How should war be made more complex?

[jowe01]

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

I agree with the objective but
- increasing maintenance would not make ships more valuable, for that you would need to increase build cost and time
- Reducing FTL time would IMHO opinion achieve the contrary, namely allowing a doomstack to quickly react to several sources of threat. If you want to encourage the use of several flotillas instead of a doomstack, you should increase FTL time, so that reacting to multiple threats requires splitting your main fleet.

 

[GC13]

Reducing FTL time would IMHO opinion achieve the contrary, namely allowing a doomstack to quickly react to several sources of threat. If you want to encourage the use of several flotillas instead of a doomstack, you should increase FTL time, so that reacting to multiple threats requires splitting your main fleet.

For questions like this I always like to think of things in terms of extreme. If FTL speed were infinitely fast then all that would matter would be the total size of each empire's navy: a smaller empire wouldn't benefit from splitting their fleet because the larger empire could simply split their fleet into chunks that will all win the fight then go win them. With infinitely slow FTL you're obviously limited to whatever defenses you've built in system, so even though with that setup attack (or even having a second system in the first place) would be impossible we can still see which direction gives more benefits to splitting your defenses: the longer it takes for you to move forces to counter enemy forces, the more important being split up is. So yes, speeding up the doomstack just makes it more effective.

Of course using FTL speed to encourage fleet splitting doesn't matter much unless two things are added: first of all, split fleets need to be able to do real damage to you, not merely inconvenience you while you wait for your doomstack to sort things out. If an empire blitzes a planet, taking it back should be a difficult (though of course doable) affair even if I'm much more powerful than them. Second, the smaller fleet needs to have a way to fight back against the bigger fleet. If I have a 10k fleet and the enemy has a 20k fleet, I've basically already lost the war. I might be able to exploit the AI and win, but against an opponent just as competent as me there's no way I can win the eventual fleet battle for control of space, and he can progress twice as quickly as I can in any base race I decide to start and he probably has more targets I need to destroy to take him out anyway.

 

[Magnificent Genius]

I agree with the objective but
- increasing maintenance would not make ships more valuable, for that you would need to increase build cost and time
- Reducing FTL time would IMHO opinion achieve the contrary, namely allowing a doomstack to quickly react to several sources of threat. If you want to encourage the use of several flotillas instead of a doomstack, you should increase FTL time, so that reacting to multiple threats requires splitting your main fleet.

I meant speed. My apologies for the confusion. I shall fix that right away.

 

[Digrus]

Doomstack is the natural direction for a really specific form of war tactics: the "Swarm".
I win 'cause I have more ships. Just Like the Russian In HOI4, or the Russian in EU4, or the Russian in Victoria 2. That's just one kind of approach, where quantity is always preferable: due to the lack of alternatives, if you split your fleet you're not playing optimally.
You wanna counter doomstack? Just introduce doctrines that gives specific bonus that counter it. Few examples:
"Abysmal range" : +150% fire range, +20% damage, -10% armour, -10%shield, -50%emergence ftl time. ,+20% ftl speed(Max fleet number :70). Small fleets, weak in close range, strong in long range battle. Perfect to harass big fleet. Space Freikorps!
" Concentrated fire" : -40% fire range, + 30% damage, + 25% armor, +25% shield, - 20% evasion (Max fleet number 100). Shot when you see the white of their eyes! Standard fleet, incredibly strong in close range, good at taking hits, no so good in attrition battle.
The numbers are completely random, but they show how easy could be to implement tactics in this game and have a competitive battle system.

 

[methegrate]

Some sort of tactics would be fun, and I'd be all about those doctrines, but I'm also not sure they're actually necessary to solve doomstacks.

I think the entire heart of our problem boils down to two issues:

- #1. The only thing worth attacking is the enemy fleet, and
- #2. The best way to do that is with a concentrated force

Solve either of those steps and you fix much of the problem, and you can do that on the game board/strategic level.

Maybe this is oversimplifying it, but I'd start here: Right now, if they doomstack and I don't, then they easily can pick my smaller fleets off one-by-one. So, what change can we make so that a player could lose every battle, but still win the war? (Step #1 above.) Or, what change can we make so that those smaller fleets can cripple that doomstack? (Step #2 above.)

One thought I'd had was shifting fleet supply to a small number of targetable stations. If I could launch, say, three strikes deep into enemy territory and suddenly crater 90% of their fleet supply it might make that doomstack unsustainably expensive overnight, opening a strategic option even with a smaller fleet.

