Play as Fanatic spiritualiste / Authoritarian

[Jerem / Ta'i'o's]

Hey guys,

I would like to try the psionic path and I created my own empire with Fanatic spiritualist, authoritarian, imperial, imperial cult and slaver guilds.

I've tried two games and twice I've got a fanatical purifier empire as a neighbor that declared war on me very soon and I cant face him.

How do you play this kind of empire ? Any advice on what to do with spiritualist slavery empires ?

Thanks !

[Schanez]

A couple of things to keep in mind.

Spiritualists get a hefty % bonus to Unity per month. But without Unity buildings, it is kind of meh. What I would suggest, is grab the Monument building ASAP, although I would still prioritize a second Alloy Foundry. Perhaps a Gene Clinic as it gives you both Unity and Growth Speed.

Slave Empires might want to grab Nihilistic Acquisition. What you might want to do, is rush through the Supremacy tradition tree as the first one and grab this Ascencion Perk. With the early game fleets being mostly the same, you will have the edge in space combat due to the subtle buffs. Nihilistic Acquisition will also allow you to fill in your planet with pops from other empires and enslave them, or use the Forced Labour purge on them for free Minerals and Food.

Lastly Authoritarian cannot go wrong with Feudal Society, which I find absolutely magnificent. You surround yourself with numerous vassals, who have to join you during war and who do not contribute to your Empire Sprawl. A neat idea is to wage war at an enemy with the war goal "Vassalize" and then once you capture a few sectors and at least one planet, settle on Status Quo. Nihilistic Acquisition will get you some pops from them and Status Quo will create a new Empire subjugated to you, with matching ethics to yours.

All in all... An early gameplay for me would be like this:
1. Build a second Alloy Foundry ASAP, the free slot you start with should go for it.
2. Start the normal sector exploration around you.
3. Build an Autochton Monument on the second slot.
4. Max out your fleet and be ready for early wars.
5. Push through Supremacy tradition tree and grab Nihilistic Acquisition. Don't forget to set the new bombing stance on your fleet.
6. Wage war on a neighbour, steal some pops but don't conquer them.
7. Wage war on another neighbour, steal some pops but don't conquer them.
8. Rinse and repeat. You feed of their pop growth speed, making yourself stronger and them weaker.
9. Research should focus on early fleet power, so Corvette build speed, tier 2 weapons, auxiliary modules and such are a priority. Society should focus on both Population Growth Speed as well as the few early military techs, like Naval Academy.
10. Later on you can just wage war with the "Demand Vassalization" Goal and continuously rip your neighbours into smaller bits. It will increase their Loyalty due to higher power level difference.

[Leoscar]

If you can't deal with genocidal civs, I assume you're new to the game, or at least not super experienced. For starter I wouldn't recommand you play as a slaver guild civ if you're not used to the game as a whole, it brings a lot of internal management and can really penalize you.

As for the first reply, you don't need feodal society to have vassals, and it's essentially a wasted civic point. Note that in order to vassalize a civ you need to be superior to them to even get the chance to ask them to be your vassal, so you may need to weaken them a bit first if you don't want to wait 100 years.
As far as rushing supremacy/alloy forge asap, this is true especially if your neighbor is a genocide civ. Genocide civs have really strong fleet bonus and dealing with them early can be a real pain.

[Schanez]

Originally posted by Leoscar:

As for the first reply, you don't need feodal society to have vassals, and it's essentially a wasted civic point. Note that in order to vassalize a civ you need to be superior to them to even get the chance to ask them to be your vassal, so you may need to weaken them a bit first if you don't want to wait 100 years.

That is why I wrote about waging a few wars against them first. You will quickly rack up the superior powerlevel.

And while it is true, you do not need the Civic, I still recommend it. Otherwise if you gather too many, they might try to rebel. Although it is also an option to "lure them" into rebellion to just wage war at them. But yes, it is not a neccesary Civic to have vassals, it is just helpful.

[Botji]

If you are facing early wars you might want to try to get the fighter/bomber tech and put hangars on some defensive stations(might be worth to add a platform or two with them as well).

They are quite good against corvettes so with your own corvettes and station you should be able to beat the enemy fleet when they attack you. The drawback is ofc that you kinda need to prepare this in advance and stations even with just one or two platforms are not cheap at this point in the game.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I played something similiar but i was fanatic authorian, spiritualist, imperial cult, slaver guilds feudal empire.

My advise is swiching to fanatic authorian spiritualist as the authorian is weak in compairion to other none fanatic's ethos.
Where normal spiritualist is good enough for its intented purpose.
Set your slave's on domestic servitued.
This makes it so that any unemployed get a job as servant.
Great way to make amelities.

