lol, hardest thing for me in this game is remembering to go to war

[TrotBot]

I love this game. But while I'm busy getting my utopia up to speed, getting my defenses impenetrable, etc... I often find myself forgetting to go to war. Oh yeah, let me vassalize a neighbour to make communal housing on their worlds and push them to egalitarianism. Or yeah, let me liberation war this fanatic purifier. But hey, I was so busy getting my utopia running and getting to 1K alloys that I entirely forgot to declare war and now it's 2350 or 2400 and I still haven't gotten around to starting to liberate the galaxy.

Doesn't help that it's so difficult to get a vassalization CB sometimes.

Anyone else have a problem being too slow to go to war? How do I better integrate liberation and vassalization wars into my utopian playthroughs?

 

[zZander56]

I've strangely had this problem the last few patches and I can't name what the cause is. As a Megacorp, I tend to get caught up expanding outward using Branch Offices and inward through ecus/habs. Eventually I'll find that it has been decades and I've had little outward activity.

Maybe it's because Branches are good enough on their own? Peace through trade and all that.

It also doesn't help that conquest is a complete pain, especially against alliances.

 

[TrotBot]

I've strangely had this problem the last few patches and I can't name what the cause is. As a Megacorp, I tend to get caught up expanding outward using Branch Offices and inward through ecus/habs. Eventually I'll find that it has been decades and I've had little outward activity.

Maybe it's because Branches are good enough on their own? Peace through trade and all that.

It also doesn't help that conquest is a complete pain, especially against alliances.

I think often my problem has been that I can definitely WIN a vassalization war against certain empires, but the game doesn't give the CB because it assumes i'm too weak. It's often too hard to get a CB for me, since you have to be 25% stronger. But oftentimes, I AM like 50-75% stronger even IF the game thinks we're equal or they're stronger: just based on my ship designs and stronger economy.

I often start wars with a smaller fleet than the enemy but an alloy economy twice as strong. The game takes into account your static fleet numbers, but does not take into account your alloy economy ability to rapidly ramp up fleet production and outstrip your enemy. It is not the fleet you have at the start of any war that matters, but how many fleets you can print and reprint during the war due to strong alloy economy, which is the REAL measure of strength.

This could be solved by allowing "stronger alloy economy" to count towards the power rating for CBs. If my enemy has a fleet twice my size, but my alloy economy is literally twice theirs, I should be counted as stronger because once the first engagements are over I will 100% win the war over the long haul.

 

[FinellyTrained]

What is the point of going to war if you can win without it? )
Anyways, enclaves, dwamaks or empty battleships that get upgraded when needed -- any of those can give a boost in fleet power necessary for CB.
Usually the reminder to go to war is lack of pops. If you don't have that penalty-ethics-redesign may render a war completely useless. Maybe you are forgetting, because you don't need it.

 

[Zagreb 887]

I love this game. But while I'm busy getting my utopia up to speed, getting my defenses impenetrable, etc... I often find myself forgetting to go to war. Oh yeah, let me vassalize a neighbour to make communal housing on their worlds and push them to egalitarianism. Or yeah, let me liberation war this fanatic purifier. But hey, I was so busy getting my utopia running and getting to 1K alloys that I entirely forgot to declare war and now it's 2350 or 2400 and I still haven't gotten around to starting to liberate the galaxy.

Doesn't help that it's so difficult to get a vassalization CB sometimes.

Anyone else have a problem being too slow to go to war? How do I better integrate liberation and vassalization wars into my utopian playthroughs?

Did you play vanilla or mods? For me, as I play with ACOT and Gigastructures I find myself quite busy building a lot of megastructures. I usually vassalize a few neighbouring empires and tend to not go to War that much with the rest of the Galaxy.

With those mods, Warfare against AI is really not very intresting, you have a lot more to do with fighting the buffed vanilla crisis and the special ones from both mods. Rest of the time is occupied by preparing the future establishment of the Imperium.

I usually don't mind AI empires if they aren't genocidal at my borders or annoying criminal Syndicate.

For your "problem" maybe just take a time to look at the galactic Map to draw a plan of conquest. It allow you to keep momentum, jumping from one foe to the next.
Also, using the galactic community to enforce your political agenda is a useful tool in parallel of straight warfare.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I think often my problem has been that I can definitely WIN a vassalization war against certain empires, but the game doesn't give the CB because it assumes i'm too weak. It's often too hard to get a CB for me, since you have to be 25% stronger. But oftentimes, I AM like 50-75% stronger even IF the game thinks we're equal or they're stronger: just based on my ship designs and stronger economy.

