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Swayze Oct 17, 2022 @ 4:04pm
Suggestion for a tall empire build?
I love the idea of playing a tall empire, with just a few (maybe 10-20 or even less) systems but still be powerful enough to well handle end game crisis and be a major force in the galaxy, i tried this years ago, im an on/off player i come back once or twice a year and play for a couple of weeks, as a MegaCOrp and it went semi well.

I looked up guides online but they are mostly outdated and im wondering if anyone has some up to date insights about tall playstyles, id really appreciate any tips and such.
I want to break the cycle of painting my color, and frankly sometimes it gets really tedious to manage a really large empire.
Thanks!
Last edited by Swayze; Oct 17, 2022 @ 4:06pm
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Originally posted by Razorblade:
Originally posted by Johnny Silverhand:
My absolute dream would be something like a one planet or one system playtrough without powergaming or anything like that, just RP my faction somewhat, join a fed, battle crisis and then maybe after a couple of centuries paint the map
While that's plenty possible with any origin, Ocean Paradise, Life-Seeded, Shattered-Ring, and Remnants are all well-designed for this kind of playstyle, as they all provide you with a large home planet, or the opportunity to make a large home planet. Here Be Dragons is a close runner-up, as when combined with a Unity-rush, you can vastly increase your military capabilities with little personal cost.

Federating early can be helpful in this kind of run. Completing the Diplomacy tradition tree and taking Shared Destination should give you all the diplomats you'll ever need to make anyone like you, or there are plenty of Civics and Ethics that also give Diplomats. I suggest a Hegemony or Holy Conclave (if you're playing the beta). Hegemonies allow you to make allies by force, but you can get easily overthrown by Federation allied with bigger fleets, more vassals, etc. If you want pure control, a Holy Conclave with Challenge - Conclave succession is mega easy to stay in charge of, although Hegemonies give earlier and better access to Federation Fleets.

Economically, Alloys are almost always going to be the most valuable resource, so spamming those on your home planet is highly advised. Food, Minerals, and Energy can all be produced from Starbases/mining stations, but you'll likely end up running a deficit in energy and minerals regardless. Those should be pretty easy to buy from the Galactic Market, once it is open, by selling some of your Alloys for huge profits. For this reason, you should push to open the Galactic Market as the first resoution in the Galactiv Community.

If you're interested in going Emperor, you'll want to get as many Diplomats as possible, take the Supremacy tradition for the Supremacist Policy (100% extra diplo weight from fleet power), and spam out as big a fleet as your economy can handle (personal fleet; federation fleets give no diplo weight).

At some point, you'll want to make your home planet an Ecumenopolis for the extra Alloys and population space. By that point, you should be pretty ready to start picking up some vassals, although you may be powerful enough before this point, or get lucky enough to find some primitives to enlighten. For this reason, I like to spam Unity on my home planet, as you can always tax your future vassals for research, but an argument can be made for spamming either of those or Trade with your spare building slots.

Some miscellaneous advice:
-Always try to be the biggest Federation around. Having +50 acceptance score from Relative Fleet Power in every war is great, even if you don't plan on your allies actually helping. If you're not a Hegemony, declaring Liberation Wars is generally your best way to expand your Federation.

-Try to keep your borders tight before finding your first Ally. The penalty for sharing borders without a Defensive Pact are pretty intense, which can ruin your chance at getting an early Federation.

-Early Mercenaries can be a great use of your limited Alloys. They build their own ships, so you can recklessly throw them into the meat grinder, unlike your enemies. They also periodically give free resources, though they cost a ton to keep raised at all times. Just be careful to never let anyone else hire them, as the mercenary system is buggy as all hell, so you may never get them back. This strategy is best accomplished with the Distinguished Admirals civic + the Supremeacy tradition + Lord of War perk, or if rushing Unity, Supremacy + 2 other traditons + Lord of War + Galact Force Project perk, as you need a fleet command limit of 50 to create Mercenary Enclaves.

-The Fleet Contribution - Everone federation law is a great way to get a free, massive fleet from the AI. If you set your Debris policy to "Salvage," you can even throw this fleet at enemies with reckless abandon, then scrap the enemy fleets for free Alloys while the AI replaced your losses.

-You'll want deals with the Curators, Artists, and Shroudwalkers if possible.

-Logistics are everything. Taking the L-Cluster or buying a Shroud Becon from the Shroudwalkers is a great way to extend your reach for vassalizing or making Federation allies.

