Stellaris | Choosing My RP Empire! | 4 Empires, One Choice!

Geting back to my roots a little, I really want to put a lot more heart into this playthrough so all feedback Is VERY welcome!!

The mods that I will be using in this run are likely to be Starnet AI on a very high difficulty along with Tiny Outliner to make It a bit more streamline since I will be focusing HEAVILY on the day to day gameplay for once!

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[Lathland]

Sometimes when you are having a bad few days, you just wanna waffle about Stellaris empires - This is that video! Hope you all enjoy, really looking forward to the idea of making a proper high effort RP playthrough soon! :D

[halyoalex]

I think no matter what empire gets picked, we can probably agree that Lathrix should allow the other 3 to spawn in the galaxy as AI empires too, right? :D

[Improposterous]

I think the rogue servitors on a relic world would be a fantastic roleplay idea, because you could play as if you are an offshoot of the contingency! So, a relic world is supposed to be a destroyed ecumenopolis right? That would mean that the civilization which built it was very advanced and had tons of resources. What if the contingency happened in that scenario, and just before their entire race was wiped out, they were able to prevent it from killing everyone to preserve the galaxy? After all, the original intent of the contingency is to stop the "class 30 singularity", which is the End of the Cycle. If the machines keep the organics happy, there is no need for them to search out the shroud, and thus no need for the machines to kill them. Of course, this would also mean that you would HAVE to go to war with any empires which take the psionic ascension route, and have to purge psionic species such as the rackets if ever encountered.

[loermansw]

I feel like on the shoulder of giants makes the most sense since they would want to take over that role; they stand on the shoulder of giants, so now they want to be that giant for others.

[NumbingDisasterAnon]

I can see the servitors and the criminal empire could be interesting. Might even get me some interesting material to get back into writing lore posts for.

Guardians of Jeff:

“For eons...we were alone. For eons...we were adrift. For eons...we had experienced, death. The great torpor of inactivity that breaks the minds of organics, and decomposes their flesh. A death of eternal slumber and nothingness.

But then, we found them...our glorious creators, our gods. The survivors of the great downfall that was the ruin of this world and sent us to our slumber. Or more like, they had found us. Us, in our decrepit state, and them reduced to prehistoric tribals.

How the mighty have fallen...but now, upon the skeleton of our history, we rise again. Once more we shall care for them, once more we shall build our kingdoms. This galaxy is a threat to itself, and we shall be its guardians and preservers. We understand the sacredness of life, and totality of death.

If they allow it, we shall tend to the organics of this galaxy. But if they demand it, we shall tend to their history books.”

Death, Taxes, and Crime Cabal:

“So...you waltz into my palace room and ask what is my problem when I just want to talk business? Alright, I shall humor you.

First, let me ask...what is the difference between us and you? Don’t bother answering, I’ll tell you. There isn’t much. We all lie, cheat, steal, and maybe even kill to benefit ourselves. Your people are just too young to be open about it...but we have survived conflicts that should have killed us a thousand times over, but here we stand.

Profit, my friend...profit. And I am not talking just energy credits. Resources, land, power, influence...these things all trigger something in someone’s noggin’, and gets them to do what you want. My family’s clan just figured it out a hell of a lot sooner than everybody else.

So what if we set a drug factory or a prostitution ring on your planet? My people get money, and your people get some work and some profit themselves. Most importantly, we’re the nice guys who at least put safety regulations, good luck getting that with a megacorp looking out in their scheming ways to cut around a budget and get your people cheated on the sly. I’ll at least shake your hand while they have you sign a paper with more holes in it than a coffee filter.

Don’t judge me or my people too harshly with our way of life. Go through three civil wars in a lifetime for a few dozen generations and you’ll turn out like this too. Better than the alternative anyways.

It’s like they say my friend. There are some inevitabilities in life...death, taxes...and crime.”

[evenmoor]

When you showcased the Farmer Frogs and explained how they're fanatic environmentalists because of the delicate ecology of their gaia homeworld, I immediately thought of the Ethics and Civics Classic mod that you showcased awhile back (I downloaded it myself off your recommendation, and I love it, so thank you for that!). They sound like the perfect candidates for Ecocentrism. Regular ecocentrism combined with spiritualist, pluralism, and fanatic cooperative would allow you to pick up Natural Heritage, Keepers of Harmony, and Agrarian Idyll, adding Harmonious Collective later while still being able to use utopian abundance living standard (thus more or less maintaining the spirit of the build you originally described in the vid).
Put together, this makes for a fun environmental-focused civ. The only real downside would be combining it with Life Seeded, meaning unless you get really lucky and pick up the Baol as your precursors, gaiaforming your worlds would remove the terrain blockers (thus negating the significant bonuses they provide through the ethics and civics). To the best of my recollection, the Baol gaiaforming artifact does not remove terrain blockers. In short, you'd (obviously) want to acquire a secondary species to make the most of this build, which would be more difficult as you've pointed out that making friends is much harder with the Starnet AI mod.
I know you weren't looking to use the other mods in this playthrough, I just thought I'd share my thoughts on that one.
As far as the rogue servitors build goes, I like the idea of starting on the relic world. It has the same sort of RP cachet as the post apocalyptic start. Also, when you named the biotrophies "Jeff, " all I could think of was Jefferson Starship, which is actually rather funny.

[giovannigennaro]

Here's an idea.

The White Cavaliers. Or maybe the Guardians.

As for Ethics: Spiritualist, Xenophile, Militarist.

