Stellaris – Best Builds for Extremely Specific Stats

Best Builds for Specific Stats

By Captain Cape/008.

Ever thought to yourself ‘gee, if only I knew how to get the highest possible amount of this stat’? Ever asked yourself ‘woah, that’s a lot of things that give that stat but how do I know which ones to combine?’ Fear not, for The Guide of Builds for Extremely Specific Stats is here!

Effective Councilor Skill

With this build, you can get +7 permanent effective councilor skill, and +9 temporary effective councilor skill. There is no RNG involved.

What does this do?

Effective councilor skill (ECS) increases the bonuses of council positions. For example, that of Nationalistic Zeal gives +1% naval capacity per level of the councilor. If you have a level 10 councilor and +2 ECS, you get +12% naval capacity.

This means it’s quite a useful stat for anything that can be gained from a councilor. The downside of building entirely around it is that two sources of ECS are already civics (with council positions that, honestly, don’t look that good), so you really need a good third civic to benefit from it.

The upside is that Shadow Council and Vaults of Knowledge don’t block any civics, meaning your third one only has to be compatible with oligarchy.

A few ideas:

• Heroic Past: +2% leader experience gain and +2% governing ethics attraction (Meritocracy also gives the first effect)
• Fanatic Purifiers: +2% monthly alloys
• Ascensionists/Memorialists: +2% monthly unity
• Catalytic Processing: +2% Catalytic Technician output
• Corvee System: +2% worker output

How do you get that?

There actually aren’t that many modifiers for ECS.

Civic        Vaults of Knowledge (all)      1
Authority    Oligarchy                      2
Technology   Node Culling/Reformatting      1
Policy       Virtuality Leader Focus        2
Agenda       Departmental Efficiency (fin)  2
Civic        Shadow Council                 1
Tradition    Statecraft                     1

All except the technology have been incorporated into the Effective Council of Rorcester.

You have +4 ECS at game start. Picking up Statecraft makes it +5, and gives you access to the agenda. Finally, Virtuality gives you access to the policy, which does give you a big penalty to unity and research so keep that in mind.

I might make a separate guide for that sometime, but stacking leader experience gain could pair well with this (since you do need level 10 leaders for maximum benefit).

To give you an image of the numbers, every +2% in the council positions listed above becomes a +34% with +7 ECS and a level 10 councilor. Don’t forget the -34% ship upkeep from a level 10 Minister of Defense, and the +34% research speed from a level 10 Head of Research.

Empire Size Effect Reduction

Here’s a build for stacking reductions to Empire Size Effect (commonly ignored in favor of reductions to Empire Size itself), and best take advantage of the result. There is some RNG for achieving maximum effect.

What does this do?

Empire Size Effect reductions reduce the impact of high empire size on costs of tech, traditions, edicts, and so on. We will be achieving at least a -58% reduction, and ideally -63%.

The only starting requirement of the build is to be a hivemind. However, in order to benefit most from Empire Size Effect reductions, the build should be designed to go as wide as possible, pushing empire size as high as possible. Hence the Void Dwellers origin in order to push our colony count (and thus also pop growth) as high as possible, and Devouring Swarm/Terravore to increase expansion rate and war power.

The pieces we need to put together are as follows:

Cybernetic Authority     Integrated Hive:    -33%
Civic                    Divided Attention:  -25%
Insight Technology       Compact Living:      -5%

There is some RNG required for maximum effect as we need to roll the Compact Living insight technology from pre-FTL observation.

As we push our Empire Size Effect reduction towards that maximum -63%, we will be able to overpower the remaining penalties to research, tradition, and edict costs much more easily than other empires, continuing to build habitats and consume the galaxy with abandon.

(If only Gestalt empires could have Destiny traits, we could stack Gray Eminence three times with an Official ruler and our Growth and Regulatory nodes, for a total of -93%).

Diplomatic Weight

With this build, you can get over +550% total diplomatic weight permanently, without RNG. With RNG, you can get over +665%!

What does this do?

This one is fairly straightforward. Diplomatic weight is how much your vote counts on GalCom resolutions. It comes from four categories: fleet, pops, economy and technology. These values are calculated first, then modifiers for specific categories are applied, then general modifiers.

