Can anyone confirm if you need a tech to get mass happiness?  I switched to religious with Cravers and it was not there, but, I did see it when I played vodyani ... not sure if it is a bug or just need to wait a bit.  

... and can focus on science, ship production, and devouring you neighbours, like normal God-fearing Craver would do.

Laughed so hard when I read this ^.   What I want to know is what the Craver religion looks like.  It probably has the kind of ceremonies in which it is impossible to keep your lunch down and watch at the same time.  

atejas wrote:

It's a feature of the empire government system, not the Cravers as a faction specifically, unless I'm mistaken.

I do think the happiness maluses are fine, because if you play as an Empire you have 100% control over your Senate (though you can't mix and match parties) and have 0 influence costs for all decisions. Those are both immensely powerful and you need proportionately high costs for that sort of playstyle.

I don't remember seeing any loss in approval after elections in my other factions' campaigns. In the current system, elections are forced on you every 20 turns and affinities change at the whim of almost any building/ship type you construct. So you basically have no control over your senate. Perhaps a discussion on the approval maluses arising from political decisions would be more appropriate if the current politics system is revamped. I hope the devs will consider some of the suggestions mentioned in my other political volatility thread.

When I played the cravers, I found they did really well early game, thanks to the fact they hadn't depleted everything yet.  I kept them moving from world to world and I rapidly outstripped everyone else, at least before the penalties for over-colonization and/or mismanaged politics began to cripple my empire (Ah, eternal rebellion, the fate of the Cravers).  In some ways, they remind me of the anti-Vodyani, who seem to take a real long time to really get going, but once they do, look out!

That said, they don't seem to be a very forgiving race to play.  If you understand them, they seem alright (to a point), but if you don't, they seem to suck.  I say this because evidently the computer doesn't understand how to play them.  Now, mind you, I tend to play on Easy, so I have little trouble defeating any opponent, but I notice that the Lumeris tend to be the most dangerous of my opponents, consistently, from game to game and the Cravers are inevitably the weakest of the pack, often the only one to die to the other AI.  That is, if you pit Lumeris or Vodyani against Cravers, all as AI, the Cravers always seem to lose.

That suggests something, either a need to boost the AI or, if your post is any indication, the Cravers themselves.

One happyness issue cravers get is that the minor factions/other major factions population gets hit by a large happyness malus for not having their parties win in elections. Of course they cannot win elections in a dictatorship, hurr. In my opinion, the non-Craver population shouldn't be affected by any happyness at all. They are slaves, nothing more. Simple food even! Worse is that they actually reproduce and sometimes appear as the first pop on newly colonized planets. Cravers should devour the others, not have them be the first on a new planet for the hive. <.<

Approval in general seems weird on cravers. Most of them are mindless insects, how would they even disapprove of their bishops? They also shouldn't be affected by political opinions. Cravers should only ever be able to have a militaristic opinion and nothing else. Building a building that is considered pacifist should not affect craver's militant nature at all.

They have to be mindless, effecient and hell bent on expansion through any means, especially war. This also means that it should not be possible for non-Cravers to have Craver population on their planets. After all, the Cravers wouldn't even be able to coexist next to them. Once captured, a planet of the Cravers should have to be "disinfected". After all, the Cravers are basically a pest, a parasite that has to be removed from planets to prevent that they are used up and still of any use for others.

Yeah, foreign/captured/assimilated species need to be handled differently under the cravers so that they don't get hit with these happiness penalties.

Yes, the Cravers are definitely screwed over with the current systems. Will be interesting to see how Amplitude fixes them.

Thanks all for the interesting insights. I've only played on hard so far with Cravers and by mid game, they are starting to fall behind rapidly. I actually make it a point to colonize multiple planets in the same system to spread out the Craver pops and reduce the depletion rate on each planet. I also try to colonize other systems to keep up the flow of FIDSI. I even tried to prioritize farms. All these however don't seem enough to stop my pop loss early on without any apparent reason (despite no signs of starvation whatsoever). I also don't understand why I sometimes get an approval malus even when I support the militarists and they win an election. It doesn't make any sense.

atejas wrote:

idlih10 wrote:

Thanks all for the interesting insights. I've only played on hard so far with Cravers and by mid game, they are starting to fall behind rapidly. I actually make it a point to colonize multiple planets in the same system to spread out the Craver pops and reduce the depletion rate on each planet. I also try to colonize other systems to keep up the flow of FIDSI. I even tried to prioritize farms. All these however don't seem enough to stop my pop loss early on without any apparent reason (despite no signs of starvation whatsoever). I also don't understand why I sometimes get an approval malus even when I support the militarists and they win an election. It doesn't make any sense.

