May the Spirits Protect Us: Spiritualism A Guide (Lem 3.1.2)

[Zardnaar]

For whatever reason spiritualism has a bad reputation. Personally I like it and it and due to changes made recently I would argue its even good. So why play Spiritualism?


The Good

Unity generation.
Free temple with most origins on starting planet. Temples are great at producing unity and generate amenities and social research as secondary effect.
Amenities Due to starting temple.
Increased chance to roll psionics
Imperial Cult Civic (with authoritarian/imperial authority)

The Bad

-5/10% Edict Cost

And the Ugly

Doesn't play nice with Robots.

I recommend you play with plants or fungoids in every case unless you are doing something specific. This is because of the budding trait. Even if you don't use it options are good.

The things that have buffed spiritualist are new traits, traditions, buffed Imperial Cult civic. The downside is issues with robots (their faction hates them). You can build robots but later in the game you might have an AI rebellion and at the cost of less influence (which may not matter). The budding trait on plants and fungoids does give you population assembly but its slower than robots at least early on. Most of the benefits of spiritualism come without having to be fanatic spiritualist which really only matters if you want to maximize your chances of going psioncs.

Traditionally the meta has also rewarded tech rushing. Not spiritualists can do this as well depending on the build. Generally they are not as good at it relative to say materialists. They get their +5/+10% boost to tech and the Academic Privilege living condition. Technocracy has been nerfed however and there is another great living condition (decadent) however via the pleasure seekers civic. A well built spiritualist is competitive with tech rushing. They may not be the best at it but close enough is often good enough. They cant match a 5-20% boost to research via ethics they can via production however. By that I mean build more labs using your economic advantages. Early game if tech rusher 1 has 4 labs you build 5, later on you out produce them in resources using less pops and the extra pops can be diverted into labs (or alloys or whatever).

The big big advantage spiritualists have is the unity. You'll be one of the 1st to get your 1st perk and you can complete all of them before 2100 with default settings. With various unity ambitions activated before anyone else its nice. Generally you will complete 2 of them while everyone else is halfway through the second have 3 complete vs 2 or 5 complete vs 3.

Early on you will also have a reasonable amount of amenities so you can give those clerks a more productive job.

Ethics. ​

Pretty much anything works to some extent with spiritualist. Some of the betters options.

Authoritarian. Slaves are good the downside is usually happiness and stability. I heard Temples also provide amenities and the Imperial Cult Civic is nice which allows two more edicts combined with Imperial Authority. This lets you run 4 edicts very early on and authoritarian grants extra influence. A fanatic Authoritarian/Spiritualist can generate 60% extra basic resources (more with chattel slavery and slaveguilds civic). If you go psionic its not hard to have 100% stability either. One of the best spiritual combos.

Pacifism. Pacifism grants stability and the peace festival edict for another 10% happiness. This can let you start the game with 90-100% stability early on and getting around the downsides of even fanatic pacifism isn't to hard. Perhaps the ultimate builders combo. Can be combined with Authoritarian for another edict granting 5% stability.

Militarist. Not a favorite ethic of mine but unity early on is useful for rushing down the supremacy tree (or unyielding perhaps if you have a nearby genocidal). 1-3 completed trees and and its not to hard to grab adjacent empires capitals. Can be combined with the Authoritarian ethics for an early game rush build.

Xenophile. Not an obvious one but the new mercantile tree and free starting temple lets you to the merchant guild things ASAP. Functional architecture is the other civic that is great on habitats and good on a normal planet (while you tech rush habitats). Very useful for an early federation rush.

Egalitarian. Probably wouldn't recommend this one but you can mix it with shared burdens I suppose.

Xenophobe. Not one of my favorite combos unless its mixed with pacifism and inwards perfection. Great unity rush options along with population growth with inward perfection.

Suggested Origins.

Generally I like origins that let you come out of the gate fast. For the most part this means Prosperous Unification or Shoulders of Giants and Lost Colony to a lesser extent. Scion gives you a free wormhole to a fallen empire so you can easily get their technology. Dark Matter or Psionic shields are great.

Ascension Paths​

Note the trait Natural Sociologists is better for Spiritualists ascension than most other empires. Its useful if you want to rush psionics or bio ascension and bio ascension can remove it for something better later. If you get the Zroni event and acquire the relic I recommend you go psionic. otherwise it is your choice.

