The Nakalim/Gameplay

Faithful to the Lost, the Nakalim seek to recover their ancient wisdom and bring back their departed gods.

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**Gameplay**
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## Beliefs not Breakthroughs

The "Beliefs not Breakthroughs" gameplay affinity applies several major changes to the Nakalim. The net effect is to greatly reduce their  gain through normal means, and to force them to use a new, alternate mechanic for  generation - "relics". **Overall, this results in pushing their  gain over the course of the full game somewhat towards a linear increase rather than the exponential increase most factions get.** Strictly speaking, they still likely have an exponential gain, but it's considerably less so.

The first and simplest mechanic is that all  generated on systems is reduced by 50% (the wording of this mechanic would make it sound like this is applied at an empire level, but it's applied at a system level, as a final multiplier to the  coming out of each individual system).

The second is that "per pop"  on planet is mostly nullified. The sources of this coming from the type of planet (such as cold planets) are set to zero; and the sources from buildings have been systematically removed (most of the building types which would give per-pop bonuses now give a flat amount, or have been removed entirely). The one source of per-pop  they can get is  that specifically comes from a population type - populations like Z'vali or Sophons will freely generate the  they normally generate, making them especially valuable.

#### **Hero Abilities:**

Flat value additions, such as the Counsellor or Seeker "Blue Sky Speculator" ability do work. Any values which are considered 'per pop' do not work - most ironically this includes the *Nakalim* hero "Panako Nakatug", and their "+1 on Original Empire Population" skill.

#### **Minor Assimilation:**

Quite a few minor-faction assimilations give "on system" or "per planet with" effects, and these work. Examples of this include the Galvran (both assimilation effects), the Harmony's "Mind over Matter", the Deuyivan's terrific "Art of Science" upgrade that gives a -10% cost reduction, the Pilgrims' "Anomalous Research" etc.

Unfortunately there's one upgrade which does not work: The Deuyivan's "Research Experts". It's supposed to boost the  per  on all planets to a minimum of 5, but the value remains at zero.

#### **System Development:**

Because of the unique effects of their affinity, it's worth asking what this does to System Development Upgrades that involve -generating luxuries:

* works as normal; the final  will of course be halved, but 30 (from 60/2)  is still exceptionally good for the Nakalim, worth almost 3/5 of a  relic in a single system-dev upgrade. Slotting it into all three tier upgrades (which is quite normal and reliably achievable if any spawns nearby) will give you a final 90 , which is *almost* worth tworelic's income of  (which would be 100).
* has its effect entirely replaced; you get +10%  on the System. This is just a flat 10%, rather than having the typical "per system level" effect that most T3 upgrades do (since this is a T2 rather than T3). It also must be noted - the verbiage says explicitly "+10% science on systems", and all that this does is individually cause the one system the resource is applied to to gain +10%  , rather than some sort of cumulative effect, which might be implied by both the weakness of such a boost, and the plurality of the word "systems".
* works as normal (besides the final  being halved when the system's  is tallied up).

## Relics

 Relics are a special resource the Nakalim collect over the course of the game.

Relics by default will each generate +50 , and are considered "unassigned". Unlike science gained on individual systems, this is **NOT** cut in half.

A relic can be assigned to a special use (either providing an empire-wide bonus, or providing a special, per-hero bonus), at which point it stops providing that +50 . **Note that assignment is non-permanent, and non-destructive; you will never "use up" a relic with any usage.** Assignment does have a 1-turn cooldown, but the next turn you can freely recover the relic and go back to generating  with it.

### Empire Assignment

Relics assigned to the empire are slotted into four slots, respectively unlocking , , , and  bonuses. Each slot can hold one relic, and when active, they provide a 15% empire-wide bonus to that resource. There is a quest reward late in the Nakalim faction quest which can boost this from 15% to 30%, which is an extremely powerful bonus. (Because the bonus from empire relics is so powerful and has so little cost, you most likely will want to enable this as soon as possible.)

These slots are initially locked, and in order to use them, you must build 2, 3, 4, or 5  temple specializations, anywhere in your empire.

### Hero Assignment

Relics can also be assigned to individual heroes, although this usage is more situational.

