Build List: critique or try them if you want

[DiamondLead]

Because the total dlc price in this game is insane, and the base game is a little bit lacking when it comes to build nuance, I decided to go through the wiki and start writing down playstyle ideas in my steam notes based around civics, origins, or achievements. My idea was that I would go for whatever uses less DLC when they go on sale again. I still decided to write down the ideas that used more DLC just to have it on record.

I figured it would be a good idea to copy my steam notes and post it online if anyone thinks any of these are good or bad ideas. If you have any good ideas to add or feel like I should edit some of these things, let me know. Otherwise, I think some of these arn't too bad, and I bet other people came up with stuff like this.

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Rogue Servitor:
(Upgrade Bundle): Become a Rogue Servitor and use happiness from bio-trophies to get tons of unity, build tall, and do federation stuff.
Bonus: Ocean Paradise (Aquatics) or Shattered Ring (federations) + OTA updates: Send every organic to vacation world, minus maybe a few on each planet so more pops can be produced. Better with incubators (toxoid), docile, or traditional.


Rogue Army [Added 3/2/2025]:
Rogue Servitor (synthetic dawn) + Tactical algorithms (machine age) + enclaves (overlord): Put organics on a planet, put an enclave in that system, release as 1 system vassal to make them the patron, form an enclave in a nearby system, give them that system too, and then repeat until they own 10 enclaves. Then, integrate the vassal. You will then be the patron of 10 enclaves, giving you the max shield hardening of 100% from tactical algorithms with other buffs. You can either build tall from here to enjoy the free research and stuff from the enclaves, coexisting with everyone borrowing your fleets, or build wide with all this newfound power to take land.


Clone army in tight spaces:
Imperial + Clone army origin, don't go for fertility (humanoids) + Masterful crafters (humanoids) + ?Other?: Because you are limited to 5 clone planets from the clone army, and they are the best units, you need to build tall. There is an achievement for making mega structure while you have master crafter and are with a shroud entity [inst of desire?], and another for killing the holy conservators after denounced.
? Can be anything. I think Eager Explorers (first contact) is good as a starter and later switch out, with other good ones like...
Feudal society or citizen service for subjugation. They required different government types. Feudal preferred, since citizen service holding may go to waste and be unused.
Ascensionist (utopia) + Selective Kinship (lithoid) for building tall
for war, scavengers (necroid) +Warrior Culture + Distinguished Admiralty [to make up for lack of navy boosts and short life],
Rapid Replicator for mechanical pops in worker jobs if you are not spiritual.
Start a federation to make up for what I think is a small navy


Knights of Perfection:
Knights of the Toxic God (Toxoid) + Inward perfection + Fanatic xenophobe + pacifist: As an inward perfection empire, you can not make contact with anyone, and as a pacifist, you can not do war for land unless attacked. Use xenophobia to spread far and fast, as that is all the land you will get. Do what you can to get all the land in the early game. When you have the influence, make habitats and load them up with order buildings, as the knights they employ get really good in the quest line. make xenophobia non-fanatic when you get all the land. Don't forget to slay the god.
Toxic god quest line: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Origin_and_civic_situations#Quest_for_the_Toxic_God


The good megacorp:
Worker cooperative (megacorp) + Mechanist (Utopia) + Private Prospectors + stuff that either lets you get unity, take over land, or use specialists better: Wide building megacorp. Use egalitarian ethics attraction to get tons of unity as long as you follow their rules. Robots from mechanist will take over producer jobs. More effective since robot makers count as specialists.
Note: I have just learned that Shadow Corporation, civic from astral planes, gives the galactic paragons council position bonus of shadow broker, which generates dark matter from research. That would be really good for a wide build due to the abundance of research buildings. Consider taking this over one of the other civics until you get the 3rd slot.