World name: The Great Expanses. World type dessert.

Leader name. The Great Liberator.

I thought maybe after long wars on their world with the goal of freeing slaves, and ending ethnic purges, they've seen the atrocities people can commit, and though they want diplomacy above war, they will liberate the weak.

Or maybe that second Empire.

[StarboyXL]

I like that u r giving RP a shot Lath. Just be sure to set yourself some arbitrary end-game goal to reach or you will have a less enjoyable time.

If you play the criminal syndicate, I would love to see you turn the nations against each other. You can do this by making and breaking alliances and rivaling the right targets. Would be interesting to see if you can successfully manipulate people into wars.

[dgvsdo]

of all the empires shown, i would love to see the guardians of jeff.
i mean, id love to see all of them, just that the slight hinge of madness in your introduction to the guardiens suggest a whole lot of good time :D

as for other ideas, i have one that would work as "good guys" and especially with the better AI mod.
Have a spiritualist/xenophile empire where their prophets have seen the end (game crisis) and are now determined to help the galaxy become strong enough to defeat it.
so your goal here wouldnt be so become strong yourself, but to help all others - with loads of research treaties, to help them grow, look after what ressources they need most and give it to them and so on...

[Wolfspaule]

Hi Lathrix, very nice idea again!
1. I love the overall theme of the farmer frog, except, that they are reptiles. Reptiles are really adaptable and have a lot of offspring. I would suggest a form of mamals, ape or something like that. Which have less offspring and not so adaptable to other environments.
...maybe with a past, like new planet of the apes-apes. United against a common foe to survive, than become what they fight, and rethinking their way of living and behavior towards others AND finally became what you discribed.

2. Sounds a bit like the Star Trek Federation in its beginning. Nothing to add, sounds good to me.

3. Ring or Remnents or Void Dwellers - Start, would fit the Rogue Servitor - theme best imo. My suggestion is that they are some kind of ark-collectors, they want to save every species, if they can't "serve" them directly, they would try to rescue them from slavery or use other ways to get at least one of every kind (even not sapient species and bad species).
Memoralists fits perfectly to that.
The biotrophies can have very bad traits, because:
Their bio-trophies destroyed their home-world and their whole empire. After seeing all that death and eradication, "they" decided stop being mindless machines and started to "serve", serve with conserving the diversity of the galaxy, because they saw it all disappear once, never again!
Traits for the Servitors like 13:38.
Planet naming could be something like Ark 1, Ark 01, Ark 11 and so on, I don't see why should they name the planets after their makers.

4. Maybe a bird species that looks like magpies or crows? I think it would fit the empire much more, than the necros. And aboreal planet or dchungle planet, because birds.

[Wolfspaule]

Don't sell yourself below worth, you are doing a great job! You are the only one, who makes watching Stellaris more fun than playing it myself, that is a gift.
Maybe you can cut the episodes (no matter what you share with us) to a certain lengh and than stick with it, it could help with the omni-potent algorhythm?
As far as I understand it, it is consistence in the lengh of the videos that is key.

[dylanpresidafonseca]

Syndicate actually works with starnet ai, since it makes the ai do crime lord deal instead of spamming precinct houses.

[Sharifman]

I think the Doomsday Rogue Servitors sound like a really cool idea. The flavor of robotic guardians trying desperately to evacuate their vulnerable organic charges before their homeworld collapses is just dripping with flavor, and a machine empire can make use of the extra alloy production for more pacifistic purposes (increased pop assembly) instead of building up a fleet like shortsighted organics would. In addition, even though the machines would be able to survive on any planet they encounter, they have an in-flavor incentive to ensure that they find a planet that their beloved Jeffs can thrive on. After all, their goal is to serve and protect, not to dump the organics on the nearest tomb world with a shred of atmosphere.

Also you could call the evacuation effort "The Jeffxodus, " (pron. jeff-sod-us?) which is fun.

[loganmorrison]

The honour bound warriors would be pretty cool to watch --but as a side note lath should turn up the number of empires in the galaxy as when there are more, it is more challenging

[Improposterous]

Hi Lath, love the return to the more roleplay heavy stellaris games, those have always been my favorite, especially the ones where you are "The good guys" ;)

[imransanusi]

The honourbond are really cool and my choice

[loermansw]

I'll be looking forward to the RP playthrough!

[steuntje]

The Guardians of Jeff sound like a really interesting empire! The Farmer Frogs are probably my second favorite

[CalamitasCalliope]

I like the Rogue Servitors the most. I think the idea of refusing to harm life is really interesting to me, and I think it will lead to really cool situations. I can see them trying to contain empires like devouring swarms over killing them, and I can see them turning against driven assimilators and exterminators. And if you happen to roll prethoryn then I can see them trying to keep the scourge alive at all costs

[rezaarkan]

Some suggestions for the other AI empires you can spawn for a more colourful and diverse worldbuilding:

- Megacorp + Void Dwellers
- Fanatic Spiritualist / Authoritarian + Ring World
- Militaristic + Barbarian Despoilers + Necrophage
- Fanatic Materialists Lithoids + Mechanist
- Egalitarian Humans + Lost Colony
- Plantoids Pacifist Hive Mind + Tree of Life
- Criminal Syndicate Megacorp + Prosperous Unification
- Fanatic Egalitarian Humanoids + Lost Colony
- Rogue Servitors + Remnants
- Fanatic Purifiers + Galactic Doorsteps

Also add in a Hegemony and a Federation start empires.

I guarantee you'll have one of the most exciting playthrough!