Capture Planet without Ground Battle

[Sutopia]

For a long time, ground battle seems extremely out of place to me.
It rarely interacts with the rest of the game, the combat is uninteresting.

As such, I think it's proper to stop trying to "fix" army and ground battle altogether, but use space force to capture instead.

The idea comes from Command and Conquer: Generals. In that game, the primary way you capture enemy building is via the basic infantry unit.
For Stellaris, we can do the same: let our combat vessels capable of capturing planets.


Attacking Force
"Selective" bombardment stance now includes a capturing effect.
A new core component "landing pod" becomes available. You can leave it empty to save resource or fit the pod with army types you have unlocked for taking over planets.
Landing pod components have energy, mineral or food upkeep when installed, based on the army type.
Every landing pod in the fleet provides a per-day capturing progress toward the colony it's targeting, and has a cap proportional to planet size.

Defending Force
The base amount of progress required to capture a planet will be directly associated with how well developed the planet is. (One of the main factor is pop count)
Aside from that, the defense army should go away. Instead, defender use defensive buildings.
Defensive buildings are separate buildings from the existing 12 building slots, but share the same building queue.
Similar to how building slots work after 3.0, you get defensive building slots from capital building and gain additional from each fortress.
Planetary shield is now a defensive building.
Fortress no longer gains FTL inhibitor automatically, but needs to be built as a unique defensive building.
There are other ones that either slow down the capturing or deal damage to fleets in orbit.
These different buildings can allow for defenders to organize more interesting defending strategies other than making just huge "swamp" planets that attackers need to chew through.
For the upcoming unity rework, the capturing difficulty may also be adjusted based on sprawl, representing local population resistance to invaders.

Miscellaneous

• There are some traits that tailor toward army damage, such as strong. These no longer apply to attacker, but do apply to defender capturing difficulty via increasing / decreasing the progress required to capture.
• General is no longer a thing. There can be a few new admiral traits that tailor toward planet capturing speed or planetary defensive weaponry damage reduction.
• New espionage: destroy defensive buildings
• Repeatable techs now become increase capturing speed and increase capturing difficulty. In addition, there can be a new repeatable that explicitly increases planetary defensive weapon strength, as such weapon probably should not benefit from existing weapon repeatable techs.

This would not only greatly simplify the system but also add more meaningful strategic decisions to the game.
Thoughts?

 

[GOLANX]

Yea, you can. throwing your hands up and giving up is not an acceptable direction to take the system. Period. Stop being lazy and demand the system actually be better.

At what cost though? Time is money, if the devs spend 2 years adding HOI in space they won't get a return on investment. At best they can squeeze something into a 3 month timeframe, nothing made in 3 months is going to be well polished. You would also need mechanics that don't become a slog after 100+ planets, that is fun and interesting for both sides after 100+ planets and preferably isn't decided by the space battle in which 99% of rework ideas would fail to account for. The avenue for an idea to successfully achieve all of those marks is infinitesimal, it doesn't help that the devs are human they could easily spend 2 Months on a design before they can find problems that require them to start from scratch, it's a very high risk proposition and why there are several devs who want to remove the system altogether, and that's been there main response to ground combat every time they are asked about it. What's more a ground combat rework has an opportunity cost, a Naval Combat rework would be more valuable as we interact with it more, how about a rework to Spiritualist, a religion system, solving performance problems, making Unity not useless, ending Admin Cap, yeah they are working on the last 2 examples right now and they have a much higher impact than ground combat.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

At what cost though? Time is money, if the devs spend 2 years adding HOI in space they won't get a return on investment. At best they can squeeze something into a 3 month timeframe, nothing made in 3 months is going to be well polished. You would also need mechanics that don't become a slog after 100+ planets, that is fun and interesting for both sides after 100+ planets and preferably isn't decided by the space battle in which 99% of rework ideas would fail to account for. The avenue for an idea to successfully achieve all of those marks is infinitesimal, it doesn't help that the devs are human they could easily spend 2 Months on a design before they can find problems that require them to start from scratch, it's a very high risk proposition and why there are several devs who want to remove the system altogether, and that's been there main response to ground combat every time they are asked about it. What's more a ground combat rework has an opportunity cost, a Naval Combat rework would be more valuable as we interact with it more, how about a rework to Spiritualist, a religion system, solving performance problems, making Unity not useless, ending Admin Cap, yeah they are working on the last 2 examples right now and they have a much higher impact than ground combat.

