Just a little musing on the Imperial Fiefdom strategy, for which the main campaign goal seems to be 'escape your subjugation to the Overlord.' You get to choose what Vassal type you start as, but the Overlord starts as an Advanced empire so they start with a leg up on you.
Some strategies seem pretty obvious already.
Prospectorium wants to go wide to just maximize their basic resource economy and brute force science off of their resource bonuses. Their science penalties hurt, but with research agreements that can play catch-up more efficiently, and over time the more science they do the more subsidy bonus they rip from the Overlord, gradually slowing their science growth down to the point where your resources are worth more. Trading exotic resource for CG to bypass tribute and boost science is the name of the game.
Scholarium is barely a gameplay change- basic tech-bloom turtling. You don't pay tribute as much as have a smaller fleet cap. While science rushing is boosting the Overlord's science themselves, you yourself can tech more efficiently, and then play politics with the Overlord. A secret allegiance war, provoking a war that the Overlord has to defend you from, or just a well-timed stab in the back- you get to choose when and how to leverage your tech advantage.
Bulwark, however, may be the worst/hardest. You get all sorts of defensive bonuses... that are only useful if the enemy is fighting in your territory. That might help when the war starts, but this is offset by a substantial basic resource penalty: up to 50% worker job malus. Unlike the Prospectorium, your main economic bonus is the guaranteed research options into the next starbase tiers.
But... this may actually be the secret to success, since these maluses aren't tribute, but rather what the Overlord is supposed to offset by subsidizing you. You may have less resources from your own pops, but you're actively reducing the Overlord's economic base in the process.
This is the key, if you can leverage your few economic advantages- including the starbase techs that are a pre-requisite for Planetary Rings and later Megastructures- into a basic resource base that bankrupts the Overlord, setting up for an easy escape, or at least forcing the Overlord expend ever-more of its advanced start towards basic resources instead of fleets and science.
Key Ways for this in order of probable impact-
-MegaCorps spamming Branch Offices with the resource buildings. In game terms, these are created ex nihilo, or pop-free resources. The Bullwark can be forced to use their pops to counter it.
-Hives have both Starbase Solar panels, and the Gestalt economic policy. While trading a 20% hit to specialist for 20% bonus to worker production is rarely meta-optimal, the nature of the scenario- of 'escape' rather than total domination- will let the pop-blooming hives 'catch up' while dragging the Overlord down with greatly increased energy and other synergies.
-Planetary rings, which are unlocked by- among other things- the starhold tech you can get from being a loyal vassal. The basic resource extraction of these is powerful- +2 resources- and a Bulwark with Unyielding (like, say, a starbase-spamming Gestalt) can exploit these to further mitigate your worker penalty/increase the resource subsidy from the Overlord.
-As an end-game, megastructures. Citadels can be raced via the tech options and used to support earlier Mega-Engineering. Complete one and get to Matter Decompressor/Dyson Sphere, and even with those getting a 50% malus, the subsidy mitigation alone would likely bankrupt any unprepared empire.
While it's unlikely you'd want to wait quite that long to break free, the point is that by greatly reducing the Overlord's resource economy, you will at worse greatly slow their ability to economically out-grow you, as they use their pops and resources to offset you rather than employ more specialists. At best, a sharp and sudden enough economic expansion- such as a rash of megacorp branch offices changing their buildings, or the restoration of a resource megastructure- could cause critical resource shortages in the overlord driving an economic death spiral.
While other options/strategems may further this- such as going with Pop Abduction and piggy-backing on your Overlord's wars to steal pops, increasing your pop economy using your Overlord's military to punch off foes- being able to undercut the Overlord by subsidizing them into submission, rather than the other way around, has its appeal.
Some strategies seem pretty obvious already.
Prospectorium wants to go wide to just maximize their basic resource economy and brute force science off of their resource bonuses. Their science penalties hurt, but with research agreements that can play catch-up more efficiently, and over time the more science they do the more subsidy bonus they rip from the Overlord, gradually slowing their science growth down to the point where your resources are worth more. Trading exotic resource for CG to bypass tribute and boost science is the name of the game.
Scholarium is barely a gameplay change- basic tech-bloom turtling. You don't pay tribute as much as have a smaller fleet cap. While science rushing is boosting the Overlord's science themselves, you yourself can tech more efficiently, and then play politics with the Overlord. A secret allegiance war, provoking a war that the Overlord has to defend you from, or just a well-timed stab in the back- you get to choose when and how to leverage your tech advantage.
Bulwark, however, may be the worst/hardest. You get all sorts of defensive bonuses... that are only useful if the enemy is fighting in your territory. That might help when the war starts, but this is offset by a substantial basic resource penalty: up to 50% worker job malus. Unlike the Prospectorium, your main economic bonus is the guaranteed research options into the next starbase tiers.
But... this may actually be the secret to success, since these maluses aren't tribute, but rather what the Overlord is supposed to offset by subsidizing you. You may have less resources from your own pops, but you're actively reducing the Overlord's economic base in the process.
This is the key, if you can leverage your few economic advantages- including the starbase techs that are a pre-requisite for Planetary Rings and later Megastructures- into a basic resource base that bankrupts the Overlord, setting up for an easy escape, or at least forcing the Overlord expend ever-more of its advanced start towards basic resources instead of fleets and science.
Key Ways for this in order of probable impact-
-MegaCorps spamming Branch Offices with the resource buildings. In game terms, these are created ex nihilo, or pop-free resources. The Bullwark can be forced to use their pops to counter it.
-Hives have both Starbase Solar panels, and the Gestalt economic policy. While trading a 20% hit to specialist for 20% bonus to worker production is rarely meta-optimal, the nature of the scenario- of 'escape' rather than total domination- will let the pop-blooming hives 'catch up' while dragging the Overlord down with greatly increased energy and other synergies.
-Planetary rings, which are unlocked by- among other things- the starhold tech you can get from being a loyal vassal. The basic resource extraction of these is powerful- +2 resources- and a Bulwark with Unyielding (like, say, a starbase-spamming Gestalt) can exploit these to further mitigate your worker penalty/increase the resource subsidy from the Overlord.
-As an end-game, megastructures. Citadels can be raced via the tech options and used to support earlier Mega-Engineering. Complete one and get to Matter Decompressor/Dyson Sphere, and even with those getting a 50% malus, the subsidy mitigation alone would likely bankrupt any unprepared empire.
While it's unlikely you'd want to wait quite that long to break free, the point is that by greatly reducing the Overlord's resource economy, you will at worse greatly slow their ability to economically out-grow you, as they use their pops and resources to offset you rather than employ more specialists. At best, a sharp and sudden enough economic expansion- such as a rash of megacorp branch offices changing their buildings, or the restoration of a resource megastructure- could cause critical resource shortages in the overlord driving an economic death spiral.
While other options/strategems may further this- such as going with Pop Abduction and piggy-backing on your Overlord's wars to steal pops, increasing your pop economy using your Overlord's military to punch off foes- being able to undercut the Overlord by subsidizing them into submission, rather than the other way around, has its appeal.
