Feedback Requested: War and War Resolution

[daniel060]

Things I wrote and submitted in the form:

I can't peace out like in EU4. This happened twice to me in recent games. In the first, a fallen empire awoke and declared a total war on me. They were impossible to beat (total fleet power in the MILLIONS when I was barely 100k total), and yet I couldn't surrender and become their vasal. The game basically decided I'd lost, which was totally frustrating. (See https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/awakened-empire-kills-my-game.1718842/#post-30042162)

The second instance was more annoying than game-breaking, but it still should be dealt with. I had a defensive pact with an empire on the other side of a mutual rival. I couldn't get to their space directly. My ally had a rebellion happen to them. Since my fleets couldn't reach their space, there was no way for me to participate in the war (and I didn't really want to anyway). Yet because I was technically "at war," I couldn't diplomatically subjugate a couple of nearby, weaker neighbors. Also, because I was a "participant" in the war with a massive, unscathed fleet, both the rebels and my ally were taking my fleet into consideration for relative fleet strengths, which made the war last A LOT longer than it needed to! I would've rather just peaced out in the first month (or paid some sort of penalty/fee to not go to war at all, like you can in EU4) than have had to sit and wait for them to resolve their rebellion before my diplomacy became unrestrained.

It's really annoying (and immersion-breaking) when a fleet that was just a few days away from a hyperjump has to respool their FTL engines the second they enter combat. If they were only 4 days away before combat, WHY are they 30 days away once combat starts?! All ships should begin recharging their FTL dives the moment they enter a system; once they're charged, they should be able to make an emergency jump. Yes, that means little, annoying fleets will have greater survivability, but it would also make FTL inhibitors actually DO something--they'd prevent enemy FTLs from recharging while inside their aura.

It would also be nice to have a "run away" order for fleets so that they would keep moving toward the place they've been ordered to go even if they're being shot at, instead of turning and trying to fight. Leia's blockade runner didn't turn to fight Vader's star destroyer in Star Wars; it kept running away even while it was shooting back. Ships in Stellaris should be able to do the same. Ideally, this should be an order we could give to a fleet while it was in combat, so that it could potentially draw the enemy forces to a specific location (perhaps where I have a trap laid for them).

Waiting for my troop transport ships to catch up is a hassle, but I also really like the existence of ground combat, and wish it would be expanded. Perhaps there's a way to split the difference. like with space marines taking up ship slots.

I think ships need a contingent of space marines to actually board/take over enemy starbases (and ships too) rather than destroying them. It should be a starting tech, but something that takes up an Accessory slot so that not all ships would have them. (With later techs, they could take part in ground combat as well.)

Status Quo is better than a binary victory or defeat, but only just. A status quo in real life happens when neither side can get further battlefield advantage, but that's just never the case in Stellaris. Right now I basically use Status Quo peace when I've achieved all my personal goals for the war (or close enough and I want the war to end), but I've not necessarily achieved (or even want to achieve) the "official" wargoal for the war. In this way, Status Quo resolutions allow me as a player to get around non-conquest causus bellis to conquer to a certain extent. And while that's useful, it's not very immersive.

Status Quos tend to leave a lot of weird border gore with different systems being cut off from the rest of the empire. I will sometimes choose to invade a world or NOT capture certain systems just so that the Status Quo borders are cleaner. Doing this doesn't really make sense from a warfare perspective, so it's a bit immersion-breaking.

Sometimes my subjects have rebellions, but I as the overlord end up owning the reconquered systems at the end of the war. Why does that even happen? Shouldn't those systems go back to the vassal? When it does happen, it can certainly change my borders and my empire's demographics.

There's no way to end the war early. You have to achieve all your objectives. When you do, victory is automatic; if you don't, the war goes on forever--even when the enemy has no fleets left, no starbases to rebuild them, and no hope of winning--they will still hold out until the very last planet has troops on the ground. That's annoying, and it takes way too long.

