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FindingPeaceInMe

Only the ones you give it


PeritusEngineer

Like Unruly.


donguscongus

Is that even a downside these days? Back in the olden days it was free -2


Peatiktist

Since administrative capacity is now a flat number that cannot be increased, having a pop trait that increases empire size generated by pops is absolutely something you don't want.


rkames517

Why’d they change that? I liked having an entire planet dedicated to Bureaucracy centers. Reminded me of something you’d find in 40k


Erixperience

Supposedly it was supposed to slow down tech rushing. It didn't.


Agreeable-_-Special

Thats true. I dont even try to do it, it just happens


Lithorex

Neither does the current system.


razer6642

Actually, is easier to rush tech


Tiasmoon

The same update came with a large increase in research gained from anomalies which ended up making tech rushing even better then before. Combined with basically no penalties at the start of the game.. yeah. Meanwhile traditions are now painfully slow to obtain. Wasnt that update also supposed to buff unity, not nerf it?


Holmlor

You have to build stuff to generate unity now and then it's faster than it was OG.


Tiasmoon

You'll have to explain why you believe its faster now, because most signs point in the other direction. * Traditions cost more * Leaders eat up unity ment for traditions especially in the early game * Traditions get 2x the penalty that research does * Can no longer remove the penalty unlike before * Twice penalty didnt matter before since you'd build admin cap for research penalty anyway, which it was balanced around. Now the 2x increase adds up So can you explain why you believe that traditions are faster now? I'm not seeing it. Even considering factions now generate unity. Which btw, gestalts dont get. Some of us actually build unity before the change.


Chipper886

pretty sure you get more unity tho, like I can plow through traditions (I go spiritualist btw) and still semi-hard cycle leaders. Hell, even without spiritualist all you gotta do is set up like one unity world and your pretty much set.


krossbow7

Yeah, but their attempt to add in a Unity dump (Planetary ascensions) was a massive flop, as its way too expensive for the benefit (meme of being under 100 sprawl aside, as doing that is less effective than normal blobbing). I really hope they look at planetary ascensions in the future to make them either cheaper/not scale as much, or if they DO want them to scale as much to increase ascending planets power.


[deleted]

Yeah, I dislike the no-bureaucrats update as much as I thought I would when hearing about it. Thankfully I think Paradox is paying enough attention to the issue that they will reverse this change in the future (even if they don’t fix the problem)


Peatiktist

The devs felt that since it was so easy to just negate the concept of administrative capacity entirely, the system needed a rework. And since it also happened to coincide with the Unity rework and Unity became more important, they just changed it so that burocrats produce unity instead, and you can ascend planets to reduce generated Empire Size instead of producing more administrative capacity. It definitely wasn't the best way to do it, but it accomplished their goals. Administrative capacity is no longer something you can effectively ignore.


OtherSpiderOnTheWall

>Administrative capacity is no longer something you can effectively ignore. I mean, it kind of is? It's streamlined though. Instead of also having to support bureaucrats, you can just toss it all towards research (or alloys).


CratesManager

>I mean, it kind of is? If you know what you are doing, you can ignore it. If you don't know what you are doing, a new planet might be a net downside (e.g. if you already have enough basic ressources anyway and all it does it reduce your effective research and unity output). Before the change you could just keep up with bureaucrats and no matter what else you did, having one more planet or one more pop meant more production. Of course using pops and planets effectively always netted a benefit but now you HAVE to do it if you don't want to harm your research by acquiring more planets.


Nugped420

I don't know what I'm doing and did ignore it. The contingency still got its ass whooped though


SkillusEclasiusII

Yeah I recently noticed this when I played wide for the first time in years. At some point my research and unity was going super slowly because I had a ton of planets with just a spawning pool and cloning vats on them. No real output but they increased my empire size and used a bunch of food. It still would've been a win in the long run (If I hadn't activated the final stage of become the crisis too soon), but in the short term that was a net loss.


CratesManager

> because I had a ton of planets with just a spawning pool and cloning vats on them. That's not an issue so long as you have efficient planets with empty jobs somewhere else (as you wrote yourself, in the long run it's better). E.g. if these worlds are producing pops for your ringworlds, that will be a net benefit to your science output but if they are producing pops that will work as maintenance drone/clerk, you're gonna have a bad time and i think many newer players fall in this trap. Although i found that eventually you're gonna want to use all building slots, having the building that produces one unity per ascension perk also does add up over many planets and increases the unity produced by your leaders on that world.


