To start, what are the resources for an army? Obviously we have mineral and energy cost, and they can be an upfront cost and and an upkeep cost. With the new global food system there should also be a food upkeep cost. Citizens expect to be paid, robots need repairs, but xenomorphs just want a ridiculous amount of food.
Less obviously, some special unity may cost influence. A battalion of warrior aristocrats in a Despotic Empire may cost one influence as you are asking noble houses for their great warriors. An empire might even demand troops from its vassals or request assistance from its federation at a small cost of influence. Of course, these small influence costs may add up.
Third, we have limited room in each army. I propose that each army be a 5x5 grid of a total of 25 units. If you want to visualize what I'm talking about, think the division designer in HoI4. Some special units, for example an Anti-Grav Tank battalion, may cost two unit points. A platoon of Titanic Beasts may cost four unit points. This limitation is important because only a certain number of troops can be stationed on a planet at once. Militaristic empires may have the opportunity to research rare techs to increase the number of units in each army.
Fourth, there needs to be a manpower system. If we allow for each POP to have a fractional value, we can have there be a more long term cost to creating and losing armies. An army may have a default cost of 1% of a POP. This POP would then produce 99% of it's tile value until it regrew the 1%. We can see clearly here that the purpose of robot, slave, or clone armies is not to have merely better troops, but to bypass the manpower costs. Other ways to bypass the manpower system are to recruit mercenaries from primitives (see Earth: Final Conflict), hire mercenaries from special Enclaves, drain the manpower of your vassals, or use mechanical battalions with low manpower cost like Mech Walkers. When a planetary garrison is destroyed it takes its manpower from a random POP on the planet. This system could be used to better control the number of Titanic Beasts you can control.
The next resource is happiness. Hierarchical empires would have the option to draft citizens at the cost of happiness of that planet in exchange for a reduction in training time and resource cost. Unhappiness will also incur as manpower is removed to restore damaged armies. Militaristic empires would be less sensitive to this penalty, and pacifist empires more so. Of course, slaves, robots, and clones are all ways to bypass this penalty. If manpower from vassals or federation partners is used, they will instead receive the penalty.
The final resource is training time. Robots can be built in a day, citizens may be trained in a few months, but clones might require a great deal of time to mature. Drafting citizens will reduce training time for hierarchical empires.
From here, we can clearly see different resource strategies emerging.
-Low population empires or empires with little time use robots
-Poor, high population empires use citizens
-Empires with a lot of time to plan for war use clones.
-Empires with a large amount of excess food favor Titanic Beasts and Xenomorphs.
-Mineral rich empires use expensive Tanks, Power Armor, and Mechs.
PART 2 [Above is the first post. Below is the first edit.]
How to make ground combat less linear? How to make interesting to watch?
Instead of making a planetary invasion a single battle on the surface of a planet, let's make it a series of battles that the AI controls as it moves around the planet surface. To do this we would make the planet tiles into a sphere that armies can move on. Invading units would have to seek out and destroy the enemy garrisons. This means that speed, scouting, and formations now matter.
The different tiles would have different values for movement and defense as special defensive building that have their own slot could be built on them. Buildings like bunkers, planetary shields, anti-space weapons, or global artillery could be placed here. A bunker built under a mountain could make a humble garrison into a formidable defense against even elite troops. A regenerating shield battery could make a short battle into a prolonged siege. Enough anti-space weapons could drive off a 10k fleet.
The question arises of why wouldn't you simply liquify the ground placed defenses? The first answer is that it is possible that the defenses are strong enough to resist the assault. Rare techs will do that. The second answer is that it would kill off the population and damage buildings. You're trying to steal the planet, not make it into sausage.
The invasion itself should also be more interesting. In the game you should get technology for improved invasion. An example of primitive invasion technology is landing troop ships. Advanced invasion technology would be dropping rocket troopers from high orbit. Defensive units would be able to be equipped with anti-air weapons that could kill dropping troops while they're still in the atmosphere. Equipping anti-air weapons and improved invasion tech would be done through the army designer tool. Defensive armies in the mid-late game may even have mobile anti-space weapons to attack ships in orbit with.
Scouting would be important because each unit would have limited sight. Xeno Cavalry or Hover Bikes are ideal scouting units. Orbital units may be able to tell the locations of the enemy, but they can't tell the consistency- unless of course you have equipped your ships with the proper scanners. Of course, the enemy may counter those scanners with sensor dampening or even cloaking technology.
