War exhaustion - attrition

[MarKr]

Hi,

the war exhaustion system does not make much logical sense in general but I can understand why it was introduced for the gameplay reason. However I feel the "attrition" factor makes no sense even from the gameplay perspective.

It "ticks" so the attrition is accumulated simply by being at war. This leads to weird scenarios - in my last war my neighbor declared a war on me. For about the first 6 - 12 months there was no fighting at all - I did not enter their space, they did not enter mine and yet there were attrition points gathered on both sides and actually I had more war exhaustion from this "nothing happening" than my enemy.

What is the point of the attrition ticking? I understand the WE gain from losing ships, armies and being occupied but gaining WE when literarly nothing is happening? Is there some reason why there is this "duration limit" on wars? Would some game mechanic get broken if you were in a war for 200 years?

Could perhaps the ticking system get replaced by something more sensible? E.g. since the start of war it would count attrition points for resources spent on building ships, defenses and armies?

Or perhaps there is something that I don't see and the "duration limit" is actually needed to prevent some game-breaking scenarios?

 

[Quizzical]

Hi,

the war exhaustion system does not make much logical sense in general but I can understand why it was introduced for the gameplay reason. However I feel the "attrition" factor makes no sense even from the gameplay perspective.

It "ticks" so the attrition is accumulated simply by being at war. This leads to weird scenarios - in my last war my neighbor declared a war on me. For about the first 6 - 12 months there was no fighting at all - I did not enter their space, they did not enter mine and yet there were attrition points gathered on both sides and actually I had more war exhaustion from this "nothing happening" than my enemy.

What is the point of the attrition ticking? I understand the WE gain from losing ships, armies and being occupied but gaining WE when literarly nothing is happening? Is there some reason why there is this "duration limit" on wars? Would some game mechanic get broken if you were in a war for 200 years?

Could perhaps the ticking system get replaced by something more sensible? E.g. since the start of war it would count attrition points for resources spent on building ships, defenses and armies?

Or perhaps there is something that I don't see and the "duration limit" is actually needed to prevent some game-breaking scenarios?

I think it’s mean’t to represent the fact the populace is growing weary of the fighting and pushes the government to end the war, but I get your point, i’ve Had AI declare war on me and then sit there doing nothing because their war exhaustion ticks by slower.

If I rember it correctly the dev’s put it in to prevent wars continueing indefinitely and this conquering whole empires in single war and to force people to be plan ahead and be more aggressive in wars

It would be quite nice to tie war exhaustion into to resources spent on war like you suggested, and maybe increase the number of amenities pops use as the war extenders allowing the daily ‘attrition’ to instead be caused by pop approval and occupation rather. Means stagnant wars could draw out into Sort of cold wars

 

[MarKr]

I think it’s mean’t to represent the fact the populace is growing weary of the fighting

Yes, but as I said - it grows even when there is no fighting at all.

If I rember it correctly the dev’s put it in to prevent wars continueing indefinitely and this conquering whole empires in single war and to force people to be plan ahead and be more aggressive in wars

What is the problem with dragging the wars for decades? I can perhaps see the thing that when you are in war you cannot form some political pacts but even if opponent keeps you in war, he suffers from the same problem.

I also think that some sort of a different way to make people end wars would be better, some penatlies to produced resources over time/pop growth etc. so that it would force you to end the war eventually because over time it would be come too hard on economy or something, rather than "time is up, we must end the war now"

 

[jalapen0]

It makes no sense for machines at all. Why would they care if they fight and "die". They just make more.

Either way, if its just for balance reasons, it should be tied to deaths. Right now its just a timer to war, its pretty silly.

 

[Leylos]

The system exists so that wars will end eventually no matter what happens. It might not make sense as far as logic goes but for gameplay reasons alone it is a good mechanic.

 

[Xeorm]

I would regard attrition as being the gradual irritations associated with war. From issues sending off soldiers to die, the worry of impending attacks, and small border skirmishes. Things that shouldn't be represented on a galactic scale but that do happen.

Yes, but as I said - it grows even when there is no fighting at all.

What is the problem with dragging the wars for decades? I can perhaps see the thing that when you are in war you cannot form some political pacts but even if opponent keeps you in war, he suffers from the same problem.

I also think that some sort of a different way to make people end wars would be better, some penatlies to produced resources over time/pop growth etc. so that it would force you to end the war eventually because over time it would be come too hard on economy or something, rather than "time is up, we must end the war now"

Wars dragging on are fairly rare in history and attrition provides a handy tool for promoting partial peaces. Issues for having war give negative penalties comes from war being a two-sided affair. It's easy for one side to prolong the conflict if they want to unless there's some forced mechanic for peace. The EU and CK games have proven that pretty well.

Personally I really, really like how the status quo system works out. Partial peaces are fantastic at representing how war tends to go. Both sides claim victory, small territorial advantages, and it doesn't feel like one side was limited in what they took based off of arbitrary mechanics like only being able to take 3 provinces per war.

It makes no sense for machines at all. Why would they care if they fight and "die". They just make more.

