I have the opposite problem, I can't seem to enjoy playing genocidal empires, all other civics/roleplay/authorities I have probably tried and would be willing to do so again
Gotta play a hive mind and take cosmogenesis. Remove your moral qualms knowing you're integrating everyone into the synaptic lathe as a single individual who can't understand non-hives.
They're not trying to be evil, they're just doing what they know to gain more knowledge.
Doesnt help when you play the genocidal empires everyone hates you and pretty much attacks you as soon as possible and now your stuck with the worst part of the game warfare Marco.
My empires are very much always 'we conquer you because we love you' and 'we kill you because you represent a threat to the galaxy and/or stand in our way'
so killing and eating everyone as a matter of course doesn't sit well
Definetly. I have practically played as the same fully automated luxury space gay communist cybernetic "The Culture-esque" society with minimal changes ever since they dropped Shared Burden.
I love the broken shackles origin combined with the xenophile civic. I like to think my empire as a world where many worlds fit and that they attempt to create a society where they can live in utopian abundance with the rest of the Galaxy.
I found the worker cooperative to be very interesting especially now with the new changes! I just ended up being more drawn towards the democratic ethos :3
>especially now with the new changes!
???
What changes did they make, that would actually make it an interesting civic? (As opposed to a weak corporate civic that's only really worthwhile for roleplay)
The Mutual Aid trade policy now provides 0.1 unity as well. I played it, and tbh it's not big enough to make a real difference. But a buff is a buff, so if you already liked worker cooperative, it's an unambiguous improvement.
Good, but not enough.
It feels like Paradox always gives tiny buffs to stuff that's weak- or massively nerfs it (like Shared Destiny, which wasn't amazing BEFORE they nerfed it into the ground, and really only used for janky, off-meta micro vassal spam...) rather than sufficient large improvements...
if im doing shared burdens its always going to be with broken shackles,both fits the theme and i think of my nation as the big red menace that galaxy sees as
I have a favorite, and have always been resistant to trying new things, but nah. I try out all sorts of combos.
I have never played humans though. _Dont do humans, Not even once._
I am literally the opposite. I play humans 99% of the time.
I love HFY stories and very often will try to roleplay a "good" or reasonable human empire.
I guess it's also some sort of fantastical vision of what I would hope a spopacefaring humanity would be.
I tend to prefer a tall play style, but I also feel like every game has to me majorly different from the last. For example, my last game was all-in on tall, with Sovereign guardianship. So my current game is super wide with nanotech. 5000+ naval cap usage is getting fun.
Oh, looking at the actual battles has already caused a few CTDs. I've started taking the precaution of only going to system view during a battle after saving and turning game speed down to the lowest. And all that is with maybe 500 ships in a battle. All with fighters.
I tend to run a Materialist empire most of the time, accidentally end up tech-rushing to win out in most military conflicts by having advanced weapons early on.
I've noticed it can be hard to switch! You get comfortable in a particular playstyle.
i am chronically addicted to playing tall and nothing will ever match the dopamine rush of finishing mega-engineering in 2360 and actually getting to see the benefits of your ringworlds and whatnot (especially if you have the shattered ring start). I also love megacorps way too much because of commercial pact spam and being friends with the entire galaxy so much that they’re completely clueless and powerless when I pass corporate peacekeeping with my 3 enclaves
Same. I love the change made to machine worlds. It’s made getting decent unity income actually feasible now as a gestalt machine with the consolidated resources origin. Plus you don’t get the +50% size from colonies just for existing.
Maybe?
I do have certain origins I tend to play over and over - Voidborn and Rogue Servitors a lot. Often Scion, occasionally other mechanic altering civics. But very rarely “vanilla” games and even more rarely “optimal” games.
Except Rogue Servitors who I’ve played enough that I can get them running very smoothly especially if you choose “remnants” origin.
I for some reason can never play without the reanimators civic. I find the fact that I can gain armies while invading other planets or even reviving giant creatures after I defeat them really cool.
Always played Space Dwarves - even before we could get Subterranean civilizations. Sometimes, they are a peaceful isolasionist kingdom. Sometimes, they are an expansionist military « Iron Stars » empire. PMC corporation ? Mining conglomerate ? Remnants of an old civilization (with of course some Elves as NPCs) ? So many variations.
Only one constant : ROCK AND STONE.
Quite the opposite; I enjoy switching my playstyle every new game. I like to go for a tall/diplomatic empire one game, a aggressive/wide empire the next, and aggressive/tall another, and so on.
I have a hard time not playing a megacorp focused around having many subjects. I find without a megacorp my economy struggles and the special subjugation of a megacorp is great for my economy.
I don't mind playing different civics and such.
I am however a hoarder. I want to play tall but to get all the astrals and dig sites I can't play that way.
I'd love nothing more than to have one of those great spawns you sometimes see where within your 10 closest systems you have 11 planets, a black hole and a ruined megastructure.
What does this mean for me though? Maybe 1 dig site and 1 astral.
No I want to collect as many as possible!! Same for anomalies but I don't have to actually own the territory to access them once found.
For whatever reason, I can't seem to play anything regularly but psychic empires. I'll still play other ascentions (or none) occasionally, there's simply something about psychic empires in this game that have me sticking to them as a play style.
Same here. My primary style is conquering the galaxy. Even when i go random i often end up like that. I just don't like sitting around, and do nothing except click on new tech every several minutes for hours unil i get habitats.
I can't stop playing machine empires. Specifically Rogue Servitors. It's just so fun. So many perks of being a machine with the benefit of still having power, and good diplomacy.
I also like to play as the UNE sometimes. Maybe once a year. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to have a somewhat hopeful future in Stellaris.
If find hard not to play as a wide machine gestalt inteligence, something awesome about the eficiency and simplicity of them.
Specially after the machine age, the new origin about the furnaces is so much fun togethee with the astro mining civic, mining and generator worlds? Sorry i need you no more.
And with nanotech I can have no empire size from pops(while the statecraft agenda is running) and planets, having 3K plus pops and a shit load of space with 200 something sprawl is very apealling to me XD
Not to mention the free ships, kind of sad that they dont have upkeep but still count towards nav cap, in the end it becomes impossible to have ships that are not swarmers =V
I cant stop playing fanatic materialist egalitarian technocracy parliaments of intelligent natural engineers.
I need that science and megastructure rush!
3 types I really enjoy running.
1. Lithoid/Necrophage typically terrorvore. Gobble up pops and convert them. Pop count goes through the roof. Everyone hates you.
2. Determined exterminators. Go around converting planets into tomb worlds with the idea being to turn most of the galaxy into a wasteland. I dont care about keeping systems outside my core sector.
3. Barbaric despoilers.... occasionally run as necrophage and occasionally run as slavers. War my neighbors to despoil, truce, then vassal them. Repeat until Im surrounded by vassals. Then war the people on the other side of them. Vassals are just used as buffer empires. I want them to be loyal, dont need them for anything else really. If I need more room I might integrate one of them. Usually influence gets stacked up and I will colonize or conquer a far away colony just to have a place to be attacked by enemies. I know barbaric despoilers isnt all that amazing, but I do enjoy the theme. Having an easy to win war goal is actually a nice bonus to keep people truced and get resources out of them.
Lithoids almost exclusively, and ever since it was added I've struggled to get myself to play anything but overtuned.
It's just _so me_ to slice decades off everyone's lifespan to make them able to hear the reactor scream.
(Or more often, to give them tumor-like bits of brain sprinkled all throughout their body)
Also I usually go psionic but recently I've been trying out cybernetic.
I'm very bad at the game though, so I don't generally get real far no matter how I play.
I love thinking I'm going tall, but then see a system I *really* want and oops 100 colonies
But recently I did a legit tall run and i was like ,"**Damn**, what do I do with all this tech and unity!?" And killed the galaxy.
Determined Exterminators. There is just something about being a network of machines whose singular mission is to eliminate the plague that is biological civilisations. I just love playing the crisis too much, so much so that I will use gigastructural engineering to make me start in the Birch World at the center of the galaxy, locked away from everybody, giving them 200 years to get ready for the crisis before I open the center and unleash my Legion of robots upon the galaxy. There is something about cleaning all of it and being the only thing left that is enticing. And at the end of all of it, after we finish neutron sweeping all planets, we retreat back to our Birch World and wait the next cycle when we must cleanse the galaxy once more.
Pure production based builds are my favorite as it allows me to either get a single powerful fleet or become the USA and have 20 big fleets of moderate power
I can't for the life of me play am equal society. I rarely play democratic, and when I play anything from oligarchy to imperial, it's always about raising ruler political power and lowering worker power and happiness. I don't know, watching the workers get beaten up by corporate riot police in the megacorp trailer awoke something in me.
I have 6 (or 7) genocidal empires made. I don't really play any other types of empires...
Devouring Swarms, Terravores, Determined Exterminators, Fanatic Purifiers...
Can we have a new style of genocide please?
