Yeah I was about to say lmao. Last time I watched a Montu list was a while back and I remember Aptitude being much higher and here we are starting off with it as the corpse in the ditch LOL
aptitude is still very good. it's no longer possible to completely block any chance of negative leader traits, so aptitude and harmony are even more important for my build than they were before
And mind you that change happened even with no significant changes being made to Statecraft. Aptitude got nerfed into oblivion, specifically its agenda, and now that Statecraft is one of the only solid sources of FLAT leader XP you can find in the game, it's skyrocketed up high. I'd put Statecraft even higher since there's a kind of obvious boost to it Montu didn't mention, but you can actually freely switch your councilors whenever you want. It costs you nothing and you can do it infinitely. You can't change the actual councilor position, but you can change the person performing it... So, just before launching an agenda, you just swap out your lvl 10 councilors to other normal non-councilor leaders and let them suckle on that agenda launch boost, then immediately put your councilors back into the council.
@@schwingedeshaehers Trust me, I am well familiar with how gestalt machines are. :D We're still completely screwed on unity unless we have biological pets.
They really need to rework genetic ascension. Add more trait points, crazy/esoteric traits like those on machine's modularity (some trait that adds a dark matter gland to your brainstem, so you do more research, or a trait that halts the aging process to make leaders immortal, for example), not just having Euridite, but special traits for each leader class REGARDLESS of the actual traits you slap on a species. I shouldn't have to care if a leader came from a subspecies that's tailor made for mining, he's a commander, so have him specifically modified to be better at fleet combat and ground invasions; like clone soldiers get (obviously not as good as their traits, and maybe buff them to compensate). It shouldn’t matter what species an official comes from, have him modified to be better at governing. In fact, the whole thing with a trait to make pops modify themselves for their job should be replicated on leaders for genetic ascension. If I put a governor as a representative of the galatic community, have him undergo gene therapy to make him better at being a diplomat at the expense of governing skill, and switch it back if I change it back. Do the same if I switch an admiral to a general role, and vice versa. Genetic ascension should have its strengths in flexibility, and stuff like my suggestions would really play into that theme.
Genetic is still my go to tradition because it's easy to get early, and the moment you click the tradition you immediately get cloning vats and thus organic pop growth. You start getting major benefits from it immediately, whereas all other ascensions take a while to get going.
They probably will seeing as how machines got expanded and how much lore was tied together and expanded on we can probably expect psyonics and bio ascensions to get expanded in the next seasons.
I would personally entirely rework how genetic modification operates, in terms of gameplay and research. I'd make it so that, with base genetic modification, you could only switch in/out traits that belonged to species within your empire, or which you could access through migration treaties. In order to gene mod freely, you'd need to go for Genetic Ascension. But even then you'd have to research sets of traits individually, similar to the planetary blocker techs. For instance, if you researched "Age Traits", you'd be able to freely add or remove Fleeting, Enduring and Venerable. But you'd need to research "Breeding Traits" before you could add or remove Fast Breeders or Slow Breeders. But in the later stages you'd be able to research all the Overtuned traits, and also a bunch of wacky "Advanced" traits. Like "Killing Machine", which would give a pop +500% Army Damage, at the cost of making them unable to perform any job besides Soldier (or Duelist). As you've optimized the pop for violence, and nothing else. Or "Living Art", that reduces all job output, except for Amenities which it boosts. As you've modified a pop in a way that looks cool, but is impractical for most kinds of labour. Or "Scratch-Built", a free trait given whenever you created a species from scratch, that gave a free +3 trait points. Because your genetic engineers were able to optimise out a lot of genetic inefficiencies that normally arise in naturally-evolved species.
Really need a genetic/bio focused DLC... rework the ascension, new biotech weapons, living ships, the ability to have machine species gain biological bodies and biologically ascend...lot of potential here
Honestly, Psionics is still powerful with teachers of the shroud, but now that synthetics and cybernetics have their own teachers style origin, genetics really needs their own as well and a needed boost to it.
Genetics needs better management ultimately. With the buffs genetics gives, coupled with being able to just use those buffs in tandem with cybernetic and psionic bonuses you inherent (whether by immigration or buying slaves) you can create some absurdly overpowered pops then begin just cloning new ones as you need. To buff genetics they need to add the ability to restrict certain species from certain roles and promote other ones. Currently you could tailor-craft a "leader" species, but if the RNG doesn't roll one of them, then it's a waste, these can easily be remedied by setting leadership positions off-limits to certain ones (you can already sort of do this, but I mean even within the same species). Plus even though the AI isn't the worst with job assignment (due to how jobs and traits are weighted) it would be nice if you could, in the empire pop menu, set jobs to pursue and ones to avoid. Those things all fit within the theme of a genetically engineered society. As for events and such to flesh it out, maybe seeking out new DNA to use or something? Sort of how you can get a dragonscales (or whatever it's called) trait when you kill the leviathan, but from events. I micro-managed a game once and the genetic pops I made, make the other ascension pops look like a joke. The problem is the management is hell and unviable unless you don't mind playing mega-slow, and also clone vats themselves don't give bonuses like the other buildings do, but I think that's fair enough considering genetically engineered pops are better than psionic or cyborg ones. Genetics has a lot of potential, it's held back more by game mechanics than the bonuses themselves. Genetics needs the following... -The ability to designate species for leaders, that the leader pool must pick from. -The ability to control which jobs pops will go towards/stay away from. -Nerve Stapled trait needs to be reworked or split in to two traits (One suited for dystopian empires, the current one, and another suited for utopian ones that lacks/modifies the happiness negation) -Some sort of assimilation-like citizen right to convert any new ones you get in to the genetic template you make, rather than doing special projects 100 times.
Unyielding is much higher, possibly S Tier if you are a Machine Intelligence with the Astro-mining Drones Civic. Each starbase can have 6 Astro-Mining Bays and an Astro-Mining Hub, for a total of +150% Mining Station output, with the Bays also giving the same energy as Solar Panels. Because your base resource economy is almost entirely centred on starbases, the extra capacity, reduced upkeep and upgrade cost and increased upgrade speed are all very valuable bonuses
Maybe I'm playing wrong but Astromining isn't great unless you can snowball into getting vassals to take care of your basic minerals. You'll hit a wall as your starbase constructions can't keep up with your massive alloy factories and then you just have really bad menial drones.
Even without Astro mining drones, Astral studies network resolution provides 100% solar panel output, and you can pick catalytic processing for 33% more alloys base and popless food production, freeing up a lot of minerals.
@@ohgodwhyamiintheyoutubecom6149 Works great with Arc Welders origin. Multiple powered-up Arc Furnaces will take you easily to the point where Matter Decompressor comes online, and with your ridiculous alloy income, it's trivial to snag a vassal which then gets converted into a Prospectorium.
@@ohgodwhyamiintheyoutubecom6149 Arc Furnaces fix that issue quite nicely, the deposits from which get an additional 150% yield from this. You should also be reducing the upkeep of your foundry drones via planetary ascension anyway
I really wish there was some kind of an egalitarian ascension tradition where pops in your empire can take whatever they want without being forced to be machines, genetically modified, psionically awakened etc. I realize how hard that would be to balance but since I main egalitarian empires I find it weird to go “alright time to upload everyone to the cloud whether they want it or not!” In fact ascension traditions are such game changers and so powerful they’re almost necessary or strongly recommended. They should be separated from traditions and be their own thing in my opinion.
Egalitarian societies are still subject to social pressures and cultural inertia, which is what traditions/ascensions seem to represent. The timetable they occur on is nonsense, of course. Societies don’t pivot on a dime. But that’s true for Stellaris in general.
There is a civic that not allows you to pick any ascension path, but gives +2 species traits and points, as well as some other bonuses, it's called Natural design
I've always envisioned something like an infrastructural/solarpunk ascension. So rather than your pops being forced to change, you just make your buildings, districts and empire life more efficient. Increased recycling so each pop produces some of the consumer goods it consumes (produces cos it's nice to get numbers rather than just reduce them). Total solar conversion so each point of housing generates energy, that kinda thing.
Virtual + Mercantile do feel a bit like a cheatcode. As you automatically fill all jobs, you will have clerks everywhere, and Virtual gives +1% output on everything per clerk. My Virtual Empire Ecunumopolis feels like it alone is more powerful than entire sectors in other games.
