(04-18-2022, 12:56 PM)Grecanis Wrote: So you're telling me that the game doesn't know if one empire has declared war on another, or that one empire has attacked the assets of another.
If that's the case then there's the problem.
That is is exactly what I am saying. There is no "war" mechanic. Mechanically the only thing you can do is set your diplomatic stance towards an empire to hostile. Having your diplomatic stance set to hostile doesn't mean you are at war with another empire, it just means your units (ships, troops, defenses, etc.) will attack if they get too close.
You can setup your empire's "war policy" (fancy name, but still has nothing to do with actual war) to automatically change your diplomatic stance towards an empire to hostile if they capture/damage/kill/destroy a unit of your empire. But again, this does not mean war, it can have been an accident or a prank.
Many veteran empires have their default diplomatic stance towards everyone set to hostile. This helps protect their empire from first strike issues such as pre-hostile recon and pre-hostile checkmate moves. It also helps against a bunch of alt empire exploit issues.
What would be actual "war" is a player concept that just doesn't exist as a game mechanic currently. There is no way to determine what a hostile diplomatic stance might mean without actually asking the empire that has set the diplomatic stance to hostile.