Quote Originally Posted by LuckGuy View Post
Are doomstacks really a problem? I thought the existing war system took care of that. If you will lose the fleet battle, just avoid combat and go after planets, force a victory through war score. Isn't that why planets have a much larger effect than ships?

The quadratic nature of naval combat has been known for hundreds of years. More guns means you reduce their fleet faster, which slows the rate which yours is reduced, which gives you a bigger advantage, so even small differences snowball. Midway is the exception, Jutland is the rule.
The problem is if one side completely destroys the other sides fleet, and you try to go for planets, they could easily split their fleet then and go for your ships in their territory and simultaneously go for your planets in yours. Also, the more ships you have, the faster the garrison on the planets decrease, so they will be easily able to capture planets faster then you, and you'll take so long to knock out their garrisons that it'll give them plenty of time to see you combat strength and send an appropriate force to sweep it up before you do any damage while they continue their conquest of you.