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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

The "before any bonuses" makes a big difference: in practice, lower base upkeep is a lot less valuable than higher base output.

Artisans look kind of mediocre because they consume a whopping 6 minerals while miners only make 4, and sure enough, Artisans are very expensive to run early on, which is why players try to find ways around them. But as the game progresses, you start mining much more efficiently, and factory worlds also give a substantial upkeep discount to Artisans, so now the upkeep isn't so onerous any more, while the output per Artisan is also much better due to bonuses, so in the end you don't even need that many Artisans. By contrast, if you rely on Pearl Divers for CGs, you will always need a lot more of them than you would Artisans, because their base output is so low. That means you're wasting a lot of pops on a weak job, and in the end you'd be better off just making a factory world or two with regular old Artisans.

Now Anglers are significantly stronger than Farmers per job, no ambiguity there. It's just that especially early in the game, you'd rather not be building a whole district for just one good job. Also, Farmers aren't such a great point of comparison because they're another job players generally try to avoid, because food tends to be cheap and abundant anyway for other reasons (such as hydroponics bays) and other resources take a higher priority. So at an empire level, having a strong food job isn't necessarily that big of a deal. (For similar reasons, Masterful Crafters, while a lot better than Anglers, isn't quite as strong as it looks for most builds: unless you really go all in on CG consumption with a Utopian Technocracy or something, you just don't need that many CG-producing specialists in the first place.)
 
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The "before any bonuses" makes a big difference: in practice, lower base upkeep is a lot less valuable than higher base output.

Artisans look kind of mediocre because they consume a whopping 6 minerals while miners only make 4, and sure enough, Artisans are very expensive to run early on, which is why players try to find ways around them. But as the game progresses, you start mining much more efficiently, and factory worlds also give a substantial upkeep discount to Artisans, so now the upkeep isn't so onerous any more, while the output per Artisan is also much better due to bonuses, so in the end you don't even need that many Artisans. By contrast, if you rely on Pearl Divers for CGs, you will always need a lot more of them than you would Artisans, because their base output is so low. That means you're wasting a lot of pops on a weak job, and in the end you'd be better off just making a factory world or two with regular old Artisans.

Now Anglers are significantly stronger than Farmers per job, no ambiguity there. It's just that especially early in the game, you'd rather not be building a whole district for just one good job. Also, Farmers aren't such a great point of comparison because they're another job players generally try to avoid, because food tends to be cheap and abundant anyway for other reasons (such as hydroponics bays) and other resources take a higher priority. So at an empire level, having a strong food job isn't necessarily that big of a deal. (For similar reasons, Masterful Crafters, while a lot better than Anglers, isn't quite as strong as it looks for most builds: unless you really go all in on CG consumption with a Utopian Technocracy or something, you just don't need that many CG-producing specialists in the first place.)

I think this argument over-emphasizes a reliance on Pearl Divers that isn't really warranted- Pearl Divers can be seen as a compliment to Artisans, rather than a substitute, at which point their role becomes 'what do they allow you in the early game that a artisan wouldn't?'

The single most important thing is, well, starting CG income at game start. If you change your starting economic policy to 'civilian economy', you start with about 20 CG income at game start- 28-ish if you are a Catalytic Converter. That's enough CG to float at least 8 more scientists as soon as you have the minerals to build the labs (and cities), without having to expand miner production to afford the upkeep of another industrial district. This is saving miner pops who don't have to be invested, and the farmer pops already covered by the Angler jobs, and arguably even generator technicians who can be covered by the trade value of the farmer/pearl diver. This is more CG- and more immediately available bodies- to be scientists now, years or even decades ahead of schedule for another empire build. And, of course, this is without having the multi-year delays of having to save up 500 minerals for industrial districts and then deal with the -12 mineral income hit when saving up for your next district.

That you then build industrial districts afterwards, to get more CG and alloys to start stockpiling fleets? Sure, fine, whatever- the biggest challenge of any science-rush is getting pops into science jobs, and the biggest limiting factor to that is early-game CG.


Mid-game efficiency is mid-game efficiency, but what's more important than mid-game efficiency is early-game advantage that gets you into a dominant position. Getting to the position to snowball is more important than the efficiency you can get while snow-balling, since the nature of Stellaris is that- once you start winning- you can leverage your conquests to help you in turn. This is why a lot of Stellaris's early civics are balanced around their early, not mid, game impact.