Megachurch:
Gospel of the Masses (Megacorp) + Brand Loyalty, Free Traders, or Gigacorp, + Common Ground origin with Holy Covenant (federations) or Void Dwellers and just invest in diplomacy later (federations) + megastructures (Utopia, megacorp, federations, machine age, do not have to get all): Get tons of trade value and unity from all the spiritualist people, and ascend planets to build tall with tons of trade. Holy Covenant helps in many ways, and temple of prosperity helps keep/make other nations religious. Shroud is also cool. Aim for Composer of Strands if you do that. Can also go cybernetic for corporate sacredtech route if you have that dlc.



Morticorp / Tomb Intergalactic / CryptCorp [Added 2/10/2025]:
Permanent Employment (Necroids/megacorp) + Corporate Death Cult (Necroids) + Subterranean (Overlord) + Lithoid (Lithoids) [Ideal, but not needed] + Authoritarian [PE gives a bonus attraction to this] + Spiritualist [for death cult] + peaceful [for empire size pop reduction. Can still use liberation wars to take out machine production on other empires, evening the field against you]: The idea is that zombies are not as good for labor as anyone else, but the uncapped mine jobs would allow their sheer numbers to also contribute housing and building slots for specialists.
Optional: (Nemesis) [the raw ore production is good for Menacing ships if you are the crisis]
Optional: Inorganic Breath trait (toxoid) or Wasteful [The extra consumor goods does not matter as much since zombies consume nothing] + docile [for large number of zombie pops].


Bad Megacorp / Pirate corp [Added 3/2/2025]
Criminal Heritage (Megacorp) + Letters of Marque (Galactic paragons): Raid other nations and win. All that extra energy and minerals are good if you are building tall or in the early game. Put criminal branch offices on their planets while they are down. If any of them see revolts due to the crime, you profit from having more nations to put crime holdings on, while maybe employing your enclaves. You can either continue doing this to build tall, or take their land in time to start getting more wide. This was my idea for a xenophibic megacorp build.



Inhuman resources:
Driven assimilator (utopia) + OTA updates + Lithoid cyborg species (lithoid) + Maintenance Protocols [It works well with the lithoids and bonus maintenance drones] + Crystallization + Industrious/strong + Calamitous Birth if it works, if not Subterranean: The idea is to stack all the lithoids together on one planet to get all the minerals, then spread them to other planets as needed.



Space game:
Determined Exterminator (Synthetic dawn) + Astro-Mining Drones (Megacorp) [Can start with Exploration Protocols from first contact before getting astro-mining] + Arc Welders origin (Machine age) + Integrated Weaponry trait (Machine age) + world cracker/Global Pacifier (apocalypse): The idea is that you can push all your guys into becoming war bots, since the drones are not made for labor anyways. World cracker makes planets into mineral graveyards. Rush habitats, you get bonus chance to get them if you have 3+ starholds. Then you can do stuff with your orbitals and destroy/bubble your planets for ore/research. Since mine districts are turned into gen districts, focus on traits that enhance energy, research, alloy, or unity output. The mega structure rush involves building tall due to influence cost, so try not to over extend until ready with the death star and an abundance of influence.



Founder's syndrome:
Lithoid (Lithoids) + Hive mind (Utopia) + that lithoid origin with the asteroids + Genesis Symbiotes (machine age) + divided attention + Neutron sweep colossus (apocalypse) + any player crisis [pops good for synaptic lathe, or killing for nemesis]: Genesis symbiotes adds benefits to founding colonies, the origin makes you produce more pops on founded colonies, and neutron sweep allows you to found colonies after they are all taken. This lets you play super wide.
Note: I have just learned that genesis does not work with that origin. Chose one or the other.



Genesis guide maxxing / F that one guy in particular:
Genesis guides / astrogenesis technologies (Machine age) + Neutron sweep colossus (apocalypse) + anything that boosts colony speed or decreases colony cost, like expansion tradition, doomsday origin for evacuation protocols edict, or Corporate Dominion / private prospectors: Find 1 or more tomb world(s). Settle. Relocate all but 1 pop. Release as vassal. Set vassal free. Fire neutron beam at it. Settle again for genesis guide influence. Repeat.
Bonus: Imperialist, militarist authoritarian, or supremacist, militarist xenophobe, factions for war based faction bonuses. Xenophilic, spiritual, or egalitarian faction hate this weapon.
Bonus: Nomadic trait to get bonus pops off planet for cheap.
Note: Can mix this with other similar builds due to easy setup.
Note: I found out that evacuation protocols is only around for as long as your planet is breaking apart. I guess it's good to get a bunch of colonies up quickly at the start, but not this.


