As the title says.
Generally in 2.2 growth is king and overall guess what path offers the best growth opportunity? This is because of cloning tanks, th ability to add rapid breeders to your species (assuming you don't already have it) and later on the fertile trait. A Xenophile also has the Xeno-Compatibility trait which is all sorts of fun and power (+83% growth rate IIRC w/clone tanks+fertile). As an added bonus lots of buildings add extra society research to the game so when you do adapt your species you can do it a lot quicker and a lot sooner. You can't really specialise individual pops any more but you can specialize planets and break the research up and once you unlock the 2 part of it turning your tech worlds into Erudite worlds tends to speed up the rest of your genetic tampering. Agarian trait is almost overpowered with the policies and decisions to further speed up growth rates. Oh and Hives have that +25% rate built in but can't use the planetary decision.
The other thing putting it over the top is the relative lack of drawbacks relative to the other paths. The other two paths might be more interesting and if you are a Xenophile the micro to tweak all those racers is a pain but worth it. If you are Xenophile however 3/4 of the 1st 4 ascension perks are probably already picked for you as going habitat-masterbuilder-galactic wonders in your 1st 4 (maybe 5 Arcology) ideas is less ideal than in older patches. Pick 1, Bio 1, Xeno compatibility, bio 2 into Ecumenopolis where you can dump all the excess pops is very good.
Psionics.
Well they made breaching the shroud cheaper but unlike the other paths psionics doesn't buff your growth rate in any signifigant way. If you are creative you can use the raiding doctrine using your superior admirals but its a wash as the other paths can do the same thing. Its also hard to roll this tech any time soon unless you are a spiritualist and if you are spiritualist if you use bots you get less tech. Best case scenario I can think of is something like a mechanist no spiritual empire lucksacking the psionic tech. As an added bonus Zro is useful/needed and apart from nanites seems to be the rarest resource in the game.
Psionics doesn't outright such but without droids if you are spiritualists you really notice the smaller population growth. Inward perfection and Xenophobe can mitigate this to an extent but you can also take those ideas as bio ascension. You're still not getting the synthetic and fertile+ cloning tanks+ whatever else growth rates though. That growth rate is often high enough where excess population can rival building speed to filling up a ring world or Ecumenpopolis is a lot slower. Pops are power (and research and unity and and and....). Expansion via pointy stick diplomacy seems to be the best option. Psionic admirals and governors are really nice however.
Flesh Is Weak/Synthetic Ascension
The Flesh is Weak is really good, the main downside is that you have to use engineering tech to research it. Engineering is already over loaded with to many good techs essential to run your economy however. That is all the exotic resource techs, the +10% minerals one, the ore purification ones etc. And unlike bio ascension you tend to have less engineering research even with the natural engineers trait. To make things worse droids only take up 0.5 housing synthetics take up 1 housing so you might overload your planets when you do it. You can prepare for this and the advantage is you get very rapid population growth. Spending 5-10 years twice over on the most over stressed tree there is is not that much fun. You can do it but generally you hit physic repeatables 1st followed by sociology then engineering so its not to unusual to be deep into physics repeatables for 20% + boost to weapons/fire rate and engineers have to make a decision about missiles vs kinetics. You can be 15-30 years+ behind in a scenario where late game techs can be done in 17-24 months.
However synthetics seem to have lost their 20% bonus to resources. At least its not in the synthetic description or the wiki (correct me if I am wrong) and the energy needs of your empire jump massively although you will likely have surplus food. More pops you have the more energy you need and you might have to take a diversion into Galactic Wonders in order to produce enough via Dyson Spheres or Ringworlds. You might be better off delaying your final ascension until later in the game to mitigate the drawbacks but then you are also conceding decades of very high growth rate you can achieve with a bio engineered empire and growth rate is one of the main appeals of synthetic ascension. But there is another problem.
Robo modding however is inefficient compared with bio engineering though and the growth rate can be barely any better than a bio ascended one with all the trimmings but they probably started it earlier so even then you might take a while to catch up. Even then if you want to robo mod your stuff that is an ever bigger delay on top of probably having to convert hundreds of pops to synthetics anyway. Synths eat energy but energy districts produce 8 energy vs 12 for food and there is no equivalent for energy compared with hydroponic farms. You can mitigate this by selling all that excess food but still. As an added bonus bots seem to have lost any inherent bonus they had at producing minerals/20% for synthetics. And its not like you can use hive worlds.
