Real War: A better ground invasion experience

[VoiD]

So let's take the opportunity while everyone is up in arms about something to discuss something nobody seems to care about right now:

Ground combat and invasions.

The Problem:
Ground combat is just a meaningless chore right now, you have to keep building those annoying little fleets and it's basically a game of "throw a bigger number and you'll win 100% of the time" against your enemies, it's not fun, it's not engaging, it's not important and I'm sure people wouldn't miss if the whole system was removed.

So here's my idea, which ties to pop growth and the lag issues:

What if planetary invasions were truly, planetary invasions? And I don't mean pop a couple of fleets and move transports around annoyingly, micro invading every little planet and habitats, no, I mean an actual planetary invasion, planet to planet warfare, as in:

-You take the enemy system, now you'll need to take down the planets

-You can bomb the planets like you can right now and nuke it into submission over a long period of time, with some damage dealt to the planet itself which should take decades to recover Or:

-You assign a planet, or multiple planets to prepare an invasion against your targets, then you'll see a line, much like the commercial routes are formed, but from your planet into the enemy planet, then you'll see multiple transport ships being sent into the enemy planet, the density/number of transports is proprtional to the number of soldier jobs on that planet+your racial modifiers (making things like species strength matter again)

-Once the battle starts it's a tug of war, your planet(s) pushing against the enemy planet's defenses, obviously defenders have the advantage.

-Now that you have a route between invading planet A vs defending Planet B you have formed a supply line you'll have to protect, if you get cut off at any point in your route your reinforcements will stop arriving, and the defending planet will start butchering the troops you already sent there, greatly increasing your war exhaustion so that the defenders can more easily push for peace.

-Likewise the defenders can send their own ships into the defending planet, if they can somehow get access to it, in an attempt to push back the invaders.

-As for the lag and pop issue: The longer an invasion lasts, the more costly casualties get, so a long unproductive invasion can take your pop growth into the negative numbers.


Why do I think this is a better a good idea?

1: Conquest is too quick, too easy, this would make wars last longer, and control points would actually matter, Paradox wanted to avoid the doomstacks, this way if one player creates a massive doomstack over a planet the other player can try sending smaller forces to cut off reinforcements around and keep their planets from being taken

2: It's more complex, while at the same time it needs a LOT less micromanagement, you just set and leave it there until the conquest is done, no more transport ship grouns, telling them to follow your main fleets, embark, disembark, follow again, forget about them, lose everything and recruit a bunch of expendable soldiers over and over again with no real cost besides annoyance.

3: It expands the strategy involved in wars


Opinions?

Edit: Bonus idea: Main pops of the invading empire can turn against you, specially if it's a xenophobe empire, and certainly if they were fanatic purifiers, you sure you want to keep all of those xenophobic pops you just conquered?

[VoiD]

Radene eredeti hozzászólása:

GeneralVeers eredeti hozzászólása:

And admirals to run your fleets for you, and governors to run the planets for you, and----

Stellaris: The Idle Game.

(heheh. but yes, most of the focus in this game is on planet economies and space combat, and it should probably stay that way, but ground combat could use a little something extra)

I mean, sure, I can decide which planet we're going to invade; but from then on, my trusty minions take over. Same with ship maneuvers, I can tell 'em who they should attack, but the battle is up to the admiral ^^

That is exactly what this change is proposing, removing the BS micromanagement, and giving value to the conquest while adding value to strategic deployment of your actual fleets, instead of "doomstack go brr"

[GeneralVeers]

Radene eredeti hozzászólása:

I mean, sure, I can decide which planet we're going to invade; but from then on, my trusty minions take over. Same with ship maneuvers, I can tell 'em who they should attack, but the battle is up to the admiral ^^

As one who has played far too much "Sins Of A Solar Empire", I find it frustrating that I can't give combat orders to my individual ships in this game. :)

[AngleWyrm]

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

-You assign a planet, or multiple planets to prepare an invasion against your targets, then you'll see a line, much like the commercial routes are formed, but from your planet into the enemy planet, then you'll see multiple transport ships being sent into the enemy planet

A feature missing from this game that would improve game play is Rally Points for construction facilities.

[RodHull]

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

the only thing that changed was that people would create one main fleet and tell the other 5 to follow it around instead so nothing changed.

