Stellaris Utopia Guide

So I done did it. I built Trantor, basically. My capital stands, and will stand, for a million years, etc. etc. etc. That being said, the process of building babby's first ecumenopolis taught me a few things that I think might be helpful for other people looking to engage in phallic self aggrandizement glorious monumental architecture.

1) If you're aiming for an ecumenopolis, start the prepwork early. Make sure that by the time you unlock the ecumenopolis ascension perk, you're ready to pull the trigger on the planetary decision. This means making sure that your feeder planets are ready for it, and making sure that your target planet is already maxed out on city districts. I made the mistake of waiting until I unlocked the perk to convert my capital entirely to city districts, which meant I had to wait close to a decade before I could even enact the perk. The reason you want to get this prepwork out of the way is because the decision itself, in addition to the mineral and influence requirements, takes a whole decade, and afaik the time can't be reduced. It's a real bummer to excitedly take the perk before realizing you messed up your build and have to wait to use it; prepare, prepare, prepare.

This guide will go over the effects and aftereffects of every ethic, trait, origin, and civic choice when creating your empire in Stellaris. This guide is based heavily on the Beginner's Guide to Ethics, Traits, and Governments forum.paradoxplaza.com made by 'GAGA Extrem' on the Paradox Forum. Stellaris 2.2 Intermediate player guide. This is a guide for players who are interested in more advanced concepts of Stellaris 2.2 including DLC content ( Megacorp not included) I will discuss builds, strategy and other concepts not included in my basic survival guide.

2) Post-transition, getting pops is the biggest bottleneck. The Slave Market, and forcible resettlement, are your friends. Even if you're doing a pacifist xenophile run, immigration maxes out at a flat +5 growth boost. That sounds like a lot, and when you factor in other growth rate boosts, I was looking at something like +11 growth/month. I'm sure there are ways to minmax this to get it higher, but the truth of the matter is that 1 or 2 pops per year is only large when you don't have 80 job slots open. My current ecumenopolis has another 6 district slots available – anywhere from 30 to 60 jobs – and it already has 60 jobs open right now. To fill it all up, at the current growth rate, with all of the various bonuses (policies, decisions, immigration) I've stacked, it would take the better part of a century.

The solution is supplementing growth through instant pops. Your feeder planets probably don't need ridiculous numbers of people; you don't need secondary and tertiary goods manufacturing on your agriworlds, taking up rare resources for maintenance, when your ecumenopolis can sidestep rare resources almost entirely. Resettle those suckers. At 100-200 energy per pop, you can increase your ecumenopolis's growth exponentially, essentially tripling or quadrupling pop growth on the ecumenopolis through theft. Speaking of theft, the slave market. Ethically dubious? Yes. Useful? Definitely. The AI doesn't seem to use it very much, so you're only likely to get a few pops at a time, but it's still pretty useful. Similarly, the barbaric despoilers/nihilistic acquisition raiding is actually pretty useful now! Having trouble filling up the 80 clerk spots on your ecumenopolis? Steal your neighbors' children!

Now some lesser, but still useful tips.

3) You'll want to instantly build all the things. Don't. Yes, more alloys are always useful, but because clerks are worker class, metallurgists/artisans/culture workers/entertainers will instantly take big tasty bites out of clerk employment. If you depend on trade value for energy income, swapping 10 clerks for 10 metallurgists can be a problem. Also worth noting that each of the manufacturing districts effectively consume 60 monthly minerals across their jobs, so it's important to budget that income hit so you don't lose the ability to build more districts and buildings.

4) The best gifts the ecumenopolis gives are building slots. I don't mean that you're going to break out of the 16 building slot limit; I do mean that a foundry district is not only equivalent to a fully-maxed out alloy forge in terms of metallurgist jobs, it doesn't require 2 volatile motes per month. The same thing applies to industrial districts and civilian factories with their rare crystal upkeep. You can gradually replace these buildings and free up rare crystals/volatile motes for use in buildings that don't have a district equivalent, as well as free up building slots for other specialists that the districts don't provide – i.e. researchers, priests, merchants.

