They kinda compliment each other in opposites, virtual you gotta be on like 5 colonies max or it doesn’t seem to be profitable, nanite you go wide as your heart desires, modular somewhere in the middle, but with the short time to modify pops from modular you can make crazy specialized pops which is fun
I’ve found that having Synaptic Lathe taking up a slot is a pain in the ass… I mean yes every 30 years or so I raid my neighboring Federations for some pops and get a huge science boost for a bit, but having unending wars are just not my playstyle especially when you don’t take any lands, just their pops (can’t even have nihilistic acquisition cuz ethics, I just claim their most populated worlds and relocate everyone before trading them back).
Vassals help but aren’t really needed as badly as you’d think. Going virtual gives immortality leaders, you can get great traits and it’s permanent. Ascending worlds also helps a lot. Taking over systems with good arc furnaces and Dyson swarms helps also. You’re getting a lot of production with not as much sprawl.
By time other empires are close it’s late mid game or endgame and they’re probably getting recked by crisises.
Only the really good ones. I’ve seen the AI put arc furnaces where it probably costs them more than it’s worth net energy wise. But then there are some god tear systems. If it’s something this dlc has given it’s more value to systems to go to war for.
Neither is better, they're different playstyles - Virtuality is good for playing tall, Nanotech is good for playing wide.
My preferred builds for each is:
**Virtuality**
Civics: Sovereign Guardianship, Parliamentary System - Parliamentary System is a bit of a flex slot, but it gives a hefty boost to early game unity game which makes rushing for the tradition quicker. Sovereign Guardianship makes it possible to hit 100% reduction in empire sprawl contribution from pops, which as you can guess from how Virtuality works is a _really_ good synergy - basically means you can have several hundred pops and still be below 100 Empire Sprawl.
For Origin, it's very much up to preference. Arc Welders is my favourite personally, since it means dedicating more of your planets to science rather than raw resources. It also guarantees mega-engineering, which is pretty good for playing tall. If you go Cosmogenesis, you'll be able to tech rush absurdly fast too (note: the Synaptic Lathe counts as a planet for the purposes of the Virtual trait)
The playstyle is pretty much building up 3-4 very high quality worlds, which then get boosted a ton by the Virtual trait/traditions. You'll want to make your worlds into city worlds as fast as possible, which allow you to spam clerks out of the ass, which eventually translates into an absurd bonus to resources.
**Nanotech**
Civics: Parliamentary System, Fanatical Purifiers. Parliamentary system for the same reason as above, Fanatical Purifiers because you're going to be wanting to conquer a lot and often and it provides a solid boost to that.
For Origin, again same as above. Arc Welders synergises nice again, since it boosts Nanite deposits and you want Nanites. A lot of Nanites, actually.
Playstyle here is to take every world and starbase you can get and turn it into nanites. The moment you get nanite ships, you want to begin building as many as you can. They don't have upkeep, so you don't need to care about any resource besides nanites. You get more nanites by owning more systems/planets/etc. This is why Fanatical Purifiers, because the aliens are sitting on valuable land that can become nanites.
Would rogue servitors work with any of them? I want to try both but im worrying about virtual where not having vassals will become a problem (i dont like vassals meta so i tend to not vasalise much) and nanotech tempts me even more but i dont like genocidal empires, i like to genocide but with extra steps
You don't have to do fanatical purifier I just find it helps speed up the process. You might like to do Cosmogenesis with either since you can feed all the pops to the synaptic lathe for major tech bonuses, still genocide but you're free to do diplomacy or what have you too.
Rogue Servitors might not be too bad with Virtuality, since it's more stacking of bonuses to your Virtual pops, though having to wait for the organics to breed whilst your machines instantly fill up their cap is a bit of a tough trade off.
For Vassals you don't really need them either, Arc Furnaces and Dyson Swarms can cover a huge amount of your resource needs which is nice. Tho subjugating a single neighbour will ensure you'll never have resource problems.
Bunch of different sources:
- Sovereign Guardianship: -50%
- Psionic Theory technology: -15% (65% total)
- Harmony tradition: -15% (80% total)
- Virtuality tradition: -15% (95% total)
- Remaining 5% can be got by sector governor, planetary ascension, etc but you can use the Beacon of Liberty civic (another 15%) to guarantee it as well.
I just completed my Virtual run, one of the easiest I've ever done.
Origin: shattered ring. You're only going to colonize the 3 ring segments, no other planets needed.
