Hivemind are "Weak"
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We had this discussion about the terrible pop job management a while ago (2nd october 2019) already in this thread:
"In a vacuum, do you think Hiveminds are ok?" See here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...vacuum-do-you-think-hiveminds-are-ok.1253470/
I'm going to copy paste some posts aswell as my posts which had everyone agree with so I am sure this will help, aswell as prevent people from having to write the same arguments again and again.
Post by OP:
1. What I mean by vacuum is a hypothetical game were only regular Hiveminds exist. No other (player) empires (as in Machine or Regular).
Would it be balanced? Would it be fun?
In a vacuum, would you say Hiveminds perform ok?
2. What would be your point of reference for balance? Should it be regular empires? Or Machine empires? Or hiveminds?
3. Other than Ironman yes/no: Does your game setup differ from the regular one? (600 stars, 9 other empires, 2 Marauders, 1x Tech modifier etc.)
2nd Post by Methone:
No.
Hives absolutely struggle for energy and food early game. You should NOT have to disable your first colony's jobs just to stay afloat.
3rd post by me:
1.
No. Because playing Hiveminds really is not fun as its super hard to manage your economy. Your energy output in the earlygame will almost never be above 10. Your best way to reliably make energy is to keep selling food on the market and only specialize in producing food. This requires a lot of micromanagement and really doesn't feel like its what Paradox intends players to do.
Also maintenance drones have to be unemployed to allow them to fill more important ressoures jobs. Synapse Drones on new colonizes have to be unemployed immediately to not crash your economy right away.
You have to pick up habitability traits or traits for bonus amenities. Unlike regular empires, you don't get to cheat additional trait points either. You don't have access to decadent (+1 trait point) like regular empires which from my experience has 0 impact whatsoever since pop ethics attraction is bugged anyway. You also don't have access to something like wasteful which increases CG consumption by such a miniscule amount that 1 single building is enough to cancel it early on.
You get no agendas and no level up bonuses on your ruler - super boring and you simply miss out on very important statistics compared to regular empires. I would gladly take something like 10% research speed as a civic - but sadly all Hivemind civics but devouring swarm are boring, outdated and overall not impactful as all the reworked regular empire civics or Machine empires civics
Deviancy is annoying to deal with, so much so that you have to build multiple enforcer buildings whereas no other empires need to do this.
Everything about Hiveminds just feels like you have to keep sticking bandaids on an empire that has been severely neglected since 2.2, because it obviously has after getting nerfed immediately with 2.2. The 2.3 changes just made everything worse. It just feels bad to play knowing that you will never do as well as other empires, your civics aren't as cool as what the other empires can get and the economic struggle isn't exactly rewarding for me either.
2. Regular empires should be the point of balance. To be more precise: You probably don't want Synth ascended regular empires to be the point of balance, because that empire type has been much stronger than any other regular empire since 2.2.6 now and is now even better since 2.3.
Crime is a joke to deal with and crime lord deal exploiting needs to be stopped. Amenities should also be a little harder to come by. Often times 1 holo theatre is well enough for an entire planet while Hiveminds have to build 3 or 4 maintenance depots. Ever tried a Ringworld as Hiveminds? You have to build so many maintenance depots and enforcer buildings...
3. Ironman, middle galaxy, max normal empires (I think 18 or 19), 3 fallen empires, 2 marauders. 1x tech modifier, heavily increased crisis strength and earlier start date, Starnet AI and so far captain difficulty.
End of post in old thread.
I stick to my point. What you see in this video is exploiting for additional alloys right away, then you see immense micromanaging of jobs, just to prevent the immediate economic death spiral that has been a huge issue for Hiveminds thanks to their Synapse Drones. Of course I manage my jobs similarly when I play Hivemind. I also pick up habitability traits because goddamn Paradox leaves players no other choice than atleast 2 points into adapative for Hiveminds.
But that doesn't mean its in any way fun, or enjoyable. One Stellaris developer has explained this concept a littler better than I can probably: Having to work just to avoid penalties is not as fun as working for bonuses. This is exactly what playing Hiveminds is about. Don't micro your jobs properly? Go and watch your energy and minerals go down to 0 in no time. On the other hand, play any other empire and micromanage your jobs vigorously? Congratz, you now have peak efficiency with your economy and will suprass any Hivemind in no time, which you would also do if both of you did 0 micromanagement in jobs!
