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I was really REALLY hoping for an overhaul of the technology tree with even the possibility of more than three or just a nice well thought out pruning
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I tend to across the front, and then put more back in reserves when I have all I need at the front. With how Stellaris handles the equivalent of provinces, we have very few frontlines so we will end up with a long chain of reserves behind the front, each one needing to be managed.
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How? You don't end up with 100 fully staffed fleets, even in the endgame. It's mostly 5 to 10 at most.
Then you stopped imagining at 1 fleet per system, where a balance must be struck on how such a system would even work. Could it be 2–3 fleets per system in the endgame? Could it be that we have far fewer fleets? Could fleets become much smaller? Could systems always connect to every neighbor, so basically every system has more than two connections like the provinces in HoI? Do you have new powerful tools to manage your newly enlarged and wast borders and the navy to protect it? - Think out of the Box.
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Yes! It's called Max Hyperlanes (more or less, there's the caveat that galaxygen hyperlanes have a maximum length and can't intersect) and it's the only hyperlane density I find the game tolerable to play on due to the way civilian ships move.
I end up with quite a few fleets by the late game and I don't want to have to micro each and every one in a chain to ensure I have the forces to spread out, capture and bombard just for the sake of spreading them out to micro.
I have, if we have much smaller fleets then it's going to mean even more fleets than currently.
If we have fewer ships sure we can have less fleets, but then it still doesn't resolve the underlying issue of building up the industry to support more ships and the tech focus to make the ships we have even better.
If we have multiple fleets per system, then it's just making doomstacks smaller, while also meaning we can end up chaining fleets in to systems for battle.
We have a wider space with less choke points then that really pushes the need for the fleets to be automated like in HoI like I originally said.
And of course none of these solve the actual issue that came up here and tends to cause a lot more. E.g. how do you deal with a larger foe? A more advanced foe etc. And how does this stop you building up the industry to make more fleet power? Even if you limit the number of ships we can have, that just means putting those working in the mines and alloy plants over to researchers to get faster techs.
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Why don’t we chain up divisions in Hearts of Iron IV into provinces for battle?
Because we mostly cannot afford the costs of positioning it would entail, with idle divisions sitting there while other theaters are in desperate need of reinforcements. More importantly, divisions in a region take up supply even if they don’t fight, so stacking them all up in one location takes away supply from fighting troops, making this super ineffective and self-handicapping.
Why don’t we do it anyway? Because it’s tedious and mostly unnecessary.
Isn’t having multiple different fleets in a system just smaller doomstacks?
No, because you wouldn’t have ALL or the majority of your fleet power in one system. A stack of two or three fleets in a system when having 25 fleets isn’t creating a “doomstack”.
Would having wider space with more chokepoints require automation?
Yes, definitely! We would need tools to position fleets in systems automatically and tools to create offensive plans for automated warfare.
Does having more and smaller fleets spread across borders resolve the issue of repetitive gameplay and the one-trick pony reliance on alloys and science to snowball into endless fleet power?
Yes and no. You’d eventually reach a point where building more fleets/ships becomes counterproductive if you play tall, as you have no locations for them to be useful. You could then focus on research to improve fleet quality over quantity. Research has diminishing returns as its cost increases with more pops, planets, and systems, meaning power progression would naturally slow as you scale too much.
This theorized system revolves around having caps on fleets per system, which entails a much different combat pace and outcomes. In general, any of this requires a rework of all underlying systems, as the game is essentially built around the fleet power loop. Changing that would necessitate rebalancing all approaches. Research could also be altered to benefit smaller empires more while limiting their map presence and preventing double-dipping advantages for large empires. This could be achieved by several means, such as introducing a research upkeep to maintain tech or increasing the impact of fielded fleets on resource production and supply. This would require maintaining a certain output to keep the fleet afloat, beyond just a bit of energy and minor amounts of alloys.
What about force disparity and dealing with larger foes?
