Ascension Perks Guide to 2.2

[Archael90]

This are mine opinions, not facts:
Consecrated worlds are empire-wide bonusses, depending on planet type, this perk perfectly synergize with world shaper, bcs almost every aia planet gives "holy world" modificator (which is the best bonus from consecrated worlds), and you can apply it on almost every planet within your borders. For me its must-pick everytime i play f.spiritualist.
Eternal Vigilance is good perk, but defense platforms are weak, so this perk is viable only for roleplaying purpouses.
Collosus project is good as casus belli, and very good if you want use it: "World cracker" can give you lot of minerals (or something changed), "global pacifer" gives research, and "divine enforcer" is incredible usefull for spiritualist empires, allowing you to change ethics of whole plates (including your own) into spiritualist.

 

[Daedwartin]

There was a thread at some point about Nihilistic Acquisition and it turned to be quite funny. Got ideas for some crazy builds from it, like Life-Seeded Barbaric Despoilers. This perk is wonderful if you don't go for 'grab everything, even if it's 2 energy deposit star system' playstyle. Selective claims are relatively cheap, so no need for Interstellar Dominion, and no need for armies is easier on economy, plus these days AI likes to build 3 enforcer buildings on every rock, making invasions quite difficult. Not as good if target's out of you comfort climate, but can be used for slave trading or resettlement. Even genocidal states can find uses for it once in awhile. Normally homeworlds are worth getting, due to development and large resources in star systems themselves, leaving other planets for constant pop milking. Pop growth is a king in 2.2.x, and Nihilistic Acquisition is very good at creating new pops for you at lower admin overhead.

Nihilistic Acquisition is interesting. The pops you can steal can be extremely useful to quickly get your economy going strong much quicker. If you decide to target the first guys you meet for basically stealing the homeworld? It basically allows your first few worlds to be economically turbocharged.

It however has one major complication: It is an ascension perk that the primary benefit of can be gotten by choosing Barbaric Despoiler, who also get adaptability traditions. And chances are the people who take Nihilistic Acquisition arent going to be able to join federations and several of them absolutely wont be doing migration treaties. You can just be a barbaric despoiler and get extra stuff and still be able to choose something like interstellar Dominion or executive vigor as your first pick.

 

[Dustman]

Nihilistic Acquisition is interesting. The pops you can steal can be extremely useful to quickly get your economy going strong much quicker. If you decide to target the first guys you meet for basically stealing the homeworld? It basically allows your first few worlds to be economically turbocharged.

It however has one major complication: It is an ascension perk that the primary benefit of can be gotten by choosing Barbaric Despoiler, who also get adaptability traditions. And chances are the people who take Nihilistic Acquisition arent going to be able to join federations and several of them absolutely wont be doing migration treaties. You can just be a barbaric despoiler and get extra stuff and still be able to choose something like interstellar Dominion or executive vigor as your first pick.

Mostly it's true but... I like taking it when playing Xenophobe Egalitarian. Very nice synergy. And while Adaptability is good, many parts of Diplomacy are quite useful as well, like saving on diplo cost of treaties and extra trade income. Plus taking BD locks you into specific playstyle limiting options too much. Again, like many perks NA is situational and depends on playstyle. Taking it when all neighbors' homeworlds are red for you is rather useless, but if you can get slaves from your comfort zone, economy might be turbocharged.

 

[Doomjoon]

While I'm sure that this is probably my fault, I never found the Arcology Project to be particularly enticing. Could be because I play on less habitable worlds, making my empire a bit more resource-strained, but I never found it worth to sacrifice those precious resource districts on an ecumenopolis, which by itself is rather resource hungry to actually produce those alloys and consumer goods it's so great at. The thing is that, whenever I'm considering taking the perk and making an ecumenopolis, I'm pretty much already producing as much alloys and consumer goods as my mineral production can support, and I'd only perhaps gain a little bit by not having to spend minerals on producing strategic goods.

That, combined with the simple fact that there are ascension perks more important to me, means that there are never really any opportunities for me to reap it's benefits.

Is there anything that I'm missing, or is it just those 0.75x habitable worlds and no guaranteed habitable worlds settings killing the perk?

 

[sillyrobot]

While I'm sure that this is probably my fault, I never found the Arcology Project to be particularly enticing. Could be because I play on less habitable worlds, making my empire a bit more resource-strained, but I never found it worth to sacrifice those precious resource districts on an ecumenopolis, which by itself is rather resource hungry to actually produce those alloys and consumer goods it's so great at. The thing is that, whenever I'm considering taking the perk and making an ecumenopolis, I'm pretty much already producing as much alloys and consumer goods as my mineral production can support, and I'd only perhaps gain a little bit by not having to spend minerals on producing strategic goods.

That, combined with the simple fact that there are ascension perks more important to me, means that there are never really any opportunities for me to reap it's benefits.

Is there anything that I'm missing, or is it just those 0.75x habitable worlds and no guaranteed habitable worlds settings killing the perk?

I choose planets with less than 3 mineral districts as ecumenopolii candidates. Sacrificing farms and power is of lesser importance. Size of the world is of less importance as are planetary features. Poor minerals, tidal locked, etc. naturaly lead to good transformation candidates.

The huge advantage of the ecumenopolis is the consumer goods / alloy production that does not require strategic resources. I tend to have 1 - 2 habitat districts and the rest split between CG and alloys districts as necessary. The building slots get a robot assembly, 1-2 amenity production (numistic shrine is a favourite of mine, maybe a gene clinic), an industry multiplier, and whatever low-job count buildings I need most -- like crystal or gas refineries for ship components.

This frees a whole whack of building slots on my other worlds -- both factories and refineries. Those get repurposed to research facilities mostly, which pushes up my CG needs a bit, but that is only one or two more districts dedicated towards them...

