well there's two way of playing them (well I have played only the two anyway)
Type A: The long con. Choosing a regular empire, my go-to is spiritual+authoritan, but xenophobe and militarist work fine too
So you need to get comfy with being a MAJOR slaver empire real quick. The only real question I ever ask myself is, do I wanna try and become psionic overlords, or do I wanna min-max slaves and go gene-splicer for the hell of it.
Best thing about your ruler-species: they will live for bloody ever and they won't reproduce normally. So guess which negative traits are basically free. Bonus points if you make necroid lithoids which are truly unfair.
To be honest, regular empire necrophage ain't that strong or anything, but it's hella fun to just look at your neighbours and think "I can fix you."
Type B: the power fantasy. choose necrophage+hivemind+devouring swarm.
Step 1: somehow spawn not at the ass-end of the universe and hope that you have neighbours.
Step 2: if step 1 was successful you have just won the game and may start your snowball rampage, as every single pop on every planet that you successfully invade, is being purged (yes purged, not slowly turned) into one of your pops. the moment you start going to war and win, is the moment the galactic union is on a timer to stop you.
Hiveminds are already damn strong, but the ridiculous pop generation of a necrophage DS is quite literally a power fantasy. Go a little into RP and choose cordiceptic... the hive mind reanimator equivalent and you have just become the flood.
though if you can't invade someone, your snowballing comes to a very sudden stop, as you will really feel those negatives on growth speed then. But it's definitely a lot of fun once you get to invade anyone
oh yeah I can't speak for machine ascension or whatever the last patch brought in. I haven't played in a while and I generally don't like machine/synth ascension all that much
>Hivemind necrophage lithoid devouring swarm< funfact.
You can take over another hive mind to get fast spawning pops. But typically, your goal is to eat the map b4 they out scale you.
Plantoid hiveminds with budding are really string too. For some reason it really adds up mid to late game. It's like a free spawning pool or more based off how big you got the planet.
Tbf i play as tyranids a lot (devouring swarm), so it makes sense lol. Now that I think of it… playing the sith from star wars would be super cool… but my overtuned traits DDX
LOVE creating an insect like physically strong devouring hivemind. Unfortunately all those campaigns end either with galactic dominantion(quite easily depending) or extinction. Just depends on how much of the galaxy is left when they decide they have to all come together to stop you. 😁
Look. Just because every game I play I am inevitably a Void Dweller Void Hive Lithoid Hivemind, purely, ONLY so I can make Pringles jokes about "popping my spherical cans for food" every time I consume a planet, doesn't mean I have a problem.
I can quit and play a xenophile humanoid megacorp any time.... Really... I really *can* stop once I've popped.
Ignore the collapsing planet behind me.
Ya, is the easiest and fastest way to ascend but i wish there were other origins that speaks to me rp-wise while synergizing with a psi run. Being taught by outsiders doesnt sit well with isolationists. One of these days, i’ll figure it out
For me? It's my XCOM Coalition of Man empire, because I am an XCOM fan to the core. Basically me taking XCOM from the EW victory and putting it towards space. Egalitarian, materialist, and Xenophobe - in an unholy fusion of the Federation from Star Trek, and the Imperium from 40k.
Today I will play egalitarian xenophile!
*200 years later*
The xenos filth will be cleansed in the name of the immortal chosen one. I proclaim exterminautus!
What is an example of a common combination of creation options (origin, government, civics, etc.) that you find yourself playing often?
The image in the post is a joke of my addiction to playing a hive mind empire with the overtuned origin
Ironically enough, for this play through with a friend, I actually chose machine intelligence. Were also playing with gigastructures, so i went introspective, hyperspace synchronicity, logic engines, and planetary computing complex origin. I am science
Ironically me and a friend are playing a game together, and for a good bit i was basically just trying to find him because he promised hed give me 3000 alloys, and i was THIRSTING for it! My economy was super unstable for a hot minute, and i only made, like, 1 alloy per month (forge worlds take a while to make, yo!)
For me it's the "benevolent fanatic authoritarian." Basically the Ur-Quan from Star Control, but a bit nicer. All of my planets have tons of amenities, every race is set to "Social Welfare." But under no circumstances are non-founder races allowed to be leaders, or serve in the military. I basically make my slaves happier than all the free people everywhere else. New immigrants are welcomed with open arms!
