Which Tech Tree is Best for Synthetic Races: Yor or Thalan?

from GalCiv3 Forums

The reason I'm asking is because Thalan tech tree provides Hives and the Gaia Vortex.  Both of which provide big boosts to base production thereby avoiding the "I have no population and thus no production" problem that all synthetic races have in the early game.  

Thalan tech line won't provide the Spark of Life path. On the other hand you get better early game factories, and the AWESOME Hives tech (which gives a +4 to production REGARDLESS of what your population on the planet is).  

Consequently, Thalan tech tree allows synthetic races to colony spam.  And since the game can effectively be won during the colony spam era, ANYTHING that increase your ability to colony spam is a good thing.  

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Hmm, that's an interesting one. 

 

They'd basically not be able to grow your population until you can capture pop with other planets, so you'd have to send colonizers with 0.1 pop to each planet.

 

If you take Pioneering for a bit of pop and later the 5 loaded transports you're over 20bilion - technically enough to hold 200 worlds. For the rest, you'd have to capture worlds (idealy via culture flipping, but invasions work too) and make use of that population.

 

Bear in mind that hives only produce flat manufacturing, and not research, so your research is going to be limited by that population. You'd probably have to tech trade to keep pace with other empires.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting TurielD, reply 1

Hmm, that's an interesting one. 

 

They'd basically not be able to grow your population until you can capture pop with other planets, so you'd have to send colonizers with 0.1 pop to each planet.

 

If you take Pioneering for a bit of pop and later the 5 loaded transports you're over 20bilion - technically enough to hold 200 worlds. For the rest, you'd have to capture worlds (idealy via culture flipping, but invasions work too) and make use of that population.

 

Bear in mind that hives only produce flat manufacturing, and not research, so your research is going to be limited by that population. You'd probably have to tech trade to keep pace with other empires.

Don't you still get Assembly even with Thalan tech? Or am I wrong? I know you won't be able to get Fast Assembly, but isn't Assembly still possible? 

EDIT: Just tested it.  Yes, you DO get Assembly as synthetics even with Thalan tech.  Assembly is inefficient compared to the Spark of Life path BUT Gaia Vortex, Hyperion Matrix, and Hives should make up for that.   

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Aaah yeah you're right - assembly is based of the SyntheticLife trait, I thought it was based of the base colonization tech in the Yor tree! Nice catch :)

 

That makes it way more viable than I thought - though it may get a tad tedious manually building 2 pop per time on dozens of worlds

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

With Hives, Gaia Vortex, and better factories, you don't even need population until much later after the expansion phase is over.  

Also, you can skip fertility clinics and that entire line of tech.  

+8 base production with +200% bonuses from factories everywhere and you can assemble like a madmen even without Spark of Life.  

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I've already posted that I don't see any reason to use any other tech tree.  Hives don't give you manufacturing.  They give you Raw manufacturing.   IE they give you the same thing pop gives you.  Thalan planets after you build the gaia vortex basically start with 8 pop for free.  Hive plus 4 vortex plus 4.  Also any adjacency bonusses to the hive also boost Raw manufacturing.   This then gets modified by your specific mfg or research bonusses.

 

Simply put...A planet with 1 pop and a hive with 20% adjacency bonus (assuming you build the vortex somewhere else) will produce (5+1+4+4)×1.2 = 16.8 raw manufacturing.  This can be put towards anything you want and be modified by those specific bonusses.  This is a 1 pop planet....raw manufacturing is everything...that's why you want pop in the first place...why the yor are so powerful compared to other ai...and the Thalan get 8 (eventually 12) per planet for free.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting TurielD, reply 1

Bear in mind that hives only produce flat manufacturing, and not research, so your research is going to be limited by that population.

Bear in mind that this is not true, and only appears to be true because the developers made the decision to rename "production" to "total manufacturing" without actually changing what the bonus does for no comprehensible reason. Thalan Hives and their upgrades, the Enhanced Production tech, Starbase Economic Rings, and everything else that gives a "total manufacturing" bonus increase a planet's base production, not the manufacturing output.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting joeball123, reply 6


Quoting TurielD,
reply 1

Bear in mind that hives only produce flat manufacturing, and not research, so your research is going to be limited by that population.



Bear in mind that this is not true, and only appears to be true because the developers made the decision to rename "production" to "total manufacturing" without actually changing what the bonus does for no comprehensible reason. Thalan Hives and their upgrades, the Enhanced Production tech, Starbase Economic Rings, and everything else that gives a "total manufacturing" bonus increase a planet's base production, not the manufacturing output.

 

Huh. Well now that's a little silly.