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wait, wait, this isn't the Leader's Trait Tier list !!!!!! and don't think we didn't hear "Galactic DoorSTOP" 🤣

I always really appreciate you going back and giving us updates on these tier lists. It really helps someone getting back into Stellaris or new incoming players!

I think gateway origin would be interesting if the gateway is already active or could be active in 3-5 years. Imagine having another front to expand and possibly forming a very unique empire shape

Galactic Doorstep - I'd personally like bonuses that make use of your capital being accessible from anywhere. Random ideas in order of complexity: -66% Missing in Action - Whenever a ship is lost, all it has to do is find and traverse through the nearest Gateway to make it back home. +50% Migration Attraction - It's far easier and more appealing to migrate to a planet knowing you can both arrive and leave safely. +5 Amenities in Colonies with a Gateway - The joys of quick, safe, and efficient merchant routes. Ships in orbit of any colony or any megastructure (including gateways) in systems with an active Gateway are considered docked (-25% upkeep) - Far easier to supply your military when you have a near instant supply line.

"I wouldn't Take Void dweller as Lithoids" Tell me, have you ever heard of the Void Dweller + Terravore combination? It is an exceptionally powerful way to Become the Crisis.

regarding fear of the dark, while it has early negatives, there is a massive upsite it can give you that can be easily forgotten: The very first empire contact starts an event chain, that allows you to INSTANTLY GO TO TOTAL WAR with them. its a difficult, but incredible early rush option. taking over an entire ai empire that early (basically for free) can be incredibly powerful.

Subterranean is actually quite a bit better than F tier, because Lithoids ignore the pop growth reduction, and it does something extremely important that no other origin does: It widens the base potential of every world for your economy. Every normal empire needs minerals as the staple resource of expanding their economy, and so what this does is make every world significantly more valuable for resource extraction, giving whoever you play a much more robust economy. It has a number of good uses, especially when playing as lithoids and with Relentless Industrialist. For me, I run Radiotrophic with the origin regardless of whether they're lithoid or biological, but if if they use food, I make them plants or fungi and run the origin with Invasive Species to compensate. Invasive species completely negates any of the negative growth issues from the trait, and is staggeringly overpowered when used correctly.

I know subterranean is not great but i do very much enjoy desert world preference + sub origin, that means i never get useless worlds. Desert preference means planets tend to have lots of generator districts and if nothing else i can always strip mine a planet to the core thanks to unlimited mining districts, i often find myself with 2 useless guaranteed habitable worlds so this origin guarantees no world is ever useless.

what common grounds need is some co-op functionality, lets 3 players take this origin to start together in a federation, that can be fun

As I believe I mentioned before in earlier Origin tier lists, Stellaris is at its most fun when you go full role-play and thematic for your empire. So, analyzing pure meta-data like this is... useful, but only as something to compare if you have trouble deciding between two specific origins for the race you want to build. But still very much appreciate the work you do, so I don't have to. 🖖

I did indeed not skip ahead too slingshot to the stars

08:25 But without the Cave Dweller origin I can't roleplay my dreams of a Space Dwarf Empire.

I‘m eating up your ranking videos every single time😂 Keep them coming

6:30 My real problem with Life-Seeded is the change from a max of 15 Building Slots to a max of 11. Before that change, it made sense to allocate slots to exploit the Gas and Crystal Mines, get ahead that way, but with only 11 Slots, it's really, really tight, and it basically never makes sense to allocate even one single Slot to Gas, as long as you're tied down on one single planet. And the SRs really only function as a "boon" or "sweetener" if they can reasonably be exploited early. Otherwise they're a noob trap. I think Life-Seeded would get a huge boost if instead of the 3 SR Mining Sites, it gets a Planet Modifier that grants 1 Miner job of each type, Gas, Crystals and Motes, so that it's no longer tied to Building Slots. That would definitely elevate Life-Seeded in tier, although probably not all the way up to B tier. But itd make it fun to play.

One fun perk of Overturned is that the traits can be used with Invasive species. You can easily get some massive pop growth that way while still getting some other benefitial traits

Ringworld trader build is IMO one of the most OP builds I have ever played in my 3000+ hours of the game, I can produce obscene amounts of trade in the thousands before getting anywhere close to mid game and use a entire world for alloys with so many alloy buildings. Even on grand admiral no scaling I end up as the strongest empire each game with ease.

