Losing Cities when you force the other guy to Surrender?

[[SOT]Avongunn]

I am confused.. I was in the middle of a finishing a siege I won.. then a popup said I forced them to surrender.. But I lost a city and it's connected territories and didn't even get to keep the city I just took.. No menu for a deal just POOF

[AmesNFire]

Sounds like you (almost?) won the siege but lost the war.

[G4M5T3R]

I'm going to try to keep this short. When War Support reaches 0 for either side they lose the war. Once that happens a warscore is calculated and that score is a currency of sorts. You use it to "buy" the cities you occupied during the war. In some cases, you won't have the support to secure anything. Your War Support at the end of a war, and number of occupied cities, determine this score. If you lose a war you instigated and the enemy has enough support you will lose your cities. These mechanics are designed to combat steamrolling. Do not approach conquest as you would in civ.

For more information clicky clicky: https://humankind.fandom.com/wiki/War

[(SWT) Ben Shapiro]

Welcome to Humankind, where the dev's main goal for the game was limiting player fun and enjoyment. You're not alone, War Support is one of the most broken and illogical aspects of the game, and something most fans seem to desire moderate or massive changes to.

The only way to combat the game cheesing you out of your earned victories, is to cheese them back. Ransack every enemy territory you come across, and replace them with your own outposts/cities. This will guarantee you territory that can't be taken away, and also extend the war by giving the enemy some war support back, allowing you to continuously keep the conflict going.

Best of luck to you, and your future playthroughs. And hopefully this brain dead system is fixed soon enough.

[[SOT]Avongunn]

Well I check my war score before I attacked him it was 100.. the total attacks was 1 double round of fighting and the siege.. 3 total turns in which I destroyed 10 units and lost 3 them poof

[barkogy]

"Best of luck to you, and your future playthroughs. And hopefully this brain dead system is fixed soon enough."

I highly recommend this. The current war score approach is so disappointing that I give up playing with the game and change my rating to "do not recommend the game". Ridiculous conquesting cities and win battles, having high war score while enemy reach zero warscore...and finally lost my own, old cities!

[archmag]

Originally posted by barkogy:

"Best of luck to you, and your future playthroughs. And hopefully this brain dead system is fixed soon enough."

I highly recommend this. The current war score approach is so disappointing that I give up playing with the game and change my rating to "do not recommend the game". Ridiculous conquesting cities and win battles, having high war score while enemy reach zero warscore...and finally lost my own, old cities!

If you have high warscore and win you shouldn't be losing any cities. In mechanics of this game the losing side doesn't get anything (it erases their demands and they are not the ones taking reparations). Even if winner only has 1 war score at the end of the war he is not losing anything. Winner gets their demands fullfilled automatically and on top of that can select some reward based on their warscore.

There is a bug where some of winner demands are displayed as opposite, like loser demands winner to give them cities, but that's just a text bug.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2581321376 (in this screenshot I am the one demanding them to give me Sidon and I got it after the war even though text says they are demanding it).

There may be other bugs when winner actually loses the territory but those are bugs and I've never encountered one or seen screenshots proving that one exists, only complains like in this thread which may be just a confusion based on not understanding what exactly is supposed to happen. If this really happened to you, make screenshots and post them, report the bug. Complaining with vague information doesn't help developers solve it.

Anyway, the war is easy: two factions start the war with different initial war support. Attacker get ticking war support reduction because he is an attacker which can be increased or decreased based on initial war support (-1 per starting a war with 20-79) or based on the distance on ideology axis (war against empires of similar ideologies costs extra -2, while war against empires of opposite ideologies recovers 1 per turn). You gain war support by winning battles and sieges, you lose war support by losing battles (one-time reduction) and having your cities occupied (-4 per turn). Whichever side loses all war support has to finish the war and accept all demands of the winner which were the reason the war started. On top of that winner can take some reparations based on war score which is calculated based on their initial and final war support and amount of enemy cities they occupied at the end of the war. The losing side does not get anything.

