So this is my current ambition:
Win the game on technical grounds by score shunning Feds (cant join or create), Vassals (cant have or be), and domestic Laboratory type buildings (and there are a few and some that spawn as part of a planet) are forbidden and highly demolishable if not replacable. The ones you can't demolish...well I guess Criminals are gonna Crime and sneak in and do research I guess.
Galaxy Settings:
Huge, Starburst, 30 Empires, 3 Advanced, 5 FE, 3 Mauaraders. (Note, I like a lot of empires and a lot of blocs)
1x Tech, Trad, Habitable Worlds, Pre FTLs
5x Crisis, Crisis Random
Mid/End/Victory - 2300/2400/2500
Difficulty - GA, Scaling Difficulty Off, Diffulcty Adjusted Modifiers On (This might not be so hard if you're purposefully building a meta tuned empire to confront it, I am not)
.5x Hyperlane Density (Chokepoints and convoluted paths in a Starburst turns out very cool actually)
.25x Gateways (Hate em)
1.5x Wormholes (To actually open the game up due to the Hyperlane setting at the right time to open it up)
Guaranteed Habitable Worlds - 1
Caravanners, L-Gates, XC - On
Logistic Growth Ceiling - 1.5x
Growth Celining - .25x
Ironman - On
My Spec:
Origin: Void Dwellers, naturally
Ethics: Auth, Militarism, Xenophile
Civics: Pirate Haven - MegaCorp CrimSyn with Letters of Marque
Species: Lithoid - Radiotropic, Existential Iteroparity, Nomadic, Deviants, Unruly
The Effort So Far:
Abysmal! Best game so far I abandoned in the early 2400s stuck in 13th and little hope to do better than 5th if Crisis didnt do most the work. Wife made me play past Crisis after my 2 days of whining about it, and I still only could get to 6th with not enough time or interest to take it down to the wire feelin stuck stuck. That was absolutely good fortune early with reliable Megacorp branches but I choked on Research entirely and Traditions mostly, after a certain point which I will get to in a bit. Great production, tons of Pops, top 3 in Diplomatic Weight but...still not enough.
So another dozen taken to 2300 at most and it not feeling right or going my way I had to reconsider a lot on approach and I am an in a very interesting playthrough at the moment going way better than the prior dozen stillbirths at 2300 or prior. Well I was - I had to end that one as I got a little too drinky and missed a Spiritualist conversion and couldn't get back my Auth which was now at 8% of factions, and was unable to select Nihilistic Acquisition...that's a fluff requirement IMHO. Are ye really a pirate if you aren't pressing suckers into pirates? Methinks not! But that one finally felt right and didn't suffer from this laundry list of issues I've experienced in attempt this:
1. Sprawl kills Tradition progress
2. Sprawl kills Research which is already terribly impacted the entire time
3. Diplomacy being way more complicated and contorted because the first act has almost always been survival and setup for the 2nd and 3rd acts, but basically you make a lot of deals to keep yourself clean, plop Branch Offices on those necessary allies for research via Illicit Labs because you have to, and now bar anything truly wild with Support Independence or Secret Fealties, they're locked in as more friend than enemy for the rest of the game. The general exception to this is setting up a BO before an NAP that spikes the relationship and then they become an enemy shortly after.
4. Constantly short CGs, which is only really a problem before Galactic Market but is actually a very irksome problem
5. Research hitting a complete wall for T4s but showing up for crucial techs like unlocking the 3rd Civic before that. Just a ton of time to complete. Basically even getting to this point, still getting smoked from that point forward.
6. Alloy output good enough, ships not great, Naval cap not allowing more mediocre fleets to make up the difference. Merc Enclaves can pull a lot of weight for the Naval Cap and are in some ways total bacon savers (where losing a fleet entirely is a relatively minor setback where if you've fed them at all with Fleet Expansions, you can often just set up a new contract for a new fleet the moment your current one blinks entirely out of existence. They have them just loafing there almost for the occasion) Still, it's an issue.
7. Espionage expensive and still not helping enough
I think you are starting to get the gist that this feels like a Noob's gripes about the game, but this has mostly been my refusal to adjust to what I'm being given and can do, and thinking I'll get the chances (and preparing for those chances) that never materialize to fight for claims that start to zero-sum the score in my favor. That has been the LAST thing to happen in any of these playthroughs and usually only in the back half after 2350 for playthroughs that made it that far, which isn't too late for it to matter, but is definitely so much harder to attain being middle of the pack with no direct help in allies for the purpose - it's always a byproduct of someone else's war or playing mutual defense together. The earlier these have happened by stroke of luck and opportunity, the worse things have actually gone because I'm taking over a highly specialized world, mostly with RESEARCH LABS of all things which spike CGs if I don't demolish them right away, Unemployment if I do, Sprawl no matter what.
I also think that taking the idea to the limit here really exposes how good the changes in 3.11 are where anyone who is playing somewhat capably with any synergy and leverage baked into their empire spec will not get stuck on their back like a turtle repeatedly, basically consigned to turtling, like, with even minor lip service to Research domestically a lot of my struggles here might not even be struggles at all - 3.10.4 was a lot MORE forgiving than this precisely because Research was more self reinforcing at that point, and still very much is, but it was utterly so and even the self starving had some benefit from it. Not the case in 3.11 where it only self reinforces to a point and then actually feeding yourself properly matters, and watching your Sprawl if you can't watch what you eat in Research being the other vector of approach.
So why did that last playthrough have some legs and what is the Theory that informs Praxis for the next dozen runs that will invariably hit the rocks ashore at some point? Allow me to spill my guts.
1. Absolutely prioritize Branch Offices ahead of anything else at all if given and making choices. This sounds like basic basic stuff and it kind of is, but CrimSyns are a little more complicated because of the diplomacy factors, where your Branch Offices function as one way NAPs, and the legit NAPs you have to sign the dotted line of are just good practice for not making an immediate enemy with even a single Branch Office. It's just really hard to know 50 years in the future whether your new contact is going to be friend or foe based on everything else around them but the moment you put a BO on them, you're kind of just locked in to them being a pool to put BOs into. Only they can choose to fight you, the initiative to fight is not yours ever, and the sunk cost is especially grave if other MegaCorps are on the board. You can't afford to close your BO portfolio to fight (because it's providing income first, it took 40+ Influence and 800+ ECs, and it's boxing out other MegaCorps to boot).
