Don't Understand War

[wildwinds]

I've declared war on Cardassia with the intent of liberating the Bajorans, so I'm at war. But I can't move any of my fleets into Cardassian space, the game just won't let me move a fleet into a Cardassian star system.

So what am I to do? How do I fight a war if I can't go to the enemy? Do I need to change a policy or something?

[Elunamar]

Interesting. Are you playing as UFP? The only way I was able to liberate the bajorans is to send a request to the Cardassian Union asking them to end their occupation which they obviously refuse. I then try to declare war on them, but the option of liberation is grayed out. I am able to achieve liberation by contacting the bajorans and declaring war on them instead.

[Vosoros]

RIGHT, as best I can from memory...

Make sure you contact the Bajorans to support independance and open boarders and whatever. Then ask Cardassian's to free Bajor. Wait for refusal. Go to Bajorians and press Liberation war? Or it maybe via Cardassians? Anyhow, set goal of war as Liberation War. Win war...

How to win war?

Send you fleets (likely Miranda class fleets) into Cardassian space and defeat each sectors space station. Then get a General Leader and go to your own planets to get some ground troop recruits. Send a stack of 'em to enter orbit of planets like Bajor and land to win that Sector. Rinse and repeat with other sectors....

...eventually the bar on the war screen (go to Dimplomacy with Cardassians and click sue for peace to see it...but back out rather than ask for peace once you've seen what you need on the progress bar).

Once war is won Bajor should be liberated and you can then win them over with diplomacy like any other race. TADA

[Soccer]

Originally posted by wildwinds:

I've declared war on Cardassia with the intent of liberating the Bajorans, so I'm at war. But I can't move any of my fleets into Cardassian space, the game just won't let me move a fleet into a Cardassian star system.

So what am I to do? How do I fight a war if I can't go to the enemy? Do I need to change a policy or something?

War opens borders natually, yet if you are e.g. Klingons, Cardassian space might be out of range of your starbases. So you need to "contruct a route of starbases/outposts" .
It might also be possible to increase their range with upgrades. But usually survey systems and use construction ship to build starbases is needed to get to minor and major powers systems, which cost influcence.

Maybe it helps asking romulans and federation to open their borders for you.

[wookiemart]

ah yes the buraucracy of war. what a fun game concept...
/endsarcasm

[kingts]

They have a lot to improve in the game

[IndianaJones]

Originally posted by wildwinds:

I've declared war on Cardassia with the intent of liberating the Bajorans, so I'm at war. But I can't move any of my fleets into Cardassian space, the game just won't let me move a fleet into a Cardassian star system.

So what am I to do? How do I fight a war if I can't go to the enemy? Do I need to change a policy or something?

If you declared the war you should be able to move to Cardasian space. Are you issuing orders in pause mode? I saw it doesn't update some times till you unpause the game.
Also make sure you are actually at war with Cardasiasn (bottom right corner). Sometimes the game auto-resolves war status.

[ElokoMs]

Originally posted by Vosoros:

How to win war?

Send you fleets (likely Miranda class fleets) into Cardassian space and defeat each sectors space station. Then get a General Leader and go to your own planets to get some ground troop recruits. Send a stack of 'em to enter orbit of planets like Bajor and land to win that Sector. Rinse and repeat with other sectors....

That's exactly what I did. I conquered almost every Cardassian sector, destroyed their fleets and lost the war.

[IndianaJones]

What I did was I declared a war to Cardassian with a goal to liberate Bajor.
Then I captured 4 system near Bajor, make like a blockade I was still losing the war. Finally I occupied Bajor itself and war goal points started increasing to my favor.

By capturing I mean destroying enemy fleet in the system, enemy starbase and sending ground troops to the planet (including Bajor), you will need to win with the planetary defenders as well.

After that I fought with roaming Cardassian fleet and defended my own sector or (temporary) captured Cardassian systems and Bajor. The war in my case lasted for 10+ years.
Both side were exhausted with war (yellow bar in war window), but the goal bar (green bar) was slowly increasing. I finally won the war.

The result was liberation Bajor and it became a minor faction which you can later assimilate.

Federation in general cannot capture or conquer any system. Bajor is exception since it is a mission. Also if you defend yourself, you might be able to get back your systems if you have enough influence points.
Federation is really handicap in this area.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3051927826
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3051927936

[wildwinds]

I'm playing as UFP, and I am at war with the Cardassians, but I just can not move ships into their territory to attack. With my fleet selected, I right-click on any of my stars and get the right-click menu with a "Move Here" option. Trying the same on Cardassian stars I get nothing, no right-click menu. Pressing the move button and clicking a Cardassian star again does nothing.

The game just will not let me move my ships into enemy territory even though we are at war with each other.

[IndianaJones]

Just a side note. Recently I got into modding some small things in this game.

I found an interesting description in game files. Looks like war gain for liberation of Bajor is hard-coded and is meant to be slow.

# For Liberation War, is used in static war gain when all colonies of country to liberate is controlled by attackers.
MONTHLY_LIBERATION_WAR_OBJECTIVE_FULLFILED = 0.5

It matches with what I got when playing.

[wildwinds]

I finally managed to invade Cardassian space after closing the game and reloading. So I definitely ran into a bug. Seems like the game was still enforcing empire borders even though we were at war.

[phily]

Ask the Cardassians to free Bajor in diplomacy.

They'll say no. Then you can free Bajor through a war of liberation. You got to do wit early game before the Cardies have a chance at integrating them. Personally, I think the Cardies shouldn't be able to integrate species like that and just gain significant bonuses by having them as a slave state instead.