I would really like to have the EU4 system of selecting different provinces/tribute adapted to Stellaris, where I'd be selecting exactly the systems I want (and perhaps resource tributes too), as well as any relevant diplomatic agreements. Each would cost a certain amount of warscore, up to 100%. That way you wouldn't necessarily have to conquer a world in order to take it--but the cost could be much higher if you hadn't. Basically, if war is the last argument of kings, the resolution of war should look like the diplomacy table, but with heavy weights in favor of the victor getting what they want.

I would really love to have counteroffers be a thing as well--e.g., 'instead of ceding these systems, what if we became your vassal instead?'

One-button "achieve all my wargoals" and "surrender" options should remain in place.

I feel like attrition should matter in a way besides driving up warscore. Maybe it should decrease happiness and/or productivity so that empires have a real motivation to end wars. Or maybe it should reduce fleets' combat powers. When was the last time they got replacement crew after a battle anyway? Or fresh supplies/spare parts? And if starbases experience a lesser effect, it could make playing defensive a whole lot more viable. Same question for armies, while we're at it: How do they "heal" just by going back into orbit? Do they have clone bays on the troop transports? Attrition matters in EU4 because it depletes your manpower and therefore limits your ability to sustain the war. Something equivalent needs to happen in Stellaris, even if it's not using "manpower" per se.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Sure, which is why I think expulsion back to their homelands or taken to a penal colony would be better. What would be ridiculous is the Poles keeping the German bureaucrats and elites from the General Government in place after WWII, which is what I witnessed.

Some kind of system to keep track of which planets are the homeworlds of which species, and a way to help the conquered species recover instead of just keeping the status quo would be neat, yeah.

 

[arosenberger14]

My main issue with war is that it doesn't feel destructive enough. There's little opportunity cost to it, in fact it is the optimal strategy to get stronger and "win." I'd like wars to feel more like, well, wars, where you have to gear up your entire economy to win them and even if you do it can often leave you weakened and vulnerable, or in charge of a bunch of angry aliens on an economically devastated world.

 

[Cry_Havok]

Pops are entire populations. You can easily assume that when you conquer a genocidal empire, all the military leadership, key political figures, and soldiers guilty of atrocities were executed, but those are generally not represented by pops, but by armies and leaders (neither of which are preserved).

There is no sensible legal process that would lead to the execution of an entire species, or their expulsion from their home planet.

What might make some level of sense is a "war crimes tribunal" which kills pops working in soldier, police, psi corp, and politician jobs to massively increase government ethics attraction. Mild Tribunals could kill politician pops, severe kills all the implements of state power creating a short term spike in instability in exchange for lots of government ethics attraction (and Maybe some happiness in your core worlds). The answer to genocide shouldn't be genocide, but there should be a "hang every bastard responsible option" open to non-pacicists.

 

[Jekson20level]

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.

You're wrong. No country will agree to peace if one of its areas is occouped. It will fight as long as it can, seek help, get into debt, but until it is completely defeated, it will not give up. The only other option is when the conflict has dragged on for so long that, in fact, it has been without this area for many years and cannot do anything about it, and the population simply wants to end the war because of fatigue.
Although it's a boring in terms of gameplay.

 

[Lorenerd11]

You're wrong. No country will agree to peace if one of its areas is occupied.

Understandable when it's a planet, but when it's a freshly built starbase and their only claim to it is that their construction ship arrived a few months earlier, fighting a protracted war over it is silly.

 

[user1221]

I'd like to talk about a small aspect of war.
I wish concepts like the "Crusader Spirit" could be further strengthened. The current type, such as "Liberation Wars," feels very weak.
Even if I create an empire with the same ethics as mine through war, the population doesn't change, and the empire's ethics often end up shifting.

For empires that follow Egalitarian (or Xenophile) and Militarist ethics, it would make sense to wage war against empires with different ethics, liberate empires with the same ethics as mine, and then either integrate them into my federation or turn them into vassals, eventually annexing them or keeping them as federation members to build alliances.
It might not be the most efficient approach, but I think it would make for an interesting concept playstyle.


-I am not very familiar with English, so I wrote this using a translator.

 

[user1221]

I think war exhaustion could be turned into a type of Situation. Wouldn't it be possible for things like population growth and resource production to decrease due to the citizens being tired of war? If so, we would be compelled to consider ending the war to resolve the Situation.

And I really hope resource trading for war participation becomes a feature!


