Hive Minds are OP in 2.2

[the glory of plain]

only problem is hive mind have to get 4 ap to be able to assimilate
hope for it change to require only first bio accession perk

 

[tobias.mb]

This is from my current purifier campaign:

I find your <1000 pops very unimpressive. (energy is only low because I just loaded it without letting it tick and trade income isn't included, and alloys is low, because I found Fen Habbabis and am currently in the process of relocating alloy production there, but it still needs to grow more pops)
(edit: Score is 21k)

Currently Post-Apocalyptic civic gives your pops tomb world habitability. i.e. 60% habitability everywhere.
(instead of normal habitability + surviver trait for +70% hab on tomb world, which just let's you live on tom world additionally to your normal climate type)

I combined it with adaptive for 70% habitability everywhere from the start + 10% from adaptability taditions (my 2nd pick after supremacy). Later I also took 'flesh is weak' AP for another 20% for 100% habitability everywhere even without habitability techs.
Now that is OP.

 

[Siri]

DS has 6+ growth rate within the 1st 10 years, with no need for tech!

Regular empires can have 5.6 monthly growth starting on day 1. You can't just look at one number in isolation.

This is from my current purifier campaign:

View attachment 429375

I find your <1000 pops very unimpressive. (energy is only low because I just loaded it without letting it tick and trade income isn't included, and alloys is low, because I found Fen Habbabis and am currently in the process of relocating alloy production there, but it still needs to grow more pops)
(edit: Score is 21k)

Currently Post-Apocalyptic civic gives your pops tomb world habitability. i.e. 60% habitability everywhere.
(instead of normal habitability + surviver trait for +70% hab on tomb world, which just let's you live on tom world additionally to your normal climate type)

I combined it with adaptive for 70% habitability everywhere from the start + 10% from adaptability taditions (my 2nd pick after supremacy). Later I also took 'flesh is weak' AP for another 20% for 100% habitability everywhere even without habitability techs.
Now that is OP.

Not that it's very useful to just compare numbers that way because players are of varying skill levels, and get differently powered starts.
But if that's the route you want to go down then here you go:

Earlier year, higher just about everything while also maintaining a fleet that is magnitudes bigger. No overpowered ecumenopolis precursor, no habitability exploit (because really, it's a bug), in fact I played with nonadaptive and colonised every planet anyway because that's easier to do as a hive mind on account of no CG cost increases. I had pretty much just sat around for the past 20-30 years while my interstellar assembly finished because I just wanted to get the achievement and then start a new game. Speaking of the Assembly, its upkeep pretty much dumpstered my science and unity since I can't generate CG to pay for the upkeep, so my research and unity were WAY higher than the screenshot would indicate.

Devouring Swarm is very strong, and I would certainly claim them to be better than FP. It just doesn't extend to all hive mind empires, and I disagree with much of the reasoning from the OP. I also don't think it's wrong for genocidal empires to be stronger though given that they are intended to be a 1vX deal.

 

[Wolfgang I]

Fanatic Purifiers has been the weakst genocidal civic for some time now.
They get the least out of purging DEs get energy and DS have many uses for the food they get. Food purging is still the most usefull for purifiers I guess but now that the +200% pop growth from excess food is gone this seems less useful.

Unless one of those market exploits works with their internal market I guess but we are not really counting such things I guess.

 

[tobias.mb]

The 'working to death' (forgot the name) is now a decent option. The pops no longer block jobs and just give straight up minerals + food. You can maintain extra forges that run only on the minerals you get from purging.

 

[Madzai]

Not OP, but just "less broken" and "easier to balance" due less mechanics attached.

 

[CyberianK]

I agree that its OP that said part of that is because PopGrowth is OP.

I am currently running a FanaticXenophobe+Growth+Mechanist regular Empire for maximized popgrowth. Inward Perfection is also strong for the popgrowth bonus but you miss the +2.x growth from robots.
Maxxed Immigration is also extremely strong but I don't consider it as OP cause you don't get it from Year 1 for superearly exponential growth and also you can't enslave Primitives or AI.

