Xenophiles are the Worst at Integrating Species

[hagen_hase]

I actually disagree - I think that the protectorate influence is kind of the reward you reap for helping a lesser species, which is a keystone of xenophile strategy - kind of the counterpoint to rivalry influence.

Xenophile can mean alot of things. i would argue that star trek has the most xenophile fraction, but well they would never uplift a species, or intervene with primitive species.

 

[Ezumiyr]

You don't seem to be playing xenophiles correctly, and I don't get why you assume that you should have vassals as a xenophile empire. I don't really understand what you mean by "integration" either

- Xenophiles have big diplomatic boosts. It's definitely easier to form federation with them. It's what I've seen in all my games when I played xenophiles. Forming federations means that you don't have to care too much about war.
- But when making wars, do liberation wars, then diplo-vassalize what you just liberated. You can even "feed" that vassal in the upcoming wars so you don't need to take care yourself of unhappy pops.
- Xenophiles usually uplift and enlighten. Which means protectorates and vassals. Protectorates are people you protect. Vassals are destined to be integrated in your empire.
- Xenophiles will have easier time to sign migration treaties.
=> the two points above means that your pop will grow faster, and be more diverse. You'll have species from your former vassals, from your allies and even from your former enemies, or even just from that neutral empire from the other side of the galaxy.
This means that you can colonize everything quickly and easily. It also means that you can outproduce other empires. Generally you won't be too good with science, but people overvalue science in Stellaris anyway - science is just a way to compensate your lack of planets and production. As a xenophile, you're not supposed to have science booms. You'll keep a normal scientific pace, allowing your protectorates to reach your level after some years (you should form protectorates early in the game anyway - if you're rarely able to transform them into vassals you're doing it wrong, you should start their enlightenment way earlier). You'll have a strong fleet that won't have a big impact on your economy.
You don't need to change the ethics of most of your pops (there can be some former "fanatic purifier" protectorate that might be a problem, but in that case it can be better to not integrate them at all).


I usually go for xenophiles/militarists/spiritualists or any combination of those three. That's a really strong combo if properly used, either in solo or even in multiplayer (especially if there are some AIs on the map). Basically, you just need to let your pop to do whatever they want, and just relocate them on the planets they arrive in. This means less micromanagement than the players who purge and relocate between planets. A spiritualist ethic convergence boost can be handy. You can focus on ship production and diplomacy, and usually you'll have a lot of influence, meaning that you can colonize a lot and suppress the few factions that don't like you until they are converted to your ways (because they eventually will). Correctly player xenophile empires should be the bigger ones on the map, with the biggest fleets and they should be late in science.
I believe that many people try to play as little xenophile empires with ethically homogeneous pops, which is not what they should do. They should make an early colonization rush. I guess they would like protectorates to be useful, but no : it's your federation friends that you should use as shields, and you should have a gib fleet on your own anyway.

It's in fact very similar to a xenophobe purger empire playstyle, except that you can grow even faster and be in a federation. Xenophiles are the best blobbers.

 

[moglus]

Native Indoctrination (Paid Feature)
Anyone who's ever accidentally enlightened Fanatic Purifiers should be well familiar with the perils of not checking the ethics of a primitive civilization before deciding to enlighten or infiltrate them. In Utopia, we've added a new tool for players to interfere with primitive civilizations: Indoctrination. Indoctrination is a new observation station mission that allows you to 'educate' primitives in your clearly superior way of thinking. While active, it will greatly increase the attraction of your Governing Ethics for the Pops on the primitive planet, and cause them to drift towards those ethics over time. As the Pops start changing ethics, the Governing Ethics of the primitive ciivlization will change along with them, and you will be notified that your mission is making progress. Given enough time to do its job, this mission will eventually cause the primitive civilization's ethics to precisely mirror your own. The Indoctrination mission requires the Active Native Interference policy and so will be available to all ethics.

So it seems like indoctrination just gives them your ethics, so it still leaves the same inherent problem, but at least now i can make sure they have my ethics, so i can guarantee that my subjects will actually be capable of signing migration treaties with me. Which is nice.

And now xenophiles can use active native interference, which is a step in the right direction. I guess i'll get back to modding after 1.5 comes out, try to make something like infiltration for xenophiles, should be interesting.

 

[moglus]

Also it's nice to see that stone age civs now work like all other pre-ftl civs, so they aren't stuck in limbo if they are in a xenophile's or pacifist's space.

 

[Inkidu]

Spiritualists are best at integrating, because of ED bonuses. Xenophiles have no way of dealing with anything, can't purge, can't make people like them more....

And that just boggles me, hence the topic. The one thing Xenophiles have going for them, is something they just can't do. :\

 

[AmpsterMan]

Am i misunderstanding the purpose of Xenophiles? Basically it means if you like other species. Xenophiles, specifically, get happiness for other species on the same planet. It doesn't have anything to do on whether they have the same governing philosophy.

