How good are Hiveminds

[Kiwibaum]

As I just watched this stream

I got the feeling that Hiveminds seem rather weak. Their Civics don't seem to be particular strong nor does their Ethic seem to be as strong as 3 other ethic bonusses combined.
As example 1 point in pacifist gives you the same +20% unity but gives you +2 core planets instead of +1 influence.
I get that not having to deal with happines can be a good advantage but I don't think that this is worth that much ethic points. Exspecially because as statet in the stream you don't get influence from factions since you don't have them.

So while watching at first I thought so the power of the hiveminds must clearly lie in the civics which are probably awesome. However they don't seem to be better than just normal civics or at least not that much stronger that it is worth to sacrifice 2 ethic points for them.

Do I miss something or do I underestimate something about hiveminds or do they seem to be weaker compared to normal empires?

Edit: Advantages and Disadvantages of hivemind empires(1.6):
Advantages:
- Halved Consumer goods cost.
- No happines disadvantages
- No influence needs to be spent on factions
- No liberation against you from non hivemind empires
- Your pops can't survive in non hivemind empires (without biological ascension path with which the pops can be modfied to be non hivemind pops)
- No pirates
- Good earlygame expansion due to good base influence income, +10% habitability and -15% growth time

Disadvantages:
- Locked out of the mechanical and spirituall ascension paths
- Relationship penalty towards non hivemind empires
- Heavy relationship penalty when conquering planets because of autopurge.
- No robots
- No happines production bonuses
- No influence gains from factions
- No liberation against non hivemind empires
- Pacifist empires can cede planets from you even without offensive war policy
- Pops of non hivemind empires can't survive in your empire (without biological ascension path whith witch the pops can be modified to be hivemind pops)

Other:
- immortal leader
- different civics

 

[AndragonLea]

Depends on how their resource production actually works. If they get the full 100 % happiness boost, they'll be vastly better at production until quite late in the game (it takes a while for most races to unlock all the technologies/buildings and protocols to attain 100 % happiness or close to it on most planets). As they also don't have to spend traits on happiness or ethics, they're free to fully concentrate on science or resource generation instead.

Edith: They'll also be able to almost outright ignore habitability, as well.

Seeing as they are also immune to some of the negative event things (wonder what will happen when the hive entity embraces the worm?^^) that affect ethics or happiness and that they need not bother to buy the festival of worlds or anything, it could be a pretty fun run.

You're right on the ethics though - they do seem less great than some of the specialised pacifist/spiritualist etc. civics.

 

[Ewoks_Must_Die]

It seems to me from the recent stream that hiveminds are kind of 'jack of all trades, master of none'.

They don't have strengths that can compete with a specialised empire that uses complementary civics, but they can tailor their tactics to match any situation without worrying about happiness impacts, competing factions and policy/edict restrictions.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

Hive Minds don't need to worry about happiness, unrest, planet habitability (because they don't have to worry about happiness), or factions. Thus a Hive Mind has massive advantages over the normal polities and only the slightest downsides (no factions also unfortunately means no extra influence).

 

[Xenith_Shadow]

Assuming they don't fix it you also get 2 free negative traits in solitary and deviant, as neither of those have an adverse effect on hiveminds.
I mean hive mind strength is their ability to avoid the new faction system, which if it is difficult to manage maybe a good benefit. It is also possible that they may just be a weaker version of a different ethos set.

 

[Kiwibaum]

You think they can colonies without having to worry about habitability? That would be a strong thing I didn't knew. If that is true they might be worth!

 

[Rydelfox]

The Ethic cost seems less like a balancing factor and more like the other ethics being incompatible. The other ethics would trigger a bunch of things that would need to be rewritten or redesigned for Hive Minds, so they made it cost 3 Ethic points to keep you from taking any others.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Assuming they don't fix it you also get 2 free negative traits in solitary and deviant, as neither of those have an adverse effect on hiveminds.
I mean hive mind strength is their ability to avoid the new faction system, which if it is difficult to manage maybe a good benefit. It is also possible that they may just be a weaker version of a different ethos set.

i think that was mentioned in thursdays stream, dont know if they are disabled in the release patch, but it seems like it will be disabled

 

[Mcwynne]

Yeah, as mentioned, being able to basically ignore habitability might be huge depending on how that is handled.

 

[Jastebro]

Behold the Hivemind, the true despicable neutral, right in the middle of the whole ethics spectrum.

