Point of playing lithoids?

[Herald Rejn]

So i want to play lithoids hive mind but they are have anything usefull? They don't have bio ascension best perks, they breed slower, they live longer but have much older leaders, they eat rocks not food so you can't just make all their food from starbases. It's only me or lithoids are pretty damn weak and don't have anything good? They have 50% more habitality but that's not a big problem when you can terraform almost from start, so they get only slight bonus at the start. Whats the point of having +50years when their leaders are always 40/50years older xD

[yuzhonglu]

So play lithoid without playing hive mind. I sorta agree: lithoid hive mind is pointless unless you're terravore.

[Spirit]

their gameplay is rock solid (pun intended)
lithoids have a lot of plus aspects : you have a +60% habitability on all planets , you can eat black holes (megacorp matter decompressor) , 1 advisor , a unique colonization civic and a machine portrait (they can even become psionic rocks)

[gvantass]

Dude... Lithoid rocks! (I'll see myself out)

[Hunkthebear]

Lithoids have several things going for them, they consume Minerals and not food (No need for Agricultural districts/Farms), +50% Habitability means they DON'T need to Terraform due to this stacking with any other +Hab Modifier (+10% Trait, +20% Tech, ect.) thus saving Time and Resources, They live longer meaning you keep higher level leaders longer, and they even come with +50% Army Health so your armies last longer. Basically you just set up several mining worlds and never worry about Minerals again (Even better if you have Matter Decompressor, basically Infinite Minerals). They are supposed to be balanced by a -25% Pop growth penalty, but that can be reduced with Rapid Breeder Trait and Technology. Atm Lithoids are one of the stronger races due to these bonuses.

[Kapika96]

How on earth are you terraforming almost from the start? I usually struggle to terraform much before 2300, not only does the tech take awhile but the energy costs aren't really affordable early game.

To me that +habitability makes a massive difference. Getting things up and running faster is very nice.

That said, lithoids aren't great in terms of playing optimally, especially a lithoid hive mind. So the main reason to play them is just for fun/RP. But that's true of the majority of ethics/civics/origins anyway.

[Herald Rejn]

Originally posted by Hunkthebear:

Lithoids have several things going for them, they consume Minerals and not food (No need for Agricultural districts/Farms), +50% Habitability means they DON'T need to Terraform due to this stacking with any other +Hab Modifier (+10% Trait, +20% Tech, ect.) thus saving Time and Resources, They live longer meaning you keep higher level leaders longer, and they even come with +50% Army Health so your armies last longer. Basically you just set up several mining worlds and never worry about Minerals again (Even better if you have Matter Decompressor, basically Infinite Minerals). They are supposed to be balanced by a -25% Pop growth penalty, but that can be reduced with Rapid Breeder Trait and Technology. Atm Lithoids are one of the stronger races due to these bonuses.

wow, you ever played lithoids? They don't live longer, they have +50years but they start 50-70years older than normal, they eat rocks so you need a lot of workers to mine rocks, with normal empire you can just make starbases farms and get all the food for free from starbases, +50% habitality is nice but only when you start game becouse later it's useless, more army damage is just useless and they also have -25% pop growth and pop construct and in this meta pop growth and tech is top 1 thing. Also they can't have traits like rapid breeder.

[Sea Base]

Yeah lithoids need some more work to them. I feel their traits are fine, their slow breeding is easily bypassed since the defining factor of pop number is just having more colonies (which has been true since 2.0), not increasing pop growth speed, which their habitability bonus really helps with.
What they really lack is powerful unique civics, and the reliance on minerals for pop upkeep means they need mineral jobs at minimum to be upped to 6 (from 4) to match organics 6 for food and machines 8 for energy.

[Füchsingeist]

Well, I dunno, I guess the main point, as with everything concerning videogames, is having fun?

[Herald Rejn]

Originally posted by Sea Base:

Yeah lithoids need some more work to them. I feel their traits are fine, their slow breeding is easily bypassed since the defining factor of pop number is just having more colonies (which has been true since 2.0), not increasing pop growth speed, which their habitability bonus really helps with.
What they really lack is powerful unique civics, and the reliance on minerals for pop upkeep means they need mineral jobs at minimum to be upped to 6 (from 4) to match organics 6 for food and machines 8 for energy.

+1

[adobo]

Lithoid Hive is pretty solid though. You only have two resource to manage and you can colonize everywhere. No more 10k food you don't know what to do with. That +50 to leaders is offset by a +30 to starting age so its a net +20 like enduring.

Not sure why the starbase thing is important to you. You can get a lot from space resources too.

Necrophage Lithoids is pretty ridiculous though. You get all the Lithoid upsides with none of its downsides. Lithoid Hives would get another boost from that when they allow hives to be necrophage too.

[ScreamCon]

@Herald Rejn
Lithoids are very strong but situationally strong.

