Please do something with Death Cult civic

[Archael90]

I know you want some civics to be only RP choice, and be actually worse than empire with no civics, and okay, Death Cult has its flavour, and i really love to use it, and thx for letting me use regular priests.
But at least let me to not sacrifice ALL initiates? Make it to sacrifice only 1 per planet or 1 per sacrificial temple, so that im not loosing so much populations for one edict, that do not so much.

 

[lilsaihah]

restrict the amount of open jobs

 

[currylambchop]

so that im not loosing so much populations for one edict, that do not so much.

You're too stingy about your pops, sometimes you gotta sacrifice a few pops to gain bonus to all other pops. sort of like psionic having less pops than bio ascension.

 

[Archael90]

restrict the amount of open jobs

Did you ever played death cult? Yeah i can do this, but i dont believe it was designed to play with closed jobs...

You're too stingy about your pops, sometimes you gotta sacrifice a few pops to gain bonus to all other pops. sort of like psionic having less pops than bio ascension.

Yeah... especially if i have 10 colonies, with 10 initiate jobs on each... killing 100 pops for +10% minerals and energy (+2% bonus for killing 100 pops) seems worth it.

 

[lilsaihah]

Did you ever played death cult? Yeah i can do this, but i dont believe it was designed to play with closed jobs...

okay so what you're telling me is you think the civic should be played with mass slaughter but you want to limit the amount of mass slaughter going on?

pick one, either you kill lots of your own pops or you don't

 

[BrokenSky]

Right now: Restrict mortal initiates to just one job and switch to regular priests on worlds with high populations and the planetary administrator bonus building

For the future: Agree that the devs (custodian team?) ought to give this another look at them, in particular:

• The +1 from exalted priesthood doesn't stack well with death priests only getting 1 priest per temple per level (but if they had a high death priest equivalent, the bonus high death priests would more than make up for it, and would be cool anyway).
• The +1 from Ring buildings again benefits regular priests more. Might be nice if this gave something extra to death priests during a sacrifice or to mortal initiates? (Edit: It already effects mortal initiates)
• The growth bonus from mortal initiates needs to scale as well as the other bonus. There needs to be more incentive to sacrifice more initiates, especially in terms of getting those pops back.
• Potentially the sacrifice options want to be looked at again too? I find I rarely use the happiness one and basically never use the mineral one. Maybe if it were 10% worker output (so it would also boost the output of mortal initiates).
• There needs to be a pop up when you don't have a sacrifice edict running

But yeah, at the moment death cults is good, but it could be better.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Did you ever played death cult? Yeah i can do this, but i dont believe it was designed to play with closed jobs...

It's not like it's designed to be played with 10 jobs per planet being sacrificed either.

And yes, it's absolutely designed to be played with closed jobs, hence why the initiates are a single worker tier while the majority of the bonuses come with the specialist who doesn't get axed. You control your number of sacrifices based on what part of the game you're in, while even a single sacrifice renders all death cult priests +3 unity, effectively doubling their unity output when any sacrifice is in play.


In the early game, that is the core of the gameplay: you're not trying to maximize edict boost %, you sacrifice a small amount for an effective doubling of all your primary unity workers for a better unity economy than anyone else, while letting the pop efficiency and general pop growth make the economy numbers break north of average. Trying to maximize the % numbers in the early game is meainingless in the early game when base values are still too low for them to truly matter, but that's not where the pop efficiency kicks in most. But you're functionally sacrificing 1 pop to double the job output of X other pops.


Mass Sacrifice comes into play late game, when you can either purchase or otherwise acquire pops in great amounts.

Yeah... especially if i have 10 colonies, with 10 initiate jobs on each... killing 100 pops for +10% minerals and energy (+2% bonus for killing 100 pops) seems worth it.

Since that's not what's at stake, you're probably either using mods or just wrong on your bonuses. Per the wiki, the minimum sacrifice: bounty bonus is 5%, and should be well above that for killing 100 pops.

Moreover, the only edict that just boosts minerals and energy is Sacrifice: Bounty. The only Deathcult Empire type that wants to use that edict- which has double the unity start cost of the others- is a Corporate Death Cult, because the edict affects their branch office energy/minerals as well but more importantly because it provides +1 pop assembly to the Permanent Employment zombie factories, raising them from 2 bio assembly to 3. At that point you aren't sacrificing a pop for the 5% bonus; you're sacrificing it for the zombie spam (and the double-unity). Considering how good thrifty budding zombies already are, this is a non-trivial power play.

