Forget about Doomstacks. They arent the real problem.

[Wyrm]

I still maintain that really strong minefields would at least give another layer of the game. And simply sending 1 corvette as one suggests wont take out a whole field. And if you have to sacrifice a sizeable fleet of corvettes its already done something to help you and if you have to do this to destroy every fort or conquer every planet than thats a huge step in the direction of slowing down the enemy.

The lone corvette thing was not to disable the minefield but rather to locate it in order to keep the main fleet away from it

 

[Arkona]

I think the spaceport strategy works well enough against an AI since they often don't know how to retake their planets, but for a player they might end up responding by splitting up their own fleet to take down your smaller fleets. When I'm in a war I usually try and divide my fleets to conquer a lot of planets quickly.

But I think ultimately the doomstack will have to be limited in potential (not eliminated completely, but nerfed in such a way that it's suitable only for major space battles). Quite honestly, I think that the biggest issue with doomstacks is how quickly battles can be decided between two uneven fleets, when surely a massive devastating space conflict would end with major losses for both sides. Maybe addressing that would be a good start.

Actually the spaceport strategy should work even better against human players because most/many people keep their fleets running at a break even limit and have low amounts of energy and minerals in storage. A human player can get his empire's economy wrecked if you destroy ten of his spaceports in a short time, the penalties will be massive. Unfortunately, I can control only two-three fleets in real-time, anything more than that and the game turns into a Starcraft-like click fest.

On a different note, I've noticed that when I go to war the economy of my favorite empire (militaristic science directorate) can come to a crawl because the revolting xenos almost immediately become unhappy and stop working. This could be adapted to be an effective attrition method. So, maybe, Paradox only needs to tweak the economy and ship expenses during wartimes just a bit to make doomstacks unfeasible in the long run. It would not be possible to chase down the enemy fleet with all of your ships in an attempt to wipe them off the face of the map, if you do that for too long you risk weakening your empire and exposing it to other galactic dangers. I think this is the problem with space warfare in Stellaris, warfare is extremely expensive in real life in terms of political capital, human life, money and resources, while in the game you can go on for as much as you want as long as you can crunch enough mineral and energy credits.

 

[TheBromgrev]

DAMMIT I was just on that part last night. Didn't expect to get minor spoilers on these forums haha. No fault of your own though, no worries. Great series so far.

I figured that people reading that would either have seen it already, or wouldn't get the exact reference but understand the idea. Great show, one of my favorites. I'm glad it's getting a redo.

But yeah, the game seriously needs some kind of supply or attrition system. If planets can't export surplus food to other planets, then why can ships crewed by organics travel across the galaxy without some sort of supply network?

 

[Jyanix]

One response gave me an idea and so I skipped to the end to reply...hopefully it didn't get covered already!

What if you had to assign ships to a "naval sector" to patrol and show presence. This could be tied in to "assumed strength" of an empire. The greater the amount of fleet assigned to sectors or multiple sectors would show strength to various neighbours...or show trust to allies. You would need to maintain patrol strength to avoid piracy or some such malus in your space but would limit how much you could assemble to actually go to war.

Add in some tinkering required with supply lines and that would perhaps create a greater depth to fleet requirements and war.

Could you doomstack your whole fleet to crush someone?

Yes...though you would then take penalties to your economy and happiness as reduced stability at home allow piracy to thrive.

Would you show perceived weakness to another neighbour as you redirect fleet strength from his border to a combat fleet to face an enemy? Yes.

Could you strike a balance between security at home economically and diplomatically while still striking at your foe? But of course!

Even on defense you could still have to balance between ships assigned to routine security and the ones repelling the giant space monsters.

Any of this sound like an idea?

Ultimately you could still doomstack but you would have to weigh the consequences of truly putting all your eggs in one basket. Drawn out conflicts perhaps with upgraded fortresses would help repel smaller fleets. Losses would require someone to pull more ships out of patrols...hurting him at home while production churns out more ships.

Anywho that's my ramble and thoughts.

 

[gomurr]

Like your ideas, Jyanix, though micromanagement and handing fleet control to AI becomes a bit of a concern. But it at least gives a reason to have your fleets non-doomstacked before war and consequences for doomstacking during war. I don't know that it would be enough to deter doomstacking as the strategically superior move in all cases, though, or that the AI could properly weigh the subtle consequences of showing weakness at the border.

