Thoughts on environmentalist?

[1775guy]

It provides:

-20% CG upkeep for pops
Ranger lodge building and holding

Ranger lodge gives creates a blocker that blocks a district, and provides 2 unity for that blocker and every 'natural' blocker, the buildings upkeep is 2 energy. Also provides 2 ranger jobs, which gives 2 society research and 3 amenities each

For the CG upkeep, obviously it works well with utopian. Is it worth it for 'social welfare' standards as well (for those of us that don't want to be egalitarian?). For the lodge, a big problem seems to me that blockers reduce planet capacity, so will reduce planet growth

Finally, rangers seem to suck bad, unless I am missing something about them. They seem even worse than clerks.

Thoughts?

 

[Calvax]

Environmentalist definitely feels bad. The benefit of keeping blockers uncleared is massively outweighed by the district loss. I feel a better version would be to allow environmentalist civs to build districts regardless of if a natural blocker is there (at least once they’ve researched the removal tech) and they have a lodge. This would represent the effort the nation put into figuring out how to develop around nature rather than simply limiting development.

 

[XCodes]

Rangers can provide enough unity to keep a size 5-10 colony positive, the CG upkeep is good early in the game. The real draw is the building itself. Most planets spawn with about 4 blockers which means a Ranger Lodge gives 10 Unity. Combine that with a capital upgrade at 10 pops and you have 2 pops and a building slot producing 20+ Unity on a single planet early in the game.

As a whole package, the civic is honestly pretty underrated. At a bare minimum, it's a strong economic boost and unity boost until you get your third Civic slot. I think trying to make it work later in the game is pointless, but giving it an extra early-game relevant bonus like sharply reducing the rate at which you see Blocker Removal techs would make it a very good civic, IMO.

 

[1775guy]

Rangers can provide enough unity to keep a size 5-10 colony positive, the CG upkeep is good early in the game. The real draw is the building itself. Most planets spawn with about 4 blockers which means a Ranger Lodge gives 10 Unity. Combine that with a capital upgrade at 10 pops and you have 2 pops and a building slot producing 20+ Unity on a single planet early in the game.

As a whole package, the civic is honestly pretty underrated. At a bare minimum, it's a strong economic boost and unity boost until you get your third Civic slot. I think trying to make it work later in the game is pointless, but giving it an extra early-game relevant bonus like sharply reducing the rate at which you see Blocker Removal techs would make it a very good civic, IMO.

I don't believe rangers provide any unity

 

[Ryika]

Environmentalist definitely feels bad. The benefit of keeping blockers uncleared is massively outweighed by the district loss. I feel a better version would be to allow environmentalist civs to build districts regardless of if a natural blocker is there (at least once they’ve researched the removal tech) and they have a lodge. This would represent the effort the nation put into figuring out how to develop around nature rather than simply limiting development.

That sounds like wasted potential to me. Imho, Environmentalist should be designed around keeping the blockers around, with all of its disadvantages, countered by high enough advantages to make it worth it. That way, they have their own twist on the formula, instead of just being the same as everybody, but with blockers that don't act as blockers anymore.

 

[1775guy]

That sounds like wasted potential to me. Imho, Environmentalist should be designed around keeping the blockers around, with all of its disadvantages, countered by high enough advantages to make it worth it. That way, they have their own twist on the formula, instead of just being the same as everybody, but with blockers that don't act as blockers anymore.

My opinion:

-Make the benefit for each blocker scale better
-Make it so blocked districts still contribute to planetary capacity for environmentalists
-Buff ranger somehow (maybe rangers don't take up housing/consumer goods, similar to servants?)

 

[DamnedLackOfTropicalFruit]

Rangers are awful, but the lodge itself is reasonably good. Getting 14/18 pop-free unity after settling your guaranteed habitables is a strong bonus, because early unity is very powerful. Any junk planets can also generate some more pop-free unity, and this early unity would be a pretty good niche for the civic if it wasn't for the fact that the same update buffed Parliamentary System, which is much better. I guess you could run both?

The CG upkeep reduction is a nice little extra, but utopian and social welfare standards are both bad because they reduce your pop's political power, reducing faction unity, which almost always cancels out whatever small bonuses you were getting from the living standard. Environmentalist is probably good with Academic Privilege, but if you're going that route you should definitely be taking Parliamentary System.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Haven't run the math, but I think the CG upkeep reduction should still be good with Academic Privilege and Decadent Lifestyle at least. Not sure about others.

I'm not convinced that losing districts or planet capacity actually matters, you might need to spread them out amongst your planets a bit more but it's not like you ever run out district slots in your empire (unless you're severely blocked in, in which case yeah maybe don't use the civic).

The ranger job does seem pretty bad though. Feels like it should also make 1 unity, or maybe have some culture worker effects.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

I'd prefer that the lodge allowed you to create multiple "nature preserve" blockers that give the unity instead of relying on RNG to create existing blockers. Plus if you terraform a planet, all blockers are removed, which makes it almost useless on such worlds.....Just because a tropical preference species terraforms a desert into a jungle, doesn't mean they don't' still want nature preserves on their new world.

I have an empire of environmental elves that I sometimes play. They are so fanatical about their natural biome that they will terraform even a gaia world into a tropical world because to them, that type of world is the ultimate extension of venerating nature. A ranger lodge is a perfect fit for them but it's a shame that it loses so much on terraformed worlds.

