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Blorg: "Nihilistic Acquisition is meta now?" Pri-ki-ti: "Always has been." (raises gun)

BLOOD ALONE MOVES THE WHEELS OF HISTORY! (best intro clip yet!)

At 17 minutes, for your massive battle, I recommend slowing the game to slowest, and recording the battle however you see fit. Then in post production, you increase the video speed by 4x or 6x. You get extremely smooth combat views that way! looks amazing! I did that many years ago, and it hold up better today with the improved combat visuals. Thank you for your videos!

Mortal initiate are coded to be " willing pops", so it prioritize full citizen species above all else. There's some mods to make it reverse and prioritize slaves for all your space aztec roleplay needs, but in vanilla, death cult just doesn't work that way.

Necrophage Empires benefits greatly from either Barbaric Despoilers or Nihilistic Acquisition. Just tried it the other day. I got to bully a Hive Mind empire, tearing down their economy and growing my own Necroid population (the Hive Mind pops are Assimilated faster than they are dying off for being cut from the Gestalt Consciouness). They became my primary source of pop thorough the game.

Recently tried a raiding build (felt like it hardly did anything in the past) and laughed my ass off as I realised that their heavily defended fortress world was useless since I would just take all the pops working all the soldier jobs which provide the defensive garrisons. Took like 60 seconds to reduce its army from 1400 to below 600

The AI actually did this to me. I was playing Payback and got caught out of position when the Debt Collectors came around. When my fleets finally made it back to my capital I discovered there were only 2 pops left on the planet.

Ah yes, now I can role-play as the Sea-Peoples, laying waste to galactic civilization as a multi-ethnic, raiding empire.

To tell the truth, the last time I went Life Seeded got me such a good start that it was OP. First, I think I found 2 nearby Gaia worlds, then got the ketlings and the worm. So yeah, lots of habitable planets pretty early on along with the very early economy boost of Life Seeded

I remember booting up Stellaris when Paragons launched. I saw Letters of Marque. I knew what my go-to ascension perk would be for the next week. The speed that pops are abducted now is immaculate, damn.

I've been a devoted fan of Nihilistic Acquisition since forever. Turtling up and spamming ringworlds feeding them with a constant stream of stolen slaves is actually how I beaten a earliest 25x crisis the first time. This version of NA is on steroids and I'm having the best time being the baddie lol. Also consider Barbaric Despoiler civic if you want to start doing this since day 1 instead of having to complete an AP and waste a perk on NA. Everyone will hate your guts but its fun being space vikings.

This makes me remember the quote from the new star wars "Only one business in the galaxy can get you so rich"

Disruptors against AI at this point is just cheating. The only way they are balanced if the enemy has the brain to add some hardening once they encounter disruptor fleets.

Back when Overlords dropped, this accention perk was unironically a good pick in my specific situation. I was vassilized early on by the AI, and naturally the AI would drag me into bullshit wars that I'd need to participate but have essentially nothing to gain, no chance of territory for example. Nihilistic meant any and all wars meant, if nothing else, random overlord wars would always give me pops.

Hey, Montu (: I've recently gotten into your stellaris videos and youre the best stellaris creator there is to find, so thanks for making quality content. Will you be making a new ascension perk tier-list with the new patch?

I built a raid empire due to being inspired by a HFY story, really fun considering my usual playstyle is a defensive/diplomatic or isolationist technocracy

We need updated tier lists! :D Really interested in how Ascensions paths look after the 3.8

Well that's a lot faster than it was before. Also, Synthetic is a pretty good ascension for this if you want to turn those slaves in efficient specialists and rulers from your main species. It's a bit of a long-term plan though, but with vassals you can ignore base resource income early, and with megastructures mid-late game. In this light, claiming an inhabited system when using the 'vassalise' wargoal instead of 'humiliate' does grant you that 'peace as we please'-war as well, but would also give you a mid-term way of extracting base resources without pops through said vassal. Any gained planets can then be used as alloy worlds or whatever would be convenient. It is a bit trickier to get enemies entirely inferior early in GA-difficulty though.