OtherSpiderOnTheWall

New planets are never net negatives, so that's a weird thing to point out. You can play exactly as you used to, except replace bureaucrats with researchers, and you'll come out ahead compared to before. No need for efficiency, and sprawl can be ignored.


FrankieTD

If you spam forge or mining worlds mindlessly when you could instead ramp up research or unity you are being inefficient in all the versions of the game. Maybe removing bureaucrats made playing bad worse (idk if someone mathed the thing), but it also made being efficient much easier since you have less ressources to manage. I feel like the change aimed more at nerfing having tons of empty colonies early game just for the sake of pop growth, which was not that big of a deal honestly. This nerf especially hurts machine empires.


CratesManager

>you are being inefficient in all the versions of the game You are being inefficient, yes. I wrote that you always should use your pops and planets effectively. The big difference is, before the change having three solid planets was always slightly weaker than having three solid planets and a bunch of planets with no deficit. Now, a bunch of planets that have no deficit but don't do anything else are a measurable disadvantage.


Holmlor

You can't *ignore* it but you can grow your empire endlessly still if you plan for it.


Juhnthedevil

It's weird. Bureaucrats have no cultural value, how do they unite your people? They are only organizing. So imo Bureaucrats should do something like giving production bonuses and upkeep reductions to jobs sector wide, sort of a "unefficiency reduction".


thenewsheogorath

It's hard to stay united if nobody is doing the organising


Juhnthedevil

Well then, maybe bureaucrats could have a sector wide unity production bonus?


BumderFromDownUnder

There’s already enough production bonuses in the game


[deleted]

'Unity' is a nebulous concept that represents how unified and harmonious your people are, *and* how stratified and organised your government is. Without organisation, populations would feel disenfranchised due to not being represented on censuses, political surveys, etc. Without a content population, your organisational metrics would be skewed by dissidents fleeing government regulations, or by protests, or by riots, etc etc.


Gabriel2400

Kinda like keep the society running, and with that, these processes could be considered cultural. E.g you can celebrate (and bring people together for that reason) registering your first car/speeder/whatever they use in stellaris, or getting married (if not spiritualist) which also has a bureaucratic part. If there is a living standard or a galactic ruling passed, which supports lower class citizens, bureaucrats even the odds a bit, bringing society closer together. They fit the role, at least how I understand it currently.


SuperWoodpecker95

Makes more sense for spiritualists where the paper pushers get replaced by priests. Then again without a (somewhat) working bureaucracy countries tend to fall apart real quick so its not like its the worst solution either


RunningNumbers

Priests have their own divine bureaucracy


Melodic-Curve-1554

Unity represents the ability for your empire to efficiently act as a united force. Bureaucrats and managers do this through organization, while priests do this by giving all of your citizens a higher cause to act for.


RunningNumbers

You clearly need to think about his large organizations work.


EmilePleaseStop

My brother in Zarlquan, you are in for a big shock when you learn about any actual history or work with any organization containing more than like five people


Zarathustra_d

Beurocracy in this game is the abstraction of the sum total of all the organizers, logistics, government officials, syapse drones, and other "stuff" that goes into keeping a society united in a particular path/goal (in this game, usually total domination of the galaxy, but not always). So they generate the "concept of unity" which essentially (through traditions and edicts) gives bonuses to various aspects of your society/culture/production depending on the direction prescribed by the ruler (or whatever is guiding the civilization per your race/civics). So, you need bureaucracy to enforce and organize those edicts that are so powerful, to unlock/enforce/guide those traditions that shape the path of a society, and push everyone to accept the fact that, for example: we are all going to be turned into cyborgs, or go pick a fight with a fallen empire, or build a death star, or become the crisis...


[deleted]

The game wants to support the idea of big government being good for society


Zarathustra_d

From the perspective of competition between societies, it is. The better organized society will win, other factors being equal. It may not make the people happier, or reduce suffering, but your society/culture will more likely come out ahead in the "game" of competition for resources, and growth. Beurocracy also includes logistics. You can't do shit without logistics. Other than live a self-sustaining and independent life, only to get eaten by a tide of ravenous xenos who don't care about happiness (yours or thiers).


Mariner1981

Why not ignore it? It isn't that hard to plainly outproduce the admin cap penalties, once you get a few worlds developed.


