This is a guide for the foreign relations policies unlocked by having the Diplomacy metaphysic and embassies with the different trade partners. These were discussed with experienced players on the Discord.
- Lizard Relations: Ecologists - Produce 5% less pollution and for every 3 Hydro Plants 1 magneto will provide its bonuses while turned off, to a maximum of 80% of your magnetos.
- Lizard Relations: Priests - Manuscripts give 25% less culture storage, but increase faith storage. Affected by diminishing returns.
- Lizard Relations: Diplomats - Civilizations that start out neutral can become friendly, embassies increase your standing with civilizations
Pretty clear that Diplomats is the best policy here, though the other two are okay and have a niche.
- Ecologists - The mechanically weakest policy, pollution is almost never an issue, but many players don’t like having it, and this is a fun way to help mitigate it.
- Take it if you don’t like pollution.
- Priests - Effective in the early game, having more faith storage can help develop your Transcendence Tiers in a major way. However, in the later game after you have bought the metaphysic Order of the Void and most of your worship production becomes passive, more faith storage stops mattering as much.
- Take on early runs or shorter runs that don’t trade with the Elders.
- Diplomats - By far the most powerful policy of the three, making the Elders Friendly to you can significantly increase Time Crystal and Relic rewards from trades. Increased trade rewards can also be very nice during some challenges like Iron Will.
- Take on any run that relies on trading, or is going to trade for time crystals.
- Shark Relations: Scribes - Trades with the Sharks have a higher chance for manuscripts and parchments, but cost more iron
- Shark Relations: Merchants - Increased global trade ratio, further increased global trade ratio based on total trades completed this run. (Boosts at 1k, 10k, 100k, etc. up to 100G).
- Shark Relations: Botanists - Bio Labs costs less energy to run, crafting catnip into wood is more efficient, Breweries increase catpower production
Once again, a pretty clear winner. Merchants is great, the other two are pretty bad in my opinion
- Scribes - If you like to trade a lot for manuscripts and parchment this is okay I guess
- I wouldn’t take this ever personally, maybe if you are doing a challenge run and plan to reset when you are done? By the time you have the embassies you will probably not get anything out of it.
- Merchants - An all around trade bonus is great! Boosts trades with the Elders
- Take any run where you are trading with the Elders, probably most other ones too
- Botanists - Extremely minor benefits, Biolab oil processing is extremely marginal and never seems worth it, wood crafting efficiency might be okay in Iron Will challenges
- Take in Iron Will if you don’t want the extra trade ratio from Merchants
- Griffin Relations: Metallurgists - Calciners produce 15% more steel after Steel Plants Upgrade bought
- Griffin Relations: Scouts - +50% Hunting effectiveness
- Griffin Relations: Machinists - Magneto global production bonus goes from 15% to 15.5%
An actual choice! All three options are decent, Metallurgists or Machinists are probably better than Scouts though.
- Metallurgists - Steel is often a limiting factor, though this choice is worse the more actively you craft it.
- Take on runs where you are playing more afk, though it is always a solid choice. Don’t take if you are using scripts to auto craft steel
- Scouts - Probably the weakest option for most runs. Extra ivory can help your Unicorn Religion buildings.
- Take if you are using auto hunt scripts or in a challenge where hunting is important
- Machinists - this works out to a 3% bonus to magnetos, which is a decent bonus
- Take if you are using scripts to craft steel or you find that steel isn’t a bottleneck
- Naga Relations: Masons - Quarries give a 2.5% bonus to slab crafting effectiveness
- Naga Relations: Cultists - Ziggurats gain 10% of the bonuses from Order of the Sun upgrades (Faith production from Solar Chant, science storage from Scholasticism, etc.)
- Naga Relations: Architects - Increases the chance of getting blueprints from trading with the Nagas (up to double) based on Naga embassies. Once cap is reached, gives bonus blueprint crafting effectiveness
Another fairly balanced choice, Masons vs Cultists in my opinion
- Masons - Concrete takes a LOT of slabs
- Take on runs that are resetting in the first half of Space or if you don’t think the Cultists bonus are good enough
- Cultists - Extra faith and catpower storage can be nice, bonuses are fairly small though
- Take on runs where you are focusing on religion
- Architects - Pretty slow to start, the CAD system upgrade already gives you bonus blueprint craft effectiveness for each science building you have
- I probably wouldn’t take this until you are trying to reach the singularity and other resources stop mattering.
- Spider Relations: Geologists - Spider embassies 0.2% give mineral, coal, and gold production bonuses per embassy.
- Spider Relations: Chemists - Trading with Spiders can give kerosene
- Spider Relations: Paleontologists - Ivory from mints production bonus and oil production bonus
All three of these are fine, though not hugely impactful. Paleontologists is my choice, though Chemists is a close second.
- Geologists - Coal and gold can sometimes be bottlenecks
- Take on runs that are resetting in the first half of Space
- Chemists - Kerosene is a little expensive to craft, basically just an oil production bonus
- Take if you like to trade and are getting to the second half of Space
- Paleontologists - Ivory is a bottleneck in Unicorn Religion buildings, oil bonus is nice
- Take on runs focusing on religion or where you plan to trade with the Elders a lot
- Dragon Relations: Physicists - 25% extra energy and 5% Reactor Vessels Upgrade effectiveness (extra Harbor storage from Trade Ships) from Reactors
- Dragon Relations: Astrologers - More astronomical events and a 9% bonus to star chart production per year for 5 years, then the bonus resets and starts building again.
- Dragon Relations: Dynamicists - Catpower reduction for trades and hunts. Reduces catpower required for the first Space mission, Orbital Launch, by 50%.
If you are doing a Black Sky Challenge without several thousand paragon, Dynamicists is a must. The other two are both fine, though Starcharts quickly stop being a bottleneck
- Physicists - Extra energy and storage is always useful
- Take on runs that are building multiple Research Vessels or Space Beacons
- Astrologers - Starcharts are a bottleneck in early Space
- Take on runs where you are expecting to get most of your Starcharts from Satellites
- Dynamicists - Catpower is usually not the bottleneck for hunting or trading, the Space Mission catpower cost is usually not an issue UNLESS you are in a Black Sky Challenge. If you are, you need eleven times the normal catpower (55k), this cuts it in half.
- Take if you are in a Black Sky Challenge and you don’t have 2000+ paragon