War and peace - a system too rigid and an experience too frigid

[Mastikator]

Part 1: The TL;DR version (of this suggestion)
TL;DR: the the way war- especially joint war works is too rigid, it leaves empires with too few options, it feels stiffing and these harsh rules do not make sense from an RP sense. They also suck as game mechanics.

But there's a better way, one that makes sense, is fair, is fun, and will improve the whole game. Please join me in the non-TL;DR version.

Part 2: The non-TL;DR version (of this suggestion)
Okay now that it's just us nerds left let me start by saying we should probably overhaul the entire war mechanic. The 1.9 system had a lot of bad but it had a lot of good too, a lot of good that was removed unnecessarily. But I'm a visionary and wish to only learn from the past, not emulate it. So for this I'll have two segments of part 2, one dedicated to Wargoals and Peace Treaties. The other dedicated to the Rules of Joint War

Wargoals and Peace Treaties

• Claims work like they do right now, I like claims, claims are a good idea IMO
• You may also "claim" policies and effects on the enemy, like Humiliation, Despoilation, End Atrocities (slavery/genocide), Stop building robots (if spiritualist)
  * You must also have those policies that you seek to impose, imposing a policy claim costs 50 influence, you gain 100 if they surrender to them
• You can also claim their government type, this will result in a liberation type war rather than a war of conquest
  * If you sue for peace then this claim is mutually exclusive with systems claims, and if they surrender to you then they change policy
• When you attempt to sue for Status Quo peace you may bargin for claims that you have occupied to encourage the enemy to accept peace
  * Example, you have claim and occupancy of a 5 systems, you offer status quo peace if you get only 4
  * Your claims will be relinquished if you propose it, the AI will be strongly encouraged to accept.
• You may declare war during a peace treaty, but there are several costs
  * It costs 250 influence to break a peace treaty
  * You gain the Oath Breaker malus of -25% diplomatic weight (as your words are seen as less valuable)
• If you have access to a "Total War" style CB then that replaces the regular claims but you must still claim their empire (similar to claim policy)

Rules of Joint War
Hello
When you have a single war with two or more parties on one side the rules for the participants works like this

• All individual empires track their own War Exhaustion individually
• Any members can sue for status quo peace individually
  * Every enemy has to decide individually whether they accept status quo peace
  * Those that accept become non-hostile and enter a truce
  * Those that don't accept remain at war
• Any member can surrender to any individual or all opponents
  * When they surrender only they, your allies do not surrender, you can never surrender of behalf of your ally (unless they are a vassal or protectorate!)
  * When you surrender you leave the war
  * If you signed a defensive pact and surrender before your own War Exhaustion reaches 75% AND the other empire (which you signed) is still at war then you become humiliated and gain a -25% diplomatic weight malus for 10 years to represent your reputation as an oath breaker
• You can join an ongoing war IF you guarantee independence to an empire, this will apply similar effects as Defensive Pact
  * You can also be invited into a war in exchange for favors, but that does NOT impose the effect of Defensive Pact

 

[Colonizor48]

Part 1: The TL;DR version (of this suggestion)
TL;DR: the the way war- especially joint war works is too rigid, it leaves empires with too few options, it feels stiffing and these harsh rules do not make sense from an RP sense. They also suck as game mechanics.

But there's a better way, one that makes sense, is fair, is fun, and will improve the whole game. Please join me in the non-TL;DR version.