No one's asking for bloody Hearts of Iron in space. Stop with the strawman excuses and the "return on investment" nonsense. This no longer applies as a valid defense when Custodians is a thing now. They just spent however many months on a free update to overhaul Unity. a FREE update. As in no one's paying for it. Not much ROI there. And no, player retention is not the ROI, because no one was walking away from the game over Unity issues.

ALso, no, it does not have to be squeezed into a 3 month update. You think the AI and performance improvements they made a few months back was it? that they'll never address that again? No, it's an ongoing process, that they'll introduce piecemeal with each update, leaving it all turned off in the files until it's finished. It's called iterative design. You add a little bit each update, until all the pieces are put together and you have a new system. Then you "flip the switch" and turn the new system on, after removing the current one so they don't conflict. Nothing is stopping Paradox from doing that except themselves. Besides, they aren't getting much ROI from that worthless Espionage system they spent months putting together. So if they can waste months of time on a Spy system that does nothing, they can waste months fixing half the games combat.

 

[GOLANX]

No one's asking for bloody Hearts of Iron in space. Stop with the strawman excuses and the "return on investment" nonsense. This no longer applies as a valid defense when Custodians is a thing now. They just spent however many months on a free update to overhaul Unity. a FREE update. As in no one's paying for it. Not much ROI there. And no, player retention is not the ROI, because no one was walking away from the game over Unity issues.

The Custodians are doing a thing that the dev team was always doing, it's literally just a reorganization, the big pop growth rework from 3.0 wasn't done by the Custodians, but the whole team. If they did not think the Custodians would bring in a ROI they wouldn't have reorganized, they would have added lootboxes. Regular updates make for good press, which brings new customers, it also bring old players back, player retention, new players and old players leads to spikes in concurrent user counts which boosts visibility on the market which means more sales. Players that are playing during a concurrent user spike are more likely to spend money on DLCs both old and new. Players that are happier with positive changes buy DLC, most players seem to like the changes to Unity. If the devs didn't spend money on Custodian initiatives it would lead to atrophied mechanics and unaddressed performance problems that would souer players and cost them in the long run.

These are Capitalist Economics, the devs are responsible to those economics or they do not stay in buisness.

ALso, no, it does not have to be squeezed into a 3 month update. You think the AI and performance improvements they made a few months back was it? that they'll never address that again? No, it's an ongoing process, that they'll introduce piecemeal with each update, leaving it all turned off in the files until it's finished. It's called iterative design. You add a little bit each update, until all the pieces are put together and you have a new system. Then you "flip the switch" and turn the new system on, after removing the current one so they don't conflict. Nothing is stopping Paradox from doing that except themselves. Besides, they aren't getting much ROI from that worthless Espionage system they spent months putting together. So if they can waste months of time on a Spy system that does nothing, they can waste months fixing half the games combat.

When's the last time they balanced naval combat? The devs actually think they make money off of Naval combat, you think they are going to spend more time and effort on a system they think won't pay off than one they think is a moneymaker? If the devs stuck a few balance changes to naval combat to every update every 3 months I'd be tempted to agree with you. Paradox could get 1 dev to go into the code and spend a coupple minutes to change Neutron Launcher range, damage, accuracy, whatever to nerf the weapon so that nobody will come complaining about the Stale Neutron Launcher Meta, they arent willing to do that for a system they think players like and will appreciate more, why would they do that for a system that they think won't be appreciated.

