Pearl Divers as Technicians: Thoughts on the Angler Economy (and Possible Balance Tweaks)

[DeanTheDull]

Organizing thoughts on the Angler civic's economy. I've some differing views than some of the initial response, disagreement is expected, etc. etc.


This is mostly for fleshing out and ttesting my own thought organization, but I've also for looking at what could help balance things the most in a post-release patch. Hopefully my (lack of?) understanding of the design considerations makes the suggestions more appealing.



Agenda

Four Parts:

1. Mechanics Review
2. Pearl Divers Analysis
(AKA "Pearl Divers should be compared to Technicians, not Artisans," the screed)
3. No, they aren't Merchants Either
4. No, I'm not saying Technicians are obsolete (just unnecessary)
5. Balance Tweaks and Suggestions






Part 1: Mechanics Review: What does it do?



Currently the Angler Civic's mechanical changes are this:



Angler Civic

• Main species gains the aquatic trait (NOT OPTIONAL)
• No Agriculture District limit on Ocean Worlds (capped by planet size, not district roll)
• Replaces Farmer jobs with Angler jobs on wet climates (includes continental/tropical)
• Agriculture Districts create Pearl Diver jobs on wet climates
• −50 Agriculture District Minerals Cost on wet climates

*This civic can not be added or removed after game start.



Core So What: Cheaper and more plentiful farm districts on your guaranteed core worlds. Food and CG will not be meaningfully limited by food district/mineral district or space deposit RNG. However, currently inflexible- can not be reformed out of (or into)*.
*Possibly for technical reasons, if you were to reform out of it after having build excess farm districts on planets that can't support them.


Aquatic Trait (Required for main species)

• Ocean Habitability +20% (10% productivity/growth on guaranteed colonies)
• Housing usage on Ocean Worlds -10% (better growth capacity)
• Dry and Frozen planet habitability -20% (-10% productivity/growth)
• Housing usage on dry and frozen planets +30% (lower capacity/growth)
• Hydrocentric ascension perk boosts all effects by 50%

*Habitats, Ringworlds, Ecumenopoli, and Gaia Worlds get not bonuses or penalties.



Core So What: Your empire’s guaranteed core will be stronger and grow faster due to habitability; all guaranteed worlds will default to 100% habitability. Non-wet worlds are substantially worse for worker-roles unless you use xeno-pops or robots. End-game economy revolves around ocean-worlds serving as resource worlds to feed Ecumenopoli, Ringworld, and/or Habitats specialist centers.



Angler Job

• 8 food (8.8 when Aquatic factored in; realistically 10 on home world with stability)
• 2 trade (2.5 if Thrifty trait)
• Worker-tier CG upkeep

Core So What: The strongest job of the civic. A much stronger farmer who not only provides food, but subsidizes the rest of the empire thru trade.On the home world, even base 8 food is equivalent to a farmer-designated colony’s output. In a sense, this makes your home world food production per-pop equivalent to another empire’s designated farmworld, saving you the need for a designated farmworld in your starting three guaranteed ocean-worlds.



Pearl Diver

• 3 CG (3.75 if Civilian Economy; realistically 4 on home world with stability and Civilian Economy)
• 2 trade (2.5 if Thrifty trait)
• -2 food/-2 mineral job upkeep
• Specialist-tier: Increased CG upkeep (~.25 CG per pop excess compared to workers)

Core So What: The most controversial part of the Civic. Not as good at CG production as an artificer. Strongest starting-game CG production economy of all. The core of writing this review.





Part 2: What’s the Deal with Pearl Divers?



Pearl Divers compare poorly against Artisans on a one-for-one job level.



Artisans- the basic CG worker- take 1 pop to produce 6 CG with 6 minerals before modifiers are applied. Pearl Divers take 2 pops to produce 6 CG with 4 minerals. While this is a better mineral conversion ratio than even a CG-centric world (20% saving means 4.8 minerals per 6 CG produced base value), it’s not as good a pop conversion ratio. Further, the CG-worker efficiency improves over time- as miners get better at producing minerals, as CG-centric worlds get 20% upkeep- but pearl divers don’t keep up, as trade value doesn’t get as many tech benefits.





There’s just one problem with this analysis: Pearl Divers are not a substitute for Artisans.



They’re a substitute for Technicians.


Hear me out- this is the meat of this post.


Despite being Specialists like Artisans, and producing CG like Artisans, analysis for how Pearl Divers ‘fit’ into the game’s economy becomes more apparent when you compare them to the humble home world technician, itself a product of a resource district. If you shift your framing of Pearl Diver as a ‘substitutes energy for CG’ job, rather than an industrial district job, and compare it with it’s sister job of Anglers in a farmer and technician comparison of the pops you'd normally employ as workers, you start to draw a different picture.





Let me make a case.





First, understand the infrastructure basis of comparison. Artisans are tied to Industrial districts, and on the home world you only get 1 per district. That means 1 Industrial district costs about the same minerals as 2 farm districts, has the upkeep of 2 farm districts, and we get into our twice the pops and twice the admin sprawl per 6 CG comparison. There are uses to this, but we’re working from a paradigm that fixates on the resource unit- 6 CG- rather than pops-to-district-roles. If you compare 1 pop from 1 district to 2 pops from 2 districts, the frame of reference becomes unstable- are we caring about the resources produced, or the number of pops producing, or the resource per pop, or the upkeep, or-



Comparing farmer and generator districts provides a more stable comparison. You’re using the same number of pops in 2 districts, for roughly equivalent district costs, and you already have pops employed like this at game start. The home world is your core economic unit in the early game, the source of all early worker-job energy and minerals, and what goes on there in the first 3 years matters more than most, if not all, colonies for the first 50. Until you can move workers to the colonies, this is what you have to work with, and what they produce affects what your colonies will prioritize.



