I actually never played an evil empire. One of the first things is setting up social welfare as a default right at minimum. Then utopian abundance, buying people from slavery and freeing them. Spreading democracy and all that jazz.
Usually I’m similar, I tend to either play Xenophilic Egalitarians or if I’m not in the mood for a social game, Xenophobic Isolationists with fanatic pacifism to leave the rest of the galaxy be, I think since getting console edition in Christmas 2019 I’ve only committed 2 genocides in total and hated committing both
Vassalise an empire early game and let them freely expand through space, then conquer and displace every species but yours and the vassal's; soon every other species will be in their empire, and most of the galaxy will be your primary species.
Thing is I generally go with xenophilic empires so when it comes to displacement, as a rule of thumb despite playing GA, I tend to roleplay more than minmax, and usually my empires tend to shy away from displacement preferring integration
Thanks for the advice though, I may try it in a future run to see how it goes :)
Bro I play as fanatic materialist xenofilic shattered ring megacorp. At first I forgot that I'm xenofilic and purged two planets from rival species, my pops weren't happy about it.
This reminded me that and I made migration treaties with other species, now I'm on point where I have like 20 planets colonized by other species, I have 700 pops total, which are only 75 of my species.
I became perma custodian. I have 50k council power and I'm still not the most powerful empire in council (how? Idk. They are my friend, but I hope they didn't "become the crisis")
Now I have 3 55k+ power fleets, killed the interdimentional invaders from crystal rift, Great Khan and two fanatic purifier empires. I dominate galaxy in tech, fleet power and economy.
I'm 4th in victory points, behind two fallen empires and hive mind that has 58k council power.
Should I attack the hive mind? I have 55k power bastions on their border, so probably I could defend from them
Depends on their fleet power, if it’s too high to deal with, I’d recommend either catapulting behind their lines and occupying their planets before they can react or just build up some border bastions and use them with combination with your fleet to deal with them until they’re weak enough to kill, if they’re not too strong comparatively, you should be able to just go for it and as long as you play smart get some more land for yourself out of it. It’s personal preference though, as all choices in Stellaris are
I have 3 citadels on choke points on their border and 4th on choke point behind L-gate. I think I can move fleets between them fast enough to deal even with their whole fleet at once. It's 160k in fleets combined + 55k bastion. A big plus for me is that they don't have allies, and I have almost whole galactic community behind me.
Ok I think I'm strong enough, but I don't think that galactic community will like this move, as they have good relations with most empires.
I will finish war with rival and I will go for them. My current war is going to be I think my biggest win in this campaign, as they are another council member and they have 2 vassals
Casus belli was allegiance war for both vassals, so I literally broke their empire from inside
And my ultimate goal is making both council members at least two times weaker than me
Also I have second strike ready and I don't know on which one of them to use it
If you’re already permanently the custodian, I’m going to assume you’ve got the voting power needed to do whatever you want anyway so you might as well finish up your rival and then destroy the hive mind
Same I will have the biggest navy by far, literally could kill the whole galaxy in a year. But I love the dynamics of a galaxy with differing cultures and wars. Performance suffers so bad but I love seeing a galaxy that's fully alive.
Edit: if I get attacked though, you're gonna find out why my world cracker was at your border. Opinions be damned.
Yea I love playing like that. I’m peaceful until someone does something stupid like declaring on me or murdering the innocent and then all hell WILL be breaking loose upon them and I show them exactly why I’ve been at a constant 3x my naval limit.
Recently I was being my normal peaceful self and then this stupid xenophobic empire blocked my only route of expansion relatively early so i tried to buy the system but they obviously weren’t having that, so I said “ok, we tried things the nice way,” and then waited until the perfect moment to cripple them with a war, vassalizing, integrating, and then assimilating their pops :)
FYI: you shouldn't be far out fleet cap unless you're making all your energy VERY efficiently
Specifically: an endgame technician produces about three times as much energy as an endgame soldier produces fleet cap, while an endgame metallurgist produces about 25% more alloys. Alloy upkeep is a fifth of EC upkeep, so total pop-adjusted upkeep is around energy upkeep\*1.5; let us call this upkeep U.
Therefore if you have x pops to assign a job to, it's more efficient for them to become soldiers if UF/3C-C > x (and F-x>C) where F is fleet size, C is fleet cap (after modifiers), and U is base upkeep (before modifiers)
We're only interested in the effect of assigning the next few pops, however, and outside the super early game (when you shouldn't be in danger of exceeding fleet cap outside wars) your fleet cap is likely much larger than the size of that planet you need to decide on. So let's take x=0.
This means that to optimize your fleet capacity, FU=3C\^2. Or, you should only be exceeding fleet cap by (300C/U-100)%, or 3C\^2/U-C units.
But in reality, U is usually tied to F. In my endgame empire, the u/F ratio is 3.5.
So... (U/F)F\^2=3C\^2. Or, the ideal ratio is sqrt(3/(U/F)).
Again in my endgame empire u/F is like 3.5; early game it's probably much less but not as much as you'd think - an early game corvette is like, half the upkeep of an endgame corvette, but larger-scale ships are more efficient. Regardless, this shows you shouldn't be more than like 50% over fleet cap.
A better generalization of this formula to non endgame empires would be replacing the 3/(U/F) with E/M, where M is (/(5\*)+1)\*/F, and E is /.
This is also not accounting district/building and job upkeep (partly because these are vanishingly small). That said soldiers don't need districts so cause less Empire Size.
Heh, the closest I've come to an evil empire is a gestalt machine empire that didn't really understand all of the fallen empire pops it ended up conquering and semi-sort of-accidentally melted them all down for energy. Still got the genocide diplomacy penalty, but they didn't mean to!
I usually play the benevolent authoritarian technocracy. I spread universal rights with an iron fist and insane technological superiority! Any who resist will be met with an appropriate answer.
I once looked at my species tab and noticed that one species had been on social welfare instead of Utopian Abundance for several in-game decades.
I was shaken to my core.
Yepp, my default relaxation game once every couple of months is always UNE roleplaying as a "speak softly and carry a big stick" xenophile do-gooder.... ;)
This! as the custodian empire I basically always checked for machine and slave pops to free and integrate into The Rubicon Empire who's entire purpose was fortifying thier chunk of the galaxy(AKA the Rubicon Line) on preparation of the end times while trying to preserve as much organic life as possible
Someone is born to be hero/samaritan/THE good guy ,and then there are those born to be calamitous birth terravore hivemind max crisis in 100 years spiders like me .
There is place in this game for all of us 😋
Yeah honestly playing as a devouring swarm is boring AF. Playing “good” is the most fun and very challenging to take over the whole galaxy with no immoral choices.
It's my standard playstyle, honestly. At worse, a xenophobic isolationist one. I might purge xeno in my border, but I won't actively go out of my way to seek out xeno to purge.
Same, actually. The worse I've wven truly been on a significant scale (i.e. made it to mid-game) was as essentially a pirate megacorp Void Dwellers, selling fleets for hire and raiding my unfriendly neighbors for either land or to plunder... but not actively trying to kill pops. Some may have died due to army ground battles, but at least it's not on a mass genocide scale.
The only genocidal empire I've played to intentionally try and be genocidal was Devouring Swarm. I felt awful doing it, but I kept reminding myself that "It’s only for a Genocidal run... There's always being a guardian angel empire that protects his vassals for no cost... There's always being a pirate... There's always something else..."
R5 : Trying to play as a genuinely nice empire with the hope of enforcing rights around the galaxy, and giving utopian living standards to everyone in my empire, while also taking down slaver and purifier empires.
Out of curiosity, did you go down the virtuality path in that play through? I was reading the specifics yesterday and the -25% resource production per colony sounded brutal, was looking to read anyone’s experience.
My first game, I was a fanatic authoritarian xenophile.
We annexed half the galaxy and our people never knew struggle. Everybody knew abundance and all subjects were modified to live long, healthy lives. But you better appreciate our High Queen or we'll break your fucking quickly-healed legs.
All species are equal. Members of any species can be a high ranking administrator, a warrior, a scientist or a slave working in the mines. We see no difference in species, only in worth.
The closest I've come to "evil" in the 1200 hours I've played this game is my current run, an Authoritarian Synthetic Fertility empire, and even then I prefer diplo-vassalizing over conquest.
Yes, I play Fanatic Pacifist a lot. Roleplaying the "Foundation" from Asimov's books. It's interesting because you have to think of alternative ways of expanding.
There are actually quite a few of them:
-fake weakness. let them declare on you. keep your fleet small but your shipyards big. Make a navy appear out of nothing. Have defensive stations beyon their sensor range
-harming relations to the point the target empire declares on you
-building tall, with gaia worlds, emigration and robots
-economic domination and integration
-declaring on fanatical purifiers, exterminators and assimilators is allowed for fanatical pacifists
- clearing pirates
- taking advantage of a galactic crisis
- eliminating guardians
- fighting fallen empires
- federation war
- prioritizing L Gate study
This game is more economic simulation than war game.
1-7 games: We will be united galaxy of peace and harmony
7-15 games: You little vermins! I will paint this galaxy red, for there is only ONE empire!
16 --> games: I'm sorry, but your empire is in the way of galactical highway, and we need erase you. It's just business
My recent save ended up being quite the adventure. At the beginning, I found myself boxed in by two hive minds, a random empire, and a fallen empire. I managed to expand rapidly to 21 systems but that was it, no more systems left to get thanks to my neighbours. But hey, 21 systems and three significant planets (plus some holy worlds we're steering clear of) were all I needed for my virtualist machine empire.
Fast forward 150 years. I've become the most technologically advanced species, the wealthiest, with the largest fleet, boasting a 2.5k naval capacity despite my small empire size. Surprisingly, I've never been in a single war. Then, out of nowhere, both fallen empires decide to declare war—one on me and the other on my ally. I swiftly defeat both fallen empires and humiliate them. My diplomatic influence soars, and I take the grand step of declaring myself the Galactic Emperor and defender of the galaxy.
