Feasiblity Query: altered Planetary Invasions

I like the level of abstraction with invasions as it is but I would like to see a similar change to planetary invasion. I'm not sure how much of a hassle it would be since I'm not sure you need to alter the invasion concepts as much as the mechanics for defending.

My main issue is that it's not likely that the entire population of a planet would defend a planet, so you shouldn't need to kill everyone on a planet to take it over and it seems like it should be possible to take over a planet and have it still have a decent level of population. If you flip a planet via culture you often get fully populated planets - but if you were to invade that same culturally bombarded planet you have to commit genocide, which makes no sense when those people are turns away from defecting to you anyways.

The percentage of population that would fight could be based on factors like loyalty, culture, alignments of races involved in the conflict, and whatever - there's plenty to choose from. Some aspect of military tech could dictate a base % of population that'll defend. Maybe evil races (who are usually militaristic and ..err..evil) would have a higher base % - since their citizens would likely be forced to fight to the death or be killed by their own governments (Stalinesque kind of thing) or just because they're evil and beligerent if you don't want to get political. You could even add a new super ability - "super fanatics" to keep the existing behavior around (that is every citizen of "super fanatics" worlds will fight to the death upon invasion, so you'd have to slaughter them still).

A change like this would make invasions easier, so you'd probably need it to be balanced/equalized by making troop transport modules more expensive. It seems like transports could and maybe should have higher maintenance, since keeping 1B people haning out in space indefinitely must require some food, entertainment, and all that.

Changes like this would also give another use to espionage, since you won't just be able to look at a planet's population to know how many defenders you'll face. If you wanted to be efficient you'd need to know stats about the race ultimately combine in what % of the population will defend.

Anyways, just rambling...

Yeah I like that idea alot.

Now in the game there is a race stance right. The yor like you or dont depnding on the game. however if you think about not all the plaents under a factions rule are going to feel the same way. Yeah the Captial planet will most likely be totally loyal and in line with the race's view but what about that colony way out there. They might like you more thus the whole cultural superiority move.

What I purpose is that planets have a gradent from totally love yeah too hate you with a passion. Perhaps this could be indicated with a colored border around the planet blue to red.

What that would mean in game is that some planet the blue border ones you would need no or a few troops to capture and you would get the full population like a culural defection. the red ones on the other hand would fight hard and would rebel often unless you kept large forces in place.

You ask, how do we keep large forces in place since all we have is troop transports for the attack??? Well I think that this is a aspect of the planets popultaion. So at the planet management screen you can see the planets pop. Its military pop, which would be the number of people it could put under arms in a war, then its actual number of troops. At that spot you could click on that number and transfer them to planets under your control. Ones perhaps in high levels of revolt. no transport would be needed cause this is more routeen unlike the invasion nature of the troop transport.

But yeah I never liked the whole pop fighting back and eliminating when conqueored even evil groups like the Nazi's couldnt pull that off and why would you really. Occupation would add an intresting level to conquest also considering it would be easier to retake one of your planets assuming it did not like the invader better.

What else could this work with you ask??? How about the spyies. They could be used to insight your enemies planets with propaganda campaigns convincing them your worht joining. I figure you could also deploy them on your planet to prevent your enemies from doing the same and to bolster outlining planets to hate the people you hate, thought this could be more a building say a "Information Ministery" or something or a byproduct of some of the current building that bolster happyness like the mind control centers and what not.

I also agree with the idea of custom armies or atleast the development of certain doctorines say airborne, special forces, armor assult and so on. They would give you advantages in the fight like special forces would be an invasion tactic that eliminated some forces of your enemy and created confusing which dropped their soldiering.

On a eye candy note I would like to customize my land forces like I can my space forces but that another topic onto its self.

If you're not talking about graphical changes, then what you said (or what I understood) can be easily done in a matter of minutes. You can alter the different bonuses, penalties, etc for invasion techniques, or create your own entirely. I have several new invasion scenarios I've created for personal play, ranging from extraordinarily expensive assaults from veteran soldiers (that do little to no damage to the planet's infrastructure), to a complete destructive invasion that does catastrophic damage to the planet, it's PQ level, and the improvements. Others are for spies (revolutions that turn a large percentage of the population in my favor. Those are just some examples, but a lot can be done by just playing with the given numbers.


Just remember that it'll be no fun unless you make them cost-appropriate. And that, unless you make it a race specific tech-tree, your enemies have the options as well (although I'm not sure if they use new techniques, but I'd assume they do)


*Also, the population value, as I understand it, represents the total usable popualtion, so everyone in service, so that total number can be expected to defend the planet. It does not represent every man, woman, and child on the planet, just those that are capable and ready to serve.

Hmmm... well, I'm back, and home, so that allows me to reference my rough design doc for purposes of clarity.

Now, on to response.

Vogar and AggieJohn, while that could be a possible alternative it wasn't quite what I was aiming for. Still, it's a good idea, and I like your ideas in regards to keeping the populace from suiciding themselves all over an invaders proverbial windshield. It would certainly be an excellent alternative if this doesn't work. Also, Aggie, yeah, part of this mod idea did include a thought about being able to customize your troops appearance.

Kodiak, I kind of think you misunderstood. I don't intend to add strategies, or at least not just strategies; I know that's easily doable, and I wouldn't even need to ask about it. Instead what I was proposing was a system in which you could design and 'build' soldiers much like you would a ship, except it needs to be transported and fights on planets.

Anyway, hopefully this wouldn't make things overly complicated; I'll definitely be entertaining alternate ideas as well. Feel free to pipe in.

Not possible.

If all we're doing here is making wish lists, my preferred setup would be as follows:

*Keep the heavily abstracted nature of the conflicts
*Turn the one week planetary conquests into prolonged siege/pacification operations. They would last until the planet either defected (some combination of loyalty, influence, and the willpower of the defenders) or it was militarily crushed. Every week, both sides would take casualties, with a heavy bias towards the attackers.
*Every turn a planet is under siege, the chances of it surrendering increase as war weariness and casualties wear it down. Once it surrenders, you take control of all surviving population and infrastructure.
*Invasion tactics speed up conquest at a cost. Mass drivers, for instance, might be destroying a significant portion of the planet each turn, yet would quickly cow the opponent. Mass drivers fired from orbit are much scarier than nukes.
*During the time that a planet is contested, all production and output ceases. The transport remains in orbit, and may be destroyed to halt the invasion (emphasizing space superiority during invasions). The attacker may reinforce the seige with additional transports. You can, if you so desire, halt the invasion at any point.
*If defensive tactics were implemented, you could use tactics like "guerilla warfare" to delay the invasion. Likewise, a tactic like "scorched earth" would allow you to purposefully damage your own tiles for every week the invasion continues, unless the invader pulls his forces out (which might be a viable option should the planet be extremely viable to you)

Yeah I love the idea of a seige, unless your planet has defense. You think about a planet being a fort. Without sheild or defenses a fleet could bombard a planet at will until surrender, also cut off resources coming in via blockade. But with sheilds, its a planet it has enough supplies to hold almost forever. Thus you need a ground assult to take out the defense, think of Hoth in the Empire strikes back. I do think that the seige/bombardment tactic should take its toll of the planets quality.