How much damage can you cause to large empires in only 1 war?

[Hardcore_gamer]

One of the big problems I have always had with the diplomacy/war system in the Paradox games is that while the idea of not being able to annex a whole empire in one war makes sense in many ways, it also means that often there is no reason to go to war with an empire that is as big as your own because the cost just isn't worth it. Why fight a long and a devestating great war if the only thing you get in return at the end are a few provinces?

So I am wondering, how much can you cripple a rival empire in a single war? Is it enough that you have an actual real reason to go to war with them? Because I don't want to spend years spending massive resources and manpower into a bloody war if the end result is merely that I get a few extra planets. Even if nothing else the enemy empire should be left seriously weakened for a large amounts of time.

 

[I_AM_King_Midas]

One of the big problems I have always had with the diplomacy/war system in the Paradox games is that while the idea of not being able to annex a whole empire in one war makes sense in many ways, it also means that often there is no reason to go to war with an empire that is as big as your own because the cost just isn't worth it. Why fight a long and a devestating great war if the only thing you get in return at the end are a few provinces?

So I am wondering, how much can you cripple a rival empire in a single war? Is it enough that you have an actual real reason to go to war with them? Because I don't want to spend years spending massive resources and manpower into a bloody war if the end result is merely that I get a few extra planets. Even if nothing else the enemy empire should be left seriously weakened for a large amounts of time.

If your goal is just to hurt them, release a lot of planets as an independent state beside them.

 

[barny]

Why fight a long and a devestating great war if the only thing you get in return at the end are a few provinces?

Then don't go to war? Or wait until they are weakened? It seems you will be able to take around 3 or 4 colonies from them, which should be a sizeable in most cases, specially since you get stronger while a direct rival gets weaker, making the next war easier.

 

[praftd]

Don't quote me on this, but I believe it is based on warscore. I'm not sure of the cap (100?) or if it changes, but you are limited on what you can take in each war based on value.

Like, some backwater, undeveloped, hostile outer rim planet is only going to be worth, like, 15.6 warscore to take. So, you would be able to capture about 6 of those before you meet your cap. But they aren't worth very much to the victor.

However, core worlds that are heavily built up would probably run you 25+, meaning you could only take 4 or less of them. So if you might want to take their capital, but if it costs 40 or more warscore, you won't be able to capture much else in that war.

I'm guessing these numbers go up as the game goes on and planets develop. Like, in the beginning /mid part of the game (4x portion), planets are pretty underdeveloped, you'll be able to capture 4+ planets per war.

But late game (grand strategy portion) when planets are way more developed and boarders more defined, I wouldn't doubt the game becomes more like CK2 where you might only be able to capture 1 or 2 planets per war because you are looking at warscore costs of 45+ per developed planet.



Don't quote me on any of this, I'm just making assumptions off of what we have seen so far. But if any of this is true, I think it works really well. It allows for early game expansion and boarder creation, but prevents late game blobs of death (at least as easily). This allows you to actually enjoy the late game beyond just wiping everyone else out.

Toss in better diplomacy, trade, and intrigue in future DLC, and it'll be great!

 

[sebastianfisher]

One of the big problems I have always had with the diplomacy/war system in the Paradox games is that while the idea of not being able to annex a whole empire in one war makes sense in many ways, it also means that often there is no reason to go to war with an empire that is as big as your own because the cost just isn't worth it. Why fight a long and a devestating great war if the only thing you get in return at the end are a few provinces?

Funny, this is one of the great things I like about their games. It also means if I screw up, I'll only lose a few provinces and be able to recover from my mistake rather than reload the game and break immersion. I'm actually worried that it might be too easy to cripple an empire in Stellaris.

 

[ashbery76]

Funny, this is one of the great things I like about their games. It also means if I screw up, I'll only lose a few provinces and be able to recover from my mistake rather than reload the game and break immersion. I'm actually worried that it might be too easy to cripple an empire in Stellaris.

Indeed.In 4x games usually one war wins you the game as you become overpowered with 10 new cities and nothing stops the snowball.

