Stellaris Ethics Tier List

[@randomuser1093]

Honestly ethics are more of a role playing thing for me personally, rather than the bonuses they give

[@tanker00v25]

Yep. They are mostly for roleplay. Otherwise militarists would be an auto-pick in all circumstances

[@eatham.]

I agree, one of my favorite parts of Stellaris is the roleplay parts because otherwise it would just be min-maxing the game all the time.

[@justinthompson6364]

Role play and civic prerequisites

[@necfreon6259]

Yeah most of the bonuses either sucks or is to little to go off of the ethic alone apart from matirialist I guess and the ethic choices is more to unlock specific civics and government types then anything else

[@novasnake2532]

Same here, for the most part. I have hypermilitaristic reptile bandits that i play completely differently from my techist tiny foxes, for example. It’s all down to the ethics for how i play an empire

[@Jman0163]

what montu fails to consider is the extreme value utopian abundance brings in making you feel good about giving your citizens a good quality of life

[@dyne313]

This video had a lot more of Monu's personal opinions than most other video's of this sort.

[@kalimatronix]

The so-called "Smug sense of moral superiority"

[@Razzlion]

@@dyne313 Well its hard to rate the ethics any other way. too many variables to consider.

[@Bobberation]

One of my favorite RP builds is Inward Perfection with Masterful Crafters and Utopian Abundance from year 1. Everyone is happy all the time.

[@ZeroRekoning]

@@dyne313 Not really I think what Montu pointed out is quite fair in comparison. Especially when Xenophile even as a trading empire(my current playthrough) can actually be a headache to manage diff pops with low hability popping up in planets, prompting me to change it into a gaia world so I wont suffer penalties(I was lucky I got the Beiou-something artifact that changes worlds to gaia with unity points)

[@Kronos327]

„If you like to know more about slavery and how to optimize the output of your slaves, click the video on your screen now“ Wonderful taken out of context😂

[@momchilandonov]

Unfortunately slaves are mostly best for workers jobs and not specialist jobs :(...

[@viniciusdomenighi6439]

I like choosing civilization options more based on the story I created for them than for in-game benefits. I've recreated the civilizations from WH40K, Star Trek etc.. and put them in the game to see the story unfold. That's why I love Stellaris.

[@perrytran9504]

One of my favorite civs to play is a space version of the USA. Starts off militarist and egalitarian but eventually adds xenophile once they accept the aliens they conquer as fellow citizens. The Grox from Spore are also fun, although their ethics and civics lend themselves well for min-maxing so you don't really need to pick between the two.

[@blakehansen8284]

You kind of have to or the game gets bland real quick. I can't recall a time it's ever been truly balanced or anything, so you have to write your own story/make your own difficulty.

[@tramachi7027]

@@blakehansen8284 Exactly this. I like Spiritualist the most, just because of either Space Crusaders, Jedis, Conquering the Galaxy in the name of a Chaos God or Scale-loving, Dragon worshipping Fanatists who destroy everyone who doesnt show respect to Dragons, Amoebas and Tyankis the same way we do. But playing as Ruthless Meritocracies where all ends justify the means to reach my insatiable thirst for technology and progress is also fun. Or RP as the USA aka Galaxy Police aka the Beacon of Unification

[@kuuro_7712]

Probably my favorite game I've ever done is void dweller humans, fanatic egalitarian and xenophobe, expand and have like a billion space cities, planets are just resources, to be the Free Belter Nation from the Expanse

[@MaxHaydenChiz]

I wish there were more mechanics around shifting your ethics. It's a good story thing, but mechanically, in almost never want to do it.

[@Freesqare]

You take fanatic xenophile because you want to roleplay as starfleet. I take it to combine with xeno-compatibility and destroy the game. We are not the same.

[@MontuPlays]

And they say xenophobes are evil...

[@Sanvone]

Even better - bio-engineer every single species to be the same trait wise to eliminate hybrid rng. So you just create lag for the sake of extra pop growth.

[@Elyseon]

So roleplaying Starfleet vs roleplaying Kirk.

[@Slysheen]

The true "Become the Crisis."

[@iamblight707]

Fanatic Xenophile will make your megacorp impossible to compete with. You can spam envoys to make a fanatic xenophobe love you, then open up franchises with them, and pretty much everyone who isn't a DE. On top of that you get 20% to your trade value. You'll be building as many ships as you like, and buying any resources you need with your practically unlimited supply of energy credits. It may not be as effective in PVP but against the AI, fanatic xenophile turns the game into a sandbox, where you practically control the AI empires with strings.

[@Pilgrym52]

With the new Vassal types I wouldn't be shocked to see Pacifist (NOT FANTICAL) go up a tier. I never play it atm, Looking forward to the changes.

[@chrisb9143]

The best way to bring peace to the galaxy is to submit everyone

[@indrickboreale7381]

@@chrisb9143 Fanatic Authoritarian Pacifists moment

[@michaaugustyn5414]

@@indrickboreale7381 wow I literally never thought about such a combo sounds funny even if not too powerful

[@damonedrington3453]

The galaxy shall learn of our peaceful ways, BY FORCE!

[@Manoomu]

Me, a trade empire player: Oh I don't know why he's worried. I'm sure I won't disagree too much. Montu: Xenophiles are F tier Me: It's war then Great video! I don't envy trying to rank ethics when you have to consider all the civics and government restrictions that come with them.

[@valerieallison8612]

Me who plays fanatic pacifist + egalitarian with democratic stance... Guess it's a cold war with my half of the galaxy vs you then.