"In a vacuum, do you think Hiveminds are ok?" See here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...vacuum-do-you-think-hiveminds-are-ok.1253470/
I'm going to copy paste some posts aswell as my posts which had everyone agree with so I am sure this will help, aswell as prevent people from having to write the same arguments again and again.
Post by OP:
1. What I mean by vacuum is a hypothetical game were only regular Hiveminds exist. No other (player) empires (as in Machine or Regular).
Would it be balanced? Would it be fun?
In a vacuum, would you say Hiveminds perform ok?
2. What would be your point of reference for balance? Should it be regular empires? Or Machine empires? Or hiveminds?
3. Other than Ironman yes/no: Does your game setup differ from the regular one? (600 stars, 9 other empires, 2 Marauders, 1x Tech modifier etc.)
2nd Post by Methone:
No.
Hives absolutely struggle for energy and food early game. You should NOT have to disable your first colony's jobs just to stay afloat.
3rd post by me:
1.
No. Because playing Hiveminds really is not fun as its super hard to manage your economy. Your energy output in the earlygame will almost never be above 10. Your best way to reliably make energy is to keep selling food on the market and only specialize in producing food. This requires a lot of micromanagement and really doesn't feel like its what Paradox intends players to do.
Also maintenance drones have to be unemployed to allow them to fill more important ressoures jobs. Synapse Drones on new colonizes have to be unemployed immediately to not crash your economy right away.
You have to pick up habitability traits or traits for bonus amenities. Unlike regular empires, you don't get to cheat additional trait points either. You don't have access to decadent (+1 trait point) like regular empires which from my experience has 0 impact whatsoever since pop ethics attraction is bugged anyway. You also don't have access to something like wasteful which increases CG consumption by such a miniscule amount that 1 single building is enough to cancel it early on.
You get no agendas and no level up bonuses on your ruler - super boring and you simply miss out on very important statistics compared to regular empires. I would gladly take something like 10% research speed as a civic - but sadly all Hivemind civics but devouring swarm are boring, outdated and overall not impactful as all the reworked regular empire civics or Machine empires civics
Deviancy is annoying to deal with, so much so that you have to build multiple enforcer buildings whereas no other empires need to do this.
Everything about Hiveminds just feels like you have to keep sticking bandaids on an empire that has been severely neglected since 2.2, because it obviously has after getting nerfed immediately with 2.2. The 2.3 changes just made everything worse. It just feels bad to play knowing that you will never do as well as other empires, your civics aren't as cool as what the other empires can get and the economic struggle isn't exactly rewarding for me either.
2. Regular empires should be the point of balance. To be more precise: You probably don't want Synth ascended regular empires to be the point of balance, because that empire type has been much stronger than any other regular empire since 2.2.6 now and is now even better since 2.3.
Crime is a joke to deal with and crime lord deal exploiting needs to be stopped. Amenities should also be a little harder to come by. Often times 1 holo theatre is well enough for an entire planet while Hiveminds have to build 3 or 4 maintenance depots. Ever tried a Ringworld as Hiveminds? You have to build so many maintenance depots and enforcer buildings...
3. Ironman, middle galaxy, max normal empires (I think 18 or 19), 3 fallen empires, 2 marauders. 1x tech modifier, heavily increased crisis strength and earlier start date, Starnet AI and so far captain difficulty.
End of post in old thread.
I stick to my point. What you see in this video is exploiting for additional alloys right away, then you see immense micromanaging of jobs, just to prevent the immediate economic death spiral that has been a huge issue for Hiveminds thanks to their Synapse Drones. Of course I manage my jobs similarly when I play Hivemind. I also pick up habitability traits because goddamn Paradox leaves players no other choice than atleast 2 points into adapative for Hiveminds.
But that doesn't mean its in any way fun, or enjoyable. One Stellaris developer has explained this concept a littler better than I can probably: Having to work just to avoid penalties is not as fun as working for bonuses. This is exactly what playing Hiveminds is about. Don't micro your jobs properly? Go and watch your energy and minerals go down to 0 in no time. On the other hand, play any other empire and micromanage your jobs vigorously? Congratz, you now have peak efficiency with your economy and will suprass any Hivemind in no time, which you would also do if both of you did 0 micromanagement in jobs!
