Bajor impossible to liberate after Cardassia "integrates" them?

[planet_killer]

Most of the Federation's mission tree is locked behind Bajor being liberated. The Federation cannot declare a war without cause. Cardassia sometimes integrates Bajor before you have a chance to support them. In certain circumstances, such as a radical power imbalance, the Cardassians simply will not declare war, no matter how they are goaded. So this can tank an entire 10-20-30-40+ hour Ironman game.

Please just patch this, it's ruining people's playthroughs.

[planet_killer]

Also, the Romulan evacuation mission sometimes happens too quickly to respond to.

[bratacsga]

Selecting "Defence" as your first Tradition (for the +10 Diplomatic Acceptance on completion) and taking "Diplomatic Solutions" as your first Ascension Perk (for the +50) should make it possible to convince Cardassia to release Bajor... without going to war.

As for succeeding on the Romulan evac, that seems to depend on how quickly you find the missions. In one playthrough I got the last stage of Suspicious Flares finishing the day before the Immediate Evacuation ran out so as soon as I unlocked the carrier it became obsolete. The Random Number Gods giveth and taketh away.

[jamesupton]

In my game, Cardassia integrated Bajor really early. I was playing the Federation and had about 55% of the galaxy under my control, Cardassia was about 18%. To get Bajor was really easy. I just scrapped every warship and fleet I had except the Cerritos and the Enterprise-D (not upgraded). Then Cardassia instantly declared war. In the war screen, select the territorial claims, Add Bajor as a claim. The moment war was declared, I set all my starbases to rebuild fleets, kicked the snot out of the Cardassians, and the moment they took enough punishment they declared a truce, and Bajor became Federation. I also used the war to level up the Enterprise-D Worf mission :) The whole thing couldn't have been easier. As for the Romulan mission, that mission was available in my queue for most of the game, I just never bothered to do it. If you need to get Cardassia to declare war on you, just scrap your fleets. The moment the computer sees your military strength as negligible it seems to attack. I would like to see more love put into the entire combat system of this game, but other than that I don't see anything that is really broken.

[planet_killer]

My Starbases are probably worth more than the entire Cardassian military.

I would contend that having to destroy 200+ ships, that cost maybe 50,000+ alloys to build, taking about 10+ minutes of clicking, in the hope that Cardassia declares war, is not an ideal solution, and this should be patched by the developer to give the Federation a special cassus belli or something...

[OKOK]

Oh dam did not notice this requirement at all

[planet_killer]

In general I think the mission trees in this game are way too "narrative focused". Way too specifically focused on things that would be minor historical events in the grand scheme of things. Constantly referencing the crew of the Enterprise D is classic "small universe" syndrome. Starfleet has thousands of ships. The Enterprise D is famous, like the real-life HMS Victory, but not THAT important; as if an entire civilization's focus boiled down to one ship's exploits. Likewise Bajor is just one occupied planet in four vast empires; why is half of the entire Federation's mission tree locked behind it? We are dealing with a huge civilisation, comprised of hundreds of species, and a singular event like the Liberation of Bajor is not major history.

On the 'Evacuation of Romulus':

Romulus being evacuated (the Romulan supernova being a plot point that many people never even liked), should be just a 20% chance, and confined to late in the game. It often happens before people have a chance to develop the technologies to save the Romulans; you can barely click the mission fast enough. I've seen others describe it as a total mess.

On the 'Liberation of Bajor':

There should be a way to do this, as the Federation, after the Cardassians have annexed their Bajoran vassal, which can happen very early in the game. The entire Federation, a vast civilization, shouldn't have it's tech tree locked behind this one event. Hundreds of species probably get annexed by the Klingon, Romulan and Cardassian Empires.

Solutions:

Perhaps allow a cassus belli for the liberation of any species that was taken by either force or integrated diplomatically. Make it cost 100 influence or something. Perhaps have the Romulan supernova happen in only 25% of games, only late-game, and make it non-essential for the Federation. Scrap the current mission trees and make them logical.

[bratacsga]

There's another thread about Bajor that gives the step-by-step for the diplomatic option and the "War of Liberation" option.

[planet_killer]

Originally posted by bratacsga:

There's another thread about Bajor that gives the step-by-step for the diplomatic option and the "War of Liberation" option.

Just to check, are you referring to after the Cardassians have integrated them?

This seems to be something people keep mis-reading in these threads. 1). Bajor starts as a puppet state of the Cardassians. 2). Bajor can be fully incorporated by the Cardassians, at which point a war of liberation seems impossible. If so, the only advice I have ever heard is the one given above about demolishing you fleet to goad the Cardassians into war. To say nothing of work it involves, it breaks immersion destroying every starship you have.

[bratacsga]

That thread also gives option 3 - if Cardassia integrates Bajor before you can liberate them with options 1 or 2, go the Section 31 route to unlock claiming during offensive wars

[bratacsga]

I haven't tested it yet (I didn't have enough Influence to spare when it happened) but there may be an Option 4.
If the Cardassians attack a minor power which you have a Defensive Pact with, or have Guaranteed Independence of, then you'll be drawn into the war as well (In my current playthrough, the Cardassians went to war against the Tanugans while I was integrating them).
As you're not the aggressor in such a case, you may be able to put in a claim for Bajor if you have Influence available before the conflict ends. As I said, I didn't get to test that theory, but it is a lot more sensible than demolishing your fleets.

[planet_killer]

Originally posted by bratacsga:

That thread also gives option 3 - if Cardassia integrates Bajor before you can liberate them with options 1 or 2, go the Section 31 route to unlock claiming during offensive wars

Again, only a partial solution, since for my part, I was already past that choice, and lack that option. I have tried waiting for Cardassia or their allies to launch a war, but have been waiting for a couple of hours and it does not look like it's going to happen with the web of treaties that current exist. So in an Ironman game, with dozens of hours invested, it would be better to patch an option in.

[bratacsga]

Hopefully we'll find out if Option 4 works

[planet_killer]

Another way I just discovered, is that it's possible to trade systems, through trade deals. It's just I have extremely bad relations with the Cardassians, so this isn't likely to work for me either. I don't know how wiling they would be to give up Bajor.

[bratacsga]

Ah, an option 5 perhaps :)

[planet_killer]

Just to be clear, this issue is still unresolved.

I'm mentioning this so that developers might notice it, and patch it or hotfix it.

After a dozen more hours, there has been no opportunity for the Federation to complete three entire Bajor-related missions on it's mission tree, despite dominating the galaxy. A hostile power will simply never trade a system with the Federation, no matter the incentives (i.e. offering 10 systems for 1). I spent hours using intelligence forces to goad the Cardassians into a war of aggression with another major power, only to find that I couldn't intervene in the war. This may be an outright bug, because I fulfilled all requirements.