An unobtrusive yet compelling Ground Invasion System

[stumason]

It doesn't have to add amuch, if any computational cost - just be a little more immersive, a la Distant Worlds or other PDS games for that matter. Taking a planet shouldn't be easy. It's one thing to control interplanetary space, or even orbital space, but that shouldn't mean the planet defaults. This could actually make smaller Empires much better able to survive an attack by one that has overwhelming Fleet superiority, if they can turn their planets into fortresses, it can bog down a much larger enemy to buy time or drag the war out for a white peace.

On the CPU thing - I have read there has been a breakthrough with the HOI4 team in massively reducing the some of the computations the engine was doing and this has been shared across PDS.. Fingers crossed that the next patch brings optimisation improvements as well as the rather juicy looking content.

 

[The Nothing]

Make space battles fun and additionally I'd rather the AI be highly successful at fighting in space because that's what decides wars.

Space battles are to Stellaris what naval battles are to Hearts of Iron IV. Indeed, a country need a strong navy to project its power overseas. That's what Stellaris empire need, they need fleets to project their power outside of their borders. And they need strong armies to protect their planet, and to occupy ennemy land. If you can't do that, yes you will have the opportunity to somehow blockade your opponents planet.... such thing require however a big fleet. Establishing a blockade around a single planet could be done with a medium sized fleet. Doing this to several worlds would be very hard. And since we're talking about blockading a world.... remember this is not Endless Space, we're not colonizing barren world and gas giant, which require food supply from your empire.

Each colonized world in Stellaris can produce food, and energy and minerals, to put it clearly, each world is a fortress that will never surrender because it lacks food, water or energy. At least if it was correctly defended with an army, fortifications, other kind of defence systems and so on. You'll need to do more than destroying randomly buildings to make it surrender. Especially considering how such bombing lacks accuracy, how costy they are. Just consider modern day fighting. Carpet bombing is not efficient. Just look at some newspaper about civil wars in the middle east. Towns are blasted to dust by an uncontested airforce, still ground forces are fighting without rest. They're loosing slowly to another army, still they're not surrendering just because of constant bombardment.

 

[Magdaki]

Space battles are to Stellaris what naval battles are to Hearts of Iron IV. Indeed, a country need a strong navy to project its power overseas. That's what Stellaris empire need, they need fleets to project their power outside of their borders. And they need strong armies to protect their planet, and to occupy ennemy land. If you can't do that, yes you will have the opportunity to somehow blockade your opponents planet.... such thing require however a big fleet. Establishing a blockade around a single planet could be done with a medium sized fleet. Doing this to several worlds would be very hard. And since we're talking about blockading a world.... remember this is not Endless Space, we're not colonizing barren world and gas giant, which require food supply from your empire.

Each colonized world in Stellaris can produce food, and energy and minerals, to put it clearly, each world is a fortress that will never surrender because it lacks food, water or energy. At least if it was correctly defended with an army, fortifications, other kind of defence systems and so on. You'll need to do more than destroying randomly buildings to make it surrender. Especially considering how such bombing lacks accuracy, how costy they are. Just consider modern day fighting. Carpet bombing is not efficient. Just look at some newspaper about civil wars in the middle east. Towns are blasted to dust by an uncontested airforce, still ground forces are fighting without rest. They're loosing slowly to another army, still they're not surrendering just because of constant bombardment.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you talking about realistically could a planet survive a blockade? Uhh... sure, let's say yes just to make life simple and not get sidetracked. It isn't really relevant though.

 

[Magdaki]

It doesn't have to add amuch, if any computational cost - just be a little more immersive, a la Distant Worlds or other PDS games for that matter. Taking a planet shouldn't be easy. It's one thing to control interplanetary space, or even orbital space, but that shouldn't mean the planet defaults. This could actually make smaller Empires much better able to survive an attack by one that has overwhelming Fleet superiority, if they can turn their planets into fortresses, it can bog down a much larger enemy to buy time or drag the war out for a white peace.

On the CPU thing - I have read there has been a breakthrough with the HOI4 team in massively reducing the some of the computations the engine was doing and this has been shared across PDS.. Fingers crossed that the next patch brings optimisation improvements as well as the rather juicy looking content.

Is that what we want? Wars to last longer passed the point that they are lost?

I don't want that. The mop up phase of wars last plenty long already.

I would be fine with wars lasting longer if there was some chance for a comeback but just a slog of dropping troops onto a planet. Building more. Dropping more. Build more. Drop more. Ughhh, no thanks.

