'Development,' a way to make clerks better and unique

[1775guy]

Clerks give trade value and amenities. Trade value is a stand in for other resources (with the downside of having to protect it, and acting wonky in so far as resource modifiers) that are usually collected better by others (technicians), and amenities are already covered better by entertainers. Currently, clerks are used either for specific builds which stack many, many trade buffs, or they are used for as long as you don't have much infrastructure, and then later on you make sure you have as few clerks as possible since they are inefficient.

Clerks cannot be solved, I don't think, by simply increasing how many resources they give, because they will either still be less efficient than technicians/entertainers, or more efficient, in which case they replace those jobs. They need a new stat which makes them unique. This is why i think development should be added to the game.

-Each world will have a 0 to 100 development.
-Development decreases monthly from every district and building, representing maintenance. It is increased monthly by clerks, and clerks alone (or maybe a couple other rare jobs). Also, having high development applies a scaling penalty to monthly development (like prestige in eu4), so that eventually you come to an equilibrium, this penalty representing maintenance on construction devices.
-High development decreases build time and blocker removal time, low development increases this time (similar to stability, penalties for low development perhaps will be harsher than buffs from high development). Penalties/buffs should be significant enough that we care (simply doubling/halving will not be enough, I don't think. Harsh penalties like 10x as long?)
-Machines/hiveminds either don't have this mechanic, or attach it to one of their jobs like maintenance drones

This causes a number of phenomena:
-If a world is not connected to your trade network, construction is 'more expensive' (less benefits from the clerks that are necessary for development).
-Clerks are unique, no other job will do the same (right now merchants are basically better clerks, causing some trade builds to ignore clerks)
-Clerks will still be a job that eventually phases out, when a planet completes being construction, but this phasing out is made more interesting than simply replacing inferior infrastructure.

Arguably, maintenance workers/construction workers don't fit into the idea 'clerk,' so the name could be kept the same with the understanding that it represents additionally maintenance/construction workers, or the name could be changed to something like 'custodian.'

 

[DamnedLackOfTropicalFruit]

Currently, clerks are used either for specific builds which stack many, many trade buffs, or they are used for as long as you don't have much infrastructure, and then later on you make sure you have as few clerks as possible since they are inefficient.

Is there something wrong with these use cases?
Trade builds are a thing, they're pretty viable and interesting, and the "downside" of being wonky with resource modifiers is easily turned into an upside (namely on low habitability worlds). Not having enough infrastructure for your pops is unusual, but I think it's good that there's a job to fill that niche.

I would already describe clerks as unique - they already have their own stat (TV), it's already true that different empires want them in different amounts for different situations, and it's not a bad thing that trade builds have to consider the tradeoffs of clerks vs merchants.

Ignoring the whole development thing for a moment, I'm not convinced clerks need to be "solved" in the first place.

 

[1775guy]

Is there something wrong with these use cases?
Trade builds are a thing, they're pretty viable and interesting, and the "downside" of being wonky with resource modifiers is easily turned into an upside (namely on low habitability worlds). Not having enough infrastructure for your pops is unusual, but I think it's good that there's a job to fill that niche.

I would already describe clerks as unique - they already have their own stat (TV), it's already true that different empires want them in different amounts for different situations, and it's not a bad thing that trade builds have to consider the tradeoffs of clerks vs merchants.

Ignoring the whole development thing for a moment, I'm not convinced clerks need to be "solved" in the first place.

TV isn't really unique, it is a stand in for other resources. Clerks are bad enough that most normal empires want to eliminate them as quick as possible, unless you are doing a trade-specific build (and even in those builds, sometimes clerks are eliminated). Almost every other normal job will be worked to some degree, whereas clerks are made build specific.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Clerks cannot be solved, I don't think, by simply increasing how many resources they give, because they will either still be less efficient than technicians/entertainers, or more efficient, in which case they replace those jobs. They need a new stat which makes them unique. This is why i think development should be added to the game.

Here's the thing, though- clerks don't compete with technicians/entertainers. They compete with miners/artisans.

The 'clerks compete with technicians' is a meme that hasn't been true since the Mercantile tradition was created, and the CG-trade policy was locked to trade builds. As soon as you get the policy, you set to converting TV to CG, and as soon as you have any trade conversion clerks stop being primarily an energy job, because 50% of trade value is no longer value. The maximum use-case of clerks-vs-technicians is when technicians are facing -50% penalties on 0% hab worlds, not when trade jobs are -50% of the energy.

The thing is this doesn't matter, because miners are worse and replacing the miner-CG part of the economy is it's own reward, especially when you use your lowest-hab worlds to do it.

At 'optimal' habitability, a base miner-to-CG value is basically 3 pops: 1 artisan requires 1.5 miners, and about .5 a pop spread between the energy and food upkeep. An artisan provides 6 CG, and this is fine because that's the point. Meanwhile, trade-build clerks are producing about 9 TV at the time of your first tradition (before year 15), and 3 of them are about 27 TV, or 6.75 CG... and 13.5 energy.


But, as was noted, you don't put trade worlds on high-habitability worlds- you put them on the low habitability worlds, the lower the better. While other jobs reduce output, trade doesn't, and as a result you can put it on your low habitability worlds to let your high-habitability worlds do important things, like being science. But science worlds need CG production, and the minerals going into CG.

