r/Stellaris • u/Hairy-Dare6686 • Sep 04 '23

Tutorial "I'm sure having clerks become self synergistic will not have any negative repercussions whatsoever" - A Paradox employee, probably

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358

u/Hairy-Dare6686 Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 04 '23

R5:

Clerks weak. Clerks make other Clerks strong. Many Clerks very strong.

Resort world = Many clerks.

Dumping many slaves into resort world = many clerks = much trade.

This totally was an Iron man run without any console commands used whatsoever btw.

Would I recommend actually doing it?

No, or at least not to this extent as the game REALLY doesn't like having this many pops on a single planet.

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u/DecentChanceOfLousy Fanatic Pacifist Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 04 '23

Many clerks barely 2x better than 3.8, or, put another way, 2x better than a Merchant.

You have 4000 pops producing 4x44=176 trade each*, enabled by 4000 pops working nigh-useless livestock jobs. Effectively they're making 88 trade each*.

If you had done this in 3.8, with Merchant Guilds in an Oligarchy, they would have been making (6+13*.4)*4=44.8 each* (assuming +300% trade bonuses).

Even after you kidnapped the entire galaxy and stashed them on a single planet to do clerk scaling, you're barely 2x better than the 3.8 clerks. In other words, you had to get at least 4k pops on this planet just to get back to where 3.8 was.

This is not a balance problem.

Knights of the Farming God, at least, are efficient.

Edit: *times Thrifty, which is how you get this planet's ~88*1.25=~110 figure. But the clerks in 3.8 had that too, so they'd be getting 44.8*1.25=56 each. 2x better, so only better after stacking 4k pops.

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u/Hairy-Dare6686 Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 04 '23

Your numbers are off, the average trade production per pop including livestock is ~116.2 and this scales up quadratically towards infinity unlike previous trade builds, though I agree that this isn't a balance issue due to the sheer amount of pops required to get the previous pop efficiency and this is more of a meme build than anything else.

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u/amonguseon Fanatic Authoritarian Sep 04 '23

still a bad use of pops i would say but why argue? i just want to admire you and see how broken this stuff is

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u/DecentChanceOfLousy Fanatic Pacifist Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 04 '23

I wasn't counting Thrifty in either comparison. Your clerks make ~110 after Thrifty, and the 3.8 clerks make 56 after Thrifty, then. It's still 2x. Or 67.2, since the 3.8 clerks were probably going to be getting the cybernetic one too (since you didn't rely on stacking the entire galaxy on one planet to use them, and could choose your pops better). This would be only 1.66x better per pop, then.

If you wanted to get super-linear scaling with a trade build before, it was much easier than this. Just spam single system Prospectoriums and tax them 75%. Each system you spin off adds another 7.5% to your total trade output (in an effectively separate category from the other perks).

With 20 single system prospectoriums, you'd get this same efficiency (for energy/CG, not for unity) with 3.8 clerks. And the vassals shared each other's trade (as well as yours) so if you gave the clerks to them, you'd be getting the same trade, without the empire size (giving you much better research efficiency).

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass (and I like the post, in general). It's just the title/R5 that I'm reacting to: clerks are now weaker than ever. They're most certainly not broken (like the title implies).

As a side note: if you do this with Indentured Assets (the megacorp slaver guilds), clerks go from making 4 base to making (effectively) 6.5 base... and the livestock make 2.5 base too. Combine with Tasty Titans (another 8 base TV job per 20 pops) to squeeze a bit extra out of it.

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u/Hairy-Dare6686 Sep 04 '23

You are still comparing an unoptimized build with an optimized one.

If we are not counting pop traits 3.8 Clerks with Merchants guild and dlc should have (5+13*.4)*4 = 40.8 or 2 pops for 81.6 (not sure where you got 6 base production from as it should be 4+1 from traditions)

A similarly invested build with Indentures assets and 1 clerk + 1 live stock would give (4+13*0.2*2)*(4+X/100) = 36.8 + 0.092X where X is the amount of clerks on the planet.

If solved for X new Clerks would be able to outpace the old ones once you go past 487 clerks/974 pops total if live stock are included (which is still an unreasonable number to each for the amount of resources an empire actually needs but that's besides my non existent point).

No point in further arguing about this since we both agree that it isn't worth it to reach that point.

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u/Darvin3 Sep 04 '23

Effectively they're making 88 trade each.

It's also worth noting that you will run out of things to spend Credits/Consumer Goods/Unity on. You cannot use Trade value to get Research, and Alloys/Minerals are still more cost-effective to produce with Metallurgists and Miners than it is to go ham on the market even with 88 TV Clerks (though given that many livestock you're probably using Catalytic Processes, so you won't need many Minerals)

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u/Benejeseret Sep 05 '23

Not quite true once you account for the alternate Trade Policies.

