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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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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.
Its probably balancing so you can't just steal all the planets a small race has also declaring war will probably end up being pretty easy for ultra xenophobes.
 
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Kind of an unrelated question: Will there be a demo of Stellaris? I must admit, screenshots are nice and dandy, but i like to get my hands-on experience.
 
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If your policies allow full orbital bombardment, it is possible to severely damage planets, but not to completely depopulate them.
but can we destroy them?

Say if I want one planet from a peace deal but decide I wanna destroy every other star system they own while I'm at it

Can I destroy planets?
 
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If I understand correctly.. The wars here are seem more limited than in EU4.. You can't declare for one thing and then take another, which seems like a shame if circumstances change wildly in the years of conflict or to war goes unexpectedly well!
 
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How about regime change objectives? And forcing the target to allow peacekeeper forces to be present in order to quell any loyalist rebellions after a regime change? :D

Especially with the differing politics and ethos I want to be able to force freedom on all my neighbors or shoot them if they refuse to be free!
 
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In the warscore portion of the screen - 'Ships Killed' seems are rather odd phrase. Can it be changed to read ' Ships Destroyed'?
 
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The first contact war idea is quite cool. I am not sure I have hear of it in any other 4x game. Also, I am thrilled that traits will affect your options in warfare like planet bombing.
 
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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.)

Is it possible to select goals from both the attacker's and defender's lists in one peace offer, as a sort of grand bargain / territory swap, or is it restricted to either/or?
 
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@Doomdark : Is there some sort of Aggressive Expansion/Infamy mechanic? If there is and you can talk about it, how does it affect: races that know about you but not of your enemy, races that don't know about you but know your enemy and ofcourse races that know both you and your enemy?

Also, if we have two wargoals, but during the war we decide we really want only one of them, is it possible to take only one? Or do we just choose between a Surrender demand and take all the stated wargoals or a White Peace?​
 
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