Fanatical spiritualist build?

[Orkonkel]

My first playthrough will be a fanatical spiritualist, and I've been looking at different ethos/governments/traits to complement it.

Will probably go militaristic or xenophobe with my third ethos point and use an autocratic or ogliarchic government form. At this point, I'm leaning towards Divine Mandate, Militaristic Dictatorship, or Despotic Empire.

As for traits, +10% habitability with +5% happiness seems like a solid base with the 10% happiness from fanatical spiritualist. Lower ethics divergence would be neat, and +1 food output seems crazy useful for the early game.

Which bonuses (government/ethos/traits) do you think would stack the best for a fanatical spiritualist species?

 

[Asdfreak]

Communal stacks pretty well with it, as does pacifist + moral democracy. No one can be unhappy if no one is allowed to be unhappy. Mandatory Fun day!! +25% Flat happiness

Confomist seems to be neat in combination with the lessened ethics divergence from spiritual governments. -30% divergence, aka 30% drift towards your ideology for everyone seems pretty strong for big spread out empires.

Militarist and Divine Mandate give you a combined +100% war tolerance, meaning you will be much more capable to win wars of attrition against unstable bigger enemies.

 

[ikki]

one interesting combo would be

spiritualist*2
collectivist

divine mandate (we lurve to self-enslave!)

and as traits, you could go anti-blorg and be charming and communal. Possibly a third +1 with a negative, and thus use all 4 slots.

 

[Orkonkel]

I sort of wish I knew more about slavery/alien slavery and how slavery tolerance works.

 

[Jarac Rassen]

My main species/empire will be Fanatical Spiritualists and Militarists. It depends on what you pair with the fanatical spiritualists. Communal seems like a good trait in general for a fanatical spiritualist.

Government will probably be Theocratic Oligarchy. I wonder when the Theocratic Republic and Oligarchy descriptions and Effects will get updates, because I don't think they are supposed to be the same -10% Ethics Divergence effects.

They haven't yet fleshed these two out enough. Might not need to worry about conformist if you'll already have an negative ethics divergence bonus inherent in your government.

 

[Yenzen]

Consider the Theocratic Oligarchy or Republic and make the last point militarist or xenophile - make conquered POPs diverge towards you. Stability through indoctrination!

I would find something else than happiness to spend traits on, since the 60% ceiling of many worlds will make it less useful to have insane positive modifiers. Agrarian/industrious/thrifty for resources or quick learner / enduring seem like good investments to have better leaders.

 

[Sarog]

Very tempted to go Collectivist - Spiritualist - Militarist - Divine Mandate for the slavery and war tolerance synergies.

 

[Amor_Fati]

I'm going for inteligent Fanatic Spiritualist/Xenophobe Divine Mandate... with Decadent and xeno-slavery

 

[Lysenko]

Since all of the Spiritualist governments seem to have -% ethics divergence, they seem really synergistic with Xenophile to make more aliens in your empire into Xenophiles (who will then love having aliens on their planet). Stack Charismatic on your race for even more alien love.

Divine Mandate (& its tech upgrade) seems good with Xenophobe since they give slavery tolerance so you don't have to find Collectivist slaves.

 

[Dakka]

My first playthrough will be a fanatical spiritualist, and I've been looking at different ethos/governments/traits to complement it.

Will probably go militaristic or xenophobe with my third ethos point and use an autocratic or ogliarchic government form. At this point, I'm leaning towards Divine Mandate, Militaristic Dictatorship, or Despotic Empire.

As for traits, +10% habitability with +5% happiness seems like a solid base with the 10% happiness from fanatical spiritualist. Lower ethics divergence would be neat, and +1 food output seems crazy useful for the early game.

Which bonuses (government/ethos/traits) do you think would stack the best for a fanatical spiritualist species?

Are you making the Imperium?

 

[TheGrinningMan]

For my fanatical spiritualist plan, I'm actually thinking of calling solitary a free trait point; I sacrifice a chunk of the happiness bonus, but that's not why I'm taking Fanatic Spiritualist. In general, I'm sure we'll see a lot of solitary fanatic spiritualists. Like... it even feels right; space monks, y'know?

My intent for this build is to focus on the exploration and exploitation of psionics and precursor lore, which I intend to do by grabbing Quick Learner, Enduring, and Natural ______, with the blank filled in by whatever psionics is found under. Throw in an indirect democracy (bonuses to leader skills), and my "scientists" will be psychic loremasters able to make materialists green with envy. Dunno exactly what I'll do with the third ethos point; probably militarist to help generate debris to study and clear out dangerous archaeological sites.

