Hercules's lesser known cousin, Particles, is far too strong for the galaxy to deal with. I propose we declare this new-found threat as a crisis and mobilize the galactic fleet at once.

I definitely want to see a ship design video. Also if you could talk about fleet composition on top of design

17:54 - careful with this, it also increases rare resource upkeep from Starbase Buildings - the ones on orbital rings come to mind. Found out the hard way after building 5 refinery worlds rather than tearing down captured starbases

12:28 Note that Maniacal and Spark of Genius also have another effect: the first makes that scientist slightly more likely to discover dangerous technologies, and the second makes that researcher more likely to come across rare technologies. Having a spark of genius scientist on society can be a good idea if you're looking for something like psionic theory or clone armies, or on physics for the wormhole travel and gateway activation techs. It's also particularly good to have maniacal to look for jump drives, as well.

Designing ships is the absolute funnest part of stellaris for me. I can't imagine leaving auto designer on. I understand it's a pain to have to keep fiddling as your tech advances, but still.

For tips 4 and 5, the automatic planet automation will help you. At least for the amount of jobs.

NAHHHH 4:50 JUST CHANGED MY WHOLE WORLD😂😂. Idk how I've played for this long and did NOT know I could change the planet designations myself

11:26 "Now, scientists do research." - Montu, 2022 Wow, I'm learning so much from this video, thanks Montu!

Really looking forward to your ship design video! If possible, could you also talk about how to identify what build the enemy has - do you look at what the enemy ships are firing?

for some reason, I thought retired fleet officers required completing supremacy traditions rather than a tech. Thanks for the tips

Thank you for your work, I would really appreciate if you do a ship design video, after the last patch with such big changes.

6:47 i love the little cut where u fixed the amenities was literally thinking that

I usually design my own ships, but I recognize patch 3.6 changes have put me out of balance in that regard with the new combat system, a guide about it would feel great.

18:47 Yes please, updated ship design and fleet composition videos. Can you also include suggestions on research paths for components and general research to unlock first in relation to fleet combat?

Addendum: Shift-clicking the plus or minus buttons for jobs will disable or enable all slots at once.

Is there a video which runs through a well setup early, mid and late game empire anywhere? Discussing build options, policy options, what planets do etc?

This is just the kind of content I was looking for after the recent update. There were 2 completely new tips for me and 2 that were further hints at concepts I already understood.

Gotta love the edicts to increase energy production that also increase the energy upkeep of the pop that produces energy.

I actually never knew about/understood the edict fund. And some of these are hilarious, such as rearranging the ship building. Great video, thanks!

Love it! And I'm really looking forward to the new recommendations for ship designs

Thank you, Montu, for the excellent tips, and excellent content which helps not only to learn to play Stellaris but also to learn English. And yes, I'm looking forward to the ship design video

The market tip has worked incredibly well for me! Thank you!

Woa. I totally overlooked using the trade mechanics on such a way. Thank you

Your content is excellent and I have learned a ton.

I'd love a guide like this specifically for Void Dwellers. I struggle with balancing economic growth with habitat building and star port expansion.

"Montu helped me maximize my slave population with thrall worlds and prioritize less farming, and more livestock, I highly reccomend him as an Advisor for any External Leader Position" - Lady Zorga, Empress of the Great Gordovian Principalities

A tip from me: Find a fallen empire who likes you (i.e Patronizing), and sell them rare crystals/volatile motes/etc for loads of alloys. Easy deals. Also, putting unused scientists in science ships and having them "assist research" on a planet with lots of tech is great.

Thanks for the content Montu! I've benefited a lot from your videos in both fun and game knowledge!

For the early game I like to build like 5--6 science ships and let them explore everywhere.

Think Montu, Think! Of course we would like a video about ship design. Thanks man.

Amazing video, really helps a lot. Thanks! 😁

For tip 1, guaranteed habitables always spawn within 2 jumps from home system as far I know. This is why I personally always use my first science ship to explore all possible choke points and build an additional science ship to do the same or start surveying. Upon reaching acceptable choke points I park a corvette to keep a watch. Why? This allows science ships to explore other possible choke points, conserve influence and because, as far I know the AI explores 2 jumps away from owned territory it means the moment they enter a choke point, I can immediately send a construction ship to claim it. If the choke point is however connected on your empire side to multiple systems, contact rush is necessary as the AI will happily build over your choke point. MP wise I guess you get to cuck your neighbour from a potential advantage.

I haven’t played since apocalypse… this was VERY HELPFUL in getting me back up to speed. Thanks!