Surprised to see Under one Rule all the way down to B tier. When played to its strenghts with the right civics it lets you start with a massive leader, high stability, free edicts. Spiritualist, pacifist, xenophile. Focus unity. Play tall, vassalize early and ascend worlds to stay around 100 empire size. Won some GA 25x crisis with it. Super powerful, definitely A tier in my book.

i did in fact decide to watch that bit, so thanks for the secret callout. I don't play with origins often (since i'm still making my way through the pre-built empires to try all of them, and regularly change my mods), so it's nice to see some tier lists ranking the vanilla mechanics, so i can get an idea of potential interests, mechanics, and pitfalls for my games.

Montu didn’t mention it, but there is special benefits from under one rule that come from the ascension trees. Depending on which one you go for, you will get different benefits, but your leader is immortal. However, there are downsides. There is a large upkeep cost for all of these and Psionic is one of the worst upkeeps, requiring 3 Zro per month. My favorite tradition is the synthetic (robot pops) tree as it gives bonus resources and has an alloy upkeep, and alloys are already pretty easy to get ahold of anyway.

I love your tier lists videos! I've watched some of them multiple times. Thank you!

Returning to Stellaris after some time, I'm so glad you chose to update these tier lists. First, they're fun. Second, they can really help trying to pick some strong origins if I'm looking to metagame. I would love to see updated tierlists like Ethics, etc and see the view on things that changed, since Stellaris is always changing constantly. (I'm looking at you, food builds.)

I want to see Montu play a normal game where he tries to win, but he can only use F tier points from his lists. Only F tier civics, origins, weapons / defensive slots, etc. (Only applicable F tiers, of course, not outdated ones)

Yay new tier list!

thanks for this! i always checkout your tier list. really useful

Doomsday is S tier as long as you constantly shout "THIS IS CETI ALPHA V"

Hi Montu will you do remake of old tier lists? tbh your tier lists are amazing to watch and i catch my self repeating to watch prewious ones several times xD

Love these tierlists, recently bought stellaris and these help alot!

Thanks dude, always fun to see all origins ranked in a comprehensive manner!

i miss these videos. glad theyre back!!!

You do not have to think of the slingshot in terms of long range assaults. You can easily use it defensively for the ambush bonus and at that range, the accuracy doesn't matter. Heck, I once used it in an early corvette war. Was a bit behind in ship numbers because I invested in the catapult. Once the opponent went in for the attack, I just slung my fleet and some transports into their home system (with 100% accuracy since it was close range) and just took the damn thing. By the time they had reorganized their fleets, I had catapulted in enough reinforcements to win the battle. Tho it would be nice if the origin gave a persistent bonus to megastructure building. The temporary bonus you do get from finishing the archaeology site usually comes at an inopportune time. Would be nice if it just gave a flat permanent modifier rather than what it does now.

I'm starting to make my own Stellaris mods and these videos are a great help, especially the explaining what could be done to bring the less good origins up.

In case it helps, I always watch these vids straight through without skipping, since you ask :) I like your explanations, they're succinct but thorough.

I'd like it more if the post-apocalyptic origin started with two small/medium sized tomb worlds. That way it would be more unique than just giving a pop trait. It would also be an improvement if the Doomsday origin was related to the Void Dragon or the Stellarite Devourer. It would also be more interesting if the galactic doostep origin portal was an l-gate.

If you start with the Imperial Fiefdom Origin, you may get a Gateway close to you, including a planet that can be turned into a Fortress World to hold the System, which is kind of cool. So you somewhat get the Galactic Doorknob Origin included. It doesn't give you any of the technologies, but Galactic Doorknob doesn't do much of that either.

for doomsday, use Machine intelligence DA, with lithoid second species. you have a total war goal, that you help with capturing another empires capital, and get the resources from this planet. your assimilated lithoids have 80 (planet class) + 30 (homeworld, hidden) + 50 (lithoid) + 10 (cyborg) percent habilitaty at game start iirc, which goes down to around 90 in the last moments, but before that, it has 100 %

I was just checking the playlist about the traditions, imagine my surprise when I see a new and updated video about Origins? Never not an enjoyable experience.

