Brand New - How Do I Defend?

[Synergy]

First time playing. I've played more than a dozen hours, but most of that has been pausing to read absolutely everything carefully. I still think I am in the early or mid-game.

I have only encountered 3 alien civilizations. 1 of them quickly declares war. I get completely steamrolled on the easiest setting. I have 3 bordering starbases. My main starbase has 6/6 defense platforms. The others have 4/6. My fleet is at 30. I made sure to constantly upgrade, research and re-enforce everything. I am listed as the 5th ranked civilization being attacked by the 12th ranked civilization and it's not remotely close. I'm completely wiped out in less than a minute.

Frankly, I'm more interested in the exploration, discovery and diplomacy of the game. I am super bummed out that it is so impossible to defend against attacks. The game was outstanding until war broke out. I don't want to start all over if this is how it's going to be every time. I keep going back to an earlier save to prepare but nothing helps. Smoked every time on the easiest setting?! Clearly I am missing something obvious??

Any tips on early/mid defense?

[Elitewrecker PT]

You'll have to be more specific.
What were their fleets like?

[Lucifearus]

my best tip for you chief is to spam tons of alloy production and science earlygame to gain a war leverage over your enemies, then consistently make a fleet passively in the background while supplementing your economy . regarding starbases, using hangar bays with target uplink computers and whatever is usually best defense and no one can skip around it. some players also like to shield starbases with small naval ships to kite and pull aggro. if you plan to rely solely on starbases for defense and not a larger fleet, you should consider getting the unyeilding tradition for its 1st perk of bonus to starbase power . otherwise id say get supremacy to shred your enemies with your fleet.


basically if you dont get unyeilding or supremacy (one of them) fairly early before youre warred, you will def be at a disadvantage

i only play mp and pretty much play games on fast speed constantly for thousands of hours so lol

[PlutonArioch]

I have not played Stellaris in a while, so I might not be up to date on the specifics, but first off, as far as I know, defense platforms are not very cost effective, and obviously they won't all take part in the same fight as they are stationary in their systems. You would probably be better off spending those resources on more ships for a second fleet.

Further it may be that your ships were ill equipped to deal with your opponents ships, it would be good if you could tell us more about your opponent, like how many ships did they have? What kind of ships? What were they equipped with?

If you could share a savegame(preferably the one you go back to), that would be optimal as we could get all the information from that.

And no you should not need to focus on war traditions early on, to survive the lowest difficulty AI. Leave that to the tryhard MP players...

[Kalemenos]

Don't panic, I did much worse when I was first starting. And I still can't play at the highest difficulty. It's a very complex game, so it takes some time to figure things out, and defeat is only an opportunity to learn.
Some tips might help:
- Keep playing on the easiest difficulty until you get a better dominion of game mechanics.
- Good economy gives victories in battle. You need lots of ships. For ships you need alloy. For alloy, you need minerals and energy. For that you need pops, who need food.
- (Remember, pops make things, districts and buildings don't they only incur expense - be always only a tiny bit ahead of the pop growth with buildings).
- The game automatically builds ships for you, but they're usually not the best build. You can design your own ships. If you discover your enemy has kinetic weapons, you need armor. If energy, you need shields. And if your enemy has shields/armor, you need kinetic/energy respectively (attack them where they're weakest). You can actually defeat a larger fleet if yours is strategically designed to handle them.
- Don't be afraid in the beginning to save the game, see how things went bad, and reload to go back and try to overcome the problem. It's a good way to learn.
- Always figure out the questions you have very clearly. Getting the question right is usually harder than finding the answer. And with a clear question, look it up on the net, and you'll find countless geniuses out there giving excellent advice.
Persevere, and you'll really enjoy this game.