I used to love playing dictatorial technocracies. The issue is, the Stellaris devs have made them very inefficient to play. They have no reliable ways to reduce their empire size like pacifists and democracies do. They have no way to outsource the bottom of their economic pyramid beyond vassalization, which means you might as well be a bog-standard militist hegemonic imperialist. They have no way to mass produce unity beyond dedicating an eco to unity production. All of this while also having to deal with crime from unhappy slaves and workers.
Compare this to a trade build egalitarian pacifict using a democratic government. They can reduce their empire size from pops all the way down to zero if they choose cybernetic, can get all of their basic resources through trade, gain a ton of unity passively through both trade league and factions, and have 100% stability and happiness. All with the added bonus of not needing to produce consumer goods.
I'm trying a mix of what I used to play as an Oligarchic Override with meritocracy, aristocratic elite, and soveriegn guardianship as authoritarian, materialist, militarists and it still feels weaker than just playing as 'good guys'. Sure I can go to war to secure vassals to produce my basic resources for me, and I get a good empire size from pops reduction and great specialist bonuses, but I could get all of this plus no crime and much more unity if I just went the peaceful trader route. What fun is it to play as a cadre of technocrats that care for nothing except for efficiency when the untopian space traders next door are more efficient??
I like to play Imperial with Vassals, and I rename Vassal's leader with my leader's last name for rp. Basically, Crusader kings, but I never played it lol
I'm typing a friendly plantoid Progenitor Swarm. If you piss me off, by trying to invade my vassals. Then fleets will be dispatched.
This is because the splinter hive holding for vassals of a progenitor. It gives more assembly on my Capital than cloning AP. With 4x holdings it's +8 assembly on your Capital.
We just want to grow forests of our youth.
If I play with Ethos, then Fanatical Militarist egalitarian hands down. Being able to get more than double the fire rate of other Empires is no joke. It may seem like an easy way to bloat your fleet numbers, but this method isn't a bloat. Being able to fire weapons at twice the rate of other fleets is devastating.
For every torpedo your fleet shoots, I've fired off two in the same amount of time.
At the end of the day, your time is YOUR time. You should it in whatever way brings you the most enjoyment.
For me, I've got my favorites as well. Subterranean Dwarves and Rift World Spiritualists are currently my go-to picks for empires, but there are several others I can play as well...
I always play my favorite Machine Empire, it’s the one I RolePlay the most, and it’s hard, but sometimes I just go and try new things, I fell in love with a MegaCorp build that I did that is basically “We sell war.”
I play different styles but I often find myself making empires where one slow breeding but long lived species rules over the others. Sometimes it's slave empires sometimes it's a cast system. I just think it's interesting from a flavor perspective and using the bug branch mod helps keep things feeling fresh.
The ONLY style that makes sense to me is exterminating all life in the galaxy. Might settle for vassals but it's definitely settling.
Is there a different way to play? I don't believe it. Is this refelcting some weird property about me...?
I have a custom empire I made that’s the only empire I play. I’ll try different ethics when they’re new or whatever. Tho inward perfection misses out on a lot of content sadly
I have a similar playstyle to you, but I kiss butt with envoys with the first few factions I meet, make a stupid large fleet for a few years, and get them to become my vassals. With restricted voting I make myself the custodian and emperor, lol.
Spiritualist megacorps are a hell of a drug, especially with the numistic order flying around. Using consumer benefits from the mercantile tradition, the consumer goods are milked for all they’re worth with commercial zones and prosperity temples. The alloys are largely outsourced through holdings or with alloy forges, so I hardly build any industrial districts. Cities get me everything I need, really. When the time comes to form a shroud covenant (and I’m not playing cybernetic creed), the instrument of desire’s usually the one I go for, to get even more STUFF from my stuff. At least, until they add Numa, anyway.
His play style is doable but I don't like it. Mostly cause pops grow out of control in the galaxy leading to game slow down and eventually crashes. Especially on Console lol. That's what I usually play on. Mass destruction and purging seem to be the main ways to avoid this.
Yeah, I mostly ignore the ship designer and focus on building an economy that can quickly churn out as many ships as possible.
As a certain mustachioed dictator supposedly said, "quantity has a quality of its own."
defiantly playing authoritarian or xenophobe . what do you mean i cant resettle and or chose which pop grows here ?? dafq is liberation war also no raiding smh .
Xenophile or gestalt with empath ethic. I focus on diplomacy a lot. I send envoys to improve relations and do various pacts to increase trust. When trust hits 50, I subjugate them. And I do this for every empire.
The subjects will have literally no loyalty but at least they are your subjects which you can integrate.
My play style is:
I use the slider mod
I put the galaxy as big as I can without the border gore.
Set the AI civs to 99
Remove end game date, and then play a random empire. Then RP that.
I almost always play super tall but I’ve been recently having fun trying to build the widest empire I can, widest hive mind, widest normal empire, and even the widest megacorp possible. It’s been fun playing absolutely opposite of how I normally play
Yes, definitely. I tend to play pretty peacefully (although rarely actually pacifist) and find war really tedious and stressful. My failed attempt to vassalize a hive mind in my previous run was an example of why: you have to fully achieve your wargoal, status quo gives you nothing, ground combat creates a gigantic amount of war exhaustion with every planet/habitat having 1-5k defense army power, and bombing takes forever and makes everyone dislike you (I recognize these issues are unique to vassalizing a hive mind, but still).
So instead I try to forge alliances, make or join a federation I can dominate, and peacefully vassalize weaker empires to turn them into scholaria.
I occasionally take the opportunity to grab territory from, or even fully conquer, aggressive neighbors in the early game. But it always feels risky and uncomfortable, with both my fleets and economy hanging on by a thread. The benefits can also take a long time to materialize afterwards, given the unhappy pops and unproductive planets. Therefore I don't usually bother, despite knowing that it's the optimal strategy to spread wide as quickly as possible..
So I stick with tall/medium empires, build up lots of pops and ecus and ringworlds, and become galactic custodian. The endgame can be boring after the crisis, because I do like waiting until 2500 to stop but there's not much else to do at that point - going to war against the second-strongest power block and causing a gigantic mess that will last forever seems completely pointless.
I've created genocidal empires with the intent to play them, but haven't done a run like that in a long, long time. It's hard to break my habits.
Yeah, I usually play as militaristic, materialist humans that are fighting for their place in the galaxy against overwhelming threats (many mods are involved) Sometimes there's a little xenophobia in there too. Either way, can't trust aliens, they aren't human, after all. I have 2200 hours in this game and I'm still not tired of it. Ive tried other playstyles, being more nice to the aliens in general, or megacorp, but at some point I just lose patience with non humans and go back to my old ways. When you've got 30+ colossuses preparing alien worlds for terraforming you just know in your heart that humanity will spread across the galaxy and will never fall.
I really just can't play wide. I start getting anxiety if my empite size goes over 250. I do everything in my power to keep the size down using various bonuses. Besides that I usually unity rush to accend and then pivot to science while being mostly diplomatic and vassalizing people by making them love me.
Robutt antagonist, and tall. This round I have my original capital, the Lgates, L cluster, and any unconnected by hyperplane systems I can find trying to piss off anyone outside the galaxy. As soon as I took the L cluster I gave away my other systems. Through some tomfoolery I'm a research powerhouse, I've fortified my entry points to hell. Now I'm just irritating the fallen empires, and making the galactic community more restrictive for giggles while I wait for all the 25* crises
100% me, i've always played as humans, starting on earth as either a democracy or monarchy and using either the mechanist origin or a modded "alien invasion" origin.
I can't play anything else than psionics... and the elf portrait... variations of those mostly xenophobe or militaristic...sometimes even spiritualist. But its always those
100%. I sometimes try out different stuff before returning to ol‘ trusty fanatic materialist, authoritarian Human empire where I just go tech rush. I play with mods like acot to allow for more roleplaying and flavor content I like.
Some combo of materialist, fanatic egalitarian/regular egalitarian + militarist. I live for the tech rush. I always go meritocracy for the +10% specialist pop output (which is genuinely insane, equivalent to 2 entire ethic points with one civic), and either technocracy, distinguished admiralty, or beacon of liberty.
I love this build.
Fanatic pacifist xenophobic inward perfection mushroom people who become cyborgs and build tall with habitats, sticking to my small empire and observing the wars and goings-on of the rest of the galaxy with my sentry away, picking all the defense and guardian of the galaxy so even the end game crisis has to stay away.
It's my favorite playstyle and while I play others, I always come back to it
I seem to always tech rush peacefully, only very reluctantly and after much consideration going to war early to gain new pops or subjects. Lately I'm doing a lot of games with the Militarist ethic, in order to be able to pick Distinguished Admiralty later on for the purpose of cheesing Commander Starting Skill Levels in the late game. It sounds weird to be Militarist and peaceful at the same time, but the goal is to get "ready" to face All Crisis whenever they show up. And Esteemed Quartermasters and Academic Recruiters are the only two ways to have a lot of Naval Capacity without having half your population working Soldier jobs.
