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[Damiac]

How happy can they be while they're being murdered from orbit?

Some of the ideas proposed are cool, but I think maybe overly complex to expect to get into the game at this point in time.  The idea of vassal's being slowly morphed into a copy of their overlord's civilization is cool, but I'd be happy just to have most aliens act with some measure of self preservation.

What I'm most concerned with is the transition to vassal. Here's how I see it:

Superior power demands inferior power submit to vassalization - This should work sometimes, even if they don't really like you.  You're offering them protection, and in return they don't get to have agency in declaring wars and the like.  Why would a pacifist mind this?  But maybe they believe it would be too much hassle for me to invade them, so they refuse, and we come to:

Assuming inferior power refuses to submit, superior power declares war - This is another point where some empires should probably just immediately give up.  Basically, they bluffed, and I called their bluff.  They still know they can't win, so it makes sense for there to be a good chance of surrender here. But maybe they're deluded enough to think they can win, or they know their people wouldn't follow them if they surrendered without a fight, so next we get to:

Superior power demonstrates superiority - This would be where I blow up their entire navy.  This would be a very, very logical place to surrender.  OK, we tried to defend ourselves, that didn't work, maybe now we surrender to stop the killing?  At this point, they can't stop me from bombing their worlds, I'm killing civilians at this point.  Those civilians would be putting a ton of pressure on the government to do whatever it takes to stop the killing.  But, maybe they are really stubborn and stupid, and think somehow their armies will stop my invasion:

Occupations start - Now I'm invading their planets, bombing their people, and killing their surface armies.  Why would sensible aliens want this to continue? Only the most warlike and xenophobic empires should even consider not surrendering here, as it's basically surrender or die at this point. It's obviously just a matter of time here. We should almost never get to:

Inferior empire completely occupied - This just shouldn't happen.  How do they even still have a state at this point?  Super warlike or xenophobic species should probably just split off into individual planet-states or small fractured empires at this point, as they literally are willing to fight until they are all dead, but anyone else definitely should have surrendered by now.


Basically, I would think most intelligent aliens would have to have an innate sense of self preservation, otherwise they wouldn't have made it to space faring civilizations.  So "not being killed" should really be valued much higher. 

[LoSboccacc]

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

pretty much all roman empire protectorates?

modern day? iraq, afghanistan, lybia.

then you have those that have had their military utterly destroyed but kept coming back, like poland and hungary.

japan seems to still be existing as well.

[Damiac]

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

pretty much all roman empire protectorates?

modern day? iraq, afghanistan, lybia.

then you have those that have had their military utterly destroyed but kept coming back, like poland and hungary.

japan seems to still be existing as well.

Sorry, I didn't really ask the question properly. What I meant was, states continuing to exist after their military is destroyed and they are occupied without surrendering.  In other words, an occupied state either surrenders to the occupiers, or it ceases to exist.  Like the roman protectorates surrendered, that's why they became protectorates.  Japan's military was destroyed, and they surrendered (In ww2 at least). Iraq had the state dissolved (not that it worked out well) and a new state put in its place. 

That's more analogous to the game situation I'm describing.  In other words, I'm Russia, they're Hungary.
This all reminds me I should read more about early soviet expansion, there's a lot of interesting stuff there.

[LoSboccacc]

Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_government-in-exile

[Damiac]

Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_government-in-exile

That's a cool example of the kind of stuff that should happen with conquered/vassalized empires, but you'll note that once the soviets occupied poland, the official state of poland was a russian satellite state.  The government in exile no longer controlled poland, although they were able to effectively run a resistance campaign from outside the country.  So in this instance, once the capital of Poland was occupied, they immediately surrendered. The idea of a government in exile is a really cool concept that I'd love to see in stellaris, but it's not an example of an occupied nation refusing to surrender and getting to stay a state. 

This is a also great example of how in real wars militaries do not just let themselves be killed by superior forces.  In this example, the military evacuated, and was able to make accomplishments that benefitted the original polish state. The idea of a surrendering nation's military partially or fully becoming a separate faction trying to 'liberate' their former home would be cool, and make sense. 

[thegoatgod_pan]

OK, I need to rant.

I was super excited about 2.0, seeing the effort to fix the boring, horrible combat before as a desirable and good goal.

To celebrate two friends and I started a new game, played for a day or two, and got to midgame, so I got my first war.

Now, entering into the war, which was declared on me by an AI neighbor, I had two fleets and was at the recruitment limit.
My opponent had equivalent tech and power.

