In vanilla Stellaris, that means choosing between Spiritualist/Materialist, Xenophile/Xenophobe, or Authoritarian/Egalitarian ethics to guide your citizens – plus choosing whether your political system is run by Cutthroat Politics, an Efficient Bureaucracy, or even a Death Cult. There are so many options it can feel staggering at first. But after playing the game for so many hours, any Stellaris veteran can feel like they’ve seen it all. Luckily, fans have been churning out mods since the game was released in 2016, and there’s lots of great mods to inject new societal values into Stellaris. Let me show you my faves!
1. Overpowered Civics
Check Out This Mod The devs over at Paradox put in a ton of work into making Stellaris a balanced game – meaning you can pursue any combination of ethics, civics, and traits without completely breaking the game. Sometimes, however, players don’t give a damn about balance. Stellaris is still fun even if your empire has some sort of advantage over the rest of the galaxy – and Overpowered Civics offers some of the most entertaining options. One of my favorites is Perfect Unison, which brings harmony to your society and boosts research speed, ethics attraction, and unity. It also makes expanding your empire easier with increased pop growth and happiness. If you want to take it a step further, pick the God Mode civic, which combines every other bonus featured in this mod and puts you at the level of a Fallen Empire in no time. P.S. If you want to lean into the OP mechanics then we have a separate list of detailed & overpowered mods for the game.
2. Expanded Traits, Civics, Pops, and More
Check Out This Mod If you’re looking for something that won’t break the game, Expanded Traits, Civics, Pops and More is the way to go. This varied mod shines for introducing species traits and government civics that work together, keeping the game balanced while also completely changing the profile of most galactic empires. Along with new universal and species-specific traits, you’ll get a bunch of new civics and origins that synergize with these unique traits to create entirely new strategies. Many of these new civics and origins have to do with MegaCorp content, so check it out if you’re into that side of galactic geopolitics.
3. Ethics & Civics: Bug Branch
Check Out This Mod Ethics are the groundwork upon which your galactic empire will build its future – so you better feel convinced by the values you pick at the start of the game. Vanilla Stellaris isn’t precisely limited in that regard, but with so many different species and habitats, you’d expect a ton of unusual ethics to arise around the galaxy. Ethics & Civics: Bug Branch introduces four new ethical axes for standard empires and twelve new ethics for gestalt consciousnesses, like hive-minds and machine intelligence. Gestalt empires get some of the best additions, including the new “focus ethic” mechanic, which lets the gestalt consciousness change its priorities through an edict to respond to every situation. The mod also features a ton of new standard, governmental and advanced civics that work together with the new ethics to enable all-new gameplay strategies and development paths.
4. Revolutions – Ethics & Civics
Check Out This Mod A similar mod with less focus on gestalt empires is Revolutions – Ethics & Civics, which adds a wealth of new civics, ethics, policies, and government types to revolutionize your society. There are over 70 new civics, six new ethics axes, and 30 new possible government types to accommodate the new values and social strategies your empire might adopt. You can also choose one of four new origins, including Slave Race, Machine Cultists, and Evolutionary Architects. Something I loved doing while trying out this mod was beginning with the Worker’s Revolution origin and building a cooperative society while trying to balance the interests of the Industrialist and Laborist factions. That’s only one of the many roleplay scenarios you can build for yourself with this excellent add-on.
5. Empires Expanded
Check Out This Mod Formerly known as Civics Expanded+, Empires Expanded is an interesting and balanced Stellaris expansion that focuses on adding new and meaningful civics. The mod features 30 new standard civics, 10 hive civics, 10 corporate civics, and five machine civics. In addition, you’ll get new policies, edicts, origins, and species traits that you’ll weave together with the new civics to create an all-new Stellaris adventure impossible in the base game. It’s hard to pick favorites in this excellent mod, but I can’t get enough of the Cult of Personality civic. Controlling the populace through propaganda and leader worship has never been this easy. I’ll let you discover the rest by playing.
