Best origin for Megacorp

[Flaco]

Hello, I was wondering what the best origin is for megacorp. Thank you!

[pete3great]

You'll hear a lot of argument for void born, and that's fine, but there are good arguments for prosperous unification and mechanist. Me? I usually go with prosperous unification.

[CrUsHeR]

Void Dwellers can be okay-ish if you don't need to build fleets or a lot of outposts. Especially Megacorps suffer insanely from the exorbitant build and upkeep costs, example just an envoy to a "belligerent" empire costs 0.25 influence. And you really need those pacts for branch offices.

The only way to make it work is to >not< be egalitarian (instead fanatic xenophile + materialist), so you can move clerks from your trade habitat to your new foundry habitats. This gives an early push of alloys to get out of the stagnating alloy production after settling the first 2 expansion habitats.

IMHO the Void Dwellers origin should (at minimum) reduce the alloy upkeep of habitats by 50% to bring them back near competetive levels. And/or give unique bonuses to habitats, because the 15% output bonus for your founder species is quickly reduced proportionally to the amount of species living in your empire. So for example with 10 species in your empire, the game will only let 10% of the pops on habitats be void dwellers for some insanely stupid reason.

Another thing which kills the fun is that Void Dweller pops very persistently grow on- and get autoresettled to non-habitat worlds, like Gaia, Relic and Ecumenopolis. However they get those nasty -30% happiness on every world which is not a habitat or a ring world.



Otherwise, Remnants are a fairly obvious choice. Just the early ecumenopolis, the relic blockers and the special features on the 2 habitable worlds are enough to justify.

Clearing all the blockers is easily worth some decade(s) of research. Depending on the quality of the 2 habitable planets, they can produce Research, plus Minerals or Trade Value. And your capital does whatever is missing, including Unity.

Food needs to be largely produced in starbases with hydroponics, with the Secure the Borders edict you get a cap of +2 so these can also generate a nice amount of naval cap. And since you don't pay those absurd amounts of alloys for habitats, you can also afford a fully competetive fleet. Which in turn generates more influence to build starbases and do diplomacy.


PS - for the ascension, in 3.6 you can double up on trade value with Cybernetics. Quite helpful for Megacorps in general who have been suffering a lot for a couple of patches now.

[pete3great]

Oh, oh, oh. I forgot the gateway origin. Megacorps shouldn't go wide generally, but if you want to, starting with a gateway in your home system can help prevent piracy problems.

[Flaco]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Void Dwellers can be okay-ish if you don't need to build fleets or a lot of outposts. Especially Megacorps suffer insanely from the exorbitant build and upkeep costs, example just an envoy to a "belligerent" empire costs 0.25 influence. And you really need those pacts for branch offices.

The only way to make it work is to >not< be egalitarian (instead fanatic xenophile + materialist), so you can move clerks from your trade habitat to your new foundry habitats. This gives an early push of alloys to get out of the stagnating alloy production after settling the first 2 expansion habitats.

IMHO the Void Dwellers origin should (at minimum) reduce the alloy upkeep of habitats by 50% to bring them back near competetive levels. And/or give unique bonuses to habitats, because the 15% output bonus for your founder species is quickly reduced proportionally to the amount of species living in your empire. So for example with 10 species in your empire, the game will only let 10% of the pops on habitats be void dwellers for some insanely stupid reason.

Another thing which kills the fun is that Void Dweller pops very persistently grow on- and get autoresettled to non-habitat worlds, like Gaia, Relic and Ecumenopolis. However they get those nasty -30% happiness on every world which is not a habitat or a ring world.



Otherwise, Remnants are a fairly obvious choice. Just the early ecumenopolis, the relic blockers and the special features on the 2 habitable worlds are enough to justify.

Clearing all the blockers is easily worth some decade(s) of research. Depending on the quality of the 2 habitable planets, they can produce Research, plus Minerals or Trade Value. And your capital does whatever is missing, including Unity.

