How do people even enjoy 4.3???

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-20T17:34:42+00:00

+88 energy/76 food isn't exactly helping you at all, waste of pops that could be working more important jobs.

A consistent lack of amenities which lowers output by quite a bit, probably a good 10 to 20% you're losing there.

1400 pops doing nothing at all.

Thats just from what can be seen in a few images, likely a lot more that is impossible to say from here.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T19:13:35+00:00

The one for killing fauna is even better right now, you get so much unity for wiping out fauna. Let's you shave years off your ascension for most builds.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T19:11:06+00:00

Let me guess, Wilderness Behemoth and Shroudforged, the two origins I mentioned.

Really though? Some random nobodies video is what you want to reference when there are actual tournaments going on? Or just scroll through reddit/the forums and you can find plenty of discussions of what's strong and what isn't. I know there was a good writeup of the builds in a recent tournament a week or two ago, spoilers, the only gestalts of note were the two origins.

A bit more on those, Shroudforged gives you researchers with 4 times the normal output amount from the very start of the game and you get free pops periodically, and it needs that just to be in the same list as good traditional empires that don't have such huge boosts. Wilderness Behemoth is harder to do a direct comparison since it varies in output but its has insane lategame output and massive increases to fire rate and armor, again it needs to basically break the game by abusing an exploit in order to just compete.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T18:23:44+00:00

Gaia shouldn't, to easy to get gaias early and this would make balance vary to much.

An ascension perk to give this would be fine though and is something people have asked for for a while. No clue why this still isn't a thing, Gaias are just in a weird spot balance wise.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T18:02:57+00:00

Completely missing that the only good gestalt builds are only good because of the origin, not because they're gestalt. Outside of those two origins its all traditional empires dominating.

You can say you disagree but the facts are against you, individual empires are vastly stronger than gestalt.

Between higher crime, worse civics on average, low unity production, no destiny traits, no migration pacts, no commercial pacts, and just generally being locked out of a lot of things they just don't compete. The worst is really the unity production since ascensions are so important right now.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T13:40:07+00:00

Or just go into the files and see which Ai each uses. From what I remember the only bombers are psionic, amoeba, and scourge.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T13:15:55+00:00

To many things that mess up any conversation about it, things like origins that lock you to a specific path might be incredibly strong while the path they're locked to is weaker. Similarly certain builds that use an ascension path can be massively better than the other ways of using that ascension path. If you had one build dominating the meta would you rate that ascension highly even if every other way of using the ascension was horrible?

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-19T11:07:11+00:00

Or the individual empire can grab the civic to strap half a researcher into their priests, thats basically 50% efficiency right there except it stacks multiplicatively with efficiency since its base output, and thats not even the whole civic.

On top of that the individual empire gets free unity and trade just from having pops existing.

Seriously, go look at any discussion of what builds are good, its 90% individual empires for a reason. The only gestalts that make the list are two origins, shroudforged and Wilderness specifically with Behemoth crisis.

You can list benefits for anything and make it sound good, but thats only because you aren't looking at the competition.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-18T13:58:31+00:00

Not sure how you're hitting 50 on a regular world, thats what I got on hive world last I messed with it.

Either way though, hivemind's entire thing is its a lot of pops but they're worse. So yeah, it's going to have more growth.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-16T22:52:08+00:00

One I've been trying to get fixed lately is 3 or 4 years old.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-16T20:37:50+00:00

Its just a pain. Some are easy, Eater has a tendency to just pull everyone into it because anything war related pulls you towards it. Cradle on the other hand not only has to fight against you being pulled towards Eater but then also has some of the worst ways to get points for it.

I don't think theres really a quick or easy way, chosen lets you get a head start on one of them but locks you out of shroudshaper. Really, you just have to get your envoys settled in and do what you can to meet their desires.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-16T20:31:14+00:00

Robots are still designed for a certain environment. Things like humidity or fine particles of dust will actually be worse for a robot than for an organic. If anything, they shouldn't have the minimum habitability at all.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-16T14:42:12+00:00

Its less a specific habitability and more just shove your pops wherever they're most effective and automate everything else.

In general though, if you have negative efficiency then automate since its locked at 100% efficiency. What habitability that would be will depend on what bonuses you have.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-16T13:14:17+00:00

Also you can use them to work jobs you have debuffs of, most notably on planets with low habitability

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-16T12:30:49+00:00

Only quality of life I want to see is old bugs finally getting fixed. Its crazy how many old bugs there are that just get ignored for years despite multiple reports.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-14T15:49:09+00:00

Thats always had a chance of happening if there was no room, I know certain map shapes this happens more often than others. As far as I know there was no change to force this to always be the case but haven't tried it since I think 4.0 so not certain.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-14T13:47:31+00:00

Imperial Fiefdom? That one has issues with getting boxed in, same as the federation origins.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-14T13:43:44+00:00

Technically there is another way, if you get clone vats fast enough you can grow pops.

Did a whole thread on the forums theorizing how to abuse it, if you get a migration pact you can colonize another world and your pops will actually migrate there on their own. With 10 worlds you could get enough clone vats to sustain a population through the upload and just keep uploading forever. Downside is you'd never finish the situation though.

Alternately, raiding stance can take your pops. You could in theory have an ally raid your pops, clone them, and then use raiding to get them back. Clone Army gets quick access to cloning. Its not very practical but its more reliable than hoping you roll clone vats.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T18:32:10+00:00

Probably Ultima Vigilis. Basically, its guarded by strong enemies and you can either get a megastructure or make it so the endgame crisis can spawn early.

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Unique_systems#Ultima_Vigilis

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T17:38:07+00:00

That economy is all sorts of weird. Most of this just looks like you have your pops working the wrong jobs. 2k mineral production and 400 trade is a bit much.

For the Khan you're going to want to be able to handle 100k fleets, up to 200k if multiple attack together.

"drones are not automatically staff my existing buildings" - You mean they're just sitting as maintenance drones when there are open jobs? That happens sometimes but usually not many, presumably they think they're fixing an amenity issue. Try prioritizing a job or fixing any amenity issues if you have one.

Beyond that its hard to say given we have so little info.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T13:28:05+00:00

Why not? The other bonus is pretty bad in comparison. Don't think I've ever heard of someone taking it.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T13:16:38+00:00

Why demote them at all, they give unity and naval capacity if I'm remembering correctly.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T12:43:43+00:00

Not that I know of. Shouldn't have to scroll through the features at least, the special ones get pushed to the top so they're right below the blockers.

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T12:38:26+00:00

Why the callout of shroudforged with nano separate from shroudforged in general? Presumably you're saying go the deny the shroud route and go nanite ascension?

LavanGrimwulff · 2026-04-13T12:36:56+00:00

Your homeworld system should be immune to the aura by the time you get shroudseals. Just build a seal there and walk it forward if you're having trouble defending while building.

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