A Defense of CastelloNova's Ground Defense System (+ Anti-Space Howitzers)

[Larknok1]

Recently, user CastelloNova published a proposal for an unobtrusive yet compelling Ground Invasion System.

I strongly suggest you read the basic outline of his proposal before you continue here.

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The purpose of this thread is to outline what I see as the major pros and cons of his proposition, and see if anything can be done about the cons.

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The pros first:

Pro #1: Fleshing out the little things in larger-than-life games can and does breathe life into them. It makes game moments more emotionally impactful and gives games a longer lifespan.

Pro #2: His army design screen would vastly reduce the tedium involved with equipping hundreds of armies with hunter-killer drones (or other attachments), or the droll of having to recruit dozens of armies by simply recruiting two or three divisions consisting of several armies.

Pro #3: His ground invasion system provides content for those looking for it, but does not punish players who just want to get along with their empires. (you don't have to watch the combat)

Pro #4: Some of the code and design could be readily borrowed from HoI4 for easier implementation.

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Now the cons:

Con #1: Notwithstanding HoI4 experience and code, this is an entire game mechanic to code and generate artwork for.

Con #2: For such a large investment of development time, this does not meaningfully impact balance, or fix the existing problems with fleetless defensive wars, or offensive grinds.

Con #3: Real planets do not have borders to "beach" at. They are spherical and armies could land or begin an invasion anywhere.

Con #4: Arbitrarily selecting a time-span (15 days) for armies to land could result in planetary invasion taking too long.

Con #5: Attack AI could get bogged down with landing on zones blocked off by tile blockers.

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Addressing the simple cons:

Cons #3, #4, and #5 can be addressed simply and immediately:

Correcting Con #3: Simply allow armies to "beach" at any tile. Allow armies to move directly from one edge of the planet to the opposite edge, simulating spherical geometry.

Correction Con #4: While developing this feature, simply fine-tune the time-span for landing a new army during invasion so the whole planetary invasion process takes the right amount of time.

Correction Con #5: Simply allow soldiers to walk on and past tile blockers. Tile blockers are meant to make it difficult for settlement. Space armies should have no problem climbing a mountain, walking through territory with a few scary predators, across algae beds, or around volcanoes. Real armies do as much, and these are sci-fi armies we're talking about.

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Addressing the complex con:

Con #2 is a complicated nut to crack. On page 5 of CastelloNova's thread, I presented a solution:

Anti-Space Howitzers

Here's the basic idea:

At the moment, the following two claims are true:

1) Fleets are the only truly offensive unit.
2) The only effective way of destroying fleets are with fleets.

The first claim is how it will always be and should be.

The second claim is the problem here. It's turning war into a death-ball single battle that decides the fate of the whole war, making defense pointless, and turning offense into a painful grind.

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Anti-Space Howitzers would fit perfectly with CastelloNova's design, and solve Con #2.

In order to avoid a bad implementation of Anti-Space Howitzers, let's examine the possibility of their implementation within CastelloNova's design.

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Topic #1: Existence

Possibility #1) Anti-Space Howitzers could be a defensive unit that you can add to a division and train within armies.

> On this account, they have a specific location on the combat map provided by CastelloNova, and so they can help solve Con #2 to his design.
> A large con to this option is the amount of micro-management it would require.


Possibility #2) Anti-Space Howitzers could be their own unit type, automatically spawned by the AI when an invasion starts, with a number of them proportional to the fortification of the planet.

> This also solves Con #2, as they fit on the combat map.
> A large pro to this option is how little micro-management it would require, while making good use of the already existing system of planetary fortification.

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Topic #2: Effectiveness

Possibility #1) Anti-Space Howitzers could deal targeted, direct damage to orbiting ships.

> This helps to solve Con #2, but has its own problem: this would force attacking players to use only large fleets to minimize overall fleet damage incurred from howitzers.


Possibility #2) Anti-Space Howitzers could deal small AoE damage to all orbiting ships per howitzer.

> This also solves Con #2, and has the pro that it actually punishes large, death-stack orbiting fleets.

