How should war be made more complex?

[scaper12123]

I'm curious what everyone's thought are on the issue of war. It's honestly too generic and straightforward right now, a game of "I want these planets let's march out there and invade those planets so we can take those planets," when surely a war is a matter of many different goals and aspirations with many ways of obtaining them.

The biggest thing I think the devs should do is add in more targets to attack/defend during war. Stuff like shipyards, huge buffs for frontier outposts and special stations for strategic resources, static defenses that actually contribute more to a war than just being a temporary and weak roadblock.

 

[Kamakaze Panda]

More infrastructure, more internal stuff, each of your planets should really act differently when under siege/bombardment, depending on the enemy I think some planets should surrender to enemy forces rather than waiting to be bombed into oblivion and this should be beyond your control. Though it further diminishes ground combat, which tbh I don't mind.

Slower FTL times would also work better for me, as well as giving you a reason to split up fleets and patrol your own space.

Having individual battles be less decisive is also a big one for me, your fleets should be able to disengage easier and lose less ships, the AI should be this as well. Reducing overall ships numbers makes individual ships more valuable and gives more of an edge to better designed ships and better tech. Currently numbers beat technology.

I think just giving the player and ai more options to work with will help. The problem is that there's no reason not to doomstack, you may as well reduce your losses by using overwhelming force against a smaller fleet, and this is a perfectly reasonable and useful tactic in game. The problem is there's very little reason to not use it. If for example you are forced to dedicate more resources to multiple theatres then this could be fixed, but the currently war mechanics are too shallow imo, for this to be a possibility. Not that I currently mind that much as I tend to focus on expansion a lot more.

 

[Digrus]

Navy Improvement:
- More power to technologies: Right now, If I'm playing wide, I only need to unlock new ships. The tech bonuses are simply too small: a 50k mineral LV1 fleet will totally rekt a 50k mineral LV3 fleet (it's simply more efficient to spawn dozen of low level ships instead of few high level ones).
-Engine improvement: even when my fleet is small (60k) I still notice little lag problems after 150 years in the game (and they get worse and worse, no matter what). I never managed to finish a 1000 star galaxy game for this reason.
-Fleet Tactics: giving admirals specific bonus for specific battle tactics would be nice. Choosing a doctrine ( "Swarm" , "abysmal range" , "concentrate fire") like HOI4 and implementing it by using battle experience would be awesome (A militaristic empire that ravaged the galaxy for decades and a pacifistic empire that don't even have a word for "war" shall not have the same battle potential)

Military Improvement
--Manpower: Right now military fleet are just an "addiction" to your fleet. But if a ship can fly and fight with few people on board (and losing it would be more an economic inconvenience than a military defeat) you cannot easily replace millions of soldiers (If we consider a pop to be at least 1 billion, 1 military unit should be at least few million). By introducing manpower you'll have to carefully decide wich planets are worth that sacrifice.
Manpower is determined by:
-total popolation (1 unit every 3 pop)
-pop ethos (1 per 1 military pop , -1 per 2 pacifistic pop)
-cloning an droid factories will allow you to ignore this limit (and finally giving a sense to these technologies)
By giving a 1000 HP to every unit, a 30 Manpower base will become a 30000 HP pool. If my 12 units lose 3400 HP in total, my HP pool will go to 26600 (and I'll need some time to replenish it)

 

[Fourthspartan56]

More power to technologies: Right now, If I'm playing wide, I only need to unlock new ships. The tech bonuses are simply too small: a 50k mineral LV1 fleet will totally rekt a 50k mineral LV3 fleet (it's simply more efficient to spawn dozen of low level ships instead of few high level ones).

I agree that making technology more different would help the game but there is the risk of making technology too powerful like in other 4X games where it's the end all be all. That would be unfortunate IMO.

Engine improvement: even when my fleet is small (60k) I still notice little lag problems after 150 years in the game (and they get worse and worse, no matter what). I never managed to finish a 1000 star galaxy game for this reason.

This is inevitable, optimization is something that they have done and will continue to do. So I wouldn't be worried on this front if I were you.

