Stellaris Farming Only Challenge

you want to make a bit of money you should do what I did get into farming see this I got this selling corn comes out of the ground I couldn't believe it I have long said that I absolutely hate farmers in Stellaris and for that reason and that reason alone I have set myself a special Challenge and that is to win the game or at least play as much of the game as I can whilst only having Farmers producing my basic resources yes we are doing a farmer only run I don't know if it's even possible but why don't you join me together as we play the mangetian collective other race we're going to be taking today and attempting to do something rather interesting that's right you didn't miss here I said only farmers now what I mean by that is no miners no technicians only farmers for my basic resource output jobs in order to achieve this and make it actually viable we're gonna have to go with Organic reprocessing that's going to mean we can turn food into Alloys because we're going to have an overwhelming over abundance of food because I'm only going to run farmers you can probably hear that this might be something of a personal challenge I hate farmers in Stellaris I generally try to remove them wherever possible so today only having Farmers it's going to be something of a personal pain my heart is already bursting we are going to be having some issues with research as well because we're going to find it hard to produce all of those additional minerals that we need to fund our researchers because we are a hive mind to combat that I'm going to go with natural neural network that means I can turn unemployed drones into research production hubs otherwise we're going to go with budding Aquatic and traditional just so we can squeeze as much as possible out of our initial Colony worlds and hopefully get a head start over the competition we're only using food so it would make sense that as food is the center point of our entire species we're going with Tree of Life starting from the smallest sapling we're going to nurture it we're going to convert it into food and maybe later on bring in some other species to help with that whole food production issue totally moral totally legitimate but let's see if it's even possible to survive this in the early game what do you think about this run through is Farmers Only actually viable let me know down in the comments below these are the settings I'm going to be running today with if you'd like to play along at home so here we have our beautiful capital and as you can see we have something of a problem we do have lots of these Agri drones lots of farmers unfortunately we also seem to have some technicians as well there is something I can do about that though and that is unemploy all the technicians and completely demolish their buildings I wouldn't normally recommend you start a game by doing this it's going to put us at something of a disadvantage because we are hungering for that food I'm also going to be going for a Hydroponics Farm that's going to help us get even more food because of course we'll need it right and Technologies like geothermal fracking are going to be absolutely useless in this game because we won't be producing any mining output let's play for one month and see what shape our economy is in when the end of the month finally takes over I am expecting some terrible things right so we're already going to be starting with a deficit of energy credits that's all right I can offset that by selling a little bit of food so that's not too much of an issue but we really are going to be struggling for minerals oof in order to build my first colony ship because we're Tree of Life I'm gonna have to save up a thousand food now that shouldn't be too much of an issue however as food is our main and primary resource I'm having to sell quite a bit of my food production in order to get some basic resource output in terms of minerals and of course in terms of energy there's a lot of things we might want as our first building on the capitol I can't build more mining districts I can't build more generator districts I I really would like to build either of those so instead I'm gonna go with a sensorium site what we allow in minerals and energy we can make up for in the unity of our species we've got the food now to build our first colony ship thank goodness uh soil of Hope will be sent off and then we can start using our next strategy that I've got in order to deal with the fact we've got basically very little mineral production synchronicity followed by instinctive synchronization is going to really help with our amenities on our Capital synapse drones producing two extra amenities me means that we can actually unemploy all of these maintenance drones and still have enough amenities left over to maintain positive stability all of these unemployed drones are now producing a boatload of extra research for us or at least the same amount of researchers to employed researcher drones so it's not massively efficient no oof Eco simulation though that's going to be really helpful at boosting the output of our food drones because we've got a whole boatload of farmers here I'm currently running 18 Farmers producing a whopping 132 food this is very reminiscent of the old shattered Ring World start which had a bunch of Farmers on it our scientists here fronds of khaki seems to have picked up a little straggler well we could uh dissect it we could completely ignore it but instead we're just going to allow it to follow us and of course adoptee has to be called the canonical bubbles yeah it's basically bubbles or death your your choice ladies and gentlemen you you don't use bubble that means Galactic genocide's probably reasonable against you soil of hope our first planet is completed we're going to immediately convert this over into an angry world because of course we need all of those Farmers it's a farmer only run right and then I'm going to turn on something rather interesting I'm going to turn on planetary automation this is going to mean that I can spend Energy Credit in order to build the buildings I need on soil