With Stellaris, every day is a new discovery. The more you get playing, the more you find out things that you never knew about the game before. There are numerous possibilities of mixing and matching the game components that work the best for you. A few settings here and some good choice decisions there will get you some insane bonuses within the game and completely change your gameplay. One such aspect is the difficulty levels in Stellaris. In this guide, we will cover all you need to know about the difficulty levels in Stellaris.
What are the difficulty levels in Stellaris?
Now each difficulty level is going to add more challenges to your gameplay. But that’s not it. With increasing difficulties come increasing bonuses for AI empires. The thing with bonuses in this game is that they may look really menial but once you start playing, you realize that these bonuses really do bump up your game. It does not end there, the higher difficulty you set, the stronger your endgame Crisis will be.
The game also features Scaling difficulty. This allows the players to start with 0 difficulty level and gradually scale up to the level that has been set for the end year. Now, this may seem like an ideal option initially, but players sometimes may experience the game being too easy or too difficult.
Level bonuses
So manual selection is recommended. Below we have listed down all the difficulty levels starting from the easiest to the hardest and bonuses that come with it:
| Difficulty | AI bonuses | Spaceborne Aliens bonuses | Player bonuses |
| Cadet | – | – | +50% Resources from jobs and stations |
| – | – | +50% Naval capacity | |
| – | – | +10 Stability | |
| Ensign | – | +30% Weapons damage | – |
| – | +30% Hull | – | |
| – | +30% Armor | – | |
| – | +30% Shields | – | |
| Captain | +25% Resources from jobs and stations | +35% Weapons damage | – |
| +15% Naval capacity | +35% Hull | – | |
| −10% Ship upkeep | +35% Armor | – | |
| −10% Starbase shipyard cost | +35% Shields | – | |
| −25% Resettlement Cost | – | ||
| +5 Stability | – | ||
| Commodore | +50% Resources from jobs and stations | +40% Weapons damage | – |
| +30% Naval capacity | +40% Hull | – | |
| −20% Ship Upkeep | +40% Armor | – | |
| −20% Starbase shipyard cost | +40% Shields | – | |
| −50% Resettlement Cost | – | ||
| +10 Stability | – | ||
| Admiral | +75% Resources from jobs and stations | +45% Weapons damage | – |
| +45% Naval capacity | +45% Hull | – | |
| −30% Ship upkeep | +45% Armor | – | |
| −30% Starbase shipyard cost | – | ||
| −75% Resettlement Cost | +45% Shields | – | |
| +15 Stability | – | ||
| Grand Admiral | +100% Resources from jobs and stations | +50% Weapons damage | – |
| +60% Naval capacity | +50% Hull | – | |
| −40% Ship upkeep | +50% Armor | – | |
| −40% Starbase shipyard cost | +50% Shields | – | |
| −100% Resettlement Cost | – | ||
| +20 Stability | – |
So that is all about our article on the Stellaris difficulty levels. If you would like to know how to fluctuate your Empire Sprawl, check out our article on Stellaris: How To Increase And Decrease Empire Sprawl.