[Zangetsu]

Defence platforms are expensive and are not that good. Defenses are not meant to take on their main fleets in most situations, but is good for small fleets that want to spread and poke. They are also excellent when combined with your main fleet. Navy has a cap you dont want to go over and defenses are an expensive and stationary way to enhance power at one point. You want starbases and defense platforms at key defensive locations. But maxing out navy and maybe getting a few starbases to archorages and or get a fortress world. Theres a building that trains defensive armies (Not the important part) and increases navy cap (The important part.


If you are playing on easiest and having trouble with a war thats really on you and this is a l2p situation, no offense i highly encourage you stick with the game. Fallen empires are super strong but dont awaken till lategame so they are not a threat. Maurder empires will occasionally raid you from other civs paying them and theres nothing to be done but take the hit. In midgame 1 of them will awaken and if you are next to them it can be a very hard game. But another civ on easy mode? If you lost hard its 100% on you and with better play you can overcome.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Synergy:

Any tips on early/mid defense?

Defensive pacts deter invasion. If you want to go with a non-aggressive diplomatic expansion, sign one early. Your first ally doesn't have to be nice or likeable. The early defensive pacts are about mutual survival, not ideological agreement.

Keep your fleets near your starbases. In the early game, even an outpost gives you a huge defensive advantage.

Getting steamrolled isn't the end of the story in this game. Practice patience, be willing to surrender a little territory in the name of the learning experience. If the AI isn't a "galactic threat" it won't be able to take all of your territory in one bite, so don't be afraid to cede a little territory on your frontier in order to get out of a war you don't want to fight.

Defensive platforms are basically just ships that can't move. They're not an efficient investment of resources in the early game unless you have a large alloy surplus.

Soldiers increase your fleet capacity, so build strongholds to supplement the acnchorages in your starbase if you don't have enough ships. You can lay the soldiers off during peace time then hire them back when you need to gear up your fleet.

Wars are long, let the enemy come to you for a bit first. Once he's inside your space, cut him off by retaking your frontier starbases. Then hit his fleet where the conditions are favorable to you.

Systems with shield nullification can be really strong terrain if you double up armor in your early corvettes and your enemy is running around with two shields or are using lots of guns instead of lasers.

[Synergy]

Thanks for the detailed responses! I hope this post helps others who are just starting out as well.

This was a brand new civilization I encountered so not enough intel for ship details.

The ships themselves were Corvette's, which I was maxed out on so I'm really confused by that. Although they did have roughly twice the military power per fleet (but the 12th ranked civ on easy mode?!). I don't understand how that's possible considering I was so careful about upgrades and upkeep -- although, I admit, I had a definite preference for exploration, discovery and diplomacy early on. I was hoping for a very pacifist first play through, at least until the late game.

I did try for a defensive pact, but the first two civilizations I encountered were immediately hostile -- despite envoys attempting to improve relations. The third was right before the war and not enough time to establish positive relations for a defensive pact.

Complexity does not bother me. It draws me in. The issue I'm having is that one component of the game is so thoroughly unforgiving on the easiest setting. I'm currently watching fleet related youtube tutorials, but none of it seems new to me. Clearly I am missing something really obvious somewhere.

I don't know how to provide a save file.

Also, I'm too much of a perfectionist to concede a star system, especially this early on when it includes the home planet. I'm determined to find a way to salvage the situation, but I guess I am going to have to go back much further....

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Synergy:

Thanks for the detailed responses! I hope this post helps others who are just starting out as well.

This was a brand new civilization I encountered so not enough intel for ship details.

I recommend watching the battles. You can actually see the weapon turrets on their ships. If they're still using corvettes, there should be three on each ship. If a beam of light strikes your ships that's a laser turret, missiles are pretty easy to see coming. Guns are a little harder to identify visually, though not impossible and you can deduce their presence by elimination. If he's using missiles, mix some corvettes with flak batteries and point defense into your fleets, and you will negate his major attack. It will make your overall fleet more effective, point for point.

