Outside of completely new systems, and the ever-present specters of performance and bad AI, the thing that will most improve the game is more civics and/or updates of old civics. This is a list of my personal civic ideas, or my takes on ideas that have come up before. There are also quite a few I copied without much or any change, as they are good and deserve to be seen again. Most of these are going to be relatively simple, more in line with Warrior Culture or Technocracy than Inward Perfection or Rogue Servitor. Civics are divided into sections based on type of empire they belong to. Top has changes to existing civics, bottom has new civics.
Any feedback, critiques, balance changes, typo fixes, theme songs, etc. are greatly appreciated.
Standard Empire Civics
Nationalist Zeal
Requirements: Militarist
A strong sense of nationalistic pride permeates all layers of this society.
CURRENT: -10% Claim Influence Cost. -10% War Exhaustion Gain.
PROPOSAL: -10% Claim Influence Cost. +25% Influence from Rivalries.
REASONING: Influence is one of the most valuable resources, notably because of how scarce sources of it are. By giving conditional influence, it encourages the player to be aggressive diplomatically, constantly finding other empires to rival. As this is exactly how a Nationalistic Zeal empire should behave, it's really the perfect flavor fit.
Idealistic Foundation
Requirements: Egalitarian
This society was founded on strong idealistic values. Whether the current government remains true to them or not, the people have not forgotten.
CURRENT: +5% Citizen Pop Happiness
PROPOSAL: +10% Citizen Pop Happiness
REASONING: The 5% bonus is pretty bad. 5% global(not just citizen) happiness would be around 3% stability, and Police State gives 5% stability and unity from enforcers. Media Conglomerate gives 5% happiness, -5% war exhaustion, and is considered weak. While I'm sure something more interesting could be done with this, I chose the simple path.
Philosopher King
Requirements: Dictatorial or Imperial
It is not enough to simply rule. The Ship of State must be guided by a king that wields enough wisdom and knowledge to steer it true.
CURRENT: +2 Ruler Level Cap
PROPOSAL: +2 Ruler Level Cap. Doubles the bonus per level of your ruler.
REASONING: Ruler Level Cap ranges the gambit from "almost always useless" to "entirely useless". The chances you get a ruler who lives long enough to reach the cap are small enough, and then you realize that by various techs, policies, or perhaps even that tradition in domination or the ascension perk, you already hit the hard cap of 10 without this civic. I thought about just doubling the XP gain of your ruler, but then I realized that doubling the bonus was a cooler way of acquiring basically the same effect. 5% edict duration and 3% unity can quickly add up. If you get a level 5 ruler, that's an extra 25% edict duration and 15% unity. I kept the +ruler level cap because it basically didn't matter, but this is now a very strong civic. It might need to be tuned down somehow.
Shadow Council
Requirements: Not Imperial
Unbeknownst to its own citizens, this society is actually manipulated from behind the scenes by a secretive shadow council. Appearances must be kept, but the tyranny of the majority should also be guarded against. After all, what if the fools vote for the wrong candidate?
CURRENT: -75% Influence Election Cost
PROPOSAL: Elections are free. -75% Faction suppress/promote cost. -50% reform government cost.
REASONING: Shadow council was incredibly weak. This change keeps the theme of cheaper influence to manipulate the government, but expands it outward to more systems. Now the civic is attractive to people who plan to shift ethics mid-game, and it's also cheaper to reform the government so you can ditch shadow council faster.
Environmentalist
Requirements: None
This society seeks to co-exist in harmony with nature. Great care is taken to preserve the environment and limit consumerism where possible.
CURRENT: -10% Pop Consumer Goods upkeep.
PROPOSAL: -10% Pop Consumer Goods upkeep. +5% habitability.
REASONING: A simple, in flavor buff. Environmentalists being able to live more in harmony with the planets around them is a classic sci-fi trope, and while it normally applies to Gaia worlds, thats too niche for a civic.
Machine Cult
Requirements: Spiritualist
The body is weak, the mind fallible. Only in metal can the true perfection of the divine be worshipped.
PROPOSAL: Priests produce 4 engineering instead of 2 society. Roboticists produce 2 unity. Spiritualist Faction really likes Robots, but Robots require an extra upkeep of 0.25 CG.