Pops from minor factions often aren't militarist, and they have an approval malus if a party they don't like is in power (remember, under their government style, you are unilaterally choosing 100% of your Senate).

The main things that the Cravers need to become competitive for me, imo, is the ability to raze systems and the ability to expel/consume/otherwise nullify minor faction pops. I appreciate the approval penalties in theory because it ties in with the depletion mechanic and the overall theme of the Cravers needing to expand to avoid collapsing in on themselves, but right now the player has no way to counteract those penalties (the happiness boosts from Militarist laws are totally outmatched by midgame).

Scaling of senate representation and the resulting effect on approval after elections don't seem to work the same way with Cravers as other factions. In other factions, the feeling I get is other affinities get represented too easily because any building/ship you construct will quickly boost the affinity to senate representation status. But as Cravers, the militarists seem to have an overwhelming influence on the senate at 100% early on even if you build other affinity type buildings/ships. Yet, I don't see such an approval malus in other factions. If a malus due to minority affinities not being represented in the senate is to be applied, it should be applied equally to all factions, not just the Cravers. They already suffer the depletion penalty, so why double penalize them?

DraaGul wrote:

One happyness issue cravers get is that the minor factions/other major factions population gets hit by a large happyness malus for not having their parties win in elections. Of course they cannot win elections in a dictatorship, hurr. In my opinion, the non-Craver population shouldn't be affected by any happyness at all. They are slaves, nothing more. Simple food even! Worse is that they actually reproduce and sometimes appear as the first pop on newly colonized planets. Cravers should devour the others, not have them be the first on a new planet for the hive. <.<

I've been thinking about that, because that was my first impression too, and I'm not sure that's true.  Imagine an evil militaristic dictatorship (I'm sure you can imagine one from the real world) enveloped and enslaved a religious minority and a very barbaric, aggressive minority.  Neither is particularly happy about being enslaved, but one can at least appreciate the militaristic values of their conquerers and might even try to assimilate.  The other would resist.  Imagine if the militaristic empire was impressed by the religion of the minority and converted to a theocracy that followed it.  The minority might still be enslaved but could at least appreciate the improved values, while the barbaric minority might grow disgusted.

What's going to happen?  Rebellion, of course.  But who is going to rebel?  The least happy minorities, most likely.  Slavery will piss them off, but a decadent imperial values will also push certain minorities further than others.

But there are several problems with this model.  First, shouldn't the cravers be eating the minorities?  Then why don't they ever seem to go away?  And second, "In Rebellion" just means everyone quits eating.  I'm sure that's fine on an abstract level (we can argue they're all killing each other), but I'd personally rather see something more dynamic there.  Shouldn't there be a chance that the pissed-off slave races throw off their oppressive and decadent masters?  But that never happens.

I suspect Cravers will change a lot even without any direct changes to them because of some of the proposed changes coming up (especially the ability to move populations around and then raze/abandon colonies, which will allow the Craver population to "sweep" from world to world, devouring all in their wake while leaving empty, desolate worlds behind them), but I'll be curious to see if that's enough.

idlih10 wrote:

atejas wrote:

idlih10 wrote:

Thanks all for the interesting insights. I've only played on hard so far with Cravers and by mid game, they are starting to fall behind rapidly. I actually make it a point to colonize multiple planets in the same system to spread out the Craver pops and reduce the depletion rate on each planet. I also try to colonize other systems to keep up the flow of FIDSI. I even tried to prioritize farms. All these however don't seem enough to stop my pop loss early on without any apparent reason (despite no signs of starvation whatsoever). I also don't understand why I sometimes get an approval malus even when I support the militarists and they win an election. It doesn't make any sense.

