A Principled Life: Stellaris’ Best Civics

In Stellaris, Civics represents the ideals and philosophies of life within the borders of your empire. There are a number of principles to choose from.

To help you get the most out of your game, here are some of Stellaris’ best civics!

Environmentalist

If you want to keep the standard of living for your Pops up, but want to increase how quickly you accumulate minerals, then Environmentalist is a great option. Applying this perk to your empire will reduce the cost to maintain consumer goods by 10%. While that doesn’t seem like a lot at first glance, keeping this Civics attribute active will drastically improve how many minerals you collect.

Meritocracy

Meritocracy increases the level cap of your Leader by one and increases your Specialist resource output by 10%. Over time, this boost in production can put you way out in front of your nearest economic rival. The only drawback to the Meritocracy Civic is that you can’t run an Autocratic Government.

Fanatic Purifiers

This is a great Civics option if you like being a brutal overlord who accepts only utter devotion from every soul in your empire. The empire will gain the Purification casus belli for starting wars. You’ll have access to loose galactic markets and loose diplomacy options. Finally, you’ll gain unity from purging Xeno Pops. In addition, your ship fire rate, army damage, and naval capacity get a buff of 33%. Last but not least, your ship build cost gets a 15% reduction. The only catch is that you have to select this Civics principle at the start of the game, and you can never change it.

Mining Guilds

Bringing the excitement down a notch, but still vitally important is Mining Guilds. With this Civic activated, the minerals collected by each of your miners increases by one. This may not seem like a lot on paper. However, if you devote yourself to mining every world in the galaxy, this extra output will explode the number of minerals in resources in your coffers.

Inwards Perfection

You’ll often see players with this principle and the next one together. That’s because Inwards Perfection and Agrarian Idyll provide a one-two punch for unlocking ascension perks. You have to add Inwards Perfection at the beginning of the game, and you can’t remove it afterward. But you gain 20% to your monthly Unity, 10% to your Pop growth speed, and 5% to your Citizen happiness. On top of that, you gain an extra point toward Edicts.

Agrarian Idyll

With Agrarian Idyll you’ll get an additional point from your Generator, Mining, and Agricultural districts but you lose a point from City districts. However, your farmers will produce an additional two amenities, which is incredibly useful. With both this and Inwards Perfection, you must be a Pacifist. But after playing as a Fanatic Purifier, sometimes you need a little peace to cleanse the palette.

With the rules of life in your galaxy established, why not learn how to build Megastructures, expand your borders, or wage a war with one of your rivals? Our guides have you covered.