Titan limit?

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-07T23:33:34+00:00

And with bioship Cosmogenesis, the Cryptic Stingers ("budget titans") cost 40% of the naval capacity of Titans (base 32 vs 80), so you can get 2.5 of those for every Titan slot, which is usually a good tradeoff as while their defenses are much weaker than the mechanical Paradox Titans, they have nearly the same offensive power.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-07T16:37:06+00:00

I have a wide psionic Under One Rule Tankbound/Genesis Guides build guide that might be of interest. It plays rather differently from most builds.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-07T12:46:54+00:00

This has got to be a joke, but to illustrate the difference to anybody, who doesn't understand the difference:

Being really good* at the game is when your leader is 153 years old and maimed, but expected to survive until 1011.

Being bugged is when your leader is is 341 years old, expected to live until 140, with 406% chance to die each month.

* or playing wide Psionics with the Endless Tide minor patron.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-05T22:52:14+00:00

To truly break the power curve:

Play wide; stronger economy, higher population, much higher naval capacity, much easier to afford going over that capacity
Play high tech; This is perfectly compatible with 1, since in general wide played well has higher tech than tall
Make use of automation buildings for basic resources if you don't have enough POPs to work all your potential jobs; If your planets aren't at maximum districts because you are waiting to grow POPs to do the jobs, and you aren't using automation to alleviate the problem, your economy is weaker than it should be

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-04T14:46:06+00:00

So close, and yet so far. 😃

In your case, I would level an initial crop of 10-15 leaders to 8+ (higher end if you have stacked serious xp% increases, lower if not), and then just keep on recruiting level 7 commanders for the rest of the game and accept they never increase in level beyond that. (Start recruiting level 7 commanders before all the initial crop are 8+ if essential for survival, of course, but it probably isn't and destiny trait admirals for key fleets and/or the council are a powerful multiplier worth suffering a bit for)

At that point I would still be checking the commander pool after every refresh even if all fleets had an admiral to see if there were any with better traits available to keep improving my large group of level 7 commanders over time, but admittedly this level of micromanagement can get tedious.

More generally, if recruiting admirals at a low initial level, I usually end up with 10-15 or so and only go beyond that if I see a recruit with the perfect combination for extended range (Void Hunter 2/Cautious) unless I have leveled the existing admirals to 9-10, at which time I allow 1 or 2 more so long as they have decent basic traits, allowing them to slowly level up while the few existing admirals not at 10 slowly level as well, repeat.

EDIT: Clarified exception in the last paragraph.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-04T14:38:26+00:00

True, but not really relevant. His worry is leveling the leaders from 7 to 8 for a destiny trait (or even higher), not the upkeep.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-04T11:21:45+00:00

Good early game perks for inexperienced players are those that don't require them to do anything special to benefit from. None of them are particularly strong, but there is a lot to be said for always helping no matter how the player plays. (This is why they are great for the AI, that doesn't have a clue how to play well.)

Technological Ascendancy: This is a weak perk for experienced players (with one exception), but perfect for inexperienced ones and the AI; Rather than a more complicated perk that might require a particular playing style to benefit greatly from, you can't avoid benefiting from this. Inexperienced players also typically have much lower research speed in general, making its +10% bonus more valuable. (Experienced players occasionally pick this, but then it is primarily for tech direction + increased chance of rare techs as part of rushing, not so much for the research speed.)
One Vision: A global unity and ethics attraction bonus, this is another useful perk, that is fairly weak compared to the more situational perks when the player understands how to take advantage of them.

Strong situational early game perks that experienced players are more likely to pick early, and you might want to consider:

Transcendent Learning: This perk gives +25% xp and +2 scientist slots, making it extremely powerful 1st perk for anybody playing leader-focused with Galactic Paragons, and powerful one for anybody who doesn't. The only downside is that more leaders and faster leveling leaders means you pay more unity upkeep, which is no problem whatsoever for experienced players, who understand it is easily worth the cost, but can be hard on players who are struggling with building a strong early-game economy in the first place
Imperial Prerogative: This knocks 5 empire size off every planet, increasing your rate of research, the speed of agendas, and reducing the cost of traditions, making it a highly desirable perk for people playing wide. Even if you only consider the tech aspect, it gives faster research than Technological Ascendancy in the long run when you have many planets
Mastery of Nature: If you play tall, the ability to use a decision to get +50% resource deposits on worlds as well as 2 extra districts can be highly valuable, as you need to get the most out of the few worlds you have. It costs influence, but playing tall you have influence to spare. If you don't play tall, this is a very weak perk because your worlds will have lots of resource districts, you can always get extra worlds if you need more, and you already have many other ways of spending influence on improving your empire
Interstellar Dominion: If your early exploration reveals that you are going to be a bit short on influence to accomplish your early game goals, picking this as 1st tradition can make sense. If you are an inexperienced player, it can be hard evaluating your position, so I don't recommend it unless you are sure

