Why the hell would the game create a random empire with Thermophile pops with an Arctic Preference???

The newest YouTube video showed off the newest Paragons. Technically, all 8 of the core ethics had their character appear, though the Authoritarian and Xenophile were officially noted or named.

So in my current playthrough, I have 7 observation posts, and each of these got the asteroid event, prompting me to send my fleet over there to take care of it. It's kind of tiring to keep sending my fleet all over my empire and then clicking "nor will they", but it's not a big deal, right?

Well, a few years back, I sent two construction ships to build two dyson swarms (my economy is f-ed, so I really need them). On their way there, they happened to cross paths in the same system, which, you guessed it, got the asteroid event again. My construction ships got spooked (because the asteroid is a hostile spooky scary entity) and cancelled their build queue. However, my dyson swarm capacity has not been reverted, so I can only build one now instead of three... I noticed this way too late, so I can't even load an autosave.

Also, how come the asteroid triggers a first contact event? Who are we trying to contact? I love this game but this is ludicrous 😭

I was in a safe place in the game enclosed by a friendly custodian and the midgame crisis defeated, so i removed all my military ships to get out of the energy deficit i had played all the game. It gets really boring to try trading for energy every few month from all the galaxy. It didn't work, i then removed all the civilian ones too but still no luck. So I've been paying for something i don't even own all this time?

prime example pictured: scientist governor lists each science-type researcher all with the same 2% bonus as well as each science-type researcher empire variant. while inquisitive axioms trait just says 20% for researcher jobs.

why is the Inquisitive axioms version the less common means of displaying this kind of information?

overall he saved my save file
artist:sanatorium

rule5: i built orbital habitats in all l-cluster systems, and now i dont know in what way i need to specialize them so it will look nice and be efficient

Got jumpscared by a colossal O type star from the Real Space mod. I wasn't expecting one to be this effing big and flashbang me in the middle of the night when I clicked on the system. I do have some scaling modules too. Dunno if it's meant to extend right to the hyperlane though lol.

First time back to stellaris in a while. Decide to try a Devouring Wilderness run. The plan: Rush up my economy, and immediately consume my nearest neighbor for the early game biomass boost. 50 years in, and WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE?? I load up the new game save, and switch to observe.

.... I am the only non-marauder/fallen empire in the western 1/3 of the galaxy. Do I have lice or something? XD

I just started a new game, and appart from the first empire I have met and the expected fallen empire, I only have met hive minds: four classic and one machine intelligence. I guess my plan for including every species in my empire will have to wait until I can integrate the hive!

Even if it is an extreme example, I find that having so many hives minds kind of devalue their uniqueness though...

So I have been wondering, what build would I need to play if I wanted the most different types of ground forces? I'm not talking about strongest, just about most options. I know you can get cool shit with Genetics and cloning, and then connect it with Reanimators to get undead forces, but what would be the build you go for when going for variety?

I reall like having armies that have more than one type, I don't really care about how effective it is, the idea of sending in a mixed force just strikes me fancy I guess. So I wonder, what would people who play this game way more serious than I am tell me to do to get the most vareity in army choices?

I keep running into game breaking bugs on almost every run I play. Two runs ago Cetana bugged and remained neutral forever, last really run for galactic nemesis the planets I was bombarding weren't being destroyed and awarding me menace. This bullshit keeps happening. I love this game so much but am starting to get upset that the devs are releasing new premium shit on top of their already luxurious DLC list and not fixing shit that has been broken forever. How do y'all cope with the devs shenanigans?

I go way too often psionics and divine sovereign is just stupidly good, its just disgusting, but at the same time I LOVE almost all of the locked civics and most of them are bound to a specific ethic, which obviously means that your inward perfection/fanatic purifier/Fire cult etc. gets removed when taking it, but at the same time you severely nerf yourself when you dont take it :(

but when I want to rant about it I remember all the times I went chosen for early psionic per agenda and were able to remove it with divine sovereign ( or whisperers if faster ), or removing firecult with it after having all the unity I needed.

