Angler's and Catalytic Processing: Too OP?

[dande48]

These two in conjunction seem like such a powerful combo, I have a hard time seeing the benefit of anything else:
-Unlimited agricultural districts.
-"Farmers" produce extra food, consumer goods, and trade value.
-You can turn food into alloys.

Agree? Disagree?

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Anglers provide food to keep your alloy production going, energy credits to power buildings and fleets, consumer goods for researches. All in 1 district.

That is not necessarily a good thing, since it prevents you from specializing worlds and specializing worlds are very efficient in this game (Since there is no world designation that would give a buff to food production, trade value and consumer goods production all in one).

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I didn't remember clerks produced amenities, because it's not really a factor in their use. It's a decent job if you use it right.

It's widely regarded as a bad job, and you haven't provided a counter-argument. You're just claiming it isn't, even though it very clearly is.

Originally posted by Astasia:

The food processing center adds +2 anglers which are better than +2 farmers so it evens it out a bit.

True, but that's a one-time thing compared to the negative scaling occurring every time you build a district.

Originally posted by Astasia:

Again angler also provides uncapped agri districts, and it also has +10/15% resources on ocean planets from the trait,

No you don't. That's from the aquatic trait, which is required for anglers, not anglers is not required for the aquatic trait. You can choose aquatic and then not take anglers, which is probably a much better setup.

Originally posted by Astasia:

and you are ignoring the +2 trade per angler here which again you get more anglers from the building.

I'm not, you've combined both trade effects into a clerk, and I've addressed this, as well as trade in general. It's not nothing, but it's also not much.

Originally posted by Astasia:

You don't need the civilian industries building or planet specialization, anywhere, you get so many consumer goods from your cheap agri districts while generating food that you don't need to put any effort whatsoever into more consumer goods. Is that job slightly less efficient, maybe, but again the angler job is much better than a farmer per pop, it balances out.

That's just silly. Pop efficiency is highly important in Stellaris, and you're giving up a +66% productivity boost, which is also an efficiency boost, since upkeep only goes up by 50%.

If you're producing too many Consumer Goods, you're better off closing a few Pearl Diver jobs. The fact that you can't do this without ruining your strategy just perfectly demonstrates the problem with what you're trying to do.

Originally posted by Ryika:

Nah, because angler means you aren't forced to take all your trade and convert half of into consumer goods. You have all the consumer goods you need, so you can keep trade as all energy or convert it into unity instead. In my game I kept it as energy and never needed to build mining or generator districts.

...you can't even convert into Unity without having taken the trade-focused tradition tree. But the point is that if you don't focus on trade, then the 2 trade value are worth even less than they'd otherwise be, because they're just sitting there as 2 trade value, not get modified to 3.5 or something similar.

Originally posted by Ryika:

That's what civics are though. Or do you want to argue that mining guilds, environmentalist or police state are a much better economic benefit? Civics don't provide huge bonuses, at least not without huge downsides.

No, but they do provide meaningful bonuses. This combination requires 2 civics, and you still barely come out ahead.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Pop efficiency is highly important in Stellaris, and you're giving up a +66% productivity boost, which is also an efficiency boost, since upkeep only goes up by 50%.

Then angler is pretty amazing isn't it. If you wanted to build the consumer buildings then pearl divers catch up pretty quickly to artisans and counters even more of the loss of efficiency of angler with the food processing center. 5 consumer goods compared to 8, and with the bonus of anglers being better farmers you are getting more than a 50% bonus on job output from the civic. It's just that job is a clerk's 4 base trade, which you think is bad because reasons.

Originally posted by Ryika:

It's widely regarded as a bad job, and you haven't provided a counter-argument. You're just claiming it isn't, even though it very clearly is.

Most of your argument in this thread is "it's bad because I say so," but you expect other people to provide an argument to satisfy you? "Clerks are bad because they are widely considered to be bad. Hi, I'm widely." Your judgement of balance doesn't really hold up against 3+ years of player feedback and developer decision making on balance.

Originally posted by Ryika:

...you can't even convert into Unity without having taken the trade-focused tradition tree. But the point is that if you don't focus on trade, then the 2 trade value are worth even less than they'd otherwise be, because they're just sitting there as 2 trade value, not get modified to 3.5 or something similar.

I mean yes angler is pretty bad if you do nothing with trade. It's a trade focused civic, the bonus is extra trade, that's kind of common sense. You mentioned a trade focused empire not needing consumer goods, but that's only if again they take that trade tradition and choose to convert their trade to consumer goods, but this civic means they don't have to convert to consumer goods.

It comes out on top, angler is a very good civic, probably leaning toward one of the best ones in the game, and catalytic processing is an amazing synergy with it.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

Clerks used to be even worse then they are now, they have been buffed a tad (rather recently btw).

