How to Manage Wars

[jscott991]

I'm a huge empire (150+ colonies). There is another huge alien empire (more colonies than me) and a third alien empire with about 120 colonies. The other three aliens have less than 10 colonies each. The huge empire is evil and is at war with everyone but me. Somehow they ended up at war with two of my mutual defense partners without triggering anything involving me (if these tiny empires were stupid enough to attack the largest power in the game, then there is a serious AI issue).

At one point, bored, I tried to enter this war.

It is impossible to coordinate anything once a war starts.

For one thing, my empire began to break up. Rebellions everywhere. This is despite Way of the Ancients and being at war with War of Darkness. I had no happiness issues at all before the war.

Leaving that aside, simply managing all the messages is next to impossible. Also, the AI has a weird tendency to disregard fronts when attacking you. This means a ton of time is spent chasing down fleets that take over colonies deep in my empire.

This game reminds me of Supreme Ruler, but with much worse war AI. I just don't see how anyone manages to keep everything straight once you are fighting in so many systems at once. The only thing being at war taught me was a few things I now hate, which I'll post in a separate area.

[Erik Rutins]

jscott,

What version of the game was this with?

Could you please upload a save, preferably pre- and post-war if you have it?

Moving this to tech support.

Regards,

- Erik

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

jscott,

What version of the game was this with?

Could you please upload a save, preferably pre- and post-war if you have it?

Moving this to tech support.

Regards,

- Erik

This wasn't really a bug.

I just found myself completely overwhelmed once the war began.

Unless you're referring to the huge number of rebellions, but I thought others complained about that elsewhere.

I'm playing 1.04b2.

[Joram]

I agree with you jscott. I'm pretty afraid of doing major wars to be honest. It would be useful if you could assign defensive fleets that the AI would use only for the purposes of defending the empire or reconquering lost colonies but I'm afraid of putting fleets on auto-control because then they will go trapsing around the galaxy.

[mllange]

Yes, no bug, but of course the thread belongs buried in Tech Support. lol

The game is a mess, but fortunately is mighty popular with the unemployed crowd.

[Erik Rutins]

nim8or,

That's enough, thanks. I think you are well aware that posts regarding problems or criticism do not get moved out of the main forum as a matter of course.

I moved this here because I really would like to see the save files. Wars do not typically cause immediate rebellions and we can often learn a LOT by looking at save files that we can't figure out from a forum post.

Regards,

- Erik

[jscott991]

I can't get them to upload right now or I would show them to you.

They aren't that illuminating really.

As soon as I attacked the alien empire, about 6-10 planets went into rebellion.

They just kept rebelling over the brief course of the war, until many became independent. I don't have a savegame that far out.

[Fishman]

New planets are unusually susceptible to this because they have absolutely no way of improving morale, as morale is pretty much improved only by development, while war weariness and "you are at war with our race" is mostly a flat penalty. As a result, new colonies pretty much are guaranteed negative morale and start rioting immediately.

[lordxorn]

jscott991,

I think the challenge is that DW is unique in the way we have to work with the AI and our manual fleets. I for one keep all fleets on manual, and let the AI suggest important targets, or not important targets. The AI even pointed out an enemy resupply base near my territory, I would have missed otherwise.

Then I make sure I assign fleets according to my empire, and try to have a fleet in every sector, and definitely just one major fleet patrolling my homeworld. The enemy AI will try and take high strategic value planets, and your homeworld definitely qualifies.

One thing to keep in mind is that the AI may sometimes suggest that your fleet patrolling your homeworld do one of the missions, don't forget which fleet you set aside for this important duty and always ignore those orders.

Also assign your fleets to ctrl+1, etc for easier navigation and response.

[Pocus]

ORIGINAL: Joram

I agree with you jscott. I'm pretty afraid of doing major wars to be honest. It would be useful if you could assign defensive fleets that the AI would use only for the purposes of defending the empire or reconquering lost colonies but I'm afraid of putting fleets on auto-control because then they will go trapsing around the galaxy.

that is indeed a big problem I have. The war weariness don't grow over time for a given world, so any new world when in you in a war for a long time instantly get angry then rebel, somehow this does not feel right.

also WW should be lower in certain cases. I was attacked by a dictatorship, and I'm a democracy (can we take a parallel with WW2 ?) but my WW grew rapidly, and I had to pay to get a peace because my worlds started to riot everywhere... Somehow, if UK or USA did that in WW2, then me, as a French, would speak German today (whereas I write in English right now [:D] ).