Hive Minds are Still OP

[yuzhonglu]

If you think they're weak compared to machines or others, you're just playing them wrong.

[Speed Malus]

If you think they're OP compared to machines or others, you're just playing them wrong.

[yuzhonglu]

Oh they're definitely OP compared to machines. As a Hive Mind against GA non-scaling AI you can easily get 40+ planets by year 30, over 1000 pops, +1200 research per month, halfway into your third tradition, with Cruisers done by year 35. There's nothing machines can do that gets comparable numbers that early.

You also get -50% empire sprawl effect, too. The only thing I've seen machines do that's comparable is Virtuality, and Virtuality stops scaling once you hit your 7 colony limit.

[yuzhonglu]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3402179359

[yeehaw]

yeah, they never balance the game in totality lol. hives are stronger than machines and both are a LOT stronger than organics... its just unfair

[Atrox314]

are you playing devouring swarm? and what origin?

[Kalemenos]

I never tried hive. Can't you go either organic/hive or machine/hive? I thought you could, so the alternative machine-hive would not be a real one. Also, with hive mind, can you still choose between genetic, cybernetic, and synthetic ascension?

[mahluni]

what build are you using? And do you resettle manually or do you use transit stations?

[yuzhonglu]

Terravore/ Necrophage. Void Hive/ Devouring Swarm as Civics. Try it. You won't regret it.

Terravores grow slowly. As do Necrophage. Combined they give you a -125% pop growth malus. Sounds terrible right? Except that as a Hive Necrophage you start with two primitive worlds nearby with normal Hive species that you can grow, meaning that you never have to grow your main species....

You also get Necrophage purge converting 75% of the organic pops you conquer into your lithoid species, Unlike other total war empires, you can keep most of the pops that you conquer. Eh he he he he. AND the ability to consume planets for pop, minerals and alloys. And you are a Devouring Swarm with total war casus belli and military bonuses. And with Void Hive you get access to crystals early and lots of free mining bases. And with Subsumed Will and Divided Attention civics (which you get later on) you get big empire sprawl reduction. You get the idea.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

One specific modifier-stacking build being overpowered doesn't mean that Hive Minds as a whole are...

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by Totally Innocent Chatbot:

One specific modifier-stacking build being overpowered doesn't mean that Hive Minds as a whole are...

By the same logic, a couple of specific modifier-stacking builds doesn't make Machine Empires OP either. Your average machine empire is comparable to any average empire.

[My Right Toe]

Originally posted by Kalemenos:

I never tried hive. Can't you go either organic/hive or machine/hive? I thought you could, so the alternative machine-hive would not be a real one. Also, with hive mind, can you still choose between genetic, cybernetic, and synthetic ascension?

You can only be an organic hive and you can't go for synthetic ascension.

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by My Right Toe:

Originally posted by Kalemenos:

I never tried hive. Can't you go either organic/hive or machine/hive? I thought you could, so the alternative machine-hive would not be a real one. Also, with hive mind, can you still choose between genetic, cybernetic, and synthetic ascension?

You can only be an organic hive and you can't go for synthetic ascension.

Does it matter? As an organic hive you get -50% empire sprawl effect reduction and -25% pop sprawl with Divided Attention and Subsumed Will.

With genetic ascension and cloning vats and Vat-grown and spawning pools and fertile and budding you get a minimum of 14 growth per planet.

[Kufesska]

pretty sure hive mind is the weakest empire type rn
they were competitive earlier, very strong in the beginning, but first Paragons gave more bonuses with council roles and destiny traits for individualist empires, then Machine Age gave great buffs for robot empires
genetic ascension is straight weakest of all now
though buffed cyborg ascension is available for HM, i find hives weaker than others

OP builds are still available for HM, still wrecking GA AI in good hands, but less OP than others

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Originally posted by My Right Toe:

You can only be an organic hive and you can't go for synthetic ascension.

Does it matter? As an organic hive you get -50% empire sprawl effect reduction and -25% pop sprawl with Divided Attention and Subsumed Will.

With genetic ascension and cloning vats and Vat-grown and spawning pools and fertile and budding you get a minimum of 14 growth per planet.

Sprawl has never meant anything. You can just out-produce any and all penalties resulting from it. Stacking modifiers to sprawl reduction is a "win-harder" strategy at best.

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by Totally Innocent Chatbot:

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Does it matter? As an organic hive you get -50% empire sprawl effect reduction and -25% pop sprawl with Divided Attention and Subsumed Will.

With genetic ascension and cloning vats and Vat-grown and spawning pools and fertile and budding you get a minimum of 14 growth per planet.

Sprawl has never meant anything. You can just out-produce any and all penalties resulting from it. Stacking modifiers to sprawl reduction is a "win-harder" strategy at best.

Sprawl matters A LOT for getting repeatables and mega-engineering and preparing for crisis. Also, did you see my screenshot? Necrophage Hive minds are the BEST at snowballing of all factions

Hive Minds get free sprawl reduction mechanics, unlike machines. If I was a comparable machine faction in that screenshot, my research and tradition gain would literally be halved because it's difficult for machines to get global sprawl reduction.

This rubbish about "sprawl doesn't matter because you can just out-produce" is a false narrative because as a Hive mind you can outproduce AND keep sprawl from completely wrecking your science research. There's nothing stopping you from doing both, because as a Hive Mind because their global sprawl reduction mechanisms are just civics. A civ with 50% sprawl reduction bonuses is out-teching a civ without the reduction by 2x.