of Hope and I really do hope that the first building it builds is the spawning pool that's what I'm aiming at here darn it it builds an agriculture District well where we we can only hope next time it gets it right there goes a spawning pool thankfully because I do want to push up this pop assembly speed at the moment we're only getting a little bit of assembly from the various pots we've got on the planet but what we really want is more we're also selling a phenomenal amount of food every month just to balance the books and get some energy credits the way I kind of reason this one is that we're not really selling it what we're actually doing is simply burning it in order that we don't freeze to death on all of our planets and that's the energy that we've got floating around here in the great mangetian Collective alrighty star route our second colony we're gonna set that up as a forged world and immediately turn on planetary automation we really do want to make sure we can get some buildings up on here without having to spend any of those minerals that are in such absolute short supply I've just completed Prosperity you see I dipped into that after synchronicity and that means I've now got an Ascension perk slot available at this point I generally take executive Vigor in order to guarantee some of those juicy additional edicts but those edicts will absolutely not help me because I've got no technicians and no miners so I think the only real Choice then becomes One Vision or technological ascendancy and in this case I'm gonna go with One Vision for the juicy juicy pop amenities usage reduction it's 22 15 we're only 15 years in and already yeah my mineral production is completely tanked I I've only got a little bit of minerals being used by the researchers across my Empire that's three research Labs has completely bankrupted us ouch I guess and if you're enjoying this video please farm that like button I really wish at this point that I could transfer food and use that as a local stockpile to build buildings that'd be very helpful for this specific challenge though alas I can only send energy or minerals and I'm pretty much at the limit of how much I can sell every month selling 120 I might be able to get away with a hundred and thirty but I don't want to risk it in case I'm wrong and the price of food starts spiraling out of control into nothing that would completely crash my economy we've encountered aliens on the southern border at poru this could be an issue I think the AI is going to be much stronger than us at this point on Grand Admiral no scaling let's switch over to a manufacturing Focus that's probably going to help us with some alloy output as though it has tanked our food income but luckily because we have no technicians and no mineral jobs it's not hurt a mineral or energy income whatsoever we can use that juicy extra 50 fund to switch on farming subsidies the only real subsidy that's going to help us in this game and that will be very nice indeed giving us a big boost of food outcome which we can definitely do something with right um yeah it's food's just great ladies and gentlemen I love it the food well the southern aliens could be anything so best to grab some for investigation that way we can know just a little bit more about them totally ethical totally legitimate by turning off everything except upgrade buildings on my capital and then turning automation on I can actually use energy credits here to upgrade this Hive Nexus building which I'm definitely going to do excellent and that's going to mean that I haven't had to spend minerals which I simply don't have in order to do that oh my goodness we're now making so much food thank goodness for Farmers ladies and gentlemen you know they are the backbone of this economy oh I'm dying on the inside just a little bit I think we're going to definitely have to dip into Supremacy here at year 22 just in order to survive as the southern neighbors have turned out to be some hostile bottom feeding troglodytes the Northerners have turned out to be uh emissaries of the Shroud no idea what that kind of nonsense is about but let's see if we can convince them to send us a teacher Unfortunately they want Cold Hard Cash and all we have is piles and piles and piles of food useless food that we can't use to build anything oh good good good the Consolidated jubaran colonies don't really seem to be very interested in talking to us let's see though if they will buy our fantastic food in exchange for something like some energy credits no minus 1 000 because they're suspicious all right how about if we give them some food to begin with that that that could Grease the wheels of diplomacy as it were we'll give them 4 000 food I mean it's not exactly like we're we're running out of food here is it ladies and gentlemen hopefully they'll enjoy that I mean I should have noticed it they're super suspicious they're not even going to like us one little bit um let's do some spying then I suppose xenophobic isolationists oh goodness me the one good thing we have going for us here is that it doesn't matter how many unemployed drones we create they will produce a small amount of research and a bit of minerals in exchange to some food and we have so much food we're actually running out of space to store our food so I'm going to do the unthinkable and I'm actually going to build a resource Silo on purpose we we don't wanna this precious food you know our Farmers have worked very very hard tirelessly in fact to bring us the food subsidies that we have enjoyed today so it'll be a real shame to throw away this precious useful food heart of the Pulsar is exactly the kind of thing we need here that's going to give us enough energy credits to finally get somewhere economically right we've got plenty of Alloys what we're going to do now is we're going to commission a fleet with the shipyards we have at our disposal it's going to be brilliant it's going to work then with that Fleet we'll attack the Consolidated jubaran colonies I suppose this xenophobic isolation is blocked yes they've they have uh been aggressive towards us for the