These are the first things that I sort of wish I had thought through before I took the plunge. Loving my ecumenopolis planet, though, and I'm glad I invested in that perk. I can almost support a real fleet now with my alloy output. I hope that some of these tips help other people.

edit: I forgot, 5) Mastery of Nature synergizes well with ecumenopolis. 2 extra districts doesn't sound like much, but with the expansion finisher being another district, that means every planet can get 3 extra districts. This, again, may not mean much for some piddly city districts, but turning a size 25 ecumenopolis into a size 28 ecumenopolis can mean 30 more metallurgist jobs, 30 more artisan jobs, 30 more culture worker/entertainer jobs, or 15 more clerk jobs, and anywhere from 15 to 45 more housing.

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Top 10 Most Anticipated Video Games of 2020

2020 will have something to satisfy classic and modern gamers alike. To be eligible for the list, the game must be confirmed for 2020, or there should be good reason to expect its release in that year. Therefore, upcoming games with a mere announcement and no discernible release date will not be included.

Top 15 NEW Games of 2020 [FIRST HALF]

2020 has a ton to look forward to..in the video gaming world. Here are fifteen games we're looking forward to in the first half of 2020.

This part of the guide contains general tips involving all elements of the game, including industry, research, military, or campaign progression.

Beginning

1. Always read the message pop-ups on the screen. They usually contain info about the story, and factors which can influence its development.

2. The tutorials are the best introduction into the subject of the game's mechanics. You can omit individual parts, but you should keep it enabled so it can inform you about all the stuff that you're not going to pay attention to during the initial hours of the campaign.

3. Spend your influence points wisely, remember that, for example, taking full control of a region during the initial stages of the game is more important than assigning a commander to a unit.

4. Stop the gametime whenever you need to give a thought to something or to read some info. Issue orders to individual units during the pause.

5. Learn the hotkeys. The combat takes place in real time, so this is the only way to not overuse the active pause.

6. Colonization requires a lot of energy. Do not attempt to colonize a new system if your energy balance is negative or you do not have considerable power supplies.

7. Never stop to develop your empire technologically. The budget doesn't suffer from conducting research, which are the foundation of the galactic conquest.

8. Always survey neighbor systems. Gathering data is an important factor standing behind discovering resources and special items.

9. Never cease to develop your army. Hostile empires will not hesitate to lessen your influence if they discover you're unable to defend a system.

10. Always investigate anomalies. Despite the fact that you can lose men and ships, they allow you to discover laws of the Galaxy than can't be revealed otherwise.

11.At the beginning of the game, wage war only against those who declare war to you. If you don't have an efficient infrastructure, war can ruin you.

Geography

1.If on the Galaxy Map a system is displayed in gray, it means that you haven't checked all the planets, or worse, you didn't check any of them. Get over there.

2. A name of the system displayed in white means that it has been fully explored, consequently, you have access to all the information about planets and resources in that system.

3. In the detailed view of the Galaxy, underneath the name of each system, you can see what resources were discovered on the planets of that system.

4. Sometimes strategic resource deposits are discovered in places where you already have a mining infrastructure placed. Because of that, at the beginning of the game you should use all available resource sources.

5. Remember that when selecting spiral galaxy you will be able to move between the spirals only in specific places.

6. Systems can be located in such way that enemy's area of influence might enter your systems as his technology advances. In order to avoid that, build outposts and colonize planets.

7. Carefully read description of each star. Its class can tell you what sort of planets you can expect in the system.

8. Notice the special factors in some systems. They can for example damage the hull of a unit which remains for too long in it.

Industry

1. Try to build as many power plants on the surface of a planet in order to make sure you're not short on Energy Credits.

2Each mine and science lab requires energy for maintenance, the more you develop the building, the higher will the monthly cost be.

3. Energy credits will be more valuable than the minerals, of which you can store a lot in warehouses. Try to make sure you have a big monthly income so that your energetic balance stays profitable.

