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No, because a AI-hivemind at the worst just thinks your personal believes are irrelevant, the god ray actively destroys your believes and replaces them with something else. That's a lot scarier.
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Jul 11, 2018 12:02
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If the AI doesn't have the decency to brainwash or leave the victims braindead, that's even worse. Imagine having your body violated with cybernetics and hijacked to serve a malevolent AI while you are effectively a prisoner in your own head. I can't think of anything worse. You'd go utterly, completely insane in a matter of days. You couldn't even commit suicide. That's some "I have no mouth and I must scream" poo poo. At least the victims of the Divine Enforcer are super psyched (heh) and happy about the whole thing.
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Jul 11, 2018 12:08
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As part of our efforts to re-brand our assimilation process that strips you of your humanity and dare we say your soul, I'd like to introduce you to Funilation! It all starts with re-imaging the neural pithizer, or what we now call the Happy Spike...
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Jul 11, 2018 12:22
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Luckily most AIs aren't malevolent, so that argument can be discarded as a scary propaganda story made-up by the evil enemies of our benevolent overlord. 
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Jul 11, 2018 12:32
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*Contemplates the Ban AI option.
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Jul 11, 2018 13:40
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THE BAR posted:It's really good, yes. Or maybe too many of the others aren't good enough? It’s this. Egal especially.
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Jul 11, 2018 13:49
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Nightgull posted:It’s this. Egal especially. The ones furthest away from "murderous warlords" are the weakest ones, funnily enough. Unless you cheese Pacifism.
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Jul 11, 2018 14:18
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THE BAR posted:The ones furthest away from "murderous warlords" are the weakest ones, funnily enough. Unless you cheese Pacifism. Pacifism should be renamed Passive-Agressivism since the point of it seems to be to build up your military by cheesing mineral income, then insulting and goading the enemy into attacking you so you can steal all their territory.
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Jul 11, 2018 14:34
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Nightgull posted:It’s this. Egal especially. Did they somehow nerf the benefits of happiness builds? Because afaik there was a point where full egal people's revolution could keep up just from how easy it is to placate the egalitarian faction so long as you don't do something dumb like take xenophobe as secondary.
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Jul 11, 2018 14:42
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I haven't played this game in almost a year and I'm deeply upset that my science vessels apparently cannot path through multiple unexplored systems.
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Jul 11, 2018 14:47
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THE BAR posted:The ones furthest away from "murderous warlords" are the weakest ones, funnily enough. Unless you cheese Pacifism.
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Jul 11, 2018 14:48
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Fanatic Egalitarian doesn't seem weak at all in my current game. I have influence coming out of my ears.
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Jul 11, 2018 15:34
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Libluini posted:Luckily most AIs aren't malevolent, so that argument can be discarded as a scary propaganda story made-up by the evil enemies of our benevolent overlord. Rogue Servitors are hilarious to me, but I can't help but love Determined Exterminators. I really need to install a mod that lets me field multiple World Crackers. It's just so much more efficient.
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Jul 11, 2018 15:46
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Pacifist is actually really strong but just bloody boring unless you constantly insult everyone around you. Guys. Guys. I think I understand Trump's foreign policy now.
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Jul 11, 2018 16:08
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Baiting Canada into invading, it all makes sense.
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Jul 11, 2018 16:10
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double nine posted:the idea, I think, is to use steam achievements as a way to gauge playstyles and popular/unpopular mechanics. Having the ability to bypass this with a mod that gives a billion resources to the player at the first day of the game. It's this. The whole reason the "Conquer the world as Ryukyu" achievement in EU4 exists, for instance, is to examine for cheese strategies--a lot of the ones used by the guy who got it the first time weren't intentional and have since been patched out.
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Jul 11, 2018 17:48
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Agnosticnixie posted:Did they somehow nerf the benefits of happiness builds? Because afaik there was a point where full egal people's revolution could keep up just from how easy it is to placate the egalitarian faction so long as you don't do something dumb like take xenophobe as secondary. I haven’t played egalitarian in forever, sorry, I meant xenophile. It’s super poo poo especially compared to the phobe boniiariam, especially since you could be surrounded by people who will never like you in a million years.
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Jul 11, 2018 19:00
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Nightgull posted:I haven’t played egalitarian in forever, sorry, I meant xenophile. It’s super poo poo especially compared to the phobe boniiariam, especially since you could be surrounded by people who will never like you in a million years. xenophile is quite powerful since you get migrants and refugees to use as settlers on other planet types, and useful species with good traits move in surprisingly often
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Jul 11, 2018 19:15
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Jazerus posted:xenophile is quite powerful since you get migrants and refugees to use as settlers on other planet types, and useful species with good traits move in surprisingly often The border friction buff is pretty good too, although obviously useless in MP. The Diplomacy influence cost reduction would be good... if the Diplomacy opener didn't give it to you for free. Xenophile really needs better diplomacy to be worthwhile. It's fun for RP but not much else.