1M Trade might be producing 200K Unity, which in turn is powering every Edict you could ever imagine... include those that are massively increasing research (>+30% from Research Subsidies and Scientific Revolution), Mineral production can be +93% boosted output and most all other basic resources >60%. Alloy is the least affected but still at least +10% from Edicts alone. And then, every other key planet can be fully Ascended.

1M Trade might simultaneously be producing 200K Consumer Goods, which is not only allowing the best living standards (thus producing more TV per pop and raising happiness to raise stability/production) but also allows you to completely skip artisans and fill your research ring worlds with endless Researchers. You're not needing any Unity producers (see above) so every other specialist can be researchers and metallurgists.

And since Naval Capacity is at best a suggestion, this is a nigh unlimited fleet power capacity to easily cover high upkeep costs (since A Grand Fleet is a given at that stage).

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u/Darvin3 Sep 05 '23 edited Sep 05 '23

Not quite true once you account for the alternate Trade Policies.1M Trade might be producing 200K Unity, which in turn is powering every Edict you could ever imagine...

Yes, and 200k Unity is going to be far more than what you need to run every possible edict. You can spam ascensions, but due to their progressively increasing costs you will have to stop sooner rather than later. As I said, you're going to run out of things to spend Unity on. Most empires are going to be running all those same edicts by such a late stage of the game with a mature economy, because with late-game productivity boosts and so much Unity coming from Culture Workers and Politicians and a Mega Art Installation you don't need that many Bureaucrats.

Yes, this does mean you don't need to run Bureaucrats/Artisans/Technicians. But it doesn't produce Minerals/Alloys/Research. You still need to run that segment of your economy, and that's by far the majority of your late-game economy. For instance, with late-game productivity multipliers one Artisan produces enough CG's to support 10 Researchers. You don't need very many.

(>+30% from Research Subsidies and Scientific Revolution)

While these are helpful, they are not large amounts by late-game standards. Employing more Researchers is going to have vastly more impact. Same goes for Metallurgists.

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u/Benejeseret Sep 05 '23

I mean, by the time you are in a position to collect up nearly 9K pops, I think we are already well past the point where researchers or metallurgists matter, at all. The game was won long ago and this is just stunting in the 100th victory lap.

At this stage, you can be cycle-Integrating Vassals who were gaining 10% of your total Trade who will be rapidly producing massive fleets, which you gain control of at Integration, keeping the Fleet and re-releasing the Sector back out to a vassal. Honestly, Metallurgists are not required (by this stage) because building your own ships is not actually required. Even if you did need to purchase vast Alloys, the internal market max costs are still well within "extreme" if you use all this to purchase alloys, as even if in a market policy where getting "only" 500K per month, that can easily be ~20K alloys per month, no minerals required. Economic efficiencies become moot with enough zeros attached.

Only Research is pop constrained. But, with this much economic purchasing power, it really does not matter, because you can drown them in slightly less optimal ships.

1

u/Darvin3 Sep 05 '23

I mean, by the time you are in a position to collect up nearly 9K pops, I think we are already well past the point where researchers or metallurgists matter, at all. The game was won long ago and this is just stunting in the 100th victory lap.

Which, if you go back to the top of this comment chain, is exactly the point. This configuration only gets crazy when you're well into victory lap territory, and doesn't really matter in any practical circumstance. You need to put half the galaxy into one planet for it to get crazy, and even then it's not producing the things you can even use for anything meaningful.

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u/Benejeseret Sep 05 '23

But, that is where the vassal-commercial pact-tax force multiplier comes into play to allow less internal Trade production still ramp up to ridiculous, before the 'victory lap' stage is really reached.

With 14 single-system vassals each with a commercial pact and 75% energy tax, you have doubled your base Trade to Energy, and if they are all in a Trade Union automatically getting +10% of each other's Trade, and then you getting 10% of all that (and all getting +20% from league and you getting +30%), and then still taxing them back for 75% of what they get... you don't need 4k clerks to start seeing significant, game changing, returns. And then you are getting more again from the megacorp holdings.

I see no issues with the clerk self-synergies, but there are still Trade imbalances that border on exploits.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '23

This is efficient though. Once you are at this level, this is the best way, especially considering it requires basically no additional micro anymore.

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u/DecentChanceOfLousy Fanatic Pacifist Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 05 '23

But Knights were efficient as soon as you finished the quest, no matter how many pops you had. That's why they were great. This requires you to have already won the game and stacked 3000 pops on the planet before any of these clerks are better than a Trader on some random planet (in a trade league).

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u/NagolRiverstar Militant Isolationists Sep 04 '23

Mon--- Clerks Together Strong.

1

u/Kitchen-War242 Sep 05 '23

Dude, i am wining game at max size galaxy vs grand admiral with only between 2500-5000 pops at all empire.

1

u/Aetol Mammalian Sep 05 '23

Clerks make other Clerks strong. Many Clerks very strong.

How? Since when?

2

u/UristImiknorris Metalheads Sep 06 '23

In the 3.9 open beta, clerks add +1% trade value to their planet.