Feedback Requested: War and War Resolution

[Myphicbowser]

I think the biggest thing I want to see is more options to end a war, more concessions you can give to promote the end of a war. I know this is much more political than just war itself, but the creation of Demilitarized Zones and possibly even the idea of banning technologies like Cloaking or Jump Drives (Which can be discovered if they're in violation with a high enough intel or an Espionage Mission) would add so much more, because it would make it feel more like a treaty instead of a "I've killed all of your ships, you killed all of mine. See you in ten years."

So really I'm okay with beating each other against a wall of ships, but once its all said and done, I want to put sanctions, tech locks, DMZs, and maybe even forced border policy in place, an agreement is reached instead of just me taking half the system I want and losing a few they wanted if the war was perfectly even. And if you're losing, an option to give up more things without territorial concession ALSO sounds great.

 

[Ajacoba]

Do not make ground warfare more complicated

Leave it as boring and basic as it is, just maybe make it easier to get good combat traits like strong and very strong on your soldiers

 

[faljen_isus]

Wargoals to ban and disassemble tech for instance would be a very nice addition

 

[RhysTheT00n]

I can only speak for how the current system on Consoles works, so if something I talk about is different on PC, let me know.

I don't exactly want to suggest that we get rid of the War Exhaustion system, at least not just yet, but it doesn't make sense in it's execution. On the one hand I - on several occasions - have been forced out of a one-sided war very early in the game as a Determined Exterminator Machine race due to "war exhaustion" despite having the opponent's only planet reduced to literally a single pop and they have 0 remaining ships or starbases. On the other hand I've been able to literally save myself from extinction by clicking the "Force Peace" button when the enemy is at really high War Exhaustion despite the fact that they're clearly winning this very one-sided war against a species that if allowed to live will stop at literally nothing to wipe theirs and everyone else's species off the face of the galaxy. You know, being a Determined Exterminator and everything. This is because early on in the game, the few ships you have are considered *really* valuable (for good reason, admittedly) compared to your economy at the time, and losing those ships in war represents significant losses in resources, since you're not getting the materials back that you spent on that fleet, even if you attempt to salvage the remains you're only getting back some of the materials. Because of how valuable the game calculates those resources are relative to your current economy, losing even some of those ships exponentially hikes up your War Exhaustion. The best I can imagine is that this system is meant exclusively for AI empires so that they have a logic-system to tell them when to exit a war, because this system doesn't make any sense for a player, since a player knows their own economy and should have full authority on how much they engage in war.

In the same breath as all this, I'm not a fan of how the Galactic Menace Crisis (what's it called again? The original Become The Crisis system) is the only way to get the entire galaxy to rally against you even if you're a Determined Exterminator. Even then, when I reach the final Tier of the Nemesis system, I've noticed that Fallen/Awakened Empires leave me alone, and even other machine empires have been known to leave me alone despite the fact that they will also be completely annihilated if I succeed in my goals. Without that Nemesis Crisis perk, once you reach a certain level of power, the rest of the galaxy will completely leave you alone and allow you to consolidate strength to your heart's desire, and whenever I feel like giving myself a minor challenge, I have to manually declare war on each empire (at least for the ones that aren't in the same federation as each other)

 

[Ajacoba]

I can only speak for how the current system on Consoles works, so if something I talk about is different on PC, let me know.

I don't exactly want to suggest that we get rid of the War Exhaustion system, at least not just yet, but it doesn't make sense in it's execution. On the one hand I - on several occasions - have been forced out of a one-sided war very early in the game as a Determined Exterminator Machine race due to "war exhaustion" despite having the opponent's only planet reduced to literally a single pop and they have 0 remaining ships or starbases. On the other hand I've been able to literally save myself from extinction by clicking the "Force Peace" button when the enemy is at really high War Exhaustion despite the fact that they're clearly winning this very one-sided war against a species that if allowed to live will stop at literally nothing to wipe theirs and everyone else's species off the face of the galaxy. You know, being a Determined Exterminator and everything. This is because early on in the game, the few ships you have are considered *really* valuable (for good reason, admittedly) compared to your economy at the time, and losing those ships in war represents significant losses in resources, since you're not getting the materials back that you spent on that fleet, even if you attempt to salvage the remains you're only getting back some of the materials. Because of how valuable the game calculates those resources are relative to your current economy, losing even some of those ships exponentially hikes up your War Exhaustion. The best I can imagine is that this system is meant exclusively for AI empires so that they have a logic-system to tell them when to exit a war, because this system doesn't make any sense for a player, since a player knows their own economy and should have full authority on how much they engage in war.

