Stellaris - Relic Tier List (3.6 Edition)

Relics were recently reworked for 3.5 & 3.6 , so it's time for a Tier List. Also, there's a secret Relic at the end that you may enjoy. Let me know in the comments below which relics have been done bad and need to be put in another category.
ASpec's videos are based around the popular Grand Strategy Game; Stellaris as well as other fun science fiction properties. Delve into a galaxy that is both dark and full of secrets. This channel has tons of guide, overviews, musing and other content for you to enjoy in the semi-classic game review format. So stick around, grab a drink. Some of this content was heavily inspired by the likes of TheSpiffingBrit, RimmyDownUnder and GrayPlays. Other content is similar to that what you would find on let's play channels like The Yogscast.
Video Title; Stellaris - Relics Tier List (3.6 Edition)
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[@A_Spec]

Alright folks, tell me which your favourite Relic is and where it should fit on this list.

[@amazingronaldo9656]

Cybrex Warforge for me. It used be a flat minerals for alloys, but the incremental concept they changed it to made it even better to me! Plus when your precursor are the Cybrex, a ringworld in their system is awesome!!

[@bumchod2511]

Cybrex most the time, but I play a lot of ring or void origin and that Gaia relic is ridiculous for that

[@ducttapeanddreams]

I really like the Omnicodex. The best thing about it is it's a pop printer, and with the pop growth changes being able to print pops is extremely nice (particularly if you get a chance to get some tomb world preference). Pops are power, and printing years worth of pop growth every 10 years is quite good. I would bump up the Contingency Core and Warlock to D teir. They are too late to mater, but they are objectively better than the brood queen.

[@mothman8300]

Surveyor. Able to be gotten quite early and always useful. Not always the best option later on but still. And it has a chance to activate a second time per use.

[@Daemonworks]

My favourite is whichever ones the game gives me. :)

[@limontree476]

Don't forget that the Last Baol also can be used on a world that is already gaia to grant up to 10 pops a unique gaia habitability that grants an extra 5% output on them. That's in addition to the 10% bonus from the gaia world itself.

[@A_Spec]

Wat

[@trutwhut6550]

They should buff it by allowing the buff to keep growing 🤣

[@Ian501st]

Say what

[@MarlKitsune]

Pretty sure each activation also has a "hidden" planetary decision where on one gaia world you can swap 3 pops to the upgraded gaia habitability.

[@genroku4960]

When you activate the Last Baol you can go to any planet you possess that is already a Gai world and activate the "turn 10 pops to Gaia preference" decision. But the trick is you need to do it after you begin the Gaia decision on a non-gaia world. If you do it first it uses up the relic activation. Basically you get two effects for the price of one.

[@chattychatotchannel]

The rubricator can also be used to make a max level art installation!

[@user-op8qc8or5v]

as far as I remember, now small artifacts are not needed for this

[@aptspire]

@@user-op8qc8or5v you need 100 for "perfection" but you don't for "completion"

[@vasheroo]

I just rolled an empire where a ruined mega art installation is in my borders along with kleptomaniac rats. Stoked!

[@RobBCactive]

The minor artefact generation can also help with the "Secrets of" projects to get extra out of precursor chains.

[@Tim06TR]

The Crisis Relics are amazing when you do all 3 crisis. Getting the contingency as the first crisis is absolutely superb. EDIT: I wish I could set the order of the crisis and their strength.

[@vi6ddarkking]

Aggressive Crisis Engine Mod

[@HappyFluegel]

I think I want to play one run like this and after finishing of the third crisis become the crisis myself and end the galaxy for good

[@mithrillis]

Also, you do NOT want to get the Contingency as the final crisis... If you cannot replace 5000 fleet capacity instantly you are dead :p

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

@@mithrillis eh, they're the weakest and their forces are spread out Also ai can handle them the best because ai runs balanced builds and contingency is balanced too, not specialized like the other two Granted, AI can handle anything in the endgame if you declare a crisis and make them work together

[@mithrillis]

@@letsplaysvonaja1714 for some reason they have significantly higher fleet power when spawning as the second or last of 25x crisis. Also AI seems to be able to deal with at most 5x and maybe 10x if the galaxy the completely united. Above that, the crisis strength is just above what even the most buffed AI combined is able to deal with.

[@zawlinaung1324]

Maw of the toxic entity gives you a planetary decision when you play the knights of the toxic gods origin.

