You win bonus points for this video for featuring _Atlantis: The Lost Empire._ Such an underrated, largely forgotten movie. It's got Spock, Ivanova, and a total Daniel Jackson expy!
The Last Baol is S tier, I once got it very early in the game, and steamrolled the galaxy. Colonising every habitable planet and turning it into a Gaia world is game breaking.
indeed its better than any S tier there especially that from my experience Boal chain you can end faster than all other precursor. Then you land your ass on Tomb worlds turn them into gaias with extra pops. How is that not S tier ? Not to mention 10% pop growth is literally 2 point trait for free ... that stacks with rapid breeder. Literally everything about it is good. It is not even terrible for Machine empires - like Rogue servitor or driven assimilator ... heck even Exterminators get some pops to exterminate. Also Gaia world still gives 10% jobs production output so yeah Machine empires benefit greatly aswell.
Baol also has a weird "working as intended" strat with fanatic purifiers where you take the random low habitability worlds you wind up occupying, make them liveable, and give you a bit of extra unity from the xenos that "coincedentally" appear after using it.
Baol isn't S tier, for some empires it is awesome for others it doesn't help at all; even bio based ones with nicely diverse populations find better ways to spend influence. The Cybrex used properly is far more of a game changer, I was actually impressed that Montu has spotted it as most online don't adapt their strategy enough and talk about the endgame ringworld which doesn't alter the game result.
Agreed. Plus the cooldown is shorter than other relics. I for one quite like it - and it is particularly useful if you happen to spawn in a rather barren stretch of space
Out of the minor relics, the Head of Zar’Qlan and the Blade of the Huntress are the most powerful. Anything that buffs ship speed and gives you free fallen empire ships in the mid-game is always a massive boon.
I'm not too sure about the Head of Zar'Qlan. 20yrs past mid game (minimum requirement for it to spawn) and its spawned fleets are typically not much compared to what I can build. I might use it once or twice? But it doesn't stay useful very long. Then when you take into consideration the Spiritualist ethics attraction? I typically just don't even dig it up.
Having spent a great deal of time with the Surveyor active, I have noticed that it has a hidden effect. Wile activated it will sometimes (~50%) locate an additional deposit during its 5-year cooldown, it will also very rarely produce a strategic resource. That being said, I still agree that it belongs in C-tier because after mid-game the bonuses are completely irrelevant. Also, I too have never gotten the Galatron (2.5k hours).
I wasn't aware that it was a 50/50 shot for a 2nd activation of the Surveyor. It seemed to me that every time I activated it, I'd get 2 pulses of resource discovery -- the first when I activated it, and the 2nd about 1/2 way through the cooldown.
I've been lucky enough to get Galatron twice on Ironman playthroughs with about 500 hours and one time have the Casus Belli to steal it from another empire I've never become one with the worm though. Wish I had done it before the patch to it
There's actually also a chance for a third deposit found. And honestly the Surveyor is by far the best relic. You can get it early. You can activate it often. And every activation stacks upon the next. I basically never activate anything else. If you get lucky, you even get rare resource deposits on planets and can then use those with a Habitat to exploit them even more.
@@MontuPlays Not when the Blokkarts are around the corner! (giga structures) But yeah, I'd much rather the contingency one, since thats 300% mega strucutre build speed.
Don’t know if this was a glitch, but the onetime I got the brood queen I was able to add an unlimited amount of ships to it and once added they no longer contributed to my fleet count, so I got massive million plus fleets with no upkeep!
I haven't seen that crisis for a long time, but originally it was possible to get it during the war with that crisis and get bonus ships for food that don't use any fleet cap. In case crysis couth you off guard because your settings were bit to high and you had to wage long attrition heavy war against Prethoryn, it was somewhat helpful. Exploit included with it was just bonkers.
@@MontuPlays - I don't play a lot so don't really know much about most of them, and probably wouldn't manage to use them as effectively as better players, however I think the decapitated head seems actually pretty good. Other than that, the only Relic I ever actually wanted significantly any time I would play was always the Baol - being able to terraform planets into perfect Edens just seems to be the best ability you could have in this type of game. I am more of a creator rather than a conqueror, I always loved using the special items and such to turn so many dead planets in Spore into tropical paradise worlds :)
Great list. Personally, I would bump surveyor into B tier, just becasue its so insanely cheap to use. Its a great general "filler" relic imo, to use if you have no better relic to use in your current situation or are short on influence.
When I saw Surveyor in C tier I thought maybe I was dumb for thinking it was really strong, but seeing all these people pointing out that Surveyor should be higher up is a slight relief, it's so easy to get and basically free so I always like using it
Got the head in my latest playthrough. We're ascended synthetics. The spiritual fallen empire was mightily confused, but they still were ok with us settling on their nice holy worlds in a little pocket no one else could access. Thanks fellas :)
I got the digsite for it in my latest run, and I'm also fanatic materialist synthetics. I like my pops at 100 happiness, so I decided to abort the dig before the final event. Spiritualists are such a nieusance.
Damn, i've forgotten how many relics Guillis' Planet Modifiers and Features adds into the game. But nothing beats Zer0s' Infinty Stones mod for relics (except the warforge here in the S tier, it rivals even those).
One small point: the Javorian Pox, AFAICT, is the only method that a non-FP, non-Crisis empire can make Tomb Worlds from enemy planets. So if you're going Radiotrophic / Post-Apocalyptic, it can be useful. Of course, since you cannot control if you get it, you can't rely on it, but it can make the game quite different if you do. (Not saying it should be in a different tier.)
The blade of the huntress carried me so hard in the early game that I'm happy to see it being ranked at such good spot, this video did it justice along with the rubricator!
I am doing what I've never done before and disputing the wisdom of Montu. The Head of Zarquon is an absolute game changer every time I've received it. And watch Jon (MATN) and his impossible run, and see how he, or Marc of the Templin Institute, leaned on them to survive in their games. All. Hail. Zarquon!
Pox should be C Tier: Like any precursor artifact you can get it very early on and an additional +20 years leader lifespan on top of all research is nice to have. Surveyor is easily B or even A: Killing the Mining Hub can be done very early on, activation costs only 500 energy and it saves so many building slots wasted on refineries.
If you're playing the StarnetAI mod you can camp the final system with the Unbidden's portal and secure the Warlock which in turn will be very helpful in war since at that point there'll be a few quite formidable empires on the map to overcome.
I quite like the Surveyor and would have probably put it somewhere on the B to A border. 500 energy for a shot of a permanent deposit of rare resources is a hell of a deal. When I get the thing, I almost always find myself running its triumph almost permanently. Plus, you can often get it much earlier than the other relics.
Disagree on the surveyer, I once defeated mining drones protecting before even researching cruisers and it can randomly add +5 strategic resource plots in your empire. I think it is at least B tier.
For me the surveyor is an a tier relic ! And for small empires an s tier because it boost your Systems heavy for a little bit of credits and u get many rare resorces over the game
I really like the Head of Zarqlan just because I can get myself a nice fallen empire fleet. Throughout a full game you can get like 200 fleet power in fallen empire ships, and they are nice.
I love your added comment about the Galatron- "If you want to be THE senate..." lol. The Head of Zarqlan is my favorite relic especially if I get it early and if I'm extra lucky, the spiritualist FE are cute starfish people, Zarqlan wills it!!! I am torn between the War Forge and the Last Baol as the best precursor relic.
IMO The Surveyer should be in B Tier just because it takes only 500 credits to activate. That means while you are strapped for influence you can still use the Relic 24/7
I love the Surveyor. I was able to get it early by spawning next to the home miner system. I did see double resource pops periodically, and early or midgame, it did matter to get a six mineral, energy, or greater on a useless body. I balanced my economy and exploded fleet production just from those bonuses piling up. It makes those resource poor starbases much more efficient, and is better for a less aggressive single play. It even helps with research and strategic deposits. I got the Galatron once, that influence was great!
Ah, the Cybrex Warforge. The 'fire and forget', or in this case, the 'land armies and forget' button of Stellaris. I can't remember just how many times I've forgotten about my invading armies whenever I get the Cybrex Warforge.
On the topic of the surveyor - let's say hypothetically you're running a tell empire that has deposits on literally every planet (maybe you've used it so many times over the span of a very long game). What happens if you activate the surveyor while every planet already has a bonus resource?