Fleet Tactics: giving admirals specific bonus for specific battle tactics would be nice. Choosing a doctrine ( "Swarm" , "abysmal range" , "concentrate fire") like HOI4 and implementing it by using battle experience would be awesome (A militaristic empire that ravaged the galaxy for decades and a pacifistic empire that don't even have a word for "war" shall not have the same battle potential)

This could be interesting, but combat computers seem to do some of this already (though they absolutely should be expanded).

Manpower: Right now military fleet are just an "addiction" to your fleet. But if a ship can fly and fight with few people on board (and losing it would be more an economic inconvenience than a military defeat) you cannot easily replace millions of soldiers (If we consider a pop to be at least 1 billion, 1 military unit should be at least few million). By introducing manpower you'll have to carefully decide wich planets are worth that sacrifice.
Manpower is determined by:
-total popolation (1 unit every 3 pop)
-pop ethos (1 per 1 military pop , -1 per 2 pacifistic pop)
-cloning an droid factories will allow you to ignore this limit (and finally giving a sense to these technologies)
By giving a 1000 HP to every unit, a 30 Manpower base will become a 30000 HP pool. If my 12 units lose 3400 HP in total, my HP pool will go to 26600 (and I'll need some time to replenish it)

I really don't like this idea, an interstellar polity should not have to worry about manpower issues when you have entire planets to draw upon. Unless it offers some massive gameplay benefit that I don't think adding it would be worth it.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

i'd like to see sieges for taking heavily defended worlds. If you have to commit a fleet for a year to take down a planet, maybe you wont doomstack as hard...?

 

[Digrus]

I agree that making technology more different would help the game but there is the risk of making technology too powerful like in other 4X games where it's the end all be all. That would be unfortunate IMO.
I really don't like this idea, an interstellar polity should not have to worry about manpower issues when you have entire planets to draw upon. Unless it offers some massive gameplay benefit that I don't think adding it would be worth it.

It's not like I want it to be like in EU4 where, after you hit lv 12 in military tech, you immediately try to rekt the ottoman with your shiny muskets before they can get them. But if I play big, and I can't be stopped 'cause my little superadvanced neighbors can't even scratch my medieval superfleet, it simply gets a little boring.
The manpower idea would have been easier to implement if we had clear definition of number in stellaris (like how many people in a pop, how many soldier in a unit,etc..)
Right now this is how stellaris work:
-"We are a fanatic pacifistic empire, War is futile, every life is precious"
You star a liberation war on the other side of the galaxy and lose all your troops by assaulting an arid planet (you have artic preference) defended by titans and xenomorphe horrors.
-"Soooo, we just lost few hundred of millions of soldier on DEATHTRAP 2, they were all brutally slaughtered and raped by 34 meter tall Cockroaches and acid-eating monsters.... Who wanna go next ?
Everybody raise their hand happily

 

[Elfwind]

Adding more a political element where you can have allied factions in the opposing empire. I'd love to see Darth Sidious levels of political intrigue.

 

[Ekscalybur]

All the things that make war interesting, on the surface of a planet, do not exist in space. In space, you can see forever in all directions. There is no high ground to fight over and exploit. No rough terrain to avoid and/or exploit. You can't lay in ambush. Laying siege to a world? Say that sentence again, and honestly think if that process would take anything less than an eon. You can't starve out a world. No matter how reliant on outside food sources it supposedly is (this would never, EVER be a thing)

More infrastructure, more internal stuff, each of your planets should really act differently when under siege/bombardment, depending on the enemy I think some planets should surrender to enemy forces rather than waiting to be bombed into oblivion and this should be beyond your control.

I know I would absolute not find it an acceptable mechanic of one of my worlds was being attacked and it just surrendered 'to avoid oblivion'. Since I, and I'm sure the vast majority of players would not find this acceptable, it should not be something we expect the AI to do.

Slower FTL times would also work better for me, as well as giving you a reason to split up fleets and patrol your own space.

This arbitrarily and unnecessarily makes every single other aspect of the game slower. It also wouldn't change a single thing.