-I am not very familiar with English, so I wrote this using a translator.

 

[Jekson20level]

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?

Do you really want to build battleships to transport armies? It's much longer and more expensive. Plus, in this case, the battleships will be engaged in transportation, not war.

 

[cecla]

Kind of new-ish player to Stellaris, the game is super fun. Broadly, I actually think the way that Stellaris handles wars differently from other 4x games is interesting, but after you play a few runs you notice some issues (one of which I think was recently fixed--specifically, it used to be if your ally captured a starbase and you captured a planet in the same system the war would deadlock).

Most of these have already been commented on by other people (no way to enter existing wars or exit war prematurely, war exhaustion paradoxes--why does an empire in two wars have two different war exhaustion counters?)--but one thing I'll add--I think there should be an ultimatum mechanic where you can force another empire to take an action or you'll go to war, specifically:
- As megacorp--either enter a commercial pact with me or I'll force it via war (some federation types don't allow external commercial pacts)
- Also--force open borders--either open borders to me or I'll declare war

The second has come up for me in the course of an existing war. I'm at war with empire A, but can't capture their last systems without crossing the territory of empire B which has closed borders. So now either I have to accept the war deadlocking or also declare war on empire B to cross their space.

 

[cryptkeeper]

One of the worst things about warfare particularly for new players is that the AI and players should really have diplomatic situations that happen before the war build up this would go a long way towards helping the player know when to make claims to increase the likelihood of war or do diplomatic exchanges to postpone or stop a war from happening.

Otherwise for many new players they can feel like they come from nowhere and hurt their first play through.

 

[TOEMONGER]

I cannot count the number of times I have had to calmly explain to the new player that they need to either check everywhere in the claims tab or hover over the little red X in the war screen to try and figure out why they haven't won their war.

 

[JohnyWashtube]

I always loved the idea of thousand year war. I also dislike that peace can ne forced opon me. Making the lasting war hit economics, people happiness and other parts of internal politics would ne great.
To the first topic I would really like the idea of origin that starts you in a war.
Regarding the the internal politics. Having some percentage of public support of current leader would be great for events. So player would have to manage people's opinions and maybe deal with struggles like assassinations atempts or rebelions.
Here can also be implemented that espionage on internal affairs would spice up the system.
The opposing ethics of pacifism and militarism would benefit from being more strict on how they deal with war. Insteed of firerate bonus it might negate some internal struggles with the war. Maybe giving population happiness via parades of different ways would be great for boosting factions since military faction does not recieve much love outside war.

 

[Azar]

Kind of new-ish player to Stellaris, the game is super fun. Broadly, I actually think the way that Stellaris handles wars differently from other 4x games is interesting, but after you play a few runs you notice some issues (one of which I think was recently fixed--specifically, it used to be if your ally captured a starbase and you captured a planet in the same system the war would deadlock).

Most of these have already been commented on by other people (no way to enter existing wars or exit war prematurely, war exhaustion paradoxes--why does an empire in two wars have two different war exhaustion counters?)--but one thing I'll add--I think there should be an ultimatum mechanic where you can force another empire to take an action or you'll go to war, specifically:
- As megacorp--either enter a commercial pact with me or I'll force it via war (some federation types don't allow external commercial pacts)
- Also--force open borders--either open borders to me or I'll declare war

The second has come up for me in the course of an existing war. I'm at war with empire A, but can't capture their last systems without crossing the territory of empire B which has closed borders. So now either I have to accept the war deadlocking or also declare war on empire B to cross their space.

Thank you for reminding me of this: that there is no way to insert yourself into an already existing war. That seems so strange in retrospect. I just had a longish rant in the feedback form about various things but I forgot this one.

I feel that many of the rules involving pacts and warfare should be made less strict. Currently they are very game-y and unbelievable in many respects. I hated situations where I entered the war as an ally but had no practical control over how the war is won. I particularly hated when the my AI ally simply refused to end the war despite already meeting the demands to win it. Etc.

I also hated how the war can become practically unwinnable when waging it against an alliance where I cannot access one alliance members space. I conquer every single system of the original war target, but since their ally is happily out of reach on the other side of the galaxy behind neutral closed borders, I cannot win the war.

