Well that explains that bar! 

I am looking forward to seeing what other features you plan on implementing. (They better be good, because the feature right now is just annoying)

I was wondering if it would not be possible to have a shortcut button in the corner that has quick access to all your wars as well as a quick overview over warscore etc. 

But anyways for future notice.... at the very least it should not be possible to force a truce if either party has basically only have 1 planet left.. it is under siege... the dropships are almost planetside... you get the picture. It is just frustration! (Yes I have been burned before and I am bitter!)

Thank you for the answer! I didn't even noticed that bar (not very visibile), but I think that it's just because there isn't a tutorial for now, so some elements are not expained well/very visible.

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

Actually this helps A LOT! 

The main problems were / are

• not knowing WHEN the truce will be forced (warning would help)
• frequence to high / costs too low
• fleets being suddenly locked in a foreign empire

AndreasK brings up some excellent points for consideration.  As it is, I find the whole approach to the mechanic strange.  I gather from the above that either side can force a truce?

There are two factors to consider: 

• Who is the aggressor (e.g. who started the war and for what purpose) 
• What is the relative power balance (e.g. who is currently "winning the war")

If I am winning the war, I would force a truce (e.g. make my opponent surrender) only when I don't want to continue pressing the war.  This could be for three reasons:

1. Because I was not originally the aggressor (I didn't start the war) and have no desire to take over another races system.   I just want to end the hostility and am in a position to do so.
2. Because I was the aggressor, and I successfully claimed some critical system of interest and want to stop further hostilities.
3. For whatever reason my population is unhappy / revolting / etc because I'm enraged in a war and I have the opportunity to end it by forcing peace (most applicable to pacifist party for example).

I may not want anything in return for forcing peace, or I might want stipulations (tribute, etc.) attached to it.  Or I might just want to continue the war to it's final and total conclusion.

If I am losing the war - I really shouldn't be able to "force a truce"  The term is completely different.  Instead I should be "begging for peace."  In this case, the mechanic should be totally different from "forcing truce."  I should be making an offer of something (money, tribute, subservience, tech, back rubs) to secure a peace deal.  How big this offer is relative to the power discrepancies between the empires is up for discussion - but that's how it would work.  And there is no guarantee that he stronger empire will ever except the deal.  Especially if they are Cravers.  Why would they?

mezmorki wrote:

f I am losing the war - I really shouldn't be able to "force a truce"  The term is completely different.  Instead I should be "begging for peace."  In this case, the mechanic should be totally different from "forcing truce."  I should be making an offer of something (money, tribute, subservience, tech, back rubs) to secure a peace deal.  How big this offer is relative to the power discrepancies between the empires is up for discussion - but that's how it would work.  And there is no guarantee that he stronger empire will ever except the deal.  Especially if they are Cravers.  Why would they?

The most perplexing this is that this is already exactly how the diplomacy mechanics functioned in ES1. You could negotiate for a ceasefire/peace treaty, and would generally require you to give the AI enough of what they wanted to spare your life for a few turns. That system worked far, far better than the force truce mechanic ever could in this regard.

jhell wrote:

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 :)

So... what does the bar signify when you're not at war with someone?

I think the biggest problem I can still see right now is the unilateralness of how force truce works. It is fundamentaly as presented to us a mechanic that strips control away from one side of the conflict no matter if that side is actualy winning or loosing. And this is an inherent flaw in the warscore system. It's why I maintain that a war fatigue system that tracks independent values for both factions involved while more complex is actualy closer to reflecting a more realistic aproach to warfare. Prolonging of wars can still be achieved by making truces a desireable outcome by making said fatigue cary a hefty impact on the performance of the empire. It can even a bounce back mechanic, as an empire even though it is winning, is exhausting itself too much, allowing the aparent looser to mount a counter offensive that will temporarily reduce the war fatigue of his own people and let him claim the uppen hand, snatching an overall victory from the jaws of aparent defeat. Crucialy though, because each side of a war tracks it's own fatigue we get rid of the nonsensical scenario we have now due to the warscore system where one faction is esentialy relishing the war and gaining benefits from it yet is forced to cease hostilities by the loosers.