REASONING: The fact that Stellaris lacks a proper machine worship civic is a travesty. This is my version, allowing spiritualists to build robots, but requiring that those robots be given proper offerings (CGs) for their service. The change of priests to produce engineering just made sense, and giving roboticists unity production was a flavorful way to increase the power level a tad. There would have be a special AI personality for this civic that REALLY likes machine empires, and mechanist would be allowed to be picked with this.
Worshipers of the Void
Requirements: Spiritualist
For all of eternity, we have turned our eyes to the sky. It is in that empty vastness that the Divine is found.
PROPOSAL: Priests produce 4 physics instead of 2 society. +10% Evasion. +10% Sublight Speed
REASONING: Since I was adding a Civic that made Priests produce engineering research, I figured I should make one that gives physics research instead. I'm not 100% on the name and other benefits, but they can be updated if someone comes up with an improvement. I considered +10% happiness for pops in habitats, but that seemed too niche.
Corporate Empire Civics
Trading Posts
Requirements: None
Good business is where you find it. This Megacorporation has a long tradition of spreading its influence through the establishment on trading posts. Their starbases are busy centers of trade.
CURRENT: +4 Starbase Capacity.
PROPOSAL: +2 Starbase Capacity. +15 modifier to border friction with Normal or Megacorp Empires. Starbase Influence cost capped at 500.
REASONING: The way that border friction works, is that you get 5 border friction for every Hyperlane connection you share. The +15 is a flat modifier, so with a single connection you have a net of +10, with two connections you have +5, 5 connections you have -10, etc. The goal of this is to make border friction positive, while still punishing sloppy borders and patchwork empires. The second part of this civic is to make it more feasible to establish long distance outposts, while not effecting normal expansion. Together it encourages the player to set up several outposts a significant ways from their empire and bordering several other empires, to get better relations and cheaper branch offices.
Indentured Assets
Requirements: Authoritarian
This Megacorporation specializes in large indentured workforces. It has little to do with the barbaric practice of slavery - these workers are merely paying off their debts... indefinitely.
CURRENT: +10% Slave Output. 40% Enslaved Pop Ratio.
PROPOSAL: +30% Slave Trade Value. 30% Enslaved Pop Ratio.
REASONING: A bonus to slave trade value is only useful for clerks. This encourages the megacorp to have legions of indentured clerks, chained to their desks filing endless paperwork. Lowering the Enslaved Pop Ratio ensures that you will have enough specialists to fill your job slots, or atleast makes it more likely. Since Megacorp are pushed towards a tall play style, it seemed like a reasonable shift to make.
Media Conglomerate
Requirements:
Before branching into other fields, this Megacorporation began its rise to fortune as a media conglomerate. Its PR department are still masters of spinning stories and presenting the latest quarterly report in the most advantageous way.
CURRENT: +5% Citizen Pop Happiness. -5% War Exhaustion Gain.
PROPOSAL: +5% Citizen Pop Happiness. -10% War Exhaustion Gain. +25% Governing Ethics Attraction.
REASONING: A small buff, that provides increased synergy with Gospel of the Masses and the below added civic, Advertising Agency. War exhaustion is also almost useless, as the only thing 100% warscore means is you can be forced status quo. If the war exhaustion system gets changed in the future, this might get tuned back.
Private Military Companies
Requirements: Militarist
This Megacorporation has a large number of powerful private military companies on its payroll. These mercenary contractors augment its ground forces.
CURRENT: +20% Army Damage. -20% Army Upkeep
PROPOSAL: +20% Army Damage. Enforcers produce 2 trade value. Soldiers produce 3 trade value.
REASONING: This civic was just old warrior culture. Adding Gladiators didn't properly fit with the idea of a private army, so I made it more similar to Citizen Service. The current version might be weak, as 3 trade value is 3/4 as valuable as 2 unity (what citizen service gives), and 2 trade value per enforcer is also significantly weaker than +15% naval capacity. Unity, on the other hand, isn't directly valuable for economy or warfare, and every colony having atleast one enforcer means a persistent bonus.
Gladiatorial Combat
Requirements: Militarist
This Megacorporation specializes in the visceral thrill of blood sport. Camera drones in massive coliseums and film crews on the front lines of wars ensure any gruesome spectacle is widely broadcast.
PROPOSAL: Replaces Entertainers with Duelists. -20% War Exhaustion Gain.
REASONING: Warrior Culture is a very interesting and fun civic. Since its effect doesn't mesh with Private Military Companies, I started with the duelist job and fleshed a civic together around it. War Exhaustion is a more useful bonus then army damage, so this will be stronger then warrior culture, but Megacorps are much less suited for conquering, evening things out.
