Stellaris is a race game, not a war game, and it’s becoming ever more obvious.

[Imp0815]

...are you guys seriously discussing doomstacking AGAIN? Was flanking already suggested?

As I said, it's still the only real pain point in the game. Everything else is and must be designed around the fact we still have those. If this finally would be really addressed, the game would open up to its true potential.

I find it rather more shocking that it's not discussed more.

People waste pages on minuscule number balance discussion and jump through hoops to find solutions for why vassals are too powerful, why tech rush is so strong and OP, or why pop growth should be limited, but nobody is talking about why these mechanics have these impacts. Because they all lead to one thing and one thing only, having the biggest doomstack potential in the game to solve all problems away.

Stellaris is by all means a war game. All game loops feed into Fleet power; even peaceful diplomacy leads to a fleet power increase.

I would argue if a game only has warfare as the end result of its interactions, it is a war game by and large. And I bring it up again, the endgame challenges of Stellaris are a military conflict (a big war). So how can all the other mechanics balance that out?

P.S. Before this gets out of hand again: Ultimately it doesn't matter if Stellaris is a wargame or not. The reality is warfare is a major part of the game, if not the focal point everything revolves around, as building and increasing your military might aka fleet power is the end result of most, if not all, interactions. We can, however, discuss and argue for a betterment if we think this is an issue. I would argue if you want to see Stellaris become more than a wannabe RTS wargame with funny smoke and mirrors, you could argue for a change.

 

[tanny]

Well, I’ve had some suggestions like making migration a serious issue that one empire with a really strong migration pull could cause slaves from other empires to become refugees until they’re drained of pops or something along the line. The crisis final boss issue can be solved In the setting by making the crisis not too strong but again, the biggest badge of honor a Stellaris player could have is to beat bigger crises and that demands that the crisis be a major event. Factions and pops ethics could go a long way and being able to influence them could be a big deal, maybe with espionage/soft power/etc. But again, seriously, if pop movements could cause a gigantic impact on the game, people would be crunching numbers to find ways to maximize immigration pull. I’m also thinking about luxury/strategic resources, but I don’t think Stellaris would simply add 20 extra resources, and even if they could, the existence of the market would turn the system into another joke. Maybe one could add galactic unique wonders that can only be built once per galaxy, but then it’s just another race mechanics. One could add quests like perhaps having the player have lots of pops under chemical bliss to unlock some tech, but would it turn into another “spend resource to win” mechanic? Megastructures supposedly have players have another place to spend alloy other than fleets, but they usually ended up being just a minor speed bump before the players go back to building their fleets. Maybe we could add enough quests/mechanics requiring new rare resources that players need to manage their resources and can’t just buy everything? But then, at that point, we’re talking about a very different game, and perhaps allow bigger empires to snowball faster due to more rare resource sources at their disposal. Make a resource type that requires some technology to synthesize? Then, tech rush would come back again. Stellaris may be a game full of war, but it’s more fundamentally a number crunching game.

 

[mrt1212]

It is a number crunching game to a large extent both in play and social sharing. I think its more like maintenance though to the experience you make of it though...if that makes sense?

Like, you cant ignore said number crunching and you can go wild places of power if you run some illustrations and test the insights. But you can also kinda just wing it with enough experience that you really gotta love the theme of Stellaris and number crunching to spent 8 years treating the game as just that.

I hate number crunching in games and prefer playing by feel and intuition (and laughs and intrigue) after getting the gist of mathy plays that generally work.

I think there is also wide latitude to go places, this storm DLC might be cool if it doesnt come back to number crunchers declaring gross imbalance over them.


Notice: topics you bring up and how you approach and engage them reveal the bigger draws of the game. Some want numerical buffs to genetics and psionics, some want less out of hand nanites melting their computer, i want more interactive choices with things I do and less truces.

Also Notice: number crunchers are borderline implacable by the need to solve a problem into the need of a new numbers crunch.

And some of us are like 'How can I play as the boulder?'

 

[yarpus]

As I said, it's still the only real pain point in the game. Everything else is and must be designed around the fact we still have those. If this finally would be really addressed, the game would open up to its true potential.

I find it rather more shocking that it's not discussed more.

People waste pages on minuscule number balance discussion and jump through hoops to find solutions for why vassals are too powerful, why tech rush is so strong and OP, or why pop growth should be limited, but nobody is talking about why these mechanics have these impacts. Because they all lead to one thing and one thing only, having the biggest doomstack potential in the game to solve all problems away.

Stellaris is by all means a war game. All game loops feed into Fleet power; even peaceful diplomacy leads to a fleet power increase.

I would argue if a game only has warfare as the end result of its interactions, it is a war game by and large. And I bring it up again, the endgame challenges of Stellaris are a military conflict (a big war). So how can all the other mechanics balance that out?

P.S. Before this gets out of hand again: Ultimately it doesn't matter if Stellaris is a wargame or not. The reality is warfare is a major part of the game, if not the focal point everything revolves around, as building and increasing your military might aka fleet power is the end result of most, if not all, interactions. We can, however, discuss and argue for a betterment if we think this is an issue. I would argue if you want to see Stellaris become more than a wannabe RTS wargame with funny smoke and mirrors, you could argue for a change.

I disagree.
I despise doing offensive wars in Stellaris.
I use Crisis perks as my only winning condition because conquering and even vassalizing others is boring. Space warfare is boring. I prefer to fund Mercenaries and request them when they are needed.
Cosmogenesis is perfect addition for me as it finally allows me to play Pacifists which do fit my playstyle perfectly. I hope it does get nerfed though as currently it's too easy. I have done a GA run where I won the game without any war and I was very satisfied with it. Just tinkering with economy, diplomacy and politics is enough to keep me satisfied.

