War exhaustion and Warcrimes

[Pancakelord]

So there's been plenty of threads on war exhaustion and it's failings in the past but I wanted to highlight something the game uses to calculate it's war exhaustion:

Attrition is, in my opinion, something that should really only be used for tiebreaking but attrition ends up being an over-sized component of the WE calculation, because the other components are not expansive enough.

Enemy defence armies [the 63 armies they lost above were all defence armies, my 6% came from about a dozen assault armies I think] not adding to war exhaustion is fine (from a gameplay pov) as that only happens when losing a planet, to make defenders also contribute to WE would be double-dipping, as planets will lower the AI threshold for surrendering.

Ships are fine .... though I'm of the opinion that losing Juggernauts / Titans should contribute even more war exhaustion (i'm not sure if the game differentiates between ship classes for WE at all or just uses the number of ships?), as they are effectively Flagships.

However my issue is with the "Destruction" line which is currently only used when you use a colossus.
I feel like this is an issue and contributes to why so many people have to "carpet siege" or sit around for ages waiting for WE to tick up.

IMO i'd change Destruction to account for the following actions in a war (ranked from least WE added per-action, to most WE added):

1. Destroying infrastructure
   1. Mining & Research stations
   2. Defence platforms
   3. Constructor ships
2. Devastation
   1. Amount of devastation dealt (Total % /10 = WE %? So if you knock out 10 planets, and do nothing else, you win? example numbers for illustration)
   2. #Pops Killed (bombardment)
3. Warcrimes (more on this below)
   1. #Pops raided (barbaric despoilers)
   2. Shooting down Colony ships
      • Colony ships should be "War exhaustion Piñatas"- they're pretty rare and shooting one down should net you lots of WE (5%?) for the sheer audacity/outrage it'd cause,
        • Colony ships are packed with families/kids - or in the case of gestalts juvenile drones or vital eggs (Hives) to start colonies or MI's rare AI/communications components to establish links to the collective.
        • 
4. Colossi uses (already does this)

Right now, dealing lots of infrastructure damage (if you force-target mining stations) or killing pops really doesn't do much to accelerate enemy WE (in fact the only real reason to bombard at all is to soften up enemy defences, and even this isn't a good idea if you plan to keep the planet afterwards), at the same time,

And to go with the above, I'd add:

1. A GC resolution to ban shooting down colony ships, as non-combatants (making them not automatically targetable for GC members - like mining stations),
   1. Force-targeting and shooting a colony ship down would then be a "warcrime" and put you in breach
      • + give a "-30 shot down colony ship".
   2. BUT when this resolution is passed, shooting down a colony ship would give your enemy even more war exhaustion (unless youre honorbound warriors I guess, then it'll piss off your own people too lol)
      • Certain AI personalities (e.g. devouring swarms) would always target colony ships, whilst others (say xenophiles) wouldnt.
2. A policy to authorise targeting Research/Mining stations and constructors: "Target enemy infrastructure" (Yes / No, leave it intact) -
   • no would work as the game currently does where mining/research stations arent automatically targeted by your ships, Yes would make them openly hostile/open for attack.
   • Certain AI personalities (e.g. despoilers) would always target infrastructure, whilst others (say materialists) wouldnt.
     • Barbaric despoilers could even gain a small amount (50? 100?) for each station they blow up "Raid",
     • e.g. 50 eng/soc/phys research per science station, minerals or energy from mining stations, or even strategic resources like Zro from stations over special deposits.
   • Some AI empires (and Fallen empires) might elect to target infrastructure during humiliation wars, too. To further cripple their target's economy.

 

[Lowkeyknight]

It does seem rather insane that conquering an enemy capital using Psionic soldiers with very little damage has less impact on war exhaustion that a massive fleet of battleships sitting in orbit raining down never ending indiscriminate death on the population with horrific bio weapons or just plain glassing everything and everyone in sight.

 

[MateuszS]

What about science ships ? Shouldn't these vessels (with scientist on board?) be treated as non-combatants like colony ships?

 

[Pancakelord]

What about science ships ? Shouldn't these vessels (with scientist on board?) be treated as non-combatants like colony ships?

I thought about that but there's two things that rub me the wrong way about science ships being civilian:

1. Science ships technically perform military reconnaissance:
   1. You need them to explore unvisited systems (there was a time when this wasnt the case, people would use the starting 3 corvettes to explore everything) - e.g. in early-game wars/fleet rushes through unclaimed space to other empires.
   2. And they actually make a pretty good scout in wars (at least in MP) where I can send them off through enemy systems - usually a few jumps ahead of my main fleet - as they'll move fast, don't cost much, always have the latest sensor tech and almost always get away from combat anyway. They also dont need a scientist to be used like this.
2. They interact with enemy wreckage. Whilst this is not strictly a combat role, tampering with and reverse engineering military hardware isn't exactly a "purely civilian" position, either.
   • I've always felt that wreckages should be scanned by construction ships, not science ships, for this reason.

 

[Tamwin5]

I thought about that but there's two things that rub me the wrong way about science ships being civilian:

1. Science ships technically perform military reconnaissance:
   1. You need them to explore unvisited systems (there was a time when this wasnt the case, people would use the starting 3 corvettes to explore everything) - e.g. in early-game wars/fleet rushes through unclaimed space to other empires.
   2. And they actually make a pretty good scout in wars (at least in MP) where I can send them off through enemy systems - usually a few jumps ahead of my main fleet - as they'll move fast, don't cost much, always have the latest sensor tech and almost always get away from combat anyway. They also dont need a scientist to be used like this.
2. They interact with enemy wreckage. Whilst this is not strictly a combat role, tampering with and reverse engineering military hardware isn't exactly a "purely civilian" position, either.
   • I've always felt that wreckages should be scanned by construction ships, not science ships, for this reason.

I think it would be cool if it was a choice: scan for some science, or salvage for a small amount of alloys.