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

[Sir Roderick]

Ground Battles are going to remain a meaningless tack-on until the devs get to actually overhauling combat entirely (ETA never), by introducing concepts such as tactics (beyond circling enemies in a lightshow of death) and manpower (because making planetary invasions actually cost something might enable actually designing interesting gameplay surrounding them).

But that's the kind of rework scope that simply won't fit in, especially now that half the team will work on fancy/DLC features, and the other half tackle the long overdue backlog. Whereas this kind of rework would need the full focus of the team, probably for the span of a whole expansion developement cycle, and then some.

Mostly yes but why would there be manpower in an interstellar nation that starts with billions and can reach trillions? It just does not fit at that scale, plus there are midgame techs that make it moot, like clones, droids, and xenomorphs.

Because if you don't limit them, they can't be anything else.

And like Naval Cap, it'd be a soft cap, not a hard cap.

Why they should be anything else? Also currently pop cap is an hard cap on armies, expect uncapped armies like clones, droids, and xenomorphs, because they are not dependent on pops and only on your production, because they are technologically advanced and it would be illogical and arbitrary to limit them.

 

[Objulen]

Why they should be anything else? Also currently pop cap is an hard cap on armies, expect uncapped armies like clones, droids, and xenomorphs, because they are not dependent on pops and only on your production, because they are technologically advanced and it would be illogical and arbitrary to limit them.

Why should navies have any kind of cap? Everything you said could just as easily apply to them. Given that this is a conversation about improving how ground combat works in Stellaris, this is a good bit of nonsense. Technologically advanced armies should be stronger than ones that aren't as advanced.... just like navies.

Basically, this thread is about designing armies so they are more like navies, or about turning armies into modules attached to ships for invasions without having separate armies. You know, suggestions about how to change the system.

 

[methegrate]

Mostly yes but why would there be manpower in an interstellar nation that starts with billions and can reach trillions? It just does not fit at that scale, plus there are midgame techs that make it moot, like clones, droids, and xenomorphs.

I don't agree with this. There's tons of hand-wavium in Stellaris, just like in any game. Personally, I think that's the biggest problem with realism arguments. We arbitrarily pick and choose which parts of the game are too unrealistic to allow. Why is manpower too unrealistic but not the starbase cap? Or the fact that most habitable worlds have only one biome? Or the space dragons?

When we say something is "unrealistic," I feel like what we're really doing is trying to shut down debate on a mechanic we disagree with. It's saying that no one can disagree with me. No arguments about this mechanic matter, because it's just too unrealistic to allow anyway.

And I don't feel like it is unrealistic anyway. Manpower doesn't represent the population of your empire. It represents the population that is trained and military-ready. It's not the population of the Federation, it's the graduates of StarFleet Academy. It's the number of soldiers who can pilot a fighter craft, drive a hyper-tank, ride a dropship, effectively use 24th Century weapons, etc.

Heck, even today's technology requires months (sometimes years) of training to use effectively. The idea that this would only get more sophisticated with future technology? That makes perfect sense to me.

Sure, you could have a game where the explanation is "technology has gotten easy to use, so conscripts are just fine and your population is your manpower." But you can just as easily have a game where technology has gotten steadily more complicated, so conscripts are useless and troops require lengthy training. Both are equally fine explanations depending on which game mechanic works.

 

[Sir Roderick]

Why should navies have any kind of cap? Everything you said could just as easily apply to them. Given that this is a conversation about improving how ground combat works in Stellaris, this is a good bit of nonsense. Technologically advanced armies should be stronger than ones that aren't as advanced.... just like navies.

Basically, this thread is about designing armies so they are more like navies, or about turning armies into modules attached to ships for invasions without having separate armies. You know, suggestions about how to change the system.

Yes, but more technologically advanced armies are stronger, so I don't see what you mean?

An army manager like a fleet manager would help.

I don't agree with this. There's tons of hand-wavium in Stellaris, just like in any game. Personally, I think that's the biggest problem with realism arguments. We arbitrarily pick and choose which parts of the game are too unrealistic to allow. Why is manpower too unrealistic but not the starbase cap? Or the fact that most habitable worlds have only one biome? Or the space dragons?

