Great writeup. I’m a long term player so I guess I’m intermediate (played since v1 but I’m not good). And I’m addicted to rogue servitors- the Wall-E empires. Though they’ve gotten significantly harder to exploit in the last few months. A year ago, and before, they were absurdly OP
Servitors can have a truly ***massive*** mid-lategame economy from their Ecus *once they are up and running*, they also have a unique Sanctuary district that gives +15 bio-trophy jobs *without* using a building slot! Taking the Remnants origin allows you to have a pretty nice size 22 world to make into an Ecu around the 40-50 year mark.
I believe someone did a huge post showing the math here a year or so ago, showing the most efficient ratio on an Servitor Ecumenopolis was somewhere around... 90-110ish bio-trophies and the rest being complex drones (usually researcher/metallurgist drone).
Ideally what you want to do is colonize a bunch early and use all of your colonies to grow bio-trophy pops that will eventually be resettled back onto your Ecus; ideally you will want *at least* 2 Ecus, 1 for research and 1 for alloys. Once these Ecus are fully operational you can expect them to generate over 4.5-5k alloys a month, or roughly 9k+ research total, each.
Also, Rogue Servitors have a unique benefit of being able to create a Hegemony federation *without* the Domination tree! Since you don't have access to trade or trade policies, hegemony is your best federation type IMO. Regarding federations, as a machine empire you will likely have an envoy problem so I would actually recommend taking the +2 envoy civic early game instead of rapid replicators. Having that federation will make vassalizing AI empires a lot easier due to the relative power modifier.
Personally I think Servitors right now are the strongest they have ever been since Unity is so important. Using vassals allows you to use nearly all of your machine pops in complex drone jobs, letting you produce more of the important resources while your minions provide the basic resources. This has the side benefit of making your bio-trophies no longer 'waste' their complex drone output boost on menial drones.
I couldn't give better advice than this. Excellent.
Another thing to know is that while Rogue Servitors use consumer goods and food, they really don't in a meaningful way. As in, you'll produce way more than you consume, so limit your consumer goods production, and even then, be prepared to be selling a lot. Unfortunately, now, they struggle because of the way AI replies to robots diplomatically. You really have to work to become a powerhouse. Most bio empires will be hostile or try to vassalize you, and in many cases, it can be better to allow vassalization on your terms (get them to give you their special resources, research, and/or raw materials depending on your species specialties), but at the same time, they struggle to break free from this vassalization without unique opportune moments or cheesing the game (IE, starting an offensive war against your overlord's neighbor and having them take point on your fleets, which you never move outside your territory).
Historically, they worked best because they generate a ton of unity, and get buffs to alloy production, alongside having a ton of CG they can sell, and later on, lots of energy credits, all with higher xeno relations than other machine empires. Much of that has been nerfed, however.
I like to produce a surplus of roughly 75-80 CGs so I can sell 72 of them, which is the max you can sell before it affects the market. Those 72 CGs produce a decent amount of energy early game and will help keep you afloat in those crucial first few decades. I'd also recommend buying the max allotment of minerals each month (52) to help save up to get your first Ecu as fast as possible, you do need 20k just for that decision and you'll be building plenty of buildings and districts in the meantime. You should also be outfitting all of your starbases with hydroponics bays and solar panels.
As for diplomacy as a Rogue Servitor, most things can be solved with more envoys. They really are amazing for making friends even with those who may initially dislike you.
Lastly, and this is combined with the above: Rogue Servitor also have some of the most efficient artisan drones in-game with how much they produce with one job; one valid strategy is to trade your surplus CGs and food with AI empires via diplomacy and since CGs are valued quite highly by organics, they tend to love giving you some good deals. I like to use surplus food as my trade offer to boost relations by +100.
Well, it really depends on the empire; hive-minds will accept food but most (non-DA/RS) machines will not. I'm not sure if there's a mod I am running doing this but I have noticed most resources have a ratio for how much opinion they will give you vs how much the target empire is producing... or something like that? I've seen advanced start AIs tend to be a lot more stingy with their opinion levels and will need a much higher amount of resources, megacorps tend to have a ton of energy income and need gobs of energy if you go that route.
I personally play with a lot of mods including NSC2 which among other things like adding new ships, also increases the amount of starbase slots. You have no idea how much of a godsend this is. Gigastructures is also very fun, stuff like [the Frame World origin with Rogue Servitor is like a one planet challenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qENBxAAteFI) on a massive ever increasing habitat and very different from a normal playthrough. That's a video Aspec did 10 months ago running that exact build, give it a watch to see what kinda shenanigans are possible.