It will add another fitting resource on top of the other one. So a mining station might get additional alloys or rare resources, a research station might get additional research of a different or the same type, etc. If there's a weird resource like dark matter or living metal, it will sometimes be confused and you won't be able to take both deposits. In earlier version it could also affect habitats and ring worlds, but that was patched last update. Honestly the surveyor is the best relic, because it allows you to literally keep getting more and more benefits and become self-sustained without pops (except for food) in the long run. And it also doesn't "run out".
I usually play with gigas and acot, so for me that tier list becomes S: contingency core (+300% megastructures build speed is huge and game doesn't end after defeating the crisis) A: baol, rubricator (all two early game), cybrex forge (both early for alloys and late for armies) A/C: surveyor is A if you are void dweller, C otherwise F: every other one Also, for precursor, you should also consider the "dwell into the secret of" bonus when evaluating the relic
Only time I actually took advantage of an end game relic was durin my DE playthrough, battleships instant hyperlane jump and probably max sub light speed with the warlock, it was fun watching corvettes being intercepted by a fleet a battleships
To be honest, i'd rank the surveyor even higher, for the sheer fact oh how cheap and quick it is and how much it can benefit you in a long run, especially if you roll strategic resources.
I quite like the surveyor relic. I think it should be one tier higher, maybe, because of the short activation cooldown time, cost, and the probability to get between 1 and 3 deposits (which may include alloys or engineering research). Personally when I see the extraction hive I always go out of my way to try and get it.
A quick correction: With the Rubricator, the Relic World that it is attached to is random in size. In my many multiplayer games with friends, the Rubricator Relic World varied from size 14 to size 25.
That is not a bug! After you activate it once, there is a 50% chance to repeat this process in 360-1080 days and a 20% chance to repeat this process again in 1080-1800 days.
My personal favourites are the Cybrex warforge, Khans throne & the boot relic? - SABATON!!! That was it. Made from liquid metal. Must be in a mod I use.
Surveyor is A tier for me. It actually has lower cooldown (5 years), a high hidden chance to trigger a second deposit a few years after the first and basically no cost for activation. Also it's quite easy to get if you find the droids base, you can get it in early mid game.
The Surveyor is very underrated, the thing is amazing, in my last run it was just spitting out loads of new strategic resources. And consider that the resource edict costs scale up along with the other edicts now, you always want to have as many sources of them as possible.
So I'm playing stellaris and get a notification of a new Montu video. Cool, pause game and watch. We get to the A teir and I'm like "oh yeah, reliquaries." So I buy one... bam Galatron. I wish my luck was like that irl
Great stuff Montu! Just an Idea, but it would be neat to learn some meta combat strategies or tips from you. Just an Idea, but either way excellent work!
Honestly, outside of tier consideration, surveyor is my favourite artifact. Having a lower cool down and kind of okay activation that only costs 500 energy rather than the influence that I usually find is at a premium means that if I have a surveyor I will ALWAYS have a relic activating at all times. surveyor when I have nothing else good enough to warrant the influence, or not enough influence to spare,something else once the shorter cooldown finishes.
The yuht cryo core is the same to me as the crisis ones by the time it becomes helpful it’s not a big deal since it just lowers upkeep it’s not as versatile as the cybrex war forge which turns minerals into alloys instantaneously witch can be used to make new ships and also offset the upkeep of existing ships and also also can also be used to make mega structures and also also also gets you access to cybrex war forms which are very good for invading planets so you don’t have to waist as much time bombarding them and also also also also comes with a ruined ring world (I may be mistaken but doesn’t it get you mega structures early?) so yeah if these two precursors both relate to alloys and one is far and above better than the other there’s no competition and unique niche for the yuht CRYo core. Plus one pop (which will be unemployed if you also get the expansion tradition that does the same thing but for unity and you can get earlier in the game making the CRYo core even less useful since there are only two colonists jobs upon initial settlement meaning they’re just more upkeep until you build a district which can take awhile!) isn’t as useful and becomes useless after you settle all your worlds! F tier for sure it’s not competitive not unique and you miss out on all the better precursor artifacts!
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure the Rubricator relic world isn´t garanteed size 25, or does it grow in size when shard dies? I would also personally rate Surveyor higher since you can get it super early and each activation can spawn multible deposits (I think it is 1.6 per activation on average).
Fun fact : i got the Galatron the first game i played. did not know it was this rare, and did not get to use it because my military was weak and the Khan spawned next to me
The one game I had where I got the Head of Zarqlan was probably the best possible scenario, I was a driven assimilator surrounded by militaristic spiritualists on one side, and a spiritualist fallen empire on the other, this was also like, 40 or so years in, carried me for a while.
I will say the Omnicodex is really good for Life-Seeded and Void Dweller empires as if you get it early you can start colonizing worlds without having to conquer natives (if your empire ethics don't allow it) or meeting another friendly empire to set up migrations with or getting Droids. You will have to colonize with one of your empire though, but then you can Omnicodex on the world you colonized and then get pops perfectly suited to where you landed
A while ago you did a video the effectiveness of the focused arc emitter and tested fleets with it against the kinetic artillery. The ships with the arc emitter were equipped with neutron launchers, which do not work with the arc emitter as much as the cloud lightning. If both are used on the same battleships I believe that they will be more powerful than the battleships with the kinetic artillery. I have not tested it in a controlled environment, so I would love to see them getting proved effective!
I tested ships with Arc emitters and cloud lightning vs the others in one of my videos. I forget exactly which one, though I think it was the XL weapon testing. And yeah, neutron launchers with GC or TL shredded them...
In my opinion, head of zarqlan is one of the best relics out there, for 1 reason: you are able to trade with the spiritualist fallen empire… I have gotten it many times and traded all my resources for alloys. The fallen empire has a massive stockpile of resources and is usually cheaper than buying it from the market, though you can only really use stragetic resources. But usually you gen get over 100k+ alloys for relatively cheap
Can confirm. Was lucky enough to get Cybrex and the relic world with the Rubricator. A second Relic world 5 jumps away. A ruined Dyson Sphere AND ruined Megashipyard in my 40 system sphere. Was rolling two ecuminopolises and a single ringworld and rebuilt Dyson Sphere before 2300 in a 0.25x habitable world game. Best unmodded game I ever had
had to add a comment about "the surveyor" relic. it CAN add more than one during its duration. its low cooldown and cost makes it easy to just use constantly, and sometimes it can pop out 2-3 resources during its "cooldown". which is kiiiiiinda implied by the wording of it. edit: 2400 hours played and have seen the galatron 3 times. earlier today even! edit2: the chain for the rubricator VERY rarely spawns a 20+ relic world. its mostly size 12-16. and almost exclusively inside another empire. i would estimate maybe 20% of the time its possible to get the system without going to war for it
With the Rubricators logic of getting the Relic World then you can technically bump Ether Drake trophy up based on what you get with it since Dragons Hoard is the true reason for killing the Ether Drake since you get a 30 Energy and Mineral mining station, Artificial Dragonscales research (tier 6 Armor), and a baby Ether Drake worth 7k fleet power by itself, then throw on your Admiral who killed the Drake getting Dragonslayer trait, which gets even sillier when you factor in Reanimators letting you bring slayed organic Leviathans back to life to fight for your side. Pretty much agree with the rest of what you said though on the tier list. Alone the Ether Drake Trophy isn't really impressive, but thats the thing with the trophy its a package deal.
The Zroni precursor chain (and therefore the relic) is quite decent for Clone Army Origin (Ascendent + Psionic Ascension) The last time I rolled The Last Baol and was a machine empires I didn't reroll... Because I was playing Driven Assimilator. I also found the omnicodex and while neither made great pops, they were still pops, and their biological and technological distinctiveness was added to our own, in our quest for perfection.
Prethoryn queen is now actually pretty good, and you don't have to beat the crisis to get it. Sometime during the crisis galaxy wide event spawns that let's you get it if you clear cetrain enemy system. And the "small fleet" i got from this was way over 250k power fleet, my second (after federation fleet) biggest fleet.
I agree with the list, I would be tempted to upgrade the Surveyor to B tier because it has a chance to activate more than once and because it doesn't cost influence but as the game advances it does lose its value.
