Stellaris: All Endgame Crises And How To Beat Them

Highlights

Stellaris
has received multiple expansion packs and endgame crises that pose severe challenges for players, testing strategic skills.
Prethoryn Scourge can be overwhelming for new players, requiring strategic border protection and fleet positioning.
Extradimensional Invaders and The Contingency require quick Action and powerful fleets to prevent invasion and destruction.

Stellaris was originally released way back in 2016. Since that time, it has received seven expansion packs, and a number of smaller story packs and additional species packs. The game mixes aspects of grand strategy with live Action space fleet combat.

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One of the cooler features of Stellaris is that, once players have learned the game and can regularly reach a game stage where they will likely win, one of four possible endgame crises can be triggered. Each of these is different, and needs to be tackled using the proper tactics. These are very severe challenges that can and will wipe out the player’s empire if left unchecked, meaning losing the game right on the cusp of victory.

Prethoryn Scourge

Galactic Bug Hunt

Main aspects:

Massive hoard of alien ships
Hard to chase down and exterminate
Will attack and wipe out the player’s faction

The Prethoryn Scourge endgame crisis is extremely difficult to overcome for new players who have not mastered the art of protecting their borders and positioning combat fleets strategically. The player will receive a message in the late game stage, telling them that subspace echoes have been detected from an incoming threat.

Once the echoes have been detected, the player has around 50 years before the map will highlight the expected invasion area on the Galactic Map. Around 5 years later, an invoking transmission is received from the Vanguard Fleets of the Prethoryn Scourge.

Less than 3 years after the signal from the Vanguard Fleets is received, they will arrive. 12 fleets of the Prethoryn Scourge will arrive in the invasion system. These are immortal invaders. They will not die of old age, and will begin aggressively attacking the space around them. These are large fleets of small ships, so it is important to design ship hulls and loadouts with this in mind, when preparing to tackle this end game crisis.

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Beating the Prethoryn Scourge is all about staying mobile and flexible. Because there are so many attacking fleets, the player will need to look for convergences of fleets in areas of the map, and try and head them off by moving their own fleets. The real problem begins when the player’s own empire’s borders come under attack, and it is recommended they have decently-equipped defensive stations built at choke points.

Efficiency in reinforcing depleted fleets is a must-have skill when tackling the Prethoryn Scourge. If the player can’t suitably reinforce fleets, they might consider merging under strength fleets. Surviving this crisis is all about whittling away at the invaders until the invading forces are contained and can be mopped up. Starving the invaders is also a viable option, by kicking them off the planets they invade and colonize.

Overwhelming If Not Tackled Quickly

Extradimensional Invaders Stellaris End Game Crisis

Main aspects:

Slow start but ramps up quickly
Possibility of being overwhelmed if not tackled quickly
Almost impossible to beat once the 3rd enemy faction has arrived

The Extradimensional Invaders is arguably the hardest of all the endgame crises that the player will face when playing Stellaris. Especially if they are a new player who has never taken on this challenge before. The reason for this is that, if left unchecked, this crisis can become overwhelming extremely quickly.

The format of this crisis is quite complex. The player will initially receive an alert telling them that there has been a huge power surge somewhere on the map. Shortly after, at that same point on the map, the main fleet of invaders will spawn, alongside a dimensional portal and a Starbase. Over the following days, several more fleets will come through the portal.

The invasion will begin to spread, and if the invaders manage to capture 15% of the map or more, a second faction of invaders will appear, with its own portal. A few days after this, the same happens with a third faction of invaders. Generally, letting the invasion progress this far is a good indication that the player will fail in their defense and be overrun very quickly.

To beat this end game crisis, the player needs to track down all of the Extra Dimensional Anchors that are holding the portals in place. These anchors need to be destroyed, and then the portal taken care of. What this means is that the player will need to have several large, powerful fleets available to get to the anchors quickly, and take down the portals before those second and third factions arrive.

The Contingency

Synthetic Life Forms Take Over

Main aspects:

Random population losses on biological planets that use synthetic entities
Machine populations are randomly lost
Captured planets will be sterilized

The Contingency is a lot of fun, and revolves around an aggressive machine empire invading the galaxy. The start of this endgame crisis in Stellaris is scarily understated. The first thing that happens is that a galaxy wide Ghost Signal is detected, with the player having no way of understanding what this means. Unless, of course, they have played through this crisis before.

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The signal pulses out regularly, and every time that it does, the player will start losing machine population (if they use them) across their empire. Meanwhile, biological planets that also use machine populations will lose a single biological population. It is around this time that players new to this crisis will start to get an idea of what is coming.

Just a year after the Ghost Signal is detected, random planets that are in a system with strategic resources will be converted to a Sterilization Hub AI World. The system will spawn an enemy station, several fleets, and a number of support vessels. In effect, the player’s empire will beg to be eaten from the inside, as the invading machine intelligence starts taking over.

The key to defeating this crisis is making sure that the player has enough firepower on hand within their own borders to chase down and eliminate the invading fleets. This is easier said than done though, as these are tough fleets. If a player is caught off guard without enough hull tonnage available once the hub worlds start to appear, it is unlikely that they will survive this crisis. The trick here is to write off those worlds that become infected, and deal with the invading forces, rather than try and save small chunks of the empire that have already been eaten away.

Galactic Nemesis

From Neighbors To Nemesis

Main aspects:

Any empire with the Menace perk can become the nemesis faction
If the Aetherophasic Engine project is completed, the entire map is destroyed
Killing Star Eater entities will set back the Menace faction considerably

The Galactic Nemesis endgame crisis in Stellaris works a little differently than the other three. Any faction on the map can become the Galactic Nemesis faction, and the higher the level of Menace the faction manages to achieve, the worse of a threat they become.

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Completing this crisis is both simpler than the other three, but also potentially much harder, depending on how much Menace the Nemesis faction accrues before being tackled.

The Nemesis faction can be combated in the normal way, but will put up a much tougher fight. If the player is unlucky enough to have a border with the Nemesis faction once it comes into play, they will need to significantly reinforce this border immediately, or be overrun.

The best scenario for victory is when the eNmesis faction is not directly on the player’s border, but is not too far away either. The player needs to start killing off the Nemesis faction quickly, and if they don’t have rapid access to the right part of the MPA, the faction will have time to grow and expand, becoming an unassailable threat quite quickly.