Feedback Requested: War and War Resolution

[Phuder123]

i don't think you need to add something too complex,Just make losing pop+ planet count toward war exhaustion more, especially if the AI losing its capital, it should just surrender, because at that point,it probably lose all of its ship and half the empire already. Population is the reason an empire exists,losing them should give much more impact. This should also apply to players,If they somehow lose their Captital to the AI, The Ai should be able to force surrender the player after 24 months instead of waiting for the player to accept the status quo,or surrender themselves. About ground combat, just keep it basic as it is. If you can, add some building that could help defend the colony, Giving players more options when building a fortress world (right now, we only have a planetary shield). Maybe a module to reduce bombardment level instead of just damage (Amegadeon will be only as effective as indiscriminate),a planetary missile system that will occasionally shoot down ship in the bombardment fleet as long there is a pop working in it,Or Storm defense mechanism, a planetary decision Summon a storm to deal damage to the hostile fleet and aid the relief force if the empire in question is psionic ( AKa Shroud storm). This indirectly makes Ground combat much more important (and efficient), Because now orbital bombardment is much painful and costly. The player will have to choose between suffering massive attrition to their fleet, or investing in building a massive army to get the job done quicker when they besiege a fortress world (Or just get a colossus). Thank for reading,hope you have a good day

 

[Alex in Tokyo]

One thing I'd love to see is better ability to resolve wars for limited objectives.

As an example, I sometimes find that another empire has taken possession of a system I want, usually because it's a good choke point on what I think of as the natural border of my empire, or occasionally due to strategic resources or an archaeological site.
In this case, I want to go to war just to conquer that one, single system.

Currently, I can claim the system then invade and capture it. But then to end the war (status quo is fine, I've occupied my claim so that is functionally equivalent to achieving my war goals) I have to either push further into their territory and possibly invade and occupy planets I have no interest in, or I have to wait 20 years while their war exhaustion ticks up so I can force a peace.

What I'd like to see is some way to be able to say "I have achieved what I wanted to achieve, let's call it off," and negotiate a peace. Now clearly, if I'm significantly weaker than them, they would not accept this and try to reoccupy the system, but if my fleet is significantly stronger than theirs (or they think it is because of my spy network feeding them misinformation [hint hint]), they should be willing to cut their losses and end the war.

Maybe it should be that actually occupying all claims (and maybe holding them for some period) should significantly increase the opponent's war exhaustion rate. Maybe it should increase the cap on acceptance from relative navy strength. I'm not sure what the mechanics should be, but you get the idea.

 

[Somebody248]

Me: *builds massive fleet to fight high-level endgame crisis*

Also me: "Why is the game so laggy? pdx plz fix"

 

[Troyen]

There is a system in place that allows you to claim systems additional times that as far as I can tell, does nothing.

In the event that someone on your side in a war has claimed the same system you have, the person with more claim levels is the one that gets to keep the conquered system. In practice, as you note, this is very rarely relevant. You're normally either not on the same side as other claimants (they may not even be in the war, in which case their claims don't matter), someone got 10 free claims from losing the system, or your vassal/fed allies are the other empire claiming and the system is just going to become a source of diplomatic strife.

 

[BorisTheSovietLoveHammer]

My two main wishes for combat in Stellaris are pretty superficial yet I feel like would help with roleplay:

Firstly, more visual flair to planetary conquest, something that allows me to visualise the troops i am sending into battle and their slow take over of a world.

Secondly, although maybe not as on topic, some form of history ledger, a way for me to look back over my empire's conquests and interactions with other empires, like in EU4 and the Crusader Kings games.

 

[Grenartia]

I mentioned this in the feedback form, but I'm just gonna stick an abbreviated version here for public view:

Make more things designable like ships. Starbases (I'm aware there's a mod for this, I love it and think it should be made vanilla), strikecraft (I'm aware there's a mod for this as well, but I haven't tried it, and from what I remember of the description, it is a little jank, especially in terms of warscore), and armies (to my knowledge, there is no mod for this). Armies should be deployable from regular ships (basically, deprecate transports), with slots for ground attack (either bombs or armies) inherent to each ship (like a reactor slot), with the number of slots dependent on ship size (meaning corvs and frigs have to choose between one or the other, but everything else can dabble in both) (and yes, I'm aware there's also a mod for this, but IIRC, its mechanics don't exactly work like I'm specifying, and it doesn't support designable armies). Also, planetary defense that isn't just "build an orbital ring" (I know the At War suite has things like this, I love those mods), and bring back different sizes of defense platforms (I also know mods do this, but I'm irritated that they aren't supported by the auto-namer).

