Thats something i am curious about too. Overall ground battles needs some spice, so far all 4X space strategy games have failed on making ground combat interesting. The above info sound promising buta cutscene or battle plays like the space would be nice. (Still pray for EL ground combat on ES2...:()

Looks really great. Invasions were kinda lacking in Endless Space 1, and Disharmonies Ground Troops made Invasions even more awkward. A manpower resource mechanic with different troop types to have battles really does sound great. That being said, it sounds like raising troops will only be based on manpower, but it should, especially for the mechanized troop types, require some degree of industry too. Also, how will troop type countering work?

Any chance we'll hear more about what Tanks and Planes do differently than Troops? Is there an advantage in circumstances? Or is it just a stats thing?

Steph'nie wrote:
Instant generation

In case of emergency, the player has two options to get a huge amount of Manpower in a short time:

• Locally, it can use an instant action that turns a part of growth stock into manpower. The taken growth is equivalent to the last population point. The improvement tooltip needs to feedback the output of Manpower.
• Empire-wide: a button is available next to the Manpower gauge. Using it costs Influence, and will consume one population on all systems to generate Manpower. Hovering the button need to display the gain of Manpower, visually on the gauge and numerically just below.

Why would I need to make costly empire-wide generation, when i could manually press every system's local generation button?

Steph'nie wrote:
BESIEGING

When orbiting an opponent’s system (that the player is at war with), a siege is automatically triggered. A system under siege suffers from:

• The same consequences as a blockade
• The loss of system defence every turn
  
  
  • If the system defence is null: there is loss of Manpower

The system’s loss is based on the orbiting Manpower: the more military power the higher the loss suffered by the defender.

So, blockading is essentially a besieging, but without a manpower in orbit?

Steph'nie wrote:


Manpower is an empire resource produced on systems like Dust and Prestige.

Is this some kind of new resource? I don't recall it in previous GDDs.





P.S. It's good to have another fresh GDD after more then month without new information, but... is this the last one? When will there be smth new on the wiki?

now that we finally got a troop system

what about spacemarines

and in connection to that a new weapon for pirates to make them even more of a nuisance Harpoons and boarding parties so that a lost battle against pirates doesnt only mean less ships for you but actually more pirates to go against?

i would definitely like this more than pirates randomly spawning in everywhere around the galaxy

Hmmm - the ships in the first artwork kind of remind me of the blurry image of the next unrevealed race on the wiki - with their angular metallic look and blue highlights. The hooded individual in the second picture does a bit too, although he seems to have four eyes rather than six (I'm not entirely certain the picture is of a face though). Perhaps we're looking at the next faction here - maybe one with some kind of bonus to invasions (wither defensive or offensive)?



I might be overthinking it though. I am kind of desperate to find out more about the remaining factions so maybe I'm just seeing things...

INSTANT GENERATION



I may not want to reduce my population. I would like to be able to consume only the difference between my current population level X and the next level (X+1). It would reset my population growth to point 0 progress until the next point, but wouldn't upset my economy.



First "draft population for manpower" would consume 50% progress to next population point, OR reset progress to 0%, whichever is smaller. If I press a second time, it would consume the remaining progress. If I click it and progress is already at 0%, it would reduce my population level and take away 50% progress towards the population level.





TROOPS/GROUND/FLYING



I don't like the troops/mechanized/airborne division in terms of tech levels. I'd rather have a rock/paper/scissors mechanics where one system overshadows the other in efficiency.



TROOPS - Not only humans on foot, but also mecha and submarines. Their extra mobility and hideability lends itself well to hit-and-run strategies, and they can easily shoot down birds from safe hiding positions. Good against airborne.

GROUND-LEVEL - Rolling large units not only on land, but also naval. They are large and they exchange the nimbleness of troops for sheer size and destructive power. Good against troops.

AIRBORNE - Airplanes! Their air mobility makes it easier for them to pinpoint targets and blow them to smithereens. Good against Ground Level Units.



Spaceships would have an invasion strength which is a representation of the amount of deployable equipment for land battles.

By default it would be a 33%/33%/33% split. Technology would allow to skew to one number or another. The more you can skew, the more you can counter the enemy formation.

Technology also will give better efficiency in terms of how much manpower is spent on each incursion battle, on both offense and defense.

Imagine a super nerd controlling a horde of mechas, like ... a simulation game! Better training & parts results in one nerd doing more for the military.



INVASION COST OVER TIME



OFFENSIVE MANPOWER - Technology & invasion modules dictate how much manpower is carried, how much needs to stay manning the ship, & how much of the surplus is spent on each encounter. A ship with depleted manpower cannot invade anymore, it must replenish.

TROOPS - As stated, technology should allow both offense and defense to skew their numbers towards the RPS types of troops to attempt to get the upper hand in the battles.

PIRATES, MERCS - I would like to hire mercs & pirates to get extra manpower in invasions. This could have a negative effect such as increased chance of destroying facilities if the hiring side wins.



HERO SK33LZ - Heroes which can smuggle past a blockade/besiege should be able to replenish manpower by importing it from neighboring systems as well, to make it harder to fall.

