Benthic Gem's is a Tier 3 Happiness/Loyalty Luxury that reduces Overcolonization penalty by 50% per stage of upgrade. Meaning if you opt to use it on level 3 and 4 of System Development, you can remove Overcolonization penalties altogether for each system upgraded to level 4. However... whats the point in doing that when we have a system improvement that increases our Colonization cap(aka Empire size) when a system reaches level 4 in development? 32 Dust upkeep on the improvement is a small price to pay compared to opportunity cost on Benthic Gems. My proposal is to change it from Overcolonization to Overpopulation or combine it together like on the Overseer's Crowd Controller skill. That way players can reduce or outright eliminate Overpopulation malus on their systems that have the upgrade. Doing so leaves planet malus(which we all must deal with in some fashion(some factions better than others... looking at you Riftborn...)) and Political differences(which are typical in any community or organization). Thoughts?

It is still usefull when you expand extremely wide. Let's say you suffer from -40 overcolonization penalty. By simply building Autonomous Administrations, you will lover the cap by 1 and achieve -35 penalty, while Bentic Gem's will net you -20 penalty from same system. It basically secures your best systems from too much penalty when going for Conquest Victory.

Yeah, I see 3 arguments for Benthic Gems as a viable alternative (or aid) to Auton. Admin:

1. Easier to set up on systems with low Industry

2. Maybe you can't as easily afford 1K Influence (To be fair I have yet to have a game where I am struggling for Influence this late in the game)

3. You don't want to take the research path through Cultural Invertics

Also, it's not like you need to be able to have 40 systems to be competitive in ES2.  I agree Benthic Gems isn't as strong as AA when you compare them directly, but it does seem to have a few things going for it in certain situations.

I always thought benthic gems havled all sources of disapproval on a system. If it only worked on overcolonization disapproval then it wouldn't even outperform NP artifacts most of the time.

I'd also gladly build AA if it means ditching benthic gems for another luxury, even of a lower tier, because approval is a complete non-issue by the time I'm upgrading systems to level 4.

The only legitimate use for it I can think of is a filler for a level 4 system upgrade if the generation rates of my other luxuries are low enough to bottleneck my progress.

I'd suggest that benthic gems should do what NP artifacts do, plus something more (so that they're guaranteed to be at least as good). The extra benefit doesn't have to be approval-related, i.e. +2 approval per pop, and something like +5% FIDS.

EmeraldMegalith wrote:

I always thought benthic gems havled all sources of disapproval on a system. 

Now I want to double check. If you're correct, that means 2 levels of BG means 0 disapproval. Don't want to be missing out on that :)

RabidHobbit wrote:

EmeraldMegalith wrote:

I always thought benthic gems havled all sources of disapproval on a system. 

Now I want to double check. If you're correct, that means 2 levels of BG means 0 disapproval. Don't want to be missing out on that :)

Benthic Gems reduce Overcolonization Penalty by 50%. That's the only benefit it provides and with United Empire having Expansionist I trait for -25%, a single Benthic Gem upgrade grants you a 75% reduction(hence -2.5 per system over the cap as opposed to -10). If you have the Stay at Home faction trait(which is the malus compliment of Expansionist trait), then Benthic Gems can really have an impact if utilized once, much less twice. However, as I've already noted, to get -100% Overcolonization penalty from Benthic Gems requires that you upgrade systems to level 4. At that point, AA is likely available to you, from which you won't have need for Benthic Gems in the first place. Yet if you give Benthic Gems an alternative mechanism or the Overpopulation mechanic as well, the luxury still has a purpose(albeit a small one). I'd also want to mention that if you plan to do any meaningful amount of conquest, Benthic Gems isn't going to help you avoid Overcolonization in conquered systems since enemy systems come with the system developments of your opponents. Short of razing the systems and waiting for them to expire before colonizing, Benthic Gems won't help you unless the enemy utilized them as well(and the odds of that are small or zero). 

