The Cravers/Strategy

Militarist insectoid devourers of planets, the Cravers are a people bent on war, expansion, and consumption.

About
Gameplay
Traits
Ships
**Strategy**

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This is a WiP. There is still a lot of information to be gathered and presented here.

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Lacking in any and all forms of peaceful diplomacy beyond declaring ceasefires (unless voluntarily choosing to be a Pacifist  government) during war and with the ticking time-bomb that is resource depletion hovering over their heads, the Cravers have only two courses of action to follow, rapid colonial expansion and swarming the other civilizations of the galaxy. They are generally a challenging faction to play through.

Because of their depletion mechanic, you should distribute Craver populations across different planets to reduce the rate a planet is depleted and ultimately produces very little resources. Since other populations dislike sharing a planet with Craver populations (though they tend to have higher ), you should watch system  and should it get too low (despite  buildings), consider sacrificing the other population into feeding pits to boost  rating.

## Population Control

An Important aspect to playing the Cravers is Population Managment. You need to constantly have an eye on all your systems, distribute minor populations between them and make sure there is a balance of Cravers and minor populations on planets to maximise  production while keeping  rating above contend. Usually you want to keep 1-3 Cravers on a planet, depending on the planet size, with the rest being minor populations.

Here are two ways of accomplishing this:

### Chain Gang Program

* Before getting into Chain Gang Program, it is important to know how the game decides which  type gets selected for growth:
	+ Every  type on a system has a 'chance to increment', which goes up every time it is not chosen.
	+ On a standard Craver start, you'll have two types on your home system: Cravers  and Haroshems .
	+ Cravers , being the main population, have a +50 'chance to increment', for Haroshems  +25 (as with every other minor population)
	+ The  type with the **highest** 'chance to increment' will get chosen, whenever a new  to grow needs to be chosen.
	+ After the  has grown, that type's 'chance to increment' get's *reset to zero.*
	+ Repeat.
		- As one can see, if you can manipulate the 'chance to increment', you can more easily control your Craver   and target grow minor .
* This is where *Chain Gang Program* comes in. It is a constructable unlocked with the Universal Conscription technology. It consumes 300  and produces 300 .
* What happens when you don't produce +300  is you lose some of your food stock. **This causes you to starve a population of the type already chosen to increment, instead of gaining one.**
	+ If Cravers were already chosen and you build *Chain Gang Program,* it causes you to lose a population, which is guaranteed to be a Craver .
	+ Now Craver's 'chance to increment' is reset to zero, which causes Haroshems to be chosen next, since they have the highest 'chance to increment' now.

#### What Does This Mean? / TL;dR:

By using Chain Gang Program whenever you're going to gain an undesired Craver, you get to keep your Craver low and grow your minor .

This is especially important before unlocking the Spaceport through a System Development Upgrade, because you otherwise have no way of removing unwanted from your system.

### Prisons and Spaceports

Some players have adopted a strategy involving what has been coined "Prison Systems".

* For this strategy you need two system:
	+ One system with a Spaceport and too many Cravers.
	+ The other some small, 1-2 planet system already colonized, the "Prison System". Ideally it has 1 or more Gas Giants
* All you do now is load up your spaceport with all the unwanted Cravers and ship them off to Prison.
* The pro of this strategy is that you don't care about the prison system.
	+ You can freely let the cravers eat out the planets and profit off of the 2.5x  production
	+ Because the development of the system do not matter, feel free to colonize the ice/barren planets and gas giants.
		- An often overlooked advantage of the Craver faction, **Crowded Planets II**, can be leveraged with gas giants to great effect. Normally, they'll only have a single population slot, two if they are huge. With this trait, that becomes 3-4 population slots. With their FIDS leaning towards one or two extremes and a large Depletion Cap, one can profit for a long time off of these.
		- List of Planet Traits for reference here
	+ If you don't want the cravers there to starve off too fast, consider  producing improvements and/or Behemoths.
	+ Since your Autochratic government makes rebellions imposible, you don't have to worry too much about the negative  from living on these kinds of planets.
* Compared to the previous strategy, it makes better use of excess Cravers by having them work on systems which don't matter to you.

## Alternate Mini-guide by Knofbath

Cravers are meant to consume the galaxy. Depleted planets contribute to their 50 POP Collection bonus, which allows them to snowball into an unstoppable menace in combat.

Depleted planets in key systems(4-5 planets) can be kept productive by Enslaving Minor Factions. -50% FIDS from the Depleted planet is offset by the +100% FIDSI from Slave Driver. And you can keep the Slaves from becoming Mutinous by placing a Counselor hero(Lv.13+) on the system with The Joy Initiative class skill.

So, in general, Deplete the planets, then move Cravers outwards to consume new planets, while moving Minor Factions inwards to those depleted planets. High level Craver heroes like Risto Libera can be used to Deplete systems faster, using Endless Consumption.

The Craver's unique Tier 4 Empire and Development tech is the Cathedral of the Swarm. Which will allow you to basically lock one system at max Approval due to the number of ships you have.

The Craver's unique form of government(Autocracy) means that Mutinous POPs can never tip your empire into Anarchy. So the only downside to low Approval is that POPs are going to starve to death. Making Mutinous POPs due to Slavery a self-correcting problem, either the Minor Faction slave dies or the Craver dies, and the system will hit equilibrium.

You can hard-push the Overcolonization limits with Militarist Law  Jingoist Joy Bill, declaring War on every faction and Minor Faction. Once you start taking Home Systems for Supremacy Victory, the  Us or Them Decree can also be used.

Craver's Plot Quest Ch.4 reward "Insatiable Maw" will allow you to stay at War forever. "Voice of the Queen" is far inferior, meaning you will likely be forced into Truce every 10-20 turns (or when loading the game allows the AI to do Diplomacy calculations all at once).