[@justinthompson6364]

Yeah. I'm surprised he missed that; doesn't _anyone_ on youtube ever kill the toxic god in a game? And that decision gets you more knights, probably the best job in the game by the time you finish the event chain

[@francoisandrieux7954]

And the decision is very strong. It provides a lot of jobs and a unique district that produce a lot of science, unity and fleet capacity, and bonus yields based on your decisions made during the toxic gods situation.

[@jalleonothing5946]

@@justinthompson6364 It was mentioned in the actual review of it. This is just a tier list of the artifacts

[@justinthompson6364]

@@jalleonothing5946 All the more baffling that it isn't being mentioned here then, since that _IS_ a property of the relic. Tiering the maw based on how it works the 1% of the time it's not being used by a KotTG empire while ignoring that much more common use case just doesn't make any sense.

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

Killing the god also keeps your knight order working at full capacity because you technically never ended the quest to find the specific being that nuked your world You "only" found a member of its species Which is better than getting one singular ship you may not even use in battle out of fear of losing it

[@tite93]

I think the crisis relics matter quite a bit if you go for triple crises. There may come a point when you'll need those bonuses to overcome the next one

[@PerfectAlibi1]

I partially agree, although just the debris you get from Prethoryn and Unbidden will help you immensely. Best missiles, strike craft from Prethoryn and best essentially plasma/laser hybrid weapons from Unbidden. ^^

[@tite93]

@@PerfectAlibi1 are unbidden weapons any good? Last time I checked they were a bit lackluster, maybe they got a buff in recent patches

[@PerfectAlibi1]

@@tite93 They just need a shield breaker, but then they're better than plasma, without costing exotic gasses. So just couple them with some cannons or if you got lucky, the null void beams.

[@MinecraftConnected]

Thats what Im saying

[@PerfectAlibi1]

@@MinecraftConnected Or you could also just really stack energy weapon damage, so it over comes the shield weakness ^^

[@MinecraftConnected]

The crisis relics improve if you have all three crises turned on. You can get the relics from the first 2 and use it to help you deal with the third crisis

[@ExistToComment]

if you're playing as the knights (which is the only way you'll probably ever get your hands on the maw relic), doesn't it also let you consecrate habitats? Gives you more knight jobs, which are the strongest part of the origin. Still not a great relic, but an important detail to miss

[@shalax7881]

Only one per habitat, but still

[@destrinbriar1019]

Actually your consecrated habitats can produce 500 research with a 12k army.

[@leakingamps2050]

Don't forget the empire-wide percent increases to alloy production

[@dakotamorehead3499]

Really hoping aspec or montu go over how to push psionics without teacher of the shroud. I really like psionic, but being locked out of other flavor origins makes me sad :(

[@evenmoor]

Pro Tip: Put a Maniacal scientist as the Society researcher; it increases the likelihood of drawing rare techs, which include Psionic Theory. If you're a materialist, I believe you're locked out of Psionic Theory unless you do some shenanigans (I think you need your society researcher to have the Psionic trait?). Your odds of drawing the Psionic Theory tech also increase if you're spiritualist (and even more if you're fanatic spiritualist), and if you have psionic pops (such as the Rackets) in your empire.

[@toddmoore9841]

I had a recent playthrough where I rolled the Zroni precursors, so I got Psionic Theory right away. With my third ascension perk my empire was a fully psionic, materialist, mechanist, megacorp. That was a fun game.

[@Nukestarmaster]

There are a lot of ways of boosting your chance. The biggest boost is an expertise: psionics scientist, but a maniacal scientist helps if you don't have one. Other increases to chance are fanatic spiritualist, having any psionic or latent psionic pops, a shroudwalker teacher and technological ascendancy. Do note that non-spiritualist empires have half the weight and materialist empires (of either degree) REQUIRE either an expertise: psionics scientist or at least one psionic pop.

[@A_Spec]

Using a Maniacal scientist in Society research gives you a change to get Psionics research.

[@Nukestarmaster]

@@A_Spec Maniacal doubles the weight, but don't let materialists roll the tech.

[@TocsTheWanderer]

Something you forgot to mention with The Surveyor is that, with each use, it has a 50% chance to give a second resource deposit 1-3 years after activation, and if that happens there's a 20% chance of getting a 3rd deposit 3-5 years after activation.

[@GaldirEonai]

The crisis relics do have a bit of use if you pick the "all crisis scenarios" option.

[@swapertxking]

i have unironically used nlade of the huntress to steam roll wars. that 20% sublight speed is nuts when you have hyperlane travel cooldown to boot. especially with fascinating flagella and the shanty boost. +40% subflight speed is SCARY

[@commanderpower79]

24:35 I love how you said the line "Maximum Production of Everything!" It was beautiful.

