Welcome fellow aliens. This will be a long post.
I like almost everyone here am really excited about the release of this game. It looks fantastic and I know that over the months and years the game will only get better and better. I've read many of these forum posts and watched the Blorg streams and think the only issue with the game that I and some others have is that the ground combat is too fast.
I believe that the conquest of hugely populated planets should take years, even decades, if taken by conventional means(bombardment followed by invasion). Below are some of my thoughts about why(for gameplay reasons) ground combat should take more time and some of the changes I'd like to see added. Nothing that I'm writing is in anyway original and I think everything has been written before in different posts or implemented in different games.
Sorry I'm not providing references but that would just take too long and I only have so much time. I'm fully confident that Paradox have their own plans in place but I've enjoyed writing this and maybe a developer might get some ideas from this.
It should be added that I still want the ground combat to be like EU4 in that it is both simple in what you can do with the armies but complex in how the computer calculates the victor. I've know desire to set army formations.
The biggest reason I want this is to give an advantage to players that split up their fleets. The other is that when I take my enemies home planet I want it to feel as grand and bloody an achievement as it should be. In our own history we have seen Superpowers that have easily destroyed the armies of smaller nations but struggled to supress the rebels and take full control of the production of these nations.
Gameplay reasons why ground combat should take more time :
I believe that if taking a large fully populated planet took years then players would have to divide up their fleets to protect the invaded planet from having the enemy fly in fleets of transports to boost the defenders. The streams have shown the Blorg having two main fleets. One to fight in each theatre of the war. Each fleet has destroyed the fortifications of a system, bombarded the planet and then taken the planet by invasion. What has been very cool in the streams is they then left to invade another system and the AI has come back in and taken back the planet but I'd like invasions to be more bloody and expensive. Also the use of warcrimes would be an easier choice, in the short-term, to make for even the friendliest of empires.
I think if the bombardment took a lot (maybe 4 times) as long it would both give the defender more time to build up their forces in another system to counter-attack and make the attacker more likely to invade before the defences were completely down knowing the counter attack was coming. Here it would still be a big advantage, as it should be, to blob all your fleets to blow the crap out of the defenders fortifications. Aliens with bonusses to ground fighting would now have a bigger advantage as they could land their troops before the fortifications are completely down and move on most of their fleet to the next system hopping from one system to the next. Also fleets at the invaded planet should still be able to reduce fortifications while the invasion is taking place(I think this is true already but I'm not completely sure).
If the ground fighting itself took ages longer(maybe 20 times) then as said before you'd have to leave behind fleets large enough to stop transports being flown in to boost the defending armies. This should work both ways in that if the invaders ground forces see their fleets smashed and then overwhelming forces flown in to help the defenders they should be able to resist longer so that the invader can bring back the fleets and extra transports. I think that invaders should get fortification bonusses themselves that increase with time on the planet and level of success against the defenders.
Ideas to lengthen ground combat
Habitabilty: First off I've not seen it mentioned but armies should be stronger or weaker fighting on different planet types according to that races habitabilty of the planet. The Blorg would fight at 100% on their home planet, 80% on jungle planets and so on. An ocean world race would need a massive army to take over a desert world even with a huge technological advantage. This would give races that are adaptable to living on different planet types another advantage and so the trait for this might have to cost more. Ground Force Strength x habitabilty for the planet. Taking a homeworld (100% strength defenders vs 80% attackers(at best))would be very bloody just as it should be.
Rebels : The first phase of ground combat should be between the invading armies and the defending armies. This should take maybe 5 times as long as it does in the Blorg streams depending on the relative sizes of the armies involved. Once the defending army is defeated the invader would now control the capital and the tiles with the adjaceny bonusses. All other tiles would be covered with Rebel blockers. Gameplay wise the planet has been taken but the invader will still have a lot of fighting to do depending on the amount of rebels generated. Generally this would mean the invaders moving most of their army off the planet but leaving a certain amount to deal with the rebels. The more armies they leave the quicker the rebels are cleared. It should be added that if the planet has unhappy pops with similar ethos to the invader that they should provide their own rebels to fight for the invader. While not too helpful in the first army vs army phase of combat they should be more effective to clearing defending rebels in the next phase of the invasion.