 

[The Nothing]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you talking about realistically could a planet survive a blockade? Uhh... sure, let's say yes just to make life simple and not get sidetracked. It isn't really relevant though.

You miss the point. Your idea of "space battles wins war" is just the continuation of the idea german had. They thought blockading the United Kingdom and make it starve to death would make it surrender. It didn't work, because they lacked a way to make their ground forces capture the island. The allied perhaps thought that extensiv bombing of german towns would make them surrender. Same thing happened, it was absolutely not enough, a good old naval invasion was required.

Same thing applies to Stellaris. You're not going to make your ennemy capitulate without having to send ground forces. As such, ground combat is very important, as much as land warfare is important for other PDS games.

 

[Ikael]

This seems like a really good suggestion that would add to the game. Good job, OP!

That being said, any kind of enhancement for ground combat should take another factor into account: Its interaction with space combat.

A more dettailed, engaging ground combat , should influence into the overall course of the war rather than being the "mopping upf"phase after the fleet battle. Some kind of attrition / war weariness system (so you will have an incentive for winning wars quickly and with little losses) or planetary defenses attacking spaceships (so you need to deploy ground troops in order to avoid fleet damage) should factorize when redesgining ground combat, I think.

 

[Nobody987]

I would be fine with wars lasting longer if there was some chance for a comeback

You are right about this statement. ATM there is NO chance for comeback once you lose doomstack battle. At least expanded ground combat could buy some time for fleet rebuild and ultimately turning the tides. But now you just sit on the planet, send troop overkill, capture and go to the next planet. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Artigo]

Absolutely great idea!

One thing that I've always enjoyed roleplaying as, in a Grand Strategy space type of game like Stellaris, is the human-based species that may not have the best technology, but is far and wide the most disciplined and well-trained military in the galaxy.

Just the simple fact that I could name my armies "Marines" and see the individual sprites (as opposed to the dreadfully dull army icons), makes the ground portion of fighting 1000x more enjoyable to me. It would actually give meaning (for me) to the martial prowess/military tradition of my species.

I'm know there are 40k fans here and while the entire thing is abstracted to such a massive scale, what would it be without Space Marines?

 

[clockworkBabbag]

Also, in response to the "but I have big guns on mah ships" posters, boots on the ground will ALWAYS be a requirement in war. Yeah, you can glass a planet if you want to, but people can dig big holes to survive in, as well as shoot back at your big spaceships. You might also want to live on that planet after you take it too. Burning all the living material on the surface won't really help you do that, now will it... There will always be a need for infantry.

Yes, people saying that ground combat isn't essential in terms of capturing planets are silly. But that's not the important question here - we're concerned about ground combat's place in the game as a mechanic the player needs to interact with.

What you really need to consider is whether ground combat needs to be a visible and interactive mechanic, as opposed to an abstraction. An abstract ground invasion mechanic could function similar to EU4-style sieges, with an invasion progress that ticks up as the fleet blockades. Specialized modules could exist for bombardment and troops that would affect the speed, and defensive buildings could slow down progress.

Much simpler, provides the exact same functionality with regards to the outcome of wars as the current system, can easily be tweaked to make invasions take longer or shorter, and does not have a system that is entirely unconnected with the overall course of the war. And ground combat is still "in" the game, so complaints about "You need ground invasions in order to actually capture planets" are rendered entirely moot.

Is this necessarily the best choice for what to do? I don't want to say that. I'd prefer a good and interesting system for planetary defenses that can actually affect the war over a super-simplified system for sure. But comparing an abstraction of ground combat to the current system, I'd much rather prefer the abstraction. Besides, it's important to treat opposing arguments charitably and address strong versions of those arguments, not trivially dismissed ones like "ground combat is entirely unnecessary."

Side note: talk about "Ground combat is part of the genre and therefore should be in the game" are bad arguments. You still need to justify why Stellaris should have the arbitrary elements of SF stories you've chosen for it to have, you can't just say it exists somewhere in the genre and therefore must be part of Stellaris. Besides, it's an entirely subjective claim; detailed ground combat might appeal really hard to the WH40K fans, but personally I find military sci-fi to be absolutely boring drek and don't care if it's in the game or not.

Discussion about justifying the inclusion of ground combat should absolutely be limited to "Does the inclusion of the mechanic make the game more interesting to play?" An interesting mechanic is appealing to everyone, not just those into war stories in a space setting.

