Is the AI scripted not to "doomstack" against the player?

[Seridor]

I played a few games recently, still 3.14, but this is about fleet movements only.

I noticed quite a few times that the enemy's entire fleet comes in my direction, but one jump before my starbase—where I gathered everything I could—they split and only send in half of their strength.

In more than one game I would have lost if they hadn't done that. Fanatic Purifiers are abundant and quite successful in this version (much stronger than I remembered). Anyway, while I'm glad they did it, it feels cheap... at least when I bait them to my defense platforms by hiding my fleets on jump points, I'm doing something, but in this case they are just giving me victory.

On another topic, doomstacking in games like this—full of choke points and noodle-like system chains—is just too strong a tactic without any alternative...

A few more "observations":

-In all my games, Fanatic Purifiers are eating their neighbors with ease. My survival usually depends on whether I get disruptors before I have to face them. Disruptor corvettes destroy two-times-stronger AI fleets without heavy losses.
-It seems these FPs leave their captured planets at 2 unproductive pops. Could this hinder them by increasing empire size drastically?
-In one game, an FP conquered half of the galaxy by 2300 and was already declared a crisis. The Galactic Community, with my contribution, defeated this crisis—even a Fallen Empire was attacking them. The problem was that I got tons of systems and planets, which increased my empire size drastically, and I had no chance of create vassal or something because peace was not an option. Finishing this war would have taken just too long, so eventually I just restarted. (Couldn't get rid of the planets during war, except depopulating, but that's 200 influence, so limited usage.)

Anyway, did you noticed the ai doing something like this with its doomstack?

 

[Zergor]

The AI seem to send just "what they need" as a doomstack. If they are outpowered they will wait in the next system until enough fleets are here but if they have too much they will send some fleets do something else. Which mean they tend to send a bit more firepower than what you have in the system in my experience. Which is bad with their suboptimal builds as, as you said, some weapons like distruptors shred them even with way less fleet power.

 

[Anzaman]

Well, I've seen AI doomstack now and then - gets quite chaotic when they decide to take their entire naval capacity same direction, but most of the time they do seem to split around. Which then results in them losing the whole war that they would have otherwise easily won.

Personally I'd like to see AI defend their areas more. Had Fanatic Purifier go Nemesis in previous game. Their capital 2 system jumps from my border, and they had ZERO ships defending the capital area as all their fleets were supposedly fighting another empire at another border 30 systems away. I could just walk in and destroy their engine with basically zero resistance.

 

[hart30]

It gets especially tricky if ur defense choke is inside a nebula. Then the AI is bsically guaranteed to send too small of a fleet to defeat u. And sometimes if not catched at the hyperlane exit it managrs to retreat.
After thst (as it cannot see whats inside the nebula) it gathers and sends in enough fleet to be able to beat what it saw inside the system at that time. But if the player sent reinforcements it can fail again - rince repeat.

In general the AI collects its fleets before declaring war and sending them in. After passing the border into the players empire it considers the main player forces beaten and splits its fleets up to take as much territory as fast as possible.
So sometimes if the enemy is overwhelming its better to not hold it at the choke - but to leave the choke undefended and open till the enemy fleets are inside and split up. So the fleets can be targeted one by one. If the ai notices the player fleet accumulation it often tries to reunite split fleets again, but then its often too late and the fleets either too spread out or stuck bombing planets.

Also works if after being declared upon the player sends their fleets in. Fast occupying planets forcing a split of ai fleets trying to retake the planets and pursuing the player fleets at the same time.

 

[Anzaman]

It gets especially tricky if ur defense choke is inside a nebula.

I remember this one game where I had nebula as the only point of entry into my Empire.

And since the AI could not see what's inside the nebula, they simply sat the border until they finally simply sent me peace offer without making the move.

 

[Seridor]

In my current game I convinced my federation partner (stronger than me, on paper at least..) to attack an other FP. we had 3 attack points, I took one, and quickly conquered without resistance. my ally went on a path completely ignoring that on an other way the FP reached its core systems and started purging its capital. I had to rush back to save what I can.. hate refugees but would be out of character to refuse them.
In short they could had saved their core worlds easily, but they just ignored it and waged war elsewhere.. against a purifier it is especially bad since they can empty their capital in short time.

 

[Troyen]

Yes, I believe there's anti-doomstack logic. There are versions of Stellaris where the AI would actually doomstack all its fleets (early 3.X, late 2.X) and it just wasn't fun to play against, especially when the crisis did it, because then it's purely about total numeric superiority rather than fleet positioning.

 

[hart30]

Yes, I believe there's anti-doomstack logic. There are versions of Stellaris where the AI would actually doomstack all its fleets (early 3.X, late 2.X) and it just wasn't fun to play against, especially when the crisis did it, because then it's purely about total numeric superiority rather than fleet positioning.

Everything before 2.0 was doomstack. As fleet cap did not exist.
Back then the tactic was to throw a small fleet against the enemy, forcing the enemy doomstack to go onto a big endless chase. Meanwhile the players own doomstack took down the enemy planets without having to take on the ai doomstack.

 

[HMS Enterprize]

Most of my games (version 3s), the AI did nothing but doomstack - pretty much all the time.

Deeply annoying & stupid.

Federations were even worse, you’d have multiple AI states all doomstacking in the same system.