Psionics.
The obvious path is psionics. The main advantage of psionics is you can rush it early in the game and complete both of them in the first 50 years of the game although it is RNG dependent. Psionic admirals and scientists are good early on the shroud benefits are RNG based which is a negative. The chosen one and god king events however are very good for removing locked civics such as inward perfection, Idyllic Bloom or changing ethics from Fanatic Pacifism. Yes you can rush Gaia Worlds as an inward perfection+idyllic bloom and then you become the god king and fanatic authoritarian/spiritualist. You also want the Composer of Strands for the 20% population growth. The budding trait is great for psionics giving you pop assembly without having to use robots.

Bio Ascension.
Since 3.0 cloning tanks give you pop assembly and these tanks stack with the budding trait which stacks with the fertile trait. This more than gets around the spiritualist traditional problem of population growth. Not bad for a slaver either.

Synthetic.

Yes you can take synthetic ascension. Probably not recommended but an interesting trick i to ascend which cause materialist ethics drift. Spiritualists can also build robots as well. This lets you get the early game benefits of spiritualist eg temples and unity and change your ethics later on avoiding the AI rebellion potential. Probably not worth doing but its an option and you will no longer be spiritualist.

The Builds.​

This is a lot of rambling so I will include some suggested builds that I personally enjoy.

The Builder (Plantoid or Fungoid)

Authority: Imperial
Civics: Master Crafter Pleasure Seeker
Ethics: Fanatic Pacifist, Spiritualist.
Traits: Charismatic, Budding, Natural Engineers, Solitary, Unruly
Origin: Prosperous Unification
Suggested Ascension Path: Psionic

This build starts with very high stability due to being so happy. This allows for a very productive start with reasonably abundent resources. Use that slingshot efect to develop your economy and later on become the God Emperor to go forth and conquer.

The Merchant

Authority: Imperial (maybe Democratic if Voidborn)
Civics: Functional Architecture, Merchant Guilds
Traits. Thrifty, Budding, Natural Engineers, Solitary, Unruly
Origin: Your Choice
Suggested Ascension Path: Bio Ascension

Fairly typical merchant rush build.

Stef explains the basics. This tweaks the build however for the ground. Spam merchants, form a trade federation via a vassal if you have to. Use all the consumer goods to tech and unity rush via more temples and labs. Or do it in space via the Void Dwellers Origin (traits non adaptive, unruly, intelligent, thrifty, rapid breeders).

The Tech Rusher.

Authority: Democratic
Civics: Meritocracy, Pleasure Seeker
Ethics: Fanatic Egalitarian, Spiritualist.
Traits: Intelligent, Budding or Rapid Breeders, Natural Engineers, Solitary, Unruly
Origin: Prosperous Unification or Shoulders of Giants (if rapid breeders)
Suggested Ascension Path: Bio or Psionic (probably bio)

Who says spiritualists can't tech rush? Obviously you're not as good at it as a materialist. This build is sort of a hybrd tech and unity rush build. This is one build where I would consider using robots as well and perhaps changing ethics later on. 82% stability early on with Prosperous Unification Shoulders of Giants or Lost Colony are also good.

The Slaver.

World Type: Dry
Authority: Imperial
Civics idyllic Bloom or Imperial Cult, Police State
Ethics Authoritarian, Spiritualist + Pacifist or Militarist
Primary Trait: Intelligent, Budding or Rapid Breeders, Natural Engineers, Solitary, Unruly
Secondary Trait. Serviles, Budding, Ingenious,
Origin: Syncretic Evolution.
Suggested Ascension: Psionic.

The basic idea here is simple. Rush generator worlds for lots of money via your slaves and turn the lot of them into gaia worlds. You chattel slaves are ingenious use that money to terraform worlds and tech rush synthetic gases. Star creating Gaia Worlds late 2220's or early 30's. You can go forth and conquer or raid pops for mor slaves. Some micro required to grow the right pops. One can skip syncretic evolution for Shoulders of Giants and sell the minor artifacts to terraform the worlds. Depending on your expansion rate you go psionic and remove Idyllic Bloom once its not longer useful.

The Unity.