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Topic #3: Counter-play

Possibility #1) Anti-Space Howitzers have a chance of being destroyed during bombardment each month, based on the degree of the bombardment. Once an army moves onto a tile with an anti-space howitzer, it is destroyed.

> Simple, default design.


Possibility #2) Possibility 1 + they cannot be destroyed until planetary fortification reaches 0.

> Has the advantage of providing a real, tangible reason to drop a planet's fortifications as fast as possible. Right now, there's almost no advantage to having bombardment policy above light.


Possibility #3) Possibility 2 + planetary shield generators entail that Anti-Space Howitzers can never be targeted by orbiting fleets. Either the fleet has to bombard the shield generator first, or land armies are the only way to destroy anti-space howitzers.

> Provides a tangible reason to build shield generators: even more fortification for stronger planetary defenses, plus anti-space howitzers can hit orbital targets for effectively much longer.

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Personally, my preferences are:

Topic #1: Possibility #2

Topic #2: Possibility #2

Topic #3: Possibility #3

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This just leaves Con #1.

At this point, you really have to weight the pros of a more in-depth ground invasion system and more balanced defensive wars against development time.

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EDIT:

I've come to realize that, while this certainly makes defensive wars more interesting (and, in general, provides some way to chip away at enemy fleets), it wouldn't address the problem of offensive wars continuing to grind on. I'm afraid there's no obvious, simply solution on that front. PDS should come up with a better way to bring wars consistently to an end after 4 or 5 planet captures. (Or: perhaps with ground-invasions inflicting casualties on the invader, the war doesn't feel like it's over right after taking out the enemy fleet?)

 

[CastelloNova]

I like the right up! But it would probably be better served in the main thread so as to not come across as spammy and to keep everything in a single place.

 

[Shermanator]

These are great ideas, I think Wiz should read the other thread and this one and consider the ideas.

 

[Johannhawk]

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Topic #2: Effectiveness

Possibility #1) Anti-Space Howitzers could deal targeted, direct damage to orbiting ships.

> This helps to solve Con #2, but has its own problem: this would force attacking players to use only large fleets to minimize overall fleet damage incurred from howitzers.


Possibility #2) Anti-Space Howitzers could deal small AoE damage to all orbiting ships per howitzer.

> This also solves Con #2, and has the pro that it actually punishes large, death-stack orbiting fleets.

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Altough it adds a pinch or few of micromanagement for every planet under threat of invasion, my third suggested possibility would be to have a switch/slider on the planetary defenses to either focus attacks on the weakest ship in the enemy orbiting fleet or spread the damage across the fleet/do "AoE" damage.
To avoid "cheese" and give the invaders a chance to adapt their fleets to the howitzers, have the planet take a considerable amount of time to switch gears into either focus.

Alternatively you could have different Anti-space howitzer types, and swapping those out to a different type would take some time as well.

 

[Larknok1]

Altough it adds a pinch or few of micromanagement for every planet under threat of invasion, my third suggested possibility would be to have a switch/slider on the planetary defenses to either focus attacks on the weakest ship in the enemy orbiting fleet or spread the damage across the fleet/do "AoE" damage.
To avoid "cheese" and give the invaders a chance to adapt their fleets to the howitzers, have the planet take a considerable amount of time to switch gears into either focus.

Alternatively you could have different Anti-space howitzer types, and swapping those out to a different type would take some time as well.

The general idea is to create a manner in which planets defend themselves from fleets without unnecessarily adding micro. If you think there's some room for a button or two, that's okay. But having to micro-manage individual planet stance is probably a bit far.

 

[Johannhawk]

The general idea is to create a manner in which planets defend themselves from fleets without unnecessarily adding micro. If you think there's some room for a button or two, that's okay. But having to micro-manage individual planet stance is probably a bit far.

I find that having them automatically spawn proportionally to fortifications by the game is much more acceptable. Having each of them individually target random ships might work instead of the AoE grinding down the hull points of every or almost every single ship in the fleet, but that is just an another suggestion.

I will now return to my lurking corner, i dont have much else to add for now.