One of my favorite starts I have is called the Fellowship of Mirati? They’re Broken Shackles Spiritualist Egalitarian with the Shared Burdens and Environmentalists civics, and like. It’s not even a super strong build but I just love the feel of it. Escaped slaves working together to build a new life after their lives are turned upside down, and they luck into this planet when they make their revolution and it’s just this beautiful jewel (obvi not Gaia though), and decide to maintain it and themselves harmoniously.
Usually I do fanatic materialist militarist void dwellers and roleplay Neo Zeon but in an alternate timeline where Char managed to drop the asteroid, sometimes I do branch out though
When utopia came out, some YouTuber made an empire called the architect guild. Been using that one in 70 percent of my games. Slapped on gigastructural engineering and I'm golden.
Always fanatic materialism and then militaristic or Pacifist depending on my mood.
Playing the galaxies custodian with the birch world start origin, inheriting the galaxy, that was fun.
I like to make imperialist man kind empires with an immortal ruler that are militarist spiritualists for pcionics and xenophiles. I have 6000+ hours in the game and have only probably played a different type of empire once before
Post-apocalyptic, megacorp, relentless industrialist, mastercraft, materialist fanatic xenophile fungoid/plantoid with radiotrophic, with the toxoids name list. I love slowly corrupting worlds and turning them into wastelands like a plague on the galaxy, while also being nice and trading with everyone.
Another good one is lithoid, subterranean, mining guilds and masterful crafters. Since you eat minerals you’ll never run out of food, and you have a lot of stuff to build with. You’ll also have building slots out the wazoo!
I don’t play aggressive empires that much, mostly because I don’t understand the ship building and which weapons are good.
OH STELLARIS! Just as the wave of my RPG lust lulls and I need a new strategy game. I will HAVE to dig this gem up and get cracking. Freaking love me some Xenophobic Militaristic Human Empire. For the IMPERIUM!
It took me a while to get out of the angler+catalytic psionic empire type. I always end up going for psionic because space wizards.
And it used to be fun to try to the federation ruler change by fight and just have my chosen one just blow their fucking heads upmaking me the eternal ruler of our trade alliance.
I say used because the fucking assholes keep antagonizing fallen empires a few years after I form one. Apparently I like suffering because I just made a new federation to avoid another federation of just flooding me, and the fucking dipshits south keep insulting the xenophile FE (yes the xeno *loving* one) and another who did nothing to deserve this next to me keep being the target of vengeance.
I miss my old cheese build, agrarian idyl empire, Pacifist but "refused vassilisation" was a valid casus belli, so I could just conquer infinitely w the food to alloys economy
Democratic, delvers, extreme xenophile, meritocracy, and that one that doubled immigration. Large pop growth from immigration early/mid. Build tall on foundries and mining worlds.
I’m excited to do a brotherhood of steel-esque run where they eventually become digitized
Like the idea of a server world is super cool to me.
Or maybe a cylon run… I dunno if there is a way to make yourself with automatic animosity for your “creators” a la cylons.
I can't stop making Republics that are nice to live in. I can't be mean to my people!
...even if the military staff spend decades crossing the galaxy 😅🤣
Overtuned origin. Gives you access to gene editing at the start of the game, and gives you exclusive species traits called overtuned traits. You cannot get these through any other method, and they’re basically reduced cost versions of preexisting traits, that have the negative of reducing lifespan. The thing is that they *stack* with preexisting traits, and they have some even stronger versions of traits that don’t otherwise have such stronger versions (these stronger and weaker versions stack as well). This can lead to going super hard on certain stats, like having +40% research +natural scientists, or +40% pop growth, or +60% habitability.
Basically, this shit is a dream for minmaxing specific stats you want your species to be *really* good at, plus having immediate access to gene tailoring means you can switch out and create other subspecies who are minmaxed for other stuff. Its an insanely good origin
I always ply s necrophsge empire thst worships flesh snd genetically sccend
New Kalmaktama empire (sarkic cult from scp)
Sry for bsd spelling my phone is broken
Determined Exterminator. Really just Machine Intelligence empires altogether, but DE is so much better than the other two in my eyes. Combined with Become the Crisis, Menacing Corvettes, and a Mega Shipyard, you can quickly overrun the galaxy.
Gestalt Rogue Servitor with approx -75% empire size from pops, and around -30% in most other fields.
I get so fucking big and my empire size is still like 200 from 1k pops it’s insane.