You don't have to convince me they should rework ground combat I think they should too. The espionage system flopping is actually a great reason for them to beware what they spend their time on, it isn't a reason they should spend more time on things they think will flop. There are several key issues that stand in the way of their desire to do that rework, 2 of the really big ones are that the system has to be fun and engaging after 100 planets, and the AIs who built 50 Habitats. The devs could add HOI4 in space and result in our hating it. It can't upset the pacing and we can't want to beat our skulls in for repeating the same battle actions that many times. The second is that the Battle in Space should not determine the battle on the ground, the Attacker has all the time in the world to bombard the defenders into dust, and collect armies from all the planets in their empire. If you have a solution to solve both of those problems maybe you can talk the devs into it. Guess what removing armies all together does solve both of those problems. It wouldn't be that difficult to add a defender and invader modifiers to allow the defender to hold out for years, Centuries if need be holding onto the planet after the war exhaustion runs out, they can easily fiddle with those modifiers and how to build them to keep it interesting, it won't get Stale after 100 planets because they don't have to be actively managed.

 

[Cordane]

The Custodians are doing a thing that the dev team was always doing, it's literally just a reorganization, the big pop growth rework from 3.0 wasn't done by the Custodians, but the whole team. If they did not think the Custodians would bring in a ROI they wouldn't have reorganized, they would have added lootboxes. Regular updates make for good press, which brings new customers, it also bring old players back, player retention, new players and old players leads to spikes in concurrent user counts which boosts visibility on the market which means more sales. Players that are playing during a concurrent user spike are more likely to spend money on DLCs both old and new. Players that are happier with positive changes buy DLC, most players seem to like the changes to Unity. If the devs didn't spend money on Custodian initiatives it would lead to atrophied mechanics and unaddressed performance problems that would souer players and cost them in the long run.

These are Capitalist Economics, the devs are responsible to those economics or they do not stay in buisness.

When's the last time they balanced naval combat? The devs actually think they make money off of Naval combat, you think they are going to spend more time and effort on a system they think won't pay off than one they think is a moneymaker? If the devs stuck a few balance changes to naval combat to every update every 3 months I'd be tempted to agree with you. Paradox could get 1 dev to go into the code and spend a coupple minutes to change Neutron Launcher range, damage, accuracy, whatever to nerf the weapon so that nobody will come complaining about the Stale Neutron Launcher Meta, they arent willing to do that for a system they think players like and will appreciate more, why would they do that for a system that they think won't be appreciated.

You don't have to convince me they should rework ground combat I think they should too. The espionage system flopping is actually a great reason for them to beware what they spend their time on, it isn't a reason they should spend more time on things they think will flop. There are several key issues that stand in the way of their desire to do that rework, 2 of the really big ones are that the system has to be fun and engaging after 100 planets, and the AIs who built 50 Habitats. The devs could add HOI4 in space and result in our hating it. It can't upset the pacing and we can't want to beat our skulls in for repeating the same battle actions that many times. The second is that the Battle in Space should not determine the battle on the ground, the Attacker has all the time in the world to bombard the defenders into dust, and collect armies from all the planets in their empire. If you have a solution to solve both of those problems maybe you can talk the devs into it. Guess what removing armies all together does solve both of those problems. It wouldn't be that difficult to add a defender and invader modifiers to allow the defender to hold out for years, Centuries if need be holding onto the planet after the war exhaustion runs out, they can easily fiddle with those modifiers and how to build them to keep it interesting, it won't get Stale after 100 planets because they don't have to be actively managed.

The Custodian effort is totally capitalistic - many players skipped picking up some of the DLCs or stopped playing because they were buggy or feature-light, and spending effort to shore those up will cause some of those players to pick them up and/or think again on playing Stellaris and picking up later DLC. Making updates to the base game is for the same reasons - players don't buy DLCs if they're not still getting joy out of playing Stellaris in general. There may be some benefit for showing a game as still having high concurrent users, in that it might draw some new players to the game, but that will undoubtedly be less of a public bump than regular advertised DLC releases.

