Ectogenesis Pod

This is untrue.
Changing population from worker to specialist will deduct 0.75 from population unhappiness and add 0.75 to specialist unhappiness.

Click to expand...

Weird because game files say 1.34.

So, once you've got the energy boom going, how many buildings do you rush buy in each city? By my count, you need 15 buildings per city plus 3 trade routes just to take care of the unhappiness from the city itself with Industry, much less the population. Rush buying health buildings will help, but only up until around pop 8. Though I suppose if you're spamming generators everywhere your cities might not be growing past that much. Sprinkle in a bit of baseline health and you'll probably stay in the green, but I don't see how you're reaching that 20+ breakpoint.

Basically, with my Supremacy strategy I open Prosperity to jump start my expansion and secure lots of health bonuses before moving into Knowledge and getting Learning Centers with Academy spam to drive up science. I don't think Industry substitutes for Prosperity well in that strategy.

As far as Workers go, if I'm using a strategy based around basic improvements (i.e. farms and generators), I find 2 workers per city to be sufficient, though a few extra when magrails become available doesn't hurt. If it's a strategy based around more advanced improvements (i.e. biowells, academies, and/or terrascapes), then three workers per city is much better as you push out those new improvements, after which you can cut back on workers as things fall into place (PAC can obviously do more with fewer, and Master Control can have a big impact on how far you can stretch your workers).

Click to expand...

Exact buy rate is influenced by expansion rate, war rate, and exact degree of boom. and yes pop stays low, 10-12 tops, you don't need more with that kind of city density. I linked a screenshot of my last attempt, health is lower than it should be as that slav city is costing me loads, (just grabbed it and it has only a crytonusery for health), and the war force me to re-found a city whilst diverting a lot of money to the war so i have 3 cities with some or all of the health improvements missing and only a few buildings and upkesh is missing trade routes.

Linky.

This is a Harmony game, but i don't see a supremacy game adding much extra in the way of issues. Simply drop alien sciences et all and go downwards instead of across. I do have saves if you want a look see, though as i noted i'm still perfecting this strategy.

Anyway gtg shopping, back later.

Carl_Bar said:

Weird because game files say 1.34.

Click to expand...

I do not think it is coicidence that 1/0.75 is 1.33.

The relevant code, possibly it means occupied as in captured city pop instead.

Carl_Bar said:

Code:

		<Row Name="FOOD_CONSUMPTION_PER_POPULATION">
			<Value>2</Value>
		</Row>
		<Row Name="HEALTH_PER_CITY_WITH_STATE_RELIGION">
			<Value>0</Value>
		</Row>
		<Row Name="HEALTH_PER_EXTRA_LUXURY">
			<Value>0</Value>
		</Row>
		<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_POPULATION">
			<Value>0.75</Value>
		</Row>
		<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_OCCUPIED_POPULATION">
			<Value>1.34</Value>
		</Row>
		<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_CITY">
			<Value>4</Value>
		</Row>
		<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_CAPTURED_CITY">
			<Value>8</Value>
		</Row>

The relevant code, possibly it means occupied as in captured city pop instead.

Click to expand...

I'm 99% confident that "occupied" is either a puppet or a city currently in revolt due to recently being captured.

Indeed. Specialists and occupied population are two completely different things.

Argh! In another thread I was arguing that it is 1.34 unhealth per pop for captured cities and got told that was wrong and that it was for specialists, now this thread says I was right. It makes a fair difference in my opinion about whether captured cities are worth keeping or razing - but I'll leave that for the other thread.

I'll try a game out when I go home to see if I can pin down whether it is capture pop or specialists.

It's capture pop; I confirmed in my most recent game that specialists are only 0.75 (why they feel the need to track them separately is beyond me). I'd be more interested in knowing if the additional unhealth penalty for a captured/occupied city is forever or goes away eventually.

That is leftover from Civ5 where some civics gave reduced unhappiness from specialists.

Kaigen said:

It's capture pop; I confirmed in my most recent game that specialists are only 0.75 (why they feel the need to track them separately is beyond me). I'd be more interested in knowing if the additional unhealth penalty for a captured/occupied city is forever or goes away eventually.

Click to expand...

Thanks for confirming that Kaigen, and I too would like to know whether it is permanent or goes away at some point - maybe I can figure that out.