Fun fact about the surveyor that you didn't mention in the section on it: it doesn't just trigger once and give you one deposit, while it's cooling down you will continue getting random surveyor events every so often that reveal more resources each time. So it's better than it seems, though if that makes it good enough to go up a tier is doubtful.
If you use the Archaeology Story Pack mod, you can get the Galatron through the Axis of the Planet dig site. I remember getting it at one point but not how. One of my neighbors just got it in my current game so I was able to observe to find out what happened. Luckiest AI got four of the best (ruined world, rain world, isolated world and axis of the planet). Fun mod if you have not tried, it's in the steam workshop.
Last Baol is great, particularly if can get it as early as possible, I mean every ten years you get a Gaia world and the pop growth is explosive. Once you have explosive growth on these worlds you convert the others to ecumonopoli and you can move the pops there to create like 900 monthly alloy production. For me as a bio player it is really nice.
Your only worry with Last Baol ironically for its early game usage is the fact you need 150 Influence which can really punch you in the gut if your have an AI in the game that is an expansionist. Though does help early to convert your first few colony's to Gaia as to pretty much guarantee Trade dominance.
Psionic Archive is absolutely amazing for Psionic Empires. Sure it sucks for 75% of empires, but being in C tier seems to understate it's peak power. Sure it's niche, but it's crazy powerful in that one niche. Surveyor is one of the few relics that doesn't need influence, has a very quick turnaround and spawns 1-3 deposits, not just 1. Overall you seem to overvalue active effects. I do find influence a huge roadblock for most of the game as such unless it's a really powerful active effect it usually doesn't get used. The Last Baol also might be under-tiered as I find Gaia World Tera-forming + free population pretty strong. Considering you can get it well before tear-forming it's ability to turn "uninhabitable" worlds into functioning super colonies instantly is insanely powerful. Maybe I blob with colonies too much but I would think the sooner you get colonies down the better. Also you can "activate" it and bank the effect for up to 10 years if you have a planet you've yet to colonize but have the free influence/CD.
Hey Montu been enjoying your videos for a while and I think your doing a great job keep it up. I was wondering if you might make a video taking about the galaxy settings before the start of the game. Is there a best setting? Or one you always chose? How might your game look depending what you have set? Thanks
A lot of comments saying how the Last Baol is S tier and I have to agree. If you get it early enough you can basically colonize anything and turn it into a gaia world and on top of that you get extra pops. If you stack the passive bonus with rapid breeders you can grow so fast that your empire will snowball at a crazy pace. Basically it's completely broken.
Personally I disagree on the Warlock, because you can jump the portal very early on, and get it as one of the smaller empires, depending on where the Unbidden spawn. If you happen to have an armada in position to slip past most of their forces and take on their home system before they have anchors, it can be a *massive* help. Double range psi jump drives let you run circles around the rest of the galaxy :3
The surveyor should be higher up IMO, it gives you more than one deposit, usually about two per activation and also it can give you large deposits of strategic resources which save you having to make refineries
Head of Zar'Qlan imo should be F tier. By the time you get it the fleets are way too small to matter for the cost. I'd much rather put that 150 influence towards another Megastructure at the stage in the game where you'll have this. Just a really useless relic and a pretty awful passive as well. I do think the Yuht Cryo Core should be A tier though. That 20% ship upkeep reduction is insane in the late game and can easily be worth thousands of energy every month. Yes it's not that great in the early to mid game, but it's late game power more than makes up for it imo. Everything else I think you nailed spot on. Great vid!
@@ValinShadow The zarqlan ships have low fleet power when there is 4 of them, but they have a great fleet power to nav cap ratio. Also, you are guaranteed to get this relic, and, as of the current patch, I only find myself with one or two others, many of which are often not the best. If you spam this relic every decade and stack up the ships, you will end up with a fleet that is more powerful than any battleship fleet you could make. Also the ships have long range PSI jump drives, and are WAY faster than battleships. I agree it is completely outclassed by the likes of the the War Forge or that sort of thing. However, if used over the long term, it can create a quick reaction force that can be as powerful(at 250 nav cap) as a large federation fleet of a greater size
@@colejosephalexanderkashay683 I'll have to look to see if the ships are individually as powerful as you say. that said, you still only get 4 of them a decade at the cost of 3000 unity. that's still incredibly weak when compared to things like the Yuht Cryo Core, the Khan's Throne, The Vultaum Reality Perforator, the Psionic Archive, the Last Baol, heck I'd even rather have the Blade of the Huntress or the Rubricator. any of these give much better actual benefits from use than the Head of Zarqlan will
@@ValinShadow yeah I'd agree on most of those depending on build or the like. compare the ships you get for 3000 unity to two battleships you can get at the time when this becomes available and see what I mean. Some time ago in a very long, very late game I had a large fleet of these ships up to 500k when my battleship stacks were in the 250-300k
With Zarqulans Head you are also allowed to settle on the holy worlds around the spiritualist fallen empire. The Rubricator does not generate a size 25 relic world, the size is random, but their might be an aditional lower limit, my last rubricator world was size 17.
I got the Galatron once, i was a Rogue Sevitor with 3 passed resolutions down the Greater Good and a ton of bio-trophies. Suffice to say my diplomatic weight went bonkers so i just made the community into the Galactic Empire :D
Cybrex war forge got nerfed quite a bit as well. I don't think it is a very good deal until you get into late game because of the whopping 3,000 unity, along with 2,000 minerals for only a payoff of 1,000 alloys.
Just an FYI The Surveyor ACTUALLY randomly finds deposits 3-6x within that 1800 day cooldown period ! It IMMEDIATELY finds a single deposit but the rest are found within the 1600 day period! by far one of my favorite relics because it has found me rare resources on many occasions more than once! :D The Defragmentor is OP when playing as a Mega Corp "laughs making 15k EC a month even after the hard nerfs to mega corps XD" Id have put the Nu Baol into the B category... Gaia worlds are useful... but I always end up making most of my worlds into Ecumenopolis and by the time I finish the Nu Baol excavations all my planets are continental already if not ecumenopolis ... and every species is Continental but that cybrex... awww thats my favorite
I rather like the psionic archive, getting the Zroni precursor is usually enough for me to chose it for my ascension even if i had planned otherwise, you can often end up with 2 bonuses from the shroud at the same time, i feel the higher chance for positive outcomes makes psionic a good ascension path. better shields ain't bad either, just too bad you basically need FE tech to use them well.
The surveyor is insanely good, can activate 2 or even 3 times per use, is basically free, very short cooldown and can even uncover strategic resources and of all the Relics is one of the most reliable to get as usually you can get to the Mining Drones base faster than AI can. Don't really agree with it being that low.
I'd say the Surveyor is B tier at minimum, because it has a much faster cooldown, activates twice inside its cooldown, and its easy to get if you can find the home system of the automated mining drones.
Loved the video, great and massively useful content as always, however if I may offer a bit of constructive criticism. As someone who is not super familiar with the artifacts and since each tier added all items from that tier at the start. I wasn't super sure which icon referred to which artifact description (if you went left to right or right to left). Might just be a me issue, as I think the formula for these is left to right, bottom to top, but just wanted to point that out :)
Ah okay! Yes so I read them out from left to right (like a book) and then bottom to top (not like a book). I may add words in future lists for clarity!
I got Blade of the Huntress for the first time in my current playthrough, and good god it's fantastic, especially combined with Rapid Deployment. It's a huge tactical advantage, especially when you're fighting a war on multiple fronts.
You forgot something about the archive. Its not stated in the description but it increases the chance on shroud events. This makes it really easy to get psyshields etc.
Surveyor is the ultimate relic for tall empires. You are boxed in 10 systems and you spam habitats everywhere, and this bad boi gives you all the specialty districts you would want!
I got the galatron on my first co-op campaign with a couple of friends, they were not expecting my diplomatic score to outweigh the entire galactic community combined (excluding me, of course) by 2360. Gotta love the snowball.
Now in defense of the head I think it is A tier because (not sure if this was a later patch maybe) the fleets scale up nicely using it at every opportunity or almost every opportunity so if you get it early enough it cam be amazing. Also withthè second artifact activation from Astral actions it got a good bit better.