As systems limit fleets per system, larger foes wouldn’t gain a head start over smaller empires. This would finally create gameplay opportunities for tall or small empires to handle and battle larger empires. Both sides could bring roughly the same number of ships, making fleet composition, technology, and military strategies more critical.
Making the military system somewhat capped and limiting the usefulness of endless ship production would create a foundation for alternative gameplay systems that wouldn’t ultimately just fuel the military-industrial complex.
Which is the issue brought forth here.
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Mostly due to the sheer scale of the fronts we end up fighting across, but even then I have reserves so they can fill in any gaps or exploit any I create. In Stellaris, even with max size galaxy you end up with far fewer systems to fight over. So if we have limits on the number of fleets we can have in each system at a time, in a war we will have idle fleets sitting around doing nothing anyway, so why wouldn't we chain them up to advance as we move and lanes open up, or as other fleets disengage?
It can still effectively be one, the idea of putting as much power in a single point to overwhelm a smaller target. Sure if we break down the normal build of less than 10 fleets in to 25 then it would be very different, but then that also means changing a lot of other things to get to that result than just a cap on fleets in a system.
But it doesn't. What else are you spending those resources on? Research might be diminishing, but again what else are you spending those resources on? Sure late game an extra set of researchers makes little impact but it's still more of a benefit than minerals/food/energy that you end up trading due to having more than you need already. These already diminish over time but the core part is they still continue to be useful as they effectively only have a softcap vs the hardcap of other resources. With this it makes research even more important as it becomes a bigger part in the outcome of battles.
At which point the fleet cap is a tiny little detail that isn't important to the suggestion as the core part is reworking all the economic systems which becomes an entirely different kettle of fish where you might not even need to cap number of fleets in each system.
Unless the fleet cap is set at 1 fleet per side per system, then larger foes will have an advantage in combat until the weaker side can fill the cap. It also doesn't stop a larger enemy having more fleets overall that they can deploy at once or chain up to replace lost fleets while a smaller faction can't. There's also the risk that a larger empire is a better alliance choice so could possibly gang up on weaker empires, at which point does the fleet cap in systems become per empire or per side of a war? Alliance getting the option to deploy twice as many fleets in a system seems a bit of an advantage.
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Firstly, I want to thank you for engaging in this discussion, as it seems, on a genuine basis, and for arguing around the points brought forward.
I think the spread and the scale really depend on how we scale the progression and the time it takes to build fleets. I would not worry about "too many fleets," and there should be an option for large investments in the military to have more than enough fleets. For an offensive strategy or scenario, like an offensive war, empires should prepare reserves to handle increased front sizes. In general, a simplified system adapted to Stellaris—similar to how HoI handles units, provinces, combat, and overall military gameplay—would create a much better solution than what we currently have.
Exactly, this is inevitable, as all other changes to the game, even the upcoming pop system, effectively do nothing to the game. A rework of scaling, economy, and military is fundamentally necessary, but that’s not something unreasonable to state, as the game was built like that from the beginning. All changes done while the basics remain the same are wasted work and energy. Nothing will change—we will keep doing nothing but amassing resources to amass fleets to hit each other over the head with. The bigger, the better.
This is a balance problem, but I assume you mean what game goals are there besides amassing fleet power via different means?
That is a good question, but as Stellaris tinkers with so many concepts, like the new Lathe for example, there is enough basis to introduce more interesting game goals like this. As soon as the need for every empire to focus entirely on amassing fleet power is erased, the game could allow for a broader range of objectives. The idea is that when you reach a soft cap for your personal comfort—being safe with a stable and capable military for your current position in the galaxy—you can focus on other game goals besides your military-industrial complex.
In addition, any side feature currently underutilized, like espionage, criminal empires, raiders, spiritualists, etc., could be improved. The impact of the fleet power snowball would be reduced, as a limit on fleet power usefulness would allow other systems to gain more significance without ruining your playthrough by losing one of your massive fleets.
