I have just started playing the game so I don't have any experiance on the huge maps.
I bet that the reason for the empire large fleet cost as a percentage is to prevent the run away large empire effect. You know how in so many other games, after an empire gets to a certain size the game is all but over since no other smaller empire can stop you. At least thats what I assume is the designers intent with this coding.
That said, I don't want a situation that makes my whole empire stagnant after reaching a certain size. So maybe a little tweaking is needed.

No... What we've determined is that a lot of people are incompetent and want a game that is solely run and gun. Even if the maps are HUGE... the way the galaxy is setup the gameplay is going to run the same way - and with more fleet cap you invalidate defenses almost totally.

Can't win with just the fleet? OH golly no, TRY using the techs, or the superweapons, or expanding by culture - or diplomacy. Brainstorm wow.

Other options are there to be used. The game's not all about fleet battles, so sorry you guys.


Was going to mention this but you sir are an excellent person Although you forgot to mention the OTHER alternative which always happens eventually - revolution. Someone breaks away. Eventually you DO get too far away to control your subjects.

Even in THIS universe they acknowledge that. They say it themselves the Vasari are running from something that destroyed their empire that was originally part of them. Ruling 100+ stars or something stupid in game is unfeasible and the rest of the gameplay shouldn't be changed to apply to you few diehard eye candy fools. (Cause seriously, theres no point past like 80 planets or so, Its all going to be the same. You just want to do it to say you did it.)

well, after readng this entire thread, I can see a lot of flawed arguments on both sides.
I have played on large and huge maps, and yes, the unit cap is frustrating to deal with after a certain point.
the diplomacy system needs a little work, sure.
the allegiance bit is a pain in the ass.
rebels and pirates make it hard to defend your planets.

the answer is not spamming, or you could just use the basic frigates and still win the game
the answer is not an uber economy, nor is it a freaking turtle.

the answer is playing with strategy to overcome the handicaps built into the game.
true, the AI turns endgame on the larger maps into whack-a-mole, but so do human players who are trying to avoid elimination. if eventually you expand beyond your ability to maintain, the game has ways of punishing you for it. maybe the real trick is to not expect to be able to mop up large scale actions in a matter of hours, but be willing to invest literally days worth of time to finalize your victory. like it or not, large scale warfare inevitably turns into a grinding match until someone wears out.

personally, unless you are willing to work around built-in handicaps, there isnt much point in playing the game. I am all for tweaks to the various parts of the game that need improvement, but do not demand such drastic changes that this game becomes like every other RTS or Empire-Builder out there, and I will not play a game that has turned into every other game out there. I wanted this game precisely because it was different, please do not destroy it for those that think like me.

I only got the game yesterday and I could see this flaw playing just small and medium games.

Since the folks at stardock are not stupid, they can see it too. I think the reason its in is because stardock, in making good AI's, often simplify things so the AI can handle it. To many variables, too much depth to the economy and the AI is going to have to really massively cheat to keep up with an expert player.

Really the one thing that irks me is that you can't switch back to a lower fleet cap.

You just got gangbanged by 3 empires, you fleet is mostly dead, you need to rebuild, but you are still paying a huge % in upkeep for dead ships.

And ya its obvious that huge games would become big ugly quagmires. I'll be sticking with medium games until something is worked out.

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE POST, MY GRIPE IS NOT DIRECTED AT THE FLEET CAP ITSELF BUT THE WAY IT IS IMPLEMENTED, THERE SHOULD ALWAYS BE A CAP, BUT THAT CAP NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTABLE NOT BASED ON MAP SIZE, WHILE IT WOULD WORK TO A CERTAIN EXTENT. IT EFFECTIVELY BECOMES THE SAME SYSTEM IT JUST HAS A HIGHER END POINT, THE SAME SITUATION WILL ARISE BUT IT WOULD JUST REQUIRE MORE PLANETS TO REACH IT. I DO NOT WANT A BANDAID SOLUTION THAT STOPS WORKING AS SOON AS I DECIDE TO ADD EVEN MORE PLANETS.

On to the post.

The one issue that needs to be addressed is the that with lets say 5 empires, 300 planets. Player A is the largest player, by far. he has 10 of 15 systems, 20 planets each. The AI (And if you ever find people willing to stay players - it happens now and then however rare) bands together. You now have 5 people capable of producing the fleet cap without ever running out of money if they built up properly.

Lets not even bring attacking into this discussion yet, I'll do it later.