[@whovo3059]

Ah I see your a man of culture as well

[@rogerwilco5206]

Yeah, I noticed that Xenophile AI empires in the middle-game often are more powerful compared to non-xenophile AI empires

[@christophermikiewicz7083]

@@rogerwilco5206 That's because of defensive pacts/research pacts/commercial pacts/any other treaty that benefits you. That, and the fact that nations are less likely to declare war on xenophiles means they're allowed to snowball their economy in peace with robots+refugees. While conquering could be good for the long run, you need to divert resources away from tech/unity and into ships, naval capacity and armies. Tech and traditions which could otherwise be going towards eco goes towards weapons and putting slaves up to par to robots.

[@dyne313]

Please, nobody let this list dissuade you from playing the way you want to play. This list is basically what Montu likes and doesn't like. Edit: I admit there is some attempt to weigh the bonuses, but Montu is making many statements that aren't justified by numbers, but are more of an opinion of what is good to play.

[@Jernsaxe]

You forgot a few things with militarist: They give increased tech weight for all weapon techs, since weapon techs are better than defensive techs (especially if you go for y30 PvP timings) that is very strong. Also Distinguished Admirals is amazing early game/midgame, especially if you swap into it right before going to war. Also once you have neutron launchers No Retreat becomes very strong since ships often die too fast for Hit and Run to be viable. I would put it solidly as A tier and for PvP S tier.

[@shawn680]

Strongly agreed. Militarist is far too good to be anywhere less than high A tier. The amount of pressure you can put on with Militarist throughout the game and the overall benefits really speak for themselves. The claim reduction alone is simply better than people recognize due to the way influence costs scale.

[@manofcultura]

@@shawn680 agreed! Militarist for pvp is a must just for the weapon tech weighting. I’m also here to suggest that no retreat combined with an admiral with both unyielding and engineering is downright broken late game. This also makes psionic ascension better in pvp as well since jumping in with battleships is just too good when it comes to smashing your enemy’s production worlds.

[@funkkymonkey6924]

Aside from political menuvering, the the only thing that will win you the game is better combat ability. Your entire economy should always trickle back into your fleet. Having 20% better tech is nice, but why have that when you can just have 20% better guns. For similar reasons, I like Egalitarian ethics since alloy production, and is closer to building a ship than mineral production.

[@JT-yl9yt]

It really depends on who you are playing against if people ignore your conquests, then sure but if they team up against warmongers than militarist won't mean much. If you ever fail on an offensive, it can put you behind economically for a while.

[@Jernsaxe]

@@JT-yl9yt Anything is underpowered if you assume your opponents will gang up on you. That being said, if my neighbors are going to gang up on me there is no ethics I would want more than militarist.

[@oranos2276]

i didnt know you could play an empire that hasnt spent all of its ethic points

[@michal_1725]

wait, how?

[@RabbaDooDabba]

Well that is because you can not. The game will not let you finish your empire in the editor until you spent all your ethics points.

[@michal_1725]

@@RabbaDooDabba what a shame, i was hoping i could make an empire with no ethics and see how the AI handles it

[@oranos2276]

@@michal_1725 despicable neutrals

[@Boste999]

@@michal_1725 That would be unethical.

[@jacobwiens659]

The buff xenophile needs is reduced influence cost for pacts (like, massively). It makes the opinion boost more useful, and allows you to keep expanding while still being diplomatic. One of the biggest advantages to xenophobia is building lots of starbases early game, and it would be nice if the diplomatic playstyle didn’t hamper expansion so much. Also, allowing more pacts would strengthen the ethic in the mid game.

[@enigmachinasclass8153]

That is honestly such a perfect solution. Tbh they should decrease pact influence cost in general as well, or maybe give you other ways to increase your influence gain imo. They're almost never worth it in my games unless the terms are especially generous.

[@mortache]

Xenophiles are the best against AI and you can't change my mind. Both bio and synth empires can make use of all the xenos even when they have bad traits. Also, Fanatic Pacifist is really cool for game start for tech rush if you later switch away from that faction.

[@perrytran9504]

Xenophile also is really hard to avoid your pops gravitating towards at least in my experience, even if you start without it and treat aliens like shit. So even if you don't embrace it you will probably want to appease the xenophile faction eventually.

[@mortache]

@@perrytran9504 and they can easily have over 80 faction approval, especially if you have enclaves inside your borders and multiple species.

[@davids182]

Xenophile is definitely good no doubt. And it makes the game super easy and convenient to play. But I wouldn't say it's optimal. Optimal as far as conquering the galaxy the most quickly has to be one of the snowball empires with total war CBs. It's just super tedious to really play them the best they can.

[@mathy4605]

Montu mentions that Xenophiles are good if you are building an empire around Trade. Well, that's what the entirety of Megacorps are for, right? Xenophile is my go-to ethic when playing a Megacorp. You gain quicker access to Commercial Pacts, and more Trade Value.

[@loafofbread9400]

Way to boring and easy

[@Sepaedius]

So regarding the Encourage Political Thought edict: This is actually *extremely* useful to the point of being meta for a lot of non-xenophobe/non-slaver playthroughs. So what this is used for is it's PAIRED with ethics attraction bonuses, so if you've won a war where you've conquered numerous worlds with even more numerous pops, it will actively shift them towards your governing ethics as you assimilate them into your culture. I literally can't overstate how important and effective this is; one of my favorite bio pop playthroughs was as a fanatic egalitarian militarist race of clone soldiers with Citizen Service and Shared Burdens. Having picked clone soldier ascendent, i had a limited number of pops but I could kick everyone else's asses to my satisfaction, so any empire I'd steamroll, i'd have about 10 years of Reconstruction afterwards to rebuild the territory to my liking and get their pops on board with what i'm about. By the end of that, the majority of their pops, even for the Fanatic Purifiers i knocked out, had converted to my ethics and I managed their territory better than they ever could on their own.

