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[ZeroGravitas]

Synthetic Dawn only adds more if you need robits. Otherwise, it's a rather shallow pack. That said, I love it to the extreme, but Utopia adds more to the game overall.

Wrong. If you don't care about robots, but, for example, want to play Fanatic Purifier-style, you can play either actual Fanatic Purifiers (Utopia) or you can play Determined Exterminators (Synthetic Dawn) for mostly the same effect. Same thing with the other Utopia-exclusive civics: they are mostly mirrored in SD, but for cheaper and with more actual content (extra FE, extra crisis, regular machine empires in addition to "special" machine empires).

Utopia adds Ascension Perks, but those will mostly be in the base game as of next patch anyway. A few will require Utopia (bio/psi/machine ascension paths) but some will be moved to SD instead (obviously the machine Ascension Perks). Utopia also adds buildable megastructures, but you can repair damaged ones without DLC anyway, so it's not like you're missing much.

The real killer is that Utopia costs double what Synthetic Dawn costs. It really doesn't make much sense.

[StagnantSoul]

The fact that we pay for anything but the base game doesn't. This is Paradox, not much does in the end.

[EnigmaticHat]

I feel like you’re giving Paradox shit for making most of Utopia’s great content free (remember, it also shipped alongside a substantial update).

[ZeroGravitas]

I think it's good that they've increased base features. It just means that there's less reason to buy the DLC that the features were originally gated in.

[umiman]

I think robots are overpowered as all fuck.

How are the meatbags supposed to stand a chance?

I've done two campaigns with two different kinds and both have been complete cakewalks.

I mean.

1. Live anywhere with no unrest or happiness penalities ever. Colonize the entire galaxy out of the gate no problem.

2. Only need minerals and energy, meaning maximum efficiency for resources.

3. Leaders are immortal for ridiculous stats.

4. Armies are one of if not the strongest in the game.

How is anyone even supposed to compete with point #1 let alone all of the above? If you don't kill them early while they're expanding across the entire galaxy, you'll never be able to deal with them as they'll out resource you any day of the week due to everyone else needing three resources. Also the fact that they have no happiness penalties also means more resources. Am I missing something? Do they have a weakness I'm not aware of?

[Kruniac]

I think robots are overpowered as all fuck.

How are the meatbags supposed to stand a chance?

I've done two campaigns with two different kinds and both have been complete cakewalks.

I mean.

1. Live anywhere with no unrest or happiness penalities ever. Colonize the entire galaxy out of the gate no problem.

2. Only need minerals and energy, meaning maximum efficiency for resources.

3. Leaders are immortal for ridiculous stats.

4. Armies are one of if not the strongest in the game.

How is anyone even supposed to compete with point #1 let alone all of the above? If you don't kill them early while they're expanding across the entire galaxy, you'll never be able to deal with them as they'll out resource you any day of the week due to everyone else needing three resources. Also the fact that they have no happiness penalties also means more resources. Am I missing something? Do they have a weakness I'm not aware of?

The only thing I can think of is that since they will have a larger than normal mineral and energy burden, raiding their mining installations and destroying outposts will have a more dramatic effect on them.

If I lost a critical outpost or two, I lose some income and it hurts. My population is fine, and we keep eating cheeseburgers. If droids lose a critical outpost or two, they potentially begin to spiral into an energy/mineral deficit, and if they run out of energy, they are basically boned.

[umiman]

I just thought of another few things they can do.

1. They research straight up better than everyone else. Not like, research 10% faster or whatever. They don't even have the research cards for food or colonization stuff come up. So they can skip entire sections of the tech tree and go straight to the good shit.

2. Machine world terraforming makes them straight up 15% better than everyone with no access to machine worlds in the late game.

[ZeroGravitas]

I just thought of another few things they can do.

1. They research straight up better than everyone else. Not like, research 10% faster or whatever. They don't even have the research cards for food or colonization stuff come up. So they can skip entire sections of the tech tree and go straight to the good shit.

2. Machine world terraforming makes them straight up 15% better than everyone with no access to machine worlds in the late game.

Doesn't the machine worlds thing just balance out the happiness/synth/psionic/erudite/etc loss?

The ability to skip all the food and climate colonization techs is pretty good, though.

[Criptfeind]

My thoughts on it:

Food: Well. First off that food isn't a big deal for organics really. A few food tiles does it for a planet, more if you want faster growth. But also Robots eat electricity at the same rate organics eat food. So resource wise you're pretty close to even there (maybe even food is better, since you get to exploit the food bonus resources) since you basically have to replace farms with power plants. Later on when you've got energy grids and capacity overload power plants probably make more energy then farms make food. But it's close. However, having to build your pops is very expensive in the early game, when minerals are super tight, actually affording 100 bucks per pop is... Very expensive. It'll slow you down in other ways.

Happiness is a big deal and a big negative to robots. Being fully happy is a +20% production bonus. Also without factions you loose out a major source of influence. You're going to end up with way less edicts (IE: Less planet production) and orbitals then a organic race.

