How do you beat the AI's jump drive cheese?

[catnipaddict]

Whenever I decide to preempt the AI's declaration of war or let them declare their federation war against me, they just split into micro stacks and start instant teleporting into my sectors... I don't even know how they got from one edge of my empire to the other... The fact I can't even choose to research jump drive makes it even more frustrating. Static defenses are essentially crap since they just get obliterated and I cant exactly afford a 6-10 credit fortress in all 50 of my planets.

PS. the stuttering in this game coupled with this constant game of tag and UI simulator makes me want to quit

 

[Smertnik]

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.

 

[catnipaddict]

They aren't even able to win because my fleet can just stomp them but its just such a waste of time to play tag with them and the stuttering just lengthens the tedium. Rebuilding is another struggle in and of itself is a pain. Flipping through all those planets just to check which ones lost their starbases... Declaring war wasn't even my intention the AI just decided to do so despite having such a horrible fleet

 

[Smertnik]

They aren't even able to win because my fleet can just stomp them but its just such a waste of time to play tag with them and the stuttering just lengthens the tedium. Rebuilding is another struggle in and of itself is a pain. Flipping through all those planets just to check which ones lost their starbases... Declaring war wasn't even my intention the AI just decided to do so despite having such a horrible fleet

What stops you from hitting the enemy key worlds then?
Attack where the enemy must defend- and you negate mobility.

 

[Louella]

invade their home planets, or at least, put a large fleet in them. They'll usually retreat in order to defend them, and you can often catch them in a pincer movement.

Look as well, in your own systems, to see if there's any of their wormhole stations. If so, detail a fleet to clear those out.

 

[catnipaddict]

I already parked it there... they just decided to attack me instead. when they decided they did enough damage, they turn around and attack my fleet but by then... UI simulator kicks in

 

[Kagernaut]

invade their home planets, or at least, put a large fleet in them. They'll usually retreat in order to defend them, and you can often catch them in a pincer movement.

Look as well, in your own systems, to see if there's any of their wormhole stations. If so, detail a fleet to clear those out.

They don't. They just want to mess all your stations and avoid a big battle. Its super annoying.

This whole wormhole drive is ridiculous, it gives the AI the ability to strike wherever and whenever. Its ludicrous.

From now on, in all my games, I'm going to force ALL empires to use hyperspace drives, that way it will force them to use proper lanes of attack and deal with potential defenses, instead of running amok as they are want to do.

 

[-Marauder-]

Stellaris has two big problems. One is that it's almost impossible to bring a fleeing fleet to battle and even if you do, they'll usually emergency hyper out. So most of the time, there's zero reason to even try to do so.

The second one feeds right into the first. There's no reason to protect planets, stations or anything ever. Stations are dirt cheap and replaced in no time, planets are only "occupied" thus it doesn't matter in the slightest. Unlike in other games where you lose them the moment the enemies army marches in, it doesn't matter of they're there unless you lose the war entirely and even then you'll only lose a few of them at most anyway.

Thus the game turns into who can wreck stuff on the other side quicker to try and drive up war score. Imagine World War I, but instead of actually fighting each other both armies charge past one another to trash their respective home countries in a drunken binge. Then look who did more damage to decide who won. The winner gets a few border villages, then they'll wait for 10~ years to repeat it, rinse and repeat 20-30 more times.

That's where Stellaris is at right now. No it's not completely broken, unplayable or terrible but it does warrant some redoing. Especially when bigger empires fight the war demands need to scale.

 

[kazper]

They don't. They just want to mess all your stations and avoid a big battle. Its super annoying.

This whole wormhole drive is ridiculous, it gives the AI the ability to strike wherever and whenever. Its ludicrous.

From now on, in all my games, I'm going to force ALL empires to use hyperspace drives, that way it will force them to use proper lanes of attack and deal with potential defenses, instead of running amok as they are want to do.

Which is fine. That's why the option to force FTL type is there!

I'm happy about the diversity though so I guess we both get what we want.

 

[alpaca]

So what? I actually like that warfare in this game is refreshingly strategic even against AI opponents. In our history, defenses never were able to stop a determined enemy on their own (with the possible partial exception of the early modern US Civil War - WW1 era), they merely serve to create strongpoints the enemy must take or risk being harassed from behind. Thus, defenses serve more to delay an advance than stop it altogether. Similarly, if you have an inferior force, granting battle is just a waste of resources and lives. Many good generals instead decided to retreat their army and refused to join battle, unless they needed to, ahem, trim their forces somewhat for logistical reasons.