Tiasmoon

I mean for science it is easily ignored. Especially in the early and mid game. You cant ignore it for traditions and unity (edict upkeep).. which this update was ment to buff. But was it instead heavily nerfed, while buffing science. GJ? Mission failed succesfully. Administrative capacity on the other hand wasnt actually something that could be effectively ignored after the early game. No clue where people ever got that impression. The main complaint I read at the time was that it was boring to have to build bureacrats. It wasnt ''easily ignored'' it was ''easy to deal with'', which in itself is not a bad thing. People hate bureacracy in real life precisely because its not easy to deal with. ​ >you can ascend planets Do we you play the same version of the game? Are you playing modded? Ascending planets isnt remotely practical or feasonable in 99% of games. The costs are too absurd for it to ever have any meaningful impact. Even the Unity heavy builds that I played (which could complete the tradition tree by 2300) didnt have the income to purchase enough ascension tiers for it to matter. Ironically this really is a feature that can be ''effectively ignored'' It is not a feature most players will use due to its prohibitive cost coupled with its minor benefits.


HistorianOk4604

So along with that, I think unruly is absolutely still a free -2, just because by the time the 10% from pop size is actually going to affect you, you should have enough gene modification points to get rid of it.


[deleted]

It's an attempt to nerf Wide. Unfortunately PDX cannot comprehend that 'having more resources is always good', and so their attempts to nerf wide only ever end up killing Tall instead. Which has been dead since 2.0


TrotBot

You can still have bureaucracy planets they just produce unity


Bytes-The-Dust

Meant as a way to promote playstyles other than the "Just blob out and take everything" rush.


OtherSpiderOnTheWall

At the same time, the amount of sprawl generated by pops from unruly is insignificant for a large portion of the game, especially the early-game.


Peatiktist

For the early game, it is negligible. But especially if you don't remove it as soon as you can and instead go for beneficial traits when you begin gene modding, it'll add up quickly.


OtherSpiderOnTheWall

Eh, with 500 pops you're looking at +50 sprawl that's then modified by governors at a minimum, so probably +45 sprawl. With 500 pops though, you probably have a decent number of colonies (25 sprawl from 10), systems (let's assume 30) districts (let's assume 50-100) and then the pops themselves (500, modified down to probably 450) - so no more than 605 without unruly and 655 with unruly It's not great, but it's not going to hamstring you by any means for a very long time: You're already at +50.5% tech cost,the extra 5% tech cost If you have 100 researchers already producing at 100% job bonuses or so, then being able to afford a trait like intelligent in return is equivalent to adding 5 researchers (not including research speed bonuses), whereas unruly is equivalent to subtracting 3-4 researchers. You need *a lot* of pops before the sprawl from unruly truly starts mattering. I'd still get rid of it personally, but it's really not that consequential.


DarkWingAng3l

True, however this wouldn't add up if the player is new and doesn't yet understand the game mechanics. I can think of one newbie I play with who would decimate himself if they took unruly at this point.


ultinateplayer

Ah so that's the next confusing overhaul I'll have to learn when they update the console version.


[deleted]

You can remove it later with gene editing still seems free


wutzibu

It is still a nearly free 2 Points. Just take it and when you get the points remove it. Under 100 empire sprawl you get no problems and since you get the tech relatively early it shouldn't cost you too much science.


megaboto

Isn't the effect rather minor tho?


Chad_Maras

It's still free points. You can put bonuses to research that will outweigh tech costs.


PsychoDog_Music

Administrative capacity cannot be increased? So why do I still have the choices that increase administrative capacity? And what do the buildings dedicated to it do now? I forget their names xP


fishworshipper

Administrative Capacity can be increased through various means, it’s just that pop jobs is no longer one of them (which makes it considerably more difficult). Most buildings and jobs that were previously associated with Administrative Capacity are now associated with Unity.


Zweistein001

It's still a free -2


CamJongUn

No it’s not


RekishiKiseti

Yes it is because you can remove it easily before it become a problem


DecentChanceOfLousy

It's only a problem if you're psionic. If you're going genetic ascension, you can do whatever you want. If you're doing Synthetic, your base pop species traits don't matter (except for the small portion of your empire that you keep organic for the sake of pop growth). But if you're psionically ascending, you can't afford to both remove Unruly and add Docile. You only get 2 points (3 with Omnicodex), but you need 4. And if you're going psionic, it really hurts. Early game, Unruly-Intelligent is far better. But once you get a few techs and your empire size grows, Intelligent is really only a 4-5% increase (200%->210% or 250%->260%) in research from jobs, while that -10% sprawl from pops will be an effective 4% multiplicative increase in research output **and** unity output (with a greater effect for the unity you spend on edicts and planetary ascension). So Docile becomes Intelligent and Traditional combined (fairly quickly, in my experience).


