A humble petition for endgame warscore rebalance in Utopia

[Juboboman]

I know there is a lot of time left before release so I would like to ask the Devs to dedicate time to rectifying what I consider the most pressing late game issue faced. There needs to be some kind of mechanism to engage in decisive wars with major empires aside from chipping away 2-4 planets every 10 years until the end of time. It's incredibly tedious and even makes wars themselves feel sterile and pointless. "Hey the two largest blocs in the galaxy just engaged in a bloody death struggle that killed billions... for 3 planets. See you in 10 years and we can do it all again, and then 10 after that, and 10 after that!"

I don't have specific solutions but I think the current situation really kills the enjoyment for the last half of the game. Especially considering that usually once you break an empire in the first war they are not able to completely rebuild and catch up with you within 10 years, so after you win the first war there is no real challenge or danger of defeat even though you have to spend the next 30-100 years going to war with the same country before you can finally take all their territory.

So you have the worst of both worlds: being forced to repeat the same boring tedious task over and over while at the same time the outcome is already predetermined. It also hobbles the AI and prevents them from keeping up with your early-mid game expansion. I would love nothing more than to reach a quarter galaxy sized empire and find out my nemesis on the other corner of the galaxy has been gobbling up his neighbors and equals me or even surpasses me. As it stands now that can't really happen.

Just my 2 energies.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

just off the top of my head, maybe warscore per planet should be inversely proportional to your size i.e. at the start of the game each planet is worth more warscore (as it was a greater achievement to capture it) and as your empire grows the warscore drops off. 'oh, you took yet ANOTHER planet. two points for you.'

this would mean you can take more planets for the same total warscore as you get larger.

 

[Juboboman]

just off the top of my head, maybe warscore per planet should be inversely proportional to your size i.e. at the start of the game each planet is worth more warscore (as it was a greater achievement to capture it) and as your empire grows the warscore drops off. 'oh, you took yet ANOTHER planet. two points for you.'

this would mean you can take more planets for the same total warscore as you get larger.

Yeah, or maybe even a new wargoal that allows you to mass annex/vassalize rivals regardless of their size, but opens you up to some sort of crippling or even game losing counter goal your enemy can choose so if you lose the war you are in deep trouble. It would also have the benefit of helping the AI keep up in its wars because win or lose one empire would always be essentially doubling up on rivals.

 

[Cagliostro]

In Europa Universalis the amount of war score a province costs is reduced over time by tech gain. One could easily do similar stuff in Stellaris - have techs to specifically address war score cost.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

In Europa Universalis the amount of war score a province costs is reduced over time by tech gain. One could easily do similar stuff in Stellaris - have techs to specifically address war score cost.

This is the solution I think would be best. Have a bunch of techs that reduce the warscore costs for taking territory or vassalizing. To help with the other empires not recovering between wars, I'd like to suggest that truces should get longer depending on how much territory you take. Though it probably shouldn't be more than 20 years at the max, which would be on the order of ~12 planets.

 

[Cagliostro]

I think the other virtue of linking it to tech is that people actually have to spend something worthwhile in order to get it. Plus plenty of other 'administrative' stuff in Stellaris is hidden behind techs - border range, core planets, sectors, etc.

 

[Arkangilos]

They are already implementing that with their traditions. One makes each planet 25% less, and one makes vassalization 25% less.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

They are already implementing that with their traditions. One makes each planet 25% less, and one makes vassalization 25% less.

Which won't be anywhere near enough. Late game you're looking at 2, maybe 3, planets a war. 25% cheaper simply isn't enough to give you a reasonable boost to the amount of territory you can take in a war. It might not even give you 1 extra planet you can take, when we really need to be able to take 5-10 or more fully populated planets in a single war to have it be decisive in any way, save for the complete annihilation of one empire's fleets. This last factor is usually enough to completely cripple them, but they won't die for another 100 years since that's how long it takes to conquer their ~20 planets.

 

[Me_]

A simple solution would be adding some late-game techs that reduce warscore cost. A "Total War TM" policy that you could activate might also be a good idea.

This is going to be even more of a problem with habitats greatly increasing the number of "planets" to conquer.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

A simple solution would be adding some late-game techs that reduce warscore cost. A "Total War TM" policy that you could activate might also be a good idea.

This is going to be even more of a problem with habitats greatly increasing the number of "planets" to conquer.

on that note, maybe it's systems that should be annexable, not planets. this would reduce the number of awful stripes on the map too

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

on that note, maybe it's systems that should be annexable, not planets. this would reduce the number of awful stripes on the map too

Honestly I want MORE stripes. They just need to work out the way that contested space works mechanically to be more satisfying.

