How to play Barbaric Despoilers?

[unperson]

Question for people who played with them. How did you find this civic?
Looking for tips on civics, traits, ethos and gameplay.

Civic:
First I thought Post Apocalytpic would be great but your slaves won't be able to live on the planet so that is out.
The best civic pair seems to be Slavers Guild to get more out of the captured pops.
Any other good synergies here?

Ethics:
These 2 seem to be the most ideal.
Fanatic Authorian + Militaristic
or
Authorian + Militaristic + Xenophobe

Traits:

Decadent - makes sense, I'll have lots of slaves
Repugnant - seems like a good choice, they will hate me anyways.
​

Not quite sure here what positive traits to take...
Strong + Industrious - my own pop slaves will be great but then why would I get xeno slaves if my own are superior?

General Gameplay:
My biggest worry is that if I am already in a position to bomb an enemy planet it means that their station and fleet are probably already defeated. So...why not just take the the planet in the war with all the pops?
When is it better to just steal some pops instead of taking territory and whole planets?

 

[Jabby]

Question for people who played with them. How did you find this civic?
Looking for tips on civics, traits, ethos and gameplay.

Civic:
First I thought Post Apocalytpic would be great but your slaves won't be able to live on the planet so that is out.
The best civic pair seems to be Slavers Guild to get more out of the captured pops.
Any other good synergies here?

Ethics:
These 2 seem to be the most ideal.
Fanatic Authorian + Militaristic
or
Authorian + Militaristic + Xenophobe

Traits:

Decadent - makes sense, I'll have lots of slaves
Repugnant - seems like a good choice, they will hate me anyways.
​

Not quite sure here what positive traits to take...
Strong + Industrious - my own pop slaves will be great but then why would I get xeno slaves if my own are superior?

General Gameplay:
My biggest worry is that if I am already in a position to bomb an enemy planet it means that their station and fleet are probably already defeated. So...why not just take the the planet in the war with all the pops?
When is it better to just steal some pops instead of taking territory and whole planets?

I don’t own this game so take my advice with a pinch. For traits, i suggest using traits that increase energy/research/unity since slaves won’t be good at those. Use slaves for minerals/food. For ethics, Authoritarian + militarist + xenophope seems good. On the subject of raiding planets instead of conquering, i assume its for when/if you dont have claims on a system. You raid it to take pops and then white peace out or status quo. You may not get many planets but you got pops and took away pops from the enemy

 

[Held der Arbeit]

I usually play slaver empires. Havent tried barbaric despoilers yet, but since your question is more about what are generally good traits for a slavemaster race here's my 5cents:

You will usually want to max out stuff that slaves are bad at, so research and/or energy credits. I personally tend to favor research, since energy can be delegated to robots eventually, but pound for pound thrifty gives you more extra resources since energy gains are larger. Decadent is always a good choice. While it prohibits you from making pure research/energy planets, that's usually not a good choice for slaver empires anyway, since a good mix of owners/slaves is preferrable to pure slave planets which will be unrest-hell. I often also take weak, since your people will neither work the mines nor be soldiers. Probably not a good choice for Barbaric Despoilers, RP wise, but still. Solitary is a good alternative since the malus is rather neglible, especially if you employ social welfare.

With the points freed up by decadent and weak/solitary, you can go for nomadic (resettlement is your bread and butter for maintaining healthy citizen/slave ratios), adaptive (to be able to live where your slaves live), more intelligence focuses for that sweet 35% increase or rapid breeders (just always a good choice)

 

[Sanguine_Paradox]

So far my experience with them is so-so, and I think the game isnt really designed for the sort of play they seem to want to encourage.

The best way to take slaves and benefit is to take claims, and Despoilation doesn't give you any sort of free pass on the Claim system or any real benefit in comparison to just Conquering. I suppose it lets you declare war without claims, but then you are just bashing away at an opponent without real gain and until mid-late game, a cost to your resource production.

If it worked more like the Marauder clans, it'd make more sense - naturally if it worked EXACTLY that way it could be OP, but I think achieving victory should be CONSIDERABLY easier even if it means you are not allowed to make claims.