Yeha much appreciated here too, some of the values in the code are annoyingly vaguely labeled.

Strategist83 said:

Ectogenesis Pod is almost certainly the strongest Wonder in the game due to its combination of early availability + significant benefit (especially for Purity players). It is one of the few Wonders that actually deserve 'Wonder' classification.

In fact, EP is almost annoyingly good. Getting it strongly encourages going Purity, meaning you end up with far too many Purity playthroughs.

OP asked the question: Is this Wonder worth rushing [for a wide strategy]? The answer is: Definitely yes, especially if your starting area suggested a Purity strategy in the first place (Titanium & Floatstone access, fresh water tiles that can be farmed). Similar to Civ V, Wonders - at least the ones that aren't blatantly broken due to Firaxis' questionable balancing - aren't very costly compared to the immense benefit they provide. EP will indeed be worth going for rather than placing yet another city, especially since you can't place an unlimited amount of cities anyway due to Health restrictions.

EP is one of the odd exceptions to the awkward wonder balancing where it is so good it might in fact need to be nerfed rather than buffed.

Click to expand...

Only rush it if you're committed to purity. Then you're committed to the leaf techs afterwards so you have marines and *maybe* gunners in time (or you might get hit before then). Get ready for a hard fight.

Otherwise, it's pioneering -> engineering -> computing so you get combat rovers, those artillery things and ships. And reveal titanium: I usually grab continental surveyors so I can start overseas trade routes with AIs far away.

Because my neighbours *always* try to bash me in, I can never be friend with them.

Of course, if you have wide open spaces without neighbours in your face then do what ever you want. Even then, I'm starting to like pioneering -> chemistry -> physics -> ecology -> robotics -> *cognition* -> bionics (very harmony build).

I'm actually trying to get a feel for all the builds and multiple ways through the tech tree. Ecto Pod isn't a hard go since it's easy to just beeline bionics after and still get Battlesuits in time.

Just forced a Supremacy game with PAC. I say forced because I had tons of Titanium and Floatstone and even Xenomass in my start zone. Either one of Purity or Harmony would have been trivial. But no. I had 5 Firaxite (on two remote tiles) on my entire subcontinent and I go Supremacy.

Additional rules:

No purity techs
No farms
Limited Biowell use

Basically, it's Generators the whole way.

It's... Interesting. It's certainly a very different feel and pace. Bee lining Xenomalleum hard and going for super-Generators creates a very Generator/Node heavy landscape. Refugees+choose food every quest significantly reduces the need for centralized food, and gets cities running at speed quickly, while limiting overall size to about 7-10. Basically, space them as close as possible, but leave room for later. You can get them to 15? Eventually.

Hammers are low in peripheral cities. Mostly, you rush-buy a lot. It's definitely an Industry play, though I could see a way Knowledge can work out.

Health was an issue (played by additional rules barring outpost-founding in negative Health). Without Gene Gardens as an easy out, I was forced to go to Optical Surgery. Did I mention that I have 5 Firaxite? Yeah. Things got hairy when Hutama declared war with Battlesuits and I had Disciples and 1 CNDR.

It's... Interesting. It's certainly a very different feel and pace. Bee lining Xenomalleum hard and going for super-Generators creates a very Generator/Node heavy landscape. Refugees+choose food every quest significantly reduces the need for centralized food, and gets cities running at speed quickly, while limiting overall size to about 7-10. Basically, space them as close as possible, but leave room for later. You can get them to 15? Eventually.

Hammers are low in peripheral cities. Mostly, you rush-buy a lot. It's definitely an Industry play, though I could see a way Knowledge can work out.

Click to expand...

This is my current under development strategy, it's really, really, really powerful if your willing to dip negative health when you found a new city, (or few usually), because you can really force the expansion rate out fast once it gets going and the ability to just buy units just lets you sustain a war effort in the face of much harsher resistance since you can often feed units in by mid game as fast or faster than they die, something that's much harder with pure production.

Health is kind of a joke at the moment, but I personally don't dip below -10 as a personal rule, and I take pains and detours to keep it positive as much as possible. That's why I detoured to Mechatronics for Optical Surgery and traded/expanded for Firaxite. Otherwise, I simply wouldn't care.