Especially on trade rings. The virtual tradition gives even more clerks on habitation districts. So if you have all 3 or all 4 ring sections you can ignore the -50% ressources from jobs because the clerks give like an additional 100%
@Adidas_der_schwanger_war I will be unstoppable, they can't stop me, I'll have enough unity to have the megastructure ambition on-to build more rings, I could have a force ring as well, it's all so powerful, I'd even go as far as to say that psychic isn't the most powerful Ascension path anymore, not even close
How do you kake virtual work? No matter what I try it just seem to completly nuke my economy. Like are you supoose to just have 4 planets with that tradition?
psionics easy S tier for me, the psy space drive is so good, plus all the bonuses you get, immortal and op leaders and all that, and also the better shields too
It's still the best hands down yea. Pretty sure Montu was paid by paradox for this one tbh. Nano is the best overall of the new ones, and it already needs buffed. It's an ascension perk and a tradition, but is weaker then the very similar in build ( as they both involve wiping everything out) crisis perk... Which doesn't need a tradition. Like.. Psy is also both but is more then double power of anything the bots get
@@dj_koen1265 not really If your LUCKY it's decent. If your incredibly good at planning it can be powerful, but. It's honestly weaker then nano or Psy, which are the best. I've played nano with a friend now, it's.... Not horrible but against anything but a player or multiple 20+crisis types/fleets it's plenty. Virtual has nothing different or cool it adds, and can't contend with the production that having a normal bio OR machine race can... Like the virtual empire had technically 600 pops, depending a smidge on colonies and need. Meanwhile a toxic god start psionic bio race had over 2k. That's... Not even counting having more then double the systems. The thing virtual is best at is diplomacy, and even there it loses, tho if you get it early it will have the earlier way to run it. Ultimately it's truly no different then inward perfection, it WOULD be cool... If you could remove it later. But it's just another sad attempt to make "building tall" actually work, which it never will. Except of course, in single player.
@@TruthHunterTeen im willing to believe you have a point but virtuality is starting to get banned in most mp games at an increasing rate, im sure that means something
Day 25 of asking for a Renowned and legendary paragons tier list! Also I haven’t seen this tier list yet but genetics feel REALLY BAD right now. Left in the gutter tbh Edit: oh shit I seem to have been validated. I thought I was just playing my empire poorly. Buff genetics pls
Recently come across your channel a few weeks ago and love every detail information and build video you do. Keep up the good work. Secret word: Psychic
You know, I find it amusing to watch your tier lists and see something I take really frequently (like in this case, Politics) down in the F-Tier while something you seem to adore up in S-Tier (in this case, Enmity) is something I literally never use, it's like you're *reading my mind* and getting the signals reversed lol. In this case, it's generally because I'm decent _enough_ at the game that, unless I'm playing on Grand Admiral with scaling on, I have a hard time being able to Rival any Empires because either their Economy or their Military is Pathetic compared to mine - and if you don't have any Rivals, Enmity literally only gives you a Diplo Weight bonus when _opposing_ Resolutions, which is something I rarely find being a problem (since, between Politics giving me a bunch of useful buffs and my generally-OP Empire anyway, my Diplo Weight is _already_ the deciding factor if something passes or not - or even ever makes it to the Senate floor). So in the vast majority of my use cases, Enmity is literally the worst Tradition in the game because it does _absolutely nothing_ for me 99% of the time. Meanwhile, the Influence cost reductions for both proposing and vetoing Resolutions is pretty handy (especially with Gigastructures where some Megastructures require Influence, and can get quite costly in the later game when also dealing with GalCom), the Veto and Emergency Measure cooldown reductions are _clutch_ for controlling what gets onto the Senate floor and when... and then, once I've got the policies I want in place, I can just support _any_ Resolution, let it pass, and coast on the +25% Diplo Weight buff from Gravitas _forever_ to make sure whatever I don't want passed doesn't. And if something gets too close to the Senate floor without my approval? Veto! Because I can do that faster than any other Empire.
@@MontuPlaysehh I don't know simply because of the synergy with overturned and I think Genetic Ascension by itself has better pop growth speed that gives it a sleight edge
Never bothered with it, short of one play test. It's just kinda lame. U basically adding more buffs to species, at the cost of far more exciting thing to do. Personally, I'm Perma stuck with Slaenesh ascension path.. what's her name in Stellaris, instrument of desire? Don't remb. Basically space magic, and the fact what you can combine it with galactic wonders, and now cosmogenesis... It's perfection. I strongly suggest you start as fanatic authoritarian and materialist, to get AI tech and Neuron sweep planet cracker, and only then switch to spiritual. It's always a rather long game, but it's filled with fun things to do, everytime. Also robots, are now crazy good, with cosmogenesis and virtuality.. albeit it's a much shorter game, basically science victory, and gets you into less fun gameplay loops then my favorite combination. Its not what it needs a rework per say. It does what it needs to do.. modify species. But it's just not terribly exciting to take, because it combines poorly with other things you could do instead. There needs to be a brand new tradition or game mechanic what compliments the existing system, not necessarily change in that system itself.
I wish you'd made a mention of how straight busted Driven Assimilator cybernetic ascension is - I've played an "all machine" game a couple days ago with some friends, and I rapidly outpaced both Virtuality empires. Admittedly I was also the best economics player (except one girl who got shit luck) and It's probably still worse if you get a virtuality ringworld/ecu combo with the right civics et cetera, but that's much harder to do than just "grab big world. designate as gestation world. Now Virtuality is not the only AP to get free pops."
Montu has a constant stream of work updating videos that become irrelevant 2 months later. The struggle continues but we appreciate your efforts 💪. Looking forward ro this when I get home!
thanks montu for such incredible videos! you helped get me into stellaris and ive been loving this game for over a year now, i just wish psionic lizards were real :(
In my first game with the new dlc I was wanting to try out Virtuality, but while doing the Synthetic Age decision where you choose between the three, I wasnt paying attention and accidentally went for Nanotech... A few in-game years later, I was dominating everyone in the galaxy with Nanite Swarmers. I added the Nanite Harvester starbase building to a system with an Arc Mining facility in, meaning that one system alone wasnt just producing dozens of alloys and minerals, but also nanites from every single asteroid and celestial bodies. Honestly it is the most fun I have had in this game since I did one of my psionic campaigns
A good start on how to fix bio ascension is to give you the ability to assimilate pops into a template instead of having to constantly run projects to change every single new pop.
You don't have to do that when you start the project to modify change overall pop growth to new template. Once it's finished it will replace the original in the species screen.
@@andrewsanderson8566 that is how it works now. The problem with that is that when new members of that species enter your borders you have to do it again.
@PinataFreaks yes, because biology is no so easily malleable. Now if they had us make a special building to do that FOR us with "saved" genetics profiles that would be nice. The further you upgrade the building the faster pops have their genes tweeked... actually, just have a special upgrade in the genetic ascension path for the gene clinics, no need to even make new models
A mercantile Ring World build was my favorite way to rush Virtuality. I even kept my capital as a trade world because it got ten fucking thousand trade value and single-handedly covered my unity, consumer goods, and heavily contributed to my energy.
They really need to change a lot of the unith boosts to percentages too. Embassies giving +3 is pretty meh at the best of times but a +1% could be quite useful
I really wish genetic and psionic had some love at the moment. Psionic used to be my go to ascension path because it was that good. Now it just feels kinda meh compared to cybernetic (especially with the cybernetic species) and synthetic. I just wish there were more special resource generating genetic traits or maybe some more traits that require rare resource upkeep like what synthetic has. Maybe even a very expensive trait that flat out makes your leaders immortal. I would also appreciate some magic inspired psionic traits that do stuff like increase governing ethics attraction, increase alloy and consumer good output, and of course some version of nerve stapled for your psionic -slaves- prisoners with jobs. I would also love to see some special advanced government types for genetic and a rework to the Chosen One event chain for advanced psionic government types.
Currently running as a determined exterminator with nanotech. Infinite planets, massive uncapped nanite production and instant defense fleets in emergencies. You dont need to be PSYCHIC to see that it's the ideal ascension to exterminate all the fleshies. Paired with the new crisis path, it's disgustingly powerful.
I'm rather new to Stellaris, but wouldn't exterminator + virtual be even more broken? You conquer planets, wipe out the population and instantly fill in all the jobs? Or does nanite works better long term?
@oumajgad6805 Virtual has huge penalties after around six colonies. Nanotech gains power the wider you get. Determined exterminator play has to paint the whole map. Nanites get stronger the more colonies are subsumed. All bio pops to the Lathe for research.
@@nathanhunt9526virtuality is all about playing tall. It doesn't fit that well with cosmogenisis. Nanotech is definitely absurdly strong, straight up S tier. All 5 years +2k nanit ships (or more with enough star bases) can get you easily to 16k ships. That all with hangars and you won't ask the galactic community for anything, you can just do it.
@AMPS1 it was fun playing wide as a nanite form exterminator. Playing tall with virtual worked well for cosmogenesis though. Tight borders fallen empire ships and a short trip for the needle picking up my colonies. I won that easily. Topped out at six colonies including the Lathe. Found a pre-FTL shattered ring origin and conquered it. Used research rings to fly through the tech trees. Virtual is brokenly powerful on rings.
Even though I'm on console, and it will be years before this takes effect, the tip about rushing mercantile for Marketplace of Ideas is perfect, as I just started a new game and haven't finished a tradition yet. Thanks, Montu; I guess he picked psionic. Also, nice to see discovery get some love. It's been my first pick since I discovered it's basically technocracy...which I also pick.