I was wrongly not prioritizing this and trying to sneak in more Habs to have the productive capacity to build my navies and keep them growing and growing and growing. Building 2 Habs and setting up some starbases is necessary for manipulating Growth, for covering Minerals/CGs/Alloys/Trade, for base income until BOs come online, but it's entirely too easy to overdo it and get stuck.
But this is not a trivial task until later - first 50 years, you need to find the other empires, you need to gain intel to see their territory's planets to unveil the holding menu (and this can be done via diplomacy and driving towards a defensive pact hard as possible, good in its own way, or you can do it via Espionage and plunking an envoy down. Envoys are hella important and more on that later.
2. Absolutely prioritize Illicit Research Labs as first Holding Slot - incredibly, you can have a respectable monthly research nut pretty early that will carry you well enough - nothing to write home about with pride, but it absolutely did the trick in keeping pace already behind the rest of the pack - 400-500 total around 2275 is fine. Turns out replacing your Research District starting 3/1/2200 sets you back a ton but fluff is fluff, and I'm lashing myself with it. This is the primary source of Research and will provide basically everything else you need to survive along the way. ECs to do more BOs and cover shortfalls on CGs and a small purchase of Alloys/Minerals to accelerate a fleet order or Building Slot/District. This had to be said out loud but there's nothing else on the menu bar research station. 800 Minerals is a lot for the Illicit Research Lab, but I haven't found a way around that, and early on, you simply don't have that many Mineral cost centers for building things that cost 400+. Its not great but it's fine.
3. Sprawl is the single most important thing to actively manage because the relative cost of tech is absolutely hosed by Sprawl when you're barely producing Research and it is mostly flat in production. Unlike Labs where you take the Sprawl hit from District (directly with a research district or indirectly for housing via habitation district) and then the Pops working the job, and attendant CGs and 'Food' for the Pop, eventually those Lab Specialists will start to cover their sprawl hit with peerless total output. They're absolutely worth their charge as going the opposite direction shows. Illicit Research Labs will give you the same dinky 6 research per type and doesn't really cover its sprawl hit, but there's not a lot of more direct and reliable option, nor one with huge upsides. 6 Research for 2 Sprawl is the starting point and almost as good as it gets. More efficient research production and output just doesn't NEED to manage Sprawl even if it benefits from doing so like anyone else.
4. Sprawl is also the single most important thing to actively manage because of Unity and Traditions and APs where a huge portion of giving yourself the tools to play are located. This is perhaps The Steak of this entire dish and recipe where anything worth doing that makes up for a lack of Research, and gives a bump to the empire in function or output, is going to be found mostly here. And here's what I've come up with in these pilot playthroughs to navigate it. This has been my crude recipe that helped get over some of the hump -
First 40ish years (no accounting for Unity from events or cashing in artifacts to speed it up):
Mercantile -Unlock and fill to 4 leaving the Market Fee untouched until you need to settle more starbases than two. 2 Starbases for 2 Habs hits you with an extra 23 Influence from optimal efficiency paired with Expansion, but it turns out that you can wait too long and lose the plot of what you're trying to do being a miser about Influence. Marketplace of Ideas 1st after unlock, then clerk boost, merchant boost, then Trade Boost in that order. The Trade output, Amenities and more Merchants does more early than the 10% Trade Boost. This is entirely to pursue more Traditions more quickly than otherwise.
Expansion - Unlock fill to 1 to get the +1 Pop for new colonies (to resettle back on the HQ for the first 2-3 colonies), backfill after or concurrent with Statecraft to get the +10% pop boost and the Sprawl Reduction when you crest 100 Sprawl. One of the Traditions that includes Sprawl reduction so I wanted this for everything else AND that on top of it. Excellent Tradition, S-Tier for sure.
Statecraft - Unlock and fill completely ASAP but allow a single point detour into Diplomacy for the reduced pacts once you approach 2 influence alone for pacts. Backfill Expansion after or concurrent. Statecraft gives immense boost to Agendas which is actually where some pretty ludicrously good boosts that don't create Sprawl in their wake live. This also unlocks Sprawl reduction at completion, so of course I wanted it.
Diplomacy - 1 Point to open when spending more than 2 Influence on pacts and then neglect until you need an Envoy for Espionage. It's a sleeper Tradition in this spec because the Influence savings at the front of it are very good in a variety of ways for the function, but the rest of it can be backloaded until later. The Envoy is very needed at a certain point but taking a detour to develop Diplomacy is too much for little gain early on.
After that, this is where I've been trying to find the right dance moves and the latest playthrough that really sung went
Enmity - Unlock filled to completion ASAP after the Opening 3. It is the perfect pairing to Statecraft's own agenda of Rightful Claims, Influence is the most important resource at all times in this spec especially because of Espionage within, but also just extremely cheap claims against Rivals, who should be pretty effing mad at you after you unlock and turn Diplomatic Stance to Antagonistic. Folks have pointed out how this little feature is hard to pull off given the flux of Rivals and generally being too powerful to have any, but this has not been my experience in these playthroughs with this spec. Indeed, I rivalled 2 superior Fed Mates AND one of their vassals at the same time occupying half my 6 Rivalries. The 2 others were MegaCorps who are #1 priority enemies, Gestalts and Hives #2, the last one was a random I actually could Rival and some allies consistently hated so it was good for no effort good relations.
Subterfuge - Unlock 3 points filled whenever depending on relative Codebreaking/Encryption Levels, Envoy Need. Not a high priority but with sluggish as hell research I didn't hit the Codebreaking techs much if at all
Aptitude - Unlock and leave alone until later. One additional Trait Choice is very nice for finding and cultivating Spycraft Leaders which I absolutely need for Espionage. Also, Leaders don't generate Sprawl for their modifiers, and the Naval Cap boosts are freaking amazing and worth stacking if possible across the council.