When we say something is "unrealistic," I feel like what we're really doing is trying to shut down debate on a mechanic we disagree with. It's saying that no one can disagree with me. No arguments about this mechanic matter, because it's just too unrealistic to allow anyway.

And I don't feel like it is unrealistic anyway. Manpower doesn't represent the population of your empire. It represents the population that is trained and military-ready. It's not the population of the Federation, it's the graduates of StarFleet Academy. It's the number of soldiers who can pilot a fighter craft, drive a hyper-tank, ride a dropship, effectively use 24th Century weapons, etc.

Heck, even today's technology requires months (sometimes years) of training to use effectively. The idea that this would only get more sophisticated with future technology? That makes perfect sense to me.

Sure, you could have a game where the explanation is "technology has gotten easy to use, so conscripts are just fine and your population is your manpower." But you can just as easily have a game where technology has gotten steadily more complicated, so conscripts are useless and troops require lengthy training. Both are equally fine explanations depending on which game mechanic works.

Yes, but that's the europan elegant part of tabletops, also it's a matter of scale.

Also I think a lot of people just want WWII in space, without regard for different technology and premises.


Privates don't need complicated stuff, just to use a laser rifle like guardsmen in WH40K, and they are available in the trillions, and a big stellaris empire could have billions of simple soldiers, not counting again all the clones, terminator robots, or engineered xenomorphs that can be made on demand, and the robots only need programming and the xenomorph already have killing instincts.
Also a defense army could be around 10 millions since US Army in Hearts of Iron Era is a defense army.

Plus, ships only house thousands of crewmen at best, and not everyone is an engineer that needs years of training, and also stellaris had cut down ships from 500 battleships in a fleet to 24-32, so at best you can have a fleet of 30 battleships with a titan, and if every battleship had 10000 members and was bigger than Yamato which had 2500-2800, even considering the more advanced automation, and Titans 20000, 10 fleets like that would only have 3200000 crewmen, which is not a lot for an empire with trillions of people.


Also, about technology there is the Memorex, that can make people learn skills during sleep, so it would take half the time to train more people.

 

[Objulen]

Yes, but more technologically advanced armies are stronger, so I don't see what you mean?

An army manager like a fleet manager would help.

Armies generally don't advance very much compared to ships with advanced technologies. You do get better troop types eventually, but there's not nearly as much granularity. Robot armies and regular armies are roughly comparable. Clone troops are cheaper, but other than species traits, your clone troopers aren't going to be better than another empire's clone troopers, even if you have much better weapon, armor, and shield technology. Super units, like psychic warriors, super soldiers, and xenomorphs, are basically just more expensive troopers that tend to be more powerful and suffer casualties better because they have more hit points.

If you take the same amount of minerals, and dump them into a bunch of clones vs. a bunch of super soliders, you're probably going to have comprable armies, or even a larger clone army. The clone army will suffer more casualties, but in the end the clones will probably win. However, since you can just dump more and more minerals into your army, with no appreciable logistics, then it's basically a spam fest, with the more expensive troops mostly only having the benefit of needing fewer replacements.

Compare that to clashing navies. Picking the right rock for their scissors will help you. If you have low-tech ships vs an enemy's high-tech ships of the same composition, you'll be at a notable and significant disadvantage. And if a rival has more naval capacity, they're going to have a notable advantage in waging a campaign, where as you will put much more strain on your economy.

My suggestion would be to make armies more like navies. Weapon, armor, and shield technology affects their stats. Mixed forces, with basic troops acting as a backbone to your armies, with specialized troops, like super soliders and psychic warriors acting as specialists who are sent on missions that give bonuses or penalties to the overall battle, instead of just being another type of ground troop. Xenomorphs would be a risk/reward situation, especially when you use combined forces, given their description as barely controlled bio-horrors. There would be differences between different empire types, with advancing Machine Empire troops having a top-down strucuture instead of a bottom-up structure.