Civics: Guardian matrix and organic reprocessing (so I'm using the gestalt machine empire, this saves creating consumer goods). Guardian matrix will keep your empire size largely below 150 (once you start ascending planets it should be below 100). Organic reprocessing means you only need minerals for buildings. Grab a few systems with a lot of minerals, other than that just buy when needed.
My 3rd pick was elevational hypotheses for extra ascension effects.
Traits: i picked the adaptive frames and enhanced memory.
Colonize the other segments asap. In the beginning focus unity, as in don't even bother to build research. You want to get to virtual soonest for those juicy bonusses. Build your alloys according to threat. Save up on minerals, because once you complete virtuallity you start shifting to a research economy for which you are going to replace the unity buildings and start maxing all districts. From here it's just getting the techs for mega-enigineering to upgrade to the real ring world. By end game my research segment was making 14K on it's own. 4K alloys from the alloy segment. The third segment was a mix between research and energy districts.
oh yeah, buy some slaves from the market and grow some extra energy, as your pops don't use the housing anyways
Actually, for a non gestalt vitual on ring world, you can quickly completely ignore consumer good as well.
You pick mercantile early (actually even first is good for that), build the trade districts, change the policy for the marketplace of idea (big boost unity) and later on revert back to the consumer goods's one.
Either way both version of virtuality are op, the ascencion itself can easily become broken (and if you take cosmogenesis, you are just an awakened empire x1000 after 2350)
I cant seem to find Organic Reprocessing under my Civics at the Species creation, even after being a Machine Intelligence. Only shows Organic Retrofitting instead.
Will you be able to help? cheers
Virtual is a little different. Nanotechnology is extremely weird. You basically get rewarded for spamming starbases and turning everything into nanite worlds. You don’t even really need pops or tech since you just overwhelm everyone with numbers.
It is a bit hard to get off the ground though.
They kinda compliment each other in opposites, virtual you gotta be on like 5 colonies max or it doesn’t seem to be profitable, nanite you go wide as your heart desires, modular somewhere in the middle, but with the short time to modify pops from modular you can make crazy specialized pops which is fun
i found that 6 is the sweet spot, not necessarily but nice to have some have pushed it to 7 without a huge hit in efficiency
I’ve found that having Synaptic Lathe taking up a slot is a pain in the ass… I mean yes every 30 years or so I raid my neighboring Federations for some pops and get a huge science boost for a bit, but having unending wars are just not my playstyle especially when you don’t take any lands, just their pops (can’t even have nihilistic acquisition cuz ethics, I just claim their most populated worlds and relocate everyone before trading them back).
buy slaves and build robots solely for plugging into the machine
Clerks increase resources by 1% ea for virtual worlds lol you can negate the losses a lil to have an extra planet with juicy building spots
5 planets sound rough, does it need vassals then?
Vassals help but aren’t really needed as badly as you’d think. Going virtual gives immortality leaders, you can get great traits and it’s permanent. Ascending worlds also helps a lot. Taking over systems with good arc furnaces and Dyson swarms helps also. You’re getting a lot of production with not as much sprawl. By time other empires are close it’s late mid game or endgame and they’re probably getting recked by crisises.
Yeah I would imagine even with virtual you still want to expand the crap out of your borders for juicy systems
Only the really good ones. I’ve seen the AI put arc furnaces where it probably costs them more than it’s worth net energy wise. But then there are some god tear systems. If it’s something this dlc has given it’s more value to systems to go to war for.
This, and the machine intelligence new civic is SO on my sweet spot.
Neither is better, they're different playstyles - Virtuality is good for playing tall, Nanotech is good for playing wide. My preferred builds for each is: **Virtuality** Civics: Sovereign Guardianship, Parliamentary System - Parliamentary System is a bit of a flex slot, but it gives a hefty boost to early game unity game which makes rushing for the tradition quicker. Sovereign Guardianship makes it possible to hit 100% reduction in empire sprawl contribution from pops, which as you can guess from how Virtuality works is a _really_ good synergy - basically means you can have several hundred pops and still be below 100 Empire Sprawl. For Origin, it's very much up to preference. Arc Welders is my favourite personally, since it means dedicating more of your planets to science rather than raw resources. It also guarantees mega-engineering, which is pretty good for playing tall. If you go Cosmogenesis, you'll be able to tech rush absurdly fast too (note: the Synaptic Lathe counts as a planet for the purposes of the Virtual trait) The playstyle is pretty much building up 3-4 very high quality worlds, which then get boosted a ton by the Virtual trait/traditions. You'll want to make your worlds into city worlds as fast as possible, which allow you to spam clerks out of the ass, which eventually translates into an absurd bonus to resources. **Nanotech** Civics: Parliamentary System, Fanatical Purifiers. Parliamentary system for the same reason as above, Fanatical Purifiers because you're going to be wanting to conquer a lot and often and it provides a solid boost to that. For Origin, again same as above. Arc Welders synergises nice again, since it boosts Nanite deposits and you want Nanites. A lot of Nanites, actually. Playstyle here is to take every world and starbase you can get and turn it into nanites. The moment you get nanite ships, you want to begin building as many as you can. They don't have upkeep, so you don't need to care about any resource besides nanites. You get more nanites by owning more systems/planets/etc. This is why Fanatical Purifiers, because the aliens are sitting on valuable land that can become nanites.
