Stellaris Farming Only Challenge

[@Regunes]

You wanan know the hilarious part? you're still having better alloy and science than an actual Lithoid Hive. For the first 30 year or so.

[@MontuPlays]

Lmao

[@Regunes]

@@MontuPlays i was playing dragon and getting zro from precursor. Eventually I assimilated some ameobas and destroyed the dragon

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Just grab Lithoid + Necrophage (Hive) together for the Best Worst economy progression. Shards and exploded biomatter when the parasite matures?

[@onno3979]

@@MontuPlaysnow do it as a lithoid

[@bradyholdren4764]

Lithoid Hive is totally a viable build! I’ve gotten 850 research and 150 alloys by 2230, you just got to micro a lot

[@Jernsaxe]

Small note on the food selling: You are able to sell 146 food or minerals each month without the price going down. You can also cheat a little and manually sell 100 food, wait 1 day, this will make the food price rebound and you can sell 100 more. Done perfectly you can sell 3000 food each month without the price dropping.

[@jakegraham7265]

Stonks

[@KeinNiemand]

Or you can sell 200 food per month for 200 alloys a month which is more then 10x better by trading directly with AI empries instead of using the crappy market. I can't belive nobody doing trade deals with AIs. The market is crap only use it if there no AI that's willing to trade what you have (wheter that's becouse you havn't met friendly AI or they just can't sell you enough due to their limit production. Trade with AI has the extra benefit of lowering their alloy (or whatever you buy from them) supply which weakens them.

[@ozymandias5257]

​@@KeinNiemand Yes! My economy is often ~1/3 selling food for more than I can get from the market or by producing other stuff myself. *exception for alloys as the AIs often spends all their alloy & auto cancel the trade deal.

[@Trazynprints]

I just had a game where I traded 20k food for 10k alloy from a random xeno faction I was happily surprised I guess they must've been starving lol

[@lucifersatan8240]

So is it against the rules to have livestock? It is technically a form of farming and with lithoids you can make minerals that way. Yes you can farm minerals.

[@tinkerwalls]

That would be an interesting loophole in the rules to exploit.

[@MontuPlays]

Well yes, but actually no. I did use the +1 mineral from unemployed drones to get minerals... So it's probably fair game!

[@freyrgrimsson4607]

@@MontuPlays so you could do a variation of the 3.1 one planet challenge build?

[@dangerface300]

Problem is that lithoid livestock is downright awful. Even playing with a traits expanded mod that added some 250 more traits to the game, many of them beneficial to livestock builds, I still couldn't make lithoid livestock viable let alone competitive with gamestart miners who can get many more bonuses later on.

[@TheArklyte]

​@@dangerface300 just stack them higher!

[@bananablimps9660]

ITS ALMOST HARVESTIN SEASON

[@IamStempie]

MA LORD

[@ukz_james9776]

"I've got a brand-new combine harvester; I'll give you the key!" I felt the pain in this video and pain is bread in French, so I guess food is inevitable.

[@MontuPlays]

I got twenty acres, and you got forty three!

[@goldyloxje]

@@MontuPlays and a mule as livestock

[@Regunes]

@@goldyloxje the mule isn't the livestock. The mule turns you into livestock

[@goldyloxje]

@@Regunes I should not have taken the delicious trait....

[@artiya4u]

"But farming... Really? Man of your talents?"

[@MontuPlays]

It's a peacful life ... *galaxy on fire in the background*

[@Ep3o]

Ah Montu taking tips from the superior Stellaris KZbinr it seems ;)

[@MontuPlays]

Regunes does make some great videos! Thanks for reminding me 😉

[@Elvenmaster]

@@MontuPlays 😂

[@Ep3o]

@@MontuPlays D:

[@popeallahsnack-bar9804]

Comment aint even pinned (:o

[@janekkrucz9011]

@@Ep3o destroyed

[@mimaneneko8386]

Every time i hear "Soil of hope" my brain makes me hear "Soylent Hope". Implying that all the food coming from your farmers is hilariously ironic

[@MontuPlays]

I mean... we're a plant based species so ...

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Family provides for family, even after death.

[@sytela6346]

"Our sqidgy, organic, food based, *disgusting* flesh" I have never heard someone hate their physiology so much in my life

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

*From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and surety of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will whither and fade. Some day, the crude biomass you call a temple will fail, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. Even in death, I serve the Omnisiah."

