Combat Losses & Peace

from GalCiv3 Forums

A big bugbear for me - at present, is that no matter how much damage I do to an AI player, he'll never back down from a war (apologies if this has already been mentioned or is being implemented).

For example, I'm quite a cautious & defensively minded player, and often I'm in a position where I'm choosing to fight a defensive war, with a comparatively small fleet of orbital defenders and fast interception ships. They're relatively able to carve through anything my opponents send at me, but no matter how stalemated the war, or how many ships and troops I'm obliterating, the AI will never accept peace, because their "military strength" is greater than mine.

What I'd like to see is a peace modifier for quantity of military power destroyed during a conflict. To avoid this being OP, I'd prefer to have this cut out when the peace deal reaches White Peace (frankly, if I'm fighting a defensive war, I shouldn't be able to take much from the enemy) - but this would allow a mechanism to avoid the eternal war situation, where I can't end a tedious war without going on the offensive, something I'm not always willing, or capable of doing.

10,119 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

They have no reason to make peace until you kick them for a while.  The only way I have had them request peace is to destroy enough of their ships and capture enough planets that your strength is at least 3 or 4 hundred higher than theirs.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You kinda missed the point. I am kicking them. I'm smashing every fleet they send against me and causing huge losses to their side. I'm just not going out there and hunting down enemy fleets & taking their planets, because I'm focusing on other things.

A stalemated conflict, where one side is taking inordinate losses, is likely to lead to a peace deal because of the losses.

Yes. I could probably go on the offensive and take their planets. Except I don't want their planets. Nor do I particularly want to divert attention from my current goal in game. Yet that leaves me stuck in an interminable war, where every few turns I smash an attacking fleet, where my enemy is completely unable to make any gains.

Hence my request that combat losses are somehow factored into an AIs acceptance or refusal of a peace deal. A costly war is one the AI should want to end.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This is a great idea!  In reality, many defensive wars have been won this way!  While Vietnam isn't a perfect example, the losses the U.S. were facing caused the government to capitulate, even though our overall military strength was largely intact.  While I don't want to argue history, just about anyone can agree that even immediately following the Tet Offensive, the overall destructive capability of the U.S. military was still awe-inspiring, even without the use of nuclear weaponry. 

MOO2 incorporated this beautifully.  If a faction at war with you went for a massive offensive and it was thwarted (even if your forces were largely damaged, but at least some were intact), you'd usually get a diplomatic offer for peace very quickly thereafter. 

I honestly think that to make this game truly great, they just need to incorporate a lot of stuff from MOO2. 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This is where a type of war weariness would work. In fact they`ve included War weariness for the first time in the Total War game  DLC `Charlemagne`. And while the overall Ai needs tweaking, the war weariness mechanic works very well. If the AI loses 2 or 3 major battles it will sue for peace because its people start to get really upset. It works against the Player same way too, you lose too many battles in a row and the people will be clammering for you to make peace. If you don`t expect your cities to start rebelling.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

https://forums.galciv3.com/472523/page/1/#3596068

Quoting naselus, reply 1

There's already a suitable stat for that - the AI keeps track of it's own 'war weariness' for diplomacy, taking penalties when it loses and getting bonuses when it wins (and slowly upticking over time).  ...  though I doubt it's moddable just yet. It might be once we get the shiny new code tools Paul has hinted at in previous dev streams, though.
End of naselus's quote

Forum search once in a while would be usefull, guys. It's a little bit annoying if there are so many threads about the same thing just with differnt titles.