I do this all the time, so it's not just theory. I'll play a Craver game a bit later and post some screenshots to prove it.

I will say they are extremely tricky to play. You really have to keep your population in check and regularly attend to approval problems by moving pops around, which means investing a fair bit in science to get the colonisation techs for the space. They are pretty punishing as well, as once things start to get out of control, there isn't much of a chance of bringing things back without sacking an entire system. It's not that they're broken, they are just difficult, probably second only to Vodyani.

Anyway, I'll keep a record on my Craver game, and put the screen shots up with explanations afterwards.

I'll agree. It would fit their playstyle and it would help to smoothen their matches without giving them flat improvements. I like it.

jhell wrote:

As for your remarks, maybe we could consider in the balance mod a Cravers-specific raze action for systems which compensates you for the remaining pops/improvements (an improved "Pillage" action if you will).

The Cravers absolutely need something like this!

Amazing report WeLoveYou, even a unified galaxy couldn't stop your Cravers menace :)

I just wanted to add a precision :

I'm thinking about going for the Vaulters, but as they don't technically have a homeworld, it's not going to be worth it.

The Vaulters do have a home system! It's the first system they settle on. If you take it it should also count towards the bonus for the "Us or Them" law.

As for your remarks, maybe we could consider in the balance mod a Cravers-specific raze action for systems which compensates you for the remaining pops/improvements (an improved "Pillage" action if you will).

Yes! Exactly how I see Cravers.

You are the locust. You don't care about political frolicking, you don't care about pleasing some political parties - this is bullshit.

You are here to consume and more on.

You conquer, you deplete, you build up more fleets and you MOVE on. It's depleted? Trash it, jump on ships and move.

Should be a nomad playstyle with minimal political crap weaved in.

As of right now, Cravers are just lame gameplay-wise.

Cravers have an unpleasent playstyle. Its lore-heavy, ill give them that, but the core mechanic will set you on a timer and demand from you that you adapt. They aren't a spacefaring civilisation, they more or less mindless bugs destroying the universe, as they were intended to be. This idea was well transisitioned into their playstyle and game design. it really feels that way. BUT:

The initial bonus you get, early and lategame, doesn't justify the cost of the depletion mechanic. Not only does it ruin the game for everybody else, as there is nearly no way to repair the planets, it also ignores the main reason to play a space 4 x. To build an empire. I found the best way to play these bugs is to conquer a planet from your neighbour, consume it and its population(for manpower), just build ships until its depleted and raze the colony afterwards, when the transition from owenership is done and their planets depleteted. If my manpower is full, i sent the slave pops back home (for manpower) and go on chewing up the galaxy. i only keep homesystems and some intital systems around my homeworld for startegic ressources. I dont build many system improvemnts, mostly production and some dust and running away from my "your epmire will collapse" timer.  the home system victory kondition is better to achieve than conquest, due to the fact that cravers arent ment to hold an empire. they are ment to destroy the galaxy. If you put it that way, they are the only ones that have the planetcracker tech at turn one. 

So, i really dont see a reason why cravers shouldnt struggle to maintain this playstyle. To always have a bigger fleet than the others is a huge earlygame advantage, and still matters late game. only the very last opponents in a game should be a struggle, as they had the longest time to prepare. Still, if cravers have a way to maintain an empire like an UE, they should loose this insane military buffs. If you like cravers just for style, create a custom race and change the depletion into something else. Thats the way i would do it.

In other words, i dont see a display that this law costs too much. Vodyani can pay that cost easily the way their population works. And due to the fact that they havent a way to manipulate the planets and ananomalies of a system, they need this law midgame to lategame. And slaves apply a very good bonus to FIDSI, either play without them or manage you population you can can afford it.

Lastly, i want to recall i dont really like or sympethize with cravers in terms of playstyle or gamedesign. They more likely feel like an AI race ment for a endgame crisis, like in stellaris. Its still neat that you can play them, when you pay the price.   

Thank you for the demonstration man.

But it is a display of great strife and careful tuning, instead of smooth gameplay in spite of starting issues.

It still feels like, if you picked UE or Vodyani, you would have just steamrolled everyone twice quicker, and without that much of a hassle.

On top of it,, if you went religious - which definitely was possible, since for a long time you did not have to control more than 6 systems anyway - you wouldn't even had to bother with approvals etc. It also feels like if you have eaten all your non-native pops, you wouldn't ever had the issues at all.

