Dev Journal #98 - The Hidden Hand
The Krynn Syndicate is a shadowy criminal organisation hidden deep inside a great religious organisation that spans many worlds, and their flock is drawn from innumerable species and races from far across the known galaxy. The Shadow Network of the Krynn Syndicate is all powerful, pulling the strings of the Krynn people and directing them towards a series of inscrutable goals that often seem at odds with the peaceful teachings of their religion. Bringing more and more worlds into the Krynniac way, and thus under the control of the Syndicate, is just one step forward in pursuit of their elaborate plans.
The Krynn are masters of the art of empire building, drawing on one of the most powerful natural resources that any Civilization has access to: the Citizens of the galaxy. With the rather tolerant Krynniac religion preaching togetherness and acceptance of different species, the Krynn Syndicate are able to draw talent from a staggering variety of Species types. It is partially due to this huge variety of Citizens they can access that gives them a rather unique playstyle in Galactic Civilizations IV. Whether they’re swallowing enemy planets peacefully with optimistic religious fervour, or forcefully with the righteous fury of their crusading legions and the crushing heel of the jackboot that follows, the Krynn are a formidable power in the galaxy.
Let’s take a quick look at their Civilization Traits and Abilities, and how these factor into the Krynn Syndicate's shadowy plans for galactic domination.
Devout is interesting because it not only allows access to a series of important and unique Techs for the Krynn, a big Influence boost for all their worlds to represent the religious outreach of their missionaries, but also unlocks a couple of very useful Planetary Improvements too, with the Krynniac Temple already constructed on Kryseth at the start of the game.
The Approval boost here, which can be increased by adjacent Entertainment districts, is crucial to keeping some of the Krynn’s more grumpy Citizens in check. This ensures the Syndicate can keep tithe levels high, and ensure a more steady income of Credits or industrial output as needs demand. This could also form the centre of a powerful Influence generator too, further empowered by that +100 Influence per turn from the Devout Ability.
Devout grants access to Divine Empaths too. This a rare and powerful Job that improves Influence generation, Approval and Research on the Divine Empath's hosting world.
The hidden hand rulership of the The Syndicate, along with their ability to mould and manipulate the faith of their people is modelled very nicely in the unique Techs they gain access to with the Devout Ability.
I won’t go into all of them but Jihad is a fun one, boosting all Beam, Kinetic and Missile Attack levels in a big way, and is followed up by Divine Fleets, which unlocks a powerful Support Module for your ships that will match that big attack bonus with increased defences too. Racing for these two Techs after Planetary Invasion turn the tables if you’re forced into an early war with an aggressive neighbour, or if you decide that your religion isn’t conquering other worlds quite fast enough.
Meanwhile The Path of Shadows grants a very large and immediate boost to Influence output, and the constructing the attached Temple of Whispers Improvement will simultaneously boost both your overall Diplomacy, and the generation of Diplomatic Capital too. This extra potential for Influence generation through adjacency bonuses works as added sugar, and this kind of sugar is pretty sweet when you understand the Krynn’s overall playstyle.
Remember, Kryseth itself will be pushing out a huge amount of Influence and tends to generate very large borders very quickly, often pushing into the territory of your neighbours and capturing their Core Worlds and Colonies even if that might not necessarily be the smartest thing to do early on. Avoiding building Influence producing Districts and Improvements can slow this process if it’s going to cause real problems, but The Path of Shadows allows the Krynn to lean into this process further, while mitigating some of the diplomatic fallout you’ll receive from doing so.
The Diplomacy bonus from the Temple of Whispers can help offset the upset that alien Civilizations feel as your swallow up their worlds through an aggressive Culture push strategy (or in the Krynn’s case, a religious push!) and will help you keep friends that you aren’t indirectly attacking sweet too. That Diplomatic Capital can be exchanged for something more immediately useful to your Civilization’s needs, and should not be overlooked!
Following this, Shadow Trade and Krynniac Conversion are expensive techs but further consolidate the power of your Civilization by dramatically increasing Trade Route revenue, and then providing a massive Tourism and Influence bonus too.