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Jul 11, 2018 19:59
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If xenophile had some kind of pop attraction bonus that let you passively gain pops from other civs, then it would be cool.
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Jul 11, 2018 20:11
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Aethernet posted:Xenophile really needs better diplomacy to be worthwhile. It's fun for RP but not much else. Maybe a shared tech centre, where your scientists could cooperate or something. But that's probably not xenophile material. Just sounded like a neat idea to me. E: I've never really liked how you end up with all the unity idea groups. You only pick when, not what you get.
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Jul 11, 2018 20:11
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Jazerus posted:xenophile is quite powerful since you get migrants and refugees to use as settlers on other planet types, and useful species with good traits move in surprisingly often Those things aren’t unique to xenophile.
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Jul 11, 2018 21:21
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Conskill posted:As part of our efforts to re-brand our assimilation process that strips you of your humanity and dare we say your soul, I'd like to introduce you to Funilation! It all starts with re-imaging the neural pithizer, or what we now call the Happy Spike... Report to Stimsis for deskeletonisation.
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Jul 11, 2018 21:34
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Nightgull posted:Those things aren’t unique to xenophile. This is why Xenophile is trash. You don't get anything from it that you wouldn't get otherwise if you had just taken some other non-shithead ethics. Migration is slow and bad and the border friction reduction doesn't matter pretty much at all. If you want more pops with different climate preferences, doing it via migration treaties and waiting is slow as gently caress. Far far better/faster to go take some pops from someone who hates you anyways. If you are a Good Guy type of nation looking for allies you will probably get it from mutual rivalry and shared threat modifiers vs a hated enemy before you get it from the border friction bonus. And once this happens you will get those migration treaties same as any Xenophile. Egalitarian is the most important Good Guy multicultural empire ethic and is rather strong in its own right. Hopefully the Xenophile diplo bonus will actually matter once the space UN or whatever is around.
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Jul 11, 2018 21:52
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Nightgull posted:I haven’t played egalitarian in forever, sorry, I meant xenophile. It’s super poo poo especially compared to the phobe boniiariam, especially since you could be surrounded by people who will never like you in a million years. Xenophile is only worthwhile as a Fanatic Xenophile, since it makes Defensive Pacts free, and the +50 Opinion gain is massive. Pair it with a Charismatic species, and that +75 resting opinion will net at least a Non-Aggression with most non-genocidal species. More likely you'll have 1-3 Defensive Pacts right out of the gate, and a Federation long before anyone else is even thinking of opening Diplomacy. An early-game Fed can absolutely steamroll the competition. Still the weakest ethic by far, but not unplayable.
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Jul 11, 2018 22:03
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Egalitarian is the most important Good Guy multicultural empire ethic and is rather strong in its own right. Egalitarian is also really good for bad guys; I really like taking Spiritualist/Egalitarian/Xenophobe, collecting an assload of influence from factions, and then purging everyone who's not me.
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Jul 11, 2018 22:06
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I don't think Xenophile is ever going to be a power gaming go-to, though the higher the difficulty you play at the more valuable it is to stay on the good side of your neighbors. If you're in a multiplayer game, I suppose you'll need to include AI neighbors for you to befriend, I suppose. So I think philosophically it's fine. On the flip side, mechanically it's pretty weak: Border friction isn't that high to begin with (-5 per system, limit 100) and there's a lot of different ways to reduce it to zero. Diplomatic influence also isn't that high, particularly if you form a federation, so practically speaking you'll only save .5 inf a month. Xenophilia and the other ethics modifiers also aren't that strong: Practically speaking you'll gain 10 to 20 opinion with the non-Xenophobe empires, which isn't particularly much though it can form the tipping point of a positive relationship. But that fact that Xenophobes particularly detest Xenophiles means that realistically there's a good chance that the overall bonus will be minimal. It could certainly use a boost, but at the same time it should be remembered that diplomacy is a fairly iterative thing: Every time I've played a Xenophile it's been super easy to make friends early and often, which then leads to early alliances, early federations, and nearly guaranteed victories.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jul 11, 2018 |
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Jul 11, 2018 22:25
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The best bit about xenophile is really the diplomacy buff, because it allows you to make friends with everyone a lot easier.
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Jul 11, 2018 22:36
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OwlFancier posted:The best bit about xenophile is really the diplomacy buff, because it allows you to make friends with everyone a lot easier. Egalitarian provides many of the same benefits.
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Jul 11, 2018 22:42
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OwlFancier posted:The best bit about xenophile is really the diplomacy buff, because it allows you to make friends with everyone a lot easier. Maybe my maps bias towards shithead empires since I have so many saved ones but I usually only have 1 or 2 empires nearby that would even conceive of being friendly. There's so many reasons for people to hate you or at least not like you terribly much. If they are a badboy civ, xenophobe, have an opposing ethic, or are a hegemonic imperialist they are not going to want to be friends with you to the point of getting pacts going unless there's some other neighbors that you can hate together (if ever).
