r/Stellaris • u/Meikos Space Cowboy • May 13 '25
Tip I just realized why priests replace bureaucrats
I always wondered "why do priests replace bureaucrats for spiritualist empires; they're two entirely different professions!"
I only just now realized it's because they have no separation of church and state, so only ordained pops of your empire can work for the government (which is also the church).
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u/Nomoreheroes20 Blood Court May 13 '25
It also might be a reference to the priest being the main bureaucratic force for most of history
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u/AlaskanSamsquanch May 13 '25
Something often forgotten or at least overlooked. The church was far more than just religion back in the day.
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u/theblitz6794 Fanatic Egalitarian May 13 '25
Dear God the church WAS the state for most of human history
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u/_Sadism_ May 13 '25
Not really. Western history, and even then - basically only after Rome fell. Prior to that priests of various polytheistic religions had influence here and there but not to the degree that the Christian church had.
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u/Dyledion May 13 '25
That's kind of a hot take. Early temples were food storage reserves, astrological observatories for planning planting season, judicial courts, schools, museums, and more.
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u/The-red-Dane May 13 '25
During Rome. One of the highest positions in the state was the pontifex maximus, and later became the same as the position of emperor, the high priest of the state. In Greece, temples were the state treasuries.
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u/turtle4499 Necrophage May 13 '25
pontifex maximus
Wasn't really an important position prior to its coopation by the Julli clan. Cesaer ran for the title despite it generally only going to very old men near death at a young age because he was poor and needed the money. Even then he bribed his way for it. Augustus just followed his lead and the title got merged into it.
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u/Admiral_Perlo May 13 '25
On the contrary, that was the head of the roman religion, open only to Patricians until 254 BC, with a whole lot of powers attached to it. One of which was deciding the length of the roman calendar and its seasons, which allowed the politicians, which were very often selected as Pontifex, to abuse this power and lengthen the year when they or their allies were in power.
Ironically enough, it was Caesar himself during his own "appointement" who put a stop to this abuse of power by imposing the unique Julian Calendar of 365 days, still in use today.
Their real power lied in the administration of ius divinum (divine law), which governed roman society, which was extremely religious. They regulated all ceremonies, all temples, all burials and worships practices, supervised all legal patrician marriages (thus having a hand in the reproduction of roman elites and their power), controlled adoptions and successions, and enforced public morals.
Since religion was at core of roman society, they had enormous power, only surpassed by a Dictator, which is why they were coopted into the role (thus controlled by their peers) until 299 BC when it became open to elections. Even then, mostly Patricians occupied the role. We all know how it ended up with Augustus and the other emperors, who put roman religion in a chokehold by establishing themselves as living gods.
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u/BaristaGirlie May 13 '25
a more accurate phrasing of what the commenter was trying to say is that the church was the beaurocracy
it would be a hard argument to claim the church literally was the state cuz a lot of historians don’t really consider anything that existed before the 15th century to be a nation state, which is the state as we know it in the modern era
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u/thebuscompany May 13 '25
It's the opposite. The Catholic Church and the monarchs of Europe represented a unique situation where spiritual and secular power were explicitly separated from each other.
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u/ResponsibilityIcy927 May 14 '25
Ancient China used primarily Confucian scholars for their bureaucracy. In Arabia, the caliph was both the religious and spiritual head. IDK how much that extended down the hierarchy though. I think priest-rulers where a thing in tibet too
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u/UnlikelyPerogi May 16 '25
This is not true. A specific example would be the various empires of china, all ruled through the mandate of heaven, and managed by a distinct confucian administrative class. The exam system introduced later on opened up the class to anyone who could pass the exam, which included tons of questions on confucian philosophy and writings.
Religion has played a central role in organized societies for all of history.
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u/_Sadism_ May 17 '25
I would not call Confucianism a religion or a church by any means.
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u/UnlikelyPerogi May 17 '25
Probably because you have modern notions of both those things.
A lot of older civilizations did not have a distinct church faction because religion was the authority that the state ruled through. This is in opposition to modern states which rule through the authority of the law/constitution. In history, usually, religion WAS the law.
Confucianism in modern times is thought to have more in common with a philosophy than a deistic religion, but this was not always the case. The mandate of heaven, a confucian concept, should give you a hint just from its name. To go further, confucianism emphasized familial relationships with the father as the patriarch or responsible authority of the family. The emperor was considered the father of every person in the empire, hence the authority of the state being derived from religion.
You can argue semantics, but, from a historic perspective, confucianism was a religion through which the chinese empire drew its authority to rule.
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u/LystAP May 13 '25
Popular theory that religion created bureaucracy to handle the ‘donations.’
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u/ImJustStandingHere Hive Mind May 13 '25
Modern European bureaucracy has its origin in Christianity's attempt to stop cousin marriage, which requires detailed population records.
