Stellaris Empire Customization Mods: Updated 19th July 2017

Paradox have found something special in Stellaris; they’ve found a way that players can really tell the story of their species, a way that players can play their game as a role playing game and not just a strategy. One can play sub-optimally but play as that species might really evolve as they entered the galactic stage. I wrote something about story-telling in this sort of way in an earlier post, Story Telling in Strategy Gaming.

For this reason some of the most popular mods in the Stellaris Steam Workshop are those that allow you to customise your species and empire; things like additional portraits, cityscapes, flags, name lists, ship sets, more traits, more government types, more ethical choices etc.

I’ve already curated lists for some of these categories:

Here I hope to document those mods (high-quality, as ever) that expand species customisation to really help the player tailor the game they want to play this time around. Mod categories are:

You can get every mod featured here in my “Stellaris Empire Customization” Steam Workshop Collection.

Civics

Note that these civics mods will all likely experience issues if used with the Ethic & Government Rebuild mod. See the Ultimate Merge Mod, which contains the Ethic & Government Rebuild and additional civics.

Name and Link Author Description Civic Redux Ungentlemanly Conduct More than 30 new civics, including civics that produce game-start bonuses (similar to Syncretic Evolution). May cause trouble if used with mods that allow normally-uninhabitable worlds to be colonised, such as AlphaMod. Civics Variety Pack LittleRaskol 20 new civic choices specifically designed to fill unused government/ethic niches. This is a cut down version of the Government Variety Pack. Juri’s Civics Expansion Syme Introduces 18 standard and 8 Hive Mind civics. Included in the latter is a civic, called Theosis, which allows Hive Mind empires to research Psionic technologies. More Civics Mod OFC The Vilified Exile New civics, some vanilla civics changed to work with different ethics/government combinations, and some changes to Traditionalist and Totalitarian factions. More & More Better Civics Dukom Introduces new civics and changes vanilla civics to specifically make them more unique and fun. Starter Tech 2 Lazerus Artifical Introduces civics to grant techs at game-start, such as Genome Mapping, Cloning, Terrestrial Sculpting, T2 weapons and defence, and T2 labs and production buildings.

Ethics

Check out the All “Ethic Points” Versions collection by Grimhat for mods that allow you to choose between 0, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 Ethic Points when creating your empire. A no-ethics empire sounds a bit boring to me, but it’s good to have choice, I suppose!

Also see HiveMindPlus by Gumus, which reduces the cost of the Hive Mind ethic from three to two, giving you one more point to spend on a non-fanatic ethic, adding a little more flavour to Hive Minds!

Flags & Emblems

Name Lists

Traits

Stellaris: More Negative Species Traits Simultaneous Lovin’Adds 20 negative species traits, which grant between 1 and 5 trait points.

Other

Choose Syncretic Species Appearance

Author: artifex

Workshop link

Allows you to select the portrait and name the species created by the Syncretic Evolution civic.

This feature should be officially supported by the time 1.8 Čapek rolls around!

I have been looking forward to adding this to @StellarisGame so much! And don’t worry, UI is still WIP 😉 pic.twitter.com/0iVAQKPqSa — Lysann Schlegel (@lysannschlegel) July 11, 2017

Enhanced Gene Modding

Author: ParasiteX

Workshop link

Featured in June’s Mod Roundup.

Produces an extra menu that will pop-up after successfully gene-modding a species, giving you the following options (among others):

rename species;

change appearance of species;

modify all leaders, armies, and colonisers of same sub-species to the newly gene-modded species;

convert a species into your dominant species;

convert a species into synthetics;

designate a new homeworld for species within your empire.

This is another feature that’s being taken seriously by the Paradox devs, with improvements coming to vanilla gene-modding in 1.8 Čapek.

Enhanced Species Names

Author: NullPointer

Workshop link

Improves the generator for random empire names, adding some flavour and variety to the galaxy. Details of the generation are in the workshop link.

Ethic & Government Rebuild

Author: petruxa

Workshop link

PayPal donation email: [email protected]

Featured in May’s Mod Roundup.

This mod goes a long way to adding depth to the ethics and government dimensions of Stellaris, as its name suggests. It transforms the ethical wheel such that the Collectivist – Individualist scale is separated into two different scales (with the intention of separating out social and economic effects) and introduces three new scales (for a total of seven scales). New factions are included with the additional scales. You have five, rather than three, points to choose from in selecting from this expanded wheel.

Also included:

more than 40 new civics, from which you’re now able to choose three on empire creation;

a new Direct Democracy authority type;

new empire policies.

There are also plans to add a new Governance tradition branch.

I love the content that Ethic & Government Rebuild adds, but do note that it’s incompatible with pretty much all civics mods, either directly or indirectly (e.g. balance) and any mods that might add new government authorities (such as the Pirate Codex Government Type below) or alter ethics. See the Ultimate Merge Mod, which contains the Ethic & Government Rebuild and additional civics.

Government Variety Pack

Author: LittleRaskol

Workshop link

Adds 20 new civic choices and more than 40 new government types, which add flavour in the form of government name and ruler titles.

Gwen’s Complex Traits and Civics

Author: GwenBlanketKnight

Workshop link

Adds:

traits that augment a species’ leaders with bonus leader traits;

civics that grant specialised technology and buildings that are otherwise inaccessible;

traits and civics that grant strange and unique playstyles.

Specifics are available here.

Pirate Codex Government Type

Author: BrutishMrFish

Workshop link

Featured in June’s Mod Roundup.

This is a very creative mod that adds a pirate-themed government authority along with 46 unique civics. Some of the more interesting ones are:

Leviathan: Creates a controllable guardian dragon in your system at the start of the game, but decreases your monthly mineral gain by 65% and your monthly energy gain by 10%.

One Banner: Gives you control of all pirate fleets at the start of the game, changes your country type to a custom one that ignores empire borders and can survive without a planet, increases your fleet capacity by 500 and reduces your ship upkeep costs by 100% (you will have to pay for the first few months), but every other faction will hate you and you cannot form alliances

Spy Cabal – Gives you the option of assassinating enemy governors for influence or kidnapping and reprogramming them to work for you after your army takes control of a planet (does not work on sector governors); also gives you an edict that makes you kill your enemy’s ruler after you win a war against them.

Population Overhaul

Authors: 何 and Thighs

Workshop link

Aims to overhaul population growth mechanics by slowing base population growth and adding new neutral traits which alter population growth further; this generally trades off growth rate with leader lifespan.

I love this mod because it makes migration and robots much more useful and exciting.

Trace Empire Customisation

Author: Trace Projectile

Workshop link

Adds more cities, ship themes, and room backgrounds. The latter two are particularly impressive; genuinely unique ship themes are hard to find, and I believe this is unique in providing room types with windows.

Ultimate Merge Mod

Author: BurningTemplar

Workshop link

This includes some very inventive civics (from Innovative Civics), such as “Primitives Caretaker”, which ensures your home system has four planets inhabited by primitives.

Also includes a handful of additional civics mods and others, including the Ethic & Government Rebuild, which means you can finally safely use the latter with additional civics!

Note that there are some reports of incompatibility with the UI Overhaul 1080p mod, so you might not be able to use the two together.