Driven Assimilator Advice

[TheMac]

I've played as a determined exterminator and I've found it's wonderful to get all the free energy, but it also takes forever for the pops to die and for you to use the planet. I'm thinking of trying a run as a driven assimilator, but I've never assimilated a population before.

Do I still need to deal with lots of unrest during the assimilation process?
How long does the process take?
Will my assimilated pops develop factions?
Looks to me like my original population of four will breed in 2.0. Is this true, or do I still need to build robots?
I assume I have to assign rights to each race after I assimilate them?
What does assimilation really mean? Is it like mind control where they are all happy and of "one mind?"

Thanks.

[TheMac]

Oh. Since I have the assimilation casus belli on all neighboring systems, I'm wondering if I still have to claim systems in order to keep them after a war. Thanks.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by xnadu27:

Who are you thanking?

I suspect he means "Thanks in advance for answering my questions.".

Originally posted by TheMac:

Do I still need to deal with lots of unrest during the assimilation process?

Yes. If you have influence to spare then you can use the Patrol Drones edict and build fortresses to keep the population in line. If not, then you can relocate some of the population to other planets to spread out the unrest in order to avoid actual problems. However, see the next answer.

Originally posted by TheMac:

How long does the process take?

It used to take forever, but now it is fairly quick. There is some randomness to it, but usually a planet will assimilate in less than five years. Note that as pops assimilate they will stop contributing to unrest, so the unrest issue resolves itself even faster.

Originally posted by TheMac:

Will my assimilated pops develop factions?

No.

Originally posted by TheMac:

Looks to me like my original population of four will breed in 2.0. Is this true, or do I still need to build robots?

You don't have to build robots if you don't want. Your cyborg population does breed, and you could just use them if you wanted. What I usually do if have my cyborgs designed for mineral &/or energy production, and then my machines designed for research. I build a machine for each tile on the planet that will be used for research and then I let the cyborgs breed to fill up the rest of the tiles. You can use yours however you see fit.

Originally posted by TheMac:

I assume I have to assign rights to each race after I assimilate them?

I believe so. Your default rights will determine whether you assimiliate a species or purge them, for example. Also that can be adjusted for each species individually. I don't think there's any way to control what the rights will be after assimilation, however. Maybe the game bases it off your main race, or maybe there's just a default post-assimilation setting that you can't adjust - I'm not sure. Either way, it is best to check the rights after assimilation to make sure they are what you want them to be.

Originally posted by TheMac:

What does assimilation really mean? Is it like mind control where they are all happy and of "one mind?"

In the case of Driven Assimilators, assimilation means that they are having cybernetic interfaces forcefully implanted into their bodies to connect their consciousnesses into the collective. Once the process completes their individuality is subsumed by the group, and they become one part of the greater whole.

Originally posted by TheMac:

Since I have the assimilation casus belli on all neighboring systems, I'm wondering if I still have to claim systems in order to keep them after a war.

You don't need to make claims. In fact, if I recall correctly, they can't make claims at all.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by TheMac:

How long does the process take?

It used to take forever, but now it is fairly quick. There is some randomness to it, but usually a planet will assimilate in less than five years. Note that as pops assimilate they will stop contributing to unrest, so the unrest issue resolves itself even faster.

when playing assimilator for the first time yesterday it looks like it's 1-4 pops per year per planet will assimilate.

[TheMac]

Wow. Thank you both for such helpful information! It's quite difficult to find the time to play, with work and family life being so demanding these days. Help from those who have far more expereince than I do with the game sure increases the quailty of my play time. I usually look for YouTube playthroughs of whatever it is that I'm wanting to experiment with, but I found myself out of luck this time around, perhaps due to the newness of the patch and the specificity of the race.

I'll have some time to play later this week, and I'll come back and review all the info before I start. BTW, I also see that this race starts out with open borders to all new contacts. That seems a bit odd to me, especially since when playing as a determined exterminator the default was closed borders. Aren't all the "bad" races automatically hated by empires except maybe those with similar roles (slavers, assimilators, exterminators, purgers)?