Having individual battles be less decisive is also a big one for me, your fleets should be able to disengage easier and lose less ships, the AI should be this as well. Reducing overall ships numbers makes individual ships more valuable and gives more of an edge to better designed ships and better tech. Currently numbers beat technology.

Space battles are absolutely and forever going to be a numbers game. There is no terrain, there is effectively no range limitation, there are zero tactics other than who can overwhelm the opponents defenses the quickest. Given that, not bringing every ship capable of firing a weapon is handicapping yourself on purpose, a foolish endeavor to say the least. You know where your enemy generally is and where they'll be coming from and they know the same about you.

I think just giving the player and ai more options to work with will help. The problem is that there's no reason not to doomstack, you may as well reduce your losses by using overwhelming force against a smaller fleet, and this is a perfectly reasonable and useful tactic in game. The problem is there's very little reason to not use it. If for example you are forced to dedicate more resources to multiple theatres then this could be fixed, but the currently war mechanics are too shallow imo, for this to be a possibility. Not that I currently mind that much as I tend to focus on expansion a lot more.

What theaters? This is the vast expanse of an entire galaxy, not continents on a single planet. Doomstacking IS the nature of space warfare. Bring more ability to deal damage for longer than the other guy is the only tactic viable. Because you know they are going to do that.

 

[Vishaing]

Doomstacking is not the nature of Space Warfare, it is the nature of Space Warfare ONLY when FTL is so fast that you can get from one end of the Galaxy to the other in Years if not Months. Currently, you can always get your Doomstack to any area where the enemy is before the enemy has had a chance to do anything there. You don't need to worry about leaving a chunk of your Empire completely undefended because you can fly to one enemy, destroy them completely, then fly back to defend those planets before the enemy has had a chance to bash through even half of your Planetary Defenses.

Reduce FTL Speed by a factor of 10, radically speed up battles so that even Doomstack-v-Doomstack is over in a few days at most, and suddenly people will NEED to split their fleets, because in the time it takes for them to get their Doomstack back to defend their worlds, their enemies will have already ravaged them. Historically, this is what has caused Limited Wars, Local Garrisons, and Local Engagements; its been the fact that Travel Time (and Recruitment Time) has always been greater than Fighting or Pillaging Time, usually Vastly So. It's why Rome had to keep Legions garrisoned on the Front Lines even with their mighty Road Network. It's why Over-Extension has ever been a thing. It's why Decentralization Happened. It's why Marches/Margraviates ever even existed. It's why none of the Colonial Powers ever dedicated major portions of their armies to fighting In the Colonies, because leaving their Homeland undefended would have been Suicide.

And its something that no Paradox game has every properly represented.

 

[GC13]

Laying siege to a world? Say that sentence again, and honestly think if that process would take anything less than an eon. You can't starve out a world. No matter how reliant on outside food sources it supposedly is (this would never, EVER be a thing)

That's not how sieges work. Sieges work by tightening the screws on the defender, reducing their defenses so they are less and less able to resist your assault. In the classical era this often involved building a ramp over their wall; in the medieval era it more often involved smashing their wall; by the time of the renaissance we were bringing our assault line and our artillery line closer and closer to the defender's wall while threatening to sap the wall from underground. At no point was the attacker simply hanging back and waiting for the defender to run out of food.

For the most part bombardment represents this erosion of defenses, but there's just no drama to it. You sit and watch a number tick down and then hit Assault when it's low enough. Yawn. You don't have to worry about whether your attacking ships will run out of supplies and be left vulnerable to a counter-attack by an enemy fleet, you don't have to worry about holding orbit after the assault begins so you can keep your ground troops supplied (and with a major advantage), you just watch a number tick down then watch the enemy health tick down.

 

[jowe01]

Doomstacking is not the nature of Space Warfare, it is the nature of Space Warfare ONLY when FTL is so fast that you can get from one end of the Galaxy to the other in Years if not Months. Currently, you can always get your Doomstack to any area where the enemy is before the enemy has had a chance to do anything there. You don't need to worry about leaving a chunk of your Empire completely undefended because you can fly to one enemy, destroy them completely, then fly back to defend those planets before the enemy has had a chance to bash through even half of your Planetary Defenses.

