I wonder if this mechanic will make more sense once more of the diplomacy features get added. If you read the rationale on the GDD10 for Diplomacy they seem to imply that they want to make ES2 less focused on war and more focused on diplomacy to make players engage with both systems.

By the way, I am not saying that the force truce mechanic is perfect as it is. There is room for improvement, in my opinion by letting players know the limits they are working within in a war and how they can influence that, if at all. But I don't think the outright removal of the mechanic itself is what the developers are going for. 

If they manage to create interesting diplomatic gameplay in addition to the usual conflict I think it has potential to create a really interesting, if a little different, game.

More transparency in game of what goes into the War Exhaustion turn for turn and a greater measure of active influence on the War Exhaustion by the player would probably go a long way in alleviating the frustration with the mechanic expressed here in the forum.

Hell, as the Vodyani, I had the Cravers declare war on me. I went on to kick their butt halfway across the galaxy, taking three of their systems (One of which was their home system) and laying waste to all their fleets, all without losing a single ship or system myself. When the "force truce" nonsense popped up (Which was already annoying), I was told I had to pay reparations!

The system doesn't make sense lore-wise, and sucks gameplay-wise. Just turf it.

Romeo wrote:

Hell, as the Vodyani, I had the Cravers declare war on me. I went on to kick their butt halfway across the galaxy, taking three of their systems (One of which was their home system) and laying waste to all their fleets, all without losing a single ship or system myself. When the "force truce" nonsense popped up (Which was already annoying), I was told I had to pay reparations!

The system doesn't make sense lore-wise, and sucks gameplay-wise. Just turf it.

I have not had this happen to me yet. Usually i end up where i expect on the winner/loser side of a war. But most of my wars have been one sided one way or another. I would lose track really fast if I started winning and losing battles / systems back and forth.

The thing I found most annoying is the closed borders that comes with the truce. I played as the Vodyani against Sophons and Cravers in a Twin Elliptical galaxy. Sophons had the center of the Galaxy. After taking some systems the Sophons forced a truce. Aside from halting my advance on them, this also locked me in my side of the galaxy. Unable to pursue a different enemy. This simply turned it into a waiting game.

It would be nice to have some way around this. Maybe allow free travel without the need of systems, so you can fly around a big chunk of the galaxy. (perhaps limited to bigger ships, excluding the Vodyani Ark) Or limit travel to a single fleet as a diplomatic option. If an enemy can force an entire Empire to a halt, why can't I force a single fleet to pass their territory? 

AndreasK wrote:

You can still travel through the borders of the faction you have truce with as long as you have the technology to fly outside starlanes. Just target a system on the other side of the faction in question. It will take a while because it is not on the starlanes but it is possible.

The empires you get a force truce with are empires you are at war with. Now in 99.99% of the cases you have fleet inside their borders that were sieging their systems - which are then completely impossible to move due to the instant Closed Borders the AI gives you.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

AndreasK wrote:

You can still travel through the borders of the faction you have truce with as long as you have the technology to fly outside starlanes. Just target a system on the other side of the faction in question. It will take a while because it is not on the starlanes but it is possible.

The empires you get a force truce with are empires you are at war with. Now in 99.99% of the cases you have fleet inside their borders that were sieging their systems - which are then completely impossible to move due to the instant Closed Borders the AI gives you.

Sure that might be the case, but TsukiraLuna was describing a situation where he was locked in on his side of the galaxy, so my response was in regards to that. Actually I have not encountered the problem you are describing probably always had expanded my influence borders over the regions I was Invading when the truce started. But is it not still possible to fly out as long as you do not use the starlanes? (not that it is a ideal situation)

AndreasK wrote:

Sir-Rogers wrote:

AndreasK wrote:

You can still travel through the borders of the faction you have truce with as long as you have the technology to fly outside starlanes. Just target a system on the other side of the faction in question. It will take a while because it is not on the starlanes but it is possible.

The empires you get a force truce with are empires you are at war with. Now in 99.99% of the cases you have fleet inside their borders that were sieging their systems - which are then completely impossible to move due to the instant Closed Borders the AI gives you.

