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[E. Albright]

reminds me of... i think civ games... that have that popup too about "declare war?" when you try to move your army into other peoples areas

Only when you get to Civ games that have territory control, which came post-SMAC. Before that it was city-states even in the era of nation-states.

[Persus13]

Total War uses the same concept but gives you consequences for it that make sense. You're free to move your armies around someone else's territory, but unless you get military access from them first, their opinion of you is going to drop significantly.

funny, i wonder if anyone has ever suggested doing that in stellaris

Yeah, its probably one of the few areas where I think Total War games does it better than Paradox.

[Telgin]

I'm really starting to wonder about the AI aggressiveness... I tried cranking the difficulty up to Captain, but it didn't have the effect I was looking for, which is to say, I wanted the AI to declare war on me and for it to be a fair fight.

Turning up the difficulty didn't make the AI declare war on me, even when I had -280 or worse opinion with a neighbor who had a better fleet and naval capacity.  Instead... it just let them have that huge fleet and naval capacity without any obvious reason why.  I've also been doing almost literally everything I can to boost research, and there's an AI empire on the other side of the galaxy that has a better fleet, overwhelmingly larger naval capacity, and still equivalent technology.  So... it appears that turning up the difficulty just lets the AI cheat, but doesn't make them want to attack me more.  I'm actually wondering how you could even keep up with the AI on even harder difficulties.

I did notice that there's actually an aggressiveness slider during galaxy creation, but it's too late to change it now.  Does that actually have a significant effect?

[Shadowlord]

Have you tried glavius' ai mod and/or the enhanced ai mod? You can use both at the same time, and they make the ai far smarter.

[Telgin]

No, the only mod I'm using right now is a portrait mod I made for myself.  I'll take a look at them though, since pretty much every other comment I've read on the Steam boards is how bad the AI in the game is, and my limited experience so far kind of supports that.

The dumbest things I've seen the AI do so far aren't that bad though.  What stands out in my mind is a Fallen Empire fleet bombing Contingency occupied planets for many years to destroy the custodian bots when an army could have handled it in like two weeks.  And the Contingency ignoring me building up shipyards on their borders and instead sending fleets out to get eaten by said Fallen Empire's fleets instead of concentrating them.

[umiman]

No, the only mod I'm using right now is a portrait mod I made for myself.  I'll take a look at them though, since pretty much every other comment I've read on the Steam boards is how bad the AI in the game is, and my limited experience so far kind of supports that.

Look at all the posts here too haha. Every single page is just us complaining about the dogshit AI.

That and Paradox's idiotic decisions.

[Nelia Hawk]

...overwhelmingly larger naval capacity,...

there is that one ascension trait that gives like +80 naval capacity or something around that.. maybe they took that one.

well i guess you could "check" changing the player to them with the console and checking their traits.

[Telgin]

That's entirely possible.  I did not take that ascension perk (and instead took the arguably very marginal starbase defense platform perk...), so if the AI empire took it they'd probably be over double my naval capacity.  Such is the price of roleplaying pacifists.

My fleet is pretty weak overall right now at mid game, hovering around 10K total in ships and maybe 6K in stations.  I haven't built my stations up to capacity since there aren't any more obvious choke points to put them at, although I could start building them over colonized worlds for trade hubs maybe.  Anyway, I've seen people say that if you don't have 30K+ fleet power at mid game, you're doing it wrong.  I kind of wonder how that's really even possible, unless you're supposed to sacrifice infrastructure a ton to build up your fleet.

[Dunamisdeos]

If you want really nutso naval capacity and have the energy to spare, take the ascension perk that gives extra starbases.

Filling those with anchorages gives way, way more capacity than the straight perk

[BurnedToast]

That's entirely possible.  I did not take that ascension perk (and instead took the arguably very marginal starbase defense platform perk...), so if the AI empire took it they'd probably be over double my naval capacity.  Such is the price of roleplaying pacifists.

My fleet is pretty weak overall right now at mid game, hovering around 10K total in ships and maybe 6K in stations.  I haven't built my stations up to capacity since there aren't any more obvious choke points to put them at, although I could start building them over colonized worlds for trade hubs maybe.  Anyway, I've seen people say that if you don't have 30K+ fleet power at mid game, you're doing it wrong.  I kind of wonder how that's really even possible, unless you're supposed to sacrifice infrastructure a ton to build up your fleet.

Defensive stations are trash and you should never build them. The stations themselves are far too weak for the mineral investment, and the platforms are also horribly overpriced. In addition the platforms can't emergency warp out of combat which indirectly makes them even more expensive.

They can't stop enemy fleets on their own, they don't even have enough health to significantly slow them down so they can't buy you time either. Then, once the enemy rolls over them they capture them and repair them for free and now they can use them against you. So if you want to use them, you must keep a fleet stationed on top of them. If you're going to do that, however, you might as well just make it an anchorage instead and build more fleet.

