Ascension Perk Elimination

[4o1XOHBV6In4]

Although people naturally assume Mechanist and Synthetic Ascension synergise, that's maybe not so true.

Mechanist and The Flesh is Weak synergise well, but the ideal thing to do is stop there and once you research Synthetics/Synthetic Personality Matrix flip your populations so you have an overclass of Synths working research, energy, and unity, and stuff the meatbags down the mines where their remaining squishy appendages can get into the little crevasses to get the minerals out and take advantage of the slavery bonuses.

There's a similar build that I was a huge fan of, back in the day. Then I played it and of course wanted to do it perfectly as well: Bio ascenscion for best slaves (except proles) and synth models that perfectly matched the yields of their tiles. Starting as a mechanist and then switching with the synthetic upgrade. It feels good to have it done once and it was really strong. But I'm never, never doing it again. And I expect the micro levels to be comparable.

 

[Lord Beyer XVII]

Final Ranking
Thanks to everyone who's been playing, especially those who have taken the trouble to monitor the running tally for errors and inconsistencies. Thanks also to everyone who participated in a vigorous yet (mostly) civil balance debate which I think has been fairly productive overall. I know I've come out of it with a few new insights at least.

For closing thoughts:

1. Megastructures and "tall" play seems to have a lot of fans.
2. People -really- don't like nihilistic acquisition.
3. Grasp the Void didn't deserve to go so early.
4. Bio Ascension probably suffers from disuse due to (perceived) micro requirements and hence not enough supporters that can help it survive in a game like this.
5. Transcendent Learning ranking almost as high as Galactic Force Projection is a travesty

Thank You for the thread!

very imo, so please don't hit me, also sorry for the weird grammar:
1. well, if you go wide enough, you can have as many MS as you like, so i would not bind that strictly to tall gameplay, rather to the fact, that regardless from whether or not they are practical (for a specific empire, not overall), they're just cool
2. as someone already wrote, why not just pick the civic
3. I don't know, maybe I just suck at the meta, but I'd almost never (outside of a 1 planet challenge) would consider picking a +4 starbase bonus as an ascension
4. pretty much that
5. why a travesty? The only thing, that I can find, which maybe should have had survived longer than Transcendent Learning is Mastery of Nature, while I can not find anything, that should have died earlier than Galactic Force Projection (which yes, might be essential for the survival of an aggressive empire early, and allows for steamrolling, yet simply can't compete with all the following ascension perks)

Also, imo the "final battle" of synth vs psi ascension was very entertaining to see, I actually expected ascensions in general to fly out of this competition much earlier. Apparently I underestimated them greatly (while still ascending every game, but more for rp reasons)

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yea ... no. The monument from the artist enclave throws this analysis out the window.

It doesn't change the relative value between planets and habitats, habitats still don't get the good unity options.

Also, the relevant calculation is whether the amount of unity you can get from a new planet adds a higher percentage of your current income than it adds cost. Which is going to change throughout the game based on your tech level, other traditions, and whether you've met the Artisans or not.

3. I don't know, maybe I just suck at the meta, but I'd almost never (outside of a 1 planet challenge) would consider picking a +4 starbase bonus as an ascension

Most empires will benefit from 144 fleet capacity. Even when you're already quite big it's probably at least 10% of your total. Same with Galactic Force Projection at the point you're likely to pick it, which is third.

The thing this thread doesn't really isolate is what options you have when you pick certain perks.

Your first perk has to be one of these:

Consecrated Worlds
Executive Vigour
Imperial Prerogative
Interstellar Dominion
Mastery of Nature
Nihilistic Acquisition
One Vision
Shared Destiny
Technological Ascendancy
Transcendent Learning
Voidborne

At this point in the game you're probably still expanding unless you've decided on a very tall build, which means that anything that costs influence at this point isn't getting used (that's Mastery of Nature, Consecrated Worlds, and kind of Executive Vigour because you're more likely to spend on expanding than edicts at this point) You probably don't have the leader lifespan to get much use out of Transcendent Learning, or the Star Fortress tech to use Voidborne, and you'll have another slot open by the time you do. You probably don't have vassals yet either so Shared Destiny is out, Nihilistic Acquisition is terrible and Imperial Prerogative has been irrelevant since we could build on sector planets. And One Vision just isn't terribly useful, it's easy to get loads of other unity bonuses to drown it.

So we're already down to Interstellar Dominion or Technological Ascendancy as your first perk (And even if you did stop expanding you're probably going to take TA not EV first). Even if you take one of these others later (Voidborne, basically) it won't be first.