Reduce FTL Speed by a factor of 10, radically speed up battles so that even Doomstack-v-Doomstack is over in a few days at most, and suddenly people will NEED to split their fleets, because in the time it takes for them to get their Doomstack back to defend their worlds, their enemies will have already ravaged them. Historically, this is what has caused Limited Wars, Local Garrisons, and Local Engagements; its been the fact that Travel Time (and Recruitment Time) has always been greater than Fighting or Pillaging Time, usually Vastly So. It's why Rome had to keep Legions garrisoned on the Front Lines even with their mighty Road Network. It's why Over-Extension has ever been a thing. It's why Decentralization Happened. It's why Marches/Margraviates ever even existed. It's why none of the Colonial Powers ever dedicated major portions of their armies to fighting In the Colonies, because leaving their Homeland undefended would have been Suicide.

And its something that no Paradox game has every properly represented.

Very true.

If to this you add a meaningful raiding system and you teach the AI to use it, wars would become much more interesting. A doomstack should be able to inflict significantly less economic/infrastructure damage at the one point where it can break through than 10 flotillas of 10% of its size could do together in the same time, if they attacked different parts of the enemy.

 

[Drowe]

All the things that make war interesting, on the surface of a planet, do not exist in space. In space, you can see forever in all directions. There is no high ground to fight over and exploit. No rough terrain to avoid and/or exploit. You can't lay in ambush.

There are multiple ways to hide in space.
1. Hide behind a planet/moon/star
2. Cold coasting, essentially running on minimal power and minimising your heat signature.
3. If you know they are coming you can guess where the enemy will come out of warp.

Laying siege to a world? Say that sentence again, and honestly think if that process would take anything less than an eon. You can't starve out a world. No matter how reliant on outside food sources it supposedly is (this would never, EVER be a thing)

That isn't true, if a planet is self reliant they can hold out indefinitely, as long as you don't destroy their ability to grow enough food, if a planet doesn't grow food at all or in insufficient quantities, stockpiles will deplete very quickly. If people die of starvation there will be riots at some point they will have to give up.

I know I would absolute not find it an acceptable mechanic of one of my worlds was being attacked and it just surrendered 'to avoid oblivion'. Since I, and I'm sure the vast majority of players would not find this acceptable, it should not be something we expect the AI to do.

Why not? It's not like it would be much different than now. If you land troops or starve them, all it really takes is time. It could also open the gate for interesting mechanics in the diplomacy department, such as offering surrender in exchange for liberation instead of conquest (only comes into effect after the peace treaty is signed)

This arbitrarily and unnecessarily makes every single other aspect of the game slower. It also wouldn't change a single thing.

That's not quite true, making FTL slower means you need to be smart about where you put your fleet or even encourage splitting it up.

Space battles are absolutely and forever going to be a numbers game. There is no terrain, there is effectively no range limitation, there are zero tactics other than who can overwhelm the opponents defenses the quickest. Given that, not bringing every ship capable of firing a weapon is handicapping yourself on purpose, a foolish endeavor to say the least. You know where your enemy generally is and where they'll be coming from and they know the same about you.

Accurate evaluation of the current situation. This would change if there was a reason for splitting up your fleet. Maybe to assign them to trade routes or sectors.

What theaters? This is the vast expanse of an entire galaxy, not continents on a single planet. Doomstacking IS the nature of space warfare. Bring more ability to deal damage for longer than the other guy is the only tactic viable. Because you know they are going to do that.

If the only possible use for ships was war, I'd agree. But protecting trade is important too. Once that gets added I'll expect having all your ships in one fleer may actually not be the only alternative anymore.

 

[Malonex]

Being able to change war goals wouldn't make combat have anymore depth to it but I think that would be a nice addition, being able to manipulate the relationships of other empires to spark a war between them would make things more interesting too.