Another major advantage I see to a war fatigue system is that, beeing an empire specific value it also opens up new avenues of realism by making it a global value of the empire, not one specific to a single conflict. So we stop getting the curent scenarios where my population is oh so tired of the constant war with faction A that they want to force a truce, but faction b? Fuck those guys war all the way! By making the war fatigue value one that every war contribues to, it makes deciding to actualy wage a war a tougher decision as the more wars you fight the greater the fatigue will get. It builds this need to carefully manage it through well planned agresion and diplomacy and slows down the game preventing genocidal wipes from occuring with frequency by making it increasingly difficult to wage endless war (with some factions having an easier time than others doing it). It would mean giving control back to the players while still achieving the desired prolonging of the duration of conflicts. And as I stated before, when it comes to a 4x game giving control the player is priority number 1. Yes, I can see the reason you can only direct general strategy during fights, I even like this aproach as it has it's own charm and complexity while not devolving into micro hell, but in aspects of empire management, diplomacy and orchestrating galactic war campaigns, anything that takes away control from the player's hands is not a good thing, and the warscore/force truce system sadly does that. Ultimatly, even if reworked to not be an annoyance (gamebreaking one at points), it's still too powerfull and unilateral an ability to exist outside a specific lore context/faction feature and it strips too much control that a player should have. Was it not the stated goal to have the player feel like an emperor managing an empire and less like a ship captain that drove the battle system of ES? Well how much of an emperor are you if the guys you are curently curbstomping in a war to the cheers of your entire population sudenly are capable of calling a unilateral time-out that they impose on you with nothing on your part able to prevent this or counter it in any way?

If I am losing the war - I really shouldn't be able to "force a truce"  The term is completely different.  Instead I should be "begging for peace."  In this case, the mechanic should be totally different from "forcing truce."  I should be making an offer of something (money, tribute, subservience, tech, back rubs) to secure a peace deal.  How big this offer is relative to the power discrepancies between the empires is up for discussion - but that's how it would work.  And there is no guarantee that he stronger empire will ever except the deal.  Especially if they are Cravers.  Why would they?

I think there should be a mechanic in place to make rejecting pleas to end war more costly to the player. The first time you reject a truce proposal, the weaker enemy might come back with better terms, but if you reject it again, the empire's population will see that attempts at peace had failed and will re-double their war effort. The militarists gaining power in the senate, production costs falling down meaning the weaker empire will be able to pump out more ships cheaper and quicker, more manpower on planets and ships as enlistment goes up. The war you thought you could wrap up in a few turns, becomes war to the death. You might still be able to eliminate all resistance, but it's a risk you'll have to weight more carefully when considering peace offerings from a weaker empire. Obviously, AI will need to be smart to the fact that you don't always want to follow up one peace proposal with a better one so that people are not fishing for a better deal.

I'd like to note that "realism" isn't actually a goal in game design. Being intuitive is, and realism can help out with that, but as long as the mechanic is intuitive and fun it doesn't matter in the slightest whether it's realistic or not. An FTL empire is pretty unrealistic in the first place.

XDAvenger93 wrote:

I think the biggest problem I can still see right now is the unilateralness of how force truce works. It is fundamentaly as presented to us a mechanic that strips control away from one side of the conflict no matter if that side is actualy winning or loosing. And this is an inherent flaw in the warscore system. It's why I maintain that a war fatigue system that tracks independent values for both factions involved while more complex is actualy closer to reflecting a more realistic aproach to warfare. Prolonging of wars can still be achieved by making truces a desireable outcome by making said fatigue cary a hefty impact on the performance of the empire. It can even a bounce back mechanic, as an empire even though it is winning, is exhausting itself too much, allowing the aparent looser to mount a counter offensive that will temporarily reduce the war fatigue of his own people and let him claim the uppen hand, snatching an overall victory from the jaws of aparent defeat. Crucialy though, because each side of a war tracks it's own fatigue we get rid of the nonsensical scenario we have now due to the warscore system where one faction is esentialy relishing the war and gaining benefits from it yet is forced to cease hostilities by the loosers.

