I used ONLY Clerks In Stellaris...

Playing with Only Clerks is... unique..
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Video Description:
Stellaris is a 4X grand strategy video game developed and published by Paradox Interactive. Stellaris' gameplay revolves around space exploration, managing an empire, diplomacy, and space warfare with other space-faring civilizations.
#Stellaris #Ep3o #Clerks

[@Ep3o]

Clerks only vs the crisis pt 2 kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4mQZmeMqa2ahdE Join the discord: discord.gg/ep3o

[@natedaniels3655]

I mass produce clerks, and absolutely run circles around everyone else in economic value, and unity. You just hate them cause you don't know how to use them.

[@davidk1308]

I have a potential challenge. Rulers (and unemployment) only. I think Aristocratic elite or Technocracy would be the best for that. Alloys would be a problem though.

[@RealVanillaCake]

You can colonize 20% habitability worlds while doing a commercial empire. Because the negative -40% ressource from job won't affect commercial value production, I tried it. The only issue is therefore the minus in pop growth, but well. It's worth it

[@RealVanillaCake]

(If I remember correctly my 4 lasts run)

[@siZeDcuBe]

and massively increased pop upkeep

[@Xandranxanda]

@@siZeDcuBe Pop upkeep which is covered by the trade and amenities generated by clerks. Takes care of itself.

[@samsonthemanson]

Pretty sure habitability affects trade now

[@Uwawa96]

The upkeep of low habitability can also be pretty painfull if you run any kind of living standard that is more then TRASH... thou I guess I should just fill those worlds with Xenoslaves ... but why not properly exploit the world then ?

[@LAZERAK47V2]

"Hold up, he's playing a Megacorp and other Megacorps haven't spawned yet? That doesn't make sense..." *Three Hive Minds Spawn* "Ok, NOW it makes sense."

[@jacobsanders5325]

You forgot about the №1 planet designation! It is a "Resort World", which gives you 1 clerk job for every 2 pops on planet

[@edgeofsky6684]

Hi. Hope this is painful

[@mycure0498]

Literally praying for his downfall fr fr 🙏

[@adrianchorolez5013]

It is very funny that the thing you hate is one of the only times you thrive during a challange

[@B3RyL]

I've said it time and time again, and I'll say it again: you can offset literally EVERYTHING with enough trade value, and since trade value scales unlike any other resource in the game, you can pretty much run your entire empire off of trade value alone (hedge-fund Megacorp), and still be competitive. It takes a bit of patience, but that's where friendly empires come in to protec, and once you max out your trade value you're an unstoppable behemoth.

[@bigbenhgy]

@@B3RyL yep, it's a lot easier to scale trade value, so even in the mid game you can achieve maximum of it.

[@natedaniels3655]

@@B3RyL Finally some other people who understand the broken math of "min-maxing".

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

All I saw here was that clerks are amazing. All that said; nobody in there right mind goes all clerks. Clerks for the right civ are amazing.

[@natedaniels3655]

I play heavy on clerks, and have the strongest economy, most of the time.

[@hubertino855]

I basicly always play trade value empires and merchants and clerks together produce so much that I can buy most of other resources not produced by trade federation law

[@iCore7Gaming]

Yeah idk what this guy was saying. I went a trade build and i was rolling in energy and consumer goods.

[@dastardlydwarf6909]

Your ruler is like screw all the other jobs sorting out paperwork is where it’s at

[@samiamrg7]

Vogons be like:

[@B3RyL]

It brings tears to my eyes to see you doing quite well as a hedge-fund Megacorp, and especially with just clerks :) This build is exactly the one I was going to play in one of the monthly multiplayer games before work threw a wrench in my plans. Of course I wasn't going to limit myself to just clerks (merchants are OP), but still, feels kind of uncanny to see my build in your video :) Also, PART 2 PLX!

[@suspectsn0thing]

The lack of competing empires... it really is beautiful, isn't it?

[@TheContingency25x]

Pain. Pain I say. Next you should do machine maintenance drone only. Honestly though VD would have been a much better origin for this.

[@santiagovidal4497]

with what alloys is he paying for those habitats though haha

[@TheContingency25x]

@@santiagovidal4497 man. There’s a bunch of ways to get alloys. If you don’t know that then you must be new to the game. Also did you even watch the video. If you did then explain to me how he managed to make starbases and then you’ll find your answer. Honestly your entire comment is kinda stupid.

