I like the idea of ground based war but I have a couple points to note.



Firstly, this would have to play into the whole debate about how to assimilate systems (Exterminate, Assimilate, or Enslave). After all, If Earth was attacked by an alien race, I'd be very unmotivated to work etc. I think that waiting the system out would preserve the pop's moral and lead to a more productive, and happier, system.



Secondly, It seems to me that you'd end up destroying the system improvements I like finding installed on my new planets. You'd have to rebuild everything you destroy, which is something I'd hesitate to do.



Lastly, I think that if you are able to attack a planet on land, then a planet, or system, should be able to defend itself on land. For instance, I spend good dust on system defense improvements, I'd like to fire a couple shells back up at blockading ships and invading forces.

I agree to an extent...I would like to see a little cinematic showing you took a world.

Maybe something to the effect of a television crew showing your soldiers raising a flag over an enemy world. :3



However realistically at this stage in the games development making ground combat cinematic with vids and stuff of your soldiers taking a planet would be a lot of work rather then just making some tweaks and additions to the current occupation system and adding some Infantry Types and limited methods of improving them and what not.

Adding those plus with actually seeing the effects your war is having on the planets in a system would make it much more meaningful without making an entire overhaul of the game.

Considering this is a 4X, not many games brought it to the ground level (mostly Imperium Galactica) when most 4X are spacegames (unlike Civilization), or just briefly (MOO with planetary invasion interface that was automated).



Having just the possibility to force invasion rather than waiting for a planet to surrender would at least be nice !

Like using transport ships (colony ships with a special module ie and 1 unit of pop) for ground invasion forces, backed by planetary bombardment and more planetary oriented weapon (but considering that actually the invasion seems to have no effect on building destruction, this would add a lot of change to game design, similar to what is done in MOO ie).

At the very least, add a visual cue on the planet (e.g. explosions on the surface). Clicking a fist icon and watching a meter move from right to left isn't too thrilling.

I made a thread in the main about this and well saw this and wanted to add my two cents.



One of the ideas I wish Ground Combat were a little more engaging....Is the fact we have such lovely views of the planets in the galaxy, along with the fact that some of the tech in the Tree hints at highly augmented soldiers.

Personally

I would think showing that your faction is currently fighting over a planet would be pretty neat. (There's also a ton of great artwork showing Imperial Soldiers, Cravers and Hissho warriors it'd be a shame letting that kinda stuff go to waste.)

The basic idea is that a planet under siege would let you zoom in much as you do already to get such a stellar look at the planet, but instead of seeing peaceful verdant forests, rivers and mountains we instead see a planet literally under siege, flashes from orbital bombardments, smoke and fires on the forests and cities as they burn. The planet is currently a warzone between two or more galactic powers...Often armed with mighty and extremely lethal weapons....Pointed directly at the planet like a gun. And turns seem to last years...Having your warships fighting and bombing a big pile of rocks for five years means the place would be pretty wrecked...

Even if the option of Ground Warfare wasn't added. (As sad as that would be.)

Some sign that your actively fighting for the fate of a planet would be a welcome addition and add a tremendous amount of depth to the setting.



Onto ground warefare itself and how it would fit into the current dynamic.

Players can actively recruit Divisions (Though perhaps more in the way of military divisions.) directly from a world. The unit thereby being represented by a little 'card'. To ferry troops you'd need to add a module to a warship that allows them to carry the Division (Plus munitions and gear.) Each Division would be split up between a number of different 'types' with their own pro's and con's.

Light Infantry for example would be the weakest and cheapest GroundWar Unit in the game. (Unless you massively teched them out.) But at the same time you can fit more of them into a module and that means more boots on the ground to carry out your orders.

Then you get stuff like Heavy Infantry. (More expensive and take up a lot more room on a module.)

Mechanized Infantry

Armored Units.

Marines (Your non-faction elite units.)



