Lemme get one thing straight: clone army origin is massively OP, and it's GOOD this way!

[WC with 100 clone pops]

I find it quite fun being able to destroy the medium sized galaxy on grand admiral with just 100 pops.

Anyone else out there having the best game ever right now with just 100 genocidal psi clones?

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Nope, still waiting for that much needed buff for Hivemind Necrophage. That was the part I cared the most about from the recent patch but turns out Necrophage Hiveminds suck

 

[steven1mac]

I for one like to have non-balanced origins so I can fight against them in single player. Personally I think the Clone Origin is great as is, if you don't become a unstoppable force before a certain point, you can be left behind.

So far in the couple games I played, having them as a fanatical purifier, they have lasted significantly longer than every other purifier except the necroid and exterminators. It's kind of nice to see some surviving until midgame for once.

 

[Casko]

Hear Hear.

It doesn't matter if origins are unbalanced. After all, where's the fun in the fact that one is type A and other is type H, yet they play mostly the same.
If anything MORE OP STUFF THAT COMPLETELY SHIFTS HOW YOU PLAY IS GOOD.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

If anything MORE OP STUFF THAT COMPLETELY SHIFTS HOW YOU PLAY IS GOOD

Even though I disagree with your opinion about Origins should be unbalanced, I was hoping that Hivemind Necrophage would be atleast close to Driven Assimilator snowball in terms of power level. Because normal Necrophage is insanely strong just like DA and can snowball aswell.

But turns out Hivemind Necrophage is worse than vanilla Prosperous Unification Hivemind or Tree of Life Hivemind even with getting additional pops from your primitive worlds.

Its great to finally have a different playstyle for Hiveminds, this has been missing for so long. But that doesn't matter because its terribly weak, even worse than playing the vanilla origin.

 

[Ryika]

The fact that it's so ridiculously strong kind of ruins the fun for me. It just takes away any challenge the game might otherwise throw at you.
If I want that experience, I can just reduce the difficulty to Ensign and enjoy the show with any Origin.

I don't think Origins have to be perfectly balanced, but for me personally the power difference is just way too high.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

The fact that it's so ridiculously strong kind of ruins the fun for me. It just takes away any challenge the game might otherwise throw at you.
If I want that experience, I can just reduce the difficulty to Ensign and enjoy the show with any Origin.

I don't think Origins have to be perfectly balanced, but for me personally the power difference is just way too high.

Same here I feel like the advantages you get are a bit over the top.

 

[steven1mac]

The A.I. can struggle with weak origins, so giving them ones that might be overpowered for a human can be help them out. The easy way to challenge yourself, is not to play that origin. Variety in a game is always a good thing, the more variety I can have in my galaxy the more unpredictable it can be.

 

[Fenris_SE]

The fact that it's so ridiculously strong kind of ruins the fun for me. It just takes away any challenge the game might otherwise throw at you.
If I want that experience, I can just reduce the difficulty to Ensign and enjoy the show with any Origin.

I don't think Origins have to be perfectly balanced, but for me personally the power difference is just way too high.

I'm sure they will get nerfed. Paradox seems to have a habit of introducing something OP then balancing it later. Grand Heralds for everyone, Shattered Ring, Driven Assimilators converting a whole pop in one month, Scion, just to name a few of the many lol.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

The A.I. can struggle with weak origins, so giving them ones that might be overpowered for a human can be help them out. The easy way to challenge yourself, is not to play that origin. Variety in a game is always a good thing, the more variety I can have in my galaxy the more unpredictable it can be.

I don't think the AI outside of the fanatic purifiers will do that good with them. The AI tends to do best when it has lots of resources, but that's difficult with only 100 pops. Sure it will be better early game but without them actively acquiring more pops like a player would I think they will fall off later.

 

[Fenris_SE]

I don't think the AI outside of the fanatic purifiers will do that good with them. The AI tends to do best when it has lots of resources, but that's difficult with only 100 pops. Sure it will be better early game but without them actively acquiring more pops like a player would I think they will fall off later.

