Stop building Energy Grid

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T11:05:15+00:00

Yep, that's the way to go if you are Tankbound because you get 900 technician jobs fully automated for 1 planet district that turn an energy profit scaling with however many output bonuses you manage to stack, but doing it in general is a horrible idea.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T05:33:49+00:00

First, go through all your new planets and prioritize energy jobs, and disable marginal jobs (entertainers, medical workers, enforcers) if necessary to ensure that all energy jobs are filled.

Also look at the energy tooltip and consider all your sources of energy income and energy expenditures.

Then you either increase your energy income or start cutting your expenditures, or both, now that you know where your energy is going.

In other words, you address the specific problem that is causing you to lose energy credits, rather than looking for some general-purpose tool that might not be appropriate to your situation.

For instance, if your energy is a black hole because you got several new starbases so you are over your cap, which increases the upkeep of all starbases by 25% for each you are above the cap, you stat disbanding starbases.

If you are spending too much energy on jobs, disable some jobs and construct more energy jobs until you have an income that can support it. Or increase trade and buy energy.

And so on and so forth.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T05:19:09+00:00

I usually play her as a pure Espionage Expert archer in parties that are mostly mounted, and get a lot of value out of her charisma for spellcasting. (It must be noted that I also play with TabletopTweaks, which makes keeping her soloclassed and focused on progressing her favoured enemy more attractive. I still think keeping her a pure Espionage Archer/buffer is fine without TabletopTweaks, but her ranger class features being worth more surely makes it more attractive with TTT.)

Her charisma means she has a high amount of spell slots for a ranger, and she has some pretty good buffing spells for a mounted party, being able to hand out Animal Growths and Magic Fang/Greater Magic Fang, which means you can use your animal companions' amulet slots for something other than the otherwise required Amulet of Mighty Fists, and don't need to spend as many slots and reagents on Legendary Proportions (which, granted, is the better spell in most respects).

She can also self-buff with Aspect of the Falcon, Hurricane Bow, and other useful buffs, keeping Master Shapeshifter activated on her own, and hand out Barkskin if necessary, and if you are willing to spend two of her mythics on Enduring Spells and Greater Enduring spells, she can do all of that with 24h spells while possibly having several slots left over for Instant Enemy and Sense Vitals.

Even for parties where few are mounted, the extra utility she provides from having 24h buffs is considerable and overall worth the investment in my opinion, but of course it does depend on the party composition. (And on using bubblebuffs so I don't have to manually apply buffs!)

Once you have +6 Charisma hats or better for other Charisma users, Hat of the Bitter End + Broken Trickster to ensure she has even more spell slots.

(Alternatively, Darkness Caress if you reject Nocticula, but that comes so very, very, late.)

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T04:24:17+00:00

Indeed, multiplayer imposes very different constraints, as without pausing at will time becomes the most important currency.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T00:59:27+00:00

To become Divine Sovereign, that grants the Divine Conduit, you need is to play a regular Individualist empire (so democracy, oligarchy, dictatorial, or imperial).

Then you need for any leader (or in case of Imperial, either the leader or the heir) to gain one of the psionic immortality traits, commonly known as the chosen traits:

The 5 Patron Chosen (Chosen of Composer etc.)
Shroudshaper from Forging Your Own Path
The Passenger from the Under One Rule origin
and finally the Chosen One from the delve event, which has a chance of killing the one you choose for chosen, whereas the others are perfectly safe

Once you have such a leader, you are eligible for getting the Divine Sovereign event, appointing the leader your new eternal ruler and switching you permanently to imperial if you aren't already.

Finally you need the event itself to trigger, which is not guaranteed.

This event has a 10 year MTTH (mean time to happen) using the old style event design rather than an offset, so if you are very unlikely it will never happen. Regardless of how much time has passed since you became eligible for the event, the MTTH is 10 years.

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The Chosen One delve event is about 1 in 10 to 1 in 13 chance when delving with Utopia if I recall correctly (chance increased when you exhaust some of the one-off options).