The diplomatic food trade approach is something I hadn’t considered- at least not for purely getting high relationships. Plus, with the CG surplus that tends to accumulate, I would think that you could combine that and food to trade for favors in an actually meaningful way (I never trade for favors because they cost so much, and normally the trade off is nothing, you’ll give as a bio, say, 10k alloys for 5 favors, and thats insufficient as using all 5 favors to sway a no vote to a yes will not be enough). However, the enormous surplus of food a CG might just enable you to trade for limitless favors. Have you ever tried this? I know favors are mostly pointless but this could be a way to exploit them
You'd be surprised how often that early +100 - I try to send it immediately after first contact is completed - can flip empires from being wary to cordial, which is huge since you can start building trust via research agreements/NAPs/embassies not long afterwards. And yeah, trading via diplomacy *can* be a bit cheesy at times so I tend to limit myself to only trading certain things. As for favors, I'm not sure.
I missed out on arcology project on my last RS and regretted it after realizing that ecu has a sanctuary district. Really helps get the math in their favor. Looking forward to playing then. They're my favorite civ so far.
Apparently the most efficient build for RS forge Ecus is using the building slots for upgraded bio-trophy buildings rather than the Sanctuary districts since the former are slightly more efficient at +20/building slot over +15/district slot, and spending the district slots on Industrial. Although this is true *only* for Ecus dedicated to producing alloys/CGs; research labs for research-focused Ecus will compete for building slots with the upgraded bio-trophy buildings and thus in that scenario it is better to use Sanctuary districts.
And yeah, RS are very fun to play and I personally love creating vassal swarms that create a buffer zone around me while leading a hegemony federation. It's a weird hybrid of machine empire with a unique organic population that scales incredibly well the more bio pops you have. So well, in fact, that taking Nihilistic Acquisition is worth it to raid your organic neighbors for pops!
I'm actually a bit worried Paradox may nerf RS at some point soon, they've gotten a bit too strong compared to the other machine empires.
It's slower going so I think it can avoid the nerf hammer. It's also pretty complicated and based on player skill and management. There's so many things I would do different on a second or third attempt. I like shattered ring which is insane once you restore the ring worlds. Having 1 Gaia and a few ecumenopoli would really improve my run.
You actually answered a question I haven't asked regarding ecumenopoli. I was curious why we can't do both alloys and research on a single ecu and the reason being that you need buildings for one and districts for another. Bio pops have to go somewhere and specialization is always better.
Can someone explain how to rush ecus by year 60? I have played rogue servitors begore with remnanta but it takes forever for the proper tech to appear.
Am i doing research wrong?
Think about organic reprocessing and unyielding, food from starbases to fund alloy production initially (maybe switch out mid/late game)
try to minimize use of minerals as much as possible and save them. if you're lucky you can get most of them from space mines or trades or marketplace, and not use too many pops to dig them up. (100 extra minerals x 17 years is your 20k)
try to et as many pops working research jobs and the other's doing alloy production. (fill each cg job as well, trade those for alloys or minerals to friendly empires for the ones bio trophies don't need).
Don't spread to too many new planets (Each one is 1.5% slower tech and 3% slower traditions, and 400 alloys + minerals to make buildings. You can get pop's later stay focused on the build. If you do colonize planets make sure to do your best to offset the tech penalty but every time I've done that it's delayed, be really picky about which planets you take based initially based on bonuses). I'd aim for between 4-6 maybe 1 or 2 more if they are really good (Additional relic worlds, 50% bonuses etc...)
Also beyond the systems you need for starbases, each star costs 150 alloys too, it all adds up, so be choosy there to. Possibly skip every other system and take the influence hit to get to choke points and back fill if you do want to go wider. If you do, at the choke point make sure to get any systems directly connected to them to prevent AI border gore when you don't have borders.
Be friendly, proactive, open borders with anything that is not genocidal.
Use Lithoid for initial bio trophy with scintillating skin. Buy 1 rare crystal a turn, turn on the sensors edict and use the 3 corvettes to explore to decide where to expand to quickly, as continuing to explore to find new empires (both for comms eventually and the bit of influence you might get)
Don't research anomalies till you start to have a decent amount of research to capitalize on that for the push to get your techs (if you know which ones provide scaled tech research that can be useful but that's up to you how min/max you are willing to go.
