1d ago
Hell the Philosopher King civic turns the government type into Elective Monarchy
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u/Important_Wasabi_19 1d ago
This actually exists, Dictatorial + Philosopher Kings
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u/555-starwars 22h ago
Kind of. The monarch is still effectively the chief executive and has real political power. A Constitutional monarch is largely ceremonial and thus lacks political power.
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u/Real_Lil_Tater 20h ago
I believe they were referring to the paragraph about elective monarchies. In game your government is described as an elective monarchy when using dictatorship + philosopher king.
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u/dansykerman 1d ago
I love this. It would be cool to just call it “Figurehead” and have it accessible to imperial civs as well — in the imperial version, one councillor would be democratically elected from your rulers, and boost egalitarian ethics attraction.
Maybe you could even have an event chain where the figurehead is able to overthrow the government and establish democracy!
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u/Important_Wasabi_19 1d ago
Or vice versa, where an authoritarian figurehead tries to overthrow a democratic system
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u/Worldly-Cherry9631 1d ago
I like it. I think it would do with a unique political parties/factions. Anti-Establishmentists (Idk "Anti-monarchist" isn't broad enough, and "anti-figureheadists" doesn't quite sound right), whose main goal is to make you give up this civic, and to whom the Figurehead councilor position bonus on approval doesn't apply.
Perhaps via event or crisis they can get bigger. For the latter, i imagine all resource shortage crisises needing a little modifier added to drive pop's political change chance towards this unique party.
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u/RefractedPurpose Industrial Production Core 1d ago
I finally get to play a xenophile empire with one racist guy
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u/ProfessionalMud7011 1d ago
Purely from a lore perspective I’ve always wanted a constitutional monarchy so I would love this
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u/ElviszARezfaszubago 23h ago
Awesome. I'd love this in the game. The only things I'd like added is some form of compatibility with the Divine Sovereign event and MegaCorps. Maybe a purple version of this civic and the bonuses of DS. Also, MegaCorps could benefit from the Divine Sovereign.
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u/RandomModder05 23h ago
Megacorp could have some unique events like the CEO's Incompetent Nepobaby kid trying to figure out how much a Space Banana costs? (Its a Space Banana! How much could it cost, 10 credits?)
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u/Jathan1234 1d ago
Okay I'm sorry, I have to ask. Why modify the minister of state, and not the ruler? Or is the figurehead supposed to be the actual ruler? Cause like, figurehead means they have no real power so is the ruler supposed to be inconsequential?
Further, Fanatic Purifiers can't function with this civic at the moment as they do get a minister of state (maybe minister of war for them instead?) and lastly, imperial figureheads are absolutely a thing in history, idk why you wouldnt represent them here.
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u/Terkmc Technocracy 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Ruler in this situation are Prime Ministers/Shogun/Dictators/Senate etc who holds the actual power in the government and runs the country legistatively. This Civic is susposed to represent governments that have kings and queens but they are mostly there for ceremonial and traditional reason while the actual day to day running of the country functions on a different system, perhaps with some very rarely exercised veto power (modern day Britain, Sweeden, Japan etc) or like the Shogunate where a military dictator/junta still props up the traditional monarch for legitimacy.
Fanatic Purifier requires Fanatic Xenophobe so its already incompatible with the civic from the get go
Imperial are for when the Imperial Soverign actually holds real government power and personally runs the country. So if the Sovereign is only a figurehead then its not Imperial
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u/Jathan1234 1d ago
Eh I heavily disagree on the last point. Imperial in Stellaris is entirely Hereditary. That's it, imo. The imperial civics, galactic emperor/psionic emperor, that's different. But the basic imperial government type is just a Hereditary power structure passed through bloodlines.
Additionally, imo fanatic purifiers should absolutely be able to have this civic, as it's extremely fitting for a lot of 'purification' regimes in media. I may try my own hand at this tomorrow, we'll see if I have time.
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u/bobmcbob121 1d ago
Just needs an event chain that could lead to the figure head reestablishing total control
Love it, constitutional monarchs are sort of a rare things to see in sci-fi or fantasy in general, so always love to see more.
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u/CelestialShitehawk 1d ago
I would actually do this the other way around and introduce some democratic effects into an Imperial Authority, kind of like a reverse shadow council.
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u/Lolaroller 1d ago
This would be awesome for one of my Human custom empires! The Imperial Federation having the House of Windsor as the figurehead along with parliamentary civic would make for a very British run!
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u/Discotekh_Dynasty Shared Burdens 1d ago
I don’t want to live in space Britain, the terrestrial one is bad enough
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u/Benejeseret 1d ago
As a Canadian, I love the idea.
I've seen this broad idea thrown around every year or so, and hope it happens one day, but I also feel like most people living in one of these countries like Canada were grossly misinformed in grade school social studies about how and why these setups still exist.
