I see, so the only option is to pick up stray Warform and make him god-emperor; or something along these lines.
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As of tomorrow, the Clerk is no longer the worst job ...
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Can someone please give me a quick rundown of how this compares in terms of resources/pop with agrarian idyll
Thanks
Thanks
Just an hour or two into it, its not as bad as people make it out to be. Combine it mercantile, and it outputs a decent energy output from trade. Thought I am keeping it as pure energy output instead of converting it. As for the pearls divers, I Their output leaves much to be desired but It feels like a cheap source of consumer goods. The Angler's food output is pretty decent to support catalytic though.
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It's important to consider that one of the benefits to the Anglers civic is that it unlocks the Aquatic trait for your species. The only other ways to get that are the Ocean Paradise origin and Evolutionary Mastery. So if you want to play as Aquatic Necrophages, you need to pick Angler.
Not saying that makes Pearl Divers good, just saying that the civic must be considered holistically.
Not saying that makes Pearl Divers good, just saying that the civic must be considered holistically.
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You only need to pick ocean world to be aquatic. You don't necessarily need to pick angler.
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No, you can pick Aquatic just by setting your homeworld class to Ocean. You can then choose any origin which does not change your planetary preference.
Have you actually played the game? Aquatic trait is a 1 point trait anyone who starts on an ocean planet can take(so no void dwellers or shattered ring). So necrophage can take aquatic without any need to take angler.
I'm just getting off work, so I was going by the wiki. Possible I just read it wrong, though.
I can see a justification of pearl divers being specialists, and the pearl-bearing organisms needing bait to open up, but it's weird that it takes just as many minerals as food. It would at least make sense if the mineral upkeep was only 1.
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I think it might be easy to write off the jobs when looked at in isolation, but I think it's more competitive if you think of the two as tied together. Compare a pearl diver and angler with a farmer and artisan.
This is the trade off you get before any bonuses:
-3 Consumer Goods
+4 Minerals
+4 Trade
Or if you convert trade to consumer goods:
-2 Consumer Goods
+4 Minerals
+2 Energy
(+1 Unity under a trade league)
Notice that the food zeroes out, so you could think of this as a pearl diver (plus the two trade from the angler) compared to an artisan and forget the angler vs farmer comparison.
It's up to you whether consuming 4 less minerals and generating 4 trade is worth losing out on 3 consumer goods. I'm not sure myself, but it's a lot closer than a superficial look might tell you.
Modifiers are going to add more complexity, of course, but it's not like the output of the two jobs together isn't at least in the same league. Plus, if anglers are in the same category as farmers and pearl divers in the same category as artisans, the modifiers wouldn't be that different. The main loss is specialization due to having two jobs that want different planetary designations attached to the same district.
This might be quite powerful with catalytic converters because of the mineral trade-off. If pearl divers are providing the bulk of your consumer goods, especially using the trade policy, your need for minerals is extremely low. Your agriculture districts, which partially replace both industrial and mining districts, also cost less minerals. Catalytic converters is a bit dubious because of the unfavorable trade, but the two together might have some interesting potential.
Of course, the comparison to Masterful Crafters isn't great. Unlimited and cheaper agriculture districts doesn't strike me as matching 1 building slot per 3 industrial districts. Artificers also have a clearer advantage over artisans:
+1 Consumer goods
+2 Trade
+1.1 Engineering
That's an objective benefit, so Anglers seems like a weaker civic than Masterful Crafters, but again, it's not an enormous difference. 4 Minerals and 2 Trade vs 3 Consumer Goods and 1.1 engineering doesn't strike me as favoring anglers, but it's also not egregiously out of balance.
I'd never argue that it's an S-tier civic, but I think expecting a consumer goods job to be worker tier with no upkeep is expecting too much, and comparing a single angler to two farmers isn't really a fair comparison. In reality, one angler competes with one farmer, and it isn't unusual for a consumer goods job to be a specialist. It's just a bit weird because we have one district providing jobs in two different strata making two completely different resources, which is rare.
This is the trade off you get before any bonuses:
-3 Consumer Goods
+4 Minerals
+4 Trade
Or if you convert trade to consumer goods:
-2 Consumer Goods
+4 Minerals
+2 Energy
(+1 Unity under a trade league)
Notice that the food zeroes out, so you could think of this as a pearl diver (plus the two trade from the angler) compared to an artisan and forget the angler vs farmer comparison.
It's up to you whether consuming 4 less minerals and generating 4 trade is worth losing out on 3 consumer goods. I'm not sure myself, but it's a lot closer than a superficial look might tell you.
Modifiers are going to add more complexity, of course, but it's not like the output of the two jobs together isn't at least in the same league. Plus, if anglers are in the same category as farmers and pearl divers in the same category as artisans, the modifiers wouldn't be that different. The main loss is specialization due to having two jobs that want different planetary designations attached to the same district.
