Proposals for some rather simple changes to Ground Warfare to make it more strategic

[InquisiteurArax]

Hi there !

I recently dived back into stellaris and it has been a blast living a lot of my space fantasy again. There is however one thing I feel to be strongly missing: meaningful ground warfare.
From Starship Trooper to Warhammer 40k, ground warfare is often depicted as a fight as epic as the space battles we all know and love.
Stellaris has been trying to make ground warfare interesting from v1.0 with different types of armies, bastions, planetary shield etc... However, even after 5 years and though the mechanic has not been shelved (as the recent developments on resurrected armies proves) the mechanic still feels mostly empty.

I would like to argue for 3 main reasons why ground warfare is currently not great and three ideas which I believe easy to implement gameplay wise (though not necessarily AI wise, I lack knowledge on that field) to address them.

I - A ground force is only as strong as its navy
Currently, it is only possible to launch an invasion of a world once the space station of the system has been captured. Moreover once the station has been captured, it can't be contested by ground forces. I means that having the strongest space marines in the world means nothing if you lost the first engagement. The enemy doesn't even need to keep any forces in the system to keep your indomitable forces at bay
In a nutshell: there is no reason (outside of RP) to ever develop your ground forces as it can easily been put out of play by fleets.

II - Battles are over before they start
While space battle in Stellaris are affected by fleet strength but also type of engagement, stellar terrain, reinforcements etc... There is only one meaningful type of ground battle : an overwhelming assault force lands on a world, dukes it out for a while and wins. Rare is the time where the situation offers possibility for the desperate defenders to get reinforcements and as only victory brings anything to the winner, there is often no reason to start an assault before the gathered forces vastly outnumber the defenders.
To make a long story short: there is very little decision involved as on how to use ground forces.

III - Battles don't feel like they have an impact
I would argue that, even in other the top 40k, ground battles in science fiction lack in scale. During WW1, to control the north of France, millions of soldiers, several percent of the population of involved countries, died on the field of battle. The destruction wistood still scars the countryside.
Stellaris includes Ecumenopolis with tens of not hundreds of billions of inhabitants. However you only need to spend a few thousand minerals (barely the value of 1 battleship) to recruit a force capable of invading such planet. There may be collateral damages inflicted by the assault but as it is never shown I can't tell if it is insignificant or simply hidden from me the player.
Massive planetary battles should feel like great endeavours. Now they are more a box to tick on your way to victory.


There are other issues with the current system but I want for the sake of this post to focus only on the issues which, I think, could be relatively easily addressed.

Here come three ideas for which I would love some feedback. They are not exactly addressing on a one by one basis the three issued but together could, I think, be an improvement

1 - Let me hit them with my sword !
The computer for the Colossus allows it, though it is a military unit to move freely when enemy ships are around. By giving this computer to transport ships, all of a sudden you can form your elite army and send it pass the superior enemy fleet, wistanding casualties but still landing on the enemy capital to hunt down those pesky fleet enthusiasts who can't put boot on the ground. Defensive armies should get a strong bonus while still controlling the starbase in their system (representing total air superiority) to avoid getting into the opposite situation where space warfare becomes meaningless.
Now developing the best ground army in the universe could be a valid choice rather than improving your fleet as you could really hurt your enemy in a way empires without your dedication can't.

2 - Orbital battery anyone ?
Currently a Corvette can bombard with impunity a world with an industrial output great enough to crank out one battleship a month...there is no risk in bombarding a world for years on end which, again, makes armies in a big way useless but also... is boring.
There are currently events (the Fleet Manoeuvre ones if I'm not mistaken) that causes random damages against a fleet.
Let's say that the Bastion and Fortress building now also include orbital defenses which, every X amount of time, has a chance to cause damage to all bombarding vessels.
Bombarding or not become an actuall strategic choice: do I want to risk damages so I can soften the defense or should I launch the invasion now instead ?

3 - Blood for the blood god
Currently ground battle are relatively short, making it hard to intervene in time once one starts. Moreover there are no action reports to help us weigh our losses, the enemies... And the collateral damage.
By increasing the durability of all armies while keeping damages as is, combats would last significantly longer, allowing you to possibility gather a relief force to save your home world, trying to go through the enemy fleet to deliver the crucial manpower needed on the ground. Moreover that would increase the amount of inflicted collateral damages. If you were to top that with a battle report stating the armies casualties on both sides but also civilian casualties and destroyed building, we would get a better feel of how damaging this fight actually was.