All three players have maxed out fleets, just by the nature of the map's size, as well as tech. Your defense consists of static defense structures and 2000 fleet cap, no structures if you're multi star and defending the star itself. The offensive team has an 8000 fleet cap. Now before I explain in detail how the four players that are effectively only HALF OF YOUR TOTAL EVEN WHEN COMBINED, can destroy you without hardly trying, how can you not understand the simple problem here? Or are you going to try and suggest to me that I'm supposed to out play 4 other people with a 4th of their ships, maybe you're some sort of god, or you're playing against infants, I'm not sure which.

Adjusting the fleet cap based on size would work to a certain extent - but as I said earlier, there's still a point where each player reaches their endgame, and as soon as everyone does, the biggest player gets singled out, and thoroughly stomped on. And do you know why? Because no matter how good he is, no matter how much he outplayed the other people in the start of the game, he now has no fighting chance. You simply can't against any semblance of AI or even plant level intelligence.

Lets take another smaller example, 100 planets, 10 systems, 10 planets each, each player starts on their own, 4 players. Player A is scouting effectively, and colonizing quickly, knowing the best build/upgrade patterns, and avoiding systems with other players. The other 3 players expand slowly: B and C finsh their own, and through scouting and painfully simple process of elimination ("Hey, I'm number 2 in econ/colonization, what are you?" "3, the other guy said he was 4" "Oh? I guess A must be 1") they realize player 1 is much bigger than all of them. B and C continue to expand, they work together on system 7, already owning 8 and 9 respectively, while D finishes system 10. Meanwhile player A colonizes 1-6, say he's a vassari that takes advantage of nano disassemblers on colonizing capital. Sends one to each and takes planets rapidly.

Each player can support the fleet cap and resupply their fleet at least once after a major loss by now, and all three smaller players band together against the much larger A. Taking advantage of the current fleet cap model, B targets 2 C targets 3 D targets 4. The player with 60% of the "universe" or "sector" responds by ____. Fill in that blank. I actually HAVE had this happen on several occasions. And as I play more and more games, especially lan games with friends who I know have good computers, we play regularly, this scenario happens often. The only solution is team games, which are bland and I simply don't enjoy, I want to win on the merits of my skill, not win/lose based on how well my allies play or win because of how poorly my enemies.

I'll do an example of another smaller map with even more players, for what a lot of other people are experiencing, the stalemate-esque ending for games after they take 50%~ of the galaxy after eliminating people and they start to gang up, the basic point is, you either steamroll EVERYONE before they reach fleet cap or you lose. Or you end up as one of tiny players in the group that beats the guy several times their combined size because of poorly designed (With good intentions, I know why the current system is in place, don't tell me why again, I'm saying an even better system could be put into place, and even one that's optional for those who like the standard game. But those of us with powerful machines want to be able to use them. The reason I got this game is to avoid the "cap battles" of other RTS games because the current game without any cap supports whatever your computer can handle. I want to reach that point while still having some sort of balance so the steamroller effect DOESN'T happen, I don't always win, and I want a chance to if I screw up or something just soundly outplays me. But I have no god given right or some such nonesense to win just because I suck and two other people also suck.

The inability to defend despite the vastly superior economy is an issue.

This is a very obvious and distinct problem for non team games, anyone can see that. Now the question is how do you fix it? You can't let the larger empire steamroll everyone or they'd quit. There needs to be a middle ground between the little and big guys. The simplest way to do it is to have a fleet cap limited only by how many ships you can afford to upkeep (Every ship has a certain amount of upkeep.) But not for all games, 1v1 this won't work at all, team games, it would hurt too. This would have to be balanced by either increasing the actual cost of ships so once you lose your fleet you don't have a big enough income to just rebuild instantly, which has a cap just as fleets do now. OR the one I prefer, when you lose a ship, you still pay the upkeep for a certain amount of time. This system adds another layer of strategy regarding economy. You could sit with a small defensive fleet with one planet on a star having massed frigate factories to protect your empire, and save up a large amount of resources then create a juggernaut to take over and colonize another system then disband the excess before you go bankrupt.

I'll continue with more in another post about details for how the upkeep system would work, and any questions I'd answer. If an official change isn't coming I'd resort to making a mod just for these large games. I have a powerful machine, and I want to exploit it. I LOVE BIG GAMES, I don't like jumping twice and having an early fight over a planet between first fleet caps worth of base frigates and a capital. I want to play endgame, I want to enjoy the entire game, I don't want my games decided 5-15 minutes in by an early conflict before I have even 5 of the 100 or so techs. I say this current system encourages micromanagement more than anything. You have to use your comparatively tiny fleet several times better than your opponents to even stand a chance, which isn't possible if they're AI or as stated above, a sentient plant.

