Stellaris Ultimate Tall Empire Build

stellaris really only gets worse over time, the meta build every time i come back requires a new dlc while everything else gets more boring and tedious

So far looking good, at 2300 staying at 98 empire size with 6 colonies, 17 system and 250 pops

I don't even know that in my first time playing I built an empire like that just by rushing technology and then focusing a little on unity + expanding quickly in the start

It's been about a month. I can't force myself to play any other build- and I hated playing democracies. Careful with that.

at year 2313...you have 11k tech ? what ? how ? with just 11 planets / worlds ? I'm sorry if I'm a total noob, but how is this possible lol ?

I need to see a full play of this build

This pairs nicely with the Statecraft tradition which will give you a flat -5% empire size. Useful if you want to push your empire to be a little bit bigger.

With the planetary ascension. You can get +70% effect if you take the ascension it’s civic, harmony tradition, and form a spiritual federation.

Meaning you could get up to -85% on empire size contribution from planets.

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And since that -85% includes Pops, Planets & Districts. You could quite feasibly reach 0% contribution to empire size from each of those 3 things. - only systems & starbases would count.

Since this puts no requirements on the Origin you select, you can do some fun stuff with flavour as well.

Or meta-wise. Get +60% Growth Speed from the Overdrive traits.

Fun fact, you can also do this with Gestalt empires.

Sovereign Guardianship, -50%.
Subsumed Will/OTA Updates, -20%.
Domination Tradition, -10%.
Harmony Tradition, -10%.
(Hive only) Cybernetic Tradition, -10%. (?)
The Greater Good 4, -10%.

This video needs to come down, its basically`pointless now

For Barbaric responders one does not have egalitarian is they have xenophobe. Take egal rather than fanatic egal to get xenophobe?

Tall empire is my favorite build cuz wide empire gets boring cuz you lose out on the whole point of being powerful after you've already conquered your enemies.

Tall empire tho, you can be powerful, and still actually have enemies to have fun with

New to the game and didn't see it.. why is egalitarian needed?

I'm currently playing tall and I've been abusing the surveyor relic and making my systems amazing with an abundance of resources

Ok but what if you don't have those dlc. Only build I could make would need to be fanatic pacifist which means no vassals by force

Devourer's wet dream

i did this with machines since i play those the most, did it on a shattered ring origin, as machine you can just go take the 2 other segments of the ring since you have 200% habitability with them which negates the -100% habitability and was able to get pops down to next to nothing
as machines you can take OTA updates that give 20% to pop size along side the 50% from guardian matrix then you take the machines 2 traditions to get the 10% pop size from them and your government level will do the rest or you can take the 10% pop size in machine traits streamlined protocols to get to 100%
when i was satisficed with the setup i was at 75% for districts and 99% for pop size since the ruler is giving 9% and in a few levels they will give 12% and remove pop size
15 districts was giving .5 to size and 40 pops was giving .3 to empire size

i am going to look at hive minds as they can get 50% to planet size from perk along with their version of the matrix so i think hive minds will have an even easier time with tall builds over other races and hive minds can take the ocean world origin so they can start with that sweet 30 size planet
they can even take rift world so they can possible get the amazing GAIA, if you know you know

so after doing some more testing with machines you just need OTA updates guardian matrix and a lvl 10 ruler to get free pops as the machine ruler gives -3% pop size per level
getting to that point takes a long time but given that means you don't need to get the -20% pop upkeep in the traditions tree it does mean you have more options for traditions then you do with the other 0 pop size

Alright but this civic is... not really that good? Main point of actual tall empires is to have smaller size but equal production in terms of resources.
If this civic was good for tall gameplay, it should've added resource generation bonuses to make up for horrendous downsides.

Doesn't work now unless I'm doing something totally wrong. Followed this though

I am playing this with Ringworld origin and it is the most fun I’ve had in Stellaris! It did take a while to start popping off, but now I’m about to take the center of the galaxy and I have twice the diplo weight of the next most powerful empire. It’s super enjoyable and engaging to play!

possibly even stronger as a Cybernetic Hive, since they can theoretically get -110% empire size per pop (meaning that you won't depend on getting Greater good 4), -25% ES per Colony, and -100% ES District, and 'only' 125% from systems

So no ES for Pops or Districts, 7.5ES from Colony, 2.25ES from System, AND have going over 100ES be 25% lighter penalties

And is it really worth it? What so bad is going to happen if empire size will be more than 100? A few % penalty on research speed and traditions?