Advertising Agency
Requirements: None
Both massive billboards and subliminal messaging feed a constant stream of suggestion to any receptive customer.
PROPOSAL: Pops following your governing ethics produce 100% more passive trade value.
REASONING: This was originally a variant of Brand Loyalty, but I felt that existence of the "boring" +15% unity is good, so I made it a new civic. If it was combined, it should be +10% unity and +50% passive trade value. If you want to know how Passive trade value works, click here.
Cooperative
Requirements: Egalitarian
Every employe of this Megacorporation owns a theoretically proportional share. Through this, it ensures that even the lowliest clerk has a vested personal interest in corporate success.
PROPOSAL: +25% influence gain from factions.
REASONING: Literally just parliamentary system ported over to a Megacorp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I went for this because I wanted to add an egalitarian civic to contrast with Indentured Assets.
Restoration Foundation
Requirements: Cannot be added or removed after game start
In the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, this corporation was tasked with spearheading the effort to rebuild society. Now that goal is completed, they fully control the planet.
PROPOSAL: Start on a tomb world. Pops gain the Survivor trait.
REASONING: The special start civics are great fun for RP, but are currently only available to normal empires. I didn't really feel like writing out alternate lore stuff for the others, but a Post-Apocolyptic Megacorp makes perfect sense. Not my best flavor text, if someone wants to write a better one or suggest different wording please do.
Research Institution
Requirements: Materialist
Invested heavily in R&D, this Megacorporation knows best on how to monetize any scientific discovery.
PROPOSAL: Some Executives are replaced by Science Directors. Researchers produce 1 trade value.
REASONING: It's like technocracy, but you get money! Megacorps don't have ay materialist flavor civics, which is a shame. Lots of people love playing tech heavy tall Megacorps, and who doesn't love Aperture Science? Since trade value can be converted to unity at a 2:1 rate, this civic is half the bonus of technocracy. Considering that technocracy is basically the strongest civic in the game, and trade value is more flexible than unity, I think this civic is in a good place.
Machine Intelligence Civics
Zero-Waste Protocols
This Machine Intelligence has configured its manufacturing systems to minimize waste, utilizing long-lived materials and standardized, replaceable parts in all products.
CURRENT: -10% Robot Upkeep.
PROPOSAL: -1 Mineral upkeep to Fabricators, Artisan Drones, Lensing Drones, Refinery Drone, and Chem-Drones.
REASONING: Minerals are often the main bottleneck in the mid to late game, as you can use rare resources to double the density of your buildings. This civic will be useful to empires who got unlucky with minerals, or who have a massive economy pumping out alloys. I suspect this current iteration might be too strong, but it's certainly more interesting than the old version.
Warbots
With a significant number of its corpus originally designed for warfare, the Machine Intelligence retains the ability to field powerful and reliable combat drones.
CURRENT: +20% Army Damage. -20% Army Upkeep.
PROPOSAL: +20% Army Damage. +10% Ship Fire Rate.
REASONING: Since gestalts can't really do entertainers, it wasn't feasible to try and mirror the Warrior Culture change. Instead I blended it a bit with Distinguished Admiralty. Machine empires currently lack any warfare civic (besides DE, ofc), and a solid generic war civic is good to have.
ConstructoBot
Responsible for organizing all planetary construction since its inception, the Machine Intelligence executes efficiently on all manner of facility construction projects.
CURRENT: -10% Build Cost and Upkeep for all Buildings and Districts
PROPOSED: Creating new Buildings and Districts also provides Unity equal to 10% of the mineral cost.
REASONING: The idea of a sort of 'paperclip maximizer' is a good one, but not currently seen in game. A Unity reward every time a building is completed encourages the player to build buildings(duh), and potentially make constantly building and destroying to farm unity an option. The balance is hesitant, as I really don't know exactly how often districts and buildings are built, and has the potential to be too strong during early game and for wide empires.
Functional Design
Organic concepts such as aesthetics or beauty can be completely disregarded for increased durability and efficiency of buildings.
PROPOSAL: -10% Build Cost and Upkeep for all Buildings and Districts
REASONING: The bonus for the old ConstructoBot civic was quite decent, and its good to have some "boring" civics. Since I couldn't really reflavor the new idea to use a different name, I ported over the bonuses to a new civic.