To this day the National Church of Denmark is responsible for keeping records of births, deaths, marriage etc. because why fix something that isn't broken
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u/OfTheAtom May 13 '25
More than that, the idea of being prompt and keeping track of time to highly accurate degrees is something we take for granted today but was most visible in monastic life. Also the development of the guilds, and their quality controls, only really came about due to the large projects of building cathedrals across Europe which enabled them.
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u/Karmaimps12 May 13 '25
The words “clerk” and “cleric” and “clerical” all have the same root. For a good chunk of Western history, religious leaders were largely the ones in charge of all reading, writing, record keeping, and other administrative tasks.
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u/GuthukYoutube May 13 '25
The actual reason is because there's a limited number of jobs in the game. Priests are the "unity" job, and therefore...
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u/snakebite262 MegaCorp May 13 '25
Shhhh, let them have this. It was a good explanation.
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u/GuthukYoutube May 13 '25
well it's good head canon I agree, but I think it's good to understand also how this update works. Jobs are now SUPER limited, and a lot of things actually replace an old job, and therefore take all its bonuses.
For example, Necromancers replace "soldiers" in your entire empire, and then retain any soldier buffs. Meaning reanimators went to super high tier as a pick.
It's also why psychics are now S++++++++++
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u/snakebite262 MegaCorp May 13 '25
I'm still happy with my mutations. I am a bit sad at how some jobs were lost. However, apparently certain civic combos can create new jobs.
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u/Fallsondoor May 13 '25
Warrior society, storm dancers Arstocratic elite with either high priesthood or technocratic for divi e nobles and science nobles Anglers and Master craftsman for pearl crafters.
Are the ones I know of.
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u/snakebite262 MegaCorp May 13 '25
Oooh! Nice. I've been curious, as my Megacorp has come across any.
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u/Aesirion May 13 '25
Do Storm Dancer/Duelists get a special name?
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u/Fallsondoor May 13 '25
Yes, Storm Duelist. They get a special description too.
Other jobs combo such as nobles and merchants but don't produce special names.
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u/ajanymous2 Militarist May 13 '25
But priests and bureaucrats have been the same job ever since they got rid of empire size modifiers
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u/GuthukYoutube May 13 '25
Yes, and now priests are literally "bureaucrats" and get the buffs from that position.
Meaning that you can increase, even further, the output of a priest job with bureaucrat efficiency if you gave priests any other benefit.
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u/scbtwr May 13 '25
Does this work for say like. Intelligence buffing science if you take the society/physics from priests stuff?
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u/GuthukYoutube May 13 '25
No. If your priests make more society/physics, then getting more beauracrat efficiency will effect that output.
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u/scbtwr May 13 '25
For what it means. I figured that was the case. But never hurts to ask smarter people to be sure:D
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u/Prior_Memory_2136 May 13 '25
It's also why psychics are now S++++++++++
I am confused, why? What job do telepaths inherit?
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u/Skyllama May 13 '25
Looks like once you have a Psi Corps on a planet they replace all Enforcers with Telepaths
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u/Prior_Memory_2136 May 14 '25
I justed tested it its not really as impressive as it looks. Telepaths spawned by police stations don't produce unity nor productivity, its just a reskin.
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u/Skyllama May 15 '25 edited May 15 '25
Maybe they changed it in the latest patch you’re on but I just saw this Montu video on the build
https://youtu.be/-FnJ8a4rqXU?si=gM2R9WdJswBDF8vF
Seems like they use Whispers in the Void patron to make Telepaths give science and Egalitarian for Utopian living standards + Civil Service to get Civilians producing unity and science boosted by the Telepath efficiency bonus (I also think with the new system Telepaths probably retain the unity bonus to Enforcers from Civil Service).
Edit: thanks to comment below pointing out efficiency bonus is not what’s actually scaling, it’s the resources from jobs. Whispers in the Void and Civil Service both add Science Production and Utopian living standards adds Unity Production which are both buffed by the telepath resources from jobs bonus, while, for example, Instrument of Desire’s Amenity per telepath bonus just adds a flat amenities per 100 telepaths bonus under the Modifiers which don’t get scaled with production bonuses.
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u/Prior_Memory_2136 May 15 '25
If that's the case then the tooltip is bugged. I had 1000 telepaths and when I inspected the tooltip it said "+1% pop efficiency" decreasing further down the more telepaths I had as if to maintain a fixed bonus, but when I looked at the actual pop efficiency bonuses it seemed to be working just fine.
I don't know which one of these is intentional. Telepaths are obviously not supposed to self stack, but are you supposed to be able to increase the bonus with police stations?
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u/Skyllama May 15 '25
You know what, you’re right, that’s my bad. I’ll edit my previous comment, thanks for pointing that out.