Thanks for the fun and interesting videos!

i'm glad to see raiding in the limelight! stealing pops bypasses the biggest weakness of playing as a deliberately small empire (terrible pop growth and assembly), and selling off the excess only to steal them back in the next war is always entertaining.

I had a paragon general who upon winning ground battles would get resources per district, abduct 30% of the planets population. At one point in an extended war I took over 120 pops. Such a great addition to the game this

i took this ascension perk with a devouring swarm build, just to try it and for fun. Well, it was like going at the grocery store

There's no way this isn't going to be nerfed very soon. I cannot imagine this rate of pop abduction was at all intended.

My first build for Galactic paragons was Necrophage Barbaric despoilers. My main species has a 240 year long lifespan at base (yes venerable), quick learners, and talented. I spent the early game raiding primitives and anything else that moved, then built a massive economy off of the pops (while still red-lining the economy for maximum alloy output), and now Crusader-Queen Simmer Loveday is soon-to-be crowned Galactic Empress. She has guided our people from our very first steps into the stars, long may she reign!

Beautiful! Never change this Perk.

It's not just meta, devouring necro hive cannot function without it. I'm just biased towards devouring necro hive because I aspire to be the Flood. kekw all your pops are belong to me, thank you tiny little 7-system incubator empire I've completely encircled but refuse to destroy

Rogue servitor + relic world start + nihilistic bombardment may do the trick.

If the civics didn't matter, couldn't you get the same effect with Barbaric Despoilers without using up an ascension perk? And yes, it does seem like when they adjusted the numbers and formulas for how bombardment and ground combat works, they overlooked an unintended side effect to the raiding stance. I can't imagine you're supposed to be able to steal pops that fast. As a side note, after seeing what someone did with stealth torpedo frigates, I wonder how devastating and navy crippling such a tactic could be now that the Fanatic Warlord destiny trait is a thing. Having -50% Shield, armor, and hull might not mean much when those torpedoes are sneak attacking with an addition +150% damage.

My last game was on 3.7 (without the cloaking DLC). Played a Necrophage Terravore with Nihilitic Acquisition. Which means I was eating their pops, then turning them into my own pop, then eating their planets. Because why leaving something behind?

I was just playing a session of Stellaris and you don't even need to have Nihilistic Acquisition yourself; if an AI (and presumably player) has the perk and creates an Enclave, the mercs hired through there will have the raiding stance. I was able to suck up dozens of pops that way.

Do you think it would be possible to do this build with a ring world instead of Gaia world origin?

This mixed with Aspec's one planet challenge build is very interesting.

Wow, you literally made the Goa'uld, that's awesome

I wonder how well this could work with other similar origins like remnants, shattered ring, or void dwellers where you also start out with worlds that are high habitability for all species? I imagine that while void dwellers might not give you enough space for your new “citizens”, the other two might work out fine.

Shoot ill just capture my own pops and blame it on the blorgs!!

That end fight was absolutely nuts! 😂🤣

This is one of the things i was wondering with the coming of Paragon but still raiding just to get enemy pops feels a bit lackluster for whatever raider/pirate empire you want to roleplay. still wishing it could be changed to something like the Nomads in Crusader Kings 2.

Hey Montu, in your view does this revised Nihilistic Acquisition move the Slaver Guilds civic up in your tier list?

I tried this today right when I got home, and it’s nuts. 30 years into the game, and my home world had a 110 population. I then made a small moon into an Ecumenopolis and it quickly went from 2 pops to 41 in my first war after creating it. I totally get why this could be banned in a multiplayer.

Just starting the Stellaris path thanks to your vids, kudos. Also, I really enjoy the tournaments although I watch after they are live.. they are long but extremely informative and entertaining. If time permits and action is slow in the next pvp, try to show off the players ship builds...unless that hurts the live gameplay. Thanks again.

Necrophage probably wouldn't say no to this.

