that way of ground combat must be changed

Planetary population only includes the taxpayers, so you're not fighting everybody. In any case, I'd rather see them focus their efforts elsewhere.

But taxpayer is almost all of the citizenship, is it not? is that means in GCII that all who pay tax have to go war duty? The wost fanatic people in history won't be like this --all fight to death way, I belive. and the GCII have a group of civilizations, militarism some of them maybe, but not animal. Does a fight to the death to all of ...ok, not all of them, but all who pay the tax, is surely not a war should be.

That is about the logic thinking about this. and I don't see why enrich ground combat is worthless. The mod creation will have much more choice and much more to do, not limited to ship focused cult any more. that is a very good place to spend some efforts.

Holy shit, Blass, I don't think english is your first language!

LoL, just messing with you.

I agree, I would like to see a more advanced ground combat module...but I am not frothing at the mouth for it. Nothing strategic, just maybe something that takes the various Civ races and makes them a touch different.

I think that it should take more than one turn to conquer a planet depending on size. One thing that pisses me off is that the transport ships are destroyed after an invasion

But taxpayer is almost all of the citizenship, is it not? is that means in GCII that all who pay tax have to go war duty? The wost fanatic people in history won't be like this --all fight to death way, I belive. and the GCII have a group of civilizations, militarism some of them maybe, but not animal. Does a fight to the death to all of ...ok, not all of them, but all who pay the tax, is surely not a war should be.

Our only experience with warfare is within our own human species. GalCiv2 is about war between different intelligent alien species, basically different "animals." Some like the Yor are even more distinctly alien, not even sharing the same basic biological form.

Judgements based on our own human history don't work so well in that context. We have no idea how savage this kind of warfare would be, once it started. It's very easy to characterize the enemy as "subhuman" and worthy of extinction, if the enemy actually isn't human in the first place.

Anyway, the ground battles are basically just the same mechanics as space battles. It's a fight to the death, it happens in one turn, and then you move on. It keeps the game moving so you can focus on the larger stragic issues. And it's probably easier to program good AI when planetary attack or defense isn't a prolonged process.

I wouldn't mind seeing planetary invasions fleshed out a little more. But I'm not sure that turning it into a multi-step process with reinforcements arriving in later turns, or two species living together side by side for a while, is the best way to do that.

They aren't destroyed if you didnt need them.

If you say brought 3000 legions on 3 ships and lost less than 1000, two of the ships would remain. Maybe your civilization never researched a technology that lets them land their ships?

Anyway, i dont think that every member of the population fights, remember that there are a lot of approximations and simplifications made for the sake of keeping the game streamlined. I prefer to think of the combat population as "the largest possible army the existing population can support" War has lots of collateral damage, so as troops die, civilians also get killed or are displaced (flee) so your army isnt really killing every man woman and child (well evil civs probably are, but that is beside the point) but the overall impact of the invasion is the same: the people are all gone, whether "gone" means died in the streets or booked a flight on "Space--priceline.com" before the troops landed.

Maybe your civilization never researched a technology that lets them land their ships?

Good heavens, there's a hole in the tech tree if I ever saw one. Here's how things would happen:


Sarge: "Ok men, we've got planetary invasion and this ship we're on has got troop pods, so lets go kick some ass!"
*The transport ship crashes into the enemy planet at orbital speeds in excess of 10,000 mph*
Space Command: "Crap."

I understand what Blass is talking about, sort of. GalCiv's invasions do make me just a little nostalgic for Master of Orion III's multi-turn planetary invasions, your best troops vs. theirs. And there is something a little funny with packing up a billion citizens in a transport and get instant Space Marines with Tir-Quan training.

On the other hand, it is very convenient to be able to control my approval rating by packing off irritable citizens from the more populous planets...

If they changed it so that you only fight a fraction of the population, they would also have to change how many troops can be transported by each ship. Otherwise the attacker would gain a huge advantage by such a change. Then it wont matter as much how many transports you send out, because you are no longer draining your population in the same degree and suddenly that aspect of the game is gone. The 1.1 chances to pop growth were made to force players (and the AI) to focus more on keeping the populations safe and not throw them away.

I rather like the concept that you have to manage how many people you have available totally and that you cant just mobilize the forces needed to invade a huge number of planets unless you have a huge population.

One thing I think needs to chance is that the attacker does seem to have a huge advantage even if tech levels are similar and no special invasion tactics are used. I think that makes it a little too easy to take over planets with much smaller numbers than are living on them. The odds should be even if tech levels are even, but with the attacker getting the benefit of being able to use special tactics (which also seem a bit overpowered to me and should be toned down a little).

Regarding the lost transport ships I consider this to be due most of the transport ship being used in the actual invasion, in the form of planetary drop-ships and other landing crafts. Maybe troop transports are designed to be split up into a large number of drop-ships when they invade, and you cant just re-assemble those after they have been used.

