Sophons gameplay tips?

[NYuKeM]

Hello,

I tried several custom faction builds on Sophons, however I found them kinda weak without custom faction traits since their industry is terrible because they start on cold planets and the only useful law is the Dirty Hands Act which can help you out from this situation.

So I made a custom faction and tried several builds including Meriocratic cosmopolites and Adept workers.

The most effective build is the one which is using the Craver depletion bonus while you are starting on an Arid planet. On the first turn it produces 84 industry without Dirty Hands Act law which is really nice (had around 50-55 or so with Meriocratic c.).

When I play with my friends, I feel Sophons kinda weak compared to other races.
For example, I had a 5 planet star system yesterday, which produced me around 2000 industry at turn 80. My friend had a similar star system which produced 4000 industry at that point (with riftborn buff, still feels really unbalanced). Rest of my systems are at or below 1200-1500 while star sysetems with full cold planets are even between 300-500.
I built every possible system improvement to boost industry productivity up since I used it to covert it to science points after.
I know many things can be affected this by starting with anomalies and other buffs related to luxury or strategic deposits. Bit it's still a very huge difference.

The main problem with Sophons is: you will need at least 70-90 turns to prepare for big science boost by building system improvements which are if you want to be effective need LOTS of industry. So you have to boost your industry anyway which can be performed best by Colonists III trait or certain laws. If you want huge science, you have to colonize cold systems which have really bad industry by default, so in this case the +30% industry bonus and trait bonuses won't even be enough to level up those systems enough fast.
Around turn 100, if you are lucky, all the outer segments are opened and a few of them already researched, so you will need an additional 80-100 turns for science victory.
I had like 18k science at turn 100, BUT I used industry to science conversion on all of my star systems, while my friend had like 8k, but he didn't use that conversion. So the difference ain't that big.

The best science buildings are really expensive (in both industry and strategic resource perspective), for example F-Reality Institute is really powerful but costs Cost: 2240 Industry, 25 Antimatter which means that on a star system which have 2k industry it only takes 1 turn+ while on a star system with full cold planets (full of science,but low industry) where I can maximize the science output can even take up 7-9 turns which is a LOT of time.

I only have 95 hours in this game and United Empire was my first race (invested around 60 hours or so in it), BUT it is much more powerful since you can buyout anything from influence while you can spare your dust for buying system improvement materials or materials needed for certain ship upgrade modules (TERACO lasers,etc). With Sophons, you won't even have enough dust to buy the necessary system improvements on lately colonized planets to expand faster.
You will also need ships early to prevent pirates and cravers/etc. to take your systems, so those are extra turns on science and construction queue.

I watched several guides,but those guide are mostly for early game.

Any tips? I do something wrong?

[Freny]

No, that's a pretty accurate statement there. Sophons are my measuring difficulty settings stick for the reasons you indicated.

I don't use custom races because the game is easy enough, my main focus is to increase AI aggression so I play on a Large Galaxy with 9 players (if Sophons, when playing Riftborn or high industry races I play with 10 players) instead of the recommended 8 players. I play with 2 Craver AIs always (and 2 Riftborn AIs if 10 players).

My other settings are everything on HIGH: node connectivity, galaxy density, strategic resources, curiosities, and anomalies. Everything else standard settings. Endless difficulty and Normal speed, with only Supremacy and Conquest as victory conditions.

I am okay with the Sophons sucking at industry, dust, and influence as a race (and happiness if you go ice), but food? All they have to do is bury the food in the ground, which only requires shovel technology... or to put their scientific minds into building greenhouses and crop watering systems, which is a far cry from the high-tech engineering rational minds they are supposed to be.

Be it as it may, the only saving grace for the race is to take full advantage of Stage 2 buildings (luxuries), which are the only ones that Sophons can build at a reasonable pace (Stage 1 is obvious). This means being picky with systems, this means 4 planet systems minimum AND luxury deposits, with luxury deposits being the important aspect on the deciding factor. Because unless Sophons get food production at a steady pace (that means the building that gives +10 food per luxury deposit and +10% total food production), they are sitting ducks. The +5 happiness per luxury helps, as well as the +3 dust per pop when luxury, but if your systems sit at half full most of the game, it's all for nothing. Planet specializations are cheap to build also, I start building them when a planet has 3 or 4 population (and shuffle people around accordingly).

The other thing that Sophons as a race pretty much requires is to get some kind of industry boost, be it the +60 Industry system improvement if Jadonix (can be purchased at market in large quantities if lucky), be it assimilating the minor civilization that gives +1 industry per curiosity explored, or discovering Sim Camp out of a curiosity. If you don't have any of those, then it is very difficult. They don't have an early faction quest like United Empire to get a building that grants +20 Industry per System level, basically giving +40 industry per system for free early game because the building is so cheap to build on top of it (+80 industry at Level 4 system).