Unfortunately later never came for Subterfuge and Aptitude and backfilling Diplomacy because of my Spiritualism Snafu above, but I think this has some legs to it for sure. But I was rocking 10 Influence per month at the peak of it and even finagled my way to the top of Diplomatic Weight for 3 years from the +5% bonuses across 6 empires off of Enmity. I dropped the game when I had to take Defenders of the Galaxy over Nihilistic Acquisition after my Spiritualism Snafu, and I sat with it for a couple of years and hated it, realizing I could never get my Auth back. I like Defenders a lot for the +200 relations boost that opens up Support Independence Wars and Secret Fealties but the game was hosed on fluff at that point and I hated it. Anywho...
This has routinely unlocked 3 APs by 2240 which allowed me selections of
Interstellar Dominion (for Starbases and Claims down the line)
Lord of War (for the 2nd Merc Enclave which gets you some fighting fleets toot suite and 2 dividend streams which are Sprawless production if you barely squint, plus better benefits more often) and the Crown Jewel and Holy Glory of APs for me at least -
Galactic Force Projection that simultaneously allows Merc Enclaves to be founded (and gives them hella breathing room to grow into for some pretty efficient albeit weaker fleets) and gives a +2 Influence Boost to Power Projection. This is when the fun starts to uncork in this spec. When you get that +2 Influence nut and can go hard with more BOs and start running Espionage missions with any luck in hiring Kai-Sha and developing Spycraft Leaders. I speculated that one could skip Supremacy entirely if they took GFP for the Merc Enclaves, and I feel on the money with that, because under this spec, you're just not likely to research +20 Fleet Cap and Destroyers before 2240. Not likely, yet possible, but this is the best fallback one could imagine on missing there.
Generally, when running this Spec, the AP path is Interstellar Dominion, Lord of War, Galactic Force Projection, Nihilistic Acquisition, Defenders of the Galaxy, Xeno-Compatibility (yeah yeah, but ya know how much these pirates love loving? A LOT, and nothing is better than loving while fighting turns out and everyone should get some of that stank on them), and then 2 to taste and imagination - mostly both MegaStructure APs when I wasn't a laggard in Research, but I think those are firmly off the table anyway for most and especially for me. ArchaeoEngineers has been fun along with Colossus, and both Genetic and Psionic Ascensions are super dope and bordering on OP IMHO, but within my spec, Psionics could easily replace Subterfuge after taking the Ascension AP for it. Easily and hella better, no love lost there, just a Psionic version of my species coming home after an Immigration Treaty to a Psionic empire unlocked it, and the research option when it comes. And that means pairing with ArchaeoEngineers and popping Zarqlan's tomb and relic if he wills it!
5. Agendas, Agendas, Agendas!
Since their introduction, I basically neglected them as perfunctory things to do that didn't matter much and I was entirely wrong about that, entirely. Agendas are one of the best routine ways to put a big bonus on yourself as a mechanic of applying a big bonus to yourself, on purpose, regularly. One of the reasons I thought about them wrongly was not selecting Traditions that had really good ones baked in, but Evolving Society and Display of Power are my two ethics based defaults. Both provide amazingly well as openers, with me selecting Evolving Society to rush Mercantile, then Display of Power to recoup the savings from Interstellar Dominion and the starbase savings in Expansion, plus Branch Offices which should now be possible with neighbors you've met. The timing works out well for an opener and walks into unlocking the 5th council slot for the civic of your choice as the 3rd agenda.
But there are so much more and the trick to Agendas in my mind is having 'good ones' available at every point and not just your default ethics ones and perhaps one sizzler from another tradition. One of the issues I ran into with a basic set of Agendas and not respecting them is that a lot of the 'good ones' were on cooldown and I basically had to use an also-ran to cover until the cooldown cleared. Not the wisest or best use in my book.
Superior Colonies from Expansion has been pretty good for early to mid settling if that happens. Since colonizing time is a function of colonies in existence (right?), its not for the early game when you're whipping those out in less than 18 months.
Rightful Claims is amazing when paired with Enmity and pushing Enmity to its fullest. The Influence, the Claims, omg its neato.
Oppose The Fallen is a situational boost that if you also have Defenders of the Galaxy should allow some punching above one's weight to handle all those baddies who emerge.
Second Strike is a very situational but potentially very powerful way to take an advantage after a war to its logical conclusion of total victory
Departmental Efficiency helps your Leaders grow (and more on Leaders later) and helps leverage everything within Statecraft as it relates to Agendas
Leadership Conditioning does similar but differently
And then there's some more also-rans for cooldowns, which there will be given Statecraft pushes and holds onto Agendas faster and longer respectively. So you do need a good arsenal of applicable Agendas. And it helps answer a question about 'where are you going to get boosts to the empire if not through economic inflection in itself?' Which leads to the next section that I also neglected in folly and error.
6. Leaders
So I am still getting the hang of them but I was able to farm three level 2 spycraft leaders and work Kai-Sha in to drop Espionage Operations Influence cost to sub 50 Influence for Steal Tech for decades upon decades. I was metagaming this out in the main forum but Spycraft is one trait that reduces Operation Cost and if you're rolling in the Influence then you can feel good about going for someone else's tech. But it's rare and takes farming and so if you're going to farm, you need a farmer's tools. Luckily Enmity helps here with expanding leader caps based on Rivals, Aptitude allows an additional selection option to unlock and then helps out with cost and one extra starting trait to potentially skip farming at all.
And then there's a whole host of traits that are really good for specific purposes. Naval Instructor paired with Fleet Organizer and stacking either of those up across council is amazing relief that otherwise would generate Sprawl by pop or Branch Office working a job for it, or using Anchorages and plunking tons of alloys into them that should be used on ships (shudder).
I need to explore this more and this will likely be mid-late play to carry me over the line better but just for the two very particular uses with Espionage and Naval Cap, there's no getting around Leaders as one of the more efficient ways to produce benefit out of thin air...okay, out of Unity but close enough. The one thing that rubs me wrong with Leaders is more to do with their Council positions and how I basically must have a Head of Research for my own good, but also because it's an Agenda Detour to change the position until the 3rd Civic forces a clean slate. Luckily, a Scientist type occupies the Refurbishment Division council position so a few of the oddball traits they have that are very good get some play but...