[@Sanvone]

Been thinking similarly regarding Egalitarian edict. It's even better if you combine it with Deviants species traits to move out of starting ethic/civic into something else. Was theorycrafting Fan.Egalitarian+Materialist / Shared Burdens+Meritocracy + Mechanist and evolving out of Materialist into Spiritualist (which once established is quick conversion with both Encourage Political Thought and Temples spiritualist attraction). So you save consumer goods on robots which otherwise would be higher with Shared Burdens, to just save up on Specialists. Could swap Meritocracy for Masterful Crafters cause it is current MP meta (building CG stockpile for alloy build up before 30 years peace period timer is up). So you could both have robots from start and progress towards psionics.

[@ozisponas1593]

ethic attraction is literally useless if you manage your empire well you are going to have 90% stability on planets regardless if they are your ethics or not

[@Sanvone]

@@ozisponas1593 Having fewer ethics means having easier time pleasing them = more unity from them. Small thing but still matters

[@ozisponas1593]

@@Sanvone unity generation is so much easier with dedicated pops towards it and once you don t need it anymore you can disband some of them

[@ozisponas1593]

@@Sanvone you don t need to please pops you just need stability and there is so many way more efficient ways to do that

[@senorhayomayo]

@16:00 hit too close to home. An all too familiar description of the roaring 2020s that we’re living through now. Great video, thanks!

[@ConfusedRevolutionary]

Oof.

[@SeeAndDreamify]

Isn't that good news? We are using the best living standards :P.

[@basedbigfoot]

Definitely too real

[@dorchevsky2556]

Workers of the world unite!

[@peachypietro9980]

I never thought a paradox game YT comment section would be the place where class consciousness forms, yet my eyes don't deceive me, hahah

[@Parelf]

I always play the hero in Stellaris. Not because its hard, but because I can't break my morals for long enough to commit to the evils required of a winning playbook. The victories are hard fought, but I can smile with pride knowing I'm fighting for something worth the struggle.

[@dyne313]

Even now, I'm ALMOST NEVER near my influence cap. There's always something more to use it on, if not just more habitats.

[@tanker00v25]

Even medium galaxy has so many systems that unless you specify in reducing starport cost you will be claiming them till late mid-game

[@RobinTheBot]

How do you build habitats? I'm new and all space is claimed already, and I have nothing to spend it on

[@tanker00v25]

@@RobinTheBot research habitat technology in engineering, then take a construction ship. In the panel of the construction ship choose “build megastructure" -> “habitat" and click on any planet highlighted in green circles

[@succsucc6270]

@@RobinTheBot You also need a DLC I think.

[@Dodsodalo]

​@@tanker00v25 Take this up vote and response to heart: You are still a better teacher on how to build megastructures in your simple old comment two years later than most videos and threads I've read. Praise be to you star, take this thumbs up.

[@feedthemeat543f]

I usually choose xenophile for the extra envoy, for the games where I actually feel like being diplomatic, rather than for the actual bonuses Cause even with diplomatic corps, It still often feels like I don't have enough of them when I actually want to use them lol

[@peterknutsen3070]

One thing you've overlooked is that Xenophile and Pacifist can pacify some space fauna.

[@WhiteManOnCampus]

That can be helpful in the early game, being able to move through and even colonize systems that your enemies can't enter without being attacked? That has a lot of value early on. But eventually it loses its value.

[@allisond.46]

That was helpful when I didn't want to fight the living space crystals.

[@EagleRulerSiena]

Sensing some repressed anger in the stratified economy rant. Same, Montu, same.

[@bodbyss]

We need to activate the "encourage political thought" edict

[@Slysheen]

"Education Campaign" wouldn't be remiss either.

[@Garykem8]

​@bodbyss that requires too much unity which we lack 😢

[@Regunes]

putting Xenophile, and even Fan xenophile on the level of fan pacifist is quite a strech lol. Should probably put gestalt in S too, solar pannels and the sheer amount of playstyle it unlocks, some being broken.

[@FilmCritictheone]

And fanatic equalitarian, I mean what is the player suppose to do if they can't seize the means of production

[@indrickboreale7381]

Every ethic is better than Fanatic Pacifism

[@Elyseon]

Why the hell would gestalt consciousness be a requirement to lay down solar panels of all things?

[@YaGirlJuniper]

One of the best things about the Xenophile ethic branch is what isn't written on the trait itself: without it, you're locked out of a LOT of beneficial Event decisions that are only available to Xenophiles, which can range anywhere from getting easier access to new tech or just being able to get a good outcome from them at all. Not to mention, an underrated aspect of having a very diverse empire is also the fact that many of the aliens who come to your worlds will have habitat preferences for planets you simply cannot use otherwise, and it allows you to colonize worlds you'd normally have to ignore because it costs more in extra upkeep than you'd get out of them, so it's actually one of the best _peaceful_ ways to expand your empire. Not to mention, if you have those worlds colonized, species that like those worlds tend to all gather on those planets, so I find that refugees more often than not are very useful for improving the economy in ways that my main species can't. Refugees tend to also be from peaceful civs that are being wiped out by the asshole empires, so their ethics tend to vibe well with ours, rather than completely shifting the demographics by being Fanatic Xenophobes or something. The biggest downside of Xenophile is just how often you're surrounded by jerks because the game never seems to generate civs that would want to play nice with each other unless they're Corporations.

