2.2 & Megacorp Teasers

[Jorgen_CAB]

Can we please not open again the can of worms about how waging wars (and maybe early game exploration) is in general the only content in the game so far?

Still... while I agree war is the most fleshed out mechanic the question still stand. Simply continue to play the game as normal while invasions are completed.

There is hope for more to do in the next version though.

To be fair... invasions in Stellaris go way too fast and assume basically no asymmetric warfare at all.

 

[Sarno]

Still... while I agree war is the most fleshed out mechanic the question still stand. Simply continue to play the game as normal while invasions are completed.

There is hope for more to do in the next version though.

To be fair... invasions in Stellaris go way too fast and assume basically no asymmetric warfare at all.

If we could at least influence the general tactics used by the armies. Like:

• systematic occupation - Your armies deal very little damage while also taking less damage, resulting in a very long invasion. Basically, your forces also focus on confiscating weapons from local militias, detaining high ranking officers and militia leaders and generally rooting out any possible resistance. Results in a -50 unrest modifier for 5 years when you successfully get the planet after war ends.
• regular invasion - Your armies deal normal damage while also take normal damage. No modifier is granted after war ends.
• blitz assault - Your armies deal increased damage while also taking increased damage, with the risk of further accidental casualties (and increased war exhaustion) on both sides. Your soldiers basically focus only on defeating the official, standing forces and then quickly deposing the local government, ignoring any potential militias or resistance movements. +50 unrest modifier after war ends.
• orbital support - Requires ships to be equipped with specialized space-to-ground tactical weapons that are useless in ship-to-ship combat. Your forces deal increased damage while only taking normal damage in return. Your army basically relays critical enemy positions back to the fleet which then softens them up by precise fire from on-board weapon systems. Has a low chance of accidentally ruining a civilian building
• covert sabotage - You land only a small token force that does not focus on occupation itself, but instead wants to deal damage to type of targets pre-selected by you (resource production, resource processing, research facilities, civilian buildings or military targets). Covert strike team has limited size to 3 armies and does not trigger combat initially, however every month a random building from the selected pool is ruined, and the covert team then rolls a chance (that increases with the total number of successful sabotages) of being discovered and attacked with all standing armies currently defending the colony. If the covert team is killed, no additional covert team can be landed for two years, due to local garrison being "on alert".

EDIT: And similar tactics could be preset by the defender, like *focus on defending only military targets* which would raise unrest but slow the enemy progress, or *defend both civilian and military targets* which would in turn provide happiness boost, but your forces will be less effective, or in case you are going to get invaded by a much bigger force and loose the planet anyway *prepare local resistance movements* which would not do much against the invading army, but after the planet is occupied, it would slap +100 unrest modifier on it and disable martial law edict unless the enemy selects systematic occupation, which would reduce the effect to +25 unrest.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

...

That's a pretty good general idea. I'll add a couple notes for gameplay usability. First is that choosing which tactic to use should be from an invasion drop-down menu or something that's brought up when you make the order to invade. Defensive orders on the other hand would be better as a global policy for your empire. The game needs to be able to be played in real time, so you can't just wait for the defender to pick a tactic when an invasion starts and you don't want them to either have to or try to pick on in the brief time between the invasion being ordered and the soldiers landing, or letting the defender change their tactic during the actual fighting either.

 

[The Red]

I'd like to see what endless space 2 did with ground combat and tweaking your armies composition and selecting different assault strategies. But one thing i don't like is the fleet power stat with it basically boiling down to is "my number is bigger than yours therefore i win" like a game of top trumps, I think having to consider your enemies military technology and fleet composition could add a lot of depth to space combat. Maybe you could keep the fleet power statistic and have it hidden from players at the choice of the empire and maybe adding in a spy mechanic showing you everything about certain fleets with risk of them being caught and impacting your political standing. Either of these ways make war about espionage and information as much as boots on the ground.

 

[The Founder]

But a chokepoint is not a blocker?

You only got Inhibitors on the Fortress?
Enemy kills fortress with fleet
Chokepoint is no longer stopping the enemy

You also got Inhibitors on the Planet?
Enemy kills fortress with fleet.
Enemy still has to siege down the planet before he can pass.

 

[JosunUrashima]

And lo!, behind the curtain, the 3-FTL-er is revealed, attempting yet again to recover his de facto warphole Kirk RP.