Which- if you were putting them on a low-habitability world- would be producing considerably less than 6 CG for 3 pops. It could be as low as 3 CG for closer to 4 pops at 0-habitability worlds, where the 3 clerks are still... 6.75 CG, and 13.5 energy.



Now, it is true you can eventually get/terraform enough worlds that everyone is max habitability, and invest 5 techs so you're producing like 10 minerals a miner (base (4 + 2) * 1.(25% planet designation + 60% techs + more), and 9+ CG per artisan for less, and so on...

...but at the point of the game you can invest 5 techs into energy / mineral / CG production, you could also just have invested the techs into military, and started a conquest snowball sooner. And, just as importantly, started to have vassals.

Which is important, because while technicians scale with techs, clerks scale with your number of tributaries. Because trade builds will be trade federations, trade federations give free trade agreements, and when you have tributaries in a trade federation you get to tax the trade you give to everyone, and what everyone gives eachother. Which- since it's a trade federation- means everyone is giving eachother energy and CG, which means that if you're taxing people for industry- congrats, your CG tax is higher- and if you tax people for science- congratulations, they can afford to be producing more science. And, of course, they produce their own TV- and if they're a spin-off vassal who shares your clerk boosts, their clerks are giving stuff you as tribute, as trade deal, and as the taxes paid on the trade value to all other members.

This can get crazy with micro-vassal spam, which is- unfortunately or fortunately- a meta.


And this is without getting to sprawl considerations, the impacts of average district size, for which trade builds are especially good at while technician/artisans are generally bad, and what this means, etc. etc. etc. in avoidable tech drag. And, of course, the point that by a certain point, you're not actually working many/any worker resource jobs yourself, you outsource the resource production to vassals to avoid the sprawl tax.



Do you have to build for all this? Sure, kinda of. But it's a different system

 

[1775guy]

Here's the thing, though- clerks don't compete with technicians/entertainers. They compete with miners/artisans.

The 'clerks compete with technicians' is a meme that hasn't been true since the Mercantile tradition was created, and the CG-trade policy was locked to trade builds. As soon as you get the policy, you set to converting TV to CG, and as soon as you have any trade conversion clerks stop being primarily an energy job, because 50% of trade value is no longer value. The maximum use-case of clerks-vs-technicians is when technicians are facing -50% penalties on 0% hab worlds, not when trade jobs are -50% of the energy.

The thing is this doesn't matter, because miners are worse and replacing the miner-CG part of the economy is it's own reward, especially when you use your lowest-hab worlds to do it.

At 'optimal' habitability, a base miner-to-CG value is basically 3 pops: 1 artisan requires 1.5 miners, and about .5 a pop spread between the energy and food upkeep. An artisan provides 6 CG, and this is fine because that's the point. Meanwhile, trade-build clerks are producing about 9 TV at the time of your first tradition (before year 15), and 3 of them are about 27 TV, or 6.75 CG... and 13.5 energy.


But, as was noted, you don't put trade worlds on high-habitability worlds- you put them on the low habitability worlds, the lower the better. While other jobs reduce output, trade doesn't, and as a result you can put it on your low habitability worlds to let your high-habitability worlds do important things, like being science. But science worlds need CG production, and the minerals going into CG.

Which- if you were putting them on a low-habitability world- would be producing considerably less than 6 CG for 3 pops. It could be as low as 3 CG for closer to 4 pops at 0-habitability worlds, where the 3 clerks are still... 6.75 CG, and 13.5 energy.



Now, it is true you can eventually get/terraform enough worlds that everyone is max habitability, and invest 5 techs so you're producing like 10 minerals a miner (base (4 + 2) * 1.(25% planet designation + 60% techs + more), and 9+ CG per artisan for less, and so on...

...but at the point of the game you can invest 5 techs into energy / mineral / CG production, you could also just have invested the techs into military, and started a conquest snowball sooner. And, just as importantly, started to have vassals.

Which is important, because while technicians scale with techs, clerks scale with your number of tributaries. Because trade builds will be trade federations, trade federations give free trade agreements, and when you have tributaries in a trade federation you get to tax the trade you give to everyone, and what everyone gives eachother. Which- since it's a trade federation- means everyone is giving eachother energy and CG, which means that if you're taxing people for industry- congrats, your CG tax is higher- and if you tax people for science- congratulations, they can afford to be producing more science. And, of course, they produce their own TV- and if they're a spin-off vassal who shares your clerk boosts, their clerks are giving stuff you as tribute, as trade deal, and as the taxes paid on the trade value to all other members.

This can get crazy with micro-vassal spam, which is- unfortunately or fortunately- a meta.


And this is without getting to sprawl considerations, the impacts of average district size, for which trade builds are especially good at while technician/artisans are generally bad, and what this means, etc. etc. etc. in avoidable tech drag. And, of course, the point that by a certain point, you're not actually working many/any worker resource jobs yourself, you outsource the resource production to vassals to avoid the sprawl tax.



Do you have to build for all this? Sure, kinda of. But it's a different system

Everything you said is a trade build, where you stack trade buffs to replace other jobs. My point was that, as it stands, clerks either replace other jobs or don't exist.

