A humble petition for endgame warscore rebalance in Utopia

[TheDarkMaster]

My problem is when I DoW nations with allies. In my current game, I want to set up a 2 vs 2 fight, my ally vs the 2 of them in a federation. I can barely get 3 planets, 2 if they are good (we have had them boxed in for years). If I am at war with a big empire, or multiple empires, the per planet warscore needs to be reduced so we do more than shave off 1 planet from each.

I have no problem with "can only annex 2 out of 4 planets" to give smaller empires breathing space, but not "only 2-3 out of several dozen." It will take me too many years of in game time for a minimal return - not worth it. And once all the space has been claimed, war becomes somewhat inevitable or the game stagnates.

Now if those damned Dathnak would stop asking for me to resettle them into hostile space controlled by a rival. Which reminds me, why don't we get a discount on taking planets from rivals? Or do we, and I missed that tooltip?

If the war restriction was a minimum of 25%-33% of the entire empire/alliance/federation, do you think that would help you achieve what you're looking to do? Then if that was how it worked, how would that affect the overall balance of the game's warfare system?

 

[Cagliostro]

But how do you deal with an end-game crisis? Because TW is essentially the same.

End-game crises are sometimes game ending. But they are *end game*. The advocacy for total war has not so far as I've noticed been confined to the end game.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

End-game crises are sometimes game ending. But they are *end game*. The advocacy for total war has not so far as I've noticed been confined to the end game.

They're also very strictly defined in target- you can only wage Total War against Crisis factions. Its circumstantial and implemented only against truly omnicidal and "alien" aggressors.

 

[GamerSteve]

I think the OP has some very good points, but I would argue that the problem is not exclusively that you can only get war goals for a handful of planets. The problem is that you don't get enough warscore for taking your war goals, and you have to pretty much conquer an entire 12 planet empire to take those 3 worlds you declared for. This is both counter-intuitive, and counter to how some of pdx's own other games, like CK 2, work.

In CK 2, if you go to war over a county, then although you can get points toward warscore in other ways, the #1 way of earning points comes from who controls the contested county (or duchy). If I fabricate a claim on Padua and attack other counties, my enemy will gain a ticking warscore in his favor because I have not taken the wargoal. Conversely, if I conquer Padua early and hold it, even though the enemy is sieging other land of mine, I'm still gaining warscore for holding Padua.

Stellaris could, and should, work the same way. If I declare a war for Earth, Proxima Centauri, and Alpha Centauri, I should *have* to take those worlds, specifically, to most efficiently get warscore. If I take all 3, I should get pretty close, say 75% warscore. Then if I hold them, I should get +X% per month (I suggest 1-3%, they will have to playtest). I have conquered the worlds, and held them... I win the war. I shouldn't have to take the whole rest of the Vulcan Alliance out once I have those 3 worlds.

The way it is now, you could declare on a federation, ask for those worlds, conquer NONE of them, at and the end of the war, still be in possession of those worlds. This is contrary to logic and also allows sloppy/bad strategy. I can declare on one guy but conquer the weaker neighbor and I could still get the stronger guy's worlds. In what universe would that happen? It's counter-intuitive and unrealistic.

If they did just this -- made taking and holding all war goal planets for a certain period of time get you to 100% warscore and victory, I think a huge number of other problems would be solved. No it would not fix that you have to war someone down 5 times to finally take them. However, at least when warring them down, you don't have to conquer the same freaking 12 worlds over, and over, and over again just to get the 3 you want. I think THAT is part of what leads to the fatigue. If you are more powerful, and you win, you should only ever have to conquer a world once. That by the end I have conquered and occupied the same several worlds 5 or more times is where a lot of the feeling of tedium comes in.

Heck, I play co-op, and last game, my friend and I were joking that my soldiers had been to this one world so many times, they have time-shares on the planet and concubines and such, heck maybe even families by now. I mean... come on. It should not be like that.

 

[Juboboman]

I think the OP has some very good points, but I would argue that the problem is not exclusively that you can only get war goals for a handful of planets. The problem is that you don't get enough warscore for taking your war goals, and you have to pretty much conquer an entire 12 planet empire to take those 3 worlds you declared for. This is both counter-intuitive, and counter to how some of pdx's own other games, like CK 2, work.

In CK 2, if you go to war over a county, then although you can get points toward warscore in other ways, the #1 way of earning points comes from who controls the contested county (or duchy). If I fabricate a claim on Padua and attack other counties, my enemy will gain a ticking warscore in his favor because I have not taken the wargoal. Conversely, if I conquer Padua early and hold it, even though the enemy is sieging other land of mine, I'm still gaining warscore for holding Padua.

Stellaris could, and should, work the same way. If I declare a war for Earth, Proxima Centauri, and Alpha Centauri, I should *have* to take those worlds, specifically, to most efficiently get warscore. If I take all 3, I should get pretty close, say 75% warscore. Then if I hold them, I should get +X% per month (I suggest 1-3%, they will have to playtest). I have conquered the worlds, and held them... I win the war. I shouldn't have to take the whole rest of the Vulcan Alliance out once I have those 3 worlds.

The way it is now, you could declare on a federation, ask for those worlds, conquer NONE of them, at and the end of the war, still be in possession of those worlds. This is contrary to logic and also allows sloppy/bad strategy. I can declare on one guy but conquer the weaker neighbor and I could still get the stronger guy's worlds. In what universe would that happen? It's counter-intuitive and unrealistic.