Overall diplo weight modifiers are far more common. Additionally, modifiers for diplo weight from pops are almost nonexistent. Unless mentioned otherwise, values are for overall diplo weight.

How do you get this?

There’s a lot of diplo weight modifiers and it’ll take time and effort to get them all. These modifiers apply at game start:

Public Relations Specialists    +30%
Corporate Protectorate          +20%

Next up, these modifiers are gained from technology, traditions and ascension perks:

Xeno Diplomacy (Tech)           +10%
Xeno Relations (Tech)           +10%
Diplomacy (Tradition)           +10%
Politics  (Tradition)           +10%
Galactic Contender (AP)         +20%
Lord of War (AP)                +25% (fleet)

We are now at +110% overall and +25% fleet weight.

These ones come from edicts and policies. There’s an argument to be made for taking Supremacist instead of Cooperative, if you find yourself gaining far more weight from fleets than from economy.

Fleet Supremacy (Edict)         +10% (fleet)
Diplomatic Grants (Edict)       +10%
Courtly Knights (Policy)        +10%
Cooperative (Policy)            +25%

We are now at +155% overall and +35% fleet weight.

A lot of your weight will come from your delegate, the official you assign to the GalCom.

Level 10 official               +125%
Delegate veteran class          +5%
Gravitas destiny trait          +40%
Synthetic*                      +5% (economy)

*A number of ascension-path-related traits give more weight for a specific category. These are Erudite (+5% from pops), Synthetic (+5% from economy) and Cyborg/Virtual (+10% from tech). For the non-RNG version, I use Synthetic to combine it with being a megacorp, and because a longer-lived leader means less stress getting them to level 10. The RNG version requires spiritualist, and as such Erudite is your better option there.

We are now at +325% total weight, +35% fleet weight and +5% economy weight.

Now it’s time to set the master plan in motion. You really want to become Emperor for this, for two reasons: the Corporate Sovereign civic and the Imperial Concession Port branch office.

Time your Imperium resolution well. Ideally, your militarist attraction and xenophobe attraction are both 25% or higher, with militarist being higher (else you permanently lose Corporate Protectorate).

Corporate Sovereign lets you have both regular civics and corporate ones. You can’t combine PR Specialists with Diplomatic Corps, but you can combine it with Pompous Purists. This is why we took xenophobe instead of the more obvious choice of xenophile. Since you’ll have lost the ethic, embrace it right away.

Corporate Sovereign             +40%
Galactic Council                +20%
Pompous Purists (Councilor)     +2.5%/level (+27.5% with Statecraft, displayed as +27%)
Development Aides               +20%

We are now at +432.5% total weight, +35% fleet weight and +5% economy weight. The ‘Resolution Passed’ modifier in the screenshot is ignored, as it is temporary.

Your secret weapon? These. The Corporate Embassy and the Imperial Concession Port each give +5% weight from economy, and they stack. You can put those everywhere. You get +10% economy weight for each of your branch offices.

Finally, a few lategame modifiers that don’t really fit anywhere else.

Interstellar Assembly           +40%
Master Diplomat                 +20%*2 (ruler and minister of state)
Hiring mercenaries              +40% (under Defense Privatization 5)

…for a total of +552.5% total weight, +35% fleet weight and Shroud-knows-how-much economy weight.

With all that diplo weight, you can start pushing the resolutions you want and repeal the ones you don’t. If you manage to pass all resolutions from trees that give weight, and none from trees that reduce weight, you get…

• +552.5% total weight
• +235% fleet weight
• +205+Shroud-knows-how-much% economy weight
• +100% tech weight
• +100% pop weight

And now for the RNG build mentioned earlier.

The Galatron                    +100%
Blade of the Huntress           +10%
Prophesied Greater Destiny      +5%

That last modifier is why it requires spiritualism: it’s from Ulastar, a spiritualist paragon. While getting Ulastar isn’t that much RNG, you have no control over getting the event that gives the diplo weight. The other two are relics, of which one requires a serious gambling addiction.

But it’s all worth it, because in the end, I have +667.5% permanent total diplomatic weight.