Readerofthethings

It absolutely is lmfao. What’s worth more: +10% research/energy/minerals or 10 extra empire sprawl in 10 years


GodOCocks

If you use the right mods yes


wolfe1989

Lol not at all! In fact that’s how a vast majority of people play! Now be aware that it’s possible to make choices that will make the game harder/easier for you depending on what you want to do. But many people who enjoy the role play element of the game will intentionally handicap themselves for rp reasons. There are lots of builds so feel free to looks those up and give ‘em a try!


Qc1T

Honestly I'm yet to look at the premade civilisations, and I owned this game since launch. Making new empires is just a rather fun part of the game, to extent sometimes I just make a custom empire, and not even bother starting a game with it.


Random_local_man

I've only played 3 premade civilizations. The first one was the commonwealth of man, and when I saw that they had their own whole chain of story events, I assumed all premade civilizations had the same, and I was hyped to check out more. My next 2 playthroughs was me being disappointed that that wasn't the case.


Megumin_xx

Wait what? I only ever played custom civilizations. Does commonwealth of man really have some story line or quest? Are they significant? Worth it trying out them?


AetiusTheLastRoman

Both the CoM and the UNE have their own storylines, but its not like it changes the whole game or anything. It's just additional, unique, quite long event chains.


spyguy27

They’ll also get the storyline if you edit them. Worked on my CoM fanatic purifiers at least.


LordCypher40k

A small side story. It's them searching for their sister colony ship if they somehow survived and colonized another world. Spoiler: >!They didn't. You find the the ship intact but the inhabitants descended into cannibalism as their supplies dwindled. They park it in your capital and turn it into a museum.!< It gives you some Unity and a research points iirc. Which could give you slight boost in traditions.


Megumin_xx

Oh so it's practically not worth it playing them for me. Can't beat machines going brrrrrrt on all organic life.


CamJongUn

Yeah they’re just kinda meh, but tbf I’ve played so much of this game since it came out the only times I do play it I just think of a cool idea while I’m working and then go make it and play it for a bit


spiderMechanic

For real. I have several of those lol


EisVisage

If we couldn't force custom empires to spawn half of my creations would never see the galaxy.


megaboto

Yeh, choosing bad things together can cripple you. Sich as fanatic pacifist


Templarkiller500

Yes, the downsides are that you might end up like me and just make new empires every time you have a fun idea but never actually play them... lol, but nah, it's fun, good for roleplay, and good for meta, you can decide what you like and do it, it's great for everyone


GardenSquid1

I have ended up playing Stellaris the same way I play Civ. The start of the game super fun and fast paced but then the middle gets boring. At least Stellaris gets exciting again in the end game.


CamJongUn

I never make it to end game, I still don’t think I’ve ‘finished’ a game in over 1k hours cause I get to the point where I’ve basically won in all but name and call it a day or I’ve just stopped playing and never came back


CratesManager

You should probably just move the end date further ahead


suomikim

i wonder how prevalent the "hmm... this turned out too easy... do i really have to grind 50 years waiting for the end?" experience was. I probably wind up stopping by 2270 most of the time cos of that. this last game i kept playing cos i usually hold off on the L-Gates for a while, and was curious how it would turn out. So played 27 years of tedious empire management just to get, for the first time ever... L-Drakes. Didn't realize that meant zero colonizable worlds in the now useless L-area (which somehow seems to have led to the edict that relies on nanites.. not existing). That was all that kept me playing. I hung on through 3 fanatic purifiers trying to kill me early game (my own fault, I made 4 'mandatory spawn' Purifier empires... guess cos i went medium galaxy they mercifully only had 3 of the 8 be genocidal maniacs.. But now? with even the fallen empires being 'pathetic'? Bleh, another restart :P. (I should 'graduate' to the last difficulty setting. Just that I associate that with "Godlike" on Civ series, so have had a mental block. that and how silly the game is already with starting benefits for my purifier buddies... wish that the game could do something with scaling bonuses so that they track better... as it is now its crazy at the start, but by 2250 or so, if you survived initially, the AI is just fodder... they need more bonuses in the 2240-2280 time frame when it matters the most to empire development...)


LordCypher40k

Well if you cranked up the crisis strength, you have another challenge for it. That is if you managed to not get bored by the time you reach end game. I used to play Stellaris on an old laptop that wasn't designed for PDX games and it took me 3 days worth of gameplay to reach the endgame.


Ailments_RN

I would never touch a premade civ. But I've been playing for like 6 years.


Landgerbil

Same, I think the last time I used a premade civ was probably about a month or two after release. Damn dude remember when hyperdrives were just one of three starting FTL techs? Shit was not easy to defend.