Only change I'd make is I'd add a D-tier, and put the Warlock, the Brood Queen and the Head in there (the Head gets a downgrade because that ethics attraction is painful for non-Spiritual/Gestalts). Yes that does mean Javorian Pox would be alone in F-tier and yes that's completely intentional.
I believe ive gotten the Galatron once, though it mayve been a fever dream, as i remember it being a long time ago, and at that point in time, it didnt do anything as relics hadn't been implemented, but as it was so long ago, it may be one of those fake memories that happen when you try to remember something similar that happened.
I think there's probably an error about the Rubricator world, sometimes it was very small to the point where all the district blockers on it totally stalled growth. It was documented in the Wiki as being between quite a wide range. I haven't found quickly the state at the time of the video, but I did report the issue and they altered the minimum growth and I never heard anything about "fixes" to the event.
Someone who plays only single player on the biggest galaxy size I have concluded that the surveyor is one of the best relic. 1st of, the activation has no influence cost and only 5 years cd. Most of my games I always manage to use my influence on expansion, elections and on restoring econopolises early as possible. Later on mega structures, gateways, even more expanding and sometimes galactic community take a big chunk aswell. 2ndly, while the usually large energy, mineral and science nodes it generates are nice , it can also generate +5 strategic resource deposits, like motes crystals and gas - those are the biggest payoff of this relic. And on top of all that it can activate by itself a 2nd time for additional cost before it comes off from CD. 3rd. It is realtively easy to get if manage to find the hub. Shields and energy weapons are your best choise justt like for most of the the other things you want to hunt down. I even find myself using it in the mid to late game on periods where I don't need to use the khans throne or when I have other plans where to spend the ifluence.
And having seen through the S tier, I have to admit, I was less than enthralled with all 3 picks there. Don't get me wrong, I'd say they're good, and if I were personally ranking them I'd probably put them all as strong A tier ones, but I'd personally put them behind things like the Galatron (admittedly, that rank is based on if you can actually get it and the relatively low cost of attempting to go for it, rather than dealing with the unlikelihood that you actually WILL get it. After all, you might not get the others either through random chance), the miniature Galaxy, or the Scales of the Worm, which would probably be my personal S tier list. Cybrex War Forge is great for crunching out alloys quickly, yes. But on a mineral efficiency basis, it's terrible, turning 2 minerals into one alloy. That's the same efficiency as totally unmodified metallurgists, and you can and almost certainly will be doing better than that as you play through the game, if for nothing simpler than designating your major alloy centers as foundry worlds. Since very often I find alloy production's bottleneck to be mineral production, the war forge's main impact is the 5% bonus, which don't get me wrong, is strong enough on its own to make it a decent A tier relic, but the triumph isn't great IMO. The Khan's throne's passive effect I also don't think is all that great unless you're a militarist. I find it's often easier to expand by demanding submission from my neighbors, using subjugation cassus belli, and then overrunning them in a single big war than it is to keep claiming and grabbing. To make the claim setup easier, you have to build your entire society around it, and I'd rather have other things than fanatic militarist and the like. The Triumph is awesome though. (Also, as a caveat, I tend to play with 0.25 number of habitable planets, which skews the relative influence costs of expansion towards demanding subjugation since there are relatively few planets and pops per system. This might influence my perspective) Lastly, the Rubricator. I don't think it's entirely fair to connect the awesomeness of the planet to the Rubricator itself. You can settle the planet even well before you're ready to fight Shard. And often by the time I have defeated her and have the influence to spare to pump relics, I don't need that massive short term influx of energy. In fact, even when I get it, I rarely use the triumph there. (Although maybe I should) and when I do, it's often for silly "win harder" purposes like getting enough minor artifacts to finish a mega-art installation.
The Head of Zarqlan can be really powerful if you get it early- and even late game, can make some great smaller fleets (for patrols or to leave a FE fleet at the homeworld and build up every decade). Admittedly, the current run I got it, I'm running Rogue Servitors, so not worried about the Spiritalist issue- but I could see that being an issue in a non-Spiritual/non-gestalt/Hive empire. (Would probably put it at A-Tier, if a Spiritialism Empire or that ethic attraction is moot) Also, for Machine Empires, the Gaia World bonuses still apply- so the Last Baol is more beneficial than just the society research bonus. Lastly, the S+ Tier is Bubbles, right?
I think the Psionic Archive could at least be a B tier but I'm intrested in why you think the Psionic ascension path is the worse overall Montu (I think the technologies, Stablity buffs, and Boons make it very good(Espicially with the Zroni buff))(The only time I've found the shroud to be useless is when I get Living Metal tech from a Fallen Empire and no living metal is in the galaxy)(I do play on console so that might screw with my experiences)
to be fair, with some of these relics, they also come with a nifty little ecumonopolis or ruined world. the miniture galaxy and the omnicodex. you have to own the system to have the relic, so you obviously get both. It's a nice little bonus that can really supercharge your economy in the early game. as an aside with the last baol. they can also terraform ANY colonizable world that isn't a machine, relic, or ecumonopolis. What's that mean? you can colonize a size 25 tomb world with the bare minimum of habitability and once it's an active colony? instant gaia world. without turning it into a "normal" world first, then to a gaia.
The Javorian Pox once extended the life of my fleeting dictator's (with great traits and agenda) life long enough to make her the chosen one and immortal. In this ideal perfect situation it was C tier instead of F!
Of the Precursor relics I'd say the Zroni is an F tier and the Pox relic is C tier. You only get one Precursor per game and the Irassian home world might be found decades before you would normally get any tech based life expansion and for biologics that is a huge bonus early game allowing you to keep the first generation of leaders alive almost 25% longer. And the Surveyor relic is incredibly good, B tier at least because there's a very good chance that you get multiple deposit discoveries per usage that can happen as long as it is active so you can get deposits all the way up to the moment of cooldown and it has the shortest cooldown time. So the earlier you get it for the 500 energy cost every five years you get to add to your resource base within your own empire.
You win bonus points for this video for featuring _Atlantis: The Lost Empire._ Such an underrated, largely forgotten movie. It's got Spock, Ivanova, and a total Daniel Jackson expy!
Truer words were never spoken!
Atlantis? Underrated?
Have you heard of Treasure Planet?
@@vitaliitomas8121 I have, actually, heard of _Treasure Planet._ 😁
Don't forget Michael J. Fox :)
ruclips.net/video/J62nQSa335Y/видео.html
This LSD trip? :P
The Last Baol is S tier, I once got it very early in the game, and steamrolled the galaxy.
Colonising every habitable planet and turning it into a Gaia world is game breaking.
indeed its better than any S tier there especially that from my experience Boal chain you can end faster than all other precursor.
Then you land your ass on Tomb worlds turn them into gaias with extra pops. How is that not S tier ? Not to mention 10% pop growth is literally 2 point trait for free ... that stacks with rapid breeder.
Literally everything about it is good. It is not even terrible for Machine empires - like Rogue servitor or driven assimilator ... heck even Exterminators get some pops to exterminate.
Also Gaia world still gives 10% jobs production output so yeah Machine empires benefit greatly aswell.
Baol is absolutely S Tier.
Dont forget that it makes seeded life easier to play if you get it early as well.
Baol also has a weird "working as intended" strat with fanatic purifiers where you take the random low habitability worlds you wind up occupying, make them liveable, and give you a bit of extra unity from the xenos that "coincedentally" appear after using it.
Baol isn't S tier, for some empires it is awesome for others it doesn't help at all; even bio based ones with nicely diverse populations find better ways to spend influence.
The Cybrex used properly is far more of a game changer, I was actually impressed that Montu has spotted it as most online don't adapt their strategy enough and talk about the endgame ringworld which doesn't alter the game result.
One great point of the Surveyor is that it costs no influence to activate... you activate it any time your're tapped out on influence...
Agreed. Plus the cooldown is shorter than other relics. I for one quite like it - and it is particularly useful if you happen to spawn in a rather barren stretch of space
I would put it in at least B tier just on the back of this, it's a button you can push with practically no downside.
1. Activation cost is very low. 2. Can grant rare resources deposit. 3. Can repeat the process twice. It's basically A tier.
Out of the minor relics, the Head of Zar’Qlan and the Blade of the Huntress are the most powerful.
Anything that buffs ship speed and gives you free fallen empire ships in the mid-game is always a massive boon.
