Toxic Empire Builds for the Toxoids Species Pack
I am back with another bunch of fun and fearsome empire builds for Stellaris. This time we are befouled with the toxic new features introduced by the recent release of the Toxoids Species Pack.
First off let us revise some previous builds with the new features.
Toxic Adeptus Mechanicus
The Adeptus Mechanicus received a translation into Stellaris space with my series of Warhammer 40k inspired builds. To reflect their industrial might they received the Mastercrafters Inc civic. We can swap this civic out for Relentless Industrialists introduced by the Toxoids Species Pack.
Relentless Industrialists boosts the productivity of Metallurgists and Artisans but at the cost of gradually turning colonies into Tomb Worlds.
Given we have already granted the Post-Apocalyptic Origin to Admech, then Relentless Industrialists is not only more fitting, but more synergistic too.
This is the only change I would make, in all else the Admech are as before.
Admech Empire Build Summary
- Govt – Megacorp
- Civics – Permanent Employment, Relentless Industrialists
- Ethics – Authoritarian, Xenophobe, Materialist
- Species Traits – Survivor, Conformists, Industrious, Slow Breeders
- Origin – Post-apocalyptic
Scrappy Orks
Orks are another Warhammer 40k faction that I ported to Stellaris. I would never have guessed the Toxoid Species Pack would have anything for them. Yet there, unlooked for, is the Scavengers civic. The Scavengers civic allows for resources and even salvaged ships as well as research to be obtained from researching ship debris.
This very aptly represents the Orky facility for looting enemy scrap and turning it into their own clanking weapons of war.
To get Scavengers, one of the civics of the old build must go. I would let Nationalistic Zeal go, which I chose to represent the Orky WAAAAAAGH!! energy.
In time the Orks could take that civic for their third civic. It does take time to build up the WAAAAAGH!! energy but they are always scrappy scavengers.
Scrappy Orks Empire Build Summary
- Govt – Dictatorial
- Civics – Warrior Culture, Scavengers (Nationalistic Zeal for the 3rd)
- Ethics – Xenophobe, Fanatic Militarist
- Species Traits – Resilient, Strong, Adaptive, Unruly
- Origin – Syncretic Revolution (see the original build for how to create their Grot sub-species)
Noxious Industrialists – Progress at Any Cost
This is a build is about creating an effective synergy around the complicated noxious species trait.
The Noxious Trait
The simple bit is that noxious increases army damage and population upkeep.
The more complicated bits are its affect on habitability and happiness. Noxious gives the species a minimum habitability floor (similar to cave dweller) and also, weirdly, a maximum to habitability.
Finally it does some weird things with population happiness. Pops without this noxious trait suffer a happiness penalty while pops with it get a happiness bonus from pops without the trait (unless unaffected by happiness).
Essentially, the noxious trait transfers happiness from non-noxious pops to noxious pops.
Habitability
The first thing to look for is a synergy in the habitability aspects of noxious. It seems noxious species do not really have an ideal environment but at the same time are less affected by very bad environments.
This gets me thinking about the relentless industrialists civic. This civic delivers improved production at the cost of gradually turning planets into tomb worlds. For most species, tomb worlds have 0% habitability but for the noxious they will have at least 30%.
There is a dark sort of synergy here between relentless industrialists and noxious. Can we dial that up a bit? Well, how about throwing in the mechanist origin?
Now we have a biological elite indifferent to most habitability and a robotic work force that cares nothing for habitability. Nice.
Since we are going early robots through the mechanist origin, that means materialist ethics. Why not then throw in the natural engineers trait and technocracy civic? Natural engineers helps us down the engineering techs and robot modding projects.
Going science heavy while being completely toxic suggests we try out the inorganic breath trait. This increases pop upkeep but also pops produce the gas special resources, useful for fueling advanced science buildings.
Happiness Theft
A robotic work force is all well and good for dealing with the tomb world fate from relentless industrialists. They apparently will not feed toxic happiness to our noxious elite though.
What we need to make our noxious pops super happy are some pops that feel happiness but whose unhappiness will not affect colony stability too much. So slaves then, or even livestock. Now we have our other ethic, xenophobic. This will allow slaves and even making slaves into edibles.
Finishing Off
This build is shaping up to be extremely unpleasant but we are not quite done yet. The species traits are rated in varying degrees of positive (really?) so we need to chuck in some negatives to balance that out.
Repugnant yields a penalty to the amenities produced by these pops. No problem we have robots and potentially also slaves to work the amenities, so that is a cheap penalty.
The other penalty I would pick is the decadent trait. This imposes a small happiness penalty when working worker or slave jobs. No problem again for our noxious species as they will have robots and slaves do that.
Playstyle and Strategy
What is this build good for really? They are good for science and production. This could make them a good build for rushing mega-structures using my guide here.
Besides the potential for tough ground forces from the noxious trait this build is not obviously capable militarily. However a technological advantage together with a industrial advantage could mean big fleets with advanced weapons even if having no other military advantages like skilled admirals and bonuses to fire rate.
Xenophobic is always a good trait for the rapid early expansion strategy. These noxious boys with their robot chums can use any planet they find too so playing wide is an option.
One could also start with a rapid early conquest, to get some slaves and to turtle on that gain to build up a powerful industrial and technological base.
Toxic Progress Empire Build Summary
- Govt – Oligarchic
- Civics – Relentless Industrialists, Technocracy
- Ethics – Fanatic Xenophobe, Materialist
- Species Traits – Inorganic Breath, Noxious, Natural Engineers, Repugnant, Decadent.
- Mechanist
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