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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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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?

I would imagine that giving a little in addition to taking a little would mean you require a smaller over all war score advantage to make the peace deal go through.
 
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I see ''administrative sectors'' is next week's. I really hope we'll have some kind of ''development thing'' in same spirit as the common sense dlc/patch for EU4. So peacetime isn't a vaccum of activity and money stacking when all exploration is done.
Sectors are just vassals.
 
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I hoped that the war diplomacy would resemble EU4 far more than any other game, since in my view the peace deals and negotiations in EU4 were a massive step forward for paradox games.
 
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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.

Most other 4X games (AFAIK) don't really do Paradox-style diplomacy, with targeted wars having specific objectives. In most of them, being "at war" with another player is a state of being where you're free to grab as much of each other's territory as you can, and in my experience with space 4X games (e.g. Sword of the Stars) first contact just puts you at war by default unless you choose to make a peace treaty.
 
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Most other 4X games (AFAIK) don't really do Paradox-style diplomacy, with targeted wars having specific objectives. In most of them, being "at war" with another player is a state of being where you're free to grab as much of each other's territory as you can, and in my experience with space 4X games (e.g. Sword of the Stars) first contact just puts you at war by default unless you choose to make a peace treaty.

Endless space has something similar to this first contact in that when you first meet other aliens you are in a state of "cold war" (cant remember if thats the name) where you can not take core planets but you can take outposts. But yeah war in Endless Space is also just i'll kill you and take all your belongings.
 
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Great DD, looks very exciting!

That said, what was the special reason this DD was delayed?
 
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is it possible to be at war with a race you can't communicate with - like the formics from enders game or the reavers from mass effect - can that war end via total annihilation or something other than negotiation ?
 
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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…

How bad are the relations? The Minbari and Humans got along alright after their initial conflict. Would it be possible to have a decent, albeit tenuous, peaceful relationship with them?
 
On diplomacy and negotiated peace... Please include the option to demand payment of a specific amount of a specific resource (in a specific time-frame) as one of the settlement options, not just a generic 'tribute'. And have the AI be reluctant to accept unreasonable requests (Send me 100% of your Wolf Spleen production for the next 200 years).
 
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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.
I need more clarification on this.
1. What is this "one-year grace period"? An armistice?
2. Choose targets? What targets?

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.
Does this apply to Federation too?

Also, can AI empires establish contact with you before you have the chance to declare war on them with first contact war as casus belli?
 
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There are other exceptions to how wars are waged, in the form of special types of civilizations
Does this mean special cb's for some civilisations? (Thinking of "Space Hordes" here :))
Or is it literally a different form of war? Like an extremely religious empire trying to convert a world of a different empire to their religion (and taking over control in the process).
 
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How bad are the relations? The Minbari and Humans got along alright after their initial conflict. Would it be possible to have a decent, albeit tenuous, peaceful relationship with them?
Lol, I wouldn't say they got along alright. They didn't outright go to war, but large segments of their people sure wanted to.
 
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So you can't add more wargoals later?

Say I want to wage a quick war over a border world while my enemy is distracted elsewhere. Somehow the war goes unexpectedly easy and well in my favor, and I'm pushing deep into their turf. Can I not add additional wargoals now, while staying under 100? This seems kind of like a step in the wrong direction from EUIV.
 
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What's the fabrication system like when you don't have a "legitimate" claim?

Crusader Kings 2? An advisor has a percentage to gain a claim on a something per monthly tick.

EUIV? Target a something and the goal will be ready after a certain number of days.

Victoria 2? Like EUIV but can stack goals.

HOI? I don't actually know how the HOI system works, but I'll assume it would involve Panzer Battlecruisers and giving no craps about the concept of CBs and declaring war on everything that isn't you or in your faction.

Something else?
 
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I'd say I'm really excited for a DLC where we can play as a species which just never establishes contact and lives in a constant state of hostility, but I know we're going to have someone mod that in anyways.
So I'm excited for that.
 
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