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[Killer of Fate]

current opinion

Spoiler

After trying out the new update, I realised that this is actually written well. And uhhhh, I was wrong. Luddic religion is not tied to ethnicity and isn't about magic. The reason why people make better wares and possibly farm better probably has something to do with the fact that, you know... Phone bad. If we were to live in a world without tech that is degrading. Because let's be honest. Farming and Light Industry are industries that are probably actually fun to be in. Mining, Commerce, Refining, Heavy Industry might be interesting. But they are probably polluting and painful as heck to manage. The reasoning behind production being increased like that is the fact that... Well, maybe it's just general happiness? Having time to do what you enjoy? Not being bogged down by the evil of timetables? It's complicated and philosophical. And it was wrong for me to assume that it was tied somewhat to just "being religious makes you better". Especially considering the fact that this bonus is negated on planets that belong to the Luddic Church, but have industry.

Another aspect is the Luddic Church being somewhat peaceful, or benevolent, or whatever. This comes from the 1 stability bonus. Meh. Luddic Church are still mean as heck if they want to. After all they've made Luxury Goods illegal. Meanwhile Luddic Majority doesn't care if your city is a free port. They don't even care if you are using items. So, yeah...

The best thing about this mechanic is that it finally validates colonies that don't want to exploit their workers. I had that issue on my first playthrough. In that I wanted to have colonies that didn't treat people like garbage. And having a substantial boost for using only industries that are morally acceptable is gratifying. Thank you very much.

Spoiler

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Spoiler

I understand that this is just a gameplay thing, and not really a big deal, but isn't it kinda weird that being a religious majority somehow affects planets stats in a straight up positive way? Tbh, the way I saw it was that the main thing that made Luddic faith people what they were was among other things, the fact that they needed no luxury goods. That was a very subtle and simple way of showing how these people are... And sure, they still have a luxury demand, but compared to other factions, it's a very small amount.

I guess I just feel like this is entering that weird [REDACTED] video game territory, where for some reason certain cultures begin to have magical powers in that they are somehow more productive... And the original excuse for that in [REDACTED] video game was that these cultures were biologically different, even though the in-game description was clearly just mostly making buffs dependent on cultures themselves and not just biological differences...

CONTINUING... Now, I don't want to offend anyone in this statement... But in some circles giving these kind of straight up buffs just for being of a certain faith may appear... Kinda... Uh... Politically incorrect. Cause it technically qualifies as mystifying a certain group of people... Starsector fortunately gets away scot-free cause Luddic religion isn't any real religion but a mix of several different aspects... But still...

I would enjoy if the game gave them something subtler than just "we are religious, so we get free buffs". The very fact that there is so many of them and the fact that they are so self-sustainable and get the best planet, and didn't ruin it (a sign of their unity) should be a sign of how they function. Not just a piece of text and a programmed buff...

But, eh... I guess it's not a big deal, whatever...

I know there is a text at the end that says that because of how oppressive they are, some people are trying to get away. But isn't the oppressive nature validated if technically they get bonuses for it? This just feels kinda weird... And their oppressive nature was already explained in how luxury goods were illegal for them. Showing that even if you were trying to not be a Luddic believer to the extreme, they wouldn't let you. I just feel like there is no need for this extremely potent gameplay trait... I guess it maybe exists to make up for the fact that they don't use items...

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[snicka]

Irl even North Korea has something they're good at - for example production of statues and monuments.

It only makes sense that a mono-ideologicall society is more stable, it's quite common for highly religious people to have high birth rates.

The causal relationship could also be reverse  - people already focused on farming are more likely to be luddites.

Imo plenty of ways it makes sense.

[Pizzarugi]

It makes sense that Luddic Majority would bring stability. Back in the ancient times, religion helped to create community and maintain a cohesive society based on mutual agreement. This is to say nothing about how they all devolved into theocratic dictatorships (even Luddic Church uses their knights as a cudgel).

Definitely agree that it's strange they provide production bonuses, though. The Luddic Church is a more agrarian society, given their abhorrence towards technology, so at best I'd think they'd only give bonus food and maybe mining resources. Honestly, I'd think a Tri-Tach population would be more productive. Clearly the game has robotic servants as described when you visit Arroyo's home during the Academy quest chain, so I'd imagine robot workers would provide more resources overall.