Let's imagine those three ideas (after refinement) are implemented.
Here are a few gameplay decisions that you can make:
- create a horde of Xenomorphs to send on the enemy's capital, avoiding fleets and ignoring starbases, more for causing destruction on the ground than for trying to conquer the world right now
- having your elite army escaping the enemy'rearguard blocade to rush to the rescue of your core world currently being invaded
- creating a forteress word that is not just a road bump but actually forces the enemy fleet to find another way or risk taking serious damages.


Bonus: two ideas which would require significant development

A - How many losses did you say ?
Considering the scale needed for a real planetary invasion, I wouldn't find it absurd that the amount of soldiers involved in such a campaign represent the equivalent of game POPs. By rebalancing armies so that, offensively and defensively, one army = one POP, we could have battles being even more meaningful by costing you a hard to replace ressources : POP rather than abundant minerals. Exceptions could exist like Clone Armies, Droid Armies and Xenomorphs, which would make those tech actually precious instead of mostly flavour.

B - Boarding party ready !
This one would be a massive change: make upgraded starbases into micro habitats with the current buildings replaced by pop using buildings (anchorage => soldiers employing building, Trade hub => Clerck employing jobs) massive (ideally -100%) maluses to pop growth which could thus be invaded and occupied.
Now when you reduce a starbase to 0 health it stays inactive while your fleet is around but if you don't subdue the crew, you will not be able to use its guns. Moreover, even if you took full control of the starbase by landing some armies, the enemy could take back control of their starbase by sending their own boarding parties.


Those five ideas are probably not detailed enough to make fully sense and too specific to actually be balanced with the rest of the game but what is your general feeling on trying to make ground warfare more engaging ? Would those ideas be a step in the right direction or are they too clumsy/hard to explain to the AI ? I'd love some feedback on those

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

1. Sounds pretty good. It has always been weird that transports become sitting ducks once there is even a corvette in range.

2. Totally agree. Am absolutely baffled why I can build a shield generator that encases a planet but not put a gun there.

3. Please don't. The idea sounds good in theory but I really don't want to have even longer wars. It's already annoying having to conquer tons of planets that I don't want. Having it take even longer will make this even more annoying even if battles itself are more interesting.

A. Was going to say no, but with a rebalance to land battles this might be a huge and needed Nerf to constant conquest. If someone can loose 20 Pops taking over a rival that might provide a counterweight to the pops you gain from the conquest.

B. Hmm pretty difficult to implement and not sure how it might work. Seemslike it would make fortress habitats useless.

 

[Janx14]

Its important to note that Warhammer 40k and Starship troopers are also entirely about those ground battles. Things are inherently contrived to make sure the ground battles are important. Especially in 40k with their wide variety of planet devastating weapons, and many factions not being terribly afraid of genocide.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

Also :

- Planet hability modifier for organic armies.
Aquatic molluscoid should have a hard time pacifying a desert world.

- Boarding fleet ?
Just send your commando in the opponent flagship. Murder everyone. Take the ship.
(I can see it be very unbalanced so I'm just saying it for the flavor).

 

[exi123]

The current way of ground wars is actually so boring that i wouldnt even care if they would remove it or put the army part to the fleet that i do not have to hassle with the seperate army fleets.

If the devs would give the system some love i would like to see armies operating on a system wide scale. As proposed, a system which allows armies to evade fleet weapons would be the first step. Stretching out the length of battles for planets would also be interesting.

Next thing could or should be that armies from other planets in the system (or nearby systems, depending on tech?) are able to join battles, maybe with something like drop pod shots through the system or what, so i can really use the armies from fortyfied planets to defend the vulnerable ones in reach. This mechanic could also be used to recapture a starbase when the enemy fleet has left the system.

The point that planets should be part of the system wide defenses against fleets is also a good one. I guess we all know the Ion Cannon from Star Wars E5. Defensive structures should be able to fire on fleets passing the system, so staying in a system without capturing the planets could be an expensive thing when heavily fortified. A chokepoint with a bastion and a fortress habitat should be nightmare to pass by, i invested heavily in these defenses.

Capturing a starbase and not taking the planets leads to situations that i lose the starbase overtime as attacker, so iam operating behind enemy lines, cut of from supplies. This could really help to keep defensive wars more balanced and in favour for the defender.