The Farmer-Technician 4-pop Comparison



Compare what you have on your home world between having 2 farm districts as a Angler, and a farm district and a generator district as a normal empire, each fully employed as per a starting home world.



With 2 Anglers and 2 Pearl Divers, an Angler’s 2 districts provide-


16 food (Angler) - 4 food (Pearl) + 6 CG (Pearl) -4 mineral (Pearl) + 8 Energy (Trade) (- net CG upkeep of 2 specialists- let’s call that .25 each, or .5 average. Could be lower OR higher.)
or
12 Food + 8 Energy and -4 mineral +5.5 CG




Compare that with a 2 district farmer/miner combo at base levels, and you get-

12 food (2 base-6 farmers) + 12 energy (2 base-6 technicians)





Your net in this 4 pop comparison is…

0 food
-4 mineral
-4 energy
+5.5 CG

Note that there’s no net food here- the Pearl Diver eats the +2 food base gain Anglers get on the home world.



This is part of the reason for comparing to a generator district: the difference between these four worker-district jobs isn’t in the food output, but the mineral/energy/CG. 4 energy and 4 minerals for 5.5 CG.



But also note that while this is -4 energy relative to 2 generators/2 farmers, it’s still 6 energy produced- the 4 Angler/Pearl pops are producing 2 trade-energy each for 8 energy total, and the two districts are only consuming 2 of that. You are making energy even without the generators.



This means that Pearl Divers provide enough trade-energy to buy their own mineral upkeep off the market.
(Almost. But they will- trust me.)


This is a major implication, and a distinct from Industrial districts. Even Artificers- the Masterful Crafter upgrade to Artisans that produce 2 trade value- are only covering their own District's upkeep on the homeworld. With Pearl Divers, you don't need any miner pops employed outside of this context to upkeep the CG production afloat, because the CG job itself covers its own mineral purchases up to the first 50 minerals or so. Which- given the prior favorable conversion rate- is up to about 75 CG, with no tail-end miner support required. The Angler pair, on the other hand, is covering the upkeep cost of the district and sparing some to subsidize the empire. Just on base levels it’s a self-contained, self-sustaining economic unit.



Is that worth it? Arguable, but why start arguing from this conversion?



Remember that this civic requires we take Aquatic as a perk. This boosts food and energy production by 10%. But if you’re working with trade, why not build in Thrifty as well for 25% trade from jobs? Let’s ignore stability, except to simply the CG calculation to a flat 6 and say stability covered the specialist upkeep (at 61 stability, a fanatic egalitarian is producing 3.5 CG per specialist, so we’re hedging for simplicity). Apply those to both scenarios for your starting home world.



Here we get

Angler: 13.6 food + 10 (trade) energy -4 mineral + 6 CG
Norm (Aquatic): 13.2 food + 13.2 energy



For new Angler net of
+.4 food
-3.2 energy
-4 mineral
+6 CG



Is this starting to look more tempting? About 7 energy/minerals for 6 CG? It can get better. If we have a non-aquatic comparison- say because someone took Intelligent or Rapid Breeder instead for the species build-


Norm (Non-Aquatic): 12 food + 12 energy


For Angler net of

+1.6 food
-2 energy
-4 minerals
+6 CG



Now buy 4 minerals for about 4 trade energy, forgive the market conversion handwave here, let’s sell all that surplus food to make it even when we rounded the CG earlier...



Your net Pear Diver vs Technician 2 district/4 pop block is now-

-6 energy - the basic value of 1 homeworld technician
+6 CG - the basic value of 1 homeworld artisan



I’ll say again: the proper basis of comparison for Pearl Divers isn’t Artisans. It’s technicians.

Pearl divers are trading less-but-still-sufficient early-game energy for more CG, but are fundamentally still fulfilling a worker-pop upkeep role. They are doing so in a way that doesn't need any external pops supporting them- no miners or artisans- allowing those miner or artisans pops you'd otherwise need to do more interesting CG-hungry things.





(But wait, there’s more: we don’t really need to sell the whole 1.6 unit of food, and if you adopt Civilian Economy you can get 25% more CG. So really more like
-6 Energy
+1 food
+7.5 CG
…while still making an actual 6 energy every 2 work districts/4 pops.)

(Also, you can sell the CG for 1.4 energy a unit even before the galactic market. 7.5 CG is worth 10.5 energy if sold at 1.4 a unit, the starting amount at 30% penalty, so…)




Part 3: No, they aren't Merchants Either

An addenum to counter a different claim: that Pearl Divers should be compared to Merchants, who can be spammed via Commercial Districts once you have the Mercantile position.

On a job-to-job comparison, there is no contest in output: 3 CG and 2 TV (-2 mineral/-2food) doesn't match 12 TV. Merchants with the Consumer Benefits trade policy can be getting 3CG and 6 TV, better than the 3 CG/2TV production of Pearl Divers with a pure energy trade policy.



This is true, but also irrelevant- Merchants are incapable of fulfilling the strategic role of Pearl Divers.




The strategic role of Pearl Divers, as argued above, is worker-tier upkeep. Pearl diver CG and TV-energy is fundamentally useful in that it allows other pops to be more interesting specailist jobs. The support capacity doesn't become clear without the technician-farmer comparison of part 2, since it works in concert with Anglers rather than alone, but fundamentally you are using worker jobs which you already need to support specialists. They don't need miners until you have 25 of them, they have their own Anglers for food (and more energy), they're incredibly self-sustaining and very good at supporting specialists.


Merchant-spam is mutually exclusive with employing specialists.