[Kanil]

The Luddic Church is a more agrarian society, given their abhorrence towards technology, so at best I'd think they'd only give bonus food and maybe mining resources.

The bonus turns off if you build any industry other than farming (and light industry, afaik?), so in practice it basically is just a bonus to farming. I don't see it as a problem.

[Killer of Fate]

The Luddic Church is a more agrarian society, given their abhorrence towards technology, so at best I'd think they'd only give bonus food and maybe mining resources.

The bonus turns off if you build any industry other than farming (and light industry, afaik?), so in practice it basically is just a bonus to farming. I don't see it as a problem.

why would being abhorrent to technology make ur farming industry better???

[Flet]

I came into the thread thinking that made sense to me. After reading the thread i question my position. While it is true you could easily attribute more social harmony and higher morale to a homogeneous society unified by a religious ideal, the shunning of technology is going to affect farming just as much as heavy industry.
Unless the entire sector is using old fashion farming techniques as a consequence of the setting being kind of scrappy and post apocalyptic and none have the technological farming edge you would expect them to produce less.
Stability still makes sense though, and i suppose lore could make agricultural increase make sense if it is something like i say.

[Killer of Fate]

Maybe they're just good at organic farming, so their food produces more nutrients. And because Heggs, TT, Sandra and Persean League are too ignorant to figure that out, and too busy blowing each other up... Only Luddic Church has access to that bonus... Thus giving them an edge over everyone else. And because no one has done the science to actually reason this aspect, people just assume it's cause Luddic Church believers are magical or something...

[Kanil]

why would being abhorrent to technology make ur farming industry better???

Gameplay? It's a choice the player can make, get a bonus but limit the planet to farming and light industry, or forego that bonus to get mining/etc.

If you're looking for an in-universe explanation for why, I don't have one. In general the game prioritizes gameplay over making sense if making sense is less interesting, and this is far from the most egregious example.

[Thaago]

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I didn't think the luddic church was against all technology - only what they deem 'excess'. They are still an interstellar civilization much more advanced than present day earth. It would not surprise me in the least if they are using high efficiency mechanized farming with "traditional" gene modification techniques, but none of that advanced AI driven stuff which is clearly too far.

I've always imagined the industries not so much as a "force the entire population to do this" and more "the infrastructure, jobs, and policies are now present to support this". There would still be lots of people doing other things. Perhaps Luddic poulation provides a productivity bonus towards farming and light industry because the population is ideologically driven to be working those jobs and so for the same population/capital investment there is just more of that work being done?

[Killer of Fate]

I feel like Luddic Church doesn't have a real motivation to be more focused on farming... And Gilead is only focused on farming, cause Gilead is considered a sanctuary, and tainting it with industry would destroy it. So Gilead government goes out of its way to make its society act so.

And sure, they are not necessarily anti-tech. They have military ships, even if that is kind of represented in blog as a form of dissidence from Luddic Church beliefs. But then why would they necessarily be more motivated to do farming more than anything else? And if they are motivated sheerly by peer pressure, then why would they be more productive?

This is gonna sound stupid, but there is a reason why forcing to perform a very specific task against their will usually backfire in the end. I mean, first of all, you can't really convince someone to be passionate about something. So, how did it happen that Luddic Church people are disproportionately passionate about farming? If they are anti-tech, then they wouldn't be better at it. And it wouldn't translate to industrial farming. If they are anti-excess, then why wouldn't they pick specialization in any other industry, as long as it is not performed in excess?

I just honestly feels like it's kinda random... The stability gain on its own is too... Cause Luddic Church is clearly dissident. We even have a mission of us going to retrieve a Luddic believer from a Luddic Path planet. Showing us that Luddic Church people aren't necessarily united and have their qualms in spite of their religious nature either way???

[Flet]

And if they are motivated sheerly by peer pressure, then why would they be more productive?

well, most parts of peoples personality are in fact shaped by social pressures, unfortunately. Its not forcing them to do a thing against their will, its forcing that thing to become their will. Because there are different factions within the church does not mean those people experience it as a kind of dissonance that undermines the validity of the church but rather their church becomes everything and all conflict can only take place within it.