 

[HFY]

Here's an idea which isn't mine (it's from another suggestion somewhere):

- Import / Export (planetary deficits) cost energy and +% upkeep

- Clerks reduce this cost, allowing you to specialize worlds with reduced upkeep at the cost of pops in those jobs

- Trade Habitats might reduce upkeep in the whole system -- this is how Void Dwellers will start off, with one Hab that has enough Clerks to allow the 3 initial colonies to not pay too much

 

[Franton]

After playing thousands of hours, I'm still unclear what clerks actually are supposed to be in Stellaris. Initially I thought they were kind of bureaucrats, but with the introduction of actual bureaucrats I had to reconsider (and anyway, clerks ar not like real world buraeucrats at all: b'crats don't produce trade, and most certainly do nothing productive at all when there's no other economy around. Nor are they very entertaining to have around.)

I have no idea what kind of things they may be doing in order to produce trade, nor do I have any idea why they would be making anyone happy ever so slightly. I really wonder what Paradox thought these guys correspond to in the real world - or why they chose to call them clerks, and why they thought it's a good idea to have a crappy job that for some unknown reason prroduces trade and some amenities.

When I look at the dictionary, it offers a few dozen translations, none of which I would associate with the idea of producing amenities, and few of which I would associate with the basic concpets of producing trade. Was it just a poor choice of a term? A poor translation?

 

[Metallichydra]

After playing thousands of hours, I'm still unclear what clerks actually are supposed to be in Stellaris. Initially I thought they were kind of bureaucrats, but with the introduction of actual bureaucrats I had to reconsider (and anyway, clerks ar not like real world buraeucrats at all: b'crats don't produce trade, and most certainly do nothing productive at all when there's no other economy around. Nor are they very entertaining to have around.)

I have no idea what kind of things they may be doing in order to produce trade, nor do I have any idea why they would be making anyone happy ever so slightly. I really wonder what Paradox thought these guys correspond to in the real world - or why they chose to call them clerks, and why they thought it's a good idea to have a crappy job that for some unknown reason prroduces trade and some amenities.

When I look at the dictionary, it offers a few dozen translations, none of which I would associate with the idea of producing amenities, and few of which I would associate with the basic concpets of producing trade. Was it just a poor choice of a term? A poor translation?

I just assumed they were cashiers

 

[theBigTurnip385]

Clerks give trade value and amenities. Trade value is a stand in for other resources (with the downside of having to protect it, and acting wonky in so far as resource modifiers) that are usually collected better by others (technicians), and amenities are already covered better by entertainers. Currently, clerks are used either for specific builds which stack many, many trade buffs, or they are used for as long as you don't have much infrastructure, and then later on you make sure you have as few clerks as possible since they are inefficient.

Clerks cannot be solved, I don't think, by simply increasing how many resources they give, because they will either still be less efficient than technicians/entertainers, or more efficient, in which case they replace those jobs. They need a new stat which makes them unique. This is why i think development should be added to the game.

-Each world will have a 0 to 100 development.
-Development decreases monthly from every district and building, representing maintenance. It is increased monthly by clerks, and clerks alone (or maybe a couple other rare jobs). Also, having high development applies a scaling penalty to monthly development (like prestige in eu4), so that eventually you come to an equilibrium, this penalty representing maintenance on construction devices.
-High development decreases build time and blocker removal time, low development increases this time (similar to stability, penalties for low development perhaps will be harsher than buffs from high development). Penalties/buffs should be significant enough that we care (simply doubling/halving will not be enough, I don't think. Harsh penalties like 10x as long?)
-Machines/hiveminds either don't have this mechanic, or attach it to one of their jobs like maintenance drones

This causes a number of phenomena:
-If a world is not connected to your trade network, construction is 'more expensive' (less benefits from the clerks that are necessary for development).
-Clerks are unique, no other job will do the same (right now merchants are basically better clerks, causing some trade builds to ignore clerks)
-Clerks will still be a job that eventually phases out, when a planet completes being construction, but this phasing out is made more interesting than simply replacing inferior infrastructure.

Arguably, maintenance workers/construction workers don't fit into the idea 'clerk,' so the name could be kept the same with the understanding that it represents additionally maintenance/construction workers, or the name could be changed to something like 'custodian.'

Why???

Trade builds are trade builds they use clerks, maybe just remove clerks for non-trade builds since it's really hard for you to shut off the job.

Seriously Clerks are 100% fine in the current game and work perfectly well inside a trade build where they are intended to be used.

 

[HFY]

Trade builds are trade builds they use clerks, maybe just remove clerks for non-trade builds since it's really hard for you to shut off the job.

One of the devs liked the suggestion that Clerks act as unemployed slots (pop tries to auto-migrate out) if you don't have some kind of trade-focus built (or assigned) to the planet.

- Urban / Trade Hab / Ecu (base) designation with +% TV
or
- Building which gives Clerk jobs (Commercial Zones / Metroplex) or +% TV (Galactic Stock Exchange)

So if you build for TV or set your designation for TV, you get Clerks as a real job; if not, you get Clerks as a better-than-unemployed slot where the pop will try to auto-migrate out, meaning those planets might never have any unemployment.

 

[Pancakelord]

After playing thousands of hours, I'm still unclear what clerks actually are supposed to be in Stellaris. Initially I thought they were kind of bureaucrats, but with the introduction of actual bureaucrats I had to reconsider (and anyway, clerks ar not like real world buraeucrats at all: b'crats don't produce trade, and most certainly do nothing productive at all when there's no other economy around. Nor are they very entertaining to have around.)