A few notes:

• Whenever you pass a resolution, you get +5% weight for 6 years. One GalCom ‘cycle’ (recess and vote) takes six years, so if every resolution that gets voted on is yours, you can have it permanently. It doesn’t stack, so using emergency measures for this has no effect.
• Pompous Purists and the Enmity traditions give +65% weight if opposing a resolution.
• Delegate traits give +5/15/35% voting strength on a specific category of resolutions (for example, Mutual Defense). The effect seems to only become visible when the resolution is on the floor. This also works if you vote against a resolution in that category!
• Pay attention to favors the AI has on you, as the weight of a favor is based on your weight. You can see which AIs have favors on you by clicking your flag and reading your list of empire relations.

Envoys, Codebreaking, Infiltration Speed

With this build, you can reliably get 21 envoys, 18 codebreaking and +148% infiltration speed. With optimal leader trait RNG and all insight techs, you can get 39 envoys, 22 codebreaking and a whopping +823% infiltration speed.

What does this do?

Envoys are a special type of leaders that have four uses: first contact, harming relations, improving relations and espionage.

Codebreaking is how skilled your empire is at breaking through anti-espionage measures. When spying on another empire, the general difficulty of it is determined by subtracting the enemy’s encryption from your codebreaking. The effect is capped at +4 (very easy) and -4 (very hard).

Infiltration speed is how fast you gain infiltration (and, by extension, intel) when spying.

How do you get this?

                          ENVOYS   CODEBREAKING   INFIL SPEED
Base                      2        -              -
Fanatic Xenophile         +2       -              -
Diplomatic Corps          +2       -              -
Shadow Council            -        +1             +10%
Broken Shackles           +1       -              +20%
Spycraft I ruler          -        -              +15%

At game start, you have 7 envoys, 1 codebreaking and +45% infiltration speed.

Many of your bonuses come from traditions and technology.

                          ENVOYS   CODEBREAKING   INFIL SPEED
Subterfuge                +1       +2             +50%
Enmity                    +1       -              -
Diplomacy                 +1       -              -
Politics                  +1       -              -
Shared Destiny AP         +2       -              -

6 physics techs           -        +6             -
Grand Embassy Complex     +2       -              -
Diplomatic Grants         +1       -              -
Bureau of Espionage       +1       +2             -

…for a total of 17 envoys, 11 codebreaking and +95% infiltration speed.

Your third civic should be Cutthroat Politics for more codebreaking. Additionally, it’s very useful to have incomprehensible entities from the Shroud whisper secrets directly into your mind.

                          ENVOYS   CODEBREAKING   INFIL SPEED
Cutthroat Politics        -        +1             -
Psionics                  -        +2             -
Whisperers in the Void    -        +2             -
Sanctum of the Whisperers +1       -              +15%

And now for some modifiers that don’t really fit elsewhere.

                          ENVOYS   CODEBREAKING   INFIL SPEED
Interstellar Assembly     +2       -              -
Galactic Sovereign        +1       -              -
Imp. Security Directorate -        +2             -
Minister of State         -        -              +28%
Spycraft II (first ruler) -        -              +10%

…for a total of 21 envoys, 18 codebreaking and +148% infiltration speed. The Minister of State assumes you have a level 10 official there and take the Statecraft tradition, while +3 effective councilor skill is already there from the start.

‘But Cape, that’s nowhere near the numbers you promised! Where’s that +800% infiltration speed?’

This is where your leaders come in.

You can eventually get a council of four officials. Four official traits are relevant to this: Spycraft (basic), Entourage (veteran), Shady Contacts (veteran) and Shadow Broker (destiny). The latter three are for the ambassador veteran class.

                          ENVOYS   CODEBREAKING   INFIL SPEED
Spycraft II*3             -        -              +75%
Entourage III*2           +6       -              -
Shady Contacts III*2      -        +4             -
Shadow Broker*4           +8       -              +600%

In my test run, once I had four officials with Spycraft, I was able to get all of these except for only getting an official to Entourage II. Shadow Broker is surprisingly easy to get: an ambassador only has four destiny trait choices (five if the leader is authoritarian) of which three are displayed.

Finally, getting all insight techs gives a total of +4 envoys (2 from the society ones, 2 from the physics+engineering ones).

If you get all that right, you have 39 envoys, 22 codebreaking and +823% infiltration speed.

