War exhaustion - same v nme with no planet

[kuertee]

There's a war exhaustion calculation weirdness.

I've occupied more than half of an enemy's systems including his capital - the only planet he had. He has no shipyards left - only 5 star bases, which he all built during the war.

And war exhaustion between us is still calculated at 55% v 55% - which sounds wrong. Note that the numbers used to calculate the values seems correct - according to the tooltips.

Here are 4 screenshots which illustrate this weirdness:

1. At war with an enemy with only one planet, the capital, which I've occupied: https://imgur.com/QG71iqe
2. 55% war exhaustion (mine) v 55% war exhaustion (theirs). Pertinent numbers are highlighted. I've occupied the enemy's last remaining planet, the capital, and war exhaustion between our empires are the same? Why?: https://imgur.com/w0nm5Xy
3. Shown here are the systems in the northern half of the enemy's territory that I've occupied. The last planet, the capital, which I've invaded and occupied, has a tooltip. There are 6 unoccupied systems which contain only 2 star bases - i.e. no shipyards: https://imgur.com/f6VSLwZ
4. The systems in the southern half of the enemy's empire that I've yet to occupy. It only contains outposts and star bases - i.e. no shipyards: https://imgur.com/XnpFOGC

Here is the full IMGUR's link which contains all four screenshots in one post: https://imgur.com/a/JLhJbL0

I think that occupied planets, especially the occupied capital, should be given more "weight" in the war exhaustion algorithm.

Or, better yet, a percentage of occupied planets, a percentage of occupied systems, and the occupied capital are used in the algorithm - rather than flat numbers.

EDIT (I've added a reply of mine as an edit to this original post just for convenience of others.):

He has no more ships. And I've conquered all his systems now.
Occupation still at 36% only - due to his defensive pact with the other empire.
His willingness is still at -39%.

I've added to the screenshots:

1. Conquered all the enemy's northern territory: https://imgur.com/YsEz3vq
2. Conquered all the enemy's southern territory: https://imgur.com/6iNMX0G
3. The enemy's acceptance to defeat is still at -39. Even if the enemy has a defensive pact with Zaanami Imperium, who has not helped, nor has Zaanami attacked me, this outcome to the war still seems weird to me. The enemy has no fleets, nor planets, nor outposts, and the enemy still will not accept vassalisation: https://imgur.com/4Bz0Vbr
4. The enemy's response to me when I demanded he submit to vasalisation: https://imgur.com/Ln2bIvU

I understand that the algorithm is working as intended. That is not my criticism. My criticism is that the intended outcome seems weird to me.

EDIT:

One last image, just to complete the picture:

1. The enemy has a defensive pact with an empire that is inferior to me: https://imgur.com/dsJd3ux

 

[Peko?]

Pretty uneventful war so far I see, almost all the war exhaustion in that war is from attrition. Occupation doesn't figure in to war exhaustion, it 'just' modifies the enemies willingness to status quo/surrender.

The Zaanami Imperium is a part of that war too, to get to a hundred percent occupation you're going to have to occupy their territory as well. Occupying the rest of the Nharrbo's systems ought to remove the -50 for demanding unclaimed systems so that's worth doing. After that, go at the Zaanami. If you can force some engagements you can raise their war exhaustion and improve that relative fleet strength modifier at the same time. You should be able to push the numbers high enough that they'll surrender. It might be a bit tedious though.

 

[Volapyk]

War exhaustion is calculated purely by losses in combat and time, if you want to vassalize them you will need to kill some more of their ships or wait a long time, as well as occupying more of their territory, especially the one you have claimed. Also worth noting the % occupation is calculated from all participants so you will need to deal with their ally as well to get them to accept.

 

[LockdownX7]

I think that occupied planets, especially the occupied capital, should be given more "weight" in the war exhaustion algorithm.

Or, better yet, a percentage of occupied planets, a percentage of occupied systems, and the occupied capital are used in the algorithm - rather than flat numbers.

There's no weirdness here, you're just confusing War Exhaustion with Occupation, and expecting the former to work like the latter.

War exhaustion represents how tired each empire is of the war, not how well the war is going. Maxing out the enemy's war exhaustion only allows you to force them into a status quo, not a complete surrender, so if you're looking for total victory, war exhaustion is NOT the stat you want to focus on.