[@liamgibson6949]

16:00 is too real montu... i feel like a prole in George Orwell's 1984, now im going to use my 0.1x consumer good tokens to play stellaris

[@ingold1470]

Judging by how little food each farmer pop produces Stellaris pops probably do have 1984-tier living standards . Fits well with the planned economy :P

[@invurret9533]

Personally, I don't think ethics can be tiered. Each of them are good in their own specific situations. If you're trying to build a trading empire, xenophile and pacifist are S tier and xenophobe is the worst. Trying to dominate the galaxy? pick up Xenophobe, Authoritarian and Militarist. If you're focused on special pop output, Materialist and Egalitarian are the way to go. It's impossible to pick which ethic is better because each one is dependent on a different playstyle. Although this is just my opinion and I'm nowhere near as good of a player as Montu.

[@damonedrington3453]

Honestly yea. It would be better to compare the opposing traits (ie xenophobe vs xenophiles) for which gives better bonuses. Comparing them all isn’t really fair because pacifist and xenophobe both give great bonuses but their totally opposite play styles

[@GootPoot]

I know this is an old comment but: I think they can, because while the upsides or downsides can be tiered differently based on your play style, each play style is also tiered. Like, if you want to be a peaceful isolationist, fanatic pacifism and xenophobia is exactly what you need. But that’s also a really shit play style that will make it harder to win. So ethics that align with the best play styles will rank higher than others.

[@Kl0zi9999]

Militarists 'No retreat' war doctrine is good agains high scale crisis threats. You get a significant boost to fire rate, and crisis ships do so much damage anything less than a titan wouldn't be able to jump out the battle anyway.

[@tomisabum]

Some GREAT mods out there that expand in sensible and compelling ways the range of ethics for civilizations, as well as civics; worth checking out. Combine that with unique worlds/planetary modifiers and its an even more engrossingly story rich game.

[@darkpwnu9189]

I feel beacon of liberty is such a powerful civic that it pushes fanatic egalitarian into B tier, the specialist pop output as you mentioned is also very powerful aswell.

[@janehrahan5116]

Beacon just needs normal, it's only a b tier civic since it bars xenophobe and oligarchy.

[@valerieallison8612]

@@janehrahan5116 the primary reason that fanatic egalitarian was in C tier was that it forced democratic, but since democratic is required for the civic it boosts the strength up a bit.

[@zestypigeon2729]

fanatic egalitarian is one of my favorites because you can really lean into the bonus specialist output with meritocracy and u can pair with technocracy and intelligent trait to really minmax ur research output

[@michaelsalesman9171]

Actually, I used it in a rather solid way - I made it for a heavy specialist-based empire that made most planets full of artisans and metallurgists to then fuel research and military pursuits.

[@danielbalder]

I loved the explanation of the stratified economy description. :D. So hard to imagine that.

[@justarandompersonininterne6583]

Basically russian empire in 1900s

[@syahrezank]

but faction wise, xenophile is the easiest faction to please into more than 100% approval. Then it means that xenophile is the most stable faction to fulfill its request, no matter the main ethics you have as long as its not xenophobe.

[@talltroll7092]

I also quite like the "puzzle" of taking in alien pops and finding ways to maximise their usage. I often design my main species to avoid worker output traits, and try to acquire pops that have them to increase efficiency overall. There are lots of ways to get worker output bonuses, but having it baked into the pops is pretty good too

[@Zorro9129]

In my current game I'm fanatically authoritarian spiritualists, and the egalitarian xenophile party is still at 45% approval….

[@JoshSweetvale]

This list is how much "power" each ethic has on its own. - Any ethic can win. Some can just win a little harder.

[@l.a.3680]

Well-thought list. I would rank fanatic spiritualist alongside non-fanatic spiritualist in the A-tier, because fanatic spiritualists have a much higher chance of rolling psionic theory (x2) and psionic ascension is worth way more when you get it fast.

[@asbjorntyrson2827]

I think the meta of 3.8 and specifically Paragons has changed so much about how the ethics system works that this tier list could do with an update.

[@wojciechpiszczek3583]

And now the election for every 10 years isn't a minus, sometimes is a positive things for me now playing with fanatic egalitarian and materialist is the best combination

[@ZombieJig]

I love these videos. I do wish you would highlight or otherwise visually differentiate the icon of the one you are talking about though.

[@MaxHaydenChiz]

If they could fix the species pane and make xeno-compatibility not brick the game, then maybe that would count as a mild buff to xenophile. But it really need a huge buff. Even if it doesn't become "meta", it needs to add enough fun options to justify all the ones you give up in return for some statistical bonus. At least Pacifist gets you the option of inward perfectionist.

[@jamesbuchanan1913]

Some small points: Encourage political thought is best for bringing conquered species into the fold. Egalitarian ethics tend to have a lot of draw.

[@JohndrewtheSylveonking]

Being someone who tries to RP the good guy who accepts all beings, I always pick Xenophile. Plus the trade bonus and extra envoys also helps. In other words in the case of RP you could say that the trade bonus is a way of saying that making friends is more profitable than making enemies and having more envoys let’s you convince more empires to be friendly towards you. Plus if you’re Mega Corp, it’s even better, because you SHOULD be doing trade focus.

[@justinthompson6364]

Even from a more utilitarian gameplay standpoint, those envoys can help you advance your federation and push your agenda in the galactic community. I don't always play Xenophile as I might want the benefits of other ethics more, but I do like to play them sometimes.

[@LennonnJohn]

Honestly megacorps care more about trade value of others than their own.