Currently the only benefit to 'winning' a Despoilation (and you need to be in a war for a long time),is a measly 500 creds.

I would think that achieving a successful 'raid' on another galactic empire would yield significant rewards, and effect a shorter (more exhaustive) war where its quite easy to win/lose.

At the moment there is really no incentive to keep fighting a war of despoilation once you get the claimed areas and do some raids, its just roleplay fun.

I think they need further work - maybe the ability to just ignore the new lane restrictions where your navy cannot get past inhabited systems unless conquered? It would certainly give a more organic reason to keep fighting - you get to wipe our their resource production and run amok until they catch you and boot your ass out. The penalty for losing battles should be much higher to balance the additional rewards Id like.

Alternatively, a muted version of the rewards Marauders get for raiding you could be good.

This means that once you start taking casualties the exhaustion would push you to cease the fight, but raiding pops - if it also yielded minerals/credits would be quite cool. Maybe even a temporary boost of happiness for your Main Species/Citizenry?

At the moment I don't make money from raids specifically and thats a shame.

 

[Katsue]

The best way to take slaves and benefit is to take claims, and Despoilation doesn't give you any sort of free pass on the Claim system or any real benefit in comparison to just Conquering. I suppose it lets you declare war without claims, but then you are just bashing away at an opponent without real gain and until mid-late game, a cost to your resource production.

Have you succeeded in taking slaves while raiding? My Barbaric Despoiler game was in 2.0, and I'm pretty sure I never did.

 

[dave866]

I think all raided stations should yield loot similar to the pirate stations. I don’t mind the FTL inhibitors since it would encourage strategic incursions across border systems. Looting (some amount per abducted pop) and kidnapping via bombardment rounds it out. Balance by tweaking WE so that you can’t do enough to be OP. If you want a real war then make claims like anyone else.

 

[Sapa Inca]

The problem is that raiding bombardment is slow and if you can spend time bombarding for abduction, take the planet is simply better.
My suggestions is: Successful land invasions with armies should with 100% of certain abduct 1-2 pops, abduction of additional pops need the raiding bombardment stance (like in current version). So, you are always guaranteed to take 1-2 pops per planet raided and make sense that armies make abductions too.
The despoilation CB need give a tiny quantity of energy credits per mineral/research station destroyed.

 

[RadioactiveHellion]

This is my first real game with them and... the 500 energy credits thing...

I'm kinda flabbergasted. I'd probably lose more than that just by undocking my fleets. Raiding should provide some kind of scaling rewards based on planets taken and the size/wealth of the target.

 

[Sanguine_Paradox]

Have you succeeded in taking slaves while raiding? My Barbaric Despoiler game was in 2.0, and I'm pretty sure I never did.

Yes it works just fine for me so long as I have the space and habitability.

Its hard being a Dark Eldar raider in this game

 

[TheAtreides84]

Having to declare a full blown war to use the civic makes it pretty much useless. They had the CK2 raiding system right there, why they didn't copy it is beyond me.

 

[Sartain]

This is my first real game with them and... the 500 energy credits thing...

I'm kinda flabbergasted. I'd probably lose more than that just by undocking my fleets. Raiding should provide some kind of scaling rewards based on planets taken and the size/wealth of the target.

Yeah, since any difficulty but ensign more or less forces you to turtle and build up for the first 50-100 years, Despoilation raiding and the "reward" for a despoilation war is ridiculously useless. I think the despoilers need some mechanics similar to raiders from CK2 (ability to raid into neighbouring/rival territory without war declaration
and gain raiding rewards for destroying stations and/or raiding planets) to be even remotely useful.

As it stands now, unless you actively abuse poor AI, or are lucky enough to be able to invite somebody to join you in an early game war against a common foe, Barbaric Despoilers civic doesn't actually become relevant before it has more or less become irrelevant. And even then, the regular claim>invade>force status quo peace is a lot more useful as far as getting slaves goes anyway, not to mention the fact that actually abducting any pops takes forever.

