Attackin an empire without declaring war.. is this intended?

[CrazyCraxi]

Hi, first post on this forum. Been following the game for quite a while and i finally bought it. Game is a blast but, as the title suggests, i found something and i am not sure if it was already pointed out: i tested if i could attack, and bombard an ai colony without it declary war on me and it absolutely works, i can capture stations, destroy planets and attack its ships without the ai sending his fleet to me; the "best" part is there is no diplomatic blowback aside from losing some reputation (that you would lose anyway if you were in a war and doing the same things).

My question then is, is this intended? is this a bug? are the devs aware of this? am i missing something? Coming from paradox games, it just feels wrong/off that i can do this without declaring war and it's so easly exploitable.

[Jorgen_CAB]

It is intended and you do loose more reputation for doing it than if you declare war doing the same things. At least that is how it is suppose to work and I'm fairly sure it does. DW1 worked the same way.

As long as you fight the enemy in neutral space or within your own border the reputation hit should not be too severe.

[CrazyCraxi]

It is intended and you do loose more reputation for doing it than if you declare war doing the same things. At least that is how it is suppose to work and I'm fairly sure it does. DW1 worked the same way.

As long as you fight the enemy in neutral space or within your own border the reputation hit should not be too severe.

Oh ok, but then you have to note that reputation recovers extremely quickly, and coupled with the ai unable to defend themself it feels very cheesie.

[btd64]

It is intended and you do loose more reputation for doing it than if you declare war doing the same things. At least that is how it is suppose to work and I'm fairly sure it does. DW1 worked the same way.

As long as you fight the enemy in neutral space or within your own border the reputation hit should not be too severe.

Oh ok, but then you have to note that reputation recovers extremely quickly, and coupled with the ai unable to defend themself it feels very cheesie.

This needs to be adjusted. If you sneak attack another empire there should be a stiff reputation hit. And the other empire should be able to bring fleets to the battle....GP

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm sure they will bring fleets in if you attack them this way... but the AI don't treat it as a war. I do think the AI should be allot more responsive to large amount of enemy military ships in their territory and there should be a diplomatic option to demand their leave or there will be war.

The AI should respond directly to enemy military ships in their borders or if they attack your stations outside their borders. In addition more diplomatic options to deal with such situations.

To be honest I don't abuse this mechanic outside grabbing the occasional mine in Neutral space... I do hope the developers do something interesting with this game feature at some point.

But the game work pretty much like DW1 in this respect. I do think they should expand on this feature sooner rather than later.

[Bleek]

This is absolutely NOT a big.

Skirmishes were always an enjoyable part of DW for me.

Accidents happen.

Confrontation happens.

Strategic strikes happen.

Fighting over resources and derelicts happen.

Surprise attacks happen.

Having to arbitrarily declare war in a game is poor design and unrealistic. Nations don't declare war by default!

They declare war when they've had enough of the above scenarios.

That's not to say the AI and diplomacy doesn't need a tweak, because it does. In DW I'm sure you could demand the removal of enemy ships in your territory and vice versa.

That said, I've had some great skirmishes in deep space over derelicts. I swoop in and kill their construction ships, some time later whilst I'm repairing... the AI does the same to me.

[CrazyCraxi]

So an update on the matter; i found the technology to build planet destroyers. Naturally i built one and went ahead and test if i could blow up colonies without declaring war: of course it works, the ai does attack my ship the moment i start bombarding, and i do lose rep, but it cant be stopped and the ai wont follow this by declaring war on me. This is why i said that the mechanic was easly exploitable. I took out all the ai colonies, one by one, without suffering ripercussions( i had minus 100 rep and still rocking on money, no allies broke ties with me).

I do agree that skirmishes are all fun an games and shouldnt constitues immediate war, but this isnt the way to go imho. Endless space 2 has a similar system where you are allowed to attack ai ships when you are in a "cold war" diplomatic status with the ai( as in it is expressively coded the status "being in cold war with somebody"), but it doesnt allow you to blow up planets or systems without declaring war. It makes sense, you shouldnt be able imho or this is the result.