In turn, Fortresses would be limited to 1 per planet, spawning extra defensive troops, and other defensive buildings could be added for fortress worlds, adding bonuses to defensive troops, making it harder for elite forces to complete missions, and maybe even damaging ships attack from orbit.

Thus, having armies matter much more than spamming final values against a final values.

 

[Cordane]

Armies generally don't advance very much compared to ships with advanced technologies. You do get better troop types eventually, but there's not nearly as much granularity. Robot armies and regular armies are roughly comparable. Clone troops are cheaper, but other than species traits, your clone troopers aren't going to be better than another empire's clone troopers, even if you have much better weapon, armor, and shield technology. Super units, like psychic warriors, super soldiers, and xenomorphs, are basically just more expensive troopers that tend to be more powerful and suffer casualties better because they have more hit points.

If you take the same amount of minerals, and dump them into a bunch of clones vs. a bunch of super soliders, you're probably going to have comprable armies, or even a larger clone army. The clone army will suffer more casualties, but in the end the clones will probably win. However, since you can just dump more and more minerals into your army, with no appreciable logistics, then it's basically a spam fest, with the more expensive troops mostly only having the benefit of needing fewer replacements.

Compare that to clashing navies. Picking the right rock for their scissors will help you. If you have low-tech ships vs an enemy's high-tech ships of the same composition, you'll be at a notable and significant disadvantage. And if a rival has more naval capacity, they're going to have a notable advantage in waging a campaign, where as you will put much more strain on your economy.

My suggestion would be to make armies more like navies. Weapon, armor, and shield technology affects their stats. Mixed forces, with basic troops acting as a backbone to your armies, with specialized troops, like super soliders and psychic warriors acting as specialists who are sent on missions that give bonuses or penalties to the overall battle, instead of just being another type of ground troop. Xenomorphs would be a risk/reward situation, especially when you use combined forces, given their description as barely controlled bio-horrors. There would be differences between different empire types, with advancing Machine Empire troops having a top-down strucuture instead of a bottom-up structure.

In turn, Fortresses would be limited to 1 per planet, spawning extra defensive troops, and other defensive buildings could be added for fortress worlds, adding bonuses to defensive troops, making it harder for elite forces to complete missions, and maybe even damaging ships attack from orbit.

Thus, having armies matter much more than spamming final values against a final values.

Actually I already had this discussion with @Sir Roderick regarding armies and technology. There may be some version over version improvements in the base population stock used to make an army, but the largest factor in unit strength, offensively and defensively, as technology improves will be equipment and vehicles. When there is a clear distinction in the quality of the population stock used (e.g., Gene Warrior vs. default Assault Army vs. Slave Army), then you have a real adjustment to the base values. But it's not like the base Pop units are going to show up with swords and fixed bayonets, where the majority of their capability is in their physical strength. They're going to be driving tanks and flying aircraft in large numbers, not just basic foot infantry - I know, dashing the hopes of Starship Troopers' fans everywhere. Even the infantry will be supported by exoskeletons (think Edge Of Tomorrow) and jump-jet packs.

I still have a problem with with Clone Armies having only a 25% additional collateral damage "penalty" to keep them from being absolutely the hands-down choice over regular Assault Armies. There's no real drawback and you really can just spam them out (i.e., no real choices). The reason why (biological) armies have Pop-count restrictions is that there would only be so many members of the public that would volunteer (or "volunteer") for military service from the general population, but part of the reason why Pop-restricted units would exist is because they're actually cheaper to recruit in than clones. As in, you're not paying the parents of the citizen that offers themselves for military service, for all of the time and effort it took to get them born, raised, educated (at least in basic), and turned into an effective adult - only for the time they spend in uniform. While the cloning process may be quick and may produce personnel solidly fit for duty, it's a process that has all of the rearing activities and expenses completely within the government's books. And the only reason that clones would have lower expenses is because there's less to no expectation of long-term care and support after their active duty service is complete (dispose, recycle materials, and replace). They still have all of the day-to-day expenses along with the same equipment and vehicles (and if they don't then how are they just as combat effective as those that do?).