ZARQLAN WILLS IT!!!!
cybrex one is cool too to make every land invasion a sandbox.
I'm not too sure about the Head of Zar'Qlan. 20yrs past mid game (minimum requirement for it to spawn) and its spawned fleets are typically not much compared to what I can build. I might use it once or twice? But it doesn't stay useful very long. Then when you take into consideration the Spiritualist ethics attraction? I typically just don't even dig it up.
@@pagatryx5451 Try to save up the fleets till you've got a full FE strength fleet.
@@pagatryx5451 I haven't tested it, but can you have the fleet destroyed and scan the debris for FE tech?
Having spent a great deal of time with the Surveyor active, I have noticed that it has a hidden effect. Wile activated it will sometimes (~50%) locate an additional deposit during its 5-year cooldown, it will also very rarely produce a strategic resource. That being said, I still agree that it belongs in C-tier because after mid-game the bonuses are completely irrelevant. Also, I too have never gotten the Galatron (2.5k hours).
With the soon coming changes to admin cap, ways to acquire more resources without needing to get more pops or systems will be buffed I think
I wasn't aware that it was a 50/50 shot for a 2nd activation of the Surveyor. It seemed to me that every time I activated it, I'd get 2 pulses of resource discovery -- the first when I activated it, and the 2nd about 1/2 way through the cooldown.
I got plus 4 exotic gasses in my last playthrough, which is quite nice.
I've been lucky enough to get Galatron twice on Ironman playthroughs with about 500 hours and one time have the Casus Belli to steal it from another empire
I've never become one with the worm though. Wish I had done it before the patch to it
There's actually also a chance for a third deposit found.
And honestly the Surveyor is by far the best relic. You can get it early. You can activate it often. And every activation stacks upon the next.
I basically never activate anything else.
If you get lucky, you even get rare resource deposits on planets and can then use those with a Habitat to exploit them even more.
End game crisis relics seriously need a buff,why would I kill the prethoryn just to spawn more of the pests?
I mean, by that you've won the game already, right?
@@MontuPlays Not when the Blokkarts are around the corner! (giga structures)
But yeah, I'd much rather the contingency one, since thats 300% mega strucutre build speed.
Don’t know if this was a glitch, but the onetime I got the brood queen I was able to add an unlimited amount of ships to it and once added they no longer contributed to my fleet count, so I got massive million plus fleets with no upkeep!
Preserving the Queen to make more Prethoryns makes a lot of sense for Rogue Servitors and pretty much no-one else.
I haven't seen that crisis for a long time, but originally it was possible to get it during the war with that crisis and get bonus ships for food that don't use any fleet cap. In case crysis couth you off guard because your settings were bit to high and you had to wage long attrition heavy war against Prethoryn, it was somewhat helpful. Exploit included with it was just bonkers.
Atlantis is so beautiful !! I could watch it 10 times and never get bored by the animation !!
It is a shame disney has given up on 2d.
Very true!
@@MontuPlays - I don't play a lot so don't really know much about most of them, and probably wouldn't manage to use them as effectively as better players, however I think the decapitated head seems actually pretty good.
Other than that, the only Relic I ever actually wanted significantly any time I would play was always the Baol - being able to terraform planets into perfect Edens just seems to be the best ability you could have in this type of game. I am more of a creator rather than a conqueror, I always loved using the special items and such to turn so many dead planets in Spore into tropical paradise worlds :)
Great list. Personally, I would bump surveyor into B tier, just becasue its so insanely cheap to use. Its a great general "filler" relic imo, to use if you have no better relic to use in your current situation or are short on influence.
True.
When I saw Surveyor in C tier I thought maybe I was dumb for thinking it was really strong, but seeing all these people pointing out that Surveyor should be higher up is a slight relief, it's so easy to get and basically free so I always like using it
Got the head in my latest playthrough. We're ascended synthetics. The spiritual fallen empire was mightily confused, but they still were ok with us settling on their nice holy worlds in a little pocket no one else could access. Thanks fellas :)
I got the digsite for it in my latest run, and I'm also fanatic materialist synthetics. I like my pops at 100 happiness, so I decided to abort the dig before the final event. Spiritualists are such a nieusance.
I got it as Driven Assimilators once. Utterly hilarious.
I like The Surveyor because it costs no influence. I find myself influence starved most of the time.
Damn, i've forgotten how many relics Guillis' Planet Modifiers and Features adds into the game. But nothing beats Zer0s' Infinty Stones mod for relics (except the warforge here in the S tier, it rivals even those).
One small point: the Javorian Pox, AFAICT, is the only method that a non-FP, non-Crisis empire can make Tomb Worlds from enemy planets. So if you're going Radiotrophic / Post-Apocalyptic, it can be useful. Of course, since you cannot control if you get it, you can't rely on it, but it can make the game quite different if you do. (Not saying it should be in a different tier.)
The blade of the huntress carried me so hard in the early game that I'm happy to see it being ranked at such good spot, this video did it justice along with the rubricator!
I am doing what I've never done before and disputing the wisdom of Montu. The Head of Zarquon is an absolute game changer every time I've received it. And watch Jon (MATN) and his impossible run, and see how he, or Marc of the Templin Institute, leaned on them to survive in their games.
All. Hail. Zarquon!
Pox should be C Tier:
Like any precursor artifact you can get it very early on and an additional +20 years leader lifespan on top of all research is nice to have.
Surveyor is easily B or even A:
Killing the Mining Hub can be done very early on, activation costs only 500 energy and it saves so many building slots wasted on refineries.
Agree on the surveyor, Montu severely underrated it.
If you're playing the StarnetAI mod you can camp the final system with the Unbidden's portal and secure the Warlock which in turn will be very helpful in war since at that point there'll be a few quite formidable empires on the map to overcome.
I quite like the Surveyor and would have probably put it somewhere on the B to A border. 500 energy for a shot of a permanent deposit of rare resources is a hell of a deal. When I get the thing, I almost always find myself running its triumph almost permanently. Plus, you can often get it much earlier than the other relics.
Disagree on the surveyer, I once defeated mining drones protecting before even researching cruisers and it can randomly add +5 strategic resource plots in your empire. I think it is at least B tier.
For me the surveyor is an a tier relic ! And for small empires an s tier because it boost your Systems heavy for a little bit of credits and u get many rare resorces over the game
I really like the Head of Zarqlan just because I can get myself a nice fallen empire fleet. Throughout a full game you can get like 200 fleet power in fallen empire ships, and they are nice.
I love your added comment about the Galatron- "If you want to be THE senate..." lol. The Head of Zarqlan is my favorite relic especially if I get it early and if I'm extra lucky, the spiritualist FE are cute starfish people, Zarqlan wills it!!! I am torn between the War Forge and the Last Baol as the best precursor relic.
IMO The Surveyer should be in B Tier just because it takes only 500 credits to activate. That means while you are strapped for influence you can still use the Relic 24/7
"assassinate him and steal his *chair*"
Absolutely hilarious line, great use of Atlantis too. These tier lists are awesome!
I love the Surveyor. I was able to get it early by spawning next to the home miner system. I did see double resource pops periodically, and early or midgame, it did matter to get a six mineral, energy, or greater on a useless body. I balanced my economy and exploded fleet production just from those bonuses piling up. It makes those resource poor starbases much more efficient, and is better for a less aggressive single play. It even helps with research and strategic deposits.
I got the Galatron once, that influence was great!
Saw Atlantis on the RUclips preview, never clicked faster in my life!
Can we talk about the fact how having a medievel blade in your empire increases your planetary sensor range?? Like seriously how does that work.
Use the sword like an antena?
I think it's a magic sword
@@lorekeeper685 citation needed, but probably is a magic sword
Also makes your ships fly faster
Ah, the Cybrex Warforge. The 'fire and forget', or in this case, the 'land armies and forget' button of Stellaris. I can't remember just how many times I've forgotten about my invading armies whenever I get the Cybrex Warforge.
On the topic of the surveyor - let's say hypothetically you're running a tell empire that has deposits on literally every planet (maybe you've used it so many times over the span of a very long game). What happens if you activate the surveyor while every planet already has a bonus resource?
It will add another fitting resource on top of the other one. So a mining station might get additional alloys or rare resources, a research station might get additional research of a different or the same type, etc.