Leaders are Immortal: However, organic leaders last for a very very long time. You'll only need to swap out leaders once or twice in a organic game, and a lot of positions gain exp really quick later on in the game, meaning they'll max out their levels quickly. Also robot leaders aren't properly immortal, I believe they die to random events.

Armies: Don't matter.

Machine worlds: Are an okay ascension path. I think it's probably weaker then the synthetic accession path. Which makes you 20% (25% actually because it gives leaders a +5% to almost everything) better at everything. Fully happy Synths are going to get a +40% bonus to production.

Being able to skip some researches is nice. And so is the ability to colonize everywhere right away. It certainly is a really big bonus to robots to be able to do those things, but everything else about robots sorta sucks compared to organics. Robots may or may not (idk) be better, but I don't think it's a crazy big gap.

[Twinwolf]

Leaders are Immortal: However, organic leaders last for a very very long time. You'll only need to swap out leaders once or twice in a organic game, and a lot of positions gain exp really quick later on in the game, meaning they'll max out their levels quickly. Also robot leaders aren't properly immortal, I believe they die to random events.

Uh, what? I seem to have missed something in Utopia (which is entirely possible, haven't played with it a ton yet) because replacing leaders only once or twice over the course of a game as organics seems crazy

[Criptfeind]

Well, what? they come out with like, a good 50 years right? By the time the second wave starts to get close to death that'll be more like 90+ years or so with life extension techs and leader lifespan extension policies? And then you start getting into the repeatable life extension techs that will at first outpace the rate of aging? Er, I guess it depends on how long you play the game. This has been my experience at least. My longest running game my guys have a roughly 110 year lifespan from hiring to death (it starts checking at 152, and they are hired at around 41-42), assuming they don't pick up some increased life span trait over the course of those 100 years (almost every single one does) my third generation of leaders only started to die around 300 years into the game. Which was well past.. Well. The game actually having anything in it. Three hundred years in and my generals and admirals are still only second generation because they have the lifespan boosting traits, came into the game about 20 years after my scientists, and the first generation managed to catch that point where life extension tech was outpacing aging. (and then they caught that again when I ran out of techs to research)

Of course if you pick species traits that increase or decrease lifespan you'll see some changes there as well. I dunno how much utopia changed it up.

Also assist research gives a big bonus, but the bonus doesn't increase that much from more levels. So what ends up happening about mid game is you have a bunch of high level scientists assisting research, and when one of your tech scientists dies, you send a highly leveled scientist with a good trait to take over, and then hire a new guy to assist research. So even death of your important people isn't a big deal.

[umiman]

Criptfeind: Sounds like Robots trade a gigantic early game advantage for a late game penalty compared to Synths. What about the other paths? Do they compare?

I think the gigantic early game advantage is massive though, since it snowballs so easily. If it was an MP game, it'd be no contest.

About the food thing, it's not that simple because power is super easy to get and not only do they come from planets, but asteroid bases as well. I can tell you power is not a concern as robots. They barely use any. It's minerals that are a huge issue. So every planet starts maxing for minerals and you end up with a gigantic mineral production line. Not to mention for organics you actually have to build food buildings and thus, "waste" the tile space for them. Robots get to optimize it.

[EnigmaticHat]

The thing is that in Stellaris the dominant power(s) are likely going to have established themselves and started snowballing long before anyone (one planet strat aside) has gotten their fourth ascension perk.  Early game bonuses matter more than lategame ones.  Stellaris is balanced so that strategies that give you earlier access to other planet types (very adaptable/xenophile/machinist/syncretic evolution) fall off or become a liability as the game goes on.  Machine consciousness gives you better than any of those since it gives full use of the planets you take, and continues to provide non-trivial bonuses into the lategame.

Re: organic leaders, I find myself replacing them several times over the course of the game.  In fact, since I like to run a full staff, I often find that I have to replace entire generations of governors/scientists/admirals at the same time and it can be a huge problem.  If I haven't been great about training replacements in advance I often get power dips when my 3 researchers or my 1 good admiral dies.

Edit: Criptfiend, WTF are you feeding those guys?  IME lifespan is *max* lifespan not average.  I can be up to the repeatable lifespan tech and still have deaths at 75, sometimes earlier.  Are you running the one planet strat and researching a new lifespan tech every 5 years?

[Loud Whispers]

Also by the late game you can supply your dudes with just 1 paradise dome, maybe one additional hydroponics if your food tech isn't there yet. With your dudes growing faster from bonus food and more productive from happiness bonuses (remember no happiness for your pops is a double edged sword) organics can outpace robopops, especially since they can just federate or defensive pact against any large robo empires, organics can be a step up against robopops on the aggregate. Regarding organic pops, it's really not noticeable replacing leaders as they take so long to die, unless you run a democracy

[umiman]

I think this problem can easily be tested and resolved in MP.

By having 5 players as robots and 5 organics, and watching the inevitable slaughter of useless molecules mass-murder of inferior creations obliteration of organics one-sided bloodbath, keyword being blood as the superior being doesn't have it extermination of the worthless meatbags conflict that would occur.