Basically, give them CK2 raider options and tweak the numbers for abducting, and it should be a lot more viable.

 

[Kharrus]

The best way (if not the only viable way) to play barbaric desploilers is to pair the civic with Syncratic evolution. Serviles make amazingly good starter slaves to begin with, but your options open up a lot since you've got two genetic templates to work with from the beginning, not just one.
The synergy with the Adaptability line is actually very, very nice. You can gene mod both of your empire species early on, and any other species you "pick up" along the way can be used to fill in the gaps, like Battle Thralls or Livestock.

My experience playing them was with a materialist authoritarian empire, with each species sharing the Conservationist and Rapid Breeder trait (bugs). With the adaptability tradition line and gene modding ascension the arduous task of terraforming becomes redundant. Tailoring your planets to your species is pointless if their habitability across the board is past the 50-60% mark, especially if you're doing things like using academic privilege for your 'erudite' leader species. This gameplay is what really unlocks the civic's playstyle, ableit midgame.

Don't stack big fleets for raiding. DON'T STACK BIG FLEETS FOR RAIDING. Make a bunch of leaderless raiding parties and hit multiple planets simultaneously, and then you can REALLY see the payoff, both from pop abduction amounts and from whatever bonuses you get from winning the war. The ability to pop the raiding casus beli is MASSIVELY understated for the playstyle, as it allows wars to be declared without claims, or any arduous diplomatic BS. This means that protracted wars are much, much easier to manage since you can keep trashing your enemies' infrastructure and economy with little risk to your own, and if you've grown your military large enough, you can just steamroll them. It's a lot less ham-fisted than Fanatic Purifiers or Determined Exterminators, and the soft diplomatic penalty is functionally the same as having the xenophobic ethic.

Having trouble getting resources early to mid game? No problem! just switch your government to Oligarchic, and pick up Shadow Council for your 3rd civic slot. You can pick and replace rulers nearly as easily as leaders, and it synergizes extremely well with the gene modding ascension line from a macro-management perspective. You can shift your empire's focus on a dime, and with the addition of more traits like nomadic you can re-allocate resources to best suit your need. The peerless adaptibility of your empire with this setup will reliably win you the game on the hardest level as well as multiplayer most of the time, as long as you don't get crushed in the early game.

TLDR; play with gene modding ascension, syncratic evolution. take advantage of as many output bonuses as you need, and winwinwin

 

[Dementor4]

I'd like to see a market for slaves, where any player can sell and buy pops, but creating a particular incentive for despoilers, turning their wars into direct profit.

 

[MartinSWE]

I'd like to see a market for slaves, where any player can sell and buy pops, but creating a particular incentive for despoilers, turning their wars into direct profit.

This should be part of a future Diplomacy DLC and would open up alot of interesting options:

* Despoilers would essentially turn into 'space vikings' where they raid and pillage for profit and where slaves make up a substantial part of that income.

* Authoritarian empires would be given interesting options to aquire slaves more suitable for certain tasks, as long as they aren´t xenophobic they don´t care who does the hard work.

* Xenophilic peaceful empires wouldn´t be screwed if they don´t find friendly empires to have migration treaties with or pre-ftl civilisations that they can incorporate into their empire. Buying slaves to set them free was afterall a real thing in our own history.

 

[Surimi]

It's one of those civics which can be a bit annoying to work around due to the huge diplomacy penalties. Often, newly encountered empires will just lock you out of their space, which can put a damper on exploration. You can partially get around this by making your primary species charismatic, or just embrace being a galactic pariah.

The despoiler CB seems meh on paper but is sort of key to making this playstyle work. Because you're usually not going to be expanding with this CB, it doesn't generate threat and won't cause the galaxy to unite against you, and provided you're careful about who you attack the mineral/energy rewards will certainly ease the cost of war provided you can actually win (the usual issues with cbs other than conquest apply, but despoilation does have one of the lowest surrender acceptance penalties). This means you can go to war, occupy the enemy space and then just steal all the resources from their occupied systems for a while without taking tech or unity penalties from owning those systems. Despoilers are weird like this in that you want to drag wars out to get maximum benefit, not win them quickly.