I find that a little rude. One doesn't have to be a 3FTL supporter to want to be able to move past planets and chase after the enemies fleets and burn them from the sky. Half the fun of a space based strategy game is watching the Fleets duke it out... not hover over a planet and not even see them really shooting at it (and the planetary invasions aren't really that exciting either)

 

[JosunUrashima]

Why not continue to play the game as normal... what do you stare at when you are not at war?

Ironically this is something that hints at the fact that the game is basically a war game, as once exploration is done there's not much actively going on. Hell, you can't even really hope you'll have tons of events to at least spice peace time up a bit like other Paradox games give.

I can certainly get where he's coming from if he plays the game exactly as it is right now, which is effectively a big war game. Even games with Federations and a pacifist take still eventually devolve down to "Hey if you want to win you gotta wage war in some form"

I'd like to see what endless space 2 did with ground combat and tweaking your armies composition and selecting different assault strategies. But one thing i don't like is the fleet power stat with it basically boiling down to is "my number is bigger than yours therefore i win" like a game of top trumps, I think having to consider your enemies military technology and fleet composition could add a lot of depth to space combat. Maybe you could keep the fleet power statistic and have it hidden from players at the choice of the empire and maybe adding in a spy mechanic showing you everything about certain fleets with risk of them being caught and impacting your political standing. Either of these ways make war about espionage and information as much as boots on the ground.

Well, one problem here is that all of Paradoxes grand strategy games basically amount to this unless your a master of figuring out terrain and use of commanders. The bigger number wins.

And also, you don't usually know the exact compliments of an enemy empires fleet or their actual fleetpower until you declare war... usually because empires your going to be declaring war on don't have open borders with you and you can't spy on them with your science ships.

You only got Inhibitors on the Fortress?
Enemy kills fortress with fleet
Chokepoint is no longer stopping the enemy

You also got Inhibitors on the Planet?
Enemy kills fortress with fleet.
Enemy still has to siege down the planet before he can pass.

The chokepoint remains a chokepoint if you have both and you can't selectively target fortresses. It'd be a bit different if bombardment of a planet prioritized military buildings, but in my experience it's always random.

 

[Oscot]

I'd like to see what endless space 2 did with ground combat and tweaking your armies composition and selecting different assault strategies. But one thing i don't like is the fleet power stat with it basically boiling down to is "my number is bigger than yours therefore i win" like a game of top trumps, I think having to consider your enemies military technology and fleet composition could add a lot of depth to space combat. Maybe you could keep the fleet power statistic and have it hidden from players at the choice of the empire and maybe adding in a spy mechanic showing you everything about certain fleets with risk of them being caught and impacting your political standing. Either of these ways make war about espionage and information as much as boots on the ground.

idk if you've noticed but Stellaris does have a ship designer where you're supposed to consider your enemy's military technology.
It just doesn't work because the AI always builds "Generic combination armour/shields corvs/battleships" fleets to which all combinations of weaponry do the same damage so there's no point even trying to get clever.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

If you stick an FTL inhibitor in there it is.

The idea of planetary inhibitors is to prevent the enemy from being able to freely move about your empire; to slow them down long enough that you can rebuild after a defeat or to bring in reinforcements from the other side of the empire. Planetary invasions are already super simple if you've got a large enough stack of units, but that also means you're losing more soldiers, gaining more war exhaustion and pushing yourself closer to the end of the war. The entire idea behind planetary inhibitors is to specifically make it difficult for enemies to prosecute a lightning war. It's the Stellaris equivalent of defence in depth and it should be a viable tactic as much as manoeuvre warfare is before FTL inhibitors and after jump drives are invented.

Chokepoint does not mean the same as blocker. Yes, a chokepoint with an FTL blocker is a blocker, or a wall. It's an obstruction.

Yes I understand the idea of an inhibitor. The word inhibitor means to slow down. However that has nothing to do with the post you quoted.

Now my original question was related to how advocating for a change in the FTL inhibition mechanic, to be more in line with say, SOASE, has anything to do with multiple FTL types. As far as I can see, it's a disingenuous argument and a strawman. SOASE has one type of FTL and inhibitors which work by slowing down the time left to make a jump.

 

[Oscot]

Now my original question was related to how advocating for a change in the FTL inhibition mechanic, to be more in line with say, SOASE, has anything to do with multiple FTL types. As far as I can see, it's a disingenuous argument and a strawman. SOASE has one type of FTL and inhibitors which work by slowing down the time left to make a jump.

