Abstract

This suggestion aims to accomplish three goals:



1. Add more strategic macro depth for players in conquering or defending systems against invasion while working within the existing GUI / game design.

2. Maintain careful game play balance for both SP and MP. Choices must come with advantages and drawbacks, and luck will always be a factor that may help or hinder your capture progress and system quality.

3. Enhance immersion and the sense that you are actually conquering a system, not just changing the color of a flag on the galactic map.



Proposal



Invading fleets can choose to use stratagems to speed the capture of a system over time or cause damage before retreating.

Defenders may choose to use tactics that will delay or even slightly reverse invasion progress.

Players are now effectively able to raid consistently undefended systems, causing damage and retreating or luring the enemy into a fleet fight.



All tactics are available from turn 1; they are improved by technologies but not restricted by them. The tactics represent overall fleet doctrine and not any single individual attack on a planet.



The actions will be decided from the fleet order screen on the main GUI for each system affected and will not involve a new ground invasion game or battle card system. Therefore these improvements should be able to be rapidly adapted for ES and they will maintain focus on the fleet fights in space.



Ruleset



When a fleet chooses to use an invasion strategy a simultaneous timer is generated besides the overall capture progress bar for the target system.

Success of the strategy depends on turns on target, doctrinal improvements from technology, size and armament of the fleet, experience, and presence of a hero.



Essentially the longer you keep a fleet on station, the more progressive damage it does as a hedge against fleets going out and blitzing an empire's economy in a handful of turns. Most importantly this means that all effects, both negative and positive, that will affect a fleet or a system take time and will build momentum the longer the tactic is used until the cap is reached.



No tactics have to be used, they are all optional.



1. If your chosen strategy finishes before the capture bar progresses to 100%, you may attempt another strategy.

2. You can switch tactics each turn at will but it will reset your progress, therefore it pays to stick with one tactic to completion.

3. Only one offensive tactic can be used by all the fleets in orbit at one time. All defensive tactics may be used at once without penalty.

4. All tactics have a small chance of permanently damaging a planet's quality by generating a "battle damage" negative anomaly which could reduce max population, morale, or FIDS.

4a. A battle damage anomaly will overwrite any existing positive anomaly permanently. If desired battle damage can be repaired like any negative anomaly through the planet screen but it will not return an original positive anomaly.



Offensive Tactics (Invaders)



Target Military (Infrastructure)

As the system is captured, the military infrastructure is targeted. Over the next few turns enemy military and fleet buildings have a steadily increasing chance of being destroyed and removed as improvements.



Targeting military structures would allow for an overall faster capture of the system but places the attacker in a vulnerable position against counterattacks. It would be possible to destroy military installations and then to retreat, escaping before defenders arrive.



Drawbacks:

1. Dust cost for heavier siege munitions to break through military grade defenses multiplied by your invasion power.

2. A defensive penalty of up to 25% in fleet battles due to vulnerable positioning over enemy strong points.



Target Civilian Population

As the system is captured, population centers are targeted. Over the next few turns system population has a steadily increasing chance of being diminished on random planets. This tactic will never kill more than 80% of system population.

Random civilian improvements have a small chance of being destroyed each turn as well. The use of this strategy is primarily a terror tactic to damage undefended hostile worlds before retreating.



Drawbacks:

1. Less population for you to use after a successful capture

2. Up to 2x assimilation penalties

3. Diplomatic penalties in your relations with other races

4. A defensive penalty of up to 10% in fleet battles due to vulnerable positioning over enemy population centers.



Target Civilian Infrastructure

As the system is captured, civil infrastructure is targeted. Over the next few turns system improvements have a steadily increasing chance of being destroyed.

1 population unit has a small chance of being destroyed each turn on a random planet.



Drawbacks:

1. Less infrastructure and potentially population for you to use after a successful capture

2. Up to 1.5x assimilation penalties

4. A defensive penalty of up to 10% in fleet battles due to vulnerable positioning over enemy population centers.



Cautious Fleet Positioning

Fleets are positioned defensively in preparation for a fight. As a result ground forces are not supported as effectively.

A steadily increasing defensive bonus of up to 25% is applied to the invader during fleet fights.



Drawbacks:

1. Blockading is up to 50% less effective.

2. System capture takes up to 25% longer.



Defender Tactics



Reminder that all defensive strategies may be used concurrently without penalty.



Scorched Earth

Defenders attempt to leave invaders nothing of value to be exploited during combat.



Up to +10% system defense

Steadily increasing chance of system improvements destroyed each turn



Emergency Conscription

Defenders draft all able body fighters to repel the invaders.



Up to +10% system defense

Steadily increasing chance of population units destroyed each turn



Counter-Strike

All reserves are committed into risky counter-attacks against the invaders.



Up to +15% system defense

Steadily increasing chance of population units destroyed each turn

20% chance of the attack failing each turn used resulting in an immediate 15% invasion power bonus give to the attackers for 3 turns. These can stack without cap if counter-strike fails over and over within the relevant time frame.



Closing Thoughts



My vision for all of this in game play terms is to facilitate more interesting wars on a macro galactic scale. Raiding parties are viable if you can damage enemy planets before retreating if you dont want to actually capture the world yet. Raiding fleets can force the enemy (especially in MP) to counter them which could lead to other strategic opportunities presenting themselves. Invaders damaging your worlds adds new urgency for relieving the siege.