This might be quite powerful with catalytic converters because of the mineral trade-off. If pearl divers are providing the bulk of your consumer goods, especially using the trade policy, your need for minerals is extremely low. Your agriculture districts, which partially replace both industrial and mining districts, also cost less minerals. Catalytic converters is a bit dubious because of the unfavorable trade, but the two together might have some interesting potential.
Of course, the comparison to Masterful Crafters isn't great. Unlimited and cheaper agriculture districts doesn't strike me as matching 1 building slot per 3 industrial districts. Artificers also have a clearer advantage over artisans:
+1 Consumer goods
+2 Trade
+1.1 Engineering
That's an objective benefit, so Anglers seems like a weaker civic than Masterful Crafters, but again, it's not an enormous difference. 4 Minerals and 2 Trade vs 3 Consumer Goods and 1.1 engineering doesn't strike me as favoring anglers, but it's also not egregiously out of balance.
I'd never argue that it's an S-tier civic, but I think expecting a consumer goods job to be worker tier with no upkeep is expecting too much, and comparing a single angler to two farmers isn't really a fair comparison. In reality, one angler competes with one farmer, and it isn't unusual for a consumer goods job to be a specialist. It's just a bit weird because we have one district providing jobs in two different strata making two completely different resources, which is rare.
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Maybe like this:
Artisan 6cg for 6m
1m=1.5e, 1tv=1e=1f. 1ch=2e
Diver 3cg +2tv for -2f -2m.
2tv=2r=2f so that evens out
We have 3cg for 2m, which isnt exacly bad, however:
it is very pop inefficient, especially with specialist divers
We suddenly need minerals, which is something we try to avoid.
Maybe if divers was just 4f that would be better. That mineral cost creates mess.
Problem
If you need 6cg or more, some big amount, you need 2 divers and still need 4m from somewhere (food and tv cancel each other)
Or you need 1 artisan and 1 upgraded miner (4m+2m from mining center) in full package.
Artisan 6cg for 6m
1m=1.5e, 1tv=1e=1f. 1ch=2e
Diver 3cg +2tv for -2f -2m.
2tv=2r=2f so that evens out
We have 3cg for 2m, which isnt exacly bad, however:
it is very pop inefficient, especially with specialist divers
We suddenly need minerals, which is something we try to avoid.
Maybe if divers was just 4f that would be better. That mineral cost creates mess.
Problem
If you need 6cg or more, some big amount, you need 2 divers and still need 4m from somewhere (food and tv cancel each other)
Or you need 1 artisan and 1 upgraded miner (4m+2m from mining center) in full package.
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Agreed. Playing through the first few decades on a few different builds, my impression is that it's a science-trade build meant for an early-game science rush, with the intent/expectation of being leveraged into a trade federation. It's definitely lacking in the early-game alloy capacity, and so is a bit of a glass canon that isn't meta against Grand Admiral/Starnet AI aggression, but science-builds never are.
The key is to recognize that this is an economy-shifting civic: it's meant to rebalance your early game economy so that you can hyper-focus in a specific area (CG-using specialists) by alleviating the burden in the worker economy (farmers, technicians, but also miners). It's definitely a lean-into civic- you take the Thrifty trait to get an extra .625 energy per Angler/Pearl Diver- but it also absolutely lets you get by on buying minerals instead of mining them for your early game needs.
A very important distinction here is that you can put your farmers on an Agri-World and your artisans on a Factory World, but Anglers / Pearl Divers force you to into mixed worlds you can't specialize. On the other hand, a higher base food output means that scales better.
Same on both:
-2 cg = (3+1)-6 (including 1 from trade)
+2 energy (from trade)
On Agri-World (+25% farmer output):
+0.5 food = (10-2)-7.5
+2.8 minerals = -2 + 4.8
On Factory world (-20% artisan upkeep):
-1.5 food = (8-2)-7.5
+3.2 minerals = -1.6+4.8
Agri-World (2 food) seems better than Factory World (0.4 minerals).
Here's another way to look at it: 2 angler districts (Agri-World) vs. 1 industrial district (Industrial World) + 1 farmer district (Agri-World)
+1 food = 2x((10-2)-7.5)
+2 cg = 2x(3+1)-6
-3 alloys = 0-3 (metallurgist)
+6.8 minerals = 2x(-2 + (6x0.9))
+4 energy
And if we want to balance in alloys: 3 angler districts (Agri-World) + 1 industrial district (forge world) vs. 1 industrial district (forge World) + 1 industrial district (factory World) + 2 farmer district (Agri-World)
-6 food = 3x(10-2)-4x(7.5) = 24 - 30
+0 cg = 3x(3+1)-2x6
+0 alloys = 2x(3-3)
+3.6 minerals = (3x-2+2x(-6x0.8)) + 4x(6x0.8) = -6-9.6 + 19.2
+6 energy
...which actually looks decent, especially since you're dropping three specialized worlds to two.
