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?

[Hyperion]

If you are not an empty shell, that means playing materialists would hurt your spiritual feelings.

Also there is a lucrative Shrines event to boost early development, and rushing some traditions can be beneficial as well.

[Azor]

It can be good, if you're lucky, with the covenant that boosts research speed.

Also, it unlocks an exclusive collosus weapon that converts entire planets to spiritualism.

[Azor]

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)

Psi ascension gives a huge boost to attraction, the only significant boost I think.

[Azor]

Originally posted by mccartneyconnor280:

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.

Synthetic ascension gives +20% bonus to ALL production, 10% from research, +10% from ascension (this is the same bonus the old Synthetic trait provided). Better and more reliable than psionics. The only problem is that Synthetic ascended empires lack proper armies since 2.2 deleted a research option that brought robotic armies on par with Gene and Psionic armies.

[Cryten]

Originally posted by Azor:

The only problem is that Synthetic ascended empires lack proper armies since 2.2 deleted a research option that brought robotic armies on par with Gene and Psionic armies.

Really? I thought the giant death robots research was more than enough as a staple army unit.

[Azor]

Originally posted by Cryten:

Originally posted by Azor:

The only problem is that Synthetic ascended empires lack proper armies since 2.2 deleted a research option that brought robotic armies on par with Gene and Psionic armies.

Really? I thought the giant death robots research was more than enough as a staple army unit.

Synthetic ascended doesn't have giant death robots. You're confusing it with MACHINE Empires.

[DankDansk]

Originally posted by Azor:

Originally posted by mccartneyconnor280:

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.

Synthetic ascension gives +20% bonus to ALL production, 10% from research, +10% from ascension (this is the same bonus the old Synthetic trait provided). Better and more reliable than psionics. The only problem is that Synthetic ascended empires lack proper armies since 2.2 deleted a research option that brought robotic armies on par with Gene and Psionic armies.

most of that used to be achievable with genetics. Now synths is better because of the new crappy pop system.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

I mean it takes a lot of time, yeah.

Originally, it was the ethic to go for to minimize amount of "factions" you get from conquest. Now, you'll hardly convert anyone during a standard 300-year playthrough. With amounts of pops also being increased by a factor of ~15, it's a nonfunctional feature.

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

I generally don't have too many issues in my playthrough though.

You just don't conquer enough :P
And it's not really an issue, while factions are irrlevant; only shows how "easy" it is to utilize Gospel civic.

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

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.

But get a 10% hit for being minority, instead. Either way, I rarely bother with robots, especially if spiritualist, even more so as a fanatic one (as in that playthrough, where I purged, maybe, 50 of those things).

[ScootaCross]

You can be a God Emperor.

Honestly thats all you need.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

I mean it takes a lot of time, yeah.

Originally, it was the ethic to go for to minimize amount of "factions" you get from conquest. Now, you'll hardly convert anyone during a standard 300-year playthrough. With amounts of pops also being increased by a factor of ~15, it's a nonfunctional feature.

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

I generally don't have too many issues in my playthrough though.

You just don't conquer enough :P
And it's not really an issue, while factions are irrlevant; only shows how "easy" it is to utilize Gospel civic.

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

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.

But get a 10% hit for being minority, instead. Either way, I rarely bother with robots, especially if spiritualist, even more so as a fanatic one (as in that playthrough, where I purged, maybe, 50 of those things).

I conquer plenty, but my empire always drives down Xenophile (the natural pull for free aliens), unless I'm playing said megacorp.. then it does heavilly go spiritualist or I just use the god ray to convert them later game.

Maybe your empire is just so unhappy that they don't follow your ethics?

Also the '10% hit' that's not to happiness. That's to faction support. They are wildly different things.

At the moment the most happiness you can get from a faction (since it's been changed) for an individual pop is either +10%, or -10% at the lowest (despite what the wiki says).

That means you could completely piss off your faction, and still have a very happy population, especially as a psionics empire, it really isn't a lot of risk.