Another major advantage I see to a war fatigue system is that, beeing an empire specific value it also opens up new avenues of realism by making it a global value of the empire, not one specific to a single conflict. So we stop getting the curent scenarios where my population is oh so tired of the constant war with faction A that they want to force a truce, but faction b? Fuck those guys war all the way! By making the war fatigue value one that every war contribues to, it makes deciding to actualy wage a war a tougher decision as the more wars you fight the greater the fatigue will get. It builds this need to carefully manage it through well planned agresion and diplomacy and slows down the game preventing genocidal wipes from occuring with frequency by making it increasingly difficult to wage endless war (with some factions having an easier time than others doing it). It would mean giving control back to the players while still achieving the desired prolonging of the duration of conflicts. And as I stated before, when it comes to a 4x game giving control the player is priority number 1. Yes, I can see the reason you can only direct general strategy during fights, I even like this aproach as it has it's own charm and complexity while not devolving into micro hell, but in aspects of empire management, diplomacy and orchestrating galactic war campaigns, anything that takes away control from the player's hands is not a good thing, and the warscore/force truce system sadly does that. Ultimatly, even if reworked to not be an annoyance (gamebreaking one at points), it's still too powerfull and unilateral an ability to exist outside a specific lore context/faction feature and it strips too much control that a player should have. Was it not the stated goal to have the player feel like an emperor managing an empire and less like a ship captain that drove the battle system of ES? Well how much of an emperor are you if the guys you are curently curbstomping in a war to the cheers of your entire population sudenly are capable of calling a unilateral time-out that they impose on you with nothing on your part able to prevent this or counter it in any way?

Some form of your earlier suggestion from this thread would probably be fine by me too but i would leave out the part with "peace fatigue" for cravers mentioned as I suspect it would screw to much with the counter parties of cravers in war. For your system to lead to shorter wars you would have to make the penalties you accumulate to FIDS, hapiness or whatever to be substantial as the war progresses. That also means, as the Cravers do not incur these penalty, they have no interest in ending wars and will declare war on everybody. This is fine lore-wise, but will lead to everybody but the Cravers being economically crippled as long as at least one Craver faction is alive (assuming proper exploration by the Cravers).

I resent any sort of "War Fatigue" system that forces you to surrender as the defender, because these systems are always poorly implemented.

Stellaris for example has a horrible system - its warscore system leaves you unable to win against alliances and on bigger map forces you into giving in even if you have 3x their military strength, as the battles and outposts they kill just mount up enough warscore to bring you to your knees even if they cannot kill you. It is a very broken system in a broken game.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

I resent any sort of "War Fatigue" system that forces you to surrender as the defender, because these systems are always poorly implemented.

Stellaris for example has a horrible system - its warscore system leaves you unable to win against alliances and on bigger map forces you into giving in even if you have 3x their military strength, as the battles and outposts they kill just mount up enough warscore to bring you to your knees even if they cannot kill you. It is a very broken system in a broken game.

What do you consider surrendering? Forced truce where you have to pay reparations or is just being forced to a truce enough (without having to pay anything)? Do not know how it works in Stellaris never played it.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

AndreasK wrote:

Sir-Rogers wrote:

I resent any sort of "War Fatigue" system that forces you to surrender as the defender, because these systems are always poorly implemented.

Stellaris for example has a horrible system - its warscore system leaves you unable to win against alliances and on bigger map forces you into giving in even if you have 3x their military strength, as the battles and outposts they kill just mount up enough warscore to bring you to your knees even if they cannot kill you. It is a very broken system in a broken game.