I often start wars with a smaller fleet than the enemy but an alloy economy twice as strong. The game takes into account your static fleet numbers, but does not take into account your alloy economy ability to rapidly ramp up fleet production and outstrip your enemy. It is not the fleet you have at the start of any war that matters, but how many fleets you can print and reprint during the war due to strong alloy economy, which is the REAL measure of strength.

This could be solved by allowing "stronger alloy economy" to count towards the power rating for CBs. If my enemy has a fleet twice my size, but my alloy economy is literally twice theirs, I should be counted as stronger because once the first engagements are over I will 100% win the war over the long haul.

Dude, this is my current campaign summed up perfectly. I kept trying to get the damn CB for all my neighbors, decade after decade, in a "civilization arms race" to meet the quota to get the damn thing for even that split second so I could use it. Never could. It's now literally the end game, and I'm pushed up against a Hegemony that controls about 65% of a 1000 star galaxy that has fleets so gigantic that every single mid game Crisis was mowed down like blades of grass. 3 Great Khans, 2 Fallen Empires and the Grey Tempest, all just utterly butchered without any hope of success or even shaking up the geopolitical landscape enough for me to be able to make a move. All because I couldn't meet arbitrary conditions to qualify for CB's that I needed. Just like the OP, all my choke points are locked down kill zones. Nothing would survive the buzzsaw that is my border territories. But that ultimately does nothing to get me out of the corner of the map I've been in since the start of the game.

But I just don't ever get to enjoy these new Overlord mechanics, I only get to use them on worthless little rebel states or fresh primitive empires that give me basically no benefits whatsoever. I've had to resort to pooling these worthless states into an official Hegemony and wait around until I unlock "join or Die". But then that just cancels out the whole point of having the Vassals because their in the Hegemony and the contracts war conditions don't apply anymore so they all get destroyed and inflate my War Exhaustion. Like the whole campaign at this point is dependant on the End Game Crisis hopefully being powerful enough to actually put a dent in the galaxy so I can actually do something and it's just a very frustrating experience. All this because the game won't let you fight Vassalization wars basically lol.

 

[Dementor4]

Once you have full control of the Galactic Senate, the best way to go to war is just to declare the other guy a crisis. This gets you a total war against that guy (no annoying war exhaustion nonsense to worry about) and you can end it with legislation. So you declare the crisis, immediately propse ending the crisis war and then declare the war ending an emergency to rush it to the floor. Then you take whatever it is you want from the other guy then use your custodian powers to end the voting early.

And you can do this even as a fanatic pacifist. Isn't democracy great?

"Sorry man, nothing I can do, the senate voted for this war."
"Dude, you have 60% of the voting power!"
"But look, see, I proposed ending the war, this will be over soon."
"...and another 60% of the voting power are your vassals who are forced to vote with you!"

 

[TheRevanchist25]

Once you have full control of the Galactic Senate, the best way to go to war is just to declare the other guy a crisis. This gets you a total war against that guy (no annoying war exhaustion nonsense to worry about) and you can end it with legislation. So you declare the crisis, immediately propse ending the crisis war and then declare the war ending an emergency to rush it to the floor. Then you take whatever it is you want from the other guy then use your custodian powers to end the voting early.

And you can do this even as a fanatic pacifist. Isn't democracy great?

"Sorry man, nothing I can do, the senate voted for this war."
"Dude, you have 60% of the voting power!"
"But look, see, I proposed ending the war, this will be over soon."
"...and another 60% of the voting power are your vassals who are forced to vote with you!"

 

[Incompetent]

My usual thought process is
1. Focus on basic economy and tech
2. I have more resources than I know what to do with now, better make some alloys and invest in starbases/megastructures
3. I have more alloys than I can spend on starbases/megastructures, time to spam battleships just to spend the resource pile
4. I have a bunch of battleships parked at the starbases, may as well send them out on adventures

 

[TrotBot]

Dude, this is my current campaign summed up perfectly. I kept trying to get the damn CB for all my neighbors, decade after decade, in a "civilization arms race" to meet the quota to get the damn thing for even that split second so I could use it. Never could. It's now literally the end game, and I'm pushed up against a Hegemony that controls about 65% of a 1000 star galaxy that has fleets so gigantic that every single mid game Crisis was mowed down like blades of grass. 3 Great Khans, 2 Fallen Empires and the Grey Tempest, all just utterly butchered without any hope of success or even shaking up the geopolitical landscape enough for me to be able to make a move. All because I couldn't meet arbitrary conditions to qualify for CB's that I needed. Just like the OP, all my choke points are locked down kill zones. Nothing would survive the buzzsaw that is my border territories. But that ultimately does nothing to get me out of the corner of the map I've been in since the start of the game.