[@santiagovidal4497]

​@@TheContingency25x lmaooooo what are you on about he had 86 alloys per month only by year 50 because he bought off the market, he had 8 planets by then, before that he had absolutely nothing, good luck trying to buy the 60-120 alloys monthly you need to sustain habitat development when you could be spending it on fleet. You do realize that the trade district on habitats cost the same minerals and energy upkeep giving the same amount of jobs as commercial zones right? and commercial zones are upgradeable. So you need to both have a high mineral income on both cases, but for void dwellers you need an even higher alloy income for fleet lol How can you compare the ease of spending 200 alloys on a colony ship and then focusing on minerals, on planets where your pops can grow freely, compared to habitats where you have to spend thousands of alloys or else your growth is stunted in 10 years? also I'm not new I have 930 hours which frankly isn't much of a brag, I should be going outside more loll, played since synthetic dawn released lol edit: tbh I kinda skipped through parts of the video so maybe I did miss some trick but idk how vd can really make it better lol

[@TheContingency25x]

@@santiagovidal4497 Thousands of alloys? A habitat is like 1.2k. That’s definitely not thousands. Also yes 930 hours isn’t much to brag about. I’ve got about 1.6k hours. But VD is really good when it comes to trade. I once was getting 400 energy like 4-5 years into the game playing a pure trade value build. Synthetic dawn is brilliant. Sadly no machine ship set but still it’s brilliant. Also you answered your own question.

[@santiagovidal4497]

@@TheContingency25x god damn it! lol. I do remember playing a lot of voide dweller megacorp back in the day (when it was meta) to great fun and success. But still, in this case, yeah I get that with planets when you run out of planets that's it, but in that case you can start building habitats then, right? or go trade ecumenopolis maybe, because you aren't building resource districts anyway. I just think that every alloy gained on this challenge should go to fleet, it makes the most sense to me, especially as you get to endgame there's a limit to how many alloys per month you can get through the market, even if you're making 3k a month you can't even get to 1k alloys per month for too long before the price starts shooting up.

[@amarktho]

The Vogons send their regards.

[@Kasaaz]

These days, Clerks are the worst part of Stellaris. And, all things considered, that means the game is in a pretty good place. I guess.

[@SerialSnowmanKiller]

I think that's probably because there aren't nearly as many ways to stack trade bonuses as energy/mineral/food bonuses, and there is no associated repeatable technology for them.

[@rory8182]

@@SerialSnowmanKiller yeah, only way to get good trade is merchants

[@natedaniels3655]

You guys are nuts. I utililize clerks constantly. Whole worlds dedicated to trade. I have CRAZY amounts of energy credits and unity.

[@SerialSnowmanKiller]

@@natedaniels3655 I like trade builds, but it's generally more efficient to go for Merchants instead. More trade income per pop, and pops are generally the limiting factor in your empire's power.

[@Kasaaz]

@@SerialSnowmanKiller They feel like a development dead end where.. when they weren't sure what to do, how about Clerks? *shrug* And that's as far as it went.

[@ianmurray2340]

Give us part 2. Game night only on PPV Clerks vs the endgame.

[@Ep3o]

Coming soon ;)

[@Amyante]

It's Arctic preference because Hell froze over for Ep3o to even consider this :P

[@descuddlebat]

I love clerk jobs, they create great immigration pull from open job slots

[@hydrax7131]

Great video as always, best Stellaris tuber out there for sure. As for build suggestions, try do ocean paradise barbaric despoilers and try fit as many pops onto the paradise as you can steal :D

[@TheAnalyticalEngine]

The bureaucracy is expanding, to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy

[@LAZERAK47V2]

Some tips regarding Piracy: If you set your Corvettes to patrol your Trade Routes, you can suppress Piracy quite effectively (they have the highest suppression rating). A Bastion Starbase outfitted with Hangar Bays provides a ton of Piracy Suppression. A starbase with Trade Hubs means that it can collect Trade Value from up to six systems away, meaning you don't need a Starbase over your planets and these systems are not subjected to Piracy (until you establish a Trade Route).

[@moorerm]

I definitely want to see another video with the trade clerks fighting the crisis. The Clerks-only build has been neat and I want to try it out.

[@johnelbert6291]

one thing iv notice you trade favors for alloys ( which i find to be more of a heat) yet making so much extra consumer goods that could be used to trade for alloys which is specially useful to trade with hive and machine empires which i find they can value it as much as alloys.. you can really get a lot more alloys by trading consumer goods than just making it yourself if you got a lot trading buddies.

