Planetary Armies and Battles should be improved!

[KingAvenue]

Afternoon fellow star explores! Exploring the dev diaries, and reading through discussions, a topic of an mid-tier problem seems to come up, regarding armies, and planetary battles. Today, I want to tell why these mechanics should NOT be removed, but IMPROVED, and can give amazing detail to war against other empires and anomalies!

Armies are most often recruited on planets, and after a short time are added to your ranks planet-side or in space to merge with other armies. During war, the process of landing your armies on a planet and taking control is simple and straightforward. For this reason, some individuals have asked to have it removed...and that should NOT be done.

Point One: Armies are fundamental in space warfare, and give more in-depth detail to Stellaris as a whole. If you want to conquer a planet, destroying the enemy star fleets are only 1/3 of the issue. The next would be conquering the planet. As long as a planet remains functional and open, resistance and uprisings, along with potential enemy reinforcements will always occur. It's not just a game mechanic, it's a historical fact. Many veterans of the game love how Stellaris does it's best to involve real space laws and nation issues in the game, it makes the entire experience more involving and immersive. Building a star nation is no easy feat, and if corners are cut, how long until more corners are cut, to the point where the game feels stagnate and too straight forward to repeat a play-through? Stellaris is such an amazing game with a long history and a bright future DUE TO THE FACT that there are thousands of options for how every game may be played. Armies and ground combat battles are an essential part of Stellaris warfare, and should NEVER be removed.

Point Two: Improving the army and ground combat battle mechanics is the best option, like an S-Tier tradition and ascendance perk. How can army and ground combat be improved? By involving more detail and immersion! During the recruiting of armies, it is a bit bland. You select what army you want based off of words, with no animated picture of what the troops look like. If there was an animated picture depicting a squad of regular armies, psychic armies, titan beasts, sentinels, clone armies, exo-armies, that are all different and unique based on each species and evolution, it would be AMAZING! For ground combat, it's amazing that you can see the combat whith, individual army-squad strength, army moral, army damage, the general in charge, and real-time battle details of each army. These are awesome details, but can be enhanced for greater detail and immersion. When you land on a planet, and go to watch the epic battle, if there was a pop-up screen or a changing of the planet-view screen to actively view an animated battle between the two armies, it would be 25x more amazing! An even further step, would be to get a pop-up screen of the animated battle, with the general in charge of the operation standing in front of the battle, and giving a battle report, maybe even with three interaction options to "press the attack", "Provide additional support", and "retreat". It would be INCREDIBLY AMAZING AND A HUGE WIN!!! It would completely change the mechanics of armies and ground-combat, and I know every lover of Stellaris will fall in love with it!

To summarize: Armies and ground combat are an essential part of Stellaris warfare, and add to the immersion and detail of the game. No corners should be cut to make warfare "faster", as what makes Stellaris so amazing and long-playable is the thousands of options and immersion you have during each play-through. Instead, armies and ground-combat should be more detailed and immersive through animated pictures of individual armies while recruiting on planets, with each army being based on species, army type, and nation evolution. During ground-combat, while watch the battle, a pop-up screen or planet screen should appear/change to show the animated battle in progress, with each army type being shown in a small/big way. An added bonus to this, would be to have the general in charge standing in front of your army battle, giving you a battle report, with the interactive options to "press the attack", "provide additional support", and "retreat".

Stellaris is an amazing game, full of possibilities, exploration, and interaction. Adding these traits to all aspects of the game will greatly enchant the already-epic game, and adding these traits to armies and ground combat will have veterans and newbies of the game thinking "I can't live without this".

[CthuluIsSpy]

Origineel geplaatst door Geoff:

I understand the argument that land warfare is kinda tedious and some folks don't want to be bothered with it. But I'm so trained by years of EUIV, the current system doesn't actually bother me at all. The land combat system was always a little weird and unsatisfying in a hard to explain way, but I've coped and adapted and don't personally look forward to what this team would come up with as an "improvement" to the current system.