With Jihad and an aggressive fleet building policy, the Krynn Syndicate can be played in a very militaristic way if you so wish, but the Path of Shadows line of Techs allows you to really push your borders out in peaceful fashion instead. And regardless of whether you’re taking territory with Culture or through invasions, you’re well set to profit from that increased territory size with that large Tourism bonus from Krynniac Conversion.
Bureaucrats is a simple trait: it grants a large +50 Control to the Krynn at the start of the game, giving them more Executive Orders in that crucial early game exploration phase, or that can be saved to give Jobs to your many Citizens you’ll be indoctrinating into your faith.
The Krynn have some useful Civilization Traits to help them on their way to building a vast and compliant network of devout, obedient Citizens.
Now we’re touching on the essence of the Krynn’s unique gameplay: you’re going to be expanding whether you like it or not. In most games, the Krynn Syndicate’s massive Influence generation will bring you into contact, and likely conflict, with other Civilizations pretty quickly.
Passive (-1) offsets some of the Control gained through Bureaucrats, while Influential (+2) gives the Krynn even more of a natural Culture push. You can’t stop that religion spreading even if you wanted to and so you’re gonna have to lean into it, and all the benefits (and problems) that it can bring. Massive Influence is a double edged sword, as the Altarians will likely tell you, and being super attractive and trendy sounds great until your neighbours are invading you because you’re stealing all their population away from them. But a wise ruler knows a powerful weapon when they see it, and the huge territory this will bring (one way or another) allows your other Traits to shine.
Rich and Productive are pretty self-explanatory but to understand why they are so strong on the Krynn, consider that they are pushed into taking territory very quickly, either through their relentless Culture output or through taking worlds from neighbours who declared war on you, hoping to stop the culture push. This means more Citizens, and it is those Citizens that Rich and Productive both target, granting a large boost to both Credit and Manufacturing respectively.
The Krynn’s Citizens also have The Way, which represents their ardent faith and increases their individual Income contribution to the Core World they live on, and substantial Approval boost as they find peace and solace in their own strong beliefs. Again, the more Citizens you have, the better your overall Credit generation, and you can generally Tax Krynn Citizens more too.
The Krynn have access to a huge variety of Species types in the game, and to best make use of this benefit you may want to maximise Citizen Growth over Pollution generating Manufacturing Districts. If so, you may have a somewhat slower initial Manufacturing Output that your rivals, but this will quickly grow as your Core Worlds fill up with happy, productive Citizens. With the ability to pick and choose which Citizens settle which Core Worlds, you can ensure that the right Citizens with the best stats for the job go to the right places, whether that’s sending Iridium to work generating Credits on worlds with high Wealth, Altarians to entertain and lift the spirits of your flock stuck on crushingly depressing hell-holes, or suiting and booting Korath into Transports and sending them off to stomp on the Citizens of foreign worlds instead of your own.
You’ll also see Custom Civilization species and Citizens making an appearance from your AlienGPT creations, or from those downloaded from Workshop too! This gives the Krynn a very unique and interesting theme that only grows the larger your collection of Custom Civs gets!
The final piece of the puzzle is Krynn Syndicate’s preference for Individiualism, an Ideology that helps them in many different ways, as befits a Civilization of such diverse and unique talent. Independence reduces Supply Attrition from assimilated colonies, Private Property Rights allows the construction of a powerful Citizen wealth generation machine, Self Reliance powers up those many Citizens with even better statistics, Self Governance keeps them happier… I’ll not spoil all of them but suffice to say there’s something for everybody in this tree, it really is perfect for the Krynn.
Remember though, you’re not tied to Individualism, and you may find that with so many Citizens, you might have a better experience going for one of the other Ideologies instead!
That’s the beauty of Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova. You can play however you want, and while the Krynn’s propensity for constant expansion is more of a drive than a flavour, within that framework with the Cultural Progression system fully at your disposal, you’ll find so many different ways to play them, over and over again.
I hope you enjoy playing the Krynn Syndicate! Let us know your experiences and strategies with them in the comments below.
Cheers!