 

[Objulen]

Actually I already had this discussion with @Sir Roderick regarding armies and technology. There may be some version over version improvements in the base population stock used to make an army, but the largest factor in unit strength, offensively and defensively, as technology improves will be equipment and vehicles. When there is a clear distinction in the quality of the population stock used (e.g., Gene Warrior vs. default Assault Army vs. Slave Army), then you have a real adjustment to the base values. But it's not like the base Pop units are going to show up with swords and fixed bayonets, where the majority of their capability is in their physical strength. They're going to be driving tanks and flying aircraft in large numbers, not just basic foot infantry - I know, dashing the hopes of Starship Troopers' fans everywhere. Even the infantry will be supported by exoskeletons (think Edge Of Tomorrow) and jump-jet packs.

That's one of the reasons I'm in favor of having technologies play a larger role in army strength values. Starship Troopers would be an example of a lower-tech future army in a sci-fi setting, or a lower-resource one.

Generally, super-advanced troops aren't incredibly common in sci-fi armies. Space Marines, Jedi, and the like are usually elites. I believe they should be head and shoulders above typical troops, but I don't think they should be the backbone of an army, acting instead more like special forces. You could have psychic troops as your backbone once you complete your Ascension perks, whatever they may be, but I think there should be elite forces that complete tasks outside of the general invasion. Many sci-fi stories are built around such elite units completing risky missions with at least some regularity that other troops simply couldn't consider.

I still have a problem with with Clone Armies having only a 25% additional collateral damage "penalty" to keep them from being absolutely the hands-down choice over regular Assault Armies. There's no real drawback and you really can just spam them out (i.e., no real choices). The reason why (biological) armies have Pop-count restrictions is that there would only be so many members of the public that would volunteer (or "volunteer") for military service from the general population, but part of the reason why Pop-restricted units would exist is because they're actually cheaper to recruit in than clones. As in, you're not paying the parents of the citizen that offers themselves for military service, for all of the time and effort it took to get them born, raised, educated (at least in basic), and turned into an effective adult - only for the time they spend in uniform. While the cloning process may be quick and may produce personnel solidly fit for duty, it's a process that has all of the rearing activities and expenses completely within the government's books. And the only reason that clones would have lower expenses is because there's less to no expectation of long-term care and support after their active duty service is complete (dispose, recycle materials, and replace). They still have all of the day-to-day expenses along with the same equipment and vehicles (and if they don't then how are they just as combat effective as those that do?).

There are a couple of different possibilities that could contradict that assessment. One would be accelerated growth, organic programming, and rapid training, like the Clone Troopers from Star Wars, which cuts training and rearing costs. On the other end, actual citizen soldiers could easily need more pay, or at least much more significant compensation packages for maiming and death, driving up costs. Material costs would be the same for both, so I think the best option would simply be to have Clone Troopers remove any population cap on solider limits, and instead making it a raw question of supply and logistics.

A much more significant concern with say, Clone Troopers, are ethics. Slave Soliders would only be available to Authoritarians and Xenophobes, while I'd have a hard time seeing Egalitarians - even if it is specifically Fanatic Egalitarians - being OK with Clone Troopers. Spiritualists would balk at robotic troops, while Materialists assemble armies of droids, and Xenophiles may shudder at the idea of Xenomorph armies, being essentially engineered alien killing machines with no greater purpose than to destroy biospheres.

 

[methegrate]

Privates don't need complicated stuff, just to use a laser rifle like guardsmen in WH40K, and they are available in the trillions, and a big stellaris empire could have billions of simple soldiers, not counting again all the clones, terminator robots, or engineered xenomorphs that can be made on demand, and the robots only need programming and the xenomorph already have killing instincts.

I did address this in my post, right at the end.

Sure, that’s one explanation. And it’s a fine one! (I mean, an army can’t just be here’s a gun, go that way. It still needs officers, food, ammo, etc. After all, someone needs to hand them that gun. Someone needs to say “go that way” and someone needs to make sure those conscripts actually do it. And someone needs to feed them once the fighting is over. There’s still an upper limit, even if it’s high.) But the alternative explanation that this stuff requires lots of training is equally fine.