War for the old ones [Added 2/25/2025]:
Council positions gameplay mechanic (Galactic paragons) + Necrophage (Necroids) or any venerable or experienced species + Distinguished Admiralty + Warrior Culture: The Council positions for those two civics are bonuses to duelist output and bonus ship starting experience, with a little bit of navel capacity. You can just kind of be a happy warrior society.
Note: With all these benefits to war, I am thinking on shoving fanatic purifier in there. I guess you can either start with it and get one of the civics later, or go the venerable route and use Fear of the Dark from First Contact. Fear of the dark route would benefit from having the time to build leader levels with the distinguished admiralty bonus, so that route is like fanatic purifiers, but with time to prepare. Actually...


The one advantage of fearing the dark [Added 2/25/2025]:
Council positions gameplay mechanic (Galactic paragons) + Fear of the Dark (First contact) + venerable trait + Distinguished Admiralty + Warrior Culture: Read the note of the previous strategy.


Temptation [Added 2/12/2025]:
Necrophage (Necroids)+ Idyllic Bloom (plantoids) + Pleasure Seekers (Humanoids) + Corvée System + Hegemony (federations) + Docile, communal, nonadaptive, slow breeders, intelligent on the necrophage: The idea is to make living standards so good, immigration booms through migration pacts, and you can live as a necrophage without war. Hegemony makes this free, even if you are not the president. Immigration pull is based on housing, stability, and jobs from what I hear, and habitability must be above 40% on a planet. Can either go pacifist for better stability, or militarist to deal with people you can not make friends with. Can't go egalitarian due to corvee. Can not be xenophile due to origin, can not be xenophobe for obvious reasons. Ideal if you make friends with people with poor living standards. If you want, you can start with bloom and the traits, and only lean into this if you reach a point when you do not want to fight anymore.


Spores [Added 2/24/2025]:
Necrophage (Necroids) + Idyllic Bloom/Mycorrhizal Ideal (Plantoid species) + Budding and Invasive Species on non-necrophage species + Nonadaptive on necrophage: The idea is to spread your highly habitable invasive species on planets so they can get the gaia machine set up, and then bring the less adaptive necrophages in through the Chamber of Elevation [set up near the same time as the gaia machines] when they are done. The gaia world makers give special traits to plantoid species and buff budding. Don't forget to put the necrophages on the colony ships first for the free necrophage pops. Rush terraforming tech to make the machines work on other worlds. Xenophobe is good to get all that land fast. Maybe use environmentalist on all those newly taken worlds to rush society research for terraforming? Rangers count as worker jobs, so the invasive species should be better at working them.
Note: This idea was inspired by when I first heard of what a protogen, a concept that I inevitably ran into as like half of all furries I accidentally ran into in multiplayer games associated with them. Protogen in lore, if I recall correctly, are supposed to be forward scientists for another race named primagen. I wanted to see if I could recreate this dynamic in Stellaris. Finding out that rangers are worker jobs, still making them scientists, was just a coincidence.


Forward scientists [Added 2/24/2025]:
Syncretic Evolution (Utopia) + Idyllic Bloom/Mycorrhizal Ideal (Plantoid species) + environmentalist + Nonadaptive and Decadent on main species, some variant of adaptive or strong on servile species.
Note: This is just the previous one, except now I know that the ranger trick works here. Too bad servile is incompatible with natural sociologists though.


