Strong Civics

[LordMagus]

So, I've heard that Agrarian Idyll is pretty damn strong as a civic. Though I tend not to play as pacifists (maybe they're super strong now?). Just interested in other people's opinions on what some strong civic choices are.
I'll just toss in Mining Guilds for +10% Minerals Production as a decent choice to get the ball rolling

 

[Alblaka]

Agrarian Idyll & Inward Perfection are hyper-Unity civics, albeit the one had Pacifism+farms as requirement, the other Pacifism+Xenophobe.
And since you cap out on Unity quickly anyways, neither is technically needed.

Machinist turns out to be REALLY powerful, because it gurantuees you can pick Cyber-Ascension as soon as you unlock the 2nd perk slot (which, analogue to above, can be REALLY soon). As well, very high mineral output and early expansion rate, as long as you manage your energy wisely.

Parlamentary System is absurdly powerful with an easy to achieve and maintain +10/Influence per month. It only ever 'broke down' to 3 Influence per month (which is still very solid) after I spammed Frontier Outposts and ran into a bug permanently making all my factions unhappy (btw, this (can?) happen(s) whenever you embrace a faction, giving permanent happyness penalities).

Past that, picking the Architecture perk as starter is very useful, as it makes your early-game growth easier, and you can switch it out later for something more long-term-y.

Stacking Nationalistic Zeal with Xenophobe can give a pretty solid border push (and bonus rivalries for Influence), and is probably a default pick for Fanatic Purifiers, albeit you can easily gain 45% border extrusion by Supremacy Starter + Ascension Perk anyways.

 

[AndragonLea]

I think the unity civics are strong primarily because civics are so flexible.

You can go for all the unity at the beginning, blaze through the first three tradition trees (expansion, harmony and discovery are good ones because the harmony one gives you a generic boost to happiness that makes your people more productive, expansion lowers the unity penalties and jump-starts your colonies and discovery gives you a good early to late game buff to stay scientifically competitive), then change your civics to ones that are more suitable to mid/late game (border extrusion, more cores, more influence or minerals) while slowly working on prosperity and domination for the late-game fleet slug fest.

 

[Teutonizer]

Technocracy is pretty neat, really (at least in early game)
Because it means less tech random to stuck with

 

[Zealuu]

Distinguished Admiralty feels like a solid choice if you get into a lot of wars, and stacks well with Supremacy and FP buffs.

 

[PirateJack]

Shadow Council is pretty good for democracies as it halves the cost of influencing elections, which is a pretty big deal when you get a potential ruler who is amazing but has no support.

 

[Alblaka]

Technocracy is pretty neat, really (at least in early game)

Since it doesn't actually speed up tech aquiration, I don't actually think it's all that valuable.
Arguably, the only case where this even has any value, is if, from your 4 drawn tech cards, the last is the only useful choice (because otherwise, not having the perk wouldn't have made any (significant) difference).

I mean, it's still the only Civic promoting tech, but I would pick a +% research speed over this one any day.

Distinguished Admiralty feels like a solid choice if you get into a lot of wars, and stacks well with Supremacy and FP buffs.

I'm not sold on the whole slew of +firerate% stats so far. It appears as if Quantity always beats Quality in Stellaris, and therefore I question the impact a 8% firerate actually has on the game (vs the impact of all the other civs avaible).

Shadow Council is pretty good for democracies as it halves the cost of influencing elections, which is a pretty big deal when you get a potential ruler who is amazing but has no support.

You don't usually have to spend that much Influence to elect leaders, since often you will be electing the same, with no influence investment needed, for several consecutive periods. And, instead of spending some less influence every 10 years, you can instead take Parlamentary system and get tons of bonus influence monthly.

 

[henzington]

Mechanist is surprisingly strong because robots don't use consumer goods

 

[Teutonizer]

Since it doesn't actually speed up tech aquiration, I don't actually think it's all that valuable.
Arguably, the only case where this even has any value, is if, from your 4 drawn tech cards, the last is the only useful choice (because otherwise, not having the perk wouldn't have made any (significant) difference).

I mean, it's still the only Civic promoting tech, but I would pick a +% research speed over this one any day.

Well, yes, I'd prefer it giving 5% extra on top of 1 more alternative
Still, it has it use (RP aside), especially with mods that add new techs (too bad itsn't possible to research few techs of one fild at the same time, as in HOI)

 

[Siven80]

I quite like meritocracy early on, 1 leader level and 1 extra leader choice is nice.