 

[Grenartia]

My two main wishes for combat in Stellaris are pretty superficial yet I feel like would help with roleplay:

Firstly, more visual flair to planetary conquest, something that allows me to visualise the troops i am sending into battle and their slow take over of a world.

Secondly, although maybe not as on topic, some form of history ledger, a way for me to look back over my empire's conquests and interactions with other empires, like in EU4 and the Crusader Kings games.

I actually don't think planetary combat can or should be made 'more engaging'. Currently, ground combat is somewhere between a lazily-developed minigame, and a barely-interactive cutscene. But making it more engaging will only add to the management burden players have to deal with during a war. Better to abstract it away in the background even more.

 

[RABBITEUSZ]

Armies and Ground Warfare

Currently, taking over planets for me is the most boring aspect of the game (a long time ago we could at least give one modifier to our armies). It's just landing a larger army and waiting for the planet to be conquered. In my case, when the empire is big enough, I wait until I unlock the Colossus to clear or destroy planets of enemy empires, queuing this action. Ground combat currently feels like a punishment, an unwanted necessity. That's why I'd like to present an idea of how it could look like.

Armies:
Armies, like ships, could be modified; we would add modifiers to the basic statistics of the species in the form of weapons, armor, and additional accessories. Espionage could then be expanded to also gain information about defensive armies.
Specialized armies:
Heavier armored melee units and more mobile ranged units, special units that can operate outside the combat zone, medium and long range support vehicles, artillery and aircraft. Each with a special set of defensive and offensive modifiers. Of course, with the ability to modify defensive garrisons as well. And also special ground combat units like the Titan, Behemoth and Colossus.
Fortress:
Fortresses could add planetary defense fields (the fact that a planet can't defend itself against 3 corvettes is incredibly stupid), in these fields structures such as the current Planetary Shields would be built, as well as some kind of planetary defense batteries that would be able to destroy enemy ships in orbit around the planet, additional fortifications, military warehouses or radar towers that would give some kind of advantage to the defending armies.
Army transport:
Normal warships could carry a limited amount of armies on their decks with the possibility of increasing the limit through upgrades. In this case, transport ships could carry more armies at once, giving quantity in exchange for lack of defense. This would definitely diversify the conduct of wars.

Ground Warfare:
We already have orbital rings that work similarly to Stations, the problem is that it is enough to destroy them and the way to conquest is open. And here we have the planetary defense that I wrote about above. Planetary defense would deal large damage to enemy ships and would itself receive small damage from ships in orbit around the planet. In such a case, the attacking fleet can land ground forces and can send atmospheric aviation. If planetary defense exists on the planet or if the defending armies have their own aviation, then part of the invading army can be damaged already during the landing. When landing, we could decide whether to do it near fortifications or civilian facilities that also have some defensive values, in this case the fronts would be the districts of the planet and the priority of the attacked structures could be changed during ground combat. Direct combat units or close and medium range units would deal more damage to enemy armies, while long-range units would cause more damage to structures, reducing their defensive value. Special units could penetrate the enemy's reserve positions outside the combat zone to cause damage to the enemy army there. When the army destroyed the planetary defenses, the Fleet could begin a bombardment to support the army's actions. Selective bombardment would focus fire on objects located outside the combat zone, Massive bombardment would also bombard the combat zone where defensive units are located but dealing less damage to allied armies, Armageddon... I guess I don't have to explain.

The fight would therefore take place simultaneously on 3 levels: on the ground, in the air and in orbit (on 4 in the case of planets with underground and underwater civilizations). As well as on two or three distances on several fronts which are structures/districts.

Additional development of the idea:
If ships could transport armies, they could also be captured.

QoL:
- Add some rank symbol to the army icon
- On the list of ships in the transport fleet, add the symbol of the army that the ship is carrying so that you can check it quickly
- Add the ability to modify starbase weapons

Spoiler

And if it's going to be like it is now, maybe it's better to remove the army and add a progress bar for taking over the planet during orbital bombardment.

Edit: All crises can also have landing armies.

 

[lucasmpereira]

Well most of my top tier wants have been covered. Warfare is just so static in the options, not joining or leaving once it's started.

It'd also be nice if other wars are going on that other factions might allow access to their systems. Had a rebel AI form in a WiH but it blocked my access to their systems, end result I had to sit there and let the rebellion get crushed so I could then go in to defeat the overlords forces. I know historically we have had similar happen, and that would be part of the role play options it could open. Do I help out or wait to take it myself? Right now I didn't get a choice, even trying to improve relations as quick as I could didn't work.

One part not covered, would really like to see Starbases be customizable! We need to be able to choose the defences and weapon systems of the base it's self. Would help keep them relevant for longer and could make the choices to boost them more worth while as well.

Still not a fan of any supply systems, they still don't solve the core issue of needing to doomstack and mean the WiH, crisis and federation fleets become insanely broken OP systems.