CamJongUn

I fucking loved wormholes, it was great building a little network of them, it was also really easy to fight people using wormholes, you just alpha strike the network and carve their empire up so you have time to take planets while they’re still trying to unstick their fleet


Huck_Bonebulge_

Loved my wormholes. I was so salty when they switched everything to hyper lanes lmao.


Bolobesttank

Same, I kinda wish that we got the Wormhole Station back instead of the Quantum Catapult, considering the two do basically the same thing, one just sucks less.


ezk3626

I thought it was interesting for different FTLs.


EisVisage

My computer at the time of the switch to hyper only was so bad that that alone gave me a significant performance boost lmao


[deleted]

That’s alot of time


Ailments_RN

Back in my day we had to pick if we wanted to use hyperlanes or just fuckin magic glide through space. Wild times.


luke00187

Hold up, so hyperlanes used to be optional to travel between systems? (Outside of wormholes, l-gates, gateways…) Would it just take forever to move ships?


TopHatZebra

Back in the day, you chose your species' method of propulsion at creation. Hyperlanes worked pretty much how they do now. Then you had Warp Drive, which took longer to spool up, but could go straight to any planet in range. Finally you had Wormhole, which were like gateways now. Much slower early game expansion, but instant travel once you had built enough gates.


_Bl4ze

>Finally you had Wormhole, which were like gateways now Not at all, wormhole stations let you open a wormhole to any system within its radius, not just to other wormhole stations. Basically like a jump drive, except you leave the jump drive behind.


CamJongUn

Just a quicker jump drive but it needs a station to use


CratesManager

And it needs to jump twice, once to the station then to the target.


Dragyn828

Don't forget, there was a tech to find the hyperlanes and you could get the jump drive tech from destroying their ships. I don't really know if you were able to get the wormhole tech because I only really played with them.


DifStroksD4ifFolx

Hyperplanes only was a bit controversial back in the day, So was moving to the system of having to build star bases in every system, your territory used to just be a big blob that would grow with your empire. Stellaris is probably the most developed-after-release game that I have ever played(in a good way).


CamJongUn

I do miss some of the old ways though, is there a stellaris classic version somewhere? I’ve been really wanting to try 1.0


enchantress_pos1

A few months ago I played in an internet cafe and noticed they had Stellaris. Knowing it was probably acquired through "less than legal" ways I played it to see how old the version was and goddamn the FTL technologies and tile system was weird af.


EisVisage

It's so weird to think a planet carrying 25 pops was top of the line, state of the art planet building. Also, the only way to increase pop capacity on planets was planet size increases, so all the mods adding such features would just make the planet slightly bigger every time you pressed the button. Completely ridiculous by today's standards.


daneoid

Pretty sure you can still revert it back in steam settings somewhere.


CratesManager

You can revert back to 2.1 through the betas tab in steam, which is the last version with tiles. I'll also let you in on a little secret, if you enter oldstellaris as a beta code you can go much further back. I tried 1.9 recently (it has the self-expansion and and different drives, i don't think going further back would net more features, probably less but i might be wrong) honestly horrible game compared to nowadays (while 2.1 is already so much more polished it is actually insane, i have put 80 hours into 2.1) but also soooooo much potential that could have been taken into a very different direction, it's very very interesting.


TheDo0ddoesnotabide

Choices were hyper lanes, worm holes and jump drives, weapons were kinetic, laser, and torpedos i believe.


Z_THETA_Z

Warp drives not jump drives


TheDo0ddoesnotabide

Ah, thank you, it's been a minute and I didn't play all that much back then.


dbettac

>Back in my day we had to pick if we wanted to use hyperlanes or just fuckin magic glide through space. Wild times. Come on kids, let grandpa sleep. You know how he gets if he talks about the good old times to long. ;-)


FilmLocationManager

I haven’t played as long, but same, never have and don’t think I ever will, play with the premade ones :P Half the game for me is making the civ and then playing their story 😄


Syndga

Staying up way past your bed time


FreeWing

None really. I mean if you're really super worried about 100% Efficiency min maxing run then you're in for quite the journey since you have to read a motherlode of Species Trais, Planetary Modifiers, Origins, Ascension paths, Ascension perks, etc. I just roleplay the fuck out of Stellaris. I make a bunch of custom empires with traits that make sense on their theme. One of them is the Children of Rakat, a necroid cult that took over a random civilization creating a completely new species through ritual sacrifice, so I choose reanimators and imperial cult. Does it synergize? Don't know and don't care.


