I kinda like the idea of warscore, and having war support, but in some cases it is a game breaking design flaw. Case in point. I have completely obliterated an enemy that attacked me first. I made demands, they refused. I declared war. I took 2 of their 3 cities, and killed most of their units. War support for them hit 0, while mine was around 30 still. Forced surrender ended the war before I could take their last city. Short time later they claimed a territory on my border, I made a demand, they refused. I declared war, killed all of their units, and conquered the city. However I didn't get enough warscore to actually keep the city. Forced surrender in my victory made me give it back to them. I have repeated this cycle 3 times now. Each time I cannot take the city and keep it. I always have to give that 1 last city back. This makes no sense, and ruins the militaristic gameplay.

If one nation can't conquer another, what is the point of all out war. Historically nations were conquered all the time. It was never forced on them to give one city back to the loser. So why in this game? This is game breaking. For situations where the enemy has more units or cities, it seems to work well, but if the enemy has no units left, and they have lost their last city, forced surrender should mean they are done, out of the game. Historically, genocide has happened (and continues to happen) many many times, so why not in this game?

Please fix this issue.

This is what I mean. They have no units and Iolkos is their last city. I cant raze it or ransack it. I can't end my turn until I accept the Forced Surrender. I have 26 War Support left. It takes 5 turns to ransack, and I'm losing 3 war support per turn. So if I could choose to ignore the surrender, and spend 5 turns ransacking I would have 11 war support left when the city was ransacked, or if I had enough warscore to just take the city in the surrender. But no, I can't do either.

I can second this experience. I got lucky that I was able to take both cities I wanted just as the forced surrender triggered, but I was very confused why I was also being forced to end the war before accruing the war support I would have preferred.

There are many elements of the game (like resource scarcity) that I think are super cool, because they simulate real-world challenges and force you to adapt. But this mechanic doesn't seem to have that real life basis and its definitely a hinderance on the militarist playstyle.

I agree, forced surrender for the losing side is one way to stop players from dragging out a war in order to troll or cripple another player or AI, but I think it should come as a "soft cap" where you take escalating penalties as your people get more and more tired of the war. When winning the war though you should never be forced into peace and should never be required to relinquish control of cities you've already conquered because of some abstract points system.

Also agreeing with Quiter on this.
A soft cap or penalty system for extending a war would be solid.

Even if we have to return some territory, the current point system is far to restrictive.

Current system of force surrender is just terrible. Yes, I'm in the same situation lik OP's - I won early war, captured only opponent's city (he have also 2 outposts far away) and destroyed all military units. Now I can't only end war getting nothing except few usless gold pieces. Something changed from beta tests - there was no such extreme issues with force surrender. Shame that I can't make refund, 4X game without possibility to make succesfull war is completly unplayable for me.

There are some arguments to be made for how this is useful in MP. I can get that, still not a fan, but that's preference, and others may clearly feel differently. Perhaps having a game setting option that considers the system as is with a few tweaks the MP option, then tweak the system significantly more, including "if you lose all your units/territories" it requires no warscore to take it. Or something, just anything better than the current system for solo games.

I will likely play some MP games over the years. to compare to other 4X games I own, 90% of my time is in solo games. Making a system for MP at the cost of solo isn't worth it in 4X games to me.

Either way, even for MP, the current system has some significant balance issues that need addressed.

I ran into the same problem taking my opponents only city early then not being able to claim it due to low war score in the forced surrender. This thread seems to be getting into more of a debate on the war score requirement but I don't have too much of a problem with not being able to afford the city in a peace deal. It's the forced peace when my opponent hit zero score that I found to be game breaking. I honestly thought was a bug, I think I remember it being brought up as a problem in the beta too. There is a cancel button on the forced surrender screen but you're not able to click it, and you can't go to the next turn without accepting their surrender. It makes no sense that I would be forced to end a war when I still have war support just because my opponent ran out. I could have continued farming militarist stars from battles and maybe even built up enough score to claim the city I took. I wanted to continue moving through their territory as well for exploration. There are plenty of reasons a player would want to and should be able to continue a war they are winning.

I'm in agreement with the point made here, and I've been frustrated after wiping out a bad actor off the continent to be pushed into a forced surrender and then not having enough points to actually keep the cities I've conquered, or raze them. Instead, following my military victory it's almost back to business as usual. I'm not actually forcing surrender. The AI is forcing me to force surrender and then handing back the keys to my defeated opponent. Seeing as it's my war, I'd really like to be able to win it. 

It seems like OP is going to war while their populace (read: Elite aristocracy) doesn't have the stomach for it.  Then when the surrender rolls around, they are leveraging their power to prevent you from taking large gobs of enemy territory (they don't want to spark a new war).

Get your war support up before going to war and you'll have more leeway over how it ends.

I have the war support, it's my opponent that is at zero, I'm not lacking war support, I'm lacking war score to keep the things I took. Enemy hits zero war support, and I am forced to accept accepting their surrender, even though I'm not done.

Exactly what Tennozan says above.

Look at the image in the second post. I have 26 War Support, they have 0. I won, but only have 78 warscore and it costs 80 to take their city. I cannot cancel the Forced Surrender, I am the victor and am Forced to Force their Surrender or I can't end the turn. Which means I killed all their units, and took their last city, and won the war, but despite having War Support, I have to end the war and give them their city back. I repeated this cycle 3 times on the same city against the same enemy.

Azzirahl wrote:

I have the war support, it's my opponent that is at zero, I'm not lacking war support, I'm lacking war score to keep the things I took. Enemy hits zero war support, and I am forced to accept accepting their surrender, even though I'm not done.

Exactly what Tennozan says above.

The war score you can spend is directly influenced by your remaining war support at the end of the war.  If you start with more war support, you'll have more war score with which to demand things from them.  The image you posted looks like you have only ~25 war support.  If you'd had 75 instead, you'd have more options.

ledarsi wrote:

The point is the intrinsic issues with calculating concessions this way.

If you and your opponent had a massive global war that left a continent in ruins, and the most you can ever possibly demand is the maximum difference in war score (100 - 0 = 100) then your massive epic conflict boils down to a single city changing hands in the end.

Whereas if you get to 100 war support and then kick the crap out of a border province and its defenders, dropping the enemy's war support to zero, same result.

Or the most pernicious case- there is a war where almost nothing happens. But then eventually one side's war score ticks down, and then actual concessions? Instead of just status quo peace because nothing happened?

War Score and War Support need to be two separate numbers. War Support represents your side's willingness to keep fighting, and nothing else. When one side runs out, it means they cannot fight any longer and must surrender unconditionally. 

War Score represents your accomplishments and damage inflicted during the war, and is the primary basis for concessions. War Support is used to determine when one side must surrender, and War Score is used to cede concessions when that occurs. The attacker should win battles and capture territories, get War Score, and use that war score to force the enemy to cede the captured territories.

It would also be a good idea to add the mechanic of a negotiated or conditional surrender, which could be done before your war support actually reaches zero. This would basically be the same screen as the forced surrender, but where the two sides must agree.

On point. Nothing more I can really add, you've said everything really.