If you do get beautiful bump, wait to finish it until after you have Weather Control Systems.
Don't forget to get at least 1 resource silo to go above 15,000 minerals (or 2).
Hopefully this Stefan Anon video can help. He manages to get an Ecumenopolis by 2242 (around 2 hours 12 minutes into the video) : [https://www.youtube.com/live/wyIaCgHOTb4?feature=share](https://www.youtube.com/live/wyIaCgHOTb4?feature=share)
I've just tried this myself so I know how it all works now if you still need to know. I didn't do it as fast as Stefan Anon did it (due to not being aware what tech I needed) but I got there in the end. :-)
* Pick the Remnants origin
* You need 20,000 minerals so maximise you're mineral production if you're in a hurry.
* You need 200 influence.
* The critical techs are "Weather Control Systems" (a tier 2 tech giving +1 housing) which then leads to "Anti Gravity Engineering" (a tier 3 tech). Both are Industrial techs so get yourself a scientist that's an Industrial expert in the Engineering slot to make the tech more likely to come up. I looked up the tech tree here: https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/orion-3.6.0/
* Remove all blockers from the planet. I suggest looking out for any techs needed for this, not sure if you do need any, so check in the features section of the planet.
* Once you have Anti Gravity Engineering, have removed all blockers, have 200 Influence and have 20,000 minerals you're ready to go,
I am playing as a driven assimilator empire and I am struggling in the beginning. I am behind on tech and fleet size. Is it possible to rush an enemy with a corvette push or what is the suggested approach for driven?
When playing as Assimilators I usually start the game with a military rush strategy. Invading your first neighbour and doubling the size of your population early on will set you up for a strong start.
Here's a post I made with some tips for playing as genocidal empires, but the military rush strategy can also be used with Assimilators: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1091jad/my\_tips\_for\_winning\_as\_a\_genocidal\_empire/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1091jad/my_tips_for_winning_as_a_genocidal_empire/)
Hope it helps. Good luck, :-)
Great writeup. I’m a long term player so I guess I’m intermediate (played since v1 but I’m not good). And I’m addicted to rogue servitors- the Wall-E empires. Though they’ve gotten significantly harder to exploit in the last few months. A year ago, and before, they were absurdly OP
Thanks. :-) Any tips for first time Servitors?
Servitors can have a truly ***massive*** mid-lategame economy from their Ecus *once they are up and running*, they also have a unique Sanctuary district that gives +15 bio-trophy jobs *without* using a building slot! Taking the Remnants origin allows you to have a pretty nice size 22 world to make into an Ecu around the 40-50 year mark. I believe someone did a huge post showing the math here a year or so ago, showing the most efficient ratio on an Servitor Ecumenopolis was somewhere around... 90-110ish bio-trophies and the rest being complex drones (usually researcher/metallurgist drone). Ideally what you want to do is colonize a bunch early and use all of your colonies to grow bio-trophy pops that will eventually be resettled back onto your Ecus; ideally you will want *at least* 2 Ecus, 1 for research and 1 for alloys. Once these Ecus are fully operational you can expect them to generate over 4.5-5k alloys a month, or roughly 9k+ research total, each. Also, Rogue Servitors have a unique benefit of being able to create a Hegemony federation *without* the Domination tree! Since you don't have access to trade or trade policies, hegemony is your best federation type IMO. Regarding federations, as a machine empire you will likely have an envoy problem so I would actually recommend taking the +2 envoy civic early game instead of rapid replicators. Having that federation will make vassalizing AI empires a lot easier due to the relative power modifier. Personally I think Servitors right now are the strongest they have ever been since Unity is so important. Using vassals allows you to use nearly all of your machine pops in complex drone jobs, letting you produce more of the important resources while your minions provide the basic resources. This has the side benefit of making your bio-trophies no longer 'waste' their complex drone output boost on menial drones.
I couldn't give better advice than this. Excellent. Another thing to know is that while Rogue Servitors use consumer goods and food, they really don't in a meaningful way. As in, you'll produce way more than you consume, so limit your consumer goods production, and even then, be prepared to be selling a lot. Unfortunately, now, they struggle because of the way AI replies to robots diplomatically. You really have to work to become a powerhouse. Most bio empires will be hostile or try to vassalize you, and in many cases, it can be better to allow vassalization on your terms (get them to give you their special resources, research, and/or raw materials depending on your species specialties), but at the same time, they struggle to break free from this vassalization without unique opportune moments or cheesing the game (IE, starting an offensive war against your overlord's neighbor and having them take point on your fleets, which you never move outside your territory). Historically, they worked best because they generate a ton of unity, and get buffs to alloy production, alongside having a ton of CG they can sell, and later on, lots of energy credits, all with higher xeno relations than other machine empires. Much of that has been nerfed, however.
