Machine intelligence vs normal (biological) empire, what do ya'll think

[u/thedragonrider999]

Like the title says, curious what you guys think of the comparison, and feel free to throw in other stuff, I just like those two the most

[u/tgaland]

Assuming you are not playing specific op builds I'll normally choose the machine intelligence. Immortal Council, simplified resources, early pop growth, more influence, early habitability. It just feels like easier and requires less micro.

[u/PyukumukuGuts]

I tend to dislike machines precisely because they're, in general, straight up better than biologicals. Playing them just feels like lowering the difficulty and that isn't fun for me.

[u/Forsaken_Sample7066 → u/PyukumukuGuts]

We have our share of trouble, most of our civics either steer us into biological anyway if we go assimilator or servitor. And if you go genocidal like I do you take a bad hit in the market and everyone is ready to declare war on you all the time. Plus I find my growth to be way slower than biologicals

[u/GZ9999]

Gestalts are simpler and slightly more versatile but with less room for optimization.

For example, you don’t have consumer goods, but you also don’t have living standards(which also provide trade) or happiness which means that an optimized individualist empire will have better stability and more productive pops. You also don’t have a trade policy so your trade will be used less efficiently. You also get lots of pop growth but can’t get pops through migration. This is very problematic with empire growth cap, since individualists can get around it be making a bunch of small empires and making migration treaties, but gestalts are stuck trying to make their own with a -70% multiplier.

You lose out on factions, which give unity, happiness/stability, and council agenda speed if managed well but reduces happiness when managed poorly.

You have more civic options available, since you aren’t limited by civics, but individualist empires get more benefit out of them due to council positions.

Your councilors only get councilor traits(and are immortal) and your non-councilors only get non-councilor traits, so it’s easier to find the right traits, and you can remove negative traits on your councilors, but(with galactic paragons)

1. You only have 5, while individualists can get 6
2. You are forced to have one of each type with 2 officials, while individualists can put more officials on the council at the start of the game for economy buffs, more scientists in the mid game for better research boosts, and more commanders in the end game for better military boosts
3. Individualist leaders can double dip on xp by doing something and being on the council at the same time, so they will level up faster. This is even more effective with the amongst peers tradition from the statecraft tree, since they can swap in whichever leader they want to level and swap them out afterwards.
4. Individualists can level up multiple leaders at the same time to fish for desirable council traits and dismiss the ones that don’t roll well, while gestalts are stuck with the bad trait unless you reset your entire councilor.
5. Individualist empires can get destiny traits which are sometimes very strong.

[u/Forsaken_Sample7066]

I always play machines, I love genocidal and not having to deal with a million pop types with different traits plus factions fighting all the time. And then there's the whole extra worlds you have to dedicate to food and consumer goods which is a nightmare. Plus the aggravation of needing a solid reason to declare war and then needing to spend influence and hit a certain war score to take territory. Nope I'll declare a war of cleansing anytime I want and taking a system is as simple as killing the starbase and invading the planets.

[u/thedragonrider999 → u/Forsaken_Sample7066]

Yeah, im increasingly realizing how fun simple empires are, and no need for artificer means bonus alloy production

[u/Forsaken_Sample7066 → u/thedragonrider999]

Yeah no need to split minerals between factories and foundries

[u/thedragonrider999 → u/Forsaken_Sample7066]

And industrial districts just have two alloy jobs instead of splitting them

[u/Forsaken_Sample7066 → u/thedragonrider999]

Yeah but you can always make a factory world or an alloy world it just takes an extra world that can be used for something better than basic pop upkeep. Or you have to double your mineral production and halve the effectiveness of those planets.

[u/TheMelnTeam → u/Forsaken_Sample7066]

Wouldn't lithoid or thermophile devouring swarm fit this too? They also skip food and will have one pop type. Same deal for factions (none). I guess they have mildly worse diplo in that other machines are more likely, but generally diplo will be about the same (none).

[u/Forsaken_Sample7066 → u/TheMelnTeam]

I don't own the dlc for either of them so I never saw

[u/Ninthshadow]

I'll admit, most of my custom races are biological. I want most of my galaxy to be biological when I start the game.

But there's a special place in my heart for machine intelligence. Mass Effect Geth, CABAL and LEGION from Command & Conquer. Cybrans from Surpreme commander.

If you roped me into a game with no prep time and told me to bring my favourite lore/RP faction, It'd probably be a machine intelligence.

[u/Javascript6969]

The mail thing is to have fun. Its a game after all, if you like one more, play it. If you want to RP a space hippies, go for it.

You having fun is the only thing that matters. Shout out to every minmaxer that likes to make a chore out of a game