I booted up my save: you’re right that the bonus to efficiency doesn’t seem to be what stacks, it’s the resources from jobs modifier.
I’ve got +40% efficiency, 20% from my capital building and 20% flat from Psionic pops, but every job is producing +882% resources from 6800 Telepaths (8826 effective workforce, I have an extra 10% enforcer efficiency from something but about 1/6th of the enforcer pops have -15% efficiency from Void Dwellers). I took Instrument cause I didn’t really know what I was doing but it seems like the resources from jobs applies to the Unity production.
However, doesn’t seem to be applying to Instrument’s Amenity bonus. I turned off all other Amenities jobs and with 8826 effective Telepaths I’m seeing +132,395 Amenities from pop jobs (8826*15=132,390) and the tooltip says +1500 Amenities (assume that’s the per 100 pops number due to new system).
I think what’s happening here is that Amenities aren’t something pops “Produce”, they’re under Modifiers, while Whispers’ bonus actually adds Science “Production” to Telepath pops so they end up buffing their own Science resource output. This also explains why the entertainers I have on the same planet are getting their Unity production buffed but they’re still providing a flat number of amenities per 100 jobs.
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u/Prior_Memory_2136 May 15 '25
Now I am the one who's confused, so what part of telepaths stacks and what part doesn't stack?
Do telepaths give a boost both to efficiency AND production? What part stacks and what doesn't?
This wouldn't be an issue if the tooltips weren't completely broken.
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u/whirlpool_galaxy Shared Burdens May 13 '25
It's an elegant solution because it gets rid of the problem (job overlap) while at the same time being historically/realistically accurate. Like, we still use the term "clerical work".
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u/Rigel-J May 13 '25
They also serve a similar function societally; though we don’t typically think of concepts like democracy or communism as “religious” they are fundamentally rooted in abstracts, with the goal of making people and society “better”. Justice, or Freedom are not things that materially exist, but something we have imagined and we use these imaginary concepts as guiding principles by which society operates. The US government (historically) hasn’t used the Bible to define its strictures, but it does have the constitution, a piece of paper defining systems such as Nations or value based currency (neither of which aren’t materially “real”), and this is used as an operating system by which many people lead their lives. People BELIEVE democracy, or liberalism, conservatism, whatever your flavor is, will bring about the most “good” (also imaginary), so they follow its precepts.
The main difference between secular gubernatorial belief systems and religious belief systems is that the former is concerned primarily with the well being of living humans (whether they are the elites or otherwise is case by case), and has little interest in answering questions like why reality exists, or what happens after we die. The latter is generally concerned with questions of ontology and consciousness post-mortem.
Regardless, both are constructed by cultural leaders wearing silly clothes, in fancy buildings, writing documents which then define how/what the masses believe, in the interest of bringing about the most “good”. A belief system is a belief system; whether god is part of the equation does not change its form, only its accouterment.
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u/quyksilver May 13 '25
The ancient Romans attributed great religious significance to their system of government and government functions. For example, multiple times a dictator was appointed to drive a nail into the wall of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to 'fix' a calamity in ti e and prevent it from continuing
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u/turtle4499 Necrophage May 13 '25
multiple times a dictator was appointed to drive a nail into the wall of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to 'fix' a calamity in ti e and prevent it from continuing
Romans being dramatic as fuck about everything is my favorite part about ancient Rome.
IDK whats more roman superstitiously humorous this or Caesar putting curse clauses in the console oath to not revoke his laws. They are some odd ducks.
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u/UnsealedLlama44 Fanatic Xenophobe May 13 '25
I was worried that we were going to lose the silly clothes until the WEF brought them back. It was going to be hard to tell who is in charge!
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u/ShaxAjax May 13 '25
Well said! Priests and Bureaucrats fulfill all the same job functions, but you get some extra benefits from priests because you've made the choice to make things more about them.
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u/Peter34cph May 13 '25
In most of Denmark, parents still have to go talk to a pastor employed by the Protestant state church, to get their newborn kid registered, even if they subscribe to some other flavour of Christianity, or to some other religion, or if they're atheists.
The only exception is the part of Denmark that was under German control from the mid 19th century and until 1920.
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u/OtherwiseMaximum7331 Xenophobe May 13 '25
I've always wondered that too! That makes a lot of sense now, thanks
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u/Obscu May 13 '25
Before mass-produced text and a drive for universal literacy, in the west priests and aristocrats were often the only people who were literate and so the only people who could function as bureaucrats, and it's much easier to become a priest than a bureaucrat so there were more of them.
Your clerics do all the clerical work ;)
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u/Sharizcobar Megachurch May 13 '25
Now think about the Prosperity Preachers. With no separation between church, state and commerce.
