Be aware before we will start. This was just my way of showing off the playstyle I had so much fun playing. It is no way a professional guide on every little thing. More or less just a guide of playing it and the setup I used.

One of the most important phases with the terravores is the setup. This will help you provide a list of traits and civics from a successful terravore play through to make the snow balling effect as efficient as possible.

Traits

You may be wondering out of all these traits why nomadic. Well its going to come in very handy later where you need to transfer more and more population from one planet to another.
I chose repugnant because its generally alright to deal with in my experience opening more slots. Plus after unlocking the genetics tree it can be removed.

Civics



Origin
I have chosen the origin Calamitous Birth for my empire. This allows our homeworld to start with a huge amount of buried pops being we can begin with as well as granting us the abilities to slam into planets with asteroid that generate even more pops to dig up into our empire.

World

Now for the world I have chosen nuked and started on a tomb world. How this is possible is simple go to documents, than paradox interactive, than stellaris, than enter user_empire_design.txt go down to your newly created terravore and change the world preference to nuked. Warning this will only have a positive effect if you set your starting system to sol.
Be aware this is completely optional and is not advised if you want a balanced run.
After that you are ready to go

In this terravore run you will be playing a very unique play style of both tall and wide. You should plan to have only a few worlds that you are going to keep to keep your economy alive. I recommend getting your hands on a ring world as fast as possible (specially if another empire starts on one.) So lets get started shell we.

1. You are planning on eating the entire universe as such discount any other planets but you base ones start eating this immediately. You may be thinking but why its a planet full of resources. Yes this is true but we're the terravores and plus it generates a huge amount of alloys, minerals and most importantly pops
2. Try to aim for robotic races first. It generates the beauty of alloys when eaten
3. When the planet has finished being devoured leave it and gather all your pops on a ring world or planet. Than do what any smart empire would do and explode the worlds with a colossus to generate even more minerals.
4. Try to tech rush ring worlds or again find someone with a ring world trust me you will need it.
5. Try to invest your alloys into ring worlds and ships for the reason that you will receive alot of territory and with other upgrading the starports for you why do it yourself.
6. At early game you can create what I call a spawning world. This world will be eaten fully before taking all your pops off it however, with a spawning world keep throwing asteroids at it to generate infinity amount of pops.

When played correctly you would have alot of territory with no habitable planets on it and alot of pops growing in ring worlds collected from these planets. The bigger galaxy you have the more planets you get meaning the more stable income will be created as you mine and destroy each planet you come across after slamming asteroids in it.

Well now you basically eaten the universe if you have been on a frenzy. You have captured many solar systems and destroyed many enemies. However, even though these planets may seem overwhelming and you want to keep them remember we are not playing through the eyes of a empire. Rather we work more similarly to a crisis. Please don't try to leave those planets alive instead eat them for their larger size means more pops, minerals and alloys out of them. Feast my brothers feast on their planets.

At late game your planet systems will be around this: 1 Capital homeworld, 3 Normal planets for economy production, 1-3 ring worlds segments and 1-20 planets being devoured and cracked.

THE CRISIS ISN'T HUNTING YOU. YOU ARE HUNTING IT.
It will provide you with some new food. If you somehow haven't devoured the entire galaxy before it arrives than you can use it do kill your enemies and than destroy it for that sweet rewards. By now you would have a huge amount of alloys from your planets you have devoured to invest into your ships. Unless you have the crisis on 25x its strength you should be fine just don't over estimate your enemy.
Be aware that even though you may loose territory alot of that territory is useless to you anyway with all useful planets eaten away. Protect the home area and swarm them.

Unfortunately, your little terravore doesn't like certain planets being magma, frozen, barren and what not but these are the flavors you will find.


Tomb World: Tastes like radioactive overcooked chicken
Arid: Tastes like the dry stringy parts of a chicken
Desert: Tastes like savory desserts
Savanna: Tastes like dry noodles
Alpine: Tastes like rock candy
Arctic: Tastes like Icecream
Tundra: Tastes like a gobstopper
Continental: Tastes like a mixture of tropical plants and fish
Ocean: Tastes Like Lobster
Tropical: Tastes like a plate of vegetables
Gaia: Tastes like the most expensive pizza in the world
Machine World: Tastes like bolts and nuts (food)
Hive world: Tastes like you mix everything together into a disgusting blend but its good for your health.
Ecumenopolis: Tastes like a corporate dinner.
Relic: Tastes like a meal you left in the fridge for way to long. Tastes alright but probably not good for you in the long run
Megastructure: Its sad to say that megastructures are bad for our rocky teeth as such you cant eat it.

No. Specially not if you started on a nuked world. However, It is really fun