Originally posted by Synergy:

The ships themselves were Corvette's, which I was maxed out on so I'm really confused by that. Although they did have roughly twice the military power per fleet (but the 12th ranked civ on easy mode?!). I don't understand how that's possible considering I was so careful about upgrades and upkeep -- although, I admit, I had a definite preference for exploration, discovery and diplomacy early on. I was hoping for a very pacifist first play through, at least until the late game.

The superior firepower rating can come from more experience. If they've been warring neighbors on the other side, or if they have a militaristic ethos, their ships will have more firepower than yours. If your ships and fleets are more balanced than theirs, you will outperform their firepower significantly.

Edit: Also, they may have larger command capabilities per fleet. In general, you start with a fleet size of 20 corvettes, but some empires can have fleets twice as large from the outset depending on various choices that can be made (or in the AI's case, random chance). That can account for a significant gap in firepower too.

Originally posted by Synergy:

I did try for a defensive pact, but the first two civilizations I encountered were immediately hostile -- despite envoys attempting to improve relations. The third was right before the war and not enough time to establish positive relations for a defensive pact.

It's painful to do it, but if you have a neighbor with equivalent or superior military power (you can tell from the diplomacy screen), you can send an envoy to improve relations with them. Once you're more experienced, you won't have to do that.

Also, some starting positions are just bad luck. The generator is rigged so there will almost always be at least one adversary with opposite ethics from you in your immediate vicinity. If you have no allies at all, you might want to consider reastarting. With more experience you can fight your way out of even the worst starting locations, but early in your learning curve it's ok to try again and hope for slightly friendlier neighbors. You will still have at least one who is spoiling for a fight from day one.

Originally posted by Synergy:

I don't know how to provide a save file.

I'm not sure what you're responding to here, but to generate a save file, press "escape" and choose "save game." You can actually open the save file and read the data in it if you use Unzip or a similar piece of free archive software. That's pretty advanced stuff though, you don't need to do that ever, let alone this early in your learning process.

Originally posted by Synergy:

Also, I'm too much of a perfectionist to concede a star system, especially this early on when it includes the home planet. I'm determined to find a way to salvage the situation, but I guess I am going to have to go back much further....

This game really wants you to not fight every war to the death and to make trade-offs. There are opponents who are unbeatable in the early game, some of whom will rampage against you, bombing your homeworld and kidnapping your pops into slavery. If you're trying to roleplay it, imagine yourself as a bunch of wide-eyed innocents suddenly discovering the galaxy is full of advanced and hostile aliens. You're going to take losses, and if you're into the roleplay aspect of it, part of the enjoyment is working out for yourself how the early setbacks will shape the national character of your empire.

Edit: Also, it's a lot harder to die in this game than it is to lose a war. If they don't have a claim on your system, they can't take it from you in the peace (unless they're a galactic threat, who will convert every system they take into their own as soon as they take it, and you will do the same to them). Try to have a buffer zone at least 2-3 sectors deep around your homeworld That should insulate you from conquest even if you lose control of your home system. If they start the war with a claim on your homeworld or a system directly adjacent to it... then actual destruction of your empire becomes a real possibility.

[PlutonArioch]

Originally posted by Synergy:

This was a brand new civilization I encountered so not enough intel for ship details.

You can look at the battle reports to see which kinds of weapons they used, and how much shield/armor damage you did.

Originally posted by Synergy:

I don't know how to provide a save file.

Your save files should be under "%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\save games\" and you can upload the file to dropbox or something similar if you have it, or to something like https://www.file.io/ .

Originally posted by Geoff:

Originally posted by Synergy:

I don't know how to provide a save file.

I'm not sure what you're responding to here, but to generate a save file, press "escape" and choose "save game." You can actually open the save file and read the data in it if you use Unzip or a similar piece of free archive software. That's pretty advanced stuff though, you don't need to do that ever, let alone this early in your learning process.