Administrative Overseer
This AI was originally designed to facilitate the daily running of an entire country. It is well suited to the management of an interplanetary empire.
PROPOSAL: +5 stability. Coordinators give an extra +1% menial drone output.
REASONING: Machine empires lacked a civic to represent an administrative origin, so I added one. The basis for this civic was Police State, but I swapped the unity from enforcers for a Coordinator related bonus. It should be a little bit stronger, which is good. This civic doesn't really facilitate or push any play styles, but thats ok considering that machines have three gameplay driven civics.
Hivemind Civics
Strength of Legions
When you do not have to educate the mind, the building of muscle becomes that much easier.
CURRENT: +20% Army Damage. -20% Army Upkeep.
PROPOSAL: +20% Army Damage. +1 Warrior Drone per Capital Building level. +1 naval capacity from Warrior Drones.
REASONING: This was a hard one. Unlike Warbots, drones are pretty specifically ground based, so a space combat bonus just didn't make sense. I was tempted to go for a Citizen service style buff, giving unity to soldier drones, but Strength of Legions isn't about unifying behind warriors, but having masses of warriors. A previous thread suggested a +1 warrior drone per x pops strategy, and while I like the image that invokes, I was cautious about stacking jobs. A per capital building level has a similar progressive growth, but with a cut off. Having guaranteed soldier drones and the 20% bonus to damage will make invading a SoL planet 3 times harder(2+3=5, 5*1.2=6, 2:6=1:3). This is perfectly in flavor, and I can't wait for someone to pull a starship troopers and only send 6 or 8 armies. I did consider raiding the army damage to +50% to make things more insane, but decided for a +1 naval capacity to make having free Warrior drones more useful when you aren't being invaded.
Natural Neural Network
The gray matter of clustered drones provides unparalleled parallelism, accelerating the Hive Mind's exploration of the sciences.
CURRENT: +1 Research Alternatives
PROPOSAL: Synapse Drones get +3 physics and +3 engineering, but have +1 food and +1 energy upkeep.
REASONING: Considering that one of the Hive jobs is a Synapse Drone, if Natural Neural Network was going to boost any job, It was that one. While this does make Synapse Drones very strong, they are only given by the Hive Capital and the planetary unique Synaptic Node chain.
Queens
The hive reproduces through specialized queens, massive and nearly immobile creatures that give birth to and care for thousands of drones at a time.
PROPOSAL: Queens replace Spawning Drones. +1 Queen, -1 synapse drone, and -1 maintenance drone per Capital Building level. Queens have an upkeep of 10 food, and give 3 unity, 8 amenities, +20% growth speed.
REASONING: Having a hive mind and NOT having queens as an option is a travesty. For my interpretation on queens, I went for replacing the spawning drone job, as it produces pop growth. While queens do have lower pop growth than spawning drones, getting one or two queens for free ensures that a Hive with queens will always have more pop growth than a non-queen hive. While Queens effectively combine 3 different jobs, the massive food upkeep means you need 2 agri drones for every queen, so they aren't quite as OP as they look.
Empathic Sense
By allowing drones to feel emotions and empathize with their fellows, they are better suited to tend to others.
PROPOSAL: +1 amenities from Maintenance Drones and Spawning Drones.
REASONING: Despite Hiveminds needing more civics more than any other type of empire, I was struggling to come up with good ideas for them. So I looked at the various hive jobs, and tried to come up with things to add or ways to change them. This is a fairly simple (if strong) buff to amenities for Hives, but the idea of Hive drones being able to feel empathy is very interesting to story and RP. Maybe this civic should also get a +10 relations buff?
Darwinist
The survival of the fittest as a driving force leads to stronger, faster, and smarter creatures. By allowing its hunters free rein amongst drones, the hive hones their instincts and eliminates the weak.
PROPOSAL: +10% Complex drone output. Hunter-Seeker Drones get +2 unity, +2 food, and -5% pop growth.
REASONING: As above, I started with the Hunter-Seeker job and worked from there. Once I settled on the Darwinist flavor, I decided to go with a -pop growth modifier, since hives have some to spare and it adds depth and a harder choice. A darwinist style hive mind is interesting, and it also drives gameplay by encouraging sentinel posts and high level jobs. I do worry that it might be too strong, but that would be easily solved by dropping the complex drone bonus to 5%.