Authority: Imperial
Civics: Inward Perfection, Pleasure Seeker
Ethics: Pacifist, Spiritualist, Xenophobic
Traits: Intelligent, Budding, Natural Engineers, Solitary, Unruly
Origin: Prosperous Unification
Suggested Ascension Path: Psionic

The inwards perfection build mentioned above. You can swap pleasure seekers for Idyllic Bloom (start on a dry world BTW Shoulders of Giants origin). The idea is to milk the benefits of Inward Perfection and replace it later via the god king event. As an added bonus you can try Idyllic Bloom.

The Clone

World Type: Dry
Authority: Imperial
Civics: Functional Architecture, Pleasure Seeker
Ethics: Fanatic Spiritualist, Militarist
Traits: Ingenious, Intelligent, Natural Engineers, Solitary, Unruly
Origin: Clone Army
Suggested Ascension Path: Psionic

This one is very simple. Use clones, get a lot of money rush your economy (prosperity and supremacy) and unity, go smash something in the face. You'll complete your second tradition tree around the time you get 100 clones. Fanatic Spiritualist to maximize your chance of going psionic and you go with clone ascendant.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Not bad. I, too, think Spiritualist gets a bit of a bad rap from people who are too fixated on meta. When you don't need to be mix-maxing to be competitive, there's certainly a lot of fun to be had. That said, three things I think you overlook that can help sell the playstyle.


First, the robot penalty. It's really not that bad, and I fully believe it's more in the realm of OCD for most people mixed with bad signalling.

Truth is, having robot workers is a grand -5 faction opinion penalty for Spiritualist faction. This is the smallest sort of faction approval penalty there is, and is more than made up for if, say, you go psionic. -5 is what a lot of other factions get for matter-of-fact disappointments for, say, not being at war recently as a militarist- annoying, but not major. Where robots get bad is artificial intelligence, aka synths. That causes a major penalty (-30), which is Very Big, but all you have to do to avoid it is... ban AI. Which happens to be the way to not have AI uprisings as well, when you do it early enough.

I suspect if people realized how small the robot worker penalty was, they'd be a lot less cautious of it.





Second, the influence (and ethics attraction). The Spiritualist faction is relatively easy to keep happy, robots aside, which helps with influence... but what's worth even more- even with the -5 robot penalty- is the sheer power of ethics attraction. Spiritualist has, by the, the most and the strongest ethics attraction modifiers. Not only the 'usual' weighting, but special decisions and buildings that boost ethics shift chance to spiritualist. That means the spiritualist faction on most empires will be HUGE if you try, and that size means it can deliver on a lot more influence, even if you do take robot workers. A mostly-happy super-large faction will deliver more influence than a perfectly-happy smaller faction that sees the faction influence pool split.



Third,the flexibility. Spiritualist is an ethic that combos well with just about every playstyle, because- aside from AI- there's very little in the way of forcing synergies. Unlike, say, Egalitarian, which pairs with Xenophile due to neither liking enslaved slaves, spiritualist is compatible with any economic build. Slavery? Egalitarian? Militarist? Pacifist? Xenophobe? Xenophile? The only diplomatic/economic game spiritualist isn't great with is, well, synth AI. Which isn't nothing, but isn't everything either.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

You know, I've been looking at ethics and faction code today.

Spiritualist problem #1: Faction approval

• With no DLC or Ascension perks, your MAXIMUM spiritualist faction approval is 65%
• Spending one Ascension perk on Consecrate Worlds (or more likely two if you need World Shaper to make a Gaia) can bring you up to 70% approval in vanilla.
• With Utopia, you get +10% approval for the Mind over Matter perk, and Transcendence will flip you between +5% or -5% depending on your Shroud dives.
• With Ancient Relics, you can spend 2 relics for +5% approval for 10 years. Relics are (usually) a limited resource, though.

Having a constant 80% approval for the +10% happiness boost therefore requires two or three ascension perks, and you can never get a static approval rating over 80% so you will always be at risk of dropping under the threshold if you get a bad shroud outcome or want to terraform a Tomb World. And yes, that means using any robots at all generally inflicts a -5% happiness penalty on every spiritualist in your empire.

Most other factions can comfortably sit at 90% approval and not have to deal with this, and none of them require ascension perks to get there.