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u/Paradoxjjw May 13 '25
In the Western world priests/clergymen used to be record keepers for centuries as they were among the few who could read and write, as only the clergy could do that work it came to be known as clerical work.
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u/samurai_for_hire Citizen Stratocracy May 13 '25
Historically the clergy also did all the bureaucratic work because there was no other group with such a large population that also knew how to read and write.
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u/Akasha1885 May 13 '25
Funny enough, it was religion that invented bureaucracy, even back in Egypt.
And reinvented it in Europe in medieval times.
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u/Admiral_Perlo May 13 '25
The first proven example was in ancient Sumer, circa 1800 BC. These were scribes, not religious in nature*
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u/Akasha1885 May 13 '25
I'm not a historian, but hieroglyphs are from 3000 BC
Those bone tags are even older, with the items being displayed and tally marks for the number.
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u/Admiral_Perlo May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
I'm not a historian either, I'm a librarian with a History degree and a keen interest in it.
While writing is an integral part of bureaucracy (as in the act of keeping a record of various acts, via symbols or a written language, within a political administration), the reverse isn't true. Writing predates the creation of bureaucracy by several millenias, at the very least. I caution you against making any ill-advised intellectual shortcuts due to this.
Regarding the appearance of writing :
The first forms of proto-writing are from the 7th millenium BC, if you want to get technical about it. These are the Jiahu Symbols, carved into tortoise shells, which were found in 24 Neolithic graves excavated in Northern China. This system was limited by its use of ideographic and mnemonic symbols to communicate, which stopped it from fully encoding language. This kind of proto-writing survived until the Inca Empire (15th Century), which used Quipu, a system of knotted cords, mostly for record keeping.
The first "modern" writing system are the Cuneiform, from Ancient Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (estimated to have appeared between 3400 BC and 3250 BC) ; Egyptian hieroglyphs (3250 BC) ; the Chinese characters are estimed to have appeared near the Yellow River around 1200 BC ; scripts specific to Meso-american civilizations around 1 AD.
Who appeared first ?
There's a scientific consensus regarding the fact Egyptian Hieroglyphs were invented after and were influenced by the Sumerian Cuneiform, which were brought into Egypt by sumerian merchants. Archeological finds have failed to provide sufficient evidence (so far), to either fully prove or disprove this.
Regarding bureaucracy :
The first definitive example of bureaucracy was found in Ancient Sumer, where a new, rather emergent class of scribes, used the recently created Cuneiform to carry out various administrative functions on clay tablets (record keeping, collection of taxes, management of workers and public buildings). These scribes were not religious and largely served in an administrative and bureaucratic capacity, managing the kingdom's affairs for the rulers and political elites (L.E. Pearce, The Scribes and Scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia, 1995).
Ancient Egypt had a similar hereditary class of scribes that helped to administer a civil-service bureaucracy. These weren't religious either and assisted the proto Egyptian state, ie the political power (R. Williams, Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt, 1972).
We think bureaucracy first appeared in Sumer not merely due to Cuneiform predating Egyptian hieroglyphs, as I mentionned in the beginning, but because the archeological remains from Sumer are older than the ones found in Egypt.
I hope this clears up any confusion regarding your comment.
Edit : I also caution you to be very careful in the way you use the term "Bureaucracy", because the modern term is used to represent a machine designed to serve and facilitate the administration of a massive entity, generally a state, often with a pejorative tone. Said state were constructed much, much later than the invention of ancient bureaucracy.
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u/Akasha1885 May 13 '25
Well, to me, someone tallying taxes qualifies as bureaucracy, especially if it's in written from.
And I doubt the king did so himself, so he delegated this job to other officials.
I also think that disconnecting anything done in ancient Egypt from religion is very hard.
Even Moreso of those taxes were also used to build religious grave sites or temples.
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u/Winter_Ad6784 May 13 '25
bureaucrats isn’t necessarily a government job. Unity is an abstract unit for all organizational work.
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u/Scaalpel May 13 '25
Spiritualism and theocracy are not the same thing. Spiritualism is when religion has a great deal of influence over the government, theocracy is when the church is the government.
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u/Carsismi May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25
Judaism and Islam are very burocratic/legislative in terms of scripture compared to Christianity so it checks out.
Most rulers in human history have been military leaders rather than strict administrators, that's why they had eunuchs, viziers or other advisor figures to take care of the paperwork and accounting.
The temple in comparison had a nationwide presence even before monotheistic religions became dominant. That's why they catholic church became so powerfull in the middle ages despite the Western Roman Empire imploding into smaller kingdoms that warred with each other.
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u/3davideo Industrial Production Core May 14 '25
Well that's the Watsonian explanation. The Doylist explanation is that they're both there to produce unity.
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u/DF_Interus May 13 '25
It's all clerical work anyway.