As Designed Stellaris - Hivemind Necrophage cannot have their subservient species be workers Lem v3.1.1 (22a5)

[roxasmars]

Description
Hivemind Necrophage cannot have their subservient species be workers Lem v3.1.1 (22a5)

Game Version
Lem v3.1.1

What version do you use?
Steam

What expansions do you have installed?


Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
I'm not 100% sure if this is a bug or working as intended but, currently, necrophage hiveminds cannot have their starting subservient species as workers. This is a pretty massive issue because necrophages have low pop growth and cannot keep up with the demands of a growing empire without slaves. The issue can be half fixed by taking evolutionary mastery to set them to assimilation but that defeats the entire purpose of playing necrophage hivemind. I can't imagine this is the way it's meant to be played since necrophage hiveminds were a big new addition for the Lem update.

To go into further detail on the matter, you cannot change your starting subservient species from livestock to anything else. I have not tried this with any other species as I started running into problems a little while into my game. Again, this is an issue because trying to play a harder game mode as this specific origin and government cannot be done in its current state. It seems like a bug.

Steps to reproduce the issue.
Create a race with the origin necrophage and the government hivemind then go to species and try to switch your starting subspecies to workers.

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[Feedback_Drone [Qloc]]

Hello!

Thank you for the report!
This is working as designed.

Non Hivemind population cannot be workers, they can only be livestock, that is the way of the Hiveminds. This origin follows the same general principle as a Necrophage Fanatical Purifier, purifiers cannot keep any other species and have to purge them (that is why Necrophage Hiveminds can use the Necrophage purge option). The difference is that a Hivemind can still keep other species as livestock (think of them as workers creating either food or minerals exclusively), also their general growth will still be better then that of a Necrophage Fanatical Purifier since Hiveminds can have Chambers of Elevation.
This combination was never meant to be powerful, it was a fantasy that the players wanted so an option for that was given, but you should treat it more like the Doomsday origin, as a challenge.

 

[roxasmars]

What a terribly disappointing response. The update never indicated it'd be a challenge mode and the understanding of how awful this combination is compared to dooms day is completely lacking. I deeply hope you reconsider this approach.

 

[hart30]

I have seen the ai playing lithoid necrophage hive. It necro purged all other species and was unable to assemble any pops. The -100% pop growth it negated via tech, 25% hive growth and the amount of pops on its planets. Therefore it ended up with a growth of 2,5 max on its planets.

 

[acthsb]

What a terribly disappointing response. The update never indicated it'd be a challenge mode and the understanding of how awful this combination is compared to dooms day is completely lacking. I deeply hope you reconsider this approach.

I think you're taking the wrong approach to this. You still have similar but better options a necrophage purifier would use for growth: to use the necrophage purge on a species. You can keep your starting prepatant species as an optimized subservient species for the normal ascension process while quickly growing your population by acquiring other species through conquest or the market and using the necrophage purge on them to rapidly convert new pops.

 

[monatomic]

What a terribly disappointing response. The update never indicated it'd be a challenge mode and the understanding of how awful this combination is compared to dooms day is completely lacking. I deeply hope you reconsider this approach.

Consider using the Catalytic Processing civic (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Civics#Hive_Mind_civics) so you can turn surplus food (from all the livestock pops) into alloys.

 

[hart30]

Just look how the ai plays it. The ai necro purges its 2. Species from the start and then goes on conquest for more.

 

[roxasmars]

I think you're taking the wrong approach to this. You still have similar but better options a necrophage purifier would use for growth: to use the necrophage purge on a species. You can keep your starting prepatant species as an optimized subservient species for the normal ascension process while quickly growing your population by acquiring other species through conquest or the market and using the necrophage purge on them to rapidly convert new pops.

Better growth options yes, but purifier is made for the playstyle you're talking about. It's military bonuses along with the pop growth bonus and whatever other bonus you get from the other ethic you choose AND the unity gains from purging more than eclipse necrophage hivemind. It is possible to play this way as a necrophage hivemind but its so difficult that one might as well choose anything else. There's really only one way to play that would make it more viable and that's necrophage devourers but then why not just play normal devourers? Relegating hivemind necrophages to a "challenge" setup just seems like a terrible move.