Machine Empires

[VoiceGS]

Hey all.

I have seen some forums posts complaining about the state of machine empires in 2.2, particulary about how the upkeep is a bit to high to manage and I was wondering if anyone has experienced any problems during their own campaign to notice this themselves?

I tried playing one and I did see that if I didn't spam generator districts then I had issues with my own upkeep. But I also saw a building that converted 20 food to 20 credits so after I had quit I then thought that it would be good to have a planet that specialised in food production and then build those buildings to help with credits.

Is that basically the way to go in playing any of the three machine empire types?

Also any other tips you could suggest for playing any of the three empires would be nice.

Thanks.

[キールス]

Getting machine worlds early helps the economy in the mid game. Making that first generator world for the early outpost/starbase upkeep is pretty much mandatory while staying within the ratio of 1:1 between mineral and energy producing planets is manageable. Bio plants is a good way to get energy early but you will probably scrap them once you get machine worlds since you can't make farm districts.

I find it hard to play wide as a machine empire because it is difficult to compete with the organics production early in the game so I tend to play tall and focus on research until I clear the requirements for machine worlds and megastructures.

Machine Empires seem to blossom in the late game once you have your machine and ring worlds along with production habitats to process your minerals to alloys. Machine worlds focused on mineral production and ring worlds focused on energy production can support a ton of alloy/research production.

[VoiceGS]

Hey

Originally posted by Kirus:

Thanks for your reply. Appreciate it. So would you recommend that I stay within my Admin Cap and only expand when my cap is increased?

Make machine worlds as soon as I'm able to.

Your post sounds like a good plan.

Thanks.

Voice

[キールス]

I personally never worried about the admin cap because of the sheer number of research a single planet can produce and the penalties are negligible. Machine worlds needs to be rushed however as the normal planets will limit your growth greatly and will also produce jobs for your surplus pops by the mid game or probably around 2300~ish.

The problem that I encountered during that time is usually unemployment and the threat of instability because of the limited number of jobs that can be created on a normal planet. IIRC on one of my games, I only rolled with 4 planets. I luckily had 2 sort of friendly neighbors and 1 eradicator so diplomacy was manageable

I really struggled making jobs for my pops that I had to make 2 forge worlds even though I could barely manage the upkeep. I had 2 generator worlds and 2 mining worlds that I turned into forge worlds which is not ideal because I was missing 1 generator world for the outpost/starbase upkeep so I had to pop Capacity Overload.

I was saved by ring worlds as I could just dump my excess pops there to produce energy and convert my machine worlds to mineral production then transfer alloy production to my habitat.

By late game or around 2375 - 2400 your economy should be looking like this.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1611682690

This is a unoptimised build when I was testing out the new patch so I am pretty sure others could manage this economy faster with bigger yields.

edit:

This game was started on 2.2.2 btw which is why I losing food because they increased the upkeep for bio generators on 2.2.3.

[Shad]

Originally posted by VoiceGS:

Hey all.

I have seen some forums posts complaining about the state of machine empires in 2.2, particulary about how the upkeep is a bit to high to manage and I was wondering if anyone has experienced any problems during their own campaign to notice this themselves?

I tried playing one and I did see that if I didn't spam generator districts then I had issues with my own upkeep. But I also saw a building that converted 20 food to 20 credits so after I had quit I then thought that it would be good to have a planet that specialised in food production and then build those buildings to help with credits.

Is that basically the way to go in playing any of the three machine empire types?

Also any other tips you could suggest for playing any of the three empires would be nice.

Thanks.

Just did an exterminator playthrough (took around 220 years in a 400 star galaxy, though the game was probably decided at around the halfpoint, from then on it was straightforward. At first I tried with the default premade faction, but their bad traits are really annoying. Restarted with my own empire and went into the versatility and prosperity first. Never built food (except the odd hydroponic farm in free starbase building slots). Never had any problems with he economy.

One thing with MEs is the very slow early colony growth. You need to resettle pops from you capital to kickstart the colony (until 10 pops, when you upgrade planetary capital and build the replicatior building).

[SievertChaser]

@Kirus, you seem to not share the common opinion that habitats are worthless. Seeing as a I want a megastructures-focused playthrough, I’ve got questions ;)

What are the best ways to get the alloys required for mass deployment of megastructures?

[rjain]

Computers and robots use a lot of electricity. :) I think it makes logical sense to have a high energy upkeep. And being able to farm food into electricty is also sensible. I mean, if it's in the Matrix...