If there's a weird resource like dark matter or living metal, it will sometimes be confused and you won't be able to take both deposits.
In earlier version it could also affect habitats and ring worlds, but that was patched last update.
Honestly the surveyor is the best relic, because it allows you to literally keep getting more and more benefits and become self-sustained without pops (except for food) in the long run. And it also doesn't "run out".
I usually play with gigas and acot, so for me that tier list becomes
S: contingency core (+300% megastructures build speed is huge and game doesn't end after defeating the crisis)
A: baol, rubricator (all two early game), cybrex forge (both early for alloys and late for armies)
A/C: surveyor is A if you are void dweller, C otherwise
F: every other one
Also, for precursor, you should also consider the "dwell into the secret of" bonus when evaluating the relic
Only time I actually took advantage of an end game relic was durin my DE playthrough, battleships instant hyperlane jump and probably max sub light speed with the warlock, it was fun watching corvettes being intercepted by a fleet a battleships
To be honest, i'd rank the surveyor even higher, for the sheer fact oh how cheap and quick it is and how much it can benefit you in a long run, especially if you roll strategic resources.
I quite like the surveyor relic. I think it should be one tier higher, maybe, because of the short activation cooldown time, cost, and the probability to get between 1 and 3 deposits (which may include alloys or engineering research). Personally when I see the extraction hive I always go out of my way to try and get it.
A quick correction: With the Rubricator, the Relic World that it is attached to is random in size. In my many multiplayer games with friends, the Rubricator Relic World varied from size 14 to size 25.
I think I saw it on a size 12 or 13 in the past 2 months. But yeah, definitely random planet size.
I don't know if it's a bug, but I have noticed that the surveyor seems to activate itself every once in a while
That is not a bug! After you activate it once, there is a 50% chance to repeat this process in 360-1080 days and a 20% chance to repeat this process again in 1080-1800 days.
The scourge queen should have a WAY lower cooldown. Like, a year tops. Basically “you can convert 10k food to a small fleet whenever you want”
My personal favourites are the Cybrex warforge, Khans throne & the boot relic? - SABATON!!! That was it. Made from liquid metal. Must be in a mod I use.
ah i love the boot, i think it's from more events. i appreciate the dwarf fortress reference in it.
Surveyor is A tier for me. It actually has lower cooldown (5 years), a high hidden chance to trigger a second deposit a few years after the first and basically no cost for activation. Also it's quite easy to get if you find the droids base, you can get it in early mid game.
The Surveyor is very underrated, the thing is amazing, in my last run it was just spitting out loads of new strategic resources. And consider that the resource edict costs scale up along with the other edicts now, you always want to have as many sources of them as possible.
So I'm playing stellaris and get a notification of a new Montu video. Cool, pause game and watch. We get to the A teir and I'm like "oh yeah, reliquaries." So I buy one... bam Galatron.
I wish my luck was like that irl
throwback to the time both me and a friend scored a galatron in the same game, so there were 2 galatrons in the universe
You need to do a tier list for reaching into the shroud effects too!
This esp with updated to psionics
Great stuff Montu! Just an Idea, but it would be neat to learn some meta combat strategies or tips from you. Just an Idea, but either way excellent work!
Meta Empire Builds? Or more like space warfare tactics?
@@MontuPlays space warfare for me please
I concur.
@@MontuPlays honestly both would be fantastic but specifically warfare
Honestly, outside of tier consideration, surveyor is my favourite artifact. Having a lower cool down and kind of okay activation that only costs 500 energy rather than the influence that I usually find is at a premium means that if I have a surveyor I will ALWAYS have a relic activating at all times. surveyor when I have nothing else good enough to warrant the influence, or not enough influence to spare,something else once the shorter cooldown finishes.
The yuht cryo core is the same to me as the crisis ones by the time it becomes helpful it’s not a big deal since it just lowers upkeep it’s not as versatile as the cybrex war forge which turns minerals into alloys instantaneously witch can be used to make new ships and also offset the upkeep of existing ships and also also can also be used to make mega structures and also also also gets you access to cybrex war forms which are very good for invading planets so you don’t have to waist as much time bombarding them and also also also also comes with a ruined ring world (I may be mistaken but doesn’t it get you mega structures early?) so yeah if these two precursors both relate to alloys and one is far and above better than the other there’s no competition and unique niche for the yuht CRYo core. Plus one pop (which will be unemployed if you also get the expansion tradition that does the same thing but for unity and you can get earlier in the game making the CRYo core even less useful since there are only two colonists jobs upon initial settlement meaning they’re just more upkeep until you build a district which can take awhile!) isn’t as useful and becomes useless after you settle all your worlds!
F tier for sure it’s not competitive not unique and you miss out on all the better precursor artifacts!
Oh also a cool thing about the cybrex is that they’ll come back to fight the contingency under certain circumstances.
The surveyor relic is really good if you can get it early. It becomes less and less useful as the game progresses
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure the Rubricator relic world isn´t garanteed size 25, or does it grow in size when shard dies?
I would also personally rate Surveyor higher since you can get it super early and each activation can spawn multible deposits (I think it is 1.6 per activation on average).
The Rubricator world is random as random gets. Seen it as small as 8 or as large as 25.
I always play void dwellers, I love the surveyor! After a few thousand hours lol. I only got it once.
Fun fact : i got the Galatron the first game i played. did not know it was this rare, and did not get to use it because my military was weak and the Khan spawned next to me
The Prethoryns dont account to your fleet power nor have upkeep so if you have a longer game they can be quite good
They can also stack into a single Fleet without a limit.
The one game I had where I got the Head of Zarqlan was probably the best possible scenario, I was a driven assimilator surrounded by militaristic spiritualists on one side, and a spiritualist fallen empire on the other, this was also like, 40 or so years in, carried me for a while.
The surveyor it's forced to reveal resources, it even gives resources to segments of rings. That is why I think it should be in B tier.
I will say the Omnicodex is really good for Life-Seeded and Void Dweller empires as if you get it early you can start colonizing worlds without having to conquer natives (if your empire ethics don't allow it) or meeting another friendly empire to set up migrations with or getting Droids. You will have to colonize with one of your empire though, but then you can Omnicodex on the world you colonized and then get pops perfectly suited to where you landed
@Montu Plays time to revisit this tier list with today's Dev Diary!
A while ago you did a video the effectiveness of the focused arc emitter and tested fleets with it against the kinetic artillery. The ships with the arc emitter were equipped with neutron launchers, which do not work with the arc emitter as much as the cloud lightning.
If both are used on the same battleships I believe that they will be more powerful than the battleships with the kinetic artillery. I have not tested it in a controlled environment, so I would love to see them getting proved effective!
I tested ships with Arc emitters and cloud lightning vs the others in one of my videos. I forget exactly which one, though I think it was the XL weapon testing. And yeah, neutron launchers with GC or TL shredded them...
In my opinion, head of zarqlan is one of the best relics out there, for 1 reason: you are able to trade with the spiritualist fallen empire… I have gotten it many times and traded all my resources for alloys. The fallen empire has a massive stockpile of resources and is usually cheaper than buying it from the market, though you can only really use stragetic resources. But usually you gen get over 100k+ alloys for relatively cheap
Just got stellaris + all DLC on Winter Sale, your vids have been extremely helpful. Cheers!
Can confirm. Was lucky enough to get Cybrex and the relic world with the Rubricator. A second Relic world 5 jumps away. A ruined Dyson Sphere AND ruined Megashipyard in my 40 system sphere. Was rolling two ecuminopolises and a single ringworld and rebuilt Dyson Sphere before 2300 in a 0.25x habitable world game. Best unmodded game I ever had
Surveyor is great for small empires because you can get things like a value of 6 gas deposit, and then it goes off again for free a few years later
had to add a comment about "the surveyor" relic. it CAN add more than one during its duration. its low cooldown and cost makes it easy to just use constantly, and sometimes it can pop out 2-3 resources during its "cooldown". which is kiiiiiinda implied by the wording of it.
edit: 2400 hours played and have seen the galatron 3 times. earlier today even!
edit2: the chain for the rubricator VERY rarely spawns a 20+ relic world. its mostly size 12-16. and almost exclusively inside another empire. i would estimate maybe 20% of the time its possible to get the system without going to war for it
With the Rubricators logic of getting the Relic World then you can technically bump Ether Drake trophy up based on what you get with it since Dragons Hoard is the true reason for killing the Ether Drake since you get a 30 Energy and Mineral mining station, Artificial Dragonscales research (tier 6 Armor), and a baby Ether Drake worth 7k fleet power by itself, then throw on your Admiral who killed the Drake getting Dragonslayer trait, which gets even sillier when you factor in Reanimators letting you bring slayed organic Leviathans back to life to fight for your side.
