How do wars work?

[ChuckDM]

I used to love Stellaris, then they introduced the whole "war goal/war claim" system and as far as I'm concerned it absolutely ruined the game. I don't want to resolve every game with warfare, but when I bombard and invade a planet, I expect to KEEP that planet after I capture it. I expect do keep EVERY planet I capture, not just the ones I denoted before ever declaring war. And if I start a war and determine I can take 5 more planets than the 10 I thought I could manage, I want to be able to capitalize on that.

So does Gal Civ 4 (or Gal Civ 3, I've never played anything in this franchise) allow for plain, simple warfare, i.e. I take a thing and it's mine, or is there a stupid system like the war claims in Stellaris?

And yes, I know that system was added to Stellaris for a reason. Sorry, I think the cure is worse than the disease: people being able to steamroll the AI with corvettes did not require neutering the entirety of combat. If you don't agree, that's fine, but don't try to sell me on Stellaris' current combat system, I ain't buying it. (Also it totally ruins playing a Klingon in Star Trek: Infinite.)

[HurtfulPlayer97]

I couldn't agree more. :)
It is why I finally got sick of Stellaris and uninstalled it.
Besides the fact it is also micromanagement hell.

[scragg]

Yes, you can roll through the galaxy as a belligerent power, conquering anyone you meet on a whim with no plan whatsoever.

[Supply Side Jesus]

I fully agree, Stellaris in its original version was great, then devs decided to change direction and ruined it. One of the reasons I hate Steam forces patching on you.

In this game, wars drag on due to distances involved. AI isn’t strategic (attacking with some obvious goals in mind) in declaring wars. At least AI that lost will agree to peace.

Yes, you can conquer anyone you meet, BUT you can't really purge the galaxy as there is no "nuke them from the orbit" option.

[ChuckDM]

Originally posted by HurtfulPlayer97:

I couldn't agree more. :)
It is why I finally got sick of Stellaris and uninstalled it.
Besides the fact it is also micromanagement hell.

Originally posted by scragg:

Yes, you can roll through the galaxy as a belligerent power, conquering anyone you meet on a whim with no plan whatsoever.

Originally posted by Supply Side Jesus:

I fully agree, Stellaris in its original version was great, then devs decided to change direction and ruined it. One of the reasons I hate Steam forces patching on you.

In this game, wars drag on due to distances involved. AI isn’t strategic (attacking with some obvious goals in mind) in declaring wars. At least AI that lost will agree to peace.

Yes, you can conquer anyone you meet, BUT you can't really purge the galaxy as there is no "nuke them from the orbit" option.

Thanks for the answers guys, guess I'm buying. I don't mind if combat is a slog, so long as it's war and not some sort of arm wrestling contest where I destroy or capture every single planet and station only to have half of it revert back to my opponent's control.

If I might bug you guys again, which game has a better version of warfare in your opinions, 3 or 4? As I said I've never played either, but I've got several hundred hours in Stellaris (even some after they broke it) as well as Sins of a Solar Empire and a few others. That is, I have a vague understanding of what these games are. I'm also not concerned with which one looks better, and the AI-generated empires in 4 don't matter to me because I'm going to use mods and custom create all the factions in my games anyway. I am mainly looking for which one has a more interesting version of warfare.

Thanks in advance for your opinions on this. Looking forward to playing :)

[Supply Side Jesus]

In my opinion GC3 has better ship combat, but it is more complicated/convoluted. If you want to obsess over building a perfect fleet, GC3 is the way to go.

GC4 is a better game, a lot of polish went into many systems. Unfortunately, ship combat is not one of them. More so, atrocious UI redesign also ruined making custom hulls, so in my book there are two strikes against GC4 right there.

With all that said, I have every GC (including, some in a physical game boxes!) and currently playing and enjoying GC4.

[enpi1234]

Originally posted by Supply Side Jesus:

In my opinion GC3 has better ship combat, but it is more complicated/convoluted. If you want to obsess over building a perfect fleet, GC3 is the way to go.

GC4 is a better game, a lot of polish went into many systems. Unfortunately, ship combat is not one of them. More so, atrocious UI redesign also ruined making custom hulls, so in my book there are two strikes against GC4 right there.

With all that said, I have every GC (including, some in a physical game boxes!) and currently playing and enjoying GC4.

best would be to get rid of ship classes (like fregate, cruiser, support ship) altogether and completely replace it with general hull points system without classes. Classes are so artificial and arbitrary. What one race calls a "fregate" the other race calls a "battleship".

[HurtfulPlayer97]

Originally posted by enpi1234:

best would be to get rid of ship classes (like fregate, cruiser, support ship) altogether and completely replace it with general hull points system without classes. Classes are so artificial and arbitrary. What one race calls a "fregate" the other race calls a "battleship".

But as has been already explained, that just leads people to only building one type of Huge Supership. The Devs want people to make mixed fleets of ships with all classes.

[enpi1234]

Originally posted by HurtfulPlayer97:

Originally posted by enpi1234:

best would be to get rid of ship classes (like fregate, cruiser, support ship) altogether and completely replace it with general hull points system without classes. Classes are so artificial and arbitrary. What one race calls a "fregate" the other race calls a "battleship".

But as has been already explained, that just leads people to only building one type of Huge Supership. The Devs want people to make mixed fleets of ships with all classes.

well if the combat system demands only the biggest ship type to be always superior then it is flawed and should be changed.

[peterhoran79]

Originally posted by enpi1234:

Originally posted by HurtfulPlayer97:

But as has been already explained, that just leads people to only building one type of Huge Supership. The Devs want people to make mixed fleets of ships with all classes.

well if the combat system demands only the biggest ship type to be always superior then it is flawed and should be changed.

That's not the case. A ship can only target 1 ship at a time so big ships (high HP but high logistics cost) can easily be swarmed by fighters/bombers (only 1 logistic point per ship).

[227steam]

We just need a system that works for combat, you can argue over it for centuries. If I had the game tech and wanted to eliminate a threat I would use sublight and nearlight pebbles and hammers to avoid all the drama.

[Supply Side Jesus]

Yes, the near light dark object is likely how warfare would actually work. Thing is, with FTL travel all kind of paradoxes available, like shooting a projectile and arriving where it is aimed before it was fired. So we can't really have space combat that also has FTL.