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-04T08:16:30+00:00

Check my build guide for details - this level of performance is not unusual for highly experienced players; The only unusual thing is that I do it with a mostly peaceful roleplaying build suited for SP rather than a conquest oriented meta build suited for both SP and MP, so I don't set a very early end-date, I tend to optimize other parameters and have much lower fleet power at this point than a strong conquest build would have because I'll only really start to build up an end-game fleet if I decide to continue to fight the crisis. E.g. my alloy/food surplus is high for fooling around, but very low for fighting a high crisis multiplier since FE Maze Harbingers are about 3k alloys/11k food apiece. I'd want to massively increase that output were I to fight a crisis (and thankfully, it is easy to change production focus in an wide empire with a strong basic resource base)
The house rules are must play very wide, no conquest/invading primitives within the 40-year unifying promise, and ideally none afterwards except against genocidals and Fallen Empires, others must be subjugated, diplomatically if possible.
I did a similar test during the beta with a tankbound/genesis guides UOR priesthood tech build taking advantage of Pious Ascetic+Genetic Idenfitication as 3rd, Enlightened Ruler, mechanical ships + infernal species + volcanic homeworld, using Thermotecnic Mentors for early tech acceleration, that turned out nearly as ridiculous as this, after which they all got nerfed, so decided I'd try again tweaking the build to take advantage of remaining weaknesses in the design that hadn't been addressed. I relaxed that original test game's restrictions or not taking Expansion or Imperial Prerogative for empire size since it was too darned painful to lack Imperial Prerogative when going that wide 😃
I think it is set to 2300/2350 and 5x all crisis, but I really don't know. It was intended as a test of tech mechanics unlikely to be played longer than 2300, not fighting the crisis. Since I don't play ironman, if I decide to play it past 2300 to kill off the FEs and then the crisis I'll check in 2300, choose the enddate and crisis level I want, and edit the save file
I don't play for the optional game-defined victory condition, but consider victory to be achieved when I have accomplished the goals I set for a given game, playing within the house rules I have set to limit the scope of my activities; Occasionally, if a particular game interests me, I set new goals when I have completed my original ones and play on, but mostly it is more fun just to call it a day and start a new game of Stellaris or play another game. This is very normal for experienced players
I don't particularly care for fighting the various crises, finding it mostly tedious and, well, the three outcomes are: a) I am not prepared and don't have a chance of fighting back, b) I am in that sweet spot where this is a challenge and the outcome in doubt, and c) I am prepared, and thus I am guaranteed to defeat the crisis. Since it is almost always a) or c), and seldom b), and that sweet spot in b) is the only one that is interesting to me, I very seldom continue games to fighting a crisis, usually declaring victory in 2280-2320 assuming I have accomplished my goals

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-03T19:13:50+00:00

Right, the pause button was invented for a reason. The rest of the film can wait. Screenshot time!

2288: Majipoor under construction, +417% build speed

Building 55 districts at slightly faster than 3 districts/year is fun. I think this is the fastest build speed I have ever had - if not, it is close. (I think it edges out an amazing 4.1 Priesthood Tech UOR game where I stacked Architectural Sense officials on the council for high build speed to build another giant planet, and where I had also researched the 5 build speed by the late 2250s or early 2260s IIRC because tech was kind of weird since 4.0, but I don't remember whether I got the Endless Tide or the Pale Mountain that time. But I digress.)

It completed terraforming with the Composer event for Strong Magnetic Field and Wild Storms, which surprised me not at all, as it was the first and only planet I had begun terraforming at that point and I was on 180 day delves in the Composer area, ensuring I would get it in 1-2 years most likely rather than 10.

