STELLARIS: New Paradox Game in SPAAAACE

[Berkut]

If I had my way, a battle would be LESS tactical.

Basically, when two fleet run into each other, they start fighting. That takes some amount of variable time, but while the engagement is ongoing (and in this case an engagement would really be representing a series of battles, so really a campaign spanning a few weeks to a couple months), the player has very limited ability to do anything about it.

Once it is over, the outcome could be any number of results. But in general, there would be a winner who is then able to stay in the system, and a loser who has to flee. The "readiness" value of the losing fleet would make it nearly useless offensively until they can refit, and even the winning fleet might be in pretty bad shape as well, but mostly the winner gets to keep doing stuff with that fleet, while the losers fleet has to go refit, repair, etc., etc.

Even winning costs readiness though, and resources, so there could be plenty of strategy around just exhausting an invader with spoiling attacks that you know you will lose, but costs the invader readiness he cannot really replenish without getting back to his own starbase. Or maybe their race has mobile replenishment units! Who knows! Lots of fun to be had there.

But my idea is basically that fleets are composits of ships, and it is the fleets that fight, not the ships. Ships might be lost of course, which hurts, but the point of fighting is more around securing control of systems, not specifically about destroying ships. A defeated fleet has to go away and refit, and could actually be destroyed at times as well of course.

But this would do a few things:

1. Make combat feel more real. Ships do not "fight to the death" for the most part, they fight until they have lost or think they've lost, then they retreat.
2. Losing a combat is a setback, not the end of the war. There will be more combats.
3. You can make each fleet have a command limit that is a small fraction of the overall support limit of the empire, so that there are no "stacks of doom".
4. Allows for a crapload of variability to racial composition of forces. Some fleets might be bigger but less able to recover, some might use some of that command limit to include non-combat support ships. Etc. etc. etc.

In general,  would love to see a system where the forces to be engaged are slightly more abstract than just a pile of ships that shoot each other until one side dies. Fleets should be the combat unit, and the composition of those fleets could be wildly different.

And this would fit into peace time as well. You need some "fleets" to combat piracy? Well, set them up. They won't be well situated to resist an invasion though, since they will need anti-piracy cruisers, rather than organized into fleet elements, etc., etc. etc.

[The Brain]

 Yes.

[garbon]

If I had my way, a battle would be LESS tactical.

Basically, when two fleet run into each other, they start fighting. That takes some amount of variable time, but while the engagement is ongoing (and in this case an engagement would really be representing a series of battles, so really a campaign spanning a few weeks to a couple months), the player has very limited ability to do anything about it.

Once it is over, the outcome could be any number of results. But in general, there would be a winner who is then able to stay in the system, and a loser who has to flee. The "readiness" value of the losing fleet would make it nearly useless offensively until they can refit, and even the winning fleet might be in pretty bad shape as well, but mostly the winner gets to keep doing stuff with that fleet, while the losers fleet has to go refit, repair, etc., etc.

Even winning costs readiness though, and resources, so there could be plenty of strategy around just exhausting an invader with spoiling attacks that you know you will lose, but costs the invader readiness he cannot really replenish without getting back to his own starbase. Or maybe their race has mobile replenishment units! Who knows! Lots of fun to be had there.

But my idea is basically that fleets are composits of ships, and it is the fleets that fight, not the ships. Ships might be lost of course, which hurts, but the point of fighting is more around securing control of systems, not specifically about destroying ships. A defeated fleet has to go away and refit, and could actually be destroyed at times as well of course.

But this would do a few things:

1. Make combat feel more real. Ships do not "fight to the death" for the most part, they fight until they have lost or think they've lost, then they retreat.
2. Losing a combat is a setback, not the end of the war. There will be more combats.
3. You can make each fleet have a command limit that is a small fraction of the overall support limit of the empire, so that there are no "stacks of doom".
4. Allows for a crapload of variability to racial composition of forces. Some fleets might be bigger but less able to recover, some might use some of that command limit to include non-combat support ships. Etc. etc. etc.