[@briannaherrington949]

I've been experimenting with different ethics, but my favorite combo will always be Fanatic Materialist and Authoritarian with the Technocracy civic

[@IMortage]

Xenophile is more tempting with First Contact. Still not the optimal meta play, but fattening your preFTL worlds before grabbing them makes sense now. Observation gets you more pops than immediately invading.

[@Superficial_Intelligence]

Encourage political thought is actually really useful for making newly "liberated" empires shift towards your governing ethics.

[@xarvh]

oooooh. Nice! Didn't think about that!

[@Nat-ri3ip]

0:57 I agree a lot. Spending you ehics point is vastly suprior to staying blocked in the empire creation menu.

[@midnightstudio3742]

Another superb video with a lot of thought put into it! You are the channel I first recommend to any new stellaris player!

[@k28xl]

A note on fanatic xenophile. If you're playing a MegaCorp, that automatically moves to S tier. The envoys and diplomacy bonus are great for getting the AI to sign commercial pacts, and if you aren't doing a trade build as a MegaCorp then you're doing megacorps wrong.

[@wojtekzalewski4200]

My ethics tier list: 1) fanatic materialist 2) All 3) ethics 4) are 5) very 6) useful 7) depending 8) on 9) your 10) empire 11) build

[@jackcasebolt1985]

imagine a patch where genocide wasnt the meta

[@MontuPlays]

We can only dream...

[@JB-xl2jc]

@@MontuPlays Dreaming ist verboten! Back in the processing pits!

[@rael7298]

Imperium of man should always be the meta

[@JB-xl2jc]

@@rael7298 Jokes aside I always found the actual Imperium of Man far more interesting (i.e. Warhammer 30k, not 40k). After the Emperor's semi-death, they became a religious genocidally xenophobic semi-luddite hellhole of despotism. But in the thousands of years before that, the Emperor personally led a massive empire that, while it was certainly human-centric, would regularly work alongside other alien races to fight back Chaos, and didn't have any of the religious or anti-tech sentiments of the post-Emperor Empire. He'd probably hate what they became, oddly enough!

[@Sarum9nich]

@@JB-xl2jc Imperium was never good, it was never kind to its citizens or accepting of alines. It just gotten worse after emperors death.

[@Griz_Gobwurx]

I've now watched all of your tier videos. I found them excellent material not because of your ranking, but rather the way you laid out your logic. This helped me with a better understanding of the game overall. Thank you for all the work you have put into these.

[@Griz_Gobwurx]

Ruefull, uncomfortable chuckles around 16:00, lol

[@KleptomaniacJames]

the unity and edict bonuses I find actually super powerful towards engame with spiritualist because -20% edict cost when those edicts are 800 unity per month is really powerful

[@colin8696908]

I don't know xenophile is like my go to, because the diplomacy bonus makes it easier to deal with the AI plus the their faction is very easy to please.

[@Pan_Z]

I think F-tier should be reserved for ethics which are completely useless, if not outright detrimental. Xenophile possessing a niche use for trade empires should at least make it C. There's viabilityfor tall Corporations, due to the additional envoys for commercial pacts signed & the added trade value.

[@kieranp8046]

The little commentary over the stratified living standards part was super funny, great video!

[@aliensinnoh1]

Man, Montu really said “fuck being a good guy”

[@tanker00v25]

That's just Stellaris in a nutshell

[@AnemoneMeer]

Fanatic Spiritualist may be weaker for normal empires, but it's an absurdly good ethic for Megacorps in particular. Due to zombie workers, you don't lose your pop building in the early game, and it stacks with Clone Vats in the lategame to achieve some truly titanic pop growth. Which is good because Gospel of the Masses ensures that all those spiritualist pops inherently generate trade value. Since you can have massive pop growth right out of the gate and a place to use it, and transition it into even more pop growth, it ends up being extremely good and removes the largest weakness Spiritualist has. This is also going to see buffs come Overlord, as the Gigamall improves clerks by a very large amount, and we will have more places to stick those pops. Zombies make good clerk job fillers, and it is not hard to rack up a massive population to the point where clerk jobs are being filled in bulk. I've managed to max out *multiple* Ecumenopoli in short order with this and an immigration abuse strategy going. As for why Fanatic Spiritualist in particular? The more spiritualist pops you have, the better, and improving priests helps quite a bit given you're gonna have plenty of priests.

[@GypsyBladeFB]

Was about to write out the same thing, Megacorps is my favorite to play and Spiritualist is insanely good for this government type. We can also shift the ethics of aliens coming into our empires with all the priest in our empire. With the unity changes and how much unity we can generate off priest it only made this combination stronger. Gospel boost even more when we can use Temples on our branch offices to shift the ethics of other empires too.

[@heomji7216]

I really love to play Stellaris just to "train" my imagination as a sci-fi fan and a man passionated by space conquest. I have almost 30 different empires, all quite hard to play because they are made to be roleplayed. For example, my humans are the Human Federation : a citizen republic, federal regime that encourages political debate, huge moral and civic education, scientific progress, and preservation of Earth's multiculturalism, but also wide-spread military training for every citizen and an advanced armament and naval technology above all to preserve itself from authoritarian regimes. They are egalitarian, militarist and materialist. I've also got the Attorian Republic, a more diplomatic and peaceful theocratic republic (Xenophile, egalitarian, spiritualist). The Reshethi Confederacy, a science directorate of peaceful masters of engineering and robotics (fanatic materialist, xenophile). The Holy Athanian Empire, the Dju'ugan Dominion, the Commonwealth of Apanos, the Then'loran Union, and sooooo much more. Some of them are democracies, other are not. Some are biological, others synthetic and I've made some hive minds too. I even began to create my own universe of them where they are spread across a region of the galaxy and I plan to create a small role-playing game about it someday. I didn't create all of this in one day, it goes since 2016. But I think I will soon end with a litteral piece of gold if I create something. They are already made to be linked to eachother with relationships.