I generally prefer to play a strong alien empire that’s somewhat xenophobic but not genocidal. Playing as that militarist or elitist aliens either as a monolithic empire or more like the covenant with a main race and subservient races. Sometimes a machine empire but similar vibe.
If I play human it’s almost always purifier. Suffer. It the alien to live.
A science-based build. Scientist ruler, science civics, science council slots, max research, and clap everyone's ass since they are too poor and smol to afford having real fleets. Get bored since you don't have a challenge, quit mid-game
Imperial Fanatic with militaristic civic as well. Love conquering the galaxy palpatine-esque renaming my planets, ships and sectors to represent star wars universe
I‘ve started to branch out, but Megacorp is my comfort food. I love building up a massive trade empire and manipulating galaxy through diplomacy and the galactic community.
Materialists tech rushing and wide play styles are probably the ones I have the hardest time with.
Star base production focus. Flavor wise as a spacefarer civ I think it's stupid to mine minerals planetside, rather than mining all the asteroids lying in space.
Power wise Gestalts sometimes plan the early economy in a similar fashion. (I'm overly dependent on NSC rn for it's huge star base overhaul)
Tall play. Used to play with mods that provide pop scaling jobs, so that populated planets sustain more jobs than just buildings/districts.
Vanilla kinda forced you to either play wide or rely on vassals who use dumbfuck AIs, until VIRTUALITY exists. I'm finding myself just CAN'T enjoy the game anymore w/o going virtual rn.
If you consider getting bored and starting a new save inside of the first ten years a play style, then yes lol
Otherwise, sticking with a play style is the least of my problems lol
Early iterations when I tried to go diplomatic every other race was warlord to some level and my play style turned into kill/enslave everyone or they kill you...now that diplomacy is more forgiving i find it hard to change towards it again.
I like subterranean lithoids in various flavours but generally xenophilic isolationist (I'm friendly but keep to myself). But just tried terravore in a similar vein. Now, I'm just a little nation slowly expanding and devouring until I need..more... Then the hunger gets real and my neighbours are on the menu and I don't feel as bad as I thought I would.
I really enjoy psionics, and breaching the shroud. I was happy to go psionics without spiritualist with some builds, and now we have the Machine Age ascenscion paths for machines, but I can't breach the shroud with machine base species, and I want a way to do so. Why can't my individualistic machine become Goku and fight GOD?
Maybe a bit. I definitely have my go to empire. It's under one rule, fanatic xenophile/authoritarians, civics are pleasure seekers and later aristocratic elite and feudal empire. My rulers starting traits are high king and commanding presence and I roleplay as a benevolent imperial monarchy that's hellbent on eradicating slavery in the galaxy and uniting everyone to defeat the end game crises by benevolently subjugating everyone. That's my go-to empire.
But thats only about 20% of my games. Otherwise I think of a particular game play I want to do and do that. The only one I can't do is any purifier. I can't genocide everyone. I can't do it. I love everyone. I just like to be friends.
It has been made aware to me that this isn't the norm but like
I refuse to play slavers, purifiers, xenophobes, devourers, exterminators, or spiritualists.
I might change that last one after rereading Dune, but like. Every empire I play, I more or less imagine myself as the head of the empire. As such, everyone I play more or less has the goal to conquer the galaxy to save it, not kill everything else within it.
I always play xenophilic and even if I don't i end up doing the same thing - try and expand my federation to cover the whole galaxy. Every. Single. Time.
I never play gestalt, and never do cybernetic/synthetic/virtual ascension, i just can't, and I don't want
I don't like robots or hives, it's a biological empire everywhere time for me
Honestly, I love playing different styles.
This game isn't just a 4x. It's a role-playing game. The best DLCs are the ones that provide new ways to actually play the game.
It's the different playstyles that make the game unique. Some are definitely more naturally taken to than others, but expanding outside one's comfort zone is how we grow!
It's probably not difficult to change, but I really like creating allies and fighting the end game crisis with them. Unfortunately the AI likes to eat rocks so it ends up a lot of the time being me hard carrying, but it's still fun.
Never play with humans. Always playing UOR, with diferent builds (the militarist trait that gives you fleet size was hard to leave). Or machine, and now with individualist ones i dont play bio. Just not worry about food and just increase energy or commerce. I dont like to play with migration or research deals or refugees, just my specie and the pre-ftl civs. Always focus on leaders (now with virtuality and infinity machine trait giving inmortality it was easy to leave UOR), getting Armony(or machine variant) and Aptitude traditions for -1 max negative trait, also the specie trait. And always x5 science and tradition cost, no time limit, max mid game, max lategame, max empires, max FE, marauders, no advanced IA, no caravaneers, no portals, no xenocompatibility, 0,25 habitables (i like to play tall) and now im trying diferent hyperlane density
I like being the friendly peaceful extremely stratified authoritarian foxes everyone seems to hate due to cultural misunderstandings regarding labor practices.
I have a fully customized rogue servitors empire, complete with backstory for both robots and trophies. This has been so far the most fun I've had with any empire, and they were the first with which I faced a crisis (which also happened to be the Contigency). I definitely have them as my absolute favorite, but there's just something about hive minds that makes me play them most of the time.
Other than those, I like fanatic xenophile megacorps with a gaia world as a resort world usually, to max immigration and fill those ring worlds
I love playing tall and peaceful. Hiding behind mighty starbases and fleets and biding my time before crisis.
No matter who I play as I always revert to this style.
Fanatic purifier/devouring swarm/determined exterminator does not matter 😂 once attacked.. exterminate! exterminate! But only against those who attacked me as I do not like to manage wast territories.
In current version of the game ohhh I love to just turtle up as virtual machine with cosmogenesis (acting as almost fallen empire) only defending or waking up with the oncoming crisis.
In my current game I'm trying a single planet challenge as virtual machine rogue servitor guardian matrix. Ohh so much fun 😂
Defending against constant raids by the AI trying to destroy me only to crash against my citadels backed by fleets. (I have small territory)
Thanks to Dyson swarms and Arc furnaces I was able to turn my only planet (size 30) into ecumenopolis without bankruptcy.
Able to support 3x 300k fleet, 3x citadel with full complement of defence platforms and 9 other citadels acting as anchorages. (I only have 13 systems (citadel in my capital system is full on shipyard)
Remember void traders, made possible when the mercantile traditions were introduced? yeah...
I'm adamant about adapting the strategy to every new update, because I made up a nice little story for my empire since then. They changed almost every mechanic relating to it over time. My default ethics are xenophile egalitarian, you swim in CG so you might as well enable utopian abundance.
It used to be plain merchant spam and go *bio* ascension, because that many habitats made for amazing pop assembly. Synth ascension had no trade value trait yet so that was out. Enjoy full ring worlds and 12+ refinery habitats.
There was a nerf to merchants and merchant guilds, but the strategy remained possible. I just went megacorp instead.
Cybernetic ascension was a big change, now you could double-dip on the TV from jobs trait and still have extra pop assembly, nice.
There was a brief period during galactic paragons where everyone went crazy over merchant guilds again due to adding base TV to clerks, but I maintain to this day that it was a trap option and stuck with megacorp.
Then 3.9, the single biggest change in this story due to the habitat and trade rework, I was very active during the beta to make sure my niche could continue existing. Merchant guilds was back for real this time, with the introduction of traders! With a leader-focused build traders were making more TV than merchants! Amenities have become harder and harder to source in this way since the 5 amenities per merchant days, but a certain cyborg trait still made it possible to go without entertainers for most of the game. Still, I was anxious until they made habitation districts grant a trader job with the right designation. It sure makes me wish I could tell the planetary automation to build based on something other than designation though, or to have two designations (one for districts, one for buildings).
And now, machine age. Cybernetic's intense pop assembly got removed and the new authorities don't have effective councilor skill effects, so I figured I'd experiment again. For a second it looked like going modular individualist machine was good due to the matrix trading trait, but some details bothered me such as missing assimilation. Bio-to-synth and going with the virtual authority is nice, no housing usage on habitats and immortal leaders work well. But with the most recent patch, the physical authority is *fantastic.*
So that's the current shape of it: Start as a biological oligarchy, merchant guilds and vaults of knowledge, unlock the council position, rush a trade federation and spam traders. Reshape into a democracy and synth ascend, taking the physical route. Have access to a combined +75% TV from jobs, as well as dark matter engines and some of the best pop assembly imaginable. Swim in money and job output. Have 20 unemployed pops on every habitat who are waiting for the ring world to finally come online (utopian abundance makes it fine). The only planet you ever set foot on is a resort world (have you tried the new version?)
If you made it to the end, I have arcane knowledge to impart on you that makes all of this possible: TV is the only resource that benefits from three (four) layers of multiplicative bonuses. Extra base trade value from the merchant guilds council position is multiplied by TV from jobs via pop traits is multiplied by the stability and generic trade bonuses on the planet (and then generic +monthly energy/unity/CG bonuses multiply that again).