[@alexs818]

Clerks are really good now in 3.8 if you take trade guilds civic. It gives a council position that adds 0.4 to base trade value for clerks per leader's level.

[@suspectsn0thing]

Big tip I've learned playing trade-focused pacifist megacorps (because I'm a masochist) (also, how the hell did you end up with no competing corp empires, I've never been so jealous in my life) The fact you know about the 3 free defensive platforms already is great, but once you get later on into the game, the best way to handle piracy is to periodically throw down a citadel with as many hangar bays as you can afford to shove into it. Starbase modules project their piracy suppression to neighboring systems (out to a pretty ridiculous distance once they're kitted out), whereas defensive platforms are treated as patrol ships for the purpose of piracy suppression, so they only apply their value to the system they're built in, and it's a flat 2 piracy suppression per platform. Still worth building up to the defensive platform cap on your stations when you can afford it though, imo, because it's still extra suppression and it makes you an absolute bitch and a half to invade. Also, I believe defensive platforms being treated as ships also applies to any starbase modules that buff friendly ships.

[@mohitkm7266]

1. You should get ecumenopolis, their city districts don't cost strategics and give 6 housing and clerk jobs. 2. Perhaps the scavenger civic would have been useful for getting some alloys and tech.

[@synthetic240]

You should be able to take on the Crisis. Between the Fed fleet and the Custodian fleet, that's a lot of free power. It's lucky there weren't really any other MCs.

[@___.51]

A Xenophobe learning that Xenophilia is easy mode:

[@suspectsn0thing]

The only balancing factor for multiculturalism is having to deal with 400 species variants in the species manager

[@DemonKing19951]

Okay to defend clerks a little, if you start with robots and are building tech worlds they're actually kind of just a solid 'this world pays for itself'. I tried it recently and basically just made all my pops work in research while devoting all of my districts to housing. Then I switched over trade value to give me consumer goods and I just flatly did not need to worry about those planets again. That said I avoided them everywhere else to point of just using to job to catch overflow.

[@aexdeye9812]

this video was uploaded mere weeks before the clerks got a broken buff

[@libertyprime3827]

Bro is doing better with just clerks then I do normally 💀

[@Stolskai]

I like to imagine some guy, worked in a mine all his life just like his father and his father's father, the moment his nation unifies and goes to space he's immediately deposed of his job and tools and promptly tossed into a office building to crunch numbers for the rest of his life as the mine he worked in is torn down and paved over with more office buildings.

[@BlackReshiram]

that was so much fun to watch! NOW DO THE CRISIS.

[@Willow4526]

My experience with trade routes is they automatically set to go from star bases to your capital the shortest distance. To increase trade values generated you want your trade routes going from one star base to another to your capital or the shortest direct access to your capital like through a gate way. But the more trade along the route the more piracy you'll start generating, which when it hits its piracy cap a pirate will spawn, the piracy suppression cancels out piracy, from my experience you'll never have more suppression than piracy without having corvet only fleets patrolling. Anyway hope that helps someone.

[@hideouswatermelon]

I was raging watching this because you could've taken prosperity and got even more glourious clerks

[@ahmataevo]

You do things with clerks that Kevin Smith could only dream of.

[@AdmiralxAvocado]

Every time I make something that is purely economic based I will spawn next to the Imperium of Fanatic Purifiers, the Borg, the Murderbots of Killathopia, or the Hungry Hungry Hippos.

[@phoqwel6813]

Best Stellaris content in this galaxy

[@tylertheultimatebadass87]

I'm imagining a clerk empire as the Central Bureaucracy in Futurama

[@samiamrg7]

So you’ve created a race that is the unholy spawn of a Ferengi and a Vogon.

[@triedtherest]

It would have been much less painful to start out with the Workers Cooperative Civic, which turns Trade Value into Energy, Food, Minerals AND Unity.

[@StarboyXL9]

You know what you have to do now don't you? You must do a "Politicians Only" run!

[@erikvale3194]

Initial thoughts: you should have gone the negative amenities trait because you'll be drowning in them. Also probably best as a cybernetic Empire. Also probably should have gone harder on leader traits.

[@MontuPlays]

PAIN

[@Ep3o]

I love it

[@DevelopedGames]

loved this playthrough man you always find a way to keep the game interesting

[@SharowbladyeGaymerPorate]

Ep3O should try do this with the Stellaris Evolved Mod and use he clerk buff civics.