Rebels should be a lot weaker than armies but be harder to clear from planets. They are not a standing army but are blending in with the population. I am thinking they'd have only 20% the power of the defending planets (former)armies but with bonusses or penalties depending on the races ethos, traits and technology. Fanantical Militarist might grant an extra 15%. The trait Strong 10% etc.
The amount of rebels generated should depend on many factors. First the differences in ethos. A fanatical Materialist planet invaded by a fanatical Spiritual empire should generate a massive amount of extra rebels compared to a Materialist attacking a Materialist. Xenophobes/Xenophiles the same, although Xenophobes should get bigger bonusses depending on how different in race the invader(fungoids being attacked by fungoids would generate less rebels than fungoids attacked by mammals). Militarist should always generate lots of extrta rebels while Pacifists a lot less.
Second would be the happiness of the individual pops on the planet before invasion. Pops with 100% happiness would generate lots of rebels. Pops with 80% not as many. Unhappy pops might generate rebels that fight for the invaders if the invaders ethos were similar. Pops generating rebels should decrease in size, over time, depending on how many rebels they are generating. If they got to say 50% (for a 0% happy pop, 75% for a 50% happy pop)of their full size then that would be it. No more rebels from them. The invader could also try to increase happiness of the pops by different means(more autonomy) to stop the generation of rebels.
Once the army vs army phase of the invasion of the planet is over and the invader effectively owns the planet then the now unhappy pops would add to the quantity of the rebels. When espionage is introduced an invader might try, before the invasion, to increase the unhappiness of pops that have similar ethos to their own knowing that when they invade they could be backed by a large rebel army. The owner of a planet might be more willing to purge these unhappy pops if they suspected they were being funded by an unfriendly empire.
Depending on the size of the invaders army, left on the planet, the rebels should be slowly whittled down. Over time the invader takes tile after tile spreading out from the capital until the planet is cleared. On a side note pre-existing tile blockers such as jungle could be made to be much harder to clear, of reberls, by the invading armies. A player might decide to not clear any tile blockers on planets near the enemy frontier knowing that, if invaded, the rebels would last a lot longer. In general I like any idea that can make tile blockers an advantage in certain situations.
When espionage is added to the game any empire might decide to fund the rebels increasing their amount and or also strength of. Imagine Earth having been taken but outside forces supplying us with plasma rifles to fight back with. Conversely espionage could be used to flush out and weaken the rebels. With enough funding the rebels might grow to a size to take back the planet itself. As said previously the owner of such a planet might find it an easier decision to purge certain unhappy pops knowing that they would no longer add to the amount of rebels on the planet.
In conclusion I think that these long invasions would make the splitting up of fleets to defend planets more viable. It would still be effective to keep a blobbed fleet over a planet until all the rebels were wiped out and then move on knowing that even if the enemy came back to invade their would be no rebels to assist in the takeback of the planet.
Players that split their fleets though could have the advantage of multiple worlds invaded and whilst the rebels would take a lot longer to clear out they'd still be denying the production and economy of these planets to the enemy.
Most importantly, to me, would be that the use of war crimes on enemy planets would be more enticing. Clearing rebels by massive purges might have to be seriously considered by traditionally friendlier empires leading to unhappiness on their own planet leading to more rebels if they were in invaded themselves. In the fiercest invasions the planets populations should be greatly reduced making, for decades, the planets less productive for everyone. Maybe the invader would be more likely to force migrate their own pops to these planets. Maybe a ruler with pops of a very different ethos would be more likely to purge or migrate them away knowing they might help the enemy.
Anyways this is an accumulation of many ideas thought up by other people that I hope Paradox gets the time to look at. Being Paradox I know that they will have their own ideas and that on May 9th Stellaris will be a great game and that each year will see it getting greater and greater.