I'd argue that the combat in EUIV is actually superior because of terrain modifiers and the like which offer more tactical possibilities, something that is mostly lacking in Stellaris, even when it comes to space warfare. You have what, Black Holes, Nebulae and Neutron Stars, which are pretty uncommon compared to the terrain features you can encounter in EUIV and even CK2.
I wish there were more terrain features that affect combat in Stellaris, both in space and on planets

[ShelLuser]

Origineel geplaatst door KingAvenue:

Afternoon fellow star explores! Exploring the dev diaries, and reading through discussions, a topic of an mid-tier problem seems to come up, regarding armies, and planetary battles. Today, I want to tell why these mechanics should NOT be removed, but IMPROVED, and can give amazing detail to war against other empires and anomalies! :Blessing:

Why even assume that there are plans to remove this mechanic in the first place? Each to their own, I'm still kinda newish myself, but I just don't see any reason or logic behind such assumptions. Also because they form a rather important part of the whole gameplay.

And with all due respect, but you're only scratching the surface here with your arguments. Or so I think :)

Lets talk pops, or better yet: species (F6). The pops in your empire can change over time, humans can pick up certain traits and as you take over other planets you may also end up with xeno's becoming part of your empire as well. Xeno species who more than often have completely different traits than your own. And which can be used within your armies as well.

... and I hope we all realize that genetic manipulation is also part of this game?

What I'm saying here is that with a bit of strategy you can easily build an army that will become way more effective ("quicker") than an orbital bombardment. Takes a bit of time & strategy of course (duh) but the effects will be easily noticeable.

There's a reason why you can also micro-manage this part in Stellaris :)

Origineel geplaatst door Ryika:

We get one of these threads every week, and it's always the same thing: Armies are pointless and don't matter one bit to how wars play out in this game, it's all about who wins the naval battles, the rest is just clean-up work.

Have to disagree on that one because having a good army set up (see above) can easily make or break a battle. Of course context applies (as always) but if you want to grab a big chunk of space from a hostile then it can really help if it doesn't take up too much time to take over a base. While my army is taking over a planet my fleet can already be taking over the next system, which can seriously help speed up the whole invasion.

However... this is only a small part of it. The aftermath can be just as important and even if you apply "specific targetting bombing" (don't recall the name from mind) you'll always be faced with some percentage of devastation. Maybe small, fair enough, but one way or the other that is going to have its effects on the post-war situation.

And if your enemy is big enough then every bit of advantage can and will help.

If you swoop a planet with an army then - generally speaking - it will take less effort to put that planet back into a full profitable setup, possibly helping you to get just that extra bit of resources which you may need to help upgrade your fleet.

Origineel geplaatst door Ryika:

Until you offer a solution to that very issue, any suggestions to expand the army system are equally pointless and don't actually serve to make playing the game more interesting in any way.

That I can fully agree with. IMO the system as it is in place right now works just fine.


Being newish myself I wasn't aware of these discussions happening often but even so I can't help get the impression that some people overlook a very important aspect of this game.

In the end you're both right I think, more or less.

One of the best features of this game, in my opinion of course, is that you don't always have to micro manage everything; and the same thing applies to armies. Yes, they can definitely become a decisive factor at times, just like they can also be easily ignored. Which holds true for many aspects of the game.

[Geoff]

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

That's literally the same with every army trying to fight over an area that ground forces can't safely cross; Imagine the Allies trying to invade Normandy without a Navy to clear the seas of Nazi ships first.
Its almost as if Combined Arms has been a thing for hundreds of years, I see no reason why it would be different in space.

Storming the beaches from boats is the start of the Iliad, not the end of it. So yeah, I agree.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

If I recall properly, the entire thing here is Paradox has zero interest in changing the ground combat system because their largely trying to move away from it to start with, its more in depth problem lays in the fact that ground forces and battles were only added prior to any means to actually destroy any planets in the game, long before even the Colossus weapons were added.

To then add more details, its rather impossible to change an army by race and ethics, an example provided was Mammoth Religious Zealots against Materialist Lithoids, and the resulting logical battle of hairy bipedal mammals with jedi-like sabres vs literal living rocks in power armor was like trying to say that the mammals stood a chance, they literally do not in this case.

Its just simply not worth the effort as far as Paradox cares to in and completely overhaul the ground battle system as it stands because of several factors, including bug fixing, balancing (which as provided prior, is a nightmare in of itself) and other factors such as certain armies needing food (MRE's) and liquids to survive on the ground, others having moral issues (which already exists but all Moral does is reduce the attack power as it lowers on a squad/troop) and planetary survivability.