Generally in 2.2 growth is king and overall guess what path offers the best growth opportunity? This is because of cloning tanks, th ability to add rapid breeders to your species (assuming you don't already have it) and later on the fertile trait. A Xenophile also has the Xeno-Compatibility trait which is all sorts of fun and power (+83% growth rate IIRC w/clone tanks+fertile). As an added bonus lots of buildings add extra society research to the game so when you do adapt your species you can do it a lot quicker and a lot sooner. You can't really specialise individual pops any more but you can specialize planets and break the research up and once you unlock the 2 part of it turning your tech worlds into Erudite worlds tends to speed up the rest of your genetic tampering. Agarian trait is almost overpowered with the policies and decisions to further speed up growth rates. Oh and Hives have that +25% rate built in but can't use the planetary decision.
The other thing putting it over the top is the relative lack of drawbacks relative to the other paths. The other two paths might be more interesting and if you are a Xenophile the micro to tweak all those racers is a pain but worth it. If you are Xenophile however 3/4 of the 1st 4 ascension perks are probably already picked for you as going habitat-masterbuilder-galactic wonders in your 1st 4 (maybe 5 Arcology) ideas is less ideal than in older patches. Pick 1, Bio 1, Xeno compatibility, bio 2 into Ecumenopolis where you can dump all the excess pops is very good.
Psionics.
Well they made breaching the shroud cheaper but unlike the other paths psionics doesn't buff your growth rate in any signifigant way. If you are creative you can use the raiding doctrine using your superior admirals but its a wash as the other paths can do the same thing. Its also hard to roll this tech any time soon unless you are a spiritualist and if you are spiritualist if you use bots you get less tech. Best case scenario I can think of is something like a mechanist no spiritual empire lucksacking the psionic tech. As an added bonus Zro is useful/needed and apart from nanites seems to be the rarest resource in the game.
Psionics doesn't outright such but without droids if you are spiritualists you really notice the smaller population growth. Inward perfection and Xenophobe can mitigate this to an extent but you can also take those ideas as bio ascension. You're still not getting the synthetic and fertile+ cloning tanks+ whatever else growth rates though. That growth rate is often high enough where excess population can rival building speed to filling up a ring world or Ecumenpopolis is a lot slower. Pops are power (and research and unity and and and....). Expansion via pointy stick diplomacy seems to be the best option. Psionic admirals and governors are really nice however.
Flesh Is Weak/Synthetic Ascension
The Flesh is Weak is really good, the main downside is that you have to use engineering tech to research it. Engineering is already over loaded with to many good techs essential to run your economy however. That is all the exotic resource techs, the +10% minerals one, the ore purification ones etc. And unlike bio ascension you tend to have less engineering research even with the natural engineers trait. To make things worse droids only take up 0.5 housing synthetics take up 1 housing so you might overload your planets when you do it. You can prepare for this and the advantage is you get very rapid population growth. Spending 5-10 years twice over on the most over stressed tree there is is not that much fun. You can do it but generally you hit physic repeatables 1st followed by sociology then engineering so its not to unusual to be deep into physics repeatables for 20% + boost to weapons/fire rate and engineers have to make a decision about missiles vs kinetics. You can be 15-30 years+ behind in a scenario where late game techs can be done in 17-24 months.
However synthetics seem to have lost their 20% bonus to resources. At least its not in the synthetic description or the wiki (correct me if I am wrong) and the energy needs of your empire jump massively although you will likely have surplus food. More pops you have the more energy you need and you might have to take a diversion into Galactic Wonders in order to produce enough via Dyson Spheres or Ringworlds. You might be better off delaying your final ascension until later in the game to mitigate the drawbacks but then you are also conceding decades of very high growth rate you can achieve with a bio engineered empire and growth rate is one of the main appeals of synthetic ascension. But there is another problem.
Robo modding however is inefficient compared with bio engineering though and the growth rate can be barely any better than a bio ascended one with all the trimmings but they probably started it earlier so even then you might take a while to catch up. Even then if you want to robo mod your stuff that is an ever bigger delay on top of probably having to convert hundreds of pops to synthetics anyway. Synths eat energy but energy districts produce 8 energy vs 12 for food and there is no equivalent for energy compared with hydroponic farms. You can mitigate this by selling all that excess food but still. As an added bonus bots seem to have lost any inherent bonus they had at producing minerals/20% for synthetics. And its not like you can use hive worlds.
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