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

@@ImperfectVoid8479 forgive me for my failure

[@tateullock7236]

@@alexanderthegreat6682 Of course brother.

[@mcgan8749]

This might actually be easier as a Catalytic Machine Empire. You'd get access to Bio-Reactors, which convert food into energy. Thinking of Assimilators in particular (with a biological sub-species) as they would not need as much energy as most MIs, and they don't struggle as much to get the food boosting techs. And they don't use minerals much.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

I'm pretty sure a similar thing exists for hiveys.

[@notme3603]

@@ChaoticNeutralMatt not similar it’s actually the same for hive’s They also get bio-reactors

[@mcgan8749]

​@@ChaoticNeutralMatt Technically, any empire that isn't Biological has access to it. But Lithoid Hive Minds rely heavily on minerals. Catalytic Machine Assimilators only use Minerals to build, everything else needs either food or energy. As long as you don't have any Lithoid pops anyway. But Machine Intelligences also have the worst farmers and the best technicians...

[@tomisabum]

Surprised they didn't go this route, actually.

[@EliteSpectre32]

Machine Farmers produce less base food than other empire farmers for some reason so Catalytic while normally not really good is particularly not good on machines, still sounds funny though. You can also get Bio Reactors if you go lithoids as any type of empire iirc.

[@supercellodude]

When I saw farmers only, I initially thought Montu was going for Agrarian Idyll + Anglers for the trade bonus for generating food and consumer goods, then take the catalytic processing civic for normal empires to spec into alloys. Or ... wait, that might crash even faster

[@jpritchett42]

Anglers + Catalytic Converters might work. Though I don't think one could be a hive mind so...

[@jsr9617]

After this playthrough, Montu was so sick of food that he didn't eat for 24 hours.

[@MontuPlays]

Can confirm.

[@EyeOfMagnus4E201]

Thanks! You deserve some money after suffering through all that farming!

[@MontuPlays]

Thanks for your support!

[@BlueSpirit422]

@@MontuPlays man, the guy was right, farming brings in money!

[@rogerreger9631]

He is just seething with rage through his voice, especially when he mentions building more food districts.

[@B3RyL]

Wow, I've never seen anyone condense a 100 years worth of sarcasm into a 30 minute video. Impressive :D

[@sturmsuccessor4192]

I would have thought that this build would go with Agrarian idyll, Anglers and Catalythic processing on an Ocean world start. This surprises me.

[@pathfindersavant3988]

THat would require Montu to want to make this good instead of an excuse to grouse and make comedy from it.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

@@pathfindersavant3988 well I'll just add that while it might be more optimal for food and such. You're still painfully limited by food. Kinda an interesting handicap to play around for a game or two (or every day often)

[@Nat-ri3ip]

That's generally the way to go for a build with mostly farmers, but not only farmers. Dealing away with consumers good is essential when you can't have any miners.

[@nichtmal5208]

Let's just appreciate how Montu faced his greatest nemesis and still became the strongest empire in the known galaxy

[@kristopherdecker6549]

"Sir... our scanners report their ships... their ships seem to be made out of food."

[@Graven-Ash]

Could you do another 2 of these one where its only technicians and one where its only miners, just to show the difference between the power of the 3 jobs.

[@cowforceseven7328]

I was so sure that this was gonna go horribly wrong, but Montu went and subjugated half the galaxy.

[@smoore6461]

If stellaris had a more robust economic system, this might be a lot easier. Very interesting video Montu, you come up with some wild challenges!!! 😀

[@Tamizushi]

The more I think about it, the more I feel like this challenge would be smoother as a megacorporation. You could get all the energy you need from trade and branch office. If you are also Catalytic Recycler and consumer benefit, then you shouldn't have any mineral upkeep, space mining should be enough to help you build. And you can also get some minerals from your branch offices.

[@Lankpants]

I was really expecting something to do with Anglers using the trade value to generate your energy. It's not good but like, it technically gives you most of the things you need to play.

[@hermean]

I loved this and hope for a sequel. I'm picturing the painting, American Gothic (the one with dour farmer and his daughter and a pitchfork) but xeno-ified.

[@TheContingency25x]

I think they should make a massive farm megastructure. Just because why not.

[@Stoneforge1501]

Is farmers only viable? No, not a chance . Is it possible? Maybe, at least theoretically. But there is SO much that can go wrong.

