Best ethics, traits and government combo for ironman?

[Desert Orchid 1]

Im going for achives :) newest update.

[Pikhalich]

I did Fanatic Xenophobe and Miltarist, I set all default aliens species to undesirables and purge. It is all fun and games until several of your neighbors get into a federation or a defensive pacts.

I am mid 2350 and it is absolute hell. Yet I am determined to keep my believes to that and purge the galaxy, see what happens...

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Sir Sean:

Im going for achives :) newest update.

You can't get them all with any one build or single playthrough, so what you should play would depend on which ones you don't have yet.

Edit: Added missing key word "get".

[Desert Orchid 1]

I see

[Desert Orchid 1]

How to get most in 1 go?

[MissedHurry]

Generally speaking, it's always good to choose things that will boost research for your empire when you're picking race traits, and government ethics and civics. Being technologically advanced has a lot of trickle down effects like better weaponry and more productive economy. I personally also like to choose things that will boost my unity production early on, so I can get a lot of traditions and a few favorite ascension perks early on (like the technological ascendancy).

Some of the other decisions you make should be based on your game strategy for that particular game. Like Tempest said, you can't be all things in one empire at once:

Are you planning to make nice with others, and try to make defense pacts, and migration treaties and form federations with them? Then you'll want to stay away from xenophobe ethics, and perhaps choose things that help boost consumer goods or food, because those can be given as gifts to empire to earn trust and opinion points.

Are you planning to go to war a lot and try and take over neighboring empires' territories? If so, you need to consider what kind of empire you and they are. Imminent threats, like determined exterminators and devouring swarms can just go to war and gobble up/take over what they get. Likewise, if you are fighting them, you don't need to make claims on their territory, you just go after it. But, if you plan to take over other empires' space, and you're not one of those imminent threats, you need to spend influence to make claims on their territory before you can win it in a war, so you may want to choose things that reduce claim costs (and/or anything along the way that helps you reserve influence points - reduced outpost costs, reduce edict costs, increased edict duration, etc... Another good ascension perk to grab - if this is your plan - is Interstellar Dominion, -20% influence cost for both outposts and claims).

I'm greedy, so when I choose government ethics, I usually spend two points on one of them, and make it the "Fanatic" version. Like, Fanatic Spiritualist, or Fanatic Authoritarian, etc.. Consider that. :)

[Desert Orchid 1]

Originally posted by MissedHurry:

Generally speaking, it's always good to choose things that will boost research for your empire when you're picking race traits, and government ethics and civics. Being technologically advanced has a lot of trickle down effects like better weaponry and more productive economy. I personally also like to choose things that will boost my unity production early on, so I can get a lot of traditions and a few favorite ascension perks early on (like the technological ascendancy).

Some of the other decisions you make should be based on your game strategy for that particular game. Like Tempest said, you can't be all things in one empire at once:

Are you planning to make nice with others, and try to make defense pacts, and migration treaties and form federations with them? Then you'll want to stay away from xenophobe ethics, and perhaps choose things that help boost consumer goods or food, because those can be given as gifts to empire to earn trust and opinion points.

Are you planning to go to war a lot and try and take over neighboring empires' territories? If so, you need to consider what kind of empire you and they are. Imminent threats, like determined exterminators and devouring swarms can just go to war and gobble up/take over what they get. Likewise, if you are fighting them, you don't need to make claims on their territory, you just go after it. But, if you plan to take over other empires' space, and you're not one of those imminent threats, you need to spend influence to make claims on their territory before you can win it in a war, so you may want to choose things that reduce claim costs (and/or anything along the way that helps you reserve influence points - reduced outpost costs, reduce edict costs, increased edict duration, etc... Another good ascension perk to grab - if this is your plan - is Interstellar Dominion, -20% influence cost for both outposts and claims).

I'm greedy, so when I choose government ethics, I usually spend two points on one of them, and make it the "Fanatic" version. Like, Fanatic Spiritualist, or Fanatic Authoritarian, etc.. Consider that. :)

super helpfull but is there any kinda style if i want to grab the most amount in 1 go? like just most common ones :)

[Atrophus]

Originally posted by Sir Sean:

super helpfull but is there any kinda style if i want to grab the most amount in 1 go? like just most common ones :)

The most common ones are not tied to your build. Having 4 mega structures at once, more than 50k fleet power, citadel with 40k power, 200 systems at once... All that is completely independent. I would maybe go xenophile and egalitarian first, that way you dont have to bother about war so much and can get the federation achievements.
If you want the most powerful build in general, take ringworld origin and fanatic materialist as well as technocracy. Research is the meta.

