Started a new game on Grand Admiral for the first time

[unmerged(350868)]

Remember my research is x2, so cruisers take much longer to get.

Yeah... I see my fleet was small.. but I could not come close to matching him without a complete refocus. He had at least 50k in total, and recovered his losses immediately. I cant tell if his ships were not dieing. 75% reduction in war exhaustion should still have seen some attrition. And the war should have forced a peace after I hit 100, but this never happened, so there must be some sort if bug?

His 2 planet eaters are 40k each. My remaining fleet scratched the paintwork on one of their ships, I think. This is on top if their regular fleet which us still over 50k despite me wiping out over 50ks worth.

I realise that perhaps I should have sacrificed some growth for fleet size, and focused more on research, but I cannot see how I could have made up that level of fleet size without a huge economy to build and support it.

I think ultimately it was just too early. 70 years in, I have never encountered anything like that. And the rest of the galaxy was getting stomped too. If I could have matched him that early then the game would hardly be worth continuing after.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

I thought it would be fun to take a peek at his empire using multiplayer. I assume The AI bonuses would bring his empire out of deficit?

While i was trying to force a status quo, I decided to just cheese a huge fleet into existence and assault his homeworlds. I think I lost one of the titans during the assault.. and when the crisis was delared it threw my entire fleet out of his territory. When I just checked he seems to have researched every top tier military tech in the mean time (probably from the wreckage of that ship)... There must be a bit of cheating going on there as those techs take years to research. Of course he now has a massive tech advantage in addition to the numbers.

I think I am going to reload to before I declared the unwinnable war, and just defend the choke points. Not sure that will work, as he will have free reign to expand into the AIs territory, but it might give me a chance to tech up, and maybe once the crisis is declared the other AIs will start to pull their weight a bit. Of course he will be even more powerful by then...

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Are war exhaustion reductions additive or multiplicative? If they're additive, they could easily hit -100% (i.e. none) war exhaustion by pulling another -30% from stuff like techs, civics, and diplo stance.

 

[MatthewP]

I tried to find a force peace console command. Could npt see one, but I found one called create add_ship.

A bit late, but debug_yesmen should work. Makes the AI always accept your offers.

As far as the difficulty, I think:

1) Yep, sounds like you were in trouble.

2) This is probably good. You're playing on the hardest difficulty and ran into an AI doing the "I am the crisis" thing. If that isn't a tough challenge the game isn't working properly.

3) In Stellaris, my approach is always to delay by whatever means necessary and outgrow the AI. Whether that means conquest, settling more planets, habitats, etc. depends on circumstances, but basically given time you should be able to get your tech and economy to the point where you can win a war (not necessarily even but comparable enough to outplay the AI). Fleet power is only a good investment if you've got profitable conquest options or will get declared on without it.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

Are war exhaustion reductions additive or multiplicative? If they're additive, they could easily hit -100% (i.e. none) war exhaustion by pulling another -30% from stuff like techs, civics, and diplo stance.

Yeah, although should it work like that? Eliminating exhaustion completely is a bit rough. I would never have started a war if I knew he would have time to recall all of his fleets from the far side of the map. War is only funny when you are winning.

A bit late, but debug_yesmen should work. Makes the AI always accept your offers.

As far as the difficulty, I think:

1) Yep, sounds like you were in trouble.

2) This is probably good. You're playing on the hardest difficulty and ran into an AI doing the "I am the crisis" thing. If that isn't a tough challenge the game isn't working properly.

3) In Stellaris, my approach is always to delay by whatever means necessary and outgrow the AI. Whether that means conquest, settling more planets, habitats, etc. depends on circumstances, but basically given time you should be able to get your tech and economy to the point where you can win a war (not necessarily even but comparable enough to outplay the AI). Fleet power is only a good investment if you've got profitable conquest options or will get declared on without it.

1) wasnt just the sound...
2) I think it just came way too early. Perhaps if I was not AS close to him I the AI would have eventually pushed him back.
3) I am going to hunker down and do that with an earlier reload. I mean, I cannot withstand a 50k plus fleet regardless if he sends a concentrated force. And if he get the 2 big ones, then I am screwed. I have doubled the tech cost so it will take a while before I can amass a superior force. The only problem might be if he conquers all of the AIs in the east and south east... Do Purifiers capture or erradicate? I wont be able to match his tech boost. I may be able to peacefully integrate two or three of my neighbours, but it all takes time.

Untimately i did not realise the massive difference between Grand Admiral and Scaling Grand Admiral... although saying that I am still the largest Empire in the galaxy, and the most powerful in the Council, so I dont feel as if I am completely useless at this level. If I was able to match the Purifier, then the rest of the game might be too easy.

Its just a bit of a bummer as the Galaxy map has given me a vast tract to expand into to the west. I may have been able to keep quiet.

Do the Fallen Empires ever intervene in a situation like this?

 

[MatthewP]

Yeah, scaling difficulty is deceptively easy because of how snowballing works. Commodore is probably harder than scaling GA. That said, I agree it sounds like it’s a good difficulty for you, just a bit of a tricky position with the purifier. They purge btw, so they should get a boost from conquest (food/minerals/unity) but it won’t last. I don’t know about fallen empires.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

Kinda funny...I kept my head low and have massively expanded. I have still a fairly small fleet of 25k, but it if concentrated at a single choke point, and I am slowly expanding it.