Yeah...I don't have nearly enough Official council roles and IDK what to do about it since they're the ones that reliably can farm Spycraft from my experience. Commanders and Scientists mostly whiff, like I haven't seen a Scientist with it yet, despite putting them on the council as a level 1 to try. But with only 2 potential slots to Officials in Minister of State and Oligarch...yeah...I'm not rigging elections for Unity either, yet...very sadly yet.
7. Influence
The thing that I got wrong about this spec was that I could functionally go wide and eat my wide cake and it'll work out on the back end but that simply has not been the case and a big part of it comes from early Influence usage. Starbases (52 a pop which I tried to account for by stacking Interstellar Dominion and Expansion), Habitats (that take 150 at a time, so you can see how if you do 3 or more, you might not have enough left for anything else, and turns out being 4 deep into habs ~2215 isn't that much benefit as the Sprawl hit hurts and plateaus chasing Traditions for decade long spell, but also because starting Habs, even funneling the extra back to HQ just aren't that good to start and don't ever really get good, just not terrible for what you can do with them), and Branch Offices obviously.
But then there's the Espionage Operations thrown in and claims for fighting and making the fight count for something on your ledger. Without any relief coming from Vassals and the Ministry of Truth, it's all found in Power Projection and Leader Traits, and savings found in cost reductions which bar the Starbase Outposts and Espionage Operations and Diplomatic Pacts are fixed or scale with distance. You can see why in the Tradition section I stacked as many of these as possible onto the empire and it really does work, but it has to be way more purposeful than just 'I have my discounts and my primed output, I should be doing well or better than this crap'. No no silly me, I actually have to apply it all towards a win using something those much smarter than me call Strategy.
Speaking of, the point of it all...Strategy to Win
8. So how the hell is this going to notch the technical win?
The general theory that worked once to the imagination in 3.10.4 without all this extra stuff and being kinda plain was
1. Intercede in other's wars and make a mess of them
2. Conquer claim other MegaCorps/Hives/Gestalts as they have literally nothing to offer you
3. Support Independence and Secret Fealties to bust up Vassal Swarms and potentially Federations
4. Generally come out the other side of Crisis most intact with every score point available in Pops/Economy/Relics since there will be barely any in Tech and no Fed/Vassal points.
5. Wrap the whole thing up as you can in the last 40-50 years and cross your tents that it was enough
And in really, for all the strife in setting up the dominoes that I've experienced thus far, it's the tail end where actually taking the 1/3rd to 1/2 of the galaxy along the way or to wrap up the bag in the last 50 years has not been carried through because getting to that position has been a major headache with a lot of laughs along the way. I simply did not mess things up enough for others to deprive them of their points across the game to take them all for myself in the 3rd act, and I have to get better about that, 100%. If we can't be the tallest tree standing at the end by growth, maybe it takes arson and clearcutting.
Will start posting playthrough screenies and more when I figure out the best way to upload from a Steamdeck.
Subjects to Cover later:
1. Planetary Ascensions as potentially vital facet of making this work (did them in the most playthrough and it stoops easy to do them clocking 300+ Unity with 4 Habs, with Trade Worlds and some minor sprawl reduction, I was able to whip those out and pursue Traditions simultaneously, it just didn't make things pop like others make them pop with stacking leverage on them and waiting for the next round to ascend annoyed me even if this is exactly how it must work.)
2. Unity Output and why as good as Admin Office are if they're all you got in converting CGs to Unity, they are a major headache in keeping CG production up as primary source. Even as a meme joked, basically everything with Trade Policy just refigures everything in the pursuit of Unity to the basic question of whether your CG->Unity jobs are the best and primed with Civics and Traits to be even bestest. I ate a lot of dirt trying to get away from Trade as primary source of Unity because it overcomplicated Minerals->Alloys/CG in building out. Basic Merchant priming is good enough and can be cheaply for feeders early with 1 Habitation District set to Trade World giving a Merchant and 2 Clerks for 500 Minerals and .5 Sprawl OR a simple Commercial Complex in the first available building slot for 400 and no .5 Sprawl. Building slot is more efficient early but building slots also house monuments, health clinic, Mega Forge and a handful of others the districts don't cover. Minerals at efficient scale, especially with an early pop of Mineral Processing for modifier bonus, will have you building Mining districts and the Mineral Processing, but that's when you stop feeding HQ pops, so after the first 20 years.
3. Feeding HQ Pops early and tapering it off later. The general thought about that is that for a spell at least, it makes some sense to resettle new pops (especially free pops) back into HQ where a job will be waiting for them, sparing to 400-500 minerals to build a job for one unemployed pop upon settling, thanks to Expansion). When do you stop, and how do you keep that going without drowning in Sprawl (and this is part of what I went wide for early, to get the HQ hella full and do most of the lifting, which requires feeders. Not much feeding if you stop at 4 early to mind the Sprawl)?
4. Cutover from Marketplace of Ideas to Consumer Benefits. I am not mathy enough even though I do some amount of math in game with my trusty TI-83. But there is a point where it makes sense to cut over given Traditions left, Ascensions available, and CGs being deep in a hole because it was fairly easy to neglect them until they aren't. This gets back to point 2, but every game I've ever played with Marketplace of Ideas has a cutover point. How do you deduce that best?
5. Merc Enclaves and collecting Merc Enclaves like pokemon if you can help it.
6. Releasing micro states on planets just off yours for Branch Offices. Like Micro Vassals in a Vassal Swarm but these are independents but this is the next step if you need production but can't eat Sprawl. Yeah Micro Vassals are way better, I did a whole challenge that wasn't a challenge that much because of them. But there's going to be a lot of planets early on potentially that for 200 Minerals/CGs/Alloys and 92+ish Influence and 800+ish ECs, are just better with a small friendly that likely will never hurt you for a BO.
7. Stored Research as only saving grace, but still yoked by Research output to apply the matching amount. These little dumps from Merc Enclave Dividends especially add up the better the Merc Enclave and more you have, but it waxes and wanes and isn't reliable enough although appreciated.
8. 3rd Civics and making the most of Naval Contractors and Refurbishment Division as fluff congruent but exploring others as well. You cant dislike 5 founded Merc Enclaves of your own and it takes Galactic Council to get above 4, but super attainable and fluffy goal.