[@Pullapitko]

I want to see you take on the crisis with that alloy production.

[@iniudan]

Common ground or imperial fiefdom instead of prosperous unification, private prospector instead of brand loyalty, and egalitarian instead of pacifist would have been much better for this challenge. Common ground or imperial fiefdom because you start knowing other empire you can have commercial deal with, letting you have access to some other resource production without employing anything else then clerk. Obviously common ground is better as you can start with a trade federation, but imperial fiefdom as the advantage of having a protector early on, just be sure to pick bulwark as your subject type. Private prospector because you can produce colony ship with energy, reducing the alloy bottleneck you are gonna have with this challenge, as you want to colonize as fast as possible, no matter the habitability, as you are highly dependant on population growth for this challenge. Egalitarian instead of pacifist, as it give you access to utopian abundance, which produce more trade then social security and unemployed generate science and more unity, letting you dedicate more corporate holding to private shipyard and mercenary outpost. Higher living standard also help with migration attraction and to mitigate unhappiness on low habitability world, until you have migration treaty with an empire with species for that world type. Probably want to take branch office as your third civic, if you didn't take it at the start instead of free trade, as you are highly depending on said branch office for your resource generation.

[@david7019]

Omg that poor doomsday empire surrounded by devouring swarms D:

[@Space-Meat]

Надо было торговать на хабитатах. С одной стороны это будет эффективно, а с другой добавит боли микроменеджмента!

[@ditzed5212]

I usually just make the first empire I see a tributary, bump them up to 75% and on GA midgame scaling I basically never have to worry about basic resources again, allowing me to specialize ALL of my worlds into alloy/research/factory/refinery and become a superpower.

[@commandershortsight]

What’s worse: clerks or farmers?

[@lucasisdabomb2]

1 farmer can feed 12 other pops, a clerk can at best feed 4 or so. So idk seems like farmers are better

[@AntiTMG]

Farmers are good for when you have cloning vats and overturned unity binus

[@PerfectAlibi1]

Anglers are better farmers + Clerks combined ^^

[@lucasisdabomb2]

@PerfectAlibi1 true, in fact that classifies as a big fact. But then you have to be anglers civic, which isn't bad but is kinda lame. Oooo you get better Farmer, big whoop

[@PerfectAlibi1]

@@lucasisdabomb2 I mean, if you stack the gains from Anglers, it will produce all of your energy, food and consumer good. And possibly a good chunk of your unity. Also can go and turn food into alloys, drastically decreasing your minerals need. ^^

[@augustduplessis5862]

They need to add tech that boosts trade value like the energy and minerals

[@trollsquad1827]

This would be better with the clerk policies mod

[@trollsquad1827]

For those who don't know it makes clerks better by giving you policies for your clerks based on your ethics to grant additional bonuses. They arent much but the xenophile 1 society research, authoritarian 2% worker pop output, and xenophobe 1 defense army can be very useful.

[@6zwbob]

could have done Common Ground origin for the day 2 trade league policy and not be forced to first tradition mercantile. or instant research co-op for the research agreements

[@Alexaltair972]

More than 1 year after i started thim game i discover only now that i can build defense platforms on non-upgraded starbases...

[@SlayXemnas]

Reject humanity, become clerk.

[@raptorofwar4415]

If I were going with a clerk build, I'd try Permanent Employment Budding to absolutely shit out clerk pops. Add on Pleasure Seekers to set the zombies to their max CG consumption (still 0) and get a bit of bonus stuff from them.

[@principleshipcoleoid8095]

The beurocracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding beurocracy

[@MrPhillipscrewdriver]

You should try this again with the new merchant's guild civic council position

[@DenemeDokio]

Huh, figured merchants would of been allowed for it due to the fact they are just clerks but a tier up.

[@chattychatotchannel]

wow I didn't know that trick with getting the governors which give trade value

[@StrudelerOfTheTSociety]

Endless retailers, peak sci-fi.

[@amberleylievense9036]

With no managers I promise you those clerks are doing sweet f all 🤣

[@jamdonut]

I would have thought Repugnant for -2 trait rather than habitability because hab effects pop growth and you'd have nuts amenities anyways?

