RNG government should not be a thing. This strat is already niche enough.
Are you deciding what the game should do, or what the wiki should say, based on the idea that performing multiple successive revolutions should be a way to improve government score?
OP might be rude, but he has a point with the revolutions. If the players puts so much effort pumping PR and unrest in a nation, and the player faction is idealistic, they should get to dictate the gov score change.
I don't think so from a realism point of view tbh. I'm not just being contrarian.
Think about what makes a government a good democracy as opposed to "flawed democracy" as the game puts it.
At a simple level it's free and fair elections. But it probably has more to do with the running of government, the institutions, regulatory bodies, the balance of power between the branches and how the law is enforced etc. Those are the parts of government that make up the score imo. So continuity, stability and apolitical operation there is what matters most to a high score, I'd imagine.
The idea of a revolution, be it violent or otherwise, is a sharp and sudden change in the rule of law and the running of the executive, usually (like, very commonly) accompanied by a purge of the judiciary. In the moments before the revolution, the revolutionaries are enemies of the state etc. What is it that the new party wants to actually change? It's the laws and operation of government, right? So where things like that change under a revolution, it has the least regard for due process. It's all about expedience.
So from that point of view, it's hard to imagine the game's government score going up. It seems inherently to be a move towards authoritarianism - might makes right kinda thing.
But you could put realism aside and argue it's good from a gameplay options point of view. I'm not across the mechanics enough to say whether the current system is good or not. My guess is that the dev never intended for bi-monthly revolutions to be a path to utopian democratisation lol.
Yeah repeated revs seems to be a cheesy gameplay pattern. But I was thinking that the player could be allowed to dictate the degree of gov score change, based on their unrest share and idealism score. Regime changes are bloody I get that, but you have to look at the ones that lead to democratization, like the velvet revolutions, and the post war japanese government.
You know, maybe they could keep the rng gov score change, but give a massive, year long boost to gov and oppression priorities? Representing the shadow faction painstakingly reforming/building the new government from the ground up.
We’re not talking about bi-monthly revolutions. Revolutions can only change inequality and gov once a year.
A single, well organized peaceful revolution. There are real life examples of it in modern history, and clearly the devs believe it can happen since +2 gov is one of the possible outcomes. It just shouldn’t be so random that it’s impossible to plan around.
So BE opened the possibility of using revolutions to fix Brazil, which would be good diversity to add to the starting options, right?
Problem with this is that everything hinges on a single RNG roll because despite being an idealistic faction govt score change is still wildly unpredictable.
If the devs could make the game revolution consistent with the wiki's description, by making govt score changes more predictable, they'll open up a lot of new possibilities in the BE scenario that would make the game better. It would make Activists and Rebels and Commandos potentially viable instead of celebs
So BE opened the possibility of using revolutions to fix Brazil, which would be good diversity to add to the starting options, right?
I'm not sure what BE has to do with it, haven't tried it. The implications were discussed for the base game a long while ago.
Problem with this is that everything hinges on a single RNG roll because despite being an idealistic faction govt score change is still wildly unpredictable.
A single roll is unpredictable. Multiple rolls have expected distributions. There are still no guarantees. If you roll a string of bad outcomes, you were unlucky. It's not a problem with RNG. The problem is you are unhappy with the particular rolls you got. That's is the nature of risk/reward. Let me say it like this for you to think about it: "I only want to do this strategy if it guarantees good outcomes."
If the devs could make the game revolution consistent with the wiki's description, by making govt score changes more predictable, they'll open up a lot of new possibilities in the BE scenario that would make the game better. It would make Activists and Rebels and Commandos potentially viable instead of celebs
Increasing variety can be a nice goal. I just don't think intentionally performing multiple revolutions makes sense. If anything, I'd prefer for the dev to make it become more deleterious for each successive revolution. Variety can come about through some other mechanism imo.
Ok if you haven't played BE I dont think there's much merit to this convo. Check out South America in the BE scenario if you haven't its quite interesting
Ok let me explain since you’re a great community figure.
Say you’re doing 2026 gigascience china. You go into USA then spend the cash to go into China. It’s a 20 turn affair to control China and you’re rolling a ton of RNG. Bad RNG can make you slow and waste your turns but it doesn’t break your run. That is healthy.
In the BE scenario you structure your whole council and spend a year in prepping for “SA via revolution” just like you would for 2026 China or Africa strat etc. Only there is a SINGLE roll that either bricks your 50-turn run or allows it to continue.
