I like the idea of crossing into "hostile" reputation instantly giving you an extra -25 or -50 reputation to get you halfway to Vengeful, and then as long as you're in Hostile territory every fair battle you win gains you reputation ("respect"), so you can combat your way out of a war in a very lightweight way -- if you keep beating what they throw at you (and aren't running down their backliners or committing war crimes) they eventually go, "hey. We shouldn't be at war with this dude, it's getting us nothing", but without a super convoluted system
I like this idea, and it could easily be implemented without changing the core mechanics of the game-- It could be done in a mod. You crush your enemies enough they should give up fighting you, it makes sense. But yea, having to fight "fair" probably makes sense, nobody surrenders if they think they're going to just keep being slaughtered. This, combined with some options for diplomatic resolution to disputes such as you paying off a faction or them paying off you, would go a long way to making the game much richer experience.
Wonder if it would be interesting/possible to also apply this to the disputes between NPC factions, which really need some kind of "budget" to track how well they are doing and how many fleets they can spawn, and how long they can keep fighting.
edit: when I keep thinking of it, it really does kind of mirror real life. By fighting your enemies, you can get them to a ceasefire, but then only way to get back to truly "normal" relations is to actually do something positive, like trade and aid.
