Obviously not a minority
It doesnt matter how good a game's gameplay is, you still want something nice to rest your eyes on, especially if its a game such as this where you'll spend countless hours.

Im surprised that turn based / big & long games usually have crappy graphics, those are the ones that "need" it. Fast games like Starcraft or C&C is all about hotkeys and clicking fast, you never have time to care about the graphics, especially on pro gamer levels.

Jeez, I liked the old one better. It would have been better to have an updated version of the old screen for TA. Oh well... :NOTSURE: 

Good to see i am not the only one disliking the new screen. It does look nice, but somehow something misses. I want to see soldiers fighting, not flags. Maybe SD can do something about it in 2.0

I actually felt that the part which really lets the new invasion screen down is the sound effect for the troops firing at each other. It doesn't sound enough like weapons fire, though I guess with all the cool weapons which aliens (and humans) use on TV I'm really spoiled.

I liked the old one better also... the flags jumping is rather silly. If the flags were to change to my color as the "front" moved across the planet, maybe...

I'd also like to know why all the population is killed off. Any smart conquerer knows to keep SOME of the locals around... somebody has to work. And all my soldiers suddenly laying down their weapons to be colonists? Hello... I didn't spend all that money and time running up the tech tree and building all those transports for you to tear them up and decide to sit around a campfire and build a home. (Sounds like I need to inform my finance minister to invest in marshmallow stock though...)

The ship shouldn't be lost after a ground attack either. Well, maybe once in awhile, but then all hands should go with it, and my invasion be hampered... It should be empty, or "emptier", due to casualties. There should be survivors on the planet who can stay and work or can be repatriated somewhere else or traded to their own kind for POWs. You should then have to send Colony ships with actual COLONISTS on them if you want to have your kind on the ground. My soldiers are there to fight, then to move on...

And I do miss the keyboard pew pews of the original too... Pew Pew... Hah! your tank just fell apart like a house of cards! How do ya like that blocky green guys!

T

I also think that the flags sort of quivering at each other looks pretty weird. I like the camera shot of the city though.

What you have to remember about ground invasion is that not all inhabitants are tax-paying citizens. Either because of the local political climate or because of economics, they may live there but not be part of the defending empire's citizenry, and so they have no real obligation to take part in the defence.

Your ground troops are all citizens of your empire so any of them which do survive are liable to pay taxes if you don't decide to pick them up with an empty transport.

Following on from that, essentially when you load up a transport with X amount of "soldiers" from your planet is taking X amount of citizens of that planet, slapping a gun in their hand and telling them to shoot the citizens of that target planet untill they're all dead.

Like most on here I found it annoying that when invaded you must kill every sentient life-form to win. It's simply not feaseable to arm every single person on your planet and expect them to act like highly trained soldiers. Plus it's such a waste of potentially tax paying people to wipe them out when they could be paying reparations to me for spending the money to buy ships to conquer them!!

Maybe one way to make things a touch more fun would be having a "morale gauge" similar to that found in the "Europa Universalis" which is smack in the middle to begin with and as the battle progresses the morale bar swings one way and the other and once it reaches too low for one side, if there are any soldiers remaining the whole thing collapses. If you could implement somethign like that, if for example there are 4 billion people on the planet, 6 billion invading with VASTLY superior weaponery, the defenders are get pummelled, the morale gauge drops as the people know their hope is lost, so instead of fighting to the end, lay down their arms with say 1.5 billion dead which if maths serves correctly, leaves 2.5 billion tax-paying people ALREADY on the planet, and some soldiers could remain on the planet to enforce the smooth transition of regime change while the rest can bugger off back on the transport to fight somewhere else. The added bonus to that being I don't have to strip my planets of my own citizens each and every time I take one of the enemies...


I could yabber on with even more detail I'm thinking of as I write, but will stop for now and get other people's thoughts.

One question, and this is to people whose knowledge is Universes better than mine in terms of knowledge of programming, would my idea take lots of memory/programming to implement?

Just thought you might like to know, nothing could convince me to read your post when it's written in dark blue on dark grey.

I like my vision too much.

I kinda miss the old screen myself. There was more to watch, and I liked seeing all the little mans exploding. It is nice to see what improvements are getting toasted, though.

I have to agree with what one of the SD developers once said: making animations/movies is expensive and after the first few times, people click through it anyway. This is what I do with the intro and the planetary invasion screen is pretty much the same. There isn't much happening throughout the battle - two sides take turns shooting each other to bits - so you can skip right to the end and see who's still standing.

So, old or new, it doesn't really matter. It's doesn't take long to load or unload and it gives the outcome fast when I click the button so I'm happy with it.

The invasion screen must have been a last minute quick change. This would explane the lack of effort and creativity. After all, it is seen hundreds of times per game, it should be dazzling.

As it happens the colour was an accident as I didn't realise how dark the blue was until posting. If you can't be bothered to highlight the text - a task that would take a split-second of your time, then I doubt your point was worth reading anyway.

Just thought you might like to know.

Ah, you know what? I skipped the old combat screen most of the time anyways, since there isn't anything to do there except wait and watch. I say "meh!" either way.

Seems like my thread has stirred up some conversation

I would have too preferred a more complex ground battles with specialized ground combat units (ala MoO2) and graphics that change with technology advancements.

I completely agree that this game needs a tech tree and specialist ground combat units. It was a real anti-climax coming to the ground conquest phase only to realise that my custom researched and designed ships contain generic anonymous civilians armed with generic anonymous weapons. They fight in a totally abstracted way (flags and numbers? in 2008??!) and then become settlers. As mentioned, the ship is abstracted too. It's really disappointing and poor, as a game mechanic it's hard to reconcile with anything like 'reality'. Compare it to the care with which the ship research and design in implemented, boy does it seem like a massive yawning gap in design. Makes me want to dig out Civ IV again...(heresy, I know...)

It's a shame, cos I was realy enjoying and admiring the dynamics of the explore/ expansion/ economy /space fleets part of the game. It's the planet conquest which is frankly, naff.

About upgrading the ground combat graphics: I don't doubt it's coolness, but personally, after a week I'd be skipping through it just like I do now. Combat would not only have to be pretty, but it'd have to be dynamic, such that you don't see the same combat animations over and over. It would probably be too much work.

About upgrading ground combat depth: Now this is something that would be cool. First and foremost on my mind is that researching weapon and defense techs should improve soldiering. Simple and logical. To a degree of course: You obviously won't be using black hole guns to take a planet, but something like phasors: definately.

To synth: The one problem with your morale idea is that you conquer a planet and instant start profiting off of it. I don't think this should be the case (which is probably why the game currently wipes out the entire population for gameplay's sake). A few turns on anarchy (similar to the Civ games) would make it more acceptable IMO. But then again, I don't really find the currently system bad gameplay wise (but yes, from a lore perspective, wiping out an entire planet seems excessive).