last time I'm unironically going to be taking grasp of the Void here that is going to allow us to build lots of extra star bases and we'll need those star bases as they will be pretty much the only thing that can have solar panels in order to support apply energy for the fleet you see our population the poor things they simply don't know how to work any other job than these farming jobs yes we have about what's this I think a third of our population currently is working in the fields toiling as farmers and then we've got about a third of the population also just completely unemployed idling and thinking about the universe what a time to be alive and of course none of these star bases would be complete without a Hydroponics Bay for all of that extra juicy food yeah we've currently got 26 000 stockpiled here isn't that joyous we've met a second alien race these people don't seem to hate us so much let's try our luck Now with uh offering them some of this Precious Precious food we've been saving up in exchange for their precious energy credits well we're not getting a fantastic exchange rate here uh but it's much better than we would otherwise be able to get so we are going to jump at this opportunity hopefully these silly Rock people are going to give us exactly what we want oh my goodness yes and that's more energy credit I love it when I win we can also trade monthly food for energy credits with the bazandian commissariate as well oh this is going to be very very useful indeed they've said yes let's wait for that first subsidy to flow into our coffers and that stabilizes the economy huzzah what's up claiming some systems from our Southern neighbors the Consolidated jubaran colonies here will allow us to grab a big chunk of their space and then once we've done that we can then go further hopefully and push on into a subjugation after the fact but either way I built some fleets up let's just see if this will work we're going to try out as well the brand new cybernetic tradition tree that is available to not just regular Empires but Hive Minds as well we're going to embrace the weakness of our own flesh our squidgy organic food based disgusting flesh and then we're going to hopefully be able to assimilate other species as well into our Collective the jubarans do seem to have some Cruisers but we outnumber them and we outmatch them in Naval power hopefully we'll still carry the day the fools also seem to have split their fleets up we can use this to our advantage now I hope yes we'll catch this First Fleet unawares here oh my goodness me actually maybe we can catch them with oh they've just completely retreated straight away absolute cowards and then the other Fleet is flown in after the first but again they've retreated in defeat definitely having some economic issues here minus 100 energy because we simply can't really produce any I've done my best by trading with the AI and that sort of thing and we do continually sell our Alloys this overall economic deficit has not stopped us from pushing forwards and hopefully we're going to win this war though our actual goals here are rather minor just a handful of systems and a few planets amongst them cybernetics definitely will Herald the dawning of a new era here because we can now set the rights from being slaves for certain species meaning we'll be consuming them as livestock however I don't really think we need much more livestock look at all of our food output here isn't it glorious mm-hmm anyway we can now move it into assimilation once we take the requisite perk and oh there's the requisite per transubstantiation synthesis so we can now assimilate other species into our Collective and the first people we're going to help with this new technology is the adnorance of Baron 2. Baron is a small world here on the north eastern border of our Empire and they would definitely benefit with some bling new upgrades on their otherwise boring fleshy heads let's demolish that mining District we've got on the world we'll set up a sensorium site that could be nice definitely throw in a couple of Hive warrants and then oh and then let's assimilate the adnorance straight into our Collective unfortunately that trade deal we had with the bazadian commissariat has now timed out let's see what effect that will have on our economy uh-oh our economy is in real trouble people now okay you see as we are assimilating these at Nora not only do they get cybernetic but they also get Hive minded as well and delicious drones so I think the only solution we've really got here other than continually going around and begging people selling them our food which generally speaking has proved rather effective the AI would like to buy lots and lots of our food or at least some of it but this kind of emergency resource transfer is by no means an effective method of governing an entire nation and guaranteeing budgetary Surplus especially when they say no to the darn trade deal we are very close to getting the galactic market up and running that's either going to save us or it might completely damn our Empire forever because it could simply crash the price of all of this food we really need the energy credits unfortunately our neighbor is no longer pathetic compared to us we're going to have to build some more ships push these numbers down just a little bit and that way we could hopefully overtake them and then force them into becoming our tributary at which point our Energy Credit crisis should be averted failing that the galactic Market I assume is the answer to our prayers we are a hive mind but we definitely need to be doing a little bit of trading well the subjugation play hasn't gone very well I cannot seem to get ahead of the darn pop economic and technological power this Empire has we've have almost double the fleet power but apparently that simply will not be enough to convince them that they need to become our subjects we are simply going to have to just conquer them instead and that does mean the complete end of the Consolidated jubar and colonies we are expanding we're going to have to do a little bit of Maintenance unfortunately because