can zombies be assimilated by synth ascended?
- Thread starter taltamir
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Alright. I played through it with my evil megacorp "Liberty Inc."
My authoritarian materialist warlike corp which practices both permanent employment and also turning 30% of every free race into slave pops.
The micro was intense since every colonized world needed 10 pops resettled there (which the slavery helped with. making it cost just 450 energy) and then upgrade its capital and only then I could build a reanimation center. I lucked out into getting robots as literally my 2nd tech by accident so the advantage on early start was small.
I found out that wargoals for megacorp sucks, you need gateways to properly run a trade based economy, can't integrate vassals, and the dumb automation AI kept on building robot assembly plants IN ADDITION to my reanimation centers and then assemble robot pops instead of zombies. Zombies are literally impossible to distinguish from living humans when resettling for some reason.
I struggled along until the tech ascension and then celebrated it (after all my zombies became robots) by switching my auth ethic for fanatic materialist and reforming the government away from megacorp into something normal.
There needs to be various fixes done to this before I try this again
My authoritarian materialist warlike corp which practices both permanent employment and also turning 30% of every free race into slave pops.
The micro was intense since every colonized world needed 10 pops resettled there (which the slavery helped with. making it cost just 450 energy) and then upgrade its capital and only then I could build a reanimation center. I lucked out into getting robots as literally my 2nd tech by accident so the advantage on early start was small.
I found out that wargoals for megacorp sucks, you need gateways to properly run a trade based economy, can't integrate vassals, and the dumb automation AI kept on building robot assembly plants IN ADDITION to my reanimation centers and then assemble robot pops instead of zombies. Zombies are literally impossible to distinguish from living humans when resettling for some reason.
I struggled along until the tech ascension and then celebrated it (after all my zombies became robots) by switching my auth ethic for fanatic materialist and reforming the government away from megacorp into something normal.
There needs to be various fixes done to this before I try this again
For the most part, you want to just make subjects as a corp. Whether that be through direct subjugation, or claiming and releasing territory. Between taxes and branches, subjects can be extremely efficient for corps.
Alternatively, running liberation wars in order to expand your fed is also a good strategy, since winning this type of war will make good trade partners. This is what I do most of the time because I think it's cool.
Megacorps replace subjects with "subsidiary". It is much worse:
1. your subject absolutely hates you because it forces them to pay 45% of their base resource production (cannot be lowered), and the AI really really hates paying tithe
2. their base resource production is peanuts, by the time i can subjugate them i am making so much more
3. when an AI becomes the vassal of a human they lose their AI bonuses, making them quickly spiral into bankruptcy. even worse when you are taking 45% of their base resources
4. subjugated megacorps are not forced to relinquish their branch offices. and can in fact make new ones with impunity
5. integration is strictly forbidden for subsidiary. only way to integrate as a megacorp is to wait for them to collapse enough for you to renegotiate into a protectorate.
6. megacorps waive requirements for vassal to become a bulwark, which they always just convert to on their own. at which point I suddenly have to pay THEM base resources. yet their fleets are utterly useless because they suck.
7. the bulwarks keep on butting into my wars, putting claims on territories of those i try to subjugate.
8. having to conquer an entire empire just to take their branch offices and give it back is annoying.
plus various other issues. honestly found it utterly detestable. just reformed my govt into not sucking so much.
- 2
- 1
- 1
Subsidiaries are just slightly altered tributaries. If you know how to manage contracts, they can be very lucrative. And, if you want, you're able to convert your Subsidiaries into the more specialized types. I personally focus on making Prospectoriums with the occasional Scholarium.
It's true that AI planets don't make as much as player planets, but I use my subjects for basic resource production, which they make more than enough of. The AI doesn't actually lose their entire difficulty bonus, only one level. My own planets are almost completely comprised of specialists, while I get my basic resources from branches/subjects. It's an extremely pop and empire size efficient setup.
The way I deal with other Megacorps if I'm focusing on subjects is to either liberate them first into a regular empire then subjugate them, or I'll just subjugate them right away and benefit from a cut of their branch office income.
As a Megacorp, you don't really *want* to integrate subjects. Between taxes and branch offices, you can get more money out of a subjects trade value than they do (about 142% of their TV converted into energy) and it's pretty easy to get other valuable resources out of them at a good rate between other contract terms and especially holdings. You can do all this without needing to upkeep their pops or pay the empire size penalties, which hit Megacorps harder.
- 2
This costs way too much influence to do.
I explicitly listed that as a drawback.
It is a drawback that you can convert them into those, I hate those. I hate that they self convert into those against my will. I don't want them to keep on converting into useless bulwarks. They were more useful to me as a subsidiary
Money is useless, I am swimming in money already.