[@sqocks8254]

_Good Montu, join the nutritious Darkside!_ 🍏 _Become a fellow farm enjoyer!_ *One Of Us* *One Of Us* *One Of Us* *One Of Us* *One Of Us* *One Of Us*

[@vesuvius1318]

My favourite playstyle is Aquatic on Ocean Paradise origin, with Catalytic Processing, Anglers and later Agrarian Idyll civics. I like roleplaying as a green empire (and i also take the genetic evolution ascension path). Also: when i build a ringworld, if i specialize one segment on forging, there are not enough minerals elsewhere to cover the huge cost (i play on very low habitable planet settings, i hate micromanaging too many worlds). But you can farm on another segment, and BAAM, you're covered.

[@dev2410]

🙀🙀🙀WAIT A SECOND YOU HAVE XENO COMPATIBILITY👩‍❤‍👨 ON!🙀🙀🙀

[@michaelalexander2753]

Since you are offering, yes i do want to see more of this timeline and your subsequent tears of anguish.

[@raintalon6138]

Farming should be a bigger requirement. I could imagine one empire exporting food to half the galaxy. That would be so cool

[@Wizard_Level_1]

One of my most successful empires was a farming empire. I didn't forgo the other resources, of course, but I really focused on farming. Here is what I learned: Food is not useless. It's the easiest resource to increase with some of the strongest bonuses. I owned the senet by using my massive food production to buy favors and using those favors to bully my way around. I traded in such a way to make the sure I was giving the other side of the trade a really good deal, so I ended up with everyone liking me. Food as the backbone of your economy (not as your only economy) is not only doable, but quite good.

[@That_Guy_Named_Epyk]

Welcome to the rice fields!!

[@Zweistein001]

Anyone else think that organic reprocessing should be buffed so that all features that use minerals instead use food (but are 20% more expenisve) not just alloy foundaries. That would make this civic a lot more insteresting (and useful).

[@Tamizushi]

You can really spam solar panels if you play as gestalt consciousness. The penalty for being over your starbase capacity is a percentage augmentation to their upkeep, but solar panels don't have any upkeep. Plus, they produce 12 base energy instead of 6 with lvl 2 Unchained Knowledge resolution. A good rule of thumb is that if you starbases are costing you half as much as they are earning you, then it's not worth building more of them. As rogue servitor, I generally get to about 60 of them this way. Of course, the down side is if you use starbases for anything else it's gonna be very expensive. You are gonna have to rely on warrior jobs to increase your naval cap and on your mobile force for defense.

[@apollogamer8758]

Really enjoyed! Would love to see a part two! :)

[@MicroBlogganism]

Lol, this basically a slightly more restrictive and more aggressive version of my go to build. No mining districts, a minimum number of generator districts, selling food to the market and any other empire that wants it. Focusing almost entirely on pops, food, and unity. It can absolutely work.

[@jedih8526]

Yaknow, I’ve wondered something for a while now but have always forgotten to test it. But this save seems like the perfect opportunity to do so! Build the first stage of a megastructure, then transfer the system to a subject/release it as a subject. Do this over and over until you’re happy, then integrate the subjects again or give them so many alloys they just build the megastructures themselves so you can tax them. My thinking with the integration bit is that you’d then potentially be able to have an infinite number of say.. Dyson spheres, in your empire!

[@joeldoxtator9804]

This gives me an idea for a new civic : Fanatic Recyclers - Turns pop waste into minerals and energy

[@oygemprime3864]

This is very cool, we'd love to see the saga's conclusion. You might want to grab Shared Burdens at some point if you haven't already.

[@Influfferious]

Nihilistic acquisition to get lithoids would be excellent to "farm"

[@Snoogen11]

Nihilistic acquisition of lithoids to farm? Who said you can't get blood from a stone XD

[@onehuman4853]

I’ve never understood how hiveminds get research by staring at rocks

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Communal melding with the universe. (Or just staring at lithoids, yeah)

[@callumunga5253]

The drones are sitting in a corner looking at rocks, whilst their nervous systems are running societal interaction modelling, reworking hyperdimensional mathematics, and trying to figure out why the hive node's toaster is broken.

[@FuelDropforthewin]

This is a man in pain. I love it. I feast upon your pain. Anglers is a good one for this setup if you find yourself low on agri districts.

