Hi, I have played the game every now and the over the years, but always end up playing psionics or deadly death robots of death. Most of the time I don't even want to conquer the universe, but I always get attacked and then I am forced to defend myself.
Is there a nice build where I can just sit in my corner of the galaxy, keep to myself and no get bothered by the rest of those nitwits? Maybe a corporation with the ringworld origin? Any ideas? I have to admit, that there are builds that I never tried. Like the void dwellers or any plantoid or lithoid save.
I am not a min maxer, more like a role player, so is there any interesting build that would suit my style? I had hiped Necromages would to the thing, but they play like any other race I guess.
Tree of Life Hivemind, Plantoid with the budding, adaptive and phototropic traits, with the Ascetic, Catalytic Converter, and (Eventually) Empath. Memorialist is a substitute for Catalytic converter if that's banned to you. Take Unyielding as your first Tradition. Go for Mastery of Nature, Hive Worlds, and Voiddweller.
Hivemind because you can use that extra influence to expand faster early, and then parlay it into habitats without worrying about factions. Being forced to use other empires as livestock mitigates some of the expansion appeal. Bio-ascension being the only ascension mitigates both psionics and robotics reliance.
Tree of Life because it has nice happiness/growth bonuses, is hive-mind unique, and combos nicely with catalytic converters. Yes, you can put the saplings on your habitats.
Race
Plantoids for phototropic and budding.
Phototrophic halves food upkeep and shifts the cost to energy. On its own, this would mean that you don't need a farming world early, as starbase hydroponic bays with 10 food would support 20 pops. With 'just' 5 starbases, you could support 100 pops food needs. Meanwhile, Gestalt starbases with solar panels (6 energy each) would support 24 pops each. These numbers scale (slightly) with techs to about 25 pops per tier 1 starbase.
*With Catalytic Converter, this keeps your alloy resource budget high in the early game, and sustainable in the longer game.
Budding because the bio pop assembly stacks with the spawning pools, and these are your only growing pops early game.
Adaptive recommended because without migration pacts/non-livestock aliens until you get bio-ascended, this is a 5% growth and 5% job output on other worlds until it's replaced on ascension. Rapid breeders is also exclusive to budding, but budding and adaptive can co-exist.
Civics
Aescetic for the habitability (and thus growth) buff and amenities saving.
Catalytic Converter. By separating your alloy from your mineral budget, you can afford to build more buildings and employ more scientists earlier without worrying about your mineral economy, while starbase food covers your early-game alloy upkeep needs while letting you use pops for alloy production rather than upkeep. Very, very easy to get exceptionally good alloy production early game to defend yourself from unruly neighbors. Will also combo with Tree of Life's extra farming districts once your pop economy starts snowballing.
Empath: To mitigate diplomacy penalty and improve envoys. Envoys make for friends you don't need to defend yourself against. Also an easier time to make yourself galactic custodian for more influence for more habitats.
Tradition: Unyielding
Unyielding is great for hive minds, who get the most out of early starbases thanks to solar panels. Every tier 1 starbase is worth about 3.5-4 worker drones of farmers/energy workers, and the +4 starbase/-50% upkeep cost makes the worker-to-alloy ratio far superior to early game robots from robot assembly. (It takes well into the first century for robot factories to make the same return on the alloy/energy investment, and hives have bio-assembly from the start). The solar panels/hydroponic bays are even better with the phototropic perk to mitigate the upkeep entirely early-game. The de-facto free pops from +4 starbase economy make the expansion tree a second, rather than first, pick. The +4 hydroponics bays (+40 food a month) also goes a
long way in getting your tree-of-life colony ships (which cost far, far more food) up and running.
After the colony phase, this combos very nicely with catalytic converter's food-to-alloy potential, as the hydroponics bays of those starbases easily feeds the early-game alloy workers without needing to spend a pop in job upkeep like a mineral-alloy worker. This means you can employ more alloy workers early, affording these starbases and modules early. Even just 4 extra alloy workers in the first decades will add up to considerable alloy stockpiles.
The unity-for-fortress buildings can make easy use of early building slot openings for a very low investment. No pops required, just ~400 minerals for a 3-unity-for-one-energy conversion. This can easily drive your early-game unity production to get into your second tree before your Tree of Life colony ships are reasonably affordable, meaning you won't be missing out on the colony ship pops for most of your stuff.
Ascensions:
Not a meta-build, but for a pop-build.
Mastery of Nature and Void Dweller are about getting the most size out of your planets. More available districts = more pop growth potential. Hive world is where these pops go.
Depending on how early you rival someone, you can easily reach influence over-flow in the early game if you aren't claiming enemy systems. Mastery of Nature is a good influence sink for that, letting your influence go to a productive use rather than wasting it after you Executive Vigor +2 edicts trait but before habitats become a thing.
A Ascension route could be-
Executive Vigor- 2 Civics (Use of Farming and Energy worker edicts for maximum effect)
Mastery of Nature - For larger planets in your 'tall' empire once expansion stops
Voidborne - Habitats for internal development. 100% habitability, and thus growth.
Bio Ascension 1 - Clone Labs
Bio Ascension 2 - The full deal. Super-breeder and super-smart.
Hive Worlds - 100% habitability, and better growth.
Galactic Wonders - Get dose mega-structures
Master Builders - Get more of dose mega-structures (including habitat spam)
All together, you should-
-Have a strong catalytic food-or-alloy balance flexible enough to support early fleets, early expansion,
or early starbases that provide food/energy for the economy.
-A strong starting worker economy (without workers) as +4 starbases and -50% starbase upgrade cost means you get 8 T1 starbases for the price of 4, and with hydroponics/solar panels can get +80 food/+96 energy pop-free in the first two decades.
-A strong starting science economy as starbases cover food/energy needs early on, freeing up those drones to be scientists. And with catalytic, because don't need miners for alloys, scientist drones are competing for less of the mineral budget, which lets you build buildings earlier and fewer early-game reductions to your mineral income.
-Exceptional pop growth snowballing, as the growth boost from Tree of Life and habitability is paralleled by spawning pool and budding and clone vats and hive worlds. Even more when habitats start being constructed regularly.
-Exceptional alloy production capability. While you need to delay it to get the high-food-cost colony ships, with the starbase 80 food you can afford a lot more alloys early on, more than normal organics (or alloy-eating robot-producers especially).
-Great food production. Tree of life's natural farming districts mean that planets are a lot less limited in planet RNG for districts. Adaptive tradition also opens building slots for more hydroponic farm buildings. Much easier to afford the cloning building food upkeep. When hive worlds come online, food districts are limited solely to planet size.
-Pure 100% habitability late game between hive worlds and habitats.