I asked if he could provide a save, not edit it. From experience it is easier to help people, especially new players, if we know the situation in detail, and can give specific advise, and it is MUCH easier to get all the information from a save file rather than asking a thousand questions which may or may not be relevant to the problem, and waiting for answers that may or may not be accurate, depending on the persons understanding.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

You can look at the battle reports to see which kinds of weapons they used, and how much shield/armor damage you did.

I tend to forget this one, since I have a nasty habit of clicking that shut before I remember I wanted to study it. But it's excellent advice.

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

I asked if he could provide a save, not edit it. From experience it is easier to help people, especially new players, if we know the situation in detail, and can give specific advise, and it is MUCH easier to get all the information from a save file rather than asking a thousand questions which may or may not be relevant to the problem, and waiting for answers that may or may not be accurate, depending on the persons understanding.

Yeah, for sure. I missed that in my scan of the replies. That's very kind and helpful of you to review it in such detail.

[ShinZed]

I don't think it was mentioned earlier but make sure you aren't using the pre-generated ship designs. Make your own.
I'm a big fan of missiles and strike craft but others love disruptors and we all miss neutron torpedoes but those are nerfed now.

It is strange that the enemy had a larger fleet than you on a low difficulty setting. They don't get bonuses to fleet size until you ramp the difficulty up. What year is it? You can build strongholds or navy bases to increase your fleet cap.

Starbases with hangers are great for defence. Defence platforms are made of styrofoam and tend to die in seconds, better to spent the alloys on ships.
The starbase won't do all the work though, so lure enemies onto the base then jump them with your fleet while the enemy is fighting the base.

[beholdbrandon]

1 thing that might help is to turn off Advanced AI starts. If you are new to the game, they can completely wreck you if they are an aggressive empire.

Also, try to befriend your neighbors (send envoy to improve relations, establish embassy if they are friendly enough, consider changing your diplomacy stance to cooperative, if they are just out of reach of establishing an embassy a small gift giving a green +10 or something might be enough to improve relations). If you have good relations they usually don't attack you.

If they are hostile, you just have to prepare for the inevitable war. Try to ramp up alloy production as soon as you can if they appear hostile (you can sometimes tell based on how the first contact dialog evolves) and try to find any means to reduce ship build cost (example: on your next tradition pick, go supremacy, then take the 10% reduced ship build cost next, or if any leaders have reduced ship build cost depending on DLC you have). If they only have 1 hyperlane access to your systems (1 choke point), you can consider static defenses with upgraded starbases there, and have your fleet parked there as well. If you have a choice, build this on a pulsar/neutron star (the star looks to have a halo around it on the minimap, or hover over it for details) for additional defensive bonuses. If they have 2, you can sometimes afford to do 2 starbases. More than 2, and I would just save your allows for your fleet. If you can hold off on expanding your empire in the short term (if you aren't racing another empire to claim systems), hold off on it as those early 90-100 alloys a pop can make a difference in an early war. Also, start building a spy network on them. This can sometimes give you a few months alert that they are planning to declare war.

For early game war techs:
In engineering, I always pick missile 2 upgrade when it shows up (and swarmer missiles when they show up next) and afterburners. Armor upgrades also help.
In physics, get combat computers.
In society, naval capacity or fleet size can help if you know war is coming soon.

For ships, the default auto ship build is bad. Assuming no weapon tech, I like to do this build for my early ships. It's worked for me in the early game.

Corvette: 3 missile slot. 1 shield, 2 armor, afterburners for aux slot.
Destroyer: Before swarmers, I do 1 picket and 4 small slot missiles with artillery combat computer. After swarmers, put those on instead. 1 shield/5 armor, afterburners.
Cruisers: I like to do carriers with swarmer missiles for the other slots (carrier combat computer) or all swarmers (artillery combat computer). 1 shield/ rest armor and afterburners.

If you unlock new tech or upgrade your fleet design, you have to upgrade your already built fleets before they are equipped with the new goodies.