Nice list! Some points that I disagreed with or wanted to be expanded upon listed by origin: Subterranean: You can also get the voidling trait (+20% minimum habitability) for a total of 100% minimum habitability. You also get access to a unique ending to the "Unexpected Mineral Seams" event chain. One notable negative of this origin is that it is mutually exclusive with the anglers civic, which is unfortunate as it would make agricultural districts uncapped as well on wet worlds. Knights of the Toxic God: You can remove all of the home world's blockers by turning it into an ecumenopolis, which is reasonably possible before you his the planet capacity. Also, this origin can get holy worlds by consecrating toxic worlds, making it the only origin for which that ascension perk is useful. Payback: I think that you could have brought up how once you clear the origin's archaeological site you can choose between two projects that will either grant you a battleship or a size 10 habitat with a research boosting planetary feature. Also, I think the special blockers on the home world grant technologies. Fear of the Dark: You could have mentioned that you have the opportunity for a free total war with this origin early on which can offset the economic disadvantage. You could have also brought up how RNG-heavy the partner planet offers are. Post-Apocalyptic: You could have mentioned that this origin also has some synergy with the radiotrophic trait, especially if you go with the relentless industrialist civic. Shattered Ring: I think you should have mentioned that machine intelligence empires do not get the ring world preference, making the origin considerably stronger for them. Broken Shackles: Similarly to Payback, you get some technologies from the blockers. Remnants: Personally I think this origin should be higher, I like having a capital ecumenopolis that much. Void Dwellers: I disagree on lithoids being unsuitable if you play as terravores. You can literally spend the game consuming every planet and replace them with habitats. You can also pick void hive for your second civic to make habitats cheaper. Also, ecumenopoli do not count as artificial worlds and you take full penalties for living on one.

I was just thinking about which origin to choose and and this came out. Thanks! P.S. found a sea-cret

I once made a calamitous birth origin on earth. They were the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. The Triassic.

We tried Imperial Fiefdom in a test game and I played my Pharma/Permanent Megacorp trade build. It was interesting and being science specialist did eventually catapault me in the tech race, however I'm not sure that as a Tall Megacorp it was the best origin for me, especially as your early game influence costs for systems is increased - meaning I had to choose between systems and early branch offices.

Gotta say straight out the gate, 1) subterranean has to be rated higher simply for its synergy with noxious, become the crisis, lithoids In my opinion, definitely not f tier, not even close 2) here be dragons b tier???????? Did you forget the dragon reanimation rush?????

I ❤ your tier lists. Thanks for keeping them coming!

Main bonus of Fruitful Partnership is actually seed bombing. It gives planets bunch of blockers that you can clear for +1 pop. So good rush option is going hivemind, find some primitive nearby and bomb it into infinity (you can bomb undefended planets with this stance). Capture, get some livestock and a bunch of energycosted pops ( like 150 or something). And later on, when fighting actual enemies it still helps to get some free pops. As individualists it's a bit harder to 'exploit' as origin requires pacifism or xenophilia - which makes early primitive invasions costlier

Had to come re-watch this after I just saw Montu's latest upload to make sure that Galactic DoorstOp was indeed rated as the "Worst Origin". Pretty sure the Devs saw this video and took exception to that and snuck Skrand in.