PART 3 [coming soon]
Less obviously, some special unity may cost influence. A battalion of warrior aristocrats in a Despotic Empire may cost one influence as you are asking noble houses for their great warriors. An empire might even demand troops from its vassals or request assistance from its federation at a small cost of influence. Of course, these small influence costs may add up.
Third, we have limited room in each army. I propose that each army be a 5x5 grid of a total of 25 units. If you want to visualize what I'm talking about, think the division designer in HoI4. Some special units, for example an Anti-Grav Tank battalion, may cost two unit points. A platoon of Titanic Beasts may cost four unit points. This limitation is important because only a certain number of troops can be stationed on a planet at once. Militaristic empires may have the opportunity to research rare techs to increase the number of units in each army.
Fourth, there needs to be a manpower system. If we allow for each POP to have a fractional value, we can have there be a more long term cost to creating and losing armies. An army may have a default cost of 1% of a POP. This POP would then produce 99% of it's tile value until it regrew the 1%. We can see clearly here that the purpose of robot, slave, or clone armies is not to have merely better troops, but to bypass the manpower costs. Other ways to bypass the manpower system are to recruit mercenaries from primitives (see Earth: Final Conflict), hire mercenaries from special Enclaves, drain the manpower of your vassals, or use mechanical battalions with low manpower cost like Mech Walkers. When a planetary garrison is destroyed it takes its manpower from a random POP on the planet. This system could be used to better control the number of Titanic Beasts you can control.
The next resource is happiness. Hierarchical empires would have the option to draft citizens at the cost of happiness of that planet in exchange for a reduction in training time and resource cost. Unhappiness will also incur as manpower is removed to restore damaged armies. Militaristic empires would be less sensitive to this penalty, and pacifist empires more so. Of course, slaves, robots, and clones are all ways to bypass this penalty. If manpower from vassals or federation partners is used, they will instead receive the penalty.
The final resource is training time. Robots can be built in a day, citizens may be trained in a few months, but clones might require a great deal of time to mature. Drafting citizens will reduce training time for hierarchical empires.
From here, we can clearly see different resource strategies emerging.
-Low population empires or empires with little time use robots
-Poor, high population empires use citizens
-Empires with a lot of time to plan for war use clones.
-Empires with a large amount of excess food favor Titanic Beasts and Xenomorphs.
-Mineral rich empires use expensive Tanks, Power Armor, and Mechs.
PART 2 [Above is the first post. Below is the first edit.]
How to make ground combat less linear? How to make interesting to watch?
Instead of making a planetary invasion a single battle on the surface of a planet, let's make it a series of battles that the AI controls as it moves around the planet surface. To do this we would make the planet tiles into a sphere that armies can move on. Invading units would have to seek out and destroy the enemy garrisons. This means that speed, scouting, and formations now matter.
The different tiles would have different values for movement and defense as special defensive building that have their own slot could be built on them. Buildings like bunkers, planetary shields, anti-space weapons, or global artillery could be placed here. A bunker built under a mountain could make a humble garrison into a formidable defense against even elite troops. A regenerating shield battery could make a short battle into a prolonged siege. Enough anti-space weapons could drive off a 10k fleet.
The question arises of why wouldn't you simply liquify the ground placed defenses? The first answer is that it is possible that the defenses are strong enough to resist the assault. Rare techs will do that. The second answer is that it would kill off the population and damage buildings. You're trying to steal the planet, not make it into sausage.
The invasion itself should also be more interesting. In the game you should get technology for improved invasion. An example of primitive invasion technology is landing troop ships. Advanced invasion technology would be dropping rocket troopers from high orbit. Defensive units would be able to be equipped with anti-air weapons that could kill dropping troops while they're still in the atmosphere. Equipping anti-air weapons and improved invasion tech would be done through the army designer tool. Defensive armies in the mid-late game may even have mobile anti-space weapons to attack ships in orbit with.
Scouting would be important because each unit would have limited sight. Xeno Cavalry or Hover Bikes are ideal scouting units. Orbital units may be able to tell the locations of the enemy, but they can't tell the consistency- unless of course you have equipped your ships with the proper scanners. Of course, the enemy may counter those scanners with sensor dampening or even cloaking technology.
PART 3 [coming soon]
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