While I'd certainly agree that Pearl Divers shouldn't be a permanent civic, if it can make it's impact before the point it could be traded out, that's usually the point at which most games are fundamentally decided anyway.
 
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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?

We are taking about a civic, you started talking about overpowered origins

Then you started talking about overpowered traditions.

Civics are compared to Civics, not origins or traditions.

I may choose 2 civics at the start of the game.

Anglers competes on its merits against all other civics not origins or traditions.
 
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I think this argument over-emphasizes a reliance on Pearl Divers that isn't really warranted- Pearl Divers can be seen as a compliment to Artisans, rather than a substitute, at which point their role becomes 'what do they allow you in the early game that a artisan wouldn't?'

The single most important thing is, well, starting CG income at game start. If you change your starting economic policy to 'civilian economy', you start with about 20 CG income at game start- 28-ish if you are a Catalytic Converter. That's enough CG to float at least 8 more scientists as soon as you have the minerals to build the labs (and cities), without having to expand miner production to afford the upkeep of another industrial district. This is saving miner pops who don't have to be invested, and the farmer pops already covered by the Angler jobs, and arguably even generator technicians who can be covered by the trade value of the farmer/pearl diver. This is more CG- and more immediately available bodies- to be scientists now, years or even decades ahead of schedule for another empire build. And, of course, this is without having the multi-year delays of having to save up 500 minerals for industrial districts and then deal with the -12 mineral income hit when saving up for your next district.

That you then build industrial districts afterwards, to get more CG and alloys to start stockpiling fleets? Sure, fine, whatever- the biggest challenge of any science-rush is getting pops into science jobs, and the biggest limiting factor to that is early-game CG.


Mid-game efficiency is mid-game efficiency, but what's more important than mid-game efficiency is early-game advantage that gets you into a dominant position. Getting to the position to snowball is more important than the efficiency you can get while snow-balling, since the nature of Stellaris is that- once you start winning- you can leverage your conquests to help you in turn. This is why a lot of Stellaris's early civics are balanced around their early, not mid, game impact.

While I'd certainly agree that Pearl Divers shouldn't be a permanent civic, if it can make it's impact before the point it could be traded out, that's usually the point at which most games are fundamentally decided anyway.

Yeah, and you pick Merchants not pearl Divers or Artisans
 
Pearl Divers can be seen as a compliment to Artisans, rather than a substitute, at which point their role becomes 'what do they allow you in the early game that a artisan wouldn't?'
Blowing two Civic slots on CG production is insane. Are you going to grab Environmentalist as well for the hat trick? Seriously, nobody's going to use both, and Anglers can't be swapped out after the game starts.

The thing that drives me nuts about this civic, ultimately, is that the unlimited Ag districts part doesn't synergise with anything except Agrarian Idyll, which is explicitly forbidden from combining with Anglers.
 
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Blowing two Civic slots on CG production is insane. Are you going to grab Environmentalist as well for the hat trick? Seriously, nobody's going to use both, and Anglers can't be swapped out after the game starts.
Artisans don't come from a civic, they come from regular industrial districts. You're thinking of Artificers.
 
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Blowing two Civic slots on CG production is insane. Are you going to grab Environmentalist as well for the hat trick? Seriously, nobody's going to use both, and Anglers can't be swapped out after the game starts.

Are you confusing Artisans with Artificers?

The thing that drives me nuts about this civic, ultimately, is that the unlimited Ag districts part doesn't synergise with anything except Agrarian Idyll, which is explicitly forbidden from combining with Anglers.
Catalytic Converter is a stronger synergy, especially as pop-growth slows down and you're facing a limit on pops instead of districts.


As-is, early-game the Pearl Divers provide an excess of CG to maximize your early-game science, when science matters most for competitive advantage, while transitioning into the mid-game your Anglers provide the more oomph to a food-alloy economy.
 
Are you confusing Artisans with Artificers?


Catalytic Converter is a stronger synergy, especially as pop-growth slows down and you're facing a limit on pops instead of districts.


As-is, early-game the Pearl Divers provide an excess of CG to maximize your early-game science, when science matters most for competitive advantage, while transitioning into the mid-game your Anglers provide the more oomph to a food-alloy economy.