[Desert Orchid 1]

Originally posted by Atrophus:

Originally posted by Sir Sean:

super helpfull but is there any kinda style if i want to grab the most amount in 1 go? like just most common ones :)

The most common ones are not tied to your build. Having 4 mega structures at once, more than 50k fleet power, citadel with 40k power, 200 systems at once... All that is completely independent. I would maybe go xenophile and egalitarian first, that way you dont have to bother about war so much and can get the federation achievements.
If you want the most powerful build in general, take ringworld origin and fanatic materialist as well as technocracy. Research is the meta.

shame ist a dlc origin

[Atrophus]

I assumed people have DLC. Vanilla stellaris is... Bland to say it enthusiastically^^

[Desert Orchid 1]

Originally posted by Atrophus:

I assumed people have DLC. Vanilla stellaris is... Bland to say it enthusiastically^^

I have dlcs just dont have federations beacuse it looks naff

[Markus Reese]

Ironman mode, I recommend turning on scaling difficulty more than any special tactics.

Scaling difficulty means AI starting resources are on parity with your own, gaining bonuses so mid and late game isnt either catchup or you own personal snowball.

[Tech Enthusiast]

Research is all fine and good, but you need to feed it resources as well.
To do that, you need more pops.

More pops equals more everything.

Apart from that: Federations have buffed the value of trade by A LOT. Getting into a trade league means you get energy, goods and unity like no tomorrow. Just spam trade buildings and never have issues with either of the three things ever again.
At that point you can spam ring worlds as fast as your influence allows (11-12/month at that point) and build as many researchers as you like.

It kind of feels like cheating tbh. The AI will be pathetic in research far before midgame and it sure is strange to have all ressources capped due to not getting enough influence to waste them. ;-)

[Cian]

Honestly, research bonus traits on pops just isn't worthwhile IMHO. You get a tiny tech bonus early on, but as soon as you start getting the + 20% tech research done it gets watered down to the point that it hardly matters.

Pop growth is king in terms of snowballing your economy. Population is your production capacity, the more you increase it the more you increase everything - including research.

I always go rapid breeders and nomadic. I keep some planets with more jobs than houses and a housing shortage and the rest with extra. This keeps a permanent emigration/immigration push between colonies to keep getting that sweet bonus growth from migration. When the extra housing planets fill up, build more housing on the other planets and the emigration/immigration will reverse and the now smaller planets will get the bonus growth instead. Design your planets so that you can add more jobs than housing so that the full worlds will start emigrating as soon as they reach capacity. Pop growth wraps around now, so you don't have to worry about losing fragments of a pop from having crazy high growth. Diplomacy tree unlock adds 10% to nomadic's 15% so you end up getting a 25% bonus to all the emigration.

Then you just focus everything you possibly can to boost growth. Colonize everything you can. Set food usage to plentitude from day one. Research all the pop growth techs. Get the tech for campaigns ASAP and keep the healthcare campaign going perpetually. Build gene clinics everywhere as soon as you unlock them. Start spamming habitats when you get them. Etc. If you're ok with pissing off the egalitarian faction, you can resettle pops cheaply due to nomadic and set up feeder worlds. Get 10 pops on it and upgrade to planetary administration (to lose the new colony penalty) and build a gene clinic. You can keep the pop at 6 with only 5 jobs and 5 housing to encourage emigration, and each world like this will give a hefty boost to the growth of all your others. Occasionally when it grows an extra pop of its own you can migrate them off forcefully. Even low habitability worlds are worth it for the extra pop growth, even with the reduction in growth and higher food/consumer goods costs. Later you can terraform them or find more appropriate pops or gene mod the pops there and make them into useful worlds.

Focusing so heavily on pop growth, you can spiral your economy to ridiculous heights to the point that the AI can't keep up even on grand admiral. It's actually not that micromanagement heavy if you set your worlds up correctly - once your core worlds are overpopulated their growth slows and all your new worlds will get the emigrating pops. Once you get to the point that the extra emigration is wasted (over 5 for each developing world) you can start pumping those big worlds up to 1.5x or more housing usage, this stops them growing completely and lets you just forget about those worlds as soon as they're stable. I have whole sectors of worlds minimized on the sidebar because I never need to worry about them again.

[Desert Orchid 1]

Thanks

[Atrophus]

Yes pop growth is key but also research is meta. People act as if those are exclusive, they are not, technocracy doesnt take any slot that could instead boost pop growth and you can take rapid breeder as well as intelligent as a trait. If you max pop growth while also maxing technology that makes for the strongest makeup.
Spamming ringworld and having extra research per tech is good and nice but if you get habitats by the time I already got ringworlds researched you know that earlygame is most important.
But that's just min-maxing, not necessairily what gets you achievements.

Two combos for achievements I recently did:

Fanatic xenophile and egalitarian/pacifist: Create this empire and when creating a new game force as many copies of it to spawn by giving the empire different names as there will be AIs. That way you can have migration treaties with everyone as everyone will be friendly too, giving you the VERY xenophile achievement. You also have an easy time making a federation for its associated achievements. When egalitarian make all your pops live under utopian living standards, if its enough pops you get the achievement. When pacifist dont have any wars for 200 years (excluding crisis) and get the achievement.

Fanatic materialist and authoritarian: Go the technological ascension path for tears in rain and planned obsolence. Enslave 200 pops to get slave to the systems.