The other downside is lower influence from factions, however spiritualists psionics also get base level influence (neither ascension path gets), so even that is minimized as a problem.

Synthetic is certainly the best path still.. however.. the original question of this whole discussion was "why play spiritualist", which has soundly been answered for their amenities capabilities. Support for being a vassalizer/Megacorp. As well as MegaChurches. Not "which ascension path is best". Even if there is obviously some connection.

Even if the original poster seems to think 'nothing' is the correct answer.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

Synthetic is certainly the best path still.. however.. the original question of this whole discussion was "why play spiritualist", which has soundly been answered for their amenities capabilities. Support for being a vassalizer/Megacorp. As well as MegaChurches. Not "which ascension path is best". Even if there is obviously some connection.

Even if the original poster seems to think 'nothing' is the correct answer.

Accauly i took from his response that it was second best only too materalist.

Originally posted by Ninjamestari:

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.

I mean those are some pretty sweet bonuses.
Second best isnt a bad place to be.

[[MCS] Yoritomo]

Originally posted by ScootaCross:

You can be a God Emperor.

Honestly thats all you need.

You meant you can be a good Emperor guided by the omnipotent, all-good and omniscient. Thats why every player should have tryed to play as fanatic spiritualist.

The random events will love the spiritual player too.

[Danny]

Originally posted by MCS Yoritomo:

Originally posted by ScootaCross:

You can be a God Emperor.

Honestly thats all you need.

You meant you can be a good Emperor guided by the omnipotent, all-good and omniscient. Thats why every player should have tryed to play as fanatic spiritualist.

The random events will love the spiritual player too.

The Chosen one gets created by just absorbing a large amount of psionic energy from the Shroud.
No one guides the chosen one...

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by 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?

1. Amenities from priests. Build temples instead of holotheatres, and you get bonus unity as well as bonus society research.
2. Bonus unity. Spamming temples and the bonuses to unity generation should push you ahead in the tradition tree. Activate ambitions earlier than most other empires.
3. Higher chance to unlock psionic theory and telepathy rare tech. Ascend earlier.
4. Consecrated worlds perk. Get up to +25% unity, +25% spiritualist attraction, and +15% amenities when you consecrate 3 gaia worlds. Consecrate holy worlds, and you become best buddies with spiritualist fallen empires.
5. Divine Enforcer colossus. Do you have too many factions in your empire? Use the Divine Enforcer on your own worlds to forcefully convert pops into spiritualist. If you use robots, move them to another colony before activating and then move them back afterwards. This will prevent bots from getting purged

*On Robots and happiness of traditionalist/spiritualist factions.
Outlawing AI = -5 faction happiness. Servitude AI = -10 faction happiness.
Psionic pops have +5 happiness. Social welfare living standard gives +10 happiness. Having 2x the amenities of your pops will add +20% happiness (i.e. 100 pops with 100 surplus amenities = +20% happiness.) You can enslave robots and give them the Domestic Servitude trait to boost amenity production. Unemployed robots will turn into servitors that add amenities. Proclaiming Religious Revelation will add +5 faction happiness to traditionalist pops.

These along with satisfying other traditionalist faction demands will offset the happiness penalties that come from making bots. Just be prepared to fight off a robot uprising once you switch from outlawed AI to servitude AI.

[Nightmyre]

And at the end of the day, the reality is - despite all of those things you mentioned, the one most important deciding factor is simply this:

They grow super slowly.

Both biological and synthetic ascension paths produce pops way faster, which puts them at a distinct disadvantage to those two.

And if you're going to play spiritualist and go with either biological or synthetic ascension - you may as well just not play spiritualist.

Nobody is suggesting the game can't be played like that. Just that you're essentially giving yourself a handicap. And the best way to work around the handicap is to pretty much just throw out all of the benefits you get for being spiritualist, and accept the negative consequences, and just play as if you were ... any other ethic instead.