Dystopian inhuman resources
Fanatic authoritarian, pacifist + Oppressive Autocracy (Galactic paragons) + Mutagenic spa (Toxoid) + Masterful Crafters (Humanoids) + Inorganic breath (toxoid) + wasteful: The idea here is to build tons of artisan buildings so that you never have to build a city again. The dystopian living style and abundance of consumer goods should make it more easy to deal with the ever increasing number of pops who are all producing exotic gases. Lithoid + subterranean can help offset living and production costs.
Note: Oppressive autocracy seems to pair really well with Oligarchic Overclocking, the cybernetic ascension path for people who chose individualist choices from the machine age DLC. It just kills any specialist or worker political power and makes the ruler happy. Upkeep for anyone but the ruler basically does not matter. Really good for the mutagenic spa build.
Note: The mutagenic spa council position bonus also makes them produce unity.


Sith Empire:
Militarist, authoritarian, spiritualist + Barbaric Despoilers (apocalypse) + slaver guild + Teachers of the Shroud origin (Overlord) + Nemesis + toxoid (for toxic workplace achievement) + noxious (toxoid): Has multiple phases.
1. Use psychics to keep slaves in line above 40 stability. Steal people with raiding. Switch from rivalry wars to Hegemony wars when the time is right. See how much you are in war, and get patron shroud accordingly. For the next phase, get the eater of worlds patron. subjugate when weak.
2. After everyone is weakened, declare yourself as galactic custodian for upkeep-free ships to nullify the war god's downsides. Same goes for hegemony fleet. Politics tradition advised. Then galactic imperium (or save scum for the ending term achievement thanks to the next update allowing for it). This can be used for the war in heaven achievement and being the president of non-aligned powers
3. Can either stay spiritualist for death cult sacrifices. Nationalistic Zeal for claiming (not an option while imperium), or get scavenger if you are in war a lot. I really just had spiritualist there for the origin. Can get achievement Non-Prophet Organization. Noxious is there because slave happiness matters less, so this is free main species happiness. Can take stratified economy to increase specialist/leader political power if this is ever an issue.


Bad Raiders [Added 2/20/2025]:
Barbaric Despoilers (apocalypse) or Nihilistic Acquisition ascension perk (apocalypse) + Oppressive Autocracy civic (Galactic paragons) +Shattered Ring origin (Federations): Oppressive autocracy makes it so that only rulers can use amenities, and ring worlds have all building districts unlocked. You have no reason to ever build a city on that thing, so raiding people lets you put them straight to work with minimal resource crisis. This is a authoritarian tall build, but you may either trade or another planet to get minerals. Outside of that, you will only have that one system with the ring world, so imperial may be good to increase your resources from jobs in the capital system. Better with Oligarchic Overclocking, the cybernetic oligarch government from machine age.


Good Raiders [Added 2/20/2025]:
Nihilistic Acquisition ascension perk (apocalypse), must be authoritarian + Shattered Ring (Federations) + Rogue Servitor (Synthetic dawn) + Astro-Mining Drones (Megacorp): Steal a bunch of people without having colonies bog up empire size. Acts as a good way to rush unity for bio trophies. Mining drones cover ores and some energy gain, while people on the ring world cover food and other resources. Might be good with Virtuality from machine age. I know people like Ecumenopolis with Rouge Servitor, but those don't have farms, and the fact you can't just stay on the ring world makes it less cool.


Capitalist Raiders [Added 2/20/2025]:
Nihilistic Acquisition ascension perk (apocalypse) + Shattered Ring (Federations) + Corporate Protectorate (Astral planes) + Criminal Heritage (Megacorp): Raid other planets for their people, but keep system/planet count low due to effects on empire size. Use all these people to make the ultimate trade ring world or sell their people back to time. Use extra influence to put crime branch offices on planets with hardly enough population to fight back against the crime. They would all hate you, so you can't put normal branch offices on there afterall. If you want to get really fancy, have a single vassal take over all that depopulated land so you can pinch all that research, and then integrate them at the game's end.