-Hunting Guardians (Leviathans) is a great way to increase your power. Notably, destroying the Infinity Sphere gives you the next Robotics tech (Robots, Droids, Synths), the Extradimensional Horror gives Jump Drives, and the Dreadnought gives you itself. Or if you're playing a Necromancer empire, all of the dragons are resurrectable.

-If anyone tells you a 1 planet challenge is not possible, they're been listening to too many Stellaris YouTubers telling them the only way to win the game is spaming out Research and settling every planet in the galaxy. Succeeding requires a decent amount of game knowledge, but no "cheese" at all, even in the latest update.
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Showing 1-15 of 28 comments
Tech Enthusiast Oct 17, 2022 @ 4:34pm 
Tall empires don't really work well in Stellaris as of right now.
It got a little better since they changed admin cap to actually matter (you can no longer have unlimited cap), but in reality it does not matter. You still get stronger, if you just go wide.

That being said, if your definition of tall is "just 10 or 20 systems", you could go for a ringworld rush and just fill those 20 systems with them. It would mimick a wide play power curve, but with a tall looking empire.
In reality it would be just the same wide play, just with fewer systems. ;-)

Most of the wide drawbacks come in the form of population. And Ringworlds would still have that drawback. Then again: No pops, no win in Stellaris. Unless a lower setting is fine for the Tall experiment.
#1
daemonworks Oct 17, 2022 @ 4:58pm 
Void Dwellers megacorp would be my suggestion. They're very good at tall, particularly if you go for a trade focused build. It's possible to build a very strong economy in a relatively limited patch of space by building lots of habitats. It's a bit fiddly to get off the ground because of their smaller size, cost to set up, and limited building space on the habs themselves, but even with mediocre luck in galaxy gen you can get a stupid number of habitats in a smaller space.

The mercantile tree will let you produce all the consumer goods (or unity) you'll ever need via a policy decision, which will simplify your industry immensely.

You can still make full use of planets via taking on other species, and you'll almost certainly want to.

If you haven't used them much, habs have some quirks: they get extra districts and/or features if built over space resources. Mining districts over a mineral resource, for example. They'll also block orbital rings if over an inhabitable planet.

Get yourself other species on board so that you can use any inhabitable or terraforming candidate planets you've got in your area as soon as possible. Double check the expansion planner for a list of the latter, as for some silly reason the game doesn't mark them on the map. (I played one of these recently, and getting few planets up and running early on made my life so very, very much better).

Influence will be a very significant early bottleneck - you need it for habs, orbital rings, branch offices, etc. Either forming a trade federation or taking the perk that makes commercial pacts not cost influence will help cut costs.
Last edited by daemonworks; Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:01pm
#2
Swayze Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:01pm 
Originally posted by Tech Enthusiast:
Tall empires don't really work well in Stellaris as of right now.
It got a little better since they changed admin cap to actually matter (you can no longer have unlimited cap), but in reality it does not matter. You still get stronger, if you just go wide.

That being said, if your definition of tall is "just 10 or 20 systems", you could go for a ringworld rush and just fill those 20 systems with them. It would mimick a wide play power curve, but with a tall looking empire.
In reality it would be just the same wide play, just with fewer systems. ;-)

Most of the wide drawbacks come in the form of population. And Ringworlds would still have that drawback. Then again: No pops, no win in Stellaris. Unless a lower setting is fine for the Tall experiment.

Its a good idea with the ringworlds, i will try that. I decided to go with a smaller galaxy aswell maybe that'll help to mimic a taller experience
#3
ScreamCon Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:02pm 
If you don't have empire wide pop slow grow tall is feasible. Try running a bit smaller galaxy with less empires and see if your system can handle. Also try to not run too many mods.

If all goes well planets will only slow when too full. From there you can use slaving for domestic servant combined with syncretic evolution slaves for food. The massive housing reduction as both those jobs use SUBSTANTIALLY less housing, combined with other housing reductions you can stack mean your tall planets will keep growing for longer.

They should be possible to reach 400 pops naturally with slaving having turned the worlds to eccumonopolis.

The speed of growth with no pop slow grow should keep livestock feasible. Just note don't be surprised if it bogs down late game with too many pops.
Last edited by ScreamCon; Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:05pm
#4
Razorblade Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:23pm 
Originally posted by Tech Enthusiast:
Then again: No pops, no win in Stellaris. Unless a lower setting is fine for the Tall experiment.
People really like to inflate how difficult Stellaris is. Winning on Grand Admiral against the AI with only 1 planet is perfectly viable.