Since expansion speed is limited by Health, the strategy's low Health means you can't expand quite as much as Purity with their easy Gene Gardens and Gene Smelters.

In general, my units didn't die very much on defense as Supremacy. In fact, they didn't die at all. Nodes and TacNet Satellites confer a commanding home-territory advantage, bolstered significantly by Defense Perimeters and Command Centers. On the attack, Orbital Lasers grant covering fire to soften up the opposition. Certainly, being able to just buy Orbital Lasers at need is very convenient.

I keep thinking that Supremacy is really built to go tall and turtle, but it's really hard to justify that strategy with the game how it is right now. I mean, between their affinity buildings they get an extra 6 specialist slots (Purity buildings don't have any specialist slots, for comparison) and they get more science percentage boosts, which suggests that you want big cities (or at least a super capital), but trade routes are so good and you need all the Firaxite you can get your hands on.

Kaigen said:

I keep thinking that Supremacy is really built to go tall and turtle, but it's really hard to justify that strategy with the game how it is right now. I mean, between their affinity buildings they get an extra 6 specialist slots (Purity buildings don't have any specialist slots, for comparison) and they get more science percentage boosts, which suggests that you want big cities (or at least a super capital), but trade routes are so good and you need all the Firaxite you can get your hands on.

Click to expand...

Nah. With no native food tile improvements (Farms are Purity, Biowells are Harmony), Supremacy really isn't tall-friendly. Like, at all. Institute is a core Harmony/Purity tech, and that gives you 3 Scientist Specialist slots. Harmony gives you Xenonursery, which is an easy +10% Science boost at affinity 2 (!!!).

Going hard for the Supremacy techs, it really does feel as if they're into a bunch of small cities with lots of very strong Generators. The Specialist slots are to help specializing the city so that you get something our of your Internal Trade Routes, which would otherwise be worthless.

My most recent game. Decided to mix it up and go Apollo w/6 AI, Random Sponsor Random Colonists Machinery and Cont Surveyor and Protean Map with all other settings on random. Cultural Burden Quest Fix as only Mod w/UI Tweaks for Last TR button.

Got Hutama with Engineers. Took first load with coastal spawn in what looked like a decent area with Mountain/Canyon 2 tiles up from coast spanning the bottom of the continent, sadly east and west turns to tundra fairly quickly before going back to plains near the edges and upwards. Some close floatstones(3x3) but fixirite spawns on far edges. I was on the 4 man continent with 2 on the 2nd largest island and 2 good sized islands between them.

Reading the last bit of this thread before I started gave me to push to go full on Supremacy/Generators. I made a mistake I see now at the start building a few farms in the capital early game, I now see that was totally unnecessary and full generators from start will be my next go.

I decided to go with the 3 Prosperity, Beeline Industry to Magni, and then on down Knowledge. Seems I was super behind on virtues all game, probably 3-4 back on the AI. I had expanded to my 3rd city when I started to mass rangers and when I had 9 rangers 3 rovers with 3 rovers being built I rushed KP's expansion city with double DoW with ARC who never bothered to attack. All was well though, I teched rangers for first 2 cities and teched armor for her capital. I know it was a bit warmonger but felt the land gave me a good defensive wall I could hold out with. I annexed all 3 cities(6pop 6 pop 9pop cap) so went pretty heavy neg health.

This secured me some 5 fixirite for Cndrs, but i held off on further military and focused on infrastructure, at first I was pretty light on workers 1x per city, by about turn 100 I dove all in and pushed out 3x per city. Further enlightening I should have razed the 2 cities so i could place coastal cities instead of the landlocks I got, felt the weak trade convey limits really slowed me down vs the trade vessel pumped cities. I finally decided to build a 7th city when DoW AU from NE and a turn later DoW SF from NW.

SF forward settled my western coastline along with a Brasilia city takin the other 2 west coast fixirite spawn I was eyeballing early game. Anyhow land gave me good defense on that front so I focused my army to the NW front. Started 4 CNDRs and pushed all my leftover first war units to the front and AU never got into my territory.

Checking the diplo screen off and on and last time I checked everyone was at 6affinity with me but AU and PAC quickly jumped to 8 right when I pushed my forces to AU's first city. This was sad for me because I had pushed techs towards Xenomallium and neglected to prep any Supremacy techs. But as said earlier I was able to push out units so consistently I was winning the war of attrition with ease.