Whispers of the Void:
infiltration stuff (Nemesis) + Criminal Heritage (Megacorp) + Broken Shackles (First contact) + Whispers of the Void from shroud psionic tree (Utopia) + Shadow Council + Fanatic materialist + Xenophile or egalitarian + any humanoid species with or without the DLC: Idea is to infiltrate and steal tons of tech from other empires so that research opportunities are certain. Traits are optimised to attract the correct shroud contact. Shadow council also helps if the negative effects of the shroud makes a leader dead or drug abused. Don't forget, psychics get more research than scientists, so replace them after. Get the ascension perk, then use mind over matter agenda to get psionic theory. You can also take diplomacy to make a research federation and increase the research of your infiltration victims. Have subjects so that empire size is low, and you can leach off science for the push for ascension research, which had the +6 influence edict. Better with leviathans, so you can use that one sabotage option where you you just destroy everything with the egg. Ideal if you get unshackled achievement or, when looking at the bunch of pre-fts that come with the origin, payback achievement. Machine crisis is best, because you can deal with hacking easy.


Whispers of the Void V2:
Under One Rule (Galactic paragons) + Psionic ascension path (Utopia) [do it before leader becomes immortal for the buffs] + imperial [you change with this origin at some point]: Either go unity to decrease pop size or double down on infiltration, just be sure to check patron wiki to see if anything worsens chances of getting void guy. Still, get the mind over matter agenda going for the psionic theory. Cool if you get Shroud Preacher trait at leader level 8, but others are also good. If you want to get fanatic xenophile for more science stealing, do it after you get the patron, or you might get com of strands. Either way, the game is the same, but with more influence either from the imperial level buff or the special luminary buff.


No need for gaia worlds
Aquatic with hydrocentric perk (Aquatics) + Scion origin (Federations DLC) + Deluge Machine (Apocalypse) + militarist for nationalistic zeal + Spiritualist for consecrate world + Nationalisic zeal for rivalries: You need rivalries for holy guardian requests, and zeal helps with that. Get the hydrocentric water blaster gun and flood anyone you run into, but leave the holy gaia worlds alone to consecrate worlds as a spiritualist empire for bonus rep with fallen empire. Getting the religion beam requires the psychic ascension perk and tradition. If you really want this, be at peace when getting the shroud going for the correct patron. With the new update, you can save scum for Holy Water achievement.


No Need for Worlds [Added 2/17/2025]:
Shattered Ring (Federations) or Void Dwellers (Federations) + Terravore (Lithoid): There's no point in being adapted to other planets if you're going to eat them all anyways. Just eat planets and use those alloys for the ring world or the habitats. Just note that it does not look like un-ruined ring worlds have mineral districts, so you may need dedicated mineral worlds or just keep it ruined. Otherwise, starting with void dwellers would require influence to build more bases, but once you get them going, those ruined world mineral deposits will make mineral districts more easy on them.
Achievement: Room for Desert, where you eat someone's desert home world.
Optional: Good with anything for combat, reducing starbase/pop empire size like communal trait, Subsumed Will civic [can use this to move everyone to ring world/habitats early?], or Elevational Contemplations civic, and later on when you start running out of jobs for the hive mind, natural neural network for jobs from unemployed pops.
Note: The alloys and minerals you get each year from this is a function of your base output, 5x for minerals and 3x for alloys, both maxed at 1000. This means you should still aim to develop that. Don't forget is also produces pops.
Question: The wiki says that a ruined ring world gets turned into segments with districts divided between them. What happens to ascension levels? Are those divided too? Because that kind of makes an Elevational Contemplations start questionable.


Dragon focus:
Inward Perfection + Here be dragons (aquatics): Dragon is the only thing you can rely on for help. Research it's stuff.
Note: Can't get there be dragons achievement through vassal exploit like this.
Alt hive mind with more achievements: Here be dragons (Aquatics) + Cordyceptic Drones (Necroids) + Wild swarm (grand archive) + Domestication (grand archive) + Lithoid (Lithoids)
Note: Instead of Cordyceptic Drones, add Terravore for Room for Desert, then get cordyceptic later. Otherwise, you can join galactic community and get Rock Beats Paper. Either way, you can get There be Dragons and Beastmaster.
Note: Genetics tree is really good with this because you can kill the dragon to get a +3 leviathan transgenesis trait that makes pops produce alloys by existing, and gives them army health.