The Merchant's value is that that 1 merchant can provide 12-15 energy in trade value depending on Thrifty. (I'll stick to non-thrifty and use 2TV Pearls for any comparisons here). That's 10-13 net energy if you build a 2-energy upkeep Commerce building, and 8-11 if you build a 2-energy city district to support it. All of those are significantly stronger than a technician job, which I compared the Angler to, and with that energy you can easily buy off miners and even farmers more competitively. Since pop efficiency is a big deal, Merchants are a big deal. They are, in effect, super-efficient workers or farmers (to the first 50 minerals you can buy off the market in monthly trades) as well as better technicians.

But Merchant spamming requires a building slot, and that makes Merchants mutually-exclusive with all the other building-based specialist jobs- which are CG hungry- that your empire needs to thrive.

Pearl Divers- being based on a farm district (that costs significant less for the same CG) that are uncapped on Wet worlds- are not mutually exclusive, even as they provide the same CG to the workers who could be in that slot instead.




This gets even more clear when you consider the implications of Aquatic trait. In exchange for +20% habitability on Ocean worlds (including your guaranteed worlds), you get -20% on your off-biome cold/dry worlds. This means your second-best planets are default 60% habitaiblity, and your tertiaries are 20%.

Habitability is a malus to job production of -.5% output per habitability. This applies to ALL jobs, including specialists. Your second-best worlds (that you could build pearl divers on) are getting 20% job output bonuses. You can't even build the Angler districts on the bad colonies, and would be getting 40% job penaltiess if you tried.

This makes job placement on your inner core really important for any job that scales, because a specialist job (like scientist) that's not using a building slot on the ocean world is getting up to a 40% malus- such as producing 2.4 science a scientist rather than 4. And they're getting higher amenity requirements for the trouble, meaning lower stability, etc. etc. etc.

But you know what job doesn't care about Habitability, and produces it's own amenities and more?

Merchants.

Merchants aren't in competition with Pearl Divers- they supplement them on entirely different worlds. Merchants are what you want to be building in your outer low-habitability colonies where you couldn't employ Pearl Divers and wouldn't want to be building any specialist (but Bureaucrats) anyway. When they come online they provide the energy output to 'catch up' to the Pearl Diver's weak energy worker economy, which itself was sufficient to carry the early game.


So no, Pearl Divers aren't Merchants either.


Pearl Divers are Technicians who make the (better) trade of energy-for-CG.




Part 4: No, I'm not saying Technicians are obsolete (just unnecessary)


All of this isn’t to say that Technicians don’t have their edge and place if energy is your priority. A general point about Pearl Divers have made about Artisans- that Artisans scale better over time- remains true in principle.

-Energy jobs can get 25% from colony designation; Trade can only get 20% boost (everywhere) from Mercantile tradition.
-Energy can get another +60% from techs; Trade has not techs, and can only be boosted up to 50% (everywhere) with a max-cohesion Trade Federation.
-Energy can’t be boosted by +2 per technician job with the appropriate building. Trade doesn’t. (Though Pearl Divers DO get the +CG from Fabricator upgrades, and the CG has a higher trade value and Market rates can be lowered, but then CG-boosting tech doesn’t scale like energy tech…)
-The very aquatics trait you are forced to have boosts energy production on ocean worlds by 10%, and energy gains can be further stacked with more modifiers through gene-modding. Trade is limited to Thrifty 25%.


If energy from jobs is your priority, you can do better than pearl drivers.

But when in the game will energy-jobs be your priority? Your third colony? Your fifth? Until you tech-rush a dyson sphere?

And where- in an Aquatics build- will you be putting them? An Aquatic on a Desert world generator farm is quite possibly literally a fish out of water, with 40% penalties.


This is where the impact of economy shifting starts causing strategic rebalances in second and third order effects, and that by substituting for technicians a Pearl Diver is causing macro-economic shifts in your strategy. By being good enough to push the need for generator worlds to the right, Anglers can also produce a surplus of CG while meeting their empire's core energy needs. And by producing a surplus of CG, the Homeworld doesn't need to spend time or minerals on building an Industrial District to support scientists, letting you spend the minerals on science labs directly.

But a consequence of not building industrial districts on the homeworld for CG is that you'll lack alloys that come with it. But in not needing the CG OR the energy, suddenly one of your two guaranteed worlds starts looking ideal for a Dedicated alloy world, especially as Aquatic perk raises habitability to 100% just like the homeworld and now you get alloy-designation upkeep savings. But those inputs will need to come from some worker job, preferably not your capital. So your third colony is a resource world of the type of your alloy economy.

But if you feed it via Catalytic Converters, you'll be using Anglers, who- by virtue of trade- are providing more energy and once again pushing any need for an energy world to the right. While the districts are also providing Pearl Divers, who are once providing not just energy but also CG that you don't need another Consumer Good world or artisan district to produce, letting you dedicate your next world to something other than CG or energy.

But if your next world isn't an ocean, you have fewer uses for it. Bueracracy, sure, but what else? If you're aquatic, your best energy generator on these worlds will be trade, meaning...

Etc. etc. etc. If you haven't caught on yet, Anglers should be going deep on a science build, which has its own implications for Traditions (Discovery is higher value; Trade Federation a near-must), which has its own knock-off effects (Materialist, Egalitarian, Xenophile are best ethics to maximize science, specialists, diplomacy), which leads to more strategic considerations, etc. etc. etc...

This is where Anglers should be finding their strategic niche- not in its CG production vis-à-vis artisans, but its CG conversion vis-à-vis Technicians and generator districts you you'd be otherwise producing to support otherwise non-trade producing jobs. As long as the Pearl Divers (and Anglers) are good enough at substituting for technicians, you won't need to build technicians, and the fact that you're negating the need for Artisans in the process is a consequence, not a cause, of the Pearl Diver's role.