I have no idea what kind of things they may be doing in order to produce trade, nor do I have any idea why they would be making anyone happy ever so slightly. I really wonder what Paradox thought these guys correspond to in the real world - or why they chose to call them clerks, and why they thought it's a good idea to have a crappy job that for some unknown reason prroduces trade and some amenities.

When I look at the dictionary, it offers a few dozen translations, none of which I would associate with the idea of producing amenities, and few of which I would associate with the basic concpets of producing trade. Was it just a poor choice of a term? A poor translation?

I think one of the original explanations I read somewhere back around 2.2 was they don't represent one kind of job, but rather represent all the various mundane private service jobs you expect in an economy; estate agents, baristas, gardeners, cleaners, mechanics, concierges that sort of thing.

The whole TV output is just abstracted quantified value of "services rendered" (if you are a cleaner, you make money by cleaning, that is "trade value" as it's not a good, but you still performed economic activity).

I think it's intentionally vague, so as to apply to any of the weird societies you can make in Stellaris (e.g. "a reanimated corpse washer" in a permanent employment-civic empire could be a dude you hire to polish your collection of zombies, as a necromancer - idk).

Here's an idea which isn't mine (it's from another suggestion somewhere):

- Import / Export (planetary deficits) cost energy and +% upkeep

- Clerks reduce this cost, allowing you to specialize worlds with reduced upkeep at the cost of pops in those jobs

- Trade Habitats might reduce upkeep in the whole system -- this is how Void Dwellers will start off, with one Hab that has enough Clerks to allow the 3 initial colonies to not pay too much

I think this would be a good way to help deflate energy surplusses - or pay a pop tax (clerks).

A similar (ish) suggestion i've seen is that you need clerks to distribute surplus amenities. Like if you have +50 amenities, you need 5 clerks to get the effect of that +50 surplus (for example). Otherwise the game will just waive the bonus above zero (if you had no employed clerks at all).

Alternatively, clerks could also reduce base pop upkeep/amenities use - assuming the base was increased. the implication being that pops turn to clerks to meet their needs more efficiently. if no clerks exist you need to waste more time doing "basic life admin", making you less efficient (either represented as reduced job output, or increased base upkeep - either works).

 

[1775guy]

Why???

Trade builds are trade builds they use clerks, maybe just remove clerks for non-trade builds since it's really hard for you to shut off the job.

Seriously Clerks are 100% fine in the current game and work perfectly well inside a trade build where they are intended to be used.

You start the game off with clerks, based on this I do not think the original intention was for them to be only for trade focused empires, but perhaps I am mistaken.

I agree with pancakelord's description of what they do, and it does not make sense to have an empire without such jobs, but the game encourages most empires to go completely without them once they have the resources to get better jobs. It is true that the game works fine as is, but I think it would be improved both gameplay wise and thematically to make clerks useful for normal empires without replacing artisans, technicians, or beauruacrats/culture workers.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

You start the game off with clerks, based on this I do not think the original intention was for them to be only for trade focused empires, but perhaps I am mistaken.

I agree with pancakelord's description of what they do, and it does not make sense to have an empire without such jobs, but the game encourages most empires to go completely without them once they have the resources to get better jobs. It is true that the game works fine as is, but I think it would be improved both gameplay wise and thematically to make clerks useful for normal empires without replacing artisans, technicians, or beauruacrats/culture workers.

The intention for them is a place holder so as to avoid unemployment and they are a waiting room for a better job for a normal empire. They produce a small value in the form of their trade output and amenity output.

They don't require any changes except for your ability to set via a policy or planet decision that allows clerks to auto-migrate to a better job.

All this changes in a trade build where they replace energy workers, miners, consumer goods workers and unity workers.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

After playing thousands of hours, I'm still unclear what clerks actually are supposed to be in Stellaris. Initially I thought they were kind of bureaucrats, but with the introduction of actual bureaucrats I had to reconsider (and anyway, clerks ar not like real world buraeucrats at all: b'crats don't produce trade, and most certainly do nothing productive at all when there's no other economy around. Nor are they very entertaining to have around.)

I have no idea what kind of things they may be doing in order to produce trade, nor do I have any idea why they would be making anyone happy ever so slightly. I really wonder what Paradox thought these guys correspond to in the real world - or why they chose to call them clerks, and why they thought it's a good idea to have a crappy job that for some unknown reason prroduces trade and some amenities.

When I look at the dictionary, it offers a few dozen translations, none of which I would associate with the idea of producing amenities, and few of which I would associate with the basic concpets of producing trade. Was it just a poor choice of a term? A poor translation?

Why do you require a description in order to play the game.

I mean if you have a problem with Clerks.

Energy Credits must be truly terrifying for you.

 

[Somebody248]

At 'optimal' habitability, a base miner-to-CG value is basically 3 pops: 1 artisan requires 1.5 miners, and about .5 a pop spread between the energy and food upkeep. An artisan provides 6 CG, and this is fine because that's the point. Meanwhile, trade-build clerks are producing about 9 TV at the time of your first tradition (before year 15), and 3 of them are about 27 TV, or 6.75 CG... and 13.5 energy.