Pretty much agree with the rest of what you said though on the tier list. Alone the Ether Drake Trophy isn't really impressive, but thats the thing with the trophy its a package deal.
You should bump up the crystal one, because the path to it gives you psionic theory, so if you find the arch site early, it's a lot more powerful.
The Zroni precursor chain (and therefore the relic) is quite decent for Clone Army Origin (Ascendent + Psionic Ascension)
The last time I rolled The Last Baol and was a machine empires I didn't reroll... Because I was playing Driven Assimilator. I also found the omnicodex and while neither made great pops, they were still pops, and their biological and technological distinctiveness was added to our own, in our quest for perfection.
Prethoryn queen is now actually pretty good, and you don't have to beat the crisis to get it. Sometime during the crisis galaxy wide event spawns that let's you get it if you clear cetrain enemy system. And the "small fleet" i got from this was way over 250k power fleet, my second (after federation fleet) biggest fleet.
I agree with the list, I would be tempted to upgrade the Surveyor to B tier because it has a chance to activate more than once and because it doesn't cost influence but as the game advances it does lose its value.
Fun fact about the surveyor that you didn't mention in the section on it: it doesn't just trigger once and give you one deposit, while it's cooling down you will continue getting random surveyor events every so often that reveal more resources each time. So it's better than it seems, though if that makes it good enough to go up a tier is doubtful.
If you use the Archaeology Story Pack mod, you can get the Galatron through the Axis of the Planet dig site. I remember getting it at one point but not how. One of my neighbors just got it in my current game so I was able to observe to find out what happened. Luckiest AI got four of the best (ruined world, rain world, isolated world and axis of the planet). Fun mod if you have not tried, it's in the steam workshop.
Last Baol is great, particularly if can get it as early as possible, I mean every ten years you get a Gaia world and the pop growth is explosive. Once you have explosive growth on these worlds you convert the others to ecumonopoli and you can move the pops there to create like 900 monthly alloy production. For me as a bio player it is really nice.
Your only worry with Last Baol ironically for its early game usage is the fact you need 150 Influence which can really punch you in the gut if your have an AI in the game that is an expansionist. Though does help early to convert your first few colony's to Gaia as to pretty much guarantee Trade dominance.
Hold up! How is it possible that someone does not accept the worm into their hearts and minds???!!!
Psionic Archive is absolutely amazing for Psionic Empires. Sure it sucks for 75% of empires, but being in C tier seems to understate it's peak power. Sure it's niche, but it's crazy powerful in that one niche.
Surveyor is one of the few relics that doesn't need influence, has a very quick turnaround and spawns 1-3 deposits, not just 1.
Overall you seem to overvalue active effects. I do find influence a huge roadblock for most of the game as such unless it's a really powerful active effect it usually doesn't get used.
The Last Baol also might be under-tiered as I find Gaia World Tera-forming + free population pretty strong. Considering you can get it well before tear-forming it's ability to turn "uninhabitable" worlds into functioning super colonies instantly is insanely powerful. Maybe I blob with colonies too much but I would think the sooner you get colonies down the better. Also you can "activate" it and bank the effect for up to 10 years if you have a planet you've yet to colonize but have the free influence/CD.
I am loving the intros to these videos. Huge fan of Atlantis and Titan AE myself.
Hey Montu been enjoying your videos for a while and I think your doing a great job keep it up.
I was wondering if you might make a video taking about the galaxy settings before the start of the game. Is there a best setting? Or one you always chose? How might your game look depending what you have set? Thanks
A lot of comments saying how the Last Baol is S tier and I have to agree. If you get it early enough you can basically colonize anything and turn it into a gaia world and on top of that you get extra pops. If you stack the passive bonus with rapid breeders you can grow so fast that your empire will snowball at a crazy pace. Basically it's completely broken.
Ill say that rubricator is not so hard to get
As long as you have that excavate site in your controll (and artifacts is not so much of use later)
Personally I disagree on the Warlock, because you can jump the portal very early on, and get it as one of the smaller empires, depending on where the Unbidden spawn. If you happen to have an armada in position to slip past most of their forces and take on their home system before they have anchors, it can be a *massive* help.
Double range psi jump drives let you run circles around the rest of the galaxy :3
The surveyor should be higher up IMO, it gives you more than one deposit, usually about two per activation and also it can give you large deposits of strategic resources which save you having to make refineries
Head of Zar'Qlan imo should be F tier. By the time you get it the fleets are way too small to matter for the cost. I'd much rather put that 150 influence towards another Megastructure at the stage in the game where you'll have this. Just a really useless relic and a pretty awful passive as well.
I do think the Yuht Cryo Core should be A tier though. That 20% ship upkeep reduction is insane in the late game and can easily be worth thousands of energy every month. Yes it's not that great in the early to mid game, but it's late game power more than makes up for it imo.
Everything else I think you nailed spot on. Great vid!
I feel like you are underestimating it'd long term utility
@@colejosephalexanderkashay683 what long term utility are you referring to?
@@ValinShadow The zarqlan ships have low fleet power when there is 4 of them, but they have a great fleet power to nav cap ratio. Also, you are guaranteed to get this relic, and, as of the current patch, I only find myself with one or two others, many of which are often not the best. If you spam this relic every decade and stack up the ships, you will end up with a fleet that is more powerful than any battleship fleet you could make. Also the ships have long range PSI jump drives, and are WAY faster than battleships.
I agree it is completely outclassed by the likes of the the War Forge or that sort of thing. However, if used over the long term, it can create a quick reaction force that can be as powerful(at 250 nav cap) as a large federation fleet of a greater size
@@colejosephalexanderkashay683 I'll have to look to see if the ships are individually as powerful as you say.
that said, you still only get 4 of them a decade at the cost of 3000 unity.
that's still incredibly weak when compared to things like the Yuht Cryo Core, the Khan's Throne, The Vultaum Reality Perforator, the Psionic Archive, the Last Baol, heck I'd even rather have the Blade of the Huntress or the Rubricator.
any of these give much better actual benefits from use than the Head of Zarqlan will
@@ValinShadow yeah I'd agree on most of those depending on build or the like.
compare the ships you get for 3000 unity to two battleships you can get at the time when this becomes available and see what I mean.
Some time ago in a very long, very late game I had a large fleet of these ships up to 500k when my battleship stacks were in the 250-300k
With Zarqulans Head you are also allowed to settle on the holy worlds around the spiritualist fallen empire. The Rubricator does not generate a size 25 relic world, the size is random, but their might be an aditional lower limit, my last rubricator world was size 17.
I got the Galatron once, i was a Rogue Sevitor with 3 passed resolutions down the Greater Good and a ton of bio-trophies. Suffice to say my diplomatic weight went bonkers so i just made the community into the Galactic Empire :D
Here’s hoping we get a new video for the current version (mainly because psionics and the Zroni Archive are now Pretty Good, Actually)
Cybrex war forge got nerfed quite a bit as well. I don't think it is a very good deal until you get into late game because of the whopping 3,000 unity, along with 2,000 minerals for only a payoff of 1,000 alloys.
Loved the Analysis !! Amazing work Montu
Just an FYI
The Surveyor ACTUALLY randomly finds deposits 3-6x within that 1800 day cooldown period ! It IMMEDIATELY finds a single deposit but the rest are found within the 1600 day period! by far one of my favorite relics because it has found me rare resources on many occasions more than once! :D
The Defragmentor is OP when playing as a Mega Corp "laughs making 15k EC a month even after the hard nerfs to mega corps XD"
Id have put the Nu Baol into the B category... Gaia worlds are useful... but I always end up making most of my worlds into Ecumenopolis and by the time I finish the Nu Baol excavations all my planets are continental already if not ecumenopolis ... and every species is Continental
but that cybrex... awww thats my favorite
I rather like the psionic archive, getting the Zroni precursor is usually enough for me to chose it for my ascension even if i had planned otherwise, you can often end up with 2 bonuses from the shroud at the same time, i feel the higher chance for positive outcomes makes psionic a good ascension path. better shields ain't bad either, just too bad you basically need FE tech to use them well.