Part 2: The non-TL;DR version (of this suggestion)
Okay now that it's just us nerds left let me start by saying we should probably overhaul the entire war mechanic. The 1.9 system had a lot of bad but it had a lot of good too, a lot of good that was removed unnecessarily. But I'm a visionary and wish to only learn from the past, not emulate it. So for this I'll have two segments of part 2, one dedicated to Wargoals and Peace Treaties. The other dedicated to the Rules of Joint War

Wargoals and Peace Treaties

• Claims work like they do right now, I like claims, claims are a good idea IMO
• You may also "claim" policies and effects on the enemy, like Humiliation, Despoilation, End Atrocities (slavery/genocide), Stop building robots (if spiritualist)
  * You must also have those policies that you seek to impose, imposing a policy claim costs 50 influence, you gain 100 if they surrender to them
• You can also claim their government type, this will result in a liberation type war rather than a war of conquest
  * If you sue for peace then this claim is mutually exclusive with systems claims, and if they surrender to you then they change policy
• When you attempt to sue for Status Quo peace you may bargin for claims that you have occupied to encourage the enemy to accept peace
  * Example, you have claim and occupancy of a 5 systems, you offer status quo peace if you get only 4
  * Your claims will be relinquished if you propose it, the AI will be strongly encouraged to accept.
• You may declare war during a peace treaty, but there are several costs
  * It costs 250 influence to break a peace treaty
  * You gain the Oath Breaker malus of -25% diplomatic weight (as your words are seen as less valuable)
• If you have access to a "Total War" style CB then that replaces the regular claims but you must still claim their empire (similar to claim policy)

Rules of Joint War
Hello
When you have a single war with two or more parties on one side the rules for the participants works like this

• All individual empires track their own War Exhaustion individually
• Any members can sue for status quo peace individually
  * Every enemy has to decide individually whether they accept status quo peace
  * Those that accept become non-hostile and enter a truce
  * Those that don't accept remain at war
• Any member can surrender to any individual or all opponents
  * When they surrender only they, your allies do not surrender, you can never surrender of behalf of your ally (unless they are a vassal or protectorate!)
  * When you surrender you leave the war
  * If you signed a defensive pact and surrender before your own War Exhaustion reaches 75% AND the other empire (which you signed) is still at war then you become humiliated and gain a -25% diplomatic weight malus for 10 years to represent your reputation as an oath breaker
• You can join an ongoing war IF you guarantee independence to an empire, this will apply similar effects as Defensive Pact
  * You can also be invited into a war in exchange for favors, but that does NOT impose the effect of Defensive Pact

Sorry for necroposting but this is amazing and still just as relivant.

 

[Colonizor48]

While were at it an option to peacefully sort out claims for empires that are freidnly with eachother but have claims on eachother for whatever reason. And an option to make demands to pathetic empires to do them peacefully if you are strong enough relitive to them without war. And a plunder type wargoal where you could steal pops/resources and select what pops/resources to steal. Or have them give you monthly stuff for a bit. Or contribute pop growth speed to your empire at the cost of their own(maybe) And humiliation too. Maybe even wargoals to do stuff like forcibly open borders and steal technology. Or to guarantee an empires neutrality(The empire would have to break all diplomatic pacts that arent non agression pacts. and couldnt join wars or make new pacts for a certain amount of time. While were at it also make the war system easier to mod.

 

[Mastikator]

While were at it an option to peacefully sort out claims for empires that are freidnly with eachother but have claims on eachother for whatever reason.

Once upon a time I made a post about calculating the value of systems for AI so that you can buy it.

The short story was that
systems that cut off their empire = no, no buy
systems with megastructures = no, no buy
systems with planets = depends, they're extremely expensive! (see below!)
systems with only space resources = can be bought, price depends on spent resources and expected income from system

It IS possible to calculate the value of a system, the AI should always calculate the highest reasonable value. A human player would probably do that in multiplayer.

 

[Colonizor48]

Once upon a time I made a post about calculating the value of systems for AI so that you can buy it.

The short story was that
systems that cut off their empire = no, no buy
systems with megastructures = no, no buy
systems with planets = depends, they're extremely expensive! (see below!)
systems with only space resources = can be bought, price depends on spent resources and expected income from system

It IS possible to calculate the value of a system, the AI should always calculate the highest reasonable value. A human player would probably do that in multiplayer.

But value of a system should also take into account relitive navy strength. And also bonuses depending ont he planet majority species/ethics and stuff like that. And ais should be more willing if they have good relations.