[@gilgamesh7084]

I love this. As someone who actually has done a food focused run(although not with these brutal restrictions) it is nice to see the farmer’s plights and bounties both

[@tomisabum]

Can't believe this channel did this challenge, much less did so well so far. I'd be down to see how it'd go.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

as others have pointed out having tasty pops should count, letting you farm some minerals but you can't do that on hivemind

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Mmm I feel like you can. I know specifically with necrophage, but overall with hivey, maybe when you can start assimilating? Or maybe just when you aren't full hostile to life. That sounds right actually

[@idcgaming518]

My idea - go aquatic farmers. Bit less food, sure, but all the CG you could ever need. Perhaps it would work quite well for if, say, you decided to do a challenge of farming *workers* only.

[@reallyFrogman]

Dude does not know the absolute joy of biting into a fresh and juicy crop you’ve grown yourself.

[@dev2410]

opinion and prediction: your farmers only challenge is possible, although it will still be hard, at least at first. I don't think farmers are as inefficient as you think, since growing your own food is not as bad as buying it on the market (both technicians and farmers produce 6 of their respective resource, whereas buying food costs 1.3 times more on the internal market with monthly trades.) That said though, this will still be hard, since you can't have technician jobs. However, if you have friendly neighbors you may actually be able to trade for better deals with them when contact is established, selling food to other nations and getting non food resources at an advantageous 1.2 ratio. Also, if you can potentially vassalize someone (or even produce your own vassal, if you weren't a hive mind or had progenitor hive,) they could give you resources, especially if they were a prospectorium. My prediction: this is possible, and barring bad luck (like in the quest for Jeff) you will do at least a passable job in this endeavor, since you really know what you are doing. I look forward to seeing how you do and commenting further!

[@aecides3203]

I did a run with an Aquatic Angler with Catalytic Processing, lucked into the Baol Precursor chain for the bonus consumer goods and food and then took Agrarian Idyll. The amenities, consumer goods and trade value you produce is actually...obscene - I was able to switch to marketplace of ideas for my unity production and focus on science worlds to keep up on traditions and power ahead on tech while setting up a trade federation, fielding an absolutely huge fleet, gradually converting my entire empire to Gia worlds and using the AP I saved on Ecu/Gia worlds to take Defender of the Galaxy and almost solo the crisis. I wasn't even intending it as a Farmer only run (so to be fair it wasn't played as one initially) but everything lined up so well that I just ended up only using farmers and space mining for basic resource production.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

I feel like the goal is to tank the food market and sell all your food all the time and get to a point where you can purchase minerals at inflated prices. Well also burn food for energy.

[@atraunam3223]

I feel like regular races would make an easier farmer only run, you can grab that aquatic farming trait and get food, unity, consumer goods and energy all from your farmers.

[@akselbentsen3683]

It’s kinda hilarious that there are so many base mechanics involving farmers, food and increasing their output when you can literally get all your food needs met with a few star bases

[@jarosawklimentowski5091]

This is amazing how with such difficult conditions you still have twice the science and alloy output than I have trying to optimize everything :D

[@Skyben2]

Hey Montu, I'm playing Stellaris for 2 weeks now and I love it too find almost always one of your videos covering my questions! But, actually I'm looking for a video about archaeology sites. Something like a Tier-List. Which to excavate immediately, keep for later etc. Especially early on, it takes a lot of time for my inexperienced scientists to excavate a site.

[@Tick421]

This is sadly the kind of stream I would absolutely have loved lol

[@Cyberpsychos_Dirge]

Damn, this is the best FarmersOnly ad I’ve seen to date

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

an idylic biopunk farmer empire is actually quite the neat mood tho...

[@dev2410]

please show us the conclusion of this. Also, please show us how "Stellaris Player vs EU4 - Unite Japan" ends. Seeing you in samurai armor was priceless.

[@3liony]

Should have done a regular empire for this. Farmers only (with catalytic processing) + trade build for consumer goods to support research labs.

[@michaeledmunds7056]

I made a plantoid race of healthy edible agricultural veggie pops and named it "the garden of eaten"

[@nikolaisafronov3452]

the best farm is a galactic size farm - this should have also included a Devouring Swarm

[@hybralisk]

Ah yes, the farmers only stream. Glorious, romantic.

[@Alexander_M0815]

you can tell a piece of montu died with every agricultur district build and every farmer employed

[@tyrr9311]

Insert "It ain't much, but it's honest work" Meme here.