[@A_Spec]

My nanosuit from Crisis says that too.

[@aptspire]

With the name "the Radiance" makes me think of a Psionic Beacon. In Horus Heresy, the Pharos Beacon would serve as rapid communication (and possibly transportation) between the 500 Worlds but its explosion possibly attracted the Tyranids attention. It'd be interesting to have an archaeological site decision that gives you a greater bonus output and maybe hyperspace charging speed or the ability to place two connected wormholes (one on "Pharos", the other on a planet of your choice) but causes the Praethoryn to spawn much earlier

[@Blacksnyder]

My three favorite relics are the Rubicator, The Blade of the Huntress and the Cybrex Warforge. I wish we could use relics simultaneously.

[@lmaoroflcopter]

Surveyor is insane. The way the resources stack every 5 years on your planets on a tall playthrough its practically game breakingly powerful.

[@yoanngaben1247]

Since I have a shit PC , i love to go one system while granting me the surveyor at the beginning of the game, it is so satisfying seeing research stations on every single Moon in your home system

[@PrototypeErebos]

@Aspec the relic of the toxic god relic has some kind of scaling in it i think. i jsut got it today for the very first time (completly vanilla game) and it gives me like 9.100 exotic gas per activation wich in my opinion is CRAAAAAZY honestly EDIT: i cant say what it scales of but as refrence i jsut looked up some points. its year 2356 , i got 1639 pops and 1974 empire size and 13k tech per month. i also thought if it jsut doubles your current gas-stock cos im roughly at 10k gas in the bank

[@Reclamation-]

You mentioned that the zeroni are rare, can you make a video explaining how the precursors are determined and why some are more rare than the others? I know it used to be tied to certain spots on the map but idk if that’s still true.

[@CommunistBot]

I've only ever gotten Irrassians and Imari

[@JimJamTheAdmin]

​@@CommunistBot Irassians and Cybrex for me. I don't mind the regular access to the Irassian Naval Yards but I think something is broken for me.

[@henryneubert7798]

Finally we reach a point where Stellaris makes fun without mods. I remember playing years ago with ,,Slower than light" and ,,System Scale" in a 10.000 star galaxy without any other civilization to simulate a realistic expansion of humanity. But now, with all the politics, feudalism, megacorps and all these new origins and relics, it has become a really interesting game even if you play it like a normal person.

[@jerald0072]

The 2nd and 3rd option for bonuses which you can choose for when you activate Psionic Archive is really strong (stability, happiness, SHIP DAMAGE, etc) as well as the passive ruler level cap increase (large increase) compliments your likely having an immortal ruler due to the shroud cooldown reduction. And you can get it super early consistently. I'd strongly argue it shouldn't be in C tier compared to the others on that tier. Head of Zarqlan on D tier is kinda harsh. Although I tend to usually get this at a point it doesn't matter a friend of mine, in one of our games, managed to get it super super early and that an argueably temporary reduction in happiness due to spiritualist ethics attraction doesn't matter if it allows you to conquer/vassalize your neighbors and snowball the game.

[@PerfectAlibi1]

I would place the Omni Codex in the low A, high B tier. As it allows you to make your species that much better when genemodding, something that you should do regardless of ascension. If only to give your biological pops just a slightly better trait, while the other pops are synths.

[@tno895]

@30:22 I've noticed having a Maniacal researcher also ups the chance for certain rare tech, like psychic for tech empires and I found some rare things in the other two groups as well. Making more into maniacal is fantastic!

[@cristobalmiranda9063]

I got the head of zarqlan when i was playing machine intelligence. That immediately nullified the spiritual ethics attraction thing, plus all the holy worlds were in my borders because i was directly next to that specific fallen empire. So i like it quite a lot

[@bigi5490]

Great work! Long live the algorithm

[@mortache]

Surveyor with Void Dwellers is SSSSS tier especially for research habitats and rare resources. Miniature galaxy is nice because it is a GUARANTEED spawn in every map, along with a size 26 relic world!

[@antred11]

I love the surveyor, regardless of what origin I play. Every now and then it gives you some pretty good strategic resource deposits.

