Only having one species in empire?

[FritzTheFascist]

So I am playing as a custom humanoid race who has Fanatic Xenophobe and Authoritarian as my governing ethics. Currently I just started my first game and I won my first war by achieving my war goals, not settling status quo. Now my empire has gone from being one species to my core species and 5 new additional species.

My current decision, out of spite from one AI race (yes, I got annoyed by an AI) is I am purging the populations from these worlds. Any alien race who is not Humanoid is being exterminated. The humanoid races are being worked to death and I am juggling the economy that is now completely destroyed due to the horrible decisions of the AI and their worlds being run by criminal underworlds.

My question is, is it smart to make your empire a single race entity or is having multiple races a wise decision?

[Peter]

The biggest advantage to having multiple races is you have an easier time colonizing more types of planets. But in my current game, it's my lizards and their manufactured colonists. Anything else gets the Big P. Expansion is slowed down, compared to poly-species games.

[FritzTheFascist]

Originally posted by Peter:

The biggest advantage to having multiple races is you have an easier time colonizing more types of planets. But in my current game, it's my lizards and their manufactured colonists. Anything else gets the Big P. Expansion is slowed down, compared to poly-species games.

Any other advantages you can think of for a poly-species empire? If not I no longer have any doubts of my course of action in the ruling of my empire. (I actually stopped a second war in order to focus on ridding my empire of these species)

[Shad]

Outside of roleplay, there's no immediate direct bonus. Quite the opposite: purges make neighbouring empires hate you with a passion and start forming coalitions against you.

That said, purges can help to keep your ethics from diverging too fast. And if you play as Fanatic Purifiers, you get unity for every pop purged.

[SumYungGuy]

Don't underestimate the cost of not being able to colonize more planets. Three times the planets equals three times the economic growth.

You'll want to research terraforming or genetic engineering (if that fits your wishes) post haste.

[Prometheus]

Forced Labor purging is actually rather profitable. Some people make a strategy of utilizing it.

You do get a benefit of keeping xenos around. Xenophobe can enslave them. This makes their pop upkeep SUPER CHEAP (yes it needed to be emphasized) and they get a bonus to production. On top of that they can't participate in politics so no faction problems from them and having enslaved xenos increases xenophobe ethic attraction so a faction you do want will get stronger.

Its actually worth keeping 3 slave races. 1 for chattel slavery, doing your worker stratum jobs. Another for livestock slavery which is the absolute best food source in the game. Not kidding, they require half the amount of housing and don't require district support so you can convert farms over to energy and minerals. The 3rd race will be domestic servants. You keep them unemployed and they will provide amenities. Domestic servants are the least valuable of the 3 but they provide amenities without consuming building slots which is something I appreciate a great deal.

If you have droids you can push this even further by having the droids do your consumer goods and alloys jobs.

Xenophobe can have the most powerful economy per pop of any other ethic (not counting broken MEs right now).

[The Grand Mugwump]

With the new habitability mechanics which actually impact your colonies and better background pop management, having multiple species can let you colonize different planets more efficiently and quickly with lower habitability penalties.

Different species can specialize in different roles. Having one species which is very strong working menial jobs, an intelligent species running research, and so on can give small bonuses across the board as well.

Overall I'd say being one species as an empire which doesn't focus on it like a gestalt consciousness will make you weaker in the early game until you can start terraforming planets.

[galadon3]

Purging through neutering actually doesnt give you a diplo malus, takes time though and sadly since 2.2 the pops that get neutered don't work anymore, wich doesn't make much sense since its basically take away their ability to reproduce but let them live out their lifes.

[FritzTheFascist]

All of this new information explains why I have had a sudden rise of insults and attempts by my neighbors to start wars they cannot win.

[FritzTheFascist]

Originally posted by SumYungGuy:

Don't underestimate the cost of not being able to colonize more planets. Three times the planets equals three times the economic growth.

You'll want to research terraforming or genetic engineering (if that fits your wishes) post haste.

Thankfully that was one of my recent goals before I won the war, so I just terraformed all their planets to fit my needs. Is Genetic Engineering worth it to invest into or shall I put it off?

[Arden]

You can set the undesired pops to declining and they will still be productive slaves while vanishing.

And you don't have faction problems, crime problems and any other problems aside from not being able to efficiently colonize half of the planets till you get terraforming. This is not a big deal in the early game as your main focus as fanatic xenophobe is to eliminate the competition before they team up and eliminate you.

[SumYungGuy]

Originally posted by 82DKFritzlerGaming:

Thankfully that was one of my recent goals before I won the war, so I just terraformed all their planets to fit my needs. Is Genetic Engineering worth it to invest into or shall I put it off?

Honestly engineering traits in your people is a huge hassle. The biggest reward from it is being able to fit your pops habitability to their planet. Beyond that, the rewards diminish unless you invest in the Genetic Ascension perks. Which will make gene editing cheaper and give you access to some fairly strong traits for your people.

Still, if you've already unlocked terraforming to take control of more planets, then getting genetics is much less valuable.

[Shad]

Originally posted by SumYungGuy:

Originally posted by 82DKFritzlerGaming:

Thankfully that was one of my recent goals before I won the war, so I just terraformed all their planets to fit my needs. Is Genetic Engineering worth it to invest into or shall I put it off?

Honestly engineering traits in your people is a huge hassle. The biggest reward from it is being able to fit your pops habitability to their planet. Beyond that, the rewards diminish unless you invest in the Genetic Ascension perks..

It can be insanely powerful with gene perks. You can make a very efficient class society with enduring robust erudite species, and with nerve-stapled strong job-tailored worker slaves who don't cause faction problems, don't rebel or cause crime/stability issues, and don't need much upkeep.

[SumYungGuy]

Originally posted by Shad:

Originally posted by SumYungGuy:

Honestly engineering traits in your people is a huge hassle. The biggest reward from it is being able to fit your pops habitability to their planet. Beyond that, the rewards diminish unless you invest in the Genetic Ascension perks..

It can be insanely powerful with gene perks. You can make a very efficient class society with enduring robust erudite species, and with nerve-stapled strong job-tailored worker slaves who don't cause faction problems, don't rebel or cause crime/stability issues, and don't need much upkeep.

The issue is getting the pops evenly distributed onto the planets and jobs you want them in.

Additionally, you come to realize that a 5% output bonus from something like nerve stapled doesn't actually mean anything on a miner job when your research is already granting a 70% bonus, the planet has a 30%-50% bonus from stability and your governor, and shackled Synths would provide a better bonus anyways.