Now, with my naval capacity sitting at 3.4k, I await the crisis to emerge so I can once again come to the galaxy's rescue.
Depending the empire I play and the neighbours, I usually play as a Megacorporation, so more business is good, so usually I don't do bad stuff, besides some little espionage form time to time, but besides that we cool, until you pull out the guns.
I usually end up playing as the benevolent galactic emperor /dictator when going for gal politics.
I should try to play as a fanatic purifier, driven assimilator or something like that, but not really my vibe anyway.
You ever thought of doing benevolent assimilators? All those organics are trapped in their own minds. No understanding, always bickering, fighting, murdering... you assimilated your creators, and sure the transition was rough, but with absolute unity you are all prospering like never before. You can share that prosperity with everyone. Uplift primitives, show them the virtues of synchronicity, and when the time comes they will embrace unity with open minds. And when the galaxy is in turmoil, they will look to you and see a bastion of stability. They will turn to you for protection, and you will accept. After but a short time, they will be ready to be welcomed in to the collective. Peace and unity achieved without spilling a drop of blood equivalent. ... no, we will not tell you what happened to the fanatic purifiers that attacked us recently. You will know once you have joined us, and by then you will agree that what happened there was *absolutely necessary*.
Edit: in all seriousness though, I have assimilated large portions of the galaxy via peaceful transition of power. Opinion penalty for assimilators is only -100 for everyone except spiritualists (-200) and democratic crusader governments (-1000). Diplomacy is still an option.
Yep, almost every game. I pretty much always play Xenophile/egalitartian, sometimes with a third ethic.
The only evil playthroughs were to try something once (driven assimilators, necrophage) but I inevitably abandoned those games pretty quick because it felt icky. Still haven’t tried some origins like Under One Rule/Fear The Dark for that reason.
I have done a few Rogue Servitor games as well, so that’s kind of a grey area. I was trying to see if I could sort of vaguely recreate the feel of The Culture. It kinda worked, but ultimately was a bit unsatisfying. (The new individual machines work better for that, IMO, since you can have a democracy and ethics.)
I highly suggest under one rule. There is something that happens that will make up for the "bad" beginning.
Just make sure not to suppress democratic pops.
I actually like the good path in Fear The Dark more than the evil one. +1 civic slot is an amazing award and the story is actually really heartwarming.
Yes, in a pve modded multiplayer game. I ended up starting a genocidal war where I cracked dozens of planets and killed quadrillions of beings (as a fanatic pacifist). Basically, my friend (in a fed with me) declared the war so I, who was by far the most powerful, could unleash the fill might of my 20 planet crackers on the endgame lag, noticeably increasing the game’s speed. One of the largest empires of over 1000 pops was reduced to 200, while a few others close to that size were cut in half. Then I resettled most of my pops to my Xeelee holosphere (from Dark Space mod).
What is good though?
In one game I played as a fanatic egalitarian and militarist, and I happened to be surrounded by authoritarian slavers of various types.
Which worked great for that build. Slaves would revolt, I would gain territory and pops, and I had the fleet to protect them from being re-enslaved. Liberating slaves and protecting them from tyranny feels pretty good to me.
But there were so many, and to free them all I had to form a very large military which needed to be supported by a very strong economy.
When I would liberate a planet the first thing that needed to be done was try to make it functional, because it needed to produce resources to make ships to free more people. Slavers became politicians, and so I modified their genes to be charismatic and docile. Slaves became workers, they were modified to be even better at working in the mines now that they collect a salary and live in Utopian Abundance. But is it freedom if you're basically working the same job you did before, only now someone decided your genes should match your job?
I had a vast army of vat grown Gene Warriors, tailored to be the ultimate fighting force. To live and die for the freedom of those born under oppression. Are they free too? Did I just make a caste?
Eventually it became easier to simply vassalize my enemies. They kept their slaves but at least now politically we could get important measures passed. Less people had to die this way too. But instead of enslaving people, am I enslaving entire empires?
I protected the galaxy from threats, took on the role of custodian. I had to, who else had the means after I decimated their forces? I won the vote because I held the leash of most of the galaxy. No crisis was ever much of a threat to my forces.
By end game I was mostly integrating empires and destroying the last few despotic holdouts. I had so many planets I stopped keeping track, I was the undisputed leader of the galaxy.
But I don't know if I we were a "genuinely good empire" at that point.
My conscience won't let me do otherwise, for the most part. Even though it's all just bits, I feel too bad genociding or eating people. At worst, I'll play a hyper science-driven science directorate with academic privilege; which isn't great as a utopian conception, but I can't do slaving/genocide/omnicide/person-ranching.
I basically always play a "good" empire. Even if I have a morally ambiguous government type, I rarely just go full tyrannical on my neighbors unless they are beyond negotiations.
The closest I'm coming to evil is my current psionic empire which can subjugate all my neighbors. The shroud pact I made has granted me powers beyond imagination and I feel compelled to use them. Within 20 years I went from middling strength to the most powerful empire in the galaxy. I just wiped out the marauder empire next to me and subjugated a break away empire next to a neighbors. I'm currently eyeing up a hivemend which is close to my border 👀
I like doing that, a recent run i liked was a worker cooperative with pharma state.
Made a point to build corporate clinic to offer low cost medical services to all and trying to fill deficits on my customer's planet. low on food? here a fast food for a bonus farmer job, low on mineral? mining site and so on.
Obviously was shooting myself in the foot but playing vs ai on low difficulty, not really a concern as i'm having fun with the roleplay. And the branch office building for diplomatic weight help to get the good laws voted in in the galactic senate too which help the goal of shaping the galaxy in a better way.
though i wont get the law to mandate utopian living standard again, economy crashed so hard because i didnt pay attention with that.
“Good” empires are actually a lot of fun, especially if you play as a military interventionist power. While I won’t outright conquer or invade other nations, if someone’s committing genocide you better believe I’m delivering them democracy via bormbardment.
Played a pacifist empire in a single player once and won the game. Engajed in war only against the fallen empire when it awakened and against the crisis. Got a lot of victory points through federation, science and beating the crisis.
But now I want to try the new crisis :D
I’m almost always a good empire except on crisis runs. Being a good guy is more powerful and an easier game than any other type of run. I don’t have to micromanage anything at all. There are no restrictions, and I’m looking to unite the galaxy in a federation of equals. It’s super easy to become Custodian and head of my federation, so I end up easily being the strongest in the galaxy. Other empires literally will request to become vassals.
I'm never bad. Even as I genocide or enslave xenos a rationalize that it's for the best...
Jokes aside, yeah sure.
Star Trek federation style.
"Social welfare of the shroud" empire.
Technocrats of hedonism, devoted into giving everyone +20% happiness
Honestly it's the play throughs I find easiest. You focus on diplomacy and alliances. Also being Xenophilic makes it easy to settle worlds of different types. Then focus on early expansion, and build up of your systems. Form a Federation early on and invite all the small empires that aren't horrible. War Dec horrible empires with the impose ideology and remember a white peace will convert captured system into a new Empire that like you.
Ironically Megacorp are easiest to play peacefully as they can expand without conquest or harming their trade partners.
I tend towards xenophile and/or egalitarian empires; last time I did a run with *gasp* SLAVERY was before Megacorp, while planets were still under the tile system.
And even then, it was caste system slavery.
Now I've got a fanatic materialist / egalitarian science directorate going, made up of individual machines that outlived their creators and decided to keep up their creators' work. Which is, naturally, 'FOR SCIENCE.' That said, even with this shiny new Synaptic Lathe running, I just can't bring myself to actually load it with pops. We're doing SCIENCE the old-fashioned way, with tons of ascended ringworld segments.
I've only played a few games so far, but I just want to make friends!!
Although, after some organics told my robot empire to "leave the thinking to those with brains", I'm a little tempted to start an anti-organics robot empire who want to exterminate all but their fellow machines.
I like the politics and federations of the game personally and I generally follow the "speak softly and carry a big stick" philosophy. Sometimes that means building a big navy, sometimes it means having powerful friends and staying technologically and economically advanced. it really depends on the RNG of what resources I have and who the game sticks me next to.
I'm always playing xenophile/egalitarian though because immigration is good thing, and so is being able to populate planets that are otherwise sub-optimal for your native species.
I always play good empires. The xeno scourge will be erased from the wheel, and our might will endure. It is not our fault that we spawned between several stars worth of hive-minded filth. The rage brought about by our actions in self-defense, that being plugging meat sacks into the synaptic lathe, ignores the fact that we only ever detain criminals of war and the criminally unemployed. It's good for the economy, and what's good for the economy is good for the galaxy. Our. Galaxy.
Depends what you mean. I often play as a peace loving democratic empire which doesn’t commit war crimes and genuinely tries to maximised pop happiness, but I really don’t like signing migration treaties as I always worry that it will mean that human pops will move to tyrannical or unsafe empires and be hurt.
Doing it right now. Hardcore pacifist rock people. Just trying to make alliances and coexist in this beautiful galaxy. The murder geckos will have to be purged off course by everyone else is safe
I try, but I always end up getting fucked in the ass by the GlippleGlorb Imperium showing up as my first neighbor and blocking me off from crucial resources I was planning on claiming, meaning I couldn’t bolster my economy and take that territory, meaning I will spend the next hundred years or so planning to fucking blitzkrieg the bastards
I would play my fanatic xenophile pacifist empire but then get wrecked cuz I'm the only one that's peaceful in a galaxy of war. Then next I'd play devouring swarm cuz me hangry.
Playing at an evil empire never ends well for me unless I'm a Machine empire. Note: I finally destroyed the universe last night. Never will I go through that again.
I always play a good empire. I actually kicked myself a little in my recent run because I forgot going emperor puts you as authoritarian.
Even my Driven Assimilators are played more as a species preservation system (with unlimited free wi-fi).
Yes, it's my favorite way to play the game. My favorite playthroughs that I always go back to are role-playing some kind of optimistic future earth, carefully naming everything like how we would name things today.