[@JB-xl2jc]

My father walked in at 27:30 and gave me the weirdest look hearing that outro only.

[@lezerchil4931]

Fanatic egalitarian increases specialist output, which I guess include scientist job

[@couguard]

Let's not forget to consider the ethics in anomaly resolution! Xenophile is great to get those titanic beast armies and amoebas/living crystals can be ignored and used as natural barriers against other empires in the early game.

[@CrazyVolus]

Noteworty Omissions/Comments: -Xenophile and Pacifist give the option to make shards and space amoeba non hostile, freeing up opportunities for early game expansion. It can be extremely good if you like to neglect fleet construction in the early game. -Having a bunch of specialized species is theoretically superior to having one or two.. but it's very hard to pull off. Also, the A.I. is idiot tier when it comes to engineering species. -For Egalitarian, I'd argue that 10% specialist output is OP when combined with Meritocracy civic. 10% to all Specialists is far superior to 10% to a specific specialist. -But Egalitarian limits how strong your leaders can be, and manual relocation is frowned upon. -The downside of Militarist is that in the late game, range is often king. Happy is he who hits first, and hits first hard. Your fleet can't hit twice if it is dead. -One means of expansion as pacifist is to 'purchase' empires with favors if they are weak. No, really. Trade 700 motes for an empire's independence if they like you. -Spiritualist can build robots just fine, but you're practically guaranteed to have an A.I. rebellion.. so.. yah. Underpowered pop growth. -Spiritualists do not like Tomb worlds unless you start on one. It's.. annoying. -Fanatic Materialist is for pansies. -Xenophobe 'internship' is superior to Authoritarian 'Internship' because you get the Xenophage option, which can 'free' you from the need for Agricultural Worlds. -There is very little reason to purge and displace pops in the current meta. I mean, overpopulation can wreck your eco for decades, but it is very rare.

[@marciusnhasty]

I'm pretty sure that the range + fire rate can still arrive at the point of getting to shoot first and shoot for the second time before enemy gets their first shot. Otherwise it's a long way to dominating range even in the most competitive multiplayer. 2270-2280 at best for empires able to scale exceptionally well.

[@ratking4713]

Precursor civ tier list?

[@korimiller379]

I put all Fanatic rank ethics lower then their non-fanatic version. Any level of fanaticism makes diplomacy rougher, doubly so with empires of opposing ethics of either level.

[@peterknutsen3070]

Fanatic Xenophile is awesome. You get a huge Opinion bonus and 2 extra Envoys. Obviously Xenophobes won't like you, but those assholes don't like anyone anyway.

[@RandomGuy-qr5jw]

Thanks for this video! How about a Dig-Site Tier-List?

[@Alister222222]

I actually don't hate fanatic pacifist, since I tend to be a peaceful 'good guy' player anyway - I prefer my galaxy spanning empire to be built on truth an honor, vs backstabbing and greed. You can still claim enemy systems during a defensive war, and I believe(?) you can still declare 'end threat' wars against fanatic purifiers. You can essentially always bait fallen empires into attacking you by going hard against their agenda, such as settling next to the isolationists, or colonizing a holy world belonging to the religious faction. Once baited, you can claim all their systems. And for the whole game you are getting a fairly significant economy boost.

[@valerieallison8612]

plus with full stacking pop sprawl reductions you can get it to -85%, non-pacifist/egalitarian/democracies can only reach -40%, which means you have 15% pop size vs 60% pop size, allowing you to have x4 the ammount of pops for the same sprawl level, immensly increasing tech and unity effective output.

[@destroy141]

Ypu also forgot that the xenophile ethics also gives you a bonus to your relationships with all non xenophobic empires so if your going for a federation or galactic gardian build its really helpful.

[@Order-fs9bv]

Also xenophobe it just gets balanced out

[@kotzpenner]

But xenophile is pretty good if you abuse it. I had growth of over 20 a month (a new pop every few months) in an endgame ecumenopolis where about 40% came from immigration. If you don’t care about traits and just want to fill jobs it’s perfect. Also bonus points because I also used xeno compability in a mp game. It’s insane degeneracy and melts your CPU.

[@ratking1330]

Xenophile should get empire wide bonuses the more diverse they are. Fits RP wise and gives em a little buff. Maybe for every unique species that has more than 5-10 pops, +1% from jobs?

[@jimmcneal5292]

Rather vice versa, multi-ethnic states trade lower stability, ethnic conflicts and higher corruption for higher population

[@captinobvious4705]

Question: Isn't making this video in and of it self, a materialist ethic thing to do in the first place?

[@kriptokirios4841]

Fanatic Materialist are my favorite too, it's fantastic to play Science Crusaders and lay down The Path of Reason

[@JohanDanielsson8802]

You can solve the consumer goods issue with Fanatic Egalitarian, by taking the Shared Burdens civic, and use that living standard. If you have robots to do your menial worker jobs, and shared burdens for your specialists and rulers, you can even get away with using rather little consumer goods!

[@paolorubenmastretta]

Space commies ftw

[@JohanDanielsson8802]

@@paolorubenmastretta Materialist space commies FTW! Egalitarians really benefit from having non-sentient robots, since their living standards make worker pops rather expensive to upkeep. Having many ruler jobs can also pay off if you play as a space commie, since the Shared Burden and Utopian Abundance living standards make rulers as cheap/expensive to upkeep as other pops.