Win the game on technical grounds by score shunning Feds (cant join or create), Vassals (cant have or be), and domestic Laboratory type buildings (and there are a few and some that spawn as part of a planet) are forbidden and highly demolishable if not replacable. The ones you can't demolish...well I guess Criminals are gonna Crime and sneak in and do research I guess.
Galaxy Settings:
Huge, Starburst, 30 Empires, 3 Advanced, 5 FE, 3 Mauaraders. (Note, I like a lot of empires and a lot of blocs)
1x Tech, Trad, Habitable Worlds, Pre FTLs
5x Crisis, Crisis Random
Mid/End/Victory - 2300/2400/2500
Difficulty - GA, Scaling Difficulty Off, Diffulcty Adjusted Modifiers On (This might not be so hard if you're purposefully building a meta tuned empire to confront it, I am not)
.5x Hyperlane Density (Chokepoints and convoluted paths in a Starburst turns out very cool actually)
.25x Gateways (Hate em)
1.5x Wormholes (To actually open the game up due to the Hyperlane setting at the right time to open it up)
Guaranteed Habitable Worlds - 1
Caravanners, L-Gates, XC - On
Logistic Growth Ceiling - 1.5x
Growth Celining - .25x
Ironman - On
My Spec:
Origin: Void Dwellers, naturally
Ethics: Auth, Militarism, Xenophile
Civics: Pirate Haven - MegaCorp CrimSyn with Letters of Marque
Species: Lithoid - Radiotropic, Existential Iteroparity, Nomadic, Deviants, Unruly
The Effort So Far:
Abysmal! Best game so far I abandoned in the early 2400s stuck in 13th and little hope to do better than 5th if Crisis didnt do most the work. Wife made me play past Crisis after my 2 days of whining about it, and I still only could get to 6th with not enough time or interest to take it down to the wire feelin stuck stuck. That was absolutely good fortune early with reliable Megacorp branches but I choked on Research entirely and Traditions mostly, after a certain point which I will get to in a bit. Great production, tons of Pops, top 3 in Diplomatic Weight but...still not enough.
So another dozen taken to 2300 at most and it not feeling right or going my way I had to reconsider a lot on approach and I am an in a very interesting playthrough at the moment going way better than the prior dozen stillbirths at 2300 or prior. Well I was - I had to end that one as I got a little too drinky and missed a Spiritualist conversion and couldn't get back my Auth which was now at 8% of factions, and was unable to select Nihilistic Acquisition...that's a fluff requirement IMHO. Are ye really a pirate if you aren't pressing suckers into pirates? Methinks not! But that one finally felt right and didn't suffer from this laundry list of issues I've experienced in attempt this:
1. Sprawl kills Tradition progress
2. Sprawl kills Research which is already terribly impacted the entire time
3. Diplomacy being way more complicated and contorted because the first act has almost always been survival and setup for the 2nd and 3rd acts, but basically you make a lot of deals to keep yourself clean, plop Branch Offices on those necessary allies for research via Illicit Labs because you have to, and now bar anything truly wild with Support Independence or Secret Fealties, they're locked in as more friend than enemy for the rest of the game. The general exception to this is setting up a BO before an NAP that spikes the relationship and then they become an enemy shortly after.
4. Constantly short CGs, which is only really a problem before Galactic Market but is actually a very irksome problem
5. Research hitting a complete wall for T4s but showing up for crucial techs like unlocking the 3rd Civic before that. Just a ton of time to complete. Basically even getting to this point, still getting smoked from that point forward.
6. Alloy output good enough, ships not great, Naval cap not allowing more mediocre fleets to make up the difference. Merc Enclaves can pull a lot of weight for the Naval Cap and are in some ways total bacon savers (where losing a fleet entirely is a relatively minor setback where if you've fed them at all with Fleet Expansions, you can often just set up a new contract for a new fleet the moment your current one blinks entirely out of existence. They have them just loafing there almost for the occasion) Still, it's an issue.
7. Espionage expensive and still not helping enough
I think you are starting to get the gist that this feels like a Noob's gripes about the game, but this has mostly been my refusal to adjust to what I'm being given and can do, and thinking I'll get the chances (and preparing for those chances) that never materialize to fight for claims that start to zero-sum the score in my favor. That has been the LAST thing to happen in any of these playthroughs and usually only in the back half after 2350 for playthroughs that made it that far, which isn't too late for it to matter, but is definitely so much harder to attain being middle of the pack with no direct help in allies for the purpose - it's always a byproduct of someone else's war or playing mutual defense together. The earlier these have happened by stroke of luck and opportunity, the worse things have actually gone because I'm taking over a highly specialized world, mostly with RESEARCH LABS of all things which spike CGs if I don't demolish them right away, Unemployment if I do, Sprawl no matter what.
I also think that taking the idea to the limit here really exposes how good the changes in 3.11 are where anyone who is playing somewhat capably with any synergy and leverage baked into their empire spec will not get stuck on their back like a turtle repeatedly, basically consigned to turtling, like, with even minor lip service to Research domestically a lot of my struggles here might not even be struggles at all - 3.10.4 was a lot MORE forgiving than this precisely because Research was more self reinforcing at that point, and still very much is, but it was utterly so and even the self starving had some benefit from it. Not the case in 3.11 where it only self reinforces to a point and then actually feeding yourself properly matters, and watching your Sprawl if you can't watch what you eat in Research being the other vector of approach.
So why did that last playthrough have some legs and what is the Theory that informs Praxis for the next dozen runs that will invariably hit the rocks ashore at some point? Allow me to spill my guts.
1. Absolutely prioritize Branch Offices ahead of anything else at all if given and making choices. This sounds like basic basic stuff and it kind of is, but CrimSyns are a little more complicated because of the diplomacy factors, where your Branch Offices function as one way NAPs, and the legit NAPs you have to sign the dotted line of are just good practice for not making an immediate enemy with even a single Branch Office. It's just really hard to know 50 years in the future whether your new contact is going to be friend or foe based on everything else around them but the moment you put a BO on them, you're kind of just locked in to them being a pool to put BOs into. Only they can choose to fight you, the initiative to fight is not yours ever, and the sunk cost is especially grave if other MegaCorps are on the board. You can't afford to close your BO portfolio to fight (because it's providing income first, it took 40+ Influence and 800+ ECs, and it's boxing out other MegaCorps to boot).