 

[Jamaican Castle]

The one thing I'd really agree with is making collateral damage more meaningful, because right now conquest is far too efficient as a way of collecting pops.

The changes I would make:
- Refocus bombardment so that it's mainly about racking up devastation, destroying buildings, and inflicting morale damage. You can totally wipe out a planet's armies (which would cause it to surrender) without landing troops but it takes forever.
- Make devastation last longer when it's maxed out. A seriously devastated planet could take a decade or two to come back to full production (though it probably took some years to cause that much damage).
- Selective bombardment would "remove" pops more often than it does now, but mostly by displacing them to other planets/empires. Indiscriminate bombardment might displace some, but is more likely to kill them. In either case, totally depopulating a planet (without Armageddon bombardment) would also take ages.
- Increase the impact of collateral damage so that it causes dramatically more pop loss. Change combat width so that armies above the width can deal damage, but less effectively and with much more collateral damage.
- Change the penalty for low troop morale so that it increases damage taken, in addition to reducing damage dealt.

This gives you essentially four options when it comes to a well-defended planet, depending on what exactly your goal is (pops, infrastructure, or warscore):

1: Bombard them into submission. Takes years, low risk. You'll get many (I'd aim for maybe 50-70%) of the pops; if you're using selective bombardment, your opponent will get most of the excess. (Otherwise they'll just die.) However, it will take years more for their planet to be industrially useful.

2: Bombard them until their armies are totally demoralized, then invade. Because demoralized armies take more damage and die faster, the collateral damage is minimal, especially if you don't need to exceed combat width. This gives you most of the pops (and doesn't give as many back to the enemy) but it still takes awhile and sticks you with significant devastation. It also requires a decent fleet and a decent army.

3: Send in an elite force. If you have substantially better armies than your opponent (e.g. gene warriors vs. regular defense armies) you may be able to take them in a straight-up fight without going over combat width. This is likely to be expensive in terms of armies (you might need multiple waves, or a short preliminary bombardment) but will reduce pop losses to a minimum, say under 20%, and cause very little devastation because it's over so quickly.

4: Drown them in armies. A huge stack will take the planet very very quickly, and the industries will be intact... but going way over combat width is going to kill a lot of pops, possibly more than half. On the other hand, assault armies are cheap, and this is the absolute fastest way to get your flag over the planet.

(Note that this is for well-defended planets. A planet with just the basic armies from its capital/colony ship could be taken much faster and with lower losses all around, and a planet with no armies - which in my experience mainly means absolutely fresh colonies or undefended habitats - would just give up.)

Part of the problem with many proposed army reworks is that while they make the composition of armies more complicated to manage, they don't really change the basic question of "do I send in my armies?" When devastation and collateral damage to pops are meaningful, it becomes a matter of "what do I actually want from this planet, and what am I willing to sacrifice to get it?"

 

[methegrate]

Hi there !

I recently dived back into stellaris and it has been a blast living a lot of my space fantasy again. There is however one thing I feel to be strongly missing: meaningful ground warfare.
From Starship Trooper to Warhammer 40k, ground warfare is often depicted as a fight as epic as the space battles we all know and love.
Stellaris has been trying to make ground warfare interesting from v1.0 with different types of armies, bastions, planetary shield etc... However, even after 5 years and though the mechanic has not been shelved (as the recent developments on resurrected armies proves) the mechanic still feels mostly empty.

I would like to argue for 3 main reasons why ground warfare is currently not great and three ideas which I believe easy to implement gameplay wise (though not necessarily AI wise, I lack knowledge on that field) to address them.

I - A ground force is only as strong as its navy
Currently, it is only possible to launch an invasion of a world once the space station of the system has been captured. Moreover once the station has been captured, it can't be contested by ground forces. I means that having the strongest space marines in the world means nothing if you lost the first engagement. The enemy doesn't even need to keep any forces in the system to keep your indomitable forces at bay
In a nutshell: there is no reason (outside of RP) to ever develop your ground forces as it can easily been put out of play by fleets.

II - Battles are over before they start
While space battle in Stellaris are affected by fleet strength but also type of engagement, stellar terrain, reinforcements etc... There is only one meaningful type of ground battle : an overwhelming assault force lands on a world, dukes it out for a while and wins. Rare is the time where the situation offers possibility for the desperate defenders to get reinforcements and as only victory brings anything to the winner, there is often no reason to start an assault before the gathered forces vastly outnumber the defenders.
To make a long story short: there is very little decision involved as on how to use ground forces.

