Stellaris devs lurking with new patch that completely destroys this list

Montu’s gradual shift to praising the food build is immaculate

12:15 I think "Space racism is not economically viable" is my new favourite quote

Crusading against errors: Philosopher King has the wrong tool tip in your presentation.

We must call for a crusade to return the engineering research bonus to artificers

Actually🤓 idyllic bloom building on the final stage gives 10% to pop work output, so with buff from Gaya world, you get 20% pop output

19:09 Aristocratic elite is better than it seems on the surface. Because rulers have much more political power than other classes, especially on stratified economy, a happy ruler provides a substantial amount of stability. The civic allows you to add an additional ruler job to get more of that juicy ruler stability. This is ideal for wide conquest focused empires who will need to stabilize many unhappy worlds. Probably a low B civic IMO.

Gotta give big shout out to Montu for his Stellaris tier commitment !! How long before Byzantine Bureaucracy gives you ten Titans and two Juggernauts in 2205…

I don't understand how you can rank civics without councilors when the balance of civics clearly takes councilor strength into consideration. As an example masterful crafters, which still is one of the strongest in the game, was given a garbage councilor. Some of the power of a civic is the councilor, they're a package deal. Also some of the councilors even synergize with the bonuses of the civic which further reinforces that idea of looking at both at the same time

Anyone else find it weird that Byzantine Bureaucracy isn't allowed for Spiritualist empires, despite the Byzantine Empire itself being a very spiritualist empire?

One of my favorite builds currently is Catalytic Processors and Anglers with the Ocean Paradise origin, reforming into Agrarian Idyll for the third civic. I never thought about changing the capital designation to Forge Capital, but getting the extra alloy production while relying on Pearl Divers for consumer goods seems very strong. Just need to worry about balancing city, industrial, and food districts at the start so you can also get your Unity and Research generation up.

NEW TIER LIST RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUCK IS A PARADOX META

I'm having a crusade against Beacon of Liberty tooltips showing when talking about the Philosopher King civic.

Once again, thank you so so much for making these so often. I will always watch and like them. PLEASE keep doing them

One small caveat to Agrarian Idyll. While it does lock you out of Arcos, it does that by replacing the required tech with a specific Agrarian Idyll tech. Bit if you roll the first league, and finish the precursor, the “secrets of the first league” will unlock the required tech, thus Unlocking arcology projects. Not sure if it was intended or not, but found out the hard way i couldnt build arcos until rolling the secrets. Unsure if this has changed in the current version though, as versions seem to wildly change faster than Montu’s tier lists

Babe! It's a new patch, time for your updated tier list!

Idyllic Bloom will give all of your pops +15% production, +15% growth, -15% amenities usage and -15% housing usage over time on those gaia worlds (this is on top of the standard +10% production/+10% happiness on gaia worlds), along with making budding 50% stronger. It's actually really good eventually.

35:25 Bruh. Explaining Philosopher King while showing Becon of Liberty hahaha

Always appreciate your dedicated crusade in always having the hot Stellaris content and updates so soon and well put together!!

Touching myself to this tier list

I haven't played in quite a while - this tier list and the explanation you provide are invaluable. Very much appreciated!

Love the montu content, always a cozy day for a crusade when a video comes out!

A note on the warrior culture, the Council position is way stronger than it is shown in tooltip. I had a flat +1,5 to output with a lvl 5 councilor. That makes those warriors Very good

Thank you Montu for your tier lists! Right now I am on a personal crusade to get all achievements in the game, and your videos ar such a help 😊

Two people enter a breakfast joint. Molly orders a coffee, Kay orders a crusader pancake. Kay responds how liberating to see your enemy's broken before you and to see the people free.

Thank you Montu for constantly putting this out, a true crusader for making this community the best it can be.

Really appreciate you taking the time to put this tier list together, Montu. It'll really help in my crusade to get better at the game I sink thousands of hours into.. at least until the next patch :P Edit: In B tier the screen is showing Beacon of Liberty but your audio is describing Philosopher King

I'm glad I got through that long but informative video, it was a real crusade.

Finally a real secret callout. Good job Montu on your crusade to bring us tier lists.

thanks for this, its actually pretty hard to find recent (within the last couple years or less) information on many of these civics and how they actually work.

Thanks for your ongoing crusade to inform us of the strengths and weaknesses of the Stellaris mechanics!

hope you and the family have been doing well montu!

Thanks for putting timestamps in the description. If I had to sit through the entire video, I would go on a crusade!