I didn’t get it entirely right in my test run – as I said, I missed an Entourage level – but it’s still a sight to behold.

Some additional thoughts:

• If you’re willing to play around with factions, starting as spiritualist to get Psionic Theory and then going materialist for Whisperers might be worth it. Or simply start materialist and rely on the agenda.
• Authoritarian lowers your chances of rolling Shadow Broker, but at the same time lets you roll a paragon with it.
• Three more stats exist that affect the ease of espionage: operation skill, operation speed and operation cost.
• Subterfuge give +2 operation skill. The Prepare Sleeper Cells operation also gives +1 operation skill for 15 years (30 years by sacrificing an asset).
• The only thing increasing operation speed in the game is Trinary Computing. This physics insight tech gives +10%.
• Having a Chosen of the Whisperers as your ruler gives -20% operation cost. The Psionic Supremacy agenda gives an extra -30% operation cost as its finisher with Whisperers.

Leader Pool Size

With this build, you can reliably and permanently get 6 leaders of each type in your internal pool and 5 of each type in your external pool.

What does this do?

Your leader pools are where your hired leaders come from. The leaders in the internal leader pool are based on the pops in your own empire, while those in the external pool come from your allies and subjects. The pools are refilled every 5 years. This means that if you have 3 leaders of each type in your pool and you get a +1 in 2223, you have to wait until 2225 to see it reflected.

How do you get this?

All numbers are per leader type.

Internal pool:

Base                            3
Ruthless Competition            +1
Discovery tradition             +1
Aptitude tradition              +1

External pool:

Base                            1
Megacorp                        +1
The Collective Self tech        +1
Cooperative/Mercantile stance   +1
Recruitment Office              +1

If that’s not enough, there are two more modifiers:

• The finisher of the Open Arms agenda (requires being xenophile) gives a temporary +2 external pool size.
• The Master’s Teachings: Philosophical Mindset edict gives +1 internal pool size and is unlocked by the Cold Hard Potential anomaly.

…but seriously, 6/5 is enough.

Leader Cap, Leader Upkeep

With this build, you can have a total of 14 to 17 leader cap in each category, and also -95% leader upkeep.

Ever wanted to have 17 commanders and still not have to suffer experience penalties? Now you can have 17 commanders and still not have to suffer experience penalties.

What does this do?

If you are over your leader capacity for a class, your leaders cost more upkeep and gain less experience. And also, I don’t like non-white numbers that aren’t my naval cap or full resource storages.

How do you get this?

                          OFF   COM   SCI
Base                      3     3     3
Oppressive Autocracy      -     +1    -
Heroic Past               +1    +1    +1
Wise Mentor ruler trait   +1    +1    +1

At game start, you’ll have 5 official and scientist cap, and 6 commander cap. Wise Mentor requires being spiritualist at game start, but it might be useful to reform out of it later.

Traditions and ascension perks will do a lot.

                          OFF   COM   SCI
Aptitude                  +1    +1    +1
Domination                +1    -     -
Diplomacy                 +1    -     -
Supremacy                 -     +1    -
Discovery                 -     -     +1

Imperial Prerogative      +2    -     -
Galactic Force Projection -     +1    -
Eternal Vigilance         -     +1    -
Transcendent Learning     -     -     +2
Archaeo-Engineers         -     -     +1

…for a total of a nice round 10 in each category.

Technology and special builds help too.

                          OFF   COM   SCI
Colonial Centralization   +1    +1    +1
The Collective Self       +1    +1    +1
Citadel of Faith          +1    -     -
Military Academy          -     +1    -
Research Institue         -     -     +1

..for a total of 13 in each category.

The last two modifiers are a bit special.

• Endless Upgrades is a luminary trait that gives +1 in each category. It requires cybernetic ascension, which your spiritualists… probably won’t particularly like. Embracing materialism should be your goal, since any other ethic will deactivate Oppressive Autocracy and probably do unspeakable things to your carefully managed planets for ten years.
• Enmity gives +0.5 in each category per rival, rounded down (1 rival gives nothing). With the traditions and the Antagonistic diplomatic stance, you can have 6 rivals which translates to +3 in each category.

This means you are guaranteed 14 in each category, and get up to 17 with an optimal amount of enemies.