4. Try fully utilizing the potential of the slot coming from its passive income.

5. If a slot offers passive income, then the game won't inform you about the unemployment in the slot. In case of a planet which belongs to an additional sector you don't need to worry about it. If the planet is part of main sector then you must control the growth of population.

Management

1. Don't build frontier outposts in all neighboring systems. Each outpost has a certain range, which allows you to expand your borders without losing a lot of resource.

2. If there is a colonized planet in your system, you can disassemble the outpost, which will increase the influence points income. Colonized planets have a still greater range than the outposts, and they also enhance your area of influence.

3. When creating a sector, give a good thought to which system would you like to involve in it. Removing systems from a sector is very expensive.

4. You can relocate a population on the given planet, as to move people into the slot in which you've constructed a building.

5. If an alien empire tries to contact you, remember that your first words should either be very positive, or at least neutral. You can perform different diplomatic actions later on, but at the beginning, it's best not to make enemies.

6. You should establish embassies in those empires, of which you're the most afraid of. If the given nation has a significant technological and military it's best to keep good relationship with them. The embassy will also positively influence other empires opinion towards your civilization.

7. Remember that planetary administration building give additional Profits to the neighboring slots of the planet. Make sure to set them up so that they're surrounded by other slots from all four directions. This rule applies mostly to the colonization, because that's when you can decide where to place the main building.

8. You can change planet and system names at all times, which will make navigation in the situation log much easier.

9. Before attempting to re-build a planet, see what's the food surplus among its inhabitants and secure at least two units in surplus each month.

10. Population of a planet will develop spontaneously until it fills every available slot. If a slot provides bonuses without any buildings on it, you will not get the unemployment pop-up. If a slot gives e.g. 2 units of minerals each month, you ought to build a mine there, so that the output from the mine will be added to the passive bonus. If you build a power plant there, you will lose that bonus.

11. Remember that the sectors are developed automatically, but you can chose a particular strategy of development of them.

Ironbound restaurants. 12. Don't forget that a declaration of competition and a declaration of ware are two different things. Competition will provide bonus monthly income of influence points.

13. Frontier and military outposts and subspace tunnels are the only buildings that you can construct outside your empire.

The cave walkthrough. 14. AProtectorate provides an opportunity of catching up with other empires that are more advanced technologically. Remember, however, that after researching more than 40% of your protector's technology, you become their vassal - in such a case, the only way to part with your master is war.

Research

1. When doing research try to also develop buildings, so they will be more efficient.

2. You need special technologies for removing Obstacles on alien planets.

3. When choosing which research to run, pay attention to those that can provide significant monthly income of influence.

4. The best way to increase the capacity of warehouses is to develop the technologies concerning this.

5. When building an empire, remember about the situation log. If you're trying to do one of the special missions, or are gathering data about a newly discovered civilization, you can cease the basic research for a while.

6. Remember that the special missions have a time limit. If you want to receive additional bonuses, it's a good idea to spend some resources on more research ships.

7. After examining a planet that you're planning to colonize, you have to investigate any anomalies discovered on it's surface, for the colonization to be even possible.

8. Remember that you can hire few additional scientists and assign them to a task which can fully utilize their potential.

Military

1. To get better warships, you need to upgrade the Spaceport and provide it with required modules.

2. Thanks to new technologies, you can design new ships, that will suit your needs. You are able to balance your ships between better equipped but more expensive, and cheaper, but less effective.

3. Try using various equipment and weapons in order to achieve diversity of units.

4. Land armies are cheap in maintaining, so you should successively increase their numbers and as the game progresses provide additional equipment for them.

5. Remember that units become truly effective after hiring a squad leader.

6. The most effective weapons are the ones that ignore shields and armor of the opponent.

7. Place orbital stations at the entrance to border sectors, preferably near to each other. In case of more important systems and buildings you should build a few fortresses around (for example near the home planet).

8. Each cosmoport level increases the maximum limit of units by 1.