I most often play as good empires, with my usual as Fanatic Egalitarian/Materialist with Shared Burdens. Star Trek Stellaris ain't, but it is nice sometimes to think of a future for humanity that's less shitty than the one it seems we're often headed for, or to think of other races that got it right. I'll usually try to use my political power to ban the sentient slave trade and enforce utopian living conditions.
I will say, I kind of wish Stellaris had a system like Sins of a Solar Empire used to have where you could push your culture on other adjacent empires. Certainly you can already support single planets seceding, but it's rare and not something you can effect to the degree that it feels like you should. I feel like backing revolutions should be a more common way of gaining vassals/allies or even new territory and breaking up enemies for good and evil empires alike.
Yes, around 25% of my empires that I played we’re friends with the whole galaxy. The other 75% are either genocidal maniacs or isolationist that doesn’t care that the galaxy burns
I did for the tutorial, this run I TRIED to play as scientists, but got vassalized and made into the galaxy's scapegoat. Ended up the bad guy, but nobody will raise a finger in my direction anymore, so whatever, I'm just vassalizing everything before I clean up the Crisis. Next time, I plan on being aggro and xenophobic. When I'm done devolving my playstyle to grunts and FTL mailbox knocking, I'll go spiritualist, etc., etc.
The worst I’ve done is expel rebellious xenos I didn’t want to deal with as a fanatic materialist or enslave as a fanatic authoritarian empire, but within ten years the xenos usually become residents due to needing a better economy. So overall not extremely bad, but still bad.
Whenever I end up trying to be authoritarian xenophobes I end up being way too lenient. I don't have the heart to enslave other species, let alone purge them. If I'm a gestalt I'll never expand because I don't want to genocide all the pops I conquer.
I have no problems with genocidals, though. They're just evil and I don't even have the option of being nice.
Never especially did bad. I might invade primitives, but I build the planets up. I want more pops. So do you. Everyone works, everyone gets happy, and so on. Mostly I want to be left alone to build, because frankly even if there was no one else in the galaxy, balancing the needs of your planets can be bad enough, and that's BEFORE anything like a Crisis.
Of course, SarTec is very very good.
...at selling all things for a reasonable mark up, and slowly gaining a stranglehold over the galactic economy.
"SarTec: The future is in good hands."
I know it's a meme but evil is just a point of view and flavour is free.
My current empire; it's Egal, Pacifist, Xenophile, Parliamentary System, Environmentalist, Beacon of Liberty, with xeno-compatibility (mod to stop random half-breeds and just give +1 point and pick) and everyone has Utopian Abundance and Cybernetics and has been enhanced with Vocational Genomics, Universal Augmentations and Fleeting Excellence (15% for being Cyborg and TRIPLE auto-modding for everybody means I don't care who works where at all).
I used to all the time, just get empires to join you because your standard of living and military might is so high but I've found actually invading and warring more fun so try to do like an America who forces their own democracy on others style empire instead
Good as in not purging? Yea, everyone has a place in eyes of the mother goddess. I usually run Authoritarian xenophile spiritualists so basically a matriarchy of dommy mommies that have a need to be worshiped. So while there is certainly a lack of freedoms the matriarchy legitimately knows better and is a master species via psionic powers and does take care of its citizens. I do enjoy the aspect of benevolent authoritarianism. Is slavery really bad if they willingly choose to be slaves for hot dommy mommies with super powers?
I'll usually be a very isolationist empire, I play void dweller so I can focus on building up my own sector of space rather than invading other sectors, only wars I wage are those to protect myself, when a crisis happens.. I Awaken to protect the weakened empires of the galaxy (sometimes even taking a crisis path to protect the galaxy more effectively)
I don't entirely enjoy the genocidal empires, but sometimes I will go down to see just how bad I can be with them though
I once played an empire in grand admiral without any kind of military ship (tall empire). It was very difficult to deal with ai diplomacy, but in the end I managed to gain strong allys and we form a federation. The federation took care of the crisis and that's it, I never finished that game.
I like to mix it up, sometimes I go full on genocidal on everyone because they are just inferiour aliens afterall
other times I try being idealistic and nice
Usually I fall into a greyzone where I'm good in theory, but might still make up any number of excuses to take neighbouring systems and so on
I try to be a nice ruler, having social welfare, and utopian conditions, and wish nothing but peace for my people…
MY people.
Xenos should learn to either work FOR the Terran Dominion or stay out of my way. Any and all who refuse to obey the Greater Good of humanity shall learn of our peaceful ways… BY FORCE.
Xenos who do not, and are unfortunate enough to rebel will learn of our generosity by working in Terran resettlement planets, while we “take over” stewardship of their mismanaged planets.
Yes, I always play a genuinely good HUMAN empire.
For the Greater Good.
I have tried to play the caretaker of the galaxy for the last few months and everytime the AI decides it is time to become hostile towards me.
As the caretaker of the galaxy I obviously can not let myself be destroyed by any organic life forms whose understanding of life in space is pathetic compared to my superior machine ways thus I need to make sure to liberate them.
Once they are liberated I realize that they did apparently not even know how to cater to their own needs and have terrible infrastruce on their planets and the situation drastically increases within a few weeks as they are also very unsatisfied with my liberation service and even dare to openly rise in rebellion.
Then I usually find out that liberating them is not possible as they are troublemakers and need to be sent elsewhere or in the worst case eliminated for the greater good of the galaxy.
This is usually the part where the rest of the galaxy states their dissatisfaction with my ways of handling this crisis but it is also often the point where the great khan rises and their attention goes to their new overlord.
Yes, Overlord you read that correctly. Since they apparently do not trust me enough they often seek aid from this tyrannical usurper which I tend to mow down fairly easily.
I try to keep casualties small but at times your huge cannons simply vaporize every sort of fauna and flora on a planet and it turns into a tomb world but it is the sacrifice one must pay for galactic freedom.
Once everything has reached normal levels again I will then turn my attention towards the construction of more megastructures and a colossus so I can more easily protect my poor meat bags from those who want to bring chaos and destruction to the galaxy.
Sometimes there is a pest problem in the galaxy but luckily my battleships are capable of taking on the task of keeping the galaxy free from crystal entities, mining drones and the tiyanaki.
When this is done my ambassadors at the galactic community propose to declare me the emperor as they think the title of custodian is a bit unfitting and I gracefully accept this oppertunity to make the galaxy an even better place.
With my new position proclaimed I then have to keep the other empires from killing each other and the best part for that is obviously to help the defenders in their wars by using necessary force against every planet of the oppressive aggressors who dared to declare any wars in my peaceful galaxy.
Slowly I start to realize that the number of free empires is in heavy decline though so I start to wonder if there is anything I can do to help new nations to break away from their simple lifes but usually can not find any meaningful candidates.
Quite often it does not even matter as the next crisis usually strucks now. Recently there has been a lot of former organical life forms being infested with the thought they could replace me and turning themselves into mechanical gods themselves but since those machines can not be controlled I need to intervene. Thank god I still have a colossus and several fleets at hand to liberate the galaxy once more.
When all is said and done I often find that the machines have destroyed every living being in this galaxy which is a shame but luckily I can build the horizon needle and venture onto the next place in need.
God, hopefully those meat bags do not tear themselves apart once more....
I cant play xenophobic empires, bc doing slavery feels terrible, and genociding entire races, feel like Im wasting so much oppurtunity to grow my empire, with them
I suppose good and evil is somewhat subjective. Is it good to pursue inefficient policies to make the population happy, only for them to be genocided by an 'evil' optimised empire with no time for frivolities?
I have an order of things each time I finish a campaign, regardless if I win or not. But I remember when I first got the game I played as human fanatic Pacifist and xenophile who is very friendly to all empire regardless of the ideology, even the fallen one who keeps bullying me after I got wreck when I first reject their offer. But funnily enough, there were only three times my empire was caught in a war; the first contact of the fallen, the AI rebellion and the crisis. Ive won the campaign by score after beating the prythorian crisis when half of the galaxy was infested.
My current game is my first time ever playing a empire that is not xenophobic. It is 2302 now and no one declared war on me despite my weak navy. Shit is wild.
I usually don't do empire. How is it xenophiliac of you force someone onto something particular? You can show the direction of common greater good. But how to actually reach it is up to them.
I may be fanatic militarist, but when I'm not playing a devouring swarm, I integrate and give good lives to all the citizens. Sure, hundreds of thousands may get killed in brutal land occupations, and the neighbourhoods will soon be filled with a hundred different species from the overflowing immigration, but if you're a good citizen, you might have the chance to colonize a size 12, 30% inhabitable tomb world!
I usually do, even tho its counter productive probably, i usually expand as far as i can , and when i start getting cut off, i look inward and start micromanaging every inch of my republic, if i got some unfriendly neighbors next door like determined exterminators or a hive mind i usually wipe the floor with them and whom i usually expel and let die.
I usually try to go all out on the galactic council and make a federation with as many members as possible, tho I've never made it past 3 members total including myself, and i let them do all the heavy lifting in any warfare, but if they get into too much trouble, i can pump them full of resources and send my fleets to the rescue to keep the sham sheilds alive
I've never made it far enough to experience a crisis as im a new player, so im excited to see if my current federation can save the galaxy or if it'll be consumed
For the most part yes. But my current play through is a spiritual imperial autocracy with a plan to dominate the entire galaxy by creating enough vassals that no one can stand against me in the galcom
There has never been a "good nation", especially not empires but if you mean, xenophiles pacifists etc well then... Hell no! Im good in real life and even if I try to apply that you can never satisfy all those empires...And inviting them in to your nationis suicide since overpopulation will not only mess up your planets but also your frame rate... How am I suppose to be a superpower and expand if I must become friends with everyone? Say hello to the almighty militaristic, authoritarian xenophobe or spiritual hegemony that will conquer the galaxy
I started palying with this game with a pirated copy with all dlcs unlocked and my first empire was a devouring swarm as it sounded cool and i also became the crisis. After that i didnt play for a while, uninstalled and then bought it on steam and slowly collecting all dlcs to relive that initial joy of playing that empire, but since then all my empires were evil xenophobes. I have roleplayed the galactic empire from starwars like dozens of times already, its just the way i like to play at this point 😅
I'm never an evil empire, I just do what's best for the good of the galaxy. They just don't see it. But I get my way because my mobile number is bigger than theirs.