 

[Kiwibaum]

The Ethic cost seems less like a balancing factor and more like the other ethics being incompatible. The other ethics would trigger a bunch of things that would need to be rewritten or redesigned for Hive Minds, so they made it cost 3 Ethic points to keep you from taking any others.

Yes but if you make it cost 3 ethic points you have to make it as good as 3 ethics otherwise it would be stupid to pick it wouldn't it?

Edit: Exept for roleplay reasons!

 

[Kiwibaum]

It seems to me from the recent stream that hiveminds are kind of 'jack of all trades, master of none'.

They don't have strengths that can compete with a specialised empire that uses complementary civics, but they can tailor their tactics to match any situation without worrying about happiness impacts, competing factions and policy/edict restrictions.

Yes but it seems to me that specialised empires will just be a lot better than hiveminds in their specialised thing and not much worse in the other things.

 

[Slynx]

no factions and no happiness seems like a huge buff that worth it's 3 pts cost

 

[AndragonLea]

Yes but it seems to me that specialised empires will just be a lot better than hiveminds in their specialised thing and not much worse in the other things.

But specialised empires can't be good everywhere - they trade being good in some aspects for being less good in others, whereas hiveminds only get one very specific upside (immunity to factions/happiness), but don't have to trade negative traits or enmities for it.

Given that you usually have to split your ethics/traits/government in halfsies, one half going to empire managment (happiness and ethics) while the other half goes towards whatever you want (minerals, energy credits, straight up combat advantage, habitability, what have you), a hivemind can forego part of their choices (ethics and government always halfmind) and still use a huge part of their choices (traits, civics) towards whatever they want. They just lose out on that last bit of min-maxing.

Anyways, I'm going to have fun experimenting around with it. ^^

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

Behold the Hivemind, the true despicable neutral, right in the middle of the whole ethics spectrum.

Someone contact zapp brannigan!

But yeah they do seem underpowered.

What I'm bit shocked by is that they have only one Hivemind namelist!

 

[Fourthspartan56]

You think they can colonies without having to worry about habitability? That would be a strong thing I didn't knew. If that is true they might be worth!

A planet's habitability impacts your happiness which impacts everything else but hive minds don't have to worry about happiness so habitability is a non-issue for them.

 

[Kiwibaum]

no factions and no happiness seems like a huge buff that worth it's 3 pts cost

It's not just a buff they wont get influence from factions which is the part where you get you most influence from as far as I understand it from the streams and dev comments!

But specialised empires can't be good everywhere - they trade being good in some aspects for being less good in others, whereas hiveminds only get one very specific upside (immunity to factions/happiness), but don't have to trade negative traits or enmities for it.

Given that you usually have to split your ethics/traits/government in halfsies, one half going to empire managment (happiness and ethics) while the other half goes towards whatever you want (minerals, energy credits, straight up combat advantage, habitability, what have you), a hivemind can forego part of their choices (ethics and government always halfmind) and still use a huge part of their choices (traits, civics) towards whatever they want. They just lose out on that last bit of min-maxing.

Anyways, I'm going to have fun experimenting around with it. ^^

Yes experimenting in the new system will be very fun expspecially with hiveminds!

I just don't think that you have to invest so much in happines/factions usually that it would make it worth throwing away 2 ethic poins basically!

If you can colonise any planet from the get go as speculated that would make hivemind worth. I would not like it to be that way because beeing able to colonise everything is not a thing I think about when thinking about hiveminds and would rather have more interesting things going for them, but gameplaywise be enough to make hiveminds as strong as other empires I think.

Also I completely forgot one more disadvantage hivemind have which can not be underestimated: They have a relationship penalty towards other empires as far as I remeber from some of the streams or dev diaries.

 

[Slynx]

It's not just a buff they wont get influence from factions which is the part where you get you most influence from as far as I understand it from the streams and dev comments!

yes. but they also wont loose it from suppressing factions. so it's probably balanced (unless factions will give you really crazy amounts of influence

so habitability is a non-issue for them.

except colonizing

 

[Wizzington]

Hive Minds have halved consumer goods use (they have a special living standard that explains that it's not really consumer goods, but you still need resources to sustain the drone population).

 

[Tavior]

Hive Minds have halved consumer goods use (they have a special living standard that explains that it's not really consumer goods, but you still need resources to sustain the drone population).

Even with that -50% consumer goods use and other bonus both indirect and directly.

I am still disappointed with the overall content of Hive Mind. But I think you already know that.