FTA3 Ethos & Politics

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2. FTA3 Military and Combat
3. FTA3 Ship Design
4. FTA3 Economy
5. FTA3 Espionage
6. FTA3 Ethos and Politics
7. FTA3 Research & Development

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Ethos, Stability, Culture, & Diplomacy

Changing Ethos

Normally, the ethos culture of your polity is not something that can shift radically in short periods of time. Specific, significant events must occur in order to shift the ethos build of your state, and is up to moderator discretion.

Stability

Stability is a mechanic that basically reflects how functional your government’s control over a region is and how happy the sentient population is with you. Stability level is constant across all of the territories in a single node-the political conditions that determine stability in the suburbs of your planetary capital aren’t going to be significantly different than on the gas scoop complex orbiting the gas giant the next planet out, given OPF communications and transportation technology.

The default resting point of stability is 5. Every game year, your state’s stability will move one step towards five, regardless of if it’s higher or lower, as a default value. Obviously player action can mitigate this to maintain a higher stability level, but this represents the inherent inertia that exists in a state towards the resting point.

Stability tracks by node for each player. It is possible that multiple players sharing the same node may have different stability.

While stability effects only change at whole numbers, there are some mechanics and events that can raise or lower your stability by a fraction of a point. In this case, your stability “counts” as whatever the nearest whole number is rounded, for the purposes of Stability Effects only. Your “real” stability is the fractional number for the purposes of further gain/loss.

Effects of Stability

• 0: Civil War: Landmarks that produce goods do not operate. Local militia will not fight invaders in an organized fashion. Your CI in territories at S0 produces no income, Landmarks don’t function.
• 1: Rebellion: If your capital system is at stability 1, produce one less General token per year; roll an additional negative event if any territory is at S1.
• 2: Major Riots: Military assets burn 25% of their base supply level in operations to keep a minimal level of order. Lose one investment token in each NPC you’ve invested in for each full year your capital territory is at Stability 2 or below.
• 3: Riots: CI in territories at S3 produce $5 less income.
• 4: Grumbling: No effect, either positive or negative.
• 5: Indifference: All players begin the game at Stability 5. No effect, either positive or negative.
• 6: Calm: No effect, either positive or negative.
• 7: Civic Involvement: CI produces $5 more income.
• 8: Patriotism: When fighting in the high stability node, your ground forces have +0.5 TL.
• 9: Dawn of a New Era: Receive one roll on the OPF Gacha table if your capital territory is at Stability 9 at the end of a year.
• 10: Golden Age: If your capital system is at S10, generate an additional general token.

You can in fact get your stability above 10. It does nothing special for you over the S10 rewards. Your people are doing lines of hyper-coke off the fur of catgirls. Congratulations.

Ways to Gain Stability

Stability can be increased via event, Landmark effects, moderator action, etc. The other, surefire way, to increase stability (by one point) is to spend for it. You can spend a unity token to immediately raise your stability by one. You can spend $1000 to increase stability by one. You can also spend 150 supplies to increase stability, representing a ‘law and order’ type sweep. Depending on your ethos, that may have consequences. Whatever your method of raising stability through spending, each step after the first costs double whatever resource would otherwise be required. All of these actions raise the stability in all the territories of one of your nodes by one step.

Culture

The OPF was an extremely long lived polity, with over a hundred thousand years of mediating disputes between cultures, societies, and even species. As a result, culture conflicts in FTA are more about broad overreaching ethos-driven debates more than menu choices or clothing.

Your territories are generally assumed to have the same culture as you do, as well as any new colonies you establish over the course of the game. What is different, however, is when your polity absorbs the territory of another state, either through peaceful diplomatic overtures, military conquest, economic domination, or some other means. Each NPC, no matter how big or small, has its own mix of ethos that defines, in practical terms, that state’s Culture.

A newly integrated territory requires token expenditure to settle the population down and align them with your values. For every ethos from the Antagonistic category that a new territory has, that is different than your own culture, you must spend one unity token and one token of a type that the ethos you’re swapping it to can generate. If the ethos is naturally antagonistic to one your polity possesses (hierarchy to egalitarian, for example), the cost is two unity tokens and one token of the type you’re switching it to produces.

