[2.1] Civic Trait Elimination

[Mastikator]

Agrarian Idyll 11
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10 (+1)
Fanatic Purifiers 16
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 8
Mining Guilds 39
Parliamentary System 17
Slaver Guilds 18
Syncretic Evolution 14 (-2)

 

[Bobylein]

Agrarian Idyll 11
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 16
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 6 (-2)
Mining Guilds 39
Parliamentary System 17
Slaver Guilds 18
Syncretic Evolution 15 (+1)

Syncretic Evolution let's you build up to biological ascension from the start of your empire

 

[Mastikator]

Agrarian Idyll 11
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 16
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 6 (-2)
Mining Guilds 39
Parliamentary System 17
Slaver Guilds 18
Syncretic Evolution 15 (+1)

Syncretic Evolution let's you build up to biological ascension from the start of your empire

Which is a bad ascension path, it stacks (a tiny bit) with Psionic Ascension since psychic pops are 5% happier and its benefits are removed by synthetic ascension. Synthetic Evolution and Transcendence came in 2 and 3, Evolutionary Mastery came in 11. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/ascension-perk-elimination.1129315/)
Stacking with a bad ascension perk isn't really a strong argument. You only pick Evolutionary Mastery if you love self torture, the minuscule mineral bonus is only achieved with insurmountable micromanagement. It's doable when you have 10 planets, when you have 100 planets that is hours of work while the game is paused.

 

[MojoOverflow]

Which is a bad ascension path, it stacks (a tiny bit) with Psionic Ascension since psychic pops are 5% happier and its benefits are removed by synthetic ascension. Synthetic Evolution and Transcendence came in 2 and 3, Evolutionary Mastery came in 11. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/ascension-perk-elimination.1129315/)
Stacking with a bad ascension perk isn't really a strong argument. You only pick Evolutionary Mastery if you love self torture, the minuscule mineral bonus is only achieved with insurmountable micromanagement. It's doable when you have 10 planets, when you have 100 planets that is hours of work while the game is paused.

You can stack the "minuscule" mineral bonus to +55% (serviles, industrious, slavery, slavery guilds, fan authoritarian) at the start of the game which really lets you kickstart into the game. And if you do mineral/food only planets there is no extra micromanagement.

 

[Lord Beyer XVII]

Agrarian Idyll 11
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 17(+1)
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 4(-2)
Mining Guilds 39
Parliamentary System 17
Slaver Guilds 18
Syncretic Evolution 15

FP rules
Meritocracy is just a worse version of Aristocratic Elite

 

[4o1XOHBV6In4]

Bio ascension was voted out so early to a large degree because of the micro aspect. Or at least, to the best of my recollection, a lot of people cited that as their reason for voting it down. And while that keeps me from actually playing it as well I don't think that's a good reason to call it "weak" or "bad". And I'm fairly confident the other two ascension paths made top 3 at least partially because people enjoy them, much like galactic wonders ended up going so late (and imo later then it should have on merits alone).

Also specializing planets hurts my soul. If a civic forces me to choose between either bulldozing over half my tile resources or being subject to intense micro then I'd rather not pick it. I don't enjoy having to decide between the bad and the tedious. That said, for my votes in this thread I'm treating the civic as if it was played with perfect micro and I consider it fairly good for that reason. We're down to top 12 already and I absolutely expect it to make top 10, possibly even top 5.

Agrarian Idyll 11
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 17
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 4
Mining Guilds 39
Parliamentary System 15 (-2)
Slaver Guilds 19 (+1)
Syncretic Evolution 15

For my actual votes, I've decided to change it up this time with what I'm going for. It seems clear that most of the civics I consider to be top picks will make it for a while longer, so I'd rather try and influence the order in which the remaining civics are eliminated.

And from where I'm standing Parliamentary System is not much better than Cutthroat Politics if at all. And that's mostly due to factions. Without going into detail, factions can be a pain for some empires so Parliamentary System is somewhat limited in which empires it works well with. Notably slavers are good and their faction is really bad so it'll do little for you there. Cutthroat Politics is always useful no matter who you are, so I'd argue even if Parliamentary System has better best-case outcomes they're a lot closer in power and I'm making it so the votes reflect that better.

Slaver Guilds may be fairly situational themselves but slavers are good right now (and always were afair) and slaver guilds is pretty good for them. So I think they should stay in the race a bit longer.

 

[C.N.]

Agrarian Idyll 12 (+1)
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 17
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 2 (-2)
Mining Guilds 39
Parliamentary System 15
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15

 

[Siri]

Agrarian Idyll 12
Citizen Service 18
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 15 (-2)
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 2
Mining Guilds 40 (+1)
Parliamentary System 15
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15

Been a while since I gave Mining Guilds a point, even if it isn't threatened it has earned it.