[@Flatternschuchtern]

Psionic archive is kinda straight up better than khan's throne for psionically ascended empires. It buffs the shroud in every way, and one of the options for its active is +20% damage modifier. Sure it's only 5 years not 10, but in an emergency just as good. Now add the damage, fire rate and sublight speed that you get from the shroud (they can also overlap now) and it's not even close. And you have other choices for active effect. And you get it much earlier. Getting the zroni is a reason to go psionic on itself (as if it wasn't good already). I'd say psionic archive's an S tier

[@regicide564]

ah yes just when i needed my video showing me what every relic does thank you aspec!

[@Juhnte]

Idea for the radiance:Crystalline conversion Gives a planetary decision that spawn a crystalline blocker on one of your planets, that makes all miners there produce 0.1 rare crystals in place of a quarter of their minerals production. The rare crystal income will be buffed by conventional miner bonuses.

[@redtsun67]

"it kills the most important thing on the planet; the pops. Yeah, you kinda want those" Oh... I think I've been playing the game wrong...

[@amirali4428]

I like the way you presented the tier list. Others always go f tier to s tier and it Gets boring in the beginning but you're way is more engaging.

[@MinecraftConnected]

They actually reduced it to 500 energy from selling minor artifacts with a 180 day cooldown

[@davidthorp01]

There is a reason I designed a machine empire, and did a ring world start; not just because I like to bully the shit out of my neighbors once my economy is going, but also in homage to the greatest Machine empire ever the Cybrex. I both love that machine, and loath it’s rare spawn chance for me. For some screwy reason, I can’t get it nearly as often as the Baoli, which while they’re great, I don’t need Bio pops or new worlds terraformed. I NEED ALLOYS!!! And I have such a wealth of minerals often at the start of the game that this could make or break some starts man. It’s an insanely good item for my build. Also, the war forms are honestly a god send when research is hyper focused on rushing to Megastructures. So I tend to ignore army stuff till later…so building those saves me lots of grief. And did I mention I love Alloys?! If the Contingency only spawned earlier I would be the greatest machine to ever exist! Speaking of things I want, how do I get my grubby mechadendrites on that *Beautiful* Crystal? Because I need more energy to go with my yummy alloys yes yes very yummy. As for my thoughts on our mystery relic. The Radiance is pretty nice looking. I’d imagine it does something in one of the three categories I think the name might denote: 1. Diplomacy- Radiance is often a descriptor for certain leaders, and is often a means of annotating someone as high status. 2. Radiance as commanding presence: It could be a captivating leadership symbol in another right, and ergo give some form of internal modifier. Whether it’s a planetary, or production bonus depends on how they angle it. 3. Radiance as weapon-Sometimes our genius is blinding. Some form of OP combat modifier that greatly increases your command of the battle space. Honorable Mention: Something Unity related, what with Unity being such an important modifier.

[@Arthur-jg2kc]

Talking about Baol. My last game had strict starting options: due to late-game performance issues, I decided to make the lowest level of pop growth and the lowest capacity of habitable planets in the galaxy (like 0,25, or so). During the game I've found only one more continental world besides my capital. But also I managed to find many other planets which sadly were "red" to colonize them (mostly tomb worlds). Imagine my reaction when the first relic I found was Baol artifact in the pre mid-game time. It's insane.

[@DeepestOfNutts]

When I play Stellaris I narrate my game with Aspec's voice in my head

[@debop0]

I remember doing the caravaneer slots for the first time not really knowing what it does since I really never really was interested in the mechanic and got the Galatron on my first time. Now it’s fun to gamble.

[@gotboredlmao]

Personally I do find pretty good niche uses for 3 of these relics. Isolated Contingency Core in coordination with a Machine Empire is very fun, because mechanical pop assembly speed boosts mean you can just act like a virus and replicate speedily. Megastructure build speed boosts are also great, and with the update that allows for two of each megastructure, its pretty powerful in my opinion; you can get two mega shipyards and just pump out ships at a ridiculous rate. So I'd probably bump it up to C. I can see a use for the Javorian Pox Sample's pox bombardment stance if you're playing fanatic purifier or a non-assimilating hive or non rogue servitor/driven assimilator, though I'm unsure as I've never gotten the Pox (I mostly get the First League or the Vultaum, gotten the Zroni, Baol, and Cybrex once, and the Yuht twice). Omnicodex is useful for Necrophage empires; you get three pops without even having to fight people, plus when you use necrophage purge they just become part of your own population as your own species with your species' perks, so any drawbacks from traits is pretty much negated. It can also be useful for Rogue Servitors, Driven Assimilators or Hives with the assimilation perks, but I don't exactly see much use other than for slaving empires. Personally though my favourite relic is definitely the Surveyor. Completely justified as to where it is.

