Optimal Starting Bonuses

[Crim]

What are your preferred Optimal Starting Bonuses
Race Traits + Civics etc

Post your Race!

[This PC]

Megacorp

Spritualist-xenophobe-militarist

Brand loyalty + Gospel of the massses (+ free market when you have additional civic)

Thrifty-venerable-sedentary-solitary-slow breeders

[Stormsong]

Uhhh, you said both preferred and optimal. They are not the same thing for me, but hopefully that's okay?

These are my 3 favorite races. None of them are probably optimal, I'm not even sure what the general consensus on that would be for 2.2.x and I don't much care. I play for different reasons.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593919282

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593919306

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593919356

[ctcc42]

Optimal staring bonusess are dependant upon you play style. With the possible exception of rapid breaders. Unless you plan on obtaining pops from other empires early (one way or another) then you probably want rapid breaders. There is no resorce specific bonus that is going to net you more of somthing in the early game, then another pop would. So no matter what you want to do, rapid breaders is going to be a boost to it.

I like Technocracy and Beacon of Liberty as my civics, and rapid breaders as my species trait.

In 2.2 no matter what you want to be best at, you need pops to do it, which is why I chose rapid breaders. This trait turns into more science and more unity for me then taking the respective traits would, as I can get more people working at science and unity production whilst I am still under the administration cap.

My play style involves spaming science ships as often as I get energy to recruit a new scientist until i am up to somwhere between six to ten science ships.

My first building is always a science lab, and my first tradition is discovery. I dont play with guarenteed colonizable worlds.

In the early game I try and get as many anomalies as I can for their bonusess whilst I am still under admin cap, so that they have the largest impact.

If I dont encounter any high habability worlds prior to discovering teriforming tech then I am likly to just stick to my homeworld for a while. but I do spam out outposts as quickly as my influence will allow, with a mind toward getting choke points, primitive worlds, colanizable worlds (to terriform) and a couple of black holes(ready for the end game, one for dark matter, one to build a matter decompressor on)

Second Tradition I go for is expansion, at this time I usualy pick up One vision as my assencion choice. Late game this will help with keeping my pop ethics under control, but early game it is just about getting to the third perk point (for Archology worlds) as soon as possible.

While teching I priorities working toward teriforming, larger starbases, automatic exploration and antigravity enginearing.

Second perk point is spent on Imperial Prerogative, hopefully by this point I have either terraformed or found some habitable worlds. It dosnt matter what size or deposit spots they have, I want to get colony ships on all of them. Every colony down is another pop I can grow concurently.

By the time I get my third perk point, which shouldnt be all that long, I want to have as many worlds as possible to supply the minerals and energy for a Ecumenopolis.

Once I have the Ecumenopolis chuging out alloys for me I start work towards genetic enginearing assencion for the rapid breaders trait.

Its worth noting that while I continue to build research labs (which also give unity thanks to technocracy) and I maintain the tech advantage, my focus is on expansion at this point. If there are no planets left to teraform and colonize in the galaxy I build a fleet and take them. If there are planets, and I have a means to get to them then I continue to expand through colonization.

Planets = Pops and Pops = Power in 2.2.

Take opertunities to increase your administrative capacity when ever posible, but dont stop expanding just to stay under it. Its fine to go over the cap, just dont build districts and buildings if you dont have pops to work them so as to keep the upkeep as low and remain efficent.

Whew... Ok long post was long, sorry about that. This may not be the optimal playstyle, but it has had me leading the relative power charts when playing with my friends since 2.2 came out, and seems to work very well. I am sure there are other ways that work very well too. But I bet most of them are similarly focused on obtaining pops. Pops = Tech. Pops = Unity. Pops = Fleet Capacity. Pops = Food. Pops = Energy. Pops = Alloys.... you see how this is going? You can probably fill in the rest of the things Pops are equil to on your own.

[Shahadem]

Fanatical Purifiers elves ruled by a divine immortal goddess empress.

[Belhedler]

I'm strongly biased towards syncretic evolution with main species as leader/researcher engineered and serviles as minerals and energy credits engineered. This never failed me so far. But there's a catch: egalitarian isn't really good with that because relocating pops becomes tiedous. In 2.2, they are relocating after a while which itself can become a problem. Authoritarian is an option but serviles do not require authoritarian, being xenophobes put them in the slaving stance without the need for authoritarian. That said slaver guild does not apply to serviles anymore.

[Crim]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

I'm strongly biased towards syncretic evolution with main species as leader/researcher engineered and serviles as minerals and energy credits engineered. This never failed me so far. But there's a catch: egalitarian isn't really good with that because relocating pops becomes tiedous. In 2.2, they are relocating after a while which itself can become a problem. Authoritarian is an option but serviles do not require authoritarian, being xenophobes put them in the slaving stance without the need for authoritarian. That said slaver guild does not apply to serviles anymore.

I'm leaning towards the same
I'm starting to think Nobles as my 2nd, They can generate 15 Stability by the end game which is effectively another 10% Resources

Auth still grants 5/10% worker resources tho