 

[Alblaka]

Just adding techs or modifiers won't cut it. It's clear that the wargoal system, as it stands, is completely and horridly unsuited for Stellaris. It's even flexible then CKII's one (and that one is literally designed that way to represent MEDIEVAL times).

At the very least, we need to rework how warscore cost is calculated, big time, to make large wars as decisive in result as they are in actual fighting (which as well implies warscore gain must be looked at. Pretty much regardless of size of the overall conflict, each blockaded planet appears to give 7.5 warscore and each occupied one 5. With retarded results of galaxy-wide wars ending by a couple border planets being sieged with small fleets).
At the best, we completely change direction and implement a more fluid mechanic like I suggested in my thread about Occupation & Integration.

 

[Milten]

A "Total War TM" policy that you could activate might also be a good idea.

I do hope they'll add it eventually, after all the mechanics is already there and works (to an extent). It just needs some tweaking for regular empires to allow turning it off and on, with appropriate cooldowns of course.
BTW Utopia's page mentioned "Play as a Fanatic Purifier and shun all diplomacy,", perhaps it's something close to this.

 

[MA1984]

Total War sounds good, but I would make it a diplo mechanic. Targeted empire, its allies and Your rivals hate You more, maybe You get maulus on fleet upkeep. But You get bonus to diplomatic relations with enemies of Your enemy and You it cuts in half warscore cost. There could be any kind of disadvantages of that politics, depending on Your ethos: more unrest, less border expansion or pop growth during total war.

 

[Juboboman]

I think it's important that total war goes both ways though. You shouldn't be able to start one and then white peace away or give up slight concessions if things go against you or someone else decides to take the opportunity to jump in against you. As big of a gain as you get if you win, you should lose if you fail.

 

[Anfros]

I don't necessarily think being able to annex large amounts of space at the same time would be a good thing. I'd rather they added more war outcomes such as partitioning the enemy empire, carving new vassals from their territory and so forth.

 

[MA1984]

I don't necessarily think being able to annex large amounts of space at the same time would be a good thing. I'd rather they added more war outcomes such as partitioning the enemy empire, carving new vassals from their territory and so forth.

If You crash Your enemy You sholud be able to decide what to do with them. Imagine in WWII 3rd Reich is defeated and they only lose Rheinland and Königsberg, but nothing else and guy with mustache is still leader.

 

[Cagliostro]

Yeah, adding in total war as an option just ensures that people will start conquering the galaxy in 100 years or whatnot. For that matter if the AI can do it, imagine how bummed you will be if some guy (or group of guys) walks up to your fledgeling empire and says 'peace? no thanks, i'm here to end your game completely'. It would also kind of make MP with a skilled and aggressive player a giant bummer.

ATM I remain convinced that gradually upticking people's ability to do stuff will do the trick, at least for a while.

 

[Milten]

I think it's important that total war goes both ways though. You shouldn't be able to start one and then white peace away or give up slight concessions if things go against you or someone else decides to take the opportunity to jump in against you. As big of a gain as you get if you win, you should lose if you fail.

I was thinking about something like

• TW declaration with several years before you can declare it's end. I use "declaration" for the lack of better term, not that you send TW postcards to everyone in the galaxy.
• Once you are allowed to stop it and begin the process, for one year (for example) you aren't allowed to enter enemy territory. If you do, timer goes back to initial value. However during this period everyone else is allowed to invade your territory.
• If "cease fire" period is passed successfully, your intentions are supposedly understood correctly and standard diplomacy opens up. Still all suffered empires get "CB" on captured planets and are free to declare war.

For that matter if the AI can do it, imagine how bummed you will be if some guy (or group of guys) walks up to your fledgeling empire and says 'peace? no thanks, i'm here to end your game completely'. It would also kind of make MP with a skilled and aggressive player a giant bummer.

Doesn't current economy pretty much do the same, but only in slow and painful manner? Recovering after big loss is nearly impossible without intelligent bundling with other empires.

 

[Cagliostro]

Doesn't current economy pretty much do the same, but only in slow and painful manner? Recovering after big loss is nearly impossible without intelligent bundling with other empires.

I dunno, in my experience when I declare a large aggressive war on some random empire, other empires often leap to its (future) defense, by signing guarantees and defensive pacts with it, making a second war more difficult. Presumably if I were in fact being attacked by some giant choad empire and could survive, I could make some alliances that would help me fend off future wars. If I am going to be annexed totally, that is not an option.

Anyhow, you are radically underestimating how demoralizing it is to have a super-powerful nation declare war on you and knowing that it will literally end your game. I have played a lot of games that ended suddenly that way, and it is really not fun.