I have gotten into a desperate explorers game recently and I was struck with how much I was hopping from tradition to tradition in the early game. From Discovery for faster surveying, to Expansion for faster colonies, Prosperity for quicker build speed to get my evacuees working sooner and even Adaptability for that nice +10% habitability. It all added to the sense of unease and urgency as I struggled to get my people to safety. This is ofcourse delaying my glorious psychic ascension but it will come. Soon.
I think Aptitude is pretty acceptable if you have Under One Rule since you'll have your leaders for much longer. I also think expansion should be F, since you almost always want discovery first and after the firts ascension its not worth getting. I like genetic ascension, you can have pop assembly without making robots and going materialist. Genetic is there to give you options, which is always a good thing.
I like psionic and cybernetic because they don't take much thinking about. Everyone gets a bonus and that's about all you have to manage. No fiddling with what pops have what traits or anything like that. Idk about enmity being so good though. It drops off after a point because you often aren't actually in a position to have that many rivals. The theoretical bonuses are good but how often does it actually work out?
I'm only just coming back to the game, but I think you overlooked one of the big benefits of the politics tree. You gain favors just by sending envoys to improve relations, and it procs surprisingly often. Great way to have a ton of favors to boost your diplomatic weight on important votes! Though it was a tough pick already and I didn't have all these nice trees like Enmity. Maybe because I was a hive mind, or do I need a DLC for that one?
I have seen a lot of evil Sith-inspired empire playthroughs out there on UA-cam, but I think it would be neat to see a Jedi themed race playthrough. Maybe they pursue psionic ascension as quick as possible and then either form a federation and work for peaceful relations, or in a more hostile galaxy they play defensive and really maximize all forms of turtling to show that aspect of the game off? Psionic Ascension, new Harmony, etc. would be fun to see in action.
I think, in my next stellaris run. I will make a playthrough with all F-tier traditions, civics, and species traits. Just to see how much suffering that would induce :P
I really hope virtuality doesn't get nerfed into oblivion, just balanced. Also, my guess is genetic ascension update season 9. You heard it here first.
Discovery and then supremacy are always my first 2 picks . Discovery is my first because the extra survey speed , research and anomaly survey speed early are incredibly powerful allowing you to to get a powerful start sniping important planets and so on. Then supremacy because as you said it’s a no brained . I will say Unyielding can be broken if you want to rush a fallen empire . Combine it with galactic contender, some well built fleets, a maxed space fortress and you can shred a fallen empires fleet well before you had any real business attempting it so long as you bait the empire into attacking first
It's a shame there's not a Psychic automodding trait tbh. That'd be neat to pair with Overtuned for instance, especially since IIRC Overtuned can already do comedy by pairing its own Automod, the regular biological automod, and then the cybernetic/robotic automod.
I agree that expansion is god-tier pick for Voidwellers. Less alloy upkeep and more districts on Habitats means much stronger early game, bigger fleet and faster first habitats. Also we will be stuck on tier I Habitats for a while since how costly tech for tier II is so extra district will help us a lot to keep economy growing.
I predict a comment needs to be left that specifically names my alleged psychic ability, so here goes. Good vid, very insightful for a sort-of-casual Stellaris player who drops by the game every so often over the years. Makes me feel good about myself for predicting the F tier too as I never pick those tradition trees ever!
The thing about bio is that it's only at it's best if you're doing builds that really lean into it. There's a few combinations that are very, very good, but getting the most out of it narrows your options far more.
It’s weird going from exclusively playing psionic to exclusively playing machines but I can’t help but be pulled in by how absurdly powerful the machine ascensions are, especially virtual. I wound up investing too much into raw resources in my first run as virtual and just stopped looking at my energy and minerals because it was impossible for me to spend them faster than I made them.
Prosperity combined with Astro-Mining Bays, the Cybrex Building and an Arc Furnace in a system can create immensely productive systems. 320% mining station production before research, and if you get a 10 planet system the Furnace produces +30 minerals/+20 alloys base. That gives 100 minerals and 65 alloys per system, not including the base resources from the system.
synchronicity can be good for gestalts if you are rushing leaders with statecraft because you get 4 experience agendas and will always have a good agenda to use
1:20 I pick Aptitude as my 2nd tradition, just because of the -1 negative trait chance and +1 extra starting trait. Which also goes Harmony with it's -1 negative trait...
I know you talked about 'certain playstyles' when it comes to the Domination tradition for biological empires and mentioned it could be B-tier for slavers. I'd say that it's even better for Empires with the Oppressive Autocracy civic since they don't really care about happiness and can turn on extended shifts with only positive effects. These Empires are also one of the few where the Judgement Corps becomes pretty nice due to having a larger pool of enforcers compared to other Empires. Paired with the mandatory, both from an RP and game balance perspective, Police State your enforcers will produce a large amout of unity in addition of keeping your low-life population in line.
I am super happy that Psionics is now more impactful, in general in the past it felt a lot below the rest of the other ascension perks you have to choose against
I didn't really feel like watching the whole video but I haven't played in last few months so I decided to randomly click a spot near the end to see the rankings and how they've changed click to section 33:10 "swarmed ships cost absolutely no upkeep so you could build millions of them" alright, I've heard enough I'm sold. lol fastest video ever watched.
Aptitude is fine. It's not amazing, but the trait manipulation is good. It also has some shadow buffs with how things work. Reducing max negative traits also reduces the rate at which you get them. There are also some potentially bad events that can only fire when your leader has under a certain number of traits, so increasing the number of starting traits shortens the window at which they can happen. Definitely a good pick for your 3rd leader generations when you really start stacking lifespan bonuses.
What I really want is a ascension update, an update to all the other ascension paths where there are several sub paths you can take, like for biological ascension, you could be able to turn yourself into or out of a hive mind, go full biological and become like the 40k tyrinids and have every building and ship and structure be biological, or try to create the perfect organism, being able to have all the advance traits with maybe more, or be able to modify leader traits, or have the pops slowly modify themselves to the jobs or environment, but better then anyone else, and psionics I would think more shroud access, like maybe being able to summon ships, army’s, or resources from the shroud, basically like more 40k warp shenanigans, maybe being able to like jump drive places, and just more fun warp stuff, or use the shroud to boost your pops with warp powers, shroud leaders and pops, vs using the shroud to create ships, army, and resources
Alright Stellaris Machines/Cyborgs have been buffed to new heights and the powercreep is real we now need a buff/potential rework for Genetic Ascensions
One thing that you should have mentioned as far as Genetics goes is the Clone Vats building. Clone Vats costs a massive 30 Food Upkeep which means you basically need several planets dedicated to Food, something that the other Ascension paths don't have to deal with.
Virtuality is a really cool ascension, I know it's not really like this, but I keep likening it to 'machine psionics' in my head due to the insane production you can get out of it, and being able to fill planets immediately like magic.
Man, I was typing up some need rage about genetic ascension in f teir, but then you at least said ga +overturned is b teir so that's fair. I love ga and overturned it's my favorite combo.
I really hope genetic, and especially psionic will get as much love as synth and cyborgs. Especially the situation, I think it would work well with psionic empires as their make way through the shroud.
The Corps if Mother, the Corps is Father. Psionics is all great and that maybe a mention about the synergy of Unyielding with Sovereign Guardian (virtual or not) because if you're building starbases anyway might as well stack bonuses on them.
I just started playing, coming off of a civ 6 binge, and both of these games really need to up their spy games. I love the cloak and dagger stuff, and when i learned that codebreaking helps with first contact I was stoked for subterfuge, but the ceiling is so low for the investment. Let me spend 100 intel to steal a system or something impactful! Let me sabotage enemy hyperlanes and jump drives to strand fleets and give me the sneak attack benefits I would associate with a stealth oriented build.