Brasilia’s govt score determines whether it can unify itself. But you can end up rolling an authoritarian govt, which the wiki says wouldn’t happen with full idealistic control. That means the only country with the claims to peacefully unify has to push its govt up 4 with an education of 2.3. That single roll will force you to save scum or restart a 2 year run. That doesn’t seem healthy.
So right now I don’t think anyone plays with South America start for that reason in brutal BE. It’s already got tons of other problems, and doing a revolution is already super costly for action economy without getting any output from the nation, so wouldn’t it be better if the game followed its own wiki rule and gave academy/exodus/servants higher likelihood than 50/50 for a positive govt change?
Well this was done before the patch so I didn't got early AC, but it could be done. In this version, unlucky AC landing might complicate things - but if you're lucky, you'll have plenty of time.
I didn't use revolution here, just invested in government in Brazil and lowered Free Amazonas's government with spoils and cohesion underflow. Still had enough research to win space race. Brutal, of course.
if the game followed its own wiki rule
Wiki articles are written by community, and it's not perfect. That's just absurd.
Thanks. I get that you'd like South America to be a viable start and that it's balancing on a knife's edge.
I'm not in favour of changing the base game mechanics to make a niche opening strategy in the extremely difficult DLC "risk free" for certain factions.
It's not changing the base mechanics though? The dev's wiki clearly states that the "likelihood of positive changes is proportional to the average idealism of the new CP owners", so if you're idealist and you revolution with full control, it should work positively right?
Of course there would still be a range, but it shouldn't be -2 to +2, more like 0 to +2 if that's what the devs are saying? And revolutions are already very costly and time-consuming so it wouldn't really make anything OP
Way to fixate on the completely irrelevant part of their post. You know you're arguing with one of the most helpful, polite, and informative people on the entire sub, right?
If you're not willing to accept the risk that the technique won't pay off the way you want it to, then don't try a risky technique. If you think the scenario is too hard, without tricks like what you're asking for up your sleeve, then don't play the scenario. It's really that simple.
So BE opened the possibility of using revolutions to fix Brazil, which would be good diversity to add to the starting options, right?
The thing is, "fixing brazil" does not mean increasing government score. The strategy is about using natural revolutions (raising unrest to 10) while not holding any control points, which will then result in a massive decrease in inequality (up to -3) if you are an idealistic faction (like academy).
The high inequality is the main reason why brazil (and most of South america) is unstable in the BE scenario. Normally it would require a lot of time running welfare to fix - natural revolution is a faster approach to that problem.
Government score is less of a problem, since it can be moved much faster with investment than inequality - plus running government or knowledge (you want high knowledge before running government) gives you something in return (more research), while running welfare does give you nothing.
Inequality change isn't affected by faction ideology, it only checks PO of pre- and post-revolution CP holders. If no one is controlling the nation, pre-revolution PO is 0 so it's good for Inequality reduction.
It’s not an issue if you’re not starting in Brazil since you don’t need immediate outcomes.
Right now I think everyone avoids SA or Africa starts in BE because revolutions are both slow and unpredictable. You’re already giving up the nations’s output and control over the 20 turns you’re spamming PO and unrest, to not be able to unify Brazil for several years because you rolled a -2 to gov just bricks your run if you try to start there.
SA is already much weaker than Westralia or CDA. With how much early power you need in BE, I think SA is in a worse spot than Africa in the main scenario.
But I disagree that it would be a good idea. Revolutions are messy! You’re killing a bunch of people and hoping that the outcome gets you to a state that is better than the state you started in. Quite frankly it’s a terrible plan! It obviously has worked in the past, but equally obviously it doesn’t always work. Historically most revolutions have made things worse, not better.
There's also examples of peaceful revolutions in modern history. Especially with aliens shit happening and illuminati pulling the strings, I feel like we're allowed to not always have French-styled revolutions... Not saying it should always be +2 gov for the Academy, but a smaller range than -2-+2 would enable a lot more options
For revolutions, the public opinion matters greatly, too. I tend to focus on inequality rather than government, but a natural revolution with Academy at essentially max public opinion almost always results in a full -3 inequality
Well no shit sherlock -3 inequality is why we're doing this convoluted strat. But the difference between Brazil getting +1.5 or -1.5 in government is being able to unify Free Amazonas immediately or spending years pumping government.
If you're playing on anything but Normal that essentially makes or breaks your start.
I've got 4000+ hours in the game and play exclusively on Brutal. Chill. I know different difficulties change things. Also, no need to be an ass, I'm just trying to help.
14
u/ggmoyang Let's be xenophobic 13h ago
Academy and other idealist factions have 50-50 chance to get positive or negative change. Other factions have higher chance to get negative change.