Can't win wars

[alaundo]

Hello there!

I played Stellaris way back when it was released. I finished a few games and then I took a hiatus until some new patches are released.

Now I'm back, and the enemy completely stomps me. I have expanded a little bit (about 10 planets colonized, 5 under my direct control and two sectors). For this, I integrated two primitive civilizations after uplifting them and defeated my direct neighbour to vassalize him and integrated him afterwards.

Now there are two neighbours that I simply cannot defeat. They are both militaristic and much stronger than me. For example, I tried a war with a low warscore (stop atrocities) to gauge their fleet power. Not only does he have a fleet much stronger and larger than my max (roughly 150 fleet capacity, whereas I am capped at slightly below 100) and has a vassal, also seemingly equal fleets get completely destroyed by him. I had a fight with 3.5k against 3.5k (almost my whole fleet) and had to flee after making a slight dent in his force. Then, he reinforced with another 3.5k. My federation colleagues did not send any ships to help me.

I tried the auto-best ship designs and tried to design them by my own, but both failed.

I'm quite confused. Do you have any tips for me? Do you need to know more?

I'm a fanatic individualist and materialistic empire of space foxes, btw

Thanks!

 

[Illyrien]

You can always go above the limit, as a fanatic individualist, energy should not be too much of a problem (run the planetary edict to help, if required).

Build space ports at all planets and fully upgrade them. Get techs aimed at spaceport upgrades and those +10% naval limit.

 

[Scourgeclaw]

ew individualist

anyway: what difficulty are you playing on?
Very often, the AI gets access to a bunch of free resources as a means of heightening the difficulty on the CPU-difficulties that aren't the "Normal" setting, which is why most people I know don't play on anything else.

 

[nfmarque]

Wow best ethos combination, you can blob the entire galaxy. Fanatic individualist is very op at the moment and a +10% happiness from materialistic government your set to rule the galaxy.
For easy win first stockpile resources then declare war. then scout with a corvette to check the composition of the enemy then tailor your ships to counter theirs.

If you can upload your save it would be great, I like to play scenarios.

 

[Miracle 007]

Sounds like to me your ship configuration are a bad matchup for whatever your enemy is using. I tend to go heavy shield configurations and they usually perform ok.

 

[alaundo]

You can always go above the limit, as a fanatic individualist, energy should not be too much of a problem (run the planetary edict to help, if required).

Build space ports at all planets and fully upgrade them. Get techs aimed at spaceport upgrades and those +10% naval limit.

I can do that, but I think I'd have to go completely nuts. The one empire next to has at least 150 fleet capacity, while I have about 100. My spaceports are upgraded as far as possible, although I'm not sure if that includes planets in my sectors.

ew individualist

anyway: what difficulty are you playing on?
Very often, the AI gets access to a bunch of free resources as a means of heightening the difficulty on the CPU-difficulties that aren't the "Normal" setting, which is why most people I know don't play on anything else.

It should be the easiest one, so normal.

Wow best ethos combination, you can blob the entire galaxy. Fanatic individualist is very op at the moment and a +10% happiness from materialistic government your set to rule the galaxy.
For easy win first stockpile resources then declare war. then scout with a corvette to check the composition of the enemy then tailor your ships to counter theirs.

If you can upload your save it would be great, I like to play scenarios.

I included my savegame, so if you (or anyone else, for that matter!) has some nice tops for me, go right ahead

Sounds like to me your ship configuration are a bad matchup for whatever your enemy is using. I tend to go heavy shield configurations and they usually perform ok.

Yeah, I think that might be a (the?) problem. Any more strategies you'd like to share? I'll definitely try heavier shields, although I believe I equipped the strongest ones I've researched.

 

[krios41]

and the enemy completely stomps me.

Just had the same proble.
For some reason RNGesus just hates me.
Whatever i do, i alway's get's squashed between 2-3 empires that for some reason grow 10x faster as i ever will be able too (and this is on normal)
Eventough advanced empires are turned off
clusters are off
I reduce the number of Empires so i have some breathing room

Worst part is, there never is a cleat indicater that tells me "you're fucked" so i end up wasting a lot of hours on a savefile trying to grow.
It just makes me wanna quit, it ain't fun. I tried crippeling their economie too but that seems to do jack shit

This, or i Roflestomp everyone and then it's no fun because there is no challlenge until the endgamecrisis comes wich then roflestomps me

 

[artemis667]

Biggest mistake I made recently was trying to fight an enemy, even though I had superior fleet power on paper, he was loaded out with torpedo corvettes and I had ignored point defense. Details in ship vs ship balance is important I find.

And yeah sometimes you just get screwed by the start in Stellaris but this isn't immediately apparent. I've gotten used to this, sometimes you can use diplomacy to help weave your way out of it and find an expansion outlet.

 

[nfmarque]

I can do that, but I think I'd have to go completely nuts. The one empire next to has at least 150 fleet capacity, while I have about 100. My spaceports are upgraded as far as possible, although I'm not sure if that includes planets in my sectors.


It should be the easiest one, so normal.