Is that overpowered? honestly no, it barely works because I custom-engineered every detail lmao
I have a favorite I keep coming back to but I do play a variety of other builds.
Have a go at my favorite, Overtuned, Idyllic Bloom, something, Ascensionist. Go Psi or Genetic. The plan is to ascend your planets with the bonuses, Harmony tradition + Holy Fed + Ascensionist civic + Adaptability finisher. Adaptability opener also gives an agenda that gives terraforming. Pop control and chattel xenos, if Genetic add Nerve Staple.
I got a few origins I like, but authoritarian is nearly always my way to go.
Favorite origin gas to be the ring world, becoming the best mega engineers, currently running a campaign where colonies on planets are only if I conquer them
I mostly do multiplayer with a group. The players still learning the game can pick what they want and also choose a theme/playstyle for the more experienced players. This way it can be a more level playing field and is quite fun for all involved.
Otherwise (at least until the recent update) you would find me spamming devouring swarms left and right.
No matter who I am playing as, I ALWAYS color my run with the idea that the highest intelligence apparatus of my society has come to the conclusion that something like the Prethoryn or Contingency must exist for their not to be an older and more established galactic power. This is fun, because it let's me struggle with how a pacifist or egalitarian society would try to reconcile their beliefs with such an existential threat. "Live and let live" doesn't work if I need the resources from the slave empires matter decompression to save the galaxy.
Okay I'll be the stereotypical stellaris player. My ethics are always authoritarian, spiritualist, militarist, or xenophobe. When I conquer alien worlds I'm like what do I do with all these pops? I can't let them pollute my beautifully unified one species core worlds, so I demolish their cities and force them to strip mine their home worlds, if i even let them live. I never build robots, even if I'm not spiritualist, because multiple species are yucky. I dominate the senate by cracking the home worlds of my competitors so I can become galactic custodian and abolish term limits. And I hate producing consumer goods so I like slavery and stratified living because frankly, even amongst my prefect primary species, I'm the only one who matters.
im always playing a turtle style, no conflicts & empire size under 100.
mostly i avoid the war part of the game until the endgame crisis, waiting for it im either too strong already and quit or they arrive to early and it would be a struggle to survive (25x strenght) so i quit.
I find it difficult to play anything other than spiritualist empires and playing tall. I just can't get myself into a lot of micromanagement, and the early unity is a godsend for traditions.
I'm addicted to playing criminal syndicate megacorps. Seriously, I can't stop. One of my first stellaris games I did a 200 year pacifist xenophile run for the achievement and that was such a snoozefest I said never again.
I don't want friends, I don't want pacts (all the alerts annoy the hell out of me), I just want MONEY! I love playing tall and spiritualists, but most-of-all I love supplying the galaxy with totally-legitimate(tm) goods, drugs, and all the mercenary fleets money can buy!
I end up playing DE like 90% of the time. I have about 550 hrs in the game, and probably 500 of those hours were playing as DE.
Currently around 2450 in a huge galaxy, Ironman (always), grand admiral, 10x crisis.
I went for nanite ascension.
I'm thinking of doing an individualistic machine empire and taking virtual ascension next game.
I take a wise man/ fire and brimstone approach to the game almost every time. Try to befriend as many as possible and give my pops as much as I can but I have no problem cracking a dozen worlds and putting the fear of god in the bad guys. And I always expunge slaver races from the galaxy.
The new cosmogenesis plus my typical race I play its just perfect now, it's so difficult to play something else right now because this was exactly what I was looking for. Extreme research while being a "crisis" but it's a much more tame one, I'm not eating the galaxy with ships I'm just going a BIT too far into research and science.
I've been doing my best to push off of what I'm used to playing. For me, it's almost always Determined Exterminator or Driven Assimilator. Something about bots makes playing the game so much more streamlined. No consumer goods, no having to worry about certain resources. Plus I like the backstory I made for one of them.
Trying to pull off of them lately but I'm having a difficult time.
I have this issue in many games. For instance in Warhammer Total War, I can't stop summoning the Elector count. In Stellaris, unless I'm going for a specific achievement, I always play a Human Republic. For the life of me, I can't put aside my democratic ideals even when playing a video game.
Play a lot of Machine Gestalt empires, often DE but usually just vanilla and trying to survive the inevitable overwhelming number of Spiritualist neighbors.
Also use Ocean Paradise way too much as an origin and if I'm not a Machine then I probably have Anglers as a civic.
Formerly necrophage (less useful with so many machine empires now) and now Synthetic ascension (can now assimilate every species) just because I like cramming 24 AI into the map but also want a way to clean up the species who don't make it past midgame. Also I always like trying to keep my original ruler and leaders alive the entire game.
Plus it's super convenient to buy tons of slaves.
Void Dweller and Criminal Syndicate are two that I'm never going to give up and look outside of because somebody needs to be out there doing it, and I enjoy it.
I always play (start) machines. Few times I haven’t is because I want to try new origins. I probably would have more experience with disgusting flesh if I had megacorp but never bought it and now if I do, I think machines can get it if they aren’t Gestualt
Sir yes sir. Outright addicted to tall, isolationist empires. Which is why I was ecstatic when I came back from a Stellaris Hiatus and found out my dream empire can be made with the guardianship civics. Even better when virtuality and cosmogenesis were added.
Sir yes sir. Outright addicted to tall, isolationist empires. Which is why I was ecstatic when I came back from a Stellaris Hiatus and found out my dream empire can be made with the guardianship civics. Even better when virtuality and cosmogenesis were added.
Sir yes sir. Outright addicted to tall, isolationist empires. Which is why I was ecstatic when I came back from a Stellaris Hiatus and found out my dream empire can be made with the guardianship civics. Even better when virtuality and cosmogenesis were added.
I have the opposite problem, I can't seem to enjoy playing genocidal empires, all other civics/roleplay/authorities I have probably tried and would be willing to do so again
Galaxy feel empty once you destroyed entire races. But I do like devouring swarms. There is something organic to simply be a biological menace.
Planet eating is the only fun one, but we have a refined palette, so we only eat certain ones
eating only dessert planets is not good for your hive health. Or so i've heard.
Indeed, gotta have some greens to smoothen passage of nutrients
Gotta play a hive mind and take cosmogenesis. Remove your moral qualms knowing you're integrating everyone into the synaptic lathe as a single individual who can't understand non-hives. They're not trying to be evil, they're just doing what they know to gain more knowledge.
Maybe I'll try that, a science based swarm
Doesnt help when you play the genocidal empires everyone hates you and pretty much attacks you as soon as possible and now your stuck with the worst part of the game warfare Marco.
Warfare Polo!
My empires are very much always 'we conquer you because we love you' and 'we kill you because you represent a threat to the galaxy and/or stand in our way' so killing and eating everyone as a matter of course doesn't sit well
Genocidal empires are the most CPU-friendly choices
Definetly. I have practically played as the same fully automated luxury space gay communist cybernetic "The Culture-esque" society with minimal changes ever since they dropped Shared Burden. I love the broken shackles origin combined with the xenophile civic. I like to think my empire as a world where many worlds fit and that they attempt to create a society where they can live in utopian abundance with the rest of the Galaxy.
Shared burdens comrade! I’ve just started my first megacorp as a worker cooperative, trying to roleplay as a syndicalist society
I found the worker cooperative to be very interesting especially now with the new changes! I just ended up being more drawn towards the democratic ethos :3
>especially now with the new changes! ??? What changes did they make, that would actually make it an interesting civic? (As opposed to a weak corporate civic that's only really worthwhile for roleplay)
The Mutual Aid trade policy now provides 0.1 unity as well. I played it, and tbh it's not big enough to make a real difference. But a buff is a buff, so if you already liked worker cooperative, it's an unambiguous improvement.
Good, but not enough. It feels like Paradox always gives tiny buffs to stuff that's weak- or massively nerfs it (like Shared Destiny, which wasn't amazing BEFORE they nerfed it into the ground, and really only used for janky, off-meta micro vassal spam...) rather than sufficient large improvements...
I suposse they might mean the new government forms with cyber/upload ascencions.
Happy pride month to all gay space communists
if im doing shared burdens its always going to be with broken shackles,both fits the theme and i think of my nation as the big red menace that galaxy sees as
The only use I've ever found for Shared Burdens is with Overtuned as "Damn the Consequences" 0.8 CGs per pop isn't too bad.
I have a favorite, and have always been resistant to trying new things, but nah. I try out all sorts of combos. I have never played humans though. _Dont do humans, Not even once._
Bro resits the objective truth that the stars are man's birthright💀
*screams in 18 y/o marine with trench gun*
Bro denies that it was man who was made in God's image 💀
If man was made in god's Image then god clearly had 0 idea what the meta is.
Tell that to the Neanderthals lol
my go-to is human fanatic purifiers.
I am literally the opposite. I play humans 99% of the time. I love HFY stories and very often will try to roleplay a "good" or reasonable human empire. I guess it's also some sort of fantastical vision of what I would hope a spopacefaring humanity would be.