Hyperlanes with no hard blockers are strategically equivalent to warphole because you can go wherever you want, all the time.
You return to the state of there being no relationship between "Geographic position" and "The order in which you get knocked off during warfare". No distinction between "Threatened border worlds" and "Safe core worlds".
And wars go back to being 2 click affairs. Left click your fleet, right click their fleet, let nature take its course.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

Hyperlanes with no hard blockers are strategically equivalent to warphole because you can go wherever you want, all the time.
You return to the state of there being no relationship between "Geographic position" and "The order in which you get knocked off during warfare". No distinction between "Threatened border worlds" and "Safe core worlds".
And wars go back to being 2 click affairs. Left click your fleet, right click their fleet, let nature take its course.

Warphole isn't an FTL type.
And no, the ships still have to travel along hyperlanes and through planetary systems.

 

[Dëzaël]

The word inhibitor means to slow down.

It's more like "to prevent from" actually. Or "to block".

Chokepoint does not mean the same as blocker. Yes, a chokepoint with an FTL blocker is a blocker, or a wall. It's an obstruction.

As is a Spartan in a Thermopyles. A chokepoint is a blocker as long as it has enemy things in it. FTL inhibitors tech enables planets to be part of the choke effect. Since you're supposed to build armies along with your fleets, they should only slow you down. If you don't or don't bring enough, you're blocked. Same as fleets.

Warphole isn't an FTL type.
And no, the ships still have to travel along hyperlanes and through planetary systems.

Nitpicking here. Having 1, 2, 5, n jumps to perform to reach the enemy shipyard through systems defended by outposts? Warp style warfare. Ok there *could* be a second fortress in the way that will likely get instant rekt, and the successive FTL windups and cooldowns might make you have to face a stronger enemy reinforcement. But pack a longer old warp windup/cooldown with some good old fashionned beefed up fortress rosette at the enemy shipyard system and you get the exact same result.

The problem @Oscot points at is not FTL types, it's freedom of movement. That was allowed by the old FTL types and was one of the primary reasons they were removed in the first place, because of the "BOOM! Headshot!" effect it had on warfare. If you remove planetary FTL inhibitors, the bullet is coming. Another alternative would be to make shipyards spit ships crazy fast, and potentially make ships crazy cheap, to rebuild before the enemy performs its jump(s) after a defeat, but we don't need economy to be more unsignificant as it is.

 

[Sarno]

It's more like "to prevent from" actually. Or "to block".



As is a Spartan in a Thermopyles. A chokepoint is a blocker as long as it has enemy things in it. FTL inhibitors tech enables planets to be part of the choke effect. Since you're supposed to build armies along with your fleets, they should only slow you down. If you don't or don't bring enough, you're blocked. Same as fleets.



Nitpicking here. Having 1, 2, 5, n jumps to perform to reach the enemy shipyard through systems defended by outposts? Warp style warfare. Ok there *could* be a second fortress in the way that will likely get instant rekt, and the successive FTL windups and cooldowns might make you have to face a stronger enemy reinforcement. But pack a longer old warp windup/cooldown with some good old fashionned beefed up fortress rosette at the enemy shipyard system and you get the exact same result.

The problem @Oscot points at is not FTL types, it's freedom of movement. That was allowed by the old FTL types and was one of the primary reasons they were removed in the first place, because of the "BOOM! Headshot!" effect it had on warfare. If you remove planetary FTL inhibitors, the bullet is coming. Another alternative would be to make shipyards spit ships crazy fast, and potentially make ships crazy cheap, to rebuild before the enemy performs its jump(s) after a defeat, but we don't need economy to be more unsignificant as it is.

The problem is that the current iteration of plantary FTL inhibitors requires near-zero sacrifice by the defender.

Again, as of now, fortresses provide:
- FTL inhibitor
- defensive armies
- protection from bombardment
- generates unity

Which in my opinion is way, way too much.

It should instead be split into 3 buildings:

1) Planetary Fortifications
- provides protection from bombardment to standing armies
- small unity generation
- 10 energy and 35 mineral maintenance

2) Ground Defense Force
- provides defensive armies
- no unity generation
- 15 energy, 20 mineral and 10 food maintnance

3) Planetary FTL Inhibition Field Generator
- provides FTL inhibition effect in the system
- no unity generation
- decreases overall resource output of the planet by 30% due to the field having adverse effects on local machinery
- 30 energy and 40 mineral maintenance
- can be manualy disabled and enabled from the planet screen
- also affects friendly fleets by preventing them from leaving the system. The player has to temporarily deactivate the inhibitor if they want to send a fleet past said system (they can immediately enable it again, once the fleet leaves the system)

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

It's more like "to prevent from" actually. Or "to block".