I cant figure it out right now. No matter what I do I either get my research crapped on, or my unity crapped on...

This looks so fun lol. Hope I can get some free time before this gets addressed (if they're gonna touch this)

A shame I don't have Astral Planes...

Crime at 100%,unemployement 780,pops at 933,homeless 435,amenities -625....yet stability at 65% ?????

seems like the docile trait for -10% empire size from pops would be key here

It's like starting off as a Fallen Empire before becoming the next cycle's fallen Empire.

Those stability modifiers are, from a lore perspective, hilarious:
"So what's life like on this planet?"
"Well, over 98% of our population is unemployed, all available buildings are stuffed five families to a room and billions more live on the streets and in tent slums. Colonial amenities are so overwhelmed that it's a miracle we can access air, let alone entertainment or healthcare. It's completely infested with crime and not only does the population continue to increase, but our government keeps abducting people from openly hostile empires and forcibly relocating them to our already overwhelmingly packed cities, then setting them free to live among us."
pause
"So yeah, it's great! We all love it! Move here ASAP, just don't bring any furniture because there's no room for it and a family will have moved into your cabinet before you even find somewhere to put it down!"

I am trying out a modifiered version with non-adaptive and intelligent instead of sedation and talented, but it does not feel like i am getting the same results. Would it be possibe for you to maybe expand the strategy explanation a bit?

I have no idea how you got so many habitats and planets without going over 100. I followed your build, took all the tradition perks you recommended, switched out from Parliament to Beacon as soon as I could and I still ended up over 100 empire size every time I went over more than three colonies.

Was there a balance patch or something over the past five days that killed this build or do I have to be overlooking something stupid and obvious?

Its a shame how the games taking a weird Gov focused playstyle. I haven't bothered buying the last 3dlc's, overpriced

I don't think you even need to have the Galactic Senate for the final -5%. The racial trait 'Docile' gives you -10% empire size from pops.
Docile -10
Guardians -50
Beacon -15
psionic theory -10
Dom finish -10
Harmony Perk -10
gets you -105% empire size from pops.

We must deny any migration treaties right?

Also possible with Hive Minds: Guardian Cluster (-50) + Subsumed Will (-20) + GalCom and Traditons in this video (-30). Combined with their natural -25% to empire size in general, it might be even stronger (can even throw in Natural Neural Network to mimic Utopian Abundance)

It's cool, but how in the world do you get 2k pops if you spend first 80 or so years on 3-5 planets (can't imagine more planets with expansion taken last).

Wait, what was the first tradition you picked there?
I can see Aptitude - Domination - Harmony - (likely) Synthetics - Enmity - Expansion.
So what was the first pick: Statecraft or Supremacy?

Ah, Stellaris. A perfectly balanced game, with no exploits.

You can manage this with 100% district size reduction with rogue servitor, and you can take the perk to acquire prisoners with jobs. Cant have as many colonies though due to the 50% from being machine intelligence.

Take cybernetic for easier access on some bonus to pop admin weight and overhall production + better traits

Usually in my play through, my government is essentially America and my territory extends upwards an quarter of the map (including the L-cluster)

So you know, It’s nice to find something new to try I guess.

Would it not be better to just take Docile at the start rather than getting Beacon of Liberty later on... btw did you really use the unruly trait... so basically i can just skip the Docile to get 100%?

for sovereign guardianship u need to have some degree of military so why can we take something else instead of egalitarian? is for utopian standard living?

@Montu, did you notice the empire size from pops reduction provided by governors?
-2% per level for planetary governors and -1% per level from sector governors SHOULD mean that a LV3 planetary governor OR LV5 Sector governor affecting every planet would give you 5% reduction, enough to ignore the cumbersome GALCOM resolution.
LV10 planetary governors everywhere would give -20% let you switch out of the civic (and thus egalitarian)!

Btw, new patch nerfs martial law (0.02 stability from soldiers without veteran class, so 10(!) soldiers grant a whopping 2 stability), so a few soldiers are not gonna fix stability anymore…

I dare you to play a pacifist

Montu - what are all the Traditions and perks you take? you cut your screen for most of them

TALL IS NOT POSSIBLE

sorry if I missed it but how does having 700 pops unemployed when your planet is maxed help you? are they not just a drain on the system? Looking at either doing this with a ring world or void dweller start