Thanks for all the info man. I've been binge watching your vids and after 4 years of playing this game i finally feel like i understand it.

Been playing for nearly a hundred hours. This video is information gold!

Thanks for the summary I even feel validated for stuff I tried on my own first

Also to note with the governor's as well as edicts in case of blockers, the speed does not go away when you switch/turn them off. That may have changed in 3.6 but in my experience the time on the UI that tells you how much time a building or blocker will take does not take change when the bonus' change.

getting back in, thanks for the vids as always montu!

i have found it more efficient to add districts and buildings when the available jobs count reaches a certain number. such as, if a planet has 3 jobs available, i would add 1 building or district. if 2 jobs are there, i add 2 buildings or districts. 1 or 0 available jobs, 3 or 4 buildings or districts, respectively. this seems to help balance out overbuilding. great video

New cap on leaders makes exploring a pain in the ass again while simultaneously adding better automation to exploration.

Didn’t know about Edict funds or rather I didn’t fully clue in that it didn’t touch actual Unity production. Thanks!!!

ship upkeep tip was a good one I did not know. I've been playing for years too

Looking forward to the ship design review video!

Lol, it seems that you and Aspec read my mind or read my post. Thanks so much for the great tips

2:44 maximum is now these, buy and sell Minerals / Food 42 64 Consumer Goods 21 32 Alloys 10 16 Strategic Resources (Crystals / Gas / Motes) 4 6 Living Metal / Zro 2 3

HI MONTU!!! THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO! Do you use other character portraits when playing Stellaris or do you always use the guy that you have there regardless of your species?

My first moves are always: - Build stations in my system, starting with mineral one - Sell 100 food, buy 100 minerals - Get 3-4 science ships and scientists, to optimise space exploration and research bonuses - build research building on capital, followed immediatelly by removing slums blocker and building consumer goods building. Also, unless I play a trade megacorporation or subterranean lithoids, I don't plan a specific build. Instead, I look at planet traits, bonuses and deposits, and plan planet specialisation accordingly.

Great video! Would love to see the ship construction guide

I've just done the dragon exploit in my game, and while it is fun I hope they fix it as soon as possible. I am ready and waiting to see what you come up with in your combat video. Whatever it is will certainly be better than what I have now.

I always thought about hydro bays as weak modules that only occupy precious starbase module space and it never occurred to me somehow that they are so damn efficient and require no precious pops. Thank you for opening my eyes on this one. Another tip that changed my early gameplay completely was the idea not to rush traditions to completion, but rather pick multiple lines at the same time to quickly get very important traits like +10 habitability and +1 pop on colonization.

Ive been playing this game on and off sense release and I have NO idea what im doing most games, but I have fun all the same. Having a little more info on stuff is helpful

(2:32) I made a post last year in the I.S.S. Discord where whenever you purchase a certain number of goods (many specific values), then your price will go up *even* if you're below that maximum. It seemed to hit Comrade & another guy who tried it, but they'd just suggest purchasing at 52 (I use 26 a lot). So I suspect - especially since 26 is a safe value to purchase basic resources at, that it is based around the calculations in the game that screw the market up (even if it's your own personal market). It's something similar to 55 H.P. maximum in AoE II, that if you have a unit at 55 H.P. in AoE II and change its job if it's a worker or grab a relic at 1 H.P. with Aztecs or even drop off some relic at 1 H.P., but with 55 Maximum. Then your unit will die, because it ends up rounding to an extra place (I believe) at this 1 singular value. And therefore turns an eventual fraction into 9.982... which is below 1 and kills the unit. Also yes I hate clarks, both in general and in this game... sorry Jeremy! But farmers, I really think there should be a potential benefit for biological civilisations at large or specific ones such as the World-Tree. Where extra food that you get from all of your extra farming districts ACTUALLY gets to do something for you rather than just be sold for pennies! World-Trees should OKAY yes take millenia to fully develop, but could still go through seedling, juvenile, young & maybe adapted stages where adapted just means adapted to the climate & individual biosphere of the planet, but wouldn't be the full Tree of Life for Millenia (beyond the game's scope)! There is a lot of potential for farmers especially, but even for clarks in this game... when combined with certain things such as philosopher king maybe to boost the civ-specialities that don't get a lot of use. Have clarks increase the rate of your leader exp/month by 'value-x' & your leader by 'value-y' where y = 2x or something.* Then hopefully finally - Diplomatic Stances and such should be sliders of sorts, which move over time based upon what direction you're going for. So you could be isolationist... which slowly moves to supremacist even AS/WHEN you're attacked, such that you don't get those bonuses right away. Instead you're at war for a few years and get towards supremacist later on in the war to still get the reduced claim costs amongst other benefits, but then lose out on the increased unity.