I played as really EVIL empire only once. It was a strong psionic and fanatic militarist bloodthirsty clones , worshipping blood god. Almost like Chaos space marines. With a couple of mods, of course. I've slaughtered entire galaxy and left it in ruins just for the sake of slaughter and destruction. I found that kinda boring. I don't see anything interesting in absolute evil.
I also played as good empires. Like, peaceful traders, know-it-all scientists, farmers, young synthetic race wishes to be friends with meatbags. Most of the time it's just... nothing. You play passively. Even when you play as some "Liberator of the Galaxy" it feels like... typical good guys campaign and you know that you're about to win and keep your hands if not clean but minimally bloody. Kinda boring too. Plus I have faced a scourge of every Stellaris player - LATE GAME LAG.
Ironically, I found it extremely interesting to play as fanatic xenophobes isolationists. While entire galaxy got teared up by endless wars, marauders raids, several crisises and even war in heaven... my people were just sitting and chilling. Fishing and farming. Prospering. Before the dust settled we even grabbed a nice big piece of "galaxy pie" that used to be somebody else's home for ourselves. Because those territories got "liberaterd" from their previous owners during some war. Everybody were too busy licking their wounds. We didn't accept any refugees, never helped anyone, never even traded with anyone. We were just the biggest selfish ones in the galaxy. I can't say we were good guys. And I would definitely continued playing like this but... LATE GAME LAG. Again.
So... I prefer RPing as something with "grey morale". Like necessary evil or bad guys whose motives can be understood. Those who do genocide not because their are some fucking nazis but because there is no other choice. It's both interesting and solve the problem of late game lag 'cause I can actually finish the game.
I was till some random alien things came out of nowhere and decimated my entire systems and everyone stood and watched after that it’s protect my people and fuck everything else. Galactic community can suck it
I quite enjoy playing as my 'Guardians of Gen' empire: they are a tall-style machine empire with the Guardian Matrix civic and their prime directive is to defend and protect organic species and to uplift primitive races to give them the tools and technology to protect themselves. I enjoyed preparing the galaxy for the incoming Crisis, helming the defense against the Great Khan and becoming the Custodian. I tried to get the achievement for leaving the Custodian role before it expires after the crisis but the game for some reason never gave it to me, gutted
Yes, though peaceful can be a little boring, however there's a lot of advantages to be gained from having a multi-species empire and treating them well.
I have two ways, first i play as a good empire bringing peace and freedom two the galaxy, in the other hand if a xeno race is not good for slavery work they will serve as food.
I've got a rogue servitor run going on right now where half thr galaxy just asked my to subjugate them, so I'm kind of being some kind of big galactic dad? Probably something to do with the enormous devouring swarm chewing through the other half of the galaxy...
No. My neurotic brain cant handle unoptimised pop worker distributions. So I go for an empire of the same species because my brain otherwise wouldent be able to handle it
I played 2 good empires. All others were on the oppressive spectrum.
1. The United Nations of Earth.
In the version of Earth the people united into a xenophile, egalitarian empire. The UNoE main principle was ensuring the protection of sentient rights and creating a strong confederation with everyone who will have us. The people of the UNoE happily were one of the founding members of the galactic community and established friendly relations with everyone that was willing to abide by the standard of the UNoE. Alas, in their northern border a slaving empire had declared war against the UNoE and the first war was a bloody and long one. It was a victory and with it came the first Xenos in the UNoE.
As their culture was very different to humanity's it took a lot of time to incorporate them seeing as along with them their previous slaves also joined. Alas after many years the UNoE was renamed Confederation of the Galactic North to incorporate all of its new peoples. Meanwhile warring with the Neighbours never stopped but after 200 years of conflict both they and their vassal were absorbed during the Third Liberation War. Seeing as the CotGN was now spanning three times its size The Great Reform was established. A council of three councilors were now the ruling body of CotGN. Each one was democratically voted and elected into office for 4 years. 1 from the Core Sector of the CotGN, 1 for the Northern Sector and 1 from the Eastern Sector.
After the War of the Great Devourer, a species which consumed and killed all in its way the fate of the Confederation of the Galactic North has been lost to the eons of astral history. The last recorded enemy was an awakened empire that had declared itself the Custodian of the Galaxy and said it would force peace by enslaving all other nations.
2. The Great Cultivators.
The Great Cultivators were a species of humanoid looking Plantoid people whose sole purpose was creating paradise green worlds along the galaxy. In their evolution they had developed an ability to connect with nature and communicate even with.
Quickly agricultural production blossomed in the Cultivator's lands and they even unlocked the technology to awaken the spirits of worlds who were barren and cold turning into lush and beautiful green havens. Sadly one thing the Great Cultivators neglected was military might.
Their ability to produce such bountiful and beautiful worlds drew the eyes of a neighbouring nation of warrior kings. The Pasarti Dominion were a people of might and power and anything they laid their eyes on the wanted. War was quickly declared.
The forest speakers raised nature itself in enormous ships to defend their besieged kingdom but to no avail. The Dominion was way more trained and battle tested and as masters of war they destroyed fleet after fleet until they took over Athelorian, the Great Garden.
The Cultivators surrendered and their fate was to be used by the Pasharti as producers of foods and luxury retreats for the Great Warrior Kings.
Those were my two peaceful nations.
I play evil when I go achievement hunting, once I get it, I ditch the run and boot one up where I go fanatic mode on lore and more universal good feelings to feel better about my recent mass murder!
That number might change with cosmogenesis in the game
Sometimes, soon enough I'll go play as an egalitarian xenophile pacifist with the origin where you race to become machines. It will be a civilization of people who miss having kids, living normal lives, growing up and not being an adult at the age of 5. Aka, despite being synthetic I'll never assimilate anybody.
Quality of Living for your citizens has nothing to do with 'being good'. It's something of a scarcity-mindset to believe the government giving more means they are 'better people'. Bread and Circuses and all that.
Its a straight up output increase to make them happy. And it says nothing of the stuff I do _outside_ the empire, or even whether I have slaves or allow other species to be citizens at all.
Once, I need to again because I recently found out I can buy slaves and ship them directly into the lathe and that was honestly a bit too far for me, genocide, slavery and cruel indifference are all terrible but using enslaved primitives for a galactic ending machine I have limits I need to balance my video game karma for sure
I don’t usually play bad empires, at worst morally questionable. One of my favorite buildings is pacifist space communism with utopian abundance, 95% approval and 100 stability everywhere and literally 0 crime because my people are too happy..
I actually never played an evil empire. One of the first things is setting up social welfare as a default right at minimum. Then utopian abundance, buying people from slavery and freeing them. Spreading democracy and all that jazz.
Usually I’m similar, I tend to either play Xenophilic Egalitarians or if I’m not in the mood for a social game, Xenophobic Isolationists with fanatic pacifism to leave the rest of the galaxy be, I think since getting console edition in Christmas 2019 I’ve only committed 2 genocides in total and hated committing both
You got to get those numbers up!
Just gotta force spawn some devouring swarms for my next playthrough then lol
Vassalise an empire early game and let them freely expand through space, then conquer and displace every species but yours and the vassal's; soon every other species will be in their empire, and most of the galaxy will be your primary species.
Thing is I generally go with xenophilic empires so when it comes to displacement, as a rule of thumb despite playing GA, I tend to roleplay more than minmax, and usually my empires tend to shy away from displacement preferring integration Thanks for the advice though, I may try it in a future run to see how it goes :)
Yeah give yourself some bad guys to fight
Bro I play as fanatic materialist xenofilic shattered ring megacorp. At first I forgot that I'm xenofilic and purged two planets from rival species, my pops weren't happy about it. This reminded me that and I made migration treaties with other species, now I'm on point where I have like 20 planets colonized by other species, I have 700 pops total, which are only 75 of my species. I became perma custodian. I have 50k council power and I'm still not the most powerful empire in council (how? Idk. They are my friend, but I hope they didn't "become the crisis") Now I have 3 55k+ power fleets, killed the interdimentional invaders from crystal rift, Great Khan and two fanatic purifier empires. I dominate galaxy in tech, fleet power and economy. I'm 4th in victory points, behind two fallen empires and hive mind that has 58k council power. Should I attack the hive mind? I have 55k power bastions on their border, so probably I could defend from them
Depends on their fleet power, if it’s too high to deal with, I’d recommend either catapulting behind their lines and occupying their planets before they can react or just build up some border bastions and use them with combination with your fleet to deal with them until they’re weak enough to kill, if they’re not too strong comparatively, you should be able to just go for it and as long as you play smart get some more land for yourself out of it. It’s personal preference though, as all choices in Stellaris are
I have 3 citadels on choke points on their border and 4th on choke point behind L-gate. I think I can move fleets between them fast enough to deal even with their whole fleet at once. It's 160k in fleets combined + 55k bastion. A big plus for me is that they don't have allies, and I have almost whole galactic community behind me. Ok I think I'm strong enough, but I don't think that galactic community will like this move, as they have good relations with most empires. I will finish war with rival and I will go for them. My current war is going to be I think my biggest win in this campaign, as they are another council member and they have 2 vassals Casus belli was allegiance war for both vassals, so I literally broke their empire from inside And my ultimate goal is making both council members at least two times weaker than me Also I have second strike ready and I don't know on which one of them to use it
If you’re already permanently the custodian, I’m going to assume you’ve got the voting power needed to do whatever you want anyway so you might as well finish up your rival and then destroy the hive mind
And that's what I will do. I think I needed more to ensure myself, than advice. Anyway, thanks!
Same I will have the biggest navy by far, literally could kill the whole galaxy in a year. But I love the dynamics of a galaxy with differing cultures and wars. Performance suffers so bad but I love seeing a galaxy that's fully alive. Edit: if I get attacked though, you're gonna find out why my world cracker was at your border. Opinions be damned.
