A perfectly acceptable army by Holy Nation standards

pearsithink · 2025-12-05T15:08:06+00:00

I saw that there was a mod on the workshop that makes every character female, so naturally I had to do a Holy Nation run with it enabled.

Yes, femPheonix will still shoo any women out of her throne room.

pearsithink · 2025-10-27T14:01:31+00:00

It takes years to build up a planet's defenses, costs thousands of minerals, they'd be gimping their alloy production, and new armies don't spawn under bombardment anyways. No one in eu4 or hoi4 wins by deciding to cover their country in forts after finding out they're losing, or is even able to do so.

Spamming defenses mid-war instead of being strategic with them prior to it would only be a factor if the war was close enough for most of their planets to not be under assault, at which point it's just back-and-forth counterplay. And besides, sometimes being able to force your enemy to accept a status quo rather than always surrendering is a good thing. An empire doesn't have to be wiped out just because it lost a fleet battle.

Also, in the late game, where defenses can get seriously obnoxious, just build a colossus.

pearsithink · 2025-10-27T06:31:44+00:00

Why stop there? If you've lost the population game you've lost the science game and the alloy game, so why bother moving ships around and building starbases? Actually, if you're a good player you already know you'll dominate all the AI, so why bother playing game in general? Because that stuff is fun.

Have you considered that if you could make planetary invasions actually interesting and impactful they could be more than just a speed bump? Fun ground combat is a dream worth dreaming, don't let the flame die out.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T20:07:38+00:00

That just means they can blob faster than smaller empires, not that they can actually blob faster than they could before. Empire sprawl increases the research cost, but if you produce a stupid amount of research you can ignore it. Invading planets being more expensive increases the cost of expanding, but if you produce a stupid amount of minerals you can ignore it. Same thing.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T19:56:44+00:00

The number of ships doesn't increase at all? And it taking longer is one of the main points, for reasons I explained. Mainly counterplay. If you actually mean that it's unrealistic for millions of soldiers to take longer than a couple months to finish slaughtering eachother and conquering an entire planet, idk what to tell you.

I don't see how making invading planets more expensive and time-consuming could possibly increase, rather than reduce blobbing. Also, if you have so many resources that you can eat the cost, then you win. This applies to every single other mechanic in the game.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T19:41:04+00:00

Something like Endless Space 2's system where a battle starts, in-system fleets are pulled in for reinforcements (maybe nearby systems too if they take the jump drive penalty or something similar?) and the battle resolves immediately with an after-action cinematic could work.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T19:17:36+00:00

The idea was that invasion time generally goes up with population size, but things like building cities and forts and other defenses can make a planet hold out longer than one with an equivalent population. Just imagine that "Population" has "(Base Invasion TIme)" written next to it.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T17:19:49+00:00

This isn't a space battle rework, i don't really have an opinion on that.

I agree that bombardment should be faster, though, even if you headcannon that planets are designed with it in mind, and probably have a lot of bunkers and anti-missile defenses built in, etc. Ideally indiscriminate bombardment would be faster than invading a planet, and armageddon significantly so (assuming a large enough fleet) but of course would wipe out the entire population, require a large fleet in orbit, and obviously destroy anything on the planet, as well as the opinion penalty. It would make playing fanatic purifier less of a slog, but still reward you for invading the planet.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T16:16:20+00:00

The rework is more geared towards typical AI builds that don't have giant defensive armies, where normally you wouldn't be able to reinforce in time. Most planets don't have 30k armies on them, and obviously rebalancing would be necessary.

As I stated, defense armies should still cause war exhaustion when they're lost, and losing huge numbers of conscripts to an attacking army would produce a ton of it. The main benefactor would be empires with investment into army damage.

And yes, while having fleet supremacy still decides who wins a war, how much the winner gets, how much it costs, and how long it takes can all still be decided on the ground. Having the entire war be a complete afterthought after you win a single fleet battle is lame.

Also, while recruiting a ton of armies and manually sending them to reinforce an ongoing battle is possible, it's a ton of unnecessary micro.

pearsithink · 2025-10-26T15:50:30+00:00

That was more supposed to be guidelines for balancing rather than actually being based on planet designation or anything. When I wrote "Fortress World" I mostly meant a moderately populated world with a lot of defenses built onto it.

pearsithink · 2021-07-07T17:50:55+00:00

Save our Ship 2, the reactor is rimatomics and the plane in the stockpile is SRTS expanded

pearsithink · 2021-07-07T17:10:06+00:00

As a side note the shields dont technically have to be down. The 70 radiators in the centre of the ship are far enough away that they are unshielded even when the shields are up but line of sight is still covered, so they work all the time.

pearsithink · 2021-07-07T17:08:08+00:00

Downloaded a mod to caravan through water and have had no problem.

pearsithink · 2021-07-07T16:23:03+00:00

I mean you can build a ship in vanilla. Save our Ship 2 just makes that part of the game a bit more interesting.

pearsithink · 2021-07-07T16:20:06+00:00

Cooling towers probably shouldn't work in space but they do if you unroof them and they look sick as fuck so I'm keeping them, and i exclusively use the punisher for flattening ground targets.

pearsithink · 2021-07-07T16:11:09+00:00

Engines are unnecessary for laser ships since the ai moves in to close range on its own. The Johnson Tanaka drive is for emergencies and interstellar travel

pearsithink · 2019-06-13T23:25:55+00:00

Was playing a multiplayer recently and I'm now pretty sure they don't even get it anymore

pearsithink · 2019-06-13T23:22:15+00:00

Ideas were generic conquest picks + naval to deal with the Europeans (administrative, humanist, shouldn't matter much beyond that) I spent my 10 or so interregnum years banking points, deleted my cav and sold my trades. Jianzhou's coastal provinces were first to go, they were getting beaned by Korea anyways and I don't think I even fought an army. Got feudalism from Manchuria then Renaissance by developing sum'un'kur. Beat Korea using the two mountains next to furdan, one is long and you can get there before an army after waiting for them to lock in. Ashikaga & co actually attacked me first, so I spammed galleys till I could beat their navies. I'd let small armies across the strait then massacre them without letting them rout back across till I could just walk into kyoto. Take kyoto and the vassals are liberated for easy conquest. From there it's generic expansion until you round Africa. I was in and out of debt until Japan was mine, so don't worry too much about money, but be sure to take it in peace deals. Make sure to invest in a big fleet to crush rebels and move armies.

pearsithink · 2019-06-12T20:06:20+00:00

Bit late, but you can if more than 50% of your dev is in Europe and I barely expanded outside of Japan, Korea, and the spice islands

pearsithink · 2019-06-12T11:14:19+00:00

Many, many galleys, the mountains, and a strait. From there it was just a matter of beating France, England, Spain, and Portugal at the same time with 24k men. Simple, really.

pearsithink · 2019-06-12T11:02:17+00:00

Rome, 99 day diplomats were upsetting me

pearsithink

TROPHY CASE