 

[ProZocK]

I love this idea. The amount of extra work it gives is no big deal since creating the divisions is clearly not something you will have to keep doing constantly and the game has enough free time when you are on multiplayer that there is no way someone can argue that it will make multiplayer more micro intensive. it gives depth to the representation of the war that is happening in the planet if you care for that kind of stuff while at the same time changing nothing else if you do not.

 

[Hyomoto]

I had a similar suggestion and I definitely would like to see something like this. I think the issue is 'how fire and forget is this'? I see a lot of pause time building armies. So while I like the idea of landing and taking territory, because I also had a similar view, I think any army management has to be pretty simplified. Which is why I think Paradox should do the Civ VI thing and treat tiles like 'districts' that produce particular things and allow some specialized structures there. A planet with no military districts is one that is going to fare very poorly in a ground conflict, but giving up resource production for defense would be a valid consideration. So when it comes time to invade you would need to weaken a beachhead through bombardment and land your armies.

Though, when I think about it, Stellaris is not a game of strategic depth. I really hope it becomes more so, but we'll have to wait until after Utopia. Still, I like the basic idea of actually having an ongoing invasion plan and I would wholly support this flavor of ground combat.

 

[Artigo]

Side note: talk about "Ground combat is part of the genre and therefore should be in the game" are bad arguments. You still need to justify why Stellaris should have the arbitrary elements of SF stories you've chosen for it to have, you can't just say it exists somewhere in the genre and therefore must be part of Stellaris. Besides, it's an entirely subjective claim; detailed ground combat might appeal really hard to the WH40K fans, but personally I find military sci-fi to be absolutely boring drek and don't care if it's in the game or not.

Discussion about justifying the inclusion of ground combat should absolutely be limited to "Does the inclusion of the mechanic make the game more interesting to play?" An interesting mechanic is appealing to everyone, not just those into war stories in a space setting.

So it really all comes down to what the Devs want. I personally feel as though I could make the argument for ground combat based upon both real history and the history of military science fiction. I could also make the argument "realistic" necessities for it i.e. : a planetary shield generator stops all high velocity or high energy particles directed at the planet thus, assault craft are necessary to penetrate the planet's shield.

A lot of arguments could be made in any case, but I feel as though the way OP has crafted his idea makes it so that people that really like ground combat can indulge themselves and those, like yourself who couldn't give a shit, don't have do anything differently.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

A lot of arguments could be made in any case, but I feel as though the way OP has crafted his idea makes it so that people that really like ground combat can indulge themselves and those, like yourself who couldn't give a shit, don't have do anything differently.

But that's not the issue with ground combat. That's not what needs to be fixed. I don't want ground combat to be something that I can ignore because it has no strategic bearing on the actual war you're trying to win - on the actual game you're trying to play. I want planetary defenses to be fully integrated with the course of the war in some fashion, either with an actual interesting system or by abstracting it so that it's just part of the overall war in space, but still allows some possibility for interesting decisions in the overall strategy.

I don't care about "realism," which is often used as arbitrary justification for any mechanic you care to name. I don't care about subjective opinions about what's SF and which elements of SF should be included in the game.

I care about making the mechanic good, and interesting, and something that does not bog wars down in meaningless "decisions" and clicks.

 

[CastelloNova]

But that's not the issue with ground combat. That's not what needs to be fixed. I don't want ground combat to be something that I can ignore because it has no strategic bearing on the actual war you're trying to win - on the actual game you're trying to play. I want planetary defenses to be fully integrated with the course of the war in some fashion, either with an actual interesting system or by abstracting it so that it's just part of the overall war in space, but still allows some possibility for interesting decisions in the overall strategy.

I don't care about "realism," which is often used as arbitrary justification for any mechanic you care to name. I don't care about subjective opinions about what's SF and which elements of SF should be included in the game.

I care about making the mechanic good, and interesting, and something that does not bog wars down in meaningless "decisions" and clicks.

Which this does in a way, with how landing mechanics work in this system and the one army per tile baseline means a fully defended world will take time to take. You can't simply land all your armies on the ground to overwhelm the entire garrison at once, instead you have to wear down the defending armies clearing room for your own invasion forces to land. This slower advance gives time for a losing party time to recover and for those who have the disadvantage in space but advantage on the ground to launch strike fleets that are small enough to no worry about their loss but big enough to destroy spaceports.