By the time I got Xenomallium I was at 175ishGPT and jumped to 350GPT, I kept on with attrition war with, Razing 3 cities and stopping at the 4th. When PAC got 13Affinity I decided to push all in to finish with Emancipation victory. The gore of battling AU on this 4 strip wide hilly landscape became a pain and I decided to pull back and setup a wall of prime cndrs and gunboats off the shore. about turn 190 I had gate building at 16 turns, decided to Delete all military units and just spam last trade route button and use my then 7 fixirite to build an angel and buy angels to send into gate. I got down Knowledge tree all the way and taking community medicine finally pushed me into Utopian for the rest of the game.

Victory turn 222, never saw any AI build a win condition, would play alot sharper on further games but very happy with the full generator spam and liked the differance in playstyle from ectopod health building spams. Think ima try a game as PAC/Artists just to see how fast it can go.

Roxlimn said:

Nah. With no native food tile improvements (Farms are Purity, Biowells are Harmony), Supremacy really isn't tall-friendly. Like, at all. Institute is a core Harmony/Purity tech, and that gives you 3 Scientist Specialist slots. Harmony gives you Xenonursery, which is an easy +10% Science boost at affinity 2 (!!!).

Going hard for the Supremacy techs, it really does feel as if they're into a bunch of small cities with lots of very strong Generators. The Specialist slots are to help specializing the city so that you get something our of your Internal Trade Routes, which would otherwise be worthless.

Click to expand...

You raise a good point. I just look at the Organ Printer and Hypercore and wonder what the point of those buildings are in a small city. Even with a bunch of science buidings, an Organ Printer is worth, what, 3 or 4 beakers a turn? Perhaps I'm mistaking bad design for intention.

That said, I'm never going to see Institutes or Biowells as "belonging" to one affinity or another. If anything, Biowells would be a Purity improvement, since the tech that improves their yield grants Purity affinity xp. Of course, that makes them redundant with farms.

Honestly despite certain affinity association no improvement is really affinity specific, if you don;t go into that top left part of the tree for either super gens or super farms you are not competitive, period.

Boosted gens add 3 total to the tile yield, 5 with xenothilium. Boosted farms add 3, 4 with ectogenesis pod. Sure you can't get science from gens, and science from farms is buried in an awkward part of the tree, and culture is totally unavailable, but as a rule i find you can get enough of that from city buildings to make the lack of it on tiles perfectly workable. As such if you don't grab the relevant stuff for the improvements you will be building you end up giving up huge yields and your overall econ will suffer for it. None of the affinity's can make up for that kind of deficit out of buildings specific to them.

Also IMO all of the +% stuff for anything costing strategic resources is really, really, really, bad. The problem is the energy cost of mass spamming domes, manufacturies, terrascapes, or academies make building mass science, production, or culture in one city really hard. If it's on something that costs only hammers or it's energy or food that's being boosted, (because xenothilium gens can be +6 or more apiece on many tiles, and maxed farms can be +4 or more), it works out ok, but anything else and the numbers don't add. Even food can be dicey because the bonus only affects excess, not base.

Kaigen said:

You raise a good point. I just look at the Organ Printer and Hypercore and wonder what the point of those buildings are in a small city. Even with a bunch of science buidings, an Organ Printer is worth, what, 3 or 4 beakers a turn? Perhaps I'm mistaking bad design for intention.

That said, I'm never going to see Institutes or Biowells as "belonging" to one affinity or another. If anything, Biowells would be a Purity improvement, since the tech that improves their yield grants Purity affinity xp. Of course, that makes them redundant with farms.

Click to expand...

Read the Civilopedia. Biowells are supposed to be a melding of human habitation and alien landscape. Even the graphic design is most consistent the Harmony city and unit style. I find it jarring to have too many of them near my Purity or Supremacy cities.

Even with the limited food, the power of TR multiplication means that even a small amount of base excess can built to a sizable surplus if you're concentrating routes. This means you can still have a reasonably large central city - that one gets the Organ Printer and the Hypercore. This highly incentivizes you to put Weather Satellites on that location (not everywhere - just there).