But a quick internet search will show you the math on why clerks are still a horrible job. Even a trade empire shouldn't use them but rather try to get all their pops into a merchant positions leaving the clerk jobs disabled (if at all possible). Clerks are only really recommended to be used as a substitute for unemployment (as in if there are no other jobs available).

Their trade output was doubled, and I don't believe it was that recently but probably after whatever person did whatever math you are talking about.

I've done pure trade runs, clerks are very effective at what they do. Most people who tell you clerks are bad don't understand how Commercial Pacts work.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Then angler is pretty amazing isn't it. If you wanted to build the consumer buildings then pearl divers catch up pretty quickly to artisans and counters even more of the loss of efficiency of angler with the food processing center. 5 consumer goods compared to 8, and with the bonus of anglers being better farmers you are getting more than a 50% bonus on job output from the civic. It's just that job is a clerk's 4 base trade, which you think is bad because reasons.

How do Pearl Divers cath up to Artisans? It's 6/8 to 3/5. That's half the productivity, and then slightly less than half the productivity when it comes to consumer goods. Slightly better when you factor in the trade value, but still terrible in comparison.

Fishers are always 2 food ahead, 8/10 instead of 6/8. That's better, but still not good, since again you need both specialization buildings and cannot run farming + consumer goods planet specializations at the same time.

Originally posted by Astasia:

Most of your argument in this thread is "it's bad because I say so," but you expect other people to provide an argument to satisfy you?

No, my argument is: "People in general believe them to be bad and have made plenty of analyses to show why. If you want to claim otherwise, you better make a good case for it."

Originally posted by Astasia:

"Clerks are bad because they are widely considered to be bad. Hi, I'm widely." Your judgement of balance doesn't really hold up against 3+ years of player feedback and developer decision making on balance.

Yeah no, developer decision making has brought us merchant focused trade strategies, and even THEY, with all their massive base yields, cannot hold their ground against non-trade based strategies in the late game. Clerks are nothing in comparison.

Originally posted by Astasia:

I mean yes angler is pretty bad if you do nothing with trade. It's a trade focused civic, the bonus is extra trade, that's kind of common sense. You mentioned a trade focused empire not needing consumer goods

Anglers is not a trade-focused civic, it's a mixed civic that gives you all kinds of bonuses. Trade-focused strategies use merchants for massive yields, and anglers with its 2 trade value per job is nothing in comparison.

Originally posted by Astasia:

but that's only if again they take that trade tradition and choose to convert their trade to consumer goods, but this civic means they don't have to convert to consumer goods.

No, you form a trade federation and gain both benefits. You know not what you're talking about.

Originally posted by Astasia:

It comes out on top, angler is a very good civic, probably leaning toward one of the best ones in the game

I guess the one thing we can both agree on is that the Anglers Civic is about as good as your knowledge about the game, and the arguments you make to support your opinion.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Their trade output was doubled, and I don't believe it was that recently but probably after whatever person did whatever math you are talking about.

Every job got boosted since they wanted less jobs overall, clerks got a slightly higher boost then the norm making them just a tad less useless. So in effect they just got a slight boost.

But Clerks are still subpar, just as a example: Even with "trickle up economics" a clerk produces 5 trade value as a base, if we use energy as a example that is 5 trade value translated into 5 energy. Admittedly you can boost this value quite a bit with your empire type, ethics, civics, traits, leaders and traditions.

While a technician makes 6 energy as a base so the base value is already higher, but you also boost a technician way more then you can boost a clerk's trade output with traits, the building and the tech's.


The same is true no matter what trade policy you use, when comparing clerks with other jobs using the other jobs to generate the same resources will be more efficient.

That is why clerks are considered bad.

Now jobs that generate way more trade like merchants are another thing entirely.


Since you mentioned commercial pacts: If we are playing with another player that we are in a alliance with or if you care about boosting AI, then sure, i suppose clerks could be more useful then normal jobs since 10% of the trade value generated would also go to the other player. I haven't done the math on that one and i admit that i don't really know.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

Since you mentioned commercial pacts: If we are playing with another player that we are in a alliance with or if you care about boosting AI, then sure, i suppose clerks could be more useful then normal jobs since 10% of the trade value generated would also go to the other player. I haven't done the math on that one and i admit that i don't really know.

There's not much math to do, it's effectively a 10% more bonus on trade output from clerks per commercial pact. If your clerks output 7 trade each because of various bonuses then with 10 commercial pacts that becomes 14 each effectively. That extra output doesn't go to you of course, it goes to your allies, but then you get 10% of the output of their clerks and other trade jobs. Playing with just AI it is less ideal, you are mostly helping your allies stay relevant, which is still somewhat useful. In multiplayer when working together with your allies clerks can easily become incredibly strong. Even just a few commercial pacts put them easily ahead of Technicians for energy output.

That's the trade part of a trade focus, it involves working together with other empires and boosting each other through trade.