Hello!

The Awakened expansion got me back into ES2 after a long hiatus. The idea of playing ancient black royalty in space really hit home. 

Early game was spent mostly in military conquest, well-suited with being ahead in tech. After the others caught up, changing tactics to peaceful conversion seemed natural. After all, that's what the Temples are for. Horatio was gonna learn a lesson in humility.

So here's what I expected:

1) Horatio throws some tantrums.

2) I ignore him.

3) The influence aura spreads over Horatio's systems.

4) The systems ignore Horatio & defect to the queen.

Here's what really happened:

1) Horatio throws some tantrums.

2) I ignore him.

3) Right when the influence aura spreads over Horatio's systems, he declares war.

4) Few turns later, the alliance he is in asks for truce.

5) Immediately when the truce ends, Horatio declares war again.

6) Repeat ad nauseam.

The systems are far inside the influence aura, yet it matters squat. Instead of being a queen loved in both core & fringe, I feel like I'm a dupe playing some weird ping-pong diplomacy game. Horatio seems to easily have enough influence to keep up with the war declarations. There's no way to defame him, no way to curb his influence production. The only thing I can do is declare war.

When I do, I nibble away the system's defense, and take it over with minimal damage & casualties. The whole thing takes ~5 turns. Approval sits at 0%, no matter the system has been inside the influence for a long while.

I do a test, loading a save and pulling some advanced diplomacy demands on Horatio. This gives me the opportunity to buy a single system with ~15 000 Influence, one turn before he declares war. Just like after invasion, approval sits at 0%.

As it stands now, peaceful conversion seems really pointless.

Can this really be how this mechanic is intended to work?

Unfortunately it's exactly how it's supposed to work; the AI is just often obsessive about NEVER letting the player peacefully convert their systems, even if going to war is otherwise completely contrary to their interests.  Even the unfallen WILL go to war to stop a peaceful conversion if they can stomach it in the slightest.

On the other hand, you're still putting a serious thorn in its side forcing it to constantly flip between war, truce and alliance.  you ARE costing him influence and turns at war when he might otherwise not want to be.  It's not quite as satisfying as getting the system you want but there is something to be said for forcing the enemy into your cadence and out of his own.

You can also used the built up pressure to prevent horatio from declaring war on you through diplomacy.

I had the same issue in my Nakalim game, but even worse against Cravers.

If you are applying diplomatic pressure, you canforce the issue. Diplomatic Demand Advanced, on the right side, select economic tribute, and empire dust, all their dust.
On the left side select diplomatic sanctions. If they take the diplomatic sanctions, they should run out of influence for spamming war/truce.


Like many things with the AI, the incessant popups can get very annoying, but if they did not have this mechanic, then peaceful conversion would have no counterplay.