III - Battles don't feel like they have an impact
I would argue that, even in other the top 40k, ground battles in science fiction lack in scale. During WW1, to control the north of France, millions of soldiers, several percent of the population of involved countries, died on the field of battle. The destruction wistood still scars the countryside.
Stellaris includes Ecumenopolis with tens of not hundreds of billions of inhabitants. However you only need to spend a few thousand minerals (barely the value of 1 battleship) to recruit a force capable of invading such planet. There may be collateral damages inflicted by the assault but as it is never shown I can't tell if it is insignificant or simply hidden from me the player.
Massive planetary battles should feel like great endeavours. Now they are more a box to tick on your way to victory.


There are other issues with the current system but I want for the sake of this post to focus only on the issues which, I think, could be relatively easily addressed.

Here come three ideas for which I would love some feedback. They are not exactly addressing on a one by one basis the three issued but together could, I think, be an improvement

1 - Let me hit them with my sword !
The computer for the Colossus allows it, though it is a military unit to move freely when enemy ships are around. By giving this computer to transport ships, all of a sudden you can form your elite army and send it pass the superior enemy fleet, wistanding casualties but still landing on the enemy capital to hunt down those pesky fleet enthusiasts who can't put boot on the ground. Defensive armies should get a strong bonus while still controlling the starbase in their system (representing total air superiority) to avoid getting into the opposite situation where space warfare becomes meaningless.
Now developing the best ground army in the universe could be a valid choice rather than improving your fleet as you could really hurt your enemy in a way empires without your dedication can't.

2 - Orbital battery anyone ?
Currently a Corvette can bombard with impunity a world with an industrial output great enough to crank out one battleship a month...there is no risk in bombarding a world for years on end which, again, makes armies in a big way useless but also... is boring.
There are currently events (the Fleet Manoeuvre ones if I'm not mistaken) that causes random damages against a fleet.
Let's say that the Bastion and Fortress building now also include orbital defenses which, every X amount of time, has a chance to cause damage to all bombarding vessels.
Bombarding or not become an actuall strategic choice: do I want to risk damages so I can soften the defense or should I launch the invasion now instead ?

3 - Blood for the blood god
Currently ground battle are relatively short, making it hard to intervene in time once one starts. Moreover there are no action reports to help us weigh our losses, the enemies... And the collateral damage.
By increasing the durability of all armies while keeping damages as is, combats would last significantly longer, allowing you to possibility gather a relief force to save your home world, trying to go through the enemy fleet to deliver the crucial manpower needed on the ground. Moreover that would increase the amount of inflicted collateral damages. If you were to top that with a battle report stating the armies casualties on both sides but also civilian casualties and destroyed building, we would get a better feel of how damaging this fight actually was.

Let's imagine those three ideas (after refinement) are implemented.
Here are a few gameplay decisions that you can make:
- create a horde of Xenomorphs to send on the enemy's capital, avoiding fleets and ignoring starbases, more for causing destruction on the ground than for trying to conquer the world right now
- having your elite army escaping the enemy'rearguard blocade to rush to the rescue of your core world currently being invaded
- creating a forteress word that is not just a road bump but actually forces the enemy fleet to find another way or risk taking serious damages.


Bonus: two ideas which would require significant development

A - How many losses did you say ?
Considering the scale needed for a real planetary invasion, I wouldn't find it absurd that the amount of soldiers involved in such a campaign represent the equivalent of game POPs. By rebalancing armies so that, offensively and defensively, one army = one POP, we could have battles being even more meaningful by costing you a hard to replace ressources : POP rather than abundant minerals. Exceptions could exist like Clone Armies, Droid Armies and Xenomorphs, which would make those tech actually precious instead of mostly flavour.

B - Boarding party ready !
This one would be a massive change: make upgraded starbases into micro habitats with the current buildings replaced by pop using buildings (anchorage => soldiers employing building, Trade hub => Clerck employing jobs) massive (ideally -100%) maluses to pop growth which could thus be invaded and occupied.
Now when you reduce a starbase to 0 health it stays inactive while your fleet is around but if you don't subdue the crew, you will not be able to use its guns. Moreover, even if you took full control of the starbase by landing some armies, the enemy could take back control of their starbase by sending their own boarding parties.


