Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we're going to continue talking about major changes coming in the Cherryh update, specifically on the topic of war and peace. As said before, all of these changes are currently far away, and we cannot give more details on ETAs or the exact nature of the Cherryh update than we already have.
Wargoal OverhaulThe wargoal system in Stellaris has always felt a bit odd, and has been the target of some very well-reasoned criticism from players. In one way, the system is extremely unrestrictive, allowing you to declare war on anyone for any reason to take any planet, no matter if said planet is on the literal other side of the galaxy in the middle of enemy territory and could not feasibly be held by your empire, and then demand that planet in the peace even if none of your soldiers had ever set foot on it. On the other hand, the restriction to only being able to take planets meant that you had a fairly limited control over your actual borders after the peace, and might be forced to take planets you had no interest in just to get that system with a resource or colonizable planet that you *actually* wanted. Other issues include a rather messy wargoal interface (particularly when trying to set goals after being declared on) and a lack of ability as an ally in a war to affect what gains you were going to get in the peace, and that wars were very 'all or nothing' affairs with no real mechanics for any other outcome than total victory for one side.
With the change to borders discussed in Dev Diary #91, system control is now separated from planets, and so allows for systems to be conquered and traded even if they do not contain a colonizable planet. This, in addition to all the previously mentioned issues, means that we need a new wargoal system that can handle both limited wars fought over a few border systems, and massive wars that result in dozens of systems changing hands. The way we have decided to solve this is to completely rework wargoals, peace negotiations and to add the concept of claims.
Claims are effectively territorial ambitions - an empire claiming territory they do not currently control, for whatever justification they can come up with. Which systems can be claimed depends on an empire's war philosophy policy, with the unrestricted warfare philosophy allowing for the claiming of any system not owned by a fellow Federation member. Claims, however, are not free. Much like territorial expansion through building outposts, they require expenditude of Influence, to represent the political effort (or mind/processing power in the case of Gestalt Consciousnesses) required to claim and integrate the territory. How expensive a system is to claim depends on distance to your borders, how built up the system is (a remote mining system will be much cheaper than the homeworlds) and other factors such as traditions and technology. Overall, claims will be more expensive in the early game, and become less so later on to allow for more decisive wars to be fought in the mid- and lategame. Claims are managed through the claims interface, accessible from the topbar. From the claims interface, you can easily make and revoke claims (please note that the interface is currently a rough WIP, thus the weird-looking green arrows, among other unfinished bits of art). It is possible to claim the same system multiple times to gain a stronger claim on it, which is mainly useful when going to war together with an ally that is claiming the same system (more on this later in the DD). Finally on the topic of claims, as mentioned in Dev Diary #91, influence gain is going to be majorly rebalanced to reflect its new uses in expansion, and some things which previously cost influence may now use other currencies.
To go to war with another empire in the Cherryh update, you now need a Casus Belli - a reason for war. The simplest Casus Belli to get is the Claim Casus Belli, gained by creating a claim on another empire. Each Casus Belli grants access to at least one type of Wargoal, with some Casus Belli (like Subjugation) potentially allowing for several different Wargoals to choose between. When declaring war on another empire, rather than put together a list of Wargoals, you choose just one Wargoal allowed by one of your Casus Belli, and the defender similarly chooses one after being declared on, with the Humiliate wargoal always available to defenders regardless of Casus Belli. However, the Wargoal is always in addition to rather than instead of claims the two war sides have on each other. What this means is that the Wargoal is the overall purpose of the war (for example, to humiliate a rival) and any claims you have on the target and their allies is your territorial ambitions in the war (for example, a string of border systems). Some Empires (such as Fanatical Purifiers, Devouring Swarms and Determined Exterminators) have special Casus Belli that usually allow them to conquer their neighbors at will (exceptions being empires they don't hate, such as other Machine Empires for Exterminators), ignoring claims altogether, but are vulnerable to be similarly conquered by others who see them as a threat to the entire galaxy.