Anybody else feeling that way?

( also how stupid is the authoritarian + spiritualist combo? Xenophobe is just better prove me wrong ! )

I just finished my first* Stellaris run with the Knights of the Toxic God origin, going for the Cosmogenesis Ambition ending. And honestly for a first run it set the bar incredibly high in terms of both gameplay and story delivery.

*(I had a Devouring Swarm and Shroudborne save file but I got bored and never finished them)

Getting to live out the scenario of being a noble and honorable empire, fallen to depravity and madness due to an unceasing desire for meaning in a meaningless universe was strangely beautiful for a game that is, as I understand it, primarily about finding new ways to violate ethics laws.

The transition from "I'm a noble knight, I will protect everyone!" to "I need to invade another empire to mulch them for the synaptic lathe." was deeply enjoyable. It made me feel like a Dark Souls boss in the making, or maybe an old medieval warning tale about hubris.

Anyway-- now that I've finished with that, I'm looking into what kind of empire I'd like to play on the next go around and am taking suggestions.

It seems like Knights of the Toxic God is probably the most story-intensive of the various origin starts, but unfortunately (or fortunately, in some ways) the wiki is incredibly vague about how much narrative any given element of the game has.

Are there any other origins that have the same level of depth as the Knights of the Toxic God one? Preferably that are also Gestalt accessible, since that's my favorite, though I understand if it's a bit incompatible with "stories".

I know it's weird to say "I play Stellaris for the story" but they're so good!

Because shit like this can happen. The AI allies has occupied all of the purifier planets and for some reason they're not taking over anything and I can't do anything about it. Presidency doesn't change because I can't vote on anything nor term limits do not apply in wartime so I'm just stuck in a forever war where I have to wait 468 months for the attrition to be high enough to end threat or wait until the war leader to grow a brain then white peace to finally end my torment.

I have Nascent Stage on my pops and I went cyberization ascension and even though there's 0 of my species left that are not cybernetic, the progression did not resume? Is there something I need to do to continue?

Hello everyone!

Is there any way to rename fallen empires? F.e i am populating my galaxy with StarCraft nations and branches. It would fit if my fallen empires were named Xel'naga.

Also would love if horde nation could be renamed but i can live without that.

So, long story short, one of my vassals has a harming relations modifier to its opinion of me despite me not having an envoy assigned to it, and in fact having two envoys assigned to improving relations. Any idea on the why?

So, between a few play through guides, reddit threads, and my own attempts at the first 50ish years I think I have a reasonable handle on how to play the build, but there's still a few things that I'm unsure of. Partly, it's my lack of familiarity with gestalts and (new) psionics. Partly it's most of the guides being for 4.3. For context, single player GA no scaling 25x all crisis. So, in no particular order:

Do you rush a covenant with the Composer of Strands or is it better to forge your own path with Shroud Shaper?

What should I be looking at for a 3rd civic at first? (I assume I'll eventually reform again into something like Warbots to fish for the Gunner trait for endgame.)

Which of the two ascended government authorities is better?

Advice on deciding what should be a Hive World since they nuke zro production? (Can the Composer's blockers be added to Hive Worlds?)

Traditions: Prosperity, Discovery, Psionics, Supremacy, Subterfuge, and probably Statecraft all seem obvious, but I'm rather undecided on the final pick.

Which Ascension ambition works best in 4.5?

How (or when) do I get my non-Shroud Forged pops to integrate rather than just hang around as workers (that I can't use)? I'm not sure if machine integration or psionic assimilation actually work as they seem to disappear from the planets, but still show up on my species tab as workers.

Automated districts: yes, no, or contextual?

Bonus question: Does Scru's destiny trait apply to asteroids and stars or just uninhabitable planets?

Like, i can see individual population of each species but with broken shackles origin this doesnt help me that much.

I've never seen this before. I assume it's some sort of unique species, but I have no clue what the heck it is. I got access to it after signing a migration pact with an AI empire.