These strike fleets would be able to enter a system destroy the space port and since there are no planetary fortifications giving 90% defence values, start landing troops immediately. If a relief force comes to scare them off the strike fleet can either sacrifice themselves in a delaying action getting more armies on the ground or retreat with the armies still in orbit hoping it was enough to take the world. Smaller weaker fleets suddenly have an impactful way to make a diffidence in the war effort, hundreds of assault armies don't immediately win you the planet as there's only so much room to fight, they will overwhelm eventually but they can be better served else where with a split fleet.

If anything this system would promote more meaningful decisions not only on the ground but in space.

 

[KopiG]

Im not interested in this kind of ground combat. I like the simplicity of the current one.

 

[BIGTEX285]

But that's not the issue with ground combat. That's not what needs to be fixed. I don't want ground combat to be something that I can ignore because it has no strategic bearing on the actual war you're trying to win - on the actual game you're trying to play. I want planetary defenses to be fully integrated with the course of the war in some fashion, either with an actual interesting system or by abstracting it so that it's just part of the overall war in space, but still allows some possibility for interesting decisions in the overall strategy.

I don't care about "realism," which is often used as arbitrary justification for any mechanic you care to name. I don't care about subjective opinions about what's SF and which elements of SF should be included in the game.

I care about making the mechanic good, and interesting, and something that does not bog wars down in meaningless "decisions" and clicks.

Which is why I proposed earlier, a system similar to EUIV's, war exhaustion. Depending on your government type and policies you set, your POPS would receive information from the 'media' (this would be abstracted), about the outcome of space and ground battles. Did you win or lose, how many people did you lose, how many resources were lost because of the fight, we're civilians killed in the process (terror bombing), and most importantly how LONG has the war been going on.

Currently pacifists are the only POPS that really effect an empire during war, but even still, you can wage war indefinitely without major consequences. People don't want to stay in a perpetual state of war, and they really don't like it when their family and friends keep dying. Add in some form of war exhaustion, as well as OP's idea, and I think we'll have a new solid foundation for combat. It wouldn't be the end of iteration, but definitely a step in the right direction.

 

[leszek stachon]

I like the idea, CastelloNova.

One of the strongest points of Stellaris is its.. Art vision. Spectacular galaxy view... splendid planetary sistems... great looking star ships, spaceports and epic space battles... I realy love to watch it. Than I open the planet tiles or ground combat window, that is ugly and boring. It doesn't fit to the artistic vision of the rest of the game. I thing it could be done better. I realize that the aesthetic aspect isn't the most important one, but I'd like to play Stellaris with deeper and visualy attractive ground combat that would make the game more immersive, one day...

 

[clockworkBabbag]

Which this does in a way, with how landing mechanics work in this system and the one army per tile baseline means a fully defended world will take time to take. You can't simply land all your armies on the ground to overwhelm the entire garrison at once, instead you have to wear down the defending armies clearing room for your own invasion forces to land. This slower advance gives time for a losing party time to recover and for those who have the disadvantage in space but advantage on the ground to launch strike fleets that are small enough to no worry about their loss but big enough to destroy spaceports.

These strike fleets would be able to enter a system destroy the space port and since there are no planetary fortifications giving 90% defence values, start landing troops immediately. If a relief force comes to scare them off the strike fleet can either sacrifice themselves in a delaying action getting more armies on the ground or retreat with the armies still in orbit hoping it was enough to take the world. Smaller weaker fleets suddenly have an impactful way to make a diffidence in the war effort, hundreds of assault armies don't immediately win you the planet as there's only so much room to fight, they will overwhelm eventually but they can be better served else where with a split fleet.

If anything this system would promote more meaningful decisions not only on the ground but in space.

No, sorry. Time alone doesn't mean anything, as I mentioned in my first post. An intelligent player, once naval superiority has been achieved, will not let the opponent rebuild. Also, if you have naval superiority, you can easily afford to break off a few smaller fleets to deal with such raids while still having a large fleet to deal with actual dismantling of the opponent.

Which is why I proposed earlier, a system similar to EUIV's, war exhaustion. Depending on your government type and policies you set, your POPS would receive information from the 'media' (this would be abstracted), about the outcome of space and ground battles. Did you win or lose, how many people did you lose, how many resources were lost because of the fight, we're civilians killed in the process (terror bombing), and most importantly how LONG has the war been going on.