I.e. a Xenophile empire can be Authoritarian (we want you to come but you better accept our way of life) or Egalitarian (we want you to come and celebrate your individuality) Xenophiles basically help you expand your empire at the expense of racial purity. Xenophobes are about spreading their posterity.

Xenophiles are so limited because of how powerful having many Species on your planets can be. A personal favorite strategy for me is to colonize planets with Droids and have migrations from other empires. One can get almost instantly filled planets that way.

 

[Drowe]

Xenophile +F. Individualist sounds like a great combination. You don't need to care about ethics diversion, because of the lower happiness impact of wrong ethics. The bonus happiness of different species on your planets sounds like it could really help with keeping everyone happy, especially if you already have bonuses from direct democracy/subconscious consensus and the hyper entertainment forum. Charismatic and communal as traits and you could basically guarantee there won't be any unhappy pops

 

[AmpsterMan]

Xenophile +F. Individualist sounds like a great combination. You don't need to care about ethics diversion, because of the lower happiness impact of wrong ethics. The bonus happiness of different species on your planets sounds like it could really help with keeping everyone happy, especially if you already have bonuses from direct democracy/subconscious consensus and the hyper entertainment forum. Charismatic and communal as traits and you could basically guarantee there won't be any unhappy pops

You are mostly correct. F.Individualist / Xenophile don't get access to direct democracy.

 

[Foefaller]

Migration is an important facet of the Xenophile. How does one induce migrations? I wasn't my new planets to get a bunch of colonists.

Couple of things:

First, lots of empty tiles on the planet in question, biggest determiner of whether anyone might be willing to go there.

Second, things that boost happiness, habitability or migration attraction, pops like nice planets they feel comfortable living on with big "come here signs". New Frontier planet edict is a nice starter bonus if you have the influence for it. in terms of buildings Xenophiles have Visitor Centers, but depending on the size of the planet and your other ethos, something like the Hyper-Entertainment Center or the Paradise dome might be better as they are straight +happiness buildings (as opposed to +Xenophilia) with either migration attraction or habitability on top. If you have Leviathans, Art Monuments are another good thing to use, but I think they cut you off after so many.

Third, Pops are extremely disinclined to migrate from their homeworld, and will never leave a planet with 5 or fewer pops on it, so you're more likely to see pops coming to your worlds from large empires with many developed worlds as opposed to small empires with only a handful of fresh worlds. If you already have multiple species and their homeworlds within your Empire, make sure you colonize one or two worlds with each of the species you have so you can get the migration mixing going. This is also why I'm often ok with my protectorates expanding, since then even if that add decades to when they become a vassal I can get some of their pops earlier via a migration treaty than if they had simply stayed at one planet.

 

[Cagliostro]

I am still not entirely sure what you're complaining about. Xenophile is a pretty hefty diplomacy bonus and protectorates are great for influence.

The best I can guess is that you're talking about making people adopt your ethics? What do you mean by 'integrating'? Do you want them to be faster at integrating vassals, or better at uplifting primitives? Those are reasonable requests, but you haven't really suggested them.

I mean, outright conquest is faster at getting-a-planet. But AFAIK that makes people (including the people on the planet) dislike you. Maybe the solution is to make non-uplifted species grumpier and less, well, civilized if you just outright conquer them.

 

[Tsuihousha]

Protectorates have a bigger chance for influence, no limit as far as I've found, and they still get you to expand without having to assimilate (the war element of the xenophile hat). They hold up a lot of your monthly in the up-lift, but seeing as you don't have to actually vassalize or uplift to get where you want there's an issue where time is all you pay (and that's more luck driven than anything). So it seems to require less effort than war by you reckoning. So let's hope some stuff gets balanced because I'm still not sure it's working as intended.

I'm not sure I'd classify the energy and social requirements as 'a lot'. In my mind it's extremely minimal compared to the influence rewards you reap, Generally speaking you don't have to annex protectorates, most of the time I don't even want to, influence is harder to come by than whatever resources their tiny blot of space holds, and while granted their species can sometimes be useful I think you're overstating the degree.

That said I would like to see more options and benefits to playing as Xenophile/Xenophobic empires through events or what have you. (Hopefully the new system for political parties helps this a lot.)

I think it would be nice if there was an option to give primitives with similar ethos the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to integrate into your society or not after they've uplifted through the political party system. (IE it would be nice to see your subjects/protectorates et cetra come to you in that screen with their own concerns, opinions et cetra.)

 

[terrycloth]

I am still not entirely sure what you're complaining about. Xenophile is a pretty hefty diplomacy bonus and protectorates are great for influence.

The best I can guess is that you're talking about making people adopt your ethics? What do you mean by 'integrating'? Do you want them to be faster at integrating vassals, or better at uplifting primitives? Those are reasonable requests, but you haven't really suggested them.

I mean, outright conquest is faster at getting-a-planet. But AFAIK that makes people (including the people on the planet) dislike you. Maybe the solution is to make non-uplifted species grumpier and less, well, civilized if you just outright conquer them.

That's the Stellar Culture Shock penalty, which is insanely brutal and can take up to 100 years to wear off.