The war exhaustion and capitulation system is one of the worst things about this game right now.

[Pellucid]

The fact that a wargoal needs to be occupied to force capitulation is absurd, especially combined with the fact that simply not assigning wargoals to one or more participants can force them out of the war.

It makes sense that a nation would be more likely to VOLUNTARILY leave a war when they stand to lose nothing, but what if they stand to GAIN from staying in? Doesn't matter. Has no impact on exhaustion whatsoever.

This is especially absurd when it comes to independence wars. Wanna keep your subject? Just assign no wargoals and set all your armies to defend. Since you have no wargoals on them, their war exhaustion can go below 0 without you doing anything at all. Hell, if they don't have a navy and are overseas, you don't even have to mobilize. They can overrun your entire overseas empire and, as long as you don't personally own much territory over there, it won't matter one bit.

Taking a wargoal should not be a prerequisite for forcing capitulation, it should be an accelerator. And it should be an accelerator for BOTH SIDES, not just the side whose wargoal is occupied. If I hold an enemy province wargoal, my war exhaustion increase should slow down and theirs should speed up.

Maybe you could hybridize the current system with a new one, where once you're at 0 your exhaustion climb dramatically slows down unless your opponent controls a wargoal. Having it utterly halt and making it so that nations can sit in bloody wars of attrition for years with no significant negative effect on their internal stability is ridiculous.

 

[Hidler201]

When you demand reparations from a country but cannot control any of its integrated territories, the war will last for at least ten years, even if you achieve other goals (such as occupying colonies)

 

[Hidler201]

I think war weariness is good, but each war objective should be calculated separately for war weariness

 

[Adonnus]

agree, it doesn't reflect real world historical diplomacy at all

 

[fodazd]

I agree that the current system for war goals is questionable, but a system where war goals could be enforced without occupying them would be even worse.

In my opinion, this is mostly a problem of war goals being too static after the war has started. If I could just abandon war goals I no longer think are achievable in a reasonable amount of time, and if the AI then actually used that opportunity to get out of wars it can't win, the system would immediately work much better.

EDIT: I agree that the way independence wars currently work is bad though. There should be a "Keep as subject" war goal that requires you to occupy something.

 

[Pellucid]

I agree that the current system for war goals is questionable, but a system where war goals could be enforced without occupying them would be even worse.

I kind of disagree. If I go to war with Russia and say "I want your Alaskan colony" and then occupy all of mainland Russia, they should be more than happy to cough up that colony in exchange for peace. I think it should just be a lot HARDER to take a wargoal without occupying it.

 

[funnyfritz]

I kind of disagree. If I go to war with Russia and say "I want your Alaskan colony" and then occupy all of mainland Russia, they should be more than happy to cough up that colony in exchange for peace. I think it should just be a lot HARDER to take a wargoal without occupying it.

Point is, the devs already stated their will to add "limited wars", so even your invasion of mainland Russia and loss of hundreds of thousands of men would be unacceptable for your people. The basis is solid, but it needs tweaking.

 

[fodazd]

I kind of disagree. If I go to war with Russia and say "I want your Alaskan colony" and then occupy all of mainland Russia, they should be more than happy to cough up that colony in exchange for peace. I think it should just be a lot HARDER to take a wargoal without occupying it.

I agree that occupying all of mainland Russia should be sufficient to get Alaska... And it *is* already sufficient in the current system, because occupying the enemy capital means war support can go below zero regardless of other unoccupied war goals.

 

[FranklyJustNess]

Each wargoal should be tracked separately in a bit of a EU4 like system, where not achieving a goal also matters.

Let's say you are UK and attack Spain, want to ban their slavery, take Philippines, Puerto Rico and war reps, meanwhile they want to take Cape Colony and Gibraltar. War rages on, and eventually reaches a relative stalemate, where for a while you occupy Philippines and they have Gibraltar (it's just an example, don't focus on realism), so what would the peace deal look like?

• Spain places a lot of value on keeping slavery, and you failed to achieve it, so they are really not keen on accepting this.
• Philippines are occupied for a while now, with no hope of "I'll be back", so sure, take it.
• Puerto Rico is quite valuable, and unoccupied, so there's a relatively high reason not to accept giving it up.
• War Reps are kinda just a small goal (in EU4 they cost 10% of warscore) so would be nice not to agree to them, but if the war is tiring and painful, then they are a price worth agreeing to.

Meanwhile on your side

• Cape Colony is safe, okay Spain doesn't demand it. It's super nice if you offer it yourself, but a deal without it is perfectly acceptable.
• Gibraltar has been occupied, so you better have really good reason not to include it in the deal.

And so the result would likely be something like Gibraltar is lost, but Philippines and war reps are taken from Spain. No need for some weird capitulation mechanic, that Vic3 currently has. Just actually represent the war exhaustion sources from stuff like casualties, maybe cost and time, and just make it a part of a reason why a country would want to agree to a deal. Maybe a bunch of their troops died, and it was a long, costly war, but you failed to enforce any goal on them, but they'll still accept losing something small, if it ends the conflict.

 

[Pellucid]

I agree that occupying all of mainland Russia should be sufficient to get Alaska... And it *is* already sufficient in the current system, because occupying the enemy capital means war support can go below zero regardless of other unoccupied war goals.

OK, so all of it except the capital.

 

[47pik]

Eh, it’s probably top 10 pain points, but there are significantly more pressing issues IMO, even if we’re purely talking war/diplomacy.