Because Pear Divers are a substitute for the Technicians, not the Artisans.





Part 5: Balance Tweaks and Suggestions


Not thinking that Anglers civic is really bad doesn't mean I don't think it could be better. If Paradox rebalances the jobs, here are my own recommendations for modest buffs, aiming for more mid-game power scaling so that players don't feel that Pearl Divers start weak (they aren't) and are stuck there (they are)..





The single most relevant one:



Make the Civic Replaceable (Or Tell Us Why It Can’t Be)

Justification: Pearl Divers has a place in its early-game CG production when minerals are limited and the comparison to technicians is advantageous, but it’s lack of scaling hurts it as the game goes on. Eventually you will want pure-energy production to fund terraforming, or pure CG production to fund more science, and the early-game advantage becomes a mid-and-late game liability. For people who like to focus on that, being locked-in to an obsolete specialist job every farm district they build is a needless tax on the mind.



Even if there was no other change to mechanic, knowing that you could reform out of the civic- and the job combo- would cement this build’s role as an early-game advantage civic. And that’s fine! Not all civics can be- or are- equally strong all game long. But players who prioritize the flexibility chafe at the current forming which punishes you with a specialist job you don’t want when the farm district job you do want is built.



And if that’s not possible for technical reasons- if it’s a mechanical/coding stability issue from if you built more farm districts than your planet should be able to support without the civic- just let it be known, so that it doesn’t seem as arbitrary.









Actual Changes:



Trickle Up Economics: Add +1 Trade to Pearl Divers and/or Anglers

Justification: This tradition From the Mercantile tree is a core for trade builds in making clerks significantly more suitable. For Anglers, it would incentivize players into maximizing their trade potential for the civic, and help them visualize the importance of viewing Pearl Divers as Technician rather than Artisan substitutes. It would also serve as a very useful/timely upgrade to the jobs, giving extra longevity and sence of progression that’s largely limited due to the lack of boosting techs for trade. Both pearl divers and anglers would be at least half-as-good trade production as clerks, and while trade-specific % modifiers (like Mercantile) would still benefit clerks more, they could be self-justified on the strength of the other half of their production.





Hydroponics Farm: Unlock an additional +1 Angler job (from 1 -> 2)

Justification: Hydroponics bays currently only add +1 angler, which- while good on a per-pop basis- does suffer from struggling to keep up with early pop growth in a catalytic build. Building farm districts is sadly not the solution either, because the specialist-nature of pearl divers means that building a farm district robs you of the farmer pop- to a job that consumes food- when you explicitly want to be building more farmers. And that’s without the admin sprawl concern, which will likely get worse next year with the pending rework.



Hydroponics bays are a partial solution since they don’t come with pearl divers, but the limit of one job per building slot limits that. You need to invest in a city district to unlock the building, and then the building, meaning you’re still limited anglers = planet district size, only you’re paying 800 extra minerals and +3 energy to avoid the pearl diver employment tax. Yes, you get extra planet capacity, but that's not worth that much, and the Angler isn't producing enough trade to cover it's own cost. if you had two anglers, though, you'd have 4 trade value to cover the 3 energy upkeep and still subsidize the empire, fitting the overall build theme.


Providing the +1 Angler as an upgrade option open a later-game economic development path for established colonies, something to do other than let colonies sit stagnant once max farm districts are built and pearl diver jobs disabled. Replacing farm districts with city districts and then building the buildings for the net +1 Angler job/-1 Pearl Job would further empire specialization (as, at this time, the CG from pearl divers is likely obsolete bar some other buff), and lean more into the Aquatic trait role of maximizing menial jobs. The building upgrade shouldn’t cost strategic resources (unless it's a seperate building that boosts all hydroponic bays on the planet with +1 Angler), but the upgrade could be gated behind some appropriate tech- perhaps one of the terraforming ones- to prevent it from being an early-game exploit.







Special Planetary Decision: Ocean Treasure Hunts (Boosting Angler Districts)
(A more fun gimmick before hitting Pearl Divers directly)

Justification: If the design concept is to incentivize Angler and Pearl Diver employment, but the Pearl Diver tapers off in the mid-game, you could create an incentive to maximize employment of either/or job via a planetary-decision, akin to the Planetary Prospector decision. Call it ‘Deep Sea scouting’ or some such, to indicate it’s part of the Angler process.



What this reward is could vary, and be a RNG treasure hunt of one per planet per capital upgrade. Maybe it’s a special deposit, with a chance of being a strategic resource. Maybe a new planetary feature, as you find the lost wreck of a historic ship (a special, weak, equivalent to the Dragon Monument.) Maybe you produce a special blocker that provides rewards (strategic resource cache?) when cleared. Maybe/most likely it’s a job specific bonus to either anglers or pearl divers: say Anglers on the world get produce +1 additional trade, or Pearl Divers start producing +1 mineral.


Besides player engagement with the planets, the rewards can provide useful items, or just planet-specific buffs to Anglers or Pearl Divers (or both) that incentivize you to keep employing them.







Pearl Diver-Specific Changes


Anglers are already clearly strong, so they don’t really need to change besides the potential boost to trade. Pearl Diver has the most room for changing the feel of the civic, since it’s both the most unique job and the greatest annoyance factor.



By order of recommendation:



-Turn into a worker-tier job.

Justification: This would significantly reduce a significant quality-of-life drawbacks of the job in which Pearl Divers get employment priority over Anglers, causing you to produce food-consuming CG when what you really wanted was to produce more food. This leads to counter-intuitive micro-management to avoid, like unemploying one specialist the month before a district completes only to unemploy the pearl diver and re-employ the specialist.