Food needs to be largely produced in starbases with hydroponics, with the Secure the Borders edict you get a cap of +2 so these can also generate a nice amount of naval cap. And since you don't pay those absurd amounts of alloys for habitats, you can also afford a fully competetive fleet. Which in turn generates more influence to build starbases and do diplomacy.


PS - for the ascension, in 3.6 you can double up on trade value with Cybernetics. Quite helpful for Megacorps in general who have been suffering a lot for a couple of patches now.

Any good ascension perks and traditions?

[Oakshadow]

Universal transactions is a must have for megacorps. If you're going the merc route you're going to want Lord of War. Also suggest eternal vigilance if you have a spare slot as you're going to be playing diplomatically most of the time... (meaning you'll be using your mercs or other people's fleets to fight.).... if you have a bunch of vassal shared destiny is pretty powerful and saves you a civic.
Regardless of what origin you're going to want arcology project and void born on that list too. Since you're likely be using both as playing tall is what megacorps are all about.

As for traditions, Mercantile is essential. As is diplomacy so you can form a trade federation. Depending on how friendly you are you may want espionage or supremacy. The rest are entirely up to you. Prosperity used to be a lot better. But 3.6 nerfs it a bit.... so it's not as essential as it used to be.

[HyperKnight]

I have been playing with Mechanist because Megacorp's high energy credits income allows you to plop quite expensive otherwise robot factory on each new planet and by midgame you will have over a hundred robot pops.

[HyperKnight]

As for traditions, Expansion if you play on bigger maps with lots of planets, Supremacy because even if all neighbours are nice pacifists you still could use some aggressive expansion (or a lot), Diplomacy and Mercantile for Trade Federation.

[Ryika]

The dominant Origin for Void Dwellers is actually Imperial Fiefdom. It's a bit of a mess to play though.

[pete3great]

Originally posted by Ryika:

The dominant Origin for Void Dwellers is actually Imperial Fiefdom. It's a bit of a mess to play though.

There's a new-hotness theorycrafting aspect to Imperial Fiefdom that doesn't really work that well in actual play.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by pete3great:

There's a new-hotness theorycrafting aspect to Imperial Fiefdom that doesn't really work that well in actual play.

Except that it works just fine. You have 2 targets to immediately trade favors with for massive amounts of resources, 4 large planets to establish branch offices on (albeit 3 with a trade efficiency penalty), gain a massive amount of basic resources as subsidies, destroyers and starbase tech for free, complete safety from attackers, and a level 30 gaia world waiting for you in the midgame.

[CrUsHeR]

Yeah but you need to save a pile of influence to buy a better vassal contract ASAP, if you don't do that then your overlord forces you to accept a worse contract to suck you dry.

At the same time you also need to expand quickly or your overlord locks you in. IIRC you also start with "Expansion Regulated" so the outposts cost 50% more influence which your overlord uses for his own outposts.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Flaco:

Any good ascension perks and traditions?

Well first off the civics - if you want to play a "real" megacorp which maximises the trade value, i'd recommend Free Traders because the +10% TV is a total modifier and you get +10% branch office value on top. Then Public Relations Specialists for the +2 envoys and diplomatic weight.

Ethics should always be Fanatic Xenophile, for the trade value, envoys and massive opinion boost from AI empires.
Then add either Egalitarian or Materialist, where Egalitarian generally performs better but you can't move pops manually.



For Traditions - definitely Mercantile first, for all its effects. Implement the policies for Consumer Benefits and Militarized Production. This will instantly bump you to 50+ monthy consumer goods so you can spam away those research labs and admin centers. Also sell surplus CGs and buy stuff you need.


In the 3.6 beta, the second/final ascension perk becomes a tradition tree so you should take Cybernetics and prioritize that. In the current test version, you can basically make all species in your empire "best in slot" with double research, double trade value (2x 25%) and all kinds of fancy bonus stuff.


Diplomacy seems fairly essential as well, a Trade League federation is what you really want though if things look dire you could also join an existing Research Cooperative without losing too much.
I usually hold off taking Diplomacy traditions in case there are no other empires nearby, then if i make contact with a likely partner i immediately grab the two perks for Federations, regardless of what i'm currently investing in.