If you aren't a corporate death cult, Harmony (for happiness) or Togetherness (for Unity) are not only cheaper, but generally better. Togetherness powers your unity economy with a 10%+ buff to all those Death Priests who went from +3 to +6 unity a month. It's good for racing through early unity trees, such as if you're trying to race Psionic Ascension through the third tradition. Togetherness's happiness buff is a more general boost to stability which all jobs including specialist and workers, while the happiness is also a factor in pop ethic attraction to your higher unity-generating state factions.



As for the initial post... Overlord just gave a massive buff to Deathcult empires in their unique overlord building. Deathcult Overlords can sacrifice their subjects pops for the sacrifice edicts.

 

[Archael90]

But yeah, at the moment death cults is good, but it could be better.

I agree, except this statement.
Death cult is flavourfull, but its not good. It was back where death priests produced twice amount of unity from regular priests, it was even with regular temples with addition of special features, with exchange of much higher meintenance cost... meintenance cost stayed the same, but output get lower since unity update patch -.-"

 

[Archael90]

It's not like it's designed to be played with 10 jobs per planet being sacrificed either.

Yes it is, 3rd tier provides 5 initiates. 2 temple buildings is not much in regular spiritualist empire.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Right now: Restrict mortal initiates to just one job and switch to regular priests on worlds with high populations and the planetary administrator bonus building

For the future: Agree that the devs (custodian team?) ought to give this another look at them, in particular:

• The +1 from exalted priesthood doesn't stack well with death priests only getting 1 priest per temple per level (but if they had a high death priest equivalent, the bonus high death priests would more than make up for it, and would be cool anyway).

Regular Priests have 2 jobs per temple level, and provide base 4 unity. +1 exalted priesthood is 5.
Death Priests have 1 job per temple, and provide a base 3 unity, and +3 unity when a sacrifice edict is active, even if it was just 1 pop sacrificed. +1 exalted priesthood is 7. (not counting edict effects).

Exalted Priest hood makes is a 1.4 pop efficiency advantage compared to a 1.5, but even with no exalted priesthood Death Priests have a 1.2 efficiency over Exalted Priesthood priests.

Given that the main reason to build temples empire-wide is for the building effect (planet-wide spiritualist attraction), not the job itself, this is honestly a better deal.

• The +1 from Ring buildings again benefits regular priests more. Might be nice if this gave something extra to death priests during a sacrifice or to mortal initiates?

Exalted Priesthood Rings is still a 1.33 efficiency advantage to the Death Priests, and by this point in the mid/late game sacrifice edicts have to be considered for any meaningful comparison. Even a non-exalted death priest 6, which is nominally on par with the double-boosted Exalted Planetary ring, is realistically well ahead if it's using anything but the Bounty edict. Either a 10%+ from the unity edict, or a roughly 3.6% buff from +10 happiness empire wide to all jobs, including but not limited to unity.

• The growth bonus from mortal initiates needs to scale as well as the other bonus. There needs to be more incentive to sacrifice more initiates, especially in terms of getting those pops back.

By the mid-game when the above matters, pop growth stops being the majority of your natural growth anyway. Sacrificies should come from the same sources as most mid/late game growth: conquest, abduction, or the market.

While you can always buff Harmony more, happiness buffing is already pretty good. It's a direct buff to stability through planetary approval, where every 1 happiness increase on average is .6 stability, with every .6 stability over 50 being .6 boost to all econ, so even the minimum 10 happiness is vaguely 6 stability/3.6 econ buff. The fact that happiness is also a ethic-cohesion mechanic that will help pops get out of the truly massive unhappy-non-state-faction modifiers is a separate stability/unity buff.

• Potentially the sacrifice options want to be looked at again too? I find I rarely use the happiness one and basically never use the mineral one. Maybe if it were 10% worker output (so it would also boost the output of mortal initiates).

The energy/mineral Bounty is especially for MegaCorps, who want to be using branch offices for mining consortiums to improve their empire pop efficiency. This one also gives +1 to the zombie assembly empire wide, meaning on a modest 10 planet empire you're getting +10 pop assembly a month for 5 years for a single pop.

The Harmony edict is by far the best mid/late game sacrifice, as it's a minimum 3.6% buff to all your jobs, of all types. 10% unity vs 3.6% science/alloys/unity/worker jobs is no joke.

• There needs to be a pop up when you don't have a sacrifice edict running

Now that one I can agree with.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Yes it is, 3rd tier provides 5 initiates. 2 temple buildings is not much in regular spiritualist empire.

You are not running 3rd tier temples in the early game.

When you are in the mid-game, you are not putting 2 temple buildings per planet max upgraded. You put, at most, one non-upgraded temple a planet in order to get the spiritualist ethic effect for stability/faction purposes, and have dedicated administrative worlds where you upgrade all the buildings there.