I don't know that the AI will actually take the Clone Ascendant path. Sometimes I create a map, go into observe mode and just watch what happens. I've only done it 3 times with an AI having the Clone origin, but each time the AI chose Clone Fertility. Granted only 3 times is a small sample size. Hmm, I think I'll try a map with 30 Clone Origin Empires and see what they choose lol

 

[Ryika]

The AI can only choose fertility:

    option = {
        name = INTERESTING
        begin_event_chain = {
            event_chain = "clone_fertility_chain"
            target = ROOT
        }
        enable_special_project = {
            name = "CLONE_SOLDIER_UNLOCK_FERTILITY"
            owner = root
        }
        if = { #limit the AI from going full clone - because limiting pops to max 100 is something the AI can't handle, colonizing new planets mindlessly that will just die because of dying clone pops
            limit = {
                is_ai = no
            }
            enable_special_project = {
                name = "CLONE_SOLDIER_UNLOCK_POTENTIAL"
                owner = root
            }
        }

    }

 

[Fenris_SE]

The AI can only choose fertility:

    option = {
        name = INTERESTING
        begin_event_chain = {
            event_chain = "clone_fertility_chain"
            target = ROOT
        }
        enable_special_project = {
            name = "CLONE_SOLDIER_UNLOCK_FERTILITY"
            owner = root
        }
        if = { #limit the AI from going full clone - because limiting pops to max 100 is something the AI can't handle, colonizing new planets mindlessly that will just die because of dying clone pops
            limit = {
                is_ai = no
            }
            enable_special_project = {
                name = "CLONE_SOLDIER_UNLOCK_POTENTIAL"
                owner = root
            }
        }

    }

Well that saved a lot of time lol

 

[currylambchop]

Even though I disagree with your opinion about Origins should be unbalanced, I was hoping that Hivemind Necrophage would be atleast close to Driven Assimilator snowball in terms of power level. Because normal Necrophage is insanely strong just like DA and can snowball aswell.

But turns out Hivemind Necrophage is worse than vanilla Prosperous Unification Hivemind or Tree of Life Hivemind even with getting additional pops from your primitive worlds.

Its great to finally have a different playstyle for Hiveminds, this has been missing for so long. But that doesn't matter because its terribly weak, even worse than playing the vanilla origin.

I mean, doomsday is also bad but it’s fine. Actually devs stated necrophage hive mind is a challenge origin as well.

 

[Mastikator]

Stellaris is already pushover easy. But origins and civics that change how you play are a good thing.

 

[hart30]

Nothing against it. Now this one is banned in multiplayer instead of really special rp ones like shattered ring.
Clone origin seems to me specially designed for singleplayer fun.

 

[WC with 100 clone pops]

Nothing against it. Now this one is banned in multiplayer instead of really special rp ones like shattered ring.
Clone origin seems to me specially designed for singleplayer fun.

I don't like playing competitive mp that much, though just banning ascending clones and acquisotion of xeno pops for clone army players seems rather balanced for mp, while shattered ring still becomes OP mid-game.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

I mean, doomsday is also bad but it’s fine. Actually devs stated necrophage hive mind is a challenge origin as well.

Its not described as this ingame. Unlike Lithoid Ring world start used to be. So I don't believe it. Also, does this excuse the fact that you have a 5% Ruler output copy pasted from non-Gestalt version and a -10% Menial Drone output which cripples your economy since you have no other pops doing worker jobs? In my opinion, not.

Do you know any other origins which offer something completely useless like the 5% Ruler output? I don't see how you could justify something like this. How long would it take to simply create a new, Hivemind-appropriate Necrophage trait? 30 minutes?

 

[SaintD]

I really wish the Forgotten Queens unofficial Hive DLC mod would get updated, because it had a hilariously powerful but incredibly fun civic that could only be taken at start and never changed called 'Parasitic Embryos'. It was basically just reskinned Assimilation for a biological hive mind. Stuff eggs into non-hive pops and turn them into your own pops.

I thought it was pretty OP until I realized that I don't usually play particularly aggressive and normal empires can just take pops without the middle man of having to convert them at all, so why the hell can't Hives have assimilation right from the start? And it even has a huge diplomatic penalty for simply existing so you're STILL pretty much worse off than normal empires.

Just.....let Necrophage hive minds do a straight assimilation purge on captured pops. Yes, it would probably immediately be the most powerful biological Hive Mind option. That is also not a problem because Hives are worse and the best option for them is probably just 'as good as a normal empire'.

 

[hart30]

Necro hives are able to necro purge pops. That basically is assimilation from the start.