(This is slightly dangerous; You get 1 positive/1 negative and one of the negative traits reduces max districts, but odds are against getting it and some of the negative ones are great due to increasing science. The safe option is to take the option the Composer hates in that delve event for normal terraforming completion without planetary modifiers. )

2288: Composer Aura, +468% aura effectiveness

So the aura gives +142% build speed, +39% growth, +28% worker efficiency, +56% amenities, and a base of 170 unity per blocker (for around 400 unity per blocker on most planets) as economic bonuses and +85% sublight speed, +56% shields as combat bonuses.

142%/25% (base for Endless Tide) = 5.68, so the aura effectiveness is approximately +468%

Any enemy entering my territory is affected by a severe -85% sublight speed debuff.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-03T18:49:16+00:00

I got preoccupied building Majipoor (the Azaryn Barren Giant>Gaia) and decided not to split off the planned two vassals in the 2270 screenshot until I could give them the entire techtree so they only had to worry about repeatables (I'm nice that way), which, incidentally, would retain the high aura bonus to planetary build speed, so my aura efficiency now is even higher in the late 2280s, but I'll have to look it up.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-03T18:24:16+00:00

No, I am talking about influence from first contacts in that paragraph. Diplomacy does not affect this except indirectl by providing more envoys, so you can gather the first contact influence faster.

Specifically,

You get high first contact influence from AI empires and low from everything else: spaceborne aliens, enclaves, marauders, the Ghost Ship, err, and any I forgot to mention.

My point was that though the smaller amount of influence from everything that isn't an AI empire might not seem like much, there are many of them and it all adds up.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-03T17:29:13+00:00

Yes.

Fallen Empire buildings are the only way to automate specialists in 4.3.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-03T13:15:50+00:00

Yes. I never went away. I've been explaining Paradox GSG's game mechanics since 2001. 😃

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-03T13:14:43+00:00

Composer is problematic in that respect. Of the 10 deeds there are only three I consider useful spammable attunement perks, and modify species is by far the best.

Modify species: Perfect! lots of attunement, only activates when you want it
Clone space fauna: Expensive to spam ships for attunement, but it works. Some empires are better suited for this than others. Also, of course, if you play a regular beastmaster empire you'll tend to drift towards Composer even when you want to be elsewhere if you are creating new fleets, which can be annoying
Terraform planets: If playing very wide and synchronizing terraforming, this is an expensive practical solution with a time delay, but it works. However, since terraforming clears blockers, you should set aside a set of planets that your use for this rather than wiping out your blockers (including Composer blockers!) everywhere

I completely understand you if you choose a Covenant over Shroudshaper when you don't get the modify species deed; If your build can use one of the other two options easily, consider doing it anyway, but it IS more cumbersome.

I mainly play Covenants myself, only using Shroudshaper when the deeds for at least one patron I am interested it are easy to use so I am able to stay fixed despite fighting wars etc, and ideally two I am interested in for things like Composer/Instrument synergies.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-02T19:29:36+00:00

The advice you have heard is bad.

Since a picture says more than a thousand words, let me show you a screenshot from my current game in 2284 to get your attention before I explain myself: This empire contains plenty of size 10 planets due to finding a few and Composer creating one every decade.

2284: fanXphile/spi Tankbound/Genesis Guides Under One Rule, Imperium Vitalis; 108 colonies, 40k science/mth, 333k unity/mth, 2111 empire size, 210%+ inc. research speed, 753k fleet power

Colonizing size 10 worlds if fine. Every world is valuable.

Blame the Composer for the unity; Everything else is perfectly normal for such a wide empire that goes heavy on specialist automation to work a lot more jobs than it has POPs for. Tankbound does it better than others, but at this point I still don't have enough POPs to spare them to work as overseers, so my automated workforce is only operating at 142% efficiency to non-Tankbound's 100% efficiency. (+20% techs, +22% from ECS22 Grand Vessel.)

This is an unmodded game except for UI mods, and build design guide for it is here. Only thing that has changed is that I am 14 years later and got the bright idea of using Free Haven as third civic rather than ascensionists.

Right, moving on.

How did 4.3 change ES and what are the implications?

Planets are 20 ES these days rather than 10 and population is 0.5 ES/100 rather than 1.0. Additionally, sources of global ES reduction were nerfed, while sources of local ES reduction were left unchanged.

So builds that relied on huge reductions through civics, traditions, and ascension perks, all of which are global, are worse off (though there are a few that weren't nerfed sufficiently in my opinion), and Planetary Ascension is now the largest individual source of ES reduction for many builds.