Heck, solve doomstacks and you'd even make ground combat and planet defenses relevant. Right now they're a big "who cares" because you only invade once you're mopping up, but if you were invading under the pressure of reinforcements or a counteroffensive? Whole new ball game.

 

[Psicke]

I think war is fair as it is, what we need is a bit of space opera heros spicing war with different actions to choose and different esults so no always feel the same.

Little intelligence comandos risking the planet or civ rulers leading it, in a mix of storytelling on wars when you want. Like jedi stories.

 

[Psicke]

I feel Stellaris wars lacks a crusader king's II rpg touch relocated on Space Opera episodic actions just like jedis, babylon, stargate... A sort of heroic branching to change the tide of wars, mining influence, war score points without always the same grinding and such things

 

[Drowe]

Supply lines could give smaller fleets more relevance, because disrupting supply can seriously cripple a fleet.

 

[TankRush]

To echo just a few of the ideas I love for making things more complex (and fun), along with some of my own...

Reducing overall fleet sizes by lowering the cap and making them more expensive would be one step, already mentioned by a few people. And ships can be made slightly more powerful to compensate, perhaps with more weapon and utility slots. Reducing FTL travel speed while also increasing the speed at which battles take place would also help because slower strategic mobility would hamper those who rely on a single massive fleet more than multiple fleets, because they would be unable to chase them all down and kill them as easily, before they inflict massive damage on their empire

I also think making the way sensors work into a sort of complicated 2-tiered system would help. Long range sensors can detect the presence of ships in FTL and nearby systems, but can't give accurate information on them past hull pattern and size. While ships in the same system can get an exact identity, but can't analyze all the components if they're completely unfamiliar with the technology that goes into them. This also allows for the addition of enhanced sensors, and 'stealth' technology to the mix, which could be beneficial to how players approach fleet engagements.

Finally a system for more fine control of fleets would also be great, such as formations, level of aggressiveness, even setting basic tactics (pincer, swarm, standoff and fire, etc.).

 

[Meneliki]

I'm a bit surprised at some of the opinions in this thread. I'll probably catch some nasty red X's for this, but my general feelings on this are:

-Doomstacks are not a problem, in and of themselves
-Slower FTL would do absolutely nothing
-Terrain is considerably less of a 'thing' in space combat
-Tech should probably hold a little bit more weight than it does, but not much
-The concept of ships running out of 'supply'/ammo, etc is kinda goofy
-Planets should not auto-surrender

There are brutally simple solutions to all these things, but they've all been suggested and were mostly met with resistance.

Ahh well. What can ya do?

 

[Drowe]

I'm a bit surprised at some of the opinions in this thread. I'll probably catch some nasty red X's for this, but my general feelings on this are:

-Doomstacks are not a problem, in and of themselves
-Slower FTL would do absolutely nothing
-Terrain is considerably less of a 'thing' in space combat
-Tech should probably hold a little bit more weight than it does, but not much
-The concept of ships running out of 'supply'/ammo, etc is kinda goofy
-Planets should not auto-surrender

There are brutally simple solutions to all these things, but they've all been suggested and were mostly met with resistance.

Ahh well. What can ya do?

I agree with some of your points fully, namely 3 4 and 6, partially with point 1 and disagree with the rest.

Doomstacks aren't a problem themselves, the problem is, that it's the only viable strategy. To keep it interesting, there need to be at least three deployment strategies that are each a counter to a different strategy, like rock paper scissor.

Having to care about supplying your fleet isn't goofy, it's part of grand strategy. It shouldn't be tedious, but it should be a little more than just maintenance in minerals and credits.

Slower FTL would make splitting up fleets important because defending against multiple fleets would be harder. You could lose a war if you don't cover your territory well enough to react to a threat because your whole fleet is too far away.

 

[Meneliki]

Having to care about supplying your fleet isn't goofy, it's part of grand strategy. It shouldn't be tedious, but it should be a little more than just maintenance in minerals and credits.

I'm all for it in a game like HoI, it makes sense and fits within the context. In a space game, however, it just feels out of place/contrived.

Slower FTL would make splitting up fleets important because defending against multiple fleets would be harder. You could lose a war if you don't cover your territory well enough to react to a threat because your whole fleet is too far away.

The problem here is while, yes, going back to defend would be slower, it also takes the attacker longer to GET there. Whether it's 2 tortoises or 2 rabbits running around, they'll juke each other in the same manner.