Those five ideas are probably not detailed enough to make fully sense and too specific to actually be balanced with the rest of the game but what is your general feeling on trying to make ground warfare more engaging ? Would those ideas be a step in the right direction or are they too clumsy/hard to explain to the AI ? I'd love some feedback on those

I think you put your finger on the biggest issue with ground combat right now. No matter what you do, it's always about the fleet. If you don't take a system, then your armies don't matter. If you do take the system, then you can just spam armies until you win. There's no reason to pay attention to complexity on the offensive side because nothing beats the strategy of "just keep building until you win." There's no reason to build defenders for the same reason.

My best guess is that it's because the devs think the economy is more balanced than it is. If minerals were really a valuable resource, it would be a problem to just crank out another 2k worth of soldiers or rebuild a planet that got invaded. But of course that's not the case.

I definitely like the idea of dropships that can invade worlds without taking the system. That would be great, and very thematic. And as hard as it would be to implement, I also quite like needing soldiers to take starbases. Your implementation would be excellent. You can disable the base with your fleet, but you need to conquer it to use it. (And I think that would synergize very well with dropships.)

Frankly having stations work as microhabitats would also help make the empire feel more alive outside of warfare. I've always wanted them to feel like Deep Space Nine-style communities, rather than the set-it and forget-it model they are right now.

I really like your idea of having battles cost pops on both sides. Again, like the above, the whole system is built on the mistaken idea that minerals are a valuable resource. But right now the only valuable resource in the game is pops. (And sometimes influence.)

For the defender, losing a world should mean pops dying and fleeing as refugees (both to worlds inside your empire and out of it). That would make it worth fighting to hold a planet, at least if you think there's a chance of keeping it after the war, since right now there's no meaningful cost to just letting the enemy have it. Same goes for the attacker. If offensive armies were tied to pops in some way, there'd be a real cost to the practice of just spamming armies until you win. It wouldn't be so easy to just shrug and grab another 20 soldiers, and it would add some real value to different army types. Huge fan of this idea.

Personally I don't like the idea of planetary guns or making battles take longer. The guns always sound cool and cinematic to describe, but there's a bunch of mods that add those and they always play out pretty tediously. It does a little bit of damage to the fleet, but never enough to matter.

As to making invasions take longer, I think we're right back to the original problem. If you've taken the system, you've taken the planet. It's just a matter of time. I'm not sure I see the value in expanding that amount of time (even with dropships as an option).

 

[Dlin369]

Orbiting ships and carriers should be able to do close air support to assist landing armies, without it winning a land battle should be much much harder

 

[Jamaican Castle]

If offensive armies were tied to pops in some way, there'd be a real cost to the practice of just spamming armies until you win.

I think this would swing things too much the other direction. There's no way an assault army is worth a whole pop! Maybe if they made armies stronger and fewer in number?

 

[Cysiek]

I don't like the starbase thing, but the idea of army ships going through fleet blocade is quite decent. There could be a policy that would allow making armies weaker, but making them less prone to interception (representing removing tanks and installing stealth equipment)

 

[methegrate]

I think this would swing things too much the other direction. There's no way an assault army is worth a whole pop! Maybe if they made armies stronger and fewer in number?

Fair enough, although it certainly doesn't have to be 1:1. You could have 10 assault armies worth a pop, or 15. Whatever number makes sense.

The other idea that gets floated around is to introduce some sort of manpower resource. It would represent your trained and military-ready population. So, for example, manpower wouldn't represent the population of the Federation. It would represent your pool of StarFleet Academy graduates. (After all, it takes years of training to pilot a fighter aircraft or a main battle tank and that's just with today's military.)

You'd need manpower to work more like influence, in that it would generate organically from certain sources. If you could farm manpower then it would be no more of a bottleneck than minerals. But built that way, this might also work as a good limiter on offensive army spam. You can build a bunch of armies up front, based on your accumulated pool of manpower, but then you're limited to a relatively small income to build more.

There's also the idea to finally give pop happiness and factions some teeth. As you lose armies, pops would grow unhappy. If you keep sending troops into the woodchipper, your empire would get steadily harder to govern. It's not a bad idea in theory, but it might require a pretty fundamental politics overhaul. Since almost nothing is more important than winning a war you would need a massive disincentive for a player to decide that they could take an enemy planet, but the cost isn't worth it.