But I just don't ever get to enjoy these new Overlord mechanics, I only get to use them on worthless little rebel states or fresh primitive empires that give me basically no benefits whatsoever. I've had to resort to pooling these worthless states into an official Hegemony and wait around until I unlock "join or Die". But then that just cancels out the whole point of having the Vassals because their in the Hegemony and the contracts war conditions don't apply anymore so they all get destroyed and inflate my War Exhaustion. Like the whole campaign at this point is dependant on the End Game Crisis hopefully being powerful enough to actually put a dent in the galaxy so I can actually do something and it's just a very frustrating experience. All this because the game won't let you fight Vassalization wars basically lol.

I think I understand what the restriction is trying to do: prevent weaker empires from declaring on stronger empires, then status quoing to create new vassals out of like half their territory. But I think they may need to look at alternative ways to prevent this kind of exploit. Maybe the option to status quo a new vassel can be restricted and only available if you were stronger at the start? That would prevent the exploit while still allowing you to vassalize people you can beat which the game for some reason thought you couldn't.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

I have this problem too.
I think the other half of the cause for it is that the BUILDER aspect of the game is so well done, cool, and developed... AND takes a little longer to *do* than researching the next level of complexity takes.

So like, and I'm making up details so the order is probably off, but like while you're still building your first few Habitats you research Gateway Construction. And before you've got enough Gateways you research Orbital Rings and then Titans.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I think I understand what the restriction is trying to do: prevent weaker empires from declaring on stronger empires, then status quoing to create new vassals out of like half their territory. But I think they may need to look at alternative ways to prevent this kind of exploit. Maybe the option to status quo a new vassel can be restricted and only available if you were stronger at the start? That would prevent the exploit while still allowing you to vassalize people you can beat which the game for some reason thought you couldn't.

I think Status Quo should simply result in just that, You go back to your corner, and they go back to theirs. Maybe mutual Humiliation. Like you said, if avoiding "cheesing" the system with Status Quo means that much to them, then just change Status Quo outcomes.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I have this problem too.
I think the other half of the cause for it is that the BUILDER aspect of the game is so well done, cool, and developed... AND takes a little longer to *do* than researching the next level of complexity takes.

So like, and I'm making up details so the order is probably off, but like while you're still building your first few Habitats you research Gateway Construction. And before you've got enough Gateways you research Orbital Rings and then Titans.

That is exactly the issue for me. I keep setting short term goals with plans to attack once their finished, but the Tech upgrades finish long before the goals are achieved, so then I'm like "well shit, I don't want to go into war outdated, I better upgrade once their built" and it just keeps snowballing, next thing you know it's 2400 and the whole game just flew by.

The issue is either, Research is too fast, or things take way too long to build. Maybe both, idk. At least in my case.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

That is exactly the issue for me. I keep setting short term goals with plans to attack once their finished, but the Tech upgrades finish long before the goals are achieved, so then I'm like "well shit, I don't want to go into war outdated, I better upgrade once their built" and it just keeps snowballing, next thing you know it's 2400 and the whole game just flew by.

The issue is either, Research is too fast, or things take way too long to build. Maybe both, idk. At least in my case.

At the same time though, I'm also like "that's good though, right?" Like conceptually, if you're doing megastructures, even the "small" ones, how could you possibly also churn out a battle fleet? Unless you're already half the galaxy or whatever. Right?

So it light be a good thing that it keeps forcing you to choose, maybe.

 

[TrotBot]

At the same time though, I'm also like "that's good though, right?" Like conceptually, if you're doing megastructures, even the "small" ones, how could you possibly also churn out a battle fleet? Unless you're already half the galaxy or whatever. Right?

So it light be a good thing that it keeps forcing you to choose, maybe.

Yeah I think I can do both, I need to force myself and that's on me. I just think it could make it a little easier because juggling these decisions AND getting the CB necessary is a bit finicky.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

Yeah I think I can do both, I need to force myself and that's on me. I just think it could make it a little easier because juggling these decisions AND getting the CB necessary is a bit finicky.