Could also tie it to other internal elements like resistance groups from recently conquered worlds. If that also got more depth to it then you'd get less instant payoff from new conquests and it could help slow down the snowball.

Clipped the rest, unless we get a HoI style army invasion system it really makes no sense. It's already going to be a nightmare to design with the range of army types, a standard army would have very different equipment to a robotic one and they would be very different to a xenomorph for example.

It also runs the issue that it's an entire army, it can have ALL the things as it is. It's not a single regiment but thousands of vehicles and tens of thousands of individuals. They can have all the type of vehicle, they can easily switch the crew between different weapon systems.

It also lastly runs the other side, that it's not needed without making the attack like HoI. As we don't get to choose where the army attack in the current system choosing perks to buff attack vs X and resist damage from Y isn't any use when we can't choose to fight enemy unit defended by X and equipped with Y. And do people really want to see the research tree cluttered with more army techs? Then the micro of changing all the units and then having to choose where they get deployed?

Not really any point in that, an army can have a huge array of weapons and switch between different ones depending on the war with ease. We don't see colour so that's not something to change.

Good points my strategy gaming enthusiast friend!

Maybe if we forget about the whole army design system (let go point 1). But just get rid of army ships and needing to build armies(keep point 2)?

So instead of a an army planner you'd pick your standard army among the ones you have available to you and the army cap of your battleships would transport them and they would be replenished by soldier pops and the army cap. Do you see any flaws here?

 

[Psykhes]

I'd like to have an option that would force my opponent to disarm. Mechanic wise it could mean that they would get a heavy reduction of their naval capacity. They could still build up to their old strength but they would have to pay for it, thus simulating the need to keep the build up secret.

On first thought I really liked the disarm option, on second thought I think it has problems.

The truce period makes it problematic.
After having achieved the disarm war goal you won't be able to attack your opponent again, but the disarm effect will make it a very soft target for other empires, likely resulting in them getting conquery and/or vassalized during the truce period.
WHich usually is something you rather avoid.

It would be a bit like germany getting "disarmed" after WW1, only to be conquered soon after by Switzerland, which was no aggressor in WW1 (and therefore had no "truce period").

 

[Ikael]

Combat was already discussed extensively in the doomstack topic, so I will focus on all the other "war adjacent systems" instead.

> You should be able to join third-party wars or call quits whenever you feel like it. With the appropriate diplomatic & societal penalties/incentives, of course, but still.

> War exhaustion in its current form makes no sense whatsoever. It should be a per-empire modifier that gets increased the longer your empire is involved in wars. And instead of auto-suing for peace, I would recommend hitting you with a progressively bigger economic penalty (malus to job output perhaps) so you must be forced to do a painful "risk VS reward" calculation regarding when to end wars, as well as having the option of burning your own empire to the ground to keep a war going.

> Additionally, suing for peace should not recover those war exhaustion penalties immediately but rather progressively, thus creating a far more organic way of enforcing truces than an artificial war timer (and making the economic impact of war far more consequential in the process).

> The weapon loadout/fleet composition system is opaque and impenetrable without reading guides. We need far clearer battle reports, and much lowered military intel requirements for knowing the enemy fleet loadout (or perhaps, make it 100% transparent altogether).

> A war score system allowing you to make multiple demands when signing peace treaties would do the game well.

> Disloyal vassals should backstab their overlords the very moment their overlord faces an enemy with 50% odds of defeating it or higher, no matter if the individual vassal is weaker than the overlord itself. Generally speaking, vassals should be much more unruly than they currently are.

> Federations getting dragged into war due to some member vassal's shenanigans is extremely annoying and should be dependent on Federation policy (or, perhaps, empires with vassals should be barred entirely from entering certain federations altogether).

> Fleets teleporting outside enemy territory the moment you hit a truce is dumb. Rights of passage in general should be revised.

> The whole invasion shock penalties are laughably mild and the easiness to put former enemies to work for their conquerors allows snowballing on a ridiculous scale. By the time you capture your second enemy capital, the game is pretty much decided

And now, let's go to the form!

 

[MfgLuckbot]

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

Agreed.

But I'd personally prefer a more natural approach of actually giving you negative modifiers for long lossy wars instead of enforcing peace.

Pops becoming pacifists, soldiers losing morals, eventually escalating to strikes mutinies and even revolutions if you insist on fighting a war despite high war exhaustion.

I guess there should be war exhaustion and war enthusiasm values. Enthusiasm is increased by militarist pops and having a good reason to fight for (very high if youre defending against some exterminator empire, very low if you're an agressor for some uninhabitated systems)

Once exhaustion gets higher than enthusiasm you start getting negative effects that will slowly escalate

 

[Flamie]

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.

