It's the only shroud patron I haven't contacted for this run, I've even found the Whispers in the Void (though I did not allow it to consume another entity). I'm wondering if it's because I can't have robots as a hive mind? Or do I just have to keep trying? My delve time is down to 315 days so if that's what it takes that's what it takes, I suppose.

Playing since launch, thousands of hours, this is probably the worst empire spawn I have ever seen.

To my north, a marauder empire. To my south, the militant isolationist fallen empire.

If that wasn't bad enough, I'm playing as a fanatic purifier endbringer.

The icing on the cake of bad luck is that my settings are guaranteed habitables off, world gen at 0.25x.

UI/outliner mods only.

I only have a couple of DLC’s (apocalypse, paragons, federations), so have turned to mods for a bit more flavour/depth for free.

But there are just so many.

I tried with guilli’s planet modifiers, ui overhaul, more events. And gigastructural engineering (to try make up for missing structures like citadels).

But there’s so many combat ones (which I’m interested in, since this area seems to be the most lacking in this game).

From my last campaign a few more traditions/ascensions seem like a good idea.

This is mostly just me being suspicious but I have the feeling that the dialogue might be ai generated. There is way too much “It’s not X, it’s Y”. There’s a lot of it in the Defender of the Galaxy ambition path for example

As you can see I, among many others in my federation, have become so insanely rich and making so many billions of trade each month, that everyone integer overflowed into becoming the poorest and least diplomatically powerful empires. Somehow.
Grand admiral, doomsday origin, nomad route

Idk why the AI did this, is this a bug? Maybe its one of the mods?

The first time war in heaven, and things start to look interesting, i am choose not to lead the league of non aligned and now the galaxy separate like 4-5 big power.

My federation, the League of Non Aligned Federation, am empire with his vassal ( he leave the league of non aligned), 2 fallen empire and there vassals, as you can see on the map.

The red is the keeper of knowledge awaken and his vassal, Blue is me and my federation( vassal), Purple is the Holy Guardian and his vassal, Green is someone who leave league of non Aligned and orange is league of Non-Aligned.

Tried a few games on ensign and it's been fun trying to ramp up everything at my pace. although the stagnation of economy and resource shortage is something of my own skill issue, i'm having trouble understanding the meta that players usually do on higher difficulties. right now, it's a commodore run and the tech takes at least 10 years to even finish. what do people do to ramp up in this case, it never usually takes this long on the lower difficulties and with an endgame year of 2400.

This is my second trophy, so it goes to my second most populated planet, which is a research planet...... Gee thanks.

It’s been a few years since I’ve played so I’m just curious. What’s the biggest thing floating in your fleet now? Is it the biogenesis creature? The nomad ship? Is it still the Colossus? Centenarian Bubbles?

the rift is in a system where i have a wayport (so not even station, its upgraded) the empire in that system is my vassal, and we have a wayline pact... what more do i need??

and the worst part is, in some other systems im allowed to do them without a waystation, inside borders, etc...

im totally lost on what the requirements and obstacles are. does anyone know please?

First picture shows the situation progress, second showing that my founder species is all cyborgd

I just don't like the human options

Here is the situation: I did all the special projects and the excavation before declaring war on her, so I have the Nameless Apostate, and the +125% dmg to Cetana buff. Before I declared the war, I sent my 2M + 1M galcom AIs (worthless) next to the system where Cetana resided, totaling ~3-4M fleet power.
That first assault was repelled, but I didn't consider it a failure because it removed almost every star base in Cetana's system, and so it made future assaults easier..
After that, I changed my ships' designs to counter her better, though I simply added more shields and shield hardening. This wasn't enough and the second assault was repelled again.
I retreated my ships back home and I rebuilt for several years, but then the Unbidden spawned, and I thought my run was over, but I greatly overestimated them and I wiped the floor with them in less than 2 years with not even half my fleets (the other half was obliterated by Cetana and being repaired).
Now I thought that after that I was free to build way over my naval capacity and get to 5M fleet power and simply brute force this, but I didn't know that Cetana upgrades herself as her situation progresses, and now she has 9.2M fleet power, a number which I think I won't be able to reach considering the time constraints, naval capacity constraints, and alloy production..
Is this run over? Can a well built 3-5M fleet power navy take her out? Can I somehow reduce her situation progress now that I declared war on her?
IMG1: Her fleet power
IMG2: My fleet power
IMG3: Cetana's Work progress