This would also be a minor balance adjustment in Pearl Diver’s favor, even without changing any of the food/mineral upkeep requirements. The CG difference between worker and specialist living standards would (not) be eating away at a modest CG production. Further, making it a Worker role would allow various worker-tier bonuses to apply, including Authoritarian, Chattel Slavery, and Servile/Nerve Stapled. These would expand the use of Ethics/Traits that otherwise can only support part of the Angler economy.




-Add Amenities to Pearl Divers (like Agrarian Idyll/Clerks)

Justification: It’s a luxury good, right? More mechanically, if pearl divers only covered their own district’s amenities instead of other pops, it would help give a slight boost to early game colony stability. Stability is one of the only factors in player control that can boost trade value, which is lacks many tools to scale up over time.

The amenities don’t have to be much- it doesn’t need to be a net provider for the colony, unlike Agrarian Idyll- but it would incentivize maximizing employment to maximize trade value, benefit the specialist production on worlds the divers are supporting, and put off the point where entertainers become a requirement.




-Have CG Fabricator buildings (or substitute) increase the value of all Pearl Diver job outputs (CG, trade (and amenities*))

Justification: CG Fabricator upgrades should already be boosting CG production value of Pearl Divers, which is a proportionally bigger buff than normal Artisans get, but %-based buffs are giving more benefits to Artisans than a the smaller-base CG. The lack of equivalent for trade is also causing the Trade income to make Pearl Divers fall further behind the Technician. One one hand this is fine- changing of priorities- but on the other hand if you want to keep Pearl Divers from being obsolete they need a better mid-game upgrade.

This could be different if CG Fabricator Buildings upgrades upgraded all parts of a Pearl Diver’s output, the CG and the trade. This might also be a point to add Amenities to Pearl Divers; if not of a job base and going from 1-2-3, it could be 0-1-2, making Farm districts amentity AND income AND CG AND mineral(value) self-sufficient, meeting the autarky theme.






-Reduce the upkeep of the job by 1 mineral and/or food

Justification: Part of the sticker shock of Pearls is the higher-than-usual specialist production for an output that doesn’t scale into the game. Early game it can be competitive in its own right in the technician framing, but later on it’s less so as other outputs increase in efficiency. The point at which this occurs would be delayed significantly if you reduced the upkeep costs. Home world angler farms would become net-positive food producers on the technician comparison scale (even if just by 1), while the pop-to-CG conversion rate would still leave Artisans/Artificers better on a per-pop level, but competitive on a per-mineral level for low-mineral economies (ie, catalytic converter)










And that's some of my thoughts. Vehement disagreements/brutal rejoinders/merciless corrections in 3... 2... 1...

 

[theBigTurnip385]

Pearl Divers compare against Merchants.

You know this and you have been told this and still you continue with this

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

When it comes to mathematical analyses, I generally regard massive amounts of text relative to numbers as just an attempt to confuse. Whether that's the case here or not, let's condense this down to compare all relatively early jobs for a normal empire that produce what Pearl Divers and Anglers do, before any modifiers, counting trade value directly as energy:

• Technician: +6 Energy
• Farmer: +6 Food
• Angler: +8 Food, +2 Energy
• Clerk: +4 Energy, +2 Amenities
• Merchant: +12 Energy, +5 Amenities
• Pearl Diver: +3 CGs, +2 Energy, -2 Food, -2 Minerals
• Artisan: +6 CGs, -6 Minerals

Lets try and make an even comparison using Artisans as a base. With 2 Anglers and 2 Pearl Divers, net output is +12 Food, +8 Energy, +6 CGs, -4 Minerals, compared to an Artisan, 2 Farmers, and a Technician at +12 Food, +6 CGs, +6 Energy, -6 Minerals.
By trading an Artisan and a Technician for 2 Pearl Divers, and 2 Farmers for 2 Anglers, we've gained +2 Energy and +2 Minerals across 4 jobs. Now, Artisans and Technicians don't come as single units, they come in doubles, so we have to double this, and say that for every Industrial (on Factory World) and Generator district, we need to trade them in for 2 Agricultural districts.

Merchants don't seem the correct comparison here, as they produce 6x the "Energy" per job. Yes, it's all in trade value, and trade gets messy, but the most important part of Stellaris is the early-game. The original post is...half correct. Pearl Divers aren't Technicians, it's more like Pearl Divers and Anglers are each a bit more than half-Technicians, while Pearl Divers are half-Artisans, so you replace Technicians and Artisans with a touch extra when you add them all up together.

And yes, I think this is a bit weak for a locked civic. Trade Value is ultimately not as powerful as direct Energy as the game goes on, and Merchants only come out ahead because of their kind of bonkers base output. I'd rather have Mining Guilds than Anglers, because then I'm getting an extra mineral per job on a job I'll need a fair amount of, instead of an extra mineral or not-energy on jobs I don't really need that many of.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

When it comes to mathematical analyses, I generally regard massive amounts of text relative to numbers as just an attempt to confuse. Whether that's the case here or not, let's condense this down to compare all relatively early jobs for a normal empire that produce what Pearl Divers and Anglers do, before any modifiers, counting trade value directly as energy:

• Technician: +6 Energy
• Farmer: +6 Food
• Angler: +8 Food, +2 Energy
• Clerk: +4 Energy, +2 Amenities
• Merchant: +12 Energy, +5 Amenities
• Pearl Diver: +3 CGs, +2 Energy, -2 Food, -2 Minerals
• Artisan: +6 CGs, -6 Minerals

Lets try and make an even comparison using Artisans as a base. With 2 Anglers and 2 Pearl Divers, net output is +12 Food, +8 Energy, +6 CGs, -4 Minerals, compared to an Artisan, 2 Farmers, and a Technician at +12 Food, +6 CGs, +6 Energy, -6 Minerals.
By trading an Artisan and a Technician for 2 Pearl Divers, and 2 Farmers for 2 Anglers, we've gained +2 Energy and +2 Minerals across 4 jobs. Now, Artisans and Technicians don't come as single units, they come in doubles, so we have to double this, and say that for every Industrial (on Factory World) and Generator district, we need to trade them in for 2 Agricultural districts.