Another idea I was batting around would be allowing you to 'tech up' your infantry with tech from the tech tree. (Stuff like better personal armor, personal shields, better small arms or vehicles, drone support, C3 stuff and etc.) Of course this makes them slower to build, more expensive and means you'd need more module space to ferry them.



Now it boils down to what do you do with your soldiers? What are the benefiets from putting boots on the ground? The answer is a lot...The overall idea on how you 'control' your Ground Forces would be in assigning them more an overall strategie in how they defend or assault a target world.



An assaulting force could be given an 'order' to assault and destroy a planets infrastructure, farms would be razed. Manufacturing facilities would be sabotaged or wiped out. Science Outposts would be wrecked. (Maybe a possible chance at getting temporary research bonus for a turn or two from taking captured data? Or maybe have that as it's on Strategic Objective?)



You could order them to try and take over the planet in which case you'd instead capture and secure infrastructure and cities and slowly aid the fleet in taking the planet.



You could just order them to attack the enemy ground forces...Making the attack go quicker but at the same time there's a greater chance at damaging infrastructure...Even more so if you give your ships a green light to make orbital bombardments to help clear out pockets of resistance.



Defenders on the other hand could be given strategies relating in digging in and trying to hold everything...Meaning infrastructure is protected along with the planets control points at the cost of possibly spreading themselves to thin.



Or they could be told to fall back to Bunkers and Hidden Bases and try and weather the storm till reinforcements arrived and they can take back the planet.



Or they could focus on only holding key areas and infrastructure and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.



Or as a final gesture in the face of defeat they could start destroying the planets infrastructure. (Though at a cost.)



There are a lot of different strategies that can be employed and the types of units you have. (Light Infantry, Mechanized, Heavy Drop Pod Marines and etc.)

Could lend to different play styles, strategies and etc.

I dont think fully designable infantry, tanks, etc are necessary but invasion could be made more interesting and involving.



Short Answer: Invasion using a trimmed space combat interface



Long Answer:

the +invasion strength modules just need to be changed into two different types Infantry and Orbit to Surface Weapons

both of these would just add to the invasion strength stat of a fleet, however instead of just causing the system strength bar going down every turn after pressing the "invade" button you would have to actively do it, similar to the initiate space battle button.



after initiating invasion a screen similar to the pre combat screen comparing your invasion strength to the planets defense pops up prompting a similar auto or manual decision. manual mode would then play out similar to space combat. the scene would have the fleets ships bombarding and invasion pods trying to reach the surface while planetary defenses try to shoot them down.



you could even have cards for invasion that give +/- damage of orbital weapons or +/- invasion pod survivability



I tried to keep it less complex than space battles as the game is "Endless Space"

I wasn't talking about fully designable tanks or infantry. The basic idea would be to say. "Okay...I have my basic run of the mill light troopers...I can leave them as is with their basic slugthrowers and flak jackets and basic gear...Or I can give them laser rifles/coil-guns and a laser resitant flak jacket." Maybe you add another module or two for some more Misc gear....Like some type of artic survival gear to give them a bonus on working on Artic or Tundra worlds and maybe a C3 piece of gear that gives them a bonus to how many you can field or something.



And I think merely having a scene were ships are disgorging pods and planets opening fire on said pods is boring.

Showing the results of a war getting better or worse just from visually checking a planet (The firestorms could be getting worse, their would be more smoke,cities if you can see them are in flames maybe some radio chatter and screams and comments like cities or bases are being evaced. Or if the battles are winding down or going into a lull the effects would be more muted.) would be more interesting and being able to adjust the strategy from the planetary screen would be far better.

Visualizing the orbital battles would be pretty cool. Keeping with the phase style there would be 3 phases: Orbital, "boarding", Ground Combat. But this would have to include some chance of loosing ships during battle. Also, the defensive/offensive strength of planets would have to be reworked adding in a military power to the planets. Cards would have to be designed as well. And in the end, it would be something that a lot of players would just press auto on. Think of taking over a huge empire, and having to sit through all of the planet attack screens as well as the fleet attack scenes. Great ideas, but I think occupation is nice and simple now, and if the enemy wants to protect its property, then it needs to send fleets. It's probably a bit late in the game to add a whole list of things like that.