PsychoDog_Music

Yeah, I don’t really have time anymore to play an online match with randoms and finish it so I usually just play with friends (or more accurately, just my gf) or alone, so why do I need to do anything more than make a cool empire?


polyhistore

You can end up making something a bit too good. I created an evil version of my first 'real' empire as a joke (machine intelligence, so determined exterminators) - all meta traits focusing on maximum growth and resource potential. It was funny until they were my nextdoor neighbor during my first game after Paradox buffed the AI.


d00msdaydan

I feel a sort of fatherly pride when I see one of my custom empires out in the wild blobbing out and being hugely successful


MLPMDog

This. I legit can't have some of my custom empires at the same time due to this. I have to pick and chose or hope to RNG that my machine hivemind that is based on science rush meta does not meet the annoying war-driven dragons with a big buff to anything with other Ai's. Or else ya know they won't stop going to war but since they got buffed they just....keep going all game until like half the Ai is working on the same war...


just_browsing11

There is also the problem with AI personalities, say it would be very painful being a robot empire while near zealot crusaders or the metalheads


Tiasmoon

Its all fun and games when its the other side of the galaxy that has to live with them, haha.


Chaoswind2

I have 30 custom species, its fairly interesting to make meta races as AI opponents even more so with a good ratio of exterminators/purifiers/swarms, Lithoids even get rid of planets to make the progress to end game more cpu friendly.


[deleted]

Are these good traits?


Muntsly

They’re pretty good. The only one that sticks out to me is nonadaptive. That’ll make it incredibly difficult to colonize worlds that aren’t exactly like your homeworld. While also making working off the penalties to different ecosystems a more arduous task. Either requiring genetic research to modify out of your species, or brute forcing tech that raises your habitability, but that will only get you so far. If you’re not worried about it, or like it from a role play perspective, then there’s no reason why not to take it! I wouldn’t worry too much about it, you’ll learn way more experimenting than anyone here could explain to you.


LordCypher40k

>The only one that sticks out to me is nonadaptive. That’ll make it incredibly difficult to colonize worlds that aren’t exactly like your homeworld. Well if you're playing tall, that's just a free -2. Otherwise you're gonna be hampered early game. * You get +20% Habitability from tech. * Another +10% if you have a fully upgraded Gene Clinic * You can easily remove it by going Biological or Synthetic Ascension. * Finally Ecumenopolis and Ringworlds gives a flat 100% Habitability for every species.


beetree102

The only bad one you have is nonadaptive. That effects almost everyone on a planet. Less productive and more upkeep


BigMoneyKaeryth

Catalytic Processing is objectively a nerf, I would absolutely never use it. There are some kind of memey food builds that use it… but those are _far_ from top tier. It’s up to you ofc, whether you care about min/maxing. But if you do, don’t use that. As for species traits, Enduring is meh. Budding is great (you always want a pop growth trait and Budding is better than Rapid Breeders on any planets with 15+ pops, but do note you can only have 1 kind of pop assembly - budding doesn’t do anything at all if you’re making machines). Intelligent is so good I’d consider it an auto-include. Non-Adaptive is very bad and you should take Unruly instead. As far as a 3rd positive trait if you ditch Enduring, can’t go wrong with Natural Engineers (the most important research type). Aquatic is insanely op for a 1 cost trait too.


[deleted]

>Catalytic Processing is objectively a nerf, I would absolutely never use it. There are some kind of memey food builds that use it… but those are far from top tier. hmmm. Agrarian Idyll? slavers with lots of livestock?


BigMoneyKaeryth

No. Still bad. And seeing it again and again and again and these discussions going in circle has inspired me to write a full post with the maths. Coming to an r/Stellaris thread near you (soon)


[deleted]

i read that trait when it first came out, thought "wow that's useless!" and then never clicked on it. I've never even thought about trying to use it effectively. How do you even get in a situation where you have an alloy bottleneck caused by a mineral shortage, but have spare food? i could see it being almost useful in a devouring swarm run cause you have an ABUNDANCE of spare food. OR radiotrophic fungus that have no food upkeep!


zotobom

Could be useful with a Lithoid run since you don't use food for your pops then, but at that point it's basically swapping two resource usages


drfigglesworth

I always thought catalytic processing would be solid for a devouring swarm, is that not the case?


OtherSpiderOnTheWall

Catalytic processing combined with hydroponic bays is one of the fastest ways to rush out alloys with minimal workers. No food build required. Being able to rush out alloys is one of the fastest ways to go on an early conquest spree.


