So what broken new Empires have you come up with?

[klopkr]

Toxoid adds a lot of flexibility! I've seen a few crazy empires like 80% habitable on everything toxoid subterraneans, no life span overtuned species, I even maxed out pop growth myself by mixing in every pop growth bonus I could find.

What have you come up with? I'd love to play against them!

 

[Briloner]

I have not tested that one yet, but with the civic, that threatens to create tomb worlds, just do that and combine that with survivor (tomb-world habitability) and / or the plant property giving free upkeep at tomb worlds.
(For mood purposes death-cult and/or re-animators)

--> finally my tomb world play through.

 

[The5lacker]

It's not broken, but I've been having fun with an Overtuned Hivemind being able to set up a bunch of specialized pop templates for each specific job. The changes to Pop Assembly favoring templates that match the planet's specification really helps with that, especially with Permutation Pools.

 

[Verenti]

Overtuned is literally unplayable. My leaders die instantly, which means I can't explore and I'm just constantly getting the sound effect when people die. It's ridiculous.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Overtuned is literally unplayable. My leaders die instantly, which means I can't explore and I'm just constantly getting the sound effect when people die. It's ridiculous.

What about that is literally unplayable? You have the ability to literally tune the species to the degree you want- including not stacking all the modifiers on your leader-caste species.

 

[Strager]

I tried a round with Overtuned, both research overtunes and the regular intelligent trait.... Was very difficult to survey anything early on because my scientists kept dying off but I was getting technologies at a crazy pace, especially once I started getting research planets off the ground. By the time I got attacked and had to abandon the game (stupid thing put me next to a devouring swarm) I was already researching level 3 armor and shields and I had just discovered a second species - I think I was maybe 10ish years into the game...

 

[LeoBack]

Overtuned hivemind
Civics: Subsumed Will, Ascetic
Traits: Elevated Synapses, Pre-Planned Growth, Enduring
Damn the Consequences costs only food so you can perma run it. Taking Synchronicity (you should as hivemind ) tradition early make you leaders live until around 2250 by then you should be able to get Robust/Exotic Metabolism.
At the game start make a subspecies with Excessive Endurance put it in spawning pools and you can colonize everything with 85%+ habitability

 

[Chuunibyou Imouto]

Overtuned is best used with slaves. Need researchers? Indentured Servants. Need miners? SLAVES


Who cares about life span when you have SLAVERY, the secret sauce to success.

 

[Strager]

Who cares about life span when you have SLAVERY, the secret sauce to success.

Lifes (in the Stellaris Universe at least) dirty little secret.

 

[Dementor4]

Overtuned is best used with slaves. Need researchers? Indentured Servants. Need miners? SLAVES


Who cares about life span when you have SLAVERY, the secret sauce to success.

Residents will also produce no civilian leaders (with the "soldiers only" setting covering generals and admirals separately). Slavery isn't strictly required, just don't allow them to participate in politics.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

They Broke Hive's

I have Colonies growing at 9 pops, it's Clone Army growth but with no limits.

And this is before pop assembly takes off

 

[Verenti]

What about that is literally unplayable? You have the ability to literally tune the species to the degree you want- including not stacking all the modifiers on your leader-caste species.

At the start of the game? You only get one species. Honestly, if your max species age decreases, the age of your default leaders should ALSO decrease. If they only live until 40, then I shouldn't be getting new leaders entering the pool at 44.

Probably we shouldn't get envoy death notifications as well. Because having that sfx play ad naseum is really annoying.

It's literally unplayable because with two overtuned traits, your leaders stay alive for a between days and a month. Which means, your science vessels need constantly new scientists, and you don't have the unity to keep recruiting new leaders. So, you can't explore systems. Therefore, if you are like "Oh, I will try out the new content" and then you are immediately rewarded with an unplayable gamestate.

 

[DeanTheDull]

At the start of the game? You only get one species. Honestly, if your max species age decreases, the age of your default leaders should ALSO decrease. If they only live until 40, then I shouldn't be getting new leaders entering the pool at 44.

Probably we shouldn't get envoy death notifications as well. Because having that sfx play ad naseum is really annoying.

It's literally unplayable because with two overtuned traits, your leaders stay alive for a between days and a month. Which means, your science vessels need constantly new scientists, and you don't have the unity to keep recruiting new leaders. So, you can't explore systems. Therefore, if you are like "Oh, I will try out the new content" and then you are immediately rewarded with an unplayable gamestate.

So why are you stacking two overtuned traits on your leader species at the very start of the game, without applying relevant life-extension perks to compensate?

Just... don't?

Unless there's a requirement that you MUST have two overtuned traits at start. this is only an issue because of the same sort of lack of player restraint that hobbled early necrophage players who would purge all their starting prepatents and then wonder how they were supposed to grow pops.

 

[Strager]

At the start of the game?

The trick I've discovered is that you DON'T want it at the very start of the game. Create your "base" species with only a -3 and negative traits and NO positive traits.