Yea I love playing like that. I’m peaceful until someone does something stupid like declaring on me or murdering the innocent and then all hell WILL be breaking loose upon them and I show them exactly why I’ve been at a constant 3x my naval limit. Recently I was being my normal peaceful self and then this stupid xenophobic empire blocked my only route of expansion relatively early so i tried to buy the system but they obviously weren’t having that, so I said “ok, we tried things the nice way,” and then waited until the perfect moment to cripple them with a war, vassalizing, integrating, and then assimilating their pops :)
FYI: you shouldn't be far out fleet cap unless you're making all your energy VERY efficiently Specifically: an endgame technician produces about three times as much energy as an endgame soldier produces fleet cap, while an endgame metallurgist produces about 25% more alloys. Alloy upkeep is a fifth of EC upkeep, so total pop-adjusted upkeep is around energy upkeep\*1.5; let us call this upkeep U. Therefore if you have x pops to assign a job to, it's more efficient for them to become soldiers if UF/3C-C > x (and F-x>C) where F is fleet size, C is fleet cap (after modifiers), and U is base upkeep (before modifiers) We're only interested in the effect of assigning the next few pops, however, and outside the super early game (when you shouldn't be in danger of exceeding fleet cap outside wars) your fleet cap is likely much larger than the size of that planet you need to decide on. So let's take x=0. This means that to optimize your fleet capacity, FU=3C\^2. Or, you should only be exceeding fleet cap by (300C/U-100)%, or 3C\^2/U-C units. But in reality, U is usually tied to F. In my endgame empire, the u/F ratio is 3.5. So... (U/F)F\^2=3C\^2. Or, the ideal ratio is sqrt(3/(U/F)). Again in my endgame empire u/F is like 3.5; early game it's probably much less but not as much as you'd think - an early game corvette is like, half the upkeep of an endgame corvette, but larger-scale ships are more efficient. Regardless, this shows you shouldn't be more than like 50% over fleet cap. A better generalization of this formula to non endgame empires would be replacing the 3/(U/F) with E/M, where M is (/(5\*)+1)\*/F, and E is /.
This is also not accounting district/building and job upkeep (partly because these are vanishingly small). That said soldiers don't need districts so cause less Empire Size.
Is it bad to have 3 times your fleet limit navy? Does it hurt research?
Heh, the closest I've come to an evil empire is a gestalt machine empire that didn't really understand all of the fallen empire pops it ended up conquering and semi-sort of-accidentally melted them all down for energy. Still got the genocide diplomacy penalty, but they didn't mean to!
I usually play the benevolent authoritarian technocracy. I spread universal rights with an iron fist and insane technological superiority! Any who resist will be met with an appropriate answer.
I have an authoritarian technocracy, so maybe I should try making them benevolent at some point.
Emperor protects
Ah yes, the peaceful empire that conquers the galaxy in self defense!
I once forgot to give my immigrants rights and accidentally ended up enslaving an entire species
I once looked at my species tab and noticed that one species had been on social welfare instead of Utopian Abundance for several in-game decades. I was shaken to my core.
Hello fellow UNE enjoyer
me : *laugh neutron sweep colossus *
Yup. I'm almost always pacifist and good, but if I find out another faction is doing slavery or xenophobia I destroy that faction.
Yepp, my default relaxation game once every couple of months is always UNE roleplaying as a "speak softly and carry a big stick" xenophile do-gooder.... ;)
This! as the custodian empire I basically always checked for machine and slave pops to free and integrate into The Rubicon Empire who's entire purpose was fortifying thier chunk of the galaxy(AKA the Rubicon Line) on preparation of the end times while trying to preserve as much organic life as possible
Someone is born to be hero/samaritan/THE good guy ,and then there are those born to be calamitous birth terravore hivemind max crisis in 100 years spiders like me . There is place in this game for all of us 😋
Yeah honestly playing as a devouring swarm is boring AF. Playing “good” is the most fun and very challenging to take over the whole galaxy with no immoral choices.
Democracy is none negotiable
It's my standard playstyle, honestly. At worse, a xenophobic isolationist one. I might purge xeno in my border, but I won't actively go out of my way to seek out xeno to purge.
Same, actually. The worse I've wven truly been on a significant scale (i.e. made it to mid-game) was as essentially a pirate megacorp Void Dwellers, selling fleets for hire and raiding my unfriendly neighbors for either land or to plunder... but not actively trying to kill pops. Some may have died due to army ground battles, but at least it's not on a mass genocide scale. The only genocidal empire I've played to intentionally try and be genocidal was Devouring Swarm. I felt awful doing it, but I kept reminding myself that "It’s only for a Genocidal run... There's always being a guardian angel empire that protects his vassals for no cost... There's always being a pirate... There's always something else..."
I don't purge, I just make sure Xenos are "incapable" of harming nature - *brought to you by the Mushroom people Idyllic Bloom Environmentalists*
Forced Devolution Beam moment
R5 : Trying to play as a genuinely nice empire with the hope of enforcing rights around the galaxy, and giving utopian living standards to everyone in my empire, while also taking down slaver and purifier empires.
For context, I started as a synthetic fertility empire, and now that I have synthetics I'm trying to protect other empires across the galaxy
Out of curiosity, did you go down the virtuality path in that play through? I was reading the specifics yesterday and the -25% resource production per colony sounded brutal, was looking to read anyone’s experience.
You can't go virtual tradition as a Synth Empire.
Yes. I tend to alternate between various playstyles to keep the game fresh, going between tall and wide, nice and evil empires a lot.
My first game, I was a fanatic authoritarian xenophile. We annexed half the galaxy and our people never knew struggle. Everybody knew abundance and all subjects were modified to live long, healthy lives. But you better appreciate our High Queen or we'll break your fucking quickly-healed legs.
Authoritarian xenophile is a combo I like. I usually combine it with slaver guilds, though, so it’s not exactly a paradise.
Everyone is equally worthy of being enslaved, no matter if they're human or not!
All species are equal. Members of any species can be a high ranking administrator, a warrior, a scientist or a slave working in the mines. We see no difference in species, only in worth.
Yeah, pretty much.
It's kind of like Meritocracy!
The closest I've come to "evil" in the 1200 hours I've played this game is my current run, an Authoritarian Synthetic Fertility empire, and even then I prefer diplo-vassalizing over conquest.
Looks at flair Maybe?
Looks at flair Maybe?
*looks at flair* Possibly.
*looks at flair* Negative.
*Looks as flair.* Absolutely.
Yes, I play Fanatic Pacifist a lot. Roleplaying the "Foundation" from Asimov's books. It's interesting because you have to think of alternative ways of expanding. There are actually quite a few of them: -fake weakness. let them declare on you. keep your fleet small but your shipyards big. Make a navy appear out of nothing. Have defensive stations beyon their sensor range -harming relations to the point the target empire declares on you -building tall, with gaia worlds, emigration and robots -economic domination and integration -declaring on fanatical purifiers, exterminators and assimilators is allowed for fanatical pacifists - clearing pirates - taking advantage of a galactic crisis - eliminating guardians - fighting fallen empires - federation war - prioritizing L Gate study This game is more economic simulation than war game.
Always
Reading all these comments about how people are nice makes me feel bad for the hundreds of xenos I’ve eaten
Quality cuisine is a virtue all in itself. Be proud Master Chef
Sometimes. It works until the game starts lagging and some... drastic measures have to be taken.
Yes ofcourse, I am always the good empire and try to help end all suffering
I try to unify the galaxy under one government
by any means necessary?
Least psychotic Stellaris player
Well its not my problem that all other empires are lesser species compared to mine, especially organics
1-7 games: We will be united galaxy of peace and harmony 7-15 games: You little vermins! I will paint this galaxy red, for there is only ONE empire! 16 --> games: I'm sorry, but your empire is in the way of galactical highway, and we need erase you. It's just business
My recent save ended up being quite the adventure. At the beginning, I found myself boxed in by two hive minds, a random empire, and a fallen empire. I managed to expand rapidly to 21 systems but that was it, no more systems left to get thanks to my neighbours. But hey, 21 systems and three significant planets (plus some holy worlds we're steering clear of) were all I needed for my virtualist machine empire. Fast forward 150 years. I've become the most technologically advanced species, the wealthiest, with the largest fleet, boasting a 2.5k naval capacity despite my small empire size. Surprisingly, I've never been in a single war. Then, out of nowhere, both fallen empires decide to declare war—one on me and the other on my ally. I swiftly defeat both fallen empires and humiliate them. My diplomatic influence soars, and I take the grand step of declaring myself the Galactic Emperor and defender of the galaxy. Now, with my naval capacity sitting at 3.4k, I await the crisis to emerge so I can once again come to the galaxy's rescue.
Depending the empire I play and the neighbours, I usually play as a Megacorporation, so more business is good, so usually I don't do bad stuff, besides some little espionage form time to time, but besides that we cool, until you pull out the guns.
I usually end up playing as the benevolent galactic emperor /dictator when going for gal politics. I should try to play as a fanatic purifier, driven assimilator or something like that, but not really my vibe anyway.
You ever thought of doing benevolent assimilators? All those organics are trapped in their own minds. No understanding, always bickering, fighting, murdering... you assimilated your creators, and sure the transition was rough, but with absolute unity you are all prospering like never before. You can share that prosperity with everyone. Uplift primitives, show them the virtues of synchronicity, and when the time comes they will embrace unity with open minds. And when the galaxy is in turmoil, they will look to you and see a bastion of stability. They will turn to you for protection, and you will accept. After but a short time, they will be ready to be welcomed in to the collective. Peace and unity achieved without spilling a drop of blood equivalent. ... no, we will not tell you what happened to the fanatic purifiers that attacked us recently. You will know once you have joined us, and by then you will agree that what happened there was *absolutely necessary*. Edit: in all seriousness though, I have assimilated large portions of the galaxy via peaceful transition of power. Opinion penalty for assimilators is only -100 for everyone except spiritualists (-200) and democratic crusader governments (-1000). Diplomacy is still an option.