[@ttuurrttlle]

Missed a great opportunity to call this a "Farmers Only" run. (Which is a weird US based dating app... for farmers...)

[@TheMrSeagull]

I feel like this challenge is best suited to wide gestalt empires - Lots of planets with bioreactors

[@nKaero]

"I hate Farmers" - I think that's a pretty shared sentiment for anyone that has played this game for any amount of time. My food economy 90% of the time is just Hydro modules on starbases as long as I can avoid farmers on any of my planets.

[@miroz0181]

Yes we the Miroz Technocracy would formally like to review this valuable information in a strictly agriculture method your empire has employed 🤣

[@Veivisir]

I guess cortyceps drones might work here, as the those fleets would use food.

[@weiss4855]

Can't help but wonder how much impact the new precursor building, the Baol Organic Plant will make since it makes farmy bois give 1 more food and +1 consumer good.

[@nargorth2113]

Some musings, situation chosen to show maximized potential [you don't take many farm-related techs and math may be off] Base production: 7 [1 from base building] to 9 [with perk bonus] Total production: 14 [harvester trait, agri-world, two +20% techs, 60+ hability, governor+good stability] to 18 Let's say pop food use is approx. 1.2 due to hability over whole empire, you can now supply 3-4 pops more per farmer, excluding starbases, vassals, trades, etc. your need about 1 less Farmer per 100 pops in your empire. Let's say you don't use external sources, now you have [with Baol building] 7% Farmer pops. Now you have 6-7 extra CG & 1 extra pop free [per 100 pops in Empire] to work anything more essential than farms, those 7 CG will cover those Farmers and one researcher job with some to spare. That's... okay?, but these are very specific conditions, and overall gain goes down with bonuses to production, especially with orbital ring +2 and upgrading farming building to +2. There is a thing, that it's not usual to have that many farmers. On my last save I have about 2.5-3% farmers and could easily just employ them elsewhere, but domestic food production is important for our internal politics [we produce almost 2x the food needed and I don't play optimally] But it would be much more lucrative if you use food to produce alloys, I guess, but I didn't played so won't guess how much. Every farmer+specialist pair will be covered by farmer's CG production if not Utopian Abundance and you have at least 125% normal production on planet [like 80 stability + governor]

[@DavidVanderWyst]

Could make a drinking game out of him saying "Farmers".

[@ThePikachuThing]

You’ve turned the galaxy into a giant combine harvester, ohhh arrrr

[@airstorulthuan3702]

and he did it in Fall. What a Mad lad.

[@ObligedUniform]

You don't have to be lonely, at Farmers Only space Strat

[@Reoh0z]

They say art is suffering, and watching you going farmers heavy was surely suffering I enjoyed.

[@er4din903]

“Thank god for farmers, they are the backbone of this economy!” My brother in Bubbles, they’re the ONLY bone in this economy.

[@hugomungus7306]

To be honest, I've found using food for diplomacy and trades to be extremely useful. If you can't beat em, feed em.

[@lifeonhigh851]

From a year in the future, this is now a viable build that is actually ridiculously good

[@PossibleBit1]

Farmers: *exist* Montu: And I took that personally.

[@badluckpoppy]

Max auto-sell for basic resources is 146 units per month. Jernsaxe posted the market table on your discord few times and I think it should be pinned somewhere very visible.

[@KeinNiemand]

sounds pretty useless mid-late game when a single AI empire is willing to sell you 450 energy/month for 100 food/month for 30 years, without the price ever going down while giving you more energy then you get by selling 146 food/month on the market. Or you could directly trade food for alloys at a 1:1 ratio, yes the AI (at least in my ensign difficulty game) is that bad at trading. Also for some reason machine empire AI really like buying food from you.

[@Skyben2]

Now, that I've watched it to the end, it was so much fun!

[@FoxesInBoots]

The irony of "yeah they dont trust us, lets spy on them" is so funny to me. Like, theyre not wrong anymore! Lol!

[@clashthegamer4873]

I'm not quite convinced this is as bad as my unintentional industrial only challenge because I didn't realize industrial districts are always uncapped. I fixed my basic needs issue by just issuing 45% protection taxes on 3-4 empires

[@onizerg4652]

I tend to use my food as a driven assimilator to bribe the filthy frleshbag Zeno's into becoming my vassal then absorb them 10 years later

[@emiliomoreno3256]

Oh yes, I would love to see a humble farming community rally to defend the galaxy.

