Why play spiritualist?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Outside of roleplay i cant find a single reason why you would ever spend points into spiritualist

What do spiritualist offer that would make them worth spending points into compare to the other ethics?

[Ninjamestari]

Nothing, especially since Materialist is so much better than any other ethic. If you discount Materialism, then Spiritualism becomes a lot more viable; temples are pretty damn awesome as Priests generate more unity than culture workers and they also produce amenities. I'd go so far as to claim that spiritualist would be the best ethic if you didn't lose on materialism, Mechanist and Technocracy which are all OP as hell.

[Cryten]

The main reason to do it is to encourage Psychics as a ascendancy. But it remain the weakest of the 3.

[Geirfinna Lieselotte]

Play a Megacorp with Gospel of the masses civics

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Supcrème Grommander:

Play a Megacorp with Gospel of the masses civics

Pointless, until Ethic Attraction gets fixed.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Largely it's a great ethic for the temple replacement. Making high amenities easy to gather (great for non-slaver authoritarians).

It generally is a lot better than materialist unless you go all in for a robot society or technocracy (with robot ascension being the best perk in the game).

Psionics is the best path for a megacorp though, more so because of the Megachurch, but also because it's ideal for a small empire that rules through subjects (gaining more influence and leader stuff rather than population gains like massive growth or synth making or engineered bonuses/ delicious livestock).

Being one step of spiritualist is needed to keep any spiritualist faction happy as well.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Originally posted by Supcrème Grommander:

Play a Megacorp with Gospel of the masses civics

Pointless, until Ethic Attraction gets fixed.

What are you talking about?

The main allure isn't +50% spiritualist, it's the bonus trade value from spiritualist pops.. both for you and other empires.

This makes it the best support empire build with a few other civics for the megacorp.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Materialist in order to be currently that playable early game requires a 2 dip investment and technocracy. Spiritualist doesn't require that, although the bonus unity from priests is a fine alternative.

This makes 3 ethic empires, or ones that need the other 2 ethic points find spiritualist a lot more benefitial.

Robot growth while amazing, is also a huge economic investment. So people that want more early war may wish to avoid it, making spiritualist a better path by having that not be a real downside to them early-early game. If a harder time bringing up early colonies with a lack of robots.

[Ryika]

Aside from generating a bit more unity with their priests, the main positive thing about Spirtualists is that they have a much higher chance to get psionic-related techs to show up than anyone else, and as a result, they are the most reliable when it comes to the Psionic Ascension Path.

Of course the problem with that is that Psionic Ascension isn't that strong to begin with, and on top of that relies on the right precursor (Zroni for the -50% shroud artifact) to be semi-decent.

Then you also have the problem that you get a happiness penalty from your faction if you go for robots, but you really want to go for robots, because robots are pops, and pops is what you want the most in the game.

Overall, they suffer from problems with game balance, and from relying on an extra layers of rng to be efficient. They're not unplayable though, and if you want to go Psi Ascension for the fun of it, they're your best bet.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Pointless, until Ethic Attraction gets fixed.

What are you talking about?

The main allure isn't +50% spiritualist, it's the bonus trade value from spiritualist pops.. both for you and other empires.

This makes it the best support empire build with a few other civics for the megacorp.

I'm talkig about getting pops to give bonus to.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

What are you talking about?

The main allure isn't +50% spiritualist, it's the bonus trade value from spiritualist pops.. both for you and other empires.

This makes it the best support empire build with a few other civics for the megacorp.

I'm talkig about getting pops to give bonus to.

I kind of get what you mean, I meant that there's more to it than just the spiritualist ethics push. Although that is certainly a concern if it's an issue. I thought it just took a while for the ethics to grow.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

While your own pops seem to grow relatively fine, converting anyone else is virtually impossible, as seen here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1968184117
(done pretty much everything I could to boost ethic attraction, except psi ascention and faction suppression)

[Sabaithal]

Psionics, and psionic tech, and psionic armies, the shroud bonuses, ect.

Maybe you just want to summon the end of the cycle to troll everyone else in the game.

[DankDansk]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

Largely it's a great ethic for the temple replacement. Making high amenities easy to gather (great for non-slaver authoritarians).

It generally is a lot better than materialist unless you go all in for a robot society or technocracy (with robot ascension being the best perk in the game).

Psionics is the best path for a megacorp though, more so because of the Megachurch, but also because it's ideal for a small empire that rules through subjects (gaining more influence and leader stuff rather than population gains like massive growth or synth making or engineered bonuses/ delicious livestock).

Being one step of spiritualist is needed to keep any spiritualist faction happy as well.

you'll have a lot more space for other buildings since you won't have to build holo-theaters. One maxed temple can produce enough amenities for an arcology. With spiritualists, you trade research for unity; allowing you to belt out unity edicts much faster than materialists.

Which is better? depends on your empire type. Psionics get a wide range of unique bonuses from the Shroud. But these are random and some can be arbitrary. Genetics are much more controllable; you can even design specific species to excel at specific tasks. You can make miner slaves, plantation slaves, warrior servants (think space marines) Servants and Courtesans, and livestock. Synthetics are also stupidly good because of having unlimited habitability and basically scrapping food altogether, giving you much more room.

I would probably rank Synthetics and Psionics equally. Genetics is a jack of all trades, and can be game breaking (could be.) when used correctly. The issue here is that the removal of manual population management neutered the unlimited potential of Genetics, because now custom races are nearly useless due to you not being able to manually move them from one job to another. The AI can't manage pops correctly, so oh well.

Do whatever you wish. One of the few good things about Stellaris is that there isn't one 'Meta' when it comes to Empire Building per say. If it works for you, go nits. There are mods in the workshop that add onto it better than the devs ever will.

[Nightmyre]

Basically - there isn't any. Spiritualist is by far the weakest ethics combo.

Play it for RP reasons if you'd like, but you're essentially crippling yourself out of the box.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

While your own pops seem to grow relatively fine, converting anyone else is virtually impossible, as seen here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1968184117
(done pretty much everything I could to boost ethic attraction, except psi ascention and faction suppression)

I mean it takes a lot of time, yeah. I generally don't have too many issues in my playthrough though.

They also generally favor xenophile (which is the easiest faction to hit 100%).

Although it kind of works in your favor.. because the less spiritualists there are the less harsh you'll be penalized for having robot pops. While you still get to keep your temples and such.