How to Assimilate in Stellaris
If you’re a fan of video games like Dead Space, Halo, and Futurama, you may have noticed a common theme among the villains: assimilation. It’s the process of one species forcibly changing into another. And in the game Stellaris, you have the opportunity to become an empire of assimilators, if you’re willing to go down that path.
The mechanics of assimilation in Stellaris are similar to the concept of purging, but instead of destroying populations, you transform them to match your primary species. This guide will provide all the information you need to know about how to assimilate in Stellaris.
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How to Assimilate in Stellaris
While assimilation may be considered unethical, it’s a gameplay mechanic that allows players to engage in morally questionable acts. Assimilation grants unique citizenship rights in the game.
Unlike other citizenship rights that determine a population’s place in society or their fate, assimilation rights change the target population into your primary species. Over time, a certain number of pops will assimilate into your empire each year. This can be three, six, or twelve pops. The more pops you assimilate, the greater your empire becomes.
However, assimilation is a niche gameplay mechanic that is only available under specific circumstances. We will explore these conditions in detail later in the guide.
To alter a species’ rights and initiate assimilation, you need to access the species menu. The default shortcut for this is F6. Within the species menu, you’ll find a list of all the different species within your empire. Locate the species you wish to assimilate and select them.
The species’ portrait will appear on the left side of the screen. Below the portrait, you’ll find a green button labeled “Set Rights.” Clicking this button will open the rights pop-up menu. Take some time to familiarize yourself with this menu, as it offers various useful options, such as forbidding military service and setting living standards. However, our focus is on the “Citizenship” section at the top of the menu.
Click on “Citizenship” and a drop-down menu will appear. The second option in this menu is “Assimilate.” If this option is available to you, select it, and your empire will begin the process of assimilation. From there, it’s a waiting game.
One thing to note is that robot pops cannot be assimilated, and genocidal empires are also unable to assimilate other species. Additionally, if a pop has the cybernetic or psionic trait, the assimilation process will remove it.
Which Empires Can Assimilate?
The short answer is that every empire has the potential to assimilate in Stellaris. However, as a grand strategy game, it’s not as straightforward as it seems.
Assimilation can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, if you create a robot species during empire creation, you will have access to the “Driven Assimilator” civic. This civic represents a robot species obsessed with assimilating as many pops as possible into its network. Think of it as a nod to Star Trek’s Borg. While not recommended for beginners, it can offer a unique gameplay experience for more experienced players.
If you are not playing as a robot empire or prefer not to be a driven assimilator, your only option is to unlock specific late-game traditions. These traditions are not the same as regular traditions. To unlock them, you must obtain a tradition from one of the ascension path tradition trees. This involves acquiring an ascension path perk and progressing through the corresponding tree.
Becoming a driven assimilator only allows you to create cybernetic pops. With perks, the trait gained by the host species will depend on the selected tree. Here is a list of the gained traits and the associated traditions:
- Creating a psionic victim requires the “Great Awakening” tradition.
- To create cybernetic pops, you need the “Transubstantiation Synthesis” tradition.
- Creating mechanical pops requires the “Synthetic Age” tradition. However, your primary species cannot be a machine intelligence.
- Machine intelligence empires can assimilate more robots by adopting the “Synthetic” tradition tree.
- The “Engineered Genesis” tradition can remove or add the hive mind trait.
That covers everything you need to know about how to assimilate in Stellaris. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this guide, please leave them in the comments section below. Remember to enjoy the process of assimilating aliens in Stellaris!