In general,  would love to see a system where the forces to be engaged are slightly more abstract than just a pile of ships that shoot each other until one side dies. Fleets should be the combat unit, and the composition of those fleets could be wildly different.

And this would fit into peace time as well. You need some "fleets" to combat piracy? Well, set them up. They won't be well situated to resist an invasion though, since they will need anti-piracy cruisers, rather than organized into fleet elements, etc., etc. etc.

So EU4's retreats?

[Zanza]

All of their other games have armies retreating from battles they are losing. If EU4 would always have a stack wipe () in every battle, it would be just as terrible when it comes to warfare. I think they can fix the war system with some very simple adaptations from their other games:

1) Add a mechanism that makes fleets flee from losing a battle. In their other games that mechanism is morale and I don't see why they couldn't add something like that to Stellaris.
2) Make wargoals more flexible and more scalable, similar to how EU4 does it. Certain casus belli only allow certain wargoals at reduced cost, but you don't have to pick at the start of the war but can pick whenever. Also larger empires in late game should be able to annex vast swathes of other empires.
3) Allow separate peace, at least when the enemy is just a defensive union, not a federation.
4) Somehow get rid of the stupid planetary invasion. It's just a click-fest and once you figured out roughly how many of the rather cheap ground troops you need, you never again lose a single invasion. Completely pointless mechanic as it is. An alternative would be that the bombardment takes way shorter and the ground campaign takes way longer as that would allow planets to be relieved while they are under siege.

[Zanza]

So EU4's retreats?

Wrote my post while you posted.

[Agelastus]

Genuinely amusing moment.

A new nation, "Synthetic Alliance" appeared in my game, single planet rebels of one of my rival empires. Governing ethos egalitarian and...fanatic spiritualist.

Fanatic spiritualist, unfortunately, carries the requirement to ban AI.

A few days later all pops disappeared and the planet became empty.

Edit: And the dead planet still has the "free at last" modifier for the next 7000 odd days.

[Josquius]

The robots may overthrow their masters.....
But if they're badly programmed they're not going to accomplish much.

I've never seen the ai using many robots.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Genuinely amusing moment.

A new nation, "Synthetic Alliance" appeared in my game, single planet rebels of one of my rival empires. Governing ethos egalitarian and...fanatic spiritualist.

Fanatic spiritualist, unfortunately, carries the requirement to ban AI.

A few days later all pops disappeared and the planet became empty.

Edit: And the dead planet still has the "free at last" modifier for the next 7000 odd days.

That is pretty cool 

[Syt]

"Our existence is an affront against life and the universe. We shouldn't exist." *switches off*

[Richard Hakluyt]

"Our existence is an affront against life and the universe. We shouldn't exist." *switches off*

If only we had it so easy 

[HVC]

so, utopia worth it?

[ulmont]

so, utopia worth it?

Yes.  If you didn't like the game before, Utopia probably won't help you, but if you did like the game before Utopia adds a lot of nifty stuff.

[Zanza]

I played a new game in this and as warfare is still so-so, I concentrated on building a tall empire. Pacifist, materialist, xenophobe with the inward perfection and agrarian idyll civics. That gave me lots of unity early on and let me stay ahead of the curve even when I expanded a bit. My pace of expansion meant that I never used a sector. My empire is much smaller than usual, but I dominate technology easily and no one ever tried to attack me.

I can now build habitats (which is nice when you want more planets to administrate yourself) and recently converted all my population into cyborgs as first part of the synthetic ascension path.

When it comes to building a peaceful empire, this game is probably the best among the Paradox games. But it still gets a bit dull in the middle. You stop caring for exploration and just wait until the next tech or tradition allows you to build something new. The faction system works fairly well, but once you have made your main factions happy there is little dynamic from it.

[Josquius]

paradox sale on steam.
I'll give leviathans a try though utopia remains expensive. It worth it?

[HVC]

gonna get the new expansion just to play the borg for a bit.