I would think that issues with planetary invasions have turned off a comparable (though not necessarily equal) number of players to those turned off by issues with fleet combat. And I would say that the issues around planetary invasions have been more stable (i.e., not addressed) FAR longer than any in fleet combat. There have been numerous attempts at balancing fleet combat, never mind that those attempts have consistently ended up with nearly as many people annoyed by the changes as relieved by them being implemented. Maybe the same thing COULD happen with changes to planetary invasions, and I would say that'd be a high likelihood if they just fiddle-fart around the edges or gut it indiscriminately.

My core problem with the planetary invasion system is that it is both sub-standard in quality and complexity to the majority of the non-military systems in the game and WAY behind that found in the almost straight-up RTS level of detail in the fleet combat. To be honest, and I am in no way advocating anything of the sort, but the current planetary invasion mechanics would receive FAR LESS flak if the fleet combat systems weren't so freakin' detailed in comparison. It sometimes seems like the developers had a fairly decent empire management GS game, added in a dumbed-down full RTS fleet combat game, and then were like, "oh F, we totally forgot ground combat!," and hammered and spackled in a quick system. I think if they spent a reasonable fraction of the time they've put into fleet combat and spent that on ground combat, we'd be floored with what they'd come up with - not that there wouldn't be a significant portion of the player base that would boo and thumb it down (this is true of virtually any change that they'd make here, or any dev team would make to any game, really).

 

[GOLANX]

The Custodian effort is totally capitalistic - many players skipped picking up some of the DLCs or stopped playing because they were buggy or feature-light, and spending effort to shore those up will cause some of those players to pick them up and/or think again on playing Stellaris and picking up later DLC. Making updates to the base game is for the same reasons - players don't buy DLCs if they're not still getting joy out of playing Stellaris in general. There may be some benefit for showing a game as still having high concurrent users, in that it might draw some new players to the game, but that will undoubtedly be less of a public bump than regular advertised DLC releases.

I would think that issues with planetary invasions have turned off a comparable (though not necessarily equal) number of players to those turned off by issues with fleet combat. And I would say that the issues around planetary invasions have been more stable (i.e., not addressed) FAR longer than any in fleet combat. There have been numerous attempts at balancing fleet combat, never mind that those attempts have consistently ended up with nearly as many people annoyed by the changes as relieved by them being implemented. Maybe the same thing COULD happen with changes to planetary invasions, and I would say that'd be a high likelihood if they just fiddle-fart around the edges or gut it indiscriminately.

My core problem with the planetary invasion system is that it is both sub-standard in quality and complexity to the majority of the non-military systems in the game and WAY behind that found in the almost straight-up RTS level of detail in the fleet combat. To be honest, and I am in no way advocating anything of the sort, but the current planetary invasion mechanics would receive FAR LESS flak if the fleet combat systems weren't so freakin' detailed in comparison. It sometimes seems like the developers had a fairly decent empire management GS game, added in a dumbed-down full RTS fleet combat game, and then were like, "oh F, we totally forgot ground combat!," and hammered and spackled in a quick system. I think if they spent a reasonable fraction of the time they've put into fleet combat and spent that on ground combat, we'd be floored with what they'd come up with - not that there wouldn't be a significant portion of the player base that would boo and thumb it down (this is true of virtually any change that they'd make here, or any dev team would make to any game, really).

I agree with you on most of those points, RTS style points I do not give cause I think of RTS as in the CnC, SC vein. Obv I have my own ideas for naval combat that I'm fairly certain will work, because I focused on the root issues and not the present effects of that. That's a different discussion. If the devs gave Alfray and 1 coder (or maybe just Alfray if he can code) 1 hour a patch cycle to tackle the balance problems in naval warfare then it would probably be in better shape. Small tweaks over time could improve naval balance but large overhauls won't solve the problem if they aren't focused on the root of that problem.