Merchants don't seem the correct comparison here, as they produce 6x the "Energy" per job. Yes, it's all in trade value, and trade gets messy, but the most important part of Stellaris is the early-game. The original post is...half correct. Pearl Divers aren't Technicians, it's more like Pearl Divers and Anglers are each a bit more than half-Technicians, while Pearl Divers are half-Artisans, so you replace Technicians and Artisans with a touch extra when you add them all up together.

And yes, I think this is a bit weak for a locked civic. Trade Value is ultimately not as powerful as direct Energy as the game goes on, and Merchants only come out ahead because of their kind of bonkers base output. I'd rather have Mining Guilds than Anglers, because then I'm getting an extra mineral per job on a job I'll need a fair amount of, instead of an extra mineral or not-energy on jobs I don't really need that many of.

You also ignore 2 things in your comparison

Trade isn't affected by Habitability and you left out hydroponic food bays at 10 food 1 upkeep and 0 pops

 

[Slaughter]

That's a curious way of seeing things, meta-wise.

Honestly, just posting here to see the discussion.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

You also ignore 2 things in your comparison

Trade isn't affected by Habitability and you left out hydroponic food bays at 10 food 1 upkeep and 0 pops

The former is pretty much irrelevant for this (it's wet only, and you need to have ocean preference), while the latter is basically just saying that less agricultural districts (and thus less opportunities to take advantage of swapping districts) is good.
Anglers remains something that's an interesting idea that just doesn't do enough to warrant being a locked civic.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

I have been wondering: Who would pearl divers ccompare as:
Worker tier job; needs 2 food maintenance, produces 2 CG and 2 Trade Value

 

[DeanTheDull]

I have been wondering: Who would pearl divers ccompare as:
Worker tier job; needs 2 food maintenance, produces 2 CG and 2 Trade Value

Cutting the useful part of Pearl Divers by 33% would be a hard nerf.

Minerals aren't the meaningful limiting factor for Pearl Divers because their trade value already covers the mineral cost. The core part of their utility is the specialists they support. 3 CG means you can support not only 1 specialist job (2 CG) but the CG upkeep of the living standards. For Egalitarians in particular, that's about .5 each, and with Pearl Divers being a specialist that's the third CG.

 

[DeanTheDull]

When it comes to mathematical analyses, I generally regard massive amounts of text relative to numbers as just an attempt to confuse. Whether that's the case here or not, let's condense this down to compare all relatively early jobs for a normal empire that produce what Pearl Divers and Anglers do, before any modifiers, counting trade value directly as energy:

• Technician: +6 Energy
• Farmer: +6 Food
• Angler: +8 Food, +2 Energy
• Clerk: +4 Energy, +2 Amenities
• Merchant: +12 Energy, +5 Amenities
• Pearl Diver: +3 CGs, +2 Energy, -2 Food, -2 Minerals
• Artisan: +6 CGs, -6 Minerals

You're forgetting the upkeep of the districts and buildings, which is going to change your numbers significantly when you start comparing. Plus the homeworld implication of split industrial districts.

Artisans are not just -6 minerals on their own, but -2 energy for the Industrial district, and another -6 minerals and pop for the alloy worker who comes with it unless you successfully micro-manage.

Lets try and make an even comparison using Artisans as a base. With 2 Anglers and 2 Pearl Divers, net output is +12 Food, +8 Energy, +6 CGs, -4 Minerals, compared to an Artisan, 2 Farmers, and a Technician at +12 Food, +6 CGs, +6 Energy, -6 Minerals.

By trading an Artisan and a Technician for 2 Pearl Divers, and 2 Farmers for 2 Anglers, we've gained +2 Energy and +2 Minerals across 4 jobs. Now, Artisans and Technicians don't come as single units, they come in doubles, so we have to double this, and say that for every Industrial (on Factory World) and Generator district, we need to trade them in for 2 Agricultural districts.

So here the upkeep consideration would make this a



While Artisan is working from 3 seperate districts with 4 energy upkeep
+12 food +6 CG +1 energy - 6 minerals

This is 3 districts (1 farm, 1 energy, 1 industrial) districts costing 1100 minerals and 3 admin sprawl.

Notably, the energy left of is NOT able to support a specialist district.


Pearl Diver: (2 districts costing 2 energy)
+12 food +6 CG +6 energy -4 minerals.

This is 2 districts costing 400 minerals and 2 admin sprawl. The 700 minerals saved is 100 minerals shy of 2 specialist buildings, which could both be supported with an energy surplus.




This gets worse as you scale up, because while the Pearl Divers only need another 400 minerals to double their output with two districts, but the Artisan selection is going to need another 800 minerals to build the second farm and second split industrial district, and their energy balance is going to go from +1 to +4 because of the district upkeep countering the extra technician.

Now you're looking at a
Artisan: 2 farm district 1 generator district 2 Industrial district (1900 minerals cost)
+24 food +12 CG +4 energy - 12 minerals
Can support 2 specialist buildings (4 energy/8 CG) with 4 CG left over
Needs 1200 minerals to build 3 specialist buildings


Anglers: 4 farm district (800 mineral cost)
+24 food +12 CG +12 energy -8 minerals
Can support 3 specialist buildings (6 energy/12 CG) with 6 energy left over.
+1100 minerals saved; needs only 100 more minerals to build 3 specialists buildings. (This will take less than 2 years if you sell the energy surplus for monthly trades)

Merchants don't seem the correct comparison here, as they produce 6x the "Energy" per job. Yes, it's all in trade value, and trade gets messy, but the most important part of Stellaris is the early-game. The original post is...half correct. Pearl Divers aren't Technicians, it's more like Pearl Divers and Anglers are each a bit more than half-Technicians, while Pearl Divers are half-Artisans, so you replace Technicians and Artisans with a touch extra when you add them all up together.

