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[askovdk]

That's absurd.  I wasn't trying to wipe them out, I was trying to make them my vassals.  Just showing up with my navy should have scared them into surrender, I had like 10x the strength of them.  Certainly blowing up every last one of their warships, science vessels, and construction ships should have made their decision easy.  Certainly the fact that I occupied their capital was something they should have been worried about...  They should have been thrilled I was offering both my protection and access to my fantastic tech... Instead the AI insisted on being completely stomped, which obviously puts them further from victory.

Hmm, somethow this get me thinking of Afganistan. 2 superpowers have in turn wiped out all visible opposition, but neither been able to claim it as 'vassal'.
It can always be discussed how to model it in games, but I find it fair, that winning 'Hearts and Mind' / having a true Vassal takes a lot longer than just wiping out the opposing assets. 

[Damiac]

That's absurd.  I wasn't trying to wipe them out, I was trying to make them my vassals.  Just showing up with my navy should have scared them into surrender, I had like 10x the strength of them.  Certainly blowing up every last one of their warships, science vessels, and construction ships should have made their decision easy.  Certainly the fact that I occupied their capital was something they should have been worried about...  They should have been thrilled I was offering both my protection and access to my fantastic tech... Instead the AI insisted on being completely stomped, which obviously puts them further from victory.

Hmm, somethow this get me thinking of Afganistan. 2 superpowers have in turn wiped out all visible opposition, but neither been able to claim it as 'vassal'.
It can always be discussed how to model it in games, but I find it fair, that winning 'Hearts and Mind' / having a true Vassal takes a lot longer than just wiping out the opposing assets. 

There are some important differences here.  I think Iraq is the better metaphor, but both probably work.
Superpower(s) show up and dismantle the existing problematic state.  The problematic state pretty much instantly surrenders, because people don't want to be dead. How long exactly was iraq's military a problem during the invasion? It wasn't at all.

The next step is what you're talking about.  OK, now I'm nominally in charge of iraq.  The state I fought is gone.  But, the pops are unhappy! They don't like my ethics! Oh no! Unrest!
This is already modeled in game with fully conquered planets, but not with vassals.  You take over a bunch of planets, but the pops won't do any work or produce anything until you make them happy, "Winning hearts and minds".

Having the pops of an empire that agrees to be a vassal start revolting would make some sense, or even having parts of that empire splinter off into separate new empires.  What doesn't make sense is the state whose ass I just kicked being the one who won't surrender.  Like... I'm here with a gun to your head, no isn't an option dummy.  You think Saddam wouldn't have agreed to pretty much anything to stay in charge of Iraq?

Basically, you storm the capital of a state, you have the leader of the state at your mercy, they surrender, because why the hell wouldn't they? Don't they want to keep living, and potentially keep whatever power they have and maybe use that to defeat me someday?

Since we're talking about aliens, it'd be ok if the some of the super fierce militant aliens really were willing to fight to the last soldier, but that should be the exception.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Since we're talking about aliens, it'd be ok if the some of the super fierce militant aliens really were willing to fight to the last soldier, but that should be the exception.

On the other hand, this is galactic level civilizations we are talking about.  Statistical anomalies would still comprise a massive number of the population, and when the central government collapses, these anomolies might take charge to continue the fight.

[Damiac]

Since we're talking about aliens, it'd be ok if the some of the super fierce militant aliens really were willing to fight to the last soldier, but that should be the exception.

On the other hand, this is galactic level civilizations we are talking about.  Statistical anomalies would still comprise a massive number of the population, and when the central government collapses, these anomolies might take charge to continue the fight.

But that is clearly not what is happening, because the same leader and government stays in charge.  That would be interesting if it happened occasionally, the head of state tries to surrender, a militant xenophobic leader stages a coup, and part of the empire fractures off.  It'd be annoying if that was the result of every war, but as something that happens every few games it'd be cool. 

Also, from a gameplay standpoint, having to keep kicking the empire after I clearly already beat it isn't fun gameplay. We all know that empire is going to be my vassal, you're just making me sit around and look for extra stuff to blow up. That doesn't make for good emergent stories.