It’s more than just "removing doomstacks"; it’s about reworking the fundamentals of Stellaris so the game doesn’t revolve around the fleet power snowball.
To answer your initial question: we could invest in non-military tech to improve our pops’ lives, invest in megastructures that aren’t focused on fleet power, invest in cultural projects (which would require a cultural system as a metric to compete in), invest in diplomacy to create galactic peace (rather than uniting the galaxy under an empire, which is currently another fleet power check), invest in espionage, invest in trading, and develop a wealth and trading system that impacts other empires. We could also create a meaningful internal politics system with real consequences, and so on.
For me personally, the discussions on how it’s done are numerous and mind-boggling. If I had the say, I would just copy a light version of HoI's supply system. Build supply depots in building slots on planets and stations, and have them provide a supply cap within a certain jump range to systems. Each system gains a certain supply cap based on the depots in range. If too many fleets are stationed within the radius of a supply station, it will run low, and combat penalties will occur. It’s the perfect antidote to doomstacking and adds another layer of strategic planning, both defensively and offensively. Alliance fleets would take up the same supply from your stations, so the usefulness of endless vassals and allies would be limited, which would also solve this issue. Of course, this should not create problems where the AI ignores your fleets and the supply in systems, ruining your offense/defense. It works in HoI, so it should work in Stellaris if done properly.
With this, larger empires could try to create massive reserves and trickle them into combat, but ultimately they strain their supply and their positions. It all must be balanced around "what does a fleet cost?" For me, it should be really expensive, and each fleet should be a unique and interesting part of your empire, not something you facelessly throw around and waste.
Fleets should not be readily available all the time—they should be expensive, take time to build, and be costly to maintain. Either a highly optimized late-game empire should be able to amass enough reserves to overrun the enemy, or an empire specifically dedicated to building a massive quantity of ships/fleets of poor quality could zerg the enemy. This could create another layer of asymmetric warfare beyond just small vs. large empires, which I like the sound of.
Everything can be tinkered with to create more interesting outcomes. Empires could focus on lowering supply usage to field more or bigger fleets per cap, but they must choose between that or improving their weapons, their economy, and so on. Just give me real choices.
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Only after repeated and lengthy screaming by the player base.
It took literally years for the ally AI to be taught to not supplykill your army.
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Well, now it works. And when we already
It’s a complete mystery to me why, in every other Paradox title, they borrow features from each other, yet seemingly everyone avoids the most successful title of PDX Game Studios altogether—like they’re jealous or something.
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Eh. I don't play often as gestalts because they remove so many mechanics and so much flavor. And I think the new leader system is really good and if you optimize towards it very impactful. I saw a thread in Reddit on what traditions people like, and in what order they take them and Statecraft was #1 for a lot of people, because high level leaders really do make a difference.
The entire game isn't the endgame. If you have a lot of envoys early on, for example, you can often turn around enemy empires. Drop 3 envoys on them, and even if they're rivaling you and harming relations you can usually turn them into friends. That means I can avoid early wars when I have expansion possibilities which don't require war, and if I do want war, I can choose with who.
I don't entirely disagree. There are points in the game where all that matters is how strong your fleet is and how efficiently and effectively you can replace losses. But that isn't all there is to it and there are quite a few viable paths there, even if they aren't all optimal or the most efficient.
Personally I often play suboptimal as part of an empire conceit, not because I don't know optimal play but because it's less interesting. (I too have had Stellaris from day one and have thousands of hours played. It replaced Civ as my "game I play when I don't have anything else to play game.)
(Space fauna, in the first 80 years or so, with the right civics, is actually kind of insane, because the damn things just keep spawning and growing. You set it up and you almost don't have to do anything after that except increase your fleet cap to keep up. Not saying it's optimal in most cases, but it can definitely be made to work.)
The entire game isn't the endgame. If you have a lot of envoys early on, for example, you can often turn around enemy empires. Drop 3 envoys on them, and even if they're rivaling you and harming relations you can usually turn them into friends. That means I can avoid early wars when I have expansion possibilities which don't require war, and if I do want war, I can choose with who.