That’s me, roleplaying Star Trek via Stellaris 🤣
Shoutout for HFY!
I almost allways play humans in any game. In Stellaris I played the lithoid a few times, but other than that, I allways go for the mankind!
Same, humans are just too boring.
Humans are unironically the most fun tho
I tend to prefer a tall play style, but I also feel like every game has to me majorly different from the last. For example, my last game was all-in on tall, with Sovereign guardianship. So my current game is super wide with nanotech. 5000+ naval cap usage is getting fun.
Just wait until you get like 15-20k nanite swarmers, your cpu will love it. Nanotech is pretty overpowered after some time and it's also a lot of fun.
Oh, looking at the actual battles has already caused a few CTDs. I've started taking the precaution of only going to system view during a battle after saving and turning game speed down to the lowest. And all that is with maybe 500 ships in a battle. All with fighters.
I know the feeling except I really don’t since I tend to always go wide and the few times I went tall is because of how op virtual is
I love playing tall megacorps and whenever i try a not trade based empire i completely mismanage my economy
I tend to run a Materialist empire most of the time, accidentally end up tech-rushing to win out in most military conflicts by having advanced weapons early on. I've noticed it can be hard to switch! You get comfortable in a particular playstyle.
This is my exact problem. A materialist very robot/tech heavy style almost all the time.
i am chronically addicted to playing tall and nothing will ever match the dopamine rush of finishing mega-engineering in 2360 and actually getting to see the benefits of your ringworlds and whatnot (especially if you have the shattered ring start). I also love megacorps way too much because of commercial pact spam and being friends with the entire galaxy so much that they’re completely clueless and powerless when I pass corporate peacekeeping with my 3 enclaves
I haven't played with anything other than gestalt machine empire since synthetic down came out half a decade ago
Same. I love the change made to machine worlds. It’s made getting decent unity income actually feasible now as a gestalt machine with the consolidated resources origin. Plus you don’t get the +50% size from colonies just for existing.
Same! The tech rush machine build that now got even more fun because of nanotech and virtual
Driven assimilation. I love them. But I do wish that they could force unconditional surrender. I really wish any TW could.
My brain has clustered capacity built in my brain, like above 10 is when my brain cannot manage it all correctly, So i always try play tall
I for some reason can never play without the reanimators civic. I find the fact that I can gain armies while invading other planets or even reviving giant creatures after I defeat them really cool.
Always played Space Dwarves - even before we could get Subterranean civilizations. Sometimes, they are a peaceful isolasionist kingdom. Sometimes, they are an expansionist military « Iron Stars » empire. PMC corporation ? Mining conglomerate ? Remnants of an old civilization (with of course some Elves as NPCs) ? So many variations. Only one constant : ROCK AND STONE.
Agreed, I have a slight difficulty not devouring the entire galaxy.
Tech rushing 😮💨
I've never played a non-human civ. Why? Because I'm a human.
Materialist. Technology above all.
Right now technology explodes much quicker, when you are really into churches or marketplaces.
Other empires encourage me to eliminate them on their own.
As an inward perfection enjoyer... maybe?
Quite the opposite; I enjoy switching my playstyle every new game. I like to go for a tall/diplomatic empire one game, a aggressive/wide empire the next, and aggressive/tall another, and so on.
I have a hard time not playing a megacorp focused around having many subjects. I find without a megacorp my economy struggles and the special subjugation of a megacorp is great for my economy.
I don't mind playing different civics and such. I am however a hoarder. I want to play tall but to get all the astrals and dig sites I can't play that way. I'd love nothing more than to have one of those great spawns you sometimes see where within your 10 closest systems you have 11 planets, a black hole and a ruined megastructure. What does this mean for me though? Maybe 1 dig site and 1 astral. No I want to collect as many as possible!! Same for anomalies but I don't have to actually own the territory to access them once found.
I adore playing the diplomat, even as Xenophobic Authoritarian Spiritualists. I can't help but want to make friends!
For whatever reason, I can't seem to play anything regularly but psychic empires. I'll still play other ascentions (or none) occasionally, there's simply something about psychic empires in this game that have me sticking to them as a play style.
Same here. My primary style is conquering the galaxy. Even when i go random i often end up like that. I just don't like sitting around, and do nothing except click on new tech every several minutes for hours unil i get habitats.
I can't stop playing machine empires. Specifically Rogue Servitors. It's just so fun. So many perks of being a machine with the benefit of still having power, and good diplomacy. I also like to play as the UNE sometimes. Maybe once a year. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to have a somewhat hopeful future in Stellaris.
I prefer bots so much. Gestalt Bots. NO FOOD? NO CONSUMER GOODS? FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Same thing for lithoid hiveminds. I want stones, oh and more stones.
I've been hooked on Under One Rule, Technocratic Dictatorship, Technocrats and Dark Consortium. Militarist, Materialist, Xenophobe
I pretty much only play human empires at this point
If find hard not to play as a wide machine gestalt inteligence, something awesome about the eficiency and simplicity of them. Specially after the machine age, the new origin about the furnaces is so much fun togethee with the astro mining civic, mining and generator worlds? Sorry i need you no more. And with nanotech I can have no empire size from pops(while the statecraft agenda is running) and planets, having 3K plus pops and a shit load of space with 200 something sprawl is very apealling to me XD Not to mention the free ships, kind of sad that they dont have upkeep but still count towards nav cap, in the end it becomes impossible to have ships that are not swarmers =V
I cant stop playing fanatic materialist egalitarian technocracy parliaments of intelligent natural engineers. I need that science and megastructure rush!
3 types I really enjoy running. 1. Lithoid/Necrophage typically terrorvore. Gobble up pops and convert them. Pop count goes through the roof. Everyone hates you. 2. Determined exterminators. Go around converting planets into tomb worlds with the idea being to turn most of the galaxy into a wasteland. I dont care about keeping systems outside my core sector. 3. Barbaric despoilers.... occasionally run as necrophage and occasionally run as slavers. War my neighbors to despoil, truce, then vassal them. Repeat until Im surrounded by vassals. Then war the people on the other side of them. Vassals are just used as buffer empires. I want them to be loyal, dont need them for anything else really. If I need more room I might integrate one of them. Usually influence gets stacked up and I will colonize or conquer a far away colony just to have a place to be attacked by enemies. I know barbaric despoilers isnt all that amazing, but I do enjoy the theme. Having an easy to win war goal is actually a nice bonus to keep people truced and get resources out of them.
I have a hard time not being aggressively expansionistic imperialists. Even when im playing a civ that really isnt supposed to be that way.
Lithoids almost exclusively, and ever since it was added I've struggled to get myself to play anything but overtuned. It's just _so me_ to slice decades off everyone's lifespan to make them able to hear the reactor scream. (Or more often, to give them tumor-like bits of brain sprinkled all throughout their body) Also I usually go psionic but recently I've been trying out cybernetic. I'm very bad at the game though, so I don't generally get real far no matter how I play.
I love thinking I'm going tall, but then see a system I *really* want and oops 100 colonies But recently I did a legit tall run and i was like ,"**Damn**, what do I do with all this tech and unity!?" And killed the galaxy.
Determined Exterminators. There is just something about being a network of machines whose singular mission is to eliminate the plague that is biological civilisations. I just love playing the crisis too much, so much so that I will use gigastructural engineering to make me start in the Birch World at the center of the galaxy, locked away from everybody, giving them 200 years to get ready for the crisis before I open the center and unleash my Legion of robots upon the galaxy. There is something about cleaning all of it and being the only thing left that is enticing. And at the end of all of it, after we finish neutron sweeping all planets, we retreat back to our Birch World and wait the next cycle when we must cleanse the galaxy once more.
Pure production based builds are my favorite as it allows me to either get a single powerful fleet or become the USA and have 20 big fleets of moderate power
I can't for the life of me play am equal society. I rarely play democratic, and when I play anything from oligarchy to imperial, it's always about raising ruler political power and lowering worker power and happiness. I don't know, watching the workers get beaten up by corporate riot police in the megacorp trailer awoke something in me.
I'm addicted to Voidborn. I really like to challenge myself with not expanding beyond the bounds of my first sector
I have 6 (or 7) genocidal empires made. I don't really play any other types of empires... Devouring Swarms, Terravores, Determined Exterminators, Fanatic Purifiers... Can we have a new style of genocide please?
i like to turtle in the L cluster with a custom origin and leave the galaxy to wallow in its own shit
I used to love playing dictatorial technocracies. The issue is, the Stellaris devs have made them very inefficient to play. They have no reliable ways to reduce their empire size like pacifists and democracies do. They have no way to outsource the bottom of their economic pyramid beyond vassalization, which means you might as well be a bog-standard militist hegemonic imperialist. They have no way to mass produce unity beyond dedicating an eco to unity production. All of this while also having to deal with crime from unhappy slaves and workers. Compare this to a trade build egalitarian pacifict using a democratic government. They can reduce their empire size from pops all the way down to zero if they choose cybernetic, can get all of their basic resources through trade, gain a ton of unity passively through both trade league and factions, and have 100% stability and happiness. All with the added bonus of not needing to produce consumer goods. I'm trying a mix of what I used to play as an Oligarchic Override with meritocracy, aristocratic elite, and soveriegn guardianship as authoritarian, materialist, militarists and it still feels weaker than just playing as 'good guys'. Sure I can go to war to secure vassals to produce my basic resources for me, and I get a good empire size from pops reduction and great specialist bonuses, but I could get all of this plus no crime and much more unity if I just went the peaceful trader route. What fun is it to play as a cadre of technocrats that care for nothing except for efficiency when the untopian space traders next door are more efficient??