 

[lemmox]

The fact that picking a fight with somebody your own size isn't always the smartest move isn't really a negative to me. If your rival and you are equally matched then you shouldn't be able to just dismantle them in a single war, anymore than they should be able to do the same thing to you.

You just do what real nations did throughout history, you gobble up your inferior neighbours to build strength and then wait to strike your stronger foe when they're weakened or distracted, hit them hard, grab a few strategic locations and then sue for peace if they start to mount an effective resistance. Rinse and repeat 2 or 3 times and they'll be weakened enough for you to finish them off.

tl;dr: going toe-to-toe with your equal is supposed to be a bad investment. That's where the strategic part of "Grand Strategy" comes in.

 

[barny]

Funny, this is one of the great things I like about their games. It also means if I screw up, I'll only lose a few provinces and be able to recover from my mistake rather than reload the game and break immersion. I'm actually worried that it might be too easy to cripple an empire in Stellaris.

It is also not realistic that large empires just die in one war.

If you want the opposite, go play Empire: Total War where countries like France or Spain consisted of pretty much ONE province (well, France had practically two, but the second was just the Alsace-Lorraine area), which lead to them often been conquered by some lucky small country early in the game.

 

[13Foxtrot]

Taking a 'few provinces' from an empire is not a small thing....you could be asking people to lose contact with loved ones, people being enslaved or worse....it is no small thing.

No maybe you just want an empire to back out of an alliance....that may not be as drastic....hence warscore cost.

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

Funny, this is one of the great things I like about their games. It also means if I screw up, I'll only lose a few provinces and be able to recover from my mistake rather than reload the game and break immersion.

Which is very bad game design. There SHOULD be a big fallout from losing a big war. Losing a small war should not change everything, but if you spend years fighting a huge war and then everything goes sour in the end then the fallout should be huge. There should be revolutions and rioting. Massive political chaos and wrecked economy. Just look at the aftermath of World war 1. Otherwise you just create a lower skill ceiling while making it needlessly hard to cause damage to your enemies.

It is also not realistic that large empires just die in one war.

Have you ever heard of World war 1?

 

[lemmox]

Have you ever heard of World war 1?

The reason it was called "The Great War" is because it was on an entirely different scale. Most wars do not end in the complete destruction of the enemy.

In exceptional circumstances it's still possible to largely dismantle an enemy if you completely overwhelm them by seizing territory but also release large swaths as independent nations (exactly what happened in WWII), and the damage gets exponentially greater if other nations start separate opportunistic wars.

But the point is those are rare and not particularly easy to achieve, by design. In reality even if you completely occupy an enemy nation, you are rarely able to actually dismantle their entire country in a single war.

 

[praftd]

Which is very bad game design. There SHOULD be a big fallout from losing a big war. Losing a small war should not change everything, but if you spend years fighting a huge war and then everything goes sour in the end then the fallout should be huge. There should be revolutions and rioting. Massive political chaos and wrecked economy. Just look at the aftermath of World war 1. Otherwise you just create a lower skill ceiling while making it needlessly hard to cause damage to your enemies.

One of the things that makes Paradox games great is that they put caps on how fast you can steamroll empires. They do this to prevent every game from ending the exact same way. They also do it to prevent massive empires from just "poofing" in a couple years after a war.

In the system you are advocating there would be no small wars. Why exactly would someone just take one or two planets from someone they are beating? Every single war would end with one empire just capturing the entirety of another. That is just stupid. Once a side is winning, they can just keep capturing until it is over.

Not to mention, Paradox games try to be semi-realistic. In real war, you don't usually keep everything you capture. After the enemy surrenders, you need to sit down with them and discuss the terms of surrender. That's what this game does. You talk it out with the enemy and enforce the terms of peace.



And you are wrong, losing a couple of worlds DOES change a lot. Loosing a massive war does 4 major things to the loser:

1.) Their fleet is gone leaving them defenseless and easy prey for other empires/rebels looking to expand. They will probably be attacked by a neighbor.
2.) They have to spend large amounts of resources and time rebuilding lost structures and ships. This pretty much gimps them for a decade or so.
3.) They are far more likely to have rebellions crack their empire in half due to unhappiness pentalties.
4.) They lost planets and as such, lose science and production.