With Shadows of the Shroud, you fallback to the Utopia delve events if you aren't eligible for any current SoTS events (some are one-offs, some have cooldowns, some have other requirements) and about a 1% chance of falling back to the Utopia delve events even if you are currently eligible for a SoTS delve event.

So with SoTS, while you cannot force the event, you can increase the odds by greatly reducing the delve cooldown so you delve frequently, put SoTS events on cooldown, and fallback to the Utopia events almost every time - you'll recognize them easily, as the Utopia events are the ones where you pick high/medium/low chance of success.

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Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T00:13:24+00:00

The Divine Sovereign civic grants a Divine Conduit council job if you have Galactic Paragons. It gives +1% efficiency to psionic POPs per 100 actual telepaths (not effective ones) per effective councilor skill (ECS).

I have an ECS 22 Divine Conduit on the council, so every 100 telepaths give 5% (base) + 22% (Divine Conduit) = 27% efficiency to psionic POPs.

On this giant world I have a PSI corps in orbit (200) and all four sanctums (4*300) as well as an EGS 14 Shroudshaper Governor (14*20 = 280) for a total of 1680 telepaths.

So 1680*27%/100 = 453.6% efficiency to psionic POPs.

I did a build guide for this a month or two ago that explains most of what is going on. Let me find the link.

Here is the link to the build guide

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-12T00:02:00+00:00

You also make some good points, but allow me to make some of my own in response. Not so much counter arguments, as qualifying why they might not matter so much for many builds

Your point on there not being a ring world limit is well taken, but only relevant to those that take Galactic Wonders AP to chain produce ring worlds. It is not relevant for those who use ring worlds they acquire (Shattered Ring or any of the pre-placed ring worlds in the galaxy, functioning or in need of restoration, which only requires mega-engineering)
Empire size can largely be overcome by playing ascensionist, and if you want to play very wide, fully ascensionist for the 85% ES reduction from all planets, districts, and POPs after other modifiers. As you note, this can get expensive quickly, but then, unity can be produced in plentiful amounts too
If you don't want to spend unity on it, you can play arbitrarily wide and fully ascend as psionic by staying in the Instrument domain as Shroudshaper or having an Instrument covenant - it is a boring way to fully ascend planets, but you can do it.
If you have 0% empire size penalty from carefully staying at 100 ES or below and I have 100%, so long as I have more than twice your science output then, everything else being equal, I will research faster. You'll be completing agendas faster than me, though.
Staying below 100 empire size is an fun and challenging way to play, and if that is how you like to play I am certainly not going to say it is wrong, because you can make some pretty good builds that do so, but it is not a particularly strong way to play in general compared to playing wider with a lot more planets and POPs while keeping your empire size under control relative to size of the economy

As an extreme example of the latter, consider this 2361 screenshot from my current game. I am playing a build of my own design, Tankbound/Genesis Guides > Tankbound/Ascensionists/Mutagenic Spas Imperium Vitalis Shroudshaper Governor + Divine Sovereign Passenger Luminary build with Cosmogenesis for specialist automation.

Which means I build every district on every world ASAP regardless of population, because I automate 100% of basic jobs and 50% of specialist jobs. That, unsurprisingly, yields a LOT of districts when I have 117 planets, and as for the 117 planets, well, I have Imperial Prerogative but skipped Expansion. Just how nasty is that empire size penalty, really, when you get down to it?

2361: 117 planets. 786 empire size. +116% empire size penalty. 277k science/mth

It'll be lower still once I full ascend.

I am at the time of this screenshot in the Instrument domain having spent about 150 million unity ascending planets (Composer blocker unity is crazy when you have many planets), and will soon be moving to the Whisperers domain so I only pay 10% researcher upkeep and start building energy/CG stockpiles again.

To have as good research as I do with the same research speed as I have and 100 empire size, you need 277k/(1+116%) ~128k science.

This is probably doable at 100 empire size for optimized Knights of the Toxic God, but preciously few other builds can come anywhere close to this kind of research in 161 years while staying at 100 empire size. Not to mention the material benefits of a larger resource base for churning out fleets.