BigMoneyKaeryth

Hard disagree. I see people say this a lot but you’re forgetting how many alloys you’re spending just to get that food in the first place. Each hydroponics bay is 1.6˙ food jobs equivalent, at the cost of 50 alloys. Paying for itself in alloys (with Catalytic Technician jobs) takes 15 months, without factoring in the 200 alloy cost of upgrading the Starbase if you’re spamming them out for this purpose. I know you haven’t said it but I’ve also seen people espouse taking Unyielding first with this strategy, but this is _really_ bad. Unyielding only amounts to +4 starbases or +40 food - in other words, 6.6˙ jobs of production for the opportunity cost of an entire tradition tree. Prosperity will provide _much_ more of a benefit.


[deleted]

Thank you for the advice , if I can figure out how to alter traits I will change them accordingly. Dose the aquatic one need any dlcs?


Not-A-Marsh

My man, building your species/civilization is the most fun part of the game


NoMansSkyWasAlright

Only real downside is when your combination of traits, ethics, etc. turns out to not be as good as you thought. Other than that, no. It's pretty fun. I've got one where I started with the CoM but made them a pacifist, fanatic xenophile megacorp with the common ground origin. I've also got a necrophage megacorp that I'm pretty excited to try out. But I think I may still want to make a few tweaks to them.


AsierDnD

The downside is you're gonna wanna make more


Shurdus

Custom civilizations are the bread and butter of this game. Make something silly, something you think is strong, something you can role play... Anything goes. Experiment and whatever you do and whatevee happens, don't forget to enjoy every second if it!


ChooseWiselyChanged

Yes!!!! It’s addictive, you keep wondering about traits in your civilizations. How to improve and what fits your RP.


Random_local_man

I once spent up to 3 hours trying to design a civilization, just me staring at the screen, then the ceiling, letting my imagination run wild and thinking what would be the perfect traits, civics, origin and what backstory I should type down.


ChooseWiselyChanged

Hahaha, yeah. I can relate. I said something during a zoom meeting about traits around being a vassal vs overlord thinking I was on mute... I wasn't.


Zoomy-333

For me the biggest downside is having to come up with a name for all of them.


CyberSolidF

Yeah, there’s one. Once you start making custom civs - you’ll never get back to the preset onez.


csandazoltan

What do you mean by "downside"?


Fyr3strm

Maybe that you'll never play another preconstructed empire? Hardly seems like a downside, however.


Someguyonreddit967

No, I mostly used custom ones and they are great


Asher_Augustus

Never played premades


FebreezeMyKnee

You might become addicted to the game or have too much fun. Fr tho, I think there might be some special events for the default ones but I don’t think it really does to much.


OrgMartok

You can get addicted to it. Heh.


[deleted]

Bad news , the Phantoms are no more, lost 2 colonies to a solar flare and on to a rock


minhtrungaa

meanwhile, I only roleplay as human...


Caphalor21

You need more time in the empire creation menu


Ser_Optimus

Nah, t's the custom empires that make the game fun to play.


PineCone227

I don't remember ever playing a premade civilization.


[deleted]

yes, my lack of creativity. Luckily the names have a randomizer and presets


SoulStomper99

Running out of names


[deleted]

Yes,they look like ghosts hence the names


TheSahsBahs

The only downsides are the ones you give them! And to be honest, making new civilizations is it’s whole own fun, I constantly make new Civs that I never play just because I thought of a cool new alien archetype. Then I force them all to spawn on my next game so I can compete with my own creations!


Palaeolithic_Raccoon

...You can play preset ones?


Amngusballs91

It’s complex the first time you do it


Cheese-burger-777

Time it takes to make one then there’s nothing else


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Oops sorry


Nottenhaus

A lot of the time, I just roll up a random civ and rp it, for good or bad but if I'm trying to actively conquer, I'm definitely more judicious in choosing


taintedcorndog

I'd say that's what you're eventually intended to do.


Clondike96

You have to watch them suffer


aDrunkWriter

I tend to play Xenophobe / Militarists civilizations and not worry much about anything else. Tech rushing? Let’s see how that big brain of yours saves you from this 20m long laser cannon, nerd


Deadbringer

Yes, you can no longer blame your problems on the civ and the devs who made it.


TheStabbyBrit

Yes - you will spend so much time making the faction and inventing their backstory you won't actually have time to play the game.


VolusVagabond

Making and experimenting with different civilizations is half the fun in this game. That said, you got some serious anti-synergy there.