 

[Magnificent Genius]

Increase tech value slightly, so that having tech actually effects the outcome of battles. If my ships are one generation better than my enemies, that difference should be noticeable.

Reduce ship count(by increasing maintenance and lowering FL(slightly)) . This would require each ship to be more powerful, but it does two things; improves performance, and also makes each ship worth "more" and would place value on saving your fleet.

Reduce FTL speed slightly(say 10%). That would mean less time to go from hot zone to hot zone, which would dis-incentivize doomstacking.

 

[methegrate]

These are the ideas that have always struck me as the best place to start:

- Speed up battles
Completely agree with above. The doomstack problem is definitely made much worse by the fact that you can use one fleet to play whack-a-mole. If the engagement is over before your ships can arrive, it changes the game.

Imho, I'd start here, since slower FTL would make the rest of the game a little frustrating.

- Meaningful targets
I'd like to have stuff I absolutely need to protect or want to hit aside from the enemy fleet. A critical shipyard, their sensor array, etc. Right now, personally, I don't pay attention to what enemy attacks because mining stations are cheap and planet invasions are settled up by war demands anyway. (That is, if they invade a planet, it affects warscore but nothing else.) As others have pointed out, the core of this problem is that the only worthwhile target is the enemy fleet and vice versa.

But combine battles that are over before I can get there with assets that I can't afford to lose, and my strategy changes a lot.

- Fewer ships
The fleet would be more fun if ships were less disposable.

- Static defenses, sensors and more "terrain" features
I'd like more to play with on the game board. Right now my fleets are the only thing that I really interact with aside from star bases.

The ability to build and invest in more infrastructure (like sensors and defenses) would be fun, and I actually think base auras can add a lot to the terrain feature idea.

New Horizons, actually, seems to do a good job with some of this.

 

[unknownenlord]

A simple thing that could reduce doomstack is allow transports to carry on even when engaged (still taking damage) so if a planet is poorly defended you could try to fly past the spaceport and invade.
Fortress could be made to be a rapid fire anti transport building and you wil have reason to garrison and split up doomstacks. so if you have a marginal disadvantage in space fleets but a massive advantage in armies you could still convincingly win the war. plus shield protectors for planents would be more useful (make it more costly for armies).

I agree with other suggestions about slower ftl and quicker battles, i think this would compliment them as it could set frontlines with contested planets.

what i like about this idea is it is a small change to the game still epmhasises space the only other change needed would be army designer for attachments.

i do think a large part of the war ai will need to be rewritten though

 

[henzington]

I would be happy with an army template so I don't have to add attachment to each army separately.

 

[Dalinski]

Escalating Space Battles (encourage space battle strategy and a doomstack solution)

So many proud and intelligent minds have but forward ideas on how to address the lack of drama with space war in Stellaris. Many have promise. The following ideas are untested so I ask if you have an open mind in how it might play out and perhaps energize space battles in Stellaris as we know it.

All warp technologies could have levels of "congestion" which dictates how many ships can be in warp at any one time between one star and another. This is influenced by warp stability technology that can increase the number of ships in a segment of warp space. Military Installations with warp stabilizers at either end of the target systems can also increase this number.

Essentially when moving from one star to another a certain number of ships can only occupy a sector of warp space. So say with Warp 1, 10 corvettes can occupy a warp sector in one "tick" of time. The ships move from one sector to another freeing up the previous until 10 ships at a time enter Warp. Depending on the distance traveled the 10 that first entered could very likely leave warp while half the fleet still awaits its turn. These 10 can immediately enter into another warp to another target system before the rest of the fleet arrives. Given a large fleet it could become strung out over many systems.