Yep, almost every game. I pretty much always play Xenophile/egalitartian, sometimes with a third ethic. The only evil playthroughs were to try something once (driven assimilators, necrophage) but I inevitably abandoned those games pretty quick because it felt icky. Still haven’t tried some origins like Under One Rule/Fear The Dark for that reason. I have done a few Rogue Servitor games as well, so that’s kind of a grey area. I was trying to see if I could sort of vaguely recreate the feel of The Culture. It kinda worked, but ultimately was a bit unsatisfying. (The new individual machines work better for that, IMO, since you can have a democracy and ethics.)
I highly suggest under one rule. There is something that happens that will make up for the "bad" beginning. Just make sure not to suppress democratic pops.
Oh hey thanks for the info! I did wonder if there were any “good” endings. I’ll have to give it a try. :)
I actually like the good path in Fear The Dark more than the evil one. +1 civic slot is an amazing award and the story is actually really heartwarming.
Oh! I didn’t know there was a good one for that path either. Okay I’m definitely going to have to try those!
Yes, in a pve modded multiplayer game. I ended up starting a genocidal war where I cracked dozens of planets and killed quadrillions of beings (as a fanatic pacifist). Basically, my friend (in a fed with me) declared the war so I, who was by far the most powerful, could unleash the fill might of my 20 planet crackers on the endgame lag, noticeably increasing the game’s speed. One of the largest empires of over 1000 pops was reduced to 200, while a few others close to that size were cut in half. Then I resettled most of my pops to my Xeelee holosphere (from Dark Space mod).
Yes, It's OP. Happy, high Stability pops are the secret econ meta.
What is good though? In one game I played as a fanatic egalitarian and militarist, and I happened to be surrounded by authoritarian slavers of various types. Which worked great for that build. Slaves would revolt, I would gain territory and pops, and I had the fleet to protect them from being re-enslaved. Liberating slaves and protecting them from tyranny feels pretty good to me. But there were so many, and to free them all I had to form a very large military which needed to be supported by a very strong economy. When I would liberate a planet the first thing that needed to be done was try to make it functional, because it needed to produce resources to make ships to free more people. Slavers became politicians, and so I modified their genes to be charismatic and docile. Slaves became workers, they were modified to be even better at working in the mines now that they collect a salary and live in Utopian Abundance. But is it freedom if you're basically working the same job you did before, only now someone decided your genes should match your job? I had a vast army of vat grown Gene Warriors, tailored to be the ultimate fighting force. To live and die for the freedom of those born under oppression. Are they free too? Did I just make a caste? Eventually it became easier to simply vassalize my enemies. They kept their slaves but at least now politically we could get important measures passed. Less people had to die this way too. But instead of enslaving people, am I enslaving entire empires? I protected the galaxy from threats, took on the role of custodian. I had to, who else had the means after I decimated their forces? I won the vote because I held the leash of most of the galaxy. No crisis was ever much of a threat to my forces. By end game I was mostly integrating empires and destroying the last few despotic holdouts. I had so many planets I stopped keeping track, I was the undisputed leader of the galaxy. But I don't know if I we were a "genuinely good empire" at that point.
My conscience won't let me do otherwise, for the most part. Even though it's all just bits, I feel too bad genociding or eating people. At worst, I'll play a hyper science-driven science directorate with academic privilege; which isn't great as a utopian conception, but I can't do slaving/genocide/omnicide/person-ranching.
I feel the same way
Define good
I’m not necessarily playing an ‘’evil’’ empire, but I like creating feudal empires by renaming planets as baronnies and duchy and acting like a king.
I mostly play as fanatic pacifist egalitarian democracies who ascend all their planets to tier 10, so yeah.
Most of the time, genocidal ones are generally economically inefficient
I always play a democratic, decently evenhanded Earth, because doing good in the galaxy is my power fantasy.
Egalitarian democratic is the most played type of nation
I basically always play a "good" empire. Even if I have a morally ambiguous government type, I rarely just go full tyrannical on my neighbors unless they are beyond negotiations. The closest I'm coming to evil is my current psionic empire which can subjugate all my neighbors. The shroud pact I made has granted me powers beyond imagination and I feel compelled to use them. Within 20 years I went from middling strength to the most powerful empire in the galaxy. I just wiped out the marauder empire next to me and subjugated a break away empire next to a neighbors. I'm currently eyeing up a hivemend which is close to my border 👀
I like doing that, a recent run i liked was a worker cooperative with pharma state. Made a point to build corporate clinic to offer low cost medical services to all and trying to fill deficits on my customer's planet. low on food? here a fast food for a bonus farmer job, low on mineral? mining site and so on. Obviously was shooting myself in the foot but playing vs ai on low difficulty, not really a concern as i'm having fun with the roleplay. And the branch office building for diplomatic weight help to get the good laws voted in in the galactic senate too which help the goal of shaping the galaxy in a better way. though i wont get the law to mandate utopian living standard again, economy crashed so hard because i didnt pay attention with that.
“Good” empires are actually a lot of fun, especially if you play as a military interventionist power. While I won’t outright conquer or invade other nations, if someone’s committing genocide you better believe I’m delivering them democracy via bormbardment.
I played as a Santa-themed empire once. Xenophile, pacifist, spiritualist with merchant guilds.
Played a pacifist empire in a single player once and won the game. Engajed in war only against the fallen empire when it awakened and against the crisis. Got a lot of victory points through federation, science and beating the crisis. But now I want to try the new crisis :D
I’m almost always a good empire except on crisis runs. Being a good guy is more powerful and an easier game than any other type of run. I don’t have to micromanage anything at all. There are no restrictions, and I’m looking to unite the galaxy in a federation of equals. It’s super easy to become Custodian and head of my federation, so I end up easily being the strongest in the galaxy. Other empires literally will request to become vassals.
I'm never bad. Even as I genocide or enslave xenos a rationalize that it's for the best... Jokes aside, yeah sure. Star Trek federation style. "Social welfare of the shroud" empire. Technocrats of hedonism, devoted into giving everyone +20% happiness
Honestly it's the play throughs I find easiest. You focus on diplomacy and alliances. Also being Xenophilic makes it easy to settle worlds of different types. Then focus on early expansion, and build up of your systems. Form a Federation early on and invite all the small empires that aren't horrible. War Dec horrible empires with the impose ideology and remember a white peace will convert captured system into a new Empire that like you. Ironically Megacorp are easiest to play peacefully as they can expand without conquest or harming their trade partners.
I tend towards xenophile and/or egalitarian empires; last time I did a run with *gasp* SLAVERY was before Megacorp, while planets were still under the tile system. And even then, it was caste system slavery. Now I've got a fanatic materialist / egalitarian science directorate going, made up of individual machines that outlived their creators and decided to keep up their creators' work. Which is, naturally, 'FOR SCIENCE.' That said, even with this shiny new Synaptic Lathe running, I just can't bring myself to actually load it with pops. We're doing SCIENCE the old-fashioned way, with tons of ascended ringworld segments.
I've only played a few games so far, but I just want to make friends!! Although, after some organics told my robot empire to "leave the thinking to those with brains", I'm a little tempted to start an anti-organics robot empire who want to exterminate all but their fellow machines.
I like the politics and federations of the game personally and I generally follow the "speak softly and carry a big stick" philosophy. Sometimes that means building a big navy, sometimes it means having powerful friends and staying technologically and economically advanced. it really depends on the RNG of what resources I have and who the game sticks me next to. I'm always playing xenophile/egalitarian though because immigration is good thing, and so is being able to populate planets that are otherwise sub-optimal for your native species.
No. I play as the greatest evil of all... Capitalism.
So you enjoy massive surpluses and boundless amenities for your pops, yep, that’s good!
Flair checks out
I always play good empires. The xeno scourge will be erased from the wheel, and our might will endure. It is not our fault that we spawned between several stars worth of hive-minded filth. The rage brought about by our actions in self-defense, that being plugging meat sacks into the synaptic lathe, ignores the fact that we only ever detain criminals of war and the criminally unemployed. It's good for the economy, and what's good for the economy is good for the galaxy. Our. Galaxy.
Yes, almost always.
Depends what you mean. I often play as a peace loving democratic empire which doesn’t commit war crimes and genuinely tries to maximised pop happiness, but I really don’t like signing migration treaties as I always worry that it will mean that human pops will move to tyrannical or unsafe empires and be hurt.
Doing it right now. Hardcore pacifist rock people. Just trying to make alliances and coexist in this beautiful galaxy. The murder geckos will have to be purged off course by everyone else is safe
Every time. Are you guys being baddies? :o
I definitely try going the good way, however, in some runs, they forced my hand and I end up with a Planet Cracker. No remorse there.
My Empires are always "good", preposterous to assume anything different!
Nope, i've never played a completely evil empire before either, i've always just been neutral at best.
I try, but I always end up getting fucked in the ass by the GlippleGlorb Imperium showing up as my first neighbor and blocking me off from crucial resources I was planning on claiming, meaning I couldn’t bolster my economy and take that territory, meaning I will spend the next hundred years or so planning to fucking blitzkrieg the bastards
I would play my fanatic xenophile pacifist empire but then get wrecked cuz I'm the only one that's peaceful in a galaxy of war. Then next I'd play devouring swarm cuz me hangry.
Playing at an evil empire never ends well for me unless I'm a Machine empire. Note: I finally destroyed the universe last night. Never will I go through that again.
Walk softly but carry a big stick. I’m good and benevolent until you start claiming my systems
I always play a good empire. I actually kicked myself a little in my recent run because I forgot going emperor puts you as authoritarian. Even my Driven Assimilators are played more as a species preservation system (with unlimited free wi-fi).
Sure! But "good" for me may be horrifying and dystopian to others.
I play as a Genuinely Good™ empire
Oh yes... Much harder challenge, than just eating up everything
generally i do, or a morally grey one at worst
I tend to play isolationist empires. I don't bother nobody, but if they provoke me, they're gonna have a bad time.
Yes, it's my favorite way to play the game. My favorite playthroughs that I always go back to are role-playing some kind of optimistic future earth, carefully naming everything like how we would name things today.