"And then after destroying the entire bug armada, every bug army on every planet, every bug shipyard, and occupying every bug planet, the bugs still refused to surrender, so the humans just kinda flew around for a while looking for other stuff to blow up. After a few years the bugs decided to surrender after all"

[USEC_OFFICER]

To be frank, this scenario is why there's a beta in the first place. The team has been pretty damn clear that WE needs a lot of tweaking still and they have been putting effort towards it. I would be surprised if they didn't put in an 'auto 100% WE when fully occupied' feature some time in the future. It's so damn obvious, and similar to how it works in other Paradox games, that it should have been included in the first place.

[Damiac]

Auto surrender at 100% occupation is a no-brainer.  I'm pretty sure it was in the game before version 2, even.  But that's not enough.  Completely overwhelmed empires should generally be trying to preserve their own lives.  Like, don't they realize if they don't surrender, my 50k strength fleet is probably going to demolish their 5k fleet, then bomb their planets? Don't those people not want to be dead?  I mean... if an empire is pathetic to me, they should be THRILLED to be my vassal and get access to my sweet technology! Even if it's to turn around a century later and use it against me!

[LoSboccacc]

domination system has been broken since strategy gaming was a thing, don't know why people still has expectations about it.

[Damiac]

Well since this game is still being developed, it seems like talking about the broken systems we don't like is probably a good idea?

[USEC_OFFICER]

We have plenty of real-life examples of nations getting crushed by obviously superior enemies instead of submitting to them so that scenario sounds acceptable to me. At most the numbers for accepting vassalization/whatever could use some tweaking so that power discrepancy is more important to some governments/ethnics and less to others. Lots of people are too stubborn to accept obvious facts and I doubt that aliens would be any different in that way.

[Damiac]

Well... there's a difference between "I know they have a bigger fleet but we have the heart to win, damn it!" and "They are literally right now blowing up the capital and killing millions of citizens and say they will continue unless we surrender, and also they already blew up our entire military"

But yeah, I agree the threshold should certainly be based on ethics. Militant and xenophobe types would be harder to convince than pacifist and xenophile types, after all. 

In this scenario, the obviously superior enemies have already crushed the small nation.  The small nation then says "Ahh, but look, I believe I see a single structure that's only half destroyed in the rubble that used to be our civilization. So you have to blow that up before we'll surrender".
At some point, the people on the ground want to stop being killed.

What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed? Usually occupying the capitol is enough to dismantle the state, whether they are willing to officially surrender or not.  That's different than partisan forces in an occupied state, for example, militants in iraq, partisans in france after their surrender in WW2, etc.  That's already modeled by the unrest system, to some degree.

[USEC_OFFICER]

What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed?

The various SSRs that the Soviets put up after WW2? For example, Hungary got occupied by the Soviets in 1945 and they didn't leave until 1989. The fact that the post WW2 Hungarian government turned communist is probably not a coincidence. Not to mention all of the colonial wars where the European powers disposed a ruler to set someone more receptive in their place.

Really, what should happen after a scenario like that is that the vassalized country should get a new ruler and maybe government. Maybe a minor ethics shift too, to be closer to their overlord. Something to represent the victors setting up a puppet government or someone more willing to collaborate.

[Cruxador]

Rather than an ethics shift, it seems like just giving them significant ethics attraction from the government ethics of the liege nation

[USEC_OFFICER]

Basically I wanted the new government to be closer to their overlord but not the same, to result in tension between the two nations and so on. That seemed like the most obvious solution to that problem.

I would also like lots of flavour events as the subject government struggles with their new ethics and demands of their overlord but we both know that ain't going to happen in vanilla Stellaris. I can still dream though.

[Damiac]

What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed?

The various SSRs that the Soviets put up after WW2? For example, Hungary got occupied by the Soviets in 1945 and they didn't leave until 1989. The fact that the post WW2 Hungarian government turned communist is probably not a coincidence. Not to mention all of the colonial wars where the European powers disposed a ruler to set someone more receptive in their place.

Really, what should happen after a scenario like that is that the vassalized country should get a new ruler and maybe government. Maybe a minor ethics shift too, to be closer to their overlord. Something to represent the victors setting up a puppet government or someone more willing to collaborate.

I think you misunderstand me. In your example, Hungary surrendered, did they not?

[PTTG??]

Happiness should probably play into it.

If the people have been happy and the factions satisfied for a long time, then even if things are bad now, they should probably be very resistant to giving up, even if they're pacifist xenophiles.