they've built some of the worst things in the universe Mining and generate a district I sadly have to completely get rid of them it's it is what it is and for the robot we found there's actually nothing I can do with them I simply have to kind of get rid of them all together oof we have now run out of energy that that is an issue um a bit of a deficit there luckily the galactic market now exists although we no longer have enough food um let's let's just check out all of this stuff a slight oversight on my part is that while yes it would be great to grab some of these additional traits here for our Pops who are now cybernetic unfortunately that really will not be happening because that would increase our Energy Credit upkeep and our Energy Credit Income is still completely in the toilet thanks a lot Farmers even though we are trading for as many energy credits as we can get our little hands on my Southern neighbors the tebrid homolog are a catalog index that means they're driven assimilators now we're somewhat similar we're a hive mind that is cybernetic and we are now um driven to assimilate for that reason I think it could be rather rather useful if we were to become their Overlord and we've actually managed to come up with a contract that the temperate homologue will agree to yes they're now quite happy to take expansion permitted independent diplomacy a small research and quite a large alloy subsidy along with defensive alliances allowing I need some Holdings and unified sensors let's send that over to them let's put our fingers together and pray yes here we are we've now got a vassal amazing oh next step in our five-step plan well you see the contract is going to start very very nice for the tebrid but over time it's going to um change somewhat for these people I think what we'd actually like to do is get a Ministry of energy up and running over here that could really really help and just as I predicted uh so long ago yes it looks like the price of food has now completely crashed in the galactic Market rendering our economy again similar to a bowl that catches defecation let this be a warning as to why farmers are simply the absolute worst in this game I think I'll quickly dip into diplomacy here because we're going to want to get a federation up and running that way we can bring in the bazadian commissariat and do some sneaky little things with this lovely contract all right in just a few short months all of this nonsense like giving away 80 Alloys per month oh my goodness me that is heartbreaking to see will be turned around and the driven assimilators will begin their own journey into a new type of assimilation so I have dropped down the science uh trade we've been doing we're going to be getting enough energy now to actually fix the economy that's going to be really really helpful it's possible you know it's possible we could actually do this the crisis is just around the corner maybe I mean we are very low on ships though we've got lots of Alloys but we are very low on ships just what we need a fallen Empire has awoken on the other side of the Galaxy well luckily they're not directly next to us hopefully we can just kind of stay out of the conflict so I really want a federation but I really don't actually want this AI to be a nuisance in the Federation what I'm going to do then is I'm going to form a galactic Union it's gonna be great I'm going to use all of these favors I've been collecting up and then you'll see hopefully what happens in just a moment yes we've formed a federation fantastic we've met the curators we are the Federation president isn't it beautiful and Brilliant lovely now we've got uh three members in the Federation ourselves the mangetian collective the byzandian commissariat and the tebrid homologue but oh and but let's get to the end of the month and we'll see if the bazandian commissariate do actually want to remain in this Federation you see they're now in a federation with a driven assimilator not just one but actually two because of our cybernetic Ascension and even if they don't decide to leave well what we can do is we can kick them from the Federation in just a few moments as now that we're in a federation we can promise the entire universe to our little vassal here who's going to be ever so grateful at what we're giving but none of these conflicts are even going to matter it's just very very juicy yes this is a much better contract I am much happier with this one I've just noticed that this AI actually has fleets totaling around 80 000 in Fleet power with a variety of yes somewhat mediocre looking battleships and cruisers but still better to have on hand than nothing given that this pervasive hythean Imperium is in a giant Federation now spanning much of the known Galaxy see actually I really hope the sin arbitrators do deal with them we are never going to get another chance like this one The Hyphen Imperium leader of the star strategic Alliance and Overlord of four different vassal Empires a protectorate a vassal a vassal and a balwak has lost a massive number of their fleets due to the action they've been taking in fighting a fnatic purifier to the north we can now step in at this moment now is the time we can make them into our tributary destroy this opposing Federation and create a vassal swarm of our own I hope we have the forces to actually fight this war if we don't it's going to go very badly but at this point I'm not sure really what else there is that we can do our little Federation here really does need to push North otherwise they're completely envelope us on pretty much every side and our Federation allies say yes we are now a go on Project Galaxy capture well the high Imperium they have a massive Federation Fleet that we didn't really account for 130 000 worth of it plus some other ships too uh yeah they've got quite a lot of Firepower hopefully everything will be fine we're attempting to push through on the west and the East that massive block that I talked about is on this Eastern side very close to a small number of athletes oh goodness me are they advancing now I think they're advancing I think we