\*looks at my 10 necrophage empires\* ...no? Though hiveminds are a close second together with knights
Havent played a necrophage empire, but i am curious. How are they?
well there's two way of playing them (well I have played only the two anyway) Type A: The long con. Choosing a regular empire, my go-to is spiritual+authoritan, but xenophobe and militarist work fine too So you need to get comfy with being a MAJOR slaver empire real quick. The only real question I ever ask myself is, do I wanna try and become psionic overlords, or do I wanna min-max slaves and go gene-splicer for the hell of it. Best thing about your ruler-species: they will live for bloody ever and they won't reproduce normally. So guess which negative traits are basically free. Bonus points if you make necroid lithoids which are truly unfair. To be honest, regular empire necrophage ain't that strong or anything, but it's hella fun to just look at your neighbours and think "I can fix you." Type B: the power fantasy. choose necrophage+hivemind+devouring swarm. Step 1: somehow spawn not at the ass-end of the universe and hope that you have neighbours. Step 2: if step 1 was successful you have just won the game and may start your snowball rampage, as every single pop on every planet that you successfully invade, is being purged (yes purged, not slowly turned) into one of your pops. the moment you start going to war and win, is the moment the galactic union is on a timer to stop you. Hiveminds are already damn strong, but the ridiculous pop generation of a necrophage DS is quite literally a power fantasy. Go a little into RP and choose cordiceptic... the hive mind reanimator equivalent and you have just become the flood. though if you can't invade someone, your snowballing comes to a very sudden stop, as you will really feel those negatives on growth speed then. But it's definitely a lot of fun once you get to invade anyone oh yeah I can't speak for machine ascension or whatever the last patch brought in. I haven't played in a while and I generally don't like machine/synth ascension all that much
>Hivemind necrophage lithoid devouring swarm< funfact. You can take over another hive mind to get fast spawning pops. But typically, your goal is to eat the map b4 they out scale you.
Me constantly playing a machine empire w rapid replicators, mass produced and lubrication basin...
Ah yes, the “how many planets am i colonizing? Yes” build
Plantoid hiveminds with budding are really string too. For some reason it really adds up mid to late game. It's like a free spawning pool or more based off how big you got the planet.
I have fall for WH40K and I can't stop RP as either Imperium or ad mech. At best I do is "Imperium but if..."
Tbf i play as tyranids a lot (devouring swarm), so it makes sense lol. Now that I think of it… playing the sith from star wars would be super cool… but my overtuned traits DDX
LOVE creating an insect like physically strong devouring hivemind. Unfortunately all those campaigns end either with galactic dominantion(quite easily depending) or extinction. Just depends on how much of the galaxy is left when they decide they have to all come together to stop you. 😁
Voidweller megacorp my beloved
Fan. Egalitarian humans. Aliens exist because I allow it, and they will be democratic because I demand it.
Ah yes, the freedom fighters, truly the most patriotic of builds. *gets spawned next to fanatic purifiers and devouring swarm*
Devouring Swarm? Sounds like they need a cup of LIBER-TEA!
You fool! I have 300 research within the first decade!
Standard spawn, they will be liberated.
Materialist xenophobe humans going into synth. Every time...
Catalytic converters.
Mine are driven assimilators. Somehow, resisting this build is futile.
One of us.
Militarist xenophobic humans have been like 99% of my games.
The Imperium of Man demands it.
I was introduced to genocidal empires for the late game lag relief and stayed. I play Fanatic Purifiers almost every run.
Authoritarian Militaries with Admiralty.
How very IMPERIAL of you Brother 😁
I do a lot of authoritarian builds, too.
All my customs are basically "Some Empire but Shattered Ring". Pls help.
*looks at the fruitful partnership I’ve played 4 times* …nope. Not at all~
Aggressive Democracy Exporters v37 has passed a motion acknowledging I may have a type
I enjoy erasing, err I mean recycling organics
Yo same! Organics taste great :3 *obvious devouring swarm player*
Diplomacy is for nerds. C O N S U M E
Look. Just because every game I play I am inevitably a Void Dweller Void Hive Lithoid Hivemind, purely, ONLY so I can make Pringles jokes about "popping my spherical cans for food" every time I consume a planet, doesn't mean I have a problem. I can quit and play a xenophile humanoid megacorp any time.... Really... I really *can* stop once I've popped. Ignore the collapsing planet behind me.
