TL:DR Mutual Defense is now C Tier. It has been brought to my attention that the Mutual Defence chain has been changed. It is now +10 PERCENT per level not +10 absolute naval capacity. For that reason I am moving it up to C tier. Now, it still suffers heavily from the increased ship ukpeep. By mid-late game you will probably already have at least +50% naval capacity in bonuses from various technologies, traditions or diplomatic stances. For that reason the effective increase of the naval capacity modifier is actually less than +10% per level. Assuming you already have modifiers totaling +50%, each +10% will add between +5% and +7% to your capacity. This means it is usually going to be 'just enough' to offset the extra ship upkeep costs assuming you increase your navy to fill this new capacity. If you are not at or over your naval capacity before embarking on this chain these resolutions will ALWAYS be a net cost, as you will always count as being over naval cap due to the increased upkeep. I still don't think it is worth pursuing, but now it is just an annoyance rather than very detrimental.

I had a chokepoint against a robot empire that ended up being Tiyanka Vek. I went down the harmony research that let them not hate me so when the vote came up I had to preserve the whales. The robots could not attack me without violating galactic law. I always save the whales now, for they saved me.

The galaxy brain move is forcing through all of the F tier resolutions and then leaving the galactic community.

Tiyanki and Amoeba conservation act is actually S-tier. I support it every time. Nobody touches the space animals.

"You'll get more pacifist ethics attraction, which you probably don't want" You can tell how Monu like to play, or rather, doesn't.

"The 3 largest empires by diplomatic weight will get a seat on the council and then they'll get even more diplomatic weight." That's perfectly realistic, looking at you, UN security council.

I just finished a game the other day where the fallen empire awoke and the custodian resolution was up next, and an AI empire decides it's the perfect time to use an emergency measure to discuss Tiyanki conservation. Phenomenal.

"selling slaves is very profitable" -Montuwu 2022

Mutual defense is good because you can force everyone in the galaxy to build a fleet to fight the crises.

This is dedication! "Pointless" resolutions are often valuable by avoiding passing unwanted resolutions. Banning colossi can be an excellent move single player causing problems to enemy empires and it's possible to spam armies to take the tough Fallen Empire worlds. In general my runs have been swamped with energy credit despite not using wealth creation, so a 3% reduction simply puts enemy empires in difficulty. That's useful for trade cooperation who have access to magic trade energy trees

Wow. That bit about when there's a crisis and the galactic Community will be busy debating space whales is so true to life

not having watched/heard everything, you might have missed that the Mutual defense proposal line actually gives naval capacity percentage instead of only max 50 naval cap

12:05 Pirates is something I feel that should get an overhaul of some kind.

The Imperial Legion is useless, but totally badass to send them to invade!

Not sure I agree that "good for everyone" is what makes something S tier. If it helps someone more than it helps you, is it actually good for you? I'd argue it's not. Personally I think the true S tier consist of the things where the difference between how much it helps/hurts one empire compared to another is the largest. That is, unless you're playing a co-op game.

Galpol also unlocks a special espionage operation for the emperor. If there is an empire undermining authority galpol allows you to kill those envoys and prevent reassignment to that task for 5 years

An HOUR!? Excited to listen to this in the car over the next three days haha

Montu is definitely wrong about some things here in the F tier (I haven't gotten to the higher tiers as I am writing this). The Tiyanki Conservation act is definitely C tier. You said that all it does is waste time in the senate, and thats actually exactly why I think its C tier. I have had times where the next thing that would come to the senate would negatively impact me, but I also didn't have the diplomatic weight to vote it down. By supporting the tiyanki conservation act I have been able to get it above the act that would harm me, and stall for time while I got enough diplomatic weight to bring other positive acts up, or shoot down the negative act. Simply because it doesn't do anything, and allows you to stall for time when necessary it deserves to be above F tier, and since the AI always proposes it itself you don't have to worry about spending the influence to propose it. The Rules of War line is also easily much higher. It makes fighting wars more difficult, and depending on your build that can actually be a good thing. If you are playing a pacifist turtle/inward perfection/ whatever else, and have no intention of expanding your borders making it more difficult for the AI to declare war on you is a positive thing. Symmetrical effects can, and do have asymmetrical outcomes when you are able to manipulate them to your advantage. I think the reason why Montu put this in F tier is because he tends to play a more aggressive style, and definitely if thats what you're going for then yeah its F tier. But I think with a generalized tier list all viable builds should be taken into consideration. The same happened with his Civics tier list (I believe it was his at least, correct me if I am wrong). He put Inward perfection in A tier because "It really limits your playstyle despite its powerful effects." and put fanatic purifiers in the S tier when I would argue it limits your playstyle even more. I just think that he probably leans towards a more aggressive style, so as fanatic purifiers fits that better than inward perfection he put it higher. Not that I am faulting him for that, I certainly lean towards a more turtly playstyle, so Inward Perfection appeals to me. I'm looking forward to any and all disagreements, or alternative opinions! :)