For some reason, they pissed off the Holy Guardians, who have occupied almost all of his territory... I have literally no idea what happens now as they are still not getting any war wariness. It is stuck at 0:10. If they cant force a peace, will it remain active indefinitely? It is a punitive expedition. Not sure what the victory conditions are.

 

[MatthewP]

Kinda funny...I kept my head low and have massively expanded. I have still a fairly small fleet of 25k, but it if concentrated at a single choke point, and I am slowly expanding it.

For some reason, they pissed off the Holy Guardians, who have occupied almost all of his territory... I have literally no idea what happens now as they are still not getting any war wariness. It is stuck at 0:10. If they cant force a peace, will it remain active indefinitely? It is a punitive expedition. Not sure what the victory conditions are.

Might be worth a separate post on the war weariness thing. Not sure if that's a bug or just a "WAD but probably not optimal" but either way I'd think the devs would want to know, and they're probably not reading far down in this one.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

Ahhh... They final made peace with the Holy Guardians.

Obviously a crisis was declared a couple of months later, and of course they had access to travel through the Holy Guardians territory right into the heart of my territory, with my fleets on the other side of my empire.

Lovely!!!

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

Kinda funny...I kept my head low and have massively expanded. I have still a fairly small fleet of 25k, but it if concentrated at a single choke point, and I am slowly expanding it.

For some reason, they pissed off the Holy Guardians, who have occupied almost all of his territory... I have literally no idea what happens now as they are still not getting any war wariness. It is stuck at 0:10. If they cant force a peace, will it remain active indefinitely? It is a punitive expedition. Not sure what the victory conditions are.

that would have been a great brief window to attack them and station small fleets in the occupied systems to conquer them quickly as soon as they make peace with the guardians. most of their armada was destroyed anyway, and the few leftovers that gone missing in action wouldn't have been much of a problem

anyway, they'll need a few years to rebuild their fleet. and once the cooldown is over they'll switch back policies and hereby once again start annoying the holy guardians. this will repeat until they're strong enough to beat them

 

[unmerged(350868)]

It appears the vast majority of their fleet survived in the far galactic east while making war against the Omni Forge. Fortuntaley their fleets remained there, whle their Star Killers went to join them. The remained of theior fleet moved through the Holy Guardian territory and started taking the northern systems, too remote for me to defend (as I cannot get throught the HG systems).

It has (as you suggested) left their homweworlds completely undefended. I have enough to capture their 5 colonies in their "Homeworld" sector. ANd there are two more all accessble by a single channel to the south that runs past my defensive line.

Hopefully I can catch their retreating fleets coming back through the HG systems. Going to be a right bastard retaking that for now, as I have to go around the long way to reach it, and I need my "home" fleet to guard the southen route into my empire. I am worried the Commonwealth of Man will retake it all for himself, but he managed to send his entire fleet in the wrong direction leaving his entire empire completely exposed. My inability to get around there might work to my advantage. Humans belong in my empire, after all.

I think I just ntoiced one of the Star Eaters heading back my way...

 

[Restless Native]

That open borders during truce thing is an obnoxious mechanic.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

Ohhhh... FFS!!!

Schoolboy Error...

 

[ASGeek2012]

That open borders during truce thing is an obnoxious mechanic.

The idea behind it, I think, is to allow both sides to retreat from each other's territory without being warped out like you would if caught behind another's borders when they close. To be honest, even that mechanic is gamey, though again, it's to prevent cheesing the game by positioning your forces across the border prior to declaring war.

I'd love to see the whole border mechanics system be overhauled.

 

[unmerged(350868)]

Lol... this gets funnier as I go.

The Holy Guardians declared War on the Purifiers again, and have started to occupy territory before i can get my fleets there. They have jumped ahead of many of my fleets, as they had not been recalled since the last war, and because my territory is no longer connected, when I capture a systems they are "liberated" rather than mine. I had a juicy cluster of planets and an invasion fleet ready to go with the bulk of my attack fleet... all rendered completely useless.

Once this war has been won, I know who is top of my shit list...

 

[Restless Native]

The idea behind it, I think, is to allow both sides to retreat from each other's territory without being warped out like you would if caught behind another's borders when they close. To be honest, even that mechanic is gamey, though again, it's to prevent cheesing the game by positioning your forces across the border prior to declaring war.

I'd love to see the whole border mechanics system be overhauled.

Yes that what’s its there for but it’s a bad solution
.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with EUIV but they have what’s called ‘exiled’ armies for this reason.
When peace is called any armies in foreign territory are ‘exiled’ and so can move through foreign territory but cannot engage in any combat. once they reach home territory they are no longer flagged as exiled.
This allows them to return home without giving military access unnecessarily. And especially for the duration of the truce.

Not only is there a better solution out there but it’s a solution created by the same developers

 

[gamerk2]

The idea behind it, I think, is to allow both sides to retreat from each other's territory without being warped out like you would if caught behind another's borders when they close. To be honest, even that mechanic is gamey, though again, it's to prevent cheesing the game by positioning your forces across the border prior to declaring war.

I'd love to see the whole border mechanics system be overhauled.

Us swttle for making civilian and military access separate and negotiable via trade deals.