I included my savegame, so if you (or anyone else, for that matter!) has some nice tops for me, go right ahead


Yeah, I think that might be a (the?) problem. Any more strategies you'd like to share? I'll definitely try heavier shields, although I believe I equipped the strongest ones I've researched.

Thanks for the scenario.
On this save now the guy now is asking for a humiliate dunno if its good enough for you.
And btw .. your federation "friend" is really bad, doesn't help and doesn't trade for minerals...
I would ditch him and then annex it.

 

[quetzilla]

I find that Random empire placement (rather than Clustered) makes the early game a lot more manageable.

 

[The Founder]

Now I'm back, and the enemy completely stomps me. I have expanded a little bit (about 10 planets colonized, 5 under my direct control and two sectors). For this, I integrated two primitive civilizations after uplifting them and defeated my direct neighbour to vassalize him and integrated him afterwards.

Now there are two neighbours that I simply cannot defeat. They are both militaristic and much stronger than me. For example, I tried a war with a low warscore (stop atrocities) to gauge their fleet power. Not only does he have a fleet much stronger and larger than my max (roughly 150 fleet capacity, whereas I am capped at slightly below 100) and has a vassal, also seemingly equal fleets get completely destroyed by him. I had a fight with 3.5k against 3.5k (almost my whole fleet) and had to flee after making a slight dent in his force. Then, he reinforced with another 3.5k. My federation colleagues did not send any ships to help me.

The AI is massively subsidized as far as Maintenance is concerned, so it can go over the limit a lot easier then us humans. To make it worse, your vassals and federation friends loose that "AI bonus".
I too think that this bonus might be way too much especially on lower difficulties.

Militarist have a few advantages:
* They get a massive bonus to Weapon Damage
* No War happiness penalty
* better weights on all weapon and military tech
* from thier AI personalities a tendency towards Kinetic weapons, wich are somewhat OP right now.


You have to mark your Fleet as "taking point", in order to get allies to join you. And even then the AI might ignore it.
If you got presidency, make sure the Federation Fleet is capped. It costs 0 maintenance so prefer building fed ships over your own ones of equal cost. However best leave the design to the AI, unless you can actively control it that moment.
There is also a minor bug that ownership is not properly transfered to the player - the previous AI keeps able to order the fleet. Solution: New Fleet, Transfer all.

 

[alaundo]

OK, so the consensus seems to be increasing my fleet even beyond the fleet capacity and to make use of the federation fleet. I still don't really know how to design my ships properly though... Anyone else got any tips? Feel free to load up my savegame and and critique my gameplay

 

[The Founder]

OK, so the consensus seems to be increasing my fleet even beyond the fleet capacity and to make use of the federation fleet. I still don't really know how to design my ships properly though... Anyone else got any tips? Feel free to load up my savegame and and critique my gameplay

Kinetic are OP in the early game, but later you want to go energy (Crusier and above armor values get high). So OP, just your spaceport is valued 400 combat power higher just for having kinetics.

AI will almost always gravitate towards plasma/disruptor combo. But shield regen can screw with that as the targetting keeps spreading Anti-shield fire between eligible targets always leaving the shields to catch a lot of plasma.
Point defense is only needed if you know the enemy uses missiles (many pacifist AI types) or it is a event enemy (Fallen Empires, some Leviathans).

 

[Blackplant]

I take it both enemies are advanced starts. Otherwise you are developing extremely slow in building your empire. As a strategy I recommend spamming corvettes if teh enemy doesn't ahve cruisers already.

 

[terrycloth]

Also, early game spam starter corvettes unless you're already at the fleet cap. Tech upgrades aren't worth it in mineral cost.

 

[alaundo]

Both enemies have cruisers at their disposal. I'm also able to build them - I tried it and they got completely destroyed. A typical fleet of my northern enemy consists of 60 corvettes, 30 destroyers and maybe 6 or 7 cruisers, so that is way more than my fleet capacity permits...

 

[Blackplant]

Alright, then I suggest massive corvette spam and every fourth or fifth of your corvettes should have torpedoes and autocannons. The rest of your corvette should have kinetic weaponry.

 

[krios41]

Just tried with more empires
my toughts where that if tehre were many litle empire, it'd be easier to pick them off that way
ooh, how wrong was i. Everything just get's locked in a mess of defensive pacts and federations.
Ofcourse, baiting the people into attacking you so they don't get to have the defensive pact benefit doesn't work since no one will ever declare war on you unles you're tiny or already in a war that you're losing.
THat's it, i'm done with it. No more stellaris until next update for me, it jsut isn't fun anymore

 

[Almond_Brown]

I can do that, but I think I'd have to go completely nuts. The one empire next to has at least 150 fleet capacity, while I have about 100. My spaceports are upgraded as far as possible, although I'm not sure if that includes planets in my sectors.

snip

You can add/build modules to Space Ports inside of Sectors "without" removing them from the Sectors. Hit F5, click beside(in empty space) the Manage Sector button (this expands the list of planets in that Sector) then select a planet icon and off you go to build and or upgrade to more Modules.

 

[alaundo]

Thanks for the tips, I'll try the corvette spam them - wish me luck.