So a few ideas on how to improve some of the lower origins: **Galactic Doorstep:** You start in a large cluster of stars outside of the galaxy, similar to The Chosen or the L cluster, with quite a few habitables (including your guaranteed habitables) and the gateway is your only way in. Basically you play the game at your own pace. The difference is the gateway your system is connected to CAN be used by the enemy during war (whereas normally they can't.) And then the usual invasion event happens and gateway events. To prevent a bunch of different clusters from spawning, this one would be a 'unique' origin. **Life Seeded:** Your guaranteed habitables are instead non-gaia planets with primitives with unusually strong defensive armies (1k+) on them. Your life seeded world gets a special bonus (in addition to its gaia world bonus) to production and pop growth. You also get an archeological event that at the end of it, lets you terraform gaia worlds without the world shaper perk. This effect takes longer but doesn't cost money. **Void Dwellers:** Okay this one will take some explaining. First off, _all orbital habitats are now void dweller only. That's right, the for all non-VDs, habitat system goes the way of the dodo._ For all non-void dwellers, they would be replaced with Planetary Diversity's system of planetside habitats (domed habitats built on otherwise uninhabitable worlds. ) but unlike PD's systems there'd be some restrictions on them to prevent people/ais from spamming them everywhere. They can't be terraforming candidates, they must have a resource on them, only one of each type per system (no asteroid systems with 15 asteroid habitats on them,) and only certain planets can have them (some other modifier). Now back to void dwellers. They'd be the opposite end of the spectrum. They'd still use orbital habitats, and they can ONLY inhabit habitats. No more getting around the restrictions with migration treaties or conquest, as 'voidborne' would be an empire effect and not a species trait. You can't build colony ships at all anymore either. Instead, habitats auto-colonize upon completion. If you take over a world, that world gets -100% to resources from jobs and pop growth+assembly, and +1000% immigration push. Pops also start auto-migrating every month out of the conquered world into habitats, prioritizing the ones that have room on them first. Once emptied, a major orbital is automatically built overtop of it, and a new habitat if one doesn't already exist is automatically built free of charge. Ringworlds would be habitable, but they get no bonuses. Finally, your guaranteed habitables would instead have systems with ruined habitats that you can repair for half the cost, and also come with a decently long archeological chain that details how your people got the way they did. At the end of the chain, you can choose to either put aside your habitat ways and become a normal empire (losing the void dweller empire effect but also any habitat related bonuses) or continue using your habitat ways, getting bonuses to habitat construction and orbital effects. Also, since voidborne is an empire effect and not a trait, robots can use it now too since there's no longer a reason to ban them from it. I'm not sure if this would make Void Dwellers actually _good_, but it would make it far more interesting. **Shattered Ring:** This would become the quintessential 'Tall player origin'. Shattered ring would get back the 3.0 full ringworld segments Plus still have the other 2 segments colonizable with blockers on them like in the rework, though again, they're full segments. The downside? Much like Void Dwellers, you cannot colonize anything other than ringworlds. Not even habitats. Which means for a good portion of the game, you're stuck on your home system. That also means no colony ships. Instead, you'd auto-colonize the sections right after you complete the archeological digsites for them, and when you build ringworlds in the future, you auto-colonize them as well. If you conquer another world, they migrate to your ringworld segments until the world is empty. Don't worry, you gain a different type of interaction with them. Each segment (including the interloper) has an archeological digsite. Each one grants you a unique reward upon completion. First one simply grants a flat boost to pop growth and/or assembly and production bonuses on your home ring segments, as well as a +50% boost to mining stations, as well as an edict to boost them by another 50% on top of that. Second one is where it gets interesting. The second one occurs after you have completed the first one, AND after you have colonized and cleared all the blockers on the segment. It grants you the 'planet harvester' decision that lets you harvest habitable planets for habitable material (representing the total sum of Flora, water, atmosphere, arable land, etc). This costs a lot of alloys to produce a kilostructure (similar in appearance to an orbital) that harvests material from the planet, slowly reducing its max habitability until it hits 25% and turns into a tombworld, giving you habitable material per month (Gaia worlds produce 3x.) The rate at which it does this is dependent on its size. The smaller it is, the faster it become uninhabitable. Once it hits 0% max habitability, it will no longer produce anything. You will then be given a further decision to shatter the world by shooting the harvester directly into it at FTL speeds, costing energy credits but turning the planet into a high yield mineral (20+(5x Planet Size)) farm. If it had strategic resource deposits, it will produce them too. If you conquer a planet, a harvester is automatically built overtop of it. However, the harvester is considered an (unarmed) enemy vessel which means it can be targeted and destroyed by incoming enemies. For habitats, you just straight up disassemble them via a decision for alloys and habitable materials, no 'harvester' involved. You can use this 'habitable material' to either improve your ringworld's output via decisions, increase a ringworld's size by 1 for one more district (can only be done 3 times) or used in an edict that replaces 25% of the alloy cost of ringworld construction with habitable material, and increases ringworld construction speed by 30%. Third one appears 10 years after you completely clear the blockers from both your previous segments on the interloper. It's a much longer one that should take a decade at fastest. It'll grant you the option for Megastructural Engineering as a research option if you don't already have it. Otherwise it'll give you a lump sum of engineering research. It also allows you to clear the interloper and repair that segment. Fourth one appears once your ringworld is fully rebuilt. This one is shorter, but grants you the ring worlds tech as an option if you don't already have it. If you do, it simply gives you a flat research sum. **Cave Dweller:** I don't know if I could improve this directly without breaking it, but it could be improved _indirectly_ by making habitability actually mean something. Currently, habitability is a near worthless statistic since it's better to have 3 good worlds and 7 tomb worlds than it is to have 4 gaia worlds due to how habitability affects (or rather, doesn't) pop growth. 0% habitability only reduces pop growth to 50%, so It's better to have those 7 pop-poopers to fill up your 3 good worlds than to have 4 good worlds growing pops at a mediocre pace. Not to mention the game showers you in habitability modifers including a repeatable. That needs to stop. It's silly, and it just overencourages wide play. Make it so that at 26% habitability, your pop growth is 0%, and lower than that, they actually start declining and/or emigrating. Also, cut down on the habitability techs, and rework migration treaties so that immigration is a 3rd type of growth that happens automatically instead of being an all-you-can-colonize species buffet from those you have a migration treaty with. This will have the added effect of reducing pop growth across the board, helping to delag the game and slow it down a bit (we really didn't need a research rework, we needed a pop growth rework.) Also make assembly cost increase a little for every assembly plant, spawning pool, or cloning factory, just to prevent hives and robots from being completely broken. Do that, and I guarantee that Cave Dweller will shoot up to B or even A tier, -20% growth modifier be damned. **Payback:** There needs to be temporary pop growth bonus to counteract the low pop (that lasts for 10 years.) OR I just had another idea: your guaranteed habitables are replaced by worlds with primitives on them that also have MSI stations around them, ones that are similarly oppressed as you are but aren't having as good of luck. You can destroy the stations, but it takes some firepower to do so as the stations have about the same strength as a single FE escort ship (about 1k in fleet power.) Once you do, a dialogue opens and you can either outright invade the primitives or get them to join you, either in a federation (so similar to common ground) or annex them, giving you a free couple of worlds pre-colonized and some pops to boot. Also, MSI needs a rework to actually be interesting and not just a generic advanced empire. Some sort of pseudo fallen empire with penultimate endgame tech that 'awakens' if certain circumstances are right. I could right a whole idea on that but this is long enough as it is. **Syncretic:** Make the serviles use a secondary pop growth system (or the aforementioned immigration growth system I mentioned in cave dwellers) instead of competing with the main species for pop growth. Also make an offshoot of this that operates like the current one but doesn't give the second species the servile trait.

