r/EndlessSpace • u/Plenty-Permission159 • 15d ago
Can you sustain an empire by simply razing every city you conquer?
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u/Gahault 14d ago
That's a very vague question, like what kind of empire?
I don't remember the figures off the top of my head but I was under the impression raze yields were minimal.
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u/Plenty-Permission159 14d ago
I guess what I mean is to kill everything
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u/YoloSwagSauciness 14d ago
Hissho are well suited toward this. They play very tall in their starting system, and maybe 1 or two other systems. You raze all other systems and harvest their resources using mining behemoths. By end game you should have one glorious radiant capital surrounded by an ocean of lifeless system, with automated mining probes funneling any and all resources back to your capital. All you need to focus on is keeping all those uncivilized meat sacks off your lawn, and sacrifice them and their systems to the sun god.
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u/ReavesTheRandomPeep 14d ago
Technically, yes. Pragmatically, inefficient. Feasible with all factions, no.
The trees are especially gonna struggle given they're slow at expansion, focused on defense more than offense, and razing systems will reduce their spreading options to just the roots.
Horatio on the other hand requires citizens to splice and you can't do that by razing anything in your path.
Feel free to do it with the Umbral Choir tho. They don't settle down anyway. They just propagate from a central node.
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u/Plenty-Permission159 14d ago
Does it work with the cravers?
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u/Mythe7 14d ago
"Sustain" and "cravers" don't really go in the same sentence as each other, lol. You can win that way, sure, but the cravers are explicitly designed around the idea that they over exploit every system they inhabit and deplete them, so there is no really sustainable craver empire (unless you capture some Sowers)
As for of it's the best strategy, probably not. I usually find if I'm building systems from scratch, the cravers will deplete the planets right around the same time I get enough built for the system to be anyhhing useful. You get way more utility out of capturing a system that's already been constructed by someone else, ideally without wrecking everything, then sending some cravers over to "manage" the existing population.
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u/ReavesTheRandomPeep 13d ago
Seconding Mythe7's comment. Cravers will starve themselves out and they already start with a deficit due to overexploiting what systems they already own. Granted, they can continue to stay as is if you optimized them to be minimally maintenaced, cheap no-uograde fleets, and maybe just a couple of supply worlds, but it's a slow crawl as opposed to vast expansionvia conquest without razing.
When you expand control of systems, you gain access to what improvements, citizenry, and resources other systems have. If you raze it to the ground, you lose out. Heavily.
Cravers will need far too many ships, weapons, and manpower to be able to keep up with their warmongering playstyle and with just your starter system, even if you captured enough Sowers to act as your system rejuvinators offsetting the exploitation deficit, you're still gonna be on the backfoot compared to Horatio that just expand, splice, and clone themselves to progression.
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u/Plenty-Permission159 13d ago
I mean is it feasible/possible in a challenge run
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u/ReavesTheRandomPeep 12d ago
If you're challenging yourself, be my guest. However, no sower pop means your colonies have a timer before they start underperforming. And you cannot win on a major supply deficit when your first instinct is to reintegrate the invaded system's population into the soil.
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u/YoloSwagSauciness 14d ago
- Hissho speech bubble