As soon as you colonize your first planet, create a "quick growing" subspecies and turn the 1 pop on the new planet into it. Let is grow like crazy and use that when creating colony ships.

Once your population is sufficient, create your specialized pop types and change everyone on a planet you want to specialize into it. Make sure to keep at least 1 quick growing pop somewhere so you can spread them to new worlds for quick growth.

The reason for the negative only traits on the base is that you can't remove regular positive traits until you research the regular tech for species modification - you can however add them along with overtuned traits. The minus 3 gives you enough points to create some really wild combinations.

 

[Verenti]

The trick I've discovered is that you DON'T want it at the very start of the game. Create your "base" species with only a -3 and negative traits and NO positive traits.

As soon as you colonize your first planet, create a "quick growing" subspecies and turn the 1 pop on the new planet into it. Let is grow like crazy and use that when creating colony ships.

Once your population is sufficient, create your specialized pop types and change everyone on a planet you want to specialize into it. Make sure to keep at least 1 quick growing pop somewhere so you can spread them to new worlds for quick growth.

The reason for the negative only traits on the base is that you can't remove regular positive traits until you research the regular tech for species modification - you can however add them along with overtuned traits. The minus 3 gives you enough points to create some really wild combinations.

I agree. But you shouldn't be able to start the game with a "wrong" empire design. A more difficult one? Sure. But a non-viable one? No. Overtuned is pretty great, yes, if you don't put those traits onto your population until you have genemodding, but in that case maybe those racial picks should be locked behind genemodding. Or Overtuned should start with the technology for genemodding. Would that be overpowered? Absolutely, but so is the ring world start and the Relic World start.

Or there should be allowances made in the game for extreme low lifespans from the beginning, because as it is, it doesn't work with the systems currently in the game. It's pretty frustrating to craft an empire for like 15 to 20 minutes to discover that they are unplayable in the game.

 

[Verenti]

So why are you stacking two overtuned traits on your leader species at the very start of the game, without applying relevant life-extension perks to compensate?

Just... don't?

Unless there's a requirement that you MUST have two overtuned traits at start. this is only an issue because of the same sort of lack of player restraint that hobbled early necrophage players who would purge all their starting prepatents and then wonder how they were supposed to grow pops.

Because I wanted to actually experience the content that I paid money for and I don't have the time to play dozens of games as I am an adult with a fulltime job. Obviously, I didn't expect the reaction to be that extreme, but I don't recall anyone or anywhere warning me that adding two traits would make the game unplayable, especially since I took an origin to get access to those traits.

 

[theBigTurnip385]

Play hive you can stack -40 leader life and still have leaders with 20 years of life since they start young

You will need insane food but your pops can have 40% habitability and 115% growth before techs and traditions once you add the early tech and tradition you hit 135% growth on new colonies once a colony has 30 pops gene mods it's pops to something and replace incubator with budding

 

[Ferrus Animus]

I agree. But you shouldn't be able to start the game with a "wrong" empire design. A more difficult one? Sure. But a non-viable one? No. Overtuned is pretty great, yes, if you don't put those traits onto your population until you have genemodding, but in that case maybe those racial picks should be locked behind genemodding. Or Overtuned should start with the technology for genemodding. Would that be overpowered? Absolutely, but so is the ring world start and the Relic World start.

Or there should be allowances made in the game for extreme low lifespans from the beginning, because as it is, it doesn't work with the systems currently in the game. It's pretty frustrating to craft an empire for like 15 to 20 minutes to discover that they are unplayable in the game.

Overtuned does start with the technology for gene-modding.

Also neither of those starts are overpowered.

 

[The5lacker]

It's literally unplayable because with two overtuned traits, your leaders stay alive for a between days and a month. Which means, your science vessels need constantly new scientists, and you don't have the unity to keep recruiting new leaders. So, you can't explore systems. Therefore, if you are like "Oh, I will try out the new content" and then you are immediately rewarded with an unplayable gamestate.

Sounds like you're doing this thing called "making a mistake."

I would advise not doing that thing in the future. The Overtuned traits aren't meant to be stacked all at the start of the game on top of two negative modifiers. Stick to -30 years for the early game at the top-end. You'll be able to compensate for more Overtuned traits as the game progresses and you get Leader Lifespan techs/traditions. Same with "Damn the Consequences." Very strong power, very big upkeep cost. Pace yourself.

 

[Verenti]

Overtuned does start with the technology for gene-modding.

Also neither of those starts are overpowered.

Does it? I could have swore I researched it.

Sounds like you're doing this thing called "making a mistake."

I would advise not doing that thing in the future. The Overtuned traits aren't meant to be stacked all at the start of the game on top of two negative modifiers. Stick to -30 years for the early game at the top-end. You'll be able to compensate for more Overtuned traits as the game progresses and you get Leader Lifespan techs/traditions. Same with "Damn the Consequences." Very strong power, very big upkeep cost. Pace yourself.

Oh, my bad. Did I not know how to play the content before I had a chance to experience the content?