 

[Lothmar]

Hmm, should we assign a weapon type to our anti space emplacements and then the game picks from that category or uses that weapon to determine its damaged based on what you have researched?

Also I think assigning the 'flack cannon' or 'heavy flack cannon' should give a bonus for taking out all those annoying landing shuttles of the enemy armies. *chuckle*

 

[Larknok1]

Hmm, should we assign a weapon type to our anti space emplacements and then the game picks from that category or uses that weapon to determine its damaged based on what you have researched?

Also I think assigning the 'flack cannon' or 'heavy flack cannon' should give a bonus for taking out all those annoying landing shuttles of the enemy armies. *chuckle*

Perhaps, if people wanted to. But I don't think players should be forced to think about it beyond the fact that planets would damage fleets during sieges now.

 

[speckbretzel]

Not this again. Why is every one so fanatic about a more complex ground combat system. ... Make a mod if you need one.
Stellaris is about SPACE and FLEETS not armies and planetary combat.

 

[Larknok1]

Not this again. Why is every one so fanatic about a more complex ground combat system. ... Make a mod if you need one.
Stellaris is about SPACE and FLEETS not armies and planetary combat.

Yes, I realize that. That's why I noted that it's good that fleets remain the only offensive unit, but it's kind of bogus that they're the only unit that can harm fleets as well.

While sieging a heavily fortified planet, fleets should take small DoT. Nothing crazy in that.

And by the way -- yes, it's a space game. But sometimes in order to grasp at the grand, you need to see that the small things are in order, or it all feels like a grand facade.

That's one of the reasons Civ 5 is so good, by the way. Because it properly establishes a sense of presence and scale with its realistic aesthetics and graphical change as your cities grow. You feel like you're really guiding civilization along.

If planet-life is every-so-slightly-better fleshed out, the entire aesthetic of a game can make the space-epic majority of the game come better to life, rather than seem stale or over-inflated.

 

[speckbretzel]

.....
And by the way -- yes, it's a space game. But sometimes in order to grasp at the grand, you need to see that the small things are in order, or it all feels like a grand facade.

That's one of the reasons Civ 5 is so good, by the way. Because it properly establishes a sense of presence and scale with its realistic aesthetics and graphical change as your cities grow. You feel like you're really guiding civilization along.

If planet-life is every-so-slightly-better fleshed out, the entire aesthetic of a game can make the space-epic majority of the game come better to life, rather than seem stale or over-inflated.

On the contrary, if you dive to deep into the details you lose the big picture.

I don't know if Civ V is the best game to compare Stellaris with. True it's a 4X like Stellaris but it's turn based and Stellaris is "realtime". I'd rather compare it to other paradox games like EU 4 or crusader kings 2. there you just siege provinces and no one bothered if they could see the actual battles.
To stay in your picture: Comparing it to Civ V would mean you enter a city with your army and then have an automated fight within the city screen after you sieged it. I don't think this would add to Stellaris but rather annoy player.

 

[Larknok1]

On the contrary, if you dive to deep into the details you lose the big picture.

I don't know if Civ V is the best game to compare Stellaris with. True it's a 4X like Stellaris but it's turn based and Stellaris is "realtime". I'd rather compare it to other paradox games like EU 4 or crusader kings 2. there you just siege provinces and no one bothered if they could see the actual battles.
To stay in your picture: Comparing it to Civ V would mean you enter a city with your army and then have an automated fight within the city screen after you sieged it. I don't think this would add to Stellaris but rather annoy player.

Nobody said anything about diving gameplay in to the very small. Rather, the very small should have more bits automatically programmed in, so as to breath life into it. This will, like Civ 5's realistic aesthetics (graphics and art design), help bring Stellaris to life.

 

[Crenickator]

On the contrary, if you dive to deep into the details you lose the big picture.

I don't know if Civ V is the best game to compare Stellaris with. True it's a 4X like Stellaris but it's turn based and Stellaris is "realtime". I'd rather compare it to other paradox games like EU 4 or crusader kings 2. there you just siege provinces and no one bothered if they could see the actual battles.
To stay in your picture: Comparing it to Civ V would mean you enter a city with your army and then have an automated fight within the city screen after you sieged it. I don't think this would add to Stellaris but rather annoy player.

