Stellaris Dev Diary #108 - 2.0 Post-Release Support (part 1)

[Matt516]

maybe it's a different number, but my point is still the same: I usually reach 100% only due to passive attrition.

Are you playing the Beta? Passive WE gain in the Beta is incredibly slow, it's not going to be ending any wars unless you're literally at war for 50 years or more.

 

[Heretic Saint]

Again, penalties for 100% WE (as in the current Beta) just hurt the losing side the vast majority of the time. The only way adding WE penalties won't be a net negative for balance and gameplay is if these penalties only take effect when an empire refuses a Status Quo offer.

Well, that depends a lot on the penalties themselves. They would not feel much like penalties if the losing side has no military left that could be penalized.

As to your second suggestion, I happen to have just written something that kinda goes into that direction above!

(as opposed to "who can hurry before war exhaustion hits 100%" or "slow death over 200 years from a hundred tiny wars")

Well, now it would be "who can hurry before war exhaustion hits 100%, +2 years".

 

[Slynx]

Are you playing the Beta? Passive WE gain in the Beta is incredibly slow, it's not going to be ending any wars unless you're literally at war for 50 years or more.

yes. i'm playing in beta. and no I don't know the exact number. never noticed it really.
I've tried to google it and found that it's close to 9%. i'm not sure if it's the right number or not. but it looked trustworthy.

 

[Matt516]

We are also going to look into the possibility of changing Subjugation and Forced Ideology wars to either provide a clearer path to win such a war when the enemy has allies defending them, or by allowing Status Quo in such a war to achieve a 'limited victory' (liberating/subjugating part of the enemy empire instead of the whole).

These changes will not be in the very next version of 2.0.2 (as that is already being internally tested and will hopefully be with you before the end of the week), but we expect to roll them out sometime next week if all goes well.

Also, these changes sound fantastic - some love for subjugation/Ideology wars will be much appreciated.

Any plans to look into allowing Ideology wars for empires with Unrestricted Wars policy? Currently you can't be a Militaristic empire which forces its ideology on others because the Militarist faction dislikes Unrestricted wars but Ideology wars aren't allowed w/ Unrestricted war policy.

 

[Hyomoto]

@Slynx - They mostly already have it, but I meant externally. The fallout of fighting wars from the perspective of neighbors, allies, rivals and enemies.

 

[208]

I like this idea, no passive WE gain for genocidal empires.

If that were the case, then passive war exhaustion should probably not apply to anyone fighting against a genocidal empire, either, because giving up is suicide.

In fact, maybe WE in general should be modified based on the casus belli being used - land grabs should generate higher war exhaustion than ideological wars.

 

[Kavok]

If that were the case, then passive war exhaustion should probably not apply to anyone fighting against a genocidal empire, either, because giving up is suicide.

In fact, maybe WE in general should be modified based on the casus belli being used - land grabs should generate higher war exhaustion than ideological wars.

This seems fair to be honest, these genocidal empires are unique and they war mechanics should recognize that. Losing a war to one of them should be the worst possible thing that can happen.

 

[HadavarBarak]

EDITED: Because duplicate words and bad grammar make my brain sad.

There are some good suggestions in this thread. I myself am partial to an organic form of potentially limitless war-driven empire exhaustion that in extremis can drop you to 0% happiness (and thus 0% production), cause your citizens to revolt, etc.-- after all, the game does already model the citizenry's state of dissatisfaction through happiness, so why not use it? Still, I can understand the arguments against it-- doubly so, since the AI sometimes seems unable to understand the basics of economics, and so a war resolution system based on economics would pose a heavy coding challenge.

Since we don't have anything like that now, I won't tilt at that windmill. Instead, let's look at attrition, which is really not necessarily about physical attrition but rather about the populace saying, "This is death by a thousand cuts (too small to model in game) and just isn't worth it any more"-- call it moral attrition.