[@LordSquirrelShow]

>Head of Zarqulan isn't that great because it appears too late in the game >Be me, pirate bird people who find it literally in the first two years of the game >Conquer and enslave everyone with our lunatic spiritualist bros who think we're holy or something >*insert seagull laugh*

[@CalamitasCalliope]

There needs to be more relics connected to origins honestly

[@Xymor]

Activating the psionic archive is great, you can get a ruler level (Never use), OR, you can get +20% ship weapons' damage, OR, +5 stability, +25% ethics attraction, and -10 edict cost. This last one is great and if I get the Archive I use it game long for the stability, or weapons damage during the crisis.

[@AmericanCaesarian]

Crisis relics are awesome and “the game being over” doesn’t matter, normally I have the crisis within the first 100 years anyway

[@metrozeegle4985]

Maw of the Toxic God isn’t a very good relic in and of itself but you should definitely seek to have it as Knights of the Toxic God, because that means you haven’t disbanded the Order and the bonuses it gives you are just absolutely insane (at least last time I checked). It’s like having an empire within your empire ! The relic was never meant to be the reward, merely the tiny cherry on top (because I won’t spit on free buffs, as insignificant as they are) !

[@unicorny9875]

I've gotten the head of zarqlan only once, when I was playing a hive-mind (one of the genocidals but I don't remember which). I was stuck in a prolonged war with a large neighbour and the extra fleets (plural, we had so many conflicts I got to max flleet power just by summoning them to fight this neighbour) absolutely saved me. The fleet may be negligible on higher difficulties, but I was a noob playing on ensign, so the extra fleet power made a tremendous difference.

[@kyleford9915]

Great to have all the relics explained, disagree though on your opinion of all the end game crisis relics, they super good if you playing with all 3 crisis active, depending on what order they arrive, but in my last game, with the prethoryn relic it saved my ass being to spawn an extra 175k fleet every 10 days while dealing with the Contingency and their 1M roaming fleets!

[@creepercommande4171]

As a hive mind empire, I got the head of Zarqlan relatively early, so I just kept pumping out extremely powerful fleets, pulling myself from one of the weaker galactic powers surpassing all galactic powers, other than some fallen empires, within several years. I agree with the placement due to the uneasiness it can cause in normal empires.

[@zachialadams9279]

The Radiance will probably be the Crystal Fleet version of the Prythorian Brood Queen. You use it and it spawns a fleet of crystal entities at the cost of a bunch of minerals. Passives will probably be energy weapon damage buffs and possibly litho species benifits.

[@rabbitbear6514]

Hey ASpec, Would you try the complete overhaul of new acot? You showed other mods in the past before and made or made not recommendations... Greetings rabbitbear

[@LG-jn5fx]

I love geting the Baol precursor. I like to play tall with no robots so Gaia worlds and free slave pops are so good to have

[@Kilrathisoldier]

You will get the chrystal near the end game. One of it's passive effects is damage bonus to kinectic weapons. Active effect is that It spawns a new crisis at a random location in the galaxy.

[@gabrielrosario2403]

I would love to mention not all pops can be in an empires borders. As a hive mind undesirable species lower planet stability and resource production. Having the pox bombardment stance is hella useful considering this.

[@johnhobbes2268]

I think you underrestimated the Zroni relic. The shroud cooldown reduction stacks with the cd reduction of the holy covenant federation. The relic allows you to massively increase the chance of getting a 16k fleet in the early game, and instant vassalize almost the entire galaxy. And it allows you to have up to 4 boons active at the same time. Combined with the active part you can have +50%shield +60%weapon damage, +20% fire rate, and +30%evasion. If I get the Zroni precursor I always change my entire playstyle and do everything to get it asap. Combined with the other new psionic benefits they are by far my strongest runs.

[@OutcastsRedeemer]

It would be interesting if the Surveyor and The Radiance Relics both go hand n hand with their effects. Like the surveyor loses its ability to find chemical gasses and crystal deposits and The Radiance takes over that job but doesn't find trade energy or mineral deposits with their passive effects being tied to sensor range and subspace speed respectively

[@reidsb78]

Honestly the Yuht Cryo-core saved my butt in a (successful) Dark Forest achievement run where I ended up against a galaxy-wide federation and had to make an OBSCENE amount of fleets to counter their giant doomstack. Kept me defending and claiming turf until I could get more energy production online.