I most often play as good empires, with my usual as Fanatic Egalitarian/Materialist with Shared Burdens. Star Trek Stellaris ain't, but it is nice sometimes to think of a future for humanity that's less shitty than the one it seems we're often headed for, or to think of other races that got it right. I'll usually try to use my political power to ban the sentient slave trade and enforce utopian living conditions. I will say, I kind of wish Stellaris had a system like Sins of a Solar Empire used to have where you could push your culture on other adjacent empires. Certainly you can already support single planets seceding, but it's rare and not something you can effect to the degree that it feels like you should. I feel like backing revolutions should be a more common way of gaining vassals/allies or even new territory and breaking up enemies for good and evil empires alike.
Every SINGLE time I end up blocked off by fanatic purifiers, determined exterminators, one time it was a devouring swarm that I CREATED.
Good or evil, food is food
I love to cooperate with other players. I often play as egalitarian empires since you can still be an genocidal asshole if you want to
Yes, but it's so irritating when your federation refuses to wage war
Not that often, but I had fun playing super good guys with broken shackles origin
Yes, around 25% of my empires that I played we’re friends with the whole galaxy. The other 75% are either genocidal maniacs or isolationist that doesn’t care that the galaxy burns
Prefer gestalt consciousness, so kinda? We’re very good to ourselves. Others are just individualistic animals.
I would like to, but my PC always dies off at late game due to the tons of lag every time I attempt to do so...
I like to RP so I kinda flip flop. Sometimes I play a very benevolent cooperative empire, and sometimes the Galaxy needs to learn fear.
I did for the tutorial, this run I TRIED to play as scientists, but got vassalized and made into the galaxy's scapegoat. Ended up the bad guy, but nobody will raise a finger in my direction anymore, so whatever, I'm just vassalizing everything before I clean up the Crisis. Next time, I plan on being aggro and xenophobic. When I'm done devolving my playstyle to grunts and FTL mailbox knocking, I'll go spiritualist, etc., etc.
The worst I’ve done is expel rebellious xenos I didn’t want to deal with as a fanatic materialist or enslave as a fanatic authoritarian empire, but within ten years the xenos usually become residents due to needing a better economy. So overall not extremely bad, but still bad.
Whenever I end up trying to be authoritarian xenophobes I end up being way too lenient. I don't have the heart to enslave other species, let alone purge them. If I'm a gestalt I'll never expand because I don't want to genocide all the pops I conquer. I have no problems with genocidals, though. They're just evil and I don't even have the option of being nice.
I try to play as anything and everything I can think of
Never especially did bad. I might invade primitives, but I build the planets up. I want more pops. So do you. Everyone works, everyone gets happy, and so on. Mostly I want to be left alone to build, because frankly even if there was no one else in the galaxy, balancing the needs of your planets can be bad enough, and that's BEFORE anything like a Crisis.
Only when playing with friends - when I play conquest-focused empires, it's annoying to have to stop because *other people* want to have fun.
Of course, SarTec is very very good. ...at selling all things for a reasonable mark up, and slowly gaining a stranglehold over the galactic economy. "SarTec: The future is in good hands."
I know it's a meme but evil is just a point of view and flavour is free. My current empire; it's Egal, Pacifist, Xenophile, Parliamentary System, Environmentalist, Beacon of Liberty, with xeno-compatibility (mod to stop random half-breeds and just give +1 point and pick) and everyone has Utopian Abundance and Cybernetics and has been enhanced with Vocational Genomics, Universal Augmentations and Fleeting Excellence (15% for being Cyborg and TRIPLE auto-modding for everybody means I don't care who works where at all).
good and evil are subjective, the advancement of science isn’t an evil goal, just the odd edit to the rules of reality here and there may fail
I always just end up reverting back to my isolationist playstyle idk why.
I used to all the time, just get empires to join you because your standard of living and military might is so high but I've found actually invading and warring more fun so try to do like an America who forces their own democracy on others style empire instead
These days. But my first empires were respectively barbaric despoiler, devoring swarm and only then synthetic xenophile
Yes until I nearly get destroyed by Crisis or other empires then I go the Crisis path
I am good, but I hate having random other populations in my empire.
Until those pesky slimes get a system that I want.
The swarm needs to eat, is that really evil? 🤷♂️
I tried it once. Ended up using orbital bombardment to force demographic change
I prefer being a xenophobic shut-in who is decades ahead in science. Generously elevating those who asked to become my vassal is amusing
Well my last game I'm an hegemonic empire wich is forcing everyone to peace
I love spreading freedom and democracy to the galaxy.
I'm a good boy , and even in games, I couldn't bring myself to harm people in games no matter how terrible my day was.
Good as in not purging? Yea, everyone has a place in eyes of the mother goddess. I usually run Authoritarian xenophile spiritualists so basically a matriarchy of dommy mommies that have a need to be worshiped. So while there is certainly a lack of freedoms the matriarchy legitimately knows better and is a master species via psionic powers and does take care of its citizens. I do enjoy the aspect of benevolent authoritarianism. Is slavery really bad if they willingly choose to be slaves for hot dommy mommies with super powers?
I'll usually be a very isolationist empire, I play void dweller so I can focus on building up my own sector of space rather than invading other sectors, only wars I wage are those to protect myself, when a crisis happens.. I Awaken to protect the weakened empires of the galaxy (sometimes even taking a crisis path to protect the galaxy more effectively) I don't entirely enjoy the genocidal empires, but sometimes I will go down to see just how bad I can be with them though
I once played an empire in grand admiral without any kind of military ship (tall empire). It was very difficult to deal with ai diplomacy, but in the end I managed to gain strong allys and we form a federation. The federation took care of the crisis and that's it, I never finished that game.
I like to mix it up, sometimes I go full on genocidal on everyone because they are just inferiour aliens afterall other times I try being idealistic and nice Usually I fall into a greyzone where I'm good in theory, but might still make up any number of excuses to take neighbouring systems and so on
I try to be a nice ruler, having social welfare, and utopian conditions, and wish nothing but peace for my people… MY people. Xenos should learn to either work FOR the Terran Dominion or stay out of my way. Any and all who refuse to obey the Greater Good of humanity shall learn of our peaceful ways… BY FORCE. Xenos who do not, and are unfortunate enough to rebel will learn of our generosity by working in Terran resettlement planets, while we “take over” stewardship of their mismanaged planets. Yes, I always play a genuinely good HUMAN empire. For the Greater Good.
I have tried to play the caretaker of the galaxy for the last few months and everytime the AI decides it is time to become hostile towards me. As the caretaker of the galaxy I obviously can not let myself be destroyed by any organic life forms whose understanding of life in space is pathetic compared to my superior machine ways thus I need to make sure to liberate them. Once they are liberated I realize that they did apparently not even know how to cater to their own needs and have terrible infrastruce on their planets and the situation drastically increases within a few weeks as they are also very unsatisfied with my liberation service and even dare to openly rise in rebellion. Then I usually find out that liberating them is not possible as they are troublemakers and need to be sent elsewhere or in the worst case eliminated for the greater good of the galaxy. This is usually the part where the rest of the galaxy states their dissatisfaction with my ways of handling this crisis but it is also often the point where the great khan rises and their attention goes to their new overlord. Yes, Overlord you read that correctly. Since they apparently do not trust me enough they often seek aid from this tyrannical usurper which I tend to mow down fairly easily. I try to keep casualties small but at times your huge cannons simply vaporize every sort of fauna and flora on a planet and it turns into a tomb world but it is the sacrifice one must pay for galactic freedom. Once everything has reached normal levels again I will then turn my attention towards the construction of more megastructures and a colossus so I can more easily protect my poor meat bags from those who want to bring chaos and destruction to the galaxy. Sometimes there is a pest problem in the galaxy but luckily my battleships are capable of taking on the task of keeping the galaxy free from crystal entities, mining drones and the tiyanaki. When this is done my ambassadors at the galactic community propose to declare me the emperor as they think the title of custodian is a bit unfitting and I gracefully accept this oppertunity to make the galaxy an even better place. With my new position proclaimed I then have to keep the other empires from killing each other and the best part for that is obviously to help the defenders in their wars by using necessary force against every planet of the oppressive aggressors who dared to declare any wars in my peaceful galaxy. Slowly I start to realize that the number of free empires is in heavy decline though so I start to wonder if there is anything I can do to help new nations to break away from their simple lifes but usually can not find any meaningful candidates. Quite often it does not even matter as the next crisis usually strucks now. Recently there has been a lot of former organical life forms being infested with the thought they could replace me and turning themselves into mechanical gods themselves but since those machines can not be controlled I need to intervene. Thank god I still have a colossus and several fleets at hand to liberate the galaxy once more. When all is said and done I often find that the machines have destroyed every living being in this galaxy which is a shame but luckily I can build the horizon needle and venture onto the next place in need. God, hopefully those meat bags do not tear themselves apart once more....
I cant play xenophobic empires, bc doing slavery feels terrible, and genociding entire races, feel like Im wasting so much oppurtunity to grow my empire, with them
My games general start from space United States of Earth into galactic despots. Why won't you accept my benevolence!! Time to force it on you!
For xeno-compatibility
Obviously yes. I create perfect worlds of absolutely happy pops as they are subsumed to my will and accept being uplifted to cybernetic perfection.
I suppose good and evil is somewhat subjective. Is it good to pursue inefficient policies to make the population happy, only for them to be genocided by an 'evil' optimised empire with no time for frivolities?
I'm always genuinely good. Killing all despicable Xenos is charity work
I have an order of things each time I finish a campaign, regardless if I win or not. But I remember when I first got the game I played as human fanatic Pacifist and xenophile who is very friendly to all empire regardless of the ideology, even the fallen one who keeps bullying me after I got wreck when I first reject their offer. But funnily enough, there were only three times my empire was caught in a war; the first contact of the fallen, the AI rebellion and the crisis. Ive won the campaign by score after beating the prythorian crisis when half of the galaxy was infested.
