How to fix war

[00000101]

I'm so annyoed that the only thing the allied AI does in times of war is to follow your main fleet.
Its in my opinioln one ofthe biggest faults of the game and makes war shallow and annoying.
So here are my ideas how to fix that:

Strategy window:
Here you can assign missions to your allies based on sector and mission type. Types of missions would be:
Defend allied Sector, Raid enemy sector(destroy mining and research stations), Attack enemy planets and simply Follow Fleet x.
Federations then could vote on the strategy, vassals have no say and simple allies will either decline or accept.

Vassals need to be fixed:
I don't think I need to say much about this. Vassals need to be more expensive, maybe cost infuence and need to rebel more often otherwise the game is too easy.

Morale system:
I think its odd that fleets will fight to the end. Especially the AI seems to be suicidal.
Currently whoever has the bigger army wins, often in only one fight. But in reality the losing fleet would retreat, repair then try to harrass the attacker until he has to retreat etc.

Rebalance the ressources:
In EU I always got the feeling that a war is costly and you need time to recover from it. I don't get that feeling in Stellaris(maybe just me). But ressources should be more important and a deficit should be punished harder(pops dieing, pops rebelling leading to a revolution). War should be as much about depleting the ressources of the enemy than about destroying ships, or invading planets.

Planetary defenses:
Sieges are pretty rudimentary now. I'd like to see a system similar to EUIV in place with different events that can happen during a siege + the ability to build several defensive measures. Ideally I'd like to be able to play completely defensive by just stacking lots of defenses on the planets that tear down attacking fleets instead of building offensive fleets myself. Currently there is no way to rp as pacifist in any way.

Mapmodes:
I don't get why they are missing. It would add so much depth to the game If you could see your federation, your enemies or just opposing ethics on the map. Sometimes its just so abstract when you have a war going on and you're not even sure who the enemy is until you zoom in on the map.

I hope my ideas are not completely stupid and would like to hear what others think.

 

[X3KJ]

But ressources should be more important and a deficit should be punished harder

If you have no energy or minerals your fleet will rapidly desintegrate until you are in the positive again. Isn't that a good enough reason to stay in the positive? If ressource deficit would touch population that would make it easy to delibately decimate population without purging. Also credits and minerals are not required for pops. Food can't be exported or imported either, which means every planet runs postive or at least neutral on food-> no chance for loss of planets affecting each other. If the enemy has purpose built planets (esp. energy) you can bombard them -> pop can't work-> no credit -> hopefully a deficit for enemy. It's more difficult if the enemy has a balanced built on every planet.

Currently whoever has the bigger army wins, often in only one fight. But in reality the losing fleet would retreat

They do retreat and fly to their homebase for repairs, if you let them. Idk what factors go into deciding wether to stay or not. But the functionality is there and working on occasion.

Planetary defenses:

You could support/contribute to this ticket then

 

[00000101]

If you have no energy or minerals your fleet will rapidly desintegrate until you are in the positive again. Isn't that a good enough reason to stay in the positive?

Honestly I think I just had a energy deficit and it didnt touch my ships. But the point was that it needs a rebalance. Its too easy to amass several ks of each ressource. In EUIV I always had the feeling I had to ask myself if a war is worth the ressources, I needed a recovery period after each war etc. Not so much in Stellaris

They do retreat and fly to their homebase for repairs, if you let them. Idk what factors go into deciding wether to stay or not. But the functionality is there and working on occasion.

Still needs to be fixed. I conquered a whole galaxy without ever witnessing a single retreat. Maybe they happened when I wasnt looking. Also I was thinking more of a forced retreat due to low crew moral in addition to the voluntary retreat.

 

[atredies]

As I keep playing I'm starting to find the lack of alliance objectives a bit of a let down.

Come to think of it, now that the honeymoon period is over I am starting to notice and get frustrated by the many things this game is missing in terms of content and features, I've hit a brick wall of boredom just now with it, my intention is to shelf the game and see what the big updates bring and if they'll be enough to keep me going in Stellaris, with HoI4 due early next month I won't be all that sad if 1.1 isn't enough for more than a few hour game until the mid-game boredom fest sets in.

 

[PsychoLold]

Strategy window:
Here you can assign missions to your allies based on sector and mission type. Types of missions would be:
Defend allied Sector, Raid enemy sector(destroy mining and research stations), Attack enemy planets and simply Follow Fleet x.
Federations then could vote on the strategy, vassals have no say and simple allies will either decline or accept.

This suggestion sounds like you want to tell the AI exactly what to do.
The AI should be able to handle its side of the war on its own. I suggest two things to make warfare more enjoyable and less frustrating:

• I like the idea of a strategy window. Here you could suggest tasks like raiding enemy sector etc., like you suggested.
  
• Instead of your allies just sending all their fleets to follow your biggest fleet, there should be a diplomatic option to give the control over a fleet to another nation. This way the player does not have to babysit all his allies' fleets during wartime.

The first point could be elaborated a lot further. Since wars in a galactic environment more often than not are wars on multiple fronts, the following system could make sense:
The players and the AI nations create tasks. Every task should have an objective (raid, protect, ...), some assigned star systems, and a suggested fleet size. Every war participant adds fleets to the tasks that he thinks are most important while not exceeding the suggested fleet size too much. Every task then is operated by one war participant, the task operator. The task operator controls all fleets assigned to that task. The player should be given the opportunity to take over or give up control over any task.
Advantages:

• Fleets are where they have to be.
  
• Warfare is more flexible. You can decide for example whether you want a big doomstack of ships focussing on destroying the enemy's ships or smaller task forces blowing up your opponents' infrastructure.
  
• The player can decide on the amount of micro management needed. You hate fighting wars? Give up all control over your fleets and pray to the AI gods. You want to focus on the one decicive battle against the huge fleet of your enemy? Create a task to search and destroy enemy fleets and take control over it while leaving the defence of your space ports to your allies. You want to control every single ship? No problem. Just assign all tasks to yourself and enjoy the admiration of your allies.
• This should make warfare in multiplayer easier as well.

Disadvantages:

• None, of course

Just my ¢2.

 

[OddBoy]

I love Stellaris, but in the past days somethings has bothering me. When im just done with a war i sometimes get stock in my allies land and i cant get back home before im going to war again. Could you please make like EU4 that you have Millitary Acces with your ally in a war and you lose the Millitary Acces after the war (Except if you have a trade deal about it)