I suggest that you google definitions before nitpicking yourself. If you were to look, you would see that the list of synonyms includes:

impede, hinder, hamper, hold back, discourage, interfere with, obstruct, put a brake on, slow, slow down, retard;

Most of those mean to slow down rather than block.

As is a Spartan in a Thermopyles. A chokepoint is a blocker as long as it has enemy things in it. FTL inhibitors tech enables planets to be part of the choke effect. Since you're supposed to build armies along with your fleets, they should only slow you down. If you don't or don't bring enough, you're blocked. Same as fleets.

I understand the concept. A spartan at Thermopylae could not do anything about the battle at Salamis. Because they are a foot soldier, not a naval ship.

Nitpicking here. Having 1, 2, 5, n jumps to perform to reach the enemy shipyard through systems defended by outposts? Warp style warfare. Ok there *could* be a second fortress in the way that will likely get instant rekt, and the successive FTL windups and cooldowns might make you have to face a stronger enemy reinforcement. But pack a longer old warp windup/cooldown with some good old fashionned beefed up fortress rosette at the enemy shipyard system and you get the exact same result.

The problem @Oscot points at is not FTL types, it's freedom of movement. That was allowed by the old FTL types and was one of the primary reasons they were removed in the first place, because of the "BOOM! Headshot!" effect it had on warfare. If you remove planetary FTL inhibitors, the bullet is coming. Another alternative would be to make shipyards spit ships crazy fast, and potentially make ships crazy cheap, to rebuild before the enemy performs its jump(s) after a defeat, but we don't need economy to be more unsignificant as it is.

The strawman Oscot set up was about multiple FTL types, not freedom of movement. I suggest you look at the context and tone of their comment.

I am not nitpicking there. Warp and Wormhole could circumvent the hyperlane network. Hyperdrive can't. Which means, yes, you can still set up chokepoints. This is completely separate from the way inhibitors work, whether they act as obstructions or whether they significantly slow down hyperdrive charge-up. Sins of a Solar Empire does not have non-hyperlane style warfare, despite having inhibitors which work to slow down jump charge-up time, because it's FTL type is simply hyperlane. A good case has not been made, and so I stand by my initial assessment that it's just a nasty strawman to shut down the discussion.

 

[Sarno]

That's a pretty good general idea. I'll add a couple notes for gameplay usability. First is that choosing which tactic to use should be from an invasion drop-down menu or something that's brought up when you make the order to invade. Defensive orders on the other hand would be better as a global policy for your empire. The game needs to be able to be played in real time, so you can't just wait for the defender to pick a tactic when an invasion starts and you don't want them to either have to or try to pick on in the brief time between the invasion being ordered and the soldiers landing, or letting the defender change their tactic during the actual fighting either.

No the defender could preset the tactic on each planet on the defensive screen once every two years (to avoid keeping the positive tactics up, and then flipping them at the last moment). If they do not, it defaults to "protect both military and civilian targets". Once the invasion starts, they would not be able to change it even if they were past the 2 year limit.

 

[Zeelilus]

Again, as of now, fortresses provide:
- FTL inhibitor
- defensive armies
- protection from bombardment
- generates unity

Which in my opinion is way, way too much.

Well, luckily then it seems that at least defense armies and unrest reduction are separated in the next major update as there's been a separate police/enforcer building as well as the fortress one that spawns armies shown so far.

 

[The Founder]

Again, as of now, fortresses provide:
- FTL inhibitor
- defensive armies
- protection from bombardment
- generates unity

Which in my opinion is way, way too much.

a) You forgot Unrest supression
b) It only protects it's own armies from bombardment, so that is at tops 1 point together.
c) Even with all that, I rarely ever build them.

That Unity income is only a minor tradeoff for it otherwise wasting a tile. You loose between 1/10th and 1/25th of your planet resoruce output for a single fortress.
I only ever build those things for Unrest reduction. Maybe when I know a crisis is comming (and I know roughly from where). That Unity income might as well not exist.

 

[Lumpy]

My issue with this is, that FTL inhibitors on planets are just glorified time sinks. They are not going to prevent my fleet from moving onward in the long run. They are not going to cause any casualties to my ships. Hell they are not even going to cause any casualties to my armies. I'd be less up in the arms about it, if the planetary fortress had some actual active role in the warfare instead of being "just another arbitrary time sink that has to be removed to progress".