Additionally, by sheer coincidence, this build also gives -95% leader upkeep:

Wise Mentor III                 -25%
Endless Upgrades                -25%
Aptitude                        -25%
Oppressive Autocracy            -20%

Its effects cap at -90%, however. The effect for being over the cap (if for some reason you need more than 17 commanders) are applied to what remains of the upkeep afterwards.

Research Alternatives

With this build, you can get a total of 14 research alternatives.

What does this do?

Research alternatives are the amount of techs you can pick between every time you research something. Having more of them is helpful when you want a specific tech, or one with a low weight.

How do you get this?

Base                            3
Technocracy                     +1
Static Research Analysis        +1

This means you’ll have 5 research alternatives on game start.

Discovery traditions            +1
Self-Aware Logic tech           +1
Research Cooperative president  +1
Scientific Revolution edict     +1

Now we’re at 9 alternatives. The last two modifiers for this require a bit more elaboration.

• The Inquisitor council trait (for statistician scientists) gives +1. The interesting thing about it is that leveling it up doesn’t give more alternatives, so it’s not that hard to get it. Both of your initial civics have council positions for scientists, so you can get a council of 4 scientists for +4 alternatives.
• Scholarium Hypotheses is a modifier that you can buy by trading with a tier 2 scholarium subject. It gives +1 alternative for the duration of the deal, which means you have to renew the deal every 30 years.

All of this amounts of 14 research alternatives.

Assorted Defense Modifiers

Ooh boy. With this build, you can get…

• 93 defense platform cap on every citadel
• +313% defense platform hull and +338% defense platform damage
• 33 starbase cap, not counting everything you get from owned systems
• +423% starbase hull and +243% starbase damage
• -95% starbase upgrade cost and +225% starbase upgrade speed
• +160% defense platform build speed and -30% defense platform build cost
• +180% starbase armor and +60% starbase armor hardening

For the sake of simplicity, I ignore anything that doesn’t apply solely to starbases or defense platforms and anything that isn’t one of the stats above. There’s a lot you can combine this with for even higher total damage. Also, DP means defense platform and SB means starbase.

How do you get these numbers?

There’s not really much you can do at game start, but some things are needed for indirect bonuses.

Corporate Protectorate          no direct effect
Trading Posts                   +4 SB cap
Militarist (any degree)         required for Corporate Protectorate

Unyielding contributes to so many of the stats that I mentioned, that it needs its own table.

Opener                          +2 SB cap, +50% SB upgrade speed
Defensive Zeal                  +33% SB hull and damage, +33% DP hull and damage
Fortress Doctrine               +2 SB cap, -50% SB upgrade cost
Finisher                        +50% DP cap

Aside from that, ascension perks and techs contribute too.

Grasp the Void                  +5 SB cap
Eternal Vigilance               +5 DP cap, +25% SB hull and damage, +25% DP damage
Archaeo-Engineers               no effect by itself
Two society techs               +4 SB cap
Repeatable society tech (to 5)  +5 SB cap
Corps of Engineers tech         -15% SB upgrade cost and +25% SB upgrade speed

By now, we have:

• 5 DP cap (7.5 with the Unyielding finisher)
• +33% DP hull and +58% DP damage
• 25 SB cap
• +58% SB hull and +58% SB damage
• -65% SB upgrade cost and +75% SB upgrade speed

Being a bulwark is a large part of this build.

Tier 3 bulwark                  +8 DP cap, +100% DP hull/damage, +75% SB hull/damage
Intergalactic Directives 3      +50% DP hull and damage, +50% SB hull and damage
Strategic Coordination Center   +12 DP cap, +6 SB cap
Fortify the Border              +2 SB cap, +50% SB upgrade speed
Fortress Proclamation           +100% SB upgrade speed, +100% DP build speed

Leader traits are the tricky part, since there are three veteran traits for commanders that come in useful here: Fortifier, Border Guard and Guardian. There is also the basic trait Defense Engineer, which will go on all of our commanders.

With our starting civics, it’s possible to have a council of four commanders. You can play around with combinations, but for this guide, I went for two with Border Guard III and Fortifier II, and two with Guardian III and Fortifier II. You can have more commanders if you sacrifice the Minister of State or Head of Research slot, for -25% diplo weight or -25% research speed.

