On November 25, Stellaris released its brand new Infernals DLC. The expansion focuses on Volcanic Worlds and the fiery denizens that inhabit them. Infernals are quite strong; they have the advantage of a simplified resource supply chain that Lithoids have, but without the reduced population growth speed. Furthermore, they pair well with the new Volcanic planet type. Here’s how to harness those intrinsic advantages even further.
Fire Cult
The Fire Cult civic is one of a small number of civics that works very well on its own, without needing to synergize with much else. It grants a huge amount of utility to otherwise uninhabitable planets within your empire. While the description suggests a couple of civics that you could pair it with, I think there’s one important pairing that the game forgot to include.
Exalted Priesthood is a great civic, especially when paired with Fire Cult to increase the output you get from your Fire Dancers. Efficient Bureaucracy reduces their upkeep and also grants edict funds that scale with the (greatly boosted) unity production from those fire dancers. Regarding civics in this build, I selected Authoritarian, Pacifist, and Spiritualist, which each give a decent set of early edicts to spend those funds on. The origin is not vastly essential to this build. I picked Cosmic Dawn because I haven’t tried it yet.
For traits, I selected Traditional to further boost those fire oracles. Crucible community is a good pick if your homeworld is volcanic, as it is a little cheaper than the standard growth templates. Charismatic will boost politician and entertainer roles, including the former’s replacements on low habitability worlds, and the reduced amenities burden is a nice touch. This build is a Unity Rush one at the end of the day. I recommend being careful about which ascension paths / subpaths you choose, since whenever you boost habitability, you reduce the potency of any low habitability worlds you colonize. It’s a balancing act.
Galvanic Synthesis
Galvanic Synthesis is a peculiar civic. It grants you access to living metal at the start of the game, as well as several unique methods of generating and utilizing it. Having access secured to living metal is great for the late game when it’s time to build megastructures, but the civic also provides a lot of useful early game options. The ship components you start with are quite good compared to their standard counterparts, and the boosted production of alloys on volcanic worlds means that it’s easy to build up a strong fleet early game as an Infernal. Thus, the civic pairs best with an aggressive militarist or genocidal strategy.
For this build, I paired the civic with a couple of things. The Chosen civic grants immediate connection to the Eater of Worlds, as well as several relevant military bonuses. But if you want to fully commit to war, you can switch this out for Fanatic Purifiers, alongside the requisite ethics. For traits, I added Shell Slag to further boost living metal production, rapid breeders (which you can switch out for existential iteroparity), and I selected Deviants and Solitary as rather marginal downsides. The Subterranean origin is there to help mitigate the habitability restrictions of Volcanic Worlds, while boosting their mining capacities, which you want to be building a decent amount of anyway on Volcanic Worlds.
The biggest weakness of this path is tech production, which you need to either compensate for with a lot of early investment in research labs, or by conquering everyone else before they can truly outscale you, and sourcing your tech from their debris.
Planet Forgers
The Planet Forgers Civic lets you slowly convert non-volcanic worlds into Volcanic worlds. In a sense, this makes it similar to the Idyllic Bloom or Relentless Industrialist civics in their slow planetary alterations. It also lets you start with a Volcanic planet as your homeworld even if your species couldn’t normally start there. One of the big advantages of this civic is that you can use species traits that would be otherwise inaccessible onto an infernal planet. The one I immediately thought of was the Tankbound civic. Combining the boosted resource output that Thermostatic mentors grant with the automation of worker level jobs was a potent combo.
As with any tankbound build, it’s best to pick negative traits that affect worker pops, since ours are automated and unaffected. Conversely, pick positive traits that boost specialists and ruler pops. Also, since Planet Forgers makes guaranteed habitable worlds dry, it’s best to set that as your specie’s climate preference.
Scorched World Heralds
Scorched Worlds Heralds is the genocidal option for the DLC. Compared to Fanatic Purifiers, it does have some downsides, such as lacking a ship cost reduction. It makes up for it slightly with some other combat bonuses, unique blockers, and the ability to generate unity during orbital bombardment. Most of the time, I think I would still pick this civic’s predecessor. While it pairs nicely with the Galvanic Synthesis civic, I decided to review them in isolation.
I decided to combine this civic with the Distinguished Admiralty/ Under One Rule combination, to get some of the bonuses associated with leader trait. Distinguished Admiralty lets us level up the ruler twice at game start for greater bonuses. I recommend building up a giant fleet and going through first contact wars with everyone you come across. Leverage the alloy production advantage that you have early game. Murder everyone is the strategy; pretty straightforward.
Overall, the Infernals Species pack introduces an interesting toolkit of civics and traits for empire builds. What do you think about the Infernals expansion? Was there a build I missed? Let us know our Boss Rush Facebook Group or our Boss Rush Discord.
Featured Image: Paradox Interactive
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