I need to turn it into science. alloys are good too. but by default I don't get allows, i get money which is very limited in its conversion ability (you will cause market prices to explode if you buy)
- 1
The influence cost of managing subjects isn't bad if you're not also making claims and such. Especially with power projection, I find myself having more that more than enough influence in this patch.
I can't say I have this issue with subjects turning into Bulwarks. I really don't have anything more to say on this, I just don't ever have that problem.
With the Galactic Market established, I like to sink my excess energy into alloys. Apart from that, a lot of excess energy is also needed if you want to use Mercenaries. But subjects give a lot more than just energy if you manage them correctly. I already gave the example of my empire being almost completely comprised of Rulers and Specialists. That's a solid benefit, but besides that it's also pretty easy to get a large amount of alloys or science from subjects between contract terms and holdings. The Ministry of Extraction holding for example will give you 2(?) alloys per Metallurgist on a particular planet scaling, which adds up quickly.
This entire last patch had a focus on improving subject gameplay, and it succeeded very well.
- 1
You are doing it wrong if you are swimming in energy, you should be building ring worlds non-stop and turn them all into science ring worlds, all building slots on the ring filled with fully upgraded labs. Turn all planets into ecumenopolis, all producing alloys and CGs, all building slots on planets either fortress for more navy cap or strategic resources.
You shouldn't be producing any basic resources by yourself at this point, if you are going for the vassalization route.
- 2
- 2
In that scenario I described I vastly out tech the rest of the galaxy and nobody has the tech to build ringworlds.
I don't need science after I won the game, I need science before it when I am swimming in money and have trouble converting it into useful research or alloys
With a normal empire, in the midgame I can convert a +200% research cost into 10x research income by gobbling up my neighbors. This gives me the research needed to reach technological supremacy.
With a megacorp I can't gobble up my neighbors, I can at best turn them into subsidiaries. so I am stuck with puny research much longer
You would probably still need tech to fight the X25 crisis or even modded crisis in late game.
Turning money to alloy and research mid-game is easy, fill all your planets with industrial districts and building slots with labs. Buy minerals, food, and strategic resources with money, or just straight up buy alloys with money, when I'm playing megacorps, I regularly buys 500 alloys/month, and about another 100 gases / month for my labs.
Since in early to mid game, building slots are very limited, since all of them needs to go to labs, you won't have places to put refinerys. So buying strategic resources from the market is kind of buyinig science.
Well, you could still initiate a conquering war if you want more land.
Last edited:
So what? Let them rise- it's an excuse to nihilistically abduct all their pops.
If you're an exploitative Overlord, this is a significant savings of influence you don't have to pay to raise food/minerals that you don't want to be harvesting yourself. If you need a different sort of resource exploitation subject, there's a special subject type for that: prospectorium for the science tribute, and prospectorium for the industrial and special resource tribute.
Which you use in bilateral trades or as subsidies for other vassals, even as you employ nothing but specialists.
To be clear, you weren't employing farmers, miners, or technicians, right? And your only clerks were the zombies come later?
AI only lose one level of AI bonus.
Why are you subjugating megacorps if you don't want (according to you) redundant energy? Use the hostile takeover wargoal to steal their branch offices on the regular.
Integration is also a considerable influence expense for non-megacorp empires. Unless you're using hostile subjugation policies, it's generally better to go for claim wars instead of a normal empire integration contract change.
But if you're going for hostile subjugation, the penalty is far worse than subsidiary tribute levels.
Anyone can propose a vassal contract change, and you have the option of a veto.
If you don't want subjects to propose changes to contract of vassal type, slot them to a special vassal first.
Would not occur if you applied your veto.
*shrug* Meta is already micro-vassal releases. If you aren't giving away your conquests much of the time, you're generally sub-optimizing.
Hostile Takeover Wars functionally double your influence budget. No other casus belli short of a total war casus belli offers as much influence impact.
Sounds like you were kind of bad at using the tools available, tbh.
Last edited:
- 1
Not really, and especially if you have another megacorp in the galaxy to mug for branch offices.
The great influence thing about the special vassals is that their contracts evolve naturally with loyalty, and don't need influence after the initial negotiation of terms.
Prospectorium and Scholariums are more useful to you than subsidiaries, because they give you more (and better) tribute than the sort your complaining about already having excess of.
Prospectorium not only beat subsidiary in basic resource output thanks to their worker bonuses and contract level up, but also provide industrial (alloy + CG) and strategic resource tribute over time. These can allow your sprawl-sensitive megacorp to run nearly 100% scientist/unity worker empires, with no need for the 2-jobs-a-district district-sprawl inefficient empires.