Previous Threads I took ideas from
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-all-boring-bad-civics.1195431/#post-25698132 (Probably the primary source, and also the formatting I copied)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ake-megacorps-better-and-more-unique.1199104/
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/huge-list-of-hivemind-suggestions.1173511/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/bfen13/how_would_you_buff_the_worst_civics_according_to/
Any feedback, critiques, balance changes, typo fixes, theme songs, etc. are greatly appreciated.
Standard Empire Civics
Nationalist Zeal
Requirements: Militarist
A strong sense of nationalistic pride permeates all layers of this society.
CURRENT: -10% Claim Influence Cost. -10% War Exhaustion Gain.
PROPOSAL: -10% Claim Influence Cost. +25% Influence from Rivalries.
REASONING: Influence is one of the most valuable resources, notably because of how scarce sources of it are. By giving conditional influence, it encourages the player to be aggressive diplomatically, constantly finding other empires to rival. As this is exactly how a Nationalistic Zeal empire should behave, it's really the perfect flavor fit.
Idealistic Foundation
Requirements: Egalitarian
This society was founded on strong idealistic values. Whether the current government remains true to them or not, the people have not forgotten.
CURRENT: +5% Citizen Pop Happiness
PROPOSAL: +10% Citizen Pop Happiness
REASONING: The 5% bonus is pretty bad. 5% global(not just citizen) happiness would be around 3% stability, and Police State gives 5% stability and unity from enforcers. Media Conglomerate gives 5% happiness, -5% war exhaustion, and is considered weak. While I'm sure something more interesting could be done with this, I chose the simple path.
Philosopher King
Requirements: Dictatorial or Imperial
It is not enough to simply rule. The Ship of State must be guided by a king that wields enough wisdom and knowledge to steer it true.
CURRENT: +2 Ruler Level Cap
PROPOSAL: +2 Ruler Level Cap. Doubles the bonus per level of your ruler.
REASONING: Ruler Level Cap ranges the gambit from "almost always useless" to "entirely useless". The chances you get a ruler who lives long enough to reach the cap are small enough, and then you realize that by various techs, policies, or perhaps even that tradition in domination or the ascension perk, you already hit the hard cap of 10 without this civic. I thought about just doubling the XP gain of your ruler, but then I realized that doubling the bonus was a cooler way of acquiring basically the same effect. 5% edict duration and 3% unity can quickly add up. If you get a level 5 ruler, that's an extra 25% edict duration and 15% unity. I kept the +ruler level cap because it basically didn't matter, but this is now a very strong civic. It might need to be tuned down somehow.
Shadow Council
Requirements: Not Imperial
Unbeknownst to its own citizens, this society is actually manipulated from behind the scenes by a secretive shadow council. Appearances must be kept, but the tyranny of the majority should also be guarded against. After all, what if the fools vote for the wrong candidate?
CURRENT: -75% Influence Election Cost
PROPOSAL: Elections are free. -75% Faction suppress/promote cost. -50% reform government cost.
REASONING: Shadow council was incredibly weak. This change keeps the theme of cheaper influence to manipulate the government, but expands it outward to more systems. Now the civic is attractive to people who plan to shift ethics mid-game, and it's also cheaper to reform the government so you can ditch shadow council faster.
Environmentalist
Requirements: None
This society seeks to co-exist in harmony with nature. Great care is taken to preserve the environment and limit consumerism where possible.
CURRENT: -10% Pop Consumer Goods upkeep.
PROPOSAL: -10% Pop Consumer Goods upkeep. +5% habitability.
REASONING: A simple, in flavor buff. Environmentalists being able to live more in harmony with the planets around them is a classic sci-fi trope, and while it normally applies to Gaia worlds, thats too niche for a civic.
Machine Cult
Requirements: Spiritualist
The body is weak, the mind fallible. Only in metal can the true perfection of the divine be worshipped.
PROPOSAL: Priests produce 4 engineering instead of 2 society. Roboticists produce 2 unity. Spiritualist Faction really likes Robots, but Robots require an extra upkeep of 0.25 CG.
REASONING: The fact that Stellaris lacks a proper machine worship civic is a travesty. This is my version, allowing spiritualists to build robots, but requiring that those robots be given proper offerings (CGs) for their service. The change of priests to produce engineering just made sense, and giving roboticists unity production was a flavorful way to increase the power level a tad. There would have be a special AI personality for this civic that REALLY likes machine empires, and mechanist would be allowed to be picked with this.
