Today the topic is Warfare, and I hope you'll bear with me because I tend to get a *little* conceptual when discussing what is easily my favorite aspect of Grand Strategy. I am a wargamer at heart, and so the first thing I thought about when brainstorming for Solar Nations was exactly how I could make the most entertaining wartime experience possible.
From my experience with other games in the genre there are 3 things which ruin otherwise good wars.
- Doomstacks - a concept I'm sure you are all too familiar with. These make war simple and often times annoying.
- Steamrollers - an issue arguably endemic to the genre. Large differences in strength across combatants make wars a simple formality before galactic domination.
- Bad AI - self explanatory
In order to counter the threat posed by doomstacks, Solar Nations' combat system includes combat width and overstacking penalties; two features which are rare in space strategy. Just the addition of these two mechanics makes battles far more energetic and entertaining, as you will often be frantically pulling more fleets into the region in order to prevent the loss of some important region or salient.
While much more difficult to get under control, the steamroller has been countered by making naval strength modifiers are a little harder to come by than what you might expect from a game in the genre, but this ensures wars are more close and uncertain while also making any steamrolling that is done just that much more satisfying!
And of course, Bad AI, the bringer of mediocrity. This, of all the 3 things is what I spent the most time on.
Neither of the Empires in this clip are being controlled by a human, so you can see that the AI is capable of reinforcing and cycling fleets into and out of battles, and also tries to concentrate its forces for devastating attacks, rather than spreading out or attempting a carpet siege.
While the Empire of Orion's slow pulling back from the battles may initially seem questionable, Orion is actually regrouping in order to reinforce their fleets quicker, while also attempting to prevent the Solar Federation from occupying their rally point just of screen.
The Solar Federation, on the other hand, is pushing its advantage after holding back a previous attack on Nebritta, and is getting ready to assault the Imperial rally point. You can also see another attack vector forming as one fleet chases an Imperial diversionary attack.
While these are human interpretations of what is, in reality, a fairly simple set of directives and guidelines, it nonetheless illustrates the competence of the AI, and the thought I have given towards how it will integrate with the mechanics.
So how does this impact your journey amongst the Stars?
In order to keep things brief, I will offer a few general tips on war in Solar Nations:
- Concentrate your forces. Do not spread them out along a massive front line, because the AI will concentrate it's forces and take your fleets out one by one.
- Keep an eye on your budget. It may seem easy to maintain a large navy in peacetime, but anyone can build a paper tiger. War is expensive, and it will eat into your budget faster than anything else!
- Do not overstack battles. You take extra damage when too many ships are in a battle. (2x combat width is where it starts) The more ships you lose, the more expensive it is to replace them, and the longer it takes to do so.
- Don't overcommit to a war. Casualties cause stability losses, so carefully asses whether or not you would like to keep fighting.
- And most important of all, have fun!