When you are in the late game, you should not be bothering with Sacrifice: Bounty, unless you are a megacorp with a dyson sphere and matter decompressor and tons of mining consortium branch offices, and even then it shouldn't be necessary because Togetherness is better for the part that helps you dominate your vassals and integrate conquests- stability for science and alloy production.

 

[Nevars]

Yeah i can do this, but i dont believe it was designed to play with closed jobs...

Is it?

Regular empire came with a lot of clerk jobs but the intend is not to filled all those clerks unless you play trade focus.

So I believe that the useless mortal initiate job is intended the same especialy when it is worker job contrast to death priest that is specialist.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Yeah i can do this, but i dont believe it was designed to play with closed jobs...

Hahaha I can't believe I'm reading this. You have never played Hiveminds or Gestalt have you? Gestalts are forced to restrict maintenance Drone jobs just to be able to be played properly. If you have ever seen a Hive world, you get something like 10-20 maintenance Drone jobs from your housing disctricts and you have to restrict like 75% to 80% of them.

Being forced to close jobs has been a thing for years for Gestalts, moreso than any other playstyle. Everyone else has simply unemployed enforcer jobs and a few Clerks maybe.

 

[TranscendentalDragon]

I agree, except this statement.
Death cult is flavourfull, but its not good. It was back where death priests produced twice amount of unity from regular priests, it was even with regular temples with addition of special features, with exchange of much higher meintenance cost... meintenance cost stayed the same, but output get lower since unity update patch -.-"

" Where I would often use phrases like “it’s an absolute disaster”, he would instead prefer “This is pretty good, but it can be even better!”. This may prove to be important later on. "

 

[currylambchop]

Yes it is, 3rd tier provides 5 initiates. 2 temple buildings is not much in regular spiritualist empire.

third tier gives three initiates

 

[Archael90]

third tier gives three initiates

Yeah, you right, and 6 is not 10. Yet still killing 60 pops at once still proves the point.

" Where I would often use phrases like “it’s an absolute disaster”, he would instead prefer “This is pretty good, but it can be even better!”. This may prove to be important later on. "

I dont disagee that this can be better tho :v

 

[Alfray Stryke]

The +1 from exalted priesthood doesn't stack well with death priests only getting 1 priest per temple per level (but if they had a high death priest equivalent, the bonus high death priests would more than make up for it, and would be cool anyway).

You’re not blocked from building regular temples as a death cult if you want to make better use of the exalted priesthood bonus.

The +1 from Ring buildings again benefits regular priests more. Might be nice if this gave something extra to death priests during a sacrifice or to mortal initiates?

The orbital ring building that provides additional unity to administrator and priest jobs should apply to mortal initiates, as well. If it doesn’t, please give us a bug report.

Potentially the sacrifice options want to be looked at again too? I find I rarely use the happiness one and basically never use the mineral one. Maybe if it were 10% worker output (so it would also boost the output of mortal initiates).

Off the top of my head being a corporate death cult with permanent employment gives a sacrifice that provides additional zombie assembly.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Yeah, you right, and 6 is not 10. Yet still killing 60 pops at once still proves the point.

It really doesn't, though. Not without actual numbers for context: you've claimed a output below what's supposed to be the minimum, overestimated the pops sacrificed by over 50%, and haven't given the most important context, how large your empire population is. If you sacrifice 60 pops on an empire of 100, you should be getting massive % bonuses (that are still not worth it) and this is almost certainly a bug or mod conflict; if you are sacrificing 60 pops in a 1000 pop empire, yeah it's going to be relatively small because it's a smaller share of your proportion.

At this point, you should probably confirm your mod status and provide screenshots supporting your claims, including the tool tips describing the bonuses, total empire size, and pops sacrificed.

 

[Redgards]

Death Cult + Origin Clone Army = no pips problem and lots of Unity.
Do not thank xD

 

[Archael90]

It really doesn't, though. Not without actual numbers for context: you've claimed a output below what's supposed to be the minimum, overestimated the pops sacrificed by over 50%, and haven't given the most important context, how large your empire population is. If you sacrifice 60 pops on an empire of 100, you should be getting massive % bonuses (that are still not worth it); if you are sacrificing 60 pops in a 1000 pop empire, yeah it's going to be very small because it's a tiny sliver of your proportion.

At this point, you should probably confirm your mod status and provide screenshots supporting your claims, including the tool tips describing the bonuses, total empire size, and pops sacrificed.

So you are saying that killing 60 pops have no impact of any sort to economy and/or killing 60 pops in exchange for 10% bonus unity is good exchange?