Scholarium give science tribute- something that never goes into a resource deficit spiral- and a 3% research rate bonus to the Overlord with their special building.
Turn your subjects into Prospecotrium and Scholarium. They give you alloys, CG, and Science. You can even subsidize that Scholarium with basic resources like that overwhelming energy to tax more science.
Scholarium gives science tribute in the science they generate. not the science I generate. And the AI once subjugated by a human player is given a massive nerf (they lose their bonuses and are as dumb as rocks).
which costs unacceptable amounts of inf, greatly slowing down the midgame before I can get a deathstar running for total war.
hmm... alloy income is not a bad idea. I will give it a try. Still, it wants a LOT of inf to change a subject to one of those types.
See, its not just a matter of generating something. It is a matter of opportunity cost.
I could continue as a megacorp and make vast investments to generate less of the real profits (alloys and science).
Or I could just... reform my government into not being a megacorp. Masterful crafters + Technocracy + Meritocracy, and then integrate subjects for a pittance in influence to turn their worlds into massive warrens of laboratories and factories.
Bonus points if I already tech ascended so I can just gobble up all their pop into my much superior design.
The Scholarium unique overlord holding gives the Overlord a 3% research rate bonus.
This has now been nerfed to 1 per overlord, rather than the spam it used to be.
AI only lose one difficulty level of bonuses when subjugated, so a Grand Admiral AI has Admiral bonuses.
Only if you're not spreading your influence efficiently. Conquest is still desirable as a MegaCorp, just less of it. Branch Office influence should be for people you don't want to conquer, not people you would conquer with the influence if you weren't setting up branch offices.
Further, you should also be doing rivalry wars, early. Yes, the rival won't be a place to put branch offices. That's fine. Use the influence winnings to expand elsewhere.
Again, stop trying to place branch offices everywhere. That's not the gameplay loop. It's like building nothing but science labs and no fleets- yes, it's good, but only in conjunction with other things.
You're still needing to get your resources from somewhere, and you're still getting your sprawl from your upkeep economy, and that's the opportunity cost you're not considering.
Ever since the admin rework, you don't want your upkeep economy within your own empire- the sprawl is inefficient, compared to getting even fewer resources but less sprawl. This was true even before Overlord, when bilateral CG/strategic resource trading was the best way to get basic resources, but it's even more true in Overlord. The advantage of subjects isn't 'you get more resources than you'd produce yourself'- it's 'you get resources with less sprawl that lets you produce more yourself,' along with 'you can employ more of your pops as specialists and not workers.' A higher % of specialists with lower sprawl is better than a higher # of pops with more sprawl. Specialist employment, not overall pop numbers, is the key.
MegaCorps are the king of maximizing their specialist population with minimal sprawl. They're the only empire that can compete with unyielding solar panel gestalts in specialist employment in the first 20 years, and they have the flexibility to do so in a number off ways. If you want a war build, catalytic + trading posts (+5 starbases) is one of the strongest war economy civic combos in the game. MegaCorps are the strongest trade builds in the game, which are dominant science-rush builds in their own right.
The one limit of MegaCorps is, yes, integration. Which is not the default in Overlord for a number reasons, and is not a pittance to change.
This is a good example of bad understanding of the game's opportunity costs. Technological ascendancy is not a meta ascension perk in it's own tier, let alone for a build that wants to go wide. Imperial Perogative is a slower to start, but much more considerable boon for wide empires... and if you're trying for a rush strategy, you wouldn't take Technological Ascendancy for that either.
Last edited:
- 1
I didn't. I placed maybe 1.
That galaxy had 7 megacorps other than me. every planet I looked at for a branch was already occupied.
And vassalizing megacorps turned to be a huge mistake because i didn't get their branches.
Anyways, I reformed into a proper government and just exploded out into power and proper conquest..
- 1
I don't want to make a new thread, but what's the best way to utilize Permanent Employment? I know most would say to use zombies to work spammed clerk jobs, but I can't say my Megacorps really *need* extra trade with branches to consider. Wouldn't zombies not have a purpose come mid-game?
It's fine just use it as it is, its just 25% less productive pops with no upkeep, with technology eventually giving like more than 100% bonuses, 25% isn't that hurting.
Personally I would pair it with slave build, since it has no happiness to care for.
I also like pairing it with genetic ascension; Gene Clinic, Clone Vats, Budding, and the Posthumous Employment Center can create an outrageous pop build speed.
Xenophobe zombie livestock is a thing, I'm not sure how it's possible, but it's a thing.