The only faction Benthic Gems do wonders for is Vodyani since they're Ship Bound and never utilize System Developments of other Empires. That's why I'd like to have Benthic Gems reduce Overcolonization and Overpopulation like that of Overseers to give Benthic Gems value to other factions. Alternatively, a more radical suggestion would be to increase positive system buffs by 15% per system level(60% per Benthic Gem upgrade for each system at level 4). How it'd work is that it'd take all positive buffs on the system(Population(Kalgeros or any population with +Happiness/Loyalty), Planets(Applied Happiness Program, Luxury Resources and Anomalies), System Improvements, Faction Traits(Optimistic II on Lumeris for example) and Laws(Senator Bob Act)) and amplify them by 1.6(or 2.2 if Benthic Gems are utilized twice).

Take a 5 planet system that has a small Mediterranean, 2 Large Ash and 2 Large Lava planets. Mediterranean has Hyperium on it with Bluecap Mold(+1 Loyalty) while an Ash and Lava planet have Bluecap Mold and Proto-Orchids(other two have reduced negative anomalies). System has every single system improvement for population cap and Happiness/Loyalty and is upgraded to level 4(no Loyalty buffs from System Developments before I apply them in 2nd example). Political Differences and Overpopulation will be ignored.

Here's what you'd have:

Small Mediterranean: 7 population with no buff to Happiness/Loyalty due to Mediterranean's native -1.

Large Ash: 7 population on each, with one yielding -28 Happiness/Loyalty thanks to Bluecap Mold. Total planet malus: -63

Large Lava: 6 population on each, with one yielding -42 Happiness/Loyalty thanks to Bluecap Mold. Total planet malus: -90

Total Planet malus = -153 + 25(Applied Happiness Program) = -128.

System Improvements: 10(Infinite Supermarkets) + 20(Colonial Rights) + 25(Luxury Lottery. Doubled to 50 if Horatio Gene Hunter Affinity but will be 25 for this case) + 25(Wellbeing Foundation) + XX(High Serenity Program. Only applies in Peace/Alliance. Will ignore for this calculation) + 10(Denarque University. Only built once but will be used here). Total = +90

Faction Traits: For this example, we will have assimilated the Kal'Tik'Ma's Stalwart Stoics trait of +10 Happiness per Sterile planet and -25% Overpopulation. Since we have 4 Sterile Planets: +40 Happiness.

Laws: We have Senator Bob Act active in a Republic(+3 Loyalty per population). Since we have a full system that yields the following: 33 x 3 = +99

Adding all those buffs up, we get 90 + 40 + 99 + 50(from Colony Base) = 279 - 128 = 151. Doesn't feel like we need Benthic Gems for a system like this right? Well it affects every positive buff on the system. Even though Planet buffs turn out negative overall, it does have Applied Happiness Program(which is a +25 bonus). So if we factor that into our previous total of 279, we have a total system buff of 304 and a planet malus of 153 yielding a surplus of 151. For most people, that's pretty solid since Overpopulation rarely has that big of a malus and Political differences rarely go into the negative on a system.

So what effect would Benthic Gems have if changed to be a 15% buff per system level? Well take 304 and multiply it by 1.6 = 486.4 or 486. If you opted to use Benthic Gems twice, then it'd be 2.2 multiplier or 304 x 2.2 = 668.8 or 668(I truncate to whole number). 486 - 304 is an increase of 182. If you take Senator Bob Act off, then the affect from Benthic Gems drops as well. Namely you'd be at 205 as opposed to 304 without Senator Bob Act but the kicker is that with just one Benthic Gem upgrade, you're back up to 328 or more than what you'd have been with Senator Bob Act and no Benthic Gem upgrade.

LMK what you all think since a 15% Happiness/Loyalty buff per system level amplifies all sources of Happiness on the system. Meaning the more sources you have, the stronger Benthic Gems are.