I think you're underestimating the efficiency of miners and other standard worker jobs. By the time you start getting colonies established, you can have +20% minerals from the first mining tech and +25% minerals from designation. Add in +% resources from jobs from governor and stability, and you should be over +50% minerals from miners. On a planet with 80% habitability you take a 10% penalty to resources from jobs, but you'll still be close to +50%.

If your miners are producing about 6 minerals per month, it only takes about one miner to supply each artisan. An artisan on the capital gets +10% output from designation and about +10% from stability and governor, for about 7.2 consumer goods from 2 pops. An artisan on a factory world loses 20% output (from designation and habitability), but also saves 20% of a miner on reduced mineral upkeep (which is less efficient in this example).

This costs 1 energy for half of an industrial district and 0.5 energy from half of a mining district, for a total energy cost of 1.5 . You also pay 2.2 food in pop upkeep and (0.5 + 0.25*1.2) = 0.8 consumer goods from default living standards.

If you have the same +50% efficiency on your technicians and farmers as you have on your miners, the basic resource upkeep comes out to 0.3 pops (not including upkeep for those pops).

This puts the net CG efficiency at 6.4 consumer goods per 2.3 pops, or 2.78 CG per pop.

Meanwhile, a thrifty mercantile clerk has a base trade value of 6.25 . Getting to 9 trade value requires +44%, and you get 20% of that from mercantile traditions. You can get the rest from designation (+20%) and stability, but this assumes that these clerks are on a planet with 80% habitability.

You can get 5 clerks from a city district and a commerce zone, at an upkeep cost of 2 energy each. Urban World designation reduces this by 10%, so the total energy upkeep is 3.6 , or 0.72 per clerk.

Each clerk also consumes 1.2 food, which is about 13% of a 9 food farmer. Workers at 80% habitability also cost 0.3 CG in upkeep at default living standards.

At 9 trade value with consumer benefits, a clerk generates 4.5 energy and 2.25 CG. Subtracting energy and CG upkeep leaves us with 3.78 energy and 1.95 CG from 1.13 pops, or 3.34 energy and 1.73 CG per pop.

This leaves clerks at 62% of the efficiency of artisans at producing consumer goods, while also producing about 44% of the energy of a technician (3.78/(9-0.5)). That's slightly higher pop-efficiency, but it costs a 2-point trait and your first tradition, and clerks don't scale up well into the mid and late game.

 

[DamnedLackOfTropicalFruit]

yet another thread claimed by clerk maths
it honestly just needs a megathread

If there are people keen to do maths, I'd like to put in a couple requests:

How do monthly market orders play into these calculations?
It's common knowledge that mining minerals is for suckers and everyone worth their salt puts a 52 monthly order in on day 1, but you can do that with CG too.

A market CG is 2.6 EC, or 2.4 CG with the tradition. With 10.5 energy from +50% technicians with the building, that's 4 CG or 4.4 CG per pop, which easily beats the numbers for both miners/artisans and clerks. Is this right? Does it also work on alloys? Is all of the clerk comparison maths done with the footnote "also none of this is relevant until your needs exceed 52 minerals/26 CG/13 alloys"? That's enough CG to employ almost half of my starting pops as researchers, and I don't run into the market cap until I've employed 20 technicians! If most of my CG comes from the market, surely it's not important how efficiently I can get the last few?

The market caps come into play after the early game, but clerks are exclusively an early game thing. In this window, clerks shouldn't be competing against miners/artisans, they should be competing against technician CGs and technician minerals being used to feed artisans.

Also, all of this maths seems to be taking place after the trade builds have completed their first tradition, factoring in every Mercantile bonus. Standard builds will be getting Expansion/Discovery/Supremacy - though those are hard to compare, it's probably at least as valuable as Prosperity, which is easier to compare and generally considered to be a weaker opening tradition. Also, trade builds can't use Executive Vigor, which is extremely relevant at this timing. How do standard builds compare with the bonuses of a tradition and/or EV?

 

[theBigTurnip385]

yet another thread claimed by clerk maths
it honestly just needs a megathread

If there are people keen to do maths, I'd like to put in a couple requests:

How do monthly market orders play into these calculations?
It's common knowledge that mining minerals is for suckers and everyone worth their salt puts a 52 monthly order in on day 1, but you can do that with CG too.

A market CG is 2.6 EC, or 2.4 CG with the tradition. With 10.5 energy from +50% technicians with the building, that's 4 CG or 4.4 CG per pop, which easily beats the numbers for both miners/artisans and clerks. Is this right? Does it also work on alloys? Is all of the clerk comparison maths done with the footnote "also none of this is relevant until your needs exceed 52 minerals/26 CG/13 alloys"? That's enough CG to employ almost half of my starting pops as researchers, and I don't run into the market cap until I've employed 20 technicians! If most of my CG comes from the market, surely it's not important how efficiently I can get the last few?

The market caps come into play after the early game, but clerks are exclusively an early game thing. In this window, clerks shouldn't be competing against miners/artisans, they should be competing against technician CGs and technician minerals being used to feed artisans.

Also, all of this maths seems to be taking place after the trade builds have completed their first tradition, factoring in every Mercantile bonus. Standard builds will be getting Expansion/Discovery/Supremacy - though those are hard to compare, it's probably at least as valuable as Prosperity, which is easier to compare and generally considered to be a weaker opening tradition. Also, trade builds can't use Executive Vigor, which is extremely relevant at this timing. How do standard builds compare with the bonuses of a tradition and/or EV?