The way I think fleet upkeep should work is a percentage (as it does now) or a flat amount, whichever is lower. There comes a point when you have a very high income that you should be able to completely support your fleet. It shouldn't cost more to support a fleet the more money you make. It should cost up to a certain flat amount per second. If you make more than that, you keep the leftover instead of permanently losing a percentage of your income no matter how huge that income may be.

If you make less than the flat amount, you can rationalize that you're not fully supporting the fleet but paying as much as you can afford. Whether this should lead to game-play effects, I leave to you, gentle reader.

The way it is now, you can kind of permanently gimp your income the further you research logistics.

The most realistic way would be you pay a certain amount per ship you have, and many games do this. It would be easy to gimp your income this way, but at least it wouldn't be permanent, as you can always scuttle ships.

There should also be research you can do to lower your support cost, IMO. I'm pretty sure the TEC and Advent don't have anything like this, but maybe the Vasari do.

The thing about the fleet cap percentage gimping your income is this. It's been stated several times throught this thread, mostly by those that do not support a higher fleet cap of some kind. Anyhow, don't research more fleet capacity until it's needed, and your economy will respond much better to it. By waiting until the capacity is needed, your empire will (in most cases) expand some and be better able to support the increased military tax burden. If you simply research all of the fleet levels right off the bat, your economy will suffer greatly, and you'll likely never be able to reach your new found fleet cap before another player blows you out of the stars. So long as you manage your economy well, the fleet upkeep costs are basically a non-event.

[EDIT] I would like to add that I do agree that the current upkeep system, where a ship costs more to support if you make more money, does seem a little funky. However, it's a game mechanic that works if used properly, so I don't mind it. What I'd like to say is an increased fleet capacity to reflect the fact that if you make more money, you pay more to the fleet. I support leaving the flat tax percentage, independant of you actual fleet size, if you could build a larger fleet to substantiate the increased expense on the military. See my earlier post (on page 4 or 5, I think) for my thoughts on this type of system. Please keep in mind, the numbers I use in that example are arbitrary, and Not really balanced at all. The fleet sizes I list are far too varied, IMO, but they were simpler to figure.

This is the thing that bugs me the most, also.

Thank you Haeso for summarizing a lot of the flaws already brought up with the current fleet cap/tax system. Though they were already covered earlier in this thread, it is obvious some people (Martyr) did not take the time to read the entire thread and instead decided to bring up arguments that had already been addressed. I was hoping this could remain a friendly discussion about the fleet issues but some people (again Martyr) feel the need to attack others just because they have different views on how the game should be played.



Since our choice of map sizes is not what you would play, they are therefore labeled idiotic? How unbelievably arrogant.
Please people, before you start posting arguements, READ THE ENTIRE THREAD because your problem has probably been addressed already.

Wow, get a clue. This discussion is about multi-solar system maps with many planets, particularly maps that outpace the supply cap. If you're only playing random huge, then the fleet cap isn't a problem. Go play on truly huge maps then come back to this thread and talk when you have experience with it.

Anything over 30 is retarded? It's great that you think so, but nobody really cares. I've played games with 8 players on one solar system and about 50-60 planets, the game is perfectly fine (except for the massive corruption).

How huge is "Truly Huge"? I mean, I'm a shameless huge map lover, but how big do you WANT?

In any case, fleet cap size is fundamentally irrelevant to the issue: You would encounter this problem with ANY fleet cap: If you simply doubled the fleet cap size, you would also need a fleet twice as large to effectively combat the now twice-as-numerous invaders. In the end, it doesn't matter how large the fleet cap is, and making it larger would simply mean that battles are twice as large and your computer is brought to its knees by the deluge of extra ships.

What you're REALLY facing is simply an issue of topological overreach. The topology of the map you're playing on simply isn't defensible, and so it becomes impossible to expand and still hang on to what you have.

...this is the point at which you just start building dozens of autofire Novalith cannons around on every single one of your rear-worlds and render the entire rest of the map uninhabitable in a rain of bullets that makes it impossible to recolonize (for you OR them) because it constantly rains bullets for the next half hour even after you've stopped shooting at it, thus quickly destroying any new colony that sprouts up.

My only advice is to pump your infrastructure to its max on each planet and research the population tech (its usually first or second tier, pretty cheap).

You have to be pro-active with your fleet, you can't turtle. And with such a massive fleet it really shouldn't be a problem.

Also, a nerf to fleet upkeep is a buff for returning armada, keep that in mind.