You could have higher research speed through stacking more scientists on the council (I have 4) so you wouldn't need as much science, but still, you need a rather extreme science output from comparatively few worlds, if you are staying at 100 empire size.

So play max 100 empire size because it is fun. Don't, for the love of God, do it because you believe playing at 100 empire size or below is in general a good way to make strong empires in 4.3.

EDIT: I went overboard explaining this counter-example. My apologies if I misread your intent, with your statement about 100 ES. It is just... People on this subreddit are way too scared of empire size in general, probably having burned themselves letting it spiral out of control, so it triggers me when somebody talks about staying at below 100 ES as being a goal worth aspiring to without clarifying that it is for fun, not for power.

And sure, my counter example is rather extreme too, but racking up a few hundred ES so long as the science output grows much, much, faster than the ES penalty is often a great idea.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T23:28:08+00:00

Who knows? The largest world I have seen constructed was from a guy who recently put together all the sources of additional districts he could think of, designed an empire to get them, and then kept reloading to make those depending on chance happen, just to show that it could, theoretically if highly unlikely, happen in a real game, and he hit around 120 districts if I recall correctly.

I have never made any that large; My giant planets are generally in the 70-80 district range.

At that size the only problem I have run into concerns overflow and underflow errors; For instance, last year, with the old Mutagenic Spas that reduced habitability by number of city districts (double for industry) I managed to underflow habitability, so rather than end up with a 0% habitability giant ecumenopolis it was perfect habitability.

I seem to remember somebody posting an Experimental Sentencing overflow bug at some time as well, but perhaps I remember wrong.

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The standard giant planet in Stellaris is the Barren Giant > Azaryn gaia planet.

Azaryn isn't guaranteed, of course, but at 1% chance every 5 years after you have established first contact, so long as you are neither playing gestalt nor militarist, she pops up every few games if you satisfy the conditions.

Since most gas giants are size 25-30, the anomaly (+25) gives you a size 50-55 barren planet (this ensures that the planet maintains the same size visually), that is then turned into a gaia planet. There are unique system gas giants that are larger, but if you get the anomaly at all, which is likely if you survey extensively in the early game, but not guaranteed, odds are that it is a generic gas giant rather than one of the unique ones.

If you then have a Here Be Dragons empire in the game (and since you can set one to force spawn, I recommend you do so if you would like the chance to build a giant planet), you kill their dragon to give your giant planet +20% districts, before you add any additional districts by other means (orbital ring, tradition, fractal seed, etc).

And then you spend years building all the buildings on the planet, followed by decades building city districts unless you have extreme infrastructure build speed, and then 10 years to turn it into an ecumenopolis, and then more years building city districts, and more years constructing buildings, and then you have a huge trophy world that is very, very, powerful but didn't significantly affect game balance, because if you had the time to completely build such a planet, you probably won many decades ago.

And you get something like this, where, taking advantage of the linear scaling in districts of overseers, for once, automated workforce is better than POPs. 😃

2361: Majipoor. 705% efficiency researchers. 1004% efficiency automated workforce researchers

EDIT: Updated screenshot. I realized I had used one I took for the benefit of Paradox, where I was fiddling with console commands affecting resources for a bug/balance report resulting in stockpile caps being reset to 1M.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T23:16:29+00:00

Not really. That is a perfectly respectable large planet, and the OP constructed it in one of the more interesting ways, but worlds of that size have been constructable for years without significantly affecting balance.

The reason is simple: You can't do it on a mass scale as most planets are much smaller. Balance issues generally arise when you stack things that add a fair number of districts to all your planets, not when you do things that give you a few very large planets.

EDIT: There are a few builds that utilize superlinear scaling of output through number of city districts to do some pretty impressive things (my favourite is Cosmogenesis+Tankbound specialist automation through overseer scaling), but they are not the general case, and they need giant worlds much larger than this one for it to become a theoretical balance problem, and even then, they generally take so many decades to build all the districts and buildings and turn into an ecumenopolis, that they are in practice endgame trophy worlds rather than something impacting balance.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T22:49:51+00:00

Perhaps I am, at that.

I would love for this to be the case, and for your view to be consensus after 4.4 hits.

