Now that Lem has been out for a bit: ascended or descended clones?

[Azhcristokos]

My biggest concern with the ascended clones is being forever stuck with negative traits chosen at creation and the ancient clone vats taking up a lot of space before I have access to upgraded labs and such to provide jobs for all the clone pops in the early game. But descended clones felt a tad lackluster since Clone Army encourages you to acquire xenos who can grow naturally for you.

Which path do you prefer and why? And if you like ascended, how do you generally distribute your vats and do you ever move them?

 

[Fenris_SE]

I just went with the ascended clones and it worked out fine for my playthrough anyway. I only gave them intelligent, so no negative traits to worry about. I also went materialist and fanatic militarist for even more tech boosting and fire rate. I pushed through the Supremacy tradition first (which I never do) for even more fire rate. Went with No Retreat, which again is something I never do lol. And the first stage of cybernetics for a little bit more fire rate. All to together Clone Admirals can get over 100% extra fire rate, so it was like having a fleet that was twice as big, as long as I used long range weapons and fired first.

For extra pops I just bounced my envoys around getting migration treaties. And with pushing tech it wasn't long before I could start making gaia worlds, so no negative effects from pops who migrated in. And for those that migrated in, they were all set to residence (so not sure why they'd want to join my empire lol). Had everyone set to decadent lifestyle, so even the residence had a 10% happiness boost in total. Also used the masterful crafters civic to help offset the extra consumer goods being used up from the decadent lifestyle.

For the vats, I just kept 2 on the home world, put two more on another world, and one on a third world. I never bothered to move them around. I think the hardest part for me was in the start, the clones grow so fast I was having trouble coming up with enough minerals to keep building so they'd have houses and jobs. But after that settled down it was more like a normal game, just with really OP Admirals.

I haven't tried the Clone Fertility route yet. Just seemed like that wouldn't be as fun tbh.

 

[evilcat]

Yes.
I think that both are good compared to other origins.
Ascension is better. You get super cheaper armies, you can create 3-4 very efficient science worlds at start.
And you are left with super admirals for the rest of the game.
After first couple conquest you dont exacly care, since critical mass of pops is gain, and at least one of conquered specie will be worth something.

Fertility, if you do functional architecture/prosperity start you probably will have close to 100 pops at 30y which is better than what you get from peaceful unification. And you still have small bonus to fleet admirals.

Note: You might end in part of galaxy with FE, Maschines, and Gestalts and great void. Ascension is better on paper but sometimes the enviroment favours fertility.
You can sign migration pacts, your clones will not run away. Or conquere someone. Or primitives. Also when you reach clone maximum you can actually droid.

 

[Derp Throat]

Ascended all the way. That's why you picked the origin.

Decended clones turns you into regular pops.

 

[Surimi]

As others have said, ascension is great.

One thing I learned is that you can set species to have citizen rights but not allow them to become military leaders. This means you can give alien pops full citizenship, have a harmonious multi-species empire and still have your admirals only be drawn from the clone species, making the limited numbers kind of a non-issue. Psionic ascended clone admirals, in particular, are just unstoppable. Cybernetic ascended clone admirals are also an option if you want to be materialist or need to save on ascension perks.

But clone army is so overpowered that even the descendant option is extremely strong. The admiral trait still gives 3 times as much fire rate as the normal aggressive trait, for example, so you could go down that route, have an incredibly boosted start due to the fast clone growth rates and transition to playing a normal game with an extremely powerful trait.

One thing I've been meaning to try is ascended clone fanatic purifiers. It would be a total meme, but I'm kind of curious as to how possible it is.

 

[majikero]

Ascended is super OP and all its downsides basically non-existent because you can just take pops from someone else and make sure only your clone pops get full military service so your admirals will be from superior clone pops. Descended is still more than normal. They're the anti-synths though since you lose your superior clone powers if you go synthetic. Pairs well with psionics for unlimited power.

 

[Dragatus]

Don't worry about being stuck with negative traits from the start if you go Ascendant. Given how you have 100 clone pops max, several negative traits are basically a free pass. Unruly will give you at most +5 sprawl, Wasteful will give you at most +10 CG upkeep (and that only if you run Utopian Abundance), and Solitary is almost a free pick for everyone ever since the 3.0 pop growth rework.

 

[Tetranet]

Solitary is a free pick for everyone ever since the 3.0 pop growth rework.

* Tweaked carrying capacity formula to make housing usage modifiers more useful again (instead of taking total housing, it now takes total pops plus free housing).

3.1 'Lem' Patch Notes

 

[Dragatus]

I know, but it's still an almost free pick. You just need to provide +1 housing per 10 pops and the further the game progresses the slower pop growth gets, so it becomes increasingly easy to just build an extra City District on your new colony and call it a day.

And sure, losing two Technicians or Metallurgists in order to get 1 or 2 Clerks would be bad. But the thing is you won't actually lose them because you won't have enough pops to work all the jobs the new planet could possibly provide anyway. So really the cost is 500 Minerals for construction and 2 Energy per month.

 

[Ryika]

I know, but it's still a free pick. [...] So really the cost is 500 Minerals for construction and 2 Energy per month.

Then it's not free. A very good pick with very little actual negative impact, agreed, but not free.

Which might seem like semantics, but I think it's important to be accurate here, since the perk was literally free before the patch, with no negative impact at all if you were playing a standard strategy that attempted to max out bonus growth. That is no longer the case.

 

[klopkr]

It's too hard to pick descended. Why did I even start as clones in the first place?

Maybe I need a good RP.

 

[Dragatus]

Okay, fine. If you insist on nitpicking I'll edit it from "free pick" to "almost free pick".