The root of the ground combat problem I already pointed out, it can't drain the player after a lot of repition, and ideally it shouldn't be dictated by the space battle, the current system is mildly successful at the first point, ground combat can be ignored with a big enough stack and the aggressive stance, it's really bad at the second point. A lot of suggestions don't solve the second point, and many don't solve the first. You also have to keep in mind the saying, "given enough time the player will optimize the fun out of the game" even if you can allow an AI to make your choices the player is likely to micromanage his way to an optimal outcome, I never used auto resolve in SW:EAW exactly because I knew the AI wouldn't reach the optimal outcome and I would rather slog through than trust it. I haven't seen a suggestion that improves on either of those 2 major points, I don't have any good ideas and if the devs had any good ideas they wouldn't be lobbying to end the system. Lot of ideas around the edges can be interesting, and I've supported those ideas, just altering the mythology of how your empire's Army works can provide interesting choices, reducing the amount of armies you can recruit makes more sense flavor wise (and makes point 2 worse). Until a better idea comes along to solve those 2 points circles aren't going away, and again removing the system actually does.

Honestly they could probably replace the army system with the archaeology system, different stats on either side, random events that can cost research or resources for an advantage, and because there is no upfront cost we cant complain when RNG isn't fair.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

I agree with you on most of those points, RTS style points I do not give cause I think of RTS as in the CnC, SC vein. Obv I have my own ideas for naval combat that I'm fairly certain will work, because I focused on the root issues and not the present effects of that. That's a different discussion. If the devs gave Alfray and 1 coder (or maybe just Alfray if he can code) 1 hour a patch cycle to tackle the balance problems in naval warfare then it would probably be in better shape. Small tweaks over time could improve naval balance but large overhauls won't solve the problem if they aren't focused on the root of that problem.

The root of the ground combat problem I already pointed out, it can't drain the player after a lot of repition, and ideally it shouldn't be dictated by the space battle, the current system is mildly successful at the first point, ground combat can be ignored with a big enough stack and the aggressive stance, it's really bad at the second point. A lot of suggestions don't solve the second point, and many don't solve the first. You also have to keep in mind the saying, "given enough time the player will optimize the fun out of the game" even if you can allow an AI to make your choices the player is likely to micromanage his way to an optimal outcome, I never used auto resolve in SW:EAW exactly because I knew the AI wouldn't reach the optimal outcome and I would rather slog through than trust it. I haven't seen a suggestion that improves on either of those 2 major points, I don't have any good ideas and if the devs had any good ideas they wouldn't be lobbying to end the system. Lot of ideas around the edges can be interesting, and I've supported those ideas, just altering the mythology of how your empire's Army works can provide interesting choices, reducing the amount of armies you can recruit makes more sense flavor wise (and makes point 2 worse). Until a better idea comes along to solve those 2 points circles aren't going away, and again removing the system actually does.

Honestly they could probably replace the army system with the archaeology system, different stats on either side, random events that can cost research or resources for an advantage, and because there is no upfront cost we cant complain when RNG isn't fair.

The second point is easily addressable. Allow static defenses that can shoot back. It's really effing simple. You lose the fleet battle? okay, thats bad, but you've got time to get a second fleet over there. Why? Because you've got a planetary shield generator to basically negate defense army damage from bombardment, and orbital defense guns to shoot down ships in orbit, be it naval ships or landing craft.

"But Revan!" I hear you saying in rebuttal. "What if they brought a Colossus with them when they attacked!" Why glad you asked! That's why the devs re-add the Defense Stations and Fortresses to the Starbases, While the enemy fleet is slogging it out with your Doom Fortress, the Colossus sneaks over to the Fortress world to crack it...except for those cheeky Planetside Patrol Ships that you were sitting on waiting for that moment. The patrol ships attack the Colossus, along with the Orbital guns, and the planetary Shields double the Colossus's charging time (aka shooting through the shield). If you can't stop it then? Then GG, you got outplayed, but you made em work for it, the attacker still needs a chance to win after all. Your second point is easily addressed with buildable static and dynamic defense systems. Which Paradox have gone above and beyond to remove any semblance of.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say Paradox has removed all the defense options on purpose, in order to make the argument you're making about how hopeless it is to counter the enemy as their excuse to remove the feature. But the Mods tell no lies, and using mods that do these things, proves how viable it would be if they incorporated those things. Those mods are also very popular, so the demand for those types of systems is there. Paradox is just lazy, and don't want to do the work, that's why espionage flopped, they couldn't be bothered to put in actual effort to make it useful. You'll notice it was after Nemesis (and Leviathins in EU4) that Custodians came around. They know their lazy half arsed measures were costing them business.