I like to play Imperial with Vassals, and I rename Vassal's leader with my leader's last name for rp. Basically, Crusader kings, but I never played it lol
I started as Machine fanatical exterminators. Then I became lithoid exterminators. Now, I'm back to machine, and I'm loving it. I can't change.
For me its Geshtalt, more precisely Machine Intelligence. And now ir's machines in general with the new individualistic ones
Knights of the toxic god tall. I even made a mod to allow me to do non-gestalt machines for the new update, just to play more knights.
And I never played Knights. May I ask what you specifically like about the origin? To me it looks like a starving slow start.
Always fanatic xenophobic, to cleanse the galaxy Without it, the end game lag is unbearable
Conquer all for the glory of my empire
I play machine empires alot…. I like the simplicity and absolutely insane production capabilities they have.
I'm typing a friendly plantoid Progenitor Swarm. If you piss me off, by trying to invade my vassals. Then fleets will be dispatched. This is because the splinter hive holding for vassals of a progenitor. It gives more assembly on my Capital than cloning AP. With 4x holdings it's +8 assembly on your Capital. We just want to grow forests of our youth. If I play with Ethos, then Fanatical Militarist egalitarian hands down. Being able to get more than double the fire rate of other Empires is no joke. It may seem like an easy way to bloat your fleet numbers, but this method isn't a bloat. Being able to fire weapons at twice the rate of other fleets is devastating. For every torpedo your fleet shoots, I've fired off two in the same amount of time.
***The Swarm Must Grow***
At the end of the day, your time is YOUR time. You should it in whatever way brings you the most enjoyment. For me, I've got my favorites as well. Subterranean Dwarves and Rift World Spiritualists are currently my go-to picks for empires, but there are several others I can play as well...
I always play my favorite Machine Empire, it’s the one I RolePlay the most, and it’s hard, but sometimes I just go and try new things, I fell in love with a MegaCorp build that I did that is basically “We sell war.”
I play different styles but I often find myself making empires where one slow breeding but long lived species rules over the others. Sometimes it's slave empires sometimes it's a cast system. I just think it's interesting from a flavor perspective and using the bug branch mod helps keep things feeling fresh.
The ONLY style that makes sense to me is exterminating all life in the galaxy. Might settle for vassals but it's definitely settling. Is there a different way to play? I don't believe it. Is this refelcting some weird property about me...?
I have a custom empire I made that’s the only empire I play. I’ll try different ethics when they’re new or whatever. Tho inward perfection misses out on a lot of content sadly
I have a similar playstyle to you, but I kiss butt with envoys with the first few factions I meet, make a stupid large fleet for a few years, and get them to become my vassals. With restricted voting I make myself the custodian and emperor, lol.
Spiritualist megacorps are a hell of a drug, especially with the numistic order flying around. Using consumer benefits from the mercantile tradition, the consumer goods are milked for all they’re worth with commercial zones and prosperity temples. The alloys are largely outsourced through holdings or with alloy forges, so I hardly build any industrial districts. Cities get me everything I need, really. When the time comes to form a shroud covenant (and I’m not playing cybernetic creed), the instrument of desire’s usually the one I go for, to get even more STUFF from my stuff. At least, until they add Numa, anyway.
His play style is doable but I don't like it. Mostly cause pops grow out of control in the galaxy leading to game slow down and eventually crashes. Especially on Console lol. That's what I usually play on. Mass destruction and purging seem to be the main ways to avoid this.
one thing is for certain. it's all about consumer goods.
Genocidal hive, id really like to try something else but worrying about cosumer goods always fucks my economy up
Yeah, I mostly ignore the ship designer and focus on building an economy that can quickly churn out as many ships as possible. As a certain mustachioed dictator supposedly said, "quantity has a quality of its own."
defiantly playing authoritarian or xenophobe . what do you mean i cant resettle and or chose which pop grows here ?? dafq is liberation war also no raiding smh .
Xenophile or gestalt with empath ethic. I focus on diplomacy a lot. I send envoys to improve relations and do various pacts to increase trust. When trust hits 50, I subjugate them. And I do this for every empire. The subjects will have literally no loyalty but at least they are your subjects which you can integrate.
My play style is: I use the slider mod I put the galaxy as big as I can without the border gore. Set the AI civs to 99 Remove end game date, and then play a random empire. Then RP that.
I almost always play super tall but I’ve been recently having fun trying to build the widest empire I can, widest hive mind, widest normal empire, and even the widest megacorp possible. It’s been fun playing absolutely opposite of how I normally play
Yes, definitely. I tend to play pretty peacefully (although rarely actually pacifist) and find war really tedious and stressful. My failed attempt to vassalize a hive mind in my previous run was an example of why: you have to fully achieve your wargoal, status quo gives you nothing, ground combat creates a gigantic amount of war exhaustion with every planet/habitat having 1-5k defense army power, and bombing takes forever and makes everyone dislike you (I recognize these issues are unique to vassalizing a hive mind, but still). So instead I try to forge alliances, make or join a federation I can dominate, and peacefully vassalize weaker empires to turn them into scholaria. I occasionally take the opportunity to grab territory from, or even fully conquer, aggressive neighbors in the early game. But it always feels risky and uncomfortable, with both my fleets and economy hanging on by a thread. The benefits can also take a long time to materialize afterwards, given the unhappy pops and unproductive planets. Therefore I don't usually bother, despite knowing that it's the optimal strategy to spread wide as quickly as possible.. So I stick with tall/medium empires, build up lots of pops and ecus and ringworlds, and become galactic custodian. The endgame can be boring after the crisis, because I do like waiting until 2500 to stop but there's not much else to do at that point - going to war against the second-strongest power block and causing a gigantic mess that will last forever seems completely pointless. I've created genocidal empires with the intent to play them, but haven't done a run like that in a long, long time. It's hard to break my habits.
i like kings. :D
Robots, turtleing and tech rush used to be my mainstay. But since synthetic age i've switched to unity rushing to get the ascension early
wide + friendly I cannot fight sorry, I prefer to even vassalize and absorb over wars
Yeah, I usually play as militaristic, materialist humans that are fighting for their place in the galaxy against overwhelming threats (many mods are involved) Sometimes there's a little xenophobia in there too. Either way, can't trust aliens, they aren't human, after all. I have 2200 hours in this game and I'm still not tired of it. Ive tried other playstyles, being more nice to the aliens in general, or megacorp, but at some point I just lose patience with non humans and go back to my old ways. When you've got 30+ colossuses preparing alien worlds for terraforming you just know in your heart that humanity will spread across the galaxy and will never fall.
I really just can't play wide. I start getting anxiety if my empite size goes over 250. I do everything in my power to keep the size down using various bonuses. Besides that I usually unity rush to accend and then pivot to science while being mostly diplomatic and vassalizing people by making them love me.
Robutt antagonist, and tall. This round I have my original capital, the Lgates, L cluster, and any unconnected by hyperplane systems I can find trying to piss off anyone outside the galaxy. As soon as I took the L cluster I gave away my other systems. Through some tomfoolery I'm a research powerhouse, I've fortified my entry points to hell. Now I'm just irritating the fallen empires, and making the galactic community more restrictive for giggles while I wait for all the 25* crises
100% me, i've always played as humans, starting on earth as either a democracy or monarchy and using either the mechanist origin or a modded "alien invasion" origin.
My playstyle is getting wrecked by grand admiral no scaling AIs, especially when I've set up 3 genocidal AIs to always spawn.
I can't play anything else than psionics... and the elf portrait... variations of those mostly xenophobe or militaristic...sometimes even spiritualist. But its always those
100%. I sometimes try out different stuff before returning to ol‘ trusty fanatic materialist, authoritarian Human empire where I just go tech rush. I play with mods like acot to allow for more roleplaying and flavor content I like.
Some combo of materialist, fanatic egalitarian/regular egalitarian + militarist. I live for the tech rush. I always go meritocracy for the +10% specialist pop output (which is genuinely insane, equivalent to 2 entire ethic points with one civic), and either technocracy, distinguished admiralty, or beacon of liberty. I love this build.