Either way, if its just for balance reasons, it should be tied to deaths. Right now its just a timer to war, its pretty silly.

Why do you worry about being cut? You can just make more cells.

 

[MarKr]

I would regard attrition as being the gradual irritations associated with war. From issues sending off soldiers to die, the worry of impending attacks, and small border skirmishes. Things that shouldn't be represented on a galactic scale but that do happen.

I was thinking that too, but then there are the other factors of WE - you gain WE from losing ships, armies and from having occupied planets so I would say this falls into the "gradual irritations associated with war" so it again leads to "attrition is just timer". It does not represent any kind of "irritation of people". I mean, sure, if someone told me that my country is in war I would be affraid of all sorts of possible outcomes but it is hard to say how long would this fear last if I knew that we've been in war over a year and there has been no fighting what so ever.

I just think the attrition aspect could be handleded better, in some way that would be less confusing and more reflecting what the attrattri is meant to reflect.

As the war drags on, the influence income could be lower and lower, and depending on the state of war (winning/losing) and possibly factions the pops belong to, the happiness of pops could progresively drop. This would affect the stability of thr empire, resource production and thus economy. Over time you would need to end the war or your economy would collapse and recovering would take too long.

It could be of course affected by more things e.g. pacifists starting a war would lose the happiness faster than e.g.militarists. But pacifists in defensive war would lose the happiness slower. It could depend on the cassus beli in relation to the empire types. The reverse of the happiness loss would not be instant once the war ends, the happiness could gradually return to normal over the peroid which could equal tl the length of the war ornit could be 1.5x length of the war so it would not be beneficial to keep the war going longer than needed because the recovery time could give your rivals time to get ahead of you. There would need to be some alternative for empires not affected by happiness.

So if your economy was stronger than your opponent's you would be able to keep the war going for longer time. But the white peace would stay.

 

[HGD3ATH]

The system exists so that wars will end eventually no matter what happens. It might not make sense as far as logic goes but for gameplay reasons alone it is a good mechanic.

Also I imagine MP would be a nightmare without it.

 

[jalapen0]

Why do you worry about being cut? You can just make more cells.

I suppose the question is, do machines have feelings? Most scifi I've seen says no, but not all. Interesting observation though.

 

[Namfuak]

From how I read it, it doesn't automatically end the war after 24 months, it gives your opponent the opportunity to force you to accept a status quo peace. So at least if you have a war where both participants want to continue, there's no issue. However, it seems to me that like the OP said, it would be much better if instead of arbitrarily allowing the other side to end the war, if it started adding penalties to happiness, could cause protest events that reduce stability, etc. If the devs want to stop people from being able to conquer a whole country in one war, they should put in natural mechanics to make occupation costly - occupied planets should flip back if they don't have armies on them, and have a chance depending on population to number of occupying armies to have the people form into militias to fight the occupying armies. They could also bleed the occupying empire with guerrilla actions (in events), destroying energy credits and food. Unoccupied planets in occupied systems could also put together militia fleets to take back the system outpost if there are no enemy forces guarding it.

 

[Hyomoto]

From a literal perspective, war don't make sense because Stellaris doesn't really explain it. Perhaps like 'admin cap', 'attrition' is just an unfortunate term. But, if you view it as a mechanical system it does make a little more sense, even within the universe itself.

Basically, any empire that doesn't have a Total War casus belli agrees to abide by some conduct of war. Regardless of ethics, traits, civics or size, every empire agrees to follow the rules of war: war goals must be declared, claims must be declared, and most importantly, treaties must be respected. As others have said, attrition is basically your public saying "go fight the ****ing war or end it". Thousands of options, ideas and alternatives have been thrown out to fix, replace or update the current war system. For me, however, until such a change comes along if you remember this about Stellaris and war it really isn't awful or even weird. The problem is that Stellaris never fills you in on what the rules of war you are apparently abiding by are. However, if you know the rules it's pretty easy to make war work for you. Things like attrition become helpful, because it's just a timer until you can force a status quo resolution and take their lands.

 

[Pyoro]

Not having a ticking attrition could probably be exploited for various reasons. Of course, having a ticking attrition can be exploited too - fought a defensive war against a superior enemy; waited until it ticked up to nearly 100% with lots of nothing going on, then snatched a system just before reaching 100%.
...
Well, I had the same thing backfire on me too, but, ya know. It's one of those things. ^^

 

[MarKr]

Perhaps like 'admin cap', 'attrition' is just an unfortunate term.

I would agree to this. I understand the mechanism behind it - to make it impossible to conquer entire empire of inferior player in "one go" and I think it was a good move to introduce this - I would have preffered if the "timer" was made more in the way of growing penalties so that it would be in your interest not to prolong the war, rather than having to end the war because "the time is up".

I just think it is weird to call the timer "attrition" and keep it ticking even when there is nothing happening at all - if nothing is happening, no fighting takes place it does not really exhaust your empire and citizens can hardly be upset by the war which practically changes noting in their lives.