In the same breath as all this, I'm not a fan of how the Galactic Menace Crisis (what's it called again? The original Become The Crisis system) is the only way to get the entire galaxy to rally against you even if you're a Determined Exterminator. Even then, when I reach the final Tier of the Nemesis system, I've noticed that Fallen/Awakened Empires leave me alone, and even other machine empires have been known to leave me alone despite the fact that they will also be completely annihilated if I succeed in my goals. Without that Nemesis Crisis perk, once you reach a certain level of power, the rest of the galaxy will completely leave you alone and allow you to consolidate strength to your heart's desire, and whenever I feel like giving myself a minor challenge, I have to manually declare war on each empire (at least for the ones that aren't in the same federation as each other)

If you're enough of a threat the galactic community can declare you a crisis

And just because someone is winning a war doesn't mean they can indefinitely keep up the supply lines, war exhaustion is all the stuff that gets off-screened, be it hippy movements, supply lines, your soldiers getting homesick and exhausted or other such things

 

[Cadance]

add in things like taking the capital colony or shipyards add more war fatigue make it so its more strategic not just grab every system and then try to hunt down enemy fleets who just run all over the place dragging it out

 

[apollon1779]

In my opinion the biggest issue with warfare isn't so much to do with the fighting proper but rather the diplomacy surrounding it.

The state of being at war is very restrictive in what you can and can't do diplomatically and even internally. On top of being so restrictive, it's extremely difficult to change it outside of the entire war ending. For instance, if you'd like to vassalize someone but they're at war, you not only can't vassalize them but you can't intervene on their side in any way. In a more general sense, joining and leaving wars is virtually impossible, whereas in my opinion it should be much closer to something like EU4, with perhaps a dynamic war leader system like the one in Vic2. You should also be able to help out countries either by joining wars or in other ways, for instance lending out shipyards.

The peace "deals" are the worst aspect of wars by far, as the three possible outcomes feel much too total. This is especially underwhelming considering that prior to the "war update" among other things that 2.0 was it removed peace deals which were much closer to other games. The casus belli are also limited to the default four for the majority of empires, limiting the different notions of "war objective" like in EU4. This contributes to the war exhaustion system being bizarre in its workings and truly feeling arbitrary. This comes to light when one wins a decisive battle but still gets more war exhaustion, which by the game's logic means they're closer to surrendering then they were before. Imperator and EU4 both have great peace deals and I think a lot could be borrowed from them, most notably things like war reps. As others have suggested, implementing things like DMZs would also be great.

Military access is also rather limited. Though this has partly been remedied with cloaking, I don't see why should a 300 system spanning empire not be able to pass through a system controlled by a newly-enlightened primitive state. The best way for access to exist is for all systems to always be open, but the act of going through a system owned by a faction that hasn't given you access would have diplomatic and perhaps military consequences. This would also help to distinguish military and civilian access, as it doesn't seem fitting that a science ship would be treated the same way as the main warfleet on its way to their capital.

Wars should also have a bigger impact on your diplomatic relations with countries other than the ones you're currently at war with, especially once the galactic community forms. This exists to an extent with the anti-war galactic reforms but these take decades to be implemented and countries shouldn't be indifferent to wars on their borders even before galcom. This would go nicely with trade restrictions (if trade were reworked) imposed as sanctions.

Finally I believe ground warfare should largely remain untouched, it is sensible for it to have a secondary role when you can largely bomb planets into submission from orbit. However as habitats or ringworlds could be more fragile than planets, using ground troops should perhaps be encouraged with these. The best addition to ground warfare would be more troop types with bigger differences accessible to all empires. For instance marines which deal more damage when fighting on habitats or troops which have bonuses in certain climate types. Fleets in orbit should be able to aid their side on the ground since precision bombing is a thing.

 

[Roaringbeardragon]

I think the biggest thing I want to see is more options to end a war, more concessions you can give to promote the end of a war. I know this is much more political than just war itself, but the creation of Demilitarized Zones and possibly even the idea of banning technologies like Cloaking or Jump Drives (Which can be discovered if they're in violation with a high enough intel or an Espionage Mission) would add so much more, because it would make it feel more like a treaty instead of a "I've killed all of your ships, you killed all of mine. See you in ten years."

So really I'm okay with beating each other against a wall of ships, but once its all said and done, I want to put sanctions, tech locks, DMZs, and maybe even forced border policy in place, an agreement is reached instead of just me taking half the system I want and losing a few they wanted if the war was perfectly even. And if you're losing, an option to give up more things without territorial concession ALSO sounds great.