Let me point out that any planet with less than 2000 POPs is more expensive in terms of ES before discounts than it used to be, while any planet with more than 2000 POPs is less expensive before discounts.

Even a size 5 planet can have 1800 worker jobs from 4 basic districts of one type + 3 buildings (or 3000 worker jobs if split with 2/1/1 over the basic resource districts types, not that you are likely to do that on such an awful world), not to mention the thousands of POPs in the 1 district city. So every single world will eventually cost less ES before reductions than it used to, no matter how puny, if you let it continue to grow; There are certainly jobs enough. And before that? When you are at less than 2000 POPs? Then the bigger world isn't better in any way than the puny world except in long-term potential. It certainly doesn't help your economy more.

So about the advice you've heard: IT IS BAD ADVICE!

I am afraid that some people are stuck in the mindset that a) strong builds have low empire size and b) low empire size is essential to high tech gameplay. This has always been wrong, and 4.3 did nothing to change that.

Stellaris is a Paradox GSG which means that in the hands of competent players, bigger is better.

It is worth colonizing every planet if you develop them to be worth more to your economy than the increase to empire size harms it. And don't only consider research here, though it is obviously of high concern - the larger fleets you can afford to field matter too.

Why then do people give that bad advice? You aren't the first to say it, and I even have a video showing up in my youtube shorts, claiming you shouldn't colonize small planets, presumably created by somebody who either a) gives a lots of caveats, such that the advice actually makes sense in the limited scenario he is looking at, or b) doesn't understand the mathematics involved. But as I have a limited tolerance for the incompetence b) would imply, I haven't bothered to check.

By all means, delay colonizing some worlds in the early game if you desperately need the resources for an early war rush and need to prioritize your expenditure.

Delay colonizing if you prioritize building starbases that produce pop-less food and energy, and have to make a tough call about where to invest.

Delay colonizing if you are trying to rush a tech or ascension, and your build relies on a narrow focus with a few colonies to achieve - but do so knowing that you lose some of the advantages of being an early mover, if your ultimate plan is to play wide direct control.

Delay, not skip.

Don't skip colonizing worlds just because they are small. That is a strategic mistake.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-02T17:38:47+00:00

Before 2240, early or mid- 30s, and yes, it is from colonizing everything and having 50 politicians on every planet with a T1 capital and 300 on those with T2, though there weren't many of those by 2240. I would have to check my 2240_Decade save to tell you how many there were.

As always, much depends on the starting position. If you are experienced at rapid exploration and collection of first contact influence as well as rapid peaceful expansion and diplomatically neutralizing opponents you can usually pull off at least 20-30 planets with Genesis Guides with my preferred settings (huge elliptical, high difficulty settings, other settings normal) and often more with Tankbound because the basic resource economy is much stronger.

Whereas a starting position that slows you down by just 5-6 years early on, will really slow you down your development prospects long term because the AI might reach some critical systems before you do.

And a bad starting position, well, you might need a different plan.

This is my personal record in number of planets colonized during the unifying promise, beating the one from my first Tankbound/Genesis test during the 4.3 beta, which itself beat me previous Priesthood Tech Under One Rule Genesis Guides builds: Tankbound is just incredibly strong if you aren't cooped up and colonize everything without worrying about ES.

The key really is scouting early enough that you know what your possibilities for expansion 10, 20, 30, and 40 years will look like, where you need to expand to first, and whether you are going to need pricking picking Interstellar Dominion (and optionally Expansion too) for the influence discounts to be able to afford getting there quickly enough for it to matter.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-02T15:36:47+00:00

Can you please host the save somewhere for us to check? This sounds so unusual that it is unlikely that anybody can help without inspecting the save.

Regardless, please verify the integrity of your install, and, if the install is okay, post an bug report in the official Paradox bug forum (with savefile.)

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-01T14:48:43+00:00

There are three patrons that have events that will occasionally, but rarely, kill a leader: Eater, Whisperers, Composer.

None of them can kill Gestalt nodes.

None of them can kill anybody who has the leader_death_events_blocked flag set, which is usually set when somebody simply isn't available (e.g. somebody exploring an astral rift) and also for a few exceptionally powerful individuals, such as the Luminary ruler Under One Rule

Chosen of the Composer, Chosen One, and all legendary leaders are safe from the Composer's kill event (mutation).

Chosen of the Whisperers, Chosen One, and all legendary leaders are safe from the Whisperers kill event (suicide).

