Need ideas for new playthroughs

[Gallowbrass]

I'm tired of using the same empire builds every gameplay (that being meta civics-traits like intelligent, natural engineers, distinguished admiralty and even fanatic purifiers).

What are some fun empire builds that you had the most fun playing with?

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Try one of the preset empires.

Preset empires typically use origins, civics, and mechanics that come with whichever DLC they were introduced with, so if you're looking to try a playstyle you've never done before, they're a great starting point.

Preset empires are also non-meta builds, so if you're constantly doing meta builds, it can be a fun change of pace.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Click random empire and see what happens.

 

[Farbros]

I love empires which have an option for a total war, but yet not completely hated by everyone. Driven Assimilators for example. You can do unlimited number of wars, conquer pops without using influence and still be in galactic community and have some friends.

 

[Foxosaur]

I have absolutely no idea of the meta but your idea of fun might be wildly different to people like me.

Personally, rogue servitors and necroids are different enough mechanically and fun - but rather than playing any kind of snowball, try and also play cooperatively with the AI with similar empires and federate - and focus on saving them and anyone else from a reasonably high crisis difficulty multiplier.

Those can be pretty epic games for me as can WiH events be, if you purposely don’t go for dark matter tech before they awaken and simply leave the FE alone. Let them just go nuts when you take the league of none aligned powers option and enjoy seeing a galaxy very quickly burn for a few years.

 

[Dragatus]

Barbaric Despoilers + Crusading Spirit: You can't make claims, but you can use the plunder CB just fine.

Lithoid Necrophage with invasive prepatent species: You'll never run out of prepatents to ascend and any extra prepatents can work specialist jobs. You can also give the invasive species leader related negative traits that will have no impact because all your leaders will be of the necrophage species. And by having your lithoids be necrophages you can bypass the pop growth penalty entirely.

Remnants origin + Become the Crisis: Crisis ships always only cost minerals and you can put in archaeotech weapons without making them cost minor artifacts.

Catalytic lithoids: You flip what minerals and food are used for, requiring minerals to feed your pops and food to make alloys.

Overtuned slavers: You can slap as many overtuned traits you want on slaves and get no bad effects because they don't produce leaders anyway.

Overtuned cyborgs: Let's you triple specialize your pops with basic trait + cyborg trait + overtuned trait that all increase the same thing.

Syncretic livestock with exotic metabolism: Get all the exotic gases and food you need. Bonus points if you also go catalytic.