Focus your homeworld on Alloys, spam out resource-producing Starbases, sell your Alloys on the Galactic Market for enormous profits, and use the Energy Credits you gain to buy everything you have a deficit in. Make your homeworld an Ecumenopolis, spam out a fleet with all your Alloys, make friends and/or make vassals, and then Planet-Crack, Shield, or Star-Eat any enemies that have a higher score than you. If you want to become Galactic Emperor, the Supremacy stance plus a massive fleet will take care of that, or you could always Become the Crisis and win before year 150 if you Unity-spam.

Sure, it's suboptimal as all hell, but that really doesn't matter outside of MP with really hardcore minmaxers.
#5
Ramonkey Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:24pm 
I’d say Rogue Servitor is master of tall with how the bio trophy mechanics work. You can stack a LOT of them on a single planet and they also boost the output of your specialist drones to ridiculous amounts so you can build up in a tiny amount of space but still be a major powerhouse in the galaxy
#6
pete3great Oct 17, 2022 @ 5:41pm 
Really, a Megacorp with any origin will work, though you might still want to rush habitats if you don't choose void dweller. Having the pop boost from taking mechanist isn't a bad choice either.
#7
Tech Enthusiast Oct 18, 2022 @ 12:23am 
Originally posted by Razorblade:
Originally posted by Tech Enthusiast:
Then again: No pops, no win in Stellaris. Unless a lower setting is fine for the Tall experiment.
People really like to inflate how difficult Stellaris is. Winning on Grand Admiral against the AI with only 1 planet is perfectly viable.

Focus your homeworld on Alloys, spam out resource-producing Starbases, sell your Alloys on the Galactic Market for enormous profits, and use the Energy Credits you gain to buy everything you have a deficit in. Make your homeworld an Ecumenopolis, spam out a fleet with all your Alloys, make friends and/or make vassals, and then Planet-Crack, Shield, or Star-Eat any enemies that have a higher score than you. If you want to become Galactic Emperor, the Supremacy stance plus a massive fleet will take care of that, or you could always Become the Crisis and win before year 150 if you Unity-spam.

Sure, it's suboptimal as all hell, but that really doesn't matter outside of MP with really hardcore minmaxers.

Id love to see a 1 planet win after the latest set of AI improvements.
I am certainly not good enough to pull that off. Not even close. It was possible since the AI was brain dead. But it no longer is.
#8
ScreamCon Oct 18, 2022 @ 12:34am 
1 planet win? Who do you take me for? Playing wide sure the scientists work is divided based on empire sprawl, but the amount of science from expanding wider is greater than the division. It doesn't look believable but its true.

You might be able to do one planet win but you will suffer trying to make it work.
Last edited by ScreamCon; Oct 18, 2022 @ 12:35am
#9
coolsquidchillin Oct 18, 2022 @ 3:55pm 
anglers ocean paradise then turn food into alloys
#10
pin Oct 18, 2022 @ 4:08pm 
1 planet tall build can only work with some sort of megacorp as far as I know, unless you cheese the game mech somehow.

Tbh with recent AI changes tall builds gets shafted. Even if you are 3 tier + in tech AI will simply out spam you unless small galaxy and habitable planets were set to low. Even if you max out pop potential using bio ascension and overtuned origin its a hard stretch to stay ahead in tall builds by mid game.
#11
pete3great Oct 18, 2022 @ 4:26pm 
I don't think the OP said anything about one planet challenge, just tall. Big difference. Me? I like the occasional one sector challenge.
#12
GloriouSin♪ Oct 18, 2022 @ 4:36pm 
Originally posted by pete3great:
I don't think the OP said anything about one planet challenge, just tall. Big difference. Me? I like the occasional one sector challenge.
More like THE "turtle one sector and go crisis" meta.

Genetic Voidturtles Crisis is the strongest crisis ;;p honestly it's the easiest way to win currently BY FAR. (Since AI basically decides to ally with the nearest AI, no matter the ideology as soon as they hear that you know about their existance)
Last edited by GloriouSin♪; Oct 18, 2022 @ 4:39pm
#13
Swayze Oct 19, 2022 @ 5:20am 
My absolute dream would be something like a one planet or one system playtrough without powergaming or anything like that, just RP my faction somewhat, join a fed, battle crisis and then maybe after a couple of centuries paint the map
#14
Mr.M Oct 19, 2022 @ 6:57am 
Originally posted by Johnny Silverhand:
My absolute dream would be something like a one planet or one system playtrough without powergaming or anything like that, just RP my faction somewhat, join a fed, battle crisis and then maybe after a couple of centuries paint the map

Doing Ringworld start should work

Leaves the option for another 2 worlds open
#15
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Stellaris > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: Oct 17, 2022 @ 4:04pm
Posts: 28

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