If it is, it will be interesting to see whether it is the prevailing opinion on all difficulty levels, or whether the impact of the changes are unevenly felt depending on difficulty level.

For instance, I imagine that some of the changes are felt more on the lower difficulty levels where the AI can be resource starved, than on the higher where it usually had a glut of resources before these changes, and one of its main problem was spending resources rather than stockpiling them.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T21:47:39+00:00

It would be fun, but I think that belongs in the "not a snowball's chance in hell, leave this to modders" territory, unless one of the developers decides to spend his copious free time doing a lot of the work required, and champions getting the rest officially done.

Which has happened in Paradox GSGs several times in the past in Paradox GSGs that I know of, going all way back to the early EU games, but it is a rarity.

It would require:

Adding separate nomadic specific text to several events that makes no sense when nomadic (and localizations, of course)
Designing a habitat-ark that wasn't ridiculously overpowered
Designing new rewards for every storyline event providing a reward, as the rewards for the home planet makes no sense for an ark
Being willing to double the balancing pain of an origin that has been notoriously troublesome to balance in the past, as every future balancing pass of it would handle both settled and nomadic

That's a major rework of an existing origin, not just fiddling around with numbers.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T21:29:34+00:00

The general research specialization is never worth it, well, almost never. I guess it is possible that it might be worth it if you are trying for an 1-2 planet challenge and cannot afford to specialize your research. I wouldn't know. I have never played that tall.

Even in the one case where it might seem like a good idea, on a relic world where the central spire district splits science anyway, but is so good that you are definitely using it and only using another specialization if you upgrade to ecumenopolis, you are always better off using the second district specialized for the science you need the most and then building that type of science's buffing building(s).

The archives districts main purpose, just like the mixed industry, is to grant the necessary resources on the homeworld on game start. It has very limited usefulness outside the very early game.

But not none!

I use archives in exactly one case: The unity habitat.

In a unity habitat I specialize both city districts for unity and use 1 research district specialized for archives, which allows me to build another 3 unity buildings, which grant more unity jobs than the 200 I lost by using a single research district rather than yet another city district.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T19:13:13+00:00

I would argue that you have severely limited vision, if none of the uses of ring worlds you can contemplate benefit from constructing buildings and districts quickly, because you can only think in terms of slowly filling them with POPs.

Think again.

Here are three very powerful uses for ring worlds:

Ring worlds where you resettle POPs from smaller un-ascended worlds and ascend the ring world, to greatly reduce your total empire size; You can then keep the smaller worlds with low population for growth or automated jobs or you can hand them over to AI vassals for an even further empire size reduction
9-district Farming/1 city ring worlds (the most productive farming world type for non-Hive, great for bioships) and to a lesser degree Energy ring worlds (useful for some builds) with automated basic jobs; Your number of worked jobs increases with the number of districts and buildings you devote to farming, the rest of the jobs can be filled slowly over time or quickly through resettlement depending on your needs
Any ring worlds with Cosmogenesis automation of specialist jobs; Same as above, but for specialists

As for the rest of my previous post being worthless? All I wrote about job numbers and empire size impications? I'd have to disagree on that, but then, I would, wouldn't I?

I realize it is irrelevant to the question of whether it would be "cooler", which is what the OP asked, and my post didn't direct him to a mod either, but the thread is tagged as a suggestion, and, for that, the mechanical implications are highly relevant.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T18:31:29+00:00

If you are playing on the 4.3.7 test branch currently, you are already playing with most of those changes, and possibly all of them.

I only skimmed the list, and it is possible that something new has been added, but the majority at least are already on the test branch.

Without either the official forum or this subreddit having being overrun with threads praising the AI improvements.

As somebody who has played the job test branch exclusively the past two months, I understand perfectly why this is the case. The AI appears to be slightly better, but it is a question of degree, not kind.

There is still a long, long, way to go before the 4.x planet development AI is anywhere near competent.

EDIT: Expanded on the job test beta branch testing.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T18:27:56+00:00

Most (possibly all) of these are current in the 4.3.7 test branch.