Border Guard III*2              +60% SB damage, +70% SB hull, +60% DP build speed
Guardian III*2                  +40% DP damage and hull
Fortifier II*4                  +20% SB and DP hull, -30% SB upgr cost, -30% DP cost
Defense Engineer II*4           +60% DP damage, +40% DP hull

We are now at:

• 25 DP cap (37.5 with the Unyielding finisher)
• +283% DP hull and +308% DP damage
• 33 SB cap
• +273% SB hull and +243% SB damage
• -95% SB upgrade cost and +225% SB upgrade speed
• -30% DP build cost and +160% DP build speed

Half of the reason to take Corporate Protectorate is its council position. For a balance between effective councilor skill and freedom to pick more valuable military modifiers, I went with Statecraft and corporate Vaults of Knowledge. The latter can be replaced with something else that’s more valuable than +5% starbase hull and armor.

With a level 10 leader, this becomes:

Corporate Protectorate*12       +60% SB hull and armor

This is all on every single starbase in your empire. But what about your dedicated defense citadels, which you will be able to have at least 33 of?

Citadel                         +15 DP cap
Ancient Rampart*6 (Archaeo, SB) +90% SB hull, +120% SB armor, +60% SB armor hardening
Ancient Rampart*6 (Archaeo, DP) +12 DP cap, +30% DP damage/hull
Defense Grid                    +8 DP cap
Reloading Bay                   +2 DP cap

These have a total of…

• 62 DP cap (93 with the Unyielding finisher)
• +283% DP hull and +338% DP damage
• 33 SB cap, excluding owned systems
• +423% SB hull and +243% SB damage
• -95% SB upgrade cost and +225% SB upgrade speed
• -30% DP build cost and +160% DP build speed
• +180% SB armor and +60% SB armor hardening

Orbital rings benefit from all empire-wide SB and DP modifiers, but have a maximum DP cap of 68 instead.

As for the final result… behold, a fully fortified Terminal Egress. The starbase has full gauss cannons, the rings a combination of gauss cannons and autocannons, and the defense platforms full strike craft (but I can change them in case anyone is interested in the numbers for a different weapon).

This system contains a total of 297 defense platforms.

Power Projection

With this build, you can get a maximum of 20.5 influence per month out of power projection.

What does this do?

Power projection is a mechanic that gives you free influence, depending on the ratio of twice your used naval cap to your empire size. If you are at 100% (twice your used naval cap is equal to or more than your empire size), you get the maximum amount of influence.

How do you get this?

Only one thing you can select at game start directly gives power projection: the Gunboat Diplomacy ruler trait from Under One Rule.

Base                            +2
Militarist                      no immediate effect
Xenophile                       required for Brain Poacher
Under One Rule                  required for Brain Poacher
Brain Poacher                   +0.25

Vaults of Knowledge             no immediate effect
Philosopher King                no immediate effect

Your civic choices only become useful when you go down the imperial path of UOR, since the imperial ruler gives +0.25 power projection per level. This is affected by effective councilor skill (ECS).

Statecraft tradition            +1 ECS
Vaults of Knowledge             +1 ECS
Philosopher King                +5 effective ruler skill

With a level 10 ruler and +7 effective ruler skill, this amounts to…

Imperial ruler                  +4.25
Galactic Force Projection       +2
A Grand Fleet                   +0.25

At this point, leader traits being incredibly important is becoming a bit of a pattern, but ah well. You’ll want a council of at least four commanders.

Intimidator 3*4                 +3
Military Overseer*4             +8
Gunboat Diplomacy 3             +1 (replaces +0.25)

For a total of 20.5 max power projection.

Some Additional Notes:

• Being militarist gives you the Display of Power agenda, with +0.25/+1 power projection as initial/launched effect. However, you can’t have that on permanently.
• While your ascension path is a free pick if you only want direct modifiers to power projection, I think Whisperers’ +15% monthly influence could work very nicely here.
• You can reform out of xenophile just fine, maybe into fanatic authoritarian for even more influence?
• Since Vaults of Knowledge’s council position isn’t available to commanders, your third civic’s ideally should be.

I hope you found this useful. Wishing you luck!