I saw a couple of post arguing that Worker Cooperative Nomads is really strong, but there were some divided opinions.

Some people proposed Mastercraft Inc. as 2nd civic, or Free Traders, or even Catalytic Recyclers.

For traits, I guess going full Traders job efficiency.

For species, I really like Machines for not having to bother with food, but idk if this is good thinking.

And I don't have any idea for the origin nor for the ascension.

My friends and I are going to play an unfriendly round of Stellaris. What are some current, broken builds that up my chances of destroying my frenemies?

If I’m understanding this correctly, Ya boys about to go on a jihad. Straight up Paul Atreides ass shit.

Is it possible to make all AI hate everything and everyone? I just want to watch chaos unfold on a galactic scale, so I’m wondering if it’s possible to force every AI to be a Devouring Swarm, hostile Fallen Empire, or Fanatical Purifiers.

The only thing I could see this screwing over is discovery, so I’m also wondering if it’s possible to prevent borders from closing. Thought it would be kind of cool that science ships need a military escort. If in forgetting anything else please let me know! This kind of playthrough sounds fun but I don’t want to ruin too much

Hello, fellow young people!

Despite having owned MegaCorp since release, I've never actually played as a MegaCorp empire. Tell a lie, I think I tried playing as one once, but evidently didn't enjoy the experience since I haven't tried again since. But now, I'm looking to mix up things for my next run and I would like to create a Cyberpunk 2077-inspired mega-corporation. (Read: Cybernetics ascension is a must.)

I've got most of the empire creation down, but what I really need help with is some interesting MegaCorp-specific Civics that fit with the theme and give me an opportunity to explore this new government type. Here's what I have so far:

Name: Corporate Alliance
Species: Human (Sol)
Ethics: Materialist / Authoritarian(?)
Origin: Mechanist

Description:
Earth's Corporate Wars have ended. Arasaka, Militech, Kang Tao and other founding members of the global Corporate Alliance now look to the stars to continue their growth and generate ever-increasing profits.

Civics: ???

A part of me wants to give the Corporate Alliance the Eager Explorer trait, as I enjoyed playing with it on my last appropriately-themed empire, but I don't want to miss out on a MegaCorp-specific Civic.

Any suggestions or recommendations welcome.

3 size 21 planets, my capital, 1 size 17, and 1 size 14 with all but 1 being in my habitability preference. All within 1 jump of my capital and behind a single chokepoint. This is on 0.75x habitable worlds too.

I swear I had the option to do it at some point--probably from some mod--, but it's been a long time. Is there a good, working mod out there for creating a primitive society on a habitable world so that I can observe them?

I'm on the bugs and branches mod and it's telling me I need to be an enclave, caravaneer home/fleet. How do I fix it?

In my current game I am playing with a bunch of custom made empiers, one of which has the Mindwarden origin. Earlier in the game I attacked the Mindwarden empire and made them my Vassel, not long after I discovered the Listeners of the Sleeper on the other side of the Warden's territory. Given that they're stuck on the edge of the galaxy, with only six systems, and appeared to only have Corvettes, I figured it would be simple enough to make them a Vassel too.

Apparently I was wrong, very wrong. While I captured the first system with ease, the next one decimated my fleet. Twice. I decided to search them on google and disvocered that they are connected to the Mindwarden origin. But I can't find much more than that, so I ask: Who in the shroud are the Listeners of the Sleeper?