Stellaris needs to focus more on planets and less on space. Fight me.

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Drowe

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Allow me to recall my analogy, though: Why didn't we nuke Vietnam? I think the game could benefit from having de-escalated ground wars with fewer political and humanitarian ramifications. When the fleets come out, that should be the equivalent of launching all your ICBMs at the enemy. They are undeniably weapons of mass destruction (modulated somewhat but your bombardment policy), and unless you're deploying them in self-defense, the galactic community won't look kindly. Unless you're fanatic xenophobe or militaristic, your OWN PEOPLE won't look kindly. And the collateral damage can be devastating, especially if you're bombarding rebels on a world also housing loyalists. This gives ground war a definite niche, especially against rebel partisans and primitives (probably less likely to happen between two space empires).
The US didn't want to conquer Vietnam, they intervened on one side of a civil war. Nuking Vietnam would have hit both sides of the conflict, and friendly fire is an easy way to turn allies against you.

Counter question, why did you nuke Japan? At that point the Allies had already won the war, all they had to do was a ground invasion, worked on D-Day against Germany. And Japan could just have been blockaded, they didn't have a fleet left and weren't a real threat anymore. The reason was, Japan refused to capitulate and an invasion would have been too costly, not only for the invaders, but also for the defenders. The two bombs may have killed about 200.000 people, but an invasion would have killed millions.

Edit:
Also that analogy misses the point entirely. When you have two equally powerful island nations, where one has the more powerful navy and air force while the other one has superior ground forces, the one with the superior navy and air force will win. It may be too costly to invade, but destroying infrastructure and industry is enough to ensure the result, it's just a matter of time.

Even if you introduce the ability for planets to shoot orbiting fleets, which is not a particular realistic or practical way to defend a planet, as long as you can't attack my planets you can't win. That's the main reason why wars in space always are decided by fleets and not by ground troops.
 
Last edited:

Latheloi

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It simply doesn't make sense to say "we now control this planet" without the ability to project immediate physical control on the surface. Yes, the overwhelming orbital force clearly has a dominant position, and it is entirely reasonable to say that the ability to dominate the surface through bombardment is the most important.

But for anything short of a primary tactic of "glass everything" and build from new there needs to be some form of ground contestation.

And it needs to make for actually interesting game play (which also means not time consuming and repetitive).

I think something that was more decision based (both in advance of wars, and during) around levels of militarisation of planets (for defenders) and approaches to taking the planets (for attackers). While I don't think that it should be possible to win a war through ground control, I think it should be possible to tarpit an enemy who wants to control planet surfaces as well as space. Likewise, I think a rapid strike supported by troops and ships to take control of the central administration of a planet against a foe who has fleet superiority but isn't in a position to intercept you should be a plausible dynamic (which isn't possible at the moment because of how defensiveness works until the very late game).

(for a related dynamic from a different game - I used to love being able to force surrenders in Medieval Total War with high dread generals, and generating that dread with plenty of atrociousness against cities who refused to surrender).


Perhaps some sort of ground miltary budget, rather than actual units might work as a way of avoid micromanagement. So you could allocate a little or a lot of funding, and focus on planetary defence, or troops primaily intended for invasion, or a mixture etc
 

Kayden_II

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Her'es that, if you care to read it:

You have to handle 100+ Worlds and You want to split these Worlds even further into "Continents" and more Stuff like This ? ...
Maybe, It's exciting in the Case of Having only a few Worlds, but in Stellaris, It's too micro-heavy and Therefore: Boring ! ...

Empire-Wide Policies and Edicts or Species-Wide Rights or ETC. are the Kinds of Stuff, Which is working for Stellaris ...
In Fact, It makes more Sense to simplify the Handling of single Worlds.
 