I have to stand by my points:

-10 approval from Slave Drivers is ways too much. It cripples you immensely. 

And the need to run influence buldings EVERYWHERE to jsut upkeep the Saints and Sinners is a clear display that the law costs simply too much.

Turn 40. Horatio sealed his fate by assimilating the minor factions I needed in the middle constellation. So we are now at war. He's based in the south east though, along with the Lumeris. This is fine as it's close to Vanguard which is producing the majority of my military. In the west I've taken my scouts and reaper along with Solus to invade Hekim. It will be ours pretty soon. I finished off the Riftborn, which might have been a mistake, but I'd rather have the constellation to myself

Here's the general state of the empire. It's not much, yet.

Hekim is now ours. The other Sophon worlds next to it are complete trash. So we'll let them sue for peace when the time comes. I have enough wars to keep my populace happy, and I'd rather not fight on two fronts.

Turn 60, Horatio Prime (Birius) is now ours. I've taken the worlds off Horatio in the middle and completed our quest chapter. I've now got Us and Them, which is costing a lot of influence, but it's keeping all my systems very happy.

State of the empire. Note that we're getting all those nice influence buildings everywhere, so we can keep that law running happily.

Turn 80. Horatio and the Sophons are now at peace with me. The Lumeris and I are at war. They keep assimilating my minor factions, and have taken the Ghasnast next to my system. The bigger problem is the pirates. They are invading several of my worlds. It's like fighting a war from the outside, and the inside. I'll have to deal with them eventually. I still haven't found Jenes, which is a real pain. I'm thinking about going for the Vaulters, but as they don't technically have a homeworld, it's not going to be worth it. They are also in an alliance with Horatio and the Unfallen, against the UE, Sophons, and Lumeris. My attacks on the Lumeris are keeping them all happy with me. That's good, I don't want to fight anymore people right now.

State of the empire turn 80. Not a whole lot of progress from last time. The pirates are really slowing me down. I think next time I'm going to have to take them more seriously. New patch, so I assumed I could ally with them. I can't (ofc! I'm an angry bug). They will be food soon enough.

Ok, we found Jenes, and took it from the Lumeris. I will finish off them off in their nook of the galaxy and then think about turning on everyone else. We are currently only seven systems away from conquest victory, so I'm thinking about eating my minors. I'm not quite in a position to secure the win yet though, so a bit of patience is required.

We'll carry on, again, in the next post.

I own roughly half of the large ovoid galaxy.

The one and only way for me to stay at normal approval levels with this amount of systems is only Religios -> Force all to Content.

I have SPIN project on EVERY planet, I had to replace Slug and Sludges even on strategic resource planets for SPIN.

I am at -250 influence per turn and dropping rapidly. Not even Edenization tech can save me as I cannot hold the COntent law.

Not to mention I had to endure roughly 15 turns of Mutinous planets to even get to the point when I can finally get the law on established level.

This badly needs balancing. At the very least, reduce the law cost by 1 influence at least.

The reason you want to keep minor pops is to limit your depletion on your systems, and get the most out of depleted planets. You're right that eventually this can cause a problem for approval. When it gets too much, shift the populations round in system until you can get back up to decent approval levels. Alternatively use Feeding Pits for the approval, and use Conscription to keep the Craver population low. The population that is growing is always the one that gets conscripted, so you can work out which pop will be lost by looking at the left hand panel. 2-3 Cravers per planet is usually a good balance.

The problem with depleting fast is that most of your FIDSI from T3 tech onwards comes from population. All buildings that work on population will also be affected. Your overall population will also start to die off due to lack of food. Craver population have double the growth bonus of non-Craver population, so maintaining at least 2 non-Craver pops on system will allow a 50:50 growth ratio, which is usually enough. Although the more non-Craver pop types the better.  

You should (with the tips I suggested in the other post) be able to keep most systems at least happy, if not ecstatic, for a significant portion of the game even with the Slave Drivers trait being worked hard. When you need to make the final push for the last 7-10 systems, or last homeworlds, start sacking all your minor pops (and systems) with Feeding Pits to rapidly grow your Craver population and deplete your worlds. This will keep your systems happy, and the Craver 50 pop bonus is 1% weapon and troop damage per depleted world. So this is the point where you actively want to start depleting your planets so you can more efficiently take new systems. After a few FP uses, you can drop Us and Them, and implement Deadly Intent, which further increases troop and ship power. Every system that isn't producing ships should just be eating their non-Craver populations. It's a bit suicidal, but you're constantly on a timer with Cravers anyway, so timing the point when killing of your population will be most effective is much better than just letting it happen.  