Maybe we could create a new Protestor job? It would work like a criminal, but instead of sapping trade it produces negative influence and unity. As you lose armies, pops get unhappy and become protestors. They don't leave this job when a specialist/rule/soldier position becomes available. Instead they only go back to work when the pop's happiness gets high enough again. So, say, a pop becomes a Protestor when their happiness hits 40%, but doesn't go back to work until their happiness hits 60%.

That way the pops wouldn't die (eliminating our ratio problem) but you'd still effectively lose them as far as production is concerned.

 

[fourteenfour]

Well time to ruffle some feathers.

TL;DR - see video at bottom which does a far better job than I do in explaining why invading with armies is just dumb

I find the whole issue of ground combat needing some enhancement to be a bit, say I say it, ludicrous. The very idea that you can just plop down a few million or even tens of millions of troops and just beat up their army and take their worlds is just silly. If anything Stellaris has is it completely backwards, as in, the only type of colony you could realistically invade by the means they have in game is one that is being established. Because, once you have any significant population on the planet it is only a game of morale. Oh, the other mistake Stellaris makes is that it requires too many ships too long to effectively reduce a planet to cinders or force a surrender from space.

Invading another empire's world is a battle of your resources versus their morale. As in, how much death and destruction or threat thereof do you need to accomplish before they stand down and hand you rudimentary control of the planet. I say rudimentary because even after you establish your government, your control, there is always a good chance a significant portion of the population will object.

So in my personal view we need to change what armies do in Stellaris and how worlds are conquered. Armies are control. The planet surrenders and you need to station troops there to retain order until a set amount of time passes. How much time would be determined on a few variables, namely the size of the planet, the traits, civics, and ethics, of the population, does their original empire exist, and how you are treating them. Think of it like Stellar shock just without the boneheaded ten year fixed cost.

Once you have control over the space around a planet, there are no enemy ships that can contest the fleet attacking the planet, and you have ships capable of bombing cities, it becomes a game of exerting damage until you exceed their willingness to die for their empire. You are working on their will to survive and except in the most extreme cases you can find this limit long before you reduce their world to ashes.

Hence once the planet surrenders to your fleet you need armies to maintain control until invasion shock is over. I am using the term invasion shock to describe a similar mechanic to Stellar Shock. This is not simpleton ten year timer. This is a set amount of time based on size of planet, traits, civics, and ethics, of the conquered population along with your treatment of them and how many troops you station there. As in, if you intend to use them as food it will take a seriously large army to keep the planet under control, it just might be cheaper to cinder it.

While under invasion shock you would go through a process similar to assimilation. So set up the cost to assimilate one population unit based on the previously described rules and your armies can leave when all are converted. Granted you could begin to withdraw troops as you gain more control. Until full control is guaranteed you have a reduced output from the planet and early on you may have nothing but workers available with more time required to get specialist slots filled in.

Seriously, the idea of taking over a heavily populated world with the armies you could transport through space is just fantasy. If you had the technology to deliver the actual required number of troops; think about primitive Earth here - there are ten of millions of professional military on top of tens of millions of police and other forces and then on top of that hundreds of millions of people who might not like you - and you start to realize you would never need to. As in, anyone empire sufficiently capable of delivering those troops has sufficient technology to never need them in the first place.

 

[InquisiteurArax]

Glad to see I started some interesting discussions
As stated, the specific of my ideas do not matter as much as trying to gauge the direction Devs could go to make ground combat interesting.

On that note, I must say that I very much like the idea of a system wide defense with the risk, if one is to just take the space port and leave the planets behind to be cut off from reinforcements and take damages from some kind of "guerrilla actions"
I could also help with the fact that right now, at least against AI, you can relatively easily remove all difficulty of your war by punching the enemy fleet once and then track it again and again before it can heal and then proceed to another boring phase of conquering all planets which now have no fleets to defend them.

On that note, and that would also be a major development and a bit out of the scope of this thread, trying to find simple to implement solituons as a priority, for battles, in space and on the ground to feel better, they should have a better impact on peace acceptance. It is ridiculous that if you want to take 2 border systems and a colony, the enemy won't surrender when they lose half their fleet in an engagement just above their homeworld.