Spiritualist problem #2: Ethic attraction

Spiritualists are better at convincing their pops not to be Xenophiles than most other ethics, since they can spam Temples, but it's still a struggle until you Transcend. Without temples, a Fanatic Spiritualist empire whose ruler leads the faction and has a migration treaty and commercial pact with another Spiritualist empire has a tidy x13.5 to spiritualist ethics attraction. If you allow aliens migrating in from your spiritual ally to become leaders you're already looking at almost x12 to xenophile ethics without doing anything else, which handily beats the x9 to spiritualist attraction you drop to if the leader of your Traditionalist isn't ruling. If you happen to let a Charismatic alien in, that shoots up to x24. Mind over Matter brings spiritualist up to x22.3 and Transcendence get you to x40.1, but we're back to requiring several ascension perks again.

Do note that the tooltip that says there's a penalty to spiritualist attraction for pops living on the same planet as a robot is lying though - that's actually at x0.25 penalty to pops who ARE robots. As long as you don't give them full rights, robots actually have no effect on the spiritual ethics attraction of your other pops at all - they just hit you in the faction approval (and can't join the faction).

 

[Incompetent]

Another interesting thing about Spiritualists is that they are one of only two types of empire (the other is Driven Assimilators) with access to an assimilation Colossus. So on top of getting spiritualist attraction super high with psi ascension, temples and so on, you can just outright brainwash a colony, even one of your own colonies, once every few months. (The ethic is basically locked in for 10 years; not sure how long afterwards it sticks in practice.) This synergizes mainly with Gospel of the Masses, giving +0.33 trade value on almost every free pop (including on branch office colonies that you don't own directly). I think this kind of aggressive megachurch setup is one of the few where it could really make sense to go zero robots and just use Budding from day 1.

 

[Dragatus]

Spiritualist have actually been in a decent state since 3.0 when PDX made it so droids can work all specialist jobs. That made synths largely unnecessary, unless you're specifically going for synthetic ascension. And droids alone are something the spiritualist faction can grudgingly tolerate (-5% approval).

There was one problem though and that problem was Technocracy. The gimmick of the Spiritualist vs Materialist divide was that Spirtualists are supposed to have Unity and Materialists are supposed to have technology, but Technocracy allowed materialists to beat spirtualists at their own game. But now that Technocracy got nerfed that's no longer an issue and spiritualist is a normal ethic, with a clear purpose.

 

[Incompetent]

There was one problem though and that problem was Technocracy. The gimmick of the Spiritualist vs Materialist divide was that Spirtualists are supposed to have Unity and Materialists are supposed to have technology, but Technocracy allowed materialists to beat spirtualists at their own game. But now that Technocracy got nerfed that's no longer an issue and spiritualist is a normal ethic, with a clear purpose.

The go-to unity rush civic now seems to be Merchant Guilds, on a similar principle to Technocracy: it's not that the unity per Merchant is insane, but you're slapping unity on top of a pop that is already very productive and somewhat spammable. You can do it with any ethics, although if you're spamming Merchants, that effectively renders Priests obsolete.

 

[Archael90]

OP forgot about one think while saying that spiritualists main advantage is unity. Yes, spiritualists produces more unity, but unity on its own is not as important. It helps you get some traditions a little faster, but optimal materialist, or any other play can also helps with that, and at top of that - unity still is not as important since when you will get all traditions, you can easly get all ambitions be constantly played, and most of your temples and other unity sources became usless, well temples boost spiritualists ethic attraction, but it req building slot.

 

[DeanTheDull]

OP forgot about one think while saying that spiritualists main advantage is unity. Yes, spiritualists produces more unity, but unity on its own is not as important. It helps you get some traditions a little faster, but optimal materialist, or any other play can also helps with that, and at top of that - unity still is not as important since when you will get all traditions, you can easly get all ambitions be constantly played, and most of your temples and other unity sources became usless, well temples boost spiritualists ethic attraction, but it req building slot.

There's two caveats for this.