Oh wow, thank you so much for the detailed advices! 

@WeLoveYou

Yeah I am thinking and still trying to calculate whether it is worth it going for Saints or not, approval-wise

Just for those awesome %% bonuses to everything except production, sadly - so it justifies building happiness %% buildings like Endless park and science stuff

Why you say to keep the original populations though? They hit you hard on approval, and they also can be used as food to bloom any planet immediately, granted it will get depleted some time later, but the population boom of Cravers will give you the most out of system. 

I usually tend to eat the starting Haroshem (naturally, my turn 1), as well as all pops from random events and on captured worlds.

Another problem I dislike is -10% Industry from Toys for Boys. It just feels bad to put it on, but I guess it's a necessary evil.

Also it seems that Transvine and N-artifacts are obvious system upgrades to keep approval in check, which is worse than science upgrades :-(

@Velorace

Yeah now I am scrounging markets and planets for Eden incense like crazy, 30 influence early game per planet rocks, and then Giga Lattice, but this one is very elusive.

That being said - Bluecap mold is probably still the best possible opener system improvement, since it pushes your science into Godliness - which is always good, since Craver production is amazing, it is usually alwyas science lagging behind.

I could not save the game I mentioned and had to restart. This time I stayed at my limit of 6 systems as close to 3rd Religious election as possible, settled everything I could a dozen turns before the election, and eventually bloomed into 12-15 systems right on time with Saints and Sinners.

Thank you again so much for your counsel guys!

Hope it helped...

Also, you said you`re very low in influence per turn. Keep in mind that the best way to acquire influence (altrough a very are resource) is trough hero skills (some heros have passive skills that, just by placing them on a system you get a 10 influence bonus per turn, when there are other skills like Senate skills wich increase the amount of influence you earn per turn, if associated on a system.) , trough having population on Unique planets ( Depending on the number of people on that planet, you can get about nearly 40 influence in a single colonized planet or even more if the system is Ecstatic , Trough system devolpments upgrades (Giga lactice upgrades count as a full colonized unique planet, because it gives a lot of fixed influence per turn, being a great choice for you) , trough certain events that ocasonially happen in game (some events give you + 20 influence per colony system on empire, in wich personally, i believe its pretty pretty pretty OP) Aaaaand... i guess thats it. 

if you`re running low on influence, keep these in mind. Also remember: influence is only usefull for aboarding very strong laws or making diplomacy whit other empires, because late game all minor civilizations and even pirate interactions become useless, because all those minor factions are literally buyed till late game. 

So, in order to make maximum use of those influence resources you get, always remember to research Empire and Devolpment stage for more law slots. Good luck! :)

Thank you for the advice guys!

I was preparing for religious switch from the very start - the problem is that you need 3 elections to make it happen, and the wait of 16 turns between 2nd and 3rd election was brutal - entire empire was at 0 approval and Mutinous, loosing 75% food and influence, which drastically reduced pop growth and any building efficiency. Was a nightmare.

It seems that going for Saints and Sinners strategy will never work unless you are ready with luxuries to offset the huge Infuence cost.

My 1st planetary upgrade was Bluecap Mold, which pushed my science into stratosphere.

And unfortunately, there were literally no influence resources in my half of the galaxy, and none of those in anywhere good amounts on the marketplace.

I don't think t's only a craver isssue though, since any Empire going that wide will suffer, because pop growth is unstoppable. 

It really feels like reducing the cost of this law by 1 influence upkeep could help.

Also, it really feels like Sinners and Saints law should happen 1 election before, otherwise the pain of getting to it 16 turns through nightmare is just unbearable.

There is another way to play on the largest galaxy size and still have a large empire. You need either:

1. invest in max system level modernization -> Autonomous Adminstration building (system no longer counts towards overcolonization)
2. use Benthic Gems in system modernization to wipe away overcolonization penalty

If you want to make use of these in a timely way, you have to make do with whatever luxury you can get the most of and spam upgrades fast (even if it's trash like glitter or super-potatoes). Plus get those resource extraction building techs.  Also a reason I always set resource scarcity to Abundant.

Still a pain in the ass if playing as the Cravers though, as you'll probably conquer much faster than the other races. The days of the early-access Craver-Jesus setup are long since over I'm afraid (iirc laws didn't cost constant upkeep then).