What do you consider surrendering? Forced truce where you have to pay reparations or is just being forced to a truce enough (without having to pay anything)? Do not know how it works in Stellaris never played it.

Stellaris actually has a really cool system, basically at the start of a war, you place your demands (i.e. what systems you want handed over to you). The opponent can give in to your demands at any time to end the war; it's a little bit like force truce, except you actually lay out your demands at the start. You also build up a score called "Warscore" throughout the war, by destroying their stuff and taking their planets (and lose it when they do the same to you). It becomes a tug-of-war, and stalemates can be resolved by white peace (may be misremembering the term), where everything goes back to the way it was.

The problem with the system, and the reason that I stopped playing Stellaris months ago, was that they pulled a Blizzard and nerfed everything to the point of breaking the entire system. The problem was that they made it much more difficult to gain Warscore against a larger empire - if they have a lot of planets, each individual planet is worth less Warscore, but the cost to demand a planet wasn't scaled. It meant that larger empires actually had an easier time of holding onto their territories, regardless of fleet size and strength. I assume this is exactly what Sir-Rogers is referring to; that a bigger foe is given such an unfathomable advantage for no reason, that even a stronger - but smaller - opponent will end up losing, because the bigger empire or the alliance only has to conquer one planet to gain the same amount of warscore that the smaller empire would accrue after capturing half a dozen or more.

So do both parties lay out demands then? Or only the agressor?

AndreasK wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

AndreasK wrote:

Sir-Rogers wrote:

I resent any sort of "War Fatigue" system that forces you to surrender as the defender, because these systems are always poorly implemented.

Stellaris for example has a horrible system - its warscore system leaves you unable to win against alliances and on bigger map forces you into giving in even if you have 3x their military strength, as the battles and outposts they kill just mount up enough warscore to bring you to your knees even if they cannot kill you. It is a very broken system in a broken game.

What do you consider surrendering? Forced truce where you have to pay reparations or is just being forced to a truce enough (without having to pay anything)? Do not know how it works in Stellaris never played it.

Stellaris actually has a really cool system, basically at the start of a war, you place your demands (i.e. what systems you want handed over to you). The opponent can give in to your demands at any time to end the war; it's a little bit like force truce, except you actually lay out your demands at the start. You also build up a score called "Warscore" throughout the war, by destroying their stuff and taking their planets (and lose it when they do the same to you). It becomes a tug-of-war, and stalemates can be resolved by white peace (may be misremembering the term), where everything goes back to the way it was.

The problem with the system, and the reason that I stopped playing Stellaris months ago, was that they pulled a Blizzard and nerfed everything to the point of breaking the entire system. The problem was that they made it much more difficult to gain Warscore against a larger empire - if they have a lot of planets, each individual planet is worth less Warscore, but the cost to demand a planet wasn't scaled. It meant that larger empires actually had an easier time of holding onto their territories, regardless of fleet size and strength. I assume this is exactly what Sir-Rogers is referring to; that a bigger foe is given such an unfathomable advantage for no reason, that even a stronger - but smaller - opponent will end up losing, because the bigger empire or the alliance only has to conquer one planet to gain the same amount of warscore that the smaller empire would accrue after capturing half a dozen or more.

So do both parties lay out demands then? Or only the agressor?

Both parties laid out demands. If memory serves, the defending player had a good period of time to respond; I don't recall what happens if you don't place demands (I assume you don't get to place any, meaning you won't be able to acquire any of their planets). Aside from that, there's no difference at all between the aggressor and the defender.

Another problem the system had was that if you were in an alliance, the person who initiated/received the war declaration would be the one who got to choose to surrender early. So if an opponent across the galaxy attacked your ally across the galaxy, and part of their demands were for some of your planets, your ally would happily forfeit your planets if they were losing. That's not really related to the specific point here, just another example of how these warscore systems are never as well-designed as players would like.