As always waiting as I go. Politics is solid c. Subterfuge is actually very powerful if you spy correctly, it's a. Probs is a, it stacks with harmony to be godly and alone is worth it. Psy is STILL S tier, the techs you get from it are best in game, and bio is better then machine at almost everything, I have never failed to outperform my not loving friend in all categories without even trying. That's... Without even specifically going and building for Psy. I actually say nano is b at BEST... Some of it honestly needs buffed, the ship is effectively worthless. And ludicrously expensive... Montu you alright? Adapt is ALSO a b. Supremacy is a, with reasons to be a b. Looking back slightly, exploration is actually s tier and almost always my first pick. I... NEVER use enmity, because I only briefly have rivals, wether I'm warmonger or not it's always going to be us outgrowing the AI very fast, so the rival parts si play don't work, and make it less useful overall... Might be a if you don't build well? Otherwise it's a at best. Virtual is a if you only want to build tall, but is actually really bad for anything else, as having even 12 colonies at 10 or so pops will have more resources and everything else then a virtual can manage, again if you actually build correctly. First time I've had to disagree this much Montu, your slipping bad. Bots are now actually playable, but hardly a match for a Bio empire that stacks bonuses. I've already played three long games with a bot, psionic and a megacorp. The Telepathic was hands down the highest in resource output, research, and was better at either side of diplomacy. Megacorp as always was a decent time, very reliant on not getting bad rng for the other civs and actually being able to use the branch offices, but once I got a game that didn't have 27 assorted angry woodchucks out of thirty, went very well, and almost outdid the pay with funny Enough, biomodding. Yea. The one that you dissed. It's incredible if used correctly, I think megacorp or pacifist runs are best for it. Finally I ran virtual longer then I did nano, and both went until 4500. Virtual came out ahead in some regards, but had massive resource issues, and shortages that made it impossible to play if you have high difficulty and high aggression... There was no way to keep up with the numbers any normal empire is capable of throwing out, let alone either crisis path. Nano I would say is better overall, I only went further with virtual to make sure it fell off like I thought, as it actually gets resources to work with, and can keep overall better tech in SOME regards than bio or virtual... The nanites parts for ships (except the useless auto cannon) are actually affordable and useful, unlike any other empires. However again, it's single ship is far to expensive, and worse in every regard other than firepower then a base Corvette. If it was cheaper, by a mass amount it would be better, but 500 nanites to build ONE... Upkeep or no is far worse then the resources to build ten corvettes that will last longer, and dish out far more firepower.... A single missile or plasma/laser/disrupter Corvette is a match for 8 swarmers, and cheaper then them to. If you have psionic tech? The shields with hardening to cover for pierce spam (which ai doesn't usually do) will allow a single Corvette to obliterate 20 equivalent swarmers, and virtual has absolutely nothing better... So they lose even worse. I honestly hate saying this, but would you possibly actually look at something other then basic numbers? I've played enough to test and the machine ascensions are now possible, but worse then our Telepathic gods. God help us if the AI actually stacks Psy with rift and or Cosmo.... It goes through dam near anything then... Or it would if it could design ships lol
Psionic Ascension really calls out to me since it's the easiest of the biological empire ascension paths to deal with. You only have one trait you need to worry about (Psychic) and you immediately benefit from your pops having it. I barely deal with the others because of the sheer level of micromanagement; you need to be constantly tinkering with species templates to maximize gains, and also constantly applying those templates to your planets because of resettlement causing those templates to get mixed up. And that's just with a single species empire; it becomes impossible to keep track of when you are a Xenophile with dozens of species living in your empire. I think adding and removing traits from species needs more streamlining and automation; the auto-mod trait was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't enough. It should be that having the correct Pop Growth building on a planet allows Pops which live there to automatically gain or lose traits relevant at least to the Planet Designation and class, provided you have the correct traits unlocked. These pops would just not need to form dozens of separate "species" whenever they are modified. Bespoke species modification then becomes something the player can optionally do if they really want to min/max specific planets or species.
This is a great and lengthy video. I agree 99,9% and especially like the differentiations done for certain traditions with individual/gestalt. Only two very minor additions based on my subjective opinion: Aptitude: Basically the greatest thing about it is the opener +1 trait pick option (similar to some civics). This combined with other sources often makes the difference between a garbage high lvl leader or a great source of power. However the other options are still trash and only reducing randomness isn't a plus for the tradition, rather a minus for the gameplay. Other then that i fully agree. Unyielding: While i like the differentiation for certain traditions (e.g. Harmony/Synchronicity or Domination for Gestalt/Individuals) I would have liked a bit more emphasis on this for this tradition too. While from a military aspect, nothing changes, the availability of solar panels for Gestalt enhances Unyielding for them. Especially noteworthy in conjunction with other amplifiers (like Astro-Mining drones or Unchained Knowledge resolution lvl2)
I play as regular organics and totally agree with Aptitude in F. Also i tried different builds and must mention that, until PDX rework espionage mechanics, Subterfuge will be an F even with its bonuses to evasion and tracking. On the other hand if i plan on rushing Galactic community Politics is a situational S tier, the problem is that you actually need lots of favors in the beginning and easiest way to farm these nowadays placed in Diplomacy tree. You, not as minmaxer but a regular player, forced to pick both if you want to play as xenophile-diplomat. Expansion is good but it shines as first pick, and Discovery after science rework just outclass it on that slot. I'd say without Void Dwellers it is even C tier. Also Harmony is very good when you face syndicates (i am "lucky" with them with at least 2 states in each game). Adding Discovery + Adaptability + Enmity equals to best science build for today and solid endgame choice for painting galaxy in your colour. Nice updated tier list, gw papa montu.
erm, i take aptitude and domination in nearly every game and when i am a robot i take syncronicity alot... I also used to reallly like psionic ascension but recently i have been trying the new ones.
Unless nerfed into the ground, Supremacy will ALWAYS be god-tier simply by virtue of how all-around useful its focus is. Conquest is the backbone of mid-game expansion, it helps cow neighbors into vassalage, it's an easy way to up your diplomatic weight, and anyone with a weak fleet is bound to get clobbered when the crises show up.
![Red Alert 2: Luxury | 1 vs 7 Brutal AI | Superweapons [On]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/G7uA8ng-owc/mqdefault.jpg)
Two psionics sit down to play a game of chess, they then stare at each other and shake hands, "Good game!"
It is like they are telepaths.
I rate this an S+ tier Stellaris joke
All right, that's it. The rest of us in the comment section might as well go home because we are never going to top that.
@@cp1cupcake they are, thats the point
description of psionics directly says "they often communicate telepathically"
@@Сталкер-ь2х It's like they were joking
prisonic is simply the best ascension perk because it's the only one which gives you cool purple traits :)
Agreed, though modularity gives you lavender traits
Everything is SO purple coded on a Psi run haha
For me its the chance of summoning space avatar and bullying all the neighbors into oblivion without any investment
bUt PuRpIlE = cOrRuPtIoN!!1
@@InternetHydra That must be why it's my favorite color
F TIER
1:17 Aptitude
2:44 Politics
3:40 *Genetics
C TIER
6:40 Domination (Regular)
7:52 Synchronicity (Machine)
9:11 Subterfuge
10:15 *Synthetics
B TIER
12:44 Expansion
13:52 Prosperity
15:08 Deplomacy
16:09 Mercantile
17:20 Unyeilding
18:40 Versatility
19:50 *Psionics
22:18 Cybernetics
A TIER
24:00 Discovery
24:49 Domination (Gestalt Consciousness)
25:44 Adaptability
26:53 Harmony
28:22 Synchronicity (Hive)
29:07 Statecraft
30:46 *Modurarity
32:41 *Nanotech
S TIER
34:20 Expansion (Void Dweller)
34:57 Supremacy
36:45 Mercantile
37:27 Enmity
38:48 *Virtuality
Statecraft to Apitude: "Well, well, well, how the turntables."
Yeah I was about to say lmao. Last time I watched a Montu list was a while back and I remember Aptitude being much higher and here we are starting off with it as the corpse in the ditch LOL
aptitude is still very good. it's no longer possible to completely block any chance of negative leader traits, so aptitude and harmony are even more important for my build than they were before
And mind you that change happened even with no significant changes being made to Statecraft. Aptitude got nerfed into oblivion, specifically its agenda, and now that Statecraft is one of the only solid sources of FLAT leader XP you can find in the game, it's skyrocketed up high. I'd put Statecraft even higher since there's a kind of obvious boost to it Montu didn't mention, but you can actually freely switch your councilors whenever you want. It costs you nothing and you can do it infinitely. You can't change the actual councilor position, but you can change the person performing it... So, just before launching an agenda, you just swap out your lvl 10 councilors to other normal non-councilor leaders and let them suckle on that agenda launch boost, then immediately put your councilors back into the council.
HOW THE TABLES TURN! That is the correct pronaunciation!
@@ChristianDall-p2j You know what they say. Fool me once, strike one, but fool me twice...strike three.
Paradox: We made a new machine DLC.
Players: Cool! So as gestalt machines...
Paradox: Let me stop you right there.
iirc there are some new things for gestalt machines
@@schwingedeshaehers Trust me, I am well familiar with how gestalt machines are. :D We're still completely screwed on unity unless we have biological pets.
Can't you use the new synth ascensions as a gestalt?
Virtuality straight up makes gestault machines broken
@@itsmegoodbye9227 zNot compared to non, since it takes you twice as long to get there.
They really need to rework genetic ascension. Add more trait points, crazy/esoteric traits like those on machine's modularity (some trait that adds a dark matter gland to your brainstem, so you do more research, or a trait that halts the aging process to make leaders immortal, for example), not just having Euridite, but special traits for each leader class REGARDLESS of the actual traits you slap on a species. I shouldn't have to care if a leader came from a subspecies that's tailor made for mining, he's a commander, so have him specifically modified to be better at fleet combat and ground invasions; like clone soldiers get (obviously not as good as their traits, and maybe buff them to compensate). It shouldn’t matter what species an official comes from, have him modified to be better at governing.
