Philosopher King is always a weak civic, never in history of Stellaris that it is raise above bottom tier civic.
But now they added new civic that's basically a better version of it as a paid feature of Paragon dlc.
So let's comparing their bonus.
Philosopher King give you 20% councilor exp gain and -1 max leader negative trait while Heroic Past give you 25% leader exp gain, -1 max leader negative trait and +1 leader starting trait.
So out of the gate, PK is already outright inferior to HP, HP give more exp bonus that's also applied more broadly (all leader vs only councilor) then to added insult to the injury, HP also give +1 leader starting trait too.
Maybe you are wondering, perhap that PK's unlocked councilor might be better than HP's one?
But nope? They aren't at all, PK's councilor give you 3% councilor exp gain per lvl while HP's give 2% leader exp gain and 2% gov ethic attraction per lvl.
So not only PK is more specialised than HP, need specific authority compared to no requirment, bonus only applied to subset of leader compared to all but they are also weaker than HP as well.
There is no point to take Philosopher King over Heroic Past except in two specific circumstance, first one is you are RPing Plato's Republic ish empire and the second one is you are too poor to buy the Paragon dlc so you literally can't take Heroic Past.
Did some of the dev failed philosophy class cuz Plato and Socrates and now they tried to take their revenge on their game?
If I don't know any better I would think that the dev and/or Paradox has hidden agenda with this patch considering they buff non-autocracy authority to high heaven while nerfing dictatorial, fanatic authoritarian and the bug on autocracy ruler get no trait from ascension couldn't be any more coincidence.
Fortunately I'm not conspiracy theorist so I decide to believe that some dev just suck at philosophy class at colleague and are taking their revenge right now.
The alternative is simply too depressing.
EDIT
Wait, I'm wrong about Heroic Past give 25% leader exp bonus or at least the wiki is wrong about it lol
Phew, this means that Philospher King still has some point left in it favor, no matter how small it is.
But now they added new civic that's basically a better version of it as a paid feature of Paragon dlc.
So let's comparing their bonus.
Philosopher King give you 20% councilor exp gain and -1 max leader negative trait while Heroic Past give you 25% leader exp gain, -1 max leader negative trait and +1 leader starting trait.
So out of the gate, PK is already outright inferior to HP, HP give more exp bonus that's also applied more broadly (all leader vs only councilor) then to added insult to the injury, HP also give +1 leader starting trait too.
Maybe you are wondering, perhap that PK's unlocked councilor might be better than HP's one?
But nope? They aren't at all, PK's councilor give you 3% councilor exp gain per lvl while HP's give 2% leader exp gain and 2% gov ethic attraction per lvl.
So not only PK is more specialised than HP, need specific authority compared to no requirment, bonus only applied to subset of leader compared to all but they are also weaker than HP as well.
There is no point to take Philosopher King over Heroic Past except in two specific circumstance, first one is you are RPing Plato's Republic ish empire and the second one is you are too poor to buy the Paragon dlc so you literally can't take Heroic Past.
Did some of the dev failed philosophy class cuz Plato and Socrates and now they tried to take their revenge on their game?
If I don't know any better I would think that the dev and/or Paradox has hidden agenda with this patch considering they buff non-autocracy authority to high heaven while nerfing dictatorial, fanatic authoritarian and the bug on autocracy ruler get no trait from ascension couldn't be any more coincidence.
Fortunately I'm not conspiracy theorist so I decide to believe that some dev just suck at philosophy class at colleague and are taking their revenge right now.
The alternative is simply too depressing.
EDIT
Wait, I'm wrong about Heroic Past give 25% leader exp bonus or at least the wiki is wrong about it lol
Phew, this means that Philospher King still has some point left in it favor, no matter how small it is.
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