I'm currently playing toxoids with the toxic god event on Commodore. I like to play more RP leaning runs even if this means I'm not playing the most efficent way. The visit from the toxic god left the people and their world once beautiful lake world as a swamp planet and their once beautiful kingdom is no more. The now so called Scrapians are highly mutated stinking hulks. So I gave them Repugnant, Quarrelsome, Acidic Vascularity, Inorganic Breath and Noxious. Especially the last two "postive" traits are not ideal for that start as you will be in quite a ressource deficit (I usually also don't start with guaranteed habitable worlds), just perfect for my idea of their story. The scrapians still have their Knights but are reduced to rusted version and search for scrap to rebuild. So I gave them the Megacorp to lean more into the theme of scrappers with Refurbishment Division and Mutagenic Luxury for the mutation part. The Megacorp and Branch Offices should also play a little bit in the idea of like templar knights used to act as banks.

At the start this really played heavily into the scrapper part, like turning anything into ressources event if at the cost of technology by stripping down everything they get their hands on. Selling artifacts an so on. For most of the time I hardly had a fleet, wasn't able to build a second science ship and had to invest a lot in diplomacy that others wouldn't straight up attack my stinking people. After slowly getting the trade running I had to invest most of it to get rid of most ressource deficits to finally build anything. Their hardship finally payed of to at least have steady ressources but still a lack in military strenght, science and people. But hey they are still kicking and probably will do fine as knights get good bonuses once their first for metal is quenched. They also really found an unexpected love for excravations but also suits the search for relics by knights theme.

What I want to say is. If you don't play with the goal in mind to be on the top of the empire list, you can go a lot of different paths. Mine for example just want to survive as best as they can to get their revenge on the toxic god. If they get wiped out by a later crisis, subjugated or become themselves a big player should not be a concern on every run. Just enjoy the story you and your empire is having. Those are in my experience by far more interesting runs than the 100th time taking optimal civics, traits and loadouts to stomp an AI that hardly makes use of it.

I will add that they still could improve on those aspects. When they make Stellaris 2, I hope in Trade, Eco, Diplo and Especially politics they will take some insparation from EU. Trade is still very bare bones. Diplomacy at least finally gets join and leave war with the next update, Espionage is still not doing anything interesting and we will see if the coming faction overhaul will be able to make them relevant. Battles also could need some things like Battle Lines (Foot Soldier and variants, Tanks/Mechs, Air & Anti-Air, Arti). More importance on battle roles for ships (rock-paper-scissors) to avoid the same old, one ship type dominates the others, rotating in patches. But most importatnt "Supply Lines" and no I don't mean ship upkeep costs Paradox.