Help me understand war/war exhaustion....

[Jeffreyac]

Hi folks,

Once again, let's do the TL;DR up front: How do I fight wars (particularly early wars) and how does war exhaustion work?

The narrative:

...ok, the next thing I need some help wrapping my brain around.

This last run, I decided to try something different - went with a egalitarian/materialistic/xenophile empire (I'd read somewhere that was a noob-friendly mix) with the idea that I'd try and run a more peaceful game, and practice some diplomacy.

...however, you've seen the thread title, so you know how that went for me...

So, my only neighbor, a hivemind, decided I looked at him funny and immediately declared rivals, with war coming shortly thereafter. I'd kind of seen that coming, so I had a starbase and a defensive fleet in position. They claimed three or four of my border systems, and I went with subjugation (lacking any better options, that I was ware of.)

The first wave - he comes in with a couple of small corvette fleets (this is early game, 'vettes are all we have) and gets blown out by my defenses, retreating. He loses about 7, I lose 1.

....the war exhaustion shows me at 15%, them at 12%.

So, question 1 - the first encounter, on my territory, I win and inflict more losses - how am I behind in war exhaustion?

...the defeat of his fleet left a bunch of systems open, so I run my fleet in and occupy about 4 systems, including one with a settled planet. This doesn't seem to have any significant impact on the exhaustion meter....

His fleets re-emerge (or maybe different fleets) start to respond - I have no pressing need to keep the occupied systems, so I drop back again to my starbase, and he recaptures the systems. Me capturing the systems didn't seem to affect the war exhaustion, but him retaking them adds a few percentage points to my side.

...his fleet again follows me home, and we fight a second larger engagement at my starbase. We win again, but this time I take about 6 corvette losses, and manage to only inflict one loss on the enemy, all others disengaging.

This battle takes me to where I am now - 84% exhaustion for me, 78% for them. I kinda get that last bit - I had more losses, so I'd get more attrition, though I wish winning the fight counted for more - but not sure how all the stuff that led up to it left me behind (or, at least, even when things seemed like they were going the way I'd wanted).

So, title - how do I fight wars and manage war exhaustion effectively?

[Elitewrecker PT]

Occupation doesn't have a significant impact on war exhaustion.
Hive minds have an innate bonus to exhaustion gain (i.e. slower increase).
I think exhaustion from ship losses is dependent on how much the lost ship accounts for the total naval capacity of that empire. So losing one corvette with 100 naval capacity doesn't have as much an impact as losing one corvette with 20 capacity.

[Kalemenos]

Ground unit (army) losses also increase exhaustion, so maybe there were differences in losses during planetary invasions. I think 4 things increase ex.: time, ship loss (and moreso if it is a big ship or represents a bigger percentage of your total), army loss, and planet loss (i.e., a Colossus destroys a planet).

The only effect of exhaustion is that if it hits 100%, the other side has 24 months to force you into peace. So you can happily battle away, sipping your favorite tea, as long as you have hope of winning before you hit 24 months after a 100%.

Bigger ships get lost less, and so they incur less exhaustion, so if you are able to build cruisers, that can help. If you're loosing the war, 100% exhaustion can be in your favor, to force a peace and then 10 years of truce.

Forgive my ignorance, what does "TL;DR" mean?

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

Hi folks,

Once again, let's do the TL;DR up front: How do I fight wars (particularly early wars) and how does war exhaustion work?

War exhaustion is a timer that rises at a steady but inexorable rate the longer you fight. Losing ships and planets accelerate the clock. Various technologies and bonuses can slow the progress of your clock. Unlike EU:IV, there are no mounting penalties associated with climbing war exhaustion. It's just a "must peace out" timer.

When war exhaustion hits 100%, you can be forced to accept a ceasefire that will end the war, so make sure you're holding what you need to hold as the clock gets close to the end. If you want to go past 100%, you usually get two free years (also measured by a timer) and then... after that, if you're still scrambling to retake territory or grab untaken claims, you're running on luck alone.

If you've satisfied all your war goals there's no reason to run your own clock out. Kill as many of the other guy's ships as you can, put him over 100%, then "settle status quo" to get everything you wanted. There's no real benefit to waiting/praying for the other guy to surrender and there are often subtle little reasons why they AI will not offer a surrender even when they will accept a status quo ceasefire.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Originally posted by Kalemenos:

Ground unit (army) losses also increase exhaustion, so maybe there were differences in losses during planetary invasions. I think 4 things increase ex.: time, ship loss (and moreso if it is a big ship or represents a bigger percentage of your total), army loss, and planet loss (i.e., a Colossus destroys a planet).

The only effect of exhaustion is that if it hits 100%, the other side has 24 months to force you into peace. So you can happily battle away, sipping your favorite tea, as long as you have hope of winning before you hit 24 months after a 100%.

Bigger ships get lost less, and so they incur less exhaustion, so if you are able to build cruisers, that can help. If you're loosing the war, 100% exhaustion can be in your favor, to force a peace and then 10 years of truce.

Forgive my ignorance, what does "TL;DR" mean?

Note that defensive army losses don't increase exhaustion, only recruited armies.

TLDR = too long, didn't read - AKA a summary

[{ИЯm} Keith]

I think you started higher because he attacked you. Elitewrecker is probably right, he had a higher navy capacity than you, so more losses is less a percentage.

Aside from the above, you can cause exhaustion in your enemy by occupying enemy worlds through ground force invasion.

[Kalemenos]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

Note that defensive army losses don't increase exhaustion, only recruited armies.

TLDR = too long, didn't read - AKA a summary

Aha, thanks for both points!

[Noma]

I play a Necrophage Fanatical Purifier empire, I'm raiding all their planets, destroy every ships they sent to me, kidnapping their pops and necrophaging them...still, I have more war attrition and they have 0% to their "destruction" state.

Why would Fanatical Purifiers even suffer from attrition if they're not even losing one ship ?

[Elitewrecker PT]

Attrition is just there to try and make sure no war lasts infinitely.

[Gallyx]

War exhaustion gain per ship is determined by the naval usage of the ship in question and the portion of the cap it occupies, so a Battleship (8) lost by someone with 200 cap will hurt more that the same ship lost by someone with 500 cap. Its not increased by occupation, occupation is a different metric that will allow you to force demands (or prevent you from doing that) when suing for peace, makes the AI more willing to accept surrender. It is increased by so called "destruction" which is using collosi on worlds, purging pops by bombardment (probably also by bombardment devastation, but im very unsure about that). It shouldnt be increased by dying defensive armies (unsure about assault ones, I dont tend to lose those). Starbase defense platforms, Im not sure, they shouldnt increase exhaustion, but I'm not using them much so I cant speak from experience. There are also loads of "-x% war exhaustion gain" which are from techs/traditions/civics and a lot of aggresive AI's tend to pick them. Funnily enough, if you fight with ships that have good disengagement chance you can lose a battle and you dont gain any attrition, because you didnt lose the ships, they just retreated, while if enemies took casualties they get attrited af.

[Gallyx]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

Attrition is just there to try and make sure no war lasts infinitely.

Funnily enough, some wars can last "indefinitely", off the top of my head I can think of crisis declaration. Maybe also machine uprising?