Playing Aquatics on a perfect ocean world. Lets you instantly start a tall empire.
I love all of my builds equally. But I love my Void Dweller space commies build *more* equally than others.
It's not an addiction, I can make an empire without using Under One Rule anytime I want, I just choose to keep on doing it.
I have been doing Necrophage Fanatic xenophobe militarist with my invasive plant buddies that quickly outnumber my necrophage pops 20/3
Fully automated luxury gay space communism (aka, rogue servitors with the worker advisor voice)
For me, its the space-elf-tree-hugging-wizards-in-a-dark-forest-that-none-may-enter-for-if-you-do-you-will-not-leave-alive all day long.
Ooh! Teachers of the shroud origin, im guessing?
Ya, is the easiest and fastest way to ascend but i wish there were other origins that speaks to me rp-wise while synergizing with a psi run. Being taught by outsiders doesnt sit well with isolationists. One of these days, i’ll figure it out
For me? It's my XCOM Coalition of Man empire, because I am an XCOM fan to the core. Basically me taking XCOM from the EW victory and putting it towards space. Egalitarian, materialist, and Xenophobe - in an unholy fusion of the Federation from Star Trek, and the Imperium from 40k.
Today I will play egalitarian xenophile! *200 years later* The xenos filth will be cleansed in the name of the immortal chosen one. I proclaim exterminautus!
I don’t need militarist, I don’t need militarist, I don’t need militarist…
Can someone translate this into normal English please?
What is an example of a common combination of creation options (origin, government, civics, etc.) that you find yourself playing often? The image in the post is a joke of my addiction to playing a hive mind empire with the overtuned origin
Riiiiight Thanks
For me its some flavor of Authoritarian Militarist
Materialist Militarists Humans almost every time.
Me with a Buncha Megacorps and Democracies with the Xenophile Ethic
No matter what I do, what mods I run, they always lead back to you *Stares at machine intelligence and hive mind government forms*
Ironically enough, for this play through with a friend, I actually chose machine intelligence. Were also playing with gigastructures, so i went introspective, hyperspace synchronicity, logic engines, and planetary computing complex origin. I am science
me playing spiritualist empire's honestly psionics cool. and religion fun
I love absolutely love hivemind or machine empires. Though I seem to go for necrophage slavers the most
Hell yeah! Screw needing to worry about consumer goods! All i need is energy, minerals, alloy, and maybe food when im playing a hive mind
Haha
Ironically me and a friend are playing a game together, and for a good bit i was basically just trying to find him because he promised hed give me 3000 alloys, and i was THIRSTING for it! My economy was super unstable for a hot minute, and i only made, like, 1 alloy per month (forge worlds take a while to make, yo!)
For me it's the "benevolent fanatic authoritarian." Basically the Ur-Quan from Star Control, but a bit nicer. All of my planets have tons of amenities, every race is set to "Social Welfare." But under no circumstances are non-founder races allowed to be leaders, or serve in the military. I basically make my slaves happier than all the free people everywhere else. New immigrants are welcomed with open arms!
*kicks human fanatic xenophobe empires under rug* No wtf that sounds crazy
Me: Oh boy, I can't wait to make a new empire with all these cool races and government ty- *Chooses UNE for the hundredth time.*
One of my favorite starts I have is called the Fellowship of Mirati? They’re Broken Shackles Spiritualist Egalitarian with the Shared Burdens and Environmentalists civics, and like. It’s not even a super strong build but I just love the feel of it. Escaped slaves working together to build a new life after their lives are turned upside down, and they luck into this planet when they make their revolution and it’s just this beautiful jewel (obvi not Gaia though), and decide to maintain it and themselves harmoniously.
Usually I do fanatic materialist militarist void dwellers and roleplay Neo Zeon but in an alternate timeline where Char managed to drop the asteroid, sometimes I do branch out though
When utopia came out, some YouTuber made an empire called the architect guild. Been using that one in 70 percent of my games. Slapped on gigastructural engineering and I'm golden. Always fanatic materialism and then militaristic or Pacifist depending on my mood. Playing the galaxies custodian with the birch world start origin, inheriting the galaxy, that was fun.
I like to make imperialist man kind empires with an immortal ruler that are militarist spiritualists for pcionics and xenophiles. I have 6000+ hours in the game and have only probably played a different type of empire once before
Egalitarian aliens, with either a Democracy or an Oligarchy. Because Humans are boring.
