The problem with trying to defend an entire planet from invasion is that... well, it doesn't really work. You don't have space or air superiority... they're floating about uncontested in orbit, so you're vulnerable to whatever they want to drop on you and whatever aircraft they deploy. Additionally, you've got an ENTIRE planet to cover. They can pop down whenever and wherever they please, and you can't possibly react in time.

So, no, the attackers definitly have an advantage, especially considering the sheer number of people in each invasion transport.

I would agree about other things, though. Planetary defense should be a massive bonus to justify the loss of a tile that could be used for making ships, researching, or increasing income.

And I can see the potential for the defense tactics. Vanilla defense would have the least effectiveness, but not cause lasting problems. A scorched earth policy, on the other hand, is going to be hell on the attackers as the ground they take will have no value, but the planet will have lost a lot of improvements. Setting up a guerilla warfare campaign would drastically reduce the effectiveness of defenses, but would add a whole bunch of negative penalties to the invaded planet if the attacker wins to production, population growth, morale, etc that would continue for so many turns or until the planet was retaken.

I really like this idea. It wouldn't have to give a big bonus since we don't have control of air. It would be interesting to see what people would come up with.

if i was a world leader with space flight my aircraft would be spacecraft thus your orbital ships wouldn't go uncontested

but then again that is me

i think starstriker's point was more that you can't get a transport through unless the planet has no ships in orbit to defend it. still, the cost to create ships that can exit atmosphere and travel in hyperspace has to be far greater than the cost for a conventional jet fighter. ergo, defeating the ships in orbit doesn't necessarily mean you've achived air superiority. and orbital bombardment is only an invasion tactic in GC2. plus it seems like surface defenses should exist - gun turrets, SAM batteries, nukes. and as much as ships in orbit can bombard them from a safer distance before decent into the atmosphere, he pointed it out himself: planets are very big (and they're bound to miss many targets).

i agree with his points to an extent. however the sheer number of troops doesn't necessarily have to be greater than the number of troops on the planet (since there's no distinction in the game between troops and civilians). perhaps defense doesn't deserve the bonus, but niether does offense. yes, defenders have to defend the whole planet. but the attackers have to get out of the transport for starters, which takes time when there are billions of you in there. and once they do, big deal, they've managed to invade a square mile.



it's okay... i actually liked the structure of the invasions in MoO3 (yes, 3) better. they were often battles of attrition that could stretch over the course of several turns. i mean, taking over a whole planet in a week does seem rather far fetched. they were horrible to look at, but at least they kinda made sense to me.

but a change on the scale of differentiating between troops and civilians (who can become milita), exactly how a battle is being fought, etc. -- these are changes for another game. i wouldn't even mind keeping the current bonus attackers get; i just wish there was more (useful) nuance in defending your planets, both against ships attacks and invasions.

Imagine a transport with a thousand legions of troops. That's 1 billion people. If I were going to design a transport like that, I'd make sure it could seperate into tiny ships that could individually assualt - and hopefully - exterminate the entire existing population. Meaning thousands of individual pods swarming the entire planet and hey if the entire population is dead there's no possibility of gorrillas messing with your transplanted civilization...   

"Kill one person and your a murderer, kill 50000 and it's a national movement" Joseph Stalin

Not really. I have several billion troops in orbit, ships capable of bombardment which you can't actually stop and the capability to screw with your tidal system or simply drive an asteroid into the surface. I can't see any planetary authority deciding to try to hold out for more than a few hours in those circumstances.

I think Invasion Defense Tactics are an awesome idea. Actually I think I'm going to chime that in to Stardock on your behalf in the Beta2 thread. Shouldn't be terribly hard to implement--just tack them on to the existing Planetary Defense techs.