Taking a bad civic Anglers adding another bad civic Catalytic Converter doesn't give you any oomph in alloy production in the mid-game
 
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Taking a bad civic Anglers adding another bad civic Catalytic Converter doesn't give you any oomph in alloy production in the mid-game

Food production being easier to scale in the early game while minimizing the mineral drag on your science economy is precisely what gives you oomph in the transition to the mid-game. Catalytic converter is a civic that lets you afford a larger early science-and-war economy than minerals alone, where shortages delay your ability to begin both science and alloy buildups for the first few decades.

The precise moment of the mid-game is open for vague, hence why I used the phrase 'transitioning into'.
 
We are taking about a civic, you started talking about overpowered origins

Then you started talking about overpowered traditions.

Civics are compared to Civics, not origins or traditions.

I may choose 2 civics at the start of the game.

Anglers competes on its merits against all other civics not origins or traditions.

If there are overpowered origins that mitigate the relevance of their comparison to other origins-

And there are overpowered traditions that mitigate the relevance of their comparison to other traditions-

And there are overpowered civics-
 
Food production being easier to scale in the early game while minimizing the mineral drag on your science economy is precisely what gives you oomph in the transition to the mid-game. Catalytic converter is a civic that lets you afford a larger early science-and-war economy than minerals alone, where shortages delay your ability to begin both science and alloy buildups for the first few decades.

The precise moment of the mid-game is open for vague, hence why I used the phrase 'transitioning into'.

There is no mineral drag on your science economy its being run via Merchants
 
I gave anglers/catalytic converters a try with a megacorp, and it was pretty interesting. I will say that Ocean Paradise is even worse for this combo than the "no guaranteed habitable worlds" origins are normally. Without the ability to specialize your capital, you're stuck with your industrial districts being at 1 artisan/1 catalytic technician. What you really want is to fire up a colony that you specialize as a forge world ASAP, which I couldn't really do. The food districts needed to keep up with both your food needs and your alloy upkeep gives you plenty of pearl divers to cover your CG needs, especially once I got into my trade league. So I was disabling all the artisan jobs because they weren't needed, which meant my industrial districts on my capital were pretty weak.

I did build one or two mining districts early while I built up my space minerals and then built some mineral branch office buildings when I was hurting for them a bit later. However, by 50 years in, my mining stations easily covered my mineral needs, and I was tearing down all my other mineral sources in favor of using that space for other things. With my agriculture districts providing food for pops, food for alloys, consumer goods, and energy/unity via Trade, my economy was pretty solid, and I was make pretty good progress through the tech tree and traditions. My poor start due to my origin hurt my alloy economy pretty badly, but with the normal two guaranteed ideal worlds, I think it's a solid approach. All I really needed to do was continue to expand with more agriculture worlds, more forge worlds, and some research worlds. No mining or factory worlds were needed.

Is it as good and efficient as the other top tier civics? Probably not. Is it awful and worse than picking no Civic at all? I doubt it. Is it cool and fun and creates a very different and unique play style? Definitely, and I think that's the most important thing. If the Civic doesn't keep up numerically once more people are trying it out, it's easy enough to tweak the numbers to make it competitive. Though my feeling is that it's at least okay as-is. I wouldn't claim it's any better because I still don't have a great sense of Stellaris balance since I tend to lean more roleplay-ish.
 
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I'd like to see the math on what all boosts pearl diver. I compare it to artisan because that's the closest comparable job. Both are specialist that product CGs using minerals. Merchants are rule jobs and in order to get those CGs you have to go down a specific tradition tree or be in a trade league to make it happen. I see people saying that in theory it could be good, while ignoring the pop inefficiency, but depending on what boost pearl diver output, thing could be significantly worse. If it doesn't get anything than it's going to be way behind in comparison. If it needs the stuff that artisan need, then it kind of works against itself because that means you agriculture worlds need a civilian industries and ministry of production. it probably would be better if it wants the same things farmers want.

Though the real elephant in the room is that it's a very noticeable pop inefficiency that doesn't come with a benefit. You give up one agricultural job for a slightly more efficient farmer in the form of an Angler and 4 trade value (note that aquatics trait doesn't boost any of the pearly diver's production because it only helps with food, mineral and energy production). 50 less minerals on agriculture districts isn't great either. I'd agree we probably don't need a third civic that unlocks building slots for building a certain number of a specific district; especial, since agrarian idyll already does this with agricultural districts. There probably are other things it could be, like the jobs produce more (doesn't have to b food, CGs and TV) or the civic itself has a benefit that is independent of the jobs it gives you.