Second perk only adds:

Enigmatic Engineering
Grasp the Void
First tier Ascension

If you're going for an Ascension you take it here. If you're playing tall you probably take Voidborne because now you do have Star Fortress and you want to start getting into habitat spam if you're going to.

Third perk adds:

Eternal Vigilance
Galactic Force Projection
Machine Worlds
Master Builders
Synthetic Age
World Shaper

Synthetic Age only applies to machines and is unnecessary, Eternal Vigilance is bad because defence platforms are bad, and Machine Worlds and World Shaper both require a tier 4 tech you again probably don't have yet and will have another slot before you do.

So you either take Master Builders if you took Voidborne second and have Zero Point Power, take Galactic Force Projection, or go back and fill in an earlier tier pick. Of the earlier tiers you might take Grasp the Void now but GFP is immediate and costs no minerals rather than taking several years and thousands of minerals, so you can spend the minerals on ships now not later. This would probably be the sweet spot for Executive Vigour, any later and you're likely to have slowed down your influence spend and can keep Production Targets active all the time anyway.

Then your fourth pick is either going to be your second tier Ascension or Galactic Wonders.

From the fifth pick you probably have all the requirements for everything now, so you're picking freely, but the relative benefit of any given perk is now getting smaller. The early tier stuff you left behind is probably too late to make a difference now. Grasp the Void almost certainly still gives you a 10% or better bonus to fleet capacity, World Shaper is 10% global productivity and something to do with all the energy you can't spend, and if you went Megastructures and still want an ascension you pick that for five and six. Either that or if you're in a conquering mood you take your Colossus Project and sack off influence costs forever.

 

[Lord Beyer XVII]

Most empires will benefit from 144 fleet capacity. Even when you're already quite big it's probably at least 10% of your total. Same with Galactic Force Projection at the point you're likely to pick it, which is third.

The thing this thread doesn't really isolate is what options you have when you pick certain perks.

Your first perk has to be one of these:

Consecrated Worlds
Executive Vigour
Imperial Prerogative
Interstellar Dominion
Mastery of Nature
Nihilistic Acquisition
One Vision
Shared Destiny
Technological Ascendancy
Transcendent Learning
Voidborne

At this point in the game you're probably still expanding unless you've decided on a very tall build, which means that anything that costs influence at this point isn't getting used (that's Mastery of Nature, Consecrated Worlds, and kind of Executive Vigour because you're more likely to spend on expanding than edicts at this point) You probably don't have the leader lifespan to get much use out of Transcendent Learning, or the Star Fortress tech to use Voidborne, and you'll have another slot open by the time you do. You probably don't have vassals yet either so Shared Destiny is out, Nihilistic Acquisition is terrible and Imperial Prerogative has been irrelevant since we could build on sector planets. And One Vision just isn't terribly useful, it's easy to get loads of other unity bonuses to drown it.

So we're already down to Interstellar Dominion or Technological Ascendancy as your first perk (And even if you did stop expanding you're probably going to take TA not EV first). Even if you take one of these others later (Voidborne, basically) it won't be first.

Second perk only adds:

Enigmatic Engineering
Grasp the Void
First tier Ascension

If you're going for an Ascension you take it here. If you're playing tall you probably take Voidborne because now you do have Star Fortress and you want to start getting into habitat spam if you're going to.

Third perk adds:

Eternal Vigilance
Galactic Force Projection
Machine Worlds
Master Builders
Synthetic Age
World Shaper

Synthetic Age only applies to machines and is unnecessary, Eternal Vigilance is bad because defence platforms are bad, and Machine Worlds and World Shaper both require a tier 4 tech you again probably don't have yet and will have another slot before you do.

So you either take Master Builders if you took Voidborne second and have Zero Point Power, take Galactic Force Projection, or go back and fill in an earlier tier pick. Of the earlier tiers you might take Grasp the Void now but GFP is immediate and costs no minerals rather than taking several years and thousands of minerals, so you can spend the minerals on ships now not later. This would probably be the sweet spot for Executive Vigour, any later and you're likely to have slowed down your influence spend and can keep Production Targets active all the time anyway.

Then your fourth pick is either going to be your second tier Ascension or Galactic Wonders.