Before war starts, if you are pretty sure its going to start, get into belligerent or supremacy diplomacy stance before it starts (you would need to recall your improve relation envoys to not take an influence cost hit) to help with naval capacity and claim cost.

When war starts, pause the game and evaluate the situation a bit.
I like to plan when/where I want to fight. If the enemy is stronger than me and I don't have starbase defenses, I let him advance a little bit and take non-critical systems while I continue to build-up. You don't want to engage if you are going to lose and lose ships and get even more behind. Just stay at your capital if you need to initially and keep building up; you should hopefully have a comparable fleet power before they get to your capital. If you can, try to intercept the enemy before armies can land to take your colonies. If he's only a little bit stronger than you and you have some starbase defenses, get their asap with your ships. Retaking a strong starbase can be difficult early game. Otherwise, get all your ships grouped up and teach the AI a lesson. If you start getting the upper hand, claim some of his systems before the war ends.

[Kalemenos]

Originally posted by Synergy:

... the first two civilizations I encountered were immediately hostile -- despite envoys attempting to improve relations.

Not just in the game. Some people in real life can be a lot like that too!

[Corey Greyfox]

Early game concentrate your defence in as few positions as possible. Ideally find a choke point and build a star base there and station your fleet there, obviously not always possible. Simply upgrading your fleet based on auto generation might not be the best, especially when your fleet is still corvettes, the game tends to make them into pickets ships as soon as possible which in early game is not an upgrade, it's a downgrade to being pretty much useless.
Don't waste time on defence platforms early game either. They have their use in mid/late game(and even that is debatable) but in early game they are a waste of money in almost all situations.
Also, may seem counter to everything I just said, but don't try to build tall in the early game, not when you are new anyway. Concentrate you defence, but don't cut off your ability to expand while doing that.
You want to focus on your war economy, but you don't want to grow your war economy so fast that your civilian economy falls behind. You do not want to have many unfilled jobs in the early game.
Use the market if you can. If you happen to get lucky early game with an excess of one resource, sell it to buy a resource you need. Don't stockpile early game.

Also, are you playing as xenophobic? That will hurt AI relations. Further, depending on the DLCs you have, you could chose to start as part of a federation, which would make early game easier, or to start as the vassal of an advanced civilisation. Both options will help protect you from early game attacks, but both also have their own drawbacks.


EDIT:Also your government polices can hurt your relations with neighbours(some civilisations don't like slavery for example). So can first contact protocols early game. Heck, just having closed borders can be a problem early game. So doesn't hurt to check your government policy and your border status with neighbours.

[Luzilyo]

I think it's good that you don't want to concede a star system. Never give anyone anything, especially if they "ask" for it in a rather demanding manner (by declaring war). You took it, now it's yours. Keep it that way.

Regarding military strenght, one thing that seems to be often overlooked is the fact that you can have multiple fleets. Like, if one fleet of corvettes is not enough, build a second. You don't really need to worry so much about naval capacity.

Usually the way I go about it is that I have a rather small fleet (whatever is left over from the previous war) and then when someone decides to declare war on me, I just build up a massive fleet with absolutely no regard for naval capacity. Like, sure, it absolutely tanks my economy, but it will only last for as long as the war. Then, if the war ends and I'm still above naval capacity, I can simply disband the ships/fleets that are too much, returning my economy to being profitable once again. Just make sure to always stockpile enough resources to survive the potentially massive drain for long enough. Ideally your storage of energy and alloys would be near max (which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you keep only a small emergency fleet around, resulting in you having to pay far less for upkeep). Obviously, this strategy requires a lot of shipyards. If you have only a single shipyard in a single starbase, it's not really gonna work out well because you will be too slow at building ships.