Love your lists! Even the secret for slingshot!

I love special callout's! And i do see what you did!

I'm actually quite fond of the Subterranian origin. It pairs well with the civic Master Crafters and sometimes I'll play with Meritocracy/Warrior Culture as well or even Technocracy. I will usually off-set this with 'rapid breeders' and 'adaptive' on my species - strong frequently rounds out my starts. Ice world preference to help maximize the number of ores we get. Occasionally I'll even take Sovereign Guardianship for the ultimate early-game turtle build. Definitely have to also spread wide and fast to help overcome the population growth penalty. More planets == more pops growing simultaneously. Aggressive play also helps to bring in more pops via conquest.

You forgot to mention that cave dwellers works different for lithoids, who get a pop growth bonus instead of a malice. Maybe not quite as good as yeeting rocks for your origin, but you'll never have to worry about food or housing. Also, Knights of the Toxic God are only missing 3 pops, but you have a habitat to grow them right off the bat too, so if anything you're probably ahead of most other origins other than the one that let's you build robots off the bat. The frozen worlds are not that big of a penalty for Ocean Paradise, considering that you'll want hydrocentric as an ascension perk for your aquatic pops anyway, which will let you terraform them once you have the tech. So you don't really "lose" guaranteed habitables, they're just locked for the first 50 years or so. A size 33-39 planet (hydrocentric, orbital ring, mastery of nature) should be plenty for you over until then, or just colonize other worlds anyway, as your hone planet is going to TIDE you over for resources and room for your pops.

I love how you rate the Riftworld Origin as F for not doing anything but gives you an early start with astro rifts while decreasing the chance of failure and exploration speed but gives the origin, on the Should of Giants, C-Tier above Riftworld despite making sure you do not get a precursor origin until later as you have to complete the multi planets dig sites for a reward and have to hope not all of the precursor origins are unlock by others far later in the game. In other words, shouldn't those two be switched since On the Shoulder of Giants introduces a lot of negatives compared to Riftworld Origin?

Amazing tier list as always!!

Lost colony power lies in a powerful ally, or free citizen pops, or combining psionic and bio accession.

Montu does update tier list? what a lad :D

Yooooooo Montu's back! 🎉

There is a fun tech you can do with a quantom catapult. Catapult to a system with a gateway, then use that gateway to ambush an enemy.