They didn't even go as far to amuse the idea of vehicle ground troops because the short answer came down to the fact that "Balancing several hundred new ground vehicles is simply not something were not doing at this time, what makes a Lithoid submarine weak to say, a plant submarine would be annoying enough to figure out, but a plant materialist vs a Lithoid religious cult is just mind numbing. It would be like trying to remaster Supreme Commander, or whatever other strategy game exists with all four fields of ground combat covered. IE: Air, Naval, Ground and Semi-Orbital, and for all that its worth, its clear even modders are not putting effort into it beyond some troops here and there, but even they have avoided attempting to overhaul the combat system entirely."

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

Origineel geplaatst door Ryika:

Assault Armies literally cannot do anything without a Navy doing its job first.

That's literally the same with every army trying to fight over an area that ground forces can't safely cross; Imagine the Allies trying to invade Normandy without a Navy to clear the seas of Nazi ships first.
Its almost as if Combined Arms has been a thing for hundreds of years, I see no reason why it would be different in space.

Navy or Air force. Prior to the landings itself, over 600 RAF and US Paratroopers were dropped via Glider aircraft's, most of which were still shot down, their job was to sabotage the railroads, bridges and communication lines to the beaches. This was actually nearly flawless till a division of Panzer tanks broke through the line at Gold and Sword but by then the allied forces had taken both mountains near by and their exit was cut off, sealing the doom of the convoy of armored tanks to shelling that they were unable to run from

Naval forces hitting the bunkers also came in handy along with other tactical planned new weapons. Such as TNT Lines that were used to destroy barbwire walls near the cliffs, and the first real use of satchel charges to destroy enemy artillery that the naval ships could not see or hit.

Normandy also had huge intelligent counter ops behind it which matters given spies exist in the game, if there was a large city on a planet, an enemy could totally use spies in his enemy nation to know the invading forces weaknesses before they strike, giving proper time to set up the means to counter act the attack

[Ryika]

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

That's literally the same with every army trying to fight over an area that ground forces can't safely cross; Imagine the Allies trying to invade Normandy without a Navy to clear the seas of Nazi ships first.
Its almost as if Combined Arms has been a thing for hundreds of years, I see no reason why it would be different in space.

I don't think this makes any sense. We're not talking about reality here, we're talking about game mechanics.

If you had a WW2 game about the landing in the Normandy, and most of the gameplay was focused on wrestling control over the English Channel, and if the opponent would be out of strategical options once you have gained control over it, then it wouldn't make much sense to have an in-depth army systems that only comes into play after you've already successfully landed.

It just doesn't make any sense, gameplay wise, because similar to what is being proposed here, that would just add bloat to a scenario that is already won. If you want ground combat to matter, the game mechanics need to take importance away from the naval combat in both scenarios.

[Operator]

I like this idea more better armies please I +1 this :)

[Oakshadow]

You could fix it. But people have recommended the necessary changes before and everyone got kind of prickly about it.

To make it work in a way that would make players happy would require changes to the engine I'm not sure is possible anymore.
Two of the necessary changes are doable. Namely moving bombardment to a specialized weapon and significantly scaling down how big fleets can get.
The last change however isn't. As it would require a ship type that can carry ground troops. You can get around this by turning assault armies into a ship weapon type like strike craft. But that's been suggested before and players really didn't warm up to the idea.

Overall the issue is that empires can build too many ships, the penalties for going over fleet cap are purely economic and Assault armies / transport ships don't count towards your naval cap.
In other words the only limit to an empire's military capability is its economy. The problem with this model of strategy is that there are many MANY real world examples where economic might doesn't equal military effectiveness. In a normal RTS this aspect of war is represented by the tactical decisions made by the player controlling their individual/squads of units.
Unfortunately with TBS and Grand Strategy games it has to be represented differently since players don't get direct control over warfare. It's here where I think Stellaris kind of needs a good rethink.