PS it would make my day if a developer read and responded to this!
I like almost everyone here am really excited about the release of this game. It looks fantastic and I know that over the months and years the game will only get better and better. I've read many of these forum posts and watched the Blorg streams and think the only issue with the game that I and some others have is that the ground combat is too fast.
I believe that the conquest of hugely populated planets should take years, even decades, if taken by conventional means(bombardment followed by invasion). Below are some of my thoughts about why(for gameplay reasons) ground combat should take more time and some of the changes I'd like to see added. Nothing that I'm writing is in anyway original and I think everything has been written before in different posts or implemented in different games.
Sorry I'm not providing references but that would just take too long and I only have so much time. I'm fully confident that Paradox have their own plans in place but I've enjoyed writing this and maybe a developer might get some ideas from this.
It should be added that I still want the ground combat to be like EU4 in that it is both simple in what you can do with the armies but complex in how the computer calculates the victor. I've know desire to set army formations.
The biggest reason I want this is to give an advantage to players that split up their fleets. The other is that when I take my enemies home planet I want it to feel as grand and bloody an achievement as it should be. In our own history we have seen Superpowers that have easily destroyed the armies of smaller nations but struggled to supress the rebels and take full control of the production of these nations.
Gameplay reasons why ground combat should take more time :
I believe that if taking a large fully populated planet took years then players would have to divide up their fleets to protect the invaded planet from having the enemy fly in fleets of transports to boost the defenders. The streams have shown the Blorg having two main fleets. One to fight in each theatre of the war. Each fleet has destroyed the fortifications of a system, bombarded the planet and then taken the planet by invasion. What has been very cool in the streams is they then left to invade another system and the AI has come back in and taken back the planet but I'd like invasions to be more bloody and expensive. Also the use of warcrimes would be an easier choice, in the short-term, to make for even the friendliest of empires.
I think if the bombardment took a lot (maybe 4 times) as long it would both give the defender more time to build up their forces in another system to counter-attack and make the attacker more likely to invade before the defences were completely down knowing the counter attack was coming. Here it would still be a big advantage, as it should be, to blob all your fleets to blow the crap out of the defenders fortifications. Aliens with bonusses to ground fighting would now have a bigger advantage as they could land their troops before the fortifications are completely down and move on most of their fleet to the next system hopping from one system to the next. Also fleets at the invaded planet should still be able to reduce fortifications while the invasion is taking place(I think this is true already but I'm not completely sure).
If the ground fighting itself took ages longer(maybe 20 times) then as said before you'd have to leave behind fleets large enough to stop transports being flown in to boost the defending armies. This should work both ways in that if the invaders ground forces see their fleets smashed and then overwhelming forces flown in to help the defenders they should be able to resist longer so that the invader can bring back the fleets and extra transports. I think that invaders should get fortification bonusses themselves that increase with time on the planet and level of success against the defenders.
Ideas to lengthen ground combat
Habitabilty: First off I've not seen it mentioned but armies should be stronger or weaker fighting on different planet types according to that races habitabilty of the planet. The Blorg would fight at 100% on their home planet, 80% on jungle planets and so on. An ocean world race would need a massive army to take over a desert world even with a huge technological advantage. This would give races that are adaptable to living on different planet types another advantage and so the trait for this might have to cost more. Ground Force Strength x habitabilty for the planet. Taking a homeworld (100% strength defenders vs 80% attackers(at best))would be very bloody just as it should be.
Rebels : The first phase of ground combat should be between the invading armies and the defending armies. This should take maybe 5 times as long as it does in the Blorg streams depending on the relative sizes of the armies involved. Once the defending army is defeated the invader would now control the capital and the tiles with the adjaceny bonusses. All other tiles would be covered with Rebel blockers. Gameplay wise the planet has been taken but the invader will still have a lot of fighting to do depending on the amount of rebels generated. Generally this would mean the invaders moving most of their army off the planet but leaving a certain amount to deal with the rebels. The more armies they leave the quicker the rebels are cleared. It should be added that if the planet has unhappy pops with similar ethos to the invader that they should provide their own rebels to fight for the invader. While not too helpful in the first army vs army phase of combat they should be more effective to clearing defending rebels in the next phase of the invasion.