Currently pacifists are the only POPS that really effect an empire during war, but even still, you can wage war indefinitely without major consequences. People don't want to stay in a perpetual state of war, and they really don't like it when their family and friends keep dying. Add in some form of war exhaustion, as well as OP's idea, and I think we'll have a new solid foundation for combat. It wouldn't be the end of iteration, but definitely a step in the right direction.

You're right. The more I think about it, the more I see a punishing war exhaustion mechanic to be not just a good addition, but a necessary one for making ground combat matter. Combine that with some kind of manpower pool (where max/replenishment rate is based on the number of pops) and it's possible to aim for a draw in war by focusing on planetary defenses.

However, we now have a secondary issue to deal with, something I also mentioned in my first post: Aiming at minimizing micro for planetary invasions is good, because there are hundreds of planets in a galaxy and having to make deep tactical decisions about how to invade or defend each one is pretty indefensible. But the OP's suggestion - or any suggestion that aims to flesh out ground combat - must inherently increase the amount of micro a player does. If we accept that the OP's suggestion with a workable war exhaustion mechanic would let planetary defenses actually impact the course of the war, we still need to decide whether that's worth the cost of the micro purely for the subjective gain of those who want more in-depth ground combat.

It seems to me that the thing that makes the difference here between a ground combat mechanic that is useless to the overall war and a ground combat mechanic that has an impact on the war is not the actual implementation of the ground combat. It's war exhaustion, which can be implemented entirely independently and equally in an abstract or an in-depth mechanic. I still don't see an advantage to the OP's proposal over a more simplified approach. More complexity is not the root of the problem in what needs to be added to make ground combat good and meaningful.

 

[Artigo]

No, sorry. Time alone doesn't mean anything, as I mentioned in my first post. An intelligent player, once naval superiority has been achieved, will not let the opponent rebuild. Also, if you have naval superiority, you can easily afford to break off a few smaller fleets to deal with such raids while still having a large fleet to deal with actual dismantling of the opponent.

An intelligent player won't, sure. However, an equally intelligent defender might know that their superior troops and defensive fortifications will keep you at bay for a while. Perhaps long enough to send out Doolittle -esque raid to knock out a space port on your homeworld. Combine that with Orbital drop troopers, the species traits that make them exceptional soldiers and the research they've prioritized to have the best ground attack strategies and now all of a sudden you have to react to your homeworld being invaded.

The thing is, regardless of whatever changes you make, if you lose your DoomStack to someone else's bigger DoomStack, then the war is probably over anyway, but if my troops/ground strategies are so good that I don't have to fight your DoomStack doesn't mean were atleast expanding the strategies available? Shouldn't we also try to make stats like Army damage, morale and garrison health at least worth something? Hell, currently I don't even build generals when I can have more scientists to assist research.

At any rate, it's certainly more interesting than "Oh gee my blue circles beat your red circles".

 

[BIGTEX285]

You're right. The more I think about it, the more I see a punishing war exhaustion mechanic to be not just a good addition, but a necessary one for making ground combat matter. Combine that with some kind of manpower pool (where max/replenishment rate is based on the number of pops) and it's possible to aim for a draw in war by focusing on planetary defenses.

However, we now have a secondary issue to deal with, something I also mentioned in my first post: Aiming at minimizing micro for planetary invasions is good, because there are hundreds of planets in a galaxy and having to make deep tactical decisions about how to invade or defend each one is pretty indefensible. But the OP's suggestion - or any suggestion that aims to flesh out ground combat - must inherently increase the amount of micro a player does. If we accept that the OP's suggestion with a workable war exhaustion mechanic would let planetary defenses actually impact the course of the war, we still need to decide whether that's worth the cost of the micro purely for the subjective gain of those who want more in-depth ground combat.

It seems to me that the thing that makes the difference here between a ground combat mechanic that is useless to the overall war and a ground combat mechanic that has an impact on the war is not the actual implementation of the ground combat. It's war exhaustion, which can be implemented entirely independently and equally in an abstract or an in-depth mechanic. I still don't see an advantage to the OP's proposal over a more simplified approach. More complexity is not the root of the problem in what needs to be added to make ground combat good and meaningful.

I'm curious to know what galaxy settings you use. I think another issue that is coming into play is the amount of planets in a galaxy. I've been playing in medium to large galaxies with only 25% habitability, and find the amount of colonizable planets too great. I dread the thought of playing a game with any more... I understand people want sprawling empires, and I do too, but a reduction in the amount of colonizable planets in a galaxy might help alleviate micro, as well as make ground battles much more important.