He is how the war went.

1. Enemy invades a border world soon after declaring war, I watch the attack on my station, observe the enemy fleet and upgrade my flee to counter-act it.

2. My fleet takes some time to upgrade, the enemy rapidly moves through systems attacking my stations, it is about at this point I notice that the stations aren't destroyed as in previous versions, but somehow magically convert to the enemy side, after being destroyed with weapon fire. I definitely didn't see that coming.

3. My fleets finally upgrade and I send them to the next system in line, they move incredibly slowly and the system falls before they reach it.

4. My fleets reach the system and engage the enemy fleet, we are of the same sizes, but I upgraded, so my ships easily win.

5. Then as the enemies flee, my own station, totally uninjured and seemingly specced with my own best weapons, opens fire and trashes my wounded fleet into also fleeing.

6. This repeats a second time, I figure OK, new plan, lets focus on winning back the systems.

7. I can't because the enemy is just fleeing engagements now, and I can't catch them because of how slow travel is. The worst part of combat before--endlessly chasing an enemy fleet around your map, remains strong.

8. I can't because the war ended without so much as a notification pop up, the alien enemy, who heroically lost two fleets in two battles has taken literally half of my empire.

9. the cause? War exhaustion: my sentient AI race got so tired of winning, and so scared of the stations they themselves built, they gave up half the empire.

10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion  victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.

Fuck this game.

I honestly can't understand how it is possible to mess up combat more: their take away from previous combat problems is that people LOOOVE chasing enemies around the map fruitlessly and losing wars for no discernible reason.

I honestly can't play this game right now, which is embarrassing given that I experienced all this in the middle of friendly multiplayer.

[Mephansteras]

Are you using the Beta patch? I find it to be much better than 2.0.


One thing I will give the devs, the changes have dramatically improved late-game lag for me. I've quit games in the past simply because the game slowed down so much it wasn't fun anymore. Now I'm probably about an hour away from winning, we've beaten the crisis, all that, and even in the middle of a war I can watch things zip along without any noticeable lag.

[Chosrau]

10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion  victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.

How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?

[Damiac]

10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion  victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.

How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?

No, the situation he's describing here is exactly the same as the situation I described when first playing 2.0.  A weaker enemy declares war on him and attacks, manages to take a few systems, in the meantime he's equipping his fleet to take it back, and push into enemy territory.  He's got war exhaustion from all the time this war went on, plus whatever losses he took.  Then, when he went on the offensive, the enemy fleet just ran around capping his outputs. Eventually his war weariness ended up at 100% (Although the AIs weariness was probably above 100 for a long time, that doesn't matter).  Once your weariness hits 100%, forced status quo.  At that point, the AI keeps whatever systems it had flipped during the war.

It sounds like he spent the whole time chasing the AI fleet, who just ran away capping outposts all the way. Once he finally caught them, the battle probably took his weariness over 100. 

I do think he's playing 2.0, not 2.02, because this seems a bit better in 2.02, in that weariness doesn't seem to go up quite as fast.

[Mephansteras]

Also note that simply holding systems doesn't get you anything, at least in 2.0.2. You have to have Claims on the systems to get them when a Status Quo peace is declared. So the AI claimed a bunch of your stuff and took them, you didn't claim theirs back, so the stuff you took reverts to them when the war ends.

The Claims screen will let you make claims, both before and during a war. It will also let you see what systems your enemies have claims on so you can prioritize your defense.

Not saying the system isn't a bit wonky, especially 2.0.0, but when you understand what it is doing things tend to be more manageable. My first game I had lots of issues with stuff. My second, which was entirely in 2.0.2 instead of switching partway through, went much much better.

[Chosrau]

10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion  victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.

How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?

No, the situation he's describing here is exactly the same as the situation I described when first playing 2.0.  A weaker enemy declares war on him and attacks, manages to take a few systems, in the meantime he's equipping his fleet to take it back, and push into enemy territory.  He's got war exhaustion from all the time this war went on, plus whatever losses he took.  Then, when he went on the offensive, the enemy fleet just ran around capping his outputs. Eventually his war weariness ended up at 100% (Although the AIs weariness was probably above 100 for a long time, that doesn't matter).  Once your weariness hits 100%, forced status quo.  At that point, the AI keeps whatever systems it had flipped during the war.

Sounds good to me. He sacrificed border systems to buy time and build up fleet up against an enemy who was stronger then him. Thats the kind of gameplay I want too see from a war weariness system.