Occupation, on the other hand, is a much more accurate representation of who's winning and losing the war. Getting Occupation to 100% always allows you to force an immediate surrender, and you pretty much never even need to stack that much before surrender acceptance goes into the positives.

There's one caveat, though, which you have ran into: occupation is calculated from the total planets and systems owned by all of the enemy empires. Which means that if you go to war with a tiny empire that has a defensive pact with a massive empire, just taking the tiny empire's systems won't be enough, you'll need to occupy a significant portion of the massive empire too, so the tiny empire gets the message that there's no chance of rescue by their buddy, and will accept surrender. On a related note, some wargoals can be executed partially via a status quo: for example, if you're occupying half of an enemy empire during a vassalization war and end it with a status quo, the systems you were holding are turned into a new vassal. So in your case, a status quo might be enough for what you want, as you can already press that demand.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Keep in mind that the "Status Quo" outcome currently DOES NOT work for subjugation wars.

 

[kuertee]

He has no more ships. And I've conquered all his systems now.
Occupation still at 36% only - due to his defensive pact with the other empire.
His willingness is still at -39%.

I've added to the screenshots:

1. Conquered all the enemy's northern territory: https://imgur.com/YsEz3vq
2. Conquered all the enemy's southern territory: https://imgur.com/6iNMX0G
3. The enemy's acceptance to defeat is still at -39. Even if the enemy has a defensive pact with Zaanami Imperium, who has not helped, nor has Zaanami attacked me, this outcome to the war still seems weird to me. The enemy has no fleets, nor planets, nor outposts, and the enemy still will not accept vassalisation: https://imgur.com/4Bz0Vbr
4. The enemy's response to me when I demanded he submit to vasalisation: https://imgur.com/Ln2bIvU

I understand that the algorithm is working as intended. That is not my criticism. My criticism is that the intended outcome seems weird to me.

 

[LockdownX7]

That's fair. Devs had to make a decision between these:

- Option A: The main enemy empire fully surrenders as soon as all their planets are taken, regardless of number of allies involved in the war.
- Option B: Victory requires the majority of enemy planets to be occupied.

Devs went with B, which does sometimes lead to stale wars when the enemy's allies are cut off from you due to closed borders. However, option A would have had worse implications for gameplay, as wars would revolve entirely around blitzkriegs to force surrender of small empires before their allies can even bring their fleet to bear, making defensive pacts and federations laughable in many cases.

 

[kuertee]

That's fair. Devs had to make a decision between these:

- Option A: The main enemy empire fully surrenders as soon as all their planets are taken, regardless of number of allies involved in the war.
- Option B: Victory requires the majority of enemy planets to be occupied.

Devs went with B, which does sometimes lead to stale wars when the enemy's allies are cut off from you due to closed borders. However, option A would have had worse implications for gameplay, as wars would revolve entirely around blitzkriegs to force surrender of small empires before their allies can even bring their fleet to bear, making defensive pacts and federations laughable in many cases.

Agreed.

But one last image, just to complete the picture:

1. The enemy has a defensive pact with an empire that is inferior to me: https://imgur.com/dsJd3ux

 

[MK1980]

you're in a war against two empires and you (more or less) defeated one of the 2. still have to defeat their ally.

technically you could reach your goals through a status quo peace at this point since you already seem to occupy everything you were after. unfortunately the partial victory for vassalization is broken right now, so you actually have to properly win (ie. force surrender). that's a bug and it used to work before 2.2, but there's not much you can do about that right now.

war exhaustion doesn't have much to do with the outcome of the war, really. it's little more than a timer/counter that allows the pariticipants to *force* a status quo peace when their opponent hits 100%.

it's also a modifier in the actual war score (the number on the "Achieve War Goals" button), though. so slaughtering their fleets and armies still helps winning the war a little sooner

 

[AlanC9]

There is a serious problem with the WE mechanic, though I'm not sure it's important for this particular case. Doing too well in a war causes the war to go on longer than it otherwise would have. Once you've taken all the enemy's shipyards, or all his forges, you're not going to score any more WE since he can't fight anymore.