I find in single player games that it's more beneficial to focus on alloy production at the very start so that you can claim as many systems as possible peacefully. One big reason for this is that if you're lacking consumer goods for a colony ship or for researchers, they are much cheaper to buy in the market than alloys are.

I had been leapfrogging survey ships, this helps speed things up. Sadly automatic trades haven’t worked in console edition for several updates

Was trying to do my first Grand Admiral playthrough as Machine empire. Not working out very well, so such video is quite timely.

The insane amount of micromanagement you can do is the most impressive thing about this game.

As much as I love Aspec, Montu's videos are easier to watch because of the impressive montage work behind.

Another often overlooked aspect of trade is direct trade. Especially at higher difficulties AI empires will have much more efficient production, which you can often exploit. Trades like food for alloys can be especially effective early game. And late game AI empires are overflowing with energy, meaning it's often far more efficient to produce food and trade it for energy. It's not as straightforward as making food though, the exact surplus and deficit of different resources will depend on the empire. But food will be a valuable commodity, which makes farmer jobs far more useful than they seem. This makes federation origin especially powerful, and gives you incentive to allow your friends to grow in power, as they can provide you with both early game protection and cheap consumer goods to fuel your tech rush.

Just got a friend into stellaris. Gonna link him this!

With your first tip just get sol as your starting system and look for a trinary and binary system bc they always have your guaranteed worlds

Finally! New upload

Great video!

Great tips!

Really great stuff, thanks! About over-building, I'm curious if that applies to city districts as well. Am I wrong that having a lot of extra city districts increases planet size which increases pop speed? Thank you for your work educating us!

Can you make a video about ship builds for 3.6?

Thanks!

Paused ships should occupy building slots, because now it's like an exploit. Troublesome (requires micromanagement) yet still :) Also - canceling should charge you something to not get 100% refund.

Ship design for 3.6 would be great. A good mixed fleet and weapon sett up

Very useful!

Also, the more districts you build the bigger the impact on your Empire Sprawl. If it goes over 100 too early, it will slowly cripple your ability to keep up with tech and makes tradition adoption more expensive. Finding those stratigic resources is also a good idea. Defendable systems which are chokepoints is also a good idea for defense.

3:00 Good advice to use the market more effectively, but the values are diffeent on console. I was able to push buying consumer goods to 100, gas to 20, and selling motes and crystals to 25.

I would very much love an indepth , line by line breakdown of Ship Designer and Fleet Manager. The last time I tried to do this, any time I wanted to upgrade my fleets after researching a new tech, it outfits all of my ships from one design to another design entirely, not just the upgraded modules of the design I have. I have to be doing something wrong because it can't possibly require that much micro management!

One mistaken I constantly made was not utilizing the ship designer more. There would be times where I'd put myself in a bad situation because my ships would cost WAY too much due to advancements in technology outpacing my economic power. Started down scaling a bit and it equaled out

12:18 this guy really said “Parti-cles” like some Greek mathematician

The limiting jobs one is big, particularly if you are a gestalt consciousness. I know playing as rogue servitors, it is a ton of limiting unnecessary maintenance drones, hunter seeker drones, and artisan drones (from sanctuaries). It is actually kind of annoying how carefully you need to micro those jobs in order to get an early competitive advantage.

Looking forward to teh ship analyis indeed. Interesting how this doesn't fit my (solo only) playstyle at all, making sure there are no clerks aside and teh hydroponic bays, of course. (wasting unity for spare leaders? Haha, no. Hunting planets before that Habitable worlds thing happens? Not for me, especially as it keeps me from finding minerals to build mining stations on or nebula refineries.) One tip I'd say: If you find the crystal codex or the barracks that gives +military, exchange teh scientist for the one doing Society research before doing that special project, then switch back once that trait is gained. I think that Rubik's Cube gives an Engineering one, so same applies there.

12:30 Don't Maniacal and Genius give some bonuses for rolling dangerous and rare tech?

This will definitely help me with my necroid run! Great tips!

I was playing as the blorgs and I had the perfect economy. 10k production in energy credits and 2-5k production in the rest. I declared war on everyone and won. It was quite fun.

