Is Mastery of Nature worth it?

[SuperGeek89]

So I'm about to unlock my second ascension perk, (took One Vision first) and I'm wondering if Mastery of Nature is worth picking up. I have a few worlds that I've colonized that have a lot of tile blockers and my luck at drawing tile blocker techs has been pretty poor so far.,Additionally my economy has been growing really slowly (that's what I get for going Utopian Living standards right out the gate) so clearing them for free is looking pretty good right about now. However I'm hesitant to pick up this ascension perk because once I clear all the tile blockers it becomes useless. Furthermore I've pretty much run into the limit of how far I can expand by pure colonization without resorting to terraforming. So the question is should i bother picking this perk up or would it be better if i invested in Imperial Prerogative, Interstellar Dominion, or Technological Ascendancy?

 

[grommile]

My gut feeling with that one is "first or never".

 

[Serenity84]

If you have several planets with lots of tile blockers, definitely. Ocean worlds tend to be full of toxic kelp for example. At least early on, when you're somewhat starved for minerals. Later on, you can more easily afford to clear them.

Border range can be extended through other traditions and tech without picking the perk right now.

 

[-Marauder-]

My gut feeling is "never". Let me explain. Tile blockers while annoying are actually cleared out fairly quickly. Especially since a planet needs to fill up before they become an issue to begin with. You are basically using an ascension perk to get a miniscule benefit. Meanwhile others are 10% faster research, 20% border range, 5 core systems...

 

[Siven80]

Getting it early can save you a lot of minerals to spend on more colonies or ships.

 

[Pavane]

My gut feeling is "never". Let me explain. Tile blockers while annoying are actually cleared out fairly quickly. Especially since a planet needs to fill up before they become an issue to begin with. You are basically using an ascension perk to get a miniscule benefit. Meanwhile others are 10% faster research, 20% border range, 5 core systems...

If you have unrestricted migration then you can fill up a planet pretty quickly with the Land of Opportunity edict. Clearing the blocked tiles can come in handy in that situation, so it is not a complete write-off.

 

[GC13]

Mastery of Nature is worth almost a thousand minerals and energy per planet. That's a pretty immense boost at the start. It certainly makes reaching out your hand to take a good start far, far easier.

 

[Angelic_Daemon]

I like it to get the blockers out of the way so I can move pops around and up the admin as fast as possible. I think that's how I got stuck in the game I just finished. I was too focus on the micromanagement of my first few world's that I didn't claim much space around me and got boxed in. It worked out in the end though I had a quick build up of core world and eclipsed everyone in science.

 

[SuperGeek89]

Thanks for the advice and ill keep that in mind for my next game. This time I decided to pick up Imperial Prerogative instead.

 

[Promethian]

Mastery of Nature is probably the strongest first choice. In the early game it is worth an immediate 9 techs. This means a ton of time saved researching and those techs no longer appear in the shuffle giving you better choices.

Also tile blockers cost 100 energy and minerals to remove. That means every time you remove a tile blocker you are effectively up by 100 energy and minerals. This adds up to a tremendous amount of resources overall.

Other opening ascensions can give more in the long term but Mastery gives the biggest front loaded boost.

 

[Azhcristokos]

The earlier you pick it, the more you save on research, minerals, and energy. It's not worth picking up later on so I'd only ever pick it first.

If you get it first, it actually may be a bigger, yet indirect boost to research than the the perk that actually speeds research up. A 10% research bonus is obviously smaller in the beginning when your total output is low and so has a less significant impact, but Mastery of Nature basically gives a bunch of free early-game techs. You can then focus on everything else and it saves a lot of time.

The other bonuses keep on giving even in the late game though. If you're gonna get Mastery of Nature, it needs to be early and you need to make use of it in a sprawling empire with many planets to clear out. A good early game usually translates to a great late game if you actually use the advantage it gives you.