For every non-antagonistic ethos a state has, you must spend a token of a type the ethos you’re switching it to produces.

Switching an ethos lowers the stability of a territory by one. This can be bought off by other means.

Newly acquired territories with different ethos to your own produce less resources in some fashion until they are integrated properly. Consult this chart below to see what penalties the territory suffers. These effects are cumulative, that is, a territory with four mismatched ethos suffer from all four effects. (obviously when two values exist, go with the lower one)

1. of Mismatched Ethos: Effect
2. 1 CI produces 10% less income.
3. 2 Resting Stability at 4. DI Production reduced 50%
4. 3 Resting Stab at 3; Token Generators do not produce tokens.
5. 4 Resting Stab at 2; No Landmarks function; CI produces 30% less income.

Diplomacy

Non-Player States (NPC)

Minor NPCs can range from roughneck asteroid settlements on the fringe of a red dwarf all the way up to the governments of entire solar systems. This variety is represented by the NPC’s Development Level, which can range from 1 to 10 and will be part of the initial writeup provided. This is also a functional shorthand for what this NPC can do in terms of power projection, economic might, etc.

All NPCs have the following things in common, which differ from player polities.

• 2 general tokens representing their more modest government efforts
• 1 token landmark of a moderator-determined type.
• $3000 military in initial military +$1000 more per level of development. This military is purchased from the Generic Unit List.
• 20 CI per level of development
• 10 DI per level of development
• NPCs at Tier 6 or above have more robust development, and as a result, also get the following:
• $2k of military per level of development instead of $1K
• A second token generator
• Some other piece of infrastructure as a landmark.

As a broad guideline, Tier 1-3 NPCs have one territory, Tier 4-6 have two, and Tiers 7-9 three. There are exceptions but they’re exceptions usually for some obvious reason.

NPC states do not get ethos-generated tokens (their ethos represent their culture here).

Moderators will generate NPC OOBs as required, and, do not be surprised if they are very cookie cutter.

Establishing Relations and “Relations” With NPCs

The discussion of integrating territory in the previous section naturally leads to the question of how one acquires it in the first place. Obviously military conquest is an option, but the Open Palm Federation did establish a successful multispecies polity for longer than homo sapiens sapiens existed, and diplomatic expansion is something we expect and anticipate being a thing. Which begs the question of how do you get there?

Maintaining diplomatic relations between player states is no big deal-the major Polities are normally expected to have embassies with one another, and all player states have embassies on the chelonian and TKK homeworlds. Establishing more than transient relations with a Minor NPC, however, requires some expenditures. To establish a relationship, you must first spend a diplomatic token to open up high level multilateral relations. This only has to happen once, and then you’re considered to have the necessary infrastructure in place.

After that (and a game year), you then gain the ability to invest one token per year into an NPC state. NPC states, as part of their base stat line, have an ethos build just like a player state, representing their culture. You can allocate a token of any type produced by the Minor state’s ethos as part of this process, representing further multilateral connections between your state and theirs.

What is important now is the level of development of the NPC, as this is the ‘meter’ one uses to determine what your token investment accomplishes. Each token invested (after the initial Diplomacy token expenditure) raises your relationship with an NPC by one point. When you’ve reached relations equal to half the NPC’s development, you’ve become Allies of that NPC. That NPC will generally work in your best interests, will cooperate on military ventures, and so forth.

Once you’ve reached at least 100% of the token expenditure to Development Level, you’re considered Blood Brothers (Name tbd). At this point, if you have the highest relation of any PC with the target NPC and your respective cultures have at least two matching ethea, you can absorb the state diplomatically through the expenditure of half the diplomatic tokens relative to the Development Level, rounded up. This then integrates the NPC’s territory into your Polity and you shift to the rules for stability and culture for further assimilating your new citizens to their new government.

When assimilating an NPC in this fashion, you generally don’t acquire all of the state’s starting military. For every ethea that doesn’t match, the state loses 25% of their military force to retirement, defection, whatever. Furthermore, 25% of the forces in service to a state convert to the new territory’s standing militia, representing the establishment of these forces as part of your polity. You will have discretion over the forces turned into militia (ie, you’ll get to pick what you’re retiring) but won’t have control over the percentage leaving service all together.

