How to Authoritarian in 2.2

[Xaelyn]

So probably focus mostly on mineral worlds (since you can get energy more efficiently from the market & food from livestock), with a single food-heavy thrall world (since you can build the 1/planet food boosting building but not the mineral or energy equivalents on thrall worlds). That's why I like Alpine (more minerals on average)

You're right about species-wide population controls. I was trying to micro it via locking down breeding on a planet by planet basis, but species wide makes a lot more sense now that I think about it. You don't get the 20% penalty to whatever you *are* growing, for one.

I think going with wet planet planet type for your primary species is better tbh; They tend to have lot's of food districts which you don't need, so they make ideal worlds to fill with cities and specialist building, and you want city worlds to have good habitability for your specialists and rulers to save on consumer goods and amenities. Habitability for slaves doesn't matter nearly as much, so cold planets are perfect as brutal mining colonies.

 

[TheAzureLiger]

Does anyone has some success and tips for playing Authoritarian Empire in 2.2
I had some success with Egalitarian Democracy.
But Authoritarian was fail for me, since that required a lot of moving around my main specie to support enforcers and administrators.

Which ethics, traits, civics, and what is general strategy?

I enslave all other species.

I set population production to produce only my species in 3/4 of my sectors, allowing other species to grow only in new sectors. I expand my population of slaves with rapid conquest/enslaving primitives and the slave market. For example my largest slave race are the gerals who I have 124 of. All of em bought from the market. All my planets have rulers and specialists of my race with all worker jobs worked by slaves. When I have a surplus of my own pops I change population production to produce slaves. Generally now, I produce mostly my own pops to fill in my ecumenopolis. In all newly conquered planets slaves are produced, core worlds produce my people. I resettle a lot. I also lead a federation. This resulted in most of my pops being xenophile, but I have them at 90% happiness despite converting all other alien races to slavery lol.

I have aristocratic elite civic which is really good for maintaining stability among slaves. I don't use slaver guild as that makes your own pops slaves. I have no slaves or workers of my own pops. Only aliens. I'm militarist/fanatic authoritarian. Functional architecture/ environmentalist/ aristocratic elite.

 

[Slynx]

How do you keep the various slave species/sub-species at the right relative population levels? It seems like a LOT of micro if you specialize into 3+ trait groups across species.

why micro? just enslave them all. that's all. they are not worth to take the specialist or even worse - ruler stratas anyway. that's for your own species only.
and if you see that they are strong for example you may make them battle thralls(but usually it's not needed cuz slave army suxx)

Authoritarian?

First thing you need to do is mod your game. Stratified Society is a ticking time bomb that goes off the instant your empire has a robot on it, and your empire will likely descend into chaos when it goes off, especially if you have slaves. Even if your empire doesn't build robots, if you acquire a single one through conquest or via events, then you're screwed unless you notice right away and sell them off ASAP.

Here's a link to the mod I use for the time being, though I think it requires you download the beta branch build: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1598606408

Second, if you're enslaving your homeworld species, you will need to always remember that 40% of all a planet's population will be enslaved, and that will affect how you build your planets. You do not want an overabundance of specialist workers on your planets because slaves can only work in the worker strata. If more than 60% of the jobs on a planet are specialist or higher, you will start having unemployed slaves. Non-sentient robots do not count for this percentage, but bear in mind they can compete with slaves for those jobs as well. You can also use the slave market to "purge" unwanted slaves and robots if you need to.

whenever I play organics I always have at least Authoritarian 1. (mainly cuz the game is unplayable for me without them). so I can assure you that you don't need any mods to make them work. also Stratified Society is fine as it is.
as for the robot problem - be a spiritualist and outlaw them. and there will be no problems at all.

personally I prefer 3 types of empires: authoritarian-F.Spiritualist (my get-go Worm+Psionic build). authoritarian-spiritualist-militarist (if I want NoRetreat doctrine) and in the rare cases authoritarian-anything (except xenophile if you wanna be a slaver, cuz it doesn't work very well with xeno-slavery in 2.2. but since you don't need to be a slaver to play authoritarian some combinations of authoritarian-xeniphiles can be pretty good) (authoritarian-materialist-militarist works wonders for cyber ascension for example)

and the last part...I guess people mentioned it already here, but Slave GUilds are a trap civic. it can ruin your empire if you're not prepare for the consequences and don't like to min-max your empire ratios.