[@ace_the_race9340]

I think it really depends on what build you're going with, since some ethics go great with certain builds while some don't.

[@CosmereInformant]

Montu: “I said that so nobody gets mad at the opening salvo” Me, not looking at the screen: “that better not mean what I think it means” Montu: flips me off and slaps xenophile into F Me: “SONUVABITCH”

[@savannaha5038]

What's fun about veneration of saints is that with enough priests and the efficient bureaucracy civic, it's literally just free or even gives you more edict space, since activating it increases output which increases edict fund :D right now I have a game that's in the late game but I have a ton of edicts active for free because of all that and the fanatic spiritualist ethic bonus.

[@Snoogen11]

Montu: *Makes tier list*. Me who always plays as fanatic xenophile, egalitarian megacorp: "I feel personally attacked".

[@willtedpetals]

R E A L

[@nwahally]

The last 200h I spent playing Shared Burden empires with varying secondary ethics. Of course it's most in line with my personal political creeds. But it also gives the game meaning. Building a glimmer of hope in a sea of darkness or uniting a galaxy through diplomacy or ensuring that all that live as slaves und under dictarorships are freed, is much more enticing and way more fun for me. Then again, I play for experience and make-belief, not for efficiency, only ever playing on captain difficulty. Most of my decisions are decided my my empire's ideal rather than what's most efficient.

[@Ultima3755]

The like button is definitely fanatical authoritarian because of the control it has over the relationship between your videos and the all mighty algorithm.

[@bryanfetrow6371]

Now let's get a consol version then we will be set

[@sirrebralpalsy6542]

With fanatic xenophile you actually can bar refugees from your borders. If you set default species rights to residence (the lowest you are able to do), and then set the refugee type to citizen species only then you won't get any refugees. I enjoy playing megacorps so the trade value is a nice bonus, but I'm an inward perfectionist at heart and really don't want any xenos on my planets.

[@ShyRaven2161]

You weren't kidding when you said your choices would be controversial. Just one minute in and I'm already fuming xD. I don't play competitive multiplayer, only co-op or solo, so I love Fanatic Xenophile because of the increased opinion of other empires. You can go through an entire game without being attacked (aside from an FE or crisis). Appreciate hearing your perspective though, as always.

[@cheetahman2830]

Montu the madlad, making an ethics tier list. Whats next a tier list of all stellaris songs from the soundtrack?!

[@xdod7870]

I only play materialist for one reason. So that I can play the mechanicus ost in the background as I leave behind the weakness of my flesh

[@Silverraptorvideos]

The only problem I see with not having other species be rulers is if you take planets occupied by other species that aren't very habitable to your main species, the pops you send to be ruler class can be quite unhappy being working on that planet until you can change the habitability preference.

[@vinalx3493]

Spiritualist edict upkeep reduction, I'm not sure objectively, but it feels really strong. Since the edict upkeep reduction is additive, cutthroat politics translates to 25% upkeep reduction (from 80% to 60%), along with the increasing effectiveness of all tech/traditions that increase flat edict fund. For the same reason the unity bonus from spiritualist has increasing relative effectiveness when using edicts (20% increase translates to effective ~33% with 40% edict cost reduction). And in the mid game you can spam edicts with +50% worker output, +10% specialist output edicts for a ridiculous economy. When pairing with the relatively straightforward psionic ascension path, the midgame spiritualists can snowball really hard imo. And after unlocking ambition edicts, the percentage edict cost reduction shines again for (if I recall) +33% (multiplicative) mineral output, -20% ship upkeep, +20% naval capacity with a moderate upkeep definitely feels quite strong (not to mention the +50% megastructure build speed). That said I'm not sure if it's objectively better to build temple rather than the ordinary resource production buildings, but it does feel quite strong to me.

[@TheArklyte]

I somehow think that current number of ethics and their cost implies that we are supposed to have 4 ethics slots instead of 3 aka be able to take 2 fanatic ones, fanatic and 2 normal ones or 4 normal ones. Maybe make it unlockable like third civics slot? I see mods that expand the number of choices, but I don't recall ones that expand number of slots that would define AI behavior better.

[@SeeAndDreamify]

This seems mostly fair. One thing though, you mentioned that stratified economy is very good for keeping conquered worlds from being rebellious. I think the same can be said for utopian abundance. Admittedly I have not tried this for major conquest, so not entirely sure how that goes, but it works very well for conquered primitive civilizations. Most jobs become inefficient in the stellar culture shock phase, but with utopian abundance you can make the pops decently productive immediately by simply unemploying them. I also think utopian abundance helps in general when building up worlds, since you don't have to worry about employing everyone so you can focus entirely on the infrastructure that directly supports your most pressing needs at the moment (though admittedly that will often be consumer goods :P).

[@MinecraftConnected]

It works but you have to be able to afford it which isn't too hard if you're leveraging the high consumer goods output you'd have as an egalitarian

[@andrewrowan4161]

I've always imagined the stratified living standard like the casts from 1984, rulers=inner party, specialists=outer party, workers=plebians

[@alexboorsch3102]

Me: ...I'm probably gonna disagree with all of this, huh? Me seeing the very first tier: ThatIsNotCorrect. mp4

[@nathanroot138]

Your 1% joke had me dying bro, you got my sub. I never tried xenophobe because I just ain't that guy, but I'll have to try it out!