And then balancing in energy: 7 angler districts (Agri-World) + 2 industrial district (forge world) vs. 2 industrial district (forge World) + 2 industrial district (factory World) + 4 farmer district (Agri-World) + 1 generator district (generator world)
-4 food = 7x(10-2)-8x(7.5) = 56 - 60
+4 cg = 7x(3+1)-4x6 = 28 - 24
+0 alloys = 4x(3-3)
+5.2 minerals = (7x-2+4x(-6x0.8)) + 8x(6x0.8) = -14-19.2 + 38.4
-1 energy = 14 - 2x(6x1.25) = 14 - 15
And finally, how about minerals: 15 angler districts (Agri-World) + 4 industrial district (forge world) vs. 4 industrial district (forge World) + 4 industrial district (factory World) + 8 farmer district (Agri-World) + 2 generator district (generator world) + 1 mining district (mining world)
+0 food = 15x(10-2) - 16x(7.5) = 120 - 120
+12 cg = 15x(3+1) - 8x6 = 60 - 48
+0 alloys = 8x(3-3)
-1.6 minerals = (15x-2+8x(-6x0.8)) + (16x(6x0.8) - 2x(4x1.25))= (-30-38.4) + (76.8-10)
+0 energy = 30 - 4x(6x1.25) = 30 - 30
And that 12 CG surplus looks an awful lot like another artisan district. So we're looking at 19 districts and 38 pops over two specialized worlds vs. 20 districts and 40 pops over 5 specialized worlds. And you're also up +8 minerals with everything else zeroed out, not to mention the 1,550 (-15x250 + (4x500+11x300)) minerals you saved on building those districts. As long as that ratio is something your economy wants, you're saving 1/15th of a district and 2/15ths of a pop per angler district.
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So playing with Catalytic Converters, and I'd say it's a glass-canon science/econ bloom that evolves into a war-machine, rather than starts as one. Definitely not meta/stand-in-the-face-of-Grand-Admiral-AI like a Catalytic Hivemind with Unyielding starbase spam, but there is alot of Science potential here.
Like, because a Catalytic Converter starts with 6 rather than 4 farm districts, you start with around 20-22 CG surplus on a balanced economy. That's enough to support 4 additional science labs, without having to build a single Industrial district. And that starting CG can jump to 28-ish if you shift to the Civilian Economy for the +25% CG production. And you're not skimping for energy either- I get that everyone starts with 50 energy give or trade a dozen, but the fact that both the pearl divers AND the anglers are producing trade gives an income stability that doesn't entirely go away when your starting clerks and generator technicians get moved into better jobs.
But it's definitely a glass canon because your starting mineral and alloy economy is shit. Starting with Catalytic Converter actually removes your starting mineral districts entirely: you start with +6 minerals a month, and just how painful this is depends on your mineral deposit RNG. But at the same time, I never really felt a need to build minerals on my homeworld, and the time I did I realized it was a mistake- the trade value from the jobs, plus your starting technician, is enough to just buy the minerals from the market directly. With a decent-spread of deposits I was able to make enough energy to usually buy more minerals every time the price returned to default, and occasionally do the same with alloys as well. This covered until I got a second colony to be a mineral colony.
By the time I reached a third colony, I could usually have enough minerals to designate it a alloy economy entirely- at which point I was getting the 20% upkeep savings, and with Aquatic was at 100% habitability just like the homeworld.
I think the civic comparisons to date have been missing a point: Pearl Divers shouldn't be compared to Artisans, because they're not really in conflict. They're better thought of as complementary, in which a Pearl Diver is a job you take when you don't want or need to invest in an entire Industrial District on the homeworld for CG alone. Early on when your homeworld is your core economic unit, it saves you the need to build Industrial Districts, a huge savings in minerals and mineral upkeep in terms of miners working on the homeworld. Later on, with a Trade Federation, the CG (and trade value) again basically helps cover all your CG needs without needing to devote a world-designation to CG production.
Rather than being compared to industrial district, I think it's better to compare Pearl Diver and Angler to Technicians and Farmers. The 4 trade value of the two is more than half the technician output, while the farmer is of course matched to the angler.
At which point the comparison over 4 pops becomes-
2 Anglers + 2 Pearl Divers
16 food + 4 trade + 6 CG + 4 trade - 4 food - 4 minerals = 12 food + 8 (trade) energy + 6 CG - 4 minerals
2 Farmers + 2 Technicians
12 food + 12 energy
At which point your pop-for-pop civic substitution is really trading 4 energy and 4 minerals for 6 CG, minus whatever your specialist-worker living standard CG gap is. Or, in other words, you pay 4 energy and maybe a half-CG for the privilege of a 4-mineral-to-6-CG conversion... and realistically, you should be doing even better. Homeworld stability and Civilian Economy's 25% should be making that a 4-mineral-to-8-CG conversion.