2 leader per planet consume 6 CG

leaving you 20 to run 8 science specialists max, it becomes irrelevant fast.

The trade build on their capital is building a housing district building a science lab building a housing district building a science lab building a housing district building a science lab building a housing district building a science lab building a housing district building a science lab.

Also you aren't getting 1 Cg for 2.4 EG its 4 cg

your tech worker after researching techs is giving you 4 CG costing you 1 food + 0.1-1 CG (depending on living standard) and 1 amenity.

In the strongest trade build right now

The zombie is giving you 5.5 energy, 2.2 cg, 2.2 unity, 1 amenity. - You don't need to spend anything or spend any time to create a job for him and he costs no inputs.

he can spend 5.5 energy on cg, which gives 2.29

Your tech worker caps at 26 CG total.

The Clerk never caps in fact he can produce the above up to 52 CG and then continues to create 2.2 CG

Further the mega-corp leaders produce around 20 trade total which gives them 10 energy credits + 4CG plus + 4 extra unity. They are costing only 2 CG to run compared to your 2 leaders costing you 6 CG they net an extra 4CG

The final maths works out below.

You can spend 20 CG on research, they can spend 50 CG on research.

You also have all the below costs to factor into your calculations.

Plus 10 Energy Credits from leaders + 4 extra unity from leaders.

Your tech worker needs to produce 2 amenity and 2.2 unity and 1 food to match the clerk and he requires a planet and an energy district, which you need to build and colonize.

Lastly you need to account for the opportunity cost of researching energy techs vs something else.

 

[DeanTheDull]

I think you're underestimating the efficiency of miners and other standard worker jobs. By the time you start getting colonies established, you can have +20% minerals from the first mining tech and +25% minerals from designation. Add in +% resources from jobs from governor and stability, and you should be over +50% minerals from miners. On a planet with 80% habitability you take a 10% penalty to resources from jobs, but you'll still be close to +50%.

Stability is a shared boon with trade, and governors are only 2% per level. If you're getting an exclusive 15% on minerals and CG production, something weird is going on... but even if true, 50% to miners would still be... 6 minerals. And if you do say that's a 1-to-1 match for an artisan input, so that 2 miners/2 artisans are producing 12 CG, compared to 4 clerks who are producing 9 CG... and 18 energy. Which is more than enough to just buy the equivalent CG for about 8 energy and still have 10 to buy food... which is an entire additional upkeep job covered, even if we apply the same 50% to food.


Except this hypothetical begs the question, why are you using rare 80% worlds in the early game on mining, farming or CG production as opposed to science or unity? And what are you using your low-habitability worlds for instead?

Because you are going to have low-habitability worlds, easily for decades, as specific species biome availability is RNG that- while eventually resolvable- can easily eclipse your critical early game. If you commit your high-habitability worlds for the base resource economy, you're simultaneously not using them for your specialist economy unless you're ignorring world specialization, and if you put your specialist worlds on low-habitability worlds, you're getting worse economies than if you placed the upkeep resources on the lowest worlds.

If your miners are producing about 6 minerals per month, it only takes about one miner to supply each artisan. An artisan on the capital gets +10% output from designation and about +10% from stability and governor, for about 7.2 consumer goods from 2 pops. An artisan on a factory world loses 20% output (from designation and habitability), but also saves 20% of a miner on reduced mineral upkeep (which is less efficient in this example).

To reframe the earlier question, why are you building split industrial districts on your homeworld instead of science, or unity? And what are you using your worse worlds for instead?

There are three general economic chokepoints in the early game- pops, planets with good habitability, and minerals- and all three work against using your capital as your industrial center. Even with lower direct output (-10% from 80% habitability, so 6-> 5.4) dedicated industrial world guaranteed colonies are a more efficient resource conversion, due to the lower need for pops on the backend of the upkeep (6->4.8).

Even if we just limit to the capital homeworld bonus of 10%- and this is a simplicity that makes your position of other job boosts stronger influence since they are generally shared- you're looking at a 6.6 CG/6 mineral conversion vis-a-vis a 5.4 CG/4.8 mineral conversion, or 1.1 CG/min homeworld vs 1.125 CG/min colony... and the colonies are getting the same governor bonuses, even as colonies will be getting larger excess amenity stability bonuses. Even if we say the homeworld stability bonus makes it a wash, they are functionally the same conversion ratio of minerals to CG...

But when conversion efficiency is the same, the absolute value chokepoints start rearing their head, which comes back to minerals as an early game chokepoint. For which a homeworld industrial district is- at best- a 500 mineral / 6 min a month investment per artisan, compared to a 250 mineral / 4.8 min a month investment, and that's if you're not employing the alloy worker. If you do, it gets considerably worse.



...and no matter what you do, any pop dedicated to industrial jobs on the capital is not doing science or unity duty, which absolutely are the best jobs to do on one's capital.

This costs 1 energy for half of an industrial district and 0.5 energy from half of a mining district, for a total energy cost of 1.5 . You also pay 2.2 food in pop upkeep and (0.5 + 0.25*1.2) = 0.8 consumer goods from default living standards.

If you have the same +50% efficiency on your technicians and farmers as you have on your miners, the basic resource upkeep comes out to 0.3 pops (not including upkeep for those pops).

