If Assault and Defense Armies both good at suppressing unrest, what about other army types?

[The Founder]

That makes me a little sad. I mean some slave would think about rebelling twice if the streets are patroled by genetically modiefied very strong super soldiers. If my garrison consists out of 20 year old just conscripted boys they are more likely to riot.

The genetic Supersoldiers are so much better, that a smaler number makes the army. As such they would again suffer the "lack of presence" penalty to supression.

Actually the 20 year old conscript would be the best peace force. That is what our police effectively is. They are abundant, cheap to hire, cheap to equip and can show a ton of presence.

 

[Taritu]

Psionic troops would almost certainly be the best at suppressing unrest.

"you, not you, you, not you or you or you. YOU!"

 

[I am Sovereign]

The genetic Supersoldiers are so much better, that a smaler number makes the army. As such they would again suffer the "lack of presence" penalty to supression.

Actually the 20 year old conscript would be the best peace force. That is what our police effectively is. They are abundant, cheap to hire, cheap to equip and can show a ton of presence.

But if they arent smaller in numbers the lack of presence penalty does not apply. And fooball/soccer hooligans wouldnt attack super soldiers in space marine suits wearing weapons as big as small cars. State terrorism is performed also better by those guys.

We can make up alot of penaltys or benefits to explain why a defensie army has the same supression as superior units or superior units should have more.

From a game mechanical standpoint I think it would have made bigger benefit for the game if the army damage would have been part of the unrest supression formula.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

But if they arent smaller in numbers the lack of presence penalty does not apply. And fooball/soccer hooligans wouldnt attack super soldiers in space marine suits wearing weapons as big as small cars. Terror is important to supress unrest too.

We can make up alot of penaltys or benefits to explain why a defensie army has the same supression as superior units or superior units should have more.

From a game mechanical standpoint I think it would have made bigger benefit for the game if the army damage would have been part of the unrest supression formula.

I agree. That was why I was asking earlier as I was puzzled and thought that it meant that defense and assault armies equally suppressed unrest. Didn't realize that it's all armies that equally suppress unrest which seems odd to me as wouldn't more powerful armies reduce unrest faster than assault and defensive armies?

 

[Felfox]

Personally I'd like to see more diversity as well but it should be also tied to the warfare aspect as well.

Having the defense force be the cheapest and best (early game) at dealing with unrest gives them a purpose and they can also double as defense for your planet too without feeling like a waste. Assault would still be your first tier planet conquerors with the added ability to deal with unrest or fly to another planet when needed but aren't as good as those trained for defense and policing.

I could see psionics being probably the best at dealing with unrest since they can just brainwash or pick out people from a crowd easily. Super soldiers probably would probably be equal with defense force (remember that defense should be higher than assault and such) And of course if things do go south well they can easily destroy any enemy forces.

Clones could have a chance to kill the leader of the rebel faction, same with synths since they can go undercover or look like/infiltrate.

And lastly xeno should definitely raise dissent due to their terrifying presence and when assaulting enemy worlds should have a chance to purge pops the longer the fighting lasts. Titans should have a chance to destroy buildings and structures when assaulting but otherwise do not affect dissent beyond a passive % increase to all other forces currently on the world.

 

[Drakonn]

Indeed being "the cheapest one to do the job" is the new purpose of defense armies. We could even rename them "Police Forces". Considering police is rarely asked to move to another country (what transports represent).

I think they should do this as defensive armies serve virtually no purpose and their name is a bit misleading considering they can't really defend anything. A police force you wouldn't expect to be able to defend the planet. Suppressing unrest sure. Defensive armies, well, from the name you expect them to be better at defending.

Also its a missed opportunity to make +X% army damage modifier more usefull by integrating the army damage into the reduce unrest formula. @Wiz maybe you could think about this again if it wouldnt be to hard to implement.

