What are the best civilization abilities?

[Fņŏŕď]

What are the best civilization abilities in your opinion?
Fertile has always been a favorite of mine.
Slaver seems more for flavor than anything else.
Unrelenting seems generically useful.
Same with Loyal.
Any thoughts?

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Fnord:

That building is the key it gives +4 to research as well so you can surround it with research districts if you like.

Yes, you can. But it's a player wonder and cannot replace Planetary Mainframe, Kazar's Mainframe, Eyes of the Universe and Tech capital all at once.

[Fņŏŕď]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Fnord:

That building is the key it gives +4 to research as well so you can surround it with research districts if you like.

Yes, you can. But it's a player wonder and cannot replace Planetary Mainframe, Kazar's Mainframe, Eyes of the Universe and Tech capital all at once.

I'm trying wealthy again with more careful placement. I have the exchange surrounded by my manufacturing setup two financial districts and two science districts. It's already showing dividends. I also have enough room for one or two of the big ones next to the science districts, probably more.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Fnord:

I'm trying wealthy again with more careful placement. I have the exchange surrounded by my manufacturing setup two financial districts and two science districts. It's already showing dividends. I also have enough room for one or two of the big ones next to the science districts, probably more.

When playing Wealthy, I highly recommend going for Innovation Complex (tier 2 Progressivism unlock) as fast as you can. Best research building in the game.

[Fņŏŕď]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Fnord:

I'm trying wealthy again with more careful placement. I have the exchange surrounded by my manufacturing setup two financial districts and two science districts. It's already showing dividends. I also have enough room for one or two of the big ones next to the science districts, probably more.

When playing Wealthy, I highly recommend going for Innovation Complex (tier 2 Progressivism unlock) as fast as you can. Best research building in the game.

I was thinking about that.

[Illauna]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Fnord:

I'm trying wealthy again with more careful placement. I have the exchange surrounded by my manufacturing setup two financial districts and two science districts. It's already showing dividends. I also have enough room for one or two of the big ones next to the science districts, probably more.

When playing Wealthy, I highly recommend going for Innovation Complex (tier 2 Progressivism unlock) as fast as you can. Best research building in the game.

With wealthy I would instead recommend individualism. I mean progressive tier 2 is good all around but doesn't actually improve wealthy. Individualism pairs very well with wealthy and you are able to get economist (Invisible Hand + Private Property) with this combination.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Illauna:

With wealthy I would instead recommend individualism. I mean progressive tier 2 is good all around but doesn't actually improve wealthy. Individualism pairs very well with wealthy and you are able to get economist (Invisible Hand + Private Property) with this combination.

Sure you can pick whatever default culture you want. But when playing Wealthy, you need Innovation Complex to build effective research clusters on your planets.

Well, you could also rigorously play the meta and just spam housing (and ignore research clusters alltogether), but that's boooooring.

[Fņŏŕď]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Illauna:

With wealthy I would instead recommend individualism. I mean progressive tier 2 is good all around but doesn't actually improve wealthy. Individualism pairs very well with wealthy and you are able to get economist (Invisible Hand + Private Property) with this combination.

Sure you can pick whatever default culture you want. But when playing Wealthy, you need Innovation Complex to build effective research clusters on your planets.

Well, you could also rigorously play the meta and just spam housing (and ignore research clusters alltogether), but that's boooooring.

This leads me to another question. How do people build their planet layouts?
Just spam research and manufacturing districts? Specialize planets or diversify?

[Illauna]

I think right now housing districts are a little strong. I specialize base on the inputs. 1 or 2 primary resources and then supporting improvements. I do play with some mods that I wrote to change the balance so I'm forced to build things like food districts.

[Sarellion]

I wonder if it's that strong. I haven't played that way myself but the few examples I've seen with the ridiculous numbers were from turn 300+. At this point your victory is a foregone conclusion either way.

[Illauna]

Was def weakened with the recruitment center change but you can very easily get this online within the first 50 turns.

[Fņŏŕď]

I'm trying out vigilant right now. this one is interesting. It makes your starbases more effective and gives you all sorts of interesting techs to research.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Sarellion:

I wonder if it's that strong. I haven't played that way myself but the few examples I've seen with the ridiculous numbers were from turn 300+. At this point your victory is a foregone conclusion either way.

I've played a lot with housing meta. It IS that strong, but from my experience it is best to first build some research and entertainment districts pre turn 100. Later, once you got celebrities, you can replace those with housing.

Manufacturing, Financial or Farming districts are not needed at all.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Fnord:

I'm trying out vigilant right now. this one is interesting. It makes your starbases more effective and gives you all sorts of interesting techs to research.

Sadly, Vigilant is not even a shadow of what it was in GC3. Weather Control is not a true multiplier anymore (so almost useless) and don't even get me started what they did to Zalon Defence System (which was the best ship component available in GC3).

Vigilant is C-tier in my book.

[Fņŏŕď]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Fnord:

I'm trying out vigilant right now. this one is interesting. It makes your starbases more effective and gives you all sorts of interesting techs to research.

Sadly, Vigilant is not even a shadow of what it was in GC3. Weather Control is not a true multiplier anymore (so almost useless) and don't even get me started what they did to Zalon Defence System (which was the best ship component available in GC3).

Vigilant is C-tier in my book.

You should put together a abilities tier list.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Fnord:

You should put together a abilities tier list.

Maybe I will, once I have played them all.

BTW, I play a game with Crimelord right now. Overloadedcasu was correct, it is incredibly powerful. The ability to steal pirate dreadnoughts is more of a cool gimmick (because you do not have enough logistics to use dreadnoughts effectively early game), but Enforcer's Den improvement is insane.

S-tier, right in there with Ancient.