That is significantly better than a designated Industrial World's mineral efficiency for artisans.
More to the point: this is available on the homeworld, the one planet in your empire without colony designations. It costs the most scaleable resources in the game, energy and minerals, which can be gotten from deposits (or tribute), and alleviates one of the most expensive costs in the early game, Industrial districts.
Now, might you want industrial districts anyway for the alloys? Sure. Like I said, a bit of a glass canon at start. But those CGs are often the more limiting factor of getting colonies established, or employing more scientists, and so this is a very advantageous early game.
(But I will agree that it shouldn't be locked-in. As a lock-in, you're basically forced to go for a Trade Federation.)
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if you are going to compare a Pearl Diver you better be comparing it to a Merchant because that's the job you are not working with your pearl diver.
I knew this would happen it's the "Cult of the Clerk" all over again.
Why is it so hard to accept that a civic is not good, why can't paradox create a civic that isn't good.
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Because a civic that doesn't become good with anything else is a civic you can't build around, and thus can't have a fun time with. It's just a hindrance to whatever your empire's end goal is. Also, random trash makes AI empires worse on average and traps new players who don't know how to value things.
To be clear, this civic is very close to being something to use for a trade-focused empire, but it's ultimately just a hindrance for any such build as far as can be told...and it's a hindrance that cannot be removed after game start.
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You missed the most important world of the part of the game where this matters in the course of the game: the homeword in the early game.
You bring a valid point that the Angler districts can't fully capitalize on the farm-world designations, but miss the point that this is also true of the world where most of the starting pops (and industry) are. Anglers become interesting in this context not in how they compare to industrial districts per see (which lose their 20% upkeep), but in how they compare to the homeworld's other workers that also can't get 25% bonuses, but in which pearl divers can (due to Civilian Economy's 25% CG output). Doing a four-to-four comparison of farmers-technicians to anglers-pearl divers comes to something like a -4 energy, -4 minerals, +6 CG trade. Or, if Civilian Economy, +8 CG trade.
That becomes pretty competitive with a designated industrial world, without even building an Industrial district.
The fact that Anglers on the homeworld also have- at base 8 food- the same raw output of a designated farm world on a per-pop basis (8 vs 6*1.25) is also worth considering. Stack that with the CG efficiency, and your homeworld can easily be pulling tripple duty- as a normal farm-designated world, as a normal CG-designated world, and as a it's usual science-supported self.
This, in turn, lets you use your first two guaranteed worlds for... well, whatever- presumably mining and and industry- at a scale where your homeworld will likely be able to support all three in food/CG, and the space deposits of your empire covering most of the energy.
This is a compactness/self-reliability that can't quite be captured in the raw numbers alone.
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Because you didn't address the argument.
If we wanted pure meta, we wouldn't go with Merchants either- we'd go with Clone Army alloy rush builds. Since we're not going for pure darwinian evolution, it merits discussing what is, and is not, in play. Plenty of people still swear up and down by mining guilds even though they could be having a fraction of the miners, and that's okay.
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Clone Army is an overpowered Origin not an argument, guess what Birch World Origin destroys Clone Army.
We are talking about an underpowered civic which people are trying to claim isn't meme.
Merchants are always available so if you want to give an example of Anglers civic being good or average or anything other than meme
You most definitely need to stack the Pearl Diver against a Merchant.
You won't and we both know why.
Let's go even further why do you have farm districts in the early game?
You should be getting all your food from Hydroponic farms + buying.
I don't have a problem with Anglers however its meme, just like Ocean Paradise Origin is meme.
What I find funny is the mental gymnastics required to make everything s-tier or a-tier etc.
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Yup. It would indeed be a terrible argument to argue that not-optimizing is poor play. Twould be quite ironic were someone to do that.
You haven't demonstrated you know what a normal-powered civic is.
Merchants are only 'always' available in two cases: if you take the Mercantile tradition early, or if you take Merchant Guilds. Both of these are known to be well above average strength civic and tradition for trade builds. Not being well above-average does not, by definition, make something below-average.
Moreover, neither is mutually exclusive with Anglers. Not being mutually-exclusive with Anglers is, by coincidence, why a four-pop-to-four-pop comparison is warranted. In the early game, player is always going to have more worker pops than ruler pops. How those non-ruler pops are employed is relevant to understanding how good or bad a civic that adjusts the worker-specialist balance is.
I'm going to guess it's because you'd struggle to build a good basis of comparison.
Ah, but if we're getting all our food from buying, we're not getting all our minerals from buying.
Who's claiming it's s-tier or a-tier?
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