I agree that the +X% army damage modifiers seem not all that useful at the moment. However, this still leads to a problem of some armies being relatively useless (and a reduced maintenance cost does not make an army *useful* ) if that's the case. Why have them if I can just use 3 assault armies that will do the job of 5 defensive armies even better. It'd be slightly cheaper but at the same time I'd be saving on having twice as many assault armies and maybe a shot at holding a planet (I've seen it with the AI trying to take a planet with not enough men)

It makes little sense to keep genetic soldiers, psionics, or xenomorphs as a peacekeeping force on a world. For one, that seems a bit of a waste for an *elite* unit. A dedicated army type for that would be better. Corvettes, for example, are still useful due to torpedoes well into the game. Having specific armies good for specific jobs might be a better option. If you wanted to use xenopmorphs to terrorize a populace into submission sure you can do that but there would need to be some kind of happiness penalty or something (so you have less unrest but there is a trade off as well). That way we can have our planetary police force as well but about all they would be good for would be keeping unrest low.

We cant rename armys right ? ( or did i missed it?)
Because if we cant...we should be able to. I mean armys are "meh" gameplay wise but roleplay wise that would be great.

This would be a great addition. I'd like to see it with a giant war/invasion overhaul though as currently you can have quite a number of armies roaming about. Especially once 1.5 hits.

 

[The Founder]

I agree. That was why I was asking earlier as I was puzzled and thought that it meant that defense and assault armies equally suppressed unrest. Didn't realize that it's all armies that equally suppress unrest which seems odd to me as wouldn't more powerful armies reduce unrest faster than assault and defensive armies?

I guess one goal was it to avoid the "0% happiness, no unrest" scenario.
Ever since the Supression option came along, people just dumped all unhappy pops into the Malcontent Slaves Faction. That they supressed for 2 Influence, and never had any ill effects or faction issues (the Strike from unsupressed dociles was the worst effect possible. Until they got too much support to still do it).
Unrest effectively replaces the old Rebel Factions. With the new Factions being closer to "Political Action Comitee" and not even related to the old factions.
Unrest is a lot more granular then the old strikes. It is easier to avoid in small cases, but propably harder in extreme cases.

By putting a hard cap how much unrest supression one can stack (armies per planet + supression per army), you effectively put a cap on how far this can go.
I am willing to wager that the 0 Happiness case causes so much unrest, even with the pop/size-based army limit there will be no way to add enough unrest supression to get off free.

If they increased the supression per army, they would propably have to increase the 'size' of higher armies on the planet so you can stack less of them for the same supression. And propably rebalance the maintenance and buildng costs again.
And then there is mechanics like the Authoritarian happiness based on armies per planet called "Military Dicipline".

 

[Pavane]

The point of defense armies is that they are cheap. So if you need masses of armies merely to keep unrest down but not actually fight anything that's mostly what you use

Neo-concrete Fortification attachments help reduce the maintenance cost by 10%, so that upgrade is worth considering if you are going to place half a dozen Defence Armies on every planet in your empire.

 

[Slynx]

i must admit that even though i don't like building Armies in a current patch...i think the changes to them are very good.
now there is a reason to fill planets with lot's of armies and hey... and hey, now that purges are gone we can create\delete them in a peace times to satisfy the urge to kill

at least i hope there will be a reason. (and it'll also slow economy due to maintenance costs...which is a good thing. more time til the game will get to the boring endgame)

 

[Pchang]

Titanic armies should be useless against unrest. It would be like asking Godzilla to stomp on only certain individuals.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Titanic armies should be useless against unrest. It would be like asking Godzilla to stomp on only certain individuals.

I dunno, if an angry mob or protest march turned a corner and saw Godzilla at the end of the road flanked by riot cops... I could see it calming things down.

Ooo, or Godzilla in a giant riot helmet. Just so people know what side he's on.

 

[Slynx]

certain individuals.

certain BILLIONS of individuals.
Titanic size could potentially help it to do it's job better.