 

[Tyro]

as for the robot problem - be a spiritualist and outlaw them. and there will be no problems at all.

"Play in this specific, highly limiting fashion and you too can avoid game-breaking bugs!"

 

[Slynx]

"Play in this specific, highly limiting fashion and you too can avoid game-breaking bugs!"

to be fair you can outlaw them even as non-spiritualist iirc. you just can't be materialist.
and even as a materialist you are not obligated to build drones.(same as you don't need slaves as authoritarian). and even if you get them you'll be screwed only if you'll also take one civic which is already bad anyway

 

[Sayakus]

I have found xenophobe, authoritarian, materialist combo quite good

 

[rjinswand]

I have found xenophobe, authoritarian, materialist combo quite good

I am also considering that, what are your civic and trait picks?

 

[Sayakus]

I am also considering that, what are your civic and trait picks?

With those traits You can go pretty wide and put main pops as rulers/specialist everywhere.
Imperium because i tend to do feudal society to avoid crippling empire sprawl.

 

[evilcat]

I am also considering that, what are your civic and trait picks?

One way to go is:
Imperial
Inteligent, Engineering/Society Focus, Weak, Deviants + Bonus
Mining Guilds, Technocracy

Generally our tech and alloy production are very good. So we can out tech out produce enemies. The long term goal is to achieve Megastructures and our choosen ascession path.
Bonus is trait of personal preference. I go with Enduring since losing that tier V scientits is annoying. But traditional or Conservationist make also sense.
There is also an option to avoid Xenophobia, and go Fan Authoritarian with the idea that we will build some habitats. (habitats are ok as breading hubs) but we need some extra influence to both conquere and habitat.

Imperial, early on there are other things to do than babysitting leaders, but with 3rd civic may switch to Directorial

Technocracy is powerfull civic allowing us to be on top with technology. Also we can build Labs + theaters and still be ok with unity.
Mining Guilds, minerals for war. Also minerals sometimes have higher price than 1:1 so migh as well sell it.

 

[Slynx]

I am also considering that, what are your civic and trait picks?

F.Spiritualist-Authoritarian(+worm) or Authoritarian-Militarist-Spiritualist(if without worm)
megacorp
gospel of the masses (can be switch to +trade value)
criminal syndicate (for espionage, not for profit) but can be switched for anything.for example colony ships + empire cap.

normal empire(preferably imperial) - exalted priesthood or aristocrats + anything.except slaver guild

traitsL=:
rapid breaders-nomadic (plus adaptive if you can fit it in)
repugnant-wasteful (I prefer not to take weak cuz I like strong)

 

[rjinswand]

With those traits You can go pretty wide and put main pops as rulers/specialist everywhere.
Imperium because i tend to do feudal society to avoid crippling empire sprawl.

I have tried some post apoc lately and I'm loving the feel of it, but I'm unsure whether or not it is actually worth it to lock in survivor perk for something that you can fix rather quick, especially with stratified economy for those low habi planets? And you won't get syncretic evolution, which seemed to be somewhat of the point of authoritarian according to this thread?

One way to go is:
Imperial
Inteligent, Engineering/Society Focus, Weak, Deviants + Bonus
Mining Guilds, Technocracy
.

You would also skip syncretic? Otherwise it looks very similar to what I have, but with post-apoc and syncretic in an endless switcheroo instead of techno, as I can't decide and actually start the game. =(

 

[ArmChairAttila]

I just finished a game using the current meta build of fanatic militarist xenophobe with dispolers and distinguished admiralty. My first war started at 2225 and it was a total steam roll collecting something like 20 (slave) pops before the WE kicked in. I finished superiority and set war doctrine to no retreat. All xeno slaves were set to basic substance, no migration, no fertility rights. Primary species were just talented and enduring, I like strong leaders. This build is uber powerful if not the most powerful far surpassing any others I have played. It will probably be nurfed soon lol. I am sure there are even stronger tweeks to this build like using Gaia start. Although I would not use Gaia start with xenophobe, I would with authoritarian for sure though. Slavery is really strong in 2.2 there are a ton of options you use to control your populations. Most of these options are in the species economic tabs. With slavery you are rarely short on energy, minerals or food which makes the whole game feel less like a tight rope.