Exactly this. We do not need a complex ground combat system when so little of the game relies on ground combat. Creating a ground combat system and then looking for opportunities to shoehorn it into the game is just a bad design decision. The only good idea to come out of the discussion is for a better army add-on interface, but then I'd argue that the attachments do so little that they're better off just removing them.

 

[huon23]

A very great suggestion!

 

[enpi]

Space howitzers = good idea
allowing armies to walk on planet tiles = bad idea

 

[Cagliostro]

You are going to run into the same resistance for every suggestion to make ground combat more complex when you have to take as many planets as you do for peace. Ground combat's interest and value are directly influenced by war score bonuses. If I have to take 10 planets to make peace, I do not want to spend a lot of time thinking about each one of them. If I only have to take the two I am demanding, it makes more sense to dither about them.

I still think a big part of the solution in terms of making war more interesting is to make *keeping* the planets occupied more of a question. The fact that you get free garrisons after invading a planet, so you can use your entire army to go assault the next one, is silly, and means that basically *any* army calculation is going to be based on the same doomstack principle, or you're going to limit the amount of armies that can fight (which means more work for the player automatically). The only real war distinction on planets is 'can the total might of my empire overwhelm this one planet', a question which is always going to be answered yes and is thus totally meaningless.

I must say I don't want this sort (the OP sort) of complexity in ground combat even so, though as long as I get like, 75% of value by assigning it to an AI I don't mind if there are people minimaxing the other 25%. I don't enjoy doing this kind of work as a rule though, which is why I let the ships autodesign.

I do think that defenses need to be shored up (as a device). Not sure if 'space howitzers' is the right description for such things, but I think there ought to be meaningful ways to like, spend to make a planet harder to take, or harder to keep. There are really all kinds of neat skins for such things - subterranean tunnels, active resistance groups, murderous plants, land mines, whatever (as well as the defense-against-the-fleet stuff).

 

[speckbretzel]

You are going to run into the same resistance for every suggestion to make ground combat more complex when you have to take as many planets as you do for peace. Ground combat's interest and value are directly influenced by war score bonuses. If I have to take 10 planets to make peace, I do not want to spend a lot of time thinking about each one of them. ...

I agree with this!

 

[Pooks1]

I've read the last thread, and I love both of these ideas. What I'd like to do is give my 2 cents on ground based defensive systems. In my opinion it could be implemented that ground defenses be built in the same screen where troops are trained, and I don't think it would be required that they be set on specific planet tiles. Defenses could have their own HP/shield/armour ratings and they should perhaps even contribute to a planets fortification value, could be combined with OP's 2nd or 3rd suggestion on ground defenses.

Now, I'd like to expand on the idea of howitzers, a lot more types of static defenses could be built in order to create "turtle worlds" (it's an Ogame term, and all of this is heavily inspired by Ogame) which would be strategically important worlds meant to be difficult to conquer. The only problem with that is that currently it wouldn't be all that viable to even attempt to attack such worlds. This could be circumvented in a way that PDS could implement a system where a world with a high degree of fortification value could get a modifier during peace time such as "strategic location" or "fortress world" which could give some small bonuses to the planet (a small production bonus or morale bonus for stationed armies?), while giving a lot more warscore to the conqueror should he be able to invade the world, and even more score if taking the planet is a wargoal.

With that in mind here are some planetary defenses I've thought of:

Energy weapon defense systems - strongest defensive system, however more expensive to research, build and maintain

Structures:
Small laser cannon stations - few hp, small dmg, cheap to build, can fire rapidly, mostly useful against corvettes in orbit
Large laser cannon stations - a more buffed up version, mostly to be used against destroyers/cruisers
Disruptor cannon bunker - provides more shield dmg, makes less of an impact against armoured ships, has medium rate of fire, targets larger ships such as cruisers and bs
Plasma cannon instalation - causes AOE dmg since it hurls explosive plasma balls into space
Tachion long range defense system - costs a lot of resources to build, deals a huge amount of dmg, focuses on larger ships


Missile based systems - stronger than mass drivers, a bit weaker than lasers, but much cheaper to reasearch, build and maintain, main drawback: can be a lot less efective against a PD heavy fleet.