I was wrongly not prioritizing this and trying to sneak in more Habs to have the productive capacity to build my navies and keep them growing and growing and growing. Building 2 Habs and setting up some starbases is necessary for manipulating Growth, for covering Minerals/CGs/Alloys/Trade, for base income until BOs come online, but it's entirely too easy to overdo it and get stuck.
But this is not a trivial task until later - first 50 years, you need to find the other empires, you need to gain intel to see their territory's planets to unveil the holding menu (and this can be done via diplomacy and driving towards a defensive pact hard as possible, good in its own way, or you can do it via Espionage and plunking an envoy down. Envoys are hella important and more on that later.
2. Absolutely prioritize Illicit Research Labs as first Holding Slot - incredibly, you can have a respectable monthly research nut pretty early that will carry you well enough - nothing to write home about with pride, but it absolutely did the trick in keeping pace already behind the rest of the pack - 400-500 total around 2275 is fine. Turns out replacing your Research District starting 3/1/2200 sets you back a ton but fluff is fluff, and I'm lashing myself with it. This is the primary source of Research and will provide basically everything else you need to survive along the way. ECs to do more BOs and cover shortfalls on CGs and a small purchase of Alloys/Minerals to accelerate a fleet order or Building Slot/District. This had to be said out loud but there's nothing else on the menu bar research station. 800 Minerals is a lot for the Illicit Research Lab, but I haven't found a way around that, and early on, you simply don't have that many Mineral cost centers for building things that cost 400+. Its not great but it's fine.
3. Sprawl is the single most important thing to actively manage because the relative cost of tech is absolutely hosed by Sprawl when you're barely producing Research and it is mostly flat in production. Unlike Labs where you take the Sprawl hit from District (directly with a research district or indirectly for housing via habitation district) and then the Pops working the job, and attendant CGs and 'Food' for the Pop, eventually those Lab Specialists will start to cover their sprawl hit with peerless total output. They're absolutely worth their charge as going the opposite direction shows. Illicit Research Labs will give you the same dinky 6 research per type and doesn't really cover its sprawl hit, but there's not a lot of more direct and reliable option, nor one with huge upsides. 6 Research for 2 Sprawl is the starting point and almost as good as it gets. More efficient research production and output just doesn't NEED to manage Sprawl even if it benefits from doing so like anyone else.
4. Sprawl is also the single most important thing to actively manage because of Unity and Traditions and APs where a huge portion of giving yourself the tools to play are located. This is perhaps The Steak of this entire dish and recipe where anything worth doing that makes up for a lack of Research, and gives a bump to the empire in function or output, is going to be found mostly here. And here's what I've come up with in these pilot playthroughs to navigate it. This has been my crude recipe that helped get over some of the hump -
First 40ish years (no accounting for Unity from events or cashing in artifacts to speed it up):
Mercantile -Unlock and fill to 4 leaving the Market Fee untouched until you need to settle more starbases than two. 2 Starbases for 2 Habs hits you with an extra 23 Influence from optimal efficiency paired with Expansion, but it turns out that you can wait too long and lose the plot of what you're trying to do being a miser about Influence. Marketplace of Ideas 1st after unlock, then clerk boost, merchant boost, then Trade Boost in that order. The Trade output, Amenities and more Merchants does more early than the 10% Trade Boost. This is entirely to pursue more Traditions more quickly than otherwise.
Expansion - Unlock fill to 1 to get the +1 Pop for new colonies (to resettle back on the HQ for the first 2-3 colonies), backfill after or concurrent with Statecraft to get the +10% pop boost and the Sprawl Reduction when you crest 100 Sprawl. One of the Traditions that includes Sprawl reduction so I wanted this for everything else AND that on top of it. Excellent Tradition, S-Tier for sure.
Statecraft - Unlock and fill completely ASAP but allow a single point detour into Diplomacy for the reduced pacts once you approach 2 influence alone for pacts. Backfill Expansion after or concurrent. Statecraft gives immense boost to Agendas which is actually where some pretty ludicrously good boosts that don't create Sprawl in their wake live. This also unlocks Sprawl reduction at completion, so of course I wanted it.
Diplomacy - 1 Point to open when spending more than 2 Influence on pacts and then neglect until you need an Envoy for Espionage. It's a sleeper Tradition in this spec because the Influence savings at the front of it are very good in a variety of ways for the function, but the rest of it can be backloaded until later. The Envoy is very needed at a certain point but taking a detour to develop Diplomacy is too much for little gain early on.
After that, this is where I've been trying to find the right dance moves and the latest playthrough that really sung went
Enmity - Unlock filled to completion ASAP after the Opening 3. It is the perfect pairing to Statecraft's own agenda of Rightful Claims, Influence is the most important resource at all times in this spec especially because of Espionage within, but also just extremely cheap claims against Rivals, who should be pretty effing mad at you after you unlock and turn Diplomatic Stance to Antagonistic. Folks have pointed out how this little feature is hard to pull off given the flux of Rivals and generally being too powerful to have any, but this has not been my experience in these playthroughs with this spec. Indeed, I rivalled 2 superior Fed Mates AND one of their vassals at the same time occupying half my 6 Rivalries. The 2 others were MegaCorps who are #1 priority enemies, Gestalts and Hives #2, the last one was a random I actually could Rival and some allies consistently hated so it was good for no effort good relations.
Subterfuge - Unlock 3 points filled whenever depending on relative Codebreaking/Encryption Levels, Envoy Need. Not a high priority but with sluggish as hell research I didn't hit the Codebreaking techs much if at all
Aptitude - Unlock and leave alone until later. One additional Trait Choice is very nice for finding and cultivating Spycraft Leaders which I absolutely need for Espionage. Also, Leaders don't generate Sprawl for their modifiers, and the Naval Cap boosts are freaking amazing and worth stacking if possible across the council.