 

[Orkonkel]

Maybe stacking happiness bonuses aren't as useful as I thought. I sort of wish habitability wasn't the same as happiness cap, but instead happiness base (e.g 40% habitability gives 40% base happiness, then modifiers get applied). So... maybe adaptive + agrarian? Extra habitability seems really useful for spreading your own population, but maybe I should just go the whole Imperialist Slaver route and use alien slaves to get the most out of planets.

One alternative would be to go Extremely Adaptive, which gives huge, huge bonus to a single-species empire, but it comes at a steep opportunity cost. Conformist will probably help create a more stable empire, and maybe Enduring is an option if I go with a non-'once per leader' Government. It'd be interesting if they added an in-between trait of enduring and venerable, something like +50 years for 2 trait points, as Venerable just costs too much.

 

[Darustet]

I've been planning a fan. spiritualist for my first single-player or mp playthrough. Not sure where to spend that extra ethos point, maybe on xenophile. I'll be Theocrathic Oligarchy and Conformist so I'll have good happiness bonus and very stable empire. Maybe take a Weak for minus point to get Charismatic. Tactic would be to form alliances while good happiness ensures high production rates. Even if I take tons of aliens into my empire, my -30% ethos divergence will keep my people from losing their happiness bonuses.

Other way would be to take Collectivist with Fan. Spiritualist and Divine mandate and build a slave empire.

 

[Haldan]

Uncivilized...disgusting, uneducated, dark-ages barbarians! How have you even peaked the technology to reach space?! An abomination, an affront to evolution and nature, a crime against your own people! Science...science, machinery and beating industry, that is the true way! The true path, there are no morals, no salvation, only persistance and survival! Evolution through science! Welfare through knowledge! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Yoggoth Yogothllor!

 

[Surimi]

I'm pretty sure that happiness bonuses will still be useful even with habitability penalties, as you'll want to offset any negative modifiers.

And I second pairing spiritualist with xenophile. Xenophobe seems like in order to get the most out of it you're going to want to go big into slavery, which spiritualist alone doesn't do much to help with.

Tactic would be to form alliances while good happiness ensures high production rates. Even if I take tons of aliens into my empire, my -30% ethos divergence will keep my people from losing their happiness bonuses.

Conformist is a trait, so it only applies to the species which selects it. That's why the bonus is bigger than the bonus for spiritual oligarchy, because the latter applies to everyone.

So your founding species will have -30% ethics divergence, while all other species will only have -10%.

 

[Lysenko]

Uncivilized...disgusting, uneducated, dark-ages barbarians! How have you even peaked the technology to reach space?! An abomination, an affront to evolution and nature, a crime against your own people! Science...science, machinery and beating industry, that is the true way! The true path, there are no morals, no salvation, only persistance and survival! Evolution through science! Welfare through knowledge! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Yoggoth Yogothllor!

On the one hand, I agree completely.

On the other hand, I need psionics for my full Illithid playthrough.

 

[ikki]

a wonderfully naive enlightened Disney monarchy could be great fun.
ofcourse it needs its magic fairies.. ie fanatically spiritualist. Oh and pacifist. Besides everything is so damn fantastic and awesome they have to be on some opium of the people.
continental world (gotta allow Ariels ocean worlds too!)
Weapons.. well.. preferably NONE.. but.. maybe energy. Goes well with all the magic fairies and castles.
Naturally wormhole. Its more magical that way
quick learners, fast breeders and charismatic. Everything IS awesome! Oh and weak. There is peace in the world, no wars for over a millennia! Well aside from that evil witch.. but that was the last one. lol.

 

[Jolly Reaper]

Uncivilized...disgusting, uneducated, dark-ages barbarians! How have you even peaked the technology to reach space?! An abomination, an affront to evolution and nature, a crime against your own people! Science...science, machinery and beating industry, that is the true way! The true path, there are no morals, no salvation, only persistance and survival! Evolution through science! Welfare through knowledge! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Yoggoth Yogothllor!

Perhaps, if we were to plant spore sacs in your brain organ
and let its tendrils spread through your flesh
then you would truly understand Juffo-Wup... become part of Juffo-Wup.
You WOULD be happier and more fulfilled. Consider our offer.

Anyway, I'm looking to pair Fanatic Spiritualist with Adaptive trait, for obvious reasons, and Collectivist. Might go for Divine Mandate for full-on happiness in slavery build, though the +10% happiness and halved malus could be more than enough to keep slave factions down, in which case Theocratic Oligarchy's reduced ethos divergence would be better. The psionic fungi can't spread the Spore-song of Black Stars to galaxy if their time is wasted on all sorts of silly doctrinal disputes, after all.