Finally I'd like to address the idea that planetary invasions are silly.
Yes they are. Same as most depictions of sci-fi warfare. You don't need bombardment canons, just drop an asteroid or two.
However the idea that sci-fi/fantasy war could be won only in space between civilizations of comparable technological level is quite ridiculous too.
In 40k where everyone and their grandmother is a genocidal maniac you may pull out the "submit now or I'll kill you, your parents, children's and dogs with hellfire from above!' and even then if on the receiving end most people would rather be slaves of genocidal maniacs rather than dead, you would still have litteraly tens of millions of insurgents on the ground. If you are not a genocidal maniac menacing genocide as the basis of your strategy seems... off...
The only way to conquer and control a world is either to relinquish control (let the local government still run their business but they now pay you a tax or something, ) or to put your own tens of millions of people on the ground to maintain an unstable control long enough for people to grow into accepting your rule. Those tens of millions of "invaders" would face resistance from the tens if not hundreds of millions of locals thinking that dying in a blaze of glory is better than bowing to the invader.
Should our invaders arrive in one massive drop ship assault, on wings of fire instead of a more slow and methodical deployment? Logically speaking no, as we should just throw space rocks at each other ... but it makes for a better story and funnier gameplay. Should the control of the planet be the result of one cataclysmic battle with giant robots? No, it should be a whole lot of waiting for the guerilla to show up and discussing with the locals, making humanitarian work... Which could make for better story (#bsg season 4) but not necessarily and not the kind Stellaris is good at telling.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

Making planets able to fire at fleets bombarding them is such a no brainer that I'm amazed it hasn't been done yet. Give the player a tough choice. Either you keep the fleet in orbit to decrease planetary defenses and support the ground assault, which would practically guarantee taking the planet but could cost you some ships.....or you pull the fleet back and let the armies go in without support making it much less likely to take the planet.

One other idea....make generals matter. An invasion without a general should have penalties applied to it and maybe limit the number of armies that can be involved in the attack.

 

[Me_]

In before someone pops in and says that planetary invasions are totally reasonable because in [insert sci-fi franchise name here] the entire planet was occupied by an army of just [insert number between 1 and 10] soldiers.

On a more serious note, I wouldn't want for the invasions to turn into a micro-fest. Wars are already tedious as it is. Some simplifications are acceptable for the saco of not going mad. The idea of lost armies costing pops is an intriguing one, though.

Also, I'm pretty sure that an empire that is capable of ENCASING AN ENTIRE STAR IN A DYSON SPHERE would have waaaaay enough resources to transport millions of troops across space. Early game, though, invasions should probably be made harder.

 

[Jamaican Castle]

TL;DR - see video at bottom which does a far better job than I do in explaining why invading with armies is just dumb

I actually agree with this conclusion, but you have to admit that Stellaris is not trying to be especially realistic. (Space dragons, anyone?)

Rather, I think the focus needs to be on gameplay. If there are armies and planetary invasions, they should be implemented in a way that makes the game more fun. If they can't make the game more fun, they shouldn't be in it. So, I presented a model that I think would make for more interesting warfare decisions.

Also, I'm pretty sure that an empire that is capable of ENCASING AN ENTIRE STAR IN A DYSON SPHERE would have waaaaay enough resources to transport millions of troops across space. Early game, though, invasions should probably be made harder.

Off-topic, but I wish they hadn't added Dyson spheres and ringworlds to the game in the first place, at least not as things player empires can build. It just makes it hard to believe that [topic X] is still a limitation when you're capable of building these colossal-scale megastructures. (We can build a Dyson sphere, but we can't build a habitat that fits more than a few dozen pops? We have a ringworld, an artificial construct the size of many planets, but we can't build planets the size of... planets?)

 

[Valves1998]

Well time to ruffle some feathers.

TL;DR - see video at bottom which does a far better job than I do in explaining why invading with armies is just dumb

I find the whole issue of ground combat needing some enhancement to be a bit, say I say it, ludicrous. The very idea that you can just plop down a few million or even tens of millions of troops and just beat up their army and take their worlds is just silly. If anything Stellaris has is it completely backwards, as in, the only type of colony you could realistically invade by the means they have in game is one that is being established. Because, once you have any significant population on the planet it is only a game of morale. Oh, the other mistake Stellaris makes is that it requires too many ships too long to effectively reduce a planet to cinders or force a surrender from space.