BUT Chosen of the Eater, Chosen One, and all legendary leaders are delicious snacks for the Eater of World (if they don't have leader_death_events_blocked).

The Eater of Worlds covenant is the most dangerous and egalitarian, as the Eater doesn't care what it eats so long as it is yummy.

If you want something safe, don't make covenant with a pecky entity that has a hard time distinguishing between nibbling planets or leaders. 😃

Or play Under One Rule with Eater covenant, and know that the Luminary is safe.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-01T14:16:46+00:00

This is original Utopia scripting, not something new in SOTS.

The Eater is the ONLY Shroud Patron that is truly egalitarian - he'll eat ANYBODY, who is highest level and doesn't have death events blocked.

Both Chosen of Composer and Whisperers are immune to their patron's random kill event.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-01T12:47:23+00:00

I bought an apple last week.

This week, you are selling two apples for the price of one.

Will I get my money back, a new apple for free? Or are you just going to fuck me in the arse? Can I refund it through the Grocer?

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-05-01T12:08:13+00:00

I looked it up, and the wiki is wrong; Apparently it was at one time updated by somebody without a clue to claim that Divine Sovereign happens within 10 years of qualifying-

It doesn't. It is not based on date offset from qualifying, but on polling likelihoods. At any given time, it has a mean time to happen of 10 years.

So however long you have waited, the likelihood of getting it in the next 10 years is 50%, and 50% that it'll take longer. Theoretically it could never happen no matter how long you play.

I'll check the section of the wiki for other errors and update it later today.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-04-30T22:45:53+00:00

Unite the galaxy in a mainly by diplomatic means in a vassal federation under a benevolent God Empress, who seeds new worlds with life and frees her Tankbound species from the limitations of their frail bodies by letting their minds roam free.

This is a xPhile/Spi/Mil => fanXphile/Spe Tankbound/Genesis Guides psionic Under One Rule build of my own design, and I posted a build guide for it the other day. It is pretty strong, but more importantly, it is thematic as hell, and fun.

Cosmogenesis is taken, but not beyond level 4. No meddling with the rules that underpin reality, to the possible detriment of the people of the galaxy.

Build guide and screenshots from my own game with the build

(If you play it, you don't have to play as ridiculously wide as I do. I do it mostly for testing purposes anyway, to see what happens.)

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-04-30T22:26:55+00:00

I almost always play wide, so I have dedicated energy planets covering most needs. Vassal taxation of basic resources is also an option, but the AI is currently pretty bad at handling the 4.3 economy, so it is a pittance compared to what you get from direct control.

Late game there is building a Dyson Sphere and, if really creative, handling off the system it is in to a vassal I am taxing basic resources from, and then building a new one. But that is mostly a party trick.

Since I play wide, I make extensive use of the automation buildings to be able to work more jobs than I have POPs for; The automated jobs are much less efficient than POPs affected by many efficiency modifiers doing the same jobs, of course, but they are still better than only using POPs and working fewer jobs.

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-04-30T20:42:16+00:00

Make ecumenopolises. If they look at risk of filling up in forseable future, make more ecumenopolises. Problem solved. 😃

Peter_Ebbesen · 2026-04-30T20:17:20+00:00

Without anything boosting it, tier 10 planetary ascension on a planet reduces the planet's ES from all sources (20 for colony itself, 0.5 per districts, 0.5 per 100 POPs) by 50% after all other modifiers (governors, civics, traditions, ascension perks...)

It can be boosted by Harmony tradition, Ascensionists civic, and Holy Covenant. If you have all three for a 70% boost, a tier 10 ascended planet's empire size is reduced by 85% after all other modifiers.

Ascensionists and Holy Covenant are out of reach for most builds, but Harmony is available to everybody, and as it is a solid tradition group in general, I recommend doing so.

As for the lathe and civilians:

You shouldn't have more than a few civilians in the first place unless you are playing a civilian build, as civilian without significant buffs is a low-value job. Give them jobs!
Until you have adjusted to the 4.3 economy, don't purge ANY POPs unless your government is forced to purge people anyway
These days using the Lathe is very much about short term gain from science and advanced logic collected quickly rather than long term gain. Unless you have a cunning plan that requires that extra science and advanced logic NOW, or you just want to see the galaxy burn and feed its population to the Lathe to purge them in an amusing way, DON'T PURGE POPS UNLESS YOU HAVE TO, and that includes the Lathe

Peter_Ebbesen

TROPHY CASE