Guide to Criminally Overcomplicated Sprawl Reduction Build
By Zappi.
The title really does say everything, but recently I’ve really gotten into reducing my sprawl as much as I can, and the Sovereign civics weren’t cutting it, that planet sprawl STINGS! Then it came to me in a dream (It was me playing Mercenary Corp of all things): I can reduce planet sprawl by 100% by getting Imperial Prerogative and then getting Private Prospectors, and that damn +100% from Sovereign was keeping me away from my 0 planet sprawl!
Then it came to me in a nightmare (I was still playing Mercenary Corp and I was at -2k ec from being 900 ships over my cap): Why bother with Sovereign? I can get -100% pop sprawl with this simple, 200 step process build instead!
DLC Requirements
(I know, unfortunate):
- Federations: Balance in the Middle resolution
- Nemesis: Going Imperium via the Galactic Community
- Galactic Paragons: Under One Rule
- Machine Age: Cyborg governments
- MegaCorp: MegaCorps (Sounds obvious, I know)
Hard-Requirement / Obligatory: Fan Pacifist (Or regular Pacifist, really), for the huge pop sprawl reduction (-30%/-15%)
Soft-Requirement: Under one Rule (UoR from now on), Pacifist (Unless you can reform into Pacifist before UoR rebellion ends, -10% pop sprawl from rebellion victory), keep your Egal faction big (Not necessarily happy). Cyborg ascension (For vanilla, independent thinking as well, for Cyborg Democracy), since it gets you -15% pop sprawl, a big chunk of your build, getting Imperial Prerog before going Corp.
Recommended Start: UoR Pacifist NOT Materialist (For easier access to Psi Theory and guarantee that you can choose the right event outcome), Genesis Guides (Or any other unity rush, for faster Cyborg to get the build running), a bad Luminary so you don’t get attached (You ARE going to kill them)
Steps
- Step Technically-Anytime: Cyborg, get either outcome, both democracy variants give you -15% pop sprawl.
- Step 0.5: Imperial Prerogative
- Step 1: Get UoR rebellion, be rebel, pick -10% pop sprawl from rebellion victory event.
- Step 0.8: To have the UoR rebellion event chain, you only need to choose to get Imperial authority during the event that shows up after you finish the starting situation. Remember to NOT choose any of the choices that finish the chain with no war. Another suggestion: Don’t choose any of the Luminary buffs, get the Strengthened Government modifiers instead, they’re quite poor, but better than a leader trait on a leader you plan on guillotining later.
- Step 2: Embrace Pacifist, go Corp, pick Private Prospectors (-100% sprawl from planets achieved here, Cyborg Corp loses the +50%). Note: You need to get rid of the UoR origin before reforming, you do that by finishing either variant of the event chain, both Luminary alive and Luminary dead outcomes get to choose their authority (Luminary alive only if you choose to step down as eternal ruler, but you keep the luminary as a leader, so nothing stops you from electing them back)
- Step 3: Go ImperiCorp (Essential), embrace your Egal Faction (If you don’t have one, you’re doomed unless you spawn one in somehow), reform into Democracy, get Beacon of Liberty, keep Private Prospectors, free 3rd civic (I chose Worker Coop for flavour)
- Step 4: By this point, you should (hopefully) have Fan Pacifist, Egal as your ethics, if not, embrace Pacifist
- Step 5: -30% pop sprawl from Fan Pacifist, -20% from traditions (Harmony + Domination), -15% from Cyborg Democracy, -15% from Beacon, -10% from UoR, -10% from Balance in the Middle and -10% from Psionic Theory nets you -110% pop sprawl, which means you can afford to drop 10% from anywhere and still have this working, my suggestion would be Balance, since it’s quite slow to get unless you’re passing resolutions by yourself.
Note: Since 95% pop sprawl reduction is already massive, and your planetary ascensions are going to reduce that remaining 5% even further, you can lose one of the -15% no problem in case you don’t like Fan Pacifist or want to get a different ascension. You can also just consider this guide a quick guide into minimizing pop sprawl, since a good chunk of these modifiers (-30%) is accessible to any non-Gestalts (Psi Theory [Even for Materialists] and Harmony/Domination), and Fan. Pacifist is available from game start.
FAQ
What’s ImperiCorp? Why go ImperiCorp?
It’s when you go Imperium while playing any of the Corporate authorities, its main advantage is the fact you can pick between both corporate and non-corporate Civics, letting you take Private Prospectors and Bacon Beacon of Liberty.
Why? Why did you do this?
Yes!
Can I do this without X DLC?
You can do parts of this build fairly well without Machine Age, the -15% loss isn’t going to kill you, but Nemesis and MegaCorp letting you go ImperiCorp is a hard requirement, unfortunately. UoR is entirely skippable if you get any of the other -10% pop sprawl modifiers. Unfortunately this DOES mean either Galactic Paragons OR Federations are also a requirement.
What even is the point of this build?
Honestly? Barely any, besides allowing you to play wide with basically no downsides, but it’s honestly probably worse than just going any of the Machine-exclusive ascensions.
How about system and district sprawl? Or -empire size%/-empire size effect%?
System and District sprawl are mostly irrelevant, and by virtue of getting Private Prospectors, you’re going to be reducing system sprawl anyways. -empire size% (Statecraft exclusve) is a multiplicative buff which will not really help with the build’s pathetically low BASE sprawl, and -empire size effect% (Grey Eminence or Master Bureaucrat councillor destiny traits) will have the same effect.
Does this work in PvP?
No, you’re dead before you hit year 10.