Hivemind Civics are Seriously Lacking

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Why do machine empires even get an additional pop for new colonies? If a empire gets more starting pops for colonies shouldn't that be hives since they are about strength in numbers design wise with their districts giving more jobs, while machines were supposed to be about efficiency, like their pops produce more than normal pops?
Yes.
 
Also I am not seeing, why the trait extremely adaptive is a "must".
Since the 2.3 habitability changes, Extremely Adaptive is:

-20% Pop Food Consumption
-20% Pop Amenities Upkeep
+10% Pop Growth
+10% Pop Output

For the (Relatively) low cost of 4 trait points. And remember, Hive Minds can't exactly rely on getting alien immigrants to round out their habitability.
 
Since the 2.3 habitability changes, Extremely Adaptive is:

-20% Pop Food Consumption
-20% Pop Amenities Upkeep
+10% Pop Growth
+10% Pop Output

For the (Relatively) low cost of 4 trait points. And remember, Hive Minds can't exactly rely on getting alien immigrants to round out their habitability.

Not on your homeworlds it's really only applicable on 80% or lower.

If you take agrarian and use it to slingshot your growth via edicts and policies you might be better off doing that using your home world as a big farm.
 
Not on your homeworlds it's really only applicable on 80% or lower.
Aka literally every other planet bar Gaia.

Also Hive Minds don't have access to the pop growth edict. They use the Spawning Pool instead.
 
Yeah I meant the nutritional plentitude thing.

Main point is if you over expand early you might have problems with a hive.
 
Isn't their whole theme about being able to expand early and rapidly?

Maybe I'm not good with hives. They don't seem to grow that fast since others can use the food edict to match them an bots to beat them.
 
I still like my harvester idea

You start with tomb world preference. You don’t grow naturally but can live forever without food.

Has a special bombardment stance, “harvest” which turns planets into tomb worlds by draining them of life. Doing so generates pops. Worlds with pops give more growth.
 
Yeah I meant the nutritional plentitude thing.

Main point is if you over expand early you might have problems with a hive.

Isn't their whole theme about being able to expand early and rapidly?
From Wiz in the 124th Dev Diary on the Planetary Rework:
Hive Minds
In Le Guin, the planets of Hive Minds are focused around rapid growth. Instead of City districts, Hive Minds have Hive districts that provide a very large amount of housing, and each of their raw resource districts provides three jobs where a normal empire only gets two. Hive Minds use the normal biological Pop Growth mechanic, and can also make use of migration mechanics internally - drones will emigrate from overcrowded worlds and immigrate to worlds with free housing. Hive Minds also have a special building, the Spawning Pool, that provides Spawning Drone jobs which use a large amount of food to increase the rate of pop growth on the planet. Furthermore, Hive Minds have their own set of capital buildings that lack the 'colony shelter' level - a newly colonized Hive Mind planet has a fully functional capital present from day one. All of these mechanics make Hive Minds ideal for a 'wide' playstyle, expanding rapidly and claiming huge swathes of space for the Hive.
So yes, as of 2.2 Le Guin, Hive Minds are intended to grow rapidly and usually play wide, emphasis on intended to. Whether they actually hold up to that in 2.3 Wolfe due to the added penalties to low Habitability is the question.
 
Well adaptive only costs 2 points and frees 2 points for other traits. Ie. Agrarian, Adaptive and Charismatic (instead of extremly adaptive and charismatic).
I don't understand your reasoning. Ext.Adaptive costs 4 points, and can be argued to give the effects of Charismatic, Agrarian, Rapid Breeders, and 2xVery Strong that also affects Specialist/Complex jobs.
 
Not literally every planet bar gaia, some planets could have the "living sea", "pm_yuht_cleansing", "lush planet", "atmospheric_aphrodisiac" modifiers, which do raise the habitability (me being a "nitpick").
Those are outliers and can be ignored, since my use of 'Literally' was obviously hyperbole.
 
Read the whole post, please and compare with adaptive instead of extremely adaptive and also consider the galaxy settings.
I did, and it changes nothing. Planets and pops, even on very low settings, are the best producers of resources, and with the current penalties, increasing habitability is the greatest way to get the most out of that.

Don't assume that when people disagree with you it's just because they didn't understand you.
 
As far as low-hanging fruit goes in terms of easy fixes, I feel like this is definitely something up there. In terms of good and unique civics, Hiveminds literally only have Devouring Swarm. All the other Hivemind civics are either bread and butter or bread and butter and bad. Maybe this is just me, but I feel like there could be a whole bunch of different cool Civics, ones that I can practically yank off the top of my head out of sci-fi. They're mostly (all) kind of food-centric, but I feel like food, in general, is Hivemind's shtick.

- Why not have a Hivemind start with two or three different species, something along the lines of evolutionary symbiosis or mutualism (Symbiotic Mutualism)
- Maybe have a civic that starts a Hivemind with 3-4 Livestock, the ability to grow more livestock (as opposed to machines), increased food production from livestock by like 1 or 2, but less production from drones and a penalty to opinion with everybody else in the galaxy (honestly don't know why this isn't a thing) (Natural XenoPhages)
-A civic that increases food by 1 and gives an extra farmer job kind of like a Hivemind version of Rockbreakers (Botanical Husbandry)
-A civic that adds to or replaces some of military ship's production and upkeep costs with food and makes them regenerate armor and health and have less a chance of getting destroyed in combat (Biological Armaments)
-A civic that replaces some specialist upkeep costs with food (Food for Thought)

I dunno, maybe some of those are overpowered or would at least need to be carefully balanced, but I came up with all these in less than half an hour; I'm sure the big brains at Paradox can come up with better. It would just be nice to be able to have more than 1 truly civic supported playstyle on Hivemind. No two non-DS Hivemind civics are better than Byzantine Bureaucracy alone.