What you are pointing is mainly lack of flavor, for the pop management i "struggle" just as much with Regular empire, keeping cg in a small deficit for more tech, removing colonist job, resettling low hab, making sure i don t loose a pop to crime with the deal, private prospector shenanigans? Robot worker before droid, slave guild ...
What truly pains me in all this arguing is your "hivemind are weak" argument that you keep bringing up despite being blatlantly wrong as showed on this video.
The reason why i made this video is to show people, especially the dev, that they must be treated lightly, a wrong buff and we'd have the Rogue servitor of tomorrow
Right, but you precisely don't have to do all that to avoid imploding as a normal empire. You'll be just fine. But as a Hive, well, imagine if you didn't do half the stuff in the video.
That's the argument: You HAVE to go the extra mile to stay afloat as hives.
Well there you have it!
1/3rd of your tries to far ended up with you having something that you think as presentable to us.
I too could restart till I get Grunur and Rubricator or lucky Relic world next to me and then somehow spin a proper gamplay video out of it. Hell, even my recent Spiritualist game with me precisely selecting water planet start to increase my chances for getting Sea of Consciousness, and then eventually getting it 5 jumps away from my capital and in addittion to that TWO Relic worlds, could be used to somehow make a video and show people that Spiritualists aren't weak.
But of course thats complete nonsense. Spiritualist and Hiveminds need major balance improvements and if you are willing to test performance, you really have to take something like 10 different games and play them out without restarting and see how well you do on average. You could just play any regular materialist empire and do a similar playthrough like yours, this doesn't prove anything to me.
I just said the start was DECENT. I didn't get neither the grunur nor the rubricator, got fucking tombworld instead and a genocidal (advanced start) that was very likely going to kill my neighbor and comming for me. The output i had and the way i executed my build are the same, even if you decide to remove one or 2 planet, the result would have been roughly the same. You wanted me to showcase hivemind against a broken ai fleet( as in didn't work) while being boxed despite the fact i stated this is not where they shine?! IT'S NOT 1/3.
The 2nd take was a manipulation error, not a reset. The first was glitched and therefore invalid.
What more do you want?!
Have you even watched the video?
"you really have to take something like 10 different games" how many freaking screenshot have i sent you on discord, and you would dare say that.
You had the best start i have ever seen with those kind of settings . Not having the rubricator at all is common with such setting .
Even if it don't share your hab it's more pop growth and more pop growth is winning in this game , having so many planet next to you is luck , having no enemy is luck , what you proved is "if you are lucky you perform well " not "hivemind is not weak " .
i'm not talking about killing , i'm talking about surviving , the bonus of grand admiral are so big that if you don't invest heavily into alloy and increase your naval cap you lose , you simply can't win an early defensive war against a grand admiral AI if you didn't increased your naval capacity and alloy production . They have 60% naval capacity increase , - 40% ship upkeep , 112% to ressource from job and 100% to station .
Your neighboor not attacking you is unbelievable honestly , with 0 defense and all your planet and their insane bonus to habitability they should have attacked you and probably win really quickly if it don't start to do weird shit like AI sometimes do .
Not really , there's something called pop efficiency and hivemind sucks hard at it , hivemind is all about early game , that's where they are the best and it last until 2270 then ... they crash , like really hard , bio pop become more and more efficient , start to stack insane amount of stability while hivemind struggle to sustain themself .
Granted that he played an optimised hive mind , with lot's of luck and a long term strategy and economic devellopement these number are ... normal .
He didn't feel the impact of high difficulty or the struggle for space that he should have with those settings , but it's neighbour suffered from it , making them weaker .
We also need to take into account that to have a decent hivemind you need to shift job a lot and IA don't do it , so hivemind IA sucks most of the time . I don't know if lithoid IA play properly , everytime i see them they are doing shit .
Because you have no idea what you're talking about i'm afraid i can't help you.
I can show you better start if you want.
I can also show some footage of a ga starnet fanatic purifier dying to a hivemind, or rush footage of a ga by year 2206-8.
Will I do it? No next time consider being more open minded.
Alright this was the last meaningless comment I answered. If you have more criticism keep them for yourself, if you have questions please feel free to ask.
That's a rather poor one won t you agree?
Have you finished the video? Atleast running through it?
As science empire i struggle just as much
No. In fact I think it's a pretty damn strong one.
Dude, it'd take me nearly 3 hours even on 2x speed. I haven't been awake for 2.