Sees the Senate. Sees The Stellaris senate. This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them!

-2% energy megaCorp: oh no Anyway

Ironically the 'Mutual Defense' line is actually best with a super-duper heavy economy focused empire, because if you can afford to eat up the cost, then who cares. Instead it's a great way of screwing over everyone else, the space-age version of forcing your kid to smoke a whole carton of cigarettes when you catch em doing it once. It's actually not bad to do so as a pacifist either. I will say that, depending on your empire type, the specific resolution of "Profit Maximization Engines" is probably B-tier. Again it's for more niche things, but it can be powerful if used right. It's primarily meant to be for a Merchant-rush style of play of course, but a heavily stratified economy or the Pompous Purists civic can actually work out extremely well. Extra points if stacked with Pacifism and/or Harmony/Prosperity to boot. Up to Integrated Gardens (unless a Hive Mind or Machine empire) is actually really solid no matter what, as the "costs" as long as your diplo weight is not mostly born of your economy. Otherwise, the benefits from it are really solid and don't hurt you that much. Universal Prosperity Mandate is amazingly good fun in a long-term multiplayer match. It can seriously screw over people in SO many ways. It can be hilarious. But rarely recommended, as the AI, even if you force it through, basically doesn't care about their own pops (shocker) and so it really never seems to impact them in any bad way. Divinity of Life is a good counter to tech-rushing. Albeit kind of a slow one. It's also great if you do not care at all about robots (like if you do the biological ascension), because as long as you can handle the loss of diplomatic weight from technology, the bonuses are amazingly good, especially at higher levels. It's funny from a meta-point too considering how many real life politicians feign being all in favor of protecting "life" while happily doing everything to make that "life" as miserable as possible for everyone but themselves. Imperial Charter is probably one of the better Imperium-specific things you can do. As long as there's one MegaCorp (that isn't you) in the galaxy, you can make things really good. Because by opening up the floodgates, as it were, that MegaCorp can now freely open branch offices on every world in the entire galaxy (or close to it). And those can provide an utter slew of bonuses to the MegaCorp and every planet that it happens on, with the Imperium of course getting their share to boot. Industrial Development is probably the single strongest chain in the game, with the least amount of drawbacks to boot. Project Cornucopia (at least until you can get a Matter Decompressor) is absolutely god-tier to use on any planets with even a moderate amount of mining districts already done on it, or on any planet with a 'High-Quality Minerals' or something similar, bonus on it as well, or both.

Ideas for future videos: 1. A Precursor Tier list, taking into account of different origins. (I for one really want to see the option of being able to pick which one you get in a future update.) 2. A proper guide to Defensive Platforms and Ion Cannons.

14:30 With the galactic community it's not just how much you want it. But also how hard you should fight the AI on it. I take it that most of the F tier ones are the ones you actively want to oppose while the C tier ones are harmless.

The Defense Privatization one is really good way to shrink fleets of your enemies if you just go energy production heavy. In other words, great for those megacorps.