The Strategic Juice
- Large fleets take a LONG time to move around safely
- Large fleets can move in short jumps safely
- Large fleets feel appropriately cumbersome
- Large fleets are vulnerable to being strung out
- Large fleets can more easily be intercepted
- Large moving fleets can more easily be taken peace-meal
- The fore, middle or rear of a moving fleet could be engaged
- Optimized maneuvering is encouraged by dividing the fleet and approaching from multiple systems
- The defender has a wealth of options to engage an incoming attack
- The defender still needs counter fleets in good locations
- A skilled defender could take on several careless enemy fleets
- Nations with smaller fleets can feel a little safer by hugging planned defence points
- Military installations become VERY important both for battles and fleet speed
- Well defended bottlenecks and important systems become very tough nuts to crack
- Awareness of the layout of your enemy and scouting become more important
- Knowledge of the location and movements of enemy fleets becomes even more important
- Role-playing opportunities ("What of the reports of the rebel fleet massing at Sollust")
- Role playing visuals (ships warping in in sections one after another with a beautiful 'punch it' sound track)
- In emergency situations your fleet literally scatters, potentially loosing vessels due to there being not enough warp sections.
- Strategic stalemates can occur forcing you think outside the box
- Pinning, if you can pin an enemy fleet in a corner of the galaxy you can effectively force them into making desperate movements

Battle Example One:
We open with an example of the First T'Saab Contract War.
The T'Saab military dependencies have forced government to initiate a live military test. For there is no simulation that could possibly render a more effective trial than a live one.

The T'Saab find themselves at war with the Uthons and attempt to make a surgical strike against their capital deep in Uthon territory. Both sides have rudimentary Warp One drives. and the T'Saab fleet begins to make its jump. Unconcerned by the Uthons lacking capabilities the T'Saab fleets chooses to make it way to Uthon as fast as possible using one star lane.

By the time the first ships enter the Uthon cluster the actual location of the fleet is as follows;
Sigma Draconis --------------- Dwumgar ------------- Futav Wass ------------- Fulbadon -----------Uthon
--------(46)---------10---10-------(10)-------10---10------(10)------10---10------(10)-----10---10------(10)

The T'Saab find the Uthons ready and waiting for them at their capital. They had ample time to mass their fleet as the T'Saab approached. It would be suicide to attack the system now sending in 10 ships at once.

The T'Saab have two options, a) start moving the fleet to another target, where it will arrive ahead of anything the Uthons can send and either destroy the Uthon fleet or destroy the target. b) divide the fleet and mass it at several other systems where it can warp in from 5 or more points effectively increasing the rate at which ships leave warp by x5.

 

[Bayes]

First of all I would seriously streamline how you invade planets, I think the amount of micro for me to get a army going requires little to no thought but quite some time. You should be able to send a invasion to a planet you are blockading just by clicking a button. What happens next is that there will be a cost of resources and time depeding on species, army types, attachments etc of the defender and the attacker, if you lose the blockade and the enemy fleet is guarding the planet the invasion will end.

I think the right way to make war more complex is to make everything surrounding war more complex. Focusing on everything related to diplomacy, and internal politics. Im a huge sucker for punishing massive expansion so perhaps something like infamy or aggressive expansion. Im used to playing things like Ck2, EU4 and V2, the combat in stellaris seem a fair bit more complex already. Something I might want to see is something related to logistics, but I cant think of anything that wouldnt just be a pain in the butt.

 

[dying0d]

Space battles are absolutely and forever going to be a numbers game. There is no terrain, there is effectively no range limitation, there are zero tactics other than who can overwhelm the opponents defenses the quickest. Given that, not bringing every ship capable of firing a weapon is handicapping yourself on purpose, a foolish endeavor to say the least. You know where your enemy generally is and where they'll be coming from and they know the same about you.

The notion that space has no terrain is kind of presumptuous. Space (system space, at least) is full of debris, dust, asterouds/comets/rogue planets and the like. Hell even the gravity wells of orbitals themselves can offer a tactical advantage. Point is, space is not a blank sheet (again, speaking of system space, where the battles occur, vs intersystem space, which would be somewhat barren, but could house everything from tiny particle clouds emitting ionizing radiation, to microsingularities). The systems themselves actually already reside in nebulae in game, which is a big deal, and can be a tactical consideration as us, and more so if the effects get expanded.

As far as world being starved out, sure, but it can be literally slagged out from under the people's feet, which isn't an interesting mechanic to say the least