I don't entirely disagree. There are points in the game where all that matters is how strong your fleet is and how efficiently and effectively you can replace losses. But that isn't all there is to it and there are quite a few viable paths there, even if they aren't all optimal or the most efficient.
Personally I often play suboptimal as part of an empire conceit, not because I don't know optimal play but because it's less interesting. (I too have had Stellaris from day one and have thousands of hours played. It replaced Civ as my "game I play when I don't have anything else to play game.)
(Space fauna, in the first 80 years or so, with the right civics, is actually kind of insane, because the damn things just keep spawning and growing. You set it up and you almost don't have to do anything after that except increase your fleet cap to keep up. Not saying it's optimal in most cases, but it can definitely be made to work.)
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Really good point. Diplomacy is a really good double dip as you can gain access to fleet power not only by building alloys and research but also by investing envoys to utilize other empires' research and alloys.
The only issue is that their fleet power is unoptimized, and you inherit their enemies as well as their problems.
Vitriol aside, I started playing Stellaris as mostly xenophobe militaristic empires, gobbling up the galaxy, but the warfare system subconsciously drove me to xenophile pacifist for their envoy bonuses to avoid warfare as long as possible, as it is not fun. Did I need a massive industrial complex and a giant Doomstack to whack the numerous crises anyway? Yes, I did, but I could try to burn AI empires' fleets in the process and mostly stopped playing when push came to shove.
I think that's the main point of this topic: Stellaris is always about gaining fleet power. No matter the RP or the empire type, you only choose how you gain your Doomstack. Maybe some can interpret that envoys are not the same, as you have a different interaction loop with the UI to gain more fleet power, but for me, it's all smoke and mirrors, and the final goals are what count.
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I must add that a big contributor to this problem lies not only in the combat system itself but also on the entire economic system.
The thing is, the fleet is the end result of the entire resource chain. You end up investing most of your precious alloys on fleet mainly because all other alternatives are either inexistent or subpar:
-> You don't need alloys to develop your planets, as they rely on minerals instead for both buildings and districts. Planet development has an incredibly low ceiling
-> Megastructures come far too late in the game to matter
-> You can't invest alloys into your populace. You can invest in consumer goods, but that is not going to give you any tangible economic advantage.
-> Building habitats does not present any advantage over acquiring pops via conquest, either
-> Generally speaking, pop acquisition (conquest) is the most effective way of growing your economy, bar none, due to how pop growth works. Thus making turning all your alloys into fleet the most logical, default "non-decision"
-> Kilostructures and Orbital Rings do give you alternate ways of investing alloys into your own economy (which is awesome) but it is DLC-dependent, and there are also hard limits on those, too (you might put one ring per planet max, but you can always pile as much fleet as you want, wherever you want)
Let's hope that the new pop rework also comes along with a hefty economic rework that forces you to make the proverbial choosing between guns and butter. One can only hope!
The thing is, the fleet is the end result of the entire resource chain. You end up investing most of your precious alloys on fleet mainly because all other alternatives are either inexistent or subpar:
-> You don't need alloys to develop your planets, as they rely on minerals instead for both buildings and districts. Planet development has an incredibly low ceiling
-> Megastructures come far too late in the game to matter
-> You can't invest alloys into your populace. You can invest in consumer goods, but that is not going to give you any tangible economic advantage.
-> Building habitats does not present any advantage over acquiring pops via conquest, either
-> Generally speaking, pop acquisition (conquest) is the most effective way of growing your economy, bar none, due to how pop growth works. Thus making turning all your alloys into fleet the most logical, default "non-decision"
-> Kilostructures and Orbital Rings do give you alternate ways of investing alloys into your own economy (which is awesome) but it is DLC-dependent, and there are also hard limits on those, too (you might put one ring per planet max, but you can always pile as much fleet as you want, wherever you want)
Let's hope that the new pop rework also comes along with a hefty economic rework that forces you to make the proverbial choosing between guns and butter. One can only hope!