SomethingBlue wrote:
Visualizing the orbital battles would be pretty cool. Keeping with the phase style there would be 3 phases: Orbital, "boarding", Ground Combat. But this would have to include some chance of loosing ships during battle. Also, the defensive/offensive strength of planets would have to be reworked adding in a military power to the planets. Cards would have to be designed as well. And in the end, it would be something that a lot of players would just press auto on. Think of taking over a huge empire, and having to sit through all of the planet attack screens as well as the fleet attack scenes. Great ideas, but I think occupation is nice and simple now, and if the enemy wants to protect its property, then it needs to send fleets. It's probably a bit late in the game to add a whole list of things like that.

*Sighs*

Possibly I just feel that of the current races we have, three of them have direct mention of them being geared up for Ground Combat. (Cravers, Empire and Hissho.)

With the Sophons having a trait that makes them terrible soldiers.



However the ultimate idea I had for ground combat allows it to keep the current occupation model while at the same time enhancing it and making it slightly less abstract in how it's used. (Where you just press a button and wait for the world to revert to being your own...That in my opinion is just a little to abstract.) When the battle is all said and done and depending on what you and your opponents overall strategy had been determines on how useful the world is to you at the end.



If both sides fought an apocalyptic war as the Attackers wanted to roll over the planet quickly and to hell with the consequences while the defenders did everything in their power to wreck the planet before their eventual defeat the result is a war-torn planet with little to no infrastructure for you to use. But in the end the planet is still yours. (Even though your going to have to spend some cash making it useful.)



On the other hand if the Defenders stalled for time and the Attackers wanted to try and keep as much of the planet intact as they could so they could use it, it causes the Occupation meter to whittle itself down slowly. This plan might even allow Reinforcements time to reach the planet and help take it back.



In effect the 'Strategies' you pursue along with the number of Divisions (And possibly the tech their issues with.) fighting on the planet along with such things like Bunkers and Hidden Bases has an effect on the Occupation meter and the status of the planet after the fighting stops.

Some strategies cause the meter to run by faster then others at the price of a wrecked world.

Other strategies slower. With the possibility of paying off at the end of the battle.

Other strategies are more middle of the road.





Overall my idea isn't so much of a second type of battle system like the Space aspect of the game where your select your cards at the beginning of a battle and let your ships duke it out in all there cinematic glory. This ground combat idea is simply an extension of the Occupation meter to make it deeper and more entertaining.

I actually enjoy that the infrastructure is left undamaged after occupation. It always made little sense to me in the Civilizations that every single building was destroyed when you were trying to take the city. Of course, I do like your idea of a expedited attack option (perhaps with appropriate modules) that damages infrastructure. I will take the idea and run with it. The Ground Troops module are less effective, but leave infrastructure intact. The newly created Orbital Battery modules are more effective but (perhaps randomly) destroy infrastructure (x improvements per turn).

SomethingBlue wrote:
I actually enjoy that the infrastructure is left undamaged after occupation. It always made little sense to me in the Civilizations that every single building was destroyed when you were trying to take the city. Of course, I do like your idea of a expedited attack option (perhaps with appropriate modules) that damages infrastructure. I will take the idea and run with it. The Ground Troops module are less effective, but leave infrastructure intact. The newly created Orbital Battery modules are more effective but (perhaps randomly) destroy infrastructure (x improvements per turn).

Infrastructure has ALWAYS been devastated at the end of a war. Just look at the battle of Berlin in 1942 and what happened to that city, (Germany in particular at the end of WWII had a lot of it's roads, bridges, factories and farms destroyed over the course of the fighting.)

