How to defeat a pre-FTL that has just emerged from early space age?

[markeason]

Situation:

Playing commonwealth of man, early game, find myself boxed in by Stagnant Ascendancy and massive Crystal entity fleets. So I'm going to be stuck for a while.

In my Empire I have an early space-age, pre-FTL species on a desert planet that I had built an observation post over to milk the research while I continued to explore.

With nowhere left to explore I decided to deal with them, recruited some assault units and prepared the fleet to soften them up.

Before I could get units to position, true to form, the species emerged from the early space age and became aware. I refused to give over the system to them and got my units in place.

I declared war with the intention of vassalising them.

My fleet bombarded the planet for about 2 days and the planet (their only one) immediately surrendered. My policy was set to allow surrender to orbital bombardment. I landed my assault troops unopposed - they had come a long way for this fight - and I figured that would be the end of the war.

But no. I look at the war panel and all I have in my favour is the fact that I shot up their first science and construction ships, and am a little better off in terms of attrition. In spite of having my unopposed armies on the planet, it seems I do not occupy it. And they don't have a system for me to claim.

So it now appears that I have to wait an eternity for the attrition to reach a point at which they will surrender, which seems a nonsense. But indicates that I have made a fundamental error somewhere along the line.

Any advice on what that error is would be greatly appreciated.

[Edit: And I now realise, looking at the numbers, it looks like I cannot get better than a status quo outcome, no mater how long I wait:

For Their Surrender the Acceptance value is currently: -94
Demanding Surrender: -100
War Exhaustion: +56 (max 100)
Relative navy strength: +50 (max 50)
Vassalise war goal: -100

So the best acceptance value I can get is -50.

Even though the planet has an indicator that I occupy it, this makes no contribution in the war goal evaluation.

How on Deneb does this happen? And how on Deneb do I resolve it, short of taking the white peace, waiting for truce to expire and trying again?]

[Cerodil]

I think the problem here is you're not getting the bonus for "capturing" their space stations.

[markeason]

I reloaded a save and played it through again.

This time, I didn't declare war as soon as they became aware and a few days later, with no war declaration, the planet became mine (I owned the system) without any war.

I think the first time, I was too quick, declared war to subjugate them, but they had no system, and certainly no space stations for me to capture.

I had thought that occupying the planet would count for occupation but it does not seem to count for anything.

Just glad I was not playing ironman mode.

[Merlin Pharmakeus]

This should not happen.
The problem is that you didn't wait enough. There is a small window where the preftl is replaced by a normal empire. I guess you paused and declared a war to that empire during the war resolution. Normally, you get the planet. A white peace will give you control since the system is yours then you can create a vassal.

[Cerodil]

Oh I completely missed the part where you said you denied them the star base. Spending that influence forces them to be annexed.

[markeason]

Originally posted by Merlin Pharmakeus:

This should not happen.
The problem is that you didn't wait enough. There is a small window where the preftl is replaced by a normal empire. I guess you paused and declared a war to that empire during the war resolution. Normally, you get the planet. A white peace will give you control since the system is yours then you can create a vassal.

That is exactly what happened. I was ready to invade when they became aware, paused and declared war. Had no idea it would turn out that way :)

[Willem]

Originally posted by Cerodil:

Oh I completely missed the part where you said you denied them the star base. Spending that influence forces them to be annexed.

Actually, denying them the Starbase costs no Influence if you are not Xenophile, and giving it to them while Xenophobe would actually cost you Influence.

And to OP: Just wait next time, denying them the Starbase forces Annexation as said here, just be patient and it'll be fine.

[markeason]

Originally posted by Willem:

Originally posted by Cerodil:

Oh I completely missed the part where you said you denied them the star base. Spending that influence forces them to be annexed.

Actually, denying them the Starbase costs no Influence if you are not Xenophile, and giving it to them while Xenophobe would actually cost you Influence.

And to OP: Just wait next time, denying them the Starbase forces Annexation as said here, just be patient and it'll be fine.

That is what I did second time around.

[rumax]

just send army on planet.

[markeason]

Originally posted by rumax:

just send army on planet.

That, is what I did.

Originally posted by markeason:

. . . I landed my assault troops unopposed . . .