 

[1775guy]

I'm not convinced that losing districts or planet capacity actually matters, you might need to spread them out amongst your planets a bit more but it's not like you ever run out district slots in your empire (unless you're severely blocked in, in which case yeah maybe don't use the civic).

Planet capacity is important for pop growth

 

[DeanTheDull]

It provides:

-20% CG upkeep for pops
Ranger lodge building and holding

Ranger lodge gives creates a blocker that blocks a district, and provides 2 unity for that blocker and every 'natural' blocker, the buildings upkeep is 2 energy. Also provides 2 ranger jobs, which gives 2 society research and 3 amenities each

For the CG upkeep, obviously it works well with utopian. Is it worth it for 'social welfare' standards as well (for those of us that don't want to be egalitarian?). For the lodge, a big problem seems to me that blockers reduce planet capacity, so will reduce planet growth

Finally, rangers seem to suck bad, unless I am missing something about them. They seem even worse than clerks.

Thoughts?

Environmentalist is an early-game civic to reform out of at the 3rd civic point. It's niche is it's pop-free 'neutrality'- it's not ethic-centric like the spiritualist for the ruler-pop changes, it's not faction/living standard centric like Parliamentary system, and it's not requiring pops you don't have to dedicate like Byzantine Bureaucracy.

In the early game, it's a strong value-adder to your early planets when you lack pops. It increases the value of colonizing low-habitability planets, and it can relatively easy stack with other unity efforts.

Honestly, I say it's probably the best for Xenophobe empires- empires who expect to go wide on the galactic scale, and will want some help fighting the initial planetary sprawl hits to unity costs.

 

[The5lacker]

Environmentalist definitely feels bad. The benefit of keeping blockers uncleared is massively outweighed by the district loss. I feel a better version would be to allow environmentalist civs to build districts regardless of if a natural blocker is there (at least once they’ve researched the removal tech) and they have a lodge. This would represent the effort the nation put into figuring out how to develop around nature rather than simply limiting development.

What, exactly, is the mechanical difference between "Removing Blockers" and "Ignoring all the penalties from Blockers"?

 

[XCodes]

I don't believe rangers provide any unity

The rangers do not, which actually makes it better. You can colonize low-habitability planets and the unity from the Lodge will not be affected by the low habitability production penalty.

My opinion:

-Make the benefit for each blocker scale better
-Make it so blocked districts still contribute to planetary capacity for environmentalists
-Buff ranger somehow (maybe rangers don't take up housing/consumer goods, similar to servants?)

All unnecessary. Blockers get removed incidentally by Terraforming and events over time, so there's no real value in keeping the civic past 2250 because the core mechanic of the civic simply stops functioning. The amount of Unity it puts out early in the game is incredibly powerful, however, on-par with what you can get from Parliamentary System without having to be a Democracy.

 

[Metallichydra]

What, exactly, is the mechanical difference between "Removing Blockers" and "Ignoring all the penalties from Blockers"?

There is none. It's flavor.
Or, if you get unity from blockers, the difference is that you no longer gain unity from blockers if they are removed.

 

[Incompetent]

Environmentalist definitely feels bad. The benefit of keeping blockers uncleared is massively outweighed by the district loss.

Only if you actually have the pops to fill the planets. My experience is that for most of the game, you have a few specialized planets you've built up (however many you have the pops to fill), but then a lot of mostly empty planets where there's really no need to clear blockers. The exception I suppose is if you're doing a lot of pop raiding and not actually taking possession of the colonies you attack.

 

[Dementor4]

It's nice as an early game unity generation civic. It will be a while before you'll need to clear those blockers anyway, so it's nice to get some benefit from them. By the time midgame rolls around there's no reason not to swap it out though.

 

[The5lacker]

There is none. It's flavor.
Or, if you get unity from blockers, the difference is that you no longer gain unity from blockers if they are removed.

And there it is, the magic word that lets me gesture at my signature to succinctly explain why that's such a terrible idea.

The whole point of the Ranger Lodge system is "Take on a disadvantage to gain an advantage." If you want to remove the disadvantage, why bother with literally any of this?

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Planet capacity is important for pop growth

But the number of natural planets you have with enough pops for planet capacity to actually matter is usually very small. And if Environmentalist incentivizes making up the difference with some housing buildings or spreading your pops out a little more, I think that's a good thing. I like when civics actually change your build plans.

 

[Metallichydra]

And there it is, the magic word that lets me gesture at my signature to succinctly explain why that's such a terrible idea.

I don't know why you'd use that argument. Yes, gameplay may be important, but Stellaris is a game which needs flavor. Lots of it.

Gameplay can be used to justify infinite bad Flavor designs. A good game with bad flavor is bland and boring. When gameplay or flavor have to bend, you shouldn't use this argument, because flavor is delicious and gameplay alone is just a water soup.

 

[HFY]

I like that it's distinct.

I feel like it could scale a bit better into the late game.

Stuff like...
- Gain +2 amenities from every blocker when you research the tech to remove that blocker
- Gain +1 housing from every blocker when you research Antigravity Engineeering
- Gain +2 unity per blocker if you take the World Shaper perk
- Gain +4 TV per blocker if you take the Mastery of Nature perk

Basically when I'm taking something which has thematic ties to environmentalism, but mechanical anti-synergy, give me something to compensate for the anti-synergy.