Pops from minor factions often aren't militarist, and they have an approval malus if a party they don't like is in power (remember, under their government style, you are unilaterally choosing 100% of your Senate).

The main things that the Cravers need to become competitive for me, imo, is the ability to raze systems and the ability to expel/consume/otherwise nullify minor faction pops. I appreciate the approval penalties in theory because it ties in with the depletion mechanic and the overall theme of the Cravers needing to expand to avoid collapsing in on themselves, but right now the player has no way to counteract those penalties (the happiness boosts from Militarist laws are totally outmatched by midgame).

Scaling of senate representation and the resulting effect on approval after elections don't seem to work the same way with Cravers as other factions. In other factions, the feeling I get is other affinities get represented too easily because any building/ship you construct will quickly boost the affinity to senate representation status. But as Cravers, the militarists seem to have an overwhelming influence on the senate at 100% early on even if you build other affinity type buildings/ships. Yet, I don't see such an approval malus in other factions. If a malus due to minority affinities not being represented in the senate is to be applied, it should be applied equally to all factions, not just the Cravers. They already suffer the depletion penalty, so why double penalize them?

It's a feature of the empire government system, not the Cravers as a faction specifically, unless I'm mistaken.

I do think the happiness maluses are fine, because if you play as an Empire you have 100% control over your Senate (though you can't mix and match parties) and have 0 influence costs for all decisions. Those are both immensely powerful and you need proportionately high costs for that sort of playstyle.

Playing as the Cravers, it felt like they have been intentionally penalized for no good reason. In less than 30 turns of starting the game, I'm already losing population rapidly although my planets are not fully depleted yet and there's no sign of starvation (which even if true, is mind boggling in itself as I only have 1 or 2 pops per planet in the system). My ships do not seem to have any combat bonuses and they really need a ship building speed bonus trait to compensate for their need to take over other systems quickly before they eat themselves to death. The tech giving invading troops bonuses should also be brought forward to era 1 so Cravers have a better chance of invasion that they so desperately need early on. The rate of planet depletion also scales too much with pop growth. Just increasing the Craver pop by 1 on a planet doubles the depletion rate, which makes it meaningless to grow Craver pops with farms. I'm currently not having any fun with this faction, which needs some love badly.

Well, apparently the ability to raze systems is what's coming in the next update, according to the new roadmap. Might help with some of the Cravers issues, depending on how that ends up working. But the Cravers will definitely need a ton of work to be even remotely competitive later on.

@Mailanka, no I did not turn my other factions into dictatorships. Perhaps the disapproval penalty after elections may be specific to dictatorships, which is actually worse because 1) the penalty recurs after EVERY election (at least for the Cravers), 2) the Cravers lose militarist pops who eat themselves to death, resulting in a downward spiral of falling militarist senate representation and ever increasing unhappiness if you support the militarists over time until your entire empire is in rebellion, and 3) the Cravers cannot access the change government tech immediately unlike the Sophons until they actually reach era 2.

I'll explain more in my other political volatility thread to avoid double posting.

idlih10 wrote:

@Mailanka, no I did not turn my other factions into dictatorships. Perhaps the disapproval penalty after elections may be specific to dictatorships, which is actually worse because 1) the penalty recurs after EVERY election (at least for the Cravers), 2) the Cravers lose militarist pops who eat themselves to death, resulting in a downward spiral of falling militarist senate representation and ever increasing unhappiness if you support the militarists over time until your entire empire is in rebellion, and 3) the Cravers cannot access the change government tech immediately unlike the Sophons until they actually reach era 2.

I'll explain more in my other political volatility thread to avoid double posting.

To also avoid double posting, I'll point you to my "This is what a death spiral looks like" thread.  Cravers definitely have some problems, and they're the only civ I've seen that can wreck themselves if you play them "as intended,"  or at least as I understood them to be intended.  I suspect there are a few changes coming up that will fix it, but while I prefer to avoid slapping the "Broken!" label on things that I might not fully understand, I think at this point I'm willing to do that for the Cravers.