In fact, the whole thing with a trait to make pops modify themselves for their job should be replicated on leaders for genetic ascension. If I put a governor as a representative of the galatic community, have him undergo gene therapy to make him better at being a diplomat at the expense of governing skill, and switch it back if I change it back. Do the same if I switch an admiral to a general role, and vice versa. Genetic ascension should have its strengths in flexibility, and stuff like my suggestions would really play into that theme.
Genetic is still my go to tradition because it's easy to get early, and the moment you click the tradition you immediately get cloning vats and thus organic pop growth. You start getting major benefits from it immediately, whereas all other ascensions take a while to get going.
@@FuelDropforthewin yeah but it is so damn micro, if you have a lot of species you have to spend a lot of time managing your traits.
They probably will seeing as how machines got expanded and how much lore was tied together and expanded on we can probably expect psyonics and bio ascensions to get expanded in the next seasons.
I would personally entirely rework how genetic modification operates, in terms of gameplay and research. I'd make it so that, with base genetic modification, you could only switch in/out traits that belonged to species within your empire, or which you could access through migration treaties. In order to gene mod freely, you'd need to go for Genetic Ascension. But even then you'd have to research sets of traits individually, similar to the planetary blocker techs. For instance, if you researched "Age Traits", you'd be able to freely add or remove Fleeting, Enduring and Venerable. But you'd need to research "Breeding Traits" before you could add or remove Fast Breeders or Slow Breeders.
But in the later stages you'd be able to research all the Overtuned traits, and also a bunch of wacky "Advanced" traits. Like "Killing Machine", which would give a pop +500% Army Damage, at the cost of making them unable to perform any job besides Soldier (or Duelist). As you've optimized the pop for violence, and nothing else. Or "Living Art", that reduces all job output, except for Amenities which it boosts. As you've modified a pop in a way that looks cool, but is impractical for most kinds of labour. Or "Scratch-Built", a free trait given whenever you created a species from scratch, that gave a free +3 trait points. Because your genetic engineers were able to optimise out a lot of genetic inefficiencies that normally arise in naturally-evolved species.
Really need a genetic/bio focused DLC... rework the ascension, new biotech weapons, living ships, the ability to have machine species gain biological bodies and biologically ascend...lot of potential here
My mind reading is telling me, to make a comment down the line after listening 20 minutes. Strange...
You must have read my mind too. Imagine that.
same xD
I hear voices in my mind 👹
Honestly, Psionics is still powerful with teachers of the shroud, but now that synthetics and cybernetics have their own teachers style origin, genetics really needs their own as well and a needed boost to it.
overtuned u goober
It really works best with megacorp or similar builds, less so externinatus or similar builds like Montu prefers.
Genetics needs better management ultimately. With the buffs genetics gives, coupled with being able to just use those buffs in tandem with cybernetic and psionic bonuses you inherent (whether by immigration or buying slaves) you can create some absurdly overpowered pops then begin just cloning new ones as you need. To buff genetics they need to add the ability to restrict certain species from certain roles and promote other ones. Currently you could tailor-craft a "leader" species, but if the RNG doesn't roll one of them, then it's a waste, these can easily be remedied by setting leadership positions off-limits to certain ones (you can already sort of do this, but I mean even within the same species). Plus even though the AI isn't the worst with job assignment (due to how jobs and traits are weighted) it would be nice if you could, in the empire pop menu, set jobs to pursue and ones to avoid. Those things all fit within the theme of a genetically engineered society. As for events and such to flesh it out, maybe seeking out new DNA to use or something? Sort of how you can get a dragonscales (or whatever it's called) trait when you kill the leviathan, but from events.
I micro-managed a game once and the genetic pops I made, make the other ascension pops look like a joke. The problem is the management is hell and unviable unless you don't mind playing mega-slow, and also clone vats themselves don't give bonuses like the other buildings do, but I think that's fair enough considering genetically engineered pops are better than psionic or cyborg ones. Genetics has a lot of potential, it's held back more by game mechanics than the bonuses themselves. Genetics needs the following...
-The ability to designate species for leaders, that the leader pool must pick from.
-The ability to control which jobs pops will go towards/stay away from.
-Nerve Stapled trait needs to be reworked or split in to two traits (One suited for dystopian empires, the current one, and another suited for utopian ones that lacks/modifies the happiness negation)
-Some sort of assimilation-like citizen right to convert any new ones you get in to the genetic template you make, rather than doing special projects 100 times.
@@DrewPicklesTheDark I'll just cut reply short here, this is honestly correct.
You all haven't tried Under One Rule with genetics ascension yet, have you
"Psychic, telepath, or something to do with psionic". I feel like I was mind-controlled to write this, I don't know why.
Great timing considering on my current save i have both traditions in the f tier
i skipped to the secret psionic callout...
Same
same
You know the guy who made Gangnam Style back in 2012? He's releasing a new single about Korean martial arts, Psy - Kick Tradition
Do you know his favorite pokemon tho? It's Onyx. Psy - Onyx.
I see you're quite _mindful over_ the _matters_ you cover. Well done!
37:05 im glad someone else also noticed the absurdity of overtuned cyborgs with the new automodding traits lol
triple stacking the automodding traits with overtuned cyborgs is sick, i love it
Unyielding is much higher, possibly S Tier if you are a Machine Intelligence with the Astro-mining Drones Civic. Each starbase can have 6 Astro-Mining Bays and an Astro-Mining Hub, for a total of +150% Mining Station output, with the Bays also giving the same energy as Solar Panels. Because your base resource economy is almost entirely centred on starbases, the extra capacity, reduced upkeep and upgrade cost and increased upgrade speed are all very valuable bonuses
Maybe I'm playing wrong but Astromining isn't great unless you can snowball into getting vassals to take care of your basic minerals. You'll hit a wall as your starbase constructions can't keep up with your massive alloy factories and then you just have really bad menial drones.
Even without Astro mining drones, Astral studies network resolution provides 100% solar panel output, and you can pick catalytic processing for 33% more alloys base and popless food production, freeing up a lot of minerals.
@@ohgodwhyamiintheyoutubecom6149 Works great with Arc Welders origin. Multiple powered-up Arc Furnaces will take you easily to the point where Matter Decompressor comes online, and with your ridiculous alloy income, it's trivial to snag a vassal which then gets converted into a Prospectorium.
@@ohgodwhyamiintheyoutubecom6149 Arc Furnaces fix that issue quite nicely, the deposits from which get an additional 150% yield from this. You should also be reducing the upkeep of your foundry drones via planetary ascension anyway
That with Arc Welders/Arc Furnaces sounds a bit silly. That's just a crazy amount of minerals and alloys.
I really wish there was some kind of an egalitarian ascension tradition where pops in your empire can take whatever they want without being forced to be machines, genetically modified, psionically awakened etc. I realize how hard that would be to balance but since I main egalitarian empires I find it weird to go “alright time to upload everyone to the cloud whether they want it or not!”
In fact ascension traditions are such game changers and so powerful they’re almost necessary or strongly recommended. They should be separated from traditions and be their own thing in my opinion.
Egalitarian societies are still subject to social pressures and cultural inertia, which is what traditions/ascensions seem to represent. The timetable they occur on is nonsense, of course. Societies don’t pivot on a dime. But that’s true for Stellaris in general.
There is a civic that not allows you to pick any ascension path, but gives +2 species traits and points, as well as some other bonuses, it's called Natural design
I've always envisioned something like an infrastructural/solarpunk ascension. So rather than your pops being forced to change, you just make your buildings, districts and empire life more efficient. Increased recycling so each pop produces some of the consumer goods it consumes (produces cos it's nice to get numbers rather than just reduce them). Total solar conversion so each point of housing generates energy, that kinda thing.
@@JOCoStudio1 that would be pretty neat!
@@JOCoStudio1 That sounds like a great idea to me.
Virtual + Mercantile do feel a bit like a cheatcode. As you automatically fill all jobs, you will have clerks everywhere, and Virtual gives +1% output on everything per clerk. My Virtual Empire Ecunumopolis feels like it alone is more powerful than entire sectors in other games.
I'm stealing this for my next run-through, those ai have it coming
Especially on trade rings. The virtual tradition gives even more clerks on habitation districts. So if you have all 3 or all 4 ring sections you can ignore the -50% ressources from jobs because the clerks give like an additional 100%
@Adidas_der_schwanger_war I will be unstoppable, they can't stop me, I'll have enough unity to have the megastructure ambition on-to build more rings, I could have a force ring as well, it's all so powerful, I'd even go as far as to say that psychic isn't the most powerful Ascension path anymore, not even close
@@Adidas_der_schwanger_war My Full Tradering with all Fallen Empire Trade Buildings had over 800 Amenities
How do you kake virtual work? No matter what I try it just seem to completly nuke my economy. Like are you supoose to just have 4 planets with that tradition?