All that is enough reason not to build them, but there's yet another reason too - defending chokepoints is pointless. Who cares if the AI breaks through the chokepoint into your empire? If you're stronger than him, just smash his fleet while it wastes time bombing a planet then recapture everything. If the AI's fleet is too strong, follow it around with a tiny all-corvette (for speed) fleet recapturing everything after he leaves the system and send your main fleet to smash his stuff. The AI can't actually damage you (aside from minor damage via bombing) or take anything away from you without winning the war so what does it matter if he wastes his time rampaging around on your back line capturing things he will never be able to hold?

Defensive starbases are just one of those things that sounds great, but paradox screwed up the implementation (like so many other features).

[EnigmaticHat]

I mean in real life walking an army into someone's territory *is* a declaration of war.  Every other nation would view that as a war of aggression.  Paradox is forcing you to go to the diplomacy screen/preventing players from starting misclick wars.

plenty of other games don't do this. ck2, total wars, etc.

real life is not a good guide to making an interesting game.

All of those games are based on real life.  Total war did it that way because most of their games are fuedal/classic era and that's how that used to work.  CK2 clearly needed all armies to be able to path anywhere for the AI to work (see: CK2 boats).

[Dunamisdeos]

Defensive Starbases kick the tar out of things until mid/late game.

I always have one or two at various chokepoints, and they have always stopped 1-2 fleets per game. I do consider them secondary to a strong fleet, but I also generally have the energy/minerals to spare. I generally do not use defensive platforms in addition to a defensive starbase, as they are basically immobile ships.

I DO use defensive platforms in systems without a starbase. If there is a system I don't want to own but want to defend against (Pirates, generally) I can pop a couple defensive platforms in there and forget about it.

[Telgin]

Defensive stations are trash and you should never build them.

Yeah, it's funny you say this, since I read a 10 page discussion on their Steam board about people mostly agreeing that defensive stations were very bad investments right after taking the perk and building some platforms.  Really wish I could take the ascension perk back, because now I'm not sure I'll be able to get everything I need for full biological ascension, plus mega structures and habitats, since they take their own perk for some reason.  Ah well, maybe next time.

The main upside I've seen people mention to defense platforms is that they don't take minerals to upkeep like fleets do, but they do still take energy I think.  You're pretty much right about the strategy though.  Even though my current map has some decent chokepoints such that the AI would have to go through my stations to get into my space, unless my fleet was parked there the stations would at best inflict a modest amount of damage on their fleet and then have to be rebuilt.

Edit:

The AI can't actually damage you (aside from minor damage via bombing) or take anything away from you without winning the war so what does it matter if he wastes his time rampaging around on your back line capturing things he will never be able to hold?

Since I haven't been in a war yet, I'm curious about this.  Is the AI literally unable to occupy your systems unless they win the war, or is the AI just too dumb to do it in practice?  I've certainly seen the AI build plenty of troop transports, which I assumed was for this purpose.

[Dunamisdeos]

Even though I do find use for static defenses in my games, I would never take the perk. They are only situationally useful, even to me.

[BurnedToast]

The AI can't actually damage you (aside from minor damage via bombing) or take anything away from you without winning the war so what does it matter if he wastes his time rampaging around on your back line capturing things he will never be able to hold?

Since I haven't been in a war yet, I'm curious about this.  Is the AI literally unable to occupy your systems unless they win the war, or is the AI just too dumb to do it in practice?  I've certainly seen the AI build plenty of troop transports, which I assumed was for this purpose.

It's both, really.

You occupy a system by attacking the outpost or starbase in the middle. They can't be destroyed, however - they are just disabled and the winner captures them and repairs them for free. You lose the income from the system, but the attacker does not gain it (afaik). The AI can't delete your starbases or change the modules or anything like that either. Planets are similar. Once they are captured they are occupied, but the AI can't purge your pops or destroy your buildings or anything like that.

To keep the systems forever they have to have a claim on them AND they have to be controlling them when the war ends. For planets, they have to control ALL the planets AND the starbase to keep them.

The system is very forgiving about when a peace happens. The AI can't force you to make peace unless you are at 100% war exhaustion and a certain amount of time has passed, but the AI will accept white peace you offer very easily. So you have almost total control over when the war ends, and you should never have to accept peace when the AI controls important systems unless things have gone really, really bad.

So as long as you follow the AI recapturing systems, you lose nothing and there's no cost since everything is repaired for free. Outposts are very weak so a tiny fleet can (re)capture them, but the AI is too dumb to realize that and will waste time capturing them with his main fleet. The AI will also waste huge amounts of time bombing planets, letting you either recapture more of your territory or capture some of his while his fleet is occupied. As long as you use your small "recapture" fleet to take the outpost over after his fleet leaves you don't even have to recapture your planet, since he will be forced to give it back intact when the war ends.

TL;DR: the AI does not understand how the current war system works and it does not wage war correctly. The player also has too much control over when a war ends (AI too willing to accept white peace) so you never have to give up anything important unless you've really, really messed up somehow.

Edit: white peace = status quo peace. It's only actually called white peace if no systems change hands.