Every defending ship in the system is dead, Starbase has been flipped, the enemy has no absolute way of pushing me out of that system. Yet I have to stare at the monitor for an hour and watch, how my 25 psi armies duke it out against 25 defense armies. I am not interested in taking that planet from both economical and tactical point of view (for example if I wardecced my enemy just to cause as much damage as possible). Why can't my fleet just go "Hey, those 5 buildings/complexes/districts/whatever are preventing us from moving forward, let's drop an antimatter nuke on them and be done with it."
At this point it's actually much, much faster to get a colossus and Alderaan that planet into an asteroid field, however this comes way too late as a reliable solution.

In CK2, which is medieval land-warfare, I can grab my army, set it to raiding status and then go and burn down Rome without burning down border provinces first. Yet here, I simply cannot.
A space game is more "land-warfarey" than an actual land-warfare game.....

This line of reasoning is not very convincing to me. When we follow through with your argument, enemy fleets and armies are redundant and time sinks as well, since they only delay your inevitable victory against the AI. The whole point of FTL inhibitors is to provide a means to slow down the enemy advance and prevent sniping systems all over the place while constantly evading hostile fleets. This system is a necessity, both for the player's sanity as well as for the AI's capacity of having at least a chance of staying competitive. Even Aurora 4X, which can be considered rather realistic and hardcore in many ways, has jump points and thus fixed hyperlanes. Because it is a gameplay necessity.

Besides, its not as though something prevents you from just bringing ground forces with your fleet to take a planet ASAP. You can absolutely take a system quite fast if you are willing to take the casualties on the ground. You can totally trade war exhaustion against time spent per FTL inhibited system.

And FYI, before someone pulls out an argument about 3 FTL warpworshipper/whatever nonsense, I am not asking about straight up skipping said system. I entered that system, I contested all forces that opposed me, I destroyed all forces that threatened my armies, I took over all installations in that system.

Except that fortified planet which houses a FTL inhibitor.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Again, as of now, fortresses provide:
- FTL inhibitor
- defensive armies
- protection from bombardment
- generates unity

Which in my opinion is way, way too much.

When do you ever get invaded or bombarded? And also, how often do you have colonies that aren't in systems with trade hub-filled starbases? The only non-situational benefit is unity.

 

[Dëzaël]

The strawman Oscot set up was about multiple FTL types, not freedom of movement. I suggest you look at the context and tone of their comment.

This is the freedom of movement the old FTL types advocates miss. And this is also the key thing allowing this :

You return to the state of there being no relationship between "Geographic position" and "The order in which you get knocked off during warfare". No distinction between "Threatened border worlds" and "Safe core worlds".

Outright removing planetary FTL inhibitors would make sniping shipyards possible again, with nearly as much efficiency as if you had warp. And wars again return to a "kill fleet, kill shipyard, boring mop up" pattern. So that's roughly the same as wanting old FTL back, thus this is not so much strawmanning to answer this :

And lo!, behind the curtain, the 3-FTL-er is revealed, attempting yet again to recover his de facto warphole Kirk RP.

to this :

Maybe he wants the option to ignore having to slog his way through planets to be able to continue the space fleet part of the war?

The tone was sarcastic, but it's not relevant enough to invalid the contextual link to the 3 FTL methods.

Now about chokepoints, if I tighten your throat a bit it will slow down your air intake, but if I tighten it enough it will block your air intake. An effectively used chokepoint turns into a blocker and is the ideal situation as a defender. It is only when not having the means necessary that it turns to only slowing down the enemy and it is not what you seek as a defender. So nope, I won't google this as I already know that if my chokepoint won't hold it's that I don't inhibit enough. Slowing down is at least blocking a little. Showing me that more than 50% of the synonyms means blocking a little won't make that a 100% inhibition isn't blocking.

As far as the gameplay is involved, complaining that planetary FTL inhibitors are blockers is moot because they're not.

Or you could just, y'know, build more armies so you can assault the day after DoW.

Build armies, land armies, watch the clock. It's not that fun, ok, but requesting a FTL debuff instead of armies bliping at each other is basically the same as telling me watching a fleet perform a FTL windup is funnier. Balance is debatable, and this is precisely what we do by comparing it to the 3 FTL way for we feel one would roam too freely past the first battle, but if a planet is blocking you, it's because you don't invade it right away. The rest is coming down to the time it takes to take a planet or the time it would take to perform a jump under inhibition, which could very well be equal. The only difference is microing armies or not, and numbers' balance.

So yeah, nitpicking, because having to follow the hyperlane network doesn't allow the defender to set up an effective chokepoint more than it was possible under 3 FTL reign and their fortress rosettes, if you take out planetary inhibitors and don't replace them by a similarly hindering inhibition to the attacker.