 

[darh]

I totally agree .... we have to fix this, it is not right .... also it is impossible for my empire to have an "overwhelming" power and in the options it comes out that I can submit to an empire that is "pathetic" , ridiculous !. Also if I am equivalent to another empire in everything, I still cannot declare war on him ...... what should be done? insult him ?, close borders ?, spoil relationships? .. I have already done it and even then you cannot .... that becomes annoying

 

[Tamwin5]

Once upon a time I made a post about calculating the value of systems for AI so that you can buy it.

The short story was that
systems that cut off their empire = no, no buy
systems with megastructures = no, no buy
systems with planets = depends, they're extremely expensive! (see below!)
systems with only space resources = can be bought, price depends on spent resources and expected income from system

It IS possible to calculate the value of a system, the AI should always calculate the highest reasonable value. A human player would probably do that in multiplayer.

They should only *sell* at the highest reasonable rate. They should only buy if they have really good relations to you (or a certain trust threshold?), and value systems far less (to prevent selling some stuff and then immediately warring to get it back). Honestly to just prevent gaminess, I think a system of not selling planets ever might be decent. You'd also need to deal with stuff like not selling off key chokepoints or expansion routes. There's a lot of situations you need to predict and code for, so honestly I'm not surprised by them not putting any work into the feature. Plenty of lower hanging fruit.

 

[Tamwin5]

Part 1: The TL;DR version (of this suggestion)
TL;DR: the the way war- especially joint war works is too rigid, it leaves empires with too few options, it feels stiffing and these harsh rules do not make sense from an RP sense. They also suck as game mechanics.

But there's a better way, one that makes sense, is fair, is fun, and will improve the whole game. Please join me in the non-TL;DR version.

Part 2: The non-TL;DR version (of this suggestion)
Okay now that it's just us nerds left let me start by saying we should probably overhaul the entire war mechanic. The 1.9 system had a lot of bad but it had a lot of good too, a lot of good that was removed unnecessarily. But I'm a visionary and wish to only learn from the past, not emulate it. So for this I'll have two segments of part 2, one dedicated to Wargoals and Peace Treaties. The other dedicated to the Rules of Joint War

Wargoals and Peace Treaties

• Claims work like they do right now, I like claims, claims are a good idea IMO
• You may also "claim" policies and effects on the enemy, like Humiliation, Despoilation, End Atrocities (slavery/genocide), Stop building robots (if spiritualist)
  * You must also have those policies that you seek to impose, imposing a policy claim costs 50 influence, you gain 100 if they surrender to them
• You can also claim their government type, this will result in a liberation type war rather than a war of conquest
  * If you sue for peace then this claim is mutually exclusive with systems claims, and if they surrender to you then they change policy
• When you attempt to sue for Status Quo peace you may bargin for claims that you have occupied to encourage the enemy to accept peace
  * Example, you have claim and occupancy of a 5 systems, you offer status quo peace if you get only 4
  * Your claims will be relinquished if you propose it, the AI will be strongly encouraged to accept.
• You may declare war during a peace treaty, but there are several costs
  * It costs 250 influence to break a peace treaty
  * You gain the Oath Breaker malus of -25% diplomatic weight (as your words are seen as less valuable)
• If you have access to a "Total War" style CB then that replaces the regular claims but you must still claim their empire (similar to claim policy)

Rules of Joint War
Hello
When you have a single war with two or more parties on one side the rules for the participants works like this

• All individual empires track their own War Exhaustion individually
• Any members can sue for status quo peace individually
  * Every enemy has to decide individually whether they accept status quo peace
  * Those that accept become non-hostile and enter a truce
  * Those that don't accept remain at war
• Any member can surrender to any individual or all opponents
  * When they surrender only they, your allies do not surrender, you can never surrender of behalf of your ally (unless they are a vassal or protectorate!)
  * When you surrender you leave the war
  * If you signed a defensive pact and surrender before your own War Exhaustion reaches 75% AND the other empire (which you signed) is still at war then you become humiliated and gain a -25% diplomatic weight malus for 10 years to represent your reputation as an oath breaker
• You can join an ongoing war IF you guarantee independence to an empire, this will apply similar effects as Defensive Pact
  * You can also be invited into a war in exchange for favors, but that does NOT impose the effect of Defensive Pact