might have to turn around at this point if they're advancing we we can't hold them back with our tiny little Fleet here we need to get out of there I hope they don't jump through a wrestle here to zarim that would be catastrophic uh for our overall war effort here well my fingers are crossed everything I'm sure it's going fine we're doing great luckily they don't seem to actually be interested in going that way great they they might fall for the bait we'll hit them at mizam maybe yes uh oh maybe I take it back there now pirouetting around the racial worm hole which means some of them have come through to zarim this could spell the end for our little campaign here though on a positive note we're now the uh mandating Council main member of the galactic Community pretty good going for us uh oh I hope they can't fly through the alpha Refuge that would be oh that's really bad oh no okay so they can fly through the Sarandon Continuum here that is definitely an issue we're gonna have to address that how are we going to address that um uh yes oh no that that is really unfortunate for us it looks like Baron is definitely going down this could be a problem right they're now right on the edge of our space we're trying to form up here in Maya but I'm not sure if we'll have time they seem to have slightly pulled back I'm hopeful that our Collective Fleet power now out matches theirs and for that reason we're going to attempt to push the offensive their fleets are definitely somewhat spread out I think we should be able to take out the main Federation Fleet here if we can get there in time all right they're coming back oh no no no no no no no we jumped in we've we've jumped in only piecemeal this could be a massive problem we need to make sure more Fleet and more fleets are arriving thank goodness me this is a this is quite the engagement actually we've taken out the big Fleet almost yes I think we're gonna we've won the day we've won the day on the corner of our space let's just check it out here absolutely phenomenal a hundred and three thousand damage the combat in the cervante system a decisive victory for us we were gonna chase after them instead we're coming home to defend the space we're about to lose yes we'd rather keep our Empire intact than not it's a massive back and forth here the Northern Area has kind of been letting them in and out here we've got this Wormhole down south in galorem that became a bit of a problem they actually reached as far north here as Crim door only a handful of jumps away from our Capital that would have been yeah that would have been really nasty we have repulsed them but this area is still an issue the Zarin Wormhole which leads to wrestle that's letting their fleets back and forth however the main bulk of enemy the activity is still here in the north and they are moving towards us in the mirzam system I'm hopeful that our combined forces here can actually defend against them hopeful we we've managed it once before the odds weren't quite a stack against us I'm not even going to count how many ships they've got now it's just got silly doesn't it it just gets silly our three little fleets here have been caught in something of something an aggressive move by the enemy I'm not sure they're actually going to make it through more fleets keep pouring into this system our ships are doing a valiant job of Defending but but where are the reinforcements oh they're in the next system all right I take it back we'll be fine okay the life creeper Baron 2 has been killed we're going to avenge that um quite quickly or maybe not actually this is not going as well as I was hoping oh our fleets do seem to be etching backwards and they seem to be doing rather well this is problematic I mean it's not a total loss but it's not really a victory either we've uh we we knocked them about a bit but we did lose an ungodly number of ships I have to assume during that engagement yeah quite a few destroyers and cruisers and battleships on the other side of the Galaxy though we're about to enter orbit of their Capital with the fall of their capital I don't believe it but I think that almost meant we had done it we were so close ladies and gentlemen so very very close there we go now we can do it we're going to achieve War goals here that should completely change the makeup of the Galaxy assuming the Federation says yes and I really do hope they do agree that we should achieve War goals before we end up in an issue here where we can't actually darn it International politics you've done it again there we there we go though that is it okay right how did we do are we well I hope yes we are beautiful ladies and gentlemen Bea beautiful we've achieved an overwhelming Victory here over the enemy I guess we'll put down some tree of life saplings everywhere in the Galaxy that'll really show them we mean business and that basically makes us the most powerful nation in the Galaxy because our Collective Now stretches across every part of space the purple here is either our Federation members or indeed our vassals everyone's in a federation with us mainly because they are a vassal I mean at this point yes we do have some issues with energy credits but overall you know we're doing absolutely fine we might defeat the crisis when it arrives or we might not if you'd like to see the continuation and completion of this timeline where we had absolutely no miners absolutely no technicians and more Farmers that I could possibly ever fathom I don't know how I'll sleep again after seeing all of that well let me know down in the comments below and if you've enjoyed this video and you'd like to see another challenge video perhaps where I try to research not a single technology during the entire game click the video on screen now

Channel: Montu Plays

Views: 172,875

Keywords: Stellaris, stellaris gameplay, montu plays, montu plays stellaris, stellaris farmer, stellaris farming, stellaris challenge, stellaris challenge run, montu plays stellaris playthrough, montu plays stellaris gameplay

Id: a20uT0V4mQk

Length: 30min 57sec (1857 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2022