Invading another empire's world is a battle of your resources versus their morale. As in, how much death and destruction or threat thereof do you need to accomplish before they stand down and hand you rudimentary control of the planet. I say rudimentary because even after you establish your government, your control, there is always a good chance a significant portion of the population will object.

So in my personal view we need to change what armies do in Stellaris and how worlds are conquered. Armies are control. The planet surrenders and you need to station troops there to retain order until a set amount of time passes. How much time would be determined on a few variables, namely the size of the planet, the traits, civics, and ethics, of the population, does their original empire exist, and how you are treating them. Think of it like Stellar shock just without the boneheaded ten year fixed cost.

Once you have control over the space around a planet, there are no enemy ships that can contest the fleet attacking the planet, and you have ships capable of bombing cities, it becomes a game of exerting damage until you exceed their willingness to die for their empire. You are working on their will to survive and except in the most extreme cases you can find this limit long before you reduce their world to ashes.

Hence once the planet surrenders to your fleet you need armies to maintain control until invasion shock is over. I am using the term invasion shock to describe a similar mechanic to Stellar Shock. This is not simpleton ten year timer. This is a set amount of time based on size of planet, traits, civics, and ethics, of the conquered population along with your treatment of them and how many troops you station there. As in, if you intend to use them as food it will take a seriously large army to keep the planet under control, it just might be cheaper to cinder it.

While under invasion shock you would go through a process similar to assimilation. So set up the cost to assimilate one population unit based on the previously described rules and your armies can leave when all are converted. Granted you could begin to withdraw troops as you gain more control. Until full control is guaranteed you have a reduced output from the planet and early on you may have nothing but workers available with more time required to get specialist slots filled in.

Seriously, the idea of taking over a heavily populated world with the armies you could transport through space is just fantasy. If you had the technology to deliver the actual required number of troops; think about primitive Earth here - there are ten of millions of professional military on top of tens of millions of police and other forces and then on top of that hundreds of millions of people who might not like you - and you start to realize you would never need to. As in, anyone empire sufficiently capable of delivering those troops has sufficient technology to never need them in the first place.

I love the idea of invasion shock, so we can nerf the invasions early in the game. But what if instead, all conquered pops generate a fixed modifier of -0.5 or -1.0 stability, making it harder to keep a heavily populated, newly conquered planet under control, and forcing it to keep a large contingent on the planet. So making you ask yourself, "Is it worth it?"
And of course with a pop modifier, a colony would be easier to conquer than the capital.

 

[Me_]

Honestly, I'd prefer if invasion forces were removed, and planetary conquest was based on bombardment until a) the planet's morale or something reaches 0 or b) everything on the planet is dead (in case of pops that would have no individual morale like hive minds). That would put all the focus on fleets, which already are 95% of focus anyway.

 

[Dire Poops]

I'll just shamelessly leave my suggestions here.

Ground Combat Suggestions

Dear Paradox, Please make ground combat more engaging, relevant, and immersive. Planetary battles are a significant part of scifi novels, shows, and movies, and the current system, while certainly adequate, can go a lot further. To make ground...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

But basically I suggest to make it possible to prepare more defenses, put limits on planetary bombardment, and increase war exhaustion for losses in ground combat (based probably on soldier type).

 

[exi123]

Honestly, I'd prefer if invasion forces were removed, and planetary conquest was based on bombardment until a) the planet's morale or something reaches 0 or b) everything on the planet is dead (in case of pops that would have no individual morale like hive minds). That would put all the focus on fleets, which already are 95% of focus anyway.

Thats also my opinion with the current situation. Its to micro and unfun right now...

A rework needs to bring massive qol with it. Armies capturing a planet is stil an essential part for me in this game. What i want to see is that armies operate on a more planetary level. Armies are always stationed on planets, not on ships. If want to move armies, i can select them in the outliner OR on the target (right click on enemy planet, select army, attack, for example). The army moves to the target by itself, evades stations and starbases, uses the subspace movement or is able to jump directly to the target. Fleets also merge with this, why do armies need to move like fleets? This also applies to my idea that armies from planets nearby reinforce and join these battles. Ne need to micro, just send the armies in range automatically (but give me an option to deactivate it).

Armies should also be used for occupation during wars, going in, capture a planet and move to the next planet without any further troops on a planet is idiotic.

An army designer would aslo be helpful, make armies a whole unit, bring back different types of equipment, let me reinforce my armies with one click.