The issue with Merchants is that the only way to spam them is to take the building slots you need to employ the specialists you could be employing with the CG Pearl Divers are producing at the same rate.

And yes, I think this is a bit weak for a locked civic. Trade Value is ultimately not as powerful as direct Energy as the game goes on, and Merchants only come out ahead because of their kind of bonkers base output. I'd rather have Mining Guilds than Anglers, because then I'm getting an extra mineral per job on a job I'll need a fair amount of, instead of an extra mineral or not-energy on jobs I don't really need that many of.

Angler saves way more minerals than Miner Guilds will ever realistically give you.

Just on a per-6 CG level, the 2 Pearl Divers are producing 6 CG with 4 minerals instead of 6. That's a 2-minerals-per-6-CG conversion saving, and assuming you actually intend to use miner guilds for CG production you're already breaking even. Factor in the cost-savings of what you don't need to build (generator and industrial districts) before what you want to build (specialist buildings and city districts) and your mineral needs are already decreased by more than what Miner Guilds would give you.


Same thing with Catalytic Converter. By off-setting the early mineral needs to food excesses (which start with a surplus, and get starbase hydroponic bays), each catalytic converter you do build when you build an industrial district is saving 6 mineral- the amount of minerals gained by having 6 pops as miners. From a mineral perspective, this is far more efficient, as I can save 12 minerals with 2 pops but I could only get 12 Mining Guild minerals with 12 miner pops, and you don't want 12 miners on your homeworld or need the +12 minerals later.

 

[fourteenfour]

The issue I have with Pearl Divers is that they are specialist job and that causes issues because when you build a farm it promotes on worker which can in turn reducing how much food you are producing as the code seems to favor keeping workers in other jobs but not farm jobs.

I would much prefer that instead of being a specialist job that it would be a modifier on artisan job output. So in effect for every farm you build you have two jobs and each adds a small percentage to the amount of CGs being made by other means. Though this may be more of a headache than I give it credit for

 

[Ferrus Animus]

Cutting the useful part of Pearl Divers by 33% would be a hard nerf.

Minerals aren't the meaningful limiting factor for Pearl Divers because their trade value already covers the mineral cost. The core part of their utility is the specialists they support. 3 CG means you can support not only 1 specialist job (2 CG) but the CG upkeep of the living standards. For Egalitarians in particular, that's about .5 each, and with Pearl Divers being a specialist that's the third CG.

That'S part of why I also want to make it a worker tier job.

 

[qer]

I love the mental gymnastics people are doing for such a civic. If the pearl divers are such a bother, just turn off the job and use the pops for pure CG. Even then I don't think that having extra good farmers make it that good.

 

[DeanTheDull]

That'S part of why I also want to make it a worker tier job.

1 pop specialist upkeep and 2 support minerals aren't worth 1 CG.

 

[DeanTheDull]

I love the mental gymnastics people are doing for such a civic. If the pearl divers are such a bother, just turn off the job and use the pops for pure CG. Even then I don't think that having extra good farmers make it that good.

Don't discount them- Angler-alloys with Catalytic are the best conversion rate (and pop-support ratio) in the game.

Anglers actually make for better alloy production through Catalytic Converter than normal miners to normal alloys. Due to the Aquatic perk Anglers requires, Catalytics start at a nearly 1-to-1 upkeep job to alloy job ratio (8.8 to 9) when miners start at nearly 1.5-to-1 (4 to 6), and they dip below a 1-to-1 ratio as soon as the first colony. At that point, the ability to go deep with uncapped farm districts means that unlike other empires whose alloy economy is limited by miner districts, theirs is only limited by planet size.


The only thing really preventing that at the moment is that Pearl Divers have specialist-tier priority and unemployment so you can't build a bunch of farm districts right off the bat. If it turns into a worker job then Anglers will be a very potent war civ.

 

[qer]

Don't discount them- Angler-alloys with Catalytic are the best conversion rate (and pop-support ratio) in the game.

Anglers actually make for better alloy production through Catalytic Converter than normal miners to normal alloys. Due to the Aquatic perk Anglers requires, Catalytics start at a nearly 1-to-1 upkeep job to alloy job ratio (8.8 to 9) when miners start at nearly 1.5-to-1 (4 to 6), and they dip below a 1-to-1 ratio as soon as the first colony. At that point, the ability to go deep with uncapped farm districts means that unlike other empires whose alloy economy is limited by miner districts, theirs is only limited by planet size.


The only thing really preventing that at the moment is that Pearl Divers have specialist-tier priority and unemployment so you can't build a bunch of farm districts right off the bat. If it turns into a worker job then Anglers will be a very potent war civ.

The opportunity cost however is that you can't pick any other 2 civics that may be much more useful for your game. Essentially you are losing any possible advantage any other civic gives for a combo that I wouldn't say is much better than a standard empire. Plus if you keep the pearl drivers you will be less resource and pop efficient. Overall a really meh pick.

 

[DeanTheDull]

The opportunity cost however is that you can't pick any other 2 civics that may be much more useful for your game. Essentially you are losing any possible advantage any other civic gives for a combo that I wouldn't say is much better than a standard empire. Plus if you keep the pearl drivers you will be less resource and pop efficient. Overall a really meh pick.