[@jaystrickland4151]

I think you underrate Psionic Archive. It is a solid B+ to A-. It is normally one of the first artifacts you get, and the process of getting it gives you psionic theory. So you can more quickly head psionic ascension. You have three choices on active. Leader level +1, Ship weapon damage +20% for 5 years, or (+ 5 stability, - 10% edict upkeep, and + 25% ethics attraction) for 5 years. I would likely put this in A unless you are psionically ascending then it is an S, going to the shroud twice as often guarantees you will get the good picks in time to use them in the game.

[@PerfectAlibi1]

I think the radiance might be what Gestalts will get from the Zroni Pre-cursor. As they can't go Psionic?

[@nicholasnelson1005]

The one caveat about the contingency core is that you can spawn the contingency possibly earlier than the late game through Ultima Virgil's, so if you can spawn them in earlier before the end game then it's much better.

[@williamschubert4819]

With the crisis relics I think with the all crisis setting they are actually a tier above where they are and the core 2 because you can have up to 2 crisis to fight afterwards.

[@Horesmi]

Pretoryn queen is like you get a relic that spawns one of those primitive space stations every time you activate it

[@davidjones6661]

Tall play with the new Habitats in 3.9 and Surveyor is amazing, force extra research labs to no end.

[@helenasuperson7417]

Since I love playing Psionics I really love Head of Zarqlan + the fleet is great and it can ramp pretty quick in power + it gives the RP Awakened Empire bonus so for me it's A tier, and Yuht is just YUHH E or F tier for me

[@RhelrahneTheIdiot]

Me when looking at the Javorian Pox: "Wow, this is worthless, so worthless in fact that it needs its own tier entirely to itself."

[@nahnanananananana2914]

I’m gonna run with the crystal idea and say passive boost to hull strength and active spawns a crystalline fleet.

[@slacksviii9824]

I love the head one because I most of the time play as spiritualist already and I use the fallen empire fleet as a home system honor guard of sorts hovering over my home world

[@Spartan123abc]

It's an update to all the Race DLCS where u also get a relic alongside them.

[@TinusBruins]

Those (end-of-game) crisis relics can be very useful, if you have a fucked-up galaxy. Where the crisis is over but the holy war is still ongoing and you're fighting both parties by you're self as all the other player joined one of them. I had one game where the crisis was over 20 years passed end-of-game date. Being only a hand full of star systems large at that point. Defeating both parties took me an other 80 years. But the +100% jump drive range + some tech bonus allowed me to jump to anywhere in the galaxy giving me the technical advantage needed to win the game.

[@isaacgorski6054]

Totally forgot about the relic rework part of this haha

[@somedudeok1451]

I'm pretty sure the Research Speed buff on the Scales of the Worm activation affects ALL research, not just physics. So for that I think it's pretty good. Especially, if you've got your worlds sitting close to max stability anyway.

[@blazikem]

*25:40* sure ground units are terrible. However because of how combat width efficient they are. Ensuring that you spam a bunch before a war with a Fallen Empire means you can invade their planets super easily, that quality of life really does help

[@matthewedwards6025]

There's an extra benefit to the Baol (and Psionic Archive) that I didn't appreciate until recently: they are almost 100% guaranteed to be able to spawn all the parts in your empire. I've played many games where I just couldn't find the last 1 or 2 artifacts to unlock other relics, but unless you get really unlucky and the Baol spawns in someone else's territory, you're almost guaranteed to be able to complete this relic quest. Oh, also at the end you're guaranteed to have enough minor relics to unlock the Secrets of the Baol add-on (which is another thing you can't say about other relics).

[@scottbrowder8304]

your comment fills me with rage and loathing and pain. i have never completed the baol or zroni chains. the last dig site is always somewhere i can't get to. either it's in a system next to a militant isolationist empire, or it's on the other side of a hostile empire. i've had the baol homeworld spawn INSIDE a fallen empire.

[@matthewedwards6025]

@@scottbrowder8304 Well, I did say "almost." The Baol much less frequently does this, even if you have an empire that's only 6 hyperlane jumps across. The Zroni is slightly different, since it will only spawn on (UNCOLONIZED!) habitable worlds. If you don't have at least 5 or 6 of those lying around, you will have problems. This is why as soon as I get it, I start counting how many available planets I have in my empire. If there aren't enough, sometimes I will hold off of settling worlds until they spawn a site.

[@Sephiroth144]

Scales of the Worm: "Minus 5% Stability; are you crazy?" Well, people think I'm pretty unstable...

