How to fix armies and invasions

[Amatiel]

Armies and planetary invasions are virtually a meaningless mechanic at the moment.

You can easily just bombard an enemy planet's armies to death and take it with a few assault armies or, often once you defeat a nations fleet u can then just pump out 10-20 assault armies and take virtually any planet. As people don't see the point in fortifying them.

This can be fixed by changing the function of the currently pointless planetary shield building.

I propose that a planetary shield provide the planet with 100% protection from bombardment up to a certain amount of fleet power - dependent on how much you have upgraded your planetary shields and your tech level.

This will add another aspect to warfare and defensive/offensive planning, as with the way that war exhaustion works this means that a defender can potentially force a "status quo peace" if an attacker does not have the capability to take a target planet either through overwhelming bombardment or with a powerful, well prepared army.

Additionally, this will help a bit with mixing up the current meta of maxing out your fleet power as being the primary goal. If one invests 100% into fleet but does not invest in an army, one risks not being able to take systems with heavily defended planets. It also opens up new defensive strats, as you could then create effective and meaningful fortress worlds.

Building on this, new technologies can be added that increase bombardment power, increase planetary shield protection levels and ways to customize properly a planets defending force.

 

[Noble713]

Armies and planetary invasions are virtually a meaningless mechanic at the moment.

You can easily just bombard an enemy planet's armies to death and take it with a few assault armies or, often once you defeat a nations fleet u can then just pump out 10-20 assault armies and take virtually any planet. As people don't see the point in fortifying them.

I think it's hard to judge right now as the AI is terribly under-performing in vanilla 2.2.x. Unless they over-build Precinct buildings to fight crime, planetary armies are small. That would be fine if they fielded large navies and starbases with numerous outposts, but the AI's naval build strategy is knackered too. FE's definitely don't fit this mould: I needed 80 armies (50 assault, 20 genetic, 10 psionic) to assault an FE homeworld that had a 3200-pt garrison, and bombing it with my navy (dozens of BBs) was taking far too long.

This can be fixed by changing the function of the currently pointless planetary shield building.

I propose that a planetary shield provide the planet with 100% protection from bombardment up to a certain amount of fleet power - dependent on how much you have upgraded your planetary shields and your tech level.

This will add another aspect to warfare and defensive/offensive planning, as with the way that war exhaustion works this means that a defender can potentially force a "status quo peace" if an attacker does not have the capability to take a target planet either through overwhelming bombardment or with a powerful, well prepared army.

^I like this. It would also be nice to have planetary anti-orbital weapons, so sitting in orbit trying to scour the surface isn't exactly risk-free.

 

[EvilTom]

I think it's initially right that achieving space / air superiority will mean that they can bombard a planet to ruin and destroy armies. A ground army should not be able to hold out without chance of reinforcements without mitigating circumstances like energy shields or defence weapons.

Star Wars: Supremacy had an interesting mechanic, which could be at least inspirational.

So a first planetary shield protected the planet from bombardment, until a fleet reached a certain threshold size. You could still invade a planet with armies (think battle of hoth).
A second planetary shield meant that bombardment was ineffective and you needed a extremely large fleet to damage the planet. You could then no longer land with armies, so you either
No I'm not suggesting we use all of this... as Star Wars: Supremacy had a sabotage mechanic which you'd use to infiltrate a planet and destroy the shields as a counter. Also there were ships which were had bombardment weapons.

So maybe something similar to this could be put in?
Initial planetary shields could prevent bombardment damage until a certain BOMBARD strength is achieved by a fleet. Some weapons will have more strength than others (maybe kinetic and missiles / torpedoes as lasers are less effective in atmosphere over long distance... or specific bombard weapons). You can still land armies, and things like strike craft also help. Collateral damage from armies might destroy the planetary shields or fortresses.
A second shield prevents damage up to a much larger BOMBARD and armies cannot land. This can lead to some significant stalemates and may require the use of huge bombard fleets or even planet destroying weapons. This would allow pacifist species even more defensive protection as they would more likely get these rare technologies.

 

[The Boz]

Fortifying a planet is meaningless if taking over the space station means you get the planet when the war is over. No bombardment, invasion, or destruction required.

 

[LordNarvi]

Fortifying a planet is meaningless if taking over the space station means you get the planet when the war is over. No bombardment, invasion, or destruction required.

? You don't. The system does not count as occupied until you take the planet.

 

[The Boz]

If you claim the system, take the station, and the war ends, the planet falls under your control by the end of the month.