I personally would like too see a video about what orbital bombardment stance you should use in what situation, planet crackers included, I always use indiscriminate bombardment, but should I?

this build works even better w shattered ring you have 4 systems for imperial to boost and the pop capacity on them is nuts you miss the early game boost gaia gives you but by mid to late you will have ring segments fleshed out and pumping out massive resources id your crazy u can also drop nihilistic acquisition and grab barbaric despoiler can also run dif slave species as dif slave types if you find a species that has some bonuses for science or unity you can make them indentured servants to work the better jobs while another type fills lower tier jobs cyborg ascension is also amazing for this setup to alter your slaves and main species and robots if u fill up on a species becoming unemployed u can use social welfare for unity from them if i remember that right also ecumenoplis or galatic wonders for ring worlds is a viable choice given how many jobs ring worlds give overall its good to see slavery is still strong and hopefully they dont nerf the raiding stance too hard its broken rn but it was so slow prior

Do an updated ship design video? And possibly an early game tips/tricks for 3.8?

I'm on my second run, trying to make the dystopian civic work. Gotta have merchant jobs or as many ruler jobs as you can because they're the only ones that matter. The weird thing is that I'm having a hard time managing my pops. Some "servile" pops keep unemploying themselves and I've got to force clerks.

Mortal Initiate is really good if you use the holding on vassals, that way you reap all the benefits with no drawbacks

Can you do a video about how the tech tree now works in Stellaris? Since you now cannot chose a scientist with a specialty, you can't try to fish out a technology such as terraforming. now its completely random

"They cannot Klingon to the dirt fast enough."

Ah yes, Barbaric Despoilers Quantum Catapult is finally viable!!

Ummm who let this slip, been playing as the synthetic borg quantum catapult rushing this as my first ascension perk using lithoid pops as a starter and using hydroponic bays when I start to steal bio pops

Great Quality Control Paradox. I guess KZfaqrs are their new QA department.

How would this build work with Barbaric Despoilers? They have the Raiding stance by default and they have always a Casus Belli. Would it be viable?

haven't watched till the end but ill ask this what about if you use barbaric despoilers and save yourself an ascension perk slot, which in your case you can use to have world shaper (or w/e its called) to terraform planets to gaia worlds..

One thing to watch out for is if you have a play style where other organic pops would be considered undesirable. If they are I think you just end up pull them off the planet to launch them into space...so you have to modify all the defaults to something else...lesson learned after clearing out 2 planets wondering why pops didn't make it back to my home worlds.

Omg, I already liked stealing pops. Im stoked to use it again.

I actually have used it for a long time as a necophage race lover. 😊 I have mixed feelings about people liking it since I'm worried it will get nerfed 😂

I did this but added the necrophage purge on top. It was pretty nice.

So good! My lithoid barbarics have been so happy!

It's better to go Barbaric Despoiler, as that gives you a sweet council position that lowers empire size from slaves. ^^

Nihilistic acquisition is great for driven assimilators, because it lets you get a controlled flow of unity from your wars

What about a Driven assimilator raiding build?

I have always loved that perk as lithoid hive enjoyer, and yes selling slaves is crazy. By far my favorite one, now more than ever !

This vid inspired me to do a lifeseeded hivemind with cordyceptic drones and idyllic bloom. I used nihilistic acquisition to grab undesirables who were purged by processing in order to sustain their food cost. Idyllic blood ended up letting me terraform the planets I had minimal pops in up until midgame to gaia worlds that went well with life seeded, with the roleplay that we were converting the entire galaxy into a beautiful garden. At the endgame when they discovered the shroud, they realized that wasn't enough. Perfection of the physical was only halfway there, so instead they transcended, destroying the galaxy to build it anew truly perfectly. I ended up with the biggest fleet in the game just by grabbing up the three space fauna systems and eating all the amoebas around I didn't get far through this vid though and didn't realize you can easily grab the majority of an entire empire's population!

6:40 oh sweet magic

I got the raiding stance just cause I didn’t care for anything else and used it against a fallen empire. I thought the game bugged out with the notifications but I was stealing pops faster than I knew what to do with them. I’m certain it’ll get nerfed because the rate of abduction is genuinely insane right now.

would this be good to fill worlds when you start as a ringworld or habs

8:23 That a V for Vendetta Referense I hear? :D

I tried abduction as a necrophage empire last year and it just did not work well. Im unsure if it was reworked or something since then. I had a 6 pop primitive world next to me, bombarded it down to 0% for a decade and it was only at the end of that decade that i received those pops. It was so horrible.