If you experience something different from the above description, like loser getting something, it is not intended and either a bug or you misunderstanding what exactly happened. In any case posting screenshots can help to further identify if it is a bug or just a user's mistake.

[VDmitry]

I hope they don't change war score system. It's the best feature of Humankind.

[G4M5T3R]

Originally posted by VDmitry:

I hope they don't change war score system. It's the best feature of Humankind.

There's quite a bit of depth to it. It's a shame that many don't even see that. All they see is I won the battle so I should win the war but that's not how this system works.

[VDmitry]

Originally posted by SOTAvongunn:

I am confused.. I was in the middle of a finishing a siege I won.. then a popup said I forced them to surrender.. But I lost a city and it's connected territories and didn't even get to keep the city I just took.. No menu for a deal just POOF

If you forced them to surrender then you should see War Resolution screen where you decide what you take.

There is possibility that enemy surrendered to you earlier. Never seen AI does that. Human players may do that and it's smart move if they are certain to loose. In that case your gains depends seriously on your Demands you set before the war.

If started playing multiplayer game without understanding how it works in single... You may have hard time.

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by G4M5T3R:

Originally posted by VDmitry:

I hope they don't change war score system. It's the best feature of Humankind.

There's quite a bit of depth to it. It's a shame that many don't even see that. All they see is I won the battle so I should win the war but that's not how this system works.

I 100% agree. A very small number of people (relative to the player base - there's always 12,000+ folks playing whenever I look) are just too quick to demand that feature A or B be removed and unfortunately, the developers are listening to them. Saying you like something is just seen as fanbois brown-nosing or dev-worship by these folks.

[Seedy]

I love the warscore system too, minus current bugs,I really like the fact that they found a way to curb the roflstomper way of [not really] playing a 4x game. (i.e. just build stacks of units and attack)

[Secondsky]

Originally posted by Seedy:

I love the warscore system too, minus current bugs,I really like the fact that they found a way to curb the roflstomper way of [not really] playing a 4x game. (i.e. just build stacks of units and attack)

I 2nd that the warscore system is rly refreshing and I enjoy it. I only have one suggestion and maybe I need to play around with war a bit more, but it's seems like you get the same amount of war support for a won battle or when you force the enemy to retreat. Maybe it would make more sense to adjust the number or warscore to the size/strenght of the armies interacting. For example if I beat 2 units with a single unit holding a strong defensive position, I should get more than 8 warscore. It would feel a bit more epic that way imo.

[VDmitry]

Originally posted by Secondsky:

Originally posted by Seedy:

I love the warscore system too, minus current bugs,I really like the fact that they found a way to curb the roflstomper way of [not really] playing a 4x game. (i.e. just build stacks of units and attack)

I 2nd that the warscore system is rly refreshing and I enjoy it. I only have one suggestion and maybe I need to play around with war a bit more, but it's seems like you get the same amount of war support for a won battle or when you force the enemy to retreat. Maybe it would make more sense to adjust the number or warscore to the size/strenght of the armies interacting. For example if I beat 2 units with a single unit holding a strong defensive position, I should get more than 8 warscore. It would feel a bit more epic that way imo.

Yes, it only depends on victory/defeat etc. Even pyrrhic victory is the same as brilliant one.

[The Former]

Originally posted by (SWT) Ben Shapiro:

Welcome to Humankind, where the dev's main goal for the game was limiting player fun and enjoyment.

What a skewed take. Ever stop to consider that they weren't making it to limit your fun, but to facilitate the fun of a certain type of player? Namely the "me" type? I enjoy wars immensely more in Humankind than I ever did in Civilization, and I'm not alone. There's just as much praise for this system as there is criticism.

Maybe not every gamer is the same, and maybe this town is big enough for both of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfkts0u-m6w

[Shaolin]

I am a bit confused with all the hate war support has gotten. Pretty much every 4x game uses this system (with adjustments obviously). Civilisation was the exception to this so why is everyone so up in arms about this? The only thing I do agree with is that it is too difficult in many situations to garner enough war support for an official declaration.