Fan of the potential to change policy, but I'm not sure about the amount of influence you'd get from it. You'd be incentivized to basically just mass policy change an empire to get a ton of influence. I'd rather that having policy claims on other empires, and enforcing those claims via war, are faction demands. Maybe drop the influence cost of a policy claim to 25 or even just remove it if that route is chosen though.

Why would claims be mutually exclusive with policy changes? If an authoritarian bully captured several systems from me in an old war, why wouldn't I be able to take my territory back and enforce no slaving on them? I do think there should be an option to say "Alright, I'll surrender to your demands if you don't take any territory", but there should also be an option to say the opposite, as well as a way to just demand everything. Another way to do it is that on surrender you only give up any occupied systems, HOWEVER the "Conquer" war goal enforces all claims even on a surrender. This would give you a reason to use conquer over humiliate or some other cassus belli. Not sure how that would work with policy demands though.

Basically, there just needs to be a way to barter demands in a peace deal. I'll pay you a ton of money if you give up the systems you took and status quo, or I'll give you some systems you haven't taken yet if you'll end the war right now. The policy claims and separate peace deals would be great as well, but are honestly secondary to that.

 

[Colonizor48]

Could someone make a mod for this?

 

[Colonizor48]

Bump

 

[Ninjamestari]

There are a couple things I'd like to add:
You should be able to take systems you've conquered in the peace deal regardless of your claims; taking unclaimed systems could add some sort of diplomatic penalty and anger pacifist/xenophile/egalitarian factions for x years.
When going to war with an enemy that is also fighting a war against a third party, you should be able to declare a "cold war" against that AI that allows you to attack their ships in neutral/third party space, but not actually invade them; this would obviously give them a CB against you for a proper war. This would allow you to conquer planets taken by that third party without declaring a full scale war, and to have border skirmishes in neutral space. Nothing frustrates like not being able to vassalize an empire just because that third party controls that one damn planet they captured while you were busy conquering the other parts of the empire, a war they ALWAYS declare when the opponent becomes weaker due to you crushing their fleets.

On a final note, there are WAY too many diplomatic actions that are simply blocked by war; federation invites for example. You should absolutely be able to send vassalization demands and federation invites regardless of whether or not one party is involved in a war or not; changing alliances like that would just join you in the war if vassalization is accepted or if the warring empire joins a federation. Naturally being at war would reduce the willingness of the AI to accept such deals, but it shouldn't outright prevent it. This is perhaps the thing I hate THE MOST in Stellaris; there is always some goddamn war blocking all your diplomatic endeavors, and there are NO WAY of getting allies to help you once a war has been declared.

 

[Kiwibaum]

Ok so there's some good things there but also some I don't think are good to implement:

You may declare war during a peace treaty, but there are several costs
* It costs 250 influence to break a peace treaty
* You gain the Oath Breaker malus of -25% diplomatic weight (as your words are seen as less valuable)

I am not sure the costs are high enough for that.

If you have access to a "Total War" style CB then that replaces the regular claims but you must still claim their empire (similar to claim policy)

I am not sure why a fantaical purifier would feel the need to claim anything.

All individual empires track their own War Exhaustion individually

Any member can surrender to any individual or all opponents

While the first one could be ok the second one definetly isn't. You shouldn't be able to force single empires out of war and thus reduce the enemies fleet by a good chunk easily.

 

[Tamwin5]

I am not sure the costs are high enough for that.

Another good potential cost for truce-breaking is that you start the war with 50 war exhaustion.

 

[Mastikator]

While the first one could be ok the second one definetly isn't. You shouldn't be able to force single empires out of war and thus reduce the enemies fleet by a good chunk easily.