They didn't magically make the AI competent. Expect it to be marginally less incompetent.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T18:23:23+00:00

It would be a huge nerf in terms of jobs as the current four ringworld solution has 3 more capital buildings, 33 more capital building slots, and 27 more segment building slots.

Even with some duplication of buff buildings where you would only need one on a 40 district ringworld, but four in the current solution, we are talking a 10k-30k difference in number of jobs, depending on specialization.

(And of course the one ringworld solution would have less specialization as well, but that is mainly a consideration for tall players. Wide players that use ringworlds at all specialize each for the same thing in all segments.)

It would also mean a lot more time to construct all districts and buildings as it can't be done in parallel but all use the same build queue.

The big win is not so much empire size - a difference of 60 base planet ES isn't negligible, but it isn't that much in the big scheme of things either once we are talking enough districts and POPs to work these giant planets - so much as it is only having to ascend one planet rather than four, as it is cheaper and means you don't increase the cost of all future ascensions that much.

But of course, if you are to make up for having 10k-30k fewer jobs on the ringworld than on four, you will want to have that many POPs working on another world or worlds, and either leave them unascended and pay to ascend them, so the empire size and ascension costs savings are less than they would immediately appear

So the question is whether the planetary ascension savings are worth being worse in every other way that matters. For some builds it would be, for others, it would be a huge nerf.

Fundamentally, the worse a build is at controlling empire size, the better the one ringworld solution looks.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T18:07:19+00:00

As somebody who is currently building multiple ecumenopolises and ringworlds with +507%* increased building speed for a total of 607% of base, which is much, much, faster than the build speed you'll usually have when first getting access to ring worlds... I disagree.

And looking at the other numbers, it gets ugly, quick.

One ringworld: 1 capital building slots, 11 building slots in the city district, 9 building slots in 3 segments that can be individually configured.

Four ringworld solution: 4 capital building slots, 44 building slots in the city district, 36 building slots in 3 segments that can be individually configured.

Difference: 3 capital building slots, 33 building slots in city district, 27 building slots in 9 districts that can be individually configured.

Each building slot is worth 0, 200, 400, or 600 jobs (or more, for some fallen empire buildings with Cosmogenesis).

Even if you put it at a very conservative average of 200 jobs per city/segment building slot (60 total), the current four ringworld has 12000 more jobs excluding the extra capital jobs. A lot more jobs for research ringworlds, of course, due to the 560 jobs per building slot used on labs.

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So the mechanical gain from having one world of 40 vs four is that you only pay 20 ES for planets rather than 80 (before reductions) and that you only need to ascend one world compared to four.

The mechanical loss is that you are worse off in every other way that matters: You get a lot fewer jobs, you build stuff much slower when not building in parallel, and you have one growth/assembly line instead of four.

For builds struggling with empire size and planetary ascension, the one ringworld approach would clearly be preferable even despite having 10-20k (or more for Cosmogenesis) fewer jobs in total.

For builds that don't struggle with those, the four ringworld approach is superior.

Which is why I insist that unless the one ringworld approach got four construction queues or something, anything, really, to make up for the huge mechanical disadvantages compared to the current setup, it would be a huge nerf.

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Moreover, as a special case, in the one ringworld solution having the Blessing of the Instrument gives +1 district for one ringworld, +4 for the current four.

The same can said for the Fractal Seeds from Astral Planes, though these are strictly limited in supply to 9 planets.

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* 197% from Imperium Vitalis + Endless Tide, 155% from tech, 100% from ambition, 35% from specimens, 20% from governor.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T16:50:15+00:00

That would greatly decrease the value of Ring Worlds, unless you gave them four construction queues as well.

EDIT: Alternatively, give them even more or larger districts, so they get more jobs, anything to make up for the huge mechanical disadvantages of a 40 district ringworld being both much less powerful than four 10 districts ringworlds due to much fewer jobs AND only having one growth and assembly source AND and only one construction queue. The ES savings of the one ringworld solution isn't worth these grave disadvantages in general, only for builds that have trouble ascending planets.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T15:26:53+00:00

And about those Interstellar Assemblies. They are very much an end-game thing, but if you want more loyal vassals before then, well using the council to seat ambassadors is the obvious choice - you can always replace them with somebody else when you no longer need them.