Pros;
-You pay less for leaders as they last longer
-Your high habitability means you can colonise worlds easier
-Your high habitability means you have higher growth on other world types to offset the lithoids growth downside. High habitability = higher growth quite literally.
-Lithoids can produce rare resource every 100 pop, this is very very strong with hive minds that can build tall administratively. (So long as you turn pop growth settings down)
-Lithoids as main population get a building that can convert food to energy without dealing with market price.
-Lithoid livestock slaves can produce mineral for consumer good, or alloy production. Though this metric is slow.
-Lithoids combined with necrophage allow you to sacrifice organic pops to make resource producing lithoid pops of your race. Not only that but their lifespan get even longer.
-You can early game build starbase mining bases to help feed your population.
-The homeworld not only has slums to dig up for a pop, but several lithoid monoliths for an extra 3-4 pops at a cost of mineral reducible by traditions.
-Since minerals are abundant early mid game its possible to buy much mineral for cheap from the market early mid game, and store to compensate for minerals being harder than food to make. Then late game when science ups mineral production your in the green again.
-You can opt out to put a rare resource on lithoid early game so that mid game you can split your species into 3 sub groups to produce some of all 3 rare resources. I think xeno compatibility can also do this also.

Cons;
-Lithoids eat mineral instead of food, mineral is harder to make and generally worth more per unit, such that they are more expensive pops to maintain.
-As said above this mineral consumption can interact badly with trying to make alloys or goods if your already strained for minerals.
-Lithoids grow slower and rely on colonising new worlds not of their biome, their expansionist to make up for slow growth.
-Lithoids cannot use traits like rapid breeders or adaptive, instead you will need to use traits like nomad to help facilitate higher average growth.
-Lithoids can be inefficient at times when mining, at game start you can see a miner making 6 but consuming 1 to make 5. This can be offset by using mining guild.

Overall from playing food based empires and lithoid, I would generally agree that lithoid is a stronger play. But the regular food based empires are a strong economic play as food can be made in larger volume cheaper. I like building empires of both.

[mss73055]

If you go Lithoid Necro Venerable your leaders will not die to old age over the run of the game. Venerable Quick Learners, with Unruly Sedentary for penalties.

I usually start super-authoritarian theocracy, what means I start out with proper influence gain and later can adopt xenophile without losing Imperial Cult.

Lithoid Apocalyptic is fun too. You got a base habitability of 120 on just any planet, and your growth is 75%. This means at the start of the game your habitability effectively is fixed 88% on just any planet. Without the need of any tech. The standard 2 planets any empire gets are 70%, so Lithoid do better quite a bit.

[mss73055]

While you cannot select Adaptive, you can select Robust.
Still the rabbit-trait is a no-no.

[Herald Rejn]

really, you need people learn how lithoids work, many of you said something that just dosen't work for lithoids... They can't have robust, they can't have rapid breeders, they don't live longer becouse they starting age is much older than normal, maybe at best 10years more. They don't have any special expansionist trait just for lithoids, Also rely on lithoids special materials production? really? xD you can just spend around 12minerals and get 2exotic mineral just like that, you need 100pops for just 1 exotic material, it's only good when you play as agresive necrophage and use it for atack boost.

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by Herald Rejn:

really, you need people learn how lithoids work, many of you said something that just dosen't work for lithoids...

You were after all asking random people to help you understand the balancing of them no? To help understand the euphoric way to play them? Slapping them away, why not straight up make a lithoid sucks post then and go full pessimistic. Its the reason I even bothered responding to your post, I thought you actually wanted to know something. The forum is meant for the sole and only purpose of customer support on products, with no entertainment value afforded. How is this so damn hard for people to understand. Steam is a game selling engine.

Originally posted by Herald Rejn:

they don't live longer becouse they starting age is much older than normal, maybe at best 10years more.

Average lowest age organic pop leader is 18, average highest organic pop leader is 26
Average lowest lithoid is 50, average highest lithoid is 80.
What this means if you were to pick the youngest of both teir the lithoid would last 50 years more but be 25 years older giving you 25 years more lifespan. Technically their age bonus can be negated if you picked the oldest lithoids from pool. Also you made a spelling mistake.

Originally posted by Herald Rejn:

They don't have any special expansionist trait just for lithoids,

What part of higher habitability on other worlds did you miss? Look at the planets, lower habitability literally effects growth rates on worlds not of your main species biome. This means if you take like 20 planets, 2/3 are not of your biome type. Lithoids heightened habitability means they will be able to grow faster on those planets. Not only that lose less on average pop upkeep colonising new worlds. Its literally an expansionist bonus similar to running robots in disguise. It gets weaker the farther into the game you go.

Originally posted by Herald Rejn:

Also rely on lithoids special materials production? really? xD you can just spend around 12minerals and get 2exotic mineral just like that, you need 100pops for just 1 exotic material, it's only good when you play as agresive necrophage and use it for atack boost.

Your suppose to supple with regular production no? The rare resource is equivalent to inefficiently converting 100 minerals to a rare resource. Which obviously will not compete with having a pop work a job to convert 10 mineral to 2 rare resource, but the idea is you were going to have to feed the 100 pops anyway. You also get to work them too.

If your going on some idea the lithoids need buffing I don't think they need more, there's already a ridiculous amount of features to them. Just look how bland the other species are to each other. I mean you could try running a mod that makes the species more unique if it concerns you.