That's cause the combat is to 1 dimensional, it works for CK the sort of very basic rock, paper, scissors way combat works and just stacking pure numbers, cause that game has lots of checks and balances built in that prevent you maintaining mega armies to easily. But in Stellaris it just promotes doom stacks and always has and always will, mainly cause there is no internal strife to deal with as you are always god emperor. So once you have the resources you always have a max fleet. There is no other factor that steps in to keep your power in check. The fleet battles have needed an overhaul for some time, but I suspect it will be saved for Stellaris 2 now. Weapons should have asymmetry and there should be various classes of ships including support ships, EW ships and so forth (think how EVE does it basically)

[Stockwerk 13]

they should make the ground invasions into a real RTS, like imperium galaktika did 25 years ago on windows 95.

[vkobe]

Antipolar eredeti hozzászólása:

they should make the ground invasions into a real RTS, like imperium galaktika did 25 years ago on windows 95.

we have several hundred planets you really want rts every planets or stations ?

[doobenhiemer]

ground combat for stellaris should just look like hoi4 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2477352707

[CrUsHeR]

Right now there are two reasons why i don't like war in Stellaris:

1) AI building shipyards and tiny fleets everywhere for harassment

2) The Stop & Go of having to invade 50+ colonies one-by-one

We just need something to automate the individual planet invasions. And something - anything - to stop the AI from upgrading everything to shipyards. In particular if you are NOT in a total war, you always go something like 20 over the starbase cap, because you cannot dismantle starbases you only have occupied.

[Lula O Honesto]

Walach eredeti hozzászólása:

I don't really see a point with trying to make the battles more detailed. Well maybe when you invade a planet then your computer could start up "Hearts of Iron 4" and gives you control of the alien invasion cheat code. ;P

Anyways. Your idea can seem a little tedious but I might just not understand it.

What I would have done is making the ground battles a lot like how they made sieges in "Europa Universalis 4". A lot like the digging sites in Stellaris are now that I think about it!

Instead of landing with your invasion fleet they stay in orbit, rolling each month with +/- from their size, leader etc. That way someone can come in and destroy your invasion fleet if you don't have fleet support and all that.

I live and die by the "Keep it simple" edict... or is is laziness. Bah, I don't have the energy to bother. ;)

Also, I think I remember at launch you could equip armies with weapons or something like that, I guess no one used them. I wonder what the story was.

1- Starting a xeno Hearts of iron 4 in every invasion make i laughed ahahahhahahaha

2. Make invasions like Fort Sieges in other paradox games its a good idea, like defense armies can greatly increase the siege time like garrison

[coolman552]

vkobe eredeti hozzászólása:

because we have colossus and neutron sweep, so in real stellaris war invader will use neutron sweep or assimilating beam and only use army for backyard planet, but fortress world or industry world or urban planet will taste neutron sweep and assimiliting beam, real invader will not trow their soldiers in a grind meat when colossus is the safer plan to take a planet

yes because a xenophilic empire in the year of our lord 2250 can acquire neutron sweeps, this is such a non argument why did you even post it

[VoiD]

vkobe eredeti hozzászólása:

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

From what I understood in Stellaris' dev History that's the goal they always had, and the reason why they created fleet size caps, they wanted people not to create doomstacks and move everything together, the only thing that changed was that people would create one main fleet and tell the other 5 to follow it around instead so nothing changed.

Instead of adding some arbitrary penalty for multiple fleets in a system this would give you an actual, legit reason to split up your forces and control multiple key points instead of a single one, with a doomstack while it falls (which often happens instantly because you have 5k army strength in tow following each one of your fleets anyway)


And that's how you end with a size 3 tomb world that will recover fully in 150 years
Keep in mind this is simulating an actual planetary invasion, you're fighting against billions of people, specially as a xenophobe purifier, every single citizen could take up arms to fight for survival (in fact they should against genocidal empires greatly boosting defenses)

since when neutron sweep=tomb world for 150 years ? i pretty sure it is only a drop of 10% in habitability for 10 years

are you sure you dont confuse with armaggedon bombardment ?

yeah it is why we neutron sweep your citizens or use assimilator beam

Sorry, missed this one.