The problem isn’t that your conscripts lore makes no sense. That’s a perfectly fine story! The problem is that your story isn’t the only one that makes sense. 40k says you can shove a blaster in a conscript’s hands. Star Trek says they have to graduate from an academy. Both are great stories that make perfect sense.

The problem is when we insist that ours is the only story that the game is allowed to tell. Saying something is unrealistic means that we’re just trying to toss it altogether, but on no real basis other . It’s all fiction. It’s all made up, none of this is more realistic than any other part.

It would be one thing if I’m saying “I prefer this story to another.” That’s fine. We can all have the game we’d rather play. But saying “this is unrealistic” is saying “the story you prefer is objectively wrong and not allowed.”

You want 40k. I prefer Star Trek. Both are fine. The question is just what mechanic makes for better gameplay. You write the lore from there.

Now, in this case I see no tension. I actually think that manpower is a fantastic mechanic for addressing exactly the issue you raise. Different types of armies have different caps, and different empires can have different army options. That seems like a feature (a great feature) not a bug to me. We say that manpower represents not just warm bodies, but also the leadership corps, materiel, communications, trained pilots, etc. Even with conscripts there’s still only so many bodies you can effectively field, but it’s a heck of a lot more than The Federation can put in action.

If anything, this feels like a great mechanic for helping iterate toward a game that can have The Federation fighting The Imperium of Man.

 

[TrotBot]

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 was halfway through and started thinking starbases would need armies and boarding parties and then you had thought that out way better even i am in love with this whole proposal. it would make liberation wars also more interesting too

 

[Sir Roderick]

Armies generally don't advance very much compared to ships with advanced technologies. You do get better troop types eventually, but there's not nearly as much granularity. Robot armies and regular armies are roughly comparable. Clone troops are cheaper, but other than species traits, your clone troopers aren't going to be better than another empire's clone troopers, even if you have much better weapon, armor, and shield technology. Super units, like psychic warriors, super soldiers, and xenomorphs, are basically just more expensive troopers that tend to be more powerful and suffer casualties better because they have more hit points.

If you take the same amount of minerals, and dump them into a bunch of clones vs. a bunch of super soliders, you're probably going to have comprable armies, or even a larger clone army. The clone army will suffer more casualties, but in the end the clones will probably win. However, since you can just dump more and more minerals into your army, with no appreciable logistics, then it's basically a spam fest, with the more expensive troops mostly only having the benefit of needing fewer replacements.

Compare that to clashing navies. Picking the right rock for their scissors will help you. If you have low-tech ships vs an enemy's high-tech ships of the same composition, you'll be at a notable and significant disadvantage. And if a rival has more naval capacity, they're going to have a notable advantage in waging a campaign, where as you will put much more strain on your economy.

My suggestion would be to make armies more like navies. Weapon, armor, and shield technology affects their stats. Mixed forces, with basic troops acting as a backbone to your armies, with specialized troops, like super soliders and psychic warriors acting as specialists who are sent on missions that give bonuses or penalties to the overall battle, instead of just being another type of ground troop. Xenomorphs would be a risk/reward situation, especially when you use combined forces, given their description as barely controlled bio-horrors. There would be differences between different empire types, with advancing Machine Empire troops having a top-down strucuture instead of a bottom-up structure.

In turn, Fortresses would be limited to 1 per planet, spawning extra defensive troops, and other defensive buildings could be added for fortress worlds, adding bonuses to defensive troops, making it harder for elite forces to complete missions, and maybe even damaging ships attack from orbit.

Thus, having armies matter much more than spamming final values against a final values.

Maybe the clones, but only because they do half the damage and have more than a third of the health but only cost a quarter.
Yes more expensive troops needless replacements, but isn't that the same with the navy and battleships and only being limited by alloys? It's just that minerals are 4 times easier to get than alloys.

Troops have already their own society repeatables, they work like strikecraft, why change it?
Why forcing super soldiers and psychic warriors as specialists, when you can make everyone bio and psy ascend?
Also the tech for xenomorphs says it has direct subconscious interfaces with organic units.

