Any up to date guides on the Umbral Choir?

[SeraphLance]

I'm fairly new to the game all-around, but I'm having a *hell* of a time trying to figure out how to play the umbral choir. I get the general gist of it: Find high food planets, build sanctuaries, focus pops on those sanctuaries to get more pops faster, let enemy colonize your sanctuaries, stockpile sleepers, invade to generate shadows, etc.

I'm having huge problems actually getting sanctuaries running though. In my current game by turn 11 I found *one* colonizable system (with starting tech) of the ~20 I've explored, with no minors or black holes (which seem like the best beacon systems) to exploit. In a previous game I found a great monsoon unique planet... 17 turns away with hacking. In that time my riftborn neighbor managed to build an outpost in the system and make it into a colony by the time I still had 8 turns left on my hack.

In the games where I've been able to get a decent footing into an enemy empire, they out-tech the hell out of me. Probably the last moderately "successful" game I had, I was rocking 4k power fleets when they got anti-cloaking level 3... with 20k power fleets. So yeah, obviously I'm doing something very wrong, I just can't figure out what.

People talk about getting multiple pops per turn; I find myself getting 1 pop per 2 turns (rolling at 200~300 food at best). People talk about crippling enemy empires with hacking; It takes me like 5 turns to hack a neighbor, and 10+ to hack anything further out.

I'm just having trouble figuring out what I'm missing. My current strategy is to rush xenolinguistics for the industry improvement, rush baryonic shielding for warp, then focus on techs that give me food improvements. For hacking I prioritize finding new planets for sanctuaries (and food planets among them) and black holes for science production. If I need to hack something further out, I build a back-door in the closest planet I can find (though it usually only lasts ~10 turns before it gets destroyed).

Should I be focusing different techs? Should I be trying to get more than one backdoor for the faster hacking speed? I have no idea how much a backdoor improves hacking speed on neighbors, since it doesn't say. I have no idea what utility there is in offensive hacks either, since the only places I can put them are places that also happen to automatically start backtracing, and the +30% speed or whatever bonus never seems worth just hacking from a closer backdoor.

[Bozobub]

Um... This *is not* the start of a "git gud" rant, I promise, but I do feel you're making some odd assumptions, as you've guessed already.

NOT in order:

• Stop focusing on food planets and techs (overall); it's totally unnecessary. Honest. Instead, focus on acquiring the three techs that give buildings with per-planet/Sanctuary bonuses, and spam the everlovin' CRAP out of Sanctuaries. The combined flat bonuses you acquire will eventually snowball into ludicrous proportions, even ignoring your other resources and bonuses.
  
  Prioritize *resources* and *number/size of planets*. Period. Quit worrying about food, you're gimping yourself to do so.
  
  
• Make Sanctuaries the primary focus of your hacking. If you don't pretty much always have at least one hack going for a new Sanctuary, you're messing up big time.
  
  
• When attempting to hack a new system for a Sanctuary that is near another faction's border, make sure you have it stop at one or two systems first. That way, they don't trace the hack before it completes, if they colonize mid-hack, and you still get benefit from the hack. This goes for any hack into an enemy system, for that matter.
  
  
• Happiness will eventually become your biggest problem. You can completely deal with it, but don't let overcolonization penalties destroy you!
  
  
• Get more hacking actions ASAP.
  
  
• Be VERY careful, how you promote your one-and-only system! It is possible to achieve astonishing results, if you are a) willing to wait and b) have access to the right resources.

I rush the 3 techs that give the per-planet/Sanctuary bonuses first, namely Planetary Landscaping, Xenobiology, and Xenolinguistics. That helps a lot.

You may want to consider trying a custom UC-inspired faction, instead. You lose a few points' worth of traits BUT you can get some really good synergy going, as well. For example, here's the "Bozobubulons", a custom faction I made just now for this post (changed a bit from my last UC run):

Gameplay/visual affinity: Standard UC

Starting setup:
- Arid home planet - 10 free trait points, plus you can still colonize the "Goldilocks" planets (terran, boreal, jungle, etc.) anyway. This is a no-brainer for any custom faction, although you do tend to end up with more erratic start locations than usual, due to how planets are roughly placed during map generation ^^'.