Definitley, more politcal complexity with active wars would be great too, with allies and enemies other than the main attacker/defender able to join and leave midway, the galactic community being able to force an intervention/resolution if all parties involved are members, the ability to bargain for allies to enter on your side, enemies to switch sides etc through bribes or garuntees, or even espeionage to force political shift via assasination, and as for post war things, being able to forcably reduce their naval cap al la treaty of verssailes (and consequences or lack therof for breaking) would make things more interesting!

 

[Psykhes]

One thing which would be nice for Secret Fealty would be that any war with the Overlord would result in the vassals with Secret Fealty to you backstabbing him.

Currently you need to specifically make a war with the Secret Fealty objective, if you make any other war with (or get a war declared on you by) the overlord the Secret Fealty does not trigger.
It should be handled just like claims, which can be achieved in any (or at least most) war goals.

 

[awesome_scorpion]

I have been frustrated with the war conclusion mechanics since the game released, and am excited to see the dev team recognizes there are shortcomings. The main issue is immersion-breaking in a few ways. The primary problem is what I call "magic peace", where I am surviving and maybe even thriving, but the war ends without my consent regardless, often suddenly and as a shock to me, with not even the option of continuing at any cost since we can't break truces. That is not how war works. If I wish to keep fighting, I should be able to keep fighting so long as my empire can fight. War exhaustion should punish extending wars, not prevent it. The only valid form of magic peace is where my opponents surrender to the full war goal, or when my empire literally collapses under the weight of the war. Whatever the approach may end up being, I dearly hope it does not have magic peace.

Getting more specific about war goals and conclusions, I wish it was more transactional on the peace table, a trade deal with the ongoing war as a counter-offer by the dominating party: "What will you give me to stop fighting you?", where peace happens when both war leaders come to an agreement balancing the offers made against the current war exhaustion and expected results of continuing the war. Lot's of complexity available here of course, but this sort of approach is what I would find most immersive as well as satisfying in gameplay.

 

[Kry嗷嗷嗷]

There is a meme from Chinese community and here is its translation:
"Stellaris is different from HoI4. Stellaris is still in the advanced Western Zhou Dynasty. You must follow the Zhou rituals when fighting. You cannot start a war without declaration. You cannot send out an army to attack an innocent country. When fighting, neither side is allowed to launch a sneak attack. You must inform the other side first and send the other side's fleet in the country back to the other side intact. Both sides will line up at the border and fight each other.
Before fighting, you must agree on what we are fighting for. For example, if you are insulted by Starfishes and you are furious: "Sir Starfish insulted me, I want to attack him to avenge my hatred", then you beat him up and make him apologize, and that's it. You can't keep the occupied land for yourself, you must return it in full. If you think your neighbor has occupied your land, you must first announce to the world: "X country destroyed my ancestral temple and seized my altar. Now we will punish the unjust and ovethrow the tyrant." Only when everyone in the world has seen your manifesto and approved it, can you take the star systems you have claimed. You cannot claim too many at a time, nor can you occupy more planets than you claim, so as to avoid people in the world accusing you of having the ambition to dominate.
Of course, sometimes you can also not follow the Zhou rituals when fighting. For example, if you talk to people who are Fanatic Purifiers, Devouring Swarm, and Determined Exterminator, they can't even understand you at all. At this time, you can say: "XX are barbarians, do not obey the Zhou's rules, kidnap my cattle and sheep, and plunder my wealth. Today, the world will punish them together." Everyone will see that this group of people is indeed unreasonable. At this time, if you take down a star system, it is a star system, and if you occupy a planet, it is a planet, and no one will say anything. In general, Paradox('s war solution) is stupid."

 

[ScorpioneOrzion]

Do not make ground warfare more complicated

Leave it as boring and basic as it is, just maybe make it easier to get good combat traits like strong and very strong on your soldiers

Or more traits/civics/tech etc that might make them better or so?

 

[Edorath]

Being able to join foreign wars would be great, watching a FP raze through the galaxy while everyone stares IS a bit baffling. Certain civics could for example let you join in exchange for something else (being able to pay mercenary-ish megacorps into joining wars for example), as well as certain traditions and/or diplomatic empires, with wars against the aforementioned genocidal empires having no restrictions to join at all.
Actual post-war negotiations would be neat, or at least the ability to negotiate status quos in exchange for reparations (i give you x amounts of y resources or this system on our borders in exchange of you ending the war earlier, in the form of a positive opinion bonus towards that).
Also as some people mentioned, sector capitals and/or heavily populated worlds should give more war exhaustion when captured (for example, giving x amount of monthly exhaustion scaling with the planet’s capital level, and another on top of that if it’s a sector capital or higher if it’s your homeworld).