Been waiting for this day. Raiding is one of my favorite RP playstyles; glad it's actually viable.

I'm still pretty new with this game, I tried this yesterday with a hivemind, didn't even make contact, just steal the pops in a preemptive war. Completely crashed my economy and more slaves than original pops. I find a little hard to manage. Super cool build though. It would be brutal in PvP

I never used it, but I guess there should be a limit set. Maybe something around: 5% chance after 1 month 12% chance after 2 month 22% chance after 3 month 38% chance after 4 month 62% chance after 5 month 100% chance after 6 month That would be the extreme setup on a highly populated planet with a large fleet. So you can scale it down bit by bit depending on the amount of pops on the planet and the fleet size, maybe ending up on 2 years guaranteed pop if pop is 10 or lower and/or fleet is under 5k. Or better not scale it with fleet power, more with ship size, so the tech level doesn't matter much.

Montu has become the final evolution of the Tzynn Male.

If you have a preference for Gaia worlds from life seed can you still live on habitats and ecus?

Remember an earlier version game where I was playing rogue servitor. I took Nihilistic Acquisition and declared war on some honorable warriors to start abducting them. Then I discovered they picked the Doomsday origin and their only planet blew up. "But, I was going to save you." Heard that AI's supposed to be better about handling Doomsday nowadays, and hope that's true.

Two pops Four pops Your pops? MY POPS! 🤪

Nagyarian Imperium is hungary for some pops.

Only free pops to climb the shrine. Went through this too. This is exclusively good with clone army I fear. I guess the tale is around the free will aspect of their sacrifice. So no slave slaughter in the name of the desth god.

I played a necrophage barbaric despoiler not too long ago and just sat on hive mind planets and sucked up their pops, necrophite purging them in the process

Man I only gave up Barby Despos before this update, took Nihilistic Acquisition, because I love abducting pops so much, and realized how absolutely op it's always been

Reminds me of movie "YEAR ONE" I'm not a slave, I'm a volinteer!

From what I have read it's a bug. It is getting fixed, as the game checks from entire empire or something like this. With how half-baked paragons are, I think I will wait for 3.9

That's pretty awesome!

I'm so ready for my space Aztec

My next game i'm testing this with necrophage. I already did one tall game with clone soldier main species.

I really don’t get leaders, so I can’t have governors or sector leaders or assist researchers for plans or multiple fleets ? I can fill few and leave all others vacant?? I have 20 planets and no governors and only three or four sector leaders? 90 % of all general admiral, governors and sector leaders are empty, and cannot be filled with a massive penalties that cripple your empire

what would this be like with the hive queens unofficial dlc as a progenitor hive+parasitic embryos

I was thinking something like that but necrophage.

Remnants origin will be much powerful, since it also provide 100% habitability, but give u easy access to ecuminopolis

When I used this last time, it barely gave me pops. What did I do wrong.

Think I saw someone from paradox saying the speed of abduction was not intentional and they were looking into it. I've been hesitant to use abduction since the patch since it feels very bugged

This has to be a glitch. It newer went this fast in previous patches.

I tried this in my first paragon play through and I stole pops so fast I just stopped because it felt unfair.

The civic Warrior Culture gives the added RP value of the movie Gladiator in space.

It's kind of a bummer that you can't sacrifice slaves with the Death Cult civic. I unfortunately found this out in a recent multiplayer game. I can understand that there might be some (admittedly very minor) balance concerns with sacrificing of slaves over and over again, but it really kills the flavor of a specific empire type. If you take Barbaric Despoilers and Death Cult, your empire type is set to the unique "Band of Blood" and your ruler title changes to "Bloodlord" Major disappointment that there isn't an exception for this empire type, because flavor wise, their entire deal revolves around pillaging and sacrifice. Instead the end result is a constantly dwindling population of your primary species due to sacrifice as your empire fills up more and more with slaves. Feels more fitting for some sort of nihilism centric empire, rather than one who's deal is spilling blood for blood's sake

Mortar Initiate has x0 modifier if pop is any type of slave

going to try it then:)

the pops abducted are not transferred to my world. They only disappear from the planet... any idea why ?

We need machine empire meta

Playing as Void Dwellers or life seeded is great with Raiders.