I'm personally a fan of passing the Tiyanki resolution ASAP at the start of the game in AI games: the AI will frequently support it, moving it to the top of the queue and helping pass a policy for the agenda, and because the AI does not like repealing policies in general, attempts to repeal it will often result in it languishing at the bottom of the queue forever while more important policies hop the queue ahead of it because of the greater support for them. Although if you have a lot of militaristic/xenophobic empires (or vice-versa) that might not work out, but it usually works out for me like that.

the galactic community is heavily role play, while the protection of amoebas is good if you are a xenophile and you do not want your allies and vassals to lose their fleets in your territory full of amoebas

I like the defence privatisation ones though. Because you’re screwing everyone over, not just yourself. Because I’m making so much money by the mid to late game, I just run over my naval capacity. Sometimes, up to double my capacity. No other empire is able to do that so no one can stand up to me. I know this isn’t going to work for every play style or strategy but, as a criminal syndicate, I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. I’ll just do a Scrooge McDuck and dive into a vault of money while the rest of the galaxy is crime ridden and addicted to those drugs I’ve been selling to them. Of course, in this game, that means leaping into a chamber of pure energy but I’d argue that it’s not much worse than shattering all your bones face planting onto a pile of coins.

Today I learned that banning slave trade is bad.

I have to say that I am very pleased with both the topic and length of this video. Keep up the good work Montu

10:00 I don’t know man, personally I have never truly felt it, I need to use those thousands of credits on something Is a 100% of diplomatic weight for fleet, and since IA has problems (and will probably always have) with their economy so they are forced to take out their fleet you end up being the only one with militar power

Bro, I don't know which was better. "I am the senate!" or "Save the whales." I'm laughing so hard my dog thought I was in trouble and came to investigate. I don't know why the A.I. empires always fight over the Tiyanki resolutions, it's so weird.

Nice timing! About to start delightfully enjoying this

Gotta answer the callout although I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't watch any of your videos from start to finish. If we don't have a massively entertaining full playthrough we get great information such as this.

Love the videos and VODs! They have all helped me immensely in my Stellaris games.

I got to this point! I honestly hadn’t payed attention to the galactic community before this, thank you very much, I learnt a lot.

I have now reached the point and I will keep the secret Montu, thanks for these type of videos Montu. Specially this one, sometimes I forget to check what is happening in the galactic community (specially during a tricky war) and the AI sneaks in some dumb resolutions, so knowing which ones I should really keep an eye for helps a lot.

I know this is already a long video, but I think you really need to evaluate different steps of the multistep resolutions differently. A lot of resolutions have really good early steps but later steps that aren't worth it, or are situational. I know you try to account for it to give them an overall rating, but I don't think that really captures how you should approach them.

i never realized that Rules of War gave so many nice effects on its higher lvls. Should definitly try to push that resolution more from now on.

Very enjoyable. Been waiting for this for a while.

Thank you so much for this tier list, good to know the resolutions better. Also now know why I was in breach of Galactic law in quite a few playthroughs, needless to say I will never improve relations via favors ever again so I can actually have a chance to shut some of these F-C tiers down.

This is a very much needed guide. The galactic community always felt opaque to me prior to this. Also pretty much agree with the S Tier.

As a robot empire, I hate that mercenary resolution so much. Last game the AI loved pushing it, but since I couldn't found mercenaries of my own I was constantly in violation whenever one of our two power blocs got into a war.

We need a Tiyanki documentary narrated by sir David Attenborough's head. Need it.

bro you have to be kidding me, just searched the whole internet, including your channel, for a tier list on resolutions yesterday.

This was actually very useful. There isn't a way in game to look at the entire chain at once so I'm bookmarking this video.

Thanks for the content Montu!

I used Imperial Legions, Cybrex Warforms, both types of Mercenaries, Clones, and the Undead to defeat the Crystalline bane. My Armies are at a total of 24k and not even fallen empires mean anything. It is worth while enough as I don't have a colossus this run as I desperately needed shared destiny for my 20 ish vassals.

Idunno man, readied shield level 2 is easy s tier for any sort of war-waging. Everyone you're waging war against immediately get turbo-fucked by galactic law the moment you kill their fleets. It's super good. It basically forces them into vassal relationships, which also helps if you're an overlord type because then all your vassals can do whatever whereas all the independent nations *have* to build beyond their econ. As long as you don't mess up and get yourself hurt by it, it's so good. Especially since players often end up going overcap anyhow so losses here and there are whatevs. And not only that, but if you are the type to go around with big fleets it helps you push further laws through and secure your spot on the galactic council.

This is great. I always wondered what to do with most resolutions/laws.