But I doubt we'll get one at this point. Perhaps for Stellaris 2

[CthuluIsSpy]

Origineel geplaatst door Ryika:

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

That's literally the same with every army trying to fight over an area that ground forces can't safely cross; Imagine the Allies trying to invade Normandy without a Navy to clear the seas of Nazi ships first.
Its almost as if Combined Arms has been a thing for hundreds of years, I see no reason why it would be different in space.

I don't think this makes any sense. We're not talking about reality here, we're talking about game mechanics.

If you had a WW2 game about the landing in the Normandy, and most of the gameplay was focused on wrestling control over the English Channel, and if the opponent would be out of strategical options once you have gained control over it, then it wouldn't make much sense to have an in-depth army systems that only comes into play after you've already successfully landed.

It just doesn't make any sense, gameplay wise, because similar to what is being proposed here, that would just add bloat to a scenario that is already won. If you want ground combat to matter, the game mechanics need to take importance away from the naval combat in both scenarios.

Except ground combat already matters well enough as is. A super detailed graphical display would truly be unnecessary, but removing armies outright is not a solution either, as armies do add something to the naval combat.

Mechanically speaking, a game about wrestling control over the English Channel would involve escorting troop transports, which is already a part of Stellaris warfare. Most wars in Stellaris are about using your ships to either secure the area for troop transports or collosi.

[CthuluIsSpy]

Origineel geplaatst door Jay:

Y. Namely moving bombardment to a specialized weapon

A dedicated siege craft would be nice. I think Stellaris can learn a few things from Endless Space 2, which does dedicated modules for bombardment and troops.

[Geoff]

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

I'd argue that the combat in EUIV is actually superior because of terrain modifiers and the like which offer more tactical possibilities, something that is mostly lacking in Stellaris, even when it comes to space warfare. You have what, Black Holes, Nebulae and Neutron Stars, which are pretty uncommon compared to the terrain features you can encounter in EUIV and even CK2.
I wish there were more terrain features that affect combat in Stellaris, both in space and on planets

Sure, "tactical possibilities." But it isn't "Total War" - if you want to manage your units on the battlefield level, you've got a totally different game engine that is out there and optimized for that. There's certainly levels of tactical sophistication in Stellaris.

I've had games where my species designs lithoid battle monsters to man the defensive garrisons and then kind of pushes them out as the frontier expands. Drop a colony ship, build a fortress, staff it with battle monsters, then start bringing the settlers in... in a long slow game you can get really distinctive armies to pitch against each other.

My current game, my void dwellers ("spacers") have terrible ground assault capacities but have an elite battle group of "Free Reavers" who are all noxious and strong, making them assault forces capable of standing toe to toe with the psionic occupation garrisons of the Fallen Empire that kept invading me. Admittedly, they lose a lot more toes, but still - for unmodified organic pops they're pretty tough troops. The Spacer Marines wouldn't have a chance - they're mostly just a ceremonial guard at this point, though they actually are pretty good at rousting occupiers out of habitats.

I agree though that terrain modifiers would be a welcome addition. In general, Stellaris tends towards the more abstract though... or did, and so they do keep the buffs pretty generic. Still, like in EU:IV you can develop terror armies that go for army morale, and swarms of robots that are immune to that tactic.... or just... I dunno. The whoie ground combat system is intricate and can be rewarding when you're playing long and slow. But thing like lowering the strength of citadels definitely means the devs are more on the side of keeping the game fast and light.

At any rate, I don't really know which is superior. Just that it's close enough to EUIV that I'm long past feeling weird about it. Though again, they make it really hard to *watch* critical battles in space or on the ground with all the screaming for your attention.

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

Origineel geplaatst door Ryika:

I don't think this makes any sense. We're not talking about reality here, we're talking about game mechanics.

If you had a WW2 game about the landing in the Normandy, and most of the gameplay was focused on wrestling control over the English Channel, and if the opponent would be out of strategical options once you have gained control over it, then it wouldn't make much sense to have an in-depth army systems that only comes into play after you've already successfully landed.

It just doesn't make any sense, gameplay wise, because similar to what is being proposed here, that would just add bloat to a scenario that is already won. If you want ground combat to matter, the game mechanics need to take importance away from the naval combat in both scenarios.

Except ground combat already matters well enough as is. A super detailed graphical display would truly be unnecessary, but removing armies outright is not a solution either, as armies do add something to the naval combat.