I like your tier list a lot, it's such a nice overview of what's available. But what a workload it must be to maintain a qualified opinion on everything. Thank you for putting in the work so I don't have to :D That said, there are two things I've been wondering. 1: To what extent are you considering that everyone will want to reform their government anyway for their third civic from Galactic Administration? As I see it, the corollary to this is that needing to switch into, or out of a civic at this time shouldn't diminish its value. I know your coloured triangles already address this, but I wonder to what extent you're judging each civic per their 'prime time'. 2: To what extent are you considering the role of happiness and stability boosts in decreasing the number of pops in upkeep jobs such as entertainers? The optimum value for stab/hap is 50%, so these civics can have a role in employing a higher number of gainful specialists, and as such fill a similar role to meritocracy in some circumstances. 9 scientists at 100% output produce more than 8 at a meritocracy-boosted 110%, for instance, and the ratio increases as the marginal gain in productivity from meritocracy decreases due to the stacking of other bonuses. Though, I will admit that this calculation becomes complex very quickly. That said, though, I have to hand it to you for including a whole lot of this nuance in your commentary. Thank you for your hard work, Montu, you've definitely made me a better stellaris player.

Talking about Pompous Purists... I would love to see a high Encryption build, which makes it impossible for other empires to identify you. I have already tried that, but unfortunately there is no significant difference when it comes to first contact. My idea was to combine that with raiding and fight wars entirely without the enemy knowing who it actually was. Stay hidden as long as possible and be an absolute menace.

Side note merchant guilds also let's you take the merchant diplomacy for an extra 10% trade value and some increased protection but it's still pretty bad.

Dimensional worship ads + 10%, not + 1% chance for rare techs. That in and of itself makes it worth better than tier F I think. (100*1.1=110)

Could Really Use Some Additional Direct Efficiency buffs to stuff like trade deals or research agreements. A lot of stuff gives more envoys or weight etc, but could be fun with some direct buffs to the benefits you get from diplomatic deals

Nice list! You could have mentioned that Oppressive Autocracy can also generate amenities through telepaths if you have a covenant with the Instrument.

Petition to start a crusade to make trade builds great again.

Wow! I can't believe Inorganic Breath is S tier now. Props to the devs for being open to new playstyles.

Technocracy can still be crazy. You can start the game with a double expertise scientist, and he essentially gives your planet a bonus in research in two categories for example in physics and engineering. Plus your ruler if you make it a scientist also starts off with an expertise trait. Which means just from scientists alone you can start the game with 3 traits on the council. Pretty darn strong if you ask me. Yet your saying its as strong as idyllic bloom.

I love these videos. Much more useful than the crusade civic.

Could you do a traditions tier list? I don't know what to pick after the prosperity nerf. T_T Love the content as usual.

MegaCorp list next? Lot of new ones and changes since your last list came out, and I wanna see where my Pharma GigaChurch stacks on its holy crusade for profit

Tier list crusade, let's go!

They did change the eager explorer. You can now que up jumps as long as the other jumps are within range. Mainly only helps at the beginning making surveying systems and claiming them a little faster. And with war, you can skip defense choke points and catch hostlie fleets where you want to fight them

I do think the council positions are a crucial part of the civic. so I would have preferred to see them taken in consideration here. but hey thanks for the work again!

I'd say the hive version of Mutagenic vats(Permutation pools) is an A. Doesn't have the happiness drop(cause hives don't have happiness), is pop assembly not growth, and any "perfect" worlds(hive/gaia) more than offset the habitability penalties. On a idyllic bloom/permutation pools plantoid build i hit 51 and 57 pop assembly on the 2 industrial gaia worlds fueling my crusade.

You should go on a Crusade against your production team for that graphic mixup on Philosopher King showing Beacon of Liberty.

One of my personal favorites is pairing relentless industrialists with a toxoid tomb world origin and taking rapid breeders to offset the reduced pop growth. Usually take Masterful Crafters as well. I deliberately terraform into tomb worlds as I can live on them easily, but nobody else except machines.