As wars can now be anything from a small border skirmish to a massive war of conquest (depending on the wargoal and number of claims), we felt that the Warscore system so common to our other games was inadequate for dealing with this variety, and tended to turn every conflict into a total war with one undisputed winner and another, utterly crushed loser. As such, Warscore is gone in the Cherryh update. Instead, we have introduced the concept of War Exhaustion. War Exhaustion goes from 0-100%, and measures the total weariness and attrition suffered by all empires on one side in a war (psychological and logistical). War Exhaustion goes up from having Planets and Starbases occupied by the enemy, suffering losses during Space and Ground Combat, and passive accumulation over time (called Attrition). When a war side's War Exhaustion hits 100%, they can be forced into a Status Quo peace (more on this below). The speed at which War Exhaustion accumulates is influenced by factors such as ethics, traditions, technology and the amount of claims being pressed - an empire that is fighting to hold onto a handful of border systems will tire of a costly conflict quicker than one whose very independence is being threatened.
There are three ways a war can end in the Cherryh update: With the surrender of either side, or with a negotiated Status Quo peace. When an empire Surrenders, it is usually either because they have been completely defeated, or because the war aims are limited enough that they view it as more costly to continue the war than to end it.
Surrender means that the victor's Wargoal (for example, to humiliate or vassalize the loser) is enforced, and any claims the winning side has on the losing side are automatically ceded regardless of occupation status. Surrender can only be forced on an enemy that is entirely or nearly entirely defeated - an empire can never be forced to cede territory that the enemy is not able to take control of with their military.
Status Quo means that the war has reached a point where total victory is unlikely for either side, and both sides agree to stop hostilities and settle for whatever gains or losses they have suffered. Under a Status Quo peace, all occupied systems claimed by an enemy empire is ceded to the enemy with the strongest claim. This is where multiple claims on the same system comes in - if you and an ally are both claiming the same enemy system, you can continue to invest influence into 'trumping' their claim so that you are the one given the system rather than your ally. In the case of a tie, whoever has the oldest claim on the system is considered the stronger claimant. As mentioned above, a war side that is at 100% War Exhaustion can not reject a Status Quo peace.
Status Quo being not a white peace but a "Uti possidetis" style peace where claimed and occupied (or in some special cases like the aforementioned Purifier Wargoal, just occupied) territory is kept is meant to be able to create more varied and interesting outcomes to wars, such as a war of conquest where the attacker started with the ambition to conquer an entire enemy empire, and easily took over the lightly defended border systems, but found themselves unable to make headway against the more heavily defended enemy core systems, eventually settling for only what they were able to control. Along with the way surrender works, it also means that empires are never forced to cede systems that they are able to militarily defend - no matter how much the enemy is overrunning your outposts, if your fleets and starforts can keep them away from your homeworld, you can't be forced to hand it over in the peace. It also makes it possible for an empire that is losing a war to still fight to minimize their territorial losses by fighting to inflict War Exhaustion on the enemy, making them pay for every system they take until they can be forced to make peace. Furthermore, it means that wars can end in a way that isn't one-sided, with gains and losses on both sides.
It is currently not possible to make claims on an enemy when you are the aggressor in a war against them. Defenders are able to make claims as normal. This is subject to testing, balancing and tweaking and may change (more on that below).
Starbase and System OccupationFinally, I wanted to write a short bit on how occupying systems actually works now. There will be more details on this (especially about ground combat) in later dev diaries, but the gist it is that a system is considered occupied only if the Starbase and all planets (excluding potentially neutral ones like primitives) are under enemy control. For a Starbase to be taken control of, it must first be disabled (brought to 0 hp) by the enemy fleet. Taking control of an enemy system will also take control of all mining and research stations in that system and allow the occupied to benefit from them economically for as long as the war continues. Similarly, Starbases that are taken control of are also able to be used by the controller - controlled enemy shipyards can be used to refit, repair and build your own fleets, and enemy fortresses to keep them from retaking occupied systems. All of this means that 'raiding' and striking at vital enemy systems becomes an important aspect of warfare, allowing you to turn the enemy's own economic, military and logistical assets against them if they do not do a good enough job defending them.
We are still heavily testing and tweaking these new systems, and we have some other things we are thinking about and trying out to see how they work. They include:
- The ability to claim unsettled systems as a way to put 'dibs' on a system before actually going there to build an outpost
- Having claims be cheaper if you don't have a ton of them, to encourage smaller scale conflicts
- Potentially allowing claims to be made by attackers (rather than just defenders) during war, but have them be more expensive
- Ways to slow and reduce War Exhaustion at the expense of your economy and population
That's all for today! Next week we'll continue talking about war, on the topic of space battles, command limits and doomstacks. See you then!