[@peterknutsen3070]

8:09 So far I agree with your placements, and The Surveyor has become better with recent updates, since you can now automate Construction Ships. Before that I used to have to find the new resource and tell a Ship to go build a Mining or Research Station. Now it just happens on its own.

[@A_Spec]

Ye, the auto construction option has made the Surveyor completely painless.

[@peterknutsen3070]

@@A_Spec When talking about the Blade of the Huntress, you forget to mention the awesome sound effect. Although, of course Lindybeige, would not approve…

[@peterknutsen3070]

@@A_Spec 20:20 The Isolated Contingency Core etc have become more relevant with the new All Crises game mode…

[@peterknutsen3070]

@@A_Spec 29:04 Damn! I assumed that OP Relic was from a mod! The amount of ECs generated is insane!

[@Darlf_Sevil]

you forget, the box who give be ancient drone center, can be random self active, so if you dont use he still work not like others relic who not used have only pasive bonus

[@CdrmnkNathan]

Blade of the huntress is good builds that use close combat like those using lots of frigates and crusier torp boats

[@Dan19870]

Not Going to lie, I had expected The Surveyor to be in S tier category. Not exactly brilliant for the One System challenge, as rare resources don't appear in your home system (at least in my games). However if your playing tall and restricting yourself to one sector, the resource boon can be well worth it, not to mention that after activating The Surveyor a couple of times will begin identifying basic resources such as energy and minerals not being exploited within your territory.

[@gladiatorone9023]

Funny thing, I played lots of hours in stellaris but didn't even know about like the half of these relics!!

[@Simpsonsfanable]

I always get the Baol origin. Like literally. Even in my last two play throughs as machines!

[@badger_ninja8681]

I'm so happy I've been constantly getting the war forge I can neglect all alloy production with zero consequences.

[@coopermorlan8930]

I rolled Ba-ool on a tree of life hivemind run... it practically played itself

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

Tree of life world shaper for me XD So I barely got to use my special terraforming building unless I had several colonies to terraform at the same time

[@El_Presidente_5337]

Funfact: You can stack the Prethoryon fleet indefinitely. I combined three or four fleets and have 780K while my other normal fleets float around 60K

[@JimmyRei1000]

Psionic Archive is under-rated on this list. It also drastically increases the "Positive Outcome" odds in the Shroud, and the chain to get the thing gives you Psionic Theory. Given that you find out what your Precursor Empire is pretty early, you can plan to go Psionic. Lastly, I think you're underselling the other two activation bonuses. +20% weapon damage is a huge bonus against FA's and the crisis (Yes, it's not the Cybrex Warforms, but what is?) And +5 Stability, -10% Edict and +25% Ethics as a combo-benefit is enough to overcome a lot of midgame annoyances. Of the Precursor Relics, I genuinely think it's in the top 3 (Along with the Warforge and Baol) Simply by virtue of flexibility. Easily a B or A relic, depending on your Shroud rolls.

[@MrMaddoks]

I like to use the Lil Galaxy at the end after I have researched seemingly everything, just +5% tech, year after year. And then BAM, brand new cutting edge tech. Keeps the tech fresh after a few decades of tech rush Edit: I also love the Head of Zarqlan. I don’t care what ethic I am, I spam those fleets forever. I have had several fleets, maxed out, all of fallen empire ships. Silly but stronk

[@alinvornicu7734]

I like beeing prospectorium and having the surveyer that is cool

[@LtShadowKitsune]

Yeah, blade of the huntress is insanely good if you know what you're doing or if it's the only artifact you have. Most of the time any of your ships spend moving, is at sub light, I want it's like they spend 90% of their time moving at that speed. So boosting that by 25% means you survey faster, get construction ships in place to build stuff quicker or just maneuvering fleets. Now on planet surveying, I'll agree that your science ships don't spend 90% of their time moving at sub light, but they still spend like 80% of their time moving at sub light. So the active of blade of the huntress is probably improving your science ship's survey speed by almost 20%, I dare say it probably does more for speeding up surveying systems than all of the survey speed increases combined.

[@truesnakegod]

I've gotten the omnicodex twice in my playthroughs. Both times I was playing a determined exterminator. The first time I was roleplaying as Skynet, so getting it was just a tad more funny.

[@daquanrushing5584]

I was playing a game with one of my friends who was doing the toxic god origin. When he got to the part where he fights the toxic god, he didn't know if he had enough fleet power to take it on so, so he asked for my help. Apparantly, one of my ships got the last hit on it, so I managed to get the relic instead of him. It kinda broke the origin as he didn't get anymore events or anything. The funny thing is that he was having exotic gas problems the rest of the game while I was just hording them.