Which combo is going to convert 6 energy to 7.25 6 CG and save you a half-pop per alloy worker? There are more blitz combos, but you're not actually identifying them.

 

[qer]

Which combo is going to convert 6 energy to 7.25 6 CG and save you a half-pop per alloy worker? There are more blitz combos, but you're not actually identifying them.

I honestly don't agree with your arguing that it should be compare to a technician (if anything it should be compared to a farmer as that is the job that it is replacing). Also I'm pretty sure that counting pearl divers in the alloy calculation gets a lower ratio, and at the end of the day, what people are complaining about is the pearl diver, not the angler that is more pop efficient.

 

[Ludaire]

I think the main thing you get right is that you group the angler and pearl diver together for comparisons instead of singling out the pearl diver. The two come as a unit on the agriculture district, so they're pretty clearly meant to be balanced together.

I think the part where you go wrong is trying to compare a set of jobs that does 3 things: food, consumer goods, and trade, to a set of jobs that does 2 things: food and energy (I've done the same elsewhere; just with artisans instead of technicians). Even if you view the trade value as making it fully self sustaining, the net output is still food and consumer goods, not energy, which only becomes energy if you sell it. I think if you want to compare trade to technicians, you'd be better off comparing farmers+anglers to famers+technicians+artisans, so that all 3 things that the two special jobs do is represented.

Comparing 3 districts, either 3 agriculture districts or 1 each of agriculture, generator, and industry (which we'll assume is factory-focused so one district gives 2 artisans and you get the -20% upkeep), the Anglers version gains:

• 6 Food
• 12 Trade
• 3.6 Minerals
• -3 CGs
• -11 Energy

The net, assuming you convert trade to energy is:

• 6 Food
• 1 Energy
• 3.6 Minerals
• -3 CGs

The net with Consumer Benefits:

• 6 Food
• 3.6 Minerals
• -5 Energy

Those trades are actually better than I expected before running the numbers, even if you want to adjust for the Angler setup having one more specialist than the normal one. This is especially true if you consider the benefits Anglers gets to the districts. They'd be spending 350 less minerals on these 3 districts, and they could build all 3 on any ocean planet without regards to deposits, while normal empires are beholden to deposits for their agriculture and generator districts.

If we put in a merchant instead of the two technicians (taking into account the upkeep for both the City District needed for the building slot and the Commercial Zone):

• 6 Food
• 0 Trade
• 3.6 Minerals
• 4 Energy
• -3 CG

That's really good. Even considering you need one less pop for the latter, remember that the merchant being a ruler means the latter costs 1 less food, but 0.25 more CGs than the former. The latter setup also costs 950 more minerals, a building slot, and requires a specific tradition (which you're probably getting if you're going for trade anyway, but still). Pretty good for a civic that most people reduce to nothing more than "a worse version of an artisan."

If you care deeply about CGs, you're almost certainly running consumer benefits, so the question is:

• Is 6 food and 3.6 minerals worth 5 energy?
• Is 6 food, 3.6 minerals, and 4 energy worth 3 CGs?

Honestly... I think the answer is probably "yes" more often than not.

Anglers is a funny civic. The individual pieces may look weak, but because these jobs do multiple things and synergize together, they combine together into a much stronger economic unit than you'd suspect by just looking closely at the individual pieces. It's easy to say "Psh, what's 50 minerals per district?" but that translates to well over 100 minerals per district and lower upkeep per district when you consider the fact that the agriculture district is at least partially doing the duty of an industrial district, city district, and possibly even building. It's easy to say "Generating half the consumer goods per pop is awful, even if the upkeep is lower and you get trade value." It's harder to argue with "Well, across 6 pops, you get the value of an extra farmer and most of a miner in exchange for half an artisan or a little over 1 technician."

As I said elsewhere, I think the biggest problem is that the two are tied tightly together, so the instant your food and consumer good needs aren't pretty close in ratio to what you get from an angler and a pearl diver, the civic starts to lose its strength. However, if you do end up needing to employ some artisans to avoid your food growing out of control or you need to disable some pearl diver jobs because you have too many CGs, the civic still gives you a solid basis to build your economy on.

I do think that it's an issue that anglers and pearl divers get nothing specific from the mercantile tree like the extra trade value on clerks from Trickle Up Economics or the free merchant for every commercial zone. It means that even if you're going really trade heavy using this civic while getting most of your trade from these two jobs, two of the seven bonuses of the Mercantile tree do nothing for you. Plus those traditions are important for helping trade scale up even though it doesn't have the tech-based bonuses basic resources get. I feel like it wouldn't be too overpowered if you added 1 trade to pearl divers on Trickle Up Economics.

As for making it not locked in, eh... I can see it going either way. Agrarian Idyll and catalytic converters both change your economic approach to a similar degree, so I can see the argument for removing the locked in nature if they could just destroy spare agriculture districts. Swapping out of either of those other two can have similarly dire consequences on your economy, especially with Agrarian Idyll providing building slots now. Then again, I'd prefer to lean towards making the civic more powerful such that it's worth taking even as a locked in civic, and I'd honestly prefer the same for those other two. Being locked into a civic is a great limitation that I wouldn't mind seeing more of, because it can allow for some really powerful civics. I know many of those turned into origins, but like Fanatic Purifiers or Rogue Servitors, I think there's a place for civics that represent fundamental aspects of a society that are unchanging on the timescale of a game of Stellaris.

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

I do think that it's an issue that anglers and pearl divers get nothing specific from the mercantile tree like the extra trade value on clerks from Trickle Up Economics or the free merchant for every commercial zone.

Yeah, I think the biggest complaint I have about Anglers is just that it has anti-synergy with a lot of the things you'd expect it to synergise well with (Agrarian Idyll, Mercantile traditions).