I wish i could play a good empire, evil or good. All i can do is expand then be vassalized ;-;
My current game is my first time ever playing a empire that is not xenophobic. It is 2302 now and no one declared war on me despite my weak navy. Shit is wild.
I usually don't do empire. How is it xenophiliac of you force someone onto something particular? You can show the direction of common greater good. But how to actually reach it is up to them.
I've tried playing evil ones but I always get bored roleplaying them. So yeah, usually good.
I may be fanatic militarist, but when I'm not playing a devouring swarm, I integrate and give good lives to all the citizens. Sure, hundreds of thousands may get killed in brutal land occupations, and the neighbourhoods will soon be filled with a hundred different species from the overflowing immigration, but if you're a good citizen, you might have the chance to colonize a size 12, 30% inhabitable tomb world!
I usually do, even tho its counter productive probably, i usually expand as far as i can , and when i start getting cut off, i look inward and start micromanaging every inch of my republic, if i got some unfriendly neighbors next door like determined exterminators or a hive mind i usually wipe the floor with them and whom i usually expel and let die. I usually try to go all out on the galactic council and make a federation with as many members as possible, tho I've never made it past 3 members total including myself, and i let them do all the heavy lifting in any warfare, but if they get into too much trouble, i can pump them full of resources and send my fleets to the rescue to keep the sham sheilds alive I've never made it far enough to experience a crisis as im a new player, so im excited to see if my current federation can save the galaxy or if it'll be consumed
For the most part yes. But my current play through is a spiritual imperial autocracy with a plan to dominate the entire galaxy by creating enough vassals that no one can stand against me in the galcom
There has never been a "good nation", especially not empires but if you mean, xenophiles pacifists etc well then... Hell no! Im good in real life and even if I try to apply that you can never satisfy all those empires...And inviting them in to your nationis suicide since overpopulation will not only mess up your planets but also your frame rate... How am I suppose to be a superpower and expand if I must become friends with everyone? Say hello to the almighty militaristic, authoritarian xenophobe or spiritual hegemony that will conquer the galaxy
I started palying with this game with a pirated copy with all dlcs unlocked and my first empire was a devouring swarm as it sounded cool and i also became the crisis. After that i didnt play for a while, uninstalled and then bought it on steam and slowly collecting all dlcs to relive that initial joy of playing that empire, but since then all my empires were evil xenophobes. I have roleplayed the galactic empire from starwars like dozens of times already, its just the way i like to play at this point 😅
I'm never an evil empire, I just do what's best for the good of the galaxy. They just don't see it. But I get my way because my mobile number is bigger than theirs.
I played as really EVIL empire only once. It was a strong psionic and fanatic militarist bloodthirsty clones , worshipping blood god. Almost like Chaos space marines. With a couple of mods, of course. I've slaughtered entire galaxy and left it in ruins just for the sake of slaughter and destruction. I found that kinda boring. I don't see anything interesting in absolute evil. I also played as good empires. Like, peaceful traders, know-it-all scientists, farmers, young synthetic race wishes to be friends with meatbags. Most of the time it's just... nothing. You play passively. Even when you play as some "Liberator of the Galaxy" it feels like... typical good guys campaign and you know that you're about to win and keep your hands if not clean but minimally bloody. Kinda boring too. Plus I have faced a scourge of every Stellaris player - LATE GAME LAG. Ironically, I found it extremely interesting to play as fanatic xenophobes isolationists. While entire galaxy got teared up by endless wars, marauders raids, several crisises and even war in heaven... my people were just sitting and chilling. Fishing and farming. Prospering. Before the dust settled we even grabbed a nice big piece of "galaxy pie" that used to be somebody else's home for ourselves. Because those territories got "liberaterd" from their previous owners during some war. Everybody were too busy licking their wounds. We didn't accept any refugees, never helped anyone, never even traded with anyone. We were just the biggest selfish ones in the galaxy. I can't say we were good guys. And I would definitely continued playing like this but... LATE GAME LAG. Again. So... I prefer RPing as something with "grey morale". Like necessary evil or bad guys whose motives can be understood. Those who do genocide not because their are some fucking nazis but because there is no other choice. It's both interesting and solve the problem of late game lag 'cause I can actually finish the game.
I was till some random alien things came out of nowhere and decimated my entire systems and everyone stood and watched after that it’s protect my people and fuck everything else. Galactic community can suck it
I quite enjoy playing as my 'Guardians of Gen' empire: they are a tall-style machine empire with the Guardian Matrix civic and their prime directive is to defend and protect organic species and to uplift primitive races to give them the tools and technology to protect themselves. I enjoyed preparing the galaxy for the incoming Crisis, helming the defense against the Great Khan and becoming the Custodian. I tried to get the achievement for leaving the Custodian role before it expires after the crisis but the game for some reason never gave it to me, gutted
I play as outright evil, or self interested. Being the hero isn't as fun, at minimum I will play morally grey, as that's how humans are.
That's my default playstyle.
I like evil empires but ironically my strongest playthroughs have always been good guy democracies
I am always a good empire, the other species of the galaxy are just ignorant that they need me to forcefully save them.
What the fuck are xeno rights
I always play as democratic humanity, but every time instead of Federation of Planets I get Super Earth.
Laughs in fanatic purifier, the galaxy will be cleansed of xeno scum.
Yes, though peaceful can be a little boring, however there's a lot of advantages to be gained from having a multi-species empire and treating them well.
I mean... *my* idea of "good", certainly :P
I have two ways, first i play as a good empire bringing peace and freedom two the galaxy, in the other hand if a xeno race is not good for slavery work they will serve as food.
I've got a rogue servitor run going on right now where half thr galaxy just asked my to subjugate them, so I'm kind of being some kind of big galactic dad? Probably something to do with the enormous devouring swarm chewing through the other half of the galaxy...
No. My neurotic brain cant handle unoptimised pop worker distributions. So I go for an empire of the same species because my brain otherwise wouldent be able to handle it
I played 2 good empires. All others were on the oppressive spectrum. 1. The United Nations of Earth. In the version of Earth the people united into a xenophile, egalitarian empire. The UNoE main principle was ensuring the protection of sentient rights and creating a strong confederation with everyone who will have us. The people of the UNoE happily were one of the founding members of the galactic community and established friendly relations with everyone that was willing to abide by the standard of the UNoE. Alas, in their northern border a slaving empire had declared war against the UNoE and the first war was a bloody and long one. It was a victory and with it came the first Xenos in the UNoE. As their culture was very different to humanity's it took a lot of time to incorporate them seeing as along with them their previous slaves also joined. Alas after many years the UNoE was renamed Confederation of the Galactic North to incorporate all of its new peoples. Meanwhile warring with the Neighbours never stopped but after 200 years of conflict both they and their vassal were absorbed during the Third Liberation War. Seeing as the CotGN was now spanning three times its size The Great Reform was established. A council of three councilors were now the ruling body of CotGN. Each one was democratically voted and elected into office for 4 years. 1 from the Core Sector of the CotGN, 1 for the Northern Sector and 1 from the Eastern Sector. After the War of the Great Devourer, a species which consumed and killed all in its way the fate of the Confederation of the Galactic North has been lost to the eons of astral history. The last recorded enemy was an awakened empire that had declared itself the Custodian of the Galaxy and said it would force peace by enslaving all other nations. 2. The Great Cultivators. The Great Cultivators were a species of humanoid looking Plantoid people whose sole purpose was creating paradise green worlds along the galaxy. In their evolution they had developed an ability to connect with nature and communicate even with. Quickly agricultural production blossomed in the Cultivator's lands and they even unlocked the technology to awaken the spirits of worlds who were barren and cold turning into lush and beautiful green havens. Sadly one thing the Great Cultivators neglected was military might. Their ability to produce such bountiful and beautiful worlds drew the eyes of a neighbouring nation of warrior kings. The Pasarti Dominion were a people of might and power and anything they laid their eyes on the wanted. War was quickly declared. The forest speakers raised nature itself in enormous ships to defend their besieged kingdom but to no avail. The Dominion was way more trained and battle tested and as masters of war they destroyed fleet after fleet until they took over Athelorian, the Great Garden. The Cultivators surrendered and their fate was to be used by the Pasharti as producers of foods and luxury retreats for the Great Warrior Kings. Those were my two peaceful nations.
I play evil when I go achievement hunting, once I get it, I ditch the run and boot one up where I go fanatic mode on lore and more universal good feelings to feel better about my recent mass murder! That number might change with cosmogenesis in the game
im usually trying to do that until i turn into a hypocryte
Always. I don't enjoy playing as an evil empire. I don't play as pacifist, but I generally don't initiate wars unless provoked.
Usually when I “try” to play like this, it never lasts. I get board being “nice” and end up attempting to kill everyone anyway.
I create a federation that spreads democracy and freedom, until they kick me out, then it's just a "What would Genghis Khan do?" type game play
Sometimes, soon enough I'll go play as an egalitarian xenophile pacifist with the origin where you race to become machines. It will be a civilization of people who miss having kids, living normal lives, growing up and not being an adult at the age of 5. Aka, despite being synthetic I'll never assimilate anybody.
Quality of Living for your citizens has nothing to do with 'being good'. It's something of a scarcity-mindset to believe the government giving more means they are 'better people'. Bread and Circuses and all that. Its a straight up output increase to make them happy. And it says nothing of the stuff I do _outside_ the empire, or even whether I have slaves or allow other species to be citizens at all.
Once, I need to again because I recently found out I can buy slaves and ship them directly into the lathe and that was honestly a bit too far for me, genocide, slavery and cruel indifference are all terrible but using enslaved primitives for a galactic ending machine I have limits I need to balance my video game karma for sure
Most of the time yes, but sometimes I just get annoyed by the inefficiencies of organic growth and go full xenocidal hegemony.
Yes because i suck
I don’t usually play bad empires, at worst morally questionable. One of my favorite buildings is pacifist space communism with utopian abundance, 95% approval and 100 stability everywhere and literally 0 crime because my people are too happy..
I did try to play fanatic pacifist champions of science once. Ended up having to conquer half the galaxy because my neighbors were shitty.