If you have a superior force, simply destroy their shipyards, occupy their planets and destroy their mines. In a war of attrition even the relatively low damage your defenses do will whittle the enemy away, and chances are, they will probably rush to defend their homeworld anyways. Defenses against an enemy with wormholes are fairly worthless, so just ignore them and focus on the offense. If you can manage to destroy their hole stations, their fleet will be stranded and you can easily pick it off. On the flip-side, if you use wormholes, you need to defend them or risk being stranded.

 

[Jinxsey]

Battleship - Hyperspace snare. Split up your doom stack, I run small fleets with 1 battleship a few cruisers and a metric ass-ton of DDs and Corvettes. When the enemy jumps your small fleet, mob him with all the other ones.

Increase the size of your mini-fleets as necessary to ensure your snare BB survives.

If your warp, this works near 100% of the time.

If your HS... eh, it's still good.

If your wormholes. Your battleship better be the tankiest tank who ever tanked, I play WH civs, so I actually have a crap ton of throw away defence plats with snares too (not forts). They arn't supposed to stop the enemy, just keep him in the center of the system (warp civs and WH civs have to reach the edge to get out, which gives me a chance to get a micro-fleet in there to delay him further).

If I'm fighting a HS civ, I sometimes just split my fleets up and go on the offensive. When he comes back to try to ambush me, -then- I get him.

 

[Held der Arbeit]

They need to make defense stations more viable.
Either cheaper so that you can build more of them, or - what I would prefer - much beefier, so they can actually tank an enemy for a while before the cavalry arrives

 

[Jinxsey]

No matter how tanky the station gets, it's always possible to build a fleet that vaporizes it. Don't rely on beating escalation, just use combat vessels to support your stations. Again, battleships with snares stationed near your platforms with escorts.

A fortress with a couple of battleships, and a crap ton of escorts will last long enough for you to respond. You can't cover too many systems, but it's a passive defensive strategy, if you want to turtle hard you -shouldn't- be able to do that and also attack with an unbeatable doomstack.

 

[Adrik Thorsen]

Ignore them, go crush their homeworld.

 

[catnipaddict]

the problem was never winning the war... its the tedious process of rebuilding and trying to rack up warscsore

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I like warfare in Stellaris. Lategame wormhole empires, especially those in federation or alliance are actually dangerous. So many "strategy" games have AI's that are a complete non-issue in warfare (looking at you Civ), it's refreshing to play a game where you look at your neighbor and go "hmmm, that guy could mess me up".

Even if he isn't stronger than you, the fact that the AI has that capability means it has a strategic deterrent. In fact, the AI is behaving exactly as it should - when you're outnumbered and out gunned, attack the flanks, demoralize the enemy, hit their supply lines.

Besides, if you truly are stronger than the wormhole AI, invade his capitol and maybe 1-2 other systems, done. War over, you win.

the problem was never winning the war... its the tedious process of rebuilding and trying to rack up warscsore

In the real world, that's called a deterrent. And it's a very good thing to have.

 

[Held der Arbeit]

No matter how tanky the station gets, it's always possible to build a fleet that vaporizes it. Don't rely on beating escalation, just use combat vessels to support your stations. Again, battleships with snares stationed near your platforms with escorts.

But if you force the enemy to send out a bigger fleet that can be a win in itself. For wormhole civs (which are usually the annoying ones and probably the "jump drive" that OP is talking about) this would mean much larger charge times (and thus slower movement) while also making it easier to defend your empire than if there were many angles of attack.

Splitting up your own fleet is risky because you have to know with how much stuff the enemy is going to attack or else he will kill your defensive fleets piecemeal. An option might be evasion corvette swarms which can tank people for a loooong time but that is not viable until you have the right tech and will also get nerfed hard, presumably

 

[Jinxsey]

But if you force the enemy to send out a bigger fleet that can be a win in itself. For wormhole civs (which are usually the annoying ones and probably the "jump drive" that OP is talking about) this would mean much larger charge times (and thus slower movement) while also making it easier to defend your empire than if there were many angles of attack.

Splitting up your own fleet is risky because you have to know with how much stuff the enemy is going to attack or else he will kill your defensive fleets piecemeal. An option might be evasion corvette swarms which can tank people for a loooong time but that is not viable until you have the right tech and will also get nerfed hard, presumably

That's just the risk you take going to war. It's a choice you make about how much to split your fleet up and where to put them. Get it right, you win. Get it wrong, you take losses.

 

[schedim]

I really LOOOOVE the three different FTL modes, it creates a much more dynamic 4X than any one I have tried before (and I have an ... addiction to 4X). Assymetrical movements are tricky and I guess there are a huge potential for really nasty exploits/bugs/whatever, but so far I have just a good feeling from that aspect of the game.

 

[catnipaddict]

jump drives are a later tech. the ones that are classified as dangerous