Also on only one fortress, it makes it obligatory to build anchorages everywhere and use the warrior culture civic to turn all entertainers into duelists to get more naval cap.

Actually I already had this discussion with @Sir Roderick regarding armies and technology. There may be some version over version improvements in the base population stock used to make an army, but the largest factor in unit strength, offensively and defensively, as technology improves will be equipment and vehicles. When there is a clear distinction in the quality of the population stock used (e.g., Gene Warrior vs. default Assault Army vs. Slave Army), then you have a real adjustment to the base values. But it's not like the base Pop units are going to show up with swords and fixed bayonets, where the majority of their capability is in their physical strength. They're going to be driving tanks and flying aircraft in large numbers, not just basic foot infantry - I know, dashing the hopes of Starship Troopers' fans everywhere. Even the infantry will be supported by exoskeletons (think Edge Of Tomorrow) and jump-jet packs.

I still have a problem with with Clone Armies having only a 25% additional collateral damage "penalty" to keep them from being absolutely the hands-down choice over regular Assault Armies. There's no real drawback and you really can just spam them out (i.e., no real choices). The reason why (biological) armies have Pop-count restrictions is that there would only be so many members of the public that would volunteer (or "volunteer") for military service from the general population, but part of the reason why Pop-restricted units would exist is because they're actually cheaper to recruit in than clones. As in, you're not paying the parents of the citizen that offers themselves for military service, for all of the time and effort it took to get them born, raised, educated (at least in basic), and turned into an effective adult - only for the time they spend in uniform. While the cloning process may be quick and may produce personnel solidly fit for duty, it's a process that has all of the rearing activities and expenses completely within the government's books. And the only reason that clones would have lower expenses is because there's less to no expectation of long-term care and support after their active duty service is complete (dispose, recycle materials, and replace). They still have all of the day-to-day expenses along with the same equipment and vehicles (and if they don't then how are they just as combat effective as those that do?).

What about the society army repeatables, they are clearly geared towards infantry. And Starship Troopers had powered armor.
Also, one of the first engineering techs you can research is powered exoskeletons and it gives +5% army damage already.
Also if you ead the tech description, you'd see that clones grow to adulthood in a matter of months, and have lifespans of less than a decade. So no rearing activies and expenses more than 18 years of normal people.

That's one of the reasons I'm in favor of having technologies play a larger role in army strength values. Starship Troopers would be an example of a lower-tech future army in a sci-fi setting, or a lower-resource one.

Generally, super-advanced troops aren't incredibly common in sci-fi armies. Space Marines, Jedi, and the like are usually elites. I believe they should be head and shoulders above typical troops, but I don't think they should be the backbone of an army, acting instead more like special forces. You could have psychic troops as your backbone once you complete your Ascension perks, whatever they may be, but I think there should be elite forces that complete tasks outside of the general invasion. Many sci-fi stories are built around such elite units completing risky missions with at least some regularity that other troops simply couldn't consider.



There are a couple of different possibilities that could contradict that assessment. One would be accelerated growth, organic programming, and rapid training, like the Clone Troopers from Star Wars, which cuts training and rearing costs. On the other end, actual citizen soldiers could easily need more pay, or at least much more significant compensation packages for maiming and death, driving up costs. Material costs would be the same for both, so I think the best option would simply be to have Clone Troopers remove any population cap on solider limits, and instead making it a raw question of supply and logistics.

A much more significant concern with say, Clone Troopers, are ethics. Slave Soliders would only be available to Authoritarians and Xenophobes, while I'd have a hard time seeing Egalitarians - even if it is specifically Fanatic Egalitarians - being OK with Clone Troopers. Spiritualists would balk at robotic troops, while Materialists assemble armies of droids, and Xenophiles may shudder at the idea of Xenomorph armies, being essentially engineered alien killing machines with no greater purpose than to destroy biospheres.

You mean the book or the movies? Because the book had power armor.
No why wouldn't a super advancednation in stellaris that has superabundant resources and dyson spheres and ringworld use all of it's surplus to field a gene trooper and/or Xenomorph only army while having aìonly battleships and titans as ships?


