As it had to be.

This is by far the most “I got the DLC” Glu Glu empire possible. Depending on where you started playing the Living Planet that is part of the latest DLC your experience has been impossible, cool, and frustrating. One of the most frustrating things about creating this empire was that the Glu Glu needed to have a clothing selection. Has the whole world gone crazy? If my houseplant could wear pants would it?

In many ways the Wilderness empire is the most Stellaris empire possible. Absolutely mechanically dumb while also being inventive and working within the confines that were set down nearly a decade ago. It’s clearly inspired by a 2017 marvel movie and some of the best sci-fi writing and pushes a concept that was already marginal (Hive-minds as protagonists) into the extreme. I also just don’t like using the biological ship sets and wish I could just pick them as alternative skins. I think that is mostly because I don’t want to learn the new systems until a few more patches are finished. Stellaris is “interesting” in the sense that I can conceive of a couple of dozen mechanics that I want to see and use and then go back to the same four or five over and over again. At this time bioships being part of the wilderness hivemind requirement just means I’m less likely to play wilderness.

One of my biggest disappointments from an RP perspective is that I can’t form a holy covenant and create the one true item worthy of worship in the world, a living planet. I completely understand from a mechanical perspective why this is done and how adding the Holy Covenant benefits could completely unbalance what is happening. However, the likelihood that a current CPU empire is going to form a holy covenant and be close enough that I could join is extremely low.

Some of the very cool things about this origin is the ability to just increase the size of a planet to 30 by spending biomass

• Origin – Wilderness
• Authority – Hive Mind
• Starting Civics – Divided Attention and Guardian Cluster
• Governing Ethics – Gestalt Conciousness
• Starting Planet Type – Ocean World
• Traits – Aquatic, Adaptive, Unruly, Solitary, Natural Sociologists
• Name List- Hive Mind 2
• Shipset – Shellcraft

Why did I make these picks?

My civic choices are the least inspired and least interesting choices possible. With the general weirdness that is part of the Wilderness origin (your colony may disappear) and using biological ships I didn’t feel confident in picking weird civics. I can’t conceptualize how Bodysnatcher would even work with the wilderness origin and the way that several hive civics don’t allow you to change them after starting the game is lame. It’s not my fault that Elevation Desires is straightforward while Aerospace Adaptation is weirdly compelling but can’t be changed.

I know that Stellaris has been out for a while and there are reliable people who are able to figure things out when a patch is announced. However, I wish there was more language around how things worked for unique origins like Wilderness in game. This has been very pronounced during the 4.0 transition since so many basic things have changed and been adjusted.

Since the Wilderness is impacted by district growth instead of population growth I was focused on keeping my empire size low. It’s the most basic bitch answer and I don’t really understand how biomass is going to grow.

How Does it Play?

It plays fine. I feel like I”m not doing something right by just building up biomass, expanding my planets slowly, and just being a friendly neighbor looking to catch up with everyone. In one of the games I played I was able to spawn with a neutron star as a natural border and built a super fortress and fleet with energy weapons and armor to take advantage of the 100% shield nullification. In another run I turtled up and became a vassal that was later able to rebel and control my overlord. In a third I built a lot and kept my army small. I briefly had a run with 10 planets all located within my starting sector.

Most of what I did was pretty boring and based around getting more and more biomass. This build has A LOT of headcannon to make up for the time that I spent doing very little. Maybe part of the issue is that I don’t play hiveminds and don’t understand the nuance of what I’m doing but it felt somehow less compelling than an inward perfection run. Being mean to a neighbor meant that all of my little Glu Glu would walk in the opposite direction at the Galactic Council. Was I, the living planet, speaking when I denounced the Minnerian Confederation? Did my planets ever fight with each other late at night before going to bed? Why was I forced to do purity instead of evolutionary predators?

(Note – this fragment was a draft that I last updated in 2025. Thank you for reading)