That's the point. You can surrender to claims against you against any empire at war with you, when you do you leave that war. Individual empires decide when they surrender.

Forced status quo remains the way it is: you force the entire enemy to stand down all at once. Before forced status quo is an option they may individually choose to accept status quo, or surrender early but that is only their decision. Not yours and not their allies. And you may too.

The goal is to maximize empire autonomy and sovereignty

 

[fourteenfour]

The Claim system is what is wrong with the current system because not all empires participate in it.

Influence should be used to get your empire to initiate a war and continue past exhaustion points with escalating costs to ignore the end. Depending on empire ethics, perks, and civics, your costs can change and even the state of war matters. hell some empires might have to pay influence to stop engaging in war!

with regards to who gains the system will need some effort delving into how Federations work, alliances, and defensive pacts. However by default the total war system should be the main means of deciding with the option to return systems to the original owner as done in Khan wars; though your own civics may decide it for you and might even cost you influence to give up such a system

 

[Kiwibaum]

The Claim system is what is wrong with the current system because not all empires participate in it.

Influence should be used to get your empire to initiate a war and continue past exhaustion points with escalating costs to ignore the end. Depending on empire ethics, perks, and civics, your costs can change and even the state of war matters. hell some empires might have to pay influence to stop engaging in war!

with regards to who gains the system will need some effort delving into how Federations work, alliances, and defensive pacts. However by default the total war system should be the main means of deciding with the option to return systems to the original owner as done in Khan wars; though your own civics may decide it for you and might even cost you influence to give up such a system

Every war being total war would most likely mean that an empire would usually fall in a single war if the war exhaustion is not massively increased.

 

[Mastah Jedi]

I dont know about all that you got there. Pretty big wish list. I want something much more accessible, and easily implemented. I want mines. I want ship roles which lay or sweep mines. Like HOI4 ships. This instantly adds depth, tactical and strategic. Lay galactic mine fields in key choke points, or dangerous borders. So on.

 

[GOLANX]

That's the point. You can surrender to claims against you against any empire at war with you, when you do you leave that war. Individual empires decide when they surrender.

Forced status quo remains the way it is: you force the entire enemy to stand down all at once. Before forced status quo is an option they may individually choose to accept status quo, or surrender early but that is only their decision. Not yours and not their allies. And you may too.

The goal is to maximize empire autonomy and sovereignty

I agree on Surrender not on Status Quo. I've had it a couple of times where I completely occupy another empire and their allies can't help them other than to buy time and wait out my war exhaustion. It's a death knell to their empire when they get ripped in half especially if I was going for a vassilation rather than annexation they are better off being a vassal than getting torn apart. One time I was playing Scion origin and fought a war to bring my neighbor into the fold, I couldn't challenge the ally until I occupied the original empire I was fighting, not only did I run out of war exhaustion forcing the empire I was trying to vassilize get ripped apart but the breakaway state didn't become a vassal of the FE instead it immediately became a vassal of the empire I was trying to bring into the fold who immediately began integrating the vassal so by the time I could try again I was back at square one.

Status quo I feel if you have a federation or defense pact you are along for the ride wether you like it or not, you either give up all the goodies or not at all you have a commitment to your allies to fight at their side. If you just invited another empire to join a war with you and you aren't in a defense pact or federation then separate Status quo makes sense you don't have an obligation to your allies.

 

[Kiwibaum]

Honestly a diplomatic penalty could still be waranted. I mean who likes someone that leaves their allies alone in a war. -x opinion from other empires might be ok.

 

[GOLANX]

Honestly a diplomatic penalty could still be waranted. I mean who likes someone that leaves their allies alone in a war. -x opinion from other empires might be ok.

-x opinion would have to be big for defense pacts or Federations. At the minimum you would have to end the defense pact and be ejected from the federation and that's as much for the mechanics as the flavor. It's not this small thing that you can pave over with favors and an envoy you could easily change the course of the war.