Means anomalies get finished quicker rather than waiting and i can pick a leader with the trait i want early.

First thing i do in games is get another scientist and ship.

And later i can change the civic.

 

[LordMagus]

Mechanist is surprisingly strong because robots don't use consumer goods

Which makes materialists strong. Not only do you get increased research speed, but you get reduced upkeep costs for robots that increase your mineral income.

 

[Alblaka]

Which makes materialists strong. Not only do you get increased research speed, but you get reduced upkeep costs for robots that increase your mineral income.

And lets not forget the powerful and RELIABLE (looking at you, Shroud) perks you gain from Cybernetics.

 

[LordMagus]

And lets not forget the powerful and RELIABLE (looking at you, Shroud) perks you gain from Cybernetics.

Kinda lame how the synth ascension is a bit lackluster, given that you could have already filled your empire with synths. I'd like it if there was actually some way to boost your synth build speed, as they take ages to build

 

[Alblaka]

Kinda lame how the synth ascension is a bit lackluster, given that you could have already filled your empire with synths. I'd like it if there was actually some way to boost your synth build speed, as they take ages to build

I like it though. Previously, going full synth had you forced to self-purge or do weird vassal stunts. Now you can legitimately go 100% synth.
And whilst a buildspeed stat for Synth would be nice, keep in mind they already build at above-organic speeds (especially regardless of pops already on planet and happyness). Any more, and balance would become an issue.

 

[LordMagus]

I'm actually interested in the math behind that. Synths take a fixed 30 months to build right? I wonder what all the food bonuses and growth rate modifiers would actually mean for the time organics take.

 

[Drowe]

Since it doesn't actually speed up tech aquiration, I don't actually think it's all that valuable.
Arguably, the only case where this even has any value, is if, from your 4 drawn tech cards, the last is the only useful choice (because otherwise, not having the perk wouldn't have made any (significant) difference).

I mean, it's still the only Civic promoting tech, but I would pick a +% research speed over this one any day.

It makes a huge difference if you try to get a specific rare tech, like the mega engineering tech for megastructures fast. If you get to roll 3 dice and get to pick the result of any one die, the chance to get a specific result is lower than if you do the same with 4 or 5 dice. That's why as an early pick it is an incredibly good civic, but as time goes by, it loses relevance. And once you reach repeatable tech it's worthless.

 

[DukeLeto42]

And since you cap out on Unity quickly anyways, neither is technically needed.

This would be highly valuable for a play-through where you plan to expand very quickly, as I've noticed that sectors tend not to build unity buildings on their worlds, meaning rapid expansion can slow unity quite significantly. Additionally, you could go for those civics at the start, and change off them once you've cleared out some of those early, highly impactful civics.

I'm not sold on the whole slew of +firerate% stats so far. It appears as if Quantity always beats Quality in Stellaris, and therefore I question the impact a 8% firerate actually has on the game (vs the impact of all the other civs avaible).

I switched into that civic early in my fanatic purifier playthrough. It had a noticeable impact on fleet power, which helped when I was on the defensive in an early war and just needed to crush the enemy doomstack. Of course, now that I'm a good 150 years in, even though I'm fighting a very angry and very large federation, there are definitely better civics. The reform option is nice for its allowance for a limited ability to switch out for what you need at the moment.

 

[scaper12123]

Thus far I've found Agrarian Idyll to be extremely overpowered, having completed every single tree within the first 150-200 years of gameplay. To be fair, I was roleplaying a farming race and built a LOT of farms, but still! I feel like its effects should be cut in half.

I've yet to try very many other civics, but that one... definitely need a nerf!

 

[Drowe]

Thus far I've found Agrarian Idyll to be extremely overpowered, having completed every single tree within the first 150-200 years of gameplay. To be fair, I was roleplaying a farming race and built a LOT of farms, but still! I feel like its effects should be cut in half.

I've yet to try very many other civics, but that one... definitely need a nerf!

That seems about the standard, I did it in the same time, maybe faster without going for a high unity build.

 

[Alblaka]

That seems about the standard, I did it in the same time, maybe faster without going for a high unity build.

I just realized...
For Unity, SMALL planets are the most effective.
Opposed to Science, where you want large planets, you want small planets for Unity, since every pop past the minimum to man the Unity-generating buildings is actually hurting your Unity generation.

Aka, you'd want the theoretical setup of a few (gotta do math to figure out when the diminishing returns go negative for the precise count) planets with ~3-5 inhabitants each.