I usually try to build at least 3 or 4 starbases with 2 shipyard modules per starbase (so a total of 6 - 8 ships can be produced simultaneously). This should be considered as minimum, if you can afford more, build more. It also has the advantage that you can easily afford to temporarily lose 1 or 2 shipyards and still have a pretty good ship production speed for reinforcements. Later on, as you research bigger ships, this strategy becomes less viable, because each individual ship will start to take more and more time before it's built. For early game though, when everyone has just corvettes and maybe 5 or 6 destroyers, ships can be built quickly and easily enough that you can queue up a decent sized fleet at the start of the war and still have enough time to end up winning.

Regarding defense platforms on starbases, I think you should not treat them as singular points of defence. Like, they can do a little bit, but usually - at least as far as I've been able to see, if you leave a starbase completely on its own, it will get wrecked no matter how much you build it up. They do serve to buy time however. If you have already fought elsewhere and lost, then your fleet will be weaker and in need of reinfocements. If you have a strong starbase somewhere (ideally in your home system), you can put that fleet in orbit of the starbase, and have it wait there until reinforcements arrive. Sometimes, the added strength of the starbase can be enough to deter any enemy from wanting to attack your weakened fleet.

If you do manage to get a strong enough starbase, and your enemy fleet is just slightly stronger than yours, you can whittle them down little by little. Attack, get wrecked (but do some damage in the process), retreat to your starbase, reinforce, attack again. Obviously this isn't viable long-term due to war exhaustion, but if you can bring him down to below your own fleet strength in just one or two attacks, it can work out decently. Especially when using commanders that add a high chance to successfully disengage, as it will mean that you'll lose fewer ships.

Another thing you could do would be to just let the enemy invade your systems, fly around a bit, wreck a couple things. In the process, they will also take at least a few hits from the outposts and starbases, which will make their fleets a little weaker (not by much, but it can help sometimes). That way, you might be able to turn the fight in your favor, but of course it requires you to have a sufficiently large territory. Also, again, you would need to be mindful of war exhaustion, to make sure that you can take back any occupied outpost/starbase before they can force you to surrender.

Another useful thing is to ignore whatever the enemy is doing in your territory and just go straight for their home world (and any other shipyards they might have) to occupy those and then go to bombing their homeworld. It won't help you directly, but it can seriously cripple their economy, making it difficult or impossible for them to build reinforcements for their fleet. That way, even if their fleet is initially stronger, you can still take them down eventually. Sometimes it also prompts them to move out of your territory to get back home and defend their own. Depending on the war goal, this can also help to end it in status quo with no border changes.

Really, in war usually your biggest enemy is the war exhaustion timer/score. Given enough time, you'd be able to win pretty much any war at any odds, if you had the time to employ some seriously large long-term guerrilla campaigns, but usually you'll be forced to surrender before any of those can take effect, so you gotta scale them down significantly, making them much less effective. It helps if you research technologies that decrease your war exhaustion, which will give you more time during war to deal with strong enemies.

A good combo-tactic could be to split your force into many smaller fleets that don't harrass/attack the enemy fleet directly, but move behind it and into enemy territory. The fleets just need to be strong enough to handle starbases. That way, you can send one or two fleets to recapture anything that the enemy captures within your own territory, and you can send some more equally small fleets to capture all enemy shipyards. Just make sure that your fleets always stay away from the enemy fleet, and monitor their movements very closely. If they start moving towards one of your fleets, move it away and make sure that they don't get caught.

Once you got all the enemy shipyards, it depends on how strong their fleet is and how the war exhaustion is going. If they are just slightly stronger, you can pull all your fleets together and start attacking - but always be mindful to re-capture any shipyards that they might liberate. With sufficient ship-building capacity of your own, you should be able to reinforce much faster than them, so they won't be able to get back to full strenght before you do.

If their fleet is much stronger than yours, keep your own fleets split up and just capture as much of their territory as possible, while making sure to always liberate as much of your own territory as you can while staying away from the enemy fleet. Also, bombing their home planet is always a good idea if you can get to it, especially early game that is usually the one place where they will have most of their vital production/economy.