 

[bobucles]

Hive minds are stronger on pop growth, and they HAVE to be. They can't steal pops from anyone else, at least not until really deep into the game. It's even rougher for purging swarms because their purging type removes pops without providing any bonus to add pops.

 

[Kukumarro]

You can get very easy with "Regular Empires" very high pop growrate. Here is an expample from my last game as "Corporate", a Growrate over 8 in month.

View attachment 429355

My last game was a normal Hivemind. It was not weaker or stronger, i think notting is OP or Broken. Every style give you enough tools to play, ofcourse its not perfect balanced, Paradox must work for fine turning, but its not etremly unblanced.

If you don't count inmigration, which can be practically anything and is substracting growth somewhere else, your natural growth is 5.7 by the end game. With Hive Mind I get 4.5 right of the start. From the beginning I activate nutritional plenitude policy (+33%) and drone campaign (+20%). When I research cloning, i get +10% and unlock the cloning building that gives +33%, and my natural growth is already 7.1

 

[Astax]

I have played a few games of 2.2 and I am of the opinion that NO Hive is not OP, but it is the only one that actually makes sense and isn't too terribly unbalanced like regular empires.

 

[durbal]

If you don't count inmigration, which can be practically anything and is substracting growth somewhere else, your natural growth is 5.7 by the end game. With Hive Mind I get 4.5 right of the start. From the beginning I activate nutritional plenitude policy (+33%) and drone campaign (+20%). When I research cloning, i get +10% and unlock the cloning building that gives +33%, and my natural growth is already 7.1
View attachment 429617

I wish people would stop saying this. Get a migraton treaty. You can easily get positive immigration on every planet and in massive amounts.

 

[hellatze]

I started a game with a Devouring Swarm in 2.2, it is 2336, I am biologically ascended and researching repetable technologies. I have 865 pops in 20 planets (100 systems, empire size 400), with a monthly pop growth of 8.88 in each planet. My score: 14231. In a parallel game, I have a standard empire in the same year, and my score is less than half. I didn't even go to war against anybody, so the only bonus I have effectively used from being a Devouring Swarm is the 50% influence discount in starbases. This is completely broken.

I can think of several reasons why this happened:

• The pop growth for hive minds is naturally high. While a normal empire starts with +3, a hive mind starts with +4.5. However it can go up waaay higher, as the available bonuses to pop growth are bigger and cheaper than for normal empires (drone campaign 500 food empirewide, promote planetary growth 1000 food per planet).
• Pops are cheaper to maintain, as they require 0 consumer goods. Standard empires have to dedicate a considerable chunk of their economy to consumer goods. Instead, I just dedicate all the extra pops to science.
• Menial drones are as productive as workers from a standard empire. While they don't benefit from hapiness bonus, this bonus becomes so small in comparison to all other bonuses (like tech) that there is practically no difference.
• Complex drones are actually more productive than specialists from a standard empire. Researchers give +3 research for -2 consumer goods, brain drones give +4 research for -6 minerals (equivalent to 3 cg). You have 50% more minerals as hive mind, so you can easily afford those minerals and get +33% research from the same job, and you will actually have more brain drones than others have researchers. Synapse drones give a bit more society research for the same input costs than culture workers.
• Complex drones demote to Menial drones instantly. This makes balancing the economy completely trivial.

So in short, hive minds have way more pops than standard empires (i would say 100% more, rather than 50%), which are cheaper to maintain and actually more productive, therefore much more cost-effective. The lack of trade does not make up for all these benefits at all, just having +50% energy workers makes up for that alone.