Relaxing on a Saturday afternoon with a rum enjoying this video. Thanks.

I would love to see the caretaker team get in contact with you like Firaxis did with Potato McWhiskey about Civ VI. I got lucky with a Fruitful origin and was only about 5 years in when I got a potential colony notice for one almost on the other side of the galaxy (spiral). I spawned near the bottom, this was about at "2 o'clock' and near the edge. Then another notice about one at 9 that was 1/2 between me and edge. It was expensive, but I was able to colonize them both and spread from there.

Overtuned works really well with cybernetics ascension too, because you can triple-dip on specific resource production traits, and that's on top of the global resource production improvements Cyber has natively built into it. And cybernetics has 0 issues removing or adding the overtuned traits. Bio ascension becomes rather optional. And cybernetic scientist governors easily make up for not having access to erudite. Cyber loses out on removing some garbage traits from assimilated pops, but you can't really have everything in life

Progenitor is still S tier, but should be mentioned that only *Assigned Leaders* get the passive experience. If you just hire a leader and don't do anything they don't get experience anymore.

At 26:00 hi montu. Looking to start playing again and watching this to re-familiarize

I don't think doorstep should unlock mega-engineering gateways are just not big enough for that, they and habitats may be technically mega-structures, but the whole point of them is that they are (comparatively) small and have no capacity in regards to life-seeded I think the habitability preference is a good handicap that gives you a decent challenge otherwise you just get an op homeworld with zero drawbacks it's pretty fun to be stunted until habitats, xenos or other means of expansion are secured or the old trick with robots that do most of the work while your guys only fill ruler jobs

I always used Subterranean to boost my alloy/rare resources production. Not the best origin, but if you want to use multiple forge/foundry/refinery worlds it's quite good.

The part where you started to go on about the "Scion" origin was great LOL

A galactic doorstop would be pretty powerful. Whenever someone tries to close a gate, rift or wormhole you simply slide it in and keep it open for your ships to enter.

I would rank the @26:20 callout no higher than C tier. Needs a little bit of a re-tweak to be on par with better callouts.

Great one thank you, please do an updated civic tier list next

love your videos, montu is Swarm Strikers way worse than Ancient Driller Drones ?

A small note on the Life Seeded origin: I used to play it quite a bunch for a more challenging game... At the time at least (it was around a year ago), despite your species being "Gaia-world preferenced", they still WILL definitely be able to inhabit properly habitats, ringworlds, relic worlds and ecumenopolis! So if by some miracle you get the First League or the Cybrex, you have another good guaranteed world :D It doesn't make it great, for sure, but it'a s mall bonus goodie. I agree with the video though, it would be much more balanced if it didn't lock the planet preference, or if it locked it to something more reasonable like "a Wet world only"

ayyyy i was hoping for this!

Just finished an overtunned game that was so lucky it makes overtunned SSSS++++. As overtunned i put the crisis very early on and got the contingecy -> beat them get the contingency core relic -> work towards galactic wonders -> Get the eternal throne astral strand -> Overtunned has no more down side go full overtunned crazy species with double Dyson sphere while the rest of the galaxy is still in dipers. It truly feels like i'm playing an awakened empire at this point.

Mechanist is my favorite origin, but I wish it were better. It would be nice if you started with machine template as well (which the specialized robots would tend to support), and instead start with droids as the guaranteed researchable technology.

As an important note that I think moves Riftworld to another tier, you have a guaranteed Rift on your capital system, this rift can give you a certain number of Bonuses empire wide.EDIT: Also, some things you mentioned as good about hegemony can be done with common ground too, for example a martial alliance lets you have a navy at the start too.

Keep in mind that Knoghts of Toxic God are going to be nerfed next patch lol. Instead of +1,5% bonus to alloys per knight, you'll get shitty 25% army damage.

With Shoulders of Giants, during my initial expansion, I try to cut off a large section of systems with my starbases. I explore but not survey. I can also do the same for deadend systems branching off of my starbase systems. This way, I have a fresh field of surveys I can complete in the midgame to try to trigger the late Precursors. You lose any early Precursor bonus, but you will likely find one when the time comes.