TL;DR, What I'm trying to say is that while some of my ideas might be bad, it would be nice if there were some good Hivemind civic options aside from devouring the entire galaxy.
I kinda disagree with the OP here. You make a valid point about Hivemind civics being bread and butter, and then suggest a fix by... proposing a bunch more bread and butter Hivemind civics?

None of the proposals you made would actually make a playthrough any different.
"A civic that increases food by 1 and gives an extra farmer job kind of like a Hivemind version of Rockbreakers"? So... it's just "You have to build 15% fewer farming districts"? Players won't even notice that's in effect. It doesn't make you play any differently.
"A civic that adds to or replaces some of military ship's production and upkeep costs with food and makes them regenerate armor and health and have less a chance of getting destroyed in combat"? Again, this does nothing more than let you build 1 fewer alloy foundry per planet. You won't even notice.

Your diagnosis is correct (Hivemind civics are boring), but your proposed treatment is homeopathy-tier of not giving a high enough dose of medicine.
I'm of the opinion that unless you can easily work out what civics you're running without clicking your government tab, the civic is not distinct enough.
 
What I'm trying to say is that while some of my ideas might be bad, it would be nice if there were some good Hivemind civic options aside from devouring the entire galaxy.

Locusts: Every world you inhabit has an initial bonus to raw resource production, however it also gets an "environmental destruction" modifier which ticks up over time and acts as a negative modifier to that same production. When it hits 10% the world stops being Gaia (if it was previously), 50% the world turns to Tomb World and 0% it becomes terraformable barren planet, destroying the colony if still present. The modifier can be reset only with Atmospheric Restoration technology.

The intended effect is to force the player to constantly colonize and consume new planets and abandon old ones, leading a wave of desolation behind them and driving conflict without being a genocidal empire.

Abductors: Mars needs cheerleaders! Non-hiveminded pops are assigned to special "Cheerleader" strata working "Cheerleader" jobs. Each such pop increases the output of all drones and pop growth by 1% (at 100% happiness) as well as produces amenities and have their housing needs much reduced but requires food, consumer goods and undergoes the Neutering purge. The hive has access to raiding bombardment. Consumer goods need to be purchased.
 
, leading a wave of desolation behind them and driving conflict without being a genocidal empire.
So in other words, a genocidal empire given a new coat of paint, the same way Driven Assimilators aren't 'genocidal'.
 
Isn't their whole theme about being able to expand early and rapidly?

Well, you would think thats the case. But obviously it doesnt work out ingame. Just like everything screams "strong pop growth" but in practice any normal empire can beat Hiveminds in popgrowth by using Robots. And being more efficient at specialists jobs while doing that.

Hiveminds got really nothing going for them, they are in a sad state. Kinda like Robots used to be in 2.2.0. But unlike Robots, Hiveminds weren't buffed at all. And unlike Robots, the expansion and changes to the game hurt Hiveminds, whereas they catapulted Robots/Machines from strong to overpowered.

Its about time Paradox remembers that this is supposed to be a strategy game. And for strategy to matter, the different empire types need to be more equal. Not entirely equal of course, but also not like they are now. I've been playing since shortly before 2.2.0 and for me this is the biggest discrepancy in powers between empire types I have ever seen.

(*Have to add this to protect from being downvoted by roleplayers* Yes, even if you are a roleplayer and don't play competitive multiplayer, balance affects you. Because the one guy in your rolepla group who plays Machines always comes out ontop. Balance affects everyone, even if you think you can ignore it.)
 
So in other words, a genocidal empire given a new coat of paint, the same way Driven Assimilators aren't 'genocidal'.

Except, y'know, not having any interest in killing anyone but simply needing to conquer new planets? The pops can be kept and moved away before the planet becomes barren, or displacement purged, sending them to other empires as refugees, or sold in the slave market. Later on the empire can stabilize somewhat via habitats (ringworlds would still get the penalty, having an ecosystem) and terraforming, if it has the economy to keep terraforming all of its planets over and over again.

Basically, it's an empire that needs to be constantly snowballing because it's constantly melting.
 
Don't have to tell me twice.

I think they should get 2 more Personality-changing ones (Like Assimilator and Servitors for Machines) and the rest of their civics should be given the Warrior Culture treatment.
My own idea would be Free Thinkers. It creates a second non-hive mind race that fill leadership roles (other than country ruler), and perform a special jobs that create small amounts of unity and research.

Another would be Mental Unifiers. They get a substantial relationship bonus with other hive minds and get a special Casus belli that can convert the loser into a hive mind.
 
Like Assimilators.

Like regular empires. Very different from Assimilators since the pre-existing pops don't get assimilated. Very different from genocidal empires since the pops don't get killed. Why do you keep pushing a claim that's obviously and objectively false?