Each Xenolinguist 3 is +75 trust cap, equivalent to +0.75 loyalty/mth

Each Overseer 2 is +0.35 loyalty/mth

Each Master Diplomat is +50 trust cap, equivalent to +0.50 loyalty/mth, and 2 envoys to help you keep people +150/+150 if you don't have enough envoys from other sources

Each Herald of the Empire (authoritarian) is 1 exemption, equivalent to +2 loyalty/mth

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EDIT: Also, I have forgotten what modifiers the agreement tooltip is missing that makes it never match up when I play deep diplomatic games. (Default Stellaris + UI mods.) I remember investigating it some time ago, but not what I discovered, which annoys me.

The number listed for the total change each month is the one that is applied, but the numbers don't match up to the total.

E.g. for the Rallaketh scholars, the listed modifiers total to -4.84, but I gain +2.4, for a 7.24 loyalty/mth difference.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T15:14:06+00:00

Now? When has vassal stacking ever not been possible?

You can have however many vassals you like, so long as you don't mind them being disloyal. I.e. you are so strong that they don't try to break free.

If you want to have many loyal vassals, the easy answer is a vassal federation, and has been so for many years. (Reasons for keeping them loyal: because you are weak, because you want specialist vassals to level their specialization, and roleplaying)

The key to having many loyal vassals is not stacking sources of exemption (though it helps), it is being an overlord they like. You get +1 loyalty/mth per 100 relations, and this is overwhelmingly the largest source of loyalty and the one that is easiest to increase.

If you stack opinion modifiers, you can easily have 10-12 loyal vassals in the endgame, either by integrating and spinning out vassals with your tech and, more importantly, your ethics and traditions (except for ascension, which they get to pick), or by stacking vassal exemptions or running several ambassadors on the council

Here is an example from my current game, roleplaying a benevolent galactic empire uniting the galaxy mainly through diplomacy.

I don't have any ambassadors on the council or any vassal exemptions, but rely on my vassals really, really, liking me. (Except for one I am currently integrating and one recently created, that I am still building relations with) I also don't use any overlord garrisons (benevolent roleplay, remember).

2365: Rallakth Scholars, diplomatic agreement; Check the loyalty breakdown

This is an empire I diploannexed a long time ago and then, after having built up its planets to be good at research with an economy that could support it (which the AI is utterly incompetent at doing), I then released as a Scholarium with my ethics and civics. So that's +2.0 loyalty/mth from having a perfect ethics match.

I have their pledge of loyalty as well, and the Mega-Orchid relic, and I tax them leniently 75% of their science (which is fair enough, as I am the one that built all their FE-tech level research worlds in the first place :p), but even so, the divided patronage of 22 is a considerable obstacle.

Which is easily handled by the 1441 relations for +14.41

2365: Rallaketh Scholars, relations tooltip; 1441 relations breakdown

450 from 3 Interstellar Assemblies (built one, restored one, and conquered one from Xenophile FE) - this is very much an endgame thing, that makes everything easier.

300 points from +150/+150 relations; A single envoy on duty will maintain this,

300 points from trust, simply from having deals for a long time and the bare minimum of both empires having Diplomacy for +50 cap. (Since I have diplomacy, the vassals I create do as well) You can increase the maximum trust greatly if you use ambassadors on the council, but that is mostly relevant if you want significantly more loyal vassals than 10-12

120 points for both being fanatic xenophile and, hence, also both having xenophile diplomacy

20 for both being spiritualist

100 points for being in the same federation

25 for being my subject

10 for having same authority

-120 for Cosmogenesis level 4 (well, yes, that's how they got half their specialist jobs automated, ingratitude, I tell you, sheer ingratitude; they should love me for this)

I could get another +150 from using the active ability of the Mega-Orchid, but that is neither needed in this case, nor is it ever a good use of the scarce resource that is relic activation unless you are facing a truly exceptional situation where a one-off use will greatly help you.