Recently played a game where i went an oppresive autocracy, under one ruler origin game and went synthetic. You get a leader trait that gives you +25% pop output and honestly i think that that one trait alone raises it from c to b

Wow, I'm so glad Calamitous Birth got buffed so much One of my favorite thematic origins with how careless a bunch of rocks could be in spreading across planets

A few updates back, I had a Life Seeded MegaCorp and scored the Baol relic lmao

For the "tree of life" I found Intresting strategy. I start with "Organic Reprocessing" and make sure mine civ have good farmers. Then on mine world's I build bioreactor so that makes sure mine civs not only makes food but also energy. Then I make "Food Procesing" building to make mine food production skyrocket and use because I use food to make alloys but also mine refinery building. This is so good is I find ancient refinery tech so with food and this type refinery there is a chance that I can make almost every planet in mine empire selfsufficient. Its very specific playstyle but I found it can be very profitable.

ANOTHER HOUR LONG RANKING VIDEO LET'S GOOO!!!

My favorite build is starting with the remnant origin and the barbaric despoiler and feudal empire civics. If all goes well you can have an ecumonopolis with over 100 pops, 2 or more vassals, and a disgustingly overpowered fleet 50 years into the game.

Slingshot with that Astral-Upgrade is nasty though.

Clone army megacorps that go psionic ascension are genuinely insane. Some of the best Admirals in the game that will easily multiply your fleet effectiveness and absolutely mental resource output once you specialize your economy towards alloys and science. Probably one of the strongest military powers in the game when you consider the admirals and alloy output. It gets the point where you feel like a crisis empire because you can build ships constantly. Drown your enemy in corvettes and if the admirals die then just replace them with a copy.

Definitely loving the updated tierlist. Not sure what it says about me though, when half the origins i like are all F tier. :P

Wow, i thought Under One Rule would be higher. Its so powerful. Now im curious how you would rank the leader traits.

I like the Gateway because its a easy method of making sure you get Skrand Sharpbeak, which honestly makes the fact that its otherwise lackluster worth it.

Galactic Doorstop XDD Edit: I think the origin could be improved while staying true to its theme by allowing the empire to activate this gate way quicker (thereby unlocking the gateway activation research and gateway construction research OPTION). Similarly to how Void Dwellers start with habitats and basically never colonize planets, or how Lost Colony has a potential ally somewhere in the galaxy, this origin's unique angle would be to build up your empire in two places (although there needs to an incentive for that as well).

Montu, did you ever consider making a behind the scenes video? Especially on the challange videos, I think it'd be awesome!

Some gripes. Doorstep and riftworld should probably be at C tier if we're judging by power level, or maybe shift broken shackles into F tier. Lost colony should be A tier at least. It is only C tier in terms of roleplay power level. if you build your empire while considering the habitability reduction then you can pick aquatic or invasive species.

Love rewatching this

I think we need an option to turn off and on Gateway from origin since we have such mechanic know. And yeah, bonuses needed

Galactic Doorstep should spawn the system with the twinned gateway when you complete the project to open it, and it should be spawned a minimum number of jumps away from your borders and at least have a guaranteed habitable world, or to make more sense vis-a-vis the backstory it would contain a relic world having belonged to the gatebuilders. That's how I would rebalance it to become a GOOD origin.

Voidborn hive is such a great combo. The slow expansion early game is remedied dramatically by the removal of consumer goods from your economy.

"Why would you ever wanna play subterranean + Noxious, why not just go robots?" BC I wanna play mole rat Skavens!! Or idk, Fart Dwarves or something.

Thanks Montu. I forget to look for updates to Origins, and wasn't aware of some of the changes. Although, I will say that I disagree very much with your placement of Subterranean. This is likely due to my playstyle, I value minerals so highly, and probably don't utilize the trade mechanics well enough.

Montu is a pillar of Stellaris. Haven't played for years and your videos are always a huge help for getting back into the game. You are appreciated!

On subterranean the case dweller trait appears to not reduce pop growth on lithoid species. I found it super strong when you can ignore food completely

Riftworld has a few hidden bonuses: Riftworld forces a crystal rift spawn. The initial rift you get has a lot of bonuses that can be tailored to you empire (if you know the outcomes). May be heavy in the RNG, but the outcomes can be bonkers. Vassalizing the Formless is absolutely busted lategame.

I tried Void Dweller origin a few times, but my biggest problem with it is that you are forced, at least in the beginning, to build a lot of residence buildings, since the districts create equal numbers of jobs and housing. Therefore, any extra building that create jobs, like alloy foundries, necessitate a residency building to have room for that pop

35:34 "Day One Ish". I see what you did there, uce.