All this made me snowball like crazy. I can actually play a better tall-style game than non-gestalts, while the penalties to tech and unity in a wide style do not keep up with my increased production at all. I recommend big nerfs to the productivity of complex drones and much bigger penalties to wide playstyles.

he is right guys. Hive mind are the king of 2.2, even unemployed pop turn food into minerals.

the next update better be nerf hive. or buff robot.

 

[hellatze]

If you don't count inmigration, which can be practically anything and is substracting growth somewhere else, your natural growth is 5.7 by the end game. With Hive Mind I get 4.5 right of the start. From the beginning I activate nutritional plenitude policy (+33%) and drone campaign (+20%). When I research cloning, i get +10% and unlock the cloning building that gives +33%, and my natural growth is already 7.1
View attachment 429617

even with all of those bonus. you get 1 pop per year.

that was slow.

 

[Adantigus]

Setting aside whether hive minds and devouring swarms are overpowered, I think it's safe to say that regular hive minds are one of the easiest to play right now. The economy is just a lot less complicated, with the aforementioned lack of consumer goods and the instant shifting of workers between strata. It's a lot easier to avoid "death spiral" and other economic issues that less experienced players may struggle with. There's no trade routes or pirates to think about. And, as before, there are no factions or elections to worry about, nor unhappy pops.

I think regular hive mind should be considered the "tutorial Ireland" of this patch. I would recommend it to anyone new to the game or overwhelmed by the recent economy changes.

 

[Siri]

If you don't count inmigration, which can be practically anything and is substracting growth somewhere else

Yes, and incidentally it is subtracting it from all the empires I have migration treaties with, not my own planets. All my planets under development gets a 3.5-5.0 (which is then multiplied by 1.1 for diplomacy traditions, and another 1.25 is available if using the Land of Opportunity edict.)
It is truly shocking how one-sided you can make something seem when you ignore extremely relevant mechanics. Hell, regular empires starting with mechanist already have a 5.0/month base rate, which they can further increase by rapid breeders, nutritional plentitude, and encourage growth. Most bonuses available to hive minds are available to regular empires too. Not like Hive Minds have a monopoly on cloning vats.
(Also, drone campaign has already been nerfed to 10% in the beta)

 

[happyscrub]

I should of shut up. Hive minds are getting some tested nerfs on beta. Less pop growth and taking away their scavenger jobs

 

[Devanor]

I should of shut up. Hive minds are getting some tested nerfs on beta. Less pop growth and taking away their scavenger jobs

While the lowered pop growth is a loss, the change to scavenger jobs to become unemployed is, in my opinion, an improvement. This way, you will actually know at a glance if pops are actually working (scavenger can hardly be called a job. 1 mineral for 1 food... meh)

 

[Siri]

While the lowered pop growth is a loss, the change to scavenger jobs to become unemployed is, in my opinion, an improvement. This way, you will actually know at a glance if pops are actually working (scavenger can hardly be called a job. 1 mineral for 1 food... meh)

Agree. Most of the time having drones on scavenger means you messed up anyway so I rather get the alert than 1 mineral a month until I cycle through all planets.

 

[Bobylein]

So as we are sharing pop growth screen I gonna show what I had, it even went up to 13.8 or something like that when it turned ecumenopolis, with much of my planets looking the same because of immigration pacts and xenophilia, at least none expect my capital had emigration.
Also not to forget the refugees hive minds can't get, that turned my empire from 360 pops to around 760 in only 20 years just because of the gery tempest.

Oh and I got another 30% when I reached biological ascension later on.

Still I feel Hiveminds are ridiculous at the moment, we played several rounds in MP now and every single time the player with the hivemind outtechs, outproduces and outtraditions everyone else.

 

[Slynx]

no habitability exploit (because really, it's a bug)

is it a bug though? Tomb World Habitability always gave 60% everywhere since stellaris 1.0 (either from empires who've chosen the TW as their starting planet or fro Cockroaches from tombed earth)

the only inconsistency came when they've introduced 2 civics that gave tomb world start (which is apparently now fixed)