Nihilistic Acquisition is a must.
When you go to war you goal is to drain there planets of pop's via kidnapping/abduction bombardment.
Focus on high population planets.
This tatic serve two purposes.
It destroy's your enemies economy and strenghten your own.

Give all spieces citizen rights and domestic servitued.
Slave guilds will enslave 40% of the planet.
This keeps unrest down as only a part of the planet pop's gets enslaved(more then enough to enhance the economy) where the rest gets to live happy live as your loyal worshipers.

Early on i suggest getting 4 types of corvette's.
1: Stinger: Missle, driver, power boost, 3x shield.
2: Protector: Anti missle driver laser, power boost, 3x shield.
3: Hunter: 3x driver, power boost, 3x shield.
4: Huntress: 3x laser, power boost, 3x shield.

Get five of eatch.
The missle will do alot of damage early game while the anti missle protect from missle fire.
By having 1 ship full of lasers and 1 full of driver's you have both an anti sheild and anti armor ship.
I noticed that this combo will cut through most early game fleet like a hot knife through butter.
As the game advance's you will be replacing them with more general ships but early on specializing your corvette's is key.
Dont make an anti everything ship.
Those are weak.
Make several specialized ships to counter whatever they have.

In case of the purifier:
Have a fast moving fleet take out his stations, conquer his worlds via land invasion and avoid his main fleet.
Destroying enemies like that is easy.
Take out there infastruction(end threats are basicly total wars) and compleetly cripple him.
Use white peace to get a breather.
Be agressive, be ruthless but above all else.
Be do or die.
Dont give them a chance to build up.
Use the market to keep your economy up when you start losing stations and worlds towards him.
Take his planets away and he will be nothing.

Remeber: total war empires are free real estate.
Nobody like's them.
They shoud be under constant attack the moment they are weak enough for the ai to feel brave enough to attack them.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Remeber: total war empires are free real estate.
Nobody like's them.
They shoud be under constant attack the moment they are weak enough for the ai to feel brave enough to attack them.

this is also the annoying thing, started a game as earth because i'd never done it and wanted to see if they had unique stuff(so far just a normal game though). first neighbor is a purifier that decided i needed to die but he couldn't get past my starbase and fleet and the other way into my space has the dimensional horror on it. i just baited his fleet out a 2nd time and killed about half of it so their other neighbor decided it was time to get rid of them. now i gotta build some troops and fight this war that i didn't care about

[Schanez]

Originally posted by Meewec:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Remeber: total war empires are free real estate.
Nobody like's them.
They shoud be under constant attack the moment they are weak enough for the ai to feel brave enough to attack them.

this is also the annoying thing, started a game as earth because i'd never done it and wanted to see if they had unique stuff(so far just a normal game though). first neighbor is a purifier that decided i needed to die but he couldn't get past my starbase and fleet and the other way into my space has the dimensional horror on it. i just baited his fleet out a 2nd time and killed about half of it so their other neighbor decided it was time to get rid of them. now i gotta build some troops and fight this war that i didn't care about

I got spawned between Fanatic Purifiers and Devouring Swarm my last game. Thankfully there were two choke points into my terrain, which I immedietly buffed with the most elaborate Starbase I could afford. The DS crashed against it a few times, as did the FP. A bit later I offered some economical assistance to the DS neighbours, which prompted them into a war with the DS.

Make it a priority to research the FTL Inhibition tech, which will make your chokepoint Starbases actually count towards something. Otherwise the AI will simply ignore them. It makes it so, that as long as there is an active starbase in a system, the AI has to destroy it, or they cannot use any other hyperlane, but the one they came through.

[Jerem / Ta'i'o's]

Wow thanks a lot guys for all these details, that helps me soo muuch !!
Indeed I'm not a quite experienced player, especially since 2.0 I havent played much but now I would like to invest more time into this game, I really like the changes since 2.0 (planet management and stuff). Plus I have got utopia dlc recently and would like to try these features.
Before I've played more classical warfare based empires (fanatical materialist xénophobe ones), but never till end game since I've never got enough time to do so. And now I would really like to test différent playstyles and that's why I want to play as a spiritualist.

Now given your (useful and really really helpful and good advice), the only problem is that I dont own Apocalypse for Nihilistic Acquisition. Is it worth getting for that ? And in general ? Any other dlcs I should get ?

Anyway I've started a new game yesterday, taking into account the advice you gave me, and even with hostile empires nearby I feel much safer and prepared for possible wars. And I accumulate unity like crazy and I cant wait getting more slaves.. But what Ascension perk do you advice if I dont have Apocalypse ?

Thanks again !

