Has The Great Khan ever been a threat?

[Fenris_SE]

Pretty much the title. In all my games I can remember exactly one time when they were a threat. They were on my border at the start of the game and a Great Khan emerged, I built up a star base and put all my fleets there thinking I could stop them. They brought everyone lol. After a short fight my fleet was destroyed and I submitted. After what felt like a short time the Great Khan died due to health reasons and I was free again.

But every other time they somehow piss off a Fallen Empire and get swatted. So much so, that if they are near a Fallen Empire I don't even worry about them because I know they will just suicide against one. This time their capital planet was one jump away from a Fallen Empire and one jump away from the Ether Drake, so it's possible the Ether Drake did it this time. I don't know if that's possible (don't know if they will go after leviathans) and feel like with their whole fleet they would have won. So I'm assuming they went after the Fallen Empire ...... again.

If it's not just me, I really feel like the Great Khan needs to have some programing in place to not go after Fallen Empires.

 

[Blackadder23]

I have 3000 hours and around 20 games of Stellaris. I have seen the Khan run afoul of a Fallen Empire exactly once, when I deliberately lured the Khan's fleets next to a Fallen Empire with my own fleets. Every other time, the Khan was a threat to the galaxy at large, if not necessarily to me. In fact, the Khan became such a nuisance in my games that I now destroy all the marauders as early as possible, if I can reach them. I guess that just shows how differently the game can be experienced by different players...

 

[LayZboy]

If you set the mid-game as low as possible (2225) and the khan gets a early spawn they can be a threat. Other than that not really.
They can also be a bit more threatening on full hyperlanes, as they get many decent powered fleets that spread all over the place.

 

[evilcat]

Awaken Khan could be a threat or nuisance. Especiallially if they can attack you on two remote hyperlanes, so juggling two areas could be annoying.
Submiting and waiting for dead Khan is one option.
Other option is to wait till midgame, hire the pirate fleet (all of them) and attack marauders (destroye them). You can beat Marauders with their own fleet, that is funny.

My bigger problem: when your ally keeps colonizing sacred world of FE, so everyone is under FE attack over and over again.

 

[BakedPotato]

Lower your mid-game start year and increase the tech/tradition cost slider. I used to do this before Lem and it resulted in some wild Khan empires, sometimes three of them, after the Khan's death.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Early or unlucky spawned Khans can be real problems.

I have seen him suicide into fallen empires but do far he was never outright killed. Maybe getting killed once but not twice in a row.

 

[Werewyvern]

To start I mostly play with mods.

That said, in both vanilla games and modded games, in my experience, the Great Khan is only a challenge for players that haven't found their "groove" in Stellaris, or players that are trying something outside their bread and butter play style.

What I mean by this is that in a single player game, players who know what the're going for and understand how to optimize all their choices to get their empire to the desired state quickly can do so in the game's current iteration quick enough that the Great Khan should almost never be a problem for them. Whichever play style is chosen, 3.1+ allows most builds to build up their empire fast enough that the Great Khan's fleets won't be that threatening when they finally appear.

Unlike with end-game Crisis events, the Great Khan doesn't seem to become more challenging on higher difficulties. Like others have said, setting your mid-game to trigger earlier, while not raising the capability of the Great Khan, does mean your galaxy might not be as prepared.

When the Great Khan does appear in my games, modded or vanilla, they usually take out 1 or 2, maybe 3 weak AI empires, then they run into the wall that is my Empire, a Fallen Empire, an Advanced AI Start Empire, or an AI Empire the got some early conquests in and snowballed a little. This has resulted in some pretty large Khanates every now and then.

All in all, like most of the challenges in Stellaris, I feel that the Great Khan is not that challenging once a player knows how to build their empire quickly, whichever style they choose to use. Unlike endgame crises which have their own independent difficulty modifier, the Great Khan is limited in capability by the overall game difficulty, and, again, in my opinion, doesn't seem to benefit from higher difficulties too much.

All that being said, I love the fluff of the Great Khan. I love how when defeated, the Horde usually splinters into smaller, often ineffective, Khanates. The event itself holds immense entertainment for me. I don't necessarily think it needs to be much stronger, as I don't think most players need a crisis level even in the mid-game, but I do think it would be neat if the Great Khan had a separate difficulty slider. Perhaps there could even be a setting to pick from similar to other games such as "Raging Barbarians" or something similar, which raises the power level of Marauder Empires in general, and would result in a more challenging Great Khan.

 

[Archon87]

Well I don't think the Khan was ever meant to be a real existential crisis to the whole galaxy, not the way the grey tempest or awakened empires or end-game crises are. The Khan is meant to shake up the politics and the way the map looks in the mid-game. Sometimes they can be very successful at that, other times they barely spawn before being killed. Most of it comes down to two things: where they spawn, and player intervention. Spawn location can mean the difference between getting to snowball by nomming on weak empires for a long time before anyone face them, and getting swatted immediately by the player or occasionally a fallen empire or leviathan. And of course, if the player takes a "watch the galaxy burn" approach and only defends their own borders from the khan, they can be quite successful, as the AI is typically not good at fighting them unless they spawn really late.

But since the Khan doesn't just kill everyone and salt the soil (unlike some real life Khans I could name), but allows submission, everyone except genocidals can simply wait him out through submission. So he becomes more of a temporary nuisance than a threat, kind of like that space storm event.

 

[-Marauder-]

Unless the Khan spawns at the end of the midgame, he does just fine against AIs even on Grand Admiral. Main problem I've seen is that he suffers from the same problem the Unbidden used to suffer from. His construction ships and fleets keep going back and forth across his entire empire.