[Meewec]

slavers aren't necessarily hated, it depends on what the other empires are. same with assimilators, i think materiallists won't hate them right off the bat, but if you start assimilating you start becoming a threat. i think xenophobic is the only thing that automatically closes your borders(maybe devouring swarm too) from the beginning unless you change your policy

spirituallists on the other hand will hate you right away as an assimilator which seems to be what all my neighbors are in my game

[TheMac]

LOL! Good luck with your neighbors. Good to know how things work. Gosh, the game politics are really something. Maybe I'll lay low for a while and develop the local planets before I surprise the galaxy with my true purpose in life. Haha!

[Meewec]

i already absorbed one, two others have formed a defensive pact so i need to consider how i deal with them. or i might stab at the empire next to my freindly neighborhood exterminators that are next to me just on the next arm over once hostilities break out there. but right now it's consolidation time while i assimilate these highly adaptable horse men. guessing they'll be able to live on tomb worlds no problem.

[Braxtil]

I'm playing a Driven Assimilators game on Grand Admiral difficulty right now. To add to the good advice above, it's really difficult to survive the early and mid game because it's almost impossible to win over any allies. I tried, using Independence Guarantees, but ultimately all the other empires turned against me. The only way I found to survive to the late game was to vassalize myself to a powerful neighbor. Once I had everything up and running well, I threw off the overlord and started crushing the rest of the galaxy. You didn't like me before? These cybernetic implants will change your opinion....

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by TheMac:

BTW, I also see that this race starts out with open borders to all new contacts. That seems a bit odd to me, especially since when playing as a determined exterminator the default was closed borders.

You can immediately change your borders policy to closed (and your first contact protocol to aggressive) if you wish. It just depends on how you want to play them.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Meewec:

i already absorbed one, two others have formed a defensive pact so i need to consider how i deal with them. or i might stab at the empire next to my freindly neighborhood exterminators that are next to me just on the next arm over once hostilities break out there. but right now it's consolidation time while i assimilate these highly adaptable horse men. guessing they'll be able to live on tomb worlds no problem.

Lol! You should stream this stuff. Sounds quite entertaining.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Braxtil:

I'm playing a Driven Assimilators game on Grand Admiral difficulty right now. To add to the good advice above, it's really difficult to survive the early and mid game because it's almost impossible to win over any allies. I tried, using Independence Guarantees, but ultimately all the other empires turned against me. The only way I found to survive to the late game was to vassalize myself to a powerful neighbor. Once I had everything up and running well, I threw off the overlord and started crushing the rest of the galaxy. You didn't like me before? These cybernetic implants will change your opinion....

What an excellent strategy! Thanks

[TheMac]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by TheMac:

BTW, I also see that this race starts out with open borders to all new contacts. That seems a bit odd to me, especially since when playing as a determined exterminator the default was closed borders.

You can immediately change your borders policy to closed (and your first contact protocol to aggressive) if you wish. It just depends on how you want to play them.

Thank you. I noticed the change and wondered it there were a reason for it. I'll experiment as I find time to play in the next couple weeks, though it might be pretty tough to make friends considering....Haha.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Don't waste your time trying to make friends with spiritualists. Materialists are your best bet, among organics, but even they have a big penalty. Other machine empires shouldn't have penalties, so look for them if you can.

[B3RyL]

I wouldn't worry about keeping the peace in your own empire. Rebellions are quite rare and even if they manage to break away you can just declare war on them again, and since they wont have nearly enough the firepower needed to contest you they will fall very quickly. Just keep assmilating few systems at a time to keep it all manageable and you'll conquer the galaxy in no time. The strongest side of the assimilators is that they can colonize inhospitable planets by relocating their minions, so keep that in mind.

[TheMac]

Thank you both. I'm keeping all of your points in mind, as I did find a few minutes to play today.

I have a quick question about conquest. I'm earning around 30 minerals atm and have around 200 energy with +5 or so coming in, while it's around 11 years into the game. I have a very close, and very annoying federation building neighbor who hates me (-350) with inferior fleet strength and I'm wondering if it's a good idea to spend the next few years building ships to assimilate his one planet or if I should build up my empire and colonize a planet instead? Thoughts about a rush game?

My fleet is currently 7 corvettes with a good admiral and around 305 total strength. I could build it up to 500 strength in a few years and go after my neighbor without much difficulty.

BTW, I'm playing 500 star systems with 10 AI (default is six for this galaxy size). Thanks.