There are four slots for hero relics, listed below in order from what is top-to-bottom here, but left to right in-game:

* +5%  on system per  relic on hero
* +5% fleet health per  relic on hero
* +5%  on system per  relic on hero
* +5% fleet damage per  relic on hero

These are slotted in order from top-to-bottom, and all earlier slots must be filled before a later slot can be filled. Each slot takes **two** relics, rather than one, and the relics can only be assigned two at a time. Naturally, the bonuses for fleet stats do nothing when you're stationed on a planet, and vice-versa, however, the "number of relics on the hero" is counted, regardless of whether the bonus its slot applies to is relevant. In total, you can have 8 relics on the hero, which means that each of these stats can get a **40%** bonus.

Coupled with the 30% from the empire relics, this means a few core systems of yours could potentially get a 70%  and  bonus, which is quite potent, although you're looking at the opportunity cost of using those relics for empire science (200  for the empire relics, and 400  for the hero ones, respectively).

Unlike the empire slots, these slots are unlocked right from the start of the game.

## Temple to the Lost

The Nakalim have a unique "planetary specialization" they're able to build, called the  "Temple to the Lost".

The primary use of this is that it gives you an extraordinary source of influence gain, available right from the start of the game. This is an extremely large amount that almost no other faction has similar access to, with the sole exception of the Unfallen.

This also enables a very unusual mechanic, as well - it unlocks a new kind of "pacific conversion" (like the kind enabled by getting the late-game technology, SLC (Supra-Light Content) Systems). Unlike that mechanic, this allows you to convert a system to belong to the Academy faction, rather than yourself — besides the upside of removing a system from your rival, the Academy also rewards you for this action. This "pacific conversion" is a special action only available when this specialization is present on a system, and it requires no technology to perform (in theory, it would be available from turn 1, presuming your influence bubble could somehow overlap an enemy system by then).

Converting a system to the academy's control provides several benefits:

* The Academy will immediately give you a few relics, depending on the quality of the system when converted.
* The Academy will immediately give you some "credit" towards the current academy competition (etc, etc depending on system quality).
* The Academy will permanently "tithe" half of the , , and  of the system to you. Although this does include , it often won't amount to much during most parts of the game. **The system will also give you half of its luxury resources**, as long as they're actually exploited by the academy, which tends to be far more valuable (it's comparable to using mining probes, and won't ever be 'taken' from you as long as the system remains owned by the academy).
* This system will add +1 to the number of systems you've considered "conquered" for a conquest victory.
* If you use this on a minor faction, you do **not** get their assimilation bonus. It instead is granted to Isyander (and apparently actually does work for the Academy, since most of their mechanics of using planets are actually internally simulated - however this is unlikely to ever be strategically valuable to you as a player, since the Academy has fairly passive behavior).
* Note also that this does not replace your normal ability to "pacific convert" a system to your own faction's control; if you eventually research that SLC (Supra-Light Content) Systems technology, you can also perform that action.

The current way these temples work is to reduce the  generated by the planet to 50% of its normal value, and also to provide 10  per  on that planet, which is an enormous amount for any stage in the game, but it available immediately at the start. (There are no upgrades to make temples's stats stronger as the game goes on, as there are for other planetary specializations, but the default values are strong enough that they don't need it).

The temples don't seem to apply any secret multiplier to the rate of influence-circle-growth; they simply provide a lot of influence, and work with the circle-growth mechanic in its vanilla formulation.

##### Strategic Notes:

This can give the Nakalim *enormous* amounts of influence very early in the game - not *immediately*, since they start the game struggling to generate food on a desert planet, but rather quickly. The lack of food is the major bottleneck on this, since the -50% malus would tip you into starvation if you made a temple on Sobra and also tried to colonize — also because a -50% malus means you've got half the pop growth rate, and this a per-population effect. One you have a decent foothold (even as early as just colonizing another non-sterile planet in your home system), though, you can erect an initial temple for a very high amount of influence.

In all stages of the game, the 10  per  is an extremely high amount, and will basically solve all of your law upkeep/etc problems for the rest of the game.

The pacific conversion is also a powerful tool, and the Nakalim's raw influence growth will tend to bring it into play under reasonably normal circumstances, rather than the very unusual circumstances most other factions have to bring to bear to make it happen, since theirs grow that much faster. The main strategy behind this is simply to aggressively forward settle, since you don't have to be afraid of the mechanic being used against you under most circumstances.