Always with you 'till the end brother. Love your videos, it's always a pleasure to watch you. ^^

I’d note the pro-overlord and GDF resolutions are currently bugged as of 3.4.3. For the pro-overlord resolutions, the 2nd and 3rd are meant to lower the limit of holdings you can stipulate within contractors and compensate for that by giving extra holdings by default. Currently it does take away holdings allowed in contracts but doesn’t give you the extra holdings in return. For the GDF, currently it counts towards the used naval capacity of the custodian/emperor, and it is supposed to not count towards your fleet size at all.

a monumental video indeed... I did enjoy this

Your description of Defense Privatisation has inspired me to see whether it's S-Tier in a Naval Contractors Megacorp playthrough

Made it all the way to the end and this was a very interesting teir list, I had no idea how you were even going to pull it off but I agree with your assessments of each on, with the caveat that often Timex the galactic community anoys me deeply because the AI wastes so much time on things like slave whales and repealihg things that have already passed. It's cool if you become the custodian or the emperor 🙂 I do wish the AI was smarter and didn't just waste time but given the state of that UN, the EU and NATO, I suppose it's not that far off from the truth lol!! Great video Montu, this was a crazy amount of work no doubt!! I'm very impressed!!

I haven't paid the Galactic Community any mind as a new player because things seem so minor early but this is a good wake-up call if I ever make it to the end game thank you.

I liked that the callout ended at 45:45. Also a note, the GDF / imperial arcade doesn’t have a cap on the number of titans that can be in it. I’d love to get your opinion Montu on if a fleet of 50 ish titans is good, or if we’d be better of with battle cruisers.

Great video. Thank you.

Omg there's so much info here. Tbh I've mostly ignored the galactic community and now I know why weird things kept happening to my resources 😭 The completion-ist in me is very upset that doing everything just because it's possible might be a bad idea.

Got em in the call out the science one.

I'm just surprised that Montu didn't go "If you're a regular Machine Empire, Level 5 of Divinity of Life will allow you to become a Rogue Servitor by granting you a whopping 4th Civic! Which is completely bonkers!"

Hilight the icons as you discuss them. I often find myself trying to figure out what icon being discussed.

Of course I'm watching till the end:)

The council veto resolution is on the galactic reforms category, which means it shares the icon with all those resolutions which are various degrees of good/bad (denounce, change council size, nominate custodian, etc.)

brilliant opening To the video.

Dude, new to the channel but have absolutely been loving your videos! These tier lists have been steller since I finally bought the game on the last big sale. Do you have any videos on the tech tree? More specifically like which techs are worth while in the early game depending on the build? Pop growth always seems worth it, while some buildings seem pretty meh. Would love to hear your thoughts on the best technology and paths!

Extremely useful! :)

Diversity of Life is ok for pure machine empires IF they haven't gone rogue servator/DA/DE as it is +1 civics choice as well since you can choose to move to Rogue Servator, but you keep all your previous ethics and civics. But thats the only exception.

I got a pretty fun run where the galactic market was proposed and passed 6 times before someone actually proposed one of its planets to host it. I had never seen such a situtation, and idn't think I would have it going 6 times in a row... Sometimes you discover things even in games you think you've been through any possible situation

For some reason I always get a hit of dopamine with the enunciation and tonality of the way he says Stellaris.

If someone even looks at a space whale wrong they will get shot I love those guys

Defense privitization can be used against your enemies, but you'll need a massive economy. Just build lots of fortress habitats and fortress worlds to regain the lost naval cap. Then, you'll have the largest fleet in the galaxy and have the most fortified sector in your game, while your enemies suffer a reduced navy. Add to that your mercenaries, and it's gg for the other empires.

Passing the mercernary reforms is a laugh. I love it. As a megacorp it's amazing.

Love your vids mate, can I suggest making a new tier list for corporate civics since the new overlord dlc added holdings to some of them?

This video being posted on 6/9. Nice.

Very nice Video, some good tips for my next game :) and angering my friends in our mp game :)

Level one Defense privatisation works very well with my playstyle actually. I take Nihilistic Acquisition and Shared destiny and vasalize other empires. When I go to war, I steal their most interesting systems and their pops, and by aiming for status quo instead of outwrite vitories, I also split other empires into smaller and smaller bit size empires. Lots of small empires means lots of Megastructures, habitats and mercenaries for me to steal, much more than I could possibly build on my own.