And thats with armies fighting with in relation to this setting horribily primitive technology. Give a ES soldier a suit of Battle Armor, a Pinch Rifle with an underslung seeker mini-missile launcher armed with Plasmaburst/HEAP or Thermobaric rounds along with a massive ship sitting in GeoSynch orbit with it's cannons aimed at a cities downtown area and the level of destruction in the area is going to be suitably massive.



And I disagree with the statement that ground troops are 'less effective' in actuality it's the Starship thats going to be less effective. You can't occupy a city, a planets resources and critical infrastructure with a Cruiser, you can't also capture enemy command centers and detain their commanders and officers either. A warship's role in combat in this case is purely fire support. Throwing down lots of munitions in order to soften them up for the infantry to charge in and defeat the enemy...Of course coming at the price of turning half a city into a smoldering crater....But yeah.

It also comes down to what you consider efficient.

If you think effieicient is how fast can capture a planet for the glory of your Empire...Then yeah sending a few warships over to turn the planet into rubble is probably going to be pretty fast.



If you actually want to use the worlds, infrastructure, not spend a ton of cash rebuilding and utilize it's resources then you send in the infantry. While it may be slower at least the overall level of destruction can be kept at a minimum.

I'd like to see ground combat, especially in the same cinematic feel as the space combat. Even if it's not much more than a video of your infantry on the ground taking over the planet. (maybe a battle scenes, fighting for and in the cities, and having your empires flag raised over the old empires) something along those lines would make the turns waiting for that little colored bar to go down a bit more worth it.

I know this has already been suggested but, I would like to reinforce how cool this would be and a few things. I suggest the following:

-Possible orbital strikes from orbiting fleet.

-Infantry/Vehicles customizable similar to ships.

-Battle carried out in real-time similar to space battles.

-Units would be carried on the transport class ships.

-Ship modules to increase the amount of land units they are able to carry.



That is all, thanks!

well I think we all know it wont be added but I don't usually zoom in to look at my opponents planets when I'm invading, you don't get any information at the moment except population, types of planets, and resources so adding that to me would be cool but overall it would be the same thing as watching the bar tick down til the color changes

True but seeing a planet at war...And knowing the Strategies you've given your soldiers/warriors is having an impact on the planets future is pretty exciting in my mind.

Gotta say, I fully agree with WireWolf. The invasion system is so boring it's almost not even worth it. Click button, wait a few turns, pow it's mine. Even just something as simple as what any of the suggestions here have been are more entertaining, some of them rather good. I'd rather enjoy WireWolf's idea. It adds some complexity and depth to it without making it overdrawn. I'd like SOMEthing to break it up a bit even if it was "Siege -slow, retains most infrastructure, Invade - slightly faster, lose some infrastructure/population, Destroy - fastest, no infrastructure saved." Anything at all more than just waiting for a bar to go down. And really, it wouldn't be that hard to change the game, I mean, look at some of the mods that have come for other games, like Elder Scrolls to name one series. Most of the mods are superficial, but some of them change the game dramatically. I've also seen mods for Doom 3 that completely change it up, taking it from an FPS to side scroller or isometric RPG. If those kind of changes can be made by users in their spare time with mods, I can't imagine it would be that dramatic for a full time dev team to change up a few things. Also, the fact that the game already has a mods button in its interface is very promising, 'cos then whatever they don't fix in the eyes of each individual user, they can fix it on their own or wait for someone else to.

stirge_jr wrote:
Gotta say, I fully agree with WireWolf. The invasion system is so boring it's almost not even worth it. Click button, wait a few turns, pow it's mine. Even just something as simple as what any of the suggestions here have been are more entertaining, some of them rather good. I'd rather enjoy WireWolf's idea. It adds some complexity and depth to it without making it overdrawn. I'd like SOMEthing to break it up a bit even if it was "Siege -slow, retains most infrastructure, Invade - slightly faster, lose some infrastructure/population, Destroy - fastest, no infrastructure saved." Anything at all more than just waiting for a bar to go down. And really, it wouldn't be that hard to change the game, I mean, look at some of the mods that have come for other games, like Elder Scrolls to name one series. Most of the mods are superficial, but some of them change the game dramatically. I've also seen mods for Doom 3 that completely change it up, taking it from an FPS to side scroller or isometric RPG. If those kind of changes can be made by users in their spare time with mods, I can't imagine it would be that dramatic for a full time dev team to change up a few things. Also, the fact that the game already has a mods button in its interface is very promising, 'cos then whatever they don't fix in the eyes of each individual user, they can fix it on their own or wait for someone else to.