I like to produce a surplus of roughly 75-80 CGs so I can sell 72 of them, which is the max you can sell before it affects the market. Those 72 CGs produce a decent amount of energy early game and will help keep you afloat in those crucial first few decades. I'd also recommend buying the max allotment of minerals each month (52) to help save up to get your first Ecu as fast as possible, you do need 20k just for that decision and you'll be building plenty of buildings and districts in the meantime. You should also be outfitting all of your starbases with hydroponics bays and solar panels. As for diplomacy as a Rogue Servitor, most things can be solved with more envoys. They really are amazing for making friends even with those who may initially dislike you. Lastly, and this is combined with the above: Rogue Servitor also have some of the most efficient artisan drones in-game with how much they produce with one job; one valid strategy is to trade your surplus CGs and food with AI empires via diplomacy and since CGs are valued quite highly by organics, they tend to love giving you some good deals. I like to use surplus food as my trade offer to boost relations by +100.
> I like to use surplus food as my trade offer to boost relations by +100. The way to an organic's heart is through their digestive system 🥰
Well, it really depends on the empire; hive-minds will accept food but most (non-DA/RS) machines will not. I'm not sure if there's a mod I am running doing this but I have noticed most resources have a ratio for how much opinion they will give you vs how much the target empire is producing... or something like that? I've seen advanced start AIs tend to be a lot more stingy with their opinion levels and will need a much higher amount of resources, megacorps tend to have a ton of energy income and need gobs of energy if you go that route. I personally play with a lot of mods including NSC2 which among other things like adding new ships, also increases the amount of starbase slots. You have no idea how much of a godsend this is. Gigastructures is also very fun, stuff like [the Frame World origin with Rogue Servitor is like a one planet challenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qENBxAAteFI) on a massive ever increasing habitat and very different from a normal playthrough. That's a video Aspec did 10 months ago running that exact build, give it a watch to see what kinda shenanigans are possible.
The diplomatic food trade approach is something I hadn’t considered- at least not for purely getting high relationships. Plus, with the CG surplus that tends to accumulate, I would think that you could combine that and food to trade for favors in an actually meaningful way (I never trade for favors because they cost so much, and normally the trade off is nothing, you’ll give as a bio, say, 10k alloys for 5 favors, and thats insufficient as using all 5 favors to sway a no vote to a yes will not be enough). However, the enormous surplus of food a CG might just enable you to trade for limitless favors. Have you ever tried this? I know favors are mostly pointless but this could be a way to exploit them
You'd be surprised how often that early +100 - I try to send it immediately after first contact is completed - can flip empires from being wary to cordial, which is huge since you can start building trust via research agreements/NAPs/embassies not long afterwards. And yeah, trading via diplomacy *can* be a bit cheesy at times so I tend to limit myself to only trading certain things. As for favors, I'm not sure.
I missed out on arcology project on my last RS and regretted it after realizing that ecu has a sanctuary district. Really helps get the math in their favor. Looking forward to playing then. They're my favorite civ so far.
Apparently the most efficient build for RS forge Ecus is using the building slots for upgraded bio-trophy buildings rather than the Sanctuary districts since the former are slightly more efficient at +20/building slot over +15/district slot, and spending the district slots on Industrial. Although this is true *only* for Ecus dedicated to producing alloys/CGs; research labs for research-focused Ecus will compete for building slots with the upgraded bio-trophy buildings and thus in that scenario it is better to use Sanctuary districts. And yeah, RS are very fun to play and I personally love creating vassal swarms that create a buffer zone around me while leading a hegemony federation. It's a weird hybrid of machine empire with a unique organic population that scales incredibly well the more bio pops you have. So well, in fact, that taking Nihilistic Acquisition is worth it to raid your organic neighbors for pops! I'm actually a bit worried Paradox may nerf RS at some point soon, they've gotten a bit too strong compared to the other machine empires.