Seems that the problem of the doomstack is correctly diagnosed here - that wars start and end in a single battle. Seems that taking a page from CK2 and EU4's playbooks might solve that.
There needs to be a "Disengagement Doctrine" policy that behaves similar to breaking morale in those games. After all, why in a game with a core premise that the leader of a government can't simply control everything do we have control over a retreat button in battle?

We should set a general policy on how much damage a ship should accept in battle before disengaging by attempting an Emergency FTL. Like 30% HP, 20% HP, 10% HP or "To The Bitter End". When ships hit that point, or when total fleet loss hits that point, they E-FTL to a rally point (Each Fleet should have a mandatory rally point, set to default as their last point of orbit or something but manually changeable). As each ship jumps, it's determined whether its damage prevented its safe retreat just like in any other emergency FTL. So there will still be some losses - but a losing battle will generally result in a reduced fleet regrouping at a predetermined location, where you can then retreat further, repair, etc... So, just like armies retreating in CK2 and EU4 for several provinces and then regrouping to continue the war, fleets would be able to recover and resume the war effort. Could have admiral variables effecting things too - some admirals trait to reduce losses during E-FTLs, a stubborn "hard as nails" trait to cause ships to stay longer than the Disengagement Policy point, or a "lily-livered" trait causing retreat earlier than the policy point, etc...

Other idea on this topic would be to make the occupation of systems and destruction of bases or bombardment of planets much more significant in warscore, so that having multiple fleets occupying multiple enemy systems, while more vulnerable to a mass counterattack, could viably result in enough warscore to win the war without destroying the enemy fleet. The effectiveness of this strategy could also vary depending upon the enemy traits and ethos - the millitaristic ethos, or the some trait or other, could make a species more resistant to occupation, and therefore occupation of systems would have a reduced warscore against them.

 

[mangalore]

Not really. If an alien force warped in, decimated a civ's fleet/defenses, and said 'submit or die' and they submitted, then the invaders warped away, im pretty sure the civ wouldn't consider themselves 'free' by any means. In galactic terms, the invaders are basically 'in the next room', and could return at any moment.

The invader ceases to exact any direct control over the system. What you say only matters if they return. For all intents and purposes in absence of an occupation fleet (which would be a nice target for a counter attack) the system returns to its former political entity as there is none there to force anyone to do anything. Heck, lethal threats like you propose would be nice ethical flavors of a civilization that could change the cooldown phase at which point a planet considers the absence of an aggressor fleet safe enough to go against their demands.

The point was: In space the only actual military arm should be the fleet because only spaceships are useful for enacting control over the battlespace (which is space) and planets are as good as static targets with no means to evade weaponry designed to inflict damage equivalent to any nuclear holocaust scenario imaginable and anything worthwhile on a planet to a space age civilization that needs controlling would be a space age economy, not some farmers in the hinterland growing crops.

@Jyanix: I had a similar idea tied to an empire's border influence aka control over space in its regions.
Showing the flag missions were a vital aspect of peacetime navies by European nations who were vying for control over the global traderoutes and in a similar vein land militaries in border regions were vital to show the strength and determination of an empire to control that area and the absence of those forces could spell the end of control or at least a messy colonial war once the empire tried to reestablish control. Until then people were happy to cut down on taxes or not send resources to the empire.

 

[Ixal]

How about as a quick solution until something better can be figured out change the combat system so that ships do not fight until destroyed but retreat individually (when exactly can be set by policy sliders). The chance of escape is modified by leader, tech and maybe traits.
That way recovering from a lost battle is easier as ships do not have to be completely rebuild but only repaired. Then we only need to strengthen fortresses a bit and the defender can have a chance of a comeback as long as they weaken the attacker enough so that he can't engage fortresses and space ports.

But for a complete solution there must imo be a supply system and raiding/piracy so that doomstacking becomes impractical (eat too much supply when you use them for overkill) and gives smaller fleets a purpose to really influence the war.

Or use a supply system to slow down attacker. Sure, they can go deep into enemy territory but then supply lines get cut and the fleet is in trouble (unless they carry enough supplies with them). To penetrate deeper they need to conquer planets to use as supply bases which gives the defender time to rebuild.