Protecting Space Whales Is S-Tier. My Tiyanki Bois deserve to be safe.

The Imperial Legion and Anti-Piracy are nice for role playing though. I love invading the Imperial Legion plus the best armies of my founder pops as my most prestigious army.

i can NOT be the only person channeling his inner palpatine and quoting out loud when change council size/abolish council/become emperor

I Enjoy it and watching till the end

One of my stations actually got saved from pirates by space amoeba. Safe to say I will always cherish the space squids

Worth noting for the GDF, You can build titans with it. You know, those ships you can ordinarily only build one of per 200 fleet cap? Yeah, just build as many of them as you like by putting them on the GDF' ledger instead. You might also consider doing that with mercenary fleets too...

My most recent playthrough I had such a despised empire that the galactic community offered a denouncement proposal for my empire like three separate times, only one of them successfully passing. There were never any sanctions in play and the council got jack all done by the time I became the crisis.

Good god is this the longest video yet? The editing time!

I didn't even notice the science resolution boosts solar panels by 100%. That's pretty crazy. We already have civics, ascension perks, traditions and techs that boost starbase cap (although taking the ascension perk might be questionable) and techs that improve starbase output. Additionally, unyielding cuts their costs in half and fortify the border speeds upgrades up.

9:25, I think mutual defense has recently been changed and is now atleast A tier, with the static bonus naval cap changed into % increase. Some levels currently seem bugged as I'm only getting +10% while at resolution level 3.

It`s kinda weird but really cool stuff. Must be very interesting to do stuff with it

Becoming custodian then getting rid of term limits is so satisfying. After it passes I pause the game, exhale and think "well I won the game."

+1 monthly influence is worth a lot more than 2% Energy. There are no games where I'm capped on influence with nothing do with it, but almost every game, I end up being flooded with energy credits by the endgame. I would pay more than 2% energy for 1 influence.

Thank you I needed this, also gonna get some pop corn

To me I don’t know why people care about the length of a video. I tend towards those of longer variety hoping they have more detail, like yours. In fact if I see a video 10mins or less I usually don’t even watch them bc I figure they don’t have much depth in them. My two cents anyway. I appreciate your vids! Watching all of them they are very good ty

Great vid, btw, have you considered doing a video on the current situation of the op armor/hull regen tissues and how that will impact the warfare meta? Or is it more likely a thing to be fixed soon so not worth doing it?

"What about the droid empire attack on the space whales?" "Bro shut up we're literally fighting energy monsters!!"

Y'know seeing the mutual defence pact, and thinking of how a militarist faction on your empire would lobby for that: You should get a positive or negative opinion modifier from a faction depending on what you vote on the community. So if you got a massively powerful fanatic militarist faction, voting against that would tarnish your unity, or influence, or something.

If your watching this now, the militarist resolution is by percent now making it like A tier

I don't know if you've noticed or called it out in any other video. But I figure it is something worth mentioning in regards to the Galactic Defense Force being ranked so highly. And even for Federations. Currently in Stellaris, there is no Titan or Juggernaut capacity limit on Federation or Galactic Defene Force fleets. In several games I have played recently, I have gotten the GDF to have 40 titans in it, which as an Ascendant Clone race, running 'No Retreat' and numerous other tradition for a cumulative +150% fire rate, is very silly, watching Perdition Beams and Kinetic Artillery firing *a lot* faster.

good timing, i'm doing some "friendmaker" vassalization runs atm which obviously wants to manipulate the cummunity, as well as thinking about modding the community to fix some stuff like flat naval cap bonuses and maybe add a few new trees, and fix stuff such as the federation dissolution for the emperor. Why would the new emperor, the unilateral leader of the galaxy decide to betray his loyalists that helped him get into the position.... :D Gotta disagree on the defense porioritization though, that can be usefull, until you get overrun by high difficulty crisis because you can't field enough fleets. Screwing up fleet management for people si the entire purpose of it. Then again people can jsut leave the cummunity (if you're too slow at turning it into an empire ;D

Hey but the defense resolution now gives +50%naval cap its absurdely op

this guy going on about veto powers and here i am with my empire that just my diplomatic weight alone acts like a veto power unless literally everyone else is going against me. and the second strongest empire in the community is my vassal so i can easily make them either join me or not intervene.

watched the whole thing :)