Blockage spamming = fast & easy win

[krios41]

A minimum duration on wars would alleviate this...

it already has, sorta.
ever noticed the (somethimes up to -50) duration of war penalty?
I like that a lot when i'm in a defensive war but when i'm in an offensive war boi oh boi do i hate it. sitting there on 80 warscore and not being able to push your demands because you need like 1 more warscore... realy anoying

 

[ColZimin]

ever noticed the (somethimes up to -50) duration of war penalty?

That only affects the acceptance of a white peace, though. Does nothing to the warscore a.k.a. actually fulfilling your demands, unless all you want is peace.
Or am I wrong? I know that the "Negotiate Peace" button can't achieve anything more than white peace, but does the acceptance value actually affect how the enemy is affected by warscore, or something?

 

[Wizzington]

Blockade warscore is gone in 1.5. Instead wargoal planets give significantly more warscore to occupy.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

:thumbsup:

welp, problem solved.

praise QAQATL

 

[Kilian.K]

Blockade warscore is gone in 1.5. Instead wargoal planets give significantly more warscore to occupy.

I knew it was something that could be fixed quickly. But you even surpassed my expectations.

 

[Crissa]

It's mostly that the AI doesn't respond to fleet movements and 'forgets' where it left its fleet.

Other than than, blockading all the planets should basically kneecap an empire, even with an expensive fleet - as they say, in the modern world, there's only a few days of food in any city. If you suddenly blockaded every city, the people could surrender before far-flung troops could wrest control back - even if they had the power to do so.

This is how Blitzkrieg worked: Move forces to occupy quickly, before all the enemy troops could be massed.

 

[AvalancheZ250]

but how do you suggest to fix it? i barely see the problem here at all.

it's not Civilization where AI can come to you and say "hey! you have a lot of army units near my cities...you want to declare war?" (with a heavy diplomatic penalty if you lie)

you described the perfect tactics: get info. ready your fleets. surprise attack from all directions at once. profit.
(if you add wormholes to the mix you can even end it in no time, before enemy will even be able to react)

The problem is, that this tactic avoids any confrontation with the main fleet of the enemy. This is neither realistic nor well balanced.
It is not realistic, since the political pressure generated by a enemy blockage would not be instantly. It would take time, until a blockage becomes a problem.

This would also be the first suggestion to resolve this. One should get the warscore for blocking a planet only after an appropriate time. A time which should be enough for the enemy to attack the blockages. So that you can't get away with attacking enemies which have a far superior navy than you because you can't hold the blockage for long enough.

What the OP is trying to say is that all AI personalities will surrender if you mass blockade their outer planets, while not all empires realistically would do that. Its too much of a boolean:

If war score >= x , then Surrender

No matter how that warscore is achieved. Now there are some empires that might realistically do this, but for immersion sake a lot of empires won't and will at least attempt to lift the blockade on those planets. Blockades provide warscore as long as they are held, which I think is kind of a poor way to do it because just moving the fleet away removes said warscore. Its far too temporary, and should be tweaked.

 

[AvalancheZ250]

but....it's useless to you. yes you won the war. but they still will have that 1m fleet. and to wipe whole empire you'll need to capture capital world too. or you will not have enought points to win by score. and in 10 years with 1m fleet will come and kill you.

unless you're fighting federation. then yeah. i's a bit cheesy strategy. but war vs federations is broken anyway

Not really. Wars = land grab. Grab some good worlds and you can easily turn the tables in a 10 year truce. Do it repeatedly for about a century and you can turn any situation around,

 

[AvalancheZ250]

It's mostly that the AI doesn't respond to fleet movements and 'forgets' where it left its fleet.

Other than than, blockading all the planets should basically kneecap an empire, even with an expensive fleet - as they say, in the modern world, there's only a few days of food in any city. If you suddenly blockaded every city, the people could surrender before far-flung troops could wrest control back - even if they had the power to do so.

This is how Blitzkrieg worked: Move forces to occupy quickly, before all the enemy troops could be massed.

Yeah, but a lot of army units at least attempted to lift the blockades. If the AI sees the warscore above a certain level for a certain period of time, it surrenders. It doesn't take into account that lifting a blockade is as easy as engaging the blockading fleet and then running away.

 

[Slynx]

Blockade warscore is gone in 1.5

wooohoooo! does it mean we will now be able to bombard planets eternally? if yes - it's the best news about Utopia i've heard!

or there will be changes to bombardment too?