 

[Archael90]

@Doomjoon
You know that you have to spend minerals to produce motes and crystals to produce alloys and cg in buildings? while ecu doesnt need those, so you are not sacrificing resources, but conserving them, investing in ecumenopolis.

 

[LeanneKaos]

Nihilistic Acquisition is interesting. The pops you can steal can be extremely useful to quickly get your economy going strong much quicker. If you decide to target the first guys you meet for basically stealing the homeworld? It basically allows your first few worlds to be economically turbocharged.

It however has one major complication: It is an ascension perk that the primary benefit of can be gotten by choosing Barbaric Despoiler, who also get adaptability traditions. And chances are the people who take Nihilistic Acquisition arent going to be able to join federations and several of them absolutely wont be doing migration treaties. You can just be a barbaric despoiler and get extra stuff and still be able to choose something like interstellar Dominion or executive vigor as your first pick.

Aspec has a video where he talks about why Nihilistic Acquisition is good but Barbaric Despoiler is not. It basically boils down to "locking down a civic slot is more expensive than burning an AP, and the rest of what Despoilers gives isn't enough for that price." Though obviously if you feel an AP is worth more than a civic slot that reasoning won't hold up.
Video start:

Skip to where he talks about Despoilers:

 

[Technoincubus]

Aspec has a video where he talks about why Nihilistic Acquisition is good but Barbaric Despoiler is not. It basically boils down to "locking down a civic slot is more expensive than burning an AP, and the rest of what Despoilers gives isn't enough for that price." Though obviously if you feel an AP is worth more than a civic slot that reasoning won't hold up.

Despoilers's power is not ability to steal pops, but Adaptability tradition swap, which is infinitely betterthan Diplomacy trash.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Is there anything that I'm missing, or is it just those 0.75x habitable worlds and no guaranteed habitable worlds settings killing the perk?

You may be missing that an ecumenopolis not only produces alloys and consumer goods in districts rather than buildings, and large districts at that, which frees up a lot of building slots on planets for other use and that it does so without spending strategic resources, and not only does that with 100% habitability, but does it at low energy and empire sprawl cost.

They are empire sprawl efficient, strategic resource efficient, empire buildings efficient, energy efficient, food and consumer goods efficient, and production efficient. Relocating alloy and consumer goods production to an ecumenopolis is always worth the effort. You don't need many of them as they can each absorb the mineral production and pop growth of many worlds (and if you get Fen Habbanis you might very well be satisfied with just that one), but if you don't have one the perk is definitely worth taking.

If you take the perk, I suggest converting medium sized planets with few mining districts rather than aiming for biggest possible. Even the smallest ecumenopolis can employ a huge number of pops.

 

[Secret Master]

They are empire sprawl efficient, strategic resource efficient, empire buildings efficient, energy efficient, food and consumer goods efficient, and production efficient. Relocating alloy and consumer goods production to an ecumenopolis is always worth the effort.

It's worth pointing out that even gestalts can make good use of them, even if the perk is unavailable to them. Fen Habbanis and the materialist FE capital (whose name eludes me for the moment) are available.

My recent run as a hive really illustrated the power of the ecumenopolis. I ran the empire with the goal of never using synthetic strategic resources (as part of a larger test on the limits of not upgrading buildings). Once I conquered the FE, I bulldozed the non-essential buildings and swapped the districts over to alloys. Then it was just resettlement time every other year as jobs opened up. Compared to 40 other planets, the ecumenopolis was producing as many alloys as the rest of the empire before the end.

But what I learned from that game were lessons that could be applied to any empire.

1) Ecumenpolis is just about always worth it, including seizing one via conquest or precursors. Even the widest of wide empires can use one. My hypothesis before starting the game was that if I claimed 50+ planets, the ecumenoplis wouldn't be nearly as useful. I was wrong.

2) Even with bonuses on refinery worlds and upgraded buildings, and factoring in the 20k investment, the ecumenopolis is far more mineral efficient than upgraded buildings. I was surprised at my lack of a need for a matter decompressor for the entire game. Part of it was my use of Hive Worlds to feed the ecumenopolis (all the mining districts I want, regardless), but the other half of the equation was the lack of minerals needed for synthetic motes and gases. Adding ringworlds (that I stole from the machine FE) just meant that food and energy got moved to the ringworlds and the Hive Worlds all went to minerals.

3) Putting 300+ POPs on one planet is usually more efficient than 100 POPs on a planet, thanks to art installations and other percentage boosts to amenities. Distribute luxuries (for empires that have it) is capped at 1000, so you can apply it to a 500+ POP ecumenopolis hell hole cheaply.

In fact, I think the ecumenoplis is too powerful for gestalts in its current form. Gestalts can't grab the perk, but RNG can help them get Fen Habbanis, and a blitz against the materialist can net another one in time for it to still matter. Hell, I haven't done it yet, but imagine a DA seizing the Materialist FE ecumenopolis. Pre-existing workforce? Check. Compliant POPs after assimilation? Check. Ability to resettle more when needed? Check. Can take the Machine World perk and turn a bunch of planets into resource feeders for the cyborgs working the ecumenopolis? Check. Doesn't need to waste AP slot? Check. Can use the Colossus to assimilate the planet instantly? Check.

 

[Lady Lacroix]

Aspec has a video where he talks about why Nihilistic Acquisition is good but Barbaric Despoiler is not. It basically boils down to "locking down a civic slot is more expensive than burning an AP, and the rest of what Despoilers gives isn't enough for that price." Though obviously if you feel an AP is worth more than a civic slot that reasoning won't hold up.
Video start:

Skip to where he talks about Despoilers:

You know I suspected NA would become really good once they solved the population problem, and yet I still haven't used it...