Game ruined by Universal Macrophage

[Kingman]

I suppose being too curious with the tech was bound to blow up in my face.

Thats fine and thematic

Whats not thematic is that the game completely kills the vibe by imposing this change but not letting me do anything about it

My xenophobic pure genetic inclined empire now has to accept these ugly mutants because they are considered to be part of the main species mechanics wise

I have ZERO tools to work with. Im completely unable to remove these traits and meanwhile now they are also growing everywhere and taking over other planets.

Why cant I displace them or manage the pops using the tools of the game?

Why not allow for example the creation of an exile empire?

Why not allow me to purge them or give them different citizenship status

This event has potential but instead its marred by the imposition of artificial blocks with zero flexibility with how game mechanics handles it

 

[Thiend]

It's the same thing effectively as self-modded pops. There need to be better options.

 

[Kingman]

It's the same thing effectively as self-modded pops. There need to be better options.

This event has a lot of potential if it was handled properly story wise

It would have been amazing if for example a second chain of events was the search for a cure which would eventually lead to a galaxy wide "manhunt" for items or resources. At the beginning the planet would be quarantined (disabling migration and trade forcing to reorganize/rebuild itself to be self sufficient) until the cure event chain was done.

You could even have a MAJOR chain of events based on your ethics and how you could approach the issue.


Or there would be a chance of it being uncurable and you could have an internal debate inside your empire about what you do about "that" colony. You could end up deciding to give them independence or force exile them in migrant ships and they create an empire in some location of the galaxy. You could even have a mission to escort them.

Or maybe if you are a fanatic authoritarian xenophobe you could just decide to kill them at the cost of stability for some tims across your empire.

There is no agency in this event. Players will always pick the same option after the first time seeing this event


Instead this event is a giant middle finger to a colony of yours decades later in your first playthrough seeing it (because you dont know its gonna come the first time) and subsequent playthroughs you just pick the option that avoids it.

I just reloaded the save to much earlier and will pick the right option but this event is very frustrating with how its handled

I always hated the pop self modification and this one is even worse. Smh

 

[passeris]

I didn't buy Biogenesis, so don't know the ins and outs. Couldn't you just exile/quarantine them yourself? Spin off the colony and refuse a migration pact with the new state?

 

[Kingman]

I didn't buy Biogenesis, so don't know the ins and outs. Couldn't you just exile/quarantine them yourself? Spin off the colony and refuse a migration pact with the new state?

The issue with this event is that triggers decades after the fact. So in theory yeah this can be done but by the time you get this event its been decades

But if you are at a stage where this colony is quite important to you (this was my second or third colony and became a major hub) when it finally triggers you get it precisely when its the least fun and most frustrating to get it.

Besides, the way the new pop growth works now every world gets these mutants growing

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I have ZERO tools to work with. Im completely unable to remove these traits and meanwhile now they are also growing everywhere and taking over other planets.

Set migration controls, put them on a planet, forget about them. Why are you allowing them to spread throughout your empire? Also, they grow more slowly than default. The % they represent of your empire's population will shrink over time unless you bend over backwards to limit the growth of your main template (ex. packing all main template into large worlds that cap logistic growth, and then spread the bad template out over colonies that have clone vats).

It's still annoying that there's no way to purge or restore them (or Self Modified pops), but such is life. I feel like that would have been a perfect thing for Imperfection Remediation to do ("Can remove every trait through integration"), but I'm not sure why they didn't.

 

[passeris]

The issue with this event is that triggers decades after the fact. So in theory yeah this can be done but by the time you get this event its been decades

But if you are at a stage where this colony is quite important to you (this was my second or third colony and became a major hub) when it finally triggers you get it precisely when its the least fun and most frustrating to get it.

Then, can you not round up all the pops, forcibly resettle them to a tomb world, spin off the colony, refuse migration treaties, declare war after 10 years, prohibit surrender, nuke them from orbit (it's the only way to be sure), let the solar wind carry away their ashes, then bathe in the glory of your own genetic superiority? I suppose there will be refugees, but that's a problem for other empires.

p.s. i'm a pacifist btw

 

[Kingman]

Then, can you not round up all the pops, forcibly resettle them to a tomb world, spin off the colony, refuse migration treaties, declare war after 10 years, prohibit surrender, nuke them from orbit (it's the only way to be sure), let the solar wind carry away their ashes, then bathe in the glory of your own genetic superiority? I suppose there will be refugees, but that's a problem for other empires.

Or I can just reload a save to avoid all those pointless grind and unfun chores.