How?
Well you didn't answer to any of my criticism so ...
Better start ? of course you can . With these settings ? If you are ready to launch a new game 40 time sure .
Why do you insist on rush when i'm talking about defending against a GA AI ? If you achieve that much economic and science growth that's because you have 0 fleet , 0 starbase and 0 alloy production in a GA game with AI agressiveness set to high . What i say is , if you go blind you need to take supremacy just to defend yourself . You took a bet , it worked , congrats , it's still a bet and a luck factor .
1) k, still made 1.8k+ science by 2256 tho
2)you can seek the important point like bio ascension, extra building slot, tech transition, complex output transition
3) to compete with other player you must run as little cg building as possible, and buy your deficit on market. Every pop counts so no time for filthy colonist to make 4 food like that. You are an actual target in mp because your pop are usable by others unlike hivemind
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You don t defend a ga, you either bribe it or kill it, there is no defending, unless you screw up. Here it was "bribed" except i didn't have to pay, you d think i'd use a mod to negate agressivity? Think again, there is no middle ground. It s not luck i ve dozen of saves with successful hivemind, sometimes rougly equal, sometimes superior, to regular empire, feel free to believe me atm it s your loss. I've yet to loose a hivemind mp
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Weak and Strong are relative terms, meaning one is weak or strong relative to something. Given that you're not drawing comparisons here I'm not sure how we're supposed to extract anything. Add to this the fact that it's versus the AI.
If you wanted to do a proper experiment you would need to run a few games, both as a hive mind and as a non-hivemind and compare numbers in the end. Which is why it's easier to just do a theoretical analysis.
And that's really simple. It comes down to two points:
1) Less growth once robots kick in
2) Less efficient jobs
And before you say "Well yes, but without robots..." I'm just gonna cut you off and point out that growth is king and everything that increases it should be prioratised. Any player who wishes to play optimally will ALWAYS use robots. And THAT is the problem.
Imagine we have two players A and B and both are min-maxing the hell out of this and are playing as optimally as one can. One is always playing a HM and the other one a regular empire. If one is winning more often by a large margin then we have a balance issue and we would conclude that the type of empire the other is using is "weak" and this is what people mean when they say HMs are weak.
Not that they can't be powerful in the hands of a good player such as yourself, but that they aren't at the same power level if skill and random factors are held constant. This is also what they mean when they say that MEs are too powerful and need a nerf.
Because if such a scenario occurs and we assume both are playing optimally, once you do the math it's easy too see that MEs come on top, followed by regular empires and lastly by HMs.
Just look at growth with robots factored in and you'll see what I mean. Additionally look at the numbers around the ascention paths and you'll see why everyone considers Synthetic Ascention to be the best right now, possibly needing a small nerf.
If HMs had more growth than regular empires with robots or more efficient jobs, then I'd say they were good enough. Or if robots had less growth or were more restricted. But right now, as soon as those toasters start coming off the assembly line the growth advantage disappears. And of course every good player will be be-lining for robots, even if they are fanatic spiritualist.
The real question is, can one compete with THAT consistently? The answer should be yes. I don't think it is right now and so we have a problem.
If you wanted to do a proper experiment you would need to run a few games, both as a hive mind and as a non-hivemind and compare numbers in the end. Which is why it's easier to just do a theoretical analysis.
And that's really simple. It comes down to two points:
1) Less growth once robots kick in
2) Less efficient jobs
And before you say "Well yes, but without robots..." I'm just gonna cut you off and point out that growth is king and everything that increases it should be prioratised. Any player who wishes to play optimally will ALWAYS use robots. And THAT is the problem.
Imagine we have two players A and B and both are min-maxing the hell out of this and are playing as optimally as one can. One is always playing a HM and the other one a regular empire. If one is winning more often by a large margin then we have a balance issue and we would conclude that the type of empire the other is using is "weak" and this is what people mean when they say HMs are weak.
Not that they can't be powerful in the hands of a good player such as yourself, but that they aren't at the same power level if skill and random factors are held constant. This is also what they mean when they say that MEs are too powerful and need a nerf.
Because if such a scenario occurs and we assume both are playing optimally, once you do the math it's easy too see that MEs come on top, followed by regular empires and lastly by HMs.
Just look at growth with robots factored in and you'll see what I mean. Additionally look at the numbers around the ascention paths and you'll see why everyone considers Synthetic Ascention to be the best right now, possibly needing a small nerf.
