Ascension Perk Elimination

[John Rusher]

Because you can get it as your first perk, by the time you have repeatables the influence it will have saved you is enough to have conquered half the galaxy. And since wide is taller than tall that is a big deal.

Well it's mostly usefull for building new starbases, so very early on. Conquering other empires is a midgame thing anyway, unless you use purification/hunger/etc. Conquering others early is only viable option for purger type empires. And for purger type empires, you don't need this perk so w/e.

 

[Retry]

nterstellar Dominion: 26
Technological Ascendancy: 13
Voidborne: 9 (+1)
Master Builders: 14
Galactic Wonders: 15 (-2)
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 20 (+1)
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 8 (-2)

 

[John Rusher]

nterstellar Dominion: 26

You ate I

 

[Pointyearedgit]

Or I could build a colossus and conquer the entire galaxy with my 3000 supply fleet.

I’m curious how well this will work next patch with habitats costing alloy upkeep, I guess it depends on how they tune it.

Ofc it’s not material to our current discussion, where it’s more a question of what you are using your purple mana for.

 

[Archon87]

Interstellar Dominion: 24 (-2)
Technological Ascendancy: 13
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 15 (+1)
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 20
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 8

Let's be completely honest here: Interstellar Dominion is nowhere near good enough to still be in first place on votes. The influence cost reduction is good, sure, but it can't compete with really any of the others on the list right now. This is the cream of the crop, and it doesn't deserve to be here.

Master Builders is kind of interesting in that it doesn't do much on it's own, but it makes Voidborne and Galactic Wonders much much better. Increased habitat size (even retroactive!), and greatly increased build speed on megastructures (including habitats and gateways) just means you'll hit the victory screen before the crisis shows up, or give you a much stronger position to fight it.

 

[ffsffs1]

Then you didn't read the OP of this thread.

This thread is supposed to be about what perks are best able to satisfy the conditions of reaching the victory screen and defeating the crisis.

Conquest (or making friends via regime change but that's worse because AI friends are bad at helping) is incomparably better at doing that than sitting on your ass waiting for a megastructure to finish.

I disagree with this take. The OP makes no mention of the type of empire being played so imo we should be considering all empire builds in this practice. If the OP stated what are the ascension perks that best help you win the game GIVEN that your empire is built around optimizing for these win conditions I would agree with you - but it doesn't. For pacifist empires who can't use unrestricted wars, megastructures become a near must take if you want to achieve victory conditions.

 

[Atreides]

So the fight between Psionics and Synths has gone rather poorly for the good guys. I guess we will try to stave off elimination.


Interstellar Dominion: 24
Technological Ascendancy: 13
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 15
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18 (-2)
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 9 (+1)

 

[Pointyearedgit]

I disagree with this take. The OP makes no mention of the type of empire being played so imo we should be considering all empire builds in this practice. If the OP stated what are the ascension perks that best help you win the game GIVEN that your empire is built around optimizing for these win conditions I would agree with you - but it doesn't. For pacifist empires who can't use unrestricted wars, megastructures become a near must take if you want to achieve victory conditions.

Yes but pacifist is the only ethos even remotely limited in this manner, every other ethos combination can go to war for territory to their heart's content. Psionic and Synthetic ascension apply to more ethos combinations than megastructures do (as they are icing on the victory cake for them), so therefore they are more relevant to victory conditions in more games.

Keep in mind that we are whittling things down to the best of the strongest perks, so (IMO) context of those perks matters now, however powerful they might be for a particular build.

Edit: That said, I get it if you are up-voting because it is your preferred playstyle, but don't be surprised if others vote it down for the same reason.

 

[ffsffs1]

Yes but pacifist is the only ethos even remotely limited in this manner, every other ethos combination can go to war for territory to their heart's content. Psionic and Synthetic ascension apply to more ethos combinations than megastructures do (as they are icing on the victory cake for them), so therefore they are more relevant to victory conditions in more games.