I really hope one day they do a starbase update. I would love it if all/most empire gained access to solar panels. I think hydroponics bays should be upgraded into modules so you could spec for food production or energy. And then perhaps add some kind of asteriod mining bay for minerals and boom. We have econ starbases for the interior of your empire! I'm sure there are loads of other great ideas out there too!

What premade buildings should you replace and with what in your capital at the start of the game? I saw you replaced a trade hub with a holo theater? Great video btw ;)

@Montu Plays Do the numbers you list for the trade max buy/sell work once you have the Galactic Market? or do they no longer apply since you have to contend with too many outside forces?

I would love to see an in depth on ship design, it is the last part of the game that seems completely daunting.

I prefer a "jack of all trades" fleet style, simply because often while fighting one guy someone else likes to declare war, and it's best if I'm prepared and don't need to build/refit a new fleet. Plus, that way to opponent can never really have an advantage. Takes out my shields? I have equal armour (Upgrades allowing). Yes, it can be a tad annoying getting through an enemy with dedicated shield/armour, but I can then melt through the opposite in comparison. This changes, of course, once the crisis comes in.

Could you go over that Ascension upgrade button for planets. It seems way too expensive and implies a limited number of uses and I didn't notice any real difference when I used it. I feel like I'm missing something

What I'm doing with my fleet designs , a mix from all , a mixed corvette fleet with missiles/flak/laser or kinetic ,same with destroyers and cruisers, battleships need protection from frigates

Hope oyu make a guide on how to design ships.

I would love to see an updated ship build video for the updates. I havent played for AGES and the recent changes in 3.7 threw me.

I'm currently stuck in a time loop. I'll play four or five hours of a new Stellaris campaign, watch a few of your videos and learn some awesome new tips, and then restart my campaign so that I can take advantage of everything I just learned. I can't get past the early mid game!

Free Alloys trick Rip we remember you

In all fairness, to get the snowball running i always grab Corporate Dominion as a starter, so i have colony ships for only 500 energy

Here's a good minmax tip: Promote your governing factions ASAP. And when you get factions that you don't want suppress them ASAP.

About #2 - although the market is good and should be what you use in the very early game, you should have also mentioned trading with the AI as well at least in passing, as certain personality types are more generous than others via the trade_willingness modifier in the AI personalities file. Migrating Flocks, who have the highest trade_willingness at 1.1 will give you the best deals possible - while Ruthless Capitalists, Peaceful Traders, and Exterminators (only with fellow machines!) operate at a trade_willingness at 1.0 with Federation Builders running up at .95 - unfortunately the Migratory Flocks personality type is *very* rare since they require the empire to be Pacifist, Xenophile, AND have either the Rapid Breeders, Nomadic or Fertile traits. Good luck getting that combo of ethics and traits reliably on a nearby friendly empire!

I never get past midgame, and almost always get bodied by an AI doom-stack. As I watch my empire burn, I always think about what I could have done better in the early game. I will ruminate upon these tips while my next empire crumbles.

Could you technically leave the fleet on the verge of construction and then pop it out when you need it for a war?

Scientists with specialties also make the discovery of their related technologies as research options more likely (or Psionics with a maniacal scientist on Society research). What advice can you give me me if I want to rush something like Hyper Relays without spending too much unity on rolling specific scientists?

To add onto the design your own ships part... In 3.5 and older, the min maxing strategy was to build your fleet around your ships. Building the latest and greatest ship type (Corvettes, then destroyers, then cruisers, then battleships) or waiting till battleships and just corvette spamming, before monohulling artillery battleships with a carrier or two for corvette torpedo spammers. That no longer works. Now in 3.6, the strategy is to build your ships around the fleet, not the other way around. You need to have a mix of ship types, and optimally your ships should work as a team, not as a hodgepodge of ships 'teh meta' or running all the same parts.

I'm not sure where you get your numbers: I find that the market limits for inflation are about half of what you say they are. For example, I find that you can only buy 24 minerals or food while keeping the price stable. At 25, it starts rising a tiny bit. Also, I think inflation is somehow impacted by the total volume of goods you are trading so that if you sell a lot of another good it may reduce inflation. *edit* This may also depend heavily on the difficulty setting. I think I usually play Captain.

Been playing a ring world race, went through till the end where the crisis guys came and l still hadnt got access to Mega engineering reasearch to fix my ring. Am starting to wonder how the devs expected us to play this game. As a newbie, it really pissed me off to get destroyed without even seeing a fully fixed ring world after playing for hours.

Came back after a long time away and I'm struggling on ensign difficulty. I don't know how you guys do Grand Admiral.