If you have Megacorps DLC, you should try this build.

[Zenopath]

This is still my choice for most powerful overall build:

Race perk: thrifty
Ethics: Authoritarian, Spiritualist, Xenophile
Government: Megacorp
Civics: Free Trader, Gospel of Masses.

Remember to switch to consumer benefits trade policy and replace your starting consumer goods factory with a temple (remember to disable artisan jobs right before replacement finishes to avoid unemployed specialists). Keep building more commerce centers on your homeworld as population increases... or feed excess population via resettlement back to homeworld via resettlement to speed things up. Eventually, you will want to only have city districts, temple, numenistic shrine, planetary capital, and lots of mega commerce zones on homeworld, (and ministry of trade if you get it). Make sure to pick up the +10% trade value tradition perk from diplomacy and the +1 clerk job per city district from prosperity tree (get expansion tree done first).

Enjoy.

Let me know what you think, or if you have already tried this.

EDIT; I have since discovered that Gospel of Masses only provides 0.25 trade per spiritualist ethic, so now think, Private Prospectors are a better choice as a civic. I am currently leaning towards F. Xenophile ethic without spiritualist instead.

 

[MrGuyPerson]

What's your first choice for branch office building? Do you just go for the temple?

 

[Valfoutre]

And where do you get your minerals from?

 

[Xaos]

This is still my choice for most powerful overall build:

Race perk: thrifty
Ethics: Authoritarian, Spiritualist, Xenophile
Government: Megacorp
Civics: Free Trader, Gospel of Masses.

Remember to switch to consumer benefits trade policy and replace your starting consumer goods factory with a temple (remember to disable artisan jobs right before replacement finishes to avoid unemployed specialists). Keep building more commerce centers on your homeworld as population increases... or feed excess population via resettlement back to homeworld via resettlement to speed things up. Eventually, you will want to only have city districts, temple, numenistic shrine, planetary capital, and lots of mega commerce zones on homeworld, (and ministry of trade if you get it). Make sure to pick up the +10% trade value tradition perk from diplomacy and the +1 clerk job per city district from prosperity tree (get expansion tree done first).

Enjoy.

Let me know what you think, or if you have already tried this.

Just a note. Go egalitarian, utopian abundance, marketplace of ideas and destroy the lab and consumer goods factory, and replace with a temple. Your lack of consumer goods lowers happiness a little, but doesn't nullify the spiritualist attraction of the temple.

 

[Strangedane]

Trade builds need slaves.

Spiritual, Xenophile, Authoritarian.
Syncretic evolution, Exalted priesthood.

Main species are Traditional, Rapid breeders, Deviants
Syncretics are non-adaptive, thrifty, charismatic.

Keep xenophilia suppressed from it shows up.
As soon as you have xeno-comp, embrace authoritarianism, enslave the proles, push towards xenophobe, switch to merchant guilds.

 

[Nitrousoxide]

Trade builds need slaves.

Spiritual, Xenophile, Authoritarian.
Syncretic evolution, Exalted priesthood.

Main species are Traditional, Rapid breeders, Deviants
Syncretics are non-adaptive, thrifty, charismatic.

Keep xenophilia suppressed from it shows up.
As soon as you have xeno-comp, embrace authoritarianism, enslave the proles, push towards xenophobe, switch to merchant guilds.

Why do this though? What does starting xenophile and then switching to xenophobe later do for you? Also why not just get thrifty on your main race and skip syncretic?

 

[Strangedane]

Starting xenophile syncretic allows for picking Xeno-compatability for 20% growth and potential free psionics and tomb world hab from rackets.
Also gives +1 trait point and +1 possible traits which is great with bioascenscion.

Slavery is amazing for traders, because the clerks will be very close to free maintenance.
Xenophobe has yet another pop growth bonus, and you'll get there easily because you have enslaved xenos.

 

[Zenopath]

What's your first choice for branch office building? Do you just go for the temple?

i tend to go for the naval capacity building (private contractors?) on my branch offices, as I try not to go too far past admin cap, and won't normally have as much naval capacity as wide empires might.

 

[Zenopath]

Why not take Private Prospectors instead of Free Traders, that helps in getting colonies and subsidaries (if you create from some colonies a vasall)?

the advantage of 10 admin cap and cheaper colony ships seems to only be worth it in early game, and not very meaningful later on.

You can still later switch that civic to free trader or take the free trader civic later as 3rd civic.

It takes a long time to get that 3rd civic, and if you are getting 40+ trade from day 1, that extra 10% trade bonus is meaningful. You will get more value from 10% bonus to trade production than you would from cheaper colony ships, since you only need to make a few colony ships, and will spend decades before getting 3rd civic.

