Planet invasion mechanics

[Ashbery76]

I don't see why the ground combat cannot have more depth.The planet management is pretty light so factors like combat,diplomacy,politics can have more depth.The design goal that was posted looks good but why not take it further.What I don't want it some half baked rubbish like GC3 was released with.

[echo2361]

Any chance we'll be seeing mercenary troops we can hire from neutrals and such? I like the idea of being able to hire a few groups of mercenaries for either when I'm in need of some quick defensive troops or when I want to use them as shock troops. They could be high priced and carry a high maintenance cost to balance them out.

[Arioch]

The ability to hire mercenaries is a planned feature.

[projekcja]

I think that easy and fast invasion is good, as encouraging aggressiveness by allowing quick rewards to be gained is important. Being aggressive entails both risks and costs, when its successful, I'd much rather be rewarded than punished (as in Civilization 4+, where taking an enemy city actually reduces your overall max-pop allowance). I really dislike feeling that I'm strong enough to beat the enemy, but that I have artificial delays on my advancement.

In many other games, the developers fell into a trap of making colony management overly complicated, in that you can/need to build dozens of 'improvements', which makes losing an advanced colony, and then retaking it to see all improvements destroyed, an unacceptably hefty price to pay. In this game, at least so far, I love the fact that colony management is very simple and light. Even if some of the factories/labs were destroyed, I'd still feel that it's perfectly acceptable to have a quick back-and-forth trading of colonies, and would feel far less inclined to 'cheat' by loading a save if I happened to lose an important colony.

The simple economy also means the game can still be fun and playable with a very large number of colonies, while the silly many-improvement-model becomes painfully tedious.

One good way to prevent snowballing is that AIs should be more aggressive towards the strongest empire, while helping weaker empires to advance through trade.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

i think if an important goal is keeping things fast & smooth... ground troop logistics should be abstracted as much as possible, rather than involving a bunch of clicking to pick up units and interior transportation. MoO3 logistics abstraction is a good example.

if a tank (as per design doc) is produced, it could go into a global tank pool. This pool is listed at the top, ala money. Troop transports draw units from this pool and can only do so at a friendly system (with a certain structure? with a space station??). This sort of mechanic could also be used for exotic weapons or super weapons, like say a singularity missile or plague bomb.

the principle drawback of such a system is being able to concentrate forces relatively quickly.

[Arioch]

i think if an important goal is keeping things fast & smooth... ground troop logistics should be abstracted as much as possible, rather than involving a bunch of clicking to pick up units and interior transportation. MoO3 logistics abstraction is a good example.

if a tank (as per design doc) is produced, it could go into a global tank pool. This pool is listed at the top, ala money. Troop transports draw units from this pool and can only do so at a friendly system (with a certain structure? with a space station??). This sort of mechanic could also be used for exotic weapons or super weapons, like say a singularity missile or plague bomb.

the principle drawback of such a system is being able to concentrate forces relatively quickly.

Population and ground units are going to be functionally the same thing, and the location of each is significant, and shouldn't be abstracted. Moving units around should be as simple as possible (and since they use the same mechanisms as population, you should be able to move ground units using transports from the trade pool), but the entire point of introducing distinct ground units (instead of the current abstracted planetary assault force modules) is to require some logistical planning in planetary invasions.

[echo2361]

the entire point of introducing distinct ground units (instead of the current abstracted planetary assault force modules) is to require some logistical planning in planetary invasions.

I agree with this line of thinking. Conquering an entire planet full of aliens should take some serious amounts of logistical planning and preparation. As such, the game play mechanics should reflect this necessary level of complexity.

[Estean]

How about also having a different troop/marine unit for
1. the aquatic planets and
2. for all others.

It always seemed kind of absurd to me that you don´t really need different equipment to capture an aquatic planet as a non-aquatic race.
And aquatic species would definitely also need some special suits for their marines to conquer other planets as well. Or different "tanks" for that matter.
That would also make a nice technology to be implemented into the Tech tree for the races to be able to conquer aquatic planets and vice versa.

[Arioch]

Our idea is to provide "home terrain" bonuses and penalties, which would be more severe for terrestrial races operating in an aquatic environment or vice versa. We plan to start simple with two unit types (colonists/milita and dedicated combat/armor) and then add more specialized units or race-specific units as necessary.

Here are the UI mockups for bombardment and invasion:

[sven]

the entire point of introducing distinct ground units (instead of the current abstracted planetary assault force modules) is to require some logistical planning in planetary invasions.

I agree with this line of thinking. Conquering an entire planet full of aliens should take some serious amounts of logistical planning and preparation. As such, the game play mechanics should reflect this necessary level of complexity.

I think we do want a bit more complexity around the logistics of conquering the galaxy, but that said, I do worry about the late-game micro burden. And I have spent some time day-dreaming about ways that we might be able to work some of TheDeadlyShoe's suggestions into the current ground combat design document. Introducing a global pool mechanic for armor, something roughly similar to the current rules around population transports, would, I think, be possible, if a bit awkward.

But a simpler option is probably to just have some sort of tech-locked abilities that would function within the currently proposed rules, and have a side effect of significantly reducing late-game micro. For example, a tech like "nano-reassemblers" might dramatically reduce the number of armor units destroyed after any battle. And if none of your armored units are lost after invading a planet, then the logistics become far simpler. Similarly, techs that reduced the morale penalties on conquered worlds could cut back on the need to leave units on a conquered planet to suppress rebellions, while techs that improved your militias stats could reduce the need to leave large standing armies on planets for defensive purposes.

So while I do think it's an interesting idea, I also think that if we build the tech tree right, there shouldn't be a lot of need for a global "tanks" resource.

[echo2361]

I like what I'm seeing from Arioch's mockups and hearing from sven's thoughts. Using ever higher levels of technologies to "counter" any concerns about planet invasions dragging on forever in the late game makes sense while still keeping the same basic mechanics in place.

[eltharion]

In some ways I'm a bit masochistic on micro-management in strategy games.
I would like to have a blue-print for each unit, with the ability to create, modify and
update the projects according to the new technologies that are gradually discovered.

The GUI then should allow a certain level of interaction.
Attend a "cold" list of statistics or worse, a simple and dry result, it is not for me.
However, even a result as shown by Arioch could fit, especially for those who do
not want to manage every single battle.

I agree that to conquer a planet must be gradually more and more difficult in function
of its level of population, defense, technology. It should take more rounds
(unless you have an overwhelming supremacy ... like bows and arrows against tanks, finally control the territory it still exerts by the infantry)
in order to give the defense the opportunity to bring reinforcements to the besieged planet
(that may repel the invaders) if possible.

However you are creating a nice game, congratulations.

P.S.
My apologies for my poor English proficiency.

[Big Imp]

One word "keep it simple" and don't bog it down with micro management.

[Devildogff]

That's any more words than one, Imp