 

[RhysTheT00n]

Also, this isn't really the "war resolution" system, but while I'm here, I'm not really a fan of how with the two Player Crisis options, Cosmogenesis and Galactic Nemesis, you're forced to choose between technological superiority and "death to everyone". I'm always a big fan of any changes to the game that allow me to enhance my Reaper roleplay from Mass Effect, so call me a little biased, but Galactic Menace seems to capture the *threat* of the Reapers, but several aspects of Cosmogenesis capture the *theme* and *strength* of the Reapers. Tell me the Synaptic Lathe isn't just the Collector Base from Mass Effect 2, and the Fallen Empire ships basically being the same "class" as every empire's normal ships, but significantly larger, more advanced and heavily armed. The Fallen Empire ships basically represent the mastery of technology that other empires can't even grasp, which is *exactly* what the Reapers are in Mass Effect.

I like the idea of going back to a single Crisis perk, but you select your empire's "intentions" so to speak, which dictates generally what kind of path you're trying to follow (event chains, basically). Then with each Tier, you can select a number of perks yourself rather than being given one or two good ones per Tier and just sort of tolerating others. Like, I've never used Menacing Destroyers or Cruisers, and I've only ever used Corvettes for the 25x Crisis factions. Of course, you wouldn't be able to just select ANY perks you want, they wouldn't be able to contradict with one another. If you're trying to achieve technological superiority and mastery and you pick the Fallen Empire ships and techs, you wouldn't be building thousands of cheap and easily-manufactured haphazardly-constructed corvettes meant to headbutt your enemies to death, but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to get the +40% ship damage buff or the +20% Starbase damage one.

 

[Psykhes]

And for war exhaustion, I never really liked that fixed 2 year timer once you reached 100%.

IMO an infinitely stacking increase on ship upkeep would be better there. Then you would have depending on your economy more freedom when to end the war, but it would still have a soft cap.
Of course, if you are on the losing side you can reach it before your opponent. But on the other hand, you usually do not have much of a fleet left then. It would penalize attempts to rebuild your fleet during a war, but that is rarely something which is possible even with the current system.

 

[Calvax]

Thanks for seeking feedback! Will definitely have a think and fill out the form.

While there's a lot that could make the war system better overall the biggest thing that jumps to my mind as broken is forever wars. In almost every game there will come a point where I'm at war with an empire who ends up being at war with a third party. They'll end up completely occupied by me and this third party, but since it will be 80% to me and 20% to the other (for example) the loser doesn't surrender since occupation hasn't reached 100%. Meaning we all have to sit there, for years, waiting for war exhaustion to tick up.

 

[Killy_Blame]

I would like to see a more like honorverse kind of Space warfare, without armies. Armies are more flavor than useful in game.

 

[Calvax]

And for war exhaustion, I never really liked that fixed 2 year timer once you reached 100%.

IMO an infinitely stacking increase on ship upkeep would be better there. Then you would have depending on your economy more freedom when to end the war, but it would still have a soft cap.
Of course, if you are on the losing side you can reach it before your opponent. But on the other hand, you usually do not have much of a fleet left then. It would penalize attempts to rebuild your fleet during a war, but that is rarely something which is possible even with the current system.

For war exhaustion my casual thoughts on it is that it should be an overall empire stat rather than war specific. It doesn't make sense to me that an empire can be in a series of wars one after the other with less problem than one war of the same total length. It should be something that your empire has which cools off when you're at peace, and different wars contribute to the uptick differently.

Secondly maxing out war exhaustion or going high with it seems like a great opportunity to start situations. No magic "in two years your society quits". Instead have events popping up that we can respond to representing the various peoples in our empire protesting, or in the case of gestalts the mental toll and possible fragmentation.

 

[Psykhes]

Not sure if this is the war you are looking for, but what is really missing in Stellaris are non-military "wars".

It would be nice to be able to wage an economic war where you can damage other empires economy or culture wars where you can influence other empires to become more like you.
Currently this is only possible by very limited and/or military means, like GC sanctions, liberation wars or vassals & certain GC resolutions. It would be nice you if you do it by other means too, like edicts where you could sacrifice some of your economy in order to damage the economy of non-Gestalt empire xy (like trade sanctions). Or propaganda broadcasts (radio free blorg, i.e. by starbase buildings and/or even a "sentry array" like new megastructure) and espionage actions to slowly change the alignment of other empires.