Worshipers of the Void
Requirements: Spiritualist
For all of eternity, we have turned our eyes to the sky. It is in that empty vastness that the Divine is found.
PROPOSAL: Priests produce 4 physics instead of 2 society. +10% Evasion. +10% Sublight Speed
REASONING: Since I was adding a Civic that made Priests produce engineering research, I figured I should make one that gives physics research instead. I'm not 100% on the name and other benefits, but they can be updated if someone comes up with an improvement. I considered +10% happiness for pops in habitats, but that seemed too niche.
Corporate Empire Civics
Trading Posts
Requirements: None
Good business is where you find it. This Megacorporation has a long tradition of spreading its influence through the establishment on trading posts. Their starbases are busy centers of trade.
CURRENT: +4 Starbase Capacity.
PROPOSAL: +2 Starbase Capacity. +15 modifier to border friction with Normal or Megacorp Empires. Starbase Influence cost capped at 500.
REASONING: The way that border friction works, is that you get 5 border friction for every Hyperlane connection you share. The +15 is a flat modifier, so with a single connection you have a net of +10, with two connections you have +5, 5 connections you have -10, etc. The goal of this is to make border friction positive, while still punishing sloppy borders and patchwork empires. The second part of this civic is to make it more feasible to establish long distance outposts, while not effecting normal expansion. Together it encourages the player to set up several outposts a significant ways from their empire and bordering several other empires, to get better relations and cheaper branch offices.
Indentured Assets
Requirements: Authoritarian
This Megacorporation specializes in large indentured workforces. It has little to do with the barbaric practice of slavery - these workers are merely paying off their debts... indefinitely.
CURRENT: +10% Slave Output. 40% Enslaved Pop Ratio.
PROPOSAL: +30% Slave Trade Value. 30% Enslaved Pop Ratio.
REASONING: A bonus to slave trade value is only useful for clerks. This encourages the megacorp to have legions of indentured clerks, chained to their desks filing endless paperwork. Lowering the Enslaved Pop Ratio ensures that you will have enough specialists to fill your job slots, or atleast makes it more likely. Since Megacorp are pushed towards a tall play style, it seemed like a reasonable shift to make.
Media Conglomerate
Requirements:
Before branching into other fields, this Megacorporation began its rise to fortune as a media conglomerate. Its PR department are still masters of spinning stories and presenting the latest quarterly report in the most advantageous way.
CURRENT: +5% Citizen Pop Happiness. -5% War Exhaustion Gain.
PROPOSAL: +5% Citizen Pop Happiness. -10% War Exhaustion Gain. +25% Governing Ethics Attraction.
REASONING: A small buff, that provides increased synergy with Gospel of the Masses and the below added civic, Advertising Agency. War exhaustion is also almost useless, as the only thing 100% warscore means is you can be forced status quo. If the war exhaustion system gets changed in the future, this might get tuned back.
Private Military Companies
Requirements: Militarist
This Megacorporation has a large number of powerful private military companies on its payroll. These mercenary contractors augment its ground forces.
CURRENT: +20% Army Damage. -20% Army Upkeep
PROPOSAL: +20% Army Damage. Enforcers produce 2 trade value. Soldiers produce 3 trade value.
REASONING: This civic was just old warrior culture. Adding Gladiators didn't properly fit with the idea of a private army, so I made it more similar to Citizen Service. The current version might be weak, as 3 trade value is 3/4 as valuable as 2 unity (what citizen service gives), and 2 trade value per enforcer is also significantly weaker than +15% naval capacity. Unity, on the other hand, isn't directly valuable for economy or warfare, and every colony having atleast one enforcer means a persistent bonus.
Gladiatorial Combat
Requirements: Militarist
This Megacorporation specializes in the visceral thrill of blood sport. Camera drones in massive coliseums and film crews on the front lines of wars ensure any gruesome spectacle is widely broadcast.
PROPOSAL: Replaces Entertainers with Duelists. -20% War Exhaustion Gain.
REASONING: Warrior Culture is a very interesting and fun civic. Since its effect doesn't mesh with Private Military Companies, I started with the duelist job and fleshed a civic together around it. War Exhaustion is a more useful bonus then army damage, so this will be stronger then warrior culture, but Megacorps are much less suited for conquering, evening things out.
Advertising Agency
Requirements: None
Both massive billboards and subliminal messaging feed a constant stream of suggestion to any receptive customer.
