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[umiman]

The devs heard that the players wanted better AI, so they did an expansion with Machine Empires~

Get out.

[Broseph Stalin]

Does the AI even refit ships to counter yours?  I'd be pretty surprised if it did, but I did see the enemy using more PD in my fourth defensive war against them, which reduced the effectiveness of my torpedo corvettes appreciably.

In any case, I think at least part of the problem here is that there's not a ton of strategizing that can be done in the current state of the game, at least once the war starts.  Oftentimes the best strategy does boil down to just sending the biggest fleet you can to wreck theirs and take whatever systems you can on the way.  There's also not a ton of differentiation between ship classes, it feels like, hence the common suggestion to go all corvettes or all battleships, and to not mix fleets because they travel at the speed of the slowest ship.

Then again, maybe it's much different against human players, who I could see actually doing interesting things like using corvette fleets to harass on a second front while you try to focus on their main attack fleet.  I think the AI tries to do something like this, but it tends to end up just splitting its (mixed) fleets down the middle and sending them into battles they can't win.

In other news, I finally learned how to apply claims and take systems in status quos in defensive wars.  I tried to play nice with the robots next door, but I figured after 4 wars, it's time to start giving out paddlings.  It never felt so good to see the little red skull icon on their pops on that planet I took.  They're not even genocidal robots.  They just hate me for being a mild xenophobe.  I even opened my borders to them to try to be nice!  This is one of the rare moments I can see Stellaris being great for RP potential.  I'm seriously tempted to try to reform my government away from internal perfectionists to something more hostile so I can pay them back for the trouble they've caused me, and stop building synths on the pretense that the population should probably be distrustful of sapient robots by this point...

I've heard players complain that the AI was always outfitted to counter them, I've never really noticed though. I think there's actually quite a bit of room for simple tactics in Stellaris, you can use corvettes to open up second fronts, build defense platforms to make reclaiming systems painful, try seizing and holding shipyards to reinforce from, station a massive invasion force on planets with strongholds to render the system impassable without a huge ground battle, waiting to enter a contested system until the starbase has stripped the enemy shields,  targeting systems that produce the most resources, splitting off corvettes to raise hell ahead of the heavies, leaving ships behind to cover your retreat; obviously actually programming these things is harder than thinking of them but some more strategy for the AI should be totally doable.

[Karnewarrior]

As far as the "targeting productive systems" thing goes, I'd be shocked if the AI doesn't already do that. But like I said, it's difficult to get them to declare war on you, so I haven't had much experience with warfare in Stellaris. Which would be totally fine if there was more depth and interest to colonization, hopefully something this update will help with.

I still want to play a Fermi Paradox game that isn't boring as hell.

But as it is right now, the AI doesn't seem to react. That's the main problem. There's no reaction to player action beyond "If War = true Then Move.Fleet_1 Enemy Homeworld", and it's pathetic. In Galciv, AI empires don't just react to the player declaring war on them, but on the player looking like they're gearing up for war, the player sending them silly trades is taken as an insult, technology in general is taken into account, not just military tech, all that. Paradox has better AI in different games, so I wonder why Stellaris AI feels so bland?

[forsaken1111]

Have you guys turned up the AI aggressiveness? I get wardec'd all the time by AI

Edit: Wait nevermind, I'm using an AI mod I think.

[Telgin]

New dev diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-126-sectors-and-factions-in-2-2.1120288/

I was hoping for more details, but what was mentioned looks like a real step in the right direction at least.  I'm glad the core sector limit is gone because I always contorted my ways around trying to bypass it anyway.  I'm glad to see that factions now grant influence in a more fluid fashion as well.  Scaling leader costs are nice too.

I think I really like the stellar county approach for sectors too, but a fair number of people seem to dislike it.  I can understand how the notion of geography is kind of vague in space and redrawing sectors has some occasional uses, but I do think this will lead to better possibilities in the future.  As one comment noted, we might see CBs for claiming all systems in a contested sector now, kind of like duchies in CKII.

[Cruxador]

Considering that hyperlanes are already grouped into de facto "province" regions, I think this is fine. It's basically just Victoria states. I'm more unhappy that leader upkeep cost scales with empire size, considering the amount of leaders you'll need also scales with empire size. It seems more reasonable if leader upkeep were based on their job, so governors get paid according to their sector for example, and only the central government (ie kings and research scientists have costs scaling simply with empire size.

[ZeroGravitas]

Considering that hyperlanes are already grouped into de facto "province" regions, I think this is fine. It's basically just Victoria states.

and eu4 states, and ck2 duchies... it's unsurprising they decided to go this way.

