Welcome back! I’m Tia, and I’m here to bring you more Ideology preview info while we wait for the big release day.
Today, I’m talking about Ideology’s new social roles and rituals. I’m also including another UI shot since everyone loved Spacer Manporkism so much in the reveal announcement. You can wish list Ideology on its store page here!
Social roles
We’ve all had that one favourite colonist. The soldier who made it through hell and back, the medic capable of defying death, the one guy who refuses to do anything useful and spends most of the day binging on insect meat due to lack of tables…
Now you can make use of your colonists’ special strengths by assigning them formal social roles. Each belief system in Ideology defines a roles that believers can take on.
There are three categories of roles:
The leader role can only be assigned to one colonist. Leaders give inspirational speeches, buff combat allies around them, encourage harder work, and play a special role in some rituals. They can even accuse prisoners or colonists of crimes. If they successfully prosecute the defendant in a trial you can punish the accused without social consequence. (Whether the accusations are true or false is up to you.)
The moral guide role can be assigned once for each belief system which is represented by at least three colonists. Moral guides support the mental well-being and spiritual strength of your people, and lead many rituals including funerals, sacrifices, and more. They can preach health to the sick to speed up healing, provide counsel to sad colonists to lift their moods, reassure believers that they are correct, and convert non-believers to their own belief system.
Finally, the specialist roles can be assigned to any number of believers. There are a variety of specialist role types – one for each skill. Specialists are better at their primary skill, and also gain a unique ability related to that skill. As a tradeoff, specialists become more focused on their specific skill and won’t do some other work. Different belief systems each have a specialist type related to their core beliefs. For example, a colony of darkness-worshipping tunnelers will probably have a specialist role focused on mining.
Colonists with social roles will want a change of appearance to suit their position. They may ask for elegant capes, creepy visage masks, solemn hoods, painful torture crowns, or anything else to set themselves apart according to their traditions.
Rituals
Celebrate your colony’s unique belief system by holding rituals. These player-controlled events are special gatherings that have a variety of impacts depending on how they are carried out, and really contribute to the story of your colony.
You can hold somber funerals for fallen soldiers, quell rebellious behaviour with public executions, pit slaves and prisoners against one another in vicious gladiator duels, host parties in dance halls or drum circles or around Christmas trees, set hated effigies on fire to watch them burn, or breathe in smokeleaf fumes from a giant bong. There are also scrumptious feasts of human meat, ceremonial blindings and scarifications, skylantern festivals on moonlit nights, and majestic trees with creatures inside of them.
How a ritual plays out depends on the circumstances – who is there (and what roles they hold), the quality of the room it takes place in, the equipment and buildings available, and so on. For example, colonists can have fun at a dance party with just a few people outdoors by clapping and stamping feet. But if you build them a giant nightclub with speakers, a lightball and a richly-decorated room they’ll have more fun and get better outcomes. Early-game rituals are less demanding than those in the late game, so you’ll get benefits at every stage.
Participants that have a good time will leave with mood boosts, and if the ritual was truly spectacular, there may be additional bonuses. We’re talking unlocked psychic powers, new recruits, improved goodwill with your neighbours, and locations of treasure-filled ancient complexes. At the same time, certain rituals may upset spectators and cause a mood deficit – it depends on their personal beliefs.
More on the way
That’s it for now! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and have gotten a chance to try the 1.3 beta. Remember to wish list Ideology on the Steam store page. You can also read the original 1.3 update and Ideology announcement here.
Bye bye!
Tia