If they did just this -- made taking and holding all war goal planets for a certain period of time get you to 100% warscore and victory, I think a huge number of other problems would be solved. No it would not fix that you have to war someone down 5 times to finally take them. However, at least when warring them down, you don't have to conquer the same freaking 12 worlds over, and over, and over again just to get the 3 you want. I think THAT is part of what leads to the fatigue. If you are more powerful, and you win, you should only ever have to conquer a world once. That by the end I have conquered and occupied the same several worlds 5 or more times is where a lot of the feeling of tedium comes in.

Heck, I play co-op, and last game, my friend and I were joking that my soldiers had been to this one world so many times, they have time-shares on the planet and concubines and such, heck maybe even families by now. I mean... come on. It should not be like that.

I can agree to a lot of this too. It's a good point about having to conquer the entire country multiple times only to give back 80%+ of it each time. Woohoo the 3rd long march to Berlin was yet another smashing success. Too bad we can only take few provinces and have to give back everything else until we see each other again in 10 years.

 

[Milten]

End-game crises are sometimes game ending. But they are *end game*. The advocacy for total war has not so far as I've noticed been confined to the end game.

Actually it was suggested to be end-game "technology".

 

[Cagliostro]

Actually it was suggested to be end-game "technology".

That may have been suggested, but many others are suggesting much more extensive steps on this thread also.

 

[Juboboman]

The thing is early game most empires are so small that wars are effectively total war. Or at the very least 2 deal affairs.

 

[Starisc]

Considering that megastructures, the focus of the DLC, are more designed to make tall gameplay more attractive (build ringworlds instead of fleets to capture more planets), I doubt they will give even more viability to wide-empire strategies. The previous patches, increasing debuffs per planet and pop, also aimed at curbing wide empire play-styles somewhat.

I fear it is a Paradox-wide sickness:
- EU4 has been upping mana costs making WCs more difficult. Next DLC will introduce devastation, making wars and conquering less attractive.
- HOI4 new focus trees all nerfed the most important resource for wide-play of smaller commonwealth nations: manpower.

TL;DR: Paradox wants us to play tall more. Conquering more planets more easily is not in line with these goals.

 

[Gaen]

Because achievement to purge all other species (or alternatively, winning the game with the win conditions Paradox set).
And if you go on those conquering sprees, you WILL end up fighting a defensive pact / federation of +-ALL other races in every war.
Which leads to the fact you can still only take 3 planets (because your target is a small empire and thus each planet costs 30+ warscore), but have to occupy half the galaxy to gain the warscore actually necessary to do so. And even with with more fleets then all the enemies combined and 3 squads of space marines that takes it's time.

It's probably the only game I will ever complete in Stellaris, until they fix the issues you and me pointed out, because it's a rather boring and pointless grind, because by all considerations you DO have already won at that point. But Warscore mechanics say no.

Dont think i ever played a paradox game to the "end". Try form your own disposable fed to split the remaining galaxy up so they dont form a single block and vassalise whenever you can to generate lees threat. As sade, balasing it around the most aggressive play style will effect everything else to. Not to mention certain AI empires own ability to blob.

 

[Starisc]

UPDATE: I just asked @Wiz on the Extraterrestrial Thursday livestream about late game warscore: He confirmed, that they plan changes to alleviate this specific problem ("huge empires fight over three planets") with some late-game technologies.

 

[Juboboman]

UPDATE: I just asked @Wiz on the Extraterrestrial Thursday livestream about late game warscore: He confirmed, that they plan changes to alleviate this specific problem ("huge empires fight over three planets") with some late-game technologies.

Great news!

 

[Guilliman88]

UPDATE: I just asked @Wiz on the Extraterrestrial Thursday livestream about late game warscore: He confirmed, that they plan changes to alleviate this specific problem ("huge empires fight over three planets") with some late-game technologies.

Specifically allowing you to capture more planets at a time.

 

[GamerSteve]

UPDATE: I just asked @Wiz on the Extraterrestrial Thursday livestream about late game warscore: He confirmed, that they plan changes to alleviate this specific problem ("huge empires fight over three planets") with some late-game technologies.

This is good news but I still think they need to make the war goal worlds worth much more warscore (at least 2x, maybe 3x, as much as a non-goal world) and they need a ticking warscore like in CK2. If I occupy my wargoal worlds, the defender should have to take them back, or lose the war. I shouldn't have to do anything else but hold the goals.

And conversely, the enemy shouldn't have to do anything else but defend the goals. If I war goal 3 worlds and take his other 27, it should not win the war for me, because I have not taken the goals.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

This is good news but I still think they need to make the war goal worlds worth much more warscore (at least 2x, maybe 3x, as much as a non-goal world) and they need a ticking warscore like in CK2. If I occupy my wargoal worlds, the defender should have to take them back, or lose the war. I shouldn't have to do anything else but hold the goals.

And conversely, the enemy shouldn't have to do anything else but defend the goals. If I war goal 3 worlds and take his other 27, it should not win the war for me, because I have not taken the goals.

I agree with the first part, but I disagree with the latter. People have been complaining for AGES that you can conquer an entire civilization- trash every starport, occupy every planet- and still not win. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.