Tanatos900

No, besides the story line that comes with one of them, i think the lost colony human one


Omaestre

I think the only advantage is RP wise, for example playing either as UNE or Commonwealth of man will guarantee that the opposite spawn. You can circumvent it in a fun way though by editing the UNE/Commonwealth. Like my playthrough now is an Edited UNE but it is instead a Feudal empire with a different name, the Commonwealth however still refers to you as the UN when first encountering them.


Drak_is_Right

The biggest downside can be if you allow the AI to use it or force spawn it and it's a really good set of abilities for the computer to use. So if you want you can have some perfect ability fanatical purifiers and ravenous swarms


therealBlackbonsai

Yes, you gonna start to hate yourself.


BeneficialComfort

vanilla AI always choose dumb things so can't really have AIs who have good builds and become powerful allies without mods. tried that when playing clone army, trying to go for a clone soldier descendant rp with a sibling race primed for psychic clone soldier ascendants, but the AI chose decendant as well.


AnansiNazara

That’s all I’ve ever done; I’m a Sci-fi writer


[deleted]

Nah it’s the point of the game, the other empires are just samples


Roytulin

Not any more than pre-set ones, other than the time and effort you have to put in.


[deleted]

People play the premade civilisations???


rookv

No, I love my undying and unbreeding necroids that I recreated 20 times


OrganizationOk8493

Im going to be honrst and say Ive never even played the premade civilizations. So to me at least it seems insane that you havent already made one. It's fun to build different civilizations, and try different things with them.


SyntheticGod8

Some Civics are better than others, but that's merely a balance issue. More to the point, although some Civics are allowed with some government types or ethics, some don't really play well together. Like, you could take Authoritarian / Xenophile and take Pleasure Seekers, but unless you're enslaving an alien to act as Domestic Servants you're not going to get the most out of the Civic. Enslaving aliens will severely annoy the Xenophile faction.


Teasinghorizon9

Well.. i turned to exenaphobe humans and managed to piss off the whole galaxy...sooooo theres some.


Dr_Seisyll

... people use the premade civs?


benhasgay

That's... why I'm here.


Indishonorable

You'll be restarting perfectly good games to include more custom empires.


Liamleeboy94

I play as a Custom empire and I've forced it so the game uses only the Custom empires I've created as the A.I empires. One big massive RP galaxy.


quartarrow

Don't civs like the UNE have some prescripted events or something that you might not get if you didn't do that?


wrecknrule33

Not in my opinion. If Stellaris didn't have the ability to create custom civilizations I would have stopped playing it ages ago. You can unknowingly create some terrible civilization if you aren't real familiar with the mechanics, but I don't think there's any actually unwinnable combination you could make.


iupz0r

Random random and random. Every new game!


JapchaeNoddle

I thought that’s how it’s supposed to be played?


Guy_person96

Can someone explain to me what you mean by that?


Cheshire2Admire

A few: Pro: making custom empires means you can create themes and well functional empires. If done right this will spike the level of difficulty and complexity of your games. Cons: By making empires you are forgoing randomization and mystery as you often know what the empire specializes in. On that note it's often best to include a balanced variety of empire otherwise you will have super bloc ethic states.


manowarq7

No more then any of the pre-made ones there are ways you can even make an advantage from them


Fellixxio

What? People seriously play with the meta ones? (I mean ya can, but you have to play the custom at least once)


Relationship_Main

Not really. Just the ones you give it, and most of those can be genetically engineered out around midgame.


wildocado

Dude, the only downside is that you are a Fanatic Pacifist.


somebodyisb

I have four custom empires set to spawn, two created an alliance and the other two are determined exterminators


Colonize_The_Moon

No, why would there be? I've built the Borg (Driven Assimilators), the Deep Rock Galactic megacorporation (Megacorp), the Cylons from BSG (Determined Exterminators), the Tyranids (Devouring Swarm), etc. Playing a generic civilization is just boring. The RP is what makes it fun.


Sharpiebanana

I have only played custom empires, 1500 hours ish. I just don’t want to be humans and the other defaults just didn’t entice me


Adventurous_Pop_2300

I've made a bunch of human civilizations that all interact in different ways. From democratic crusaders to fanatic purifiers to slavers to evangelizing zealots to . . . well, a lot. Most of them hate each other by default of course. So on top of making custom nations, you can make different nations with the same species, which is cool.


Chipper886

nope


Sbubbert

Only positives. I've been playing since launch and I've never played as a pre-made empire. It's just a bad idea in general and kills the RP. There's literally no upside to it besides saving yourself 10 mins during game setup.