Doomstacks aren't a problem themselves, the problem is, that it's the only viable strategy. To keep it interesting, there need to be at least three deployment strategies that are each a counter to a different strategy, like rock paper scissor.

I was always a fan of the 'admirals can only command so many ships' idea, a-la-Hoi4. Fleets w/o admirals would suffer penalties. The effects would be:

1. Leaders in Stellaris are a very limited resource, which means only so many admirals.. which means only so many fleets, and since each fleet can only be so big, overall navy size is cut down
2. Most players would actually be operating UNDER their ship cap, with lots of 'drydocked' ships in reserve. Why is this good? It elminates the 'oh no i lost my fleet i guess gg' issue. Lose your fleet? np. Youve got more in reserves waiting for rapid deployment under a new admiral. This also helps quick reinforcement.
3. Yay fleet splitting!

This idea gets shot down every time it's suggested, tho.

 

[Riftwalker]

I don't think comparing a space ship to a surface ship is fair, surely a space ship - being much larger has the capacity to carry more supplies fully expecting to be out for long periods of time, if a supply chain , or a need to resupply was added how would that function with civilian ships? I personally don't want to recall my science ships while they survey and locate enemy empires and even if I DID recall them, what happens if they don't make it back fast enough and run out of supplies? Do my leaders starve, etc.

if your supplies aren't out after a few battles, then you don't have enough guns on your ship.

 

[Drowe]

I'm all for it in a game like HoI, it makes sense and fits within the context. In a space game, however, it just feels out of place/contrived.

Fleets need supplies like food, ammunition, spare parts, etc. in that they are no different than in HoI. It shouldn't be too complex, but it should be there. It would also give smaller empires a slightly better chance to fend of an attacker.

The problem here is while, yes, going back to defend would be slower, it also takes the attacker longer to GET there. Whether it's 2 tortoises or 2 rabbits running around, they'll juke each other in the same manner.

Not the same, because I know where I'll be attacking, you however don't. Only when you see my fleets can you react to them. At that point it may already be to late if your fleet is 10 jumps away. But if you have split your fleet you can react in time. If I doomstack, I make myself vulnerable because nothing is defending my territory, so you can send a few escorted troop carriers and use the rest of your fleet to engage my doomstack.

I was always a fan of the 'admirals can only command so many ships' idea, a-la-Hoi4. Fleets w/o admirals would suffer penalties. The effects would be:

1. Leaders in Stellaris are a very limited resource, which means only so many admirals.. which means only so many fleets, and since each fleet can only be so big, overall navy size is cut down
2. Most players would actually be operating UNDER their ship cap, with lots of 'drydocked' ships in reserve. Why is this good? It elminates the 'oh no i lost my fleet i guess gg' issue. Lose your fleet? np. Youve got more in reserves waiting for rapid deployment under a new admiral. This also helps quick reinforcement.
3. Yay fleet splitting!

Capping fleet sizes by making ships become gradually less efficient could work, I don't think it's necessary though. Using a single large fleet should be possible, but should have strategic drawbacks rather than tactical ones.

 

[Riftwalker]

I agree with some of your points fully, namely 3 4 and 6, partially with point 1 and disagree with the rest.

Doomstacks aren't a problem themselves, the problem is, that it's the only viable strategy. To keep it interesting, there need to be at least three deployment strategies that are each a counter to a different strategy, like rock paper scissor.

Having to care about supplying your fleet isn't goofy, it's part of grand strategy. It shouldn't be tedious, but it should be a little more than just maintenance in minerals and credits.

Slower FTL would make splitting up fleets important because defending against multiple fleets would be harder. You could lose a war if you don't cover your territory well enough to react to a threat because your whole fleet is too far away.

I was kinda going into this in my big post, but basically as it is, you simply need multiple vectors to attack an empire for for strategy to be more than a number's game. as it is, ships all act basically the same way, if ships had roles beyond just laying down and absorbing damage, if you could attack a larger enemy by their supply chains and commit to geurilla warfare, etc, then strategy develops.

as it is, big strategy, i don't think can exist with how fleet battles are currently performed, ships just do damage and take damage that's it. There aren't "planes" to harass the enemy supply lines or to deep strike at industry, there aren't ships designed to pierce the front line and hit supply and command nodes like tanks in HoI, you can specialize in expensive armament to save your manpower like America in HoI, etc. it's jsut to plop a fleet down and they beat on each other.