The ai wont be reactive as an human being, it needs to have clear parameters to act upon and clearly diplomatic rep either isnt enough or it needs to be furtherly adjusted imho.

[Jorgen_CAB]

It probably needs to be balanced better but the mechanic in and of itself work like it used to and probably is fine as is.

The AI just need to be better at reacting to aggression... destroying a planet should probably lead to an immediate declaration of war that is for sure, as should any invasion attempts or any major clashes of fleets inside anyone's territories.

In my opinion this is more of a balance issue than a mechanics issue.

The AI probably also need to react to aggression outside their territory as well, like the AI going into a "cold war" mode as you said. There does not need to be a cold war diplomatic response but the AI certainly need to have such a mode. Either pushed by the player or by their own accord. I could see Mortalens using this as a means of terrorising other empires without directly attacking them, as a prelude for war or enticing them to declare war.

There is a diplomatic agreement of None Aggression pact that hinders these things... or at least it would break that pact and would carry even more considerable reputation penalties.

I also would like some diplomatic/government expansion down the line. Democracies and Republics should be allot more wary of anyone conquering anything in terms of reputation. Even conquering other planets should be more of a liberation effort, that is making the worlds Independent (which you later can incorporate diplomatically).

I would like if we could invade planets and liberate them to the "rightful" owner of the colony etc...

If we make these Government more restricted in the aggression capabilities that would to some degree weigh up the fact they are economically more powerful than say a Military Dictatorship (at least to some degree). At least I would like more distinction between how different Governments act other than mainly different bonuses.

[AKicebear]

I would like if we could invade planets and liberate them to the "rightful" owner of the colony etc...

If we make these Government more restricted in the aggression capabilities that would to some degree weigh up the fact they are economically more powerful than say a Military Dictatorship (at least to some degree). At least I would like more distinction between how different Governments act other than mainly different bonuses.

What you're describing sounds like a causus belli, or war goal, system - which I would be a fan of. It doesn't have to be as detailed as the Paradox games, which go a bit overboard. But having a few basic war goals types (harass, conquer, liberate, break alliance), which are or are not compatible with your population and form of government, could enrich the war weariness system too.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I would like if we could invade planets and liberate them to the "rightful" owner of the colony etc...

If we make these Government more restricted in the aggression capabilities that would to some degree weigh up the fact they are economically more powerful than say a Military Dictatorship (at least to some degree). At least I would like more distinction between how different Governments act other than mainly different bonuses.

What you're describing sounds like a causus belli, or war goal, system - which I would be a fan of. It doesn't have to be as detailed as the Paradox games, which go a bit overboard. But having a few basic war goals types (harass, conquer, liberate, break alliance), which are or are not compatible with your population and form of government, could enrich the war weariness system too.

Yes... some casus belli system that is linked with the government you play would be interesting. It should be more difficult to conquer planets with a Democracy rather than liberate planets, and nearly impossible to perform aggressive actions toward another similar government unless there are some huge diplomatic problems. While military dictator ships should be allot more "free" to raid, conquer and be aggressive in general. As governments such as Republic and Democracy have very powerful economic benefits it would be more interesting if you also was "forced" to deal with the consequences of limited control over your foreign or rather internal policies.

Military dictatorships already have to wrestle with rampant corruption and you also could introduce events of rival warlords that challenge the ruling elite etc... fun with some more space combat...
For a democracy you would instead have to deal with pleasing the population and the occasional voice for independence of large and powerful colonies that feel their taxes are not very well represented in the galactic senate. And so on and so forth... A democracy could have other types of events where planets request some for of representation, protection or facilities being built there.

While I always role-play the type of race and government form I play... it still would be interesting to have this part of the game expanded on and something I always missed in DW.

It does not have to be as advanced as Europa Universalis, but I would not mind if it was... it would enrich the game allot in my opinion as this is an important part of any grand strategy game like this.