Sure that might be the case, but TsukiraLuna was describing a situation where he was locked in on his side of the galaxy, so my response was in regards to that. Actually I have not encountered the problem you are describing probably always had expanded my influence borders over the regions I was Invading when the truce started. But is it not still possible to fly out as long as you do not use the starlanes? (not that it is a ideal situation)

It is possible to fly out of a closed borders system with the proper tech, but in many, MANY cases it is not worth it as you will only be spending more time traveling that it would take for the truce to end. This is only avalid option either in era 3 with the best engine techs (asuming you have them) or slightly sooner for the vodyani if you grab the special engine from the lore quest (side-note: do not ever do the "integrate minor faction" quest, it is worthless compared to how much power the engine from the ruin exploration gives you. You will essentialy have the fastest fleets in the galaxy).

AndreasK wrote:

Romeo wrote:

Hell, as the Vodyani, I had the Cravers declare war on me. I went on to kick their butt halfway across the galaxy, taking three of their systems (One of which was their home system) and laying waste to all their fleets, all without losing a single ship or system myself. When the "force truce" nonsense popped up (Which was already annoying), I was told I had to pay reparations!

The system doesn't make sense lore-wise, and sucks gameplay-wise. Just turf it.

Well then either you misread the Forced Truce message or it was a bug. If you truly did not loose a ship and destroyed a bunch of their ships and invaded three systems the result would be them having to pay you reparation if they choose to use the Force Truce.

Edit: Or you lost a massive amount of ground forces compared to the ground forces + ships they lost.

Perhaps I lost more ground troops (As they invaders tend to do), but that still seems ridiculous that the game can suddenly decide "War's over, you lose!" without my input.

Caelie wrote:

Romeo wrote:

Hell, as the Vodyani, I had the Cravers declare war on me. I went on to kick their butt halfway across the galaxy, taking three of their systems (One of which was their home system) and laying waste to all their fleets, all without losing a single ship or system myself. When the "force truce" nonsense popped up (Which was already annoying), I was told I had to pay reparations!

The system doesn't make sense lore-wise, and sucks gameplay-wise. Just turf it.

I have not had this happen to me yet. Usually i end up where i expect on the winner/loser side of a war. But most of my wars have been one sided one way or another. I would lose track really fast if I started winning and losing battles / systems back and forth.

It does this every time for me. Nine times out of ten, I'm the aggressor, because it's an easy way to get credits and technologies from the loser, but all three times I've had war declared on me, I've smacked my aggressor up and down the block, then had to pay reparations without my doing anything.

AndreasK wrote:

TsukiraLuna wrote:

The thing I found most annoying is the closed borders that comes with the truce. I played as the Vodyani against Sophons and Cravers in a Twin Elliptical galaxy. Sophons had the center of the Galaxy. After taking some systems the Sophons forced a truce. Aside from halting my advance on them, this also locked me in my side of the galaxy. Unable to pursue a different enemy. This simply turned it into a waiting game.

It would be nice to have some way around this. Maybe allow free travel without the need of systems, so you can fly around a big chunk of the galaxy. (perhaps limited to bigger ships, excluding the Vodyani Ark) Or limit travel to a single fleet as a diplomatic option. If an enemy can force an entire Empire to a halt, why can't I force a single fleet to pass their territory? 

You can still travel through the borders of the faction you have truce with as long as you have the technology to fly outside starlanes. Just target a system on the other side of the faction in question. It will take a while because it is not on the starlanes but it is possible.

At the time none of those systems were explored. So I couldn't target them. Nor could I get close enough to scan one.  But thanks, I guess I'll just have to explore more before starting conquest.

Koranis wrote:

My fledgling Sophons civilization was invaded by Cravers before they could build proper defenses, but not before they could colonize a distant world. They put up quite a fight but their fleet was no match for the aliens. They've lost their homeworld and frankly I enjoyed it.

I had now a stranded group of survivors on a distant world in a far constellation, desperate but determined to take back the fight to those mysterious, brutal aliens. Maybe they would be able to stand up on their feet and retake their planet, or maybe not, but there was a story in the making, emergent gameplay and all that. 

I got more comfortable, sipped hot tea and prepared for a long haul, enjoying every minute of it. While it last.

A couple of turn later I got a message from those "mysterious, brutal aliens".

FORCE TRUCE! 

PAY WAR REPARATIONS YOU MAGGOT. YOU HAVE TO PAY 500 DUST. 

Oh, YOU HAVE ONLY 460? NO PROBLEM WE WILL TAKE IT. 

HAVE A NICE DAY, MAGGOT.

Force Truce has to go. 