Also taking additionally charismatic and maybe slow breeders at the start might be an idea. As you might still want to build some resource districts.
And the private prospectors helps in getting earlier additional colonies which do boost the production of new pops more than the pop traits, which do boost breeding. Of course since most of the pops will later work to boost trade value and the corresponding jobs usually also provide amenities, you might also take the repugnant trait as a negative trait and the rapid breeders (or conformists) trait or some other trait(s) as an additional perk.

Charismatic is pretty worthless if you have clerks, not only do you not really need amenities past the break even point (they give very small overall bonus), but you might hit cap anyways if you have commerce centers on your colonies. Slow breeders is a terrible perk too, as it hurts you a lot early game. If you want negative trait points, I would actually recommend decadent and repulsive instead, since you can boost happiness with clerks producing amenities, and they can produce so much, the repulsive perk doesn´t really matter.

Also if you have gospel of the masses you might want to the fanatic spiritualist ethic as a governing ethics (and get rid of either xenophile or authoritarian) as that way you will have a higher percentage of spiritualist pops at the game start.

I first thought that fanatic spiritualist was worthwhile too, but Gospel of Masses has a built in +50% spiritualist attraction modifer, which makes the extra boost from fanatic spiritualist fairly weak. The xenophile is more valuable because not only is that +10% multiplicative with thrifty, it also makes it cheaper to have trade pacts with aliens, and makes them more likely to want to have trade pacts with you. Just on that, it is worth it, even without the +10% trade.

In the long run, the species might also get the numistmatic administration (another boost to trade production) and maybe the commual and maybe also the social pheromones (from an anomaly outcome).

Those are great, but again, in early game, having +20% trade multiplier greatly increases effectiveness of clerks. 2 base x 1.25 x 1.2 = 3.25 trade per clerk, which makes them much more viable than just 2.5 from thrifty alone. Also, the gospel of masses does get multiplied by trade value boosts, but not thrifty perk. So a spiritualist ethic clerk with my build has total of 4.45 trade output. While a fanatic spiritualist build without free traders only gets 3.5 from a spiritualist clerk.

 

[Nitrousoxide]

The problem is, you also would like to be able to enslave your clerks (and other workers) to get the max you can out of them. So how do you get that while going Fxenophile?

 

[Zenopath]

The problem is, you also would like to be able to enslave your clerks (and other workers) to get the max you can out of them. So how do you get that while going Fxenophile?

eh, i dont find it necessary to save .1 consumer goods per clerk by making them slaves. Main problem is that slave output bonuses do not boost trade production, so a slave clerk is less worthwhile than a slave farmer, for example.

 

[Strangedane]

eh, i dont find it necessary to save .1 consumer goods per clerk by making them slaves. Main problem is that slave output bonuses do not boost trade production, so a slave clerk is less worthwhile than a slave farmer, for example.

It's not just the clerks though.
It's also all the farmers, and miners.

Well, and the random technician here and there I guess.

 

[Zenopath]

It's not just the clerks though.
It's also all the farmers, and miners.

Well, and the random technician here and there I guess.

Honestly, i feel like stratified economy is enough of a discount when it comes to workers. Taking slaves just to save 0.1 consumer goods per worker isn´t super useful. Now if you wanted to save on having to take authoritarian, then maybe slaves would be worth, since you would lose access to stratified economy and would have to pay your workers 0.25 consumer goods if not enslaved. So if you wanted to go, xenophobe, spiritualist and militaristic, for example, slaves might be a good choice. And you could use militaristic ethic to help zerg rush an alien for some slaves. There are some interesting options for 3rd civic for militaristic megacorps.

but you would have hard time getting branch offices unless you plan on making subsidiaries by conquest, which is an option.

 

[Strangedane]

Honestly, i feel like stratified economy is enough of a discount when it comes to workers. Taking slaves just to save 0.1 consumer goods per worker isn´t super useful. Now if you wanted to save on having to take authoritarian, then maybe slaves would be worth, since you would lose access to stratified economy and would have to pay your workers 0.25 consumer goods if not enslaved. So if you wanted to go, xenophobe, spiritualist and militaristic, for example, slaves might be a good choice. And you could use militaristic ethic to help zerg rush an alien for some slaves. There are some interesting options for 3rd civic for militaristic megacorps.

but you would have hard time getting branch offices unless you plan on making subsidiaries by conquest, which is an option.

I agree that would be stronger in some circumstances, but you lose the power of xeno-comp into bio.

 

[The Founder]

Trade builds need slaves.