Removing from Fanatic Purifiers, for reasons I outlined back on page 5. It is getting wildly overrated as far as I am concerned. The bonuses are overstated and the drawbacks are greatly understated.

You can stack the "minuscule" mineral bonus to +55% (serviles, industrious, slavery, slavery guilds, fan authoritarian) at the start of the game which really lets you kickstart into the game. And if you do mineral/food only planets there is no extra micromanagement.

That seems highly questionable for at least one reason, and arguably more. Number one being that if you pick up Syncretic and Slaver Guilds, you aren't getting Mining Guilds, and if you're trying to optimise you really should have Mining Guilds. Another is that yes, you can do specialised planets, but if that's your recourse you're lowering the benefit of the civic and you're probably better off just grabbing Mining Guilds + Slaver Guilds. I'm also not at all convinced that that isn't what you should be doing anyway.

Personally I'd rather have Slaver Guilds for a few reasons. It doesn't split your growth, which isn't a colossal deal, but it is also more than nothing. Slaver Guilds is more flexible in that it can be changed if you would want to for whatever reason (you probably won't, but it's also more than nothing). Syncretic Evolution's bonuses are limited to the special pops, whereas Slaver Guilds will apply to any pop in your empire. If you're purging everything you conquer then this matters less, but if you're purging everything you conquer you're also slowing down your empire's growth which is a fairly significant drawback. If I was going to go for the style that comes with Syncretic Evolution of having two different kinds of pops, I'd rather go with Mechanist because even if the bonuses aren't as big the only drawback that still exists when going this route is that it is also a civic that can never be changed. On top of not having the same drawbacks, it has other solid benefits both in terms of growth and habitability. It doesn't generate AS much minerals per pop, but it is more than offset by the massively increased growth, as is the mineral investment required to get that increased growth.

 

[Hyomoto]

Most of what I've learned from this thread (not going to vote, not enough meta knowledge) is I'm glad the economy overhaul is coming. If nothing else it will clean up tile micro which I think we all can express is a weaker part of the game.

 

[Siri]

Most of what I've learned from this thread (not going to vote, not enough meta knowledge) is I'm glad the economy overhaul is coming. If nothing else it will clean up tile micro which I think we all can express is a weaker part of the game.

From the Let's Plays I've seen the mineral hysteria seems toned down a lot too which is very welcome. My hope is it fosters more diversity for reasons that aren't roleplay related.

 

[Retry]

Which is a bad ascension path, it stacks (a tiny bit) with Psionic Ascension since psychic pops are 5% happier and its benefits are removed by synthetic ascension. Synthetic Evolution and Transcendence came in 2 and 3, Evolutionary Mastery came in 11. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/ascension-perk-elimination.1129315/)
Stacking with a bad ascension perk isn't really a strong argument. You only pick Evolutionary Mastery if you love self torture, the minuscule mineral bonus is only achieved with insurmountable micromanagement. It's doable when you have 10 planets, when you have 100 planets that is hours of work while the game is paused.

Plenty of people didn't pay much attention to the victory conditions and just sort of voted what they liked and disliked. The first person who voted down Bio Ascension down did so not because it was weak (and in fact admitted the bonuses are probably the strongest out of any ascension path), but because it was boring!

Shared Destiny also got axed before One Vision despite OV's basically being a bit of unity and some ethics attraction you basically never need, while Shared Destiny is actually a faster method to conquer empires than Interstellar Dominion (War for Vassal -> Integration with 4x cheaper Influence cost in a few years time is way faster than declaring war to take a chunk of land every few years, overall less influence cost than claims w/ I-D and only beat by Total War, but unlike Colossus, Destiny is T0 and available immediately like Dominion). In this case, Dominion is only cheaper for taking empty space, which is a rapidly diminishing resource. Though I wouldn't say it's necessarily better than Dominion, I'd certainly claim Shared Destiny was under-valued and Dominion (despite being a favorite of mine) was over-valued.

Doesn't seem like the best idea to base opinions on ascension perks solely by what a few dozen people thought on a forum game.

Agrarian Idyll 12
Citizen Service 19 (+1)
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 10
Fanatic Purifiers 15
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Meritocracy 0 (-2)
Mining Guilds 40
Parliamentary System 15
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15

 

[AlanC9]

....while Shared Destiny is actually a faster method to conquer empires than Interstellar Dominion (War for Vassal -> Integration with 4x cheaper Influence cost in a few years time is way faster than declaring war to take a chunk of land every few years,

Against enemies you can actually get a vassallization CB on, I guess so. But since the difficulty bonus fleet cap counts against you, in practice don't you end up having to carve off chunks until it doesn't really matter what your finishing move is? When do you actually find this useful?