This puts the net CG efficiency at 6.4 consumer goods per 2.3 pops, or 2.78 CG per pop.

But this, again, assumes you are using your precious early-game 80% habitability worlds on miners and farmers and technicians, which leaves your lower-habitability worlds as specialist worlds, or doing the same thing, but not as well.

Why should we make this assumption?

Meanwhile, a thrifty mercantile clerk has a base trade value of 6.25 . Getting to 9 trade value requires +44%, and you get 20% of that from mercantile traditions. You can get the rest from designation (+20%) and stability, but this assumes that these clerks are on a planet with 80% habitability.

Not really. 40% is baked in to any trade build by planetary designation regardless of habitability. Built-in amenity over-production by your clerks / Merchants / Rulers basically guarantees it on all but the lowest habitabilty planets which break the comparison with regular workers further in clerk favor, even without other happiness or stability modifiers, and this is without address that the 40% TV designation is also boosting passive trade value from living standards, and that the 20% bonus is applying to all pop passive-TV, anywhere, even on non trade worlds.

And this is without talking about Merchants. I'm on record as believing merchant-spam is too expensive to be worth spamming, but when you're not spamming them they remain incredibly relevant, whether from the excess amenities (3 vs 2), living standard dynamics (ruler pop bonuses), Or basic ethic selection, ie xenophile, which makes 10% to all trade value so that 50% is the trade world minimum.


A 4% bonus from stability- or about 7 stability- is very, very marginal compared to the assumption you've been making to get the net 15% worker boosts.

You can get 5 clerks from a city district and a commerce zone, at an upkeep cost of 2 energy each. Urban World designation reduces this by 10%, so the total energy upkeep is 3.6 , or 0.72 per clerk.

Each clerk also consumes 1.2 food, which is about 13% of a 9 food farmer. Workers at 80% habitability also cost 0.3 CG in upkeep at default living standards.

At 9 trade value with consumer benefits, a clerk generates 4.5 energy and 2.25 CG. Subtracting energy and CG upkeep leaves us with 3.78 energy and 1.95 CG from 1.13 pops, or 3.34 energy and 1.73 CG per pop.

Talking about commercial zones without addressing Merchants is, well, weird. As is talking 80% habitability as the early-game standard.

This leaves clerks at 62% of the efficiency of artisans at producing consumer goods, while also producing about 44% of the energy of a technician (3.78/(9-0.5)). That's slightly higher pop-efficiency, but it costs a 2-point trait and your first tradition, and clerks don't scale up well into the mid and late game.

Yes? And? By that point, you should be snowballing so hard that pop-efficiency gives way to pop-aggregation. Which is faster if you spend your early techs advancing military conquest rather than internal economy, and/or using your internal economic strength to secure subjects to pay the basic resources. And this is without discussing the relevance of different federation types, spin-off vassals, and sprawl management.

No production-focused worker job scales well into the mid-and-late game. People conflate being able to get big numbers per pop on late-game miners and technicians with the advisability of having any compared to structuring your macro-economy to a tributary system.

 

[DeanTheDull]

yet another thread claimed by clerk maths
it honestly just needs a megathread

If there are people keen to do maths, I'd like to put in a couple requests:

How do monthly market orders play into these calculations?

Sneakily. The best impacts are from avoiding market soft-caps when respecting them, and the diplomatic/expansion impacts of investing in military techs and not in miners.


In general, there are three ways to play to the monthly market: not use it at all, use it to the point of soft-caps, or to dishonor the monthly soft-caps and radically blast through with purchasing power. The later can get very exploity-feeling, and a lot of people don't like it in the same way that 1-pop-sacrifice-cult is technically within the rules, so most people don't. (If you do, the 10% market reduction is amazing when you start inflating costs, and that's such a short-term strategy that it's worth it anyway.)

This will focus on the soft-cap dynamics. To keep it simple: 50 minerals/food/energy a month, 25 CG, or 12 alloys. (It's a little higher, but something keeps not-resetting the monthly purchases entirely when I get mercantile, and I've never been able to find out what.)

In soft-cap terms, the 50 purchases at 10% savings matters, but not that much. If you buy 50 minerals/food a month, you save a grand total of 10 energy thanks to the 10% fee reduction (120 vs 130). You're also only buying 25 CG, which has base value 50, so another 5 in avoided costs. You don't want to be buying rather than refining alloys except for very specific time-relevant contexts, so really in soft-cap play you're saving, maybe, 15 energy a month.




The CG trade policy conversion is just plain better, on the power of conversion.


Just in conversion terms, TV converts with 100% efficiency. This is unique and rare, because the conversion of other resources is 70% by default, 80% with the market fee reduction. But when TV converts to CG, it also converts with 100% efficiency. CG are base value 2 to energy credit base value 1, so when 50% of TV converts to 25% CG, it's basically making a 100% market- conversion-efficient purchase of CG.

In other words, when you buy 25 CG with Mercantile, you're paying 60 energy. But that 60 energy is 50% of the 120 TV collected... and the other 50% of the TV is producing 30 CG, from the same TV buying your 25 CG with the energy. You're getting more from conversion than from the purchasing, and it's not soft-capped to the first 25 either.