But taxpayer is almost all of the citizenship, is it not?

Says who?

Is the current system realistic? No. Is it simple, and fun? Yes.

I've never had a problem with the idea of losing troop transports. That they are lost in the combat makes perfect sense to me. It makes sense that the first ships to land, get destroyed or are too badly damaged to take off.

Regarding the lost transport ships I consider this to be due most of the transport ship being used in the actual invasion, in the form of planetary drop-ships and other landing crafts. Maybe troop transports are designed to be split up into a large number of drop-ships when they invade, and you cant just re-assemble those after they have been used.

This would be like the wooden, one-shot transport gliders used in the WWII D-Day invasion... which also adds a nice psychological boost to the troops: "Boys, we're not going home THAT way!." It's like Cortez burning his ships when invading Central America.

What I would like to see, although it should hardly be at the top of the developers to-do list, is some visual indication of what invasion tactic you are using when the fighting starts e.g. there is a green smoky tinge to the screen if you're using gas attacks, or the odd meteorite raining down if you've used mass drivers. Nothing fancy really, but it all adds to the immersive experience.

I think the current situation is realistic. When an alien invader wants to exterminate and colonize your planet, you'd have to be stupid to sit around and pick your nose.

I don't like the weird lottery thing. And it would be nice if species with similar atmospheric requirements could coexist (like in Space Empires IV, and in MOO2 [where everyone breathed the same atmosphere except silicoids]). But as long as invading a planet kills all the natives, they certainly should fight!

I have seen this type of post too many times. No it doesn't need to be changed. It's not a bug when it was designed that way.

Alas, English is not my first language, that is ture, forgive my poorly developed skill on words.
And what words I have said before is surely heedless in many facts.
The debate about the population, don't worry at it any more, I just juged it by how many troops I got from my side vs theirs... let just put it aside now.

In fact I was thinking is there a way to make a mod of warhammer 40000, I like it, I really do.
I cut some logos and fix some portrait, the differ of the human and other race could be set in tech tree, and make the research building produce 0 point, and the tech price skyhigh to lock the race in their characteristic. That seems doable, apart from the tech trade, but I don't know if make them at war could stop that or not. Anyway, there is no way to stop a player do things if they want.
So it came to the part that to set up the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines, and even the Titan legion of Mars. But shame me for I didn't even reached planet invasion when I dreaming the mod. and when I did see the ground combat there, it was a terrible blow. I know that there is no way to make the combat unit be different, not via special troop module, what part the transporter has will not effect the battle--only the number of troops does; not via special building, that kind of effect is global; and not via the tech for sure. I have to accept that the only way to have those different troops, is to change the game in the core, to creat a new ground unit system, like the civilizations, the mod way is not gonna work.
that is why I have post those complains, and by the way, in warhammer 40k, war is not fighted by all civl strength, only military, that is why I want to change the war from population number math.
after all, GCII is still a great game, so many creative potential, and be loved by mod builders.
bless it.

If you say brought 3000 legions on 3 ships and lost less than 1000, two of the ships would remain.

If you are facing an opponent with low (<60ish) morale, you can actually take over planets without losing ANY transports. In my game just now, I used two transports to take 3 planets, and I still have both transports left. Soldiery and Tir Quan training FTW!

Of course it isn't a bug, but it could be better. I have seen this topic several times as well and it will just go round and round about if it is "realistic" or not. Truth be told, it isn't realistic and neither is the fact that the next star system is only five times further away than the earth is to the sun. The only reason I would like it changed is because I think it is too easy to attack and capture planets. The defender is at such a disadvantage that unless the planet is increadibly populous it only takes about three transports or so. And even though the transport magically dissapears, it is still very cost effective to wage a war of conquest. There should be more to capturing planets, especially because the computer isn't as good at it as your below average human. Just blitzkrieg the universe in small pockets of heavily escorted freighters and stick around long enough to race in and kill their transports (if they attempt a counter attack). Their navy really doesn't amount to much without any transports. No matter what, he who has the most planets at the end wins.

If there was a more in deapth system to planetary defense it could be more like Civ, where capturing a city is actually an accomplishment, even if just a small one. So far, all you have to do here is get planetary invasion. Then, let the genocide begin.

If you are facing an opponent with low (<60ish) morale, you can actually take over planets without losing ANY transports. In my game just now, I used two transports to take 3 planets, and I still have both transports left. Soldiery and Tir Quan training FTW!

Morale has a huge role in combat? I did not know... any chance of a link to an equation (anyone)?

Sorry for the quick repost, but I would just like to commend blass because although english is not his native language, he obviously speaks more than one, which is a greater accomplishment than myself and many others. Honestly not trying to start anything here, just wanted to mention it.