I play Sophons the militaristic way, there is no other way around it (I guess one could play on a ultra huge galaxy where everyone leaves you unmolested while one clicks on next turn until science victory is achieved, but that's not my thing). Therefore, one has to capitalize on other people's industry to not lag behind, which almost requires to get lucky on curiosities for an improved version of the Titainum A2S slugs (sometimes the achievement of being the 1st at winning 10 battles gives an awesome siege & manpower module), because AGAIN it is a FOOD issue (manpower). What's the point of being the champion of science if one cannot build just about anything on a timely manner? Building empty ship hulls (needs dust for refits) and buying out critical buildings to bypass industry only go so far. Stage 4 buildings can't be bought out realistically, they are so expensive. Not on a empire wide basis, that's for sure.

The only good news? Fast fleets, which means exploring a lot of curiosities. You are gonna get shot down by pirates and AIs if not careful, and even so, but that's the only way to the road of riches at early game to support critical building buyouts and ship refitting you are going to need to defend yourself, and you sure as hell need as many influence points as you can find to assimilate minor civilizations early. Who knows? Maybe you get lucky with double shields or double gun flak weapons, or Sim Camps...

Regarding the laws, the other good thing of Sophons is that they start with Democracy which allows for 2 laws. I start up the game with Cram Exam Act (off it when your population is big and empire happiness is not at least happy) and Toys for Boys. You really have no influence points to spare at the beginning because you want to assimilate as soon as possible. The -3 happiness per pop is not a concern early when you are feeding outposts and pop growth is slow because of it, it is also compensated by the +20 happiness of Toys for Boys. Similarly, the -10% industry penalty from Toys for Boys really doesn't hurt much, the only good perk of sucking at industry. The happiness bonus it provides is huge when compared, let me put that on a disclaimer format in this already too long post:

<< DISCLAIMER: THIS GAME IS WON BY ENABLING THE EMPIRE WIDE +30% SCIENCE & +30% DUST BONUSES FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE REGARDLESS OF RACE >>

[Nobukado]

I like the Sophons.

They can produce a lot of industry using their Faction Quest reward, which is a law called "ThermTech," which is a free law that doubles industry output from Hot planets (i.e. Jungle). This includes doubling the industry bonus from the 'AI Labor' building. "ThermTech" is great for a lot of reasons:

1. The Sophons' Faction Quest is the easiest to complete, you can complete it by the end of the early part of the game, so you can get the "ThermTech" bonus very early on.

2. Players colonize Hot planets preferentially. Although only 33% of planets are technically Hot, players will colonize Hot planets more than 33% of the time (maybe 45%).

3. This bonus is much larger, potentially, than a lot of other Faction bonuses to industry. Again, it's a 100% extra industry. That's huge. I tested it, and it works!

4. "ThermTech" synergizes well with the Sophons' unique technology that converts Industry to Science at 75% rate, rather than 50% for all other factions. Meaning that "ThermTech"s bonus will provide Science at a 75% conversion rate in the mid-to-late game. Meaning that focusing on Hot planets and industry is a viable strategy for the Sophons.

5. Because the Sophons get natural bonuses to Cold Planets, you therefore end up in a situation where you get bonuses regardless if you settle on Cold or Hot planets. Meaning you get bonuses on most of the planets that you colonize.

6. Admittedly, in systems without Hot planets (the systems that are Cold or Temperate, that you have to colonize because they have specific resources that you need), yes your industry is terrible. But "ThermTech" gives you huge bonuses elsewhere, and overall this will catapult you to victory.

7. I'm not saying that Sophons are stronger than other Factions. But they do produce a moderate amount of industry, and a lot more than what other players usually say. They're a good Faction, actually.

[Freny]

Way to bring up a 4 year old post, LOL!

You can also play them with the Cold Superconductor reward option and go all in on cold systems, but then going the Militaristic way is more difficult and you are definitely going to need some industry boost with Sim Camps (preferably) and/or Jadonix for your 1st System Development (assimilating the minor civ that gives 0.1 industry per curiosities explored is nice, but very RNG).

Sophons with the military law that gives dust and science per CP killed is very unstoppable when earl-ish. It is just too bad that for non initial government parties it takes half of a game to get a few useful laws and the game is almost finished by the time you get to the higher level ones. The aforementioned militaristic law is one that you can get relatively early, but it is still 2 elections into the game and that is if you get the militaristic party into government both times as Sophons, most of the times is going to take a 3rd election (industrialists party also has a couple nice laws that you can get also 2 or 3 elections into the game).

[ninakoru]

They start in boreal, but they have a faction-specific Xeno-industrial complex, which also gives 10 industry to cold planets. Somewhat fixes the early game industry problem a tiny bit.