And going forward always pick the same option.

 

[Kingman]

Set migration controls, put them on a planet, forget about them. Why are you allowing them to spread throughout your empire? Also, they grow more slowly than default. The % they represent of your empire's population will shrink over time unless you bend over backwards to limit the growth of your main template (ex. packing all main template into large worlds that cap logistic growth, and then spread the bad template out over colonies that have clone vats).

It's still annoying that there's no way to purge or restore them (or Self Modified pops), but such is life. I feel like that would have been a perfect thing for Imperfection Remediation to do ("Can remove every trait through integration"), but I'm not sure why they didn't.

Thats my main issue. Not that this happened to the pops (which could have been a cool story) but that the game doesnt let me use the genetic or societal tools at our disposal.

Its what you say in your second paragraph. There is no way to cure, manage or resolve them. In my case I got this event in my second biggest world and have no way to fix it.

True they grow much slower but they are part (game mechanic wise) of the main species so now ALL my worlds have these goons everywhere.

Whatever. Im just gonna pick the refusal everytime time now and avoid this event. Because its not FUN.

I reloaded the save to a much earlier point.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

True they grow much slower but they are part (game mechanic wise) of the main species so now ALL my worlds have these goons everywhere.

Again: migration controls.

 

[Kingman]

Again: migration controls.

Migration controls dont always work for some reason

I conquered a hive minded robot empire who only had 1 planet. I conquered and wanted to exterminate the bots. Instead they somehow got co-opted by my empire as totally valid robots and now they are migrating even though I specifically have migration controls enabled for them.

 

[Drachasor]

I didn't even know this was a thing. Organics are so disgusting.

 

[st360]

I dont know, or care about the details of the event.

People are missing the point. Any xenophobic or authoritarian empire should BY DEFINITION be allowed to purge everything not fully main species.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Migration controls dont always work for some reason

I conquered a hive minded robot empire who only had 1 planet. I conquered and wanted to exterminate the bots. Instead they somehow got co-opted by my empire as totally valid robots and now they are migrating even though I specifically have migration controls enabled for them.

Machines and mechanical pops are weird for some reason, and have strange hard coded allowances instead of proper population or migration controls. I don't understand why it's still that way even after individualist machines are a thing.

 

[HoustonPatrician]

I find myself avoiding the orbital speed demon benefits because you can’t mod the traits and there are lots of things which will split your species into multiple groups, some which contain it and some who don’t, and you can’t fix it. Annoys my desire for clean numbers.

 

[Kingman]

I dont know, or care about the details of the event.

People are missing the point. Any xenophobic or authoritarian empire should BY DEFINITION be allowed to purge everything not fully main species.

Exactly!

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I dont know, or care about the details of the event.

People are missing the point. Any xenophobic or authoritarian empire should BY DEFINITION be allowed to purge everything not fully main species.

Anything that is under your main species umbrella is your main species. They don't stop being your main species because they have a bad trait.

 

[Grief Bacon]

Not to downplay the fact that you can't get rid of them, because that really upset me too the first time even though I was playing as fanatic egalitarian, but I do have some counterpoints. First, the empire modifier from the research that triggers it does not go away when the event fires despite the tooltip saying the notes were scrubbed. At least it didn't last I encountered it. Not really sure if it's intended and/or been patched. Depending on play style, the 10% empire wide pop growth bonus may outweigh ugly blob people you can't get rid of. It usually does for me, and as already mentioned as the game progresses they end up being lost in the crowd. Second, if role play is your thing, you get a permanent reminder that you basically applied experimental gene-modding to your population despite knowing that it killed its creators. Third, you technically can change their portrait via purity so they look less gross. Technically it's using a toxoid portrait. Not sure if it'll let you change it back to whatever your main species class is or if it locks it into the portrait species class like it does with main species. That said, they are ugly and I do agree that the game should be more lenient on purges and stuff with those kinds of ethics.

 

[cryptkeeper]

do what I did force settle them to a small planet, and tested my colossus super weapon on them . But yeah there really should be a way to force purge mutant pops, even if they make it into the final purity choose perk of BIOgenesis.

 

[st360]

Anything that is under your main species umbrella is your main species. They don't stop being your main species because they have a bad trait.

Nations in history purged literally the same people as them. I'm not even talking about minor ethnic differences. Mao purged millions in China. The Khmer Rouge killed 25% of Cambodia's population.

In Stellaris you are literally talking about different subraces, often with explicitly different behavioral and mental characteristics.