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[Rolan7]

You're meant to be producing those *strategic* resources on "refinery worlds" using minerals.  I admit I often abandon things in the endgame, and run a lot of Utopian Abundance that makes unemployment much less of an issue, but after a certain point you really need those jobs if a world is at all urbanized.

Unless you're literally conquering the galaxy and displacing all xenos, taking their jobs for your pops, I suppose.  But even then the growth rate would catch up sooner than later.

I've tried to ignore strategic resource production by spamming habitats with commercial zones - at 5 jobs per building slot without upgrades, they at least hold back the tide of unemployment.  But it doesn't actually make headway.

A strategic resource plant only grants 1 job, but that job probably produces between 3-3.5 motes in late-game.  That supports upgrading 3 alloy forges into megaforges, which provides an additional 9 jobs.  That's good efficiency, particularly when you dedicate entire planets to alloy/goods/research/strategic resources to maximize the multipliers.

Buying strategic resources on the galactic market gets expensive very quickly.  Better to overproduce and stash them, essentially increasing your resource storage capacity by diversifying.

[EuchreJack]

Oh, so I need those "create fake rare resource" techs.  I guess that makes sense then.

I've noticed the AI is pretty bad at managing its planets.  Ever notice that Food is always being bought but rarely sold on the Galactic market?  It's the reason people talk about trading food for influence: The AI can't even manage to keep its people fed.

In my game, all the AI nations have basically double everything I have except tech (which I leaned into hard).  But once I realized how badly they were running things, I kinda stopped worrying about it.

[Aoi]

For the love of... How on (*checks*) Yarus do you actually get a federation going? I'm intent on letting my right-hand neighbor in because he's got a beefier navy than I do, we're on great terms, he's kind of blocking a hostile group, and I'm trying to play a political game this time. Amazingly enough, their ethics actually match to my left-hand neighbor, who's my partner in the federation. And, for some reason, I just can't seem to get him to let the guy in when he's been begging for like ten years.

[MorleyDev]

I found you usually need to buy favours to get the initial nudge for forming the federation going. When the federation exists, you can usually add more people to it without needing the favours.

[forsaken1111]

Yeah I built up favors and diplomatic rep by shipping thousands of space burgers or whatever 'food' represents so that I could get a federation formed. I used the same tactic to push my agenda down the throats of the galactic community.

Democracy, powered by space burgers!

[Aoi]

I can get the federation formed, but when it comes to the vote to let other people in, the other guy keeps saying NO. But we like them-- NO. They're really nice and are keeping the scary guys away-- NO. They're also a much bigger economy than either of us-- NO.

...Though it's kind of a moot point. Their opinion of me is +300 right now, and they decided to leave the federation. (MY opinion of them is a whopping -500 though. Mostly because they're being mean about the federation. XD)

[EuchreJack]

I sort of wonder if its because your co-founder is afraid that the proposed new guy is TOO powerful and will take over their place of importance.  Doubt Stellaris is that smart, but it would be a real-life sort of reason.  Sometimes your friend is jealous that letting in your other friend will eventually make them irrelevant.

[MorleyDev]

From what I remember if you hover of the X on their vote it breaks down what's contributing to that no,
like
Base Reluctance -50
Rivals - 1000

That kind of thing

[Rolan7]

I was fortunate enough to have a research federation form, and joined that.  I wanted to join the "Common Ground" cluster I started near, even shared ethics... but they preferred to rival me, fair enough.  The research federation is as underwhelming as I'd heard, I just found it appropriate for my Mechanist run. 

Like- research treaties are pretty useless, generally?  Giving them some multipliers doesn't really help.  It certainly doesn't help *me*, but I suppose letting them crib off my notes strengthens the galaxy.  Replacing "+25% damage to crisis" with "+20% research speed during crisis" is horrible though, 200 years in I'm already on tier 10 repeating techs and the crisis is probably decades away.  I haven't even reached the capstone of, wowzers, +1 megastructure build capacity (megastructures you can build at one time) which I thought would be nice, but with Master Builders and the Ascension edict I'm already at 3 - which is all I need, I'm wrapping up.  I suppose it would let me build more ringworlds faster but I don't *need* ringworlds as ascended synths.  The alloys are better spent making mining-habitats to feed my 4 ecumenolopi.  (something tells me I've won this game)

The research federation has also been surprisingly resistant to all my votes, and I can't dominate them all because I played tall and generous.  Which is fun and democratic, I don't particularly mind...  I just wish they let me form the federation fleet before 200-years-in.  And it's only minimal contribution, because research federations have weakened fleet laws.  Even without the fleet, we managed to absorb basically the whole galaxy through vassalization or outright war (I left the declarations up to my allies, but assisted with my fleet as necessary).  The first khan got poisoned after a handful of years, and wasn't a threat anyway.  I could have made the second khan a protectorate but they got eaten by my allies instead.

The odd result is that we have literally every ethic in the federation (there's a cheevo apparently) and that hurts a lot in non-Union federations.  With all 7-8 of my envoys dedicated we only gain about 3 cohesion a month, and it drops every time we vassalize something.  This means that we haven't hit the final level yet 200 years in.  Not that the rewards are great.