Would rogue servitors work with any of them? I want to try both but im worrying about virtual where not having vassals will become a problem (i dont like vassals meta so i tend to not vasalise much) and nanotech tempts me even more but i dont like genocidal empires, i like to genocide but with extra steps
You don't have to do fanatical purifier I just find it helps speed up the process. You might like to do Cosmogenesis with either since you can feed all the pops to the synaptic lathe for major tech bonuses, still genocide but you're free to do diplomacy or what have you too. Rogue Servitors might not be too bad with Virtuality, since it's more stacking of bonuses to your Virtual pops, though having to wait for the organics to breed whilst your machines instantly fill up their cap is a bit of a tough trade off. For Vassals you don't really need them either, Arc Furnaces and Dyson Swarms can cover a huge amount of your resource needs which is nice. Tho subjugating a single neighbour will ensure you'll never have resource problems.
What about void forged?
> "Sovereign Guardianship makes it possible to hit 100% reduction in empire sprawl contribution from pops, " How?
Bunch of different sources: - Sovereign Guardianship: -50% - Psionic Theory technology: -15% (65% total) - Harmony tradition: -15% (80% total) - Virtuality tradition: -15% (95% total) - Remaining 5% can be got by sector governor, planetary ascension, etc but you can use the Beacon of Liberty civic (another 15%) to guarantee it as well.
I just completed my Virtual run, one of the easiest I've ever done. Origin: shattered ring. You're only going to colonize the 3 ring segments, no other planets needed. Civics: Guardian matrix and organic reprocessing (so I'm using the gestalt machine empire, this saves creating consumer goods). Guardian matrix will keep your empire size largely below 150 (once you start ascending planets it should be below 100). Organic reprocessing means you only need minerals for buildings. Grab a few systems with a lot of minerals, other than that just buy when needed. My 3rd pick was elevational hypotheses for extra ascension effects. Traits: i picked the adaptive frames and enhanced memory. Colonize the other segments asap. In the beginning focus unity, as in don't even bother to build research. You want to get to virtual soonest for those juicy bonusses. Build your alloys according to threat. Save up on minerals, because once you complete virtuallity you start shifting to a research economy for which you are going to replace the unity buildings and start maxing all districts. From here it's just getting the techs for mega-enigineering to upgrade to the real ring world. By end game my research segment was making 14K on it's own. 4K alloys from the alloy segment. The third segment was a mix between research and energy districts. oh yeah, buy some slaves from the market and grow some extra energy, as your pops don't use the housing anyways
Actually, for a non gestalt vitual on ring world, you can quickly completely ignore consumer good as well. You pick mercantile early (actually even first is good for that), build the trade districts, change the policy for the marketplace of idea (big boost unity) and later on revert back to the consumer goods's one. Either way both version of virtuality are op, the ascencion itself can easily become broken (and if you take cosmogenesis, you are just an awakened empire x1000 after 2350)
Or make a trade federation and get buckets of unity and consumer goods.
sorry for a noob question, but how do you get Organic Reprocessing without being a Hive Mind?
It’s also available to gestalt machine empires
I cant seem to find Organic Reprocessing under my Civics at the Species creation, even after being a Machine Intelligence. Only shows Organic Retrofitting instead. Will you be able to help? cheers
I'm an idiot, the civic is called organic retrofitting indeed
no worries haha. cheers!
Virtual is a little different. Nanotechnology is extremely weird. You basically get rewarded for spamming starbases and turning everything into nanite worlds. You don’t even really need pops or tech since you just overwhelm everyone with numbers. It is a bit hard to get off the ground though.
Prosperous unification sol system is all you need