Daphne24

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I think they focus on space, as that is what many sci-fi TV shows and movies focus on. A lot of the science exploration sequences sound like the plots of Star Trek episodes, and that is a big fandom. I kind of like it because it creates more flavor. Though I would like some more variety in recreational/society buildings, so we could create a pleasure sector like Risa.
 

krios41

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The reason why a game where most empires have multiple planets focuses more on space than ground combat is, that wars are decided in space. If one participant in a war has ships and the other one doesn't, the one with ships has won regardless of how powerful the ground armies are.
i strongly disagree. Look at earth today, are we dependant on things from out space? nope, we're not, and if suddenly a massive fleet from an alien race hung above our planet then we'll panick, but we won't be lost, as long as we can defeat their land troops we're stil not lost. It's a stalemate at best.
 

Tim_Ward

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"Hundreds of planets" might be a red herring, but at around 1-2 dozen planets I start losing track of what's going on. His numbers are off, his core reason isn't.

Fair enough, though the sector UI does make it very difficult to track what is going on outside your core worlds.
 

Drowe

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i strongly disagree. Look at earth today, are we dependant on things from out space? nope, we're not, and if suddenly a massive fleet from an alien race hung above our planet then we'll panick, but we won't be lost, as long as we can defeat their land troops we're stil not lost. It's a stalemate at best.
A stalemate is defined as a situation in which neither side can make any gains. This situation is not a stalemate, we can't make any gains, they can if they are willing. All they have to do is start bombarding us.

Once they start bombarding us, even if it is just light bombardment with non nuclear kinetic impactors, our industrial capacity drops while theirs stays the same or is even growing. They could mine asteroids to make up for expended ammunition, if they want to they can build a shipyard here and produce more ships. If they have interstellar flight they probably can build drones or robots. Even if we had the technology to build the same, we will never be able to make up for our losses and repair the damage too. Inevitably our industrial capacity will no longer be able to keep up with our losses.
 

krios41

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A stalemate is defined as a situation in which neither side can make any gains. This situation is not a stalemate, we can't make any gains, they can if they are willing. All they have to do is start bombarding us.

Once they start bombarding us, even if it is just light bombardment with non nuclear kinetic impactors, our industrial capacity drops while theirs stays the same or is even growing. They could mine asteroids to make up for expended ammunition, if they want to they can build a shipyard here and produce more ships. If they have interstellar flight they probably can build drones or robots. Even if we had the technology to build the same, we will never be able to make up for our losses and repair the damage too. Inevitably our industrial capacity will no longer be able to keep up with our losses.
That's why (if this situation was even remotly realistic, because let's be honest, ti's not xD) We'd move underground where the bombs can't reach us. We'd construct large Anti ship battery's to shoot back. sure they can bomb us and it won't look good for us. But controlling space isn't a garantee to win. In the case where we had more planets, we'd just call in reinforcements and then it's a matter of keeping the invaders from controlling the ground until back-up can arrive.
 

PirateJack

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That's why (if this situation was even remotly realistic, because let's be honest, ti's not xD) We'd move underground where the bombs can't reach us. We'd construct large Anti ship battery's to shoot back. sure they can bomb us and it won't look good for us. But controlling space isn't a garantee to win. In the case where we had more planets, we'd just call in reinforcements and then it's a matter of keeping the invaders from controlling the ground until back-up can arrive.

Assuming even a fleet made up of starting corvettes, a planet-bound civilisation of our level of advancement wouldn't stand a chance. They could launch meteorites at us from the asteroid belt with casual ease. They wouldn't even need to enter orbit until the majority of the population is dead and the rest are cowering in caves.
 

Kat Tsun

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Assuming even a fleet made up of starting corvettes, a planet-bound civilisation of our level of advancement wouldn't stand a chance. They could launch meteorites at us from the asteroid belt with casual ease. They wouldn't even need to enter orbit until the majority of the population is dead and the rest are cowering in caves.

Or just dead, because they threw a dinosaur killer at the Earth or something and killed off 80-90% of the biosphere.

GG planet theorists.
 

tangled axile

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The idea came around that this would be Bad, because Stellaris is a game about space and should focus on space.

Just gonna focus on this, b/c that is VERY far from the only objection you got.

I actually agree that there should be more focus on planets, making them important, making them feel interesting and memorable.

But, your proposed continents system wouldn't do that at all, would have little to no benefit, and would requrie gutting and overhauling huge amounts of code for the negligible benefits.