One is that first-mover advantage matters. 'Everyone will get their full ascension perks eventually' does not negate the first-mover advantage of unlocking traditions/ascensions for the same reason that 'everyone will eventually get all techs' doesn't change that getting more techs sooner is often decisive. Techs beat traditions because they're more reliable and less punishing cost increases (tech costs rise multiplicatively with admin sprawl but base costs don't change, tradition costs raise the base every tradition for an exponential curve), but getting more traditions earlier still unlocks potentially decisive advantages in the early and mid-game. Both key traditions (such as choosing when you can unlock the Supremacy tree vis-a-vis other economy boosters) and ascension perks (ie, ascension routes ready) being years or decades ahead of the competition is part of getting that super-snowball rolling.

The second is that end-game unity's mediocrity is almost certainly going to change in a few months. Multiple dev diaries have already signalled that the game is going to transfer from using bureaucrats to combat admin sprawl penalties to using unity. Depending on the form that counter takes, unity could easily become the chokepoint resource for later-game research, if every per-point of unity mitigates research penalties on par or surpases the effect of with every per-point added of science. Larger empires would need more unity-production than science production to mitigate their larger pop/system/planet admin sprawl just to make the same amount of progress into later tech repeatables and such.

 

[Dragatus]

Multiple dev diaries have already signalled that the game is going to transfer from using bureaucrats to combat admin sprawl penalties to using unity.

I'm nitpicking, but technically Beraucrats will still combat sprawl because they said they'll get rid of Culture Workers and use Bureaucrats as the main Unity producing job.

A more serious counter-point is that whatever the rework will be like, it's still months away and anyone wanting to play the game in the mean time has to do with the game as it is right now.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Which is fine, as long as we acknowledge that it's a time-limited issue, and not a fundamental issue for the indefinite future. Armies being largely useless is a fundamental issue- short of a comprehensive rework there's no significant strategic benefit for how, say, increasing defensive armies will help you win a war. Unity not being as useful later game is not- aside from shifting your economy as appropriate, this is likely to shift the other way in 6 months, so people shouldn't engrain 'unity is bad' without understanding that that's an unreliable rule of thumb that will need to be unlearned in the moderate future.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Who cares about unity? I hope everyone is aware of the fact that Science unlocks 1 Ascension perk from a tech. And since you need a bunch of science to gain access to the good Ascension perks in the first place (Ecus, Habitats, Megastructures, Colossus) there is no reason to focus too much on unity. Some tradition bonuses are very good but others are niche or lackluster while science is always a great investment.

Also don't forget the biggest slap in the fact towards Spiritualists, which was a design decision from the devs:

Edict slots.

Edict duration and edict cost modifiers were already a laughable bonus as is, but ever since Edict slots are a thing, these Spiritualist bonuses are even worse.

Paradox turned Spiritualists into a meme by design and this has not changed for years. (Atleast from someone who has been playing since Megacorp). Feel free to point out any timeline of the game where Spiritualists were strong. You won't find any unless you count the time when Synth Ascension was breaking the game.

Also the devs have pointed out multiple times that some changes are by design, so I think we have to accept that Spiritualists are supposed to be a meme by design. Just like the Feudal Society civic. That doesn't mean we are happy about it though. I myself enjoy the game much more with Stefan's perfectly balanced mod since it turns Spiritualists into an actual competitive way to play.

 

[Gali77]

Spiritualists are quite weak at the moment. The upcoming unity and sprawl rework will probably make them stronger. Also they could just give the spiritualist ethic plus1/2 edict capacity rather than that pathetic edict cost reduction and it would help make the ethic better

 

[theBigTurnip385]

Trade Builds smash every spiritualist (priest based) on unity production.

And the Trade King is a Mega Church running Corporate Hedonism using a vassal initiated Trade Federation (This gives you spiritualist ethics attraction from the federation)

at 50% empire spiritualists, which is trivial to achieve, your pops on average generate 0.665 trade which is easily multiplied by 100% fairly early on, this gives 1.33 trade per pop.

Which breaks down to 0.665 energy, .33 Cg, .33 unity per pop.