The big problem is that the idea of purity that religion has deals with a kind of counter-technological movement, so while practically they need technology, to maintain their belief that they are pure they really really are going to want to try and at least not have the latest tech so they can pretend they are still abiding by some interpretation of the rule. The more they have to deviate the more psychic strain their egos will suffer. This means i would be really surprised if they were using the latest tech on anything, and in fact would explicitly be behind on absolutely all technology they use as a matter of principal, because saying this is ok but that isnt fulfills the need to symbolically reject technology, but if there is nothing higher tech you can point to that makes the older tech righteous to use they will become insecure.

So yeah, tri tachyon should have better farming

[Bungee_man]

I think there are three explanations, each of which would cover it equally well. The first is just that it's a homogenous society that can agree on its values, rather than a mishmash of everyone from across the sector who was drawn in by some hazard pay. Studies have shown that homogeneity helps with stability and productivity - trust is both vital and expensive, and anything that makes trust easier is valuable.

The second is that they're a society that's very devoted to farming and light industry - people study those things to the exception of many others. Just like being very culturally into fighting made the Spartans famously good fighters, being very into farming makes the Luddics good farmers. A guy who came over for the pay and learned on the job won't know all the tricks the same was as a guy who's been wanting to be a farmer since he could read can.

The third is that there's a unity of purpose, which would explain why Luddic Majority's benefits go away when you offend their values. These are people who believe that their actions are serving a heavenly purpose beyond mortal needs and wants. This means that people will work their hardest, even when they aren't being watched, and won't cut corners for personal benefit. It's something that can't be bought, nor obtained from people just trying to survive.

tl;dr: You can trust everyone to work together, you're getting people who actually know what they're doing rather than guys from the interstellar temp agency, and these people see their work as serving a higher purpose. The difference across all three of those things, together, at an actual IRL company, would probably be somewhere around one order of magnitude of productivity.

[David]

Just like being very culturally into fighting made the Spartans famously good fighters,

(Just to jump on this, the key trait of the Spartiates was not that they were good at fighting, but rather that they were atop a society which was exceptionally cruel, with a greater proportion of enslaved people than contemporary Mediterranean societies. They were not exceptional fighters, and their ruling/warrior class was eventually whittled down as their to-a-fault hierarchical social structure was too brittle to adapt to heavy combat losses in stark contrast with the eg. classical Romans. There's a fantastic blog series on the history of this at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.

Granted, the myth of Spartiate fighting prowess was indeed promoted by them for obvious reasons, and by later Roman authors as a rhetorical example of imagined "martial spirit". It's a fascinating story.)

[Brainwright]

(Just to jump on this, the key trait of the Spartiates was not that they were good at fighting, but rather that they were atop a society which was exceptionally cruel, with a greater proportion of enslaved people than contemporary Mediterranean societies. They were not exceptional fighters, and their ruling/warrior class was eventually whittled down as their to-a-fault hierarchical social structure was too brittle to adapt to heavy combat losses in stark contrast with the eg. classical Romans. There's a fantastic blog series on the history of this at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.

Granted, the myth of Spartiate fighting prowess was indeed promoted by them for obvious reasons, and by later Roman authors as a rhetorical example of imagined "martial spirit". It's a fascinating story.)

There were times when the imagined prowess of the Spartans was true, but it was because they were essentially a small minority eternally at war with a subjugated populace.  It's a culture that produced a good soldier.  Notably, not standout warriors.

So there, you have the built-in cultural benefits, but the Luddic Majority is a bit more complicated than that.  The Persean Sector was a frontier sector before the Collapse.  So most planets are substantially below their carrying capacity for the contemporary state of technology. Even still, there are a large number of the faithful eager to emigrate from the Luddic Church worlds, for the simple reason that religious leadership is not great secular leadership.  Priests are literally meant to offer sacrifice.  Nothing surprising about it.

Additionally, while the bonus to production may be all fine and dandy for your first three industries, you lose it for basic things like military bases or any other industry at all.  It really is a tax.  You can make a productive world with it, but it's a fairly weak world in the scheme of things.  Just one of the end-game scenarios : you have a size 6 world, but you leave one industry slot unused for the Luddic Majority benefit.  I like that.

[Zsar]

With the in-game lore available, my expectation would have been:

• stability is fine (tech buildings should probably reverse it, not just neutralise it)
• productivity should drop
• (if viable) price of produced goods should rise