I have not yet seen advocated the idea of tying attrition to occupied territory. The rate of ticking could be dependent on the scope of the war, so that if you claim one system and wage a limited war for it, then occupying that starbase (even if you did nothing else) would cause attrition to tick very quickly, eventually ending the war unless your adversary pushed you out, at which point attrition would cease to tick. Call it the Adverse Possession fix. This also fixes the "It's only a month in, we're both still mobilizing, no fleets have clashed, nothing has happened yet, so where the heck is this so-called 'attrition' coming from?" issue that arbitrarily requires you to get your ducks-- er, ships-- in a row before declaring war in order to maximize the timer game. It would further represent the fact that a government's being in technical state of war is not the same thing as a population's being driven to distraction by actual fighting, occupation, or moral damage (c.f. the U.S.'s almost 70-year-long "war" with North Korea, only the first few years of which were actually hot.)

This would certainly need to be balanced so as to allow the possibility of the total completion of war goals, of course-- you wouldn't want to occupy half of the desired systems and see the opponent's exhaustion tick up so quickly that the war ends before you can even attempt to occupy the rest.

 

[Slynx]

on a side note I hope the rivalry systems will be reworked\tuned a bit too. or at least marauders.
because I don't see any reason why I can't hire them to beat someone who is pathetic\overwhelming to me if I have the money.
also their prices should be scaling a bit too. or at least be a percentage of the amount of resources you have. because it's laughable when they want something like 500 enery...and you have 15k in reserve

 

[Phul]

Should have just included a modifier for war score demands based on the ratio of war exhaustion between the two sides, this would allow for the war of subjugation to happen earlier, and stop the status quo from catching someone right before success. Put a floor on the discount, but could also be a positive modifier for someone who is winning the war, but has lost more assets.

Just an idea.

 

[Pale Blue]

on a side note I hope the rivalry systems will be reworked\tuned a bit too. or at least marauders.
because I don't see any reason why I can't hire them to beat someone who is pathetic\overwhelming to me if I have the money.
also their prices should be scaling a bit too. or at least be a percentage of the amount of resources you have. because it's laughable when they want something like 500 enery...and you have 15k in reserve

Doesn't it scale already? Curator prizes already scale with empire size.

 

[Njordin]

Finally. Status quo is back.
Now lets have proper WE scaling and we are done for now.

 

[Chosen One V13]

So, third side will FORCE two warring alien species in to peace...and what third side is called? GAMEPLAY decision, because devs wants like this!

No no and no. I refuse to bow to some non-realistic decisions. Nobody will force sides of war.

 

[Drakonn]

THANK YOU!! For the beta patch (it's really great to be able to have fixes a bit sooner and be able to test how they work instead of having to wait a month or two) and for the amount of support this is getting post release.

 

[Roddo]

And what's the real difference with the current system in place? Just a longer timer?
Wouldn't it be wiser to just tweak the WE increase number?

 

[Foefaller]

And what's the real difference with the current system in place? Just a longer timer?
Wouldn't it be wiser to just tweak the WE increase number?

Step 1 is to reintroduce force peace in a way that doesn't come at a total suprise. (I.e. adding a countdown before you are forced to accept a status quo)

Step 2 is to tweak the numbers so wars don't always feel like they end too soon without making them too long as well. (which Wiz mentioned is in the works later in the thread.)

 

[Birri]

How's it going with balanicing War in Heaven? War Exhaustion completely broke WiH and it usually ends with a status quo where very little territory is exchanged.

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

So, third side will FORCE two warring alien species in to peace...and what third side is called? GAMEPLAY decision, because devs wants like this!

No no and no. I refuse to bow to some non-realistic decisions. Nobody will force sides of war.

The fallen empires? I don't see a reason why they can't enforce peace, if they can demand you go to war as well, why not?

 

[[Q]uik]

This kind of sucks for devouring swarms - but a good thing for basically everyone else

 

[kgptzac]

So far no change is planned to for the opaque and poorly balanced WE accumulation formula?