Unfortunately later never came for Subterfuge and Aptitude and backfilling Diplomacy because of my Spiritualism Snafu above, but I think this has some legs to it for sure. But I was rocking 10 Influence per month at the peak of it and even finagled my way to the top of Diplomatic Weight for 3 years from the +5% bonuses across 6 empires off of Enmity. I dropped the game when I had to take Defenders of the Galaxy over Nihilistic Acquisition after my Spiritualism Snafu, and I sat with it for a couple of years and hated it, realizing I could never get my Auth back. I like Defenders a lot for the +200 relations boost that opens up Support Independence Wars and Secret Fealties but the game was hosed on fluff at that point and I hated it. Anywho...
This has routinely unlocked 3 APs by 2240 which allowed me selections of
Interstellar Dominion (for Starbases and Claims down the line)
Lord of War (for the 2nd Merc Enclave which gets you some fighting fleets toot suite and 2 dividend streams which are Sprawless production if you barely squint, plus better benefits more often) and the Crown Jewel and Holy Glory of APs for me at least -
Galactic Force Projection that simultaneously allows Merc Enclaves to be founded (and gives them hella breathing room to grow into for some pretty efficient albeit weaker fleets) and gives a +2 Influence Boost to Power Projection. This is when the fun starts to uncork in this spec. When you get that +2 Influence nut and can go hard with more BOs and start running Espionage missions with any luck in hiring Kai-Sha and developing Spycraft Leaders. I speculated that one could skip Supremacy entirely if they took GFP for the Merc Enclaves, and I feel on the money with that, because under this spec, you're just not likely to research +20 Fleet Cap and Destroyers before 2240. Not likely, yet possible, but this is the best fallback one could imagine on missing there.
Generally, when running this Spec, the AP path is Interstellar Dominion, Lord of War, Galactic Force Projection, Nihilistic Acquisition, Defenders of the Galaxy, Xeno-Compatibility (yeah yeah, but ya know how much these pirates love loving? A LOT, and nothing is better than loving while fighting turns out and everyone should get some of that stank on them), and then 2 to taste and imagination - mostly both MegaStructure APs when I wasn't a laggard in Research, but I think those are firmly off the table anyway for most and especially for me. ArchaeoEngineers has been fun along with Colossus, and both Genetic and Psionic Ascensions are super dope and bordering on OP IMHO, but within my spec, Psionics could easily replace Subterfuge after taking the Ascension AP for it. Easily and hella better, no love lost there, just a Psionic version of my species coming home after an Immigration Treaty to a Psionic empire unlocked it, and the research option when it comes. And that means pairing with ArchaeoEngineers and popping Zarqlan's tomb and relic if he wills it!
5. Agendas, Agendas, Agendas!
Since their introduction, I basically neglected them as perfunctory things to do that didn't matter much and I was entirely wrong about that, entirely. Agendas are one of the best routine ways to put a big bonus on yourself as a mechanic of applying a big bonus to yourself, on purpose, regularly. One of the reasons I thought about them wrongly was not selecting Traditions that had really good ones baked in, but Evolving Society and Display of Power are my two ethics based defaults. Both provide amazingly well as openers, with me selecting Evolving Society to rush Mercantile, then Display of Power to recoup the savings from Interstellar Dominion and the starbase savings in Expansion, plus Branch Offices which should now be possible with neighbors you've met. The timing works out well for an opener and walks into unlocking the 5th council slot for the civic of your choice as the 3rd agenda.
But there are so much more and the trick to Agendas in my mind is having 'good ones' available at every point and not just your default ethics ones and perhaps one sizzler from another tradition. One of the issues I ran into with a basic set of Agendas and not respecting them is that a lot of the 'good ones' were on cooldown and I basically had to use an also-ran to cover until the cooldown cleared. Not the wisest or best use in my book.
Superior Colonies from Expansion has been pretty good for early to mid settling if that happens. Since colonizing time is a function of colonies in existence (right?), its not for the early game when you're whipping those out in less than 18 months.
Rightful Claims is amazing when paired with Enmity and pushing Enmity to its fullest. The Influence, the Claims, omg its neato.
Oppose The Fallen is a situational boost that if you also have Defenders of the Galaxy should allow some punching above one's weight to handle all those baddies who emerge.
Second Strike is a very situational but potentially very powerful way to take an advantage after a war to its logical conclusion of total victory
Departmental Efficiency helps your Leaders grow (and more on Leaders later) and helps leverage everything within Statecraft as it relates to Agendas
Leadership Conditioning does similar but differently
And then there's some more also-rans for cooldowns, which there will be given Statecraft pushes and holds onto Agendas faster and longer respectively. So you do need a good arsenal of applicable Agendas. And it helps answer a question about 'where are you going to get boosts to the empire if not through economic inflection in itself?' Which leads to the next section that I also neglected in folly and error.
6. Leaders
So I am still getting the hang of them but I was able to farm three level 2 spycraft leaders and work Kai-Sha in to drop Espionage Operations Influence cost to sub 50 Influence for Steal Tech for decades upon decades. I was metagaming this out in the main forum but Spycraft is one trait that reduces Operation Cost and if you're rolling in the Influence then you can feel good about going for someone else's tech. But it's rare and takes farming and so if you're going to farm, you need a farmer's tools. Luckily Enmity helps here with expanding leader caps based on Rivals, Aptitude allows an additional selection option to unlock and then helps out with cost and one extra starting trait to potentially skip farming at all.
And then there's a whole host of traits that are really good for specific purposes. Naval Instructor paired with Fleet Organizer and stacking either of those up across council is amazing relief that otherwise would generate Sprawl by pop or Branch Office working a job for it, or using Anchorages and plunking tons of alloys into them that should be used on ships (shudder).
I need to explore this more and this will likely be mid-late play to carry me over the line better but just for the two very particular uses with Espionage and Naval Cap, there's no getting around Leaders as one of the more efficient ways to produce benefit out of thin air...okay, out of Unity but close enough. The one thing that rubs me wrong with Leaders is more to do with their Council positions and how I basically must have a Head of Research for my own good, but also because it's an Agenda Detour to change the position until the 3rd Civic forces a clean slate. Luckily, a Scientist type occupies the Refurbishment Division council position so a few of the oddball traits they have that are very good get some play but...