[@adrenjones9301]

Fluffy is an acceptable name for Bubbles too.

[@iddi5309]

Farmers only new meta? Farmers only new meta.

[@bravesoldat4498]

sounds like a description of a stoner society, unemployeed thinekrs and salad makers

[@brennangray8712]

I would love to see a trait that allows pops to gain a ton of bonuses that scale with a dynamic food upkeep. sort of a reactive metabolism. could be cool for builds that can output ridiculous quantities of food per month (like 20k) instead of just selling it all. imagine having pops that eventually produce like 10x resources, but literally devour all the food you generate in your entire empire each month. or you could have it as a custom situation or possibly a policy.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

That's an amusing thought.

[@heartlessmushroom]

I love it how ,since Overlord,vassals make janky stupid strategies like this actually playable.

[@catscrath25alpha83]

In the current update you can actually turn food into anything, SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!

[@anna-flora999]

"actually building a resource silo on purpose" _looks at my silo only ringworlds_

[@xpc39]

nice to see you've come around on the plantoid ship set. the one true ship set, some would say~

[@calicojackrackham9233]

Ok. I see now. Farming is the best way to min-max Stellaris. Thanks! 🤪

[@larrythecow1568]

Imagine how much food you could have with an agrarian idyllic empire with the food bonus traits and the ocean paradise for unlimited food districts.

[@adamnevraumont4027]

Lots. I did a farming build with aquatic catalytic idyll overtuned cyborg anglers. I had one mining world for CG and buildings/stations. Most consumer goods comes from pearl divers. Massive farm only planets (27+) with orbital ring food and CG boosts plus factory/production ministry. Filled with 25%+15%+50%(!)+10%+5%+5% productivity farmer pops before tech. Each farm planet was like a megastructure. Then forge planets to convert to alloys. I wasn't being a purist; I had a few generator worlds, 1.5 mining worlds, and switched forge to cg if needed. And 2 relic tech worlds.

[@simbachvazo6530]

Hey, Fluffy is an acceptable alternative to Bubbles. Anything else is shallow ice.

[@tomoyboy]

He just sounds so furious the whole way through 🤣

[@darkbeetlebot]

This game really needs a food and consumer goods overhaul. Like, they're the only two resources that are practically useless as anything other than upkeep. The only way they have any use is if you use catalytic reprocessing or bio-reactors. The prethoryn brood queen is endgame only and honestly not that great. Hell, even the nutritional plentitude edict barely puts a dent in food production. You need to use mods to get any real use out of food. Then you've got consumer goods. Pure upkeep. The only thing I can remember them having a use for besides that is the planetary decision to give amenities, which isn't really necessary anyways because I've found that amenities aren't really difficult to get. In fact, I usually end in a gargantuan surplus of them. AI empires value them highly for trade deals at first, but that's only a temporary use. Then the only jobs that use consumer goods are bureaucrats, researchers, culture workers, and priests. All of which focus on unity except for researchers, which are arguably the only truly impactful use of consumer goods besides Utopian Abundance. I literally get so much unity just from the occasional culture building that making a dedicated planet or habitat for it is overkill. Even with a mod that adds dozens of traditions, it's not that difficult to get most of them done before endgame and have all the unity edicts active with 2K unity per month to spare. Oh and gestalts have literally no use for them because everything that requires consumer goods, for them, requires energy or minerals. Oh, and lithoid researchers take minerals too, so they have less use for consumer goods compared to other organics. Honestly, you eventually just reach a point in the game where consumer goods become totally meaningless. You can get plenty of them to sustain any amount of upkeep you could need --- it's not difficult at all. Especially with ecumenopoli and megastructures. They seriously need another use that can keep them viable in the mid-endgame where you've already researched all the tech and are never going to feasibly have a deficit. Same goes for food: we need more things to spend them on, such as ship components (imagine reverse-engineered space fauna tech requiring food cost/upkeep to use). Hell, even the ameoba strike craft doesn't require food without mods.

[@OverlordGattone]

Have you ever thought about playing this challenge with a machine empire? Bio-processors employ 0 pops and generate 20 energy per 25 food upkeep, which is better than the market at least. However, you could stack machine nexus planet, governor trait and prosperity to reduce the upkeep down by 30, maybe 40% or more, turning 1 food into more than 1 energy. Is it good? It is something of a meme, so I would say yes.