Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
I think I'm starting to figure out Stellaris Warfare and why I've been sucking at it:
normally I'm conservative with my resources and so have large stockpiles of a bunch of things just lying around. But I think what I'm supposed to do is spend them like crazy to build massive fleets and hope the stuff I have will just make more for me. I way underestimate how many ships I actually need to fight, and thus end up being weak in comparison to other empires despite how much territory I control, worse I need to anticipate and do all this ahead of time, like before war is ever declared.

like the fact that the AI cheats by having such big fleets out of nowhere is the one gripe I have with this game, because I have yet to win a war because of it.
While it's changed somewhat from patch to patch, one of things about Stellaris is that you can build over your fleet capacity by a lot while facing only relatively modest resource penalties (especially if said fleet is docked around a starbase with the appropriate upgrades). That means that if you're not at close to you fleet limit then you are almost certainly outgunned by an empire of comparable size and tech level (also advancing military techs makes a fairly modest difference in Stellaris, or at least that was the case the last time I took a stab at a play through around a year ago, so even primitive empires can swarm you with weak ships).

Also, keeping your fleet big keeps other people from attacking you. At least at lower difficulties the AI is fairly non-aggressive (even for super-aggressive civ types) and even if they really hate you probably won't attack unless they actually have a favorable fleet strength compared to you. It's actually possible to avoid combat by building a fleet you can't afford to deploy, because taking them out of dock will impose a huge ongoing cost, since the AI is just keying off the overall number in front of your doomstack.

I don't believe the AI cheats with regard to fleets - except for Fallen Empires, but that's a special case - they just keep all assets in orbit around their homeworlds unless they're actually in combat, which makes them hard to see.

In terms of actual combat, the Stellaris system is basically a tactical void, fleets just crash into each other and once one side acquires any sort of numerical advantage it traps the other one into a doomy death spiral that can't be escaped until emergency hyperspace becomes available. As a result too nominally even strength fleets clashing doesn't result in mutual annihilation, it results in one fleet taking 25-50% casualties and the other being completely destroyed. To win consistently with only moderate casualties you what 2-3x the fleet strength of your opponent, and ideally more. And unless the system has changed significantly, war is all about bringing your giant stack into combat with the enemy's giant stack and smashing it, after which everything else is mostly just mop up.