I wasn't trying to argue against situations where all people join in the glory of combat or whatever it is. If your read the simpe statement I posted, I was suggesting it was stupid that everyone on the planet should die. I also made reference that it is inconcievable to kill billions of beings in such a short period of time without destroying the planet. As far as alternatives, I think simply units used for planetary invasion and defence would be great. It eliminates the wiping out the entire planet thing, and possible adds to the game by forcing the invader to be an "occupier". See CivIII. It isn't hard, and it prevents a power house from just capturing planet after plantet without any need to consider the after effects. See the US occupation of Iraq.

I would like to see the Russians transport a a million solderis into Los Angeles and see how well they do.

umm, well i dunno how many americans there r but i think less then people in Russia, and i wanted to change post, but the'edit' didn't work

Numbers are not that important. Because population will always be greater than the army trying to occupy them. Occupations are very difficult.

Better to live on the street as if I don't pay tax I'm spared being slaughtered

Sorry for being arkward

I don't hold with killing tax payers. They bolster my economy. If I can subdue a populous planet with superior military forces, why why why would I decimate the very people who are going to repair collateral damage and directly contribute to the ability of my empire to create replacement / new war materials and thus help to extend my borders further.

The name of the game here is Economy.

I feel there should be more options associated with invasions. If it