Yeah...I don't have nearly enough Official council roles and IDK what to do about it since they're the ones that reliably can farm Spycraft from my experience. Commanders and Scientists mostly whiff, like I haven't seen a Scientist with it yet, despite putting them on the council as a level 1 to try. But with only 2 potential slots to Officials in Minister of State and Oligarch...yeah...I'm not rigging elections for Unity either, yet...very sadly yet.
7. Influence
The thing that I got wrong about this spec was that I could functionally go wide and eat my wide cake and it'll work out on the back end but that simply has not been the case and a big part of it comes from early Influence usage. Starbases (52 a pop which I tried to account for by stacking Interstellar Dominion and Expansion), Habitats (that take 150 at a time, so you can see how if you do 3 or more, you might not have enough left for anything else, and turns out being 4 deep into habs ~2215 isn't that much benefit as the Sprawl hit hurts and plateaus chasing Traditions for decade long spell, but also because starting Habs, even funneling the extra back to HQ just aren't that good to start and don't ever really get good, just not terrible for what you can do with them), and Branch Offices obviously.
But then there's the Espionage Operations thrown in and claims for fighting and making the fight count for something on your ledger. Without any relief coming from Vassals and the Ministry of Truth, it's all found in Power Projection and Leader Traits, and savings found in cost reductions which bar the Starbase Outposts and Espionage Operations and Diplomatic Pacts are fixed or scale with distance. You can see why in the Tradition section I stacked as many of these as possible onto the empire and it really does work, but it has to be way more purposeful than just 'I have my discounts and my primed output, I should be doing well or better than this crap'. No no silly me, I actually have to apply it all towards a win using something those much smarter than me call Strategy.
Speaking of, the point of it all...Strategy to Win
8. So how the hell is this going to notch the technical win?
The general theory that worked once to the imagination in 3.10.4 without all this extra stuff and being kinda plain was
1. Intercede in other's wars and make a mess of them
2. Conquer claim other MegaCorps/Hives/Gestalts as they have literally nothing to offer you
3. Support Independence and Secret Fealties to bust up Vassal Swarms and potentially Federations
4. Generally come out the other side of Crisis most intact with every score point available in Pops/Economy/Relics since there will be barely any in Tech and no Fed/Vassal points.
5. Wrap the whole thing up as you can in the last 40-50 years and cross your tents that it was enough
And in really, for all the strife in setting up the dominoes that I've experienced thus far, it's the tail end where actually taking the 1/3rd to 1/2 of the galaxy along the way or to wrap up the bag in the last 50 years has not been carried through because getting to that position has been a major headache with a lot of laughs along the way. I simply did not mess things up enough for others to deprive them of their points across the game to take them all for myself in the 3rd act, and I have to get better about that, 100%. If we can't be the tallest tree standing at the end by growth, maybe it takes arson and clearcutting.
Will start posting playthrough screenies and more when I figure out the best way to upload from a Steamdeck.
Subjects to Cover later:
1. Planetary Ascensions as potentially vital facet of making this work (did them in the most playthrough and it stoops easy to do them clocking 300+ Unity with 4 Habs, with Trade Worlds and some minor sprawl reduction, I was able to whip those out and pursue Traditions simultaneously, it just didn't make things pop like others make them pop with stacking leverage on them and waiting for the next round to ascend annoyed me even if this is exactly how it must work.)
2. Unity Output and why as good as Admin Office are if they're all you got in converting CGs to Unity, they are a major headache in keeping CG production up as primary source. Even as a meme joked, basically everything with Trade Policy just refigures everything in the pursuit of Unity to the basic question of whether your CG->Unity jobs are the best and primed with Civics and Traits to be even bestest. I ate a lot of dirt trying to get away from Trade as primary source of Unity because it overcomplicated Minerals->Alloys/CG in building out. Basic Merchant priming is good enough and can be cheaply for feeders early with 1 Habitation District set to Trade World giving a Merchant and 2 Clerks for 500 Minerals and .5 Sprawl OR a simple Commercial Complex in the first available building slot for 400 and no .5 Sprawl. Building slot is more efficient early but building slots also house monuments, health clinic, Mega Forge and a handful of others the districts don't cover. Minerals at efficient scale, especially with an early pop of Mineral Processing for modifier bonus, will have you building Mining districts and the Mineral Processing, but that's when you stop feeding HQ pops, so after the first 20 years.
3. Feeding HQ Pops early and tapering it off later. The general thought about that is that for a spell at least, it makes some sense to resettle new pops (especially free pops) back into HQ where a job will be waiting for them, sparing to 400-500 minerals to build a job for one unemployed pop upon settling, thanks to Expansion). When do you stop, and how do you keep that going without drowning in Sprawl (and this is part of what I went wide for early, to get the HQ hella full and do most of the lifting, which requires feeders. Not much feeding if you stop at 4 early to mind the Sprawl)?
4. Cutover from Marketplace of Ideas to Consumer Benefits. I am not mathy enough even though I do some amount of math in game with my trusty TI-83. But there is a point where it makes sense to cut over given Traditions left, Ascensions available, and CGs being deep in a hole because it was fairly easy to neglect them until they aren't. This gets back to point 2, but every game I've ever played with Marketplace of Ideas has a cutover point. How do you deduce that best?
5. Merc Enclaves and collecting Merc Enclaves like pokemon if you can help it.
6. Releasing micro states on planets just off yours for Branch Offices. Like Micro Vassals in a Vassal Swarm but these are independents but this is the next step if you need production but can't eat Sprawl. Yeah Micro Vassals are way better, I did a whole challenge that wasn't a challenge that much because of them. But there's going to be a lot of planets early on potentially that for 200 Minerals/CGs/Alloys and 92+ish Influence and 800+ish ECs, are just better with a small friendly that likely will never hurt you for a BO.
7. Stored Research as only saving grace, but still yoked by Research output to apply the matching amount. These little dumps from Merc Enclave Dividends especially add up the better the Merc Enclave and more you have, but it waxes and wanes and isn't reliable enough although appreciated.
8. 3rd Civics and making the most of Naval Contractors and Refurbishment Division as fluff congruent but exploring others as well. You cant dislike 5 founded Merc Enclaves of your own and it takes Galactic Council to get above 4, but super attainable and fluffy goal.
Last edited:
- 1