No, armaggedom should be a much simpler form of destruction, just some radiation and massive nuclear craters, neutron sweeping isn't very well implemented in the game, it should kill all life and leave behind a radioactive wasteland of nothing but rocks, it should turn it into something worse than a tomb world, maybe an uncolonizable barren world instead.

Restoring it should take a massive artificial effort, importing and creating new life and a brand new ecossystem, from the microbes to the plants, to the animals from the beginning and that's only after the radiation is gone.

[Rialm]

In my opinion the best fix is something between Endless Space 2 + HOI 4.

Each fleet has a number of manpower and then each fleet refill the manpower like HoI4 so that way you need to protect the hyperlanes that it's connected to the nearest planet or starbase that has manpower. The fleets refill overtime with the nearest planet or Starbase that you control, and that planet or starbase refill with the nearest starbase or planet etc
Biggest problem, the game has to calculate manpower = slower gameplay.

I just don't want to pay attention to ground invasion and managing thousands fleets just to invade one or two planets.

[Stevcorp]

My idea was having a "three level" system.

The bottom level would be the ground, occupied by the troops, anti-air units and special units (eg. medical units who reduce damage, command units who increase morale, infiltrator units who attack reserves).

The top level would be orbital. It is occupied by every ship that has entered the planet's orbit and is in a position to start shelling the planet. Their attacks will depend on policy (e.g. striking enemy units while they're in combat will risk friendly fire, while striking enemy units in reserve will reduce damage but keep your own troops safe.)

The middle level would be atmosphere, with the defender's interceptors on one side and the attacker's strike craft and air-superiority fighters on the other. If the attackers win control of the atmosphere, they can start bombing units on the ground. If the defenders win control, they can launch attacks on the orbital craft.

I also thought it might be good to assign battle plans. For example, telling your troops to go out in a blaze of glory and inflict as much damage as possible. Or alternatively, telling your troops to hide in the hills and hold out as long as possible for reinforcements.

[RubiiX]

I'd love if it they added ground to space weapons into the game. I never understood why an advanced civilisation couldn't install a planetary defence grid to shoot ships in orbit. This could damage or even destroy ships in orbit that are bombing the planet as well as destroying landing craft as they deploy. Once a planet reaches 50% devastation, the guns should fall silent.

And in regards to invasions, I believe they could add some form of RNG to the encounter to balance things out. It is a roleplay game after all. Let us decide to make some tactical decisions or blunders and then the game takes a dice roll with the strength of your invasion force and decides if you lose a battle or not based on your decisions during pop up events. This could happen multiple times in a single invasion and result in you losing despite outnumbering the enemy or winning even if they outnumber you. And it could mean it takes much longer to capture a planet but at least it gives you the feeling that there is a very real battle going on down there and you are winning some engagements but losing others.

Traits also should play a big part in this of course. Just my idea, of course they will probably never make it into the game but I kind of like the idea. I also feel space combat could do with an overhaul as well. Right now it's just... well you blink and you miss it. It's over in seconds and a single battle can cost you the entire war. I am not a fan of the rock paper scissor system they have right now.

If the enemy by chance happens to perfectly counter your ships, you'll get absolutely massacred while they take absolutely zero losses. Kind of feels stupid. I feel like certain types of guns should provide a small but noticeable improvement vs shields or armour but not enough that if you are rocking all kinetics and they have all shields, you will utterly curb stomp them without any sort of losses yourself.

Maybe kinetic weapons could have a 10% bonus vs shields, increasing to 25% through better weapons. 25% is enough to turn the tide of an even fight but not enough that you could win if outnumbered 3 to 1. But atm they have like weapons doing 50-100% more damage to shields which makes shields useless against an all kinetic fleet. Same story with armour really. This is why I don't fear the end game crisis anymore. You just set your ships up to counter theirs and you'll literally never have to worry. This is just my opinion of course.

[talemore]

The issue with the planet idea is that you can actually play the game with close to no population if you play as equalitarian.

The reason why is because most of the planet resources are provided by starsystem.

The authoring faction gains resources from mines on planets but not equalitarian.

The planet only provide 2 resources for an equalitarian =

Housing, specialist job

Even if the idea about invading is promoted.

I maybe not have any planet. The planet is just there because the game demand me to have a capital.