If we, as the community, would rally behind this issue and constantly clamor for an overhaul it would happen. But instead you all just want to say "screw it it's hopeless" rather than just simply demand the devs do their job of fixing broken systems. Your giving them the excuse they want to not do it, by advocating we should just give up and stop trying. That's not how you get the changes you want.

 

[GOLANX]

The second point is easily addressable. Allow static defenses that can shoot back. It's really effing simple. You lose the fleet battle? okay, thats bad, but you've got time to get a second fleet over there. Why? Because you've got a planetary shield generator to basically negate defense army damage from bombardment, and orbital defense guns to shoot down ships in orbit, be it naval ships or landing craft.

"But Revan!" I hear you saying in rebuttal. "What if they brought a Colossus with them when they attacked!" Why glad you asked! That's why the devs re-add the Defense Stations and Fortresses to the Starbases, While the enemy fleet is slogging it out with your Doom Fortress, the Colossus sneaks over to the Fortress world to crack it...except for those cheeky Planetside Patrol Ships that you were sitting on waiting for that moment. The patrol ships attack the Colossus, along with the Orbital guns, and the planetary Shields double the Colossus's charging time (aka shooting through the shield). If you can't stop it then? Then GG, you got outplayed, but you made em work for it, the attacker still needs a chance to win after all. Your second point is easily addressed with buildable static and dynamic defense systems. Which Paradox have gone above and beyond to remove any semblance of.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say Paradox has removed all the defense options on purpose, in order to make the argument you're making about how hopeless it is to counter the enemy as their excuse to remove the feature. But the Mods tell no lies, and using mods that do these things, proves how viable it would be if they incorporated those things. Those mods are also very popular, so the demand for those types of systems is there. Paradox is just lazy, and don't want to do the work, that's why espionage flopped, they couldn't be bothered to put in actual effort to make it useful. You'll notice it was after Nemesis (and Leviathins in EU4) that Custodians came around. They know their lazy half arsed measures were costing them business.

If we, as the community, would rally behind this issue and constantly clamor for an overhaul it would happen. But instead you all just want to say "screw it it's hopeless" rather than just simply demand the devs do their job of fixing broken systems. Your giving them the excuse they want to not do it, by advocating we should just give up and stop trying. That's not how you get the changes you want.

Your ideas while good had more to do with the naval combat in the game than the ground combat, while my fleets are slugging it out over the enemy doom fortress my troops are sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Granted the devs could allow us to break the combat lock and rush the armies to the planet. Planetary shields also don't need to go away, delaying tactics can be part of a system where armies are removed too.
Patrol ships are naval combatants, and would be well used to help defend the starbase and be a part of the doom fortress in space. Anti-orbital weapons can ward off my fleets from their task of nuclear rain, but once my armies hit the ground my fleets can safely run off to the next target anyways. Still don't need armies to make this happen. The point of the colossus is also to remove the need to do ground combat altogether, unless your spiritualist, then your doing both for some reason.

Because you didn't actually discuss ground combat you didn't really solve for point 2, and part of the problem with point 2 is that solving for it easily violates point 1 which you didn't address either, you can't violate point 1, devs can deal with disappointed players much better than ragequitting players.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

Your ideas while good had more to do with the naval combat in the game than the ground combat, while my fleets are slugging it out over the enemy doom fortress my troops are sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Granted the devs could allow us to break the combat lock and rush the armies to the planet. Planetary shields also don't need to go away, delaying tactics can be part of a system where armies are removed too.
Patrol ships are naval combatants, and would be well used to help defend the starbase and be a part of the doom fortress in space. Anti-orbital weapons can ward off my fleets from their task of nuclear rain, but once my armies hit the ground my fleets can safely run off to the next target anyways. Still don't need armies to make this happen. The point of the colossus is also to remove the need to do ground combat altogether, unless your spiritualist, then your doing both for some reason.