Structures:
Small ground to orbit (GTO) missile station- about the same as laser cannons
Large GTO missile station - analagoue to big laser cannon
EMP missile silo - somewhat analogue to an disruptor cannon, however this one has AOE dmg
Neutron warhead missile silo- medium/large missile that mostly deals dmg to larger ships, effective against armour, a bit less against shields
Singularity eruptor GTO missile silo - very slow fire rate, instantly destroys ships with less than a certain amount of shield rating + armour, heavy AOE dmg to ships that survive


Mass driver based defense systems - deals the least dmg to fleet, however they are cheaper to reasearch, build and maintain than lasers, however almost all of them cause AOE dmg

Structures:
Small mortar system - analogue to small GTO/small lasers but weaker with AOE dmg
Large mortar system - same as large GTO/large laser cannon, also weaker but with AOE
Charged particle shell mortar system - aoe shield dmg, however a lot less than either EMP missiles or the disruptor cannon
Large Gauss cannon instalation - ignores shields, can be countered with more armour, only effective against larger ships
Teldar round Gauss cannon instalation - destroys a single large ship when firing since the round completely passes through it, has also a small percent chance that another large ship is destroyed and a slightly bigger chance that another takes heavy dmg. Slightly slower fire rate than the rest of the weapons.

Of course this is just a rough outline of the idea and it would take a lot of playing around with the balancing, but it could all in all give some more depth and strategy to the war system. So any thoughts about all this?

 

[Larknok1]

You are going to run into the same resistance for every suggestion to make ground combat more complex when you have to take as many planets as you do for peace. Ground combat's interest and value are directly influenced by war score bonuses. If I have to take 10 planets to make peace, I do not want to spend a lot of time thinking about each one of them. If I only have to take the two I am demanding, it makes more sense to dither about them.

I still think a big part of the solution in terms of making war more interesting is to make *keeping* the planets occupied more of a question. The fact that you get free garrisons after invading a planet, so you can use your entire army to go assault the next one, is silly, and means that basically *any* army calculation is going to be based on the same doomstack principle, or you're going to limit the amount of armies that can fight (which means more work for the player automatically). The only real war distinction on planets is 'can the total might of my empire overwhelm this one planet', a question which is always going to be answered yes and is thus totally meaningless.

I must say I don't want this sort (the OP sort) of complexity in ground combat even so, though as long as I get like, 75% of value by assigning it to an AI I don't mind if there are people minimaxing the other 25%. I don't enjoy doing this kind of work as a rule though, which is why I let the ships autodesign.

I do think that defenses need to be shored up (as a device). Not sure if 'space howitzers' is the right description for such things, but I think there ought to be meaningful ways to like, spend to make a planet harder to take, or harder to keep. There are really all kinds of neat skins for such things - subterranean tunnels, active resistance groups, murderous plants, land mines, whatever (as well as the defense-against-the-fleet stuff).

I think what I'm saying are these two points:

1) Planets should be able to defend against and damage ships.
2) You shouldn't have to take 10 planets to end any war. Until doomstack is dealt with, taking 3 planets is nearly identical with taking 10 planets.

 

[Cagliostro]

I think what I'm saying are these two points:

1) Planets should be able to defend against and damage ships.
2) You shouldn't have to take 10 planets to end any war. Until doomstack is dealt with, taking 3 planets is nearly identical with taking 10 planets.

I agree, partly. What I'm saying is that the fact that taking 10 planets and taking 3 planets are identical *also* needs to be taken care of. Like, if there was some kind of cost for occupying ten systems, you can start modifying the war score cost of the occupation itself - including 'taking the war goal' or 'taking the capital'. As it stands both occupation is operatively meaningless because the 'cost' for taking a planet is basically 'be a little careful so your invasion fleet doesn't get sniped'. That doesn't have to be so. The Iraq war was difficult for the US, not because of the invasion itself, which was relatively breezy, but because of the issues involved with occupation.