PROPOSAL: Pops following your governing ethics produce 100% more passive trade value.
REASONING: This was originally a variant of Brand Loyalty, but I felt that existence of the "boring" +15% unity is good, so I made it a new civic. If it was combined, it should be +10% unity and +50% passive trade value. If you want to know how Passive trade value works, click here.
Cooperative
Requirements: Egalitarian
Every employe of this Megacorporation owns a theoretically proportional share. Through this, it ensures that even the lowliest clerk has a vested personal interest in corporate success.
PROPOSAL: +25% influence gain from factions.
REASONING: Literally just parliamentary system ported over to a Megacorp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I went for this because I wanted to add an egalitarian civic to contrast with Indentured Assets.
Restoration Foundation
Requirements: Cannot be added or removed after game start
In the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, this corporation was tasked with spearheading the effort to rebuild society. Now that goal is completed, they fully control the planet.
PROPOSAL: Start on a tomb world. Pops gain the Survivor trait.
REASONING: The special start civics are great fun for RP, but are currently only available to normal empires. I didn't really feel like writing out alternate lore stuff for the others, but a Post-Apocolyptic Megacorp makes perfect sense. Not my best flavor text, if someone wants to write a better one or suggest different wording please do.
Research Institution
Requirements: Materialist
Invested heavily in R&D, this Megacorporation knows best on how to monetize any scientific discovery.
PROPOSAL: Some Executives are replaced by Science Directors. Researchers produce 1 trade value.
REASONING: It's like technocracy, but you get money! Megacorps don't have ay materialist flavor civics, which is a shame. Lots of people love playing tech heavy tall Megacorps, and who doesn't love Aperture Science? Since trade value can be converted to unity at a 2:1 rate, this civic is half the bonus of technocracy. Considering that technocracy is basically the strongest civic in the game, and trade value is more flexible than unity, I think this civic is in a good place.
Machine Intelligence Civics
Zero-Waste Protocols
This Machine Intelligence has configured its manufacturing systems to minimize waste, utilizing long-lived materials and standardized, replaceable parts in all products.
CURRENT: -10% Robot Upkeep.
PROPOSAL: -1 Mineral upkeep to Fabricators, Artisan Drones, Lensing Drones, Refinery Drone, and Chem-Drones.
REASONING: Minerals are often the main bottleneck in the mid to late game, as you can use rare resources to double the density of your buildings. This civic will be useful to empires who got unlucky with minerals, or who have a massive economy pumping out alloys. I suspect this current iteration might be too strong, but it's certainly more interesting than the old version.
Warbots
With a significant number of its corpus originally designed for warfare, the Machine Intelligence retains the ability to field powerful and reliable combat drones.
CURRENT: +20% Army Damage. -20% Army Upkeep.
PROPOSAL: +20% Army Damage. +10% Ship Fire Rate.
REASONING: Since gestalts can't really do entertainers, it wasn't feasible to try and mirror the Warrior Culture change. Instead I blended it a bit with Distinguished Admiralty. Machine empires currently lack any warfare civic (besides DE, ofc), and a solid generic war civic is good to have.
ConstructoBot
Responsible for organizing all planetary construction since its inception, the Machine Intelligence executes efficiently on all manner of facility construction projects.
CURRENT: -10% Build Cost and Upkeep for all Buildings and Districts
PROPOSED: Creating new Buildings and Districts also provides Unity equal to 10% of the mineral cost.
REASONING: The idea of a sort of 'paperclip maximizer' is a good one, but not currently seen in game. A Unity reward every time a building is completed encourages the player to build buildings(duh), and potentially make constantly building and destroying to farm unity an option. The balance is hesitant, as I really don't know exactly how often districts and buildings are built, and has the potential to be too strong during early game and for wide empires.
Functional Design
Organic concepts such as aesthetics or beauty can be completely disregarded for increased durability and efficiency of buildings.
PROPOSAL: -10% Build Cost and Upkeep for all Buildings and Districts
REASONING: The bonus for the old ConstructoBot civic was quite decent, and its good to have some "boring" civics. Since I couldn't really reflavor the new idea to use a different name, I ported over the bonuses to a new civic.
Administrative Overseer
This AI was originally designed to facilitate the daily running of an entire country. It is well suited to the management of an interplanetary empire.
PROPOSAL: +5 stability. Coordinators give an extra +1% menial drone output.