Those numbers only go up at 100% spiritualists and 150% trade multiplier each pop generates around
1 ec, 0.5, cg, 0.5 unity

Your specialists have no CG up keep costs
Your workers generate CG
Your leaders have around 0.5 CG (around normal specialist level)

 

[Oculument]

Shroud Ascension

Authority: Imperial
Civics: Fanatic Purifier, Functional Architecture
Ethics: Fanatic Xenophobe, Spiritualist
Traits: Intelligent, Natural Engineers, Traditional, Solitary, Unruly,
Origin: Clone Army
Suggested Ascension Path: Ascendant Clone, Psionic, Crisis
End Game Crisis Strength: 25X

Build robots and droids after clone capacity is reached, all clones should be specialists. Build habitats staffed by only technician or mining robots (the no ruler hab works because robots and droids don't have happiness). Conquer other empires to take their robots. Never recognize AI rights or you will purge your own robots. Do not research synth tech or sapient combat computers until after the AI rebellion. AI will rebel sometime after you conquer synths. Defeat the AI rebellion when it happens. Megastructures for energy, minerals, and unity are very helpful. Take the Subterfuge tradition to supplement research via tech stealing. Stack naval upkeep reductions. Your 100 pop limit of clones is no limitation at all to building and staffing 6000 points worth of naval capacity, but having 6000 naval capacity will require fortresses manned with robots, so make your robot species rights have "soldier only" military service and not "exempt". Blowing up the galaxy before the end game crisis spawns will prevent any need for a 6000 point fleet. Maximize fun by fighting and beating the end game crisis and then blowing up the galaxy anyway.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Shroud Ascension

Authority: Imperial
Civics: Fanatic Purifier, Functional Architecture
Ethics: Fanatic Xenophobe, Spiritualist
Traits: Intelligent, Natural Engineers, Traditional, Solitary, Unruly,
Origin: Clone Army
Suggested Ascension Path: Ascendant Clone, Psionic, Crisis
End Game Crisis Strength: 25X

Build robots and droids after clone capacity is reached, all clones should be specialists. Build habitats staffed by only technician or mining robots (the no ruler hab works because robots and droids don't have happiness). Conquer other empires to take their robots. Never recognize AI rights or you will purge your own robots. Do not research synth tech or sapient combat computers until after the AI rebellion. AI will rebel sometime after you conquer synths. Defeat the AI rebellion when it happens. Megastructures for energy, minerals, and unity are very helpful. Take the Subterfuge tradition to supplement research via tech stealing. Stack naval upkeep reductions. Your 100 pop limit of clones is no limitation at all to building and staffing 6000 points worth of naval capacity, but having 6000 naval capacity will require fortresses manned with robots, so make your robot species rights have "soldier only" military service and not "exempt". Blowing up the galaxy before the end game crisis spawns will prevent any need for a 6000 point fleet. Maximize fun by fighting and beating the end game crisis and then blowing up the galaxy anyway.

Tlr: You're getting carried by Clone army, one of the most overpowered Origins together with Scion for an easy win. Nothing new to see here.

 

[Oculument]

Tlr: You're getting carried by Clone army, one of the most overpowered Origins together with Scion for an easy win. Nothing new to see here.

I forgot to mention Starnet. So it's actually tricky to manage because early conquests net no pops and few robots, and research starts to fall behind other empires in the midgame. Then all remaining neighbor empires join a federation because they have a common rival. I asssure you, it is quite sportsmanlike.

 

[Azhcristokos]

Feel free to point out any timeline of the game where Spiritualists were strong.

Wayyyyy back when in 1.4, Fanatic Spiritualist/Collectivist was a popular thing because it ensured a politically unified empire and smooth integration of conquered xenos, whereas any other build except Fanatic Individualist would result in political fracturing and irritated pops (not that that mattered too much). But ethics divergence based on distance from capital (thankfully) went the way of the Irassians and Spiritualists have been tied to unity ever since, if I recall (ethics were getting overhauled every patch back then).

Edit 2: Back then, Authoritarian was Collectivist and Egalitarian was Individualist.

 

[currylambchop]

Tlr: You're getting carried by Clone army, one of the most overpowered Origins together with Scion for an easy win. Nothing new to see here.

Clone army is uniquely strong with spiritualist psionic, compared to materialist synth ascension

 

[MateuszS]

Spiritualist is not the strongest ethic, but nevertheless fun to play if you want to mess in other empires: egalicarian treehugger (ban robots and industry! promote equality!) or megacorp (have you heard about our Lord, Almighty Dollar?).

 

[theBigTurnip385]

Clone Army with death cult equals mega high production