Indeed, this current game for example again, I keep building hoping my economy score will help me reach the point where I get the damn CB to finally attack, but my economy is constantly outpaced the entire game, Like the whole experience of trying to get the CB just feels like a Sisyphean task until End game and I have Dyons Spheres, Matter Decompressors etc to just endlessly fuel the war machine so the CB's don't matter anymore and just brute force my way across the galaxy. But at the same time, I don't want play that way every time. I didn't want to do that this time, and wanted to do the sneaky diplomatic approach of manipulating votes in my favor to slowly grip the reigns, but again, it's just the snowball effect of trying to build taller so I can get more votes and never catching up lol. It's hilarious in its own right how futile it feels trying to do anything other than Build shit lmao. It's totally not the case ofc, but my OCD Sim City Brain keeps convincing me that it's true lol.

 

[ASGeek2012]

I find I get into fewer early game wars ever since they introduced that feature where your intel can inform you ahead of time that an AI is planning to attack. The sequence goes like this:

1) Get informed that AI is going to start a war against me.
2) I check relative fleet strengths and see they're ahead of me.
3) I go on a ship building spree to meet threat.
4) The wardec never comes, and I see our fleets are at relative parity, thus I likely passed some threshold where they said, "eh, he's not an easy target anymore, forget it"

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I find I get into fewer early game wars ever since they introduced that feature where your intel can inform you ahead of time that an AI is planning to attack. The sequence goes like this:

1) Get informed that AI is going to start a war against me.
2) I check relative fleet strengths and see they're ahead of me.
3) I go on a ship building spree to meet threat.
4) The wardec never comes, and I see our fleets are at relative parity, thus I likely passed some threshold where they said, "eh, he's not an easy target anymore, forget it"

lmao I forgot that was even a feature because I've yet to get that warning since they added it.

 

[weez777]

I think often my problem has been that I can definitely WIN a vassalization war against certain empires, but the game doesn't give the CB because it assumes i'm too weak. It's often too hard to get a CB for me, since you have to be 25% stronger. But oftentimes, I AM like 50-75% stronger even IF the game thinks we're equal or they're stronger: just based on my ship designs and stronger economy.

I often start wars with a smaller fleet than the enemy but an alloy economy twice as strong. The game takes into account your static fleet numbers, but does not take into account your alloy economy ability to rapidly ramp up fleet production and outstrip your enemy. It is not the fleet you have at the start of any war that matters, but how many fleets you can print and reprint during the war due to strong alloy economy, which is the REAL measure of strength.

This could be solved by allowing "stronger alloy economy" to count towards the power rating for CBs. If my enemy has a fleet twice my size, but my alloy economy is literally twice theirs, I should be counted as stronger because once the first engagements are over I will 100% win the war over the long hau[BGCOLOR=rgb(31, 50, 44)]I think often my problem has been that I can definitely WIN a vassalization war against certain empires, but the game doesn't give the CB because it assumes i'm too weak. It's often too hard to get a CB for me, since you have to be 25% stronger. But oftentimes, I [/BGCOLOR]AM [BGCOLOR=rgb(31, 50, 44)]like 50-75% stronger even[/BGCOLOR] IF[BGCOLOR=rgb(31, 50, 44)] the game thinks we're equal or they're stronger: just based on my ship designs and stronger economy.[/BGCOLOR]

I often start wars with a smaller fleet than the enemy but an alloy economy twice as strong. The game takes into account your static fleet numbers, but does not take into account your alloy economy ability to rapidly ramp up fleet production and outstrip your enemy. It is not the fleet you have at the start of any war that matters, but how many fleets you can print and reprint during the war due to strong alloy economy, which is the REAL measure of strength.

This could be solved by allowing "stronger alloy economy" to count towards the power rating for CBs. If my enemy has a fleet twice my size, but my alloy economy is literally twice theirs, I should be counted as stronger because once the first engagements are over I will 100% win the war over the long haul.

Best way to deal with this early on is to conquer and spin off the territory as a vassal. When you do it this way you can move some of your pops over first and set them as the primary species. You can also set the terms of the vassal agreement to whatever you want rather than the generic oppressive, neutral, benevolent settings that you would end up with after a vassalize victory.

 

[A2ch0n]

Anyone else have a problem being too slow to go to war?

Despite the mentionend Fanatic Purifier i never found a reason to go to war. In fact i find it annoying to do so, especially if there are so many options to come on top without a single shot. Vassalization and the Galactic Empire are the best examples here. At the end is 90% of the galaxy my Vassal and the rest at least part of the Empire. So i would say mission accomplished. Is there any reason to fight someone if they are your friends?