 

[Smiles_]

"Bad game design" and "good game design" are terms that are thrown around a lot here it seems like. I look forward to playing the game, and I'll make some assessment after giving it a go for a while.


Smiles

 

[praftd]

if you spend years fighting a huge war and then everything goes sour in the end then the fallout should be huge. There should be revolutions and rioting.

This already exists, it is called war tolerance and war happiness. Which in turn, decreases productivity and causes revolts.

 

[sebastianfisher]

Which is very bad game design. There SHOULD be a big fallout from losing a big war. Losing a small war should not change everything, but if you spend years fighting a huge war and then everything goes sour in the end then the fallout should be huge.

Have you ever heard of World war 1?

To the contrary I believe it is good game design. The standard game is so poorly designed that when you begin to lose a major war, you simply stop playing and reload. Do you ever question why this is? It's because you already know that you have completely lost the game. Likewise, you winning a major war means the alternate.. you've already won so why bother continue playing? Most gamers are so programmed to accept this as the normal.

In Paradox games, you lose a war and continue playing... it just becomes part of the story of your empire in that game. It's why players of their games so often describe them in story format.

I won't answer your silly WW1 question as I assume it is meant to be a slight.

 

[ahhheygao]

Which is very bad game design. There SHOULD be a big fallout from losing a big war. Losing a small war should not change everything, but if you spend years fighting a huge war and then everything goes sour in the end then the fallout should be huge. There should be revolutions and rioting. Massive political chaos and wrecked economy. Just look at the aftermath of World war 1. Otherwise you just create a lower skill ceiling while making it needlessly hard to cause damage to your enemies.

Have you ever heard of World war 1?

You should take your own advice and look at the aftermath of WW1.

Germany lost chunks of clay everywhere but was still a large blob until they lost even more clay after WW2... Austria-Hungary got blown up and the Balkans got released, yet Austria still remained mostly intact while Hungary was still around despite getting completely eviscerated... the Ottoman Empire got blown up and the Middle East got paritioned, but after some rebel war of independence, the Turkey successor state kept most of their Anatolian holdings. Those major players didn't get wiped out from just one HUGE war.

As for rebellion due to losing major wars, we see that already in the Blorg stream, the Qell'Nudar started getting rebellions because their government didn't protect those border planets. That other blob on the other side of the map lost nearly all of their once-impressive fleet and its military power reduced to Pathetic rating... that's as bad as the Blorg's pitiful vassal. Even the Blorg's potential friends the Hydari got tons of rebels after the Just League bullied them.

 

[sethfc]

This already exists, it is called war tolerance and war happiness. Which in turn, decreases productivity and causes revolts.

What you said Praftd.
People underestimate war tolerance and happiness, militaristic empires will gladly fight, and fight, but other less military orientated cultures are going to have trouble after a long conflict.

Also rather than annexing directly if you really want to you can just occupy enemy territory for a protracted time period, essentially annexing them, without directly administering them (perhaps after a long period of time this should result in annexation?) it'd result in immense amounts of war weariness, and be a huge political liability, but hey you got the entire empire afterall.

 

[ikki]

evidently any one of them could have been turned into a vassal and a few systems claimed on top of that.
So dunno, moderate amounts of damage done onto other?

 

[sethfc]

You should take your own advice and look at the aftermath of WW1.

Germany lost chunks of clay everywhere but was still a huge blob until they lost even more clay after WW2... Austria-Hungary got blown up and the Balkans got released, yet Austria still remained mostly intact while Hungary was still around despite getting completely eviscerated... the Ottoman Empire got blown up and the Middle East got released, but after some rebel war of independence, the Turkey successor state kept most of their Anatolian holdings.

You're entirely correct, originally/initially this victory system kinda annoyed me, but I realized that it has precedence historically, and is actually a good design decision as you don't just instantly lose if you lose one war, you are delt a potentially crippling blow, but are not entirely out of the game.
(Sorry to double post)

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

While you might not be able to take huge swathes of a defeated empire for yourself, imposing such a crippling defeat upon them should result in both internal revolts & aggression from other neighbors.
At least, that's usually what happens in EU4, CK2 & Vic2.