The psychic psionics could use a touch up. Not for power, but just to make them more flavorful to use.
psionics easy S tier for me, the psy space drive is so good, plus all the bonuses you get, immortal and op leaders and all that, and also the better shields too
also cool purple colorings
It's still the best hands down yea.
Pretty sure Montu was paid by paradox for this one tbh.
Nano is the best overall of the new ones, and it already needs buffed.
It's an ascension perk and a tradition, but is weaker then the very similar in build ( as they both involve wiping everything out) crisis perk... Which doesn't need a tradition.
Like.. Psy is also both but is more then double power of anything the bots get
Virtual is broken tho
@@dj_koen1265 not really
If your LUCKY it's decent.
If your incredibly good at planning it can be powerful, but.
It's honestly weaker then nano or Psy, which are the best.
I've played nano with a friend now, it's.... Not horrible but against anything but a player or multiple 20+crisis types/fleets it's plenty.
Virtual has nothing different or cool it adds, and can't contend with the production that having a normal bio OR machine race can...
Like the virtual empire had technically 600 pops, depending a smidge on colonies and need.
Meanwhile a toxic god start psionic bio race had over 2k.
That's... Not even counting having more then double the systems.
The thing virtual is best at is diplomacy, and even there it loses, tho if you get it early it will have the earlier way to run it.
Ultimately it's truly no different then inward perfection, it WOULD be cool... If you could remove it later.
But it's just another sad attempt to make "building tall" actually work, which it never will.
Except of course, in single player.
@@TruthHunterTeen im willing to believe you have a point but virtuality is starting to get banned in most mp games at an increasing rate, im sure that means something
Day 25 of asking for a Renowned and legendary paragons tier list! Also I haven’t seen this tier list yet but genetics feel REALLY BAD right now. Left in the gutter tbh
Edit: oh shit I seem to have been validated. I thought I was just playing my empire poorly. Buff genetics pls
Soon TM
@@MontuPlaysoh my goodnees!!! You’re my goat Paradox youtuber!
Im sad as a genetics user.
Recently come across your channel a few weeks ago and love every detail information and build video you do. Keep up the good work.
Secret word: Psychic
Nice to see my hard work on the wiki pay off
It's a much better visualisation than the game provides! Great work!
You know, I find it amusing to watch your tier lists and see something I take really frequently (like in this case, Politics) down in the F-Tier while something you seem to adore up in S-Tier (in this case, Enmity) is something I literally never use, it's like you're *reading my mind* and getting the signals reversed lol. In this case, it's generally because I'm decent _enough_ at the game that, unless I'm playing on Grand Admiral with scaling on, I have a hard time being able to Rival any Empires because either their Economy or their Military is Pathetic compared to mine - and if you don't have any Rivals, Enmity literally only gives you a Diplo Weight bonus when _opposing_ Resolutions, which is something I rarely find being a problem (since, between Politics giving me a bunch of useful buffs and my generally-OP Empire anyway, my Diplo Weight is _already_ the deciding factor if something passes or not - or even ever makes it to the Senate floor). So in the vast majority of my use cases, Enmity is literally the worst Tradition in the game because it does _absolutely nothing_ for me 99% of the time. Meanwhile, the Influence cost reductions for both proposing and vetoing Resolutions is pretty handy (especially with Gigastructures where some Megastructures require Influence, and can get quite costly in the later game when also dealing with GalCom), the Veto and Emergency Measure cooldown reductions are _clutch_ for controlling what gets onto the Senate floor and when... and then, once I've got the policies I want in place, I can just support _any_ Resolution, let it pass, and coast on the +25% Diplo Weight buff from Gravitas _forever_ to make sure whatever I don't want passed doesn't. And if something gets too close to the Senate floor without my approval? Veto! Because I can do that faster than any other Empire.
Genetic ascension is really in the dust lately, isn't it? :(
It's less an ascension, more an afterthought. Honestly the no ascension civic is probably just better lol
@@MontuPlays Natural Design is a better ascension than Genetic Ascension.
We need a ground combat overhaul so we can finally have space marines and make genetic good at SOMETHING.
@@MontuPlaysehh I don't know simply because of the synergy with overturned and I think Genetic Ascension by itself has better pop growth speed that gives it a sleight edge
Never bothered with it, short of one play test. It's just kinda lame. U basically adding more buffs to species, at the cost of far more exciting thing to do. Personally, I'm Perma stuck with Slaenesh ascension path.. what's her name in Stellaris, instrument of desire? Don't remb. Basically space magic, and the fact what you can combine it with galactic wonders, and now cosmogenesis... It's perfection. I strongly suggest you start as fanatic authoritarian and materialist, to get AI tech and Neuron sweep planet cracker, and only then switch to spiritual. It's always a rather long game, but it's filled with fun things to do, everytime. Also robots, are now crazy good, with cosmogenesis and virtuality.. albeit it's a much shorter game, basically science victory, and gets you into less fun gameplay loops then my favorite combination.
Its not what it needs a rework per say. It does what it needs to do.. modify species. But it's just not terribly exciting to take, because it combines poorly with other things you could do instead. There needs to be a brand new tradition or game mechanic what compliments the existing system, not necessarily change in that system itself.
38:48 Screenshot moment.
I wish you'd made a mention of how straight busted Driven Assimilator cybernetic ascension is - I've played an "all machine" game a couple days ago with some friends, and I rapidly outpaced both Virtuality empires. Admittedly I was also the best economics player (except one girl who got shit luck) and It's probably still worse if you get a virtuality ringworld/ecu combo with the right civics et cetera, but that's much harder to do than just "grab big world. designate as gestation world. Now Virtuality is not the only AP to get free pops."
My psychic powers tell me of great fortune coming for you soon. ;)
Montu has a constant stream of work updating videos that become irrelevant 2 months later. The struggle continues but we appreciate your efforts 💪. Looking forward ro this when I get home!
I mean. It's slipping and shows. This was plain wrong in many regards
thanks montu for such incredible videos! you helped get me into stellaris and ive been loving this game for over a year now, i just wish psionic lizards were real :(
In my first game with the new dlc I was wanting to try out Virtuality, but while doing the Synthetic Age decision where you choose between the three, I wasnt paying attention and accidentally went for Nanotech... A few in-game years later, I was dominating everyone in the galaxy with Nanite Swarmers. I added the Nanite Harvester starbase building to a system with an Arc Mining facility in, meaning that one system alone wasnt just producing dozens of alloys and minerals, but also nanites from every single asteroid and celestial bodies. Honestly it is the most fun I have had in this game since I did one of my psionic campaigns
A good start on how to fix bio ascension is to give you the ability to assimilate pops into a template instead of having to constantly run projects to change every single new pop.
You don't have to do that when you start the project to modify change overall pop growth to new template. Once it's finished it will replace the original in the species screen.
@@andrewsanderson8566 that is how it works now. The problem with that is that when new members of that species enter your borders you have to do it again.
@PinataFreaks yes, because biology is no so easily malleable. Now if they had us make a special building to do that FOR us with "saved" genetics profiles that would be nice. The further you upgrade the building the faster pops have their genes tweeked... actually, just have a special upgrade in the genetic ascension path for the gene clinics, no need to even make new models
Montu, you must be a psychic. This video is exactly the one I wanted you to make.
Psionic is good but you should check out what virtuality can do with a ring world. The bonus districts from virtual ascension work on rings.
And being able to populate a ringworld as fast as you can build districts is amazing.
Did you have all of these videos banked up? The content flow is incredible! Good work Montu!
Had a blast with this video! I was a big fan of the Psionic ascension path! Should be really fun to play around with!
Just getting back into this game a 4 year hiatus. It has changed so much! These videos are a lifesaver.
Great video!
If you don't mind adding arrows to point at what you are talking about when there is bunch of texts on the screen that would be great!
A mercantile Ring World build was my favorite way to rush Virtuality. I even kept my capital as a trade world because it got ten fucking thousand trade value and single-handedly covered my unity, consumer goods, and heavily contributed to my energy.
They really need to change a lot of the unith boosts to percentages too. Embassies giving +3 is pretty meh at the best of times but a +1% could be quite useful
Not me booting up this video mid game realize the 3 perks i have are all in F tier
I really wish genetic and psionic had some love at the moment. Psionic used to be my go to ascension path because it was that good. Now it just feels kinda meh compared to cybernetic (especially with the cybernetic species) and synthetic. I just wish there were more special resource generating genetic traits or maybe some more traits that require rare resource upkeep like what synthetic has. Maybe even a very expensive trait that flat out makes your leaders immortal. I would also appreciate some magic inspired psionic traits that do stuff like increase governing ethics attraction, increase alloy and consumer good output, and of course some version of nerve stapled for your psionic -slaves- prisoners with jobs. I would also love to see some special advanced government types for genetic and a rework to the Chosen One event chain for advanced psionic government types.