Actually the game says it works like Star Wars, if you read the Clone Army description it says they grow in a matter of months. And also they aree not capped by population limits, so it's already like that.

Also what if the egalitarians are materialists too? wouldn't they use clone troopers?

I did address this in my post, right at the end.

Sure, that’s one explanation. It works sort of well. (I mean, no. An army can’t just be here’s a gun, go that way. It still needs officers, food, ammo, etc. After all, someone needs to hand them that gun. Someone needs to say “go that way” and someone needs to make sure those conscripts actually do it. And someone needs to feed them once the fighting is over. There’s still an upper limit, even if it’s high.) But the alternative explanation that this stuff requires lots of training is equally fine.

The problem isn’t that your conscripts lore makes no sense. That’s a perfectly fine story! The problem is that your story isn’t the only one that makes sense. 40k says you can shove a blaster in a conscript’s hands. Star Trek says they have to graduate from an academy. Both are great stories that make perfect sense.

The problem is when we insist that ours is the only story that the game is allowed to tell. Saying something is unrealistic means that we’re just trying to toss it altogether, but on no real basis other . It’s all fiction. It’s all made up, none of this is more realistic than any other part.

It would be one thing if I’m saying “I prefer this story to another.” That’s fine. We can all have the game we’d rather play. But saying “this is unrealistic” is saying “the story you prefer is objectively wrong and not allowed.”

You want 40k. I prefer Star Trek. Both are fine. The question is just what mechanic makes for better gameplay. You write the lore from there.

Now, in this case I see no tension. I actually think that manpower is a fantastic mechanic for addressing exactly the issue you raise. Different types of armies have different caps, and different empires can have different army options. That seems like a feature (a great feature) not a bug to me. We say that manpower represents not just warm bodies, but also the leadership corps, materiel, communications, trained pilots, etc. Even with conscripts there’s still only so many bodies you can effectively field, but it’s a heck of a lot more than The Federation can put in action.

If anything, this feels like a great mechanic for helping iterate toward a game that can have The Federation fighting The Imperium of Man.

Yes, but logistic support people and officers don't make the bulk of an army, soldiers do, and they make up less of the makeup of the army.
Also for the training there are edicts that increase the learning xp, and the nural tissue tech and the memorex that trains during sleep.
Also WH40K has training academys, like schola progenium, for stormtroopers and commissars, and Stellaris has military academies too.
It's just that the bulk of an army is made by soldiers, and when you have trillions of people it's easy to find people, and then finding 1 out of 10 to do other stuff like logistics and being an officer is easier. Also Bio Ascension Empires can make everyone an Erudite and thus a Genius, which means eveyone on average can be an officer or logistician or whatever needs a lot of technical study in much less of the time, and for everyone, which mean everyone could be interchangeable.
Also psionics to share knowdledge.

And there is also the principle of non-contradiction, and the Federation was in WH40K, it was the Interex (and Diasporex, and another Empire), and they all lost.
Some things are just objectively wrong, like materialists, but also spiritualist because they're pantheistic gnostics and relativists just like the materialists and that ethics axis should be redone.

Manpower for more qualified roles should not be a problem with advanced tech in stellaris, with the advanced learning edicts, the leader technologies with genetic databanks, the neural tissue anomaly rare tech, the memorex, bioascended erudites, also psionics, there are a lot of things that make smart and knowledgeable people more widespread and easier to put on all kinds of roles. Then a big empire could use all the manpower on genetroopers, and make the rest of its armies clones, or better, xenomorphs, all uncapped, and then what the smaller empire could do? Although Navy matters more than armies.

Anyway, The Imperium won against the Federation (Interex).

 

[Objulen]

Maybe the clones, but only because they do half the damage and have more than a third of the health but only cost a quarter.
Yes more expensive troops needless replacements, but isn't that the same with the navy and battleships and only being limited by alloys? It's just that minerals are 4 times easier to get than alloys.

The cost is part of it. If you get enough alloys you can spam ships, it's just more difficult. That's something else to consider - that armies should cost alloys. They're heavy military units, so there's really not a great reason why they shouldn't.

