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Stellaris Dev Diary #20 - War & Peace

Hello everyone!

For today’s dev diary, I thought I’d talk about a crucial part of Stellaris; waging wars and making peace, because as you know, not all ETs are nice... The system is different from most strategy games out there, but should be familiar to anyone who has played a Paradox Development Studio title. In fact, it is probably most reminiscent of how these things work in the Europa Universalis games.

Let’s start at the beginning. When you declare war in Stellaris, you have to state what your aims are; what the war is actually about. You simply choose from a list of possible goals, where each one is listed with a certain cost. The total cost of your picked goals cannot exceed 100. If you have a good reason to take something, the cost will be reduced. This might be the case if, for example, members of your founding species happen to live on a planet, or if it has previously been a part of your empire.

If you are a member of an alliance, the other members will need approve your list of selected goals before you can actually start the war. This is of course more likely if you are not too greedy and want to take everything yourself. That is, you will probably want to assign some goals to other alliance members to get them to approve the war.
stellaris_dev_diary_20_01_20160208_declare_war.jpg

When a war has been declared, the defending side is allowed to add war goals in the same manner, but they have an important advantage; they have a one-year grace period, and can thus choose targets depending on how the war is already progressing.

You need to gain “war score” in order to win, just like in our other games (-100 to 100.) At any time, you can negotiate for peace by selecting specific goals from your own list or that of the other side, very much like in Europa Universalis (except that you are limited to the stated war goals.)

Of course, wars are not always waged simply to seize territory: Other valid goals could be vassalization, for example, or securing a treaty of some kind. Sometimes, you might not really care about your stated goals at all, but just going in there and destroying the enemy’s space ports and stations...
stellaris_dev_diary_20_01_20160208_war_overview.jpg

Like in most of our games, occupying a planet with your armies does not mean it immediately becomes yours, of course; you need to demand it in the peace talks. There is a notable exception to this rule though; so called “first contact wars”. Before you have established communications with another civilization, it is possible to simply attack them and even take one of their planets (but once you take a planet, communications are immediately established.) Of course, such early hostility will never be forgotten, and will sour your relations for the rest of the game… There are other exceptions to how wars are waged, in the form of special types of civilizations, but that will have to wait for another dev diary.

That’s all for this week folks, stay tuned next week for “Administrative Sectors”!
 
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More seriously...

You should be able to demand non-wargoals, since situations change and any plan or ambitions you may have at the outset may become obsolete. Just give them a steep cost. Or don't, whatevs yo.
 
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When will we learn more about ground troops?
 
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Hey guys! Amazing work like always.
But i actually have a question, it seems, that in the second picture we can see only space battles in the war interface. Would that say that we don't have ground troops and transport ships for planet invasion? Can we only won a war in space( space battle and orbital bombardment)?
 
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Hmm, the limitation of a war score of 100 in EU IV/III was always something disappointing... e.g. you have conquered all the provinces of the ottoman empire and you can just take 4 provinces... realistic? or when you play prussia and take denmark as vassal... well, you would like vassalize them, but this would need a warscore of 104 %... For medieval times this limit may have a good reason because of the christian morale or something but in space? Ok, balancing is a reason, one lost war should not destroy the enemy... but it will depends how much every action will cost to have fun with battles...
 
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I assume that theres some kind of negative effects for picking more wargoals than you suceed in taking during the peace talks? otherwise why wouldnt you just cram all you can into the wargoal from the start.
If there are negative effects can you tell us a little about what they are?
 
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I hope war will be more costly and have more nagative consequences, even for the winner, than in EU4. I hope when trying to take everyting (or loads) from a smaller empire you'll really have to fight a long and hard war, and I hope that keeping a war ging just to get that extra warscore to take some more will be a very situational strategy (So as to not see the norway thing where sweden/denmark just steamrolls norway because they can).

All in all I hope the focus of the game is not war like in EU4 (HoI have an ever greater war focus but that game atleast doesn't hide the downsides of war).


More seriously...

You should be able to demand non-wargoals, since situations change and any plan or ambitions you may have at the outset may become obsolete. Just give them a steep cost. Or don't, whatevs yo.
Only if it's really steep. I hate how in eu4 claims are seen more as a luxurary when taking a province than as a nessecity.
 
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Ah, so combining Victoria 2 (needing CB to declare war) and HoI 4 (peace talks) system?

Question:
a. Is there any chance of repairing relations after a First Contact War?
b. Isn't it better to add war goals not by dragging thing around? Isn't it better if the player can use tickbox or something?
c. Isn't the word "draging" a typo?

Thanks, that's some nice diary.
 
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Looks really good so far; just two questions:

1) Why limit the peace negotiations to the stated war goals, why not simply impose severe penalties for terms not outlined in the original casus belli?
2) Will the Negotiation screen have some of the great flexibility of the Trade screen from the previous DD? I really liked how you could trade completely disparate items if both sides deemed it beneficial enough and I imagine the Negotiation could be a similar incarnation but taking war score and other factors (exhaustion? internal calls for peace?) into account as well.
 
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You should be able to demand non-wargoals, since situations change and any plan or ambitions you may have at the outset may become obsolete. Just give them a steep cost. Or don't, whatevs yo.

Happens in Europa Universalis on a frequent basis... I don't see why this won't be happening in Stellaris as well. So conquer away ... within reason ;)
 
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So you don't have the EU4 problem that its too expensive to take enemy territory in a defensive war, so whether you are the attacker or defender doesn't make a difference in the costs of the peace deal?

I always found it weird that its more costly to demand something from your enemy when they are the original attacker.
 
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I can't tell from the screen shots (Hope I am right), but I hope there is a way to see if your allies arte going to approve, or leave you hanging before you commit to the war, like in that first screen, if the little box at the bottom is red Xs for allies who wont be joining you in the war, and little green checkmarks for those who are joining you.

Also does declaring war as a federation act any different?
 
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Arrakis - Tropical world !? Game can troll XD.

Also. Those orange markers on second screen shot must be salvageable debris spots? Cool. Will those be cleaned by Science ships or by Construction one? I imagine what a mess can be after Great Galaxy War. XD
 
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Arrakis - Tropical world !? Game can troll XD.

Also. Those orange markers on second screen shot must be salvageable debris spots? Cool. Will those be cleaned by Science ships or by Construction one? I imagine what a mess can be after Great Galaxy War. XD

Wasnt Arrakis a tropical world under the God Emperor Leto?
 
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Getting your allies into war seems better than in EU, but
"Before you have established communications with another civilization, it is possible to simply attack them and even take one of their planets (but once you take a planet, communications are immediately established.)"
Why? What if I'm ultra-xenophobe?
- You captured our...
- Shh!
- But...
- Bad alien! No talking.
 
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