Ending an ally's war

[Corrin]

Basically a neighbour i'm really good friends with asked me to pitch in on a war with our ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ neighbour and I wanted to claim some stuff so I joined in. I can't propose war endings, or force them now that they've been exhausted for years, because i'm not the initiator. Is there any way around it? I need to be at peace to do certain things :(

[gregoryk64]

Only the primary attacker or defender can dictate terms to end a war. If you are an allied participant you have to wait it out until the end. As near as I can tell the only way to speed it up is to actively participate in turning the warscore to your favor.

[Meewec]

either complete the wargoals to hopefully get the enemy to surrender or lose ships to force your side's war exhaustion to 100% so the enemy can force a status quo

[Elitewrecker PT]

Easiest way is to fully occupy them so they have to surrender.

[Corrin]

I have fully occupied every system, they've been at 100% exhaustion for years, I've made all my personal claims, there's literally nothing left for me to lose ships to. They still have a few planets but it would be a huge pain to get landing parties over there. I guess this is my life now, at least this war has prepared me for the crisis (I hope).

[Nightmyre]

Originally posted by Corrin:

I have fully occupied every system, they've been at 100% exhaustion for years, I've made all my personal claims, there's literally nothing left for me to lose ships to. They still have a few planets but it would be a huge pain to get landing parties over there. I guess this is my life now, at least this war has prepared me for the crisis (I hope).

It's not their war exhaustion that matters - it's your ally's war exhaustion.

In a war there are always three ways to end - either you win, there's a white peace, or you lose.

In your situation, you want the enemy to surrender - in other words, you want them to admit they lost. For that to happen, the conditions are significantly more difficult (generally) than simply ending in a white peace.

However, a white peace will only happen if both sides agree - and that only happens when both sides reach full war exhaustion.

You can go on google to find some images to use as example if you'd like - but it's the area on the left of the war screen that you're interested in. Under "Peace Offers", the left one will be the surrender option - usually simply "Conquer" or "Humiliate", depending on your casus belli.

You can hover over the condition, and it will tell you what's preventing you from achieving it. 99.9999% of the time, it's because there are claims on planets, and in your war, you simply haven't claimed those planets. And that, in turn, happens very frequently when the enemy is a target of a war from multiple different opponents. If one war has claims on the same planets as another, and each war has some planets conquered - neither war will reach the conditions for the Conquer casus belli.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Originally posted by Corrin:

I have fully occupied every system, they've been at 100% exhaustion for years, I've made all my personal claims, there's literally nothing left for me to lose ships to. They still have a few planets but it would be a huge pain to get landing parties over there. I guess this is my life now, at least this war has prepared me for the crisis (I hope).

You haven't fully occupied every system if there are unoccupied planets...
You've occupied the starbase, which equals absolute zero for victory purposes.
When we say fully occupy someone, we mean FULLY. You have to aim for every planet at the very least. Some isolated empty systems might not be necessary, but pretty much every planet has to be.
They'll probably surrender before you're done but you always have to go with one thing in mind: "I will probably have to land on every planet".