Stellaris Tree of Life Hive build and guide.

Build Explanation.

Tree of Life Hive build and guide. image 1

The Tree of Life origin is all food-centric so you should pick Plantoid species portrait to enable it and make them Agrarian, Adaptable (to reduce penalties from colonizing unsuitable planets) and Strong (your only army source for a long time will be your primary species so better make those armies good). The maluses can be Unruly (it does nothing in the early game and can be gene-modded out later) and Fleeting (for the same reason).

The planet type should be Tropical for flavour reasons and some extra agri slots.

The civic picks are:

Organic Reprocessing to utilize all that massive food income into alloys, freeing your minerals for building what you want when you want and feeding the Brain Drones.

Void Hive for even more mineral savings and less construction ships required (it matters in the early game).For starting system, pick Unary because early game flying time away from starting system matters too.

The Very Start.

Use default settings, Ensign (or Captain and higher if you have some Stellaris experience) difficulty and enable Ironman (if you are a honest power player, mods and savescumming are not for you).

Start with promptly enabling automation in your capital - PDX devs have significantly improved it so now it can be trusted. This will free some drones as unemployed, so build Industrial districts as minerals become available if AI does not do it by itself.

The starting technologies you are looking for are:

Blue Lasers - the early war is inevitable no matter what you think.

Hydroponics Farming - even more food from your stations.

Afterburners - see above. Set borders policy to closed and first contact protocol to cautious - this will save you some trouble like aggressors making a contact and wardeccing you before your fleet is ready and later sneaking into your territory and stealing rightfully yours systems. You are a Hive, meaning no commerce, and you are going to be strong enough to not need allies.

Start surveying with your starting science ship - after getting full intel on your guaranteed planets set it on auto (with Excavate disabled - you don't need it to get stuck for years in expansion phase and later excavate something nasty like Rubricator) - it can be trusted too.

First tradition pick should be Expansion - because that is what you do right now.

First (and only) picks are:

One Mind - a single pop is of immense value in the early game.

Amoebic synapse - 10% savings on outpost influence cost is a lot.Start claiming and colonizing everything in sight - yes, even red habitability (we picked Adaptive to alleviate this a bit). Even heavily penalized, new planets shall still provide income. Set them on auto and Fringe designation and forget. Build stations over them with solar panels and hydroponics up to the station cap.

If you are getting resource shortage messages appearing, use market orders to stabilize income.

If that is not enough, disable some Synapse drone jobs.

Second tradition pick is Supremacy. Due to your massive (for the early game) alloy production and very cheap alloy-wise colony ships you will need the extra cap. After getting discount from Organic Architecture (and Military Build-up Agenda) build one more shipyard in your home station and start spamming corvettes to get 2-3 full fleets of them (sell food and minerals over 3000 and buy more alloys as needed). Design should be Picket with laser PD, two lasers, one shield + two armors, afterburners. This is an universally good design which also hard counters missiles.

Spawn 30 armies from your sizeable stockplie of minerals, which would lead you to...

The Early War.

By this time you are already made contact with your friendly, charitable neighbours and some are already declared rivalry and/or war on you.

If you are next to genocidals like Fanatic Purifiers you are in luck - just fly in and take everything without spending influence. Be mindful to grab all the outposts before invading the last planet - or they would self-destruct, forcing you to claim systems again.

Purging is a big no-no, go to Species and change their rights from undesirables to livestock - for, you guessed it, even more food. Plop Sentinel Posts on their capital world to suppress deviance (resettle your pops to staff it).

If not, change diplomatic stance to Belligerent and make claims to the most [un]friendly neighbour up to and including their capital. Do the fly in and take [almost] everything thing.

Your superior fleet numbers and tech should net you a guaranteed victory but avoid fighting them on their upgraded stations or even lure them to one of yours. Trickster commanders will up your odds even more.

After-war Expansion Phase.

After completely taking out or reducing to pathetic all the friendly neighbourhood threats and establishing local dominance (this build doesn't aims for a global one), proceed to claim all remaining unowned systems.

Your third tradition pick should be Discovery to assist with surveying.

Start swapping some planets to Tech and Forge designations so you do not excess on basic resource income. Build some Bio-Reactors to process extra food for much needed energy (do not use market, exchange ratio is much worse there).

Complete Expansion to get Mastery of Nature ascension perk (it is useful both in early game for clear blocker discounts and later when your planets start filling), then Discovery for Technological Ascendancy, then Supremacy for Engineered Evolution or Organo-Machine Interfacing (yes, Hives can become cyborgs now!)

Simultaneously keep building your fleets to deter any would-be attackers (make your fleets pyramidal in structure with a corvette swarm, a dozen destroyers and frigates, a few cruisers and battleships).

A Stronghold on every planet is cheaper than upgrading stations for anchorages and will add some extra security.

Do not expand any further after that, you will only needlessly raise your empire size as you have secured all the needed resources to safely make it to endgame now.

Establish embassies and research treaties with your remaining bordering empires because why not?

If there is a federation, getting association status is also good but do not join it - they would drag you into their useless for you wars.

Conclusion.

After putting yourself into a position of security you can peacefully build rings and habitats, vote for profitable for you resolutions, hunt leviathans, shut down the Khan, construct megastructures, prepare for crisis - all the usual Stellaris stuff. May you remain on good terms with Stellaris AI! (Pro tip: don't call it stupid).

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3121145414

Tree of Life Hive build and guide.

Build Explanation.

The Very Start.

The Early War.

After-war Expansion Phase.

Conclusion.

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