[@johnelbert6291]

since he was going for chemicals bliss always seems like a no brainer

[@thoth7290]

missed opportunity to use the orc portrait and call them "clorks"

[@k0ziolRD]

You should play with ruler jobs giving trade value. TV is TV. It just pains me a little.

[@evansarver2989]

I will say, there is INDEED a governor that gives trade.. I believe you need to hire them from the riggan commercial minor empires I think!

[@andrewgreenwood9068]

Honestly apart from clerk only this is my standard empire.

[@xeanderman6688]

I'm gonna be weird (and get pinned or banned or whatever) But.. I kinda enjoy clerks. Mind you it's only if I take mercantile, but I don't mind them existing and filling up job slots

[@natedaniels3655]

Clerks can be so powerful if you know how to use them.

[@jamesgrieves2669]

Why is this one of his most successful runs ever?

[@spacebumpkin1565]

Thanks for the nice long video. May try it myself

[@CubeItself]

trading empire was the 2nd thing i tried to do in stellaris i felt like i was beyond handicapping myself trying

[@noodlestheasian5832]

Man you won't even give yourself merchants respect

[@Ep3o]

Of course. Only Clerks!

[@rofltehcat]

It is a bit like playing agrarian idyll. But instead of everyone being a farmer and being happy, everyone is working at walmart.

[@gooseloose682]

maybe void dweller might have been something for that?

[@samiamrg7]

Does Ep3o have a favorite Stellaris job tuype? He should do a run with only that job type.

[@РусланГабзалилов-г3ъ]

2:05 Simon Bolivar

[@Sealreth]

I kinda always play the game like this, (see no evil emote) ^^'

[@archidor1944]

i like longer videos, dunno how others feel.

[@bizmasterTheSlav]

So... this empire produces everything by simply materializing it from the air? Because no one is actually doing ANYTHING but trading.

[@khinev3128]

Next be merchant only game

[@therealblade8930]

11:16 got me!🤣

[@AI_ALVAREZ_INTELLIGENCE_AI]

cool job clerk have benefits to

[@chattychatotchannel]

piracy is so frustrating to deal with eugh do you like patrol stuff with corvettes or is it not worth it

[@jinnsaint1358]

Surprised you did not use merc enclaves for fleets

[@TexanSangheili1337]

Clerks 2 or Merchants only for a future video idea?

[@TheCool_Guy23]

I'm surprised you consider clerks to be so bad, I find it's easier to get high energy income from clerks than from technicians jobs, though I make plenty of those too.

[@iRcoyote1]

Nah, Technicians in the beginning make about 12 energy per job and near endgame are generating close to 34 energy per job. Clerks give like 3 or 4 trade value without the Mercantile tradition, and if you've unlocked merchants, why are you using clerks at all?

[@dustinjones7458]

Clerks have some advantages, in that they take care of themselves amenities wise and they work the same on even planets with terrible habitats, but I always consider them labor that could be better pooled somewhere else-better than being unemployed, about all. Also piracy is a pain to handle if you've got a spread out Empire.

[@shilohlee4332]

I'm interested in seeing where this game will go.

[@johndaybreak1317]

Oh lord , i remamber when you posted you multiplayer vids and you had a clerks and cloning vats..... god i was annoyed then.

[@Ep3o]

I’ve learned since then haha

[@nicnuyster18AS]

Bro really said HR world

[@sedevri864]

Sheeeeeeesh I wish I was this good at the game

[@sovietmining7720]

Clerks vs crisis!

[@isuckatusernames4297]

speaking of megacorps, I heard that the game generates empires based on your build, so a good way to get rid of as many possible megacorps would be to start as another government then transition into a megacorp

[@GyorBox]

So.. basically this is a Vogon run? Lol

[@ditlev5154]

ayyy its finally here. I waited

[@WorstPlayerKnown2Man]

4x crisis please!

[@miguelf.6827]

So in paper merchant empires arent reliable? And why are cleks bad?

[@riftwalker3428]

Clerks are fun

[@amed2408]

Hi, i was wondering if it's possible to keep up with AI on grand admiral, with difficulty adjusted modifiers (Scaling on), and 25x crisis? I've been trying to play with these settings and have been able to keep up until 2250, where i need to be in a federation or defensive pact and have my allies defend me, just wondering if you can try and somehow keep up or even dominate.

[@breadtoast1036]

imagine having near 200 trade value at 2201

[@werigubskdjgb]

Now do enforcers only

[@voidseeker4394]

Beating Stellaris as Vogon?