If there are no federation partners by around 2250, you should look into releasing a vassal in a secluded area, release subject and form the federation with him as permanent "junior partner". Then vassalize everyone else with Regulated Expansion and Restricted Voting, they become federation members too so you get the free commercial pacts and they have to vote with you forever.

This all requires a crapload of Envoys, so you definitely need to have all regular options to maximize those (fanatic xenophile, PR specialists, diplomacy traditions, research, interstellar assemby). There's a also an ascension perk with +2 envoys and extra loyalty, which is optional if you have a lot of vassals which don't like you. Though this can usually be fixed with the Franchising civic as third choice.



Meanwhile It's a choice between Expansion- and Discovery traditions. Expansion is great if you already know there are plenty of goods systems+planets to claim, otherwise Discovery is the permanent top choice. 10% research speed, leader cap, map the stars, etc you want all of it.


Supremacy is always essential as well, it just depends on wether there are foreseeable wars early on or not. If in doubt, save your last slot for this because you need it when you go killing off the FEs and crisis.


Prosperity is great especially if you can take it early on. More mining station output, less upkeep. IIRC the Void Dwellers also get an extra habitat build slot from this, otherwise you get extra housing (means less useless city districts). The extra clerk jobs are replaced with pop output in the 3.6 beta as well.


Now in the live version, with all the above you'd still have 1 spare tradition. Harmony and Domination both give -10% sprawl from pops which is great, most of the other bonuses are mixed in particular when you go for Synth ascension. Adaptability and Unyielding have their advantages too.
In the beta i think it's Harmony or Adaptability being ahead, so either may be similar to Prosperity in the ranking (as you actually don't have a spare 7th slot)

[Bloodartist]

I tend to go with mechanist.

[pete3great]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Yeah but you need to save a pile of influence to buy a better vassal contract ASAP, if you don't do that then your overlord forces you to accept a worse contract to suck you dry.

At the same time you also need to expand quickly or your overlord locks you in. IIRC you also start with "Expansion Regulated" so the outposts cost 50% more influence which your overlord uses for his own outposts.

Doesn't it essentially cut you off from the Trade Federation economic policy until you can break free as well? (Unless your overlord just happens to join a trade federation).

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Flaco:

Any good ascension perks and traditions?

...And the perks are luckily much easier. General priority (not necessarily the order you can take them)


1. Technological Ascension (Void Dwellers: Voidborne)

2. Ascension (Live - Synthetic, Beta - Cybernetic)

3. Have to claim a huge amount of systems: Interstellar Dominion (also elect a ruler with Expansionst and take Expansion traditions, outposts cost like 48 influence) - otherwise this is 100% useless

4.+5. Master Builders + Galactic Wonders

6.-8. Optional, example:


- Arcology Project is great, but much less useful if you already have the Remnants capital, the Rubricator World, and perhaps other free relic worlds like the Ruined World, Planetary Machinery, Fen Habbanis III etc.

- Voidborne (for non-Void Dwellers) can be great if you find yourself with a severe lack of habitable planets, though the +2 slots are questionable since you can do trade on tiny Urban Worlds much better.
However if you really lack expansion space early on, i'd still take this, just because the extra slots are great to have extra refineries on each habitat.

- World Shaper.... eeeh. Don't remember when i last took this. Basically for the opposite situation, you have colonized a silly amount of regular planets and they all suck. It works amazing with the crazy immigration pull a megacorp can generate, however since Overlord you can earn so many basic resources from Subsidiary vassals that the perk seems a waste.

Whatever else strikes your fancy, like

- Transcendend Learning is actually good since you can have level 10 leaders before the game is over

- Universal Transactions - if you don't want to federate/vassalize everyone for some odd reason

- Galactic Force Projection - larger fleets and more of them, however as megacorp you have so much energy surplus that you can simply exceed the starbase cap significantly to provide naval cap

- etc.