[@LordFusion5620]

Stellaris is the first game where my first empire which I selected for role play turned out to be a meta build, still choose it to make my first leader live forever tho

[@stephantessel1588]

I realizse that there is luck to it, but my last Pacifist Xenophile playthrough was a blast. Lots of space to expand, due to mining drone fleets blocking the AI empires, lots of trade value and consumer goods due to civics, ocean homeworld, I lucked out finding the scrapyard enclave, and buying military fleets from them with my abundant energy credits, allowing me to mostly disregard alloy production for a very long time and still having fleet power. Got the vultraum homeworld along the way and the acopanying relic. My neighbors were threatened by other powerful empires, fanatical purifiers and hegemonic imperialists, they asked me to become their overlord in exchange for protection. Unyielding tradition tree, just in case. Later on slided into a federation of semi nobodies with my vassals to become lord of the spiritualist pacifists, and by the time I ran out of space to expand into, I had wormholes, L gates and a lot of influence to just set up distant colonies. Heck I could have integrated my vassals, and they were not insignificant, but that was to much of a hassle in my mind. Besides that I was very busy in my own space, every time I got a new migration treaty pop, I could colonize a new world, and due to me not being spiritualist, but egalitarian, xexophile, pacifist, I had robots to pick up the slack. High stability and happyness to iron out any weak spots. Anyway. Long story short. Give peace a chance.

[@jasondeutschbein8102]

We could make an entire video about "uncovering the moral principles of the like button"

[@Rhinlord]

I really dislike how closely tied authoritarian is to slavery. An authoritarian doesnt necessarily mean slavery. I like playing Imperial but its always felt like a waste to not use slaves due to the bonus

[@nonsensewolfproductions8543]

This is such a funny video to watch because it's like I'm just understanding that we play this game very differently lmao not as a bad thing! but it's just really funny to realize good video though, I appreciate the work you put it to objectively analyze these from a purely meta standpoint!

[@Pulse10201]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about shard burdens. I think it's a big reason you would choose fanatic egalitarian.

[@nahnanananananana2914]

I wish Xenophile bonuses were replaced with something like 5% resource from jobs and 10% happiness/stability or something similar, instead of trade.

[@jimmcneal5292]

Then it would be unrealistic

[@Pizzarugi]

I like Land of Opportunity as a synth ascension empire. People pouring into my empire means more pops I convert immediately into synthetics which means faster growth: Ascended synth construction and immigration.

[@janoss6216]

I kinda feel that xenophile bonus relations helps alot, as megacorp(or oligarchy in general which is usually better alternative than democracy) you can still find common ground with crusading democrat civs that otherwise would mess you over, but that way, you can befriend them, make federation and use them as shield from some other bullies that would be hesistant to attack after it. Also its almost by default you make xenophile faction content in your empire. Main issue i have with xenophile is that you are cut out of popcontrol, and you cant force your main species to be bred exclusively. Kinda forces into either robotics or genetic ascension.

[@mateoUR2121]

Actually in overlord, autoritharian and autoritharian fanatic with their +1 and +0.5 influence they are pretty good, especially since much more influence is used now and finally i think xenofile can be in the B.

[@wizardswine]

Xenophile could maybe jump to C with some builds. But ultimately removing purges alone is massively detrimental to every single empire in the game. and the bonuses you get from it aren't very powerful, trade empires are good ofc, but you don't rly need xenophile to make absolute bank. The real problem with with it is it doesn't give you anything good, the civics are meh, the edict is pretty bad, and immigration pop growth is inferior to other forms of pop growth AND your stability will take a nose dive at times due to ethics problems. As someone who rly rly loves xenophile.

[@willtedpetals]

Montu did preface the video by saying that they could all very well be in the B to S tiers, but Montu tried to fan them out more

[@DarkMAGA]

ah, stellaris. one of the few contexts where you can explain why it is advantageous to have an ethnostate, as well as explaining that slavery is pretty good actually.

[@jimmcneal5292]

Lol you don't need context to explain why it is advantageous. And it is, and whoever tries to promote non-monoethnic state is either an idiot or an enemy of your ethnic group

[@johnroach9026]

Honestly, as much as I love playing the benevolent xenophilic melting pot, dear god the game becomes unplayable after 2300 with every planet having like 10 different species on it. Planet cracking is pretty much required if you want to see the end game within your lifetime

[@alistairgrey5089]

I'm actually running a custom single player campaign where I'm trying to set up a war in heaven. I started as a fanatic materialist Scion (I had to start as the Scion because when I didn't somehow both of the AI Scions had the same fallen empire) with authoritarian ethics. Every other empire is either fanatic materialist or fanatic spiritualist. The other ethic point is based on the species roleplay. I'm watching this all unfold and I'm seeing how each empire differs in how well they do. It's actually interesting to see how the AI plays these custom empires I created.

[@nip3004]

I really wish this wasn't the most recent one i could find

[@dfelliott1]

I'd put fanatic egalitarian up higher just because of shared burdens. Big agree on xenophile - its hard to pick fanatic xenophile even with a trade build/megacorp just because of that annoying tendency for the ai to plant itself in your borders at the beginning.

[@combatscape2000]

I remember th only time o play fanatic pacifist to get the 200 years without war achievement, that game was so ducking good, i could write a book about it, 2 purifiers, khan, war in heaven, but i couldn't make part of it bacuse of the ethic... but it was a really nice game I think we need an UNIQUE civic when we get xenophobic/egalitarian, this is such a weird and nice combo but in the game is really hard to balance the factions...

[@iamgroot1223]

Man I got angry at the f tier and I don't even know why, since I rarely play xenophiles. Either way great video mate