Anything other than hand-to-hand combat is a coward's option! I'd like to see the combat screen modified to show fleets docking with each other and then the occupants of each of the ships fighting to the death using fists, tentacles, knives, fangs and horns.

that would be cool-but its not neccessary the coward's option to decimate a planet-why waste tax paying citizens when you can nuke the slimy aliens instead? Plus some planets can be a burden to try and maintain in certain situations-if you are deep in a strong enemy's space-why risk having them retake the world a turn later when you can deprive them of it for good?

"Pull out, and nuke the planet from orbit. Its the only way to be sure."

Why does everyone think that it's either:
"No Orbital Bombardment"
or
"Orbital Bombardment which is capable of leveling civilizations without thought"
???
I mean, as awesome as our fleets are, they have precisions weapon designed specifically to hit a small moving object very very far away (space is big) ... then to do damage in such a concentrated fasion that it is capable of penetrating the thickest armor, strongest shields and densest PD systems... these weapons aren't the same thing I think of when I think "mass destruction from orbit"
I honstly feel that we can have a balance with Orbittal Bombardment which allows for the option while precluding it as a large scale replacement for invasions ... and still fitting in with our diverse views of reality.

In realistic terms (as best as possible)
Yes:
-A ship in orbit can CAN fire on a planet
-These weapons CAN cause massive damage to the population / infrastructure in general

But realise that:
-On a world with a population of only 5 billion (like ours) there is a HUGE infrastructure. There are more cities than can be counted, and within them more city blocks, buildings and people that your (relatively) puny dozen or so laser Mk3s must select from as targets. Honestly, a week may be a long time, but there is simply too much for your precision weapons to fire at to make much of an impact.

Now imagine a world of 27 billion! Maybe a PQ of 16-18? Imagine the huge stretches of infrastructure that make up a SINGLE manufacturing sector. It would take a lot of fire power to reduce such an area to nothing. Damage? sure, destroy? hmmm....

Granted, later in the game you will have hull sizes, fleet sizes and weapons of the right scale to turn a planet into ash, but I would imagine planetary defenses will rise to meet the challenge. Just as we no longer build buildings from wood and stone, in the future of GalCiv2, I would expect concrete and steel to phase out as well...
...not to mention the massive planetary shields and such which I can only imagine are a part of a "normal" planets repitoire of defenses.
Personally, the weapons I envision doing the most damage to planets, would not be the same weapons I'd fire at ships (large area effect vs. concentrated damage ... IE stick of dynamyte vs. a shaped charge)

Balance, that's the point.
-Let people fire on civilion populations (Hell, I'd love to myself )
-But don't give attackers an unrealistic (or unbalancing) advantage over transports.
-Early game weapons would likely be ineffective, at most killing a few people and reducing the social/military/tech production by a smal fraction.
-Late game weapons capable of demolishing buildings, eliminating tiles (-PQ) and killing people by the millions would be offset by planetary defenses geared to countering/lessening them. (I can smell two new tech trees... perhaps alignment based!? )

mmm... nukes, massive napalm-esque payloads, viral payloads, orbittally launched core detonators (oh, evil races have it soooo good!)

...

First Time I've chimed in on it, and based on the frequency of this topic, likely not the last

This is not as bad an idea as some of you think. Does anyone here remember "Stars!" or "Birth of the Federation"? Those games allowed you to bombard planets as well as invade. Your bombs or planetary assault ships decimated a certain percentage of population and infrastructure per turn. This allowed you to soften up a planet before invading so it wouldn't take as many troops to be victorious. But if you truly hated a civilization and wanted to wipe them out you could just continue bombarding thier worlds. The downside is bombers are easy prey for fighters and other warships.

There are really 4 things you can accomplish from Orbital Bombardment
1) Kill population
2) Destroy Infrastructure
3) Create enough havoc to reduce production (social/military/tech) by a varaible percentage
4) Reduce PQ

Most "normal weapons" would accomplish 1-3 with varying degrees of success (perhaps not type dependant though)
Expensive "specialized" tech tree weapons might be able to accel in one or more fields however.
Virus bombs -for example - might kill the population and hinder production while leaving PQ and and Infrastructure intact

And oh yes, there would have to be defenses... perhaps a single building on a single tile labeled "planetary defense" which grew as you got deeper in the tree to contain such defenses such as "Viral Containment Procedures"

I remember Birth of the Federation... the daamage done was a percentage based. Taking a planet down to 66% wasn't too hard... but taking it down to 33% or wiping it out took concentrated effort! (evil) because of the diminishing returns.
I also recall playing MoO3 and having my ships start out doing an apropriate amount of no damage whatsoever, then ending the game leveling things into dust.

I don't know about destroying an entire planet. A planet is a massive thing if you have enough firepower to destroy a planet then you would go through fleets of ships like a hot knife through butter. No one could stand against you.

IYou can already initiate orbital bombardment *nearly* without troops. You do need to use one transport, but that could be loaded with only one troop if you like. That way you can blow the bejesus out of a planet's infrastructure, without wasting your troop strength. A tactic like this would make the most sense against a strong opponent who had an advantage in soldier skill and/or population, while you had naval supremacy.

I personally feel that those who can manage things effectively enough to remember to have sufficient transports in proportion to their fleet size and level of open hostility are the ones who are against/don't care about planetary bombardment.

If I had to wager a guess, it would that most of the most adament individuals who are 'for' Orbittal Bombardment would be among the same individuals who either forget to properly manage their transport-fleet proportion in regards to their level of open hostility...
...or simply hate micro managing so many transports (but do it anyways) and would prefer to keep their fleets busy while their acceptable level of micro managed transports slowly absorb othecivs.

I don't know about destroying an entire planet. A planet is a massive thing if you have enough firepower to destroy a planet then you would go through fleets of ships like a hot knife through butter. No one could stand against you.

Exactly ... all things in moderation.

Finally found it, and the edit is giving me the "server application error"

#2 by BoogieBac [Stardock] Friday, April 07, 2006 1:34 PM Terror Stars are planned for the expansion pack, only this time (for UI and ease of use purposes) will only destroy planets.

If your going to add orbital bombardment then you better add orbital defences. Back in the day, Ascendency greeted its players with the capability of building orbital missile launchers that you could fire at any enemy ships that lay in range of your planet. This, combined with planetary defences that boosted the advantage of the defender, made invasions have four objectives:

1) Eliminate enemy fleet.
2) Eliminate orbital defences.
3) Soften planetary infrastructure for invasion; hopefully by nuking some planetary defences from orbit.
4) Invade.

Combined with the present choices that Stardock has included with Gal Civ II, orbital defences and orbital bombardment could enhance the tactical aspects of this game without ruining the tradition and strategic nature of it.

I despise the idea and think it a cowards option, but the dev's have said it'll be in the expansion pack.

UGH PLEASE TELL ME THIS WILL BE AN OPTION or ends up not included.

Combined with the present choices that Stardock has included with Gal Civ II, orbital defences and orbital bombardment could enhance the tactical aspects of this game without ruining the tradition and strategic nature of it.

Hehe, the originals all had bombardment. This is the version changing the tradition.

Shogun, if it isn't an option I'll submit a modified (terrorless) .xml the second I can. I appreciate the work being done, but I'm against planets being destroyed in general.