That strikes me as a problem more with the AI personalities right now than the mechanic itself. The Lumeris would absolutely be likely to force a truce as soon as they got what they wanted (war is expensive), while the Cravers would ideally consider every declaration of war a fight to the death.

I didn't mind Force Truce in EL but I'm not such a fan of it here, so there's got to be some other factors driving the poor feel of it and some other ways of dealing with it. 

Probably the largest problem, as highlighted here, is the lack of transparency to the system. It's unclear when you're going to face a forced truce, and unclear what you can do about it. Some more feedback about it would be helpful

Another factor is that it's such a common result of warfare. In EL it was pretty rare, being limited to one faction and quite expensive. Here it feels like it's very easy to force a truce (though how the player does it has so far eluded me). Clarste I think highlights an important point: there isn't a lot of reason to spend influence on other things, so you're pretty likely to always have enough influence to force a truce.

I think the best highlighted solution in this discussion so far has been the establishment of a WarGoals system. Especially since War Goals could be tied to the particular type of population that you have. Cravers would prefer annexation related wargoals, while Mavros and Sophons could prefer technology-based reparations as a wargoal, and Haroshem just generally opposed to warfare with increased rate of war exhaustion. That sort of thing.

atejas wrote:

That strikes me as a problem more with the AI personalities right now than the mechanic itself. The Lumeris would absolutely be likely to force a truce as soon as they got what they wanted (war is expensive), while the Cravers would ideally consider every declaration of war a fight to the death.

I actually don't particularly like this meme of the Cravers being an "EXTERMINATE ALL OTHER LIFE" faction. They're not ideologically bent on the conquest of all space, but on the continuous expansion of their people to sate an innate hunger, which includes the possibility of expansion via conquest. While we as outside observers may intellectually realize that the end-game of such an agenda is, in fact, the conquest of all possible space, I don't think that's necessarily how the Cravers themselves perceive the world. Also they LIKE other life - who else are they to enslave?

Romeo wrote:

Caelie wrote:

Romeo wrote:

Hell, as the Vodyani, I had the Cravers declare war on me. I went on to kick their butt halfway across the galaxy, taking three of their systems (One of which was their home system) and laying waste to all their fleets, all without losing a single ship or system myself. When the "force truce" nonsense popped up (Which was already annoying), I was told I had to pay reparations!

The system doesn't make sense lore-wise, and sucks gameplay-wise. Just turf it.

I have not had this happen to me yet. Usually i end up where i expect on the winner/loser side of a war. But most of my wars have been one sided one way or another. I would lose track really fast if I started winning and losing battles / systems back and forth.

It does this every time for me. Nine times out of ten, I'm the aggressor, because it's an easy way to get credits and technologies from the loser, but all three times I've had war declared on me, I've smacked my aggressor up and down the block, then had to pay reparations without my doing anything.

Just out of curiosity where you playing Vodyani all of the three times you experienced this? I suspect this problem is specific to them.

Especially for Cravers, it doesn't fit lore-wise. It might have been better if the cost/reward of a forced truce is higher for Cravers. I get the intention for forced truces but it could have had a better execution, probably more dynamic depending on relationships, factions, and economies.

• Doing a truce with Cravers? Give them at least one of your systems
• Doing a truce with Vodyani? Give them up to 10% of your population
• Doing a truce with Lumeris? Give them up to 80% of your gold income for x turns
• Doing a truce with Sophons? Give them up to 80% of your science for x turns

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback and the great discussion. Like adelahaye wrote, we're going to retake the Force Truce mechanic. I just wanted to give you a few more elements as to why it may feel more prevalent now than it should when the game is complete:

- Currently it's the only condition we put for the AI to end the war: as soon as it can force a truce (winning or losing), it will

- There is no indication that the AI is going to use the force truce, do you think a message hinting towards it (a few turns before it happens) would help?

- The events contributing to the war score computation may be too high in value

- The reparations might not always be approriate

Also, the feature is currently cruelly lacking in feedback, but you do have access to the gauge that lets you know if you or the AI can force a truce soon in the diplomacy screen:

Here I am playing Lumeris and am at war with the Sophons. The red bar indicates that they are winning, and once it's full they will be able to force a truce on me (it changes each turn). On my side however, you can notice the red button next to the Sophons' race icon: it means I can already choose to force a truce if I so wish - in this case, as I'm losing, it will end the war but I'll have to pay reparations.

I hope this helps a little in the meantime, but rest assured we are working on this :)