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, but a lot of army units at least attempted to lift the blockades. If the AI sees the warscore above a certain level for a certain period of time, it surrenders. It doesn't take into account that lifting a blockade is as easy as engaging the blockading fleet and then running away.

Certainly, the instant win is a problem.

Taking away the warscore totally means blockades are almost (but not quite) useless. They still hamstring the empire's ability to have economics. Heck, just losing space superiority in some amount of space should count.

We need other ways of winning other than ball of doom. Hit and run should definitely be worth something, but it's not. So I replaced it with blockades in my games... But clearly the AI has problems setting out defenses.

Blockades and hit and run should have some economic damage - losing (at least temporarily) some portion of stockpiled resources - and perhaps a ticking warscore that eventually comes up to an amount equal to what it is now (not an infinite number), but takes months or years of sitting around to do it.

 

[Drowe]

Taking away the warscore totally means blockades are almost (but not quite) useless. They still hamstring the empire's ability to have economics. Heck, just losing space superiority in some amount of space should count.

We need other ways of winning other than ball of doom. Hit and run should definitely be worth something, but it's not. So I replaced it with blockades in my games... But clearly the AI has problems setting out defenses.

Blockades and hit and run should have some economic damage - losing (at least temporarily) some portion of stockpiled resources - and perhaps a ticking warscore that eventually comes up to an amount equal to what it is now (not an infinite number), but takes months or years of sitting around to do it.

I think with an economy and trade expansion, some of this may be solved. I expect there will be an expansion for this aspect eventually. Hit and runs sound like it would make sense too, but this could turn into a lot of micro. It could be introduced as an attrition mechanic while in hostile territory and bound to techs and policies. Maybe reducing your fleet captain by X% in exchange for inflicting attrition on hostile fleets.

 

[TempusxX]

now just need to fix the doomstack problem that people have been complaining about for a very long time

 

[Dalinski]

What is hilarious about this thread is that it complete discounts (puts to shame) a Doomstack course of action.

 

[Razzlie]

What is hilarious about this thread is that it complete discounts (puts to shame) a Doomstack course of action.

If you think about it, OP came up with a way to fix the doomstack problem. (by creating an even worse problem!)

 

[Me_]

Blockade warscore is gone in 1.5. Instead wargoal planets give significantly more warscore to occupy.

This is a welcome change. I think there could be some sort of economic wargoals that would provide warscore from blocades, but it would require a little more complex economy.

 

[Slynx]

finally you'll be able to destroy Ai completely in just 1 war (probably won't work on humans, cuz they would be able to surrender at any moment)
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Orbital_bombardment
or at least completely paralyze him: destroy his fleet. destroy every space port and mining station. leave few ships per planet bombarding. return to your own stuff.(pops can't work, all buildings will eventually be destroyed, pops will be killed)

but at least there will be no free happiness cheese, cuz if the info is correct - they've removed happiness during war from militarists.

 

[domein]

Wonder how that change plays for awakened empire wars, do they still commit mass suicide when you occupy some of their vassal worlds?

Blockade warscore is gone in 1.5. Instead wargoal planets give significantly more warscore to occupy.

 

[Insane Commander]

What the OP is trying to say is that all AI personalities will surrender if you mass blockade their outer planets, while not all empires realistically would do that. Its too much of a boolean:

I used this tactic on my first game and forced a Xenophobe AE to surrender when I blockaded the planets it conquered. This makes no sense. Why would they give their core systems if I threatened a few xeno scum worlds?

The change in Banks will be very nice, but if we can still do this using armies to conquer the planets, then I suggest changing how each type of AI reacts to it.

but....it's useless to you. yes you won the war. but they still will have that 1m fleet. and to wipe whole empire you'll need to capture capital world too. or you will not have enought points to win by score. and in 10 years with 1m fleet will come and kill you.

unless you're fighting federation. then yeah. i's a bit cheesy strategy. but war vs federations is broken anyway

Just have your fleets ready before the truce ends. Attack immediately. On my second game I defeated the AE that was part of a Federation repeating this strategy. And as they lost planets, their fleets got smaller, until they were gone. I never fought against his doomstacks.

 

[Secret Master]

Let's all keep in mind that blockades will have an economic impact in Utopia.

Blockade the food planets and watch the opposing empire starve. Might want to break up those doomstacks at least a bit to deal with the problem if one corvette counts as a blockade.