I'll go ahead and say here what I said there:

First of all, purely on the fluff level, I have to say that using a "continents" system for non-"Continental" worlds makes the whole planet type system even dumber and even more contradictory than it already is. And that's REALLY saying something.

On the mechanical level... I don't even know where to start. The more I think about how implementation of this would work, the worse it all gets.

Let's just note, though, that literally the only benefit of this is split-control planets, okay? Whether it's split-control due to rebel uprising, multiple empires, or native species, that's the only part of this that adds anything of any value. All of the extreme overhauls and immense amount of work that would be necessary in order to implement this would literally just be for that one mechanic.

GROUND WAR AND REBELS

Now, prima facie, this continents system might sound like it'd enhance wars - but it really, really doesn't.

Effectively, you've just split up each planet into 3-5 mini-planets. So what's the mechanical difference between invading a planet as is, and invading a continent? The assault armies don't have to go to space, travel between worlds, or be defended from a spaceport if they're moving from continent to continent. That's all.

And it gets worse. Now, each garrison is split up into 3-5 mini garrisons, which can't reinforce each other, because reasons. So this'll require a massive rebalance of all armies' cost, maintenance, and power, to deal with the fact that suddenly each planet has, effectively, 1/3 to 1/5th of its original garrison.

But wait! There's more! And it's still bad. For 'ground wars' without orbital bombardment to be feasible at all, they'd have to massively rework or completely scrap the whole concept of orbital bombardment and fortification.

Again, all this is literally ONLY for the purpose of having some planets where different parts of the planet are controlled by different people.

And space empires can just throw more armies at the problem from off-world until they can fully take the planet - so during wars, the split-control thing is VERY much a temporary state, and really doesn't fundamentally change the existing ground-war system. Either you can seize the whole planet, or no territory changes hands at all. Just like the present system.

Oh, and for rebels? Same deal. Either one side has enough to take the whole planet, or no territory changes hands. Just like the present system.

COLONIZATION AND BORDERS

multiple empires can try to colonize the same planet on different continents

Okay, so, how the fuck is this supposed to work?

Is it happening during the gap between contact and communications? If so, it's literally only going to work if both sides are pacifists stuck with peaceful first contact protocols - anyone else is going to treat this as war and attack to try and seize sole control of the planet/system, that's ALWAYS in their best interests rather than let the stranger try to steal some territory. Just like how it works in the current system if you'd try to colonize a different planet in someone else's system during that gap (and, just like that scenario, it'd be extremely rare to begin with).

Otherwise, are you just going to be colonizing within someone else's borders? Do I really have to say that enabling that is a terrible idea? Are you going to try to colonize one of their newer planets WHILE AT WAR? Are you going to have a total rework of the border system just to allow this to happen more often?

On top of that, are we going to have to micro every single small planet to be sure there's at least one pop on each 'continent,' just so that they're all 'claimed,' to prevent other people from popping in to colonize? Sure sounds like it! That's a ton of REALLY annoying micro.

Overall, this whole multiple-colonization deal is really, really not workable in practice.

SPLIT CONTROL IN PEACETIME

So, we can presume that usually these split-control planets would come about for the same reasons that split-control systems can already occur - only part of the system changing hands in peace talks, or primitives in the system.

First off, I gotta say that actually taking individual continents from war goals would be super annoying. 3 to 5 times the number of clicks required while making demands. Yet more hemming and hawwing over what specifically to take. Way, way more cases of split-control systems.

And what advantage does this part have over the existing system? None at all. Split-control systems are already possible; the only change is that now every inhabitable planet is treated as a collection of mini-planets, and every single inhabited system can end up split-control. More micro, and the only difference between this and literally splitting every habitable planet into 3-5 planets is the weird awkward spaceport limitation. It is literally only for the fluff; mechanically it's similar to worse in every way.

As far as primitives go... this literally just provides a ""peaceful"" means of invading their planet. (Or, a more up-close-and-personal version of colonizing a different planet in their home system.) Not an improvement.