In functional build terms, trade builds aren't energy build. As soon as you can afford the swap to 50% conversion, you'll never compete on raw energy production. You compete on market conversion, but the energy you have is just there to cover your building economy as you tech up and out.




Two other points for consideration are what you use your primary purchase- minerals- for, and the tech and war/peaceful vassalization implications.


For minerals, soft-cap minerals aren't for refining, they're for building infrastructure. 50 minerals a month is 600 a year, or enough for an urban district/building and some change. Since trade builds are building urban districts, science labs, or commercial zones by the lot, it's important to have hundreds of minerals of income a year. If you eat your monthly purchases with refining, you have to, well, employ miners to keep building. But if you can get about 50 minerals per 4-5 worlds from purchases and space, you can roughly keep up with with the rate of heavy infrasturcture investing with your pop-growth.

But miners, in value production term, suck. Base 4 minerals, maybe 6 value if you're investing into them, compared to 9-value clerks. And when habitability gets involved, it's not good for them. They're necessary, but not exactly desirable, and you don't want pops as miners if you can get the effects in equivalent ways. Hence the technicians-instead-of-miners optimization, and general 'don't invest in alloys early if you're not going to war.' Alloys are a dead asset, but they're also dependent on miners, who are a low value-production source.


Which brings to 2 different tracks for trade builds to thrive- early militarism, or early diplomacy for federations/vassals.

In a militarist route, trade builds use the first tradition to get the majority of their early econ buffs, and then spend the next tech cycles on military tech with a goal of a year 20-30 war. Depending on exact tradition dipping strategy, the empire that does this will be several military tech cycles ahead of an econ-focused empire, and just getting to the point of supremacy as their second dedicated tradition by the point their initial colonization starts returning net positive returns and you have the alloy stockpiles for conquest fleets. One guaranteed world as a dedicated mining colony, one as a dedicated forge, the homeworld for science, and the low-habs as trade energy/CG/food-purchasing worlds. When you get your supremachy ship discounts and fleet capacity, you build in-mass and start invading whoever's nearby with several military tech cycles.



But in a diplomacy route, here you can use your econ strength for something else.

If you have a friendly neighborhood, you can go into diplomacy, and start your trade federation. Federations are long-term investments, but powerful, trade federations are especially amazing due to the CG+unity TV conversion of not just yourself, but your allies. The federation becomes your shield, entire other empires to protect you or back you up in wars in other directions. Absolute win.

But you can also leverage trade builds for relatively easy vassalization. One of the neat things about investing for trade builds instead is that it inflates your early-game econ score, which is often one of the most important things for peaceful vassalaization gambits. Empire economic strength is a measure of value production, where basic resources are 1, CG 2, etc. There's more to it than that, but 9-TV clerks produce, well, 9 econ value to be calculated. And Merchants are an easy 21. With your low-hab worlds producing more economic value per pop, your overall econ strength is considerably higher, for considerably more econ-strenth. And- if you were leveraging military techs- your value-per-ship for those you can buy (such as early buying alloys, or enclave)- means a higher military strength, again for easier vassalization.

In either one of these three cases- vassalization, federation, or conquest- the trade build has an early-game flexibility and power advantage to start snowballing.

Also, all of this maths seems to be taking place after the trade builds have completed their first tradition, factoring in every Mercantile bonus. Standard builds will be getting Expansion/Discovery/Supremacy - though those are hard to compare, it's probably at least as valuable as Prosperity, which is easier to compare and generally considered to be a weaker opening tradition.

A trade build is a build. You can absolutely dip into discovery for the map the stars and +1 tech, but ultimately different builds aim for different things.

What a trade build optimizes for is an impressive early econ using your low-hab worlds in collection range allowing an above-average number of CG-consuming specialists, and then flexibility to take military or diplomacy for the second swing once your exploration turns up who is in your neighborhood.

Also, trade builds can't use Executive Vigor, which is extremely relevant at this timing. How do standard builds compare with the bonuses of a tradition and/or EV?

Of the other traditions? Perfectly fine. Of EV? That's not exactly a standard build, but also depends on how you approach the soft cap question.

If you crush soft-caps, EV can actually be more powerful. You don't necessarily build for thrifty clerks, but the 10% market fee reduction alone starts becoming immense when you aren't resetting your costs over time, while the trade policy conversion is significantly reducing the number of mineral-CG purchases you need to make just with passive trade for anything but stratified economy. Which lets your EV market burn go longer and further.

If you respect soft-caps, EV gets used to boost minerals, not energy. This is considerably less cut-throat, but trade build plays extremely nicely here, as you're still following the fundamental premise of an offensive build, which is to use your units/traditions/ascensions to compensate for techs so that you can spend your early techs on military buildup and expansion. EV starts with your normal-ish edicts, but once you start building mines in earnest for the alloy buildup, it's a huge assist and many early-game years saved in boosting your military-industrial build-up.

 

[Ryika]

To me a lot of the original suggestion sounds like you're creating a problem just so Clerks can solve it, but I'm not sure where the "fun" parts of the suggestion are. When I read through it, my overall takeaway was "Oh, so now I need to employ Clerks to be able to build stuff.", it wasn't "That would make me want to use Clerks!"

And I think that's not a good design philosophy, the game already has so many "maintenance" type of jobs. If I'm supposed to use my Clerks in non-trade builds, then I think Clerks should offer something that makes me want to use them.