 

[Dragnar]

It's even better if you're playing an adaptive race.
The more different planet types you colonize, the more different tile blocker techs you'd need to research, which the mastery lets you skip.
So you might end up saving a few thousand research points in addition to the thousands of energy and minerals.

 

[TempusxX]

mastery of nature is completely worth it because you can clear any or just about every single tile blocker without spending energy/minerals which would be better off going somewhere else

 

[Cattlehunter]

I'd say it can be worth it if you don't play on playing until you get all the perks. It can be pretty powerful early, if you get unlucky with your planets and tech. I picked it for one start where I got NOTHING but tiny 14-ish size planets full of blockers that I never got the tech to remove. It instantly tripled the pop slots available to me at the time.

I regretted it later into the campaign, though, when I capped out my perks.

 

[Secret Master]

It's even better if you're playing an adaptive race.

Yep.

My highly adaptive bugs took it first. I have no regrets. Every stinking planet (except some tomb worlds) were colonized and cleared in no time.

Note that it even lets you clear tile blockers on tomb worlds, too. Not that I care by the time I get them colonized, but it's nice to have even later in the game.

 

[safe-keeper]

I too it first, too, and almost felt it was OP. Especially when you colonise planets full of blockers.

 

[Crissa]

It's probably worth about as much as any of the +research bonuses; if you count all of them up and then also count that they need time to operate. And the big deduction on top of that.

 

[mackau]

Yep.

My highly adaptive bugs took it first. I have no regrets. Every stinking planet (except some tomb worlds) were colonized and cleared in no time.

Note that it even lets you clear tile blockers on tomb worlds, too. Not that I care by the time I get them colonized, but it's nice to have even later in the game.

Same, with my Fanatic Militarist, Spiritualists.

Starting a race with Extremely Adaptive (I picked Sedentary, Slow Learners & Repugnant as the negative choices and never had much issue with any of them), picking the Expansion Tradition (gives you 2 pops per colony for the initial choosing, and also includes an equivalent to Rapid Breeders 10% bonus to growth while also making capitals generate unity and halving colony generation time) and then Mastery Of Nature is a massive early game advantage.

You can pick and choose the biggest planets, your colonies 'land' twice as fast, you can work an additional tile to the capital instantly, your population has a boost to growth, you aren't wasting research or resources on tile blocking, and your capitals generate unity.

A lot of people like min-maxing tactics, and worrying about upgrades to minerals, or fire rate, or leaders or ethics.

The reality is the bigger your empire is, the more guns you can produce.

My current game I expanded outward enough that I was able to easily defeat my nearest neighbour and gobble him up.

South of the galaxy I became surrounded by a single Federation of a dozen empires. To the north, two fallen empires with about 5 planets each.

But I had an entire quadrant of the galaxy by then, with every non-tomb world colonised.

I was able to fight off the federation multiple times while building my strength.

Then the FE's awakened.

And one declared war.

And then the federation.

And the other FE.

And I crushed both the FE's. Now I'm just building up again to take out the federation once and for all.

 

[The Founder]

So I'm about to unlock my second ascension perk, (took One Vision first) and I'm wondering if Mastery of Nature is worth picking up. I have a few worlds that I've colonized that have a lot of tile blockers and my luck at drawing tile blocker techs has been pretty poor so far.,Additionally my economy has been growing really slowly (that's what I get for going Utopian Living standards right out the gate) so clearing them for free is looking pretty good right about now.

If you go for Massive Expansion (both Colonisation and Conquest) across Multiple Biomes? Maybe worth it.
The currently buggy migration means you will not be able to use all tiles effectively anyway. You can propably wait until you run out of space your pops can emigrate too. Unless it is a critical tile (Betharian or Xeno Pets, high Tile Yields) it might not mater that much.

 

[orlykthxbai]

When I first looked at it I assumed it was trash but after using the perk it's actually really good. It makes blocker removal totally free. It also saves you Bio research because you don't have to unlock the blocker removal techs anymore.

If you are playing a heavy colonizer or something that takes advantage of migration treaties then take Mastery of Nature ASAP.