The surveyor is insanely good, can activate 2 or even 3 times per use, is basically free, very short cooldown and can even uncover strategic resources and of all the Relics is one of the most reliable to get as usually you can get to the Mining Drones base faster than AI can. Don't really agree with it being that low.
I'd say the Surveyor is B tier at minimum, because it has a much faster cooldown, activates twice inside its cooldown, and its easy to get if you can find the home system of the automated mining drones.
Loved the video, great and massively useful content as always, however if I may offer a bit of constructive criticism. As someone who is not super familiar with the artifacts and since each tier added all items from that tier at the start. I wasn't super sure which icon referred to which artifact description (if you went left to right or right to left). Might just be a me issue, as I think the formula for these is left to right, bottom to top, but just wanted to point that out :)
Ah okay! Yes so I read them out from left to right (like a book) and then bottom to top (not like a book). I may add words in future lists for clarity!
@@MontuPlays You could also add a visual indicator like an arrow or something more nicely animated (of course that's a chunk of work).
I got Blade of the Huntress for the first time in my current playthrough, and good god it's fantastic, especially combined with Rapid Deployment. It's a huge tactical advantage, especially when you're fighting a war on multiple fronts.
You forgot something about the archive. Its not stated in the description but it increases the chance on shroud events.
This makes it really easy to get psyshields etc.
he did mention that
Surveyor is the ultimate relic for tall empires. You are boxed in 10 systems and you spam habitats everywhere, and this bad boi gives you all the specialty districts you would want!
I got the galatron on my first co-op campaign with a couple of friends, they were not expecting my diplomatic score to outweigh the entire galactic community combined (excluding me, of course) by 2360. Gotta love the snowball.
Now in defense of the head I think it is A tier because (not sure if this was a later patch maybe) the fleets scale up nicely using it at every opportunity or almost every opportunity so if you get it early enough it cam be amazing. Also withthè second artifact activation from Astral actions it got a good bit better.
Only change I'd make is I'd add a D-tier, and put the Warlock, the Brood Queen and the Head in there (the Head gets a downgrade because that ethics attraction is painful for non-Spiritual/Gestalts). Yes that does mean Javorian Pox would be alone in F-tier and yes that's completely intentional.
I believe ive gotten the Galatron once, though it mayve been a fever dream, as i remember it being a long time ago, and at that point in time, it didnt do anything as relics hadn't been implemented, but as it was so long ago, it may be one of those fake memories that happen when you try to remember something similar that happened.
I think there's probably an error about the Rubricator world, sometimes it was very small to the point where all the district blockers on it totally stalled growth. It was documented in the Wiki as being between quite a wide range. I haven't found quickly the state at the time of the video, but I did report the issue and they altered the minimum growth and I never heard anything about "fixes" to the event.
Someone who plays only single player on the biggest galaxy size I have concluded that the surveyor is one of the best relic.
1st of, the activation has no influence cost and only 5 years cd. Most of my games I always manage to use my influence on expansion, elections and on restoring econopolises early as possible. Later on mega structures, gateways, even more expanding and sometimes galactic community take a big chunk aswell.
2ndly, while the usually large energy, mineral and science nodes it generates are nice , it can also generate +5 strategic resource deposits, like motes crystals and gas - those are the biggest payoff of this relic. And on top of all that it can activate by itself a 2nd time for additional cost before it comes off from CD.
3rd. It is realtively easy to get if manage to find the hub. Shields and energy weapons are your best choise justt like for most of the the other things you want to hunt down.
I even find myself using it in the mid to late game on periods where I don't need to use the khans throne or when I have other plans where to spend the ifluence.
And having seen through the S tier, I have to admit, I was less than enthralled with all 3 picks there. Don't get me wrong, I'd say they're good, and if I were personally ranking them I'd probably put them all as strong A tier ones, but I'd personally put them behind things like the Galatron (admittedly, that rank is based on if you can actually get it and the relatively low cost of attempting to go for it, rather than dealing with the unlikelihood that you actually WILL get it. After all, you might not get the others either through random chance), the miniature Galaxy, or the Scales of the Worm, which would probably be my personal S tier list.
Cybrex War Forge is great for crunching out alloys quickly, yes. But on a mineral efficiency basis, it's terrible, turning 2 minerals into one alloy. That's the same efficiency as totally unmodified metallurgists, and you can and almost certainly will be doing better than that as you play through the game, if for nothing simpler than designating your major alloy centers as foundry worlds. Since very often I find alloy production's bottleneck to be mineral production, the war forge's main impact is the 5% bonus, which don't get me wrong, is strong enough on its own to make it a decent A tier relic, but the triumph isn't great IMO.
The Khan's throne's passive effect I also don't think is all that great unless you're a militarist. I find it's often easier to expand by demanding submission from my neighbors, using subjugation cassus belli, and then overrunning them in a single big war than it is to keep claiming and grabbing. To make the claim setup easier, you have to build your entire society around it, and I'd rather have other things than fanatic militarist and the like. The Triumph is awesome though. (Also, as a caveat, I tend to play with 0.25 number of habitable planets, which skews the relative influence costs of expansion towards demanding subjugation since there are relatively few planets and pops per system. This might influence my perspective)
Lastly, the Rubricator. I don't think it's entirely fair to connect the awesomeness of the planet to the Rubricator itself. You can settle the planet even well before you're ready to fight Shard. And often by the time I have defeated her and have the influence to spare to pump relics, I don't need that massive short term influx of energy. In fact, even when I get it, I rarely use the triumph there. (Although maybe I should) and when I do, it's often for silly "win harder" purposes like getting enough minor artifacts to finish a mega-art installation.
The Head of Zarqlan can be really powerful if you get it early- and even late game, can make some great smaller fleets (for patrols or to leave a FE fleet at the homeworld and build up every decade). Admittedly, the current run I got it, I'm running Rogue Servitors, so not worried about the Spiritalist issue- but I could see that being an issue in a non-Spiritual/non-gestalt/Hive empire. (Would probably put it at A-Tier, if a Spiritialism Empire or that ethic attraction is moot)
Also, for Machine Empires, the Gaia World bonuses still apply- so the Last Baol is more beneficial than just the society research bonus.
Lastly, the S+ Tier is Bubbles, right?
I think the Psionic Archive could at least be a B tier
but I'm intrested in why you think the Psionic ascension path is the worse overall Montu
(I think the technologies, Stablity buffs, and Boons make it very good(Espicially with the Zroni buff))(The only time I've found the shroud to be useless is when I get Living Metal tech from a Fallen Empire and no living metal is in the galaxy)(I do play on console so that might screw with my experiences)
to be fair, with some of these relics, they also come with a nifty little ecumonopolis or ruined world. the miniture galaxy and the omnicodex. you have to own the system to have the relic, so you obviously get both. It's a nice little bonus that can really supercharge your economy in the early game.
as an aside with the last baol. they can also terraform ANY colonizable world that isn't a machine, relic, or ecumonopolis. What's that mean? you can colonize a size 25 tomb world with the bare minimum of habitability and once it's an active colony? instant gaia world. without turning it into a "normal" world first, then to a gaia.
The Javorian Pox once extended the life of my fleeting dictator's (with great traits and agenda) life long enough to make her the chosen one and immortal. In this ideal perfect situation it was C tier instead of F!
I know this is a late to the game but the contingency core currently allows you to build a second of any multi-stage megastructure in the game
Of the Precursor relics I'd say the Zroni is an F tier and the Pox relic is C tier. You only get one Precursor per game and the Irassian home world might be found decades before you would normally get any tech based life expansion and for biologics that is a huge bonus early game allowing you to keep the first generation of leaders alive almost 25% longer. And the Surveyor relic is incredibly good, B tier at least because there's a very good chance that you get multiple deposit discoveries per usage that can happen as long as it is active so you can get deposits all the way up to the moment of cooldown and it has the shortest cooldown time. So the earlier you get it for the 500 energy cost every five years you get to add to your resource base within your own empire.