Raiding stance is a bit more situational. I mean, if you've already won a war in space and have nothing to do with your fleet, you may as well steal some pops. You can use it to get slaves, fill up new planets/habitats quickly or, if you're xenophobic, process your captives for food. Weirdly, it pairs well with synthetic ascension (the cyberman strategy) because stealing then assimilating pops means essentially free robots. But going synth ascension does mean wasting most of the benefits of the adaptability tree.

Obviously, trickster admirals (and erudite admirals, later on) and the hit and run doctrine are great with despoilers because minimising losses will make war more "profitable". Conversely, avoid unyielding admirals and no retreat doctrine like the plague.

 

[Dsingis]

I have played one playthrough with Barbaric Despoilers.

I was Fan Auth + Militarist With slaver guilds as civic.
Had Intelligent and Thrifty as positive traits, repugnant and decadent as negatives.
I went for a tall playstyle, building habitats left and right. And only expanding to easily defended positions.

Everytime I colonized a new habitat I calculated the amount of slaves I would need, then I declared war and captured the exact amount of slaves from my neighbours and filled the rest with my POPs.

Habitability is not of interest for slaves, they can live anywhere.
I also picked biological ascension to make my slaves super-slaves.

 

[Strangedane]

Depoilers are sadly worse purifiers or worse slavers.

You need to declare war to get your slaves, and then you might as well take planets full of slaves. In that case generic slavers would be better.
You need to make claims to take space, so you might as well play purifier for the total war cb.

Despoilers are an RP pick right now, even more so than lifeseeded or post-apoc.

 

[beckermt]

Probably a better option would be to focus on unity a little at the beginning and just get Nihilistic Acquisition instead.
That way you can just play normally and ALSO steal Pops.

I think the best idea would be to make an amazing haven of happiness and then FORCE PEOPLE to live in your paradise. I think it sounds funny.

 

[Kairos Val]

Hey guys. Aware this is a zombie thread. Commenting here because threads like this one put me off BD for the longest time. But having tried it out now, I love it and it's my new favorite civic.

BD have a whole bunch of factors going on that seem individually weak on paper but combine together into a really great playstyle.

I take Fanatic Militaryst and Authoritarian, with BD and National Zeal as Civics. The -30% warscore makes it really easy to win wars in the early game, and you want to rush to win your first Despoilation war ASAP. This is because not only does winning give you bonus energy and minerals to dump back into the economy you didn't develop on account of buying all those ships... It's because it also slows down the energy and mineral production of your enemy.

If you raid pops, not only does that give you slaves... But it also slows down the development of the economy of your opponent, slowing them down further.

If you do make claims, make sure it is in systems that you can easily occupy to eliminate the warscore factor. Ignore claiming systems with colonies at first, becaus Despoilation rewards scale with the number of colonies your opponent owns. If you're stealing their colonies, your despoilation rewards will go down. All that money and upkeep that you would have spent on assault armies should be going into ships and anchorages anyway.

Once you've got your opponent empire sufficiently weakened, build up your assault armies and vassalize them. You don't have to vassalize them in one fell swoop either. If you take half their systems then do a status quo, you can still force their empire to split into two smaller empires, one of which will be yours... Breaking their power even further and making them easier to vassalize next time.

Play your cards right and you should be able to snowball during the midgame and at that point you're basically playing as the Khan. Until the actual Khan shows up. But that's fun too, game's boring if everything goes too smoothly. ^_^

In any case: I've been massively enjoying Barbaric Despoilers and wish I hadn't been put off trying them for so long by threads like this one. If they lend themselves well to your military-exansionist-federations-are-for-wimps playstyle then they can be really satisfying to play.

 

[GloatingSwine]

How you play them is that you ignore the despoilation CB and raiding stance, and just play them as a map painting conqueror who has the Adaptability tradition instead of silly old Diplomacy.