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Doomstack Mitigation Discussion -- hard cap vs. soft cap

HFY · 2024-09-13T16:30:39+00:00

Had some thoughts on breaking Doomstack meta, wanted to get some feedback. IMHO there are basically two ways to stop doomstacking, and either could work: - Combat Width (hard cap) where your fleet sends a limited number of ships into combat, replacing them from the main fleet as they retreat or are destroyed, like how armies work. Except with fleets you'd get some limited formation support, like proportional ("always send 2:1 split of Destroyers : Cruisers until we run out of one or the other"), or waves ("send Cruisers until we run out, then send Battleships"), or just random ("we have a collection of random ships from events and older fleets, just throw them at the enemy until they run out") -- random might be faster, because otherwise there's not much reason to use it. Storms could influence combat width just like planets do; Commanders could also do that like how Generals do. Supply could be a thing that ensures reinforcements appear fast. Being unsupplied could mean your reinforcements have a chance to not engage, or immediately disengage. Storms could impact both how much supply your ships need, and how bad they suffer if you don't meet that command. Not sure how allied fleets should interact with Combat Width. Defense Platforms & Starbases should not count towards this limit. That's a defense bonus. - Coordination Limit (soft cap) where your fleet has some optimal size under normal conditions, and individual ship performance gets worse as you go past that optimal size, and that should include ability to retreat. So a small fleet could hit a large fleet, kill a few large fleet ships, and escape with damage but mostly alive. That would be the normal attrition mechanic. No Retreat might allow you to fully commit a small fleet to killing a lot more than the usual number of large-fleet ships, but the small fleet does not escape. Tech and tradition could increase the optimal size a bit. Storms could change the optimal size, and could also inflict new types of penalties for being over size. Storms could also increase the supply support needed. Supply could mean degraded performance in a way that multiplies with coordination penalties, so a small fleet being unsupplied would be a little worse, but a large fleet being unsupplied would be MUCH worse. Allies should interact as if they were in the same fleet for degradation, because the whole point is coordination between friendly ships. So having two max-size allied fleets in a system should degrade both as if you were 100% over sized. Defense Platforms & Starbases should not count towards this limit. Same defense bonus as above. I think those are the two main ways to reduce the incentives to Doomstack. Some other factors might be things like: - Geometric supply cost (requires adding a supply system to Stellaris but that's a positive IMHO). - Geometric over-size cost. The idea is that several normal-sized fleets should cost less than one max-possible fleet. Requires deciding what "normal" means. - Something like power disparity bonus but for retreat, so a small fleet can do hit-and-run, but your biggest possible fleet won't be able to pop right back up after a defeat. Make the fleet's intent declared in advance -- either you want a decisive victory (and risk a decisive defeat), or you want to inflict attrition (and have a very good chance to escape). Attrition should be productive against an oversized fleet, but the big fleet would have a momentum advantage against starbases (able to hit multiple in succession without needing to repair). - Supply lines leading back to your Capital or an Anchorage which can be pillaged by enemies or opportunistic pirates (e.g. if your supply lines go through an unfriendly neutral, they might steal your stuff). Remove Piracy and use the Patrol button to assign a small fleet to protect the supply line for a larger fleet. Spawning Privateers would disrupt military supply and might have an actual impact on the target rather than just costing a bit of TV for a month. - Alternate supply sources for some kinds of Empires, like Despoilers might need less delivered supply if they raid an enemy colony. Scavenger civics might get some supply from debris, etc. EDIT: Okay, had a new idea: Types of Fleet Decisive Fleet is the current ("traditional") doomstack. It fights, it usually wins because it's huge, and it is what you send to take claimed territory. Decisive fleets kill other ships and lose ships (permanently) to attrition. This takes the place of the anvil icon trait. When a Decisive fleet retreats, it's gone for years. Skirmish Fleet is a new type of fleet based on the idea that everyone in the fleet will usually survive. They don't prioritize taking & holding, but rather attrition and their own survival. When a Skirmish fleet retreats, it's gone for days. Decisive Fleets kill each other (for good) and conquer space. Skirmish Fleets wear down Decisive Fleets and survive to do it again. Skirmish Fleets can also probe (gathering intel by hitting and retreating), can raid for resources, and can fight each other -- where a tie means a mutual retreat, so your skirmish fleets both survive, with the aggressor having a longer time-out and a longer journey back to the war front. Genocidal empires might only have Decisive Fleets. Everyone else might have a balance of both, with the specific ratio being determined by a policy (Defense In Depth / Hit and Run / No Retreat / etc.). - Fleet type must be declared in advance. You build each fleet around its role, you don't set the role on a bag of random hulls. - Some Leader traits should be good for both. Other traits might be firmly one or the other. - Wars might have allies only sending Skirmish Fleets in support, keeping their Decisive Fleets at home -- unless your allies have their own Claims on the target, of course. How does this help: Doomstacks aren't removed, but there is now a counter-play other than just "bigger doomstack". New rules & interactions can be added to the very basic strategy I've outlined, to make it a bit more nuanced & strategic. For example, storms might favor Skirmish or might favor Decisive. You would want to send your Skirmish into the former, but avoid the latter. Decisive would do the opposite. Terrain would encourage some basic tactics. Pacifists would have a way to engage in war support: Skirmish Fleets should cause low war weariness (because they survive) so a Pacifist with low tolerance for military losses might be able to support an ally anyway. Despoilers would have a distinct mechanic to enhance: let Skirmish Fleets raid for booty without also being able to conquer the raid target. For the conqueror, you need to defend your Decisive doomstack from the vicious Skirmish Fleets. You can do this with your own Skirmish Fleets. Thus you have a Doomstack as a (slow?) juggernaut covered by picket fleets. Juggernaut might become a place for skirmish fleets to rally & recover behind enemy lines, instead of a shipyard which steals Battleship reinforcement clicks. Anyway that's a bunch of rambling. Thoughts on this topic?

Thread starter HFY
Start date Sep 13, 2024

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Eladrin

Stellaris Game Director

Paradox Staff

Sep 14, 2024

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#18

Excellent thread timing, I was planning on starting one similar to this a few weeks from now to get player thoughts on fleets, fleet power, naval capacity, and the like.

Carry on!

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