There are many issues that stem from the rules involving war being too strict and unbelievable in my opinion. In real world, treaties are fragile things. In stellaris they are commandments from god.

 

[Psykhes]

I also hated how the war can become practically unwinnable when waging it against an alliance where I cannot access one alliance members space. I conquer every single system of the original war target, but since their ally is happily out of reach on the other side of the galaxy behind neutral closed borders, I cannot win the war.

There are many issues that stem from the rules involving war being too strict and unbelievable in my opinion. In real world, treaties are fragile things. In stellaris they are commandments from god.

Very much agreed.

Also, new wargoal idea:
Disband federation.

 

[:DNA Pyro]

Joining existing wars with deals would be fun, I'll assist you against those fanatic purifiers if you become subjugated. Your choice buddy, extinction or work for me.

 

[:DNA Pyro]

Also having actual super army carriers with defenses would be pretty nice too. Doesn't make sense to me that ships carrying troops would be completly defenseless.

 

[Wise Strategist]

Total War leads to border Gore.

> I think total war should result in occupation of a system rather than the empire taking full ownership of the system. If the system had a previous owner, players should be given the option as to whether or not they wish to return that system to it original owner. Only after the war is over should the system be handed over to the faction that has occupied. A system for distribution and demanding star systems after a war similar to EUIV or HOI IV would also be nice.


Treat Ground Battle like Situations.



> Like situations there could a progress bar and some options for how the army should conduct themselves Example:

- Cautious Approach: Damage to enemies is inflicted at a lower rate, but pops suffer little to no damage, lower chance of buildings and districts being destroyed, Lower rate of planet devastation.

- Aggressive Approach: Damage to enemy enemies is higher, but pops, districts and building are more likely to suffer damage. Planet devastation builds at a moderate rate.

- Brutal Approach: Destroy the enemy at all cost, show no mercy. Large damage to enemy armies and pops, buildings and district have a high change of being destroyed, planet devastation builds at a high rate.

> During the course of the battle have their be a large number of random events that could happen during the fight depending on a number of factors, such as the skills the commanders, the military doctrine of the competing empires, the type of units being used, the stances of the different armies, or whether or not there's a fleet in orbit and the bombardment stance of that fleet.

- For example, if you have a fleet I in orbit during the ground battle you could get an event where the general asks for air support. Other events could involve the use of special units such those with psionic powers, or genetic beasts. You could even have evens where a capable general is able to turn the tides of difficult battle due to exploiting the negative traits of the opposing general.

Build Armies like we build fleets

> One of the most frustrating things about armies is the inability to build them like we can build fleets, let alone reinforce them. It would be great if we could get an army manager tab in the fleet manager that could be renamed to a military manager. Being able to set up army templates and assign each army a home sector would make it much easier to manage them. Whenever an army needed to be reinforced you click the necessary button like you do with fleets, but the armies will all be built from planets in their home sector.

Defense Platform groups in a Military manager.

> It would be nice if we could setup templates of defense platform groups that could then be assigned to star bases with one to 2 clicks rather than needing to click on the bastion, click the defense tab, and click 10-30 times on the platforms you to build fill it up. Instead of doing that, it would be better to just select a specific template then the star base will build all the defense platforms set up in that template.

 

[Cry_Havok]

I cannot count the number of times I have had to calmly explain to the new player that they need to either check everywhere in the claims tab or hover over the little red X in the war screen to try and figure out why they haven't won their war.

It becomes a nightmare though when you have allies, because there is no easy way to find out WHERE the random planet that is keeping the war from ending is when its not your claim

 

[cecla]

I left an earlier comment, but I just remembered another big one.

First contact wars. I tried this for the first time recently, what I found is that when the "The aliens have translated our language" notification hits, according to the game the war is over and the other empire's borders are closed, so all your fleets are sent missing (for something like two years?). I can't remember if you also get hit with the 10 year truce cooldown as well, but the war instantly terminating with your entire military being sent missing doesn't make any sense, the obvious behavior should be that you now have diplomatic contact with that empire and the state of the relationship is war, maybe with unchosen goals, etc.