Currently running as a determined exterminator with nanotech. Infinite planets, massive uncapped nanite production and instant defense fleets in emergencies. You dont need to be PSYCHIC to see that it's the ideal ascension to exterminate all the fleshies. Paired with the new crisis path, it's disgustingly powerful.
I'm rather new to Stellaris, but wouldn't exterminator + virtual be even more broken? You conquer planets, wipe out the population and instantly fill in all the jobs? Or does nanite works better long term?
@oumajgad6805 Virtual has huge penalties after around six colonies. Nanotech gains power the wider you get. Determined exterminator play has to paint the whole map. Nanites get stronger the more colonies are subsumed. All bio pops to the Lathe for research.
@@nathanhunt9526virtuality is all about playing tall. It doesn't fit that well with cosmogenisis. Nanotech is definitely absurdly strong, straight up S tier. All 5 years +2k nanit ships (or more with enough star bases) can get you easily to 16k ships. That all with hangars and you won't ask the galactic community for anything, you can just do it.
@AMPS1 it was fun playing wide as a nanite form exterminator. Playing tall with virtual worked well for cosmogenesis though. Tight borders fallen empire ships and a short trip for the needle picking up my colonies. I won that easily. Topped out at six colonies including the Lathe. Found a pre-FTL shattered ring origin and conquered it. Used research rings to fly through the tech trees. Virtual is brokenly powerful on rings.
so glad I found your channel. Been having a blast with friends as new players
You are a damn robot man , how are you pumping such good qualities video so quickly ?
He is an 👽, he never hidden that from you. Don't compare him to our primitive species, his abilities are effectively limitless)
Just started a new game after a year of not playing and had no idea what the new meta was.
It's like you're psychic with your upload schedule.
Even though I'm on console, and it will be years before this takes effect, the tip about rushing mercantile for Marketplace of Ideas is perfect, as I just started a new game and haven't finished a tradition yet. Thanks, Montu; I guess he picked psionic.
Also, nice to see discovery get some love. It's been my first pick since I discovered it's basically technocracy...which I also pick.
I have gotten into a desperate explorers game recently and I was struck with how much I was hopping from tradition to tradition in the early game. From Discovery for faster surveying, to Expansion for faster colonies, Prosperity for quicker build speed to get my evacuees working sooner and even Adaptability for that nice +10% habitability. It all added to the sense of unease and urgency as I struggled to get my people to safety. This is ofcourse delaying my glorious psychic ascension but it will come. Soon.
I feel so enlightened by your psychic like ability to know the best aspects of traditions.
I think Aptitude is pretty acceptable if you have Under One Rule since you'll have your leaders for much longer. I also think expansion should be F, since you almost always want discovery first and after the firts ascension its not worth getting.
I like genetic ascension, you can have pop assembly without making robots and going materialist. Genetic is there to give you options, which is always a good thing.
I like psionic and cybernetic because they don't take much thinking about. Everyone gets a bonus and that's about all you have to manage. No fiddling with what pops have what traits or anything like that.
Idk about enmity being so good though. It drops off after a point because you often aren't actually in a position to have that many rivals. The theoretical bonuses are good but how often does it actually work out?
indispensable information, thank you Montu for always being so up on things
I'm only just coming back to the game, but I think you overlooked one of the big benefits of the politics tree. You gain favors just by sending envoys to improve relations, and it procs surprisingly often. Great way to have a ton of favors to boost your diplomatic weight on important votes!
Though it was a tough pick already and I didn't have all these nice trees like Enmity. Maybe because I was a hive mind, or do I need a DLC for that one?
Psionic was always more of a leader ascention path.
And with how strong leadees are, psyonics is still very strong.
I have seen a lot of evil Sith-inspired empire playthroughs out there on UA-cam, but I think it would be neat to see a Jedi themed race playthrough. Maybe they pursue psionic ascension as quick as possible and then either form a federation and work for peaceful relations, or in a more hostile galaxy they play defensive and really maximize all forms of turtling to show that aspect of the game off? Psionic Ascension, new Harmony, etc. would be fun to see in action.
I think, in my next stellaris run. I will make a playthrough with all F-tier traditions, civics, and species traits. Just to see how much suffering that would induce :P
I really hope virtuality doesn't get nerfed into oblivion, just balanced. Also, my guess is genetic ascension update season 9. You heard it here first.
Earliest I’ve ever been! Looking forward to the video!
Hope you enjoyed it!
I did! One doesn’t need to be a psychic to know that your videos are great :) 👍
Havent done a psychic run yet but having telepaths create researchers sounds fun and the concept of psionics in itself is very well done in stellaris.
They should make it possible to double ascend via synthetic and then one of the robot ascensions. A psychic / genetic dlc is direly needed tho
Discovery and then supremacy are always my first 2 picks . Discovery is my first because the extra survey speed , research and anomaly survey speed early are incredibly powerful allowing you to to get a powerful start sniping important planets and so on. Then supremacy because as you said it’s a no brained . I will say Unyielding can be broken if you want to rush a fallen empire . Combine it with galactic contender, some well built fleets, a maxed space fortress and you can shred a fallen empires fleet well before you had any real business attempting it so long as you bait the empire into attacking first
I remember having an absolutely wild psyonic UNE game. That research roll was insane.
I was just looking up information on this earlier, just came back to the game. Thank you so much for the guide!
It's a shame there's not a Psychic automodding trait tbh. That'd be neat to pair with Overtuned for instance, especially since IIRC Overtuned can already do comedy by pairing its own Automod, the regular biological automod, and then the cybernetic/robotic automod.
0 views in 2 seconds? Montu fell off
The fact this is the fourth comment, really leaves me confused and entertained in equal measure 😂
Edit: fifth comment*
Not if my like has anything to say about it!
Real
@@MontuPlays It's a meme that has lasted longer than I expected because there's not much substance to it really
Its joeover
I agree that expansion is god-tier pick for Voidwellers. Less alloy upkeep and more districts on Habitats means much stronger early game, bigger fleet and faster first habitats. Also we will be stuck on tier I Habitats for a while since how costly tech for tier II is so extra district will help us a lot to keep economy growing.
I predict a comment needs to be left that specifically names my alleged psychic ability, so here goes.
Good vid, very insightful for a sort-of-casual Stellaris player who drops by the game every so often over the years. Makes me feel good about myself for predicting the F tier too as I never pick those tradition trees ever!
The thing about bio is that it's only at it's best if you're doing builds that really lean into it. There's a few combinations that are very, very good, but getting the most out of it narrows your options far more.
It’s weird going from exclusively playing psionic to exclusively playing machines but I can’t help but be pulled in by how absurdly powerful the machine ascensions are, especially virtual. I wound up investing too much into raw resources in my first run as virtual and just stopped looking at my energy and minerals because it was impossible for me to spend them faster than I made them.
Prosperity combined with Astro-Mining Bays, the Cybrex Building and an Arc Furnace in a system can create immensely productive systems. 320% mining station production before research, and if you get a 10 planet system the Furnace produces +30 minerals/+20 alloys base. That gives 100 minerals and 65 alloys per system, not including the base resources from the system.
synchronicity can be good for gestalts if you are rushing leaders with statecraft because you get 4 experience agendas and will always have a good agenda to use
1:20 I pick Aptitude as my 2nd tradition, just because of the -1 negative trait chance and +1 extra starting trait.
Which also goes Harmony with it's -1 negative trait...
I know you talked about 'certain playstyles' when it comes to the Domination tradition for biological empires and mentioned it could be B-tier for slavers. I'd say that it's even better for Empires with the Oppressive Autocracy civic since they don't really care about happiness and can turn on extended shifts with only positive effects.
These Empires are also one of the few where the Judgement Corps becomes pretty nice due to having a larger pool of enforcers compared to other Empires. Paired with the mandatory, both from an RP and game balance perspective, Police State your enforcers will produce a large amout of unity in addition of keeping your low-life population in line.
I like the new format with a separate column for ascensions.
I am super happy that Psionics is now more impactful, in general in the past it felt a lot below the rest of the other ascension perks you have to choose against
I didn't really feel like watching the whole video but I haven't played in last few months so I decided to randomly click a spot near the end to see the rankings and how they've changed click to section 33:10 "swarmed ships cost absolutely no upkeep so you could build millions of them" alright, I've heard enough I'm sold. lol fastest video ever watched.
Aptitude is fine. It's not amazing, but the trait manipulation is good. It also has some shadow buffs with how things work. Reducing max negative traits also reduces the rate at which you get them. There are also some potentially bad events that can only fire when your leader has under a certain number of traits, so increasing the number of starting traits shortens the window at which they can happen.
Definitely a good pick for your 3rd leader generations when you really start stacking lifespan bonuses.