Yeah, one thing to remember about pop growth is that you can modify it in game setup. I put up with slower later game speed and modify the pop growth to not slow down hardly at all as time goes by, exactly so that I can have a peaceful game where I don't have to conquer to get new pops.
I think the changes to pop growth are the worst thing for the actual gameplay that Paradox ever did to Stellaris. I understand why they exist, because of the slowdown, but when 4.0 comes out, if the new system solves the "pop calculation" issue I hope they take the pop growth slowdown rules out. This will go a long way to making primarily pacifist runs possible and not require stupidity like feeder worlds or spinning sectors off to vassals. (Also empire size + vassal bonuses under high difficulties result in some weird optimal play that I hate. I don't always want a vassal swarm and indeed I usually play without one, but that's often not optimal play.)
I think the changes to pop growth are the worst thing for the actual gameplay that Paradox ever did to Stellaris. I understand why they exist, because of the slowdown, but when 4.0 comes out, if the new system solves the "pop calculation" issue I hope they take the pop growth slowdown rules out. This will go a long way to making primarily pacifist runs possible and not require stupidity like feeder worlds or spinning sectors off to vassals. (Also empire size + vassal bonuses under high difficulties result in some weird optimal play that I hate. I don't always want a vassal swarm and indeed I usually play without one, but that's often not optimal play.)
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I agree with your points, but it might be a hen vs. egg problem—is the economy there to build a fleet, or is the fleet there to justify an economy?
Ultimately, yes, changes to the military would require changes to the economy. Different sinks or goals need to be introduced so that not investing in a fleet at the end of the road becomes a real and viable decision. I think Civ handles this somewhat well with different victory conditions, and Stellaris arguably got its first one with the Lathe storyline, where you explode the galaxy to make your exit. That acts as a different kind of "end" for the game, even though you can keep playing afterward as far as I know.
I think Stellaris needs more of these—each with a different resource focus, and each empire could get its own end goals, either through empire setup or mid-game story beats. Right now, the simple goal we have is the ascension crisis perks, and we now have two, right? Isn't the Lath just another crisis path in the end?
Maybe we should rename this system into "Victory" or "Destiny Paths", where your empire chooses a long-term goal to "end" the game. We already have the "kill all" goal with the Become the Crisis ascension and the Lathe as a form of "escape." Maybe we could have a "Tech Ascension" where you upload all pops into some kind of mega-computer, elevating your empire beyond territorial or military control needs?
A Cultural Ascension could make your artistic, moral, and ethical systems so compelling and universally admired that no other empire—or its populace—would dare to touch you.
Political victory paths could be tied to the Galactic Community, where you either consolidate authoritarian control (again, something military) or go the peaceful route, uniting the galaxy into a stable coalition. This would require an extensive storyline about diplomacy and cooperation, possibly involving resource investments in other empires to uplift them and create a equilibrium.
Anyway, I’m drifting a bit—but my core point is that Stellaris needs more measures of success and progress beyond just fleet power. And step one is limiting its usefulness.
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I agree with your ideas for other types of victories, though I'm not sure how that would interact with the end game crises. Then again, I rarely get to the final crisis. There's usually a point at which I've clearly won, and I usually stop then.
Even they could not argue against perfect harmony and beauty
. And as far as I know, they are also already bound by intergalactic law and are nice enough to abide by diplomatic standards and "declare war" before they start raiding your planets.
If the crisis is the timer for military victory, it could also be a timer for cultural, scientific, trade, or other forms of victory.
I think it's out of our reach anyway—Paradox or the game design lead needs to clarify what Stellaris is meant to be. Is it a game with gamey rulesets like tasks and progress bars that magically grant progress and a victory screen when a goal is achieved? Or is it a gritty, open sandbox with immersive interactions and plausible actions and reactions?