I mean, take catalytic converters, it's not the greatest of civics but with the right setup be that hivemind or a regular empire that has enough trade, can just forgo having mineral districts Heck, as bad as idyllic bloom is, it has the upside that you get a pay off for getting your eligible worlds turned into Gaias, it just kind goes to crap because once you turn all your eligible worlds into Gaias, it becomes effectively empty civic slot (IMO let the civic either give us bonus stability or amentias or something for the Gaia worlds we control).
 
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Ocean paradise and catalytic play well together. Drop anglers and take anything else. This is the first time I felt I must move the capital. You get to specialize the 30+ ocean into an alloys production center and RULE.

Catalytic plays well with aquatics, because the ocean worlds are rich in agri districts and you need both farmer jobs per district. You still create CG with minerals but these can come from space mining and the few mining districts you'll get on oceans. The district uncap is useless - ocean is good enough already, as is the district cost reduction. You never care about district cost in the early game - if districts had costs like x10 we'll talk then - Its all about pops! And come mid-late game, you wish to get rid of anglers, but you can't!

Is it powerfull? Somewhat, but we had to play aquatics because the pack just came out.
Is it OP? no, not by far. But then the case is: are you are a meta player? or just play for the flavour - because it seems the meta still holds..

For my taste and number crunching, I can have enough flavour with aquatics without taking anglers.

Here's Montu with an Agrarian/Catalytic build:
Edit: spelling...
 
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I'd like to see the math on what all boosts pearl diver.

From what I found- specialist-tier bonuses (Egalitarian, Necrophage), Thrifty (for the trade), and the CG-boosting tech for the CG.

The CG does boost from the Civilian Economy policy, which makes every 2 Pearl Divers on the homeworld realistically produce about 4 CG each when stability is factored in.

The trade value doesn't seem to benefit from the tradition that boosts clerk value.

I compare it to artisan because that's the closest comparable job.

I don't really think it is. Technician is likely better in most respects, because in the early game- where the output matters most- trade if functionally just energy, and you can then just understand it as a energy-for-CG substitution.

At which point, when you build 2 districts and have the four pops for those jobs, you're looking at a
16 food (Angler) - 4 food (Pearl) + 6 CG (Pearl) -4 minerl (Pearl) + 8 Energy (Trade)
or
12 Food + 8 Energy and -4 mineral +6 CG

Compare that with a 2 district farmer/miner combo-

12 food (2 6base farmers) + 12 energy (2 6base technicians)


With the food upkeep of the pearl divers canceling the relative advantage of Anglers vs farmers, the difference in a pop-efficiency calculus when framed against technicians becomes an output of


-4 energy, -4 minerals, +6 CG
(+8 CG with the Civilian goods policy)


This, I believe, is where the analytic attention should focus.


A lot of this doesn't change your overall point- it doesn't scale well into the later game- but I think this is better framed in terms of technician scaling, and the limitation of trade, than against Artisan Industrial Districts.
 
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I feel the fact that you need to math it out to see if its even a benefit and not a loss tells u all u need to know about the strength of this civic. Losing 1 farmer to get a crappy artisan is not rly what ppl are usually looking for in a civic.

This whole thing is begining to remind me of how someother games died. Devs instead of developing some new and intresting stuff start to focus on being super balanced and boring. If they want to add civics that change they way we play then add stuff like rogue servitors.
 
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I read this and other places about how bad pearl divers are, thinking oh it's just the min-maxers complaining again, I don't care, it's fine... Tried it for a bit, it's not fine :/ Seems the job is going at a loss, my main race slave divers used 2 minerals, 3 food. Having a job so bad you must disable it isn't fun. At least the clerks was more of a busywork job to employ people, meant to be bland, pearl divers on the other hand should feel special.
 
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I read this and other places about how bad pearl divers are, thinking oh it's just the min-maxers complaining again, I don't care, it's fine... Tried it for a bit, it's not fine :/ Seems the job is going at a loss, my main race slave divers used 2 minerals, 3 food. Having a job so bad you must disable it isn't fun. At least the clerks was more of a busywork job to employ people, meant to be bland, pearl divers on the other hand should feel special.
Speaking of clerks...