Been waiting for an updated list, The shroud thanks you
What I really want is a ascension update, an update to all the other ascension paths where there are several sub paths you can take, like for biological ascension, you could be able to turn yourself into or out of a hive mind, go full biological and become like the 40k tyrinids and have every building and ship and structure be biological, or try to create the perfect organism, being able to have all the advance traits with maybe more, or be able to modify leader traits, or have the pops slowly modify themselves to the jobs or environment, but better then anyone else, and psionics I would think more shroud access, like maybe being able to summon ships, army’s, or resources from the shroud, basically like more 40k warp shenanigans, maybe being able to like jump drive places, and just more fun warp stuff, or use the shroud to boost your pops with warp powers, shroud leaders and pops, vs using the shroud to create ships, army, and resources
"Genetic ascension needs some love."
You read my mind, Montu.
Alright Stellaris Machines/Cyborgs have been buffed to new heights and the powercreep is real we now need a buff/potential rework for Genetic Ascensions
One thing that you should have mentioned as far as Genetics goes is the Clone Vats building. Clone Vats costs a massive 30 Food Upkeep which means you basically need several planets dedicated to Food, something that the other Ascension paths don't have to deal with.
Virtuality is a really cool ascension, I know it's not really like this, but I keep likening it to 'machine psionics' in my head due to the insane production you can get out of it, and being able to fill planets immediately like magic.
Man, I was typing up some need rage about genetic ascension in f teir, but then you at least said ga +overturned is b teir so that's fair. I love ga and overturned it's my favorite combo.
If we all took Psionic Ascenion, we could use Telepathy to have the tier lists beamed right into our minds.
I really hope genetic, and especially psionic will get as much love as synth and cyborgs. Especially the situation, I think it would work well with psionic empires as their make way through the shroud.
Really nice seeing how psycic ascension keeps up!
The Corps if Mother, the Corps is Father. Psionics is all great and that maybe a mention about the synergy of Unyielding with Sovereign Guardian (virtual or not) because if you're building starbases anyway might as well stack bonuses on them.
Thanks for up to date videos. I made it to the secret callout... more than once.
i built a equity rush for machines and going as nanites at year 25 is terrifying.
I just started playing, coming off of a civ 6 binge, and both of these games really need to up their spy games. I love the cloak and dagger stuff, and when i learned that codebreaking helps with first contact I was stoked for subterfuge, but the ceiling is so low for the investment. Let me spend 100 intel to steal a system or something impactful! Let me sabotage enemy hyperlanes and jump drives to strand fleets and give me the sneak attack benefits I would associate with a stealth oriented build.
Really pushing that 10-minute mark, huh?
As always waiting as I go.
Politics is solid c.
Subterfuge is actually very powerful if you spy correctly, it's a.
Probs is a, it stacks with harmony to be godly and alone is worth it.
Psy is STILL S tier, the techs you get from it are best in game, and bio is better then machine at almost everything, I have never failed to outperform my not loving friend in all categories without even trying.
That's... Without even specifically going and building for Psy.
I actually say nano is b at BEST... Some of it honestly needs buffed, the ship is effectively worthless. And ludicrously expensive... Montu you alright?
Adapt is ALSO a b.
Supremacy is a, with reasons to be a b.
Looking back slightly, exploration is actually s tier and almost always my first pick.
I... NEVER use enmity, because I only briefly have rivals, wether I'm warmonger or not it's always going to be us outgrowing the AI very fast, so the rival parts si play don't work, and make it less useful overall... Might be a if you don't build well? Otherwise it's a at best.
Virtual is a if you only want to build tall, but is actually really bad for anything else, as having even 12 colonies at 10 or so pops will have more resources and everything else then a virtual can manage, again if you actually build correctly.
First time I've had to disagree this much Montu, your slipping bad.
Bots are now actually playable, but hardly a match for a Bio empire that stacks bonuses.
I've already played three long games with a bot, psionic and a megacorp. The Telepathic was hands down the highest in resource output, research, and was better at either side of diplomacy.
Megacorp as always was a decent time, very reliant on not getting bad rng for the other civs and actually being able to use the branch offices, but once I got a game that didn't have 27 assorted angry woodchucks out of thirty, went very well, and almost outdid the pay with funny Enough, biomodding.
Yea.
The one that you dissed. It's incredible if used correctly, I think megacorp or pacifist runs are best for it.
Finally I ran virtual longer then I did nano, and both went until 4500.
Virtual came out ahead in some regards, but had massive resource issues, and shortages that made it impossible to play if you have high difficulty and high aggression... There was no way to keep up with the numbers any normal empire is capable of throwing out, let alone either crisis path.
Nano I would say is better overall, I only went further with virtual to make sure it fell off like I thought, as it actually gets resources to work with, and can keep overall better tech in SOME regards than bio or virtual... The nanites parts for ships (except the useless auto cannon) are actually affordable and useful, unlike any other empires. However again, it's single ship is far to expensive, and worse in every regard other than firepower then a base Corvette.
If it was cheaper, by a mass amount it would be better, but 500 nanites to build ONE... Upkeep or no is far worse then the resources to build ten corvettes that will last longer, and dish out far more firepower.... A single missile or plasma/laser/disrupter Corvette is a match for 8 swarmers, and cheaper then them to.
If you have psionic tech? The shields with hardening to cover for pierce spam (which ai doesn't usually do) will allow a single Corvette to obliterate 20 equivalent swarmers, and virtual has absolutely nothing better... So they lose even worse.
I honestly hate saying this, but would you possibly actually look at something other then basic numbers?
I've played enough to test and the machine ascensions are now possible, but worse then our Telepathic gods.
God help us if the AI actually stacks Psy with rift and or Cosmo.... It goes through dam near anything then... Or it would if it could design ships lol
My psychic powers are telling me to fill the universe with paperclips.
One interesting benefit of Psionic Ascension - you get some ship techs that are pretty nice too.
This is exactly what I've been looking for! It's like your can read my mind, you psionic lizard!
Psionic Ascension really calls out to me since it's the easiest of the biological empire ascension paths to deal with. You only have one trait you need to worry about (Psychic) and you immediately benefit from your pops having it. I barely deal with the others because of the sheer level of micromanagement; you need to be constantly tinkering with species templates to maximize gains, and also constantly applying those templates to your planets because of resettlement causing those templates to get mixed up. And that's just with a single species empire; it becomes impossible to keep track of when you are a Xenophile with dozens of species living in your empire.
I think adding and removing traits from species needs more streamlining and automation; the auto-mod trait was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't enough. It should be that having the correct Pop Growth building on a planet allows Pops which live there to automatically gain or lose traits relevant at least to the Planet Designation and class, provided you have the correct traits unlocked. These pops would just not need to form dozens of separate "species" whenever they are modified. Bespoke species modification then becomes something the player can optionally do if they really want to min/max specific planets or species.
This is a great and lengthy video. I agree 99,9% and especially like the differentiations done for certain traditions with individual/gestalt.
Only two very minor additions based on my subjective opinion:
Aptitude: Basically the greatest thing about it is the opener +1 trait pick option (similar to some civics). This combined with other sources often makes the difference between a garbage high lvl leader or a great source of power. However the other options are still trash and only reducing randomness isn't a plus for the tradition, rather a minus for the gameplay. Other then that i fully agree.
Unyielding: While i like the differentiation for certain traditions (e.g. Harmony/Synchronicity or Domination for Gestalt/Individuals) I would have liked a bit more emphasis on this for this tradition too. While from a military aspect, nothing changes, the availability of solar panels for Gestalt enhances Unyielding for them. Especially noteworthy in conjunction with other amplifiers (like Astro-Mining drones or Unchained Knowledge resolution lvl2)
I play as regular organics and totally agree with Aptitude in F. Also i tried different builds and must mention that, until PDX rework espionage mechanics, Subterfuge will be an F even with its bonuses to evasion and tracking.
On the other hand if i plan on rushing Galactic community Politics is a situational S tier, the problem is that you actually need lots of favors in the beginning and easiest way to farm these nowadays placed in Diplomacy tree. You, not as minmaxer but a regular player, forced to pick both if you want to play as xenophile-diplomat.
Expansion is good but it shines as first pick, and Discovery after science rework just outclass it on that slot. I'd say without Void Dwellers it is even C tier.
Also Harmony is very good when you face syndicates (i am "lucky" with them with at least 2 states in each game). Adding Discovery + Adaptability + Enmity equals to best science build for today and solid endgame choice for painting galaxy in your colour.
Nice updated tier list, gw papa montu.
erm, i take aptitude and domination in nearly every game and when i am a robot i take syncronicity alot... I also used to reallly like psionic ascension but recently i have been trying the new ones.
Unless nerfed into the ground, Supremacy will ALWAYS be god-tier simply by virtue of how all-around useful its focus is.
Conquest is the backbone of mid-game expansion, it helps cow neighbors into vassalage, it's an easy way to up your diplomatic weight, and anyone with a weak fleet is bound to get clobbered when the crises show up.