Troops have already their own society repeatables, they work like strikecraft, why change it?
Why forcing super soldiers and psychic warriors as specialists, when you can make everyone bio and psy ascend?
Also the tech for xenomorphs says it has direct subconscious interfaces with organic units.

Also on only one fortress, it makes it obligatory to build anchorages everywhere and use the warrior culture civic to turn all entertainers into duelists to get more naval cap.

That's an endgame tech that doesn't address what I'm saying at all. Every weapon has an end-game repeatable. I'm talking about base troops improving with the entire weapon/defense tech tree over the course of the game, not having relatively static values that are only improved, in some cases, by unlocks. An empire fielding a basic soldier with more weapon upgrades should have stronger troops than an empire without those upgrades.

"Forcing" super solider types to be specialists is a well-supported trope in most fiction. There's no reason that you'd have to have these perks to have special forces - which exist without them easily - just that these troop types should be tied to special forces first. The reason I've already stated - when you have a limited number of augmented troops, you want to organize them to have the greatest effect, which is generally going to be surgical strikes.

You'd have typical soldiers, and more expensive special forces. When you get Ascension 1, your special forces get upgraded. Super soldiers and psychic knights are fewer in number, so their an upgrade for special forces. Cyborgs are and upgrade across the line, so cyborg comandoes shouldn't be as powerful as super soldiers or psychic knights, since their baseline troops would become cyborg soldiers. Tier II upgrades basic soldiers for gene/psy ascension, and unlocks android troops/android comandos for synth, which should be equal across the board.

Fortresses can be combined with Orbital Shields. Other buildings - even Resource Silos - can provide extra Army/Navy cap. Mainly, if armies are going to have a soft cap, then there needs to be a limit for defensive armies on planets also.

What about the society army repeatables, they are clearly geared towards infantry. And Starship Troopers had powered armor.

That's not the same as having a series of upgrades that apply throughout the game. And Starship Troopers had advanced infantry armor, but it wasn't full-scale power armor, at least in the movie. The book suits were mostly meant for combat in hostile environments, IIRC. Their power, overall, wasn't delved into like, say, Dark Trooper armor from Star Wars or Warhammer 40K power armor.

Also, one of the first engineering techs you can research is powered exoskeletons and it gives +5% army damage already.

There are a few techs that address armies, but nothing like the techs for ship weapons, armor, and shields. There are maybe 3 techs, total, before repeatables, that deal with armies. Power frames, one for defensive armies only, and one for armies in general.

Also if you ead the tech description, you'd see that clones grow to adulthood in a matter of months, and have lifespans of less than a decade. So no rearing activies and expenses more than 18 years of normal people.

Gotcha.

You mean the book or the movies? Because the book had power armor.

Nothing especially fancy, like what is depicted in Warhammer 40K. Nor was it's overall power or place in the setting really established. It was deployed in the book for a low-g, hostile atmosphere, IIRC, so there's no reason to believe it was especially sophisticated or better than typical flak, just incorporated into a space suit.

No why wouldn't a super advancednation in stellaris that has superabundant resources and dyson spheres and ringworld use all of it's surplus to field a gene trooper and/or Xenomorph only army while having aìonly battleships and titans as ships?

Because even if you have a bunch of resources, that doesn't mean you can give the absolute best to everyone. You can't field a fleet of Titans, after all. Battleships, sure, but even then your fleet will be smaller, numerically, than a mixed fleet. Even when Ascension is completed, there would be a divide between the best-of-the-best, who get the best treatments, training, and gear, for special forces, and the rank-and-file, who are more powerful for being engineered/psychic, but not the elite.

Also what if the egalitarians are materialists too? wouldn't they use clone troopers?

Egalitarians generally aren't OK with a warrior-caste of disposable people. Everyone is equal, and you're making unequal people who are basically force-bred slaves with a time-limit. Clone troops would basically be a chip off the Replicant block in Blade Runner, especially if they die after a handful of years. Egalitarian Materialists would probably use some kind of cloning. Especially Fanatic Egalitarians, who only clone people with a standard lifestyle,rights, and expectations as everyone else.