[Broseph Stalin]

New dev diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-126-sectors-and-factions-in-2-2.1120288/

I was hoping for more details, but what was mentioned looks like a real step in the right direction at least.  I'm glad the core sector limit is gone because I always contorted my ways around trying to bypass it anyway.  I'm glad to see that factions now grant influence in a more fluid fashion as well.  Scaling leader costs are nice too.

I think I really like the stellar county approach for sectors too, but a fair number of people seem to dislike it.  I can understand how the notion of geography is kind of vague in space and redrawing sectors has some occasional uses, but I do think this will lead to better possibilities in the future.  As one comment noted, we might see CBs for claiming all systems in a contested sector now, kind of like duchies in CKII.

I always put everything I could in sectors, it's a handy way to keep a resource buffer.

[Telgin]

That's really the main benefit of sectors as it stands, with automatic upgrading of buildings being a minor secondary benefit.  Having a second, third or fourth stockpile of minerals is enormously valuable during the crisis or large war, no doubt, which I discovered to my detriment in my last game where I had only a core sector.  It took many years to rebuild between each sterilization hub assault.

The main reason I avoid sectors right now is because of the poor AI choices.  If I tell the AI to respect tile bonuses then it produces all the food ever and builds nothing but engineering facilities on science tiles, but if I tell it to do whatever it wants then it builds things in stupid places.  And either way, if I tell it to build robots, it puts them in the worst places.  Droids on monuments while the weak organics work the mines?  Must be a great idea.  And either way, it'll build things I really wish it wouldn't, like clone vats.

You can override its decisions, but it's a pain, and you can't even build up the initial set of all buildings on a new colony because you have to upgrade a ship shelter after 5 pops before you can build things like mineral processing plants or paradise domes.

..although, now that I think about it, you can create sectors without planets, right?  So you could set up sectors over worthless systems and just send the sector minerals or energy credits whenever you're getting close to your cap.  Arguably more useful than resource silos.

[Rolan7]

I'm 90% sure sectors have to include a planet, sorry
And yeah, the inability to plan construction ahead of time is pretty horrible.  I see automating the tile game as the main benefit, because it lets the game literally bearable past very early game.  Even though the sector AI makes absurd decisions.

Would be cool to set production targets for sectors...  Preferably via sliders.  Increase the "mineral" slider, and see a prediction of the construction costs, time required, and changes to other resource production.

But actually I'm amazed at how much they're overhauling in this update, I think it's going to be great!  Hard to make suggestions when so much is going to be different.

[Kanil]

Not being able to shape my own sectors sounds really stupid and annoying. I suppose it's not any worse than the current situation where I typically have just one sector unless I'm playing "casual roleplay mode lol", but I'm still holding out hope that some day Stellaris will be actually fun to play in "casual roleplay mode lol" and this definitely seems like a step further away from that goal.

[PTTG??]

Sectors aren't bad because of what they are, they are bad because they aren't like vassals in CK2. They should be subservient but independent legislative units which EVERYBODY needs to deal with.

Idea: They could vary depending on the government structure. In Empires? They're literally feudal realms. In Corporate Oligarchies, they're Subdivisions and their leaders can get promoted to Emperor if they're economically productive. In Democracies, they are Sectors with local politics based on the factions that are most common there. In gestalt consciences, they are subconciences and are prone to splitting off if your Influence gets too low, so you need to balance expansion with control.

[forsaken1111]

It makes sense to me that sectors are tied to the galaxy's geometry rather than arbitrarily defined but I was hoping sectors would be more important to internal politics, like varying faction acceptance and power by sector for example.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah. It'd be neat to see, say, a sector rebel because it has a really strong faction to an opposing view from your main ethics. So you could see a xenophobic sector rebel to try and get out of your hyper xenophile Democracy or whatever.

[Cruxador]

Considering that hyperlanes are already grouped into de facto "province" regions, I think this is fine. It's basically just Victoria states.

and eu4 states, and ck2 duchies... it's unsurprising they decided to go this way.

EU4 states are based on Victoria states also. CK duchies are similar only in basic concept, but only are really relevant as titles and du jour associations, they don't have any inherent economic or structural effect and dukes can hold anything regardless of du jour.

It makes sense to me that sectors are tied to the galaxy's geometry rather than arbitrarily defined but I was hoping sectors would be more important to internal politics, like varying faction acceptance and power by sector for example.

Yeah, same. One step at a time, maybe.