- Democracy

Population:
- Ecologists - Can colonize ANY planet from the start! I don't care if this lasts long past the 1st/2nd election, since I'll (at least mostly) have the colonization techs by then, but in the early game this is a huge advantage; the ability to colonize any telluric (solid) planet + good early laws FTW.

- Adept Workers - 5 dust:, 5 industry:, 5 research per pop; double this with the appropriate accelerator for even better results! Outrageously effective.

- Military-Industrialists - Late game, I prefer Industrial rather than Ecological politics; this political conversion ensures such, by mid-lategame (when you're building a lot of ships)..

- Cryologists - +3 science/pop on Cold planets, such as your rings.

- Infilitration Collection Bonus - No-brainer for UC/hacking-based factions.

Traits:
- Big Fleets II - +2 CP/fleet on empire.

- Dark Matter Manipulators - Crucial for adding manpower, which UC-inspired factions always lack.

- Deadly Weapons II - +20% Damage on weapons.

- Ghosts - Cloaking is a *must*.

- Material Expertise - Can use strategic resources in system upgrades. This is always *extremely* useful for any faction but never more so than for the UC/custom UC factions.

- Organic Expertise - +1 Hacking action on your empire.

- Price of Perfection II - Listed as a negative trait, this gives +10% damage/ship but ships cost 20% more industry to build. THIS IS NOT A NEGATIVE TRAIT; rather, it's a positive trait with a relatively minor downside! I actually could have left this at Price of Pefection 1 and left the traits at 100/100 trait points, but took the 2nd tier for 95/100, just to get the additional ship damage bonus.

- Twitch Infilitrators - Another given for a hack-based faction.

Note: I generally ignore Sleepers, except to get a Sanctuary in an enemy system + passive bonuses, hence no Sleeper traits.

Please note, however, that this faction will be MUCH easier, overall, than "vanilla" UC play. Of course, that's generally true for custom factions ^^'.

[Sloan]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1636828840

[SeraphLance]

Heh, I tried what you mentioned, Bozobub. Beelined planets by volume, ended up with 9/6 overexpansion, tanking popularity, and a food supply that made pops every 5 turns because of ash planets burning my food. Then I discovered what was actually causing me to fall behind...

The main reason was since the overexpansion penalty said "Number of colonized star systems and sanctuaries", I thought it applied *per sanctuary planet*. Turns out it works the same way as the rest of the empires, just has a crappy description. :)

Thanks for the info, guys. Now I have something I can work with.

[Bozobub]

I didn't say to *avoid* food, just stop prioritizing it so heavily. And as I mentioned, *happiness* is the resource you need to pay the most attention to ^^'.

[Aloisius]

I enact Toys for Boys *very* early on since it boosts happiness which gives you a food bonus that speeds population growth.

I also colonize all of my home system crescents in the early game and starting my first upgrade solo -> duo also early. The bonuses on your home system are actually quite good and your home system is always the #1 producer. Half the tech tree only applies to your home system, so I try to colonize home early. My home system is overpopulated early (with the minor negative that gives you is well overcome by Toys for Boys and a hero) and sanctuaries are almost completely populated by spill over rather than the population link except for the first pops.

I switch over to a Federation for extra colony slots when I have 2-3 over the limit and happiness dips and hurts my food production bonus and I'll happily depopulate systems and give them up if they aren't valuable from a strategics or location perspective.

Also, I find setting the automation policy to be pretty useful since it'll rebalance my population for me without having to sit and tend it since some of the crescents have some ugh anomalies until you remove them later.

If a local special gives +50 influence, my play turns into praising far away minor with just the right trait or near a tech race that I can steal tech from to take their systems since it is faster than hacking to improve image.

After I have free movement, accelerated hacking and a couple systems, a science behemoth becomes a priority. Also upgrading the system level to remain undetected.

I don't bother with sleepers unless I'm at war and have a chance to attack my colony to convert 20+ umbral shadows in one go.