From the fifth pick you probably have all the requirements for everything now, so you're picking freely, but the relative benefit of any given perk is now getting smaller. The early tier stuff you left behind is probably too late to make a difference now. Grasp the Void almost certainly still gives you a 10% or better bonus to fleet capacity, World Shaper is 10% global productivity and something to do with all the energy you can't spend, and if you went Megastructures and still want an ascension you pick that for five and six. Either that or if you're in a conquering mood you take your Colossus Project and sack off influence costs forever.

Wow, that's a deep analysis, thank You! For some reason I never associated just four starbases with that much fleet cap, my mistake here.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

It doesn't change the relative value between planets and habitats, habitats still don't get the good unity options.

But it does make tall empires *insane* unity machines in the early game due to the build limit on monuments, of course this requires meeting the artisans early enough to use them.

At this point in the game you're probably still expanding unless you've decided on a very tall build, which means that anything that costs influence at this point isn't getting used (that's Mastery of Nature, Consecrated Worlds, and kind of Executive Vigour because you're more likely to spend on expanding than edicts at this point) You probably don't have the leader lifespan to get much use out of Transcendent Learning, or the Star Fortress tech to use Voidborne, and you'll have another slot open by the time you do. You probably don't have vassals yet either so Shared Destiny is out, Nihilistic Acquisition is terrible and Imperial Prerogative has been irrelevant since we could build on sector planets. And One Vision just isn't terribly useful, it's easy to get loads of other unity bonuses to drown it.

With EV, you aren't running all of the edicts at first, mostly just production targets and perhaps map the stars. This can help if you need to have a fleet and economy to match your expansion rate. Once you've taken the main chokepoints, you can backfill systems at your leisure anyways.

MoN still has -33% to tile blocker clearing, which is what you are going to use earlier in the game, not the land clearance edict. It's still probably not the strongest first pick, but it can work.

Other than that, for 2.1, I generally agree with you.

 

[metalosse]

Actually, the struggle of tall play is generally tech rather than unity. You unlock your ascension slots before you have the tech to use them.

 

[GloatingSwine]

MoN still has -33% to tile blocker clearing, which is what you are going to use earlier in the game, not the land clearance edict. It's still probably not the strongest first pick, but it can work.

-33% to tile blocker clearance is super bad though, because before you know it you'll have more energy than you can conceivably spend because trading hubs are so good. Taking Mastery of Nature for that is such a bad use of an ascension slot. And the land clearance effect is too pathetic for words. It just doesn't give a reasonable number of tiles back.

 

[James Fire]

I never used claims, once i want to war i already have collosus, or i play as pacifist, so ID gives me only half of its power, and another half is not worth ascension slot, way better option is ascension path, and between Psi, and Synth, I like Psi more

That's irrelevant here, as the whole p[ooint of the thread is to find the perks that would be good to win the game and survive the crisis. Colossus is very late, either before or during the crisis, so it doesn't really help you.

Imperial Prerogative has been irrelevant since we could build on sector planets.

No it's not. It gives you that extra 25% resources from 5 planet systems.

 

[James Fire]

-33% to tile blocker clearance is super bad though, because before you know it you'll have more energy than you can conceivably spend because trading hubs are so good. Taking Mastery of Nature for that is such a bad use of an ascension slot. And the land clearance effect is too pathetic for words. It just doesn't give a reasonable number of tiles back.

Changing MoN so that you can use it as many times as you want, while changing the tile scaling seems to work better for me.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

-33% to tile blocker clearance is super bad though, because before you know it you'll have more energy than you can conceivably spend because trading hubs are so good. Taking Mastery of Nature for that is such a bad use of an ascension slot. And the land clearance effect is too pathetic for words. It just doesn't give a reasonable number of tiles back.

I prefer to switch my tiles to be more mineral heavy in such cases and use the extra energy for that.

And you are not running Land Clearance very efficiently unless you are paying less than 60 influence per edict using discounts. You don't get the same return on influence as habitats, but they are instant tiles that can be on Gaia planets, so if you are conquering for free as a genocidal, it makes some sense. I do think they should lower the influence cost of the edict to make it more competitive, however.

Changing MoN so that you can use it as many times as you want, while changing the tile scaling seems to work better for me.

The return on investment is still a bit lackluster unless you are stacking edict cost reduction, but if you have no other great options for influence like habitats or conquest, then it makes sense.

 

[Jmes Snowscoran]

[Imperial Prerogative] gives you that extra 25% resources from 5 planet systems.

Well...sort of. Those resources aren't gone just because they don't go into your main stockpile. Sure, emptying the sector stockpile costs a bit of influence, but if you do it during a defensive war the cost is a mere pittance.