I guess I'm satisfied fluff-wise... no, I'm actually disappointed there too, because shouldn't this have turned the galaxy materialist?  Maybe even a bit egalitarian?  But nope.  There's definitely a materialist draw from the automatic research pacts, but spiritualist ethics are *absurdly* hard to change.  Much like egalitarian ethics as a friend of mine pointed out (but I *like* that so it's *different*).  I just wanted to pass the research proposition which allows robots to exist - being a state of synthetic individuals - but there was very little support.

So like the passive-aggressive benevolence I am, I dedicated several hundred influence+favors to force through most of the Greater Good propositions (like in a previous game), putting most of the galactic community/my federation in breach of galactic law.  The sanction laws are pretty serious at this point, so this had a snowball effect of drastically dropping the diplomatic power of all those authoritarians who I (for some reason) tolerate.  Shame on them!  Shaaaaaame!  And also now I will declare synthetic life valid, while my colony ships inch closer to the Spiritualist Empire's holy worlds.

Oh yeah, the Spiritualists awakened.  That was scary for a bit, but I had enough alloy production from 3-4 ecumenopoli to construct a vast fleet of arc-emitter battleships.  I'm at parity with them now, and that's not counting my 3-layer-deep line of citadels with ion cannons, platforms, and defensive auras.
... which they might just jump over with their psionic jump drives, but maybe not.  I'll see once they're goaded in, and my arc-emitters *should* core a lot of their battleships anyway... and I'll win a war of attrition with my absolutely redonkulous alloy production.
This became a ramble.  Yeah building large federations is tough.  At a certain point you probably need to use vassalization or liberation-wars.  I'm definitely going to use liberation-wars next time around, because frankly I'm sick of tolerating authoritarians in the endgame.  The Greater Good GC policies hurt them, but I really hoped they'd adapt, you know?

[Loud Whispers]

I like the idea of a fed where all the ethos are represented. Real United Nations vibes

[Rolan7]

That is true.  If I really want to make a monoculture I'd just play democratic crusaders, or paint the map with UNE.  I like the diversity of states as much as the diversity of xenos.

also haha why tf do the Spiritualist FE use the neutron sweep colossus.  What a bunch of dickwads.  I shouldn't have let them wake up.  It's fine though, they got absolutely shattered by my apply-directly-to-hull Arclight battleships, screened by PD corvettes.  100% war exhaustion in one defensive battle (+40% fire rate edict hoooo!) but they're not getting off that easy.

Edit: Taking a single world (not even the homeworld) took years, and a total of 3 generals (I landed new generals with the reinforcements).  The final general, who happened to be an adaptable 3-year-old, arrived just in time to grab the credit and level 4.  That's +20% damage, actually useful.
Total devastation a mere 14% - captured all those shiny Lostech worker-buildings.  I don't need energy, but these class-4 singularities are... well, a planet full of them would equal a fully-efficient dyson sphere (250 each).  The fact that nobody understands them both makes me giggle, and makes me unwilling to break them.

... For the same reason, I'm exempting the Precursors from assimilation.  I've only ever assimilated willing migrants.  Perhaps it's the Rogue Servitor in me, but I like the idea of rubbing my benign coexistence in their murderous faces.
(Perhaps chemical bliss...?  No no, be nice)

[Loud Whispers]

Lmao reminds me of when I integrated fanatic isolationist FE into my Empire, figured the worse thing I could do was to respectfully treat them as equals

[Rolan7]

I remember that story, or one very much like it.  Being magnanimous in victory can be very rewarding.
And as someone kinda bad at Stellaris (I play on Commodore... without scaling) and with a CK2 background, I can't help but feel for my foes.  There's something about leaving them autonomy that just gladdens my soul.  I always liked playing a loyal vassal in CK2, and was very disappointed when that proved impractical in Stellaris.  (I should mod that - disable integration, and allow expansion as per the Feudalism civic).

That respect for local autonomy outright conflicts with my desire that they treat their people right.

...huh, such a moral pickle.  Guess in the future I'll only force my ethics on authoritarians!  What is irony??
Joking aside, I think democratic crusaders (Egalitarian Militarists) are the most moral actors.  Stellaris-Pacifism isn't moral in a galaxy where so much systematic horror occurs.  And xenophilia is... not bad, but hardly good.

[EuchreJack]

I dunno, I kinda think the democratic crusaders are jerks, forcing everyone to be just like them.  Maybe some species like clearly-defined hierarchical governments.

I had an idea of playing Determined Exterminators and splitting off a new empire every time I had a spare planet and maxed admin, so that I might someday have a federation of Determined Exterminators.

[Loud Whispers]

I dunno, I kinda think the democratic crusaders are jerks, forcing everyone to be just like them.  Maybe some species like clearly-defined hierarchical governments.

I had an idea of playing Determined Exterminators and splitting off a new empire every time I had a spare planet and maxed admin, so that I might someday have a federation of Determined Exterminators.

So, shall we put it to a vote? All in favour of extermination, say aye

-Ulannor United Suns, yes extermination sounds good
-Heaven's Gate Enclave, we concur to extermination
-Adnor Stratarchy, +1 to extermination
-Beta Sun Technocracy, extermination is the most reasonable course of action