Overall, this is just would require massive amounts of work and rebalancing, add a ton of micro and otherwise make mechanics worse, for the sole 'benefit' of having the fluff of a planet that has different empires controlling different parts of it. This is a really, really bad idea. 0/10​
 

HeinzHarald

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I would love to see something a bit closer to Vic2, but I believe it should be done by expanding/changing the Factions system. It's not about ground vs space in my opinion, it's about letting citizens play a larger role (without adding micro management).
 

extrapancake

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Or just dead, because they threw a dinosaur killer at the Earth or something and killed off 80-90% of the biosphere.

Thats kind of like winning a chess game by flipping over the board. If they actually want to use the planet and possibly its people, they need to do more than just blow everything up. Controlling the "high ground" is a big advantage, but that doesnt mean the fights over, the defenders also have an advantage when it comes to logistics and knowledge of the battlefield. We could possibly just cause enough damage that they decide its not worth the effort and move on.

I guess if they just want to blow up the earth for whatever reason though then yeah we are done for.
 

krios41

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Assuming even a fleet made up of starting corvettes, a planet-bound civilisation of our level of advancement wouldn't stand a chance. They could launch meteorites at us from the asteroid belt with casual ease. They wouldn't even need to enter orbit until the majority of the population is dead and the rest are cowering in caves.
Or just dead, because they threw a dinosaur killer at the Earth or something and killed off 80-90% of the biosphere.

GG planet theorists.
-my point-->
-----------your head-----------
 

Kat Tsun

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Thats kind of like winning a chess game by flipping over the board. If they actually want to use the planet and possibly its people, they need to do more than just blow everything up. Controlling the "high ground" is a big advantage, but that doesnt mean the fights over, the defenders also have an advantage when it comes to logistics and knowledge of the battlefield. We could possibly just cause enough damage that they decide its not worth the effort and move on.

I guess if they just want to blow up the earth for whatever reason though then yeah we are done for.

It's more akin to putting up the chess set and playing Risk or Monopoly instead.

If planets and deep space were equivalent to towns and plains, this would be correct. You'd inevitably need to control towns by traversing through plains to get to them, towns are the only things worth fighting for and the plains are just a means to get to towns, and towns would be able to fight back. But it's not the case. We don't really know what advantages having deep space would bring to attackers or defenders because it's never been done before. At best, we know that orbital space is more or less "the air but higher," and it can bring absolute ruination upon an entire civilization with nuclear weapons (the only war an air force wins by itself is a war of extermination). About the space between the Earth and Mars? Who knows? No one's had a chance to fight a war on Mars.

Realistically, why would they want to use Earth at all? Since planets are generally economic autarkies (a planet which isn't an autarky is a biosphere collapse/mass extinction event), they are generally not dependent on trade, so why would they need to acquire additional planets?

They probably can't eat our food, or breathe our air, and if they fly through space they clearly don't need our women, or our slave labour. Destroying the biosphere then, is probably a massive boon for them, because they could later engineer it to support their own forms of life. Crushing microbes is easier than crushing industrial civilization. Especially when the microbes are harmless to you, unlike a nuclear bomb.

Making aliens that are compatible with human understanding of life is just a way of translating human sociopolitical commentary into a new, fantastic setting to examine it and toy with it. It's not really clear why this would be the case in real life, though. All reasonable assumptions say it would be truly unimaginable, as no one has managed to accurately predict the far future before.
 
Last edited:

Drowe

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That's why (if this situation was even remotly realistic, because let's be honest, ti's not xD) We'd move underground where the bombs can't reach us. We'd construct large Anti ship battery's to shoot back. sure they can bomb us and it won't look good for us. But controlling space isn't a garantee to win. In the case where we had more planets, we'd just call in reinforcements and then it's a matter of keeping the invaders from controlling the ground until back-up can arrive.
Building underground shelters with room for 7 billion people is such an enormous effort, that we could never even begin. The massive amount of construction needed would be more than everything humanity has ever built, in its entire history, combined. I don't even want to speculate how expensive that would be. All that, just so in case of an attack everyone would be safe. So building something like that is for all intents and purposes impossible.