 

[EvilTom]

If you claim the system, take the station, and the war ends, the planet falls under your control by the end of the month.

I suppose that's a symptom of the way claims and ownership was changed when they made it so that you had to have a starbase to claim a system. Now dual ownership of systems is impossible I guess it simplifies it but it's a shame.

Having an impenetrable shield in place and a self sustaining planet would be an entertaining. You'd have to think of ways to make them surrender... like blocking out the sun... or just (threatening to annihilate them.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

If you claim the system, take the station, and the war ends, the planet falls under your control by the end of the month.

Unfortunate, i didn't realize this. While it's true that without conquering it, the "Occupation" slider doesn't advance, you can very well win the war by taking everything else so making fortress world is quite useless indeed.

 

[EvilTom]

Unfortunate, i didn't realize this. While it's true that without conquering it, the "Occupation" slider doesn't advance, you can very well win the war by taking everything else so making fortress world is quite useless indeed.

Once you get the hyperspace inhibitor technology, if you can build a planet that can withstand an invasion and bombardment and you have a chokepoint you can delay the enemy significantly, even if the space station is taken.

That just buys time though.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Once you get the hyperspace inhibitor technology, if you can build a planet that can withstand an invasion and bombardment and you have a chokepoint you can delay the enemy significantly, even if the space station is taken.

That just buys time though.

Ah yes, i forgot about that. But at the end of the war you still get the planet.

Until Jump Drives comes around, at least.

 

[Bitzo]

If you claim the system, take the station, and the war ends, the planet falls under your control by the end of the month.

That's new in 2.2, right? I could swear that you had to actually take planets to conquer claims in 2.1 and before.

 

[Elordis]

Armies and planetary invasions are virtually a meaningless mechanic at the moment.

You can easily just bombard an enemy planet's armies to death and take it with a few assault armies or, often once you defeat a nations fleet u can then just pump out 10-20 assault armies and take virtually any planet. As people don't see the point in fortifying them.

This can be fixed by changing the function of the currently pointless planetary shield building.

I propose that a planetary shield provide the planet with 100% protection from bombardment up to a certain amount of fleet power - dependent on how much you have upgraded your planetary shields and your tech level.

This will add another aspect to warfare and defensive/offensive planning, as with the way that war exhaustion works this means that a defender can potentially force a "status quo peace" if an attacker does not have the capability to take a target planet either through overwhelming bombardment or with a powerful, well prepared army.

Additionally, this will help a bit with mixing up the current meta of maxing out your fleet power as being the primary goal. If one invests 100% into fleet but does not invest in an army, one risks not being able to take systems with heavily defended planets. It also opens up new defensive strats, as you could then create effective and meaningful fortress worlds.

Building on this, new technologies can be added that increase bombardment power, increase planetary shield protection levels and ways to customize properly a planets defending force.

Your proposition doesn't really change anything. It doesn't matter if you your invasion force is 20 or 200 armies as long as the basic routine is the same.

 

[Etrutian]

This is exactly how EUIV deals with it; you bombard the fort until surrender. Or you send your troops in and lose a sizable amount to speed it up.

Fortress worlds were a thing in pre 2.2; I wonder if they still might be?

 

[veryalien]

If you claim the system, take the station, and the war ends, the planet falls under your control by the end of the month.

Fanatic Purifiers, Devouring Swarms, and Determined Exterminators cannot claim. It's a causus belli that ends in status quo at all times.

 

[The Boz]

Fanatic Purifiers, Devouring Swarms, and Determined Exterminators cannot claim. It's a causus belli that ends in status quo at all times.

With total wars like that, you still take the planet at the end of the war if you own the station. Yeah, it's silly.

 

[happyscrub]

That's new in 2.2, right? I could swear that you had to actually take planets to conquer claims in 2.1 and before.

 

[AlanC9]

You can easily just bombard an enemy planet's armies to death and take it with a few assault armies or, often once you defeat a nations fleet u can then just pump out 10-20 assault armies and take virtually any planet. As people don't see the point in fortifying them.

But bombardment takes an awfully long time.

Swamping the planet with assault armies will work, but you'll run up a bunch of WE doing it.

 

[wingren013]

With total wars like that, you still take the planet at the end of the war if you own the station. Yeah, it's silly.

This has to be a bug.

The way it's supposed to work is that you need to take all the planets in a system to fully occupy it and recieve the starbase when the war ends. It wasn't mentioned as changed in the patch notes, so this is a bug.