 

[Ikael]

The first Horseman of the Apocalypse, Tall vs Wide.
The second Horseman of the Apocalypse, Doomstacking.

Forgot about the third and fourth though.

I think they were "ground combat rework" and "powerful espionage actions"

As for Tall vs Wide, I think the main idea is that Wide takes risks. There is no way to actively take risks as a Tall player to justify getting more power (neither is there content to play around with).

As someone who usually likes to play tall in 4X games, the discourse here regarding tall gameplay is weird. Tall (at least to me) means an "inner" expansion, meaning, to invest resources into development, rather than map-painting and military might. But Stellaris offers very few venues for that, and it offers no tradeoff between expansion VS development either.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Wide involves investing tons of resources into a navy which can be used for both offense and defense.

Tall would be gambling if you couldn't see other nation's opinions of you with perfect accuracy. As it is, you can know if you're safe or not and invest accordingly. The lack of risk comes from the perfect information.

 

[yarpus]

I would argue that for me the closes mechanic to tall vs wide in Stellaris is… usage of Mercenaries.
They have been an incredible blessing for tall and it sucks that all of civics that enable them are blocked for Pacifists.
Wide always finds an use for fleet. There’s always another conquest or another neighbour. For tall empire it’s the oppisite. Having mercs just trickle in resources, being a resource sink themselves and being available when they are needed is such a blessing my god.
I know it may sound disjointed but think about it and you too shall see the light.

 

[mrt1212]

I would argue that for me the closes mechanic to tall vs wide in Stellaris is… usage of Mercenaries.
They have been an incredible blessing for tall and it sucks that all of civics that enable them are blocked for Pacifists.
Wide always finds an use for fleet. There’s always another conquest or another neighbour. For tall empire it’s the oppisite. Having mercs just trickle in resources, being a resource sink themselves and being available when they are needed is such a blessing my god.
I know it may sound disjointed but think about it and you too shall see the light.

Unfortunately, what is good for the Tall Goose, is always out of control for the Wide Gander. After Security Contractors passes, it's a game within a game of collecting them all for that passive income if you want it, for the ships if you need it.

You aren't wrong though on them being pretty dang nifty for the empire that stays in their own confines though, no doubt.

 

[Voidian]

I think it makes perfect sense to build a ton of colonies within your territory and call it a tall build.

If you're not expanding outwards, and instead you're developing the territory you already have, that's tall play, spaming habitats, ringworlds, developing ecumenopolises, creating gaia worlds, ascending planets, all of that is what I'd call tall play.

The opposite would be to simply take more land, and get more colonies outwards, from your oponents, gaining more territory, hence wide.

I'm not sure why some people seem to necessarily think tall play needs a couple of colonies, sure, you can do that, I did it in a game where I played a feudal society and I never expanded beyond my own core sector, everything I conquered too far from my core worlds got turned into a vassal, it was very powerful, and I was expanding madly by vassalizing or creating more vassals, and I wouldn't call that tall just because I didn't have many colonies personally.

 

[mrt1212]

I think it makes perfect sense to build a ton of colonies within your territory and call it a tall build.

If you're not expanding outwards, and instead you're developing the territory you already have, that's tall play, spaming habitats, ringworlds, developing ecumenopolises, creating gaia worlds, ascending planets, all of that is what I'd call tall play.

The opposite would be to simply take more land, and get more colonies outwards, from your oponents, gaining more territory, hence wide.

I'm not sure why some people seem to necessarily think tall play needs a couple of colonies, sure, you can do that, I did it in a game where I played a feudal society and I never expanded beyond my own core sector, everything I conquered too far from my core worlds got turned into a vassal, it was very powerful, and I was expanding madly by vassalizing or creating more vassals, and I wouldn't call that tall just because I didn't have many colonies personally.

I think part of it is that a core sector can be anywhere from 5 to 20 systems and a fully loaded 20 system core sector with Planet/Hab/Ringworld mix probably more closely resembles the experience of 3x that amount than 1/3rd that amount. Just tossing it out there if we want to consider the split by how it feels.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

In terms of strategy, an empire that's invested a ton of alloys/influence into jamming their core sector full of colonies is tall. You're building up peacefully rather than expanding out to take other's stuff.

But in terms of empire management and empire modifiers, the only difference between such a "tall" build and a wide build is that the wide build has more space resources and sprawl from systems, and the "wide" build can put everything under a single governor if they want. Other than that: 40 colonies is 40 colonies, no matter how you spread them out (or not).

 

[Imp0815]

I disagree.
I despise doing offensive wars in Stellaris.
I use Crisis perks as my only winning condition because conquering and even vassalizing others is boring. Space warfare is boring. I prefer to fund Mercenaries and request them when they are needed.
Cosmogenesis is perfect addition for me as it finally allows me to play Pacifists which do fit my playstyle perfectly. I hope it does get nerfed though as currently it's too easy. I have done a GA run where I won the game without any war and I was very satisfied with it. Just tinkering with economy, diplomacy and politics is enough to keep me satisfied.

Let's go back a little. Why do you despise it? Because I think I am in the exact same position as you. I despise it heavily, but I enjoy tinkering with the economy, diplomacy, and politics. I played other PDX titles and can see clearly that there are multiple ways to make changes to the military and war system to improve it and bring it in line with the economy and diplomacy, for example. One benefit could be that Starbases could finally be useful throughout the game and not get outpaced in the mid-game by the endless doomstack.

It makes me somewhat sad that you break your immersion and go down the Crisis path just to avoid losing the game or having to engage in the hamster wheel of fleet power stacking.