Alternately with system conquest both the attackers and defenders must choose what price they are willing to pay for a system. I would love to be able to look back on x system and think, "Damn! Planet X was a real meat grinder, we're still recovering from that battle. But we fought off the invaders, and that's all that matters."



Finally its key that the balance be such that each strategy has a time and a place to be used, rather than there just being a single overpowered strategy that you use 100% of the time because it makes no sense to realistically use the others. I want to see viable invasion game play choices on the micro level that could affect the way an entire empire vs empire war could play out.



Thank you for your time reading, please let me know what you think.

I think it is a very good idea as it would add a lot of variation to invasion.

+1



Really great ideas, would make the whole Put your Fleet here and wait 10 Turns while fighting some enemy fellts" much mor interestring

Similar to a suggestion I posed a while ago: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12509-new-invasion-model-works-same-as-befoe-but-now-looks-cooler



But more action intensive rather then detail intensive.

Igncom1 wrote:
Similar to a suggestion I posed a while ago: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12509-new-invasion-model-works-same-as-befoe-but-now-looks-cooler



But more action intensive rather then detail intensive.

I see we are thinking along similar lines!



I believe my suggestion will be intuitive if its incorporated in the game. The details are to demonstrate balance in the concept and is no more complex than most other game systems, especially the ones that do hidden calculations. I think people will be able to pretty quickly pick up on it, for example shooting civilians = less population after a victory.

As long as the UI shows the player all the necessary details in a non-confusing way, I will be happy.

That's completely up to the programmers who write the tooltips and update the GUI

And to the forum suggesters who come up with the ideas!

Can anyone think of a way to exploit this suggestion or "break" it? How about the cons to a tactic: is worth using knowing the drawbacks? I'm very interested in fair balance so I would love to hear your thoughts.

Sounds interesting.

I suppose the ability to destroy infrastructure could take out the systems defensive building, making invading extremely easy after a lucky turn.



So they would have to be immune.

I must say am not really a huge fan of this idea. Unless playing this proposal of yours you can take a system in 1 turn depending on luck with cards and rest of factors you described, it has no place (ie: adds nothing) to current gameplay, since nothing stops the player being invaded from simply sending a fleet over to take care of your invasion.



As long as you can't prevent someone from entering a system, it makes no sense to focus on invasion part as the problem solvers are your own fleets, which have 2 advantages over any type of system defense: A) they are mobile B) they get XP and can be upgraded / modified to fit whatever needs you have.



The way the game is designed, fleets are the biggest engine in attacking / defending / area denial / invading.

Anelyn wrote:
I must say am not really a huge fan of this idea. Unless playing this proposal of yours you can take a system in 1 turn depending on luck with cards and rest of factors you described, it has no place (ie: adds nothing) to current gameplay, since nothing stops the player being invaded from simply sending a fleet over to take care of your invasion.



As long as you can't prevent someone from entering a system, it makes no sense to focus on invasion part as the problem solvers are your own fleets, which have 2 advantages over any type of system defense: A) they are mobile B) they get XP and can be upgraded / modified to fit whatever needs you have.



The way the game is designed, fleets are the biggest engine in attacking / defending / area denial / invading.

You misinterpret the intent of this proposal. Defensive strategies will never stop an invasion from succeeding, they are only a delaying tactic to give yourself time to move or create new fleets to win the war in space. Similarly offensive strategies may speed up the attack but at the greater cost of rebuilding when/if you take the system. The real emphasis is on the offensive strategies and the new tactics it opens up on an empire scale, rather than in an individual system. Regardless system invasions is bland and boring in the current iteration. New gameplay in this proposal + new HUD graphics for system invasions could make them much more interesting.



@igncom



Well the way the game seems to be designed is that there is a rough minimum of ~4ishturns to take a system even with a huge invasion mp advantage, presumably to give the defenders a chance to move a fleet and defend. As my system advocates a build up in % chance to destroy a building as the siege goes on each turn, it wouldnt particularly impact the minimum time sieges anyway unless defensive strategies are used to draw it out a couple turns at that point. That means there is always going to be a few turns minimum, + a few turns to build up invasion ability where not much will be different than it is now. This will have more of an impact on planets that you dont completely overwhelm, especially early on, when invasions take 10+ turns to finish. The target military infrastructure idea specifically targets the defense buildings 1 at a time in order to speed up the overall length of the siege in the long run.

I think it sounds grate, making invasion a bigger part of the game is necessary, and the suggestion you proposed is the best, most fun and well balanced I have seen yet on the forum.



This will make the attacker take a active decision in attacking a planet not only, "oh well I'm here so I can do some attacking while I wait"

And as mentioned the buildings would actually do something!

I mean right now everything is the same during the game, not much is changed, only buildings/techs/stuff increasing the time/damage/%/etc and buildings/techs/stuff decreasing the time/damage/%/etc

In general some nice ideas to spice the game up.

I also think there should be the option to wipe out the entire population so you can colonize the planet yourself.

And ofcourse the ability to build starbases wich ofc needs to be researched first.