 

[klopkr]

2. People -really- don't like nihilistic acquisition.

Nihilistic acquisition is the coolest ascension... theoretically. It just doesn't work as smoothly as anyone wants.

I think it could be fixed if they had an extra 'pop spawn' space on your planets that will get filled up when you're bombing and invading planets and fighting fleets with the ascension/civic on. Then once it reaches 100% is steals a random pop from an enemy planet you control. Also at the end of wars, all enemy planets you control but don't keep should have a pop stolen.

If they combined that with the ability for xenophobic/hive empires to steal back their own species and egalitarians to steal enslaved pops it would be very very cool. Maybe a way to steal a pop from primitives and have them grow it back would be very cool too.

 

[James Fire]

Well...sort of. Those resources aren't gone just because they don't go into your main stockpile. Sure, emptying the sector stockpile costs a bit of influence, but if you do it during a defensive war the cost is a mere pittance.

Yeah, but with that 25% you don't need to spend influence, you get them right away so you can invest them, and you don't need to be in a defensive war to minimize the influence cost.

 

[GloatingSwine]

No it's not. It gives you that extra 25% resources from 5 planet systems.

Whilst that's correct, it's also not terribly relevant.

A tall empire is likely to concentrate into few enough systems that the extra five won't give them anything (And probably be pacifist which gives them more anyway), and wide empires will have enough systems and income anyway that 25% from only five of them is going to be a drop in the ocean.

 

[Bobylein]

Jmes Snowscoran I would make another thread with the same idea but rather than rating the perks as which one is the best, let them rate which one is most fun.

If you don't mind I would copy most of your text, or maybe you want to open that thread?

 

[Jmes Snowscoran]

Jmes Snowscoran I would make another thread with the same idea but rather than rating the perks as which one is the best, let them rate which one is most fun.

If you don't mind I would copy most of your text, or maybe you want to open that thread?

You can use whatever you want, I have no special rights to make elimination threads. Anything I have written on this forum can be freely copied as far as I'm concerned.

However, consider that if you're setting up a new game now, it will probably not be finished by the time Le Guin is released (December 6th), at which point things will inevitably change. So if I were you, I'd wait until after the new expansion is released, which also gives the community a bit of downtime from playing elimination games.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

Nihilistic acquisition is the coolest ascension... theoretically. It just doesn't work as smoothly as anyone wants.

I think it could be fixed if they had an extra 'pop spawn' space on your planets that will get filled up when you're bombing and invading planets and fighting fleets with the ascension/civic on. Then once it reaches 100% is steals a random pop from an enemy planet you control. Also at the end of wars, all enemy planets you control but don't keep should have a pop stolen.

If they combined that with the ability for xenophobic/hive empires to steal back their own species and egalitarians to steal enslaved pops it would be very very cool. Maybe a way to steal a pop from primitives and have them grow it back would be very cool too.

I feel like Nihilistic acquisition needs a special pop-stealing CB (you get to steal additional pops depending on what planets you occupy and their total pops + some inf) and maybe a bonus to slaves and/or purging. You still would not have the tradition swap of despoilers and not the full despoliation CB, but you would at least be able to raid empires for pops for whatever reason you like.

 

[klopkr]

I feel like Nihilistic acquisition needs a special pop-stealing CB (you get to steal additional pops depending on what planets you occupy and their total pops + some inf) and maybe a bonus to slaves and/or purging. You still would not have the tradition swap of despoilers and not the full despoliation CB, but you would at least be able to raid empires for pops for whatever reason you like.

I like this too.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I feel like Nihilistic acquisition needs a special pop-stealing CB (you get to steal additional pops depending on what planets you occupy and their total pops + some inf) and maybe a bonus to slaves and/or purging. You still would not have the tradition swap of despoilers and not the full despoliation CB, but you would at least be able to raid empires for pops for whatever reason you like.

What it really needs is a compelling reason to go around stealing pops and not just getting them free when you steal the whole planet.

Without the 1:1 link between number of pops and planet size in 2.2 there might be one, if the benefits of staying reasonably small are good enough.

 

[Zohtun]

What it really needs is a compelling reason to go around stealing pops and not just getting them free when you steal the whole planet.

Without the 1:1 link between number of pops and planet size in 2.2 there might be one, if the benefits of staying reasonably small are good enough.

I played a mod where one civic option basically made you create a "preserve" like the Xenophiles do. N-A was a super handy way of filling that early on for the bonuses.

But yeah, I look forward to seeing how Nihilistic applies to the new pop layout.