Thank you I hit upon the same problem as I was playing.

Why SHOULD we care about Ground Combat any? Why should we invest ships with Invasion Modules when the effect is the same as if we waited for the timer to go down? (Without too much of a difference between a fleet with no invasion module and a fleet with a few invasion modules as ultimately the result between both is the same. The planet is yours and thats about it.)



And the options I listed have actual strategic merits behind them.

If you have the time, military power and the advantage why not take the extra time to simply take the slowest route if the reward means you have a world that's already been built up. Drop a few Divisions onto the planet, keep your fleet there to hold the badguys off and zoom in to watch the planet burn as your forces push across the planet and slowly defeat more defeat more and more Planetary Militia and Regular Military Units on the planet. (Represented I think by a Card. It's the easiest way to represent a military unit.)

At the end of the battle even if it took a while you have a brand new world that only needs a little bit of work done to bring it up to speed.



However what if your goal wasn't to take and hold the planet? What if your suddenly outnumbered as a new enemy fleet arrives with reinforcements? Or what if your goal was to simply weaken a lynchpin system as apart of a deep strike raid to weaken your opponet? Or what if the problem is you simply don't like the guy...Or just need to take as many planets as quickly as you can? And so the only reason your soldiers and ships are there is to wipe out everything. All the infrastructure, facilities and maybe even the population? What if the guy on the defense know's that and desperately selects a strategy designed to protect key industries, (Rather then save the civilians?) Or possibly trying to protect the civilians instead of said infrastructure? Or maybe they try and defend both as the Invasion forces below systematically wipe everyone off the planet while the ships above pound on the cities below?



Just introducing this simple mechanic alone of offering the player a number of Offensive and Defensive Strategies opens up a new dimension to the game. Thats not including the ideas that may be a touch harder to implement. Modifying your soldiers with tech and gear in a dramatically simplified fashion when compared to the ship-building.

What this does give however is even more tactical flexibility to players and races.

Yeah Sophons might make HORRIBLE infantry...But a Sophon heavy infantry division armed with railguns firing explosive rounds and heavy duty power armor can be a good way of offsetting their natural disadvantage in combat. (While on the other hand Sophon light infantry would still pretty useless. )



As I said before the soldiers would just be represented abstractly...Probably just a card displaying what techs if any they're granted and some minor stats. It's not like you'd have to render and create new artwork to show what a Craven Heavy Marine looks like if he was armed with a pinch rifle, Artic Survival gear and a battlesuit.

But having a little card giving you the gear you selected would be pretty nice...And the fact that the Occupation mechanic would still be present just in a dramatically tweaked fashion should mean it wouldn't be impossibly hard to implement...At least thats what I hope.

WireWolf wrote:
Yeah Sophons might make HORRIBLE infantry...But a Sophon heavy infantry division armed with railguns firing explosive rounds and heavy duty power armor can be a good way of offsetting their natural disadvantage in combat. (While on the other hand Sophon light infantry would still pretty useless.

Similar to fighting a Tau crisis suit with a squad of guardsmen =/ Tried that once, didn't work out very well...few things do when you attack with a guardsmen squad.



But yea, I don't expect a full blow RTS. If I wanted that I'd just go play Sins of a Solar Empire. Just some kind of ground options or other. For example, I don't ALWAYS want to take their systems. If they've got a crap system that's going to do nothing but drag my empire down, why bother capping it? Just blow it up and move on.