It all depends on implementation, but Ground Battles look good to me.



I do think control of the system should vary depending on your invasion choices though. If you slaughter almost all the population and burn down the buildings, why wouldn't you have 100% ownership?



So will races with bonuses to food have a distinct advantage? I imagine a science based race will have upgrades to help ground battles. Industry based races will be like the sowers and increase manpower based off of production. How will it work for dust based races? Can you buy manpower through the black market? I think a way to level the playing field would be to base manpower on happiness as well instead of purely on population. It works quite well thematically. In fact, warlike race traits could alleviate the happiness fallout, while peaceful traits could make it stronger.

This Manpower system looks good.

It is easily understand for the system, but can you explain something more about the attacker manpower?

- Is it loss when attacking?

- Can ships with modules regenerate its manpower each turn? Or need to go back to a friendly system?

Really like that manpower in a resource.I would also think invasion should be multi turn resolution.The ES1 expansion ground combat's instant invasions made the game very easy particularly against the A.I that did not understand how the play the system very well.

Personally I think the biggest question we should be asking is this: Will we be getting cinematic visuals for the battles? Or something weaker. After reading the post I can say it looks like ground battles with cinematic visuals but it is not clearly stated that this is the case, and therefore cannot be totally confirmed. Also you reference troop types, does this mean we will get to design our own ground units ala Endless Legend? Or will they be based off of presets equipped with the latest tech that you choose off of a list. Other than those two things I love this idea, especially the manpower mechanic since it will limit ship production and hopefully help mitigate the large ship spam we see in the original Endless Space.

Hi everyone,

You've read the title right. :) Here's our game design document on Ground Battles in Endless Space 2!


RATIONALE

The goal is to create a minimalist system with very few player actions, but very significant impact on the overall strategic choices of the game.
The ground battle starts by building the empire’s army from the population living in a system, and will conclude through epic battles that will last a few turns in order to capture that system.


MANPOWER, TROOPS & SYSTEM DEFENCE

GENERATING MANPOWER
Manpower represents the conscription of the population to man the empire’s army. It’s used to fill the spaceships' crews and especially resolving ground invasions.
Generating Manpower is going to consume the growth of the empire, slowing down its development. We really want to make wars a population sink that will make the economy of involved empires plummet if it lasts for too long.


Passive Generation
We’ve added to the empire a new resource called “Manpower”. This resource is filled thanks to growth from systems every turn. All systems will have an upkeep based on the manpower max limit of the empire, which will slow down their growth and even make them lose population.

Instant generation
In case of emergency, the player has two options to get a huge amount of Manpower in a short time:

• Locally, it can use an instant action that turns a part of growth stock into manpower. The taken growth is equivalent to the last population point. The improvement tooltip needs to feedback the output of Manpower.
• Empire-wide: a button is available next to the Manpower gauge. Using it costs Influence, and will consume one population on all systems to generate Manpower. Hovering the button need to display the gain of Manpower, visually on the gauge and numerically just below.

TROOPS
There are 3 types of troops:

• Infantry
• Ground vehicles (“tanks”)
• Flying vehicles (“planes”)

Each type has a different attribute which defines their efficiency and cost.


Upgrading troops
Thanks to technologies, the player can unlock two types of improvements for their troops to:

• Improve their stats
• Unlock bonuses against specific troop types
• Modulate the repartition of newly-generated troop types

At the beginning, players start with infantry only (so 100% of the manpower will be turned into infantry), and then by unlocking the technology they will be able to adjust the ratio. If 1 infantry technology and 1 tank technology are unlocked, troops will split equally, with 50% of the Manpower going to infantry and 50% to tanks.

Population impact
In addition to the technology, the different populations can provide bonuses to troops, either on damages, health or effectiveness against another type of troops.
In order to unlock the bonuses, the empire needs to maintain a certain number of this population within its systems. If the population goes below the threshold, the bonus is deactivated.


System’s Defence
Defence allows protection for the system against invasions, and provides bonuses to the troops during battles. Each system is going to generate troops by itself when attacked depending on the local Manpower stock and the current population count.

The attacker can besiege the system to lower the defence before engaging the invasion, or attack it directly but will then face buffed troops.


INVASION FLOW

BESIEGING
When orbiting an opponent’s system (that the player is at war with), a siege is automatically triggered. A system under siege suffers from:

• The same consequences as a blockade
• The loss of system defence every turn
  
  • If the system defence is null: there is loss of Manpower

The system’s loss is based on the orbiting Manpower: the more military power the higher the loss suffered by the defender.


STARTING AN INVASION
In order to trigger an invasion a player needs:

• To orbit an opponent system without owned/allied fleet protecting it
• The system not to be under invasion already
• To have at least one ship with invasion modules in orbit
• To have more than 0 Manpower

Tactical Choices
Before the battle, both the defender and the attacker can choose between different tactical choices. These choices will affect the proceedings of the battle, by providing bonuses to troops, involving some risk/rewards. Thanks to these choices, players will be able to modulate the length of the invasion, or surrender to protect the system in order to be able to take it back undamaged.
As they are part of the ground battle notification, players will be able to adapt to the situation every turn.