Mechanically speaking, a game about wrestling control over the English Channel would involve escorting troop transports, which is already a part of Stellaris warfare. Most wars in Stellaris are about using your ships to either secure the area for troop transports or collosi.

Usually I keep my troops in my own space then jump then in once I have secured an enemy system, by which time my scanner research is powerful enough to ensure that they can't hit my fleets without moving them closer which I feel usually bad about, the fact the AI's won't use jump drives is annoying but they'll gladly go and spam hundreds of gates and habitats as if their life depends on having as may highway bypasses possible in their corner of the stars that no one will ever want to start with.

[Ryika]

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

Except ground combat already matters well enough as is. A super detailed graphical display would truly be unnecessary, but removing armies outright is not a solution either, as armies do add something to the naval combat.

Well, I'm not arguing that they should be removed.

I'm saying that creating 50 new army types and animations to make the current system more flashy - which is most of what OP is asking for - would be a complete waste of resources if ground invasions are still just an afterthought after the actual battle has already been won.

Origineel geplaatst door CthuluIsSpy:

Mechanically speaking, a game about wrestling control over the English Channel would involve escorting troop transports, which is already a part of Stellaris warfare. Most wars in Stellaris are about using your ships to either secure the area for troop transports or collosi.

But that just shows once again why the actual battles in this game are naval battles, not those with armies.

In an actual WW2 game, you can have two layers, one about crossing the English channel first and then you could have a second layer of strategy where you and your opponent move their ground troops around to defend strategic targets in the land portion of the map and such, but that's just not the scenario that we have in Stellaris at the moment.

Every planet is essentially an island with the system the planet as is a huge bottleneck right in front. As a result, every planet is just a static fortress. There are no land masses to have strategic ground battles on, it's all about naval movement.

[KingAvenue]

Origineel geplaatst door Pennywise the Pyro:

I always bomb the enemy armies from high orbit, despite playing a pacifist nation 99% of the time, risking soldiers is a no go for what should be a neutral nation ideology. Not saying your idea is bad mind you, I would love to see one day where Stellaris has improved ground battles but sadly me may not see that soon.

One thing I will say is that in my case, it would not matter how reinforced an underground fortification is on any planet, if I have to shield a planet just to crush someone who decided to mess with a fanatic pacifist was a good idea, I'll gladly do so.

Kinda ironic, first game I played was when the game was released, myself and 12 other players had such a large scale national federation going on but I was the smallest nation...smallest yet most advanced, the largest was the military nation but even so, he was no where near as advanced as I was.

Still, in exchange for resources they had so few of but I had in bulk, I maintained peace, only fighting I partook in was that where the other federation of players declared war on us, they decided to jump a fleet near my capital that swiftly took one of my worlds, it was an important world to my inferstructure so we did do a large scale ground invasion, now unlike earlier, that military player had ground forces out of the ears so while he landed, I had to divide attention of the players sending in reinforcements to aid that space fleet, we retook the planet, but not before it reached 78% destruction, leaving only a research facility and the police station as the standing structures.

I bring this up as I would of loved to see that ground battle. Imagine a low tech but massive army landing in an advanced city that is very bare bones defended that then turns into two large scale armies clashing head on with each other, one defending the nations former world and the other trying to take it and the battle got so intense that only a few structures were left standing, I'd love to see something of that scale, I don't care if I had to deal with the problems that followed, thats kinda the result of global level destruction anyways!

That sounds like an awesome playthrough! Wish I was a part of it at the time lol. I agree, animated views of ground battle would be amazing! One day we might get it! I live in hope!

[KingAvenue]

Origineel geplaatst door ShelLuser:

Why even assume that there are plans to remove this mechanic in the first place? Each to their own, I'm still kinda newish myself, but I just don't see any reason or logic behind such assumptions. Also because they form a rather important part of the whole gameplay.

One of the best features of this game, in my opinion of course, is that you don't always have to micro manage everything; and the same thing applies to armies. Yes, they can definitely become a decisive factor at times, just like they can also be easily ignored. Which holds true for many aspects of the game.

This is an interesting point of view! I agree with some points and disagree with other's but I completely agree with you on the point that more detail to ground battles would be amazing! I'm excited to see if a dev see's this post!