So clones, what do we think?

[Gungnir]

This origin is the only reason that I picked the game back up after about a year of not playing. Is it any fun? What are some good ways to utilize this origin? I figure rushing into 2 additional colonies asap right?

[Emperor Nuclear]

I hate it. Pops produce really quickly and you need to have the ancient clone vats building on every planet to sustain them. If you don't pay attention to your planets, the population will just skyrocket.

[Fabiaville]

yeah there are a few things i have noticed.
you need to really build more jobs quickly or else you'll end up drowning in pops. also since the vats take up valueable building slots i found functional architecture pretty much a must.
getting a client race quickly to replace your clones is paramount if you want to actually grow beyond the very early game.
the standard 5 vats only support 4 colonies (2 in capital 1 in colony).
the story element of the origin allows you to choose between allowing your clones to become a normal race & be moddable in exchange of hard nerfing the bonusses of clones.
or permanently stuck to vats & 100 pops but massive increase in specialist & ruler output and an overall upgrade in the clone trait & leaders.

the main problem i see with the origin is the extremely low pop cap.
the acsensions also suck with this origin.
you are completely and utterly locked out of bio ascension.
going synth completely removes any uniqueness of the origin. so thats out.
and psy just sucks all the time never bothered with it unless i get zro precursor.

it is my opion is that bio ascension should actually give you the ability to construct more vats and be able to mod your pops.
maybe like increase the cap in 1st stage
and remove it in the second & modable pops.

utterly moronic you are locked out of bio ascension.

[yuzhonglu]

Just finish the project and turn them into normal pops. If done right you'll have 100 normal pops by 2215, which is pretty damn good.

Key is to pop rush, functional archeitecture, get lots of mining districts, and convert and win.

[Sea Base]

Great for early game rushing (in all ways) but you gotta quickly capitalise on those early game gains or you'll quickly stagnate. I like it, you have no choice but to go out into the universe as turtling doesn't really work unless you undo the cloning process.

[yuzhonglu]

It's actually not that great for pre 2215 rushes since you need to spend so many resources on just building districts. Void Dwellers are better at the whole corvette rush thing since they can spam alloys almost immediately from the getgo.

But it's amazing for 2230 cruiser rushes. LOL. For 2230 wars they're as good as necrophages pre nerf.

[Crowbot]

I'm not a fan of the lowered lifespans. Made me feel like I had no choice if I wanted to keep my initial ruler (and I did) but to go for life extension techs.

[lubed_assassin]

Originally posted by Crowbot:

I'm not a fan of the lowered lifespans. Made me feel like I had no choice if I wanted to keep my initial ruler (and I did) but to go for life extension techs.

you can lothid venerable them if u really want to.

[lubed_assassin]

by 2230 i was able to get 10k fleet power, i saw a video of someone getting to 17k. Mind you the AI on grand admiral has about 4k around that time, you can just steamroll the AI around 2230. Late game is where they slow down, early and mid game they are just more efficicent pops, but by late game your 100 pops can't out produce 400 pops, so you need to take in more pops or robots etc..

[Crowbot]

Originally posted by lubed_assassin:

you can lothid venerable them if u really want to.

Yeah, I see that now that I'm playing with mods but that first run was an RP one, so I probably wouldn't have used that even if I knew.

[Aethrys]

100 clone pops is plenty, just beat up your neighbors and steal their species so you can grow normally. Ascended clone admiral is amazing.

[Crowbot]

We don't want their crummy pops, we're isolationists.

[lubed_assassin]

Originally posted by Crowbot:

We don't want their crummy pops, we're isolationists.

i mean you can be if u can stack - fleet upkeep.

[Das Boot]

My only complaint with clone sterility is that curing it feels too easy. I thought it should be require you to unlock evolutionary mastery, it should be a late-game reward for a lot of hard work. Instead you get it early on.

Another twist that would have been cool would be if, in galaxies with Militant Isolationist Fallen Empires, they're revealed to be the ones who created you. Then it could at least be satisfying to burn your creator's worlds in vengeance.

[Sozig]

I read all comments so far so I guess it's a good thing but in my first game I was surrounded by Ancient empires and stuff I could not profit from attack so...

[Realhollow]

Originally posted by Gungnir:

This origin is the only reason that I picked the game back up after about a year of not playing. Is it any fun? What are some good ways to utilize this origin? I figure rushing into 2 additional colonies asap right?

bascily you need to rush robots so you can still build pops once you run about of vats and the bots can take over lower tier jobs makeing your clones able to do good ones.

that or hope to go you find a primitive world you could also try to rush another faction but on admiral or GA that might be impossible with there eco