Rebels should be a lot weaker than armies but be harder to clear from planets. They are not a standing army but are blending in with the population. I am thinking they'd have only 20% the power of the defending planets (former)armies but with bonusses or penalties depending on the races ethos, traits and technology. Fanantical Militarist might grant an extra 15%. The trait Strong 10% etc.
The amount of rebels generated should depend on many factors. First the differences in ethos. A fanatical Materialist planet invaded by a fanatical Spiritual empire should generate a massive amount of extra rebels compared to a Materialist attacking a Materialist. Xenophobes/Xenophiles the same, although Xenophobes should get bigger bonusses depending on how different in race the invader(fungoids being attacked by fungoids would generate less rebels than fungoids attacked by mammals). Militarist should always generate lots of extrta rebels while Pacifists a lot less.
Second would be the happiness of the individual pops on the planet before invasion. Pops with 100% happiness would generate lots of rebels. Pops with 80% not as many. Unhappy pops might generate rebels that fight for the invaders if the invaders ethos were similar. Pops generating rebels should decrease in size, over time, depending on how many rebels they are generating. If they got to say 50% (for a 0% happy pop, 75% for a 50% happy pop)of their full size then that would be it. No more rebels from them. The invader could also try to increase happiness of the pops by different means(more autonomy) to stop the generation of rebels.
Once the army vs army phase of the invasion of the planet is over and the invader effectively owns the planet then the now unhappy pops would add to the quantity of the rebels. When espionage is introduced an invader might try, before the invasion, to increase the unhappiness of pops that have similar ethos to their own knowing that when they invade they could be backed by a large rebel army. The owner of a planet might be more willing to purge these unhappy pops if they suspected they were being funded by an unfriendly empire.
Depending on the size of the invaders army, left on the planet, the rebels should be slowly whittled down. Over time the invader takes tile after tile spreading out from the capital until the planet is cleared. On a side note pre-existing tile blockers such as jungle could be made to be much harder to clear, of reberls, by the invading armies. A player might decide to not clear any tile blockers on planets near the enemy frontier knowing that, if invaded, the rebels would last a lot longer. In general I like any idea that can make tile blockers an advantage in certain situations.
When espionage is added to the game any empire might decide to fund the rebels increasing their amount and or also strength of. Imagine Earth having been taken but outside forces supplying us with plasma rifles to fight back with. Conversely espionage could be used to flush out and weaken the rebels. With enough funding the rebels might grow to a size to take back the planet itself. As said previously the owner of such a planet might find it an easier decision to purge certain unhappy pops knowing that they would no longer add to the amount of rebels on the planet.
In conclusion I think that these long invasions would make the splitting up of fleets to defend planets more viable. It would still be effective to keep a blobbed fleet over a planet until all the rebels were wiped out and then move on knowing that even if the enemy came back to invade their would be no rebels to assist in the takeback of the planet.
Players that split their fleets though could have the advantage of multiple worlds invaded and whilst the rebels would take a lot longer to clear out they'd still be denying the production and economy of these planets to the enemy.
Most importantly, to me, would be that the use of war crimes on enemy planets would be more enticing. Clearing rebels by massive purges might have to be seriously considered by traditionally friendlier empires leading to unhappiness on their own planet leading to more rebels if they were in invaded themselves. In the fiercest invasions the planets populations should be greatly reduced making, for decades, the planets less productive for everyone. Maybe the invader would be more likely to force migrate their own pops to these planets. Maybe a ruler with pops of a very different ethos would be more likely to purge or migrate them away knowing they might help the enemy.
Anyways this is an accumulation of many ideas thought up by other people that I hope Paradox gets the time to look at. Being Paradox I know that they will have their own ideas and that on May 9th Stellaris will be a great game and that each year will see it getting greater and greater.
PS it would make my day if a developer read and responded to this!
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