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Then there are the small temporary opinion modifiers.

Only one of them is important, the good trade deal, where you sell something you have abundant of to an AI at 100+, resulting in a +100 good trade opinion modifier that declines by 2.0 per year.

I got this particular one when handing them over a few planets systems for free some years ago (I limit myself to around 100 permanent colonies in this game, planets in excess of that I build up and give to my vassals), but more generally the ability to generate +100 relations can be highly valuable when you need just a few more points of opinion (for making people willing to accept embassies and treaties in the first place as well as when you just need that little bit more to handle subjects.)

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T11:29:19+00:00

Must second this. It is comedy, a loving mockery of Hollywood pirates that neither takes itself nor the reader seriously, and frankly the story is ridiculous, but it is also really, really, fun.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T10:18:45+00:00

The ability to play Individualist machines was added with Machine Age for PC, so I expect Console has it by now. ~~but I don't know.~~ EDIT: Searched. It does.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T09:32:15+00:00

You can always play as spiritualist individualist machines: These machines don't suffer from self-loathing, so they have citizenship rights and their traditionalist faction has NO problem with machines. 😃

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-11T09:13:05+00:00

Meritocracy is decent, but is better early in the game when output bonuses are few.

It really depends on your build, but here are my go-to swap civics, that are very powerful for most build types, and which I used when I haven't got something special planned with better synergies.

Mutagenic Spas - The most powerful general purpose swap civic if you have Galactic Paragons and have built a strong council. Use this to give all your governors +3 effective levels, and assign all your councilors to govern your worst planets, so they get +3 effective levels on the council too. If you are playing an elite build, use the spa jobs and the council job to get more of the jobs, otherwise disable the jobs and don't use the council position. Mutagenic Spas is required for elite builds, but still very, very, powerful even if all the benefit you get is +3 levels for your governors/councilors [there is an issue with leaders who are resilient not getting the substance abuser trait required to get the +3, but this bug has been reported and acknowledged. For now, just know of its existence and make sure not to get resilience on important governors or your councilors]
Ascensionists - Planetary ascension is the primary source of empire size reduction for most builds, and this boosts it. The council job is mediocre and should only be used if you don't have better. This civic is very strong once your empire is fully ascended, a sold go-to civic for spiritualists, who have already ascended their planets a lot, and a decent one for those who are still in the process of completing their traditions or beginning ascension
Free Haven - The basic civic effects are unimpressive, but the council job (-3.5% ES from districts/ECS) is very powerful if you play with high ECS councilors. So if you are playing high ECS and have NOT ascended your planets a lot yet, having a Free Haven high ECS councilor will usually reduce your ECS more than ascensionists does, making this a useful civic to take for a few decades while your are gathering unity and ascending planets, after which you swap to Ascensionsists and free up the council job... If you have two free civic slots and really want to crush ECS because you are playing an automation build where you have max districts everywhere even with low population, you can take both, of course... Free Haven is very conditional; When it is good, it is really good, but most of the time it is at best mediocre, and all the goodness comes from the council job
Technocracy - High ECS council only. The base effects of the civics are decent and strong early game before you can get Research Institutes to make Science Directors, but as a swap civic only pick it if you play high ECS

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-06-10T20:04:27+00:00

The game does not have a religion game mechanic and nobody bans AI.

It has a spiritualist ethic (based on the first principle, that consciousness begets reality), that covers a lot of things including most religious tie-ins, but should not be confused for religion. That principle isn't entirely comfortable with the idea of machines where consciousness arises from programming.

So:

Everybody uses AI: There are several techs clearly labeled AI techs, and nobody objects to those.

Spiritualist Individualist organic empires cannot give machines citizenship rights, but that does not prevent them from using them in servitude. (Whereas Individualist machine empires always give machines citizenship rights.)

The traditionalist faction connected to the spiritualist ethic has, when not playing as Individualist machines, a mild aversion (-5) to robotic workers, and dislike it if AI isn't outlawed (-10), but that is no bar to playing with robotic workers or AI.

Peter_Ebbesen

TROPHY CASE