[Kanil]

I've only played one 2.0 game, and no beta games. But in that game, I did kill a fallen empire. It went like this:

War one: Fight their fleet, win. Fight their fleet a second time, win. 100% WE, forced peace out taking 3 border systems.
*10 years pass*
War two: Jump into their home system, fight their defensive station and what's left of their fleet. 80% WE, ticks up to 100% and forced to peace out before I could capture both their planets. Forced peace taking... er... absolutely nothing.
*10 more years pass*
War three: Well they don't really have anything left at this point, so my people don't have anything to be exhausted over, and I can finally take one of their inhabited systems... (or really, all of them.)

20 years and 3 wars to fight three battles. I don't think anyone who thinks 2.0 WE is problematic (or outright absurd) is making an incorrect statement.

[Dorsidwarf]

I've only played one 2.0 game, and no beta games. But in that game, I did kill a fallen empire. It went like this:

War one: Fight their fleet, win. Fight their fleet a second time, win. 100% WE, forced peace out taking 3 border systems.
*10 years pass*
War two: Jump into their home system, fight their defensive station and what's left of their fleet. 80% WE, ticks up to 100% and forced to peace out before I could capture both their planets. Forced peace taking... er... absolutely nothing.
*10 more years pass*
War three: Well they don't really have anything left at this point, so my people don't have anything to be exhausted over, and I can finally take one of their inhabited systems... (or really, all of them.)

20 years and 3 wars to fight three battles. I don't think anyone who thinks 2.0 WE is problematic (or outright absurd) is making an incorrect statement.

Ive never had problems like this... I much more often get wars dragging out literally forever because neither I nor the AI invader has enough fleetpower to overcome the others border fortifications. And I've certainly never has forced peace taking nothing if I was competent enough to actually remember to claim said systems.

[Loud Whispers]

I've only played one 2.0 game, and no beta games. But in that game, I did kill a fallen empire. It went like this:

War one: Fight their fleet, win. Fight their fleet a second time, win. 100% WE, forced peace out taking 3 border systems.
*10 years pass*
War two: Jump into their home system, fight their defensive station and what's left of their fleet. 80% WE, ticks up to 100% and forced to peace out before I could capture both their planets. Forced peace taking... er... absolutely nothing.
*10 more years pass*
War three: Well they don't really have anything left at this point, so my people don't have anything to be exhausted over, and I can finally take one of their inhabited systems... (or really, all of them.)

20 years and 3 wars to fight three battles. I don't think anyone who thinks 2.0 WE is problematic (or outright absurd) is making an incorrect statement.

I don't mind it too much, I just think it gets funny when as a hive, exterminator or purifier, for 10 years you have to have open borders with the foe, your open borders do not automatically reset to closed, and the very fact that you respect truces is hilarious

[Damiac]

10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion  victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.

How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?

No, the situation he's describing here is exactly the same as the situation I described when first playing 2.0.  A weaker enemy declares war on him and attacks, manages to take a few systems, in the meantime he's equipping his fleet to take it back, and push into enemy territory.  He's got war exhaustion from all the time this war went on, plus whatever losses he took.  Then, when he went on the offensive, the enemy fleet just ran around capping his outputs. Eventually his war weariness ended up at 100% (Although the AIs weariness was probably above 100 for a long time, that doesn't matter).  Once your weariness hits 100%, forced status quo.  At that point, the AI keeps whatever systems it had flipped during the war.

Sounds good to me. He sacrificed border systems to buy time and build up fleet up against an enemy who was stronger then him. Thats the kind of gameplay I want too see from a war weariness system.

The situation you're describing has always been possible in the game (although the insta-flip during war is new).  That is interesting gameplay.  However, the part that's silly is after allowing some border systems to be taken to buy time, he started destroying the AI, although he took some losses along the way.  The bend, but don't break defense followed by a counter-attack is a very interesting strategy, and something that has happened in real wars. 

What doesn't happen, what would never happen, is during the middle of the successful counter-attack a mysterious all powerful entity says "Wars over, you guys are friends for 10 years now, all systems go to whoever currently owns them and has a claim on them. (I love that too. Who exactly are we registering these claims with?)

I mean... I don't remember that part of WW2 where after stopping hitler's forces at stalingrad, and pushing them back, Russia just decided it was tired of war and let germany keep whatever they were currently occupying, and then agreed to a truce for 10 years.