I think the interesting thing is that Dale-k proposes that the major penalty from being a warmongering empire is to have other empires dislike the warmonger more. As if that would give pause to an empire bent on conquering anyway.

We could really use a more complex war system, something more like in Grand Strategy games, in which multiple empires can be entwined in single war. You can kind of influence your allies war, by being able to force someone to surrender to them, but that's not enough and you can't really 'help' them, you need to defeat the enemy faster than they can defeat your ally which isn't ideal. That's why I can't really see some kind of 'diplomatic penalty' being a solution here, there's no real actions that can be taken against the major offender, aside of being stronger and obliterating them.

Yes, we know that a notable number of players are not happy with the war support and surrender system, and we agree that it limits the players actions more than intended. Rest assured, these systems are on our list of features we want to improve in the future, among many other things. I just cannot tell yet when it will happen. We've been following the discussions and looking at the different suggestions, but whatever solution we settle on will take time to implement. Furthermore, the war support and surrender and not the only critiques raised by our players, and it may not be the first one we aim to address. Nonetheless, improving war support and surrenders is among our long-term goals.

However, in light of the direction the responses in this thread have been taking, I am going to lock this thread. You are free to pick the discussion about the steam score, the player numbers, the war support and surrender system, or any other aspect of the game back up in a new thread, but please keep the discussion focused on the game, not on attacks on the preferences or perceived skill of other players.