So the fact that you can’t just waltz into any empire’s territory is because of “off-screen” things like border guards. You can’t get past them without a fight, which would simply make it an invasion.

I think a more reasonable system would be if there’s a diplomatic option to force open borders, which would give you open borders with an empire while granting a large opinion malus towards you. Of course, only significantly weaker empires would accept it outright.

I think this feature would best be paired with a war system that allows for conflicts of limited scope, so if an empire refuses your demand for military access, that creates something akin to a border conflict. If you win, you get forced military access and they hate you now, while if they win they create a DMZ on your border.

 

[Dazzle]

Silly question but am i supposed to get any kind of email confirmation that submitting it worked? Entered it on my crappy tablet and not sure it went through lol

 

[MrMess85]

The game could learn a few things from EU.

Currently war exhaustion is completely out. I can conquer half the enemy and they still only have a tiny bit of warscore. Taking key planets, especially ones claimed should boost it up.

Need new ideas for wars, and why can't I have a peace message like EU where I can pick what I want.

Why can't I demand different things. Resources, certain deals or systems. Force them to cancel alliances.

Why can't allies peace out. Even limit it by setting a min time. Wars just consume entire alliances and leave them wrecked.

 

[NilsFabian]

On first thought I really liked the disarm option, on second thought I think it has problems.

The truce period makes it problematic.
After having achieved the disarm war goal you won't be able to attack your opponent again, but the disarm effect will make it a very soft target for other empires, likely resulting in them getting conquery and/or vassalized during the truce period.
WHich usually is something you rather avoid.

It would be a bit like germany getting "disarmed" after WW1, only to be conquered soon after by Switzerland, which was no aggressor in WW1 (and therefore had no "truce period").

I know that's why I was suggesting that the disarment is just slashing the Naval capacity. So you could still rearm but you have to pay an energy price to do it.

 

[Cry_Havok]

My feedback was pretty negative. War has always been a mess but particualrly since 2.x

1: Restore lost wargoals and rework others - End Threat should only apply to genocidals, the fact that it is used by/against Fallen empires is weird (unless I am a xenophobe I should ne more inclined to vassalize a fallen/awakened empire that shares ethics). Give us stop atrocities back. Even total war needs to be looked at because it's 1: overpowered, and 2: makes a mess of borders particularly once everyone joins in on the dogpile, and 3: makes little sense when you are wanting to nip some problem in the bud on the other side of the galaxy.

2: Change Status quo on independence/secret fealty - If we don't get a fundamental war rework at minimum Status quo for idepence/secret fealty should be the change of or removal of the overlordship. As is the overlord is rewarded for the broken war goal system particularly once claims become impossible to take due to conflicting wars. Also, status quo would be "you can't keep control of your subjects" if you fail to outright win (this would also make big vassal blobs less powerful since vassals would be able to peal away)

3: Do something about unwinnable claims created by multipolar wars which contribute to the forever war problem
4: Fix the AI not knowing how to be expedient with ground invasions. If you want the planet the answer isn't bombard forever, its "more armies, spam more armies" (bombardment takes way too long as well)

5: Speaking of ground combat. Everyone hates it and there is no way to make it good, just give everyone good armies.

6: Reevaluate fleet command limit. It's a failed experiment since you never have enough Admiral cap and why would you ever use a general. Either that or rework fleets so there are just no nearly so many end game. Make fleet cap a hard limit if you have to. Combine it with the pop rework and you can get fleet sizes really back under control.

 

[NilsFabian]

3: Do something about unwinnable claims created by multipolar wars which contribute to the forever war problem

or at least allow for seprate peaces

 

[Resistance91]

It would be great if players and the ai could join or leave wars at any point and separately from the other factions. Maybe through secret dealings or concessions etc. more options to betray your overlord at opportune moments.
More variety of the types of way you can wage.
More options on the spoils split between allies rather than just on who’s got the most claims etc.
Galactic community should be able to interfere with wars with sanctions and military intervention etc.

 

[scaper12123]

I think one of the biggest issues I have with warfare is armies and how little they impact the experience. They're necessary for worldbuilding, granted, but armies are so throwaway and forgettable that there are few reasons to pick one army type over the other. Oh sure, there ARE reasons, but who cares? Just plop those suckers down onto a planet and get on with your day.

I wish there were more reasons to care about ground combat. I wish we could cultivate a handful of armies instead of factory-producing 100 and reducing them to statistics. I wish armies were better representative of your population and technology rather than picking the pop that has the highest stats. I wish armies had more to consider than "morale" and "health". I wish we could see heroes emerging to give our armies more personality. I WISH WE DIDN'T HAVE TRANSPORT SHIPS, a relic of a bygone age from which we should have moved by now.