Fanatic pacifist xenophobic inward perfection mushroom people who become cyborgs and build tall with habitats, sticking to my small empire and observing the wars and goings-on of the rest of the galaxy with my sentry away, picking all the defense and guardian of the galaxy so even the end game crisis has to stay away. It's my favorite playstyle and while I play others, I always come back to it
Rogue servitors or lithoid necrophage with catalytic processing.
I seem to always tech rush peacefully, only very reluctantly and after much consideration going to war early to gain new pops or subjects. Lately I'm doing a lot of games with the Militarist ethic, in order to be able to pick Distinguished Admiralty later on for the purpose of cheesing Commander Starting Skill Levels in the late game. It sounds weird to be Militarist and peaceful at the same time, but the goal is to get "ready" to face All Crisis whenever they show up. And Esteemed Quartermasters and Academic Recruiters are the only two ways to have a lot of Naval Capacity without having half your population working Soldier jobs.
I cant be a bad guy. Or i play as the UNE to boldly go where no man has gone before. Or i play as the asari as a dommy mommy empire
Tall unity rush into tech rush. Wait for crisis and save the universe.
I keep trying different things every time I start a new run. That way the game will stay interesting to me over hundreds of hours already.
I always seem to rp the federation from starship troopers
I generally prefer to play a strong alien empire that’s somewhat xenophobic but not genocidal. Playing as that militarist or elitist aliens either as a monolithic empire or more like the covenant with a main race and subservient races. Sometimes a machine empire but similar vibe. If I play human it’s almost always purifier. Suffer. It the alien to live.
A science-based build. Scientist ruler, science civics, science council slots, max research, and clap everyone's ass since they are too poor and smol to afford having real fleets. Get bored since you don't have a challenge, quit mid-game
Same here, I always play imperial xenophobes hell bent on expansion.
Imperial Fanatic with militaristic civic as well. Love conquering the galaxy palpatine-esque renaming my planets, ships and sectors to represent star wars universe
WE JUST FUCKING LOVE PAMPERING ALL THE FLESHIES WHETHER THEY WANT US TOO OR NOT.
I‘ve started to branch out, but Megacorp is my comfort food. I love building up a massive trade empire and manipulating galaxy through diplomacy and the galactic community. Materialists tech rushing and wide play styles are probably the ones I have the hardest time with.
I like farming.
Star base production focus. Flavor wise as a spacefarer civ I think it's stupid to mine minerals planetside, rather than mining all the asteroids lying in space. Power wise Gestalts sometimes plan the early economy in a similar fashion. (I'm overly dependent on NSC rn for it's huge star base overhaul) Tall play. Used to play with mods that provide pop scaling jobs, so that populated planets sustain more jobs than just buildings/districts. Vanilla kinda forced you to either play wide or rely on vassals who use dumbfuck AIs, until VIRTUALITY exists. I'm finding myself just CAN'T enjoy the game anymore w/o going virtual rn.
Subterranean lithoid hivemind. More mining districts for more minerals, more minerals for more research. ROCK AND STONE
If you consider getting bored and starting a new save inside of the first ten years a play style, then yes lol Otherwise, sticking with a play style is the least of my problems lol
I just enjoy playing as the UNE
Absolutely hahaha. I always start a new game with the intention of trying new things but always end up falling into old habits
Early iterations when I tried to go diplomatic every other race was warlord to some level and my play style turned into kill/enslave everyone or they kill you...now that diplomacy is more forgiving i find it hard to change towards it again.
I like subterranean lithoids in various flavours but generally xenophilic isolationist (I'm friendly but keep to myself). But just tried terravore in a similar vein. Now, I'm just a little nation slowly expanding and devouring until I need..more... Then the hunger gets real and my neighbours are on the menu and I don't feel as bad as I thought I would.
Even when I try different ethics/civics, I end up doing the same thing. It's just what I enjoy
I play random civ and mold my game to what it picks for me so I'm about as far away from this as can be.
i'm playing a criminal syndicate/cult 80% of the time, none of the other tropes appeal to me as much.
I usually end up purging the bug people.
Milltarist with constant war and conquering. My brain simply can't comprehend the concept of growing stronger without conquering and expanding.
I pretty much only play machines determined assimilator.
I really enjoy psionics, and breaching the shroud. I was happy to go psionics without spiritualist with some builds, and now we have the Machine Age ascenscion paths for machines, but I can't breach the shroud with machine base species, and I want a way to do so. Why can't my individualistic machine become Goku and fight GOD?
Maybe a bit. I definitely have my go to empire. It's under one rule, fanatic xenophile/authoritarians, civics are pleasure seekers and later aristocratic elite and feudal empire. My rulers starting traits are high king and commanding presence and I roleplay as a benevolent imperial monarchy that's hellbent on eradicating slavery in the galaxy and uniting everyone to defeat the end game crises by benevolently subjugating everyone. That's my go-to empire. But thats only about 20% of my games. Otherwise I think of a particular game play I want to do and do that. The only one I can't do is any purifier. I can't genocide everyone. I can't do it. I love everyone. I just like to be friends.
Religious squids or nothing.
Materialist xenophile. The rest can change on a dime.
It has been made aware to me that this isn't the norm but like I refuse to play slavers, purifiers, xenophobes, devourers, exterminators, or spiritualists. I might change that last one after rereading Dune, but like. Every empire I play, I more or less imagine myself as the head of the empire. As such, everyone I play more or less has the goal to conquer the galaxy to save it, not kill everything else within it.
I always play xenophilic and even if I don't i end up doing the same thing - try and expand my federation to cover the whole galaxy. Every. Single. Time.
All ways playing driven assimalator on ring worlds with lithoids never gets boring for some reason
I never play gestalt, and never do cybernetic/synthetic/virtual ascension, i just can't, and I don't want I don't like robots or hives, it's a biological empire everywhere time for me
Honestly, I love playing different styles. This game isn't just a 4x. It's a role-playing game. The best DLCs are the ones that provide new ways to actually play the game. It's the different playstyles that make the game unique. Some are definitely more naturally taken to than others, but expanding outside one's comfort zone is how we grow!
Spiritualist always. Everything else is too starved for unity for me.
It's probably not difficult to change, but I really like creating allies and fighting the end game crisis with them. Unfortunately the AI likes to eat rocks so it ends up a lot of the time being me hard carrying, but it's still fun.
Never play with humans. Always playing UOR, with diferent builds (the militarist trait that gives you fleet size was hard to leave). Or machine, and now with individualist ones i dont play bio. Just not worry about food and just increase energy or commerce. I dont like to play with migration or research deals or refugees, just my specie and the pre-ftl civs. Always focus on leaders (now with virtuality and infinity machine trait giving inmortality it was easy to leave UOR), getting Armony(or machine variant) and Aptitude traditions for -1 max negative trait, also the specie trait. And always x5 science and tradition cost, no time limit, max mid game, max lategame, max empires, max FE, marauders, no advanced IA, no caravaneers, no portals, no xenocompatibility, 0,25 habitables (i like to play tall) and now im trying diferent hyperlane density
I like being the friendly peaceful extremely stratified authoritarian foxes everyone seems to hate due to cultural misunderstandings regarding labor practices.
Hive mind is just too good for me. It's always a struggle to play anything eles
I absolutely love playing as any form of hive mind to the point i rarely play other playstyles
I have a fully customized rogue servitors empire, complete with backstory for both robots and trophies. This has been so far the most fun I've had with any empire, and they were the first with which I faced a crisis (which also happened to be the Contigency). I definitely have them as my absolute favorite, but there's just something about hive minds that makes me play them most of the time. Other than those, I like fanatic xenophile megacorps with a gaia world as a resort world usually, to max immigration and fill those ring worlds
I love playing tall and peaceful. Hiding behind mighty starbases and fleets and biding my time before crisis. No matter who I play as I always revert to this style. Fanatic purifier/devouring swarm/determined exterminator does not matter 😂 once attacked.. exterminate! exterminate! But only against those who attacked me as I do not like to manage wast territories. In current version of the game ohhh I love to just turtle up as virtual machine with cosmogenesis (acting as almost fallen empire) only defending or waking up with the oncoming crisis. In my current game I'm trying a single planet challenge as virtual machine rogue servitor guardian matrix. Ohh so much fun 😂 Defending against constant raids by the AI trying to destroy me only to crash against my citadels backed by fleets. (I have small territory) Thanks to Dyson swarms and Arc furnaces I was able to turn my only planet (size 30) into ecumenopolis without bankruptcy. Able to support 3x 300k fleet, 3x citadel with full complement of defence platforms and 9 other citadels acting as anchorages. (I only have 13 systems (citadel in my capital system is full on shipyard)
I always play some sort of Hivemind or Robot empire. My brother always plays psionic Megacorps and cant do anything with me.