Instant protection:
Slingshot to the stars (Overlord) + Sovereign Guardianship / Corporate Protectorate (Astral Planes) + Anything that lets me have a bunch of vassals to protect or Franchising (Megacorp): Vassalize everything and enjoy building tall until you think the free research is enough and want to integrate at the very end. slingshot helps defend vassals, and stop rebellion.



Wasteland makers:
Post-Apocalyptic Origin (Apocalypse) + Radiotrophic trait (Plantoid dlc, but can also be placed on lithoids) + Memorialists civic (Necroid) [start with Relentless Industrialists from toxoids first? Wiki says they are mutually exclusive. What happens to the fulfillment centers if the civic is replaced?] + Galactic Nemesis tier 3 for Armageddon (Nemesis) or Irassian Concordat precursor for Javorian Pox (ancient relics): Build designed to make tomb world and live on them. Recent History achievement for the memorialists is good here.
Note: Memorialist buildings increase gov ethic attraction. Might be good with parliamentary system and Egalitarian.
Note: While fanatic purifier would also get Armageddon, it is incompatible with memorialist.


Crisis build up [Added 2/22/2025]:
Fanatic xenophobe + militariest + Fear the dark origin (First contact) + nationalistic zeal + Scavengers (toxoid) + Become the crisis (Nemesis) + (utopia): Expand a bunch, thrive on war, and take the option to be become a fanatic purifier when it comes. You should have taken out a bunch of the competition by them. You do not even have to become the crisis if you want.


Crisis build up 2 [Added 2/22/2025]:
Fanatic xenophobe + authoritarian + Fear the dark origin (First contact) + Selective Kinship (Lithoids) + Mining Guilds [optional] Become the crisis (Nemesis) + (utopia): Same as the previous one, except you enslave aliens first and profit off that. If you become the crisis and become a fanatic purifier at the same time, you will purge all the slaves at once for tons of menace. Just be sure to have enough reserve pops to take over the mines when they are done, because menacing ships need to be built in high demand. You should have enough minerals in reserves for it anyways. so be sure to increase storage capacity.


Gateway Intergalactic [Added 3/3/2025]:
(Megacorp) + Galactic doorstep + Anything that lets you see and get all the gateways fast, examples being Hyperspace Trade (Astral planes) or Privatized Exploration (First contact), or anything that helps with the power or development of branch offices, like Criminal Heritage if you want to bypass diplomacy, Public Relations Specialists (federations) if you want diplomacy, or normal Free Traders and Gospel of the Masses: The idea here is that the early game ability to make gateways reduces the cost of branch offices. This helps more in larger galaxies. Before 4.0, you also get the benefit of being able to link trade routes to your capital more easily. You can also use the unique galactic paragon to galactic doorstep to get the tier 4 strike craft tech skravird strike craft. Keep in mind that all of the civics listed are optional, and you can totally just use this in other builds. In fact, you would advise you take what you can off for less speed based civics as the game goes on and land taking becomes less relevant.


Hive mind of organics [Added 2/22/2025]:
Tree of life (Utopia) + Organic Reprocessing (Plantioids): Tree of life grants extra farming districts and organic reprocessing lets you use food instead of minerals alloys. It's just a good combo.


At what cost and profits:
Obsessional Directive civic (Machine age) + Relentless Industrialists (Toxoid) + Cosmogenesis perk (Machine age): Takes advantage of the minimum habitability of machine empires to reduce the badness of relentless industrialist tomb worlds. Makes for a more easy A Universe of Paperclips achievement. Just never miss a quota. To leave the other species a better galaxy, start with Arc Welders origin to build mega structures, and leave plenty of consumer goods deposits behind. Can also get Burning Brightly achievement like this. Before going into a black hole, remember to avoid the one at the center of the universe for a unique achievement. The last sector will be the new fallen empire and will be preserved, so think about how large you want it to be.