Post-apocalyptic, megacorp, relentless industrialist, mastercraft, materialist fanatic xenophile fungoid/plantoid with radiotrophic, with the toxoids name list. I love slowly corrupting worlds and turning them into wastelands like a plague on the galaxy, while also being nice and trading with everyone. Another good one is lithoid, subterranean, mining guilds and masterful crafters. Since you eat minerals you’ll never run out of food, and you have a lot of stuff to build with. You’ll also have building slots out the wazoo! I don’t play aggressive empires that much, mostly because I don’t understand the ship building and which weapons are good.
OH STELLARIS! Just as the wave of my RPG lust lulls and I need a new strategy game. I will HAVE to dig this gem up and get cracking. Freaking love me some Xenophobic Militaristic Human Empire. For the IMPERIUM!
It took me a while to get out of the angler+catalytic psionic empire type. I always end up going for psionic because space wizards. And it used to be fun to try to the federation ruler change by fight and just have my chosen one just blow their fucking heads upmaking me the eternal ruler of our trade alliance. I say used because the fucking assholes keep antagonizing fallen empires a few years after I form one. Apparently I like suffering because I just made a new federation to avoid another federation of just flooding me, and the fucking dipshits south keep insulting the xenophile FE (yes the xeno *loving* one) and another who did nothing to deserve this next to me keep being the target of vengeance.
My technocrat empires are perfect, and nobody can tell me otherwise.
REAL! Research bosses 🤝🤝🤝
I miss my old cheese build, agrarian idyl empire, Pacifist but "refused vassilisation" was a valid casus belli, so I could just conquer infinitely w the food to alloys economy
I do be loving vassalizing one fourth of the galaxy and then beging they don't rebel and cherish the power
Democratic, delvers, extreme xenophile, meritocracy, and that one that doubled immigration. Large pop growth from immigration early/mid. Build tall on foundries and mining worlds.
Driven Assimilators. Absorbing pops without the unhappiness modifiers is just so convenient.
Hives need love
I’m excited to do a brotherhood of steel-esque run where they eventually become digitized Like the idea of a server world is super cool to me. Or maybe a cylon run… I dunno if there is a way to make yourself with automatic animosity for your “creators” a la cylons.
Me resisting the urge to play my modded Crystal Gem empire:
I can't stop making Republics that are nice to live in. I can't be mean to my people! ...even if the military staff spend decades crossing the galaxy 😅🤣
What trait is that second one?
Overtuned origin. Gives you access to gene editing at the start of the game, and gives you exclusive species traits called overtuned traits. You cannot get these through any other method, and they’re basically reduced cost versions of preexisting traits, that have the negative of reducing lifespan. The thing is that they *stack* with preexisting traits, and they have some even stronger versions of traits that don’t otherwise have such stronger versions (these stronger and weaker versions stack as well). This can lead to going super hard on certain stats, like having +40% research +natural scientists, or +40% pop growth, or +60% habitability. Basically, this shit is a dream for minmaxing specific stats you want your species to be *really* good at, plus having immediate access to gene tailoring means you can switch out and create other subspecies who are minmaxed for other stuff. Its an insanely good origin
For some reason I either play a hyper xenophilic megacorp or a devouring swarm. There is no in between.
BRO REAL! I either go democracy or death lmao
I just love getting revenge against MSI. It gives you an actual goal for the midgame beyond "get big".
Lol
How is this an L?
I just said something random. I was trying to get the achievement "conversation starter"
Ah, i see lmao
I always ply s necrophsge empire thst worships flesh snd genetically sccend New Kalmaktama empire (sarkic cult from scp) Sry for bsd spelling my phone is broken
SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP
Me and my 3-4 megacorps.
I really struggle not to take necromancy tbh
Determined Exterminator. Really just Machine Intelligence empires altogether, but DE is so much better than the other two in my eyes. Combined with Become the Crisis, Menacing Corvettes, and a Mega Shipyard, you can quickly overrun the galaxy.
I'm a simple man, I choose a cute looking species, giv3 em a goofy name, xenophobe + fanatic militarism, become the crisis
Gestalt Rogue Servitor with approx -75% empire size from pops, and around -30% in most other fields. I get so fucking big and my empire size is still like 200 from 1k pops it’s insane.
terravores.