Space Ancapistan – A Stellaris Civ Build
Do you like money? Do you like all the money? Then this Stellaris civ is the build for you!
Disclaimer
Do not get hung up on the political branding here, regardless of whether you are a Rothbard fan or a phobe. This civ is not really a direct comment or representation of Anarcho-Capitalism or Libertarianism. I just wanted to make a pure trade focused money making build. I needed to call it something, so I called it Ancapistan. If you don’t like it, sue me.
Concept
The Ancapistan build is a tall peaceful economy build. The specific economy type is a “cash crop economy” with cash being the specific crop. See this article for Stellaris Economy Types and this article for an in depth discussion of playing tall vs wide.
Incidentally the build will also be pretty good for producing an excess of Consumer Goods and Engineering Research. It might even make a fairly good, if not perfect, build for speedrunning to Mega Structures. See my guide on how to get to unlock Mega Structures as early as possible.
This may also be the perfect Mega Corp build too.
Trade is the Key Resource
The main resource this build is for producing is the Trade resource. By default this is automatically turned into Energy resources. For some reason Energy is the money of the Stellaris galaxy.
However with the policies Marketplace of Ideas and Consumer Goods the Trade resource can be converted into Unity and Consumer Goods too. These policies are enabled by the new Mercantile Tradition. Mercantile Tradition is our key Tradition to be filled out early.
We are getting our Trade through stacking the trade multipliers:
- Fanatic Xenophile gives us +20% to Trade value
- Free Traders civic gives another +10% to Trade value
- Mercantile policy for +10% to Trade value
- Another +20% is available in the Mercantile Tradition
- Mastercraft Inc civic also give us bonus Trade to Artificer jobs
- Thrifty species trait gives +20% to Trade from jobs
The Mercantile tradition also gives us bonuses to Clerk jobs (which produce trade) and extra Merchant jobs. If we spam Trade Districts and / or Commercial Zones we can rock huge numbers of Merchant jobs.
This is where being Authoritarian helps us. Besides the little buff to Influence, Authoritarian allows us to have the Stratified Society living standard. This gives extra happiness and power to rulers. As we spam merchants we will have lots of ruler level pops.
There are still more buffs to Trade available if we form a Trade Federation. The extra envoys from being Xenophile can help us dominate it.
Main Jobs
Most of our pops will be employed as Clerks, Artificers (Artisans) and Merchants. They will produce Amenities, Trade, Consumer Goods (also Alloys) and Engineering Research.
Sourcing Other Resources
An alien can not live by trade alone. We still will want other resources.
Of course as a Mega Corp we can also open branch offices in other civs for extra dosh. To do this we need Commercial Pacts with other civs. The good news is that the more Trade we produce the more attractive our Commercial Pacts will be to the other party. The Universal Transaction Ascension Perk will let off the Influence cost for Commercial Pacts.
Branch Office buildings can produce for us the resources we do not produce ourselves: food, minerals, research etc.
Market Makers
The main way we will obtain other resources we will be by buying it from the Market. The market fee reduces the efficiency of this as a source of resources but the Mercantile Tradition can reduce this.
The best resource to produce for the market is Energy. This is because Energy is the medium of exchange in the Stellaris market. So using it to buy resources means you only get hit by the market fee once. For example if instead you were selling Minerals to buy Alloys then you get hit by the market fee twice.
Since our cash crop is Trade (and also Energy through branch offices) and Trade is converted to Energy this is all to our advantage for using the market heavily.
Needless to say founding and hosting the Galactic Market is a priority for us in the Galactic Community.
Voidborne
It is probably worth explaining why I would choose the Void Dwellers origin for this build. Void Dwellers get the use of Orbital Habitats from the game start. Unlike planets Orbital Habitats can build Trade Districts. This allows us to specialise in Trade earlier and harder. Remember through the Mercantile tradition we can get a merchant job for every single Trade district.
We can also stick those Orbital Habitats just about anywhere. This lets us work Trade collection and Trade routes in such a way as to be safe and easy to police.
Voidborne have the interesting dilemma between spending alloys on starbases to claim territory or building habitats. This build might be one to pursue early habitats over systems.
Final Thoughts
That is it for the super rich money maker build. Did you like it? Did it allow you to retire early?
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For more great Stellaris articles see here!