How do you win a war of Ideology?

[Cibervader]

So, I've declared war on a neighbor hoping to impose my ideology and thus get a new member of the federation I've built.
However, despite claiming multiple systems and capturing a few worlds I find that MY war exhaustion is going up rather fast,
Apparently, losing a few high tier armies in the ground wars means that it causes my war exhaustion to go up by about 13% while occupying the worlds only gave me 3%.
I can't really make the ground battles go any better, all the proper armies were from pops with the Very Strong trait, I had a mixed army of gene warriors, xenomorphs and clones and I can't really help taking losses in these ground battles with the new system.

How am I supposed to win this war with my war exhaustion ticking up so high simply from me winning these ground battles? Is there some way to make the ground battles go better that I am simply missing?

[Azunai]

you aren't going to win this war by exhaustion i think. to force your wargoal (bottom left button) you have to occupy most of their planets (or maybe even all if they are fairly small?). once the negative number on that button gets to 0, you can press your war goal. so it's more like a race against time - you have to occupy those planets before the ticking exhaustion (attrition) and the inevitable exhaustion from ground battles get you to 100%.

[Cibervader]

Thanks for your response, I guess that I have a bit of a better idea of how it works, still seems a tad impossible to do against a large empire, but I'll just have to see how it goes.
As a side note, I have found that the automated dreadnaught is useless becasue it's speed was only at 68 while my other ships were at 224.
I basically had to decomission it because I needed to be able to keep up with enemy fleets.

[Cibervader]

Originally posted by Azunai:

you aren't going to win this war by exhaustion i think. to force your wargoal (bottom left button) you have to occupy most of their planets (or maybe even all if they are fairly small?). once the negative number on that button gets to 0, you can press your war goal. so it's more like a race against time - you have to occupy those planets before the ticking exhaustion (attrition) and the inevitable exhaustion from ground battles get you to 100%.

So... I ended up taking more than half of all of his worlds without a single defeat on any front and was forced to end the war in a status quo... I ended up with nothing to show for my effort whatsoever.

[theslay66]

Ideology wars -and subjugation wars- are nearly impossible to win at the moment, is you opponent is too big (or if he has some defensive pact or is in a federation).
Simply put, you have to capture everything from him (and its allies) before the counter times out. Which means capturing all his planets, and take down all his fleets that avoid yours while they cap systems as they go and flee quickly with light loses every time you manage to engage them.

So you have the choice :
For capturing planets you can :
- Bombard them for a long time to kill the troops before invading, which will cost you plenty of time, or
- Invade them quickly which will cost you troops, so you get exhaustion.
lose/lose situation.

To hunt your opponent's fleets and cap system you can :
- Keep big fleets to minimize loses, but loses a lot of time chasing after your opponent's fleets and generally capping around, or
- Divide it into multiple small fleets, with the risk of getting loses when you encounter his fleets or attack a starbase, so more exhaustion.
another lose/lose situation.

Adding to that the counter ticking down at an insane pace, and it's simply impossible to win, even if you are completely crushing your opposition. And of course, the cherry on top of cake (ah ah), if you get forced into status quo, then you gain absolutely nothing. So much fun.

So yep, if your opponent is too big, you won't get him with a subjugation/ideologic war. You'll have to conquer his systems until he's small enough, that's the only solution.

[Cibervader]

Originally posted by theslay66:

Ideology wars -and subjugation wars- are nearly impossible to win at the moment, is you opponent is too big (or if he has some defensive pact or is in a federation).
Simply put, you have to capture everything from him (and its allies) before the counter times out. Which means capturing all his planets, and take down all his fleets that avoid yours while they cap systems as they go and flee quickly with light loses every time you manage to engage them.

So you have the choice :
For capturing planets you can :
- Bombard them for a long time to kill the troops before invading, which will cost you plenty of time, or
- Invade them quickly which will cost you troops, so you get exhaustion.
lose/lose situation.

To hunt your opponent's fleets and cap system you can :
- Keep big fleets to minimize loses, but loses a lot of time chasing after your opponent's fleets and generally capping around, or
- Divide it into multiple small fleets, with the risk of getting loses when you encounter his fleets or attack a starbase, so more exhaustion.
another lose/lose situation.

Adding to that the counter ticking down at an insane pace, and it's simply impossible to win, even if you are completely crushing your opposition. And of course, the cherry on top of cake (ah ah), if you get forced into status quo, then you gain absolutely nothing. So much fun.

So yep, if your opponent is too big, you won't get him with a subjugation/ideologic war. You'll have to conquer his systems until he's small enough, that's the only solution.

UPDATE. I conquered every single planet of a neighboring empire and I STILL cannot demmand that he surrender in my war of ideology, do I need to conquer every system too!?
That doesn't make any senese!
Do I need to conquer his defensive pact ally?
That also makes no sense!
I thought that with three powerfull fleets and three powerfull stacks of high tier armies that I could do it.
This is very frustrating.

[Peachtree Games]

They're winnable, you just have to understand what you're fighting for: a complete restructure of the enemy's government. It's a big thing, and you're going to need an overwhelming force to convince them to do so. But if you do it, it changes the politics of that part of the galaxy drastically.

Last night I declared an idealogical war on a neighbor of mine who kept claiming my systems. (I'm pacifist; ideological is all I had to work with.) After defeating the majority of his fleets, I systematically moved in and occuped about 80% of his starbases, and invaded/occupied one of his four planets. It gave me a +2 to call a ceasefire based on my war demands (that he adopt my civics/ethics.) The result:

Not only did I end hostilities on that border, I made a new friend. My natural enemies (based on ethics/civics) became his natural enemies. With his new civics aligned parallel to mine, the leader instantly started gifting me resources, then within a year asked for both a nonagression and defensive pact. He rebuilt his empire, and became a super-powerful ally, and I never had to worry about conflict on that border thereafter.

[Cibervader]

Originally posted by Alpha Lyrae:

They're winnable, you just have to understand what you're fighting for: a complete restructure of the enemy's government. It's a big thing, and you're going to need an overwhelming force to convince them to do so. But if you do it, it changes the politics of that part of the galaxy drastically.

I'd be fine if I needed to conquer all of their planets, or even all of their systems. But for example if the target you had declared war on had a defensive apct with another empire of simialr size you would have found the war to be absolutely impossible. Even if you crushed his fleet, conquered every system, and had supersoldiers conquer every world he simply wouldn't care. THAT is what I have a problem with, it simply makes no sense, is crushing his fleet and capturing every bit of his territory not enough?

I personally like war exhaustion, but in its current form it makes wars of Ideology nigh impossible if your target is in a deffensive pact with an equally large empire.