Stellaris
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50 free Stellaris trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Stellaris hands you a newly spacefaring species and a galaxy full of rivals, ruins and things that should have been left alone. Every campaign tells a different story, which is why players are still swapping tales of doomed empires and late-game disasters years after release. This quiz covers the game from every side: the ethics and civics that shape an empire, origins and preset empires, guardians, fallen empires and the crises that end a campaign, plus megastructures, fleets and resources. There are also questions on the expansions, the updates and how the game was developed and sold. It is pitched for anyone who has played a few campaigns, with easy openers for newcomers and a handful of deep cuts for veterans. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Nordic country is home to Paradox Development Studio, the developer of the space strategy game Stellaris?
Sweden
Sweden's Paradox Development Studio, founded in 1995, is also behind the Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron and Crusader Kings series.
Q 02Stellaris is a 4X strategy game, a label that stands for explore, expand, exploit and which fourth verb?
Exterminate
Exterminate rounds out the 4X formula, yet Stellaris is won on overall score, which counts economy and technology as well as fleets.
Q 03In Stellaris, ships normally cross between star systems along which fixed web of faster-than-light routes?
Hyperlanes
Hyperlanes force fleets through chokepoints worth fortifying, and every campaign opens on January 1, 2200, the day your empire discovers the network.
Q 04Stellaris's 2.1 update, released with Distant Stars, honours which author of the novel Ringworld?
Larry Niven
Larry Niven's Ringworld won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and Stellaris players can build a ring-shaped megastructure of their own around a star.
Q 05Which Stellaris megastructure is built around a star to capture its energy output?
Dyson Sphere
Dyson Sphere megastructures take their name from Freeman Dyson's 1960 paper, although novelist Olaf Stapledon had imagined the same star-wrapping shell back in 1937.
Q 06Which Stellaris endgame crisis is a ravenous swarm whose infestors turn habitable planets into infested worlds?
Prethoryn Scourge
Prethoryn Scourge worlds can't be retaken by ground troops: an infested planet has to be bombarded until it turns into a barren rock.
Q 07What does Stellaris call a planet whose entire surface has been built over as a single city?
Ecumenopolis
Ecumenopolis planets arrived with the game's 2018 expansion about corporate empires, and the idea has been taken seriously by real city planners too.
Q 08Which sci-fi franchise's 2023 Paradox strategy game, subtitled Infinite, was called extremely similar to Stellaris?
Star Trek
Star Trek: Infinite was built by Argentine studio Nimble Giant, and less than six months after its launch Paradox announced it would get no further updates.
Q 09Stellaris sold over 200,000 copies in a day, almost matching a Paradox record held by which city-building game?
Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines kept its launch record, but Stellaris still became Paradox Development Studio's fastest-selling game and had passed three million sales by May 2020.
Q 10Which planet-killing ship class, added by the Stellaris expansion Apocalypse, can be armed with a World Cracker?
Colossus
Colossus ships can't fight fleets at all, and simply owning one lets every other empire declare a total war to stop you.
Q 11Stellaris runs on which game engine, first used for Europa Universalis III in 2007?
Clausewitz
Clausewitz takes its name from a Prussian general, and for Stellaris the ageing engine was upgraded with physically based rendering.
Q 12Director Henrik Fåhraeus called Stellaris one third Star Control 2, one third Europa Universalis IV and one third what?
Master of Orion 2
Master of Orion 2, a 1996 turn-based game from Simtex, is still regarded as a defining benchmark of the space 4X genre.
Q 13Stellaris was first presented to the public in August 2015 at which annual video game trade fair?
Gamescom
Gamescom is held in Cologne, Germany, and Stellaris went on sale nine months after its showing there, in May 2016.
Q 21Which Stellaris resource, earned by supporting factions, is spent to unlock traditions?
Unity
Unity also pays for edicts, and the traditions it buys come in themed trees such as espionage, exploration, mercantilism and militarism.
Q 22Stellaris has eight ethics on four opposing axes; which ethic is the direct opposite of Spiritualist?
Materialist
Materialist empires hold that the unknowns of the universe can be explained by science, and an empire may take the ethic in a moderate or a more extreme form.
Q 23Which Stellaris ethic, used by hive minds and machine empires, costs all three of an empire's ethic points?
Gestalt Consciousness
Q 14From version 3.3, Stellaris updates dropped science fiction writers' names in favour of what?
Constellations
Constellations took over with update 3.3, called Libra, after earlier patches had honoured Lem, Banks, Bradbury and Heinlein.
Q 15Stellaris: Console Edition launched in February 2019 on Xbox One and which other home console?
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners waited almost three years after the PC release, and a version tuned for Xbox Series X/S followed in March 2021.
Q 16Which was the first species pack released for Stellaris, arriving in August 2016?
Plantoids
Plantoids arrived three months after launch with plant-based aliens, and from version 3.1 the pack also included extra traits and civics.
Q 17Which 2017 Stellaris expansion introduced megastructures, hive mind empires and the first ascension perks?
Utopia
Utopia also brought orbital habitats and three ways to evolve a species: biological, artificial or psionic.
Q 18Which 2021 Stellaris expansion lets a player's own empire become the crisis that threatens the galaxy?
Nemesis
Nemesis also added espionage and a fog of war, along with crisis ships such as the Star-Eater.
Q 19Which 2017 Stellaris story pack first let players lead an empire made up entirely of machines?
Synthetic Dawn
Synthetic Dawn also introduced synthetic uprisings, and a 2024 expansion later added individualistic machine empires.
Q 20The Contingency crisis in Stellaris opens with which eerie transmission that bounces across every empire?
Ghost Signal
Ghost Signal strength drops each time a Sterilization Hub is destroyed, and it only vanishes when the machine world behind the crisis is wiped out.
Gestalt Consciousness is reserved for empires without individual agency, and its pops are not affected by happiness at all.
Q 24What name does Stellaris give the galaxy-wide conflict fought between two awakened Fallen Empires?
War in Heaven
War in Heaven leaves younger empires a third option besides picking a side: a federation can rebrand itself as the League of Non-Aligned Powers and resist both.
Q 25Which machine Fallen Empire in Stellaris is guaranteed to awaken when the Contingency crisis begins?
Ancient Caretakers
Ancient Caretakers are a machine intelligence that maintains ringworlds as a refuge for organic beings fleeing some unknown menace.
Q 26Which Stellaris guardian, found orbiting the black hole Gargantua, is not hostile to passing fleets?
Infinity Machine
Infinity Machine can be helped into the black hole it orbits, and in one outcome the hole shrinks and is renamed Pantagruel.
Q 27In Stellaris, the nomadic Marauders can unite into a conquering Horde under which leader?
The Great Khan
The Great Khan can be bought off with obedience: an empire may submit as a Satrapy and simply wait for the leader to die.
Q 28Psionic empires in Stellaris can commune with powerful beings in which realm of pure psionic energy?
The Shroud
The Shroud can offer a pact with the End of the Cycle, which doubles an empire's output for 50 years and then depopulates every planet it owns.
Q 29Which civilian vessel in Stellaris surveys planets and stars, uncovering resource deposits and anomalies?
Science ship
Science ship crews do more than map: a vessel parked over a planet boosts its research, and battle debris can be studied for new technology.
Q 30In Stellaris, which governing body lets member empires vote on laws that affect every other member?
Galactic Community
Galactic Community votes are weighted by diplomatic weight, earned from fleet power, economy, technology and population, so large empires speak loudest.