As the topic title says, I feel the ideology points should be shifted around a little. First, I'd switch Prolific (+2 pop) with Explorers (free class 10 planet). By the time I'm able to get it (actually, I've never gotten it w/o cheating, and I play on the largest map...), there's no point to +2 pop when you colonize because there's nothing worth colonizing. Civ 5 Brave New World did something similar, but was even worse- not only did you have to reach the industrial age (which by that time founding new cities was LONG over) and build 3 factories (or reach the Modern Age), it was a level 2 Order talent point (meaning you had to spend culture to get it up to level two, even more if you adopted social points). Atleast with this one, all you need is a minimum of 60 points (and that's if you didn't choose anything else- even more if you go for a Missionary Center).
Another Benevolent talent point that needs to move is Enticing. Only I feel it should be the 5th rank of that line.
Pragmatic also has a talent line that is hard to acquire, and that is the Negotiator line. The first rank is Neutral, which prevents war from being declared against you for 50 turns. Nice, but i feel is useless for 2 reasons. First, other races are a bit arbitrary in declaring war on me. I could be hated by a race and never have war declared on me, or a race could declare war on me as soon as I meet them (or in the case of the assassination random event, LONG before I meet them). What makes it worse is that while Benevolent and Malevolent each has 2 point every other turn buildings (Temple of Enlightenment and Elevation Foundation for Benevolent and Death Furnaces and Citadel of Revenue for Malevolent), the Pragmatic line only has one, the Arbitration Center, which is, you guessed it, behind Neutral. Meaning, you can either "waste" the first talent and get Arbitration Centers, or never get it at all. The campaigns makes it easier, since you're hard-coded to be at war with atleast the Dregin no matter what (and in the case of the Torian campaign, you're allied with the Arceans and Terrans), and since it doesn't end wars, you can grab it and not worry. To solve that problem, I'd bump up Neutral to rank 3, Keeping he next 2 in order. And it would make a lot more sense as well. Rank one would make you a better diplomat, rank 2 would show other races you can act as mediators, rank 3 would prevent war from being declared on you, rank 4 would anger all other races when war IS declared, and rank 5 would have all other races declare war on the faction that invades your homeworld.
And speaking of Ideology points, I asked this before, but got no reply what so ever, but what does Slave Masters (trade routes bring back slaves, Malevolent) actually do? And does it stack or does it replace/is replaced by Luxury (trade routes bring luxury goods, Pragmatic)? For that matter, what does Luxury actually do? I assume it doubles the value of the trade route, but I actually have no clue.