[@ecogreen123]

my personal edits: Khan's throne in A tier, worm scales E tier, Miniature Galaxy as B or maybe even A tier, Omnicodex B tier, don't have experience with the Head of Zarqian but i'll just slot it in E tier and the Prethoryn Brood Queen in D tier maybe C tier, the Contingency core immediate S or A tier but that's just my machine biases plus its amazing with Gigastructural engineering, Extradimensional Warlock i would put in A maybe B tier just because of how hard it was for me to actually get it my first time, with The Defragmentor i would be inclined to put it in A tier but i understand it's B tier ranking, i somewhat agree with the Vultaum Reality Perforator's ranking tho i might put it in B tier because of it's backstory, i might put the Crystal of Odryskia in A tier instead but i can see it's vAlUe and finally i have no clue what The Radiance could possibly do but im excited to see what it does. I'm glad to have watched the video all the way through and I'm glad you have read my take this far, thanks!

[@gregtuff4020]

Just got the contingency relic and I love it. Completely irrelevant to my victory but another juicy Dyson sphere and a third ring world just hits the spot

[@penguinpenguinpenguin]

with the crystal, does it count ALL energy income? like can i set up a ton of temporary monthly trades to inflate the income so i get more? and does it count energy income from vassals?

[@ShadowoftheMask]

doesn't how bad -5 stability is kinda depend on difficulty settings? :D Like I think main reason why 20% research bonus for active effect isn't that good is because worm is likely end game event so you have already done most of the important research by then

[@somedudeok1451]

Research never stops being good because of repeatable techs.

[@ComradePhoenix]

I thought I was the only one constantly rolling the Baol. Wish there was an option to roll multiple precursors. Like, I get its OP to roll them all, but just rolling like, 2 or 3 should be balanced, especially if the first roll is a shit-tier precursor. Seriously, I hate getting the Zroni when I'm going for synthetic or cybernetic ascensions. I'm not asking for guaranteed cybrex, but even just getting the Yuht and Vaultaum after rolling the Zroni would be welcome.

[@vegetasaijan6052]

The first relic I ever found was the Crystal of Odryskia. I was playing a devouring swarm and conquered way more planets then I could afford. The terrible habitability of the conquered planets made most of them const me a lot. I got a lot of energy storage and used that crystal. It instantly gave me enough energy to avoid a low energy crysis and on top of that enough to terraform all conquered planets into hiveworlds. I only used it 2 times, but without that ability I would´ve been screwed. In this situation that relic was incredibly powerfull.

[@dragolaminius]

how did you get it cant find anything about it online

[@A_Spec]

It's part of a new archeology site added in 3.6.

[@adennjusik5455]

In 3k hours played I have never seen or heard of the "Defragmenter" prior to this video. Love this game!

[@mariaveenema4337]

I don't even know how to "hunt" for some of the relics, I just do the archaeology and stuff. My current playthrough deigned to give me the blade of the huntress, and somehow I have the Psionic Archive. (As a devouring swarm) And been using it to level up my immortal leader. Or just before a war.

[@apollogamer8758]

Superb! :)

[@stevegardner6139]

i was wondering why you made the head of Zarqian so lower on the list since it also with activation grants you a fallen empire fleet the grow with each usage i may have missed it but if not why then?

[@A_Spec]

The problem is that activation also adds Spiritualist ethics attraction, which, if you're not that ethic can causes serious issues.

[@Nixolas_Zinn]

Will radiance allow the building of crystaline fleets which has their own special variants on weapon? Sorry for being optimistic lol

[@jaykolokithas9329]

There is something to be said for the crisis relics for a multi crisis game if you set all crisis to spawn one after another.

[@iflyhigh1018]

wonder if that Crystal Relic has something to do wtih the Crystal ships getting/having a home system? or what i would prefer the Calamitous Birth Origin somehow getting that by smashing into a planet and creating/finding and arch site

[@Tsihsel]

they should make an origin that can choose a starting relic (adjust it for balance reasons, maybe remove crisis ones + make it active after costly upgrade or research or even 50-75% power of the original)

[@ArtezzaMagnet]

The bigger problem with the Zroni precursor is how easily the damn thing breaks so you can never finish it. I've never gotten this precursor and had it complete properly.

[@Tayvin4042]

"The Isolated Contingency Core is the most power relic in the game, bar none." Me: "Really? What could it possibly do that would make it so-OH MY GOD."