Workshop of the Galaxy – A Stellaris Empire Build
The Toolers are specialists in the production of consumer goods. They are Space Birmingham or Space China, depending on the century of the analogy.
They have a kind of cash crop economy for Stellaris, similar to the Glow Worm Emirates. Instead of producing raw materials like the Glow Worms, the Toolers buy in minerals and manufacturer them into consumer goods for export.
Empire Build Recipe
This empire build optimises for producing consumer goods using:
- Civics: Masterful Crafters, Meritocracy
- Ethics: Fanatical Egalitarian, Xenophile
- Species Traits: Thrifty, Conservationist, Natural Engineers, Unruly
- Origin: Remnants (relic world start)
A Grade Artificers
Masterful Crafters swaps out Artisan jobs for Artificer jobs which give extra consumer goods and also a little bit of trade and engineering research too. It also allows industrial districts to unlock building slots as if they were housing. All together this makes the heavy use of artisans very productive.
The species traits are geared for making our species perfect artificers. Thrifty boosts the trade output of artificer jobs (as well as other trade jobs like Merchants) and Natural Engineers will give a little extra engineering research out of artificer jobs too.
Artificers are specialist jobs, so Fanatical Egalitarian ethics and Meritocracy civic together will boost their output by +20%.
Xenophile buffs our artificers a little more by the +10% to trade. It will also help for getting favourable diplomatic trades. Unlike the Glow Worms the Toolers get hit by the market fee twice, once when they buy the minerals and then again when they sell the consumer goods. Diplomatic trades then are even more useful.
Finally the Remnants origin gives them a Relic world start which they can turn into an Ecumenopolis quite early. An Ecumenopolis allows for nearly limitless special pure artificer districts called Factory Arcologies. It also boosts jobs output further.
Alternative Origins
The Toolers really want to get an Ecumenopolis for the industrial arcologies. Of course the Remnants Origin is the quickest path there. However it is not the only way.
The other reliable way to an Ecumenopolis is the Arcology Perk. This way also has the advantage of allowing you to create more than one Ecumenopolis and putting it where you like.
If you prefer to get your Arcologies from the perk rather than the origin then you could look at the following origins instead.
Prosperous Unification is a solid if uninteresting origin. Filling an ecumenopolis with pops is larger part of the job of creating an ecumenopolis. So the few extra pops from Prosperous Unification is handy.
Mechanist, yields a head start on robots. The Toolers could use robots for some vertical integration. Where instead of buying the minerals for creating consumer goods, they use robotic mining colonies to feed their industry.
Technology
The key technology to get early is Anti-Gravity Engineering which is needed to upgrade the relic world to an ecumenopolis. Factory Arcologies also need crystals in their upkeep so the relevant technologies there too.
How to Rush Anti-Gravity Engineering for Ecumenopolis
Anti-Gravity Engineering is a tier 3 Engineering technology within the Industry expertise. Its only prerequisite is the Weather Controls Systems technology which is also a Engineering technology within the Industry expertise but it is tier 2 and has no other prerequisites.
Both Weather Control Systems and Anti-Gravity Engineering are more likely to come up with an Industry expert leading Engineering research.
The Market
As already mentioned, buying minerals and selling consumer goods means getting hit by the market fee twice. It is desirable then to look out for opportunities to reduce the market fee.
The most reliable early source of market fee reduction is in the Mercantile traditions. Other potential sources for a fee reduction are ruler traits and hosting the galactic market. Helpfully an ecumenopolis is very likely to win a nomination to host the galactic market.
That is it for the consumer goods cash economy build. Do you like peaceful economy builds?
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