In a game recently, I was patiently waiting for my planet-destroying cannon to charge up to fire (10 turn countdown), and one of my allies accepted a truce offer from the target.  However, I immediately re-declared war on the enemy, and the countdowns continued uninterrupted.  It's not like some other games where a truce is in effect for 10 years and some imaginary, invisible force prevents you from violating it.  So my suggestion is that you just try declaring war on your enemy again and carry on with the war as before.

Well, as I understand it, breaking a truce takes extra influence. In some games, you can be swimming in influence so it isn't a problem. In others it can be hard to scrape together enough influence to counter an ally's truce declarations. So it would be great to have other options.

We're not entirely pleased with that system either, so we're looking at ways to improve it. More info... when we have it. ;)

Okay, thanks. I will say, to the developers' credit, the ES2 diplomatic system in general seems to have promise. With mechanics such as diplomatic pressure and context specific terms the diplomacy is already deeper than any other 4x I've played. I'm glad they want to work to get diplomacy working well.

eruanion wrote:

Well, as I understand it, breaking a truce takes extra influence. In some games, you can be swimming in influence so it isn't a problem. In others it can be hard to scrape together enough influence to counter an ally's truce declarations. So it would be great to have other options.

Interesting.  I did not notice the influence cost, probably because, as you note, I was swimming in it at the time.  I do tend to play a bit like the Dale Carnegie (author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People") of outer space.  Influence is extremely useful for claiming territory and system development; now I know it has yet another purpose.

However, I was mostly trying to point out to the OP that it is even possible to break a truce, because there is another major 4x space game (cough *St-llaris* cough, cough) where the devs have decided that they don't like that and therefore have programmed it to be impossible.  If the OP is coming from that "universe", he/she might not realize that this course of action is open to him at all.

Personally, I am OK with a truce getting declared without my approval and then having to spend influence to drag the alliance back into the war again...although it appears to be a two-step process (truce and then re-declaration of war), in "reality" it's probably more like a meeting of the allies where someone argues for peace and then you use your influence to swing the vote the other way.  That could be made clearer just by different text in the relevant pop-up windows, I think.  In a way it's a bit like the voting system the OP was suggesting (which I would not like as an exclusive mechanism, because then if your allies vote against you there is no recourse, unless you, again, have the option to spend influence to swing the vote).  It's also a bit like the existing game mechanism of spending influence to tilt a Senate election (although probably not as expensive, because I would probably have noticed 9K influence disappearing suddenly).

As a St*llaris refugee myself, initially I thought that truces had some fixed and mandatory period, and was thus very annoyed that my allies kept agreeing to them and messing up my planet cracker countdowns.  I really wanted to fire one of those things and see what happened.  In St*llaris, a truce lasts for 10 years (probably the equivalent of 20-30 turns in ES2 terms), and once there is one in place you cannot violate it.  Period.  

So it was something of an experiment on my part when I tried to re-declare war immediately, just to see if it would work.  

Incidentally, I was not disappointed in the animation effects.  I particularly like that the residue is different for gas giants vs. terrestrial.

Although there's always the classic:

I agree that this is annoying, and also would like to add that allies can declare war without your input as well. You do have the option of saying "I did not agree to this war" and leaving the alliance, but that can be a really nasty penalty causing you to lose cooperative protocol, trade and science deals, as well as the benefits of the good pacifist laws. I'd prefer it if war declarations were up to a vote or something. At the very least, it would be nice if your allies had to give you a few turns notice that they were going to declare war, so you have enough time to move fleets over to a border which is about to become contested.

Most of the time when I see these declarations in games where I'm in a pretty big alliance, it happens against the same empire over and over again - it's just one of your allies who is pissed off at one other guy. Perhaps the member who wants the war could request it and you could have three options: Agree to go forward with the war, refuse and they will leave the alliance over it, or spend a bunch of influence to make them keep the peace while staying in the alliance.

1. Spend influence (or free with Jingoist Joy Bill) to propose a war
2. Allies get to vote
3. War is declared if majority agree
4. Otherwise spend more influence to convince each ally until there is a majority

1. Ally proposes truce with the enemy
2. Alliance members vote
3. No truce is declared if majority disagree
4. Otherwise spend influence to convince each ally until there is a majority

How about this?

In my current game, there are two major alliances, each with one Horatio.  Every twenty turns or so, someone in one alliance or the other declares war and I receive four hostile messages from the members of the opposing alliance, followed immediately (as in the same turn) by a declaration of truce.  Personally, I suspect the Horatios of being the ones that chicken out.  My little Sophon buddies seem like they're always ready to rumble. When this next truce runs out I'll probably declare war myself and see what happens then.

Yes, this (AI declaring truce for me) is a major annoyance.

I know this thread is old, but I wanted to chime in here to say that this issue is one of my biggest frustrations with this game currently. I understand that perhaps the implications of a war or truce aren't as long-lasting or hardfast as in other games, but it is a major annoyance and creates significant problems with my own diplomacy management. For example, there were two large alliances - myself and two others, and another alliance of two. We had all been happily at peace for most of the game - and I had developed a significant trading network with all four races, as well as research and trade agreements with those in the other alliance. Suddenly, out of no where, we're at war. No warning, no reason. All my trade crumbles. Since there was no warning, ships I had in their systems are attacked and destroyed. And now they hate me for going behind their back and betraying the peace.

Should they hate me for betraying the peace? Should they destroy my ships? Should my trade crumble? Of course, if I was the one causing it. However, since I had zero say in this decision and more importantly ZERO WARNING, I am suddenly getting screwed over. 

I agree with others here that there needs to be some sort of voting or communication - SOMETHING so you know your alliance mates' intentions. I would love for a way to influence those intentions (votes, bills, other diplomacy, whatever it may be), but at the very lease there needs to be some sort of heads up about these things.

I hate this. I keep getting blocked out of taking choke point systems becasue other empires will force me to accept truce + tribute while I'm in the middle of my attack.