Twice in the game I'm playing, I beat the shrimp and they became my subjugated dominion. The first time, they waited all of 5 minues before they decared war on my again. I beat them down some more and they again became my subjugated dominion. Sure enough, I didn't even have time to fuel and repair my fleet before they decared war on me again. To me this is broken. An empire that's badly beaten, lost all their fleets, spaceports, bases, etc. should take a long time to recover from that and rebuild a viable war machine. Declaring war again and again with no essentially nothing to make war with makes no sense to me.
I argue that being crushed and agreeing to become a subjugated dominion of another empire should actually have some teeth and have more benefit to the victor. I would like to suggest the following changes to address this diplomatic phase of the game:
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1) Subjugated empires cannot declare war on the winning empire again for a period of 1 game year. That gives both empires time to rebuild and get rid of war weariness. It also gives time for the financial reparations paid to the victor to actually mean something.
2) The victor should get half of the subjugated dominion's cash on hand at the time the treaty is signed. This provides a tangible 'prize' for the winner of the war and an actual hit to the loser's economy.
3) The subjugated dominion should pay the victor 20% of their income instead of 10% for the period of the subjugation.
I feel that the above suggestions would really improves this aspect of the game. Does anyone agree?