 

[Zavaleta]

I think downscaling the numbers of ships empires field would improve on the existing ship and weapon balance in the game (besides just cpu performance). As others have play tested, the current doom stake model means that existing diversity of ship types and weapons are deluded by scale. Having fewer ships and longer battles (more shots to take down enemy ships) should mean that weapon and ship design advantages become more important towards determining the outcome.

 

[Riftwalker]

I disagree, if there was a risk of me losing ships due to improper management and carelessly piling them on top of each other I wouldn't do it in fear of losing a battle. If stacked fleets ran the risk of accidents such as the obvious risk of colliding with another ship surely that would discourage the player from stacking. Even if it didn't destroy a ship, but instead damaged it it would still be an element the player would have to think about, instead of the current "put everything in a pile, send it in and forget.".

However, putting more thought into it there would still be an element of stacking. But truly what COULD make players actually WANT to avoid stacking.. besides punishments to warp speed, as I believe we would all still use doomstacks as the AI would.

firstly, the point is, let's say each fleet had a power of 1, if stacking 2 fleets gave 1.5 power, it'd still be better to do that than send fleets everywhere as it's much easier to whack down the enemy military then clean up, than coordinate across the board. so he does damage of 1:0.75 ~ 1.33 I'd do damage 1.5:1, i'd still take less losses than he would.

Also what you're suggesting really just makes it more about letting the AI attack and then crushing their moving in fleets, THEN going on the offensive. It might actually be better to just make ships cheap and quick to replace so that sure doom stacks are a thing, but it's more about who can keep ships pumping out and thus hitting space ports and planets matter in that regard.

I just think the EU/CK style of armies makes it almost impossible to do grand strategy regardless. HoI I think has the best grand strategy in terms of the battle is actually fun, which is why i think a move toward that system would be better, with "fronts" abstracting out ships attacking each other over an area, using their supplies and retreating, constantly over months, just trying to push a bit farther.

Another thing that could reduce doom stacks is a speed malus in general for ships that are close to each other due to "organizational difficulty", along with making battles less "sticky" with fleets being able to retreat without emergency warping, so you can easily hit and run without actually losing ships. this might be an indirect buff to larger ships though.

 

[methegrate]

I'm all for it in a game like HoI, it makes sense and fits within the context. In a space game, however, it just feels out of place/contrived.

I think it depends on what the "terrain" is. Personally, I think there's a lot that could be done here. Enhanced station auras could do a lot within systems. Pulsars could weaken shields, <insert sci fi gimick here> could eliminate armor, black hole systems could be impossible to view from the outside. Protostar clusters can form impassible barriers. Wormholes are frankly odd for their absence.

Those are just hypotheticals, but my point is that space may be big but it's not empty. That goes doubly so considering that this is science fiction. There's a lot of potential if we wanted to populate the game board.

The problem here is while, yes, going back to defend would be slower, it also takes the attacker longer to GET there. Whether it's 2 tortoises or 2 rabbits running around, they'll juke each other in the same manner.

You have to remember, though, that it isn't just a game of tag. The other question is how long does it take the enemy to do whatever it is they showed up for. Ship battle, station raid, invading a planet, etc., if it's all over before you can reinforce the system, then the doomstack becomes less effective.

Personally, I'd like to start with speeding up in-system travel and battles. If that could get the balance right then we could avoid the frustration of having the game move slower, and avoid rebalancing all three FTL systems. (Plus thematically I kinda find it silly that space battles can take a week to resolve. "Fire the torpedoes Mr. Worf!" "Yes Captain! They should arrive within 3-5 business days!" "Get me a tracking number Mr. Data!")

 

[Riftwalker]

well i mean have you seen the space battles, they appear to occur over several AUs, it kinda makes sense stuff takes days to get between fleets.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I'm a bit surprised at some of the opinions in this thread. I'll probably catch some nasty red X's for this, but my general feelings on this are:

-Doomstacks are not a problem, in and of themselves
-Slower FTL would do absolutely nothing
-Terrain is considerably less of a 'thing' in space combat
-Tech should probably hold a little bit more weight than it does, but not much
-The concept of ships running out of 'supply'/ammo, etc is kinda goofy
-Planets should not auto-surrender

There are brutally simple solutions to all these things, but they've all been suggested and were mostly met with resistance.

Ahh well. What can ya do?

I agree with a few of these. My major disagreements are with the concept of supply not being necessary and the tech weighting.