You missed the merchant guild's diplomatic stance as well, which gives an empire wide 10% trade boost. Also, while trade is not very good WITHOUT a focused build, with it becomes kind of incredible. Start the game with a trade federation for Trade League, have thrifty (and potentially charismatic) and after just a few years to complete the mercantile tree (which trade league makes easy with its unity) and suddenly every pop is GOOD. As an example, in a new game I started recently, without any tech boosts or things like that, a single trader on a brand new world is producing roughly 20 trade value which becomes 10 energy, 4 consumer goods, 4 unity (and amenities too!). Which is just hugely better than any other job at this stage of the game. Going back to the Merchant ruler job, it produces 15 base trade (with thrifty), which becomes ~30 thanks to the trade bonuses from xenophile etc, which is 15 energy 6 consumer goods 6 unity (and 3.6 amenities with a charismatic race). A politician gives... 6 unity and 3.6 amenities, maybe adds another 50% boost from stuff at the early game for 9 unity. So that merchant job is essentially twice as good as a normal ruler job. That's not a huge bonus in the grand scheme of things, but its not bad either.

Can't wait to crusade to the other civic tier list😊

Just played a game vs Gand Admiral, no scaling, vs a galaxy of 18 DE AI. Sovereign Guardian + Scavangers made salvaging fleets that smashed againsty starbases very profitable. Usually got 2-3 times the alloys as it took to replace the lost defense platforms. Had a salvager 3 scientist also, basically didn't build a ship past the midgame i was getting so much in salvage. The salvaged ships use the hull size of what is salvaged but the designs that you have for that size. This means that if you have archotech loadouts you can get around the minor artifact costs by salvaging instead of building.

Police State is something I'm a little sentimental about, because it helps keep the amount of factions down through the council position buff. It's very useful if you use under one rule and go the civil war route because it reduces the amount of planets and pops that'll rebel against you, and after the civil war it helps you remove that annoying egalitarian faction that is forced to spawn. Plus the stability can be nice for early game as a buffer. I want to give it A tier, I really suggest playing around with it if you have issues with unwanted factions.

Pompous Purists is kind of fun since everyone except those empires who have closed boarders on by default will always have open boarders to you. Makes it really easy to travel across the galaxy and access mission locations

"You want to limit entertainers " Oh... glances at my planets full of the buggers. Oh well, Planet Disco Ball with pleasure seekers and indentured servants seems like a fun place to be.

17:50 I don't know if it is still in the game, but you used to be able to restore ruined ecumonlopli if you were also lucky enough to get the First Federation start (specifically, the secrets of the first fed.)

Now we need Hive Mind Civics ... I wanna see where you rank Rogue Servitor!

@montuplays is on a CRUSADE to make sure nobody skips around in his vids 😉

Definitely worth to try Eager explorers + Doomsday origin for hard challenge. In Doomsday backstory, its written that they had to invent drives capable of exceeding the speed of light(In this case, these are jump drives)in a short time to leave the dying planet.

I'm about to end my crusade in trying to convince you about some builds. Catalytic processing was very strong for years (3 years ago it was the strongest rush build in single player and remained about top rushes to this day), because of 0 pops food production modules in starbases. Anglers made it even better offering strongest 3 planet setup economy in early game. Relentless Industrialist - is as good as Masterful Crafters, as upon selecting related policy you can boost building boost up to +60% alloy/consumer goods production bonus. Beside tomb world species it works for habitats and ecumenopolies 🙂 Shadow Council - code breaking affects first contact thus it usually means at least few hundred influence more. Basically winning the race at establishing contact is the most difficult initially and after that it snowballs with each success. Not bad initially for rapid expansion. Ascensionist - one of the best tall strategies since summer last year. It out-techs tech empires from midgame. Not even mentioning crazy unity it still has. Makes Spiritualist the best technology producer ethic in game. Ironic, as there was time when Materialists with Technocracy were really great at unity production. How the table has turned

Just realized the pun on starship troopers with the citizen service 😂

We boutta go on a crusade with this one 🔥

This video really helps with my crusade to learn the Stellaris meta.

Glad my personal Empire is based on the Terran Federation from Starship Troopers: Citizen Service, Meritocracy and Distinguished Admiralty are all fantastic when used together.

Agrarian Idyll only disables the Arcology Project Ascension perk and the Anti-gravity Engineering tech. If you pick the perk / research the tech before picking the civic, you can have ecumenopolises.

Named my Super Destroyer in Helldivers 2 the SES Beacon of Liberty. "This society is a shining beacon of light in a sea of darkness. Liberty and individual freedoms are held in the highest regard here."

I've been out 2-3 patches. I was about to start up a trade empire campaign.... what did I miss? Why is trade value not good anymore?

Catalytic Processing Crusaded it's way to S-Tier. Players: "The age of the Foodies has begun..."

Have you thought about doing differential lists at this rate, Montu?

Sovergn guardianship becomes even more impressive with Gigastructures. Pop that on a Frame World or Birch and just enjoy the bonuses.