[キールス]

Originally posted by dennis.danilov:

@Kirus, you seem to not share the common opinion that habitats are worthless. Seeing as a I want a megastructures-focused playthrough, I’ve got questions ;)

What are the best ways to get the alloys required for mass deployment of megastructures?

Not necessarily. Habitats are still useful however there are alternatives that are not available to gestalt consciousness empires that produces way more resources and is cheaper such as the Ecuminopolis.

Regarding alloy production, using the Galactic Market for me was the fastest way to get megastuctures along with at least one forge world. Setting up a forge world, or a world that has a lot of alloy foundry workers, requires a ton of upkeep on energy and minerals.

A good foundation to setting up one efficeiently is by rushing machine worlds. Machine Worlds have uncapped districts which means the only limit to the creation of generator/mining districts is the planet size + modifiers(ie mastery of nature). Early in my playthrough, a size 20 and a size 14 mining world was able to sustain my capital which has all my research and one forge world. I also used one of my mining worlds as my refinery for special resources that is needed for the upkeep of my t3 buildings.

I would imagine it would be harder for Determined Exterminators to do the same thing because they do not have access the Galactic Market, from what I have heard, however the 200+ alloy production from a forge world would probably still give you the requirements that you need for your megastructures as long as you don't build a giant fleet.

[VoiceGS]

Hey.

Originally posted by Kirus:

I see. I've been trying as Determined Exterminators and they are pretty hard with the upkeep issue that I always seem to have. Actually gonna try the Rogue Servitor now. Something that I have noticed is that when I select the RS Civic it says that they can't create a normal Machine Empire.. What does that actually mean?

Voice

[キールス]

Originally posted by VoiceGS:

Hey.

Originally posted by Kirus:

I see. I've been trying as Determined Exterminators and they are pretty hard with the upkeep issue that I always seem to have. Actually gonna try the Rogue Servitor now. Something that I have noticed is that when I select the RS Civic it says that they can't create a normal Machine Empire.. What does that actually mean?

Voice

I actually don't know. That is the first time I heard about that. I tried creating a new Rogue Servitor Machine Interlligence and it doesn't give me that message.

Where and when are you told that message?

[VoiceGS]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Originally posted by VoiceGS:

Hey.



I see. I've been trying as Determined Exterminators and they are pretty hard with the upkeep issue that I always seem to have. Actually gonna try the Rogue Servitor now. Something that I have noticed is that when I select the RS Civic it says that they can't create a normal Machine Empire.. What does that actually mean?

Voice

I actually don't know. That is the first time I heard about that. I tried creating a new Rogue Servitor Machine Interlligence and it doesn't give me that message.

Where and when are you told that message?

Hey.

When you go to the Civic Rogue Servitor and look down at what it tells you about the Civic it will say Cannot construct Regular Machine Empire.

Voice

[キールス]

Originally posted by VoiceGS:

Hey.

When you go to the Civic Rogue Servitor and look down at what it tells you about the Civic it will say Cannot construct Regular Machine Empire.

Voice

I honestly don't know what that is. Is it preventing you from creating your empire and if it is, are there tabs in red in your empire creation screen?

[VoiceGS]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Originally posted by VoiceGS:

Hey.

When you go to the Civic Rogue Servitor and look down at what it tells you about the Civic it will say Cannot construct Regular Machine Empire.

Voice

I honestly don't know what that is. Is it preventing you from creating your empire and if it is, are there tabs in red in your empire creation screen?

Hey.

Na I can create it no probs. I was just thinking that it stopped you from doing something that the other machine empires can do no probs. Just don't know what.

Voice

[VoiceGS]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Hey.

Ok nevermind! I actually found out what it means. I found it in the stellaris wiki.

Basically it mean't that I can't create unity producing machine buildings since my bio trophies are supposed to do that.

Voice

[キールス]

Originally posted by VoiceGS:

Originally posted by Kirus:

Hey.

Ok nevermind! I actually found out what it means. I found it in the stellaris wiki.

Basically it mean't that I can't create unity producing machine buildings since my bio trophies are supposed to do that.

Voice

That was new to me but I guess it is because I mainly play as a regular machine empire, a determined exterminator or an assimilator. I find rogue servitors too silly to play although I might do it just for the memes or maybe for the achievement.

[-Lu-]

Machines suck right now, opt into beta for some fixes but it's still super hard:

My tips thus far trying to make it work.

Rush pop growth. This means, expantion tree for the .5 pop build boost.
Starting with the faster build speed machine trait.
Upgrading admin building asap for pop build bonus.
When you take a planet tansfer over 4 pops so you can build an Assembly Plant asap.

Custodians need a buff.