[Cryten]

If your going authoritarian tbh I would skip slaver guilds. You can just enslave aliens you capture. But as most people have said you need some focus on your military to prevent an AI walking over you. Wether that is a good choke point with a bastion station, decent amount of corvets with a rushed tier 2 weapon system or going supremecy first is up to you (or multiple but each choice slows your tech/unity)

[Schanez]

Nihilistic Acqusition is OP as all hells. The trick is, that pops that you Purge with Forced Labour do not occupy any Housing. So it is just free Minerals and Food for no costs on your side.

I wouldn't buy a DLC for just one Ascencion Perk. but then again you do get lots of additional cool stuff to use. If not this one, then perhaps you could stall the slot till you can snatch an early "Mind over Matter". "Mastery of Nature" is always a win, 2 additional Districts are potent. You could go tall and grab the +10% research speed followed with Voidborne and Mastery of Nature. Glactic Force Projection is also good, if you are going to wage lots of wars. It is mostly up to you, how you wish to play.

Also I realized only now, Spiritualists have Temples instead of Autochton Monuments.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Cryten:

If your going authoritarian tbh I would skip slaver guilds. You can just enslave aliens you capture.

Why?
Slave guilds give a 10% extra production for slave's.
Automate the enslavement progress and allow you to enslave your own spieces.
In combination with fanatic authorian it give's you insane resourses gathering speed right from the get go.
Even if you want to go full master race later you can just replace in in 20 years.
Early on it allows you to start with slave's.
And slave economy is brokenly overpowered.
From a purly effecienty point of view:
Slave's guild increase production, decrease slave uprising chance(by virtue of not being picky about who they enslave) and allow you to start the game with slave's.
Really what perk could be beter then that for an imperial nation?

[Cryten]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Why?

Quite simple, because it inneffcient past your first planet (and often even then). Unless you balance your planets perfectly your either wasting slots on non slaves in basic jobs or ending up with unemployed / servant slaves in your tech/forge/CG planets. Instead you could spend that civic on a far stronger civic and have alien slaves within the first 20 years because you simply chose a authoritarian empire. Authoritarian empires can have all the benefits of slave guild with lessany of the downsides and a bonus civic to replace the basic resource bonus you often cannot use fully because your limited to 40% slaves per planet.

Still im not so egotistical as to think that slaves guilds arnt something to play with. I have. Just pointing out you can reap most if not all the benefits without it.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Cryten:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Why?

Quite simple, because it inneffcient past your first planet (and often even then). Unless you balance your planets perfectly your either wasting slots on non slaves in basic jobs or ending up with unemployed / servant slaves in your tech/forge/CG planets. Instead you could spend that civic on a far stronger civic and have alien slaves within the first 20 years because you simply chose a authoritarian empire. Authoritarian empires can have all the benefits of slave guild with lessany of the downsides and a bonus civic to replace the basic resource bonus.

Still im not so egotistical as to think that slaves guilds arnt something to play with. I have. Just pointing out you can reap most if not all the benefits without it.

You always put slaves on domestic servitued as too avoid unemployment.
But what civic is far stronger?

[Cryten]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Originally posted by Cryten:

Quite simple, because it inneffcient past your first planet (and often even then). Unless you balance your planets perfectly your either wasting slots on non slaves in basic jobs or ending up with unemployed / servant slaves in your tech/forge/CG planets. Instead you could spend that civic on a far stronger civic and have alien slaves within the first 20 years because you simply chose a authoritarian empire. Authoritarian empires can have all the benefits of slave guild with lessany of the downsides and a bonus civic to replace the basic resource bonus.

Still im not so egotistical as to think that slaves guilds arnt something to play with. I have. Just pointing out you can reap most if not all the benefits without it.

You always put slaves on domestic servitued as too avoid unemployment.
But what civic is far stronger?

Given that slaver guilds is restricted to authoritarian empires that allready have access to slaves. preety much all of them that dont actively hurt you.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Cryten:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

You always put slaves on domestic servitued as too avoid unemployment.
But what civic is far stronger?

Given that slaver guilds is restricted to authoritarian empires that allready have access to slaves. preety much all of them that dont actively hurt you.

Not really an answer.
I checked all the civic and all compaitable with imperial are pretty darn worthless in compairion to slave guilds.
You have feudal empire as the only other worthwhile civic.
Now there are beter civics out there.
Technocracy, Shared Burdens, Efficient Bureaucracy, etc.
But most beter civics arent compatiable with imperial.
I think you are undervalueing slave guilds.
Slaver Guilds give a 10% increase untop of the fanatic authorian bonus of +10% Worker Output add to this that domestic slave's only have a 0.25 houses cost and generate Amenities when umemployed.
Add to this it auto enslave's 40% of a planet meaning you dont have to worry about slave overpopulation leading to uprising(aka less resousres spend of slave supression buildings like forts and cop stations)

Sure it isnt as powerfull as technocracy or driven assimilator but i am sure it ranks well above most.