Nice vid. Would it be possible to make one for the ascension perks? the 3.9 one is a bit outdated :D

Pompous purists is a nice roleplay civic, or when you just have a personal crusade against dumb AI proposals for trade deals lol It's a fun one to try every now and again, but yeah not perfect. It has been quite a while since I really played stellaris or thought about an empire build, this was a really handy video to get back into things. I can't wait for the megacorp list of current ones though for a second opinion on those, I did enjoy playing a mercenary fleet megacorp when that was first put out.

I was thinking about doing a barbaric despoilers empire. Probably fanatic militarist. What do you guys suggest for second and third civics? Was considering going for necrophage purge so i dont have to deal with garbage pop traits after I go off despoiling. Maybe lean hard into rivalries since most empires are not going to like me anyhow? I havent done a rivalry build yet.

Montu, what about Mutagenic Spas on Gaia worlds? They're always at 100% Habitability, right? And as for Catalytic Processing, does the +2% Metallurgist output even matter given that Metallurgists are replaced by Catalytic Technicians?

After watching some of your play throughs all I can think is "well chat here is a list of the best ways to screw over my run" 😂

I swear every time you finish a teir list a rework happens to change it completely, feels like every patch is a crusade vs you 🤣 On the line of teir lists however, do you have any plan to have a tier list lookat the various agendas? would love to see how good they compare with eachother meta wise

I'm totally not staring at my subscriptions feed for when the Megacorp Civics 3.11 list comes out.....................

thanks for crusading stellaris knowledge into my brain, you big dork you.

I'm curious why you didn't mention that Dark Consortium's "Breakthrough" thing lets you get Fallen Empire tech without fighting them. I'd think that alone makes it a lot better?

As much as I understand you love for crusade, I myself am partial to Technocracy, reall enjoy the flavour of it. Hopefully they will buff it. Do you have any favourite Civic overhaul mods?

Always wild seeing how these tier lists change between patches. Long live farmers!

did you think that if you could have an origin that gives you more that one planer in your control even with the stargazer this tearlist will have changes in the sames tear or will that be too niche? i really want more people to know about this game someonte should do a mod something like a limited tutotial "scenario", I believe that they should introduce demo-like scenarios with less resorces, more simple ui (only that needed by the scenario) and the voice actor of the tutorial(or anyone) telling some really basic story ,because i think that making a Colonice/Restore this planet scenario were you or do a Crusade, both teaching the basic of the economy and warfare the rest can be explore by the player, sorry for my english, it is not my first languaje

Dark Consortium has good synergy with masterful crafters and keepers of the shroud origin. Between dark matter, adaptability and mind over matter you have a lot of tech agendas to push for leader xps and advanced tech. Your guaranteed to get early psi ascension, access to terraforming and dark matter. All the while your collecting a nice chunk of energy giving you a really efficient research economy. Fun build.

A quick note on aristocratic elite, when running stratified economy, it gives you extra leader jobs. Which means that 2% stability actually translates to incredibly high stability bonuses. Like 11% which can translate to huge resources bonuses. Well worth giving up that building slot.

So, ascenionist is actually pretty good with knights of the toxic god origin. The habitat and your planet both get the ascension tier, which is neat. still not the best pick out there, but its kinda cool, could spec out of it later

I love you Montu ♥

Mmm question, why/how are culture workers the best unity production jobs if they are limited to a few per planet? Are there ways to mass them?

Looks like a live stock Crusade is the meta. Leisure ecumenopolis filled with livestock feeds multiple forge ecumenopolis and refinery worlds. Love it.

Oh man Montu, As i work through my 4th campaign, in 1 year i realize that this game truly has more options than i do in real life :-) ... I made the ai competitors and galaxy as large as possible and continue to learn .. i love this game !

Dark consortium can be added after game start, you just need dark matter drawing tech. And the extra dark matter than you are producing from the game start, from the deposit or researchers, can immediately be sold for extra energy creds or saved up for crisis rush, allowing you to complete AE faster. Should be a B or A tier.

I love me some Crusader Spirit. You CAN still use Subjugation war goal and the Crusader trait is pretty good for admirals but it's GREAT for generals.

The intro star wars clip is perfect

What the hell? i literally watched your 3.6 one this morning

Need that mega corp tier list

You forgot to mention that agrarian Idyll forces you to be a pacifist

Can we get a general build order for early game alloy rush?

Crusaders be surprised how much Anglers has changed. Probably going to have to revisit Anglers / catalytic processing.

Are we gonna see a tier list for the other empire types?