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

Khan is not supposed to be game ending threat. It's a role for galactic crisis. I never was defeated by Khan directly but I remember he did indirect harm by distracting me during war against another empires.

 

[Azhcristokos]

I've definitely seen the Khan spawn early enough to run roughshod over the AI, and once I made the mistake of not building up quickly enough to stop his/her fleets. But usually s/he dies too early to really screw up the galaxy. But the Khan is supposed to die; the marauders are not supposed to conquer the galaxy, just as Atilla did not conquer the Roman Empire. The Khan's role is to shake up the galaxy.

 

[-Marauder-]

I've definitely seen the Khan spawn early enough to run roughshod over the AI, and once I made the mistake of not building up quickly enough to stop his/her fleets. But usually s/he dies too early to really screw up the galaxy. But the Khan is supposed to die; the marauders are not supposed to conquer the galaxy, just as Atilla did not conquer the Roman Empire. The Khan's role is to shake up the galaxy.

Khan dying too early is a bit of a problem though. Because his fleets spend too much time going back and forth inside his empire rather than expand in one direction.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

It can be.
Now if you are a good player and don't get anything hindering you too much, you will usually be able to obliterate them. But for an average player the Khan can still be threatening.
Part of the equation however is tech progress and Khan spawn year. He can spawn of his own as soon as the midgame date is reached, but I've had him spawn in 2393 once, at which point he wasn't long for the galaxy.
Depending how the Khan spawns and especially if he can subjugate an empire or two he can get a surprising amount of fleet power to bear on a relatively small front, or putter out.
Also part of the issue is that it uses the usual omnisicent war AI which means if his target is dangerous enough he'll rerout all the time to find the unguarded route, and as the AI empires fleet moves his route changes back, leading to him going back and forth with no progress.

He might be affected by the crisis strength slider, so you can always up that one.

 

[Fenris_SE]

I suppose I didn't word the question correctly. It's not so much me having a problem with the Great Khan, I did in one game, but feeling as though I was in a "safe" spot was trying to tech rush and didn't have much of a fleet. It was also the first time I had marauders in the game so didn't know what to expect. With a choke point, upgraded fortress, a fleet, Unyielding (if you chose that), plus the other many ways of upgrading fortresses now days I don't really see the Khan ever being much of a threat to the player.

The real question, which I obviously didn't word well lol, was does the Great Khan always get destroyed by Fallen Empires? So yeah, I could change the midgame year, but that wont effect the Fallen Empires (which I wouldn't want anyway). The Khan for whatever reason will piss them off and get swatted, then not learning his lesson will do it a second time. I see some have said they rarely or never see the Khan get killed by an FE, but in my games it's closer to 99% of the time. If the Khan would just go in the other direction then they could easily snowball, which would be great to see.

But, maybe I've just had bad RNG with games deciding the Khan would piss off a Fallen Empire. But it has happened so often it's hard for me to believe it's random. I often see AI Empires piss off the Fallen Empires when there is no more space for them to expand and they start claiming FE territory. I just wish the Khans in my games would see the Fallen Empires as a last resort.

 

[Werewyvern]

I know the Great Khan was destroyed by a Fallen Empire in one of my games. Outside of the one instance I can remember (I was like, "Whoa, I didn't think the Great Khan would be dumb enough to try that") I don't recall any other times it's happened. In the one I can remember, it was the second time they were defeated.

 

[Azhcristokos]

The real question, which I obviously didn't word well lol, was does the Great Khan always get destroyed by Fallen Empires?

Obviously some players have seen this happen, but I never have. The Great Khan in my games usually dies to the assassination event or is defeated by one of the top AI empires.

 

[evilcat]

I think there could be a case that AI does not respect FE somehow.
Maybe due to spying mechanic AI has no information about FE at all, and it does recognise FE as it, thinking it is another minor, and there is no code to remember this is FE.

 

[legionof1]

I think there could be a case that AI does not respect FE somehow.
Maybe due to spying mechanic AI has no information about FE at all, and it does recognise FE as it, thinking it is another minor, and there is no code to remember this is FE.

Sound like the usual AI problems. We already know they war dec based on shoddy intel being treated as a null value rather then a negative like any rational being should. And not just once, but over and over again until something fixes the 20 additional base intel(to see relative fleet power) deficiency.

Ommnsicent in war routeing, but utterly blind otherwise. Just Normal stellaris things

 

[Jaxck]

Pretty much the title. In all my games I can remember exactly one time when they were a threat. They were on my border at the start of the game and a Great Khan emerged, I built up a star base and put all my fleets there thinking I could stop them. They brought everyone lol. After a short fight my fleet was destroyed and I submitted. After what felt like a short time the Great Khan died due to health reasons and I was free again.

But every other time they somehow piss off a Fallen Empire and get swatted. So much so, that if they are near a Fallen Empire I don't even worry about them because I know they will just suicide against one. This time their capital planet was one jump away from a Fallen Empire and one jump away from the Ether Drake, so it's possible the Ether Drake did it this time. I don't know if that's possible (don't know if they will go after leviathans) and feel like with their whole fleet they would have won. So I'm assuming they went after the Fallen Empire ...... again.

If it's not just me, I really feel like the Great Khan needs to have some programing in place to not go after Fallen Empires.

Clearly you play on Ensign not Grand Admiral. Even with vanilla's shite AI the Khan is an overwhelming threat.

 

[Fenris_SE]

Clearly you play on Ensign not Grand Admiral. Even with vanilla's shite AI the Khan is an overwhelming threat.

Usually Captain or Commodore. Good to hear that the Khan can take on Fallen Empires at higher levels without dying ...... or you didn't bother to read the posts before responding .........