Keep in mind that we are whittling things down to the best of the strongest perks, so (IMO) context of those perks matters now, however powerful they might be for a particular build.

Edit: That said, I get it if you are up-voting because it is your preferred playstyle, but don't be surprised if others vote it down for the same reason.

Well I personally haven't touched the megastructure perks in this thread yet. But you also have to keep in mind that while pacifist empires are a minority of builds, they are more dependant on megastructures for victory than other empires are to any other perk. If you play a wide warring empire, you can easily win the game while taking no ascension perks at all. If you play something like inward perfection I doubt its even possible to win without megastructures.

 

[SuiciSpai]

Interstellar Dominion: 24
Technological Ascendancy: 14 (+1)
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 13 (-2)
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 9

 

[John Rusher]

So the fight between Psionics and Synths has gone rather poorly for the good guys. I guess we will try to stave off elimination.


Interstellar Dominion: 24
Technological Ascendancy: 13
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 15
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18 (-2)
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 9 (+1)

Psionics are the bad guys.

 

[James Fire]

New
Interstellar Dominion: 25 (+1)
Technological Ascendancy: 14
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 13
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 7 (-2)

 

[John Rusher]

New
Interstellar Dominion: 25 (+1)
Technological Ascendancy: 14
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 13
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 7 (-2)

Psionics are still better than Interstellar dominion...

 

[James Fire]

Psionics are still better than Interstellar dominion...

How so? Interstellar dominion, over the course of the game, can save you literal thousands of influence. Psionic you get near the end of the game, and the bonuses are mostly RNG.

 

[Badesumofu]

How so? Interstellar dominion, over the course of the game, can save you literal thousands of influence. Psionic you get near the end of the game, and the bonuses are mostly RNG.

And it's not just the influence saved, it's the systems you expand to more quickly, the clusters you snake off. It's an amazing perk that kick-starts your early expansion.

Interstellar Dominion: 26 (+1)
Technological Ascendancy: 14
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 11 (-2)
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 7

 

[Badesumofu]

You're right I am being extremely noobish to have diplomatic relations with my neighbors, build 100+ habitats, and to build/maintain a 3000 supply navy while playing on grand admiral difficulty.

Clearly you're a skilled player then, but you're succeeding in spite of that strategy, not because of it. 3000 naval cap isn't that high for a late-game empire preparing to face a crisis in a normal or larger galaxy.

 

[James Fire]

Clearly you're a skilled player then, but you're succeeding in spite of that strategy, not because of it. 3000 naval cap isn't that high for a late-game empire preparing to face a crisis in a normal or larger galaxy.

Correction, 3000 naval cap is not high for a vanilla game. Anything goes in modded.

 

[evilcat]

Interstellar Dominion: 27
Technological Ascendancy: 14
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 9
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 18
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 7

Interstellar Dominion +1, good early land grab, get critical systems alter on
Master Builder -2, Wonders are problematic and often win more perk.

 

[Tyrannical Prince]

Interstellar Dominion: 27
Technological Ascendancy: 14
Voidborne: 9
Master Builders: 9
Galactic Wonders: 15
Synthetic Ascension (The Flesh is Weak + Synthetic Evolution): 16 (-2)
Psionic Ascension (Mind over Matter + Transcendence): 8 (+1)

 

[John Rusher]

How so? Interstellar dominion, over the course of the game, can save you literal thousands of influence. Psionic you get near the end of the game, and the bonuses are mostly RNG.

Psionic gives all your pops passive bonus to technology, then increases it and gives it to your leaders too. Expansion is overrated, since technology is king, because it allows you to actualy expand, rather than give you possibility of expansion, by decreasing it's influence cost. You cannot expand if you don't have ships that will beat the enemy fleet. Getting a technology lead is more important than expanding in itself.

For this reason, Synthetic Ascension, is much better than psionic ascension, because it gives double bonus : It allows you to colonize more planets without care, and increases the output of all your planets.

Mere cost reduction of claims and space stations, that you get from interstellar dominion is insignificant.