 

[evilcat]

Agrarian Idyll 12
Citizen Service 19
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 8 (-2)
Fanatic Purifiers 15
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Mining Guilds 40
Parliamentary System 16 (+1)
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15

Parliamentary System 16 (+1) ifluence for anything
Cutthroat Politics 8 (-2) influence for edicts only
Meritocracy 0 ELIMINATED

 

[Siri]

Shared Destiny also got axed before One Vision despite OV's basically being a bit of unity and some ethics attraction you basically never need

The ethics attraction is fairly close to useless, yes, but I'd still rather take the unity than the integration cost just on account of the unity being something and the integration is nothing to me. In fact, I'd take the ethics attraction over it. In regards to ID, the claim cost isn't even the biggest part of it, it's the outpost cost. Yes, it has a timed usefulness but while it is useful it is insanely strong to the extent that it doesn't matter if it's worth nothing at all later on because it gave such a big advantage early.

Against enemies you can actually get a vassallization CB on, I guess so. But since the difficulty bonus fleet cap counts against you, in practice don't you end up having to carve off chunks until it doesn't really matter what your finishing move is? When do you actually find this useful?

This is my experience too. I guess playing on lower settings makes it more worthwhile but I consider it just about worthless personally. By the time vassalisation is easy enough to make a difference I feel like I've already set myself up to win.

 

[Cry_Havok]

Agrarian Idyll 12
Citizen Service 19
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 8
Fanatic Purifiers 13 (-2)
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Mining Guilds 40
Parliamentary System 16
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15 (+1)

Getting into repeat territory here, but The worst stuff is gone. Today I am going to again up Syncretic Evolution, because it's near universal usefulness. Not only does it double-stack with authoritarianism, but it can also be used with Egalitarianism, allowing a big mineral buff while still having access to the egalitarian civics and influence.

Downvoting FPs because you're cutting out most the tools in your tool box for military buffs, and making yourself a huge target. Sure you get total war, but in exchange you get no diplomacy, no other species to work with and get benefits from, or basically 2/3s of the game. FP is a hard mode, not an optimal path to victory. If you want a no diplomacy game for some reason, Inward Perfection is better (see it having 29 points now instead of 13).

 

[bunkerman]

Agrarian Idyll 13 (+1)
Citizen Service 19
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 6 (-2)
Fanatic Purifiers 13
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Mining Guilds 40
Parliamentary System 16
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15

 

[Ancillary]

Agrarian Idyll 11 (-2)
Citizen Service 19
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 7 (+1)
Fanatic Purifiers 13
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Mining Guilds 40
Parliamentary System 16
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15

I like playing tall as much as anyone, but Agrarian Idyll requires Fanatic Pacifism. Nothing else will do more to hinder expansion, and thus victory by the current game conditions.

A lot of the opposition to Cutthroat Politics seems to come from a dislike of edicts (and presumably campaigns and ambitions). Maybe this is a holdover from earlier versions of the game where edicts really sucked. Sure, in the early going you have better things to do with your influence. Once the galaxy is filled out, however, nothing is going to give you a leg up on the opposition like boosting mineral or energy production. When you've finished all the tradition trees, Cutthroat Politics really shines. It's a fine choice for a third civic no matter your playstyle, and it deserves a top ten spot on the list.

 

[C.N.]

From the Let's Plays I've seen the mineral hysteria seems toned down a lot too which is very welcome. My hope is it fosters more diversity for reasons that aren't roleplay related.

I'm not so sure of that. The leading player has Rockbreakers (robot version of Mining Guilds) and Rapid Replicator, number two has Inward Perfection and Agrarian Idyll.
If anything population growth has been added to minerals and unity as being among the most desirable civic effects.

 

[fishworshipper]

I'm not so sure of that. The leading player has Rockbreakers (robot version of Mining Guilds) and Rapid Replicator, number two has Inward Perfection and Agrarian Idyll.
If anything population growth has been added to minerals and unity as being among the most desirable civic effects.

Yea, it seems like with the slowing of pop growth and drastic increase in space for your pops to grow into, along with the jobs system in general, pop growth is king.

 

[y1kdcb5au9rqw]

Agrarian Idyll 11
Citizen Service 19
Corporate Dominion 20
Cutthroat Politics 8 (+1)
Fanatic Purifiers 11 (-2)
Inward Perfection 29
Mechanist 32
Mining Guilds 40
Parliamentary System 16
Slaver Guilds 19
Syncretic Evolution 15