NPCs generated at nation creation that are designated as hostile begin at a -6 relation to you. NPCs designated as unfriendly or ready to coordinate against you begin at a -3. NPCs not designated as one of these three begin at 0.

Soft Power

After establishing a relationship with an NPC, you may spend ($1,000xNPC Development Level) in a year to try a Soft Power Pull, which if successful will convince their society to change one non-Dominant Ethos. The difficulty will be based on your respective cultures, the level of existing investment, and any military threat you pose to their sovereignty. An NPC can not be compelled to change an Ethos in this way if they have already changed an Ethos less than two years ago, but you can pro-rate towards the next Pull during this period. NPCs & Polity Templates: NPCs do not get polity templates or abilities. The only exception to this is that some NPCs live in World Ships like a Roamer. They do not get the Jubilee ability and it is assumed their economy somehow works without squinting too closely at it as a result.

Example

Bob the Player has opened diplomatic relations with the State of Flapjack. Flapjack is a Development Level 6 NPC. Once Bob has invested three compatible tokens into Flapjack, they’re allies. Flapjack will fully cooperate with Bob’s naval patrols, supply his ships as their own, contribute a squadron to his efforts, etc. Once Bob has spent six tokens, they’re considered Blood Brothers, and Bob decides to welcome them as new members of the Bob Federation. Bob can spend three diplomatic tokens to do so, at which point Flapjack’s territories are considered part of Bob’s polity, subject to the rules for stability and culture detailed above.

Allies

Being an ally gets you certain benefits. An ally’s territory counts as your own for the purposes of calculating supply expenditure. You can call up a squadron of the ally’s ships to support your operations (to a reasonable extent, obviously), and can freely swap tokens with the state on a 1:1 basis.

Losing Investment Levels

You can lose investment levels in a state, due to other player action, events, or your own actions. Using your ally’s ships as cannon fodder, for example, probably will result in you losing investment levels. Acting wildly against the ally’s Ethos interests, probably not good for your token investment. Etc. Other PCs can spend a diplo token to lower the relation of another PC with a given NPC, limited to one decrease per PC/NPC pair per year. All NPC interactions you’ve had must be included in your YiR.

PC Diplomacy

Most PC diplomacy and negotiated trade is freeform and left to the players. The exception is the formation of military alliances. A military alliance has a number of benefits: it allows allied players to treat one another’s territories/bases as their own for supply purposes, it allows full/unpenalized military coordination both in specific tactical actions and as part of huge multi-theatre operations, it removes any potential stability penalties for working with a state of differing ethos (barring truly incredible events such as large-scale warcrimes or being revealed as secretly worshiping some ancient evil AI or whatever) or undertaking open-ended and otherwise-unprovoked or extreme military operations in support of an ally, etc. Conversely, failing to establish a formal military alliance with another PC means the inverse: you cannot share supply, you will suffer extreme penalties when coordinating military actions (generally assume both grievous friendly fire, which may well have secondary political/stability consequences, and serious timing problems such as large gaps in the line, reinforcing fleets showing up days or weeks early/late, or critically botched sigint/encryption), and greatly increased exposure to stability consequences for irrational adventurism and working with filthy stupid foreigners. It costs 1 diplo token + 2 tokens of any kind(s) from each player to form a bilateral alliance. Other players can join the alliance by spending 1 diplo + 2 any tokens themselves, and each existing member spending an additional 1 token of any kind per alliance member added. Alliances can be declared at any point in the budgetary year (although if you want to have the option after Q1, you have to leave the requisite tokens free post the end-Q1-budget-lock-up). Finally, alliances must be renewed each year. This renewal cost is one diplomatic token for each alliance player, plus two token for each hostile antagonistic ethos they have with the player whose ethos in the alliance has the least overlap and one token for each ethos that isn’t identical.. This may well result in different token costs for players in a large enough alliance.

Violating an alliance will have major stability consequences and significantly reduce your relations with all NPCs. Abandoning a treaty ally in a defensive war will end the alliance immediately and have similar but less severe stability/diplomatic effects.