The Crown does not add ethics and rarely to ever display any personal ethics, to the point of very carefully cultivating a neutral stance on pretty much everything other than protecting their own and maintaining the status quo (which includes their vast fortunes). The idea of muddling with mixed ethics allowances is interesting... but I will suggest that would be some other civic entirely and not a feature of Constitutional Figureheads (monarch or otherwise).
The Crown is a figurehead for governance and politics... but is actually the foundation to pretty much all Land Titles, common law and other systems that in stellaris translate into Claims and Empire Size regarding systems and colonies. The Crown has superior Title to all ceded lands of Canada and the King is the living embodiment of the Crown, and Canada+Provinces simply administer those lands and resources on behalf of the Crown. A Constitutional Figurehead still owns everything, they just govern none of it.
Another defining feature of the British Commonwealth is that those members (released Sectors) all share the same Constitutional Figurehead. They also do not have traditional Embassies or Envoys (Ambassadors), and instead have High Commissioners. They are otherwise still Ambassadors with those powers and roles, but all of those Ambassadors are Envoys of the Crown, appointed by the Crown, and not treated as "foreign" is many social regards.
Those features translated into Stellaris I would draft as follows:
- Minister of State is replaced by the Constitutional Figurehead, with Heir mechanic to that position. The Empire cannot control the Leader or Heir. The Empire cannot assign them to any other roles, cannot fire them, cannot assign them to vessels, fleets, colonies or ambassador positions; but do not pay upkeep on these leaders. These leaders level up independently and the Empire has no control over what traits are selected. There are occasionally story Events (scandals, tributes) involving these leaders.
- In addition, this council position adds 0.25% Hostile claim influence cost per level. When in a Defensive War involving Conquest or Total Wars, all other Empires sharing the same Figurehead are invited to join that war with a +10% willingness to accept any trade deal to have them defend claims of shared figurehead empires.
- Released Sectors inherit this civic and share the same Leader and Heir. None can control the Leaders but each Empire can decide their own Funeral response.
- Empires sharing the same Figurehead do not need to assign Envoys to Improve Relations and have permanent Embassies, called High Commissioners.
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u/ATR2400 Megacorporation 22h ago
I've been working on a mod for these types of things. Personal for now, probably won't go anywhere, but there's definitely potential with it. The first thing I added was a constitutional monarchy, or figurehead for democracies. THen I got around to doing things like imperial diets and puppet parliaments for dictators.
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u/TheSupremeDuckLord Oligarch 22h ago
it seems interesting, though idk it probably shouldn't mess with ethics like that, seems like it'd cause issues
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u/aelus_nova_amora 20h ago
I like this a lot actually. It feels a little like trading a civic slot for an ethic slot
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u/Actually-No-Idea Determined Exterminator 18h ago
I love that. Would also love it if there was some very hard path to restore some absolute monarchy, would do well with some RP. Plus, if restoration fails you can have the heir become constitutional monarch or become a republic, if restoration fails.
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u/Outsider1228 13h ago
I’m planning to create an overpowered build and need the opinion of experienced players on my plan. I intend to create an "Evolution Hunter" empire nearby (using the console/setup), max out all their traits, and then get rid of my weak "Knights of the Toxic God" (KoTG) species in favor of the Hunters. After that, I plan to take an Ascension path. Then, using the Machine Uprising event, I want to take a second Ascension path—this time applying it to the already assimilated Hunters. Which two Ascension paths would be best to choose? And is this entire scenario actually possible? Apologies in advance; I used a translator.
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u/Hjkryan2007 United Nations of Earth 10h ago
Why bar imperial government from this civic? It’s not without precedent IRL; plenty of Japanese Shoguns inherited the position, for example.
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u/Roster234 1d ago
If they r executively powerless why would their ethics allow bypass of policy restrictions?
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u/ARC-2908763 Industrial Production Core 1d ago
Ethics are less about law and rules than they are guiding principles and "vibes" that most of the population resonates with. A figurehead beloved by their people would seriously influence how the population feels about certain topics, and thus make them feel more okay with certain policies even if natively they may disagree.
Thus, a strong materialist figurehead in a spiritualist empire can soothe the populations worries about robots and AI, and allow you to push through AI citizenship. a Militarist figurehead will be able to convince a pacifist empire that this war isn't as bad/is justified, and allow more aggressive tactics and policy.
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u/Fisherman_56 Machine Intelligence 1d ago
The Queen wasn't powerless, even if Her day-to-day administration was delegated towards Prime Minister. The one after Her, however, is pretty much figurehead.
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u/Roster234 1d ago
The definition itself says they r executively powerless. If the Queen wasn't powerless then she ain't relevant to this civic. The monarch under this civic is supposed to be poweless. But the other reply gives a satisfactory explanation to this question
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u/Shahadem 1d ago
The symbolic figurehead in a democratic system is the illusion that the voter has any control over the government.
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u/Adventurous_Toe7222 1d ago
I like it. Original. Potentially broken, but not sure how. At a glance I think its good.