REASONING: Machine empires lacked a civic to represent an administrative origin, so I added one. The basis for this civic was Police State, but I swapped the unity from enforcers for a Coordinator related bonus. It should be a little bit stronger, which is good. This civic doesn't really facilitate or push any play styles, but thats ok considering that machines have three gameplay driven civics.
Hivemind Civics
Strength of Legions
When you do not have to educate the mind, the building of muscle becomes that much easier.
CURRENT: +20% Army Damage. -20% Army Upkeep.
PROPOSAL: +20% Army Damage. +1 Warrior Drone per Capital Building level. +1 naval capacity from Warrior Drones.
REASONING: This was a hard one. Unlike Warbots, drones are pretty specifically ground based, so a space combat bonus just didn't make sense. I was tempted to go for a Citizen service style buff, giving unity to soldier drones, but Strength of Legions isn't about unifying behind warriors, but having masses of warriors. A previous thread suggested a +1 warrior drone per x pops strategy, and while I like the image that invokes, I was cautious about stacking jobs. A per capital building level has a similar progressive growth, but with a cut off. Having guaranteed soldier drones and the 20% bonus to damage will make invading a SoL planet 3 times harder(2+3=5, 5*1.2=6, 2:6=1:3). This is perfectly in flavor, and I can't wait for someone to pull a starship troopers and only send 6 or 8 armies. I did consider raiding the army damage to +50% to make things more insane, but decided for a +1 naval capacity to make having free Warrior drones more useful when you aren't being invaded.
Natural Neural Network
The gray matter of clustered drones provides unparalleled parallelism, accelerating the Hive Mind's exploration of the sciences.
CURRENT: +1 Research Alternatives
PROPOSAL: Synapse Drones get +3 physics and +3 engineering, but have +1 food and +1 energy upkeep.
REASONING: Considering that one of the Hive jobs is a Synapse Drone, if Natural Neural Network was going to boost any job, It was that one. While this does make Synapse Drones very strong, they are only given by the Hive Capital and the planetary unique Synaptic Node chain.
Queens
The hive reproduces through specialized queens, massive and nearly immobile creatures that give birth to and care for thousands of drones at a time.
PROPOSAL: Queens replace Spawning Drones. +1 Queen, -1 synapse drone, and -1 maintenance drone per Capital Building level. Queens have an upkeep of 10 food, and give 3 unity, 8 amenities, +20% growth speed.
REASONING: Having a hive mind and NOT having queens as an option is a travesty. For my interpretation on queens, I went for replacing the spawning drone job, as it produces pop growth. While queens do have lower pop growth than spawning drones, getting one or two queens for free ensures that a Hive with queens will always have more pop growth than a non-queen hive. While Queens effectively combine 3 different jobs, the massive food upkeep means you need 2 agri drones for every queen, so they aren't quite as OP as they look.
Empathic Sense
By allowing drones to feel emotions and empathize with their fellows, they are better suited to tend to others.
PROPOSAL: +1 amenities from Maintenance Drones and Spawning Drones.
REASONING: Despite Hiveminds needing more civics more than any other type of empire, I was struggling to come up with good ideas for them. So I looked at the various hive jobs, and tried to come up with things to add or ways to change them. This is a fairly simple (if strong) buff to amenities for Hives, but the idea of Hive drones being able to feel empathy is very interesting to story and RP. Maybe this civic should also get a +10 relations buff?
Darwinist
The survival of the fittest as a driving force leads to stronger, faster, and smarter creatures. By allowing its hunters free rein amongst drones, the hive hones their instincts and eliminates the weak.
PROPOSAL: +10% Complex drone output. Hunter-Seeker Drones get +2 unity, +2 food, and -5% pop growth.
REASONING: As above, I started with the Hunter-Seeker job and worked from there. Once I settled on the Darwinist flavor, I decided to go with a -pop growth modifier, since hives have some to spare and it adds depth and a harder choice. A darwinist style hive mind is interesting, and it also drives gameplay by encouraging sentinel posts and high level jobs. I do worry that it might be too strong, but that would be easily solved by dropping the complex drone bonus to 5%.
Previous Threads I took ideas from
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-all-boring-bad-civics.1195431/#post-25698132 (Probably the primary source, and also the formatting I copied)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ake-megacorps-better-and-more-unique.1199104/
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/huge-list-of-hivemind-suggestions.1173511/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/bfen13/how_would_you_buff_the_worst_civics_according_to/
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