If HMs had more growth than regular empires with robots or more efficient jobs, then I'd say they were good enough. Or if robots had less growth or were more restricted. But right now, as soon as those toasters start coming off the assembly line the growth advantage disappears. And of course every good player will be be-lining for robots, even if they are fanatic spiritualist.
The real question is, can one compete with THAT consistently? The answer should be yes. I don't think it is right now and so we have a problem.
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Yes i'm well aware of that, but let me precise some of your point.
- There is no more "efficient job" for regular empire, only robotist is more efficient, but it remains an invesment, and locked behind tech. A hivemind will squeeze extra pop while regular empire get the tech, set up the plants and finally get the growth going. Because of the randomness of this mechanic it is hard to compare and quantify. Here is a catch tho, hivemind do not use "colony" status, they get their spawning pool faster and they can manipulate immigration which can translate in the best case scenario into a +33% growth. Add at this their own version of nutritionnal plenitude, their 32 start pop, their more convenient colony ship, the cheap society tech and edict, the more reliable access to biopath. This is nothing to sneeze at.
- Back to "efficient pop" the extraction-> balance -> complex policies are quite valuable, and the fact you don t have to spend Building slot (and pops!) in Cg output AND an extra slot through adaptability make for some absurd specialist output. The latter also means cheap growth on low hab world.
Their science output is good, but is it as good as hivemind? I m not so sure anymore.
Synth ascension is another can of worm. The thing is absurd, and will outscale you in mere years. Flesh is weak on its own is a violent sight, butt hivemind peaks and power hit earlier, therefore it doesn't make it weaker, it makes it different.
You seem to know about the game, would you care helping by comparing with other archetype? Try to mimic the same settings, and try getting the same result.
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Mechanist out of the picture, it is the situation we're in. Early on hivemind has the growth and the means to capitalize on it, just look at the video, take into account nomadic is a thing machine doesn't have access to.
If hive minds are so underpowered it shouldn’t be difficult for someone with a non robotic / synth empire to get similar results.
Perhaps one of the naysayers would mind giving it ago & demoing just how much better they can make an empire by 2256?
I’m actually quite interested in the results.
I suspect the difference isn’t so great & by all means use the same alloy cash-in at game start, to keep it fair.
Just some commentary on micromanagement - I’d also hardly call micromanaging your economy a problem btw - I do agree it’s silly hive minds almost need to do this early game but all paradox titles reward empires for making changes that incur tiny bonuses over time because these things are what lead to huge differences in the late game.
Perhaps one of the naysayers would mind giving it ago & demoing just how much better they can make an empire by 2256?
I’m actually quite interested in the results.
I suspect the difference isn’t so great & by all means use the same alloy cash-in at game start, to keep it fair.
Just some commentary on micromanagement - I’d also hardly call micromanaging your economy a problem btw - I do agree it’s silly hive minds almost need to do this early game but all paradox titles reward empires for making changes that incur tiny bonuses over time because these things are what lead to huge differences in the late game.
Since when are alloy recycling and pop micro management exploits?
I'll agree with the people saying having to micro the crap outta early game Hive to ensure success would be ideal, but really that would only benefit those who don't play a lot or aren't super versed in the mechanics. Most people who play this game on a regular basis (and or religiously) already micro the crap out of their empires.
I'd say this was a relatively solid start, though there are for sure way better ones, and really don't agree with the sentiment that the strong mid-game he got is due to his start, he obviously could've done far better if he'd gotten the rubricator earlier and gotten the boal, though I really don't think he'd of done all that much worse if the start was worse.
Also it's clearly been showcased here that Hive is a very competitive strategy, like damn look at that science.
I'll agree with the people saying having to micro the crap outta early game Hive to ensure success would be ideal, but really that would only benefit those who don't play a lot or aren't super versed in the mechanics. Most people who play this game on a regular basis (and or religiously) already micro the crap out of their empires.
I'd say this was a relatively solid start, though there are for sure way better ones, and really don't agree with the sentiment that the strong mid-game he got is due to his start, he obviously could've done far better if he'd gotten the rubricator earlier and gotten the boal, though I really don't think he'd of done all that much worse if the start was worse.
Also it's clearly been showcased here that Hive is a very competitive strategy, like damn look at that science.