Because you didn't actually discuss ground combat you didn't really solve for point 2, and part of the problem with point 2 is that solving for it easily violates point 1 which you didn't address either, you can't violate point 1, devs can deal with disappointed players much better than ragequitting players.

You already answered point 1.

Point 2, Patrol ships, can do whatever you want them to do. Your sitting there, putting imaginary limitations on what they do when they don't even exist. The Patrol Ship mod literally gives you the choice of how you want to deploy them, including waiting for a Colossus to show up in system, or Troop Transports to enter Orbit, so that you still have them even if the Starbase is gone, because their anchored to planets. You say Point 2 is "Losing the fleet battle shouldn't be the end of your chances". It's not, these things all tie together to form a cohesive system. What exactly are you expecting, an idea that makes your ground armies immune to orbital bombardment? Not only is that unrealistic but that's not fair for the attacker, winning the fleet battle should fairly provide them some level of advantage for the upcoming ground invasion. Planetary Shields already address this pretty much, you can stack I think up to like 85% resistance for the planets Garrison. The orbital guns prevent the ships from camping the planet for 50 years with impunity. Ground and Naval warfare, are not wholly separate things. One is going to logically heavily influence the other. Ground soldiers cannot logically point their little Space AK's at starships, Large defensive systems like Orbital guns or satellite networks is their method of response, and those would be tied to Garrison size, technology level or whatever. You preserve your chance of winning, by making it impossible to ignore your defensive army, They have to address it to progress.

You create custom army templates in a mirror copy of the fleet management tab. Army Management. "Okay train 3 infantry, 4 tank divisions, 3 fighter squadrons, 6 Battlemechs" etc etc You can do this for offense and defense both. The space combat in the game is already about as hands off as an RTS system gets. The ground combat can still retain that aspect since the game can't pause and there's likely other things going on. You basically copy the naval system, onto land. If you wanna really simplify it. Mechs =Battleships, Tanks = Cruisers, fighters = carriers (Duh), Cyborgs or otherwise Master Chief style Augments= Destroyers and Infantry = Corvettes. You design this into a system that basically plays out like space combat does. the battle starts, and there is visually rendered units fighting it out on a field (if they wanna be really fancy the field is determined by planet type), on the invasion screen (that you can fully choose to ignore ofc) and the outcome is based on all the same factors that determine naval outcome. tech, numbers, and composition etc. You win or lose. If you win, your defense army begins to replenish from the planets population (that are logically hiding in underground fallout bunkers), if you lost mechs or tanks, you gotta que up more, and those build timers can be influenced by devastation level (to help the attacker ofc, they still need a chance). I'm not really sure what you think is so impossible to fix with ground combat. their space battle template is their best foundation to go with.

And to ensure the defender does not lose their Fortress World to Riots due to devastation level, they can build (if your willing to use a slot for it) Underground Fallout Shelters, that give you a planetary decision you can activate that will shelter your Pops and provides them MRE's and water (or whatever your race drinks) and basic amenities, but naturally their not producing anything. The balancer is, this decision will have a massive upkeep cost, that scales with pop size. And to prevent defenders from cheesing the cost by relocating all their pops, the Decision adds a Travel Ban debuff, no Civilian Traffic in or out until devastation is repaired to a particular threshold.

 

[Bezborg]

I'd settle for army modules on my ships...

Yep. This would be perfectly fine... have a dedicated invasion cruiser or battleship.

It wuld be simple, elegant, and sufficiently sci fi trope-ish for mostly everyone.

As for planetary defense... buildings. The fortress, soldier jobs, give the fortress a fighter squad or two, as a limited system defense (so it forces you to conquer planets and not ignore them entirely)...

Simple.