Playing friendly multiplayer questions

[pheonicia]

So my friends and I all own Stellaris, and we enjoy playing together, but we always run into the same issue of having to federation it up if we want to have fun. This is because if we played competitively against one another, we will inevitably get into player-player wars, that will end with one of us getting effectively knocked out of the game, which forces them to sit out the next 10 hours or so. Banning or limiting player-player wars isn't really going to work either since then we're playing the same game yes, but we're not really playing with one another.

EU4 has score, which allows us to determine a winner objectively and gives us a goal to work for. The map is also way bigger in EU4 allowing us to grow our power bases in different directions, which isn't really possible in Stellaris. How have other groups managed to solve this problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Emraldis]

So my friends and I all own Stellaris, and we enjoy playing together, but we always run into the same issue of having to federation it up if we want to have fun. This is because if we played competitively against one another, we will inevitably get into player-player wars, that will end with one of us getting effectively knocked out of the game, which forces them to sit out the next 10 hours or so. Banning or limiting player-player wars isn't really going to work either since then we're playing the same game yes, but we're not really playing with one another.

EU4 has score, which allows us to determine a winner objectively and gives us a goal to work for. The map is also way bigger in EU4 allowing us to grow our power bases in different directions, which isn't really possible in Stellaris. How have other groups managed to solve this problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Players who have lost can re-join as one of the AI empires, and continue on.

 

[pheonicia]

That's not ideal though since you put a lot of effort into crafting your nation, and just picking up whatever the AI has managed to do feels like a waste. Plus you will almost certainly be disadvantaged to the players still in, meaning that you're just set up to losing again.

 

[praftd]

I'm having trouble understanding your issue. Just don't fight each other. Nothing is forcing you to.

If you do want to compete, then you are going to have to accept the fact that if a player loses, they are out of the game.

 

[Alblaka]

I'm having trouble understanding your issue. Just don't fight each other. Nothing is forcing you to.

Their issue is that, if they want to play 'competitive', a single war will equal complete domination, since there is no way for the losing player to ever make a comeback after losing the first doomstack battle.

 

[Cagliostro]

I don't know how many people you're playing with, or what kind of map you're playing on, but I have been playing cooperatively with my brother pretty well. We did have to restart a few times (after playing like 40 years) till we got a galaxy in which we both had a direction to expand, but we've been using all-hyperdrive 4-spiral galaxies.

Edit: I see you are complaining about *having* to play cooperatively. Sorry, no useful advice there.

 

[jdrou]

Rather than limit the wars, maybe limit the wargoals? Maybe no ceding/liberating planets from player nations under some threshold, only one planet up to the next threshold, etc. Or is just losing your fleet and spaceports enough to doom you in mp?

 

[pheonicia]

Limiting wargoals is a decent idea, that might be our way of dealing with it. To give more context, there are three of us currently, and a fourth player soon once they get a better rig.

Against the AI, three federated players is basically unbeatable, meaning that the game stops being challenging around halfway through. It's also much less fun when you know beforehand that every game will play out in basically the same fashion.