Assuming against all odds, we had such an extensive underground shelter system, the logistics of getting even a fraction of the total human population into them is a nightmare. Evacuating just a single city is difficult enough and usually takes weeks or months. And that's with help from outside. In many cases you can't build shelters close to where the people are, you would have to move them there, which takes time that you don't have. So even if you had the shelters getting everyone into them would be impossible with the time you'd have.

Should you somehow solve that problem, you run straight into the next one. How are you going to feed 7 billion people? Even assuming you had vast stockpiles of non-perishable food, building up those stockpiles would take much longer than consuming them. And even if you had a stockpile that could last years, it would eventually run out because you can't grow crops underground, at least not in any appreciable quantities.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Taking shelter is simply not an option.

Next is shooting back. None of our military can fight anything in space effectively. Only if the invaders actually tried to land troops would we have any chance of attacking them. Air forces would be the first line of defence. Let's assume they don't have a too big technological advantage over us, so they won't have shields or any kind of weapon system we couldn't build ourselves. Additionally they won't expect us to fight back, just to give us an advantage. So the first wave of landing craft will get taken out by our fighter jets, what remains of their first wave pulls back to their troop ships. Now they got a bloody nose they will analyse the situation, note where the fighters came from and bomb those pesky airbases to rubble. They will also attack and destroy every aircraft carrier and the ships close to them. Next they will launch a decoy invasion with the intent of drawing the remaining fighter jets out, if none are left the decoy invasion will proceed as normal, and at least some of them will get destroyed by AA guns and ground troops. The response will be a quick attack from orbit to wipe those installations and troops out. But some troops will make it to the ground, though to avoid too many losses, most of the transports are empty and will return if they don't encounter resistance to pick up troops. Now they can land in force, likely targets are vast areas with low population density, to consolidate forces far from any resistance. Once they are on the ground, they will be incredibly hard to defeat. At that point, launching nuclear missiles would be the only option to get rid of them. But that requires us to know where they are, which is difficult because they will definitely have destroyed all satellites, and air surveillance is not an option either. But at least some of the forces could be located and destroyed by land based nuclear missiles (submarines need satellites to communicate over long distances), provided they don't get shot down before they can detonated. The idea of doing that isn't new, and we do have the capability to build space based weapons that could intercept ballistic missiles (cruise missiles don't work due to lack of GPS). It will get progressively worse from there. Any time they encounter resistance, they can call in an orbital strike. All we can do is delay the inevitable at that point and the longer the fighting goes on, the more the civilians will suffer. How long do you think it will take before governments start to capitulate either because they see the futility of resisting or because a faction with that view will take over and surrender?

And those fancy anti-ship batteries, even if we could build them, each would only be able to fire once, before getting destroyed by an orbital strike.

You'll note, that bombardment was kept to the bare minimum. No strikes at civilian targets, no attack on industry or infrastructure, airports excluded. Only militarily relevant targets get attacked. Just how bad would it get if the invaders were more aggressive and pragmatic.

TL;DR
Building underground shelters for 7 billion people is impossible.
If you have them anyway, getting the people into the shelters takes too long.
If you get them in anyway, they will run out of food.

Fighting an opponent that controls orbit is delaying them at best, the side with spaceships will win.
 
Last edited:

krios41

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Fighting an opponent that controls orbit is delaying them at best, the side with spaceships will win.
I can't realy elaborate more on my side of the argument as i'm out of arguments that make sence for the time being, just know that i disagree with you and that i'm firmly of opinion that, in order to properly win, you need boots on the ground.
 

Drowe

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I can't realy elaborate more on my side of the argument as i'm out of arguments that make sence for the time being, just know that i disagree with you and that i'm firmly of opinion that, in order to properly win, you need boots on the ground.
I understand why you want that to be the case. The idea of either brave space marines or the valiant planetary defenders, is just appealing. And what you know about how we fight wars on earth is also influencing how you think wars on an interplanetary scale would be fought.

I'm not saying boots on the ground aren't necessary to hold a planet, without them as soon as the fleet leaves the planet would just do as it pleases. In our case we would immediately start building orbital defences. And when they come back we can actually fight them on more equal terms.

When it comes to the defence of a planet, not letting an invading fleet close to the planet in the first place is a way better strategy than trying to fight from the ground.