Trade Value and Amenities bonuses are generally Planetary Bonuses (think like the old Mater Replicator). As such they do not get any bonus from traits or slavery, unless this is explicitly coded into the job.

clerk = {
    category = worker
    condition_string = WORKER_JOB_TRIGGER
    building_icon = building_residence
    clothes_texture_index = 2

    possible = {
        complex_worker_job_check_trigger = yes
        owner = { is_fallen_empire = no }
    }
   
    planet_modifier = {
        planet_amenities_add = 2
        trade_value_add = 2
    }
    triggered_planet_modifier = {
        potential = {
            OR = {
                has_trait = trait_robot_domestic_protocols
                has_trait = trait_charismatic
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            planet_amenities_add = 0.4
        }
    }
    triggered_planet_modifier = {
        potential = {
            has_trait = trait_repugnant
        }
        modifier = {
            planet_amenities_add = -0.4
        }
    }      
    triggered_planet_modifier = {
        potential = {
            OR = {
                has_trait = trait_thrifty
                has_trait = trait_nuumismatic_administration
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            trade_value_add = 0.5
        }
    }  
   
    weight = {
        weight = @clerk_job_weight
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.25
            is_enslaved = yes
            can_take_servant_job = no
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            OR = {  
                is_non_sapient_robot = yes
                is_shackled_robot = yes
            }
            can_take_servant_job = no
        }  
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.5
            OR = {
                has_trait = trait_thrifty
                has_trait = trait_nuumismatic_administration
            }  
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.1
            can_take_servant_job = yes
        }  
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.5
            has_trait = trait_syncretic_proles
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.2
            has_trait = trait_very_strong
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.1
            has_trait = trait_strong
        }  
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.9
            has_trait = trait_weak
        }      
    }
}

As you can see, there is no check for Slavery or even Authoritarian.
And indeed Numistic Administration and Thrifty are just part of one check (so they do not add).

 

[Strangedane]

Trade Value and Amenities bonuses are generally Planetary Bonuses (think like the old Mater Replicator). As such they do not get any bonus from traits or slavery, unless this is explicitly coded into the job.

As you can see, there is no check for Slavery or even Authoritarian.
And indeed Numistic Administration and Thrifty are just part of one check (so they do not add).

Oh, I know.
They still have reduced consumer costs, as have all the other slaves and can litterally cover thousands of pops consumer goods needs under slavery.

Not having neither energy district or consumer goods production frees up a ton of real-estate for foundries and labs.

 

[Zenopath]

I am not sure I understand that thing from the text file,

What I can tell you, is that if you start a game, with this build in OP, if you mouse over trade box in planet summary, you will see:

Trade Value: 49.54
From Pops: +7.20 (this is gospel of masses, dont know why it works out to that number, I count 11 spiritualist ethic pops in population tab)
From Pop Jobs: 32.50 (this is 22.5 from 9 clerks at 2.5 each + 2 excutives at 5 each because they have thrifty)

This works out to a total of 39.7 which you then multiply by 1.248 provided by these bonuses =

- Free Traders: 10%
- Xenophile: 10%
- High Stability: 4.8%

To get 49.54

This shows how thrifty and any trade values bonuses get multiplied, and proves gospel of masses is affected by trade bonus, but I do not know why gospel of masses does not seem to give full value of 11 like it should, other than maybe, the 7 workers count for less than the 2 specialist and 2 rulers?

(Edit) I am actually not sure gospel of masses is working correctly at all...

 

[TurtleShroom]

(Think like the old Mater Replicator)

Spoiler: Image

 

[The Founder]

From Pops: +7.20 (this is gospel of masses, dont know why it works out to that number, I count 11 spiritualist ethic pops in population tab)

The "from pop" thing you can pretty much ignore. We talk about 0.3 per pop in your example.
Depending on the Living Standarts, pops produce between 0.1 and 0.5 each. And that later one is with Utopian Abundance.

I once thought the Living Standarts would mater for Trade value, but at large it does not:

@trade_value_prosperity_gospel = 0.25
@trade_value_shared_burden = 0.20
@trade_value_very_high = 0.40
@trade_value_high = 0.25
@trade_value_normal = 0.15
@trade_value_low = 0.10
@trade_value_very_low = 0.05

I am not sure if the bonus from the Civic is even included in that Tooltip.

Spoiler: Image

I guess it was "Matter"? My poor spelling struck again

 

[Zenopath]

I may have had a change of heart here,

looking at this build,
race traits: thifty
ethics Authoritarian, Fanatic Xenophile,
civics: free traders, private prospectors

gives you a day one trade output of 49.8,

and since you have -50% diplomatic costs, the additional -50% diplomatic costs from adopting diplomacy means, all agreements with aliens are free, including defence pacts, research agreements, and trade pacts...

this might actually be better build, especially since you can build robots without annoying your pops... and you get private prospectors civic, which isn´t bad, despite what I said about it earlier.

As to what gospel of masses does? It seems like from pops is decreased to 4.45 without it... so if not getting gospel of masses only costs you 2.75 trade, its probably not worth... possibly glitched in some way.

(edit) or maybe it doesn´t kick in until you get a spiritualist faction? or shows up elsewhere? I don´t know.