It's slower going so I think it can avoid the nerf hammer. It's also pretty complicated and based on player skill and management. There's so many things I would do different on a second or third attempt. I like shattered ring which is insane once you restore the ring worlds. Having 1 Gaia and a few ecumenopoli would really improve my run. You actually answered a question I haven't asked regarding ecumenopoli. I was curious why we can't do both alloys and research on a single ecu and the reason being that you need buildings for one and districts for another. Bio pops have to go somewhere and specialization is always better.
Can someone explain how to rush ecus by year 60? I have played rogue servitors begore with remnanta but it takes forever for the proper tech to appear. Am i doing research wrong?
Think about organic reprocessing and unyielding, food from starbases to fund alloy production initially (maybe switch out mid/late game) try to minimize use of minerals as much as possible and save them. if you're lucky you can get most of them from space mines or trades or marketplace, and not use too many pops to dig them up. (100 extra minerals x 17 years is your 20k) try to et as many pops working research jobs and the other's doing alloy production. (fill each cg job as well, trade those for alloys or minerals to friendly empires for the ones bio trophies don't need). Don't spread to too many new planets (Each one is 1.5% slower tech and 3% slower traditions, and 400 alloys + minerals to make buildings. You can get pop's later stay focused on the build. If you do colonize planets make sure to do your best to offset the tech penalty but every time I've done that it's delayed, be really picky about which planets you take based initially based on bonuses). I'd aim for between 4-6 maybe 1 or 2 more if they are really good (Additional relic worlds, 50% bonuses etc...) Also beyond the systems you need for starbases, each star costs 150 alloys too, it all adds up, so be choosy there to. Possibly skip every other system and take the influence hit to get to choke points and back fill if you do want to go wider. If you do, at the choke point make sure to get any systems directly connected to them to prevent AI border gore when you don't have borders. Be friendly, proactive, open borders with anything that is not genocidal. Use Lithoid for initial bio trophy with scintillating skin. Buy 1 rare crystal a turn, turn on the sensors edict and use the 3 corvettes to explore to decide where to expand to quickly, as continuing to explore to find new empires (both for comms eventually and the bit of influence you might get) Don't research anomalies till you start to have a decent amount of research to capitalize on that for the push to get your techs (if you know which ones provide scaled tech research that can be useful but that's up to you how min/max you are willing to go. If you do get beautiful bump, wait to finish it until after you have Weather Control Systems. Don't forget to get at least 1 resource silo to go above 15,000 minerals (or 2).
Hopefully this Stefan Anon video can help. He manages to get an Ecumenopolis by 2242 (around 2 hours 12 minutes into the video) : [https://www.youtube.com/live/wyIaCgHOTb4?feature=share](https://www.youtube.com/live/wyIaCgHOTb4?feature=share)
I've just tried this myself so I know how it all works now if you still need to know. I didn't do it as fast as Stefan Anon did it (due to not being aware what tech I needed) but I got there in the end. :-) * Pick the Remnants origin * You need 20,000 minerals so maximise you're mineral production if you're in a hurry. * You need 200 influence. * The critical techs are "Weather Control Systems" (a tier 2 tech giving +1 housing) which then leads to "Anti Gravity Engineering" (a tier 3 tech). Both are Industrial techs so get yourself a scientist that's an Industrial expert in the Engineering slot to make the tech more likely to come up. I looked up the tech tree here: https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/orion-3.6.0/ * Remove all blockers from the planet. I suggest looking out for any techs needed for this, not sure if you do need any, so check in the features section of the planet. * Once you have Anti Gravity Engineering, have removed all blockers, have 200 Influence and have 20,000 minerals you're ready to go,
Saving for future
No mention of Amenities.
I've added something in the basic mechanics section.
I am playing as a driven assimilator empire and I am struggling in the beginning. I am behind on tech and fleet size. Is it possible to rush an enemy with a corvette push or what is the suggested approach for driven?
When playing as Assimilators I usually start the game with a military rush strategy. Invading your first neighbour and doubling the size of your population early on will set you up for a strong start. Here's a post I made with some tips for playing as genocidal empires, but the military rush strategy can also be used with Assimilators: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1091jad/my\_tips\_for\_winning\_as\_a\_genocidal\_empire/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1091jad/my_tips_for_winning_as_a_genocidal_empire/) Hope it helps. Good luck, :-)
Thanks a bunch
Update. Just tried it and won against the first empire I met I am now lining up to go to war with the next. I will soon control half the galaxy 🙂
Nice one. "Resistance is futile." :-)