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Jul 11, 2018 22:43
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Nuclearmonkee posted:This is why Xenophile is trash. You don't get anything from it that you wouldn't get otherwise if you had just taken some other non-shithead ethics. Migration is slow and bad and the border friction reduction doesn't matter pretty much at all. If you want more pops with different climate preferences, doing it via migration treaties and waiting is slow as gently caress. Far far better/faster to go take some pops from someone who hates you anyways. this isn't true since migration isn't slow and bad if you're a xenophile, see
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Jul 11, 2018 22:49
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Hunt11 posted:Egalitarian provides many of the same benefits. Assuming you're talking to other egalitarians and are running a democracy, perhaps. But xenophile just gives you a flat relations buff which makes it far easier to get off on the right foot with anybody as well as maintain positive relations later on. Even if you run into a bit of an rear end in a top hat civ the buff can really help offset their malus. It gives you a much better chance to make a good start with them than you would otherwise have without having to invest resources. I wouldn't build a civilization around it because I don't really have the patience but I do sometimes take it as a second pick if I have nothing else I want to put one point into. Especially as Egalitarian forces you towards democracy, militarists are pissy if you aren't conquering everyone, materialist/spiritualist are incompatible and I usually pick one, pacifists are annoyingly restrictive, and authortiarians are just dickheads who piss and moan about slaves all day like loving antebellum southerners. Xenophiles are honestly pretty easy to keep content and don't really want much other than that you aren't a dick to aliens which, well, I'm generally not. It's compatible with most kinds of playstyle and the diplo buff gives you a lot of choice as to whose head you want to kick in/how much head kicking in you want to do. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jul 11, 2018 |
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Jul 11, 2018 22:56
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Jazerus posted:this isn't true since migration isn't slow and bad if you're a xenophile, see You have to own a planet that the pops will move to which requires having a gaia honeypot, robotic colonization, or a bunch of hab bonus which takes tech. Then you have to have a migration treaty with someone who has a full planet and then wait for the migration to happen, which gives you one pop at a time. OR you could just send a bunch of hicks with guns to some neighbor's first colony and round up a whole bunch of them in one go in 2210. Xenophile should let you build colony ships using the pops of people who you have migration treaties with even if they don't currently live in your borders. Could just make it a diplomacy tradition or something. Nuclearmonkee fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jul 11, 2018 |
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Jul 11, 2018 22:57
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Some earlier mentioned how good Authoritarian is, and I have to agree completely. I'm playing an Authoritarian, Xenophobe, Pacifist run right now, and it works really well. Slaving Guilds + Inwards Perfection makes for some really nice early growth, and once I get my 3rd civic I'll add Mining Guilds for the extra pile of minerals. It doesn't matter that everyone else is out teching me, since I have 5x the economy of everyone else. I do miss Spiritualist for Psionics and the chance at getting the +25% mineral boost covenant, but it also means I can just ignore the ascension route and go all in on Gaia worlds and megastructures.
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Jul 11, 2018 23:18
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Hunt11 posted:Egalitarian provides many of the same benefits. Egalitarian has all the same bonuses and maluses as the other ethics dialectics. Xenophile and Xenophobe double down on them and also get into phenotype diversity, which means that if you have a wider variety of phenotypes (from mods or DLC, or simply from choosing widely when creating species) then those benefits come into play more. Ideally, a Fanatic Xenophile will get a +60 bonus with every other species outside its phenotype, other than Xenophobes, or +30/40 with other xenophiles regardless of phenotype. An egalitarian gets +10/25 with other egalitarians (same with all other ethics, more or less). Overall this comes down to a +10-20 bonus compared to other ethics: Which on the one hand is equivalent to getting the Star Lords perk at the beginning of the game, and on the other hand could probably be stronger. Kaal fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 11, 2018 |
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Jul 11, 2018 23:36
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I can't remember but I think xenophile is also a requisite for some of the really good monster research results, prismatic lenses etc, though that could have been changed recently.
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Jul 11, 2018 23:44
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OwlFancier posted:I can't remember but I think xenophile is also a requisite for some of the really good monster research results, prismatic lenses etc, though that could have been changed recently. Pretty sure that's correct still. There are a bunch of events where you can only get the best result if you're xenophile, or some where only non-spiritualist. I think the pacification ones only require non-xenophobe.
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Jul 12, 2018 00:06
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I was pretty disappointed by the opinion bonus from Xenophile, it's only 5-20 depending on your species and theirs. Compare to the Charismatic trait always giving you +25 at a much lower cost.
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Jul 12, 2018 00:07
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OwlFancier posted:I can't remember but I think xenophile is also a requisite for some of the really good monster research results, prismatic lenses etc, though that could have been changed recently. correct xenophile's bonuses are all hidden or playstyle-dependent so i can see why it isn't viewed as the best pick, but i've never regretted taking it
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Jul 12, 2018 00:39
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OwlFancier posted:The best bit about xenophile is "They're fighting. STOP FIGHITNG!" "We took some animals and made them people!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s9vAFE2ESY
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Jul 12, 2018 00:43
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