Also on a similar note, of invasions anyway, I'd like to see a fuel system similar to that of Master of Orion; i.e., you're ships move x number of parsecs in a turn based on their engines, but they can only move y number of parsecs away from a friendly system. I say this, because once I realized I had a major tech advantage over one of the other races in my games, I can then just steam roll through their entire empire without even trying. If, say, I had worse fuel systems than did his colony ships, so that when I took his outer-most system I couldn't reach his next system since my ships didn't have the fuel for it, it'd give him some breathing room. And the inverse applies, obviously, if you're getting invaded. I know it happened a number of time on MoO2, especially if you just destroyed the planet outright and didn't have the fuel to make it further.

stirge_jr wrote:
Similar to fighting a Tau crisis suit with a squad of guardsmen =/ Tried that once, didn't work out very well...few things do when you attack with a guardsmen squad.



But yea, I don't expect a full blow RTS. If I wanted that I'd just go play Sins of a Solar Empire. Just some kind of ground options or other. For example, I don't ALWAYS want to take their systems. If they've got a crap system that's going to do nothing but drag my empire down, why bother capping it? Just blow it up and move on.



Also on a similar note, of invasions anyway, I'd like to see a fuel system similar to that of Master of Orion; i.e., you're ships move x number of parsecs in a turn based on their engines, but they can only move y number of parsecs away from a friendly system. I say this, because once I realized I had a major tech advantage over one of the other races in my games, I can then just steam roll through their entire empire without even trying. If, say, I had worse fuel systems than did his colony ships, so that when I took his outer-most system I couldn't reach his next system since my ships didn't have the fuel for it, it'd give him some breathing room. And the inverse applies, obviously, if you're getting invaded. I know it happened a number of time on MoO2, especially if you just destroyed the planet outright and didn't have the fuel to make it further.

Not playing Guard right.

Gets lots of Melta and Stormtroopers.



But yes I agree with you. The last thing I want this to be is an RTS. I don't think anyone wants this to be an RTS. But on the other hand this is a game with a lot of background fluff, traits and and Race Narratives (Including art.) That shows that four races of the five current races are in some way linked to ground warfare. (Even if it's because they're shitty soldiers.)



The idea I hit upon however really does fit with the Cinematic nature of the games combat system. (The only thing you do really is tell your soldiers what to do based on a list of Offensive/Defensive Strategies.)

Takes advantage of the current occupation system. (All it does is change the formula on how fast the Defenders lose points...Or hell with enough soldiers and groundside defenses it's possible a defending army can even reverse their losses and turn it into a win.)

Adds a tremendous amount of depth to an already very interesting game.

And satisfies those of us that want to tinker with giving our soldiers badass Augmentations, Armor, Weapons and Gear. (Even only if its limited.)



Yeah the idea I hit upon was each tier of soldier gets a handful of of gear slots.

Light infantry only having one open gear slot. (Not including weapons and armor.)

And simply scale up for such things as Heavy Infantry, Marines, Faction Specific Units, Elites,Armor, Commando's and etc.



Add in Faction UNique Ground-Warfare tech and things get even more awesome.

For some reason I keep seeing the Sophons getting heavy into Drone or Autonomous warmachine combat. (Can you say Bolo's? )

I whole heartedly agree, and I'm so glad that the devs are paying so much attention to the users. This in my mind will make the game so many multitudes better than what it would have been. And of course you then have the mods to play with, so whatever issues certain players still have at release, can then be 'fixed' with a mod. Like so many games that came before it, I guarantee that, and now especially the attitude and relation of the devs and players, will make this a very long-lived game. One can only hope. Also, can't wait for the first Star Wars mod; you know it's coming. Who wouldn't want to invade a system with a Death Star and a fleet of star destroyers?



And I do use meltas and storm troopers, to my space marine friends dismay and shock. Once took out my far more experienced buddy's mechanized chaos marine army with foot slogging vets