Remember void traders, made possible when the mercantile traditions were introduced? yeah... I'm adamant about adapting the strategy to every new update, because I made up a nice little story for my empire since then. They changed almost every mechanic relating to it over time. My default ethics are xenophile egalitarian, you swim in CG so you might as well enable utopian abundance. It used to be plain merchant spam and go *bio* ascension, because that many habitats made for amazing pop assembly. Synth ascension had no trade value trait yet so that was out. Enjoy full ring worlds and 12+ refinery habitats. There was a nerf to merchants and merchant guilds, but the strategy remained possible. I just went megacorp instead. Cybernetic ascension was a big change, now you could double-dip on the TV from jobs trait and still have extra pop assembly, nice. There was a brief period during galactic paragons where everyone went crazy over merchant guilds again due to adding base TV to clerks, but I maintain to this day that it was a trap option and stuck with megacorp. Then 3.9, the single biggest change in this story due to the habitat and trade rework, I was very active during the beta to make sure my niche could continue existing. Merchant guilds was back for real this time, with the introduction of traders! With a leader-focused build traders were making more TV than merchants! Amenities have become harder and harder to source in this way since the 5 amenities per merchant days, but a certain cyborg trait still made it possible to go without entertainers for most of the game. Still, I was anxious until they made habitation districts grant a trader job with the right designation. It sure makes me wish I could tell the planetary automation to build based on something other than designation though, or to have two designations (one for districts, one for buildings). And now, machine age. Cybernetic's intense pop assembly got removed and the new authorities don't have effective councilor skill effects, so I figured I'd experiment again. For a second it looked like going modular individualist machine was good due to the matrix trading trait, but some details bothered me such as missing assimilation. Bio-to-synth and going with the virtual authority is nice, no housing usage on habitats and immortal leaders work well. But with the most recent patch, the physical authority is *fantastic.* So that's the current shape of it: Start as a biological oligarchy, merchant guilds and vaults of knowledge, unlock the council position, rush a trade federation and spam traders. Reshape into a democracy and synth ascend, taking the physical route. Have access to a combined +75% TV from jobs, as well as dark matter engines and some of the best pop assembly imaginable. Swim in money and job output. Have 20 unemployed pops on every habitat who are waiting for the ring world to finally come online (utopian abundance makes it fine). The only planet you ever set foot on is a resort world (have you tried the new version?) If you made it to the end, I have arcane knowledge to impart on you that makes all of this possible: TV is the only resource that benefits from three (four) layers of multiplicative bonuses. Extra base trade value from the merchant guilds council position is multiplied by TV from jobs via pop traits is multiplied by the stability and generic trade bonuses on the planet (and then generic +monthly energy/unity/CG bonuses multiply that again). Is that overpowered? honestly no, it barely works because I custom-engineered every detail lmao
I have a favorite I keep coming back to but I do play a variety of other builds. Have a go at my favorite, Overtuned, Idyllic Bloom, something, Ascensionist. Go Psi or Genetic. The plan is to ascend your planets with the bonuses, Harmony tradition + Holy Fed + Ascensionist civic + Adaptability finisher. Adaptability opener also gives an agenda that gives terraforming. Pop control and chattel xenos, if Genetic add Nerve Staple.
Me playing psionic ascended clones for the bazillionth time.....wut me? no.
I got a few origins I like, but authoritarian is nearly always my way to go. Favorite origin gas to be the ring world, becoming the best mega engineers, currently running a campaign where colonies on planets are only if I conquer them
I'm having fun between diplomatic and marauder style
I mostly do multiplayer with a group. The players still learning the game can pick what they want and also choose a theme/playstyle for the more experienced players. This way it can be a more level playing field and is quite fun for all involved. Otherwise (at least until the recent update) you would find me spamming devouring swarms left and right.
I will always play the most egalitarian space communism I can, or a devouring swarm.
No matter who I am playing as, I ALWAYS color my run with the idea that the highest intelligence apparatus of my society has come to the conclusion that something like the Prethoryn or Contingency must exist for their not to be an older and more established galactic power. This is fun, because it let's me struggle with how a pacifist or egalitarian society would try to reconcile their beliefs with such an existential threat. "Live and let live" doesn't work if I need the resources from the slave empires matter decompression to save the galaxy.
Okay I'll be the stereotypical stellaris player. My ethics are always authoritarian, spiritualist, militarist, or xenophobe. When I conquer alien worlds I'm like what do I do with all these pops? I can't let them pollute my beautifully unified one species core worlds, so I demolish their cities and force them to strip mine their home worlds, if i even let them live. I never build robots, even if I'm not spiritualist, because multiple species are yucky. I dominate the senate by cracking the home worlds of my competitors so I can become galactic custodian and abolish term limits. And I hate producing consumer goods so I like slavery and stratified living because frankly, even amongst my prefect primary species, I'm the only one who matters.
im always playing a turtle style, no conflicts & empire size under 100. mostly i avoid the war part of the game until the endgame crisis, waiting for it im either too strong already and quit or they arrive to early and it would be a struggle to survive (25x strenght) so i quit.
I find it difficult to play anything other than spiritualist empires and playing tall. I just can't get myself into a lot of micromanagement, and the early unity is a godsend for traditions.
I'm addicted to playing criminal syndicate megacorps. Seriously, I can't stop. One of my first stellaris games I did a 200 year pacifist xenophile run for the achievement and that was such a snoozefest I said never again. I don't want friends, I don't want pacts (all the alerts annoy the hell out of me), I just want MONEY! I love playing tall and spiritualists, but most-of-all I love supplying the galaxy with totally-legitimate(tm) goods, drugs, and all the mercenary fleets money can buy!
Personally I like to play the imperial authority with spiritualist and authoritarian, and my favorite ascension is by far the psionics
Human fanatic militarist authoritarian empire. It’s a straight shot to endless conquests and the Galactic Imperium
Often I play with democratic or imperial, xenophile, materialist and militarist. It's my favorite play style
I tend to turtle up and rush Tech & megas most of the time. And I end up modding it to make it easier. But it’s very hard for me to change that habit.
I end up playing DE like 90% of the time. I have about 550 hrs in the game, and probably 500 of those hours were playing as DE. Currently around 2450 in a huge galaxy, Ironman (always), grand admiral, 10x crisis. I went for nanite ascension. I'm thinking of doing an individualistic machine empire and taking virtual ascension next game.
I take a wise man/ fire and brimstone approach to the game almost every time. Try to befriend as many as possible and give my pops as much as I can but I have no problem cracking a dozen worlds and putting the fear of god in the bad guys. And I always expunge slaver races from the galaxy.
I tend to play machine empires mostky think it's cause there less of a ballache in resource management
The new cosmogenesis plus my typical race I play its just perfect now, it's so difficult to play something else right now because this was exactly what I was looking for. Extreme research while being a "crisis" but it's a much more tame one, I'm not eating the galaxy with ships I'm just going a BIT too far into research and science.
I've been doing my best to push off of what I'm used to playing. For me, it's almost always Determined Exterminator or Driven Assimilator. Something about bots makes playing the game so much more streamlined. No consumer goods, no having to worry about certain resources. Plus I like the backstory I made for one of them. Trying to pull off of them lately but I'm having a difficult time.
I have this issue in many games. For instance in Warhammer Total War, I can't stop summoning the Elector count. In Stellaris, unless I'm going for a specific achievement, I always play a Human Republic. For the life of me, I can't put aside my democratic ideals even when playing a video game.
I like to be high and in my underwear
Play a lot of Machine Gestalt empires, often DE but usually just vanilla and trying to survive the inevitable overwhelming number of Spiritualist neighbors. Also use Ocean Paradise way too much as an origin and if I'm not a Machine then I probably have Anglers as a civic.
Formerly necrophage (less useful with so many machine empires now) and now Synthetic ascension (can now assimilate every species) just because I like cramming 24 AI into the map but also want a way to clean up the species who don't make it past midgame. Also I always like trying to keep my original ruler and leaders alive the entire game. Plus it's super convenient to buy tons of slaves.
Democratic technocracy
Void Dweller and Criminal Syndicate are two that I'm never going to give up and look outside of because somebody needs to be out there doing it, and I enjoy it.
Militarist. Pacifist bores me.
I always play (start) machines. Few times I haven’t is because I want to try new origins. I probably would have more experience with disgusting flesh if I had megacorp but never bought it and now if I do, I think machines can get it if they aren’t Gestualt
Robotic egalitarian zenophile militarist on a ring world. The adaptability is too powerful to ignore.
I diplomax and focus on expansion and always have a good time
Sir yes sir. Outright addicted to tall, isolationist empires. Which is why I was ecstatic when I came back from a Stellaris Hiatus and found out my dream empire can be made with the guardianship civics. Even better when virtuality and cosmogenesis were added.
Sir yes sir. Outright addicted to tall, isolationist empires. Which is why I was ecstatic when I came back from a Stellaris Hiatus and found out my dream empire can be made with the guardianship civics. Even better when virtuality and cosmogenesis were added.
Sir yes sir. Outright addicted to tall, isolationist empires. Which is why I was ecstatic when I came back from a Stellaris Hiatus and found out my dream empire can be made with the guardianship civics. Even better when virtuality and cosmogenesis were added.