COMPUTING THE INVASION
First, we instantiate the troops for both sides, based on their empire ratio. The visual of the troops is based on the population living in the empire, but has no gameplay consequences.

Then, we compute the bonuses based on:

• The hero skills (both the hero in orbit or on the system provide bonuses to their side)
• The system properties
• The orbiting fleets: some module allows preventive bombing or support troops on the field

The battle is divided into rounds, during which troops will attack each other. We consider 1 stack per type in terms of resolution and not each unit individually. Each type of troop is going to deal damage to all types of troops in the opposing side.
The number of rounds will vary depending on the tactical decision taken by the attacker, meaning a ground battle could last more or less turns based on that.

Computing damages
When a stack of units attacks another stacks, it generates X damages. X is the sum of damages computed for each units of the stack. A unit deals damage, randomly between its min and max damage values.

Improvement destruction
For each round, we compute a probability of losing an improvement on the invaded system. This probability depends on the troop’s types, the system’s improvement, and the tactical decisions taken at the beginning of the turn.


INVASION REPORT
At the end of the battle, the report displays the loss of troops for both sides, and the consequences on the system (population loss and improvement destroyed).

If both sides are still alive, the attacker can click on a button to continue the invasion: at the beginning of the next turn, an invasion notification will be generated, allowing both players to choose their strategy and start a new invasion process.
If new ships arrived in orbit, they will be able to reinforce their side by dropping their manpower to generate new troops on the battlefield.

If the attacker wins, the system is captured:

• Ownership is set based on the previous empire’s ownership value and will climb towards 100.
• The previous owner ownership will decrease turn by turn until reaching zero.

VIP FEEDBACK

The mechanics of manpower is a bit unclear.

Manpower is an empire resource produced on systems like Dust and Prestige. Producing ships and defence improvements will consume this stock to fill their local Manpower (used to solve the ground battle).
As long as your storage on the empire is not full, you will generate Manpower; meaning that while you continuously produce Manpower, if you keep producing ships, it will require more Manpower than you are able to generate.

It would be interesting to have means to create Manpower without consuming growth (robots)

The initial rationale of the Manpower is to exhaust empires if the war lasts too long. We want the Manpower to affect the economy by starving the population. However, that's an interesting idea that we will look at, especially for the late game.

Using research to manage your "mix" of ground units seems odd.

We will look into a better way to exert control over that part.

Please no "unit designer" for ground troops! (If there's 3D models at all)

There won’t be one. We don’t want to push the micro to this level; there are only three troop types, with stats managed at a high level.

It could be interesting to have troop’s efficiency altered by the planets where the battle occurs.

We’re not fond of this lead as it could generate lots of contextual micromanagement. We’d prefer if the player focused on adapting the troops to counter the opponent’s empire composition.


We look forward to reading your feedback!

i have a feeling that it might look like star wars empire at war in terms of the space/land battles dynamic except in turn based style. you deploy your forces on the ground and off they go to attack the enemy base.

GrendelHime wrote:
Hmmm - the ships in the first artwork kind of remind me of the blurry image of the next unrevealed race on the wiki - with their angular metallic look and blue highlights. The hooded individual in the second picture does a bit too, although he seems to have four eyes rather than six (I'm not entirely certain the picture is of a face though). Perhaps we're looking at the next faction here - maybe one with some kind of bonus to invasions (wither defensive or offensive)?



I might be overthinking it though. I am kind of desperate to find out more about the remaining factions so maybe I'm just seeing things...

These ships are almost like sophons yet more modern human design like..... Pilgrims.

I'm glad to see another resource introduced because it gives more ways to vary gameplay. Someone could have a strategy based on having high manpower armies and invasions while another maybe has a way to lower your manpower without being in war(i hope). The more ways you can interact with your opponent (besides just getting more FIDS than them) the better.

I don't really understand how manpower is different from ?

A war should wear a country's industry capacities ?

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:
I don't really understand how manpower is different from ?

A war should wear a country's industry capacities ?

It is a separate element altogether, like Dust and Industry would be.



Manpower can be thought of as dedicated troop supply. Industry can be thought of as dedicated... Um, industry. I'll be honest, that one kinda got away from me.

Romeo wrote:
It is a separate element altogether, like Dust and Industry would be.



Manpower can be thought of as dedicated troop supply. Industry can be thought of as dedicated... Um, industry. I'll be honest, that one kinda got away from me.

They said there's no multireserve anymore but you have a dust reserve and now a "manpower" reserve and diplomatic reserve with .

I can't really figure what this is trying to represent: typically, Manpower can't stack. You can stack food.

You can't stack science, industry or diplomatic power.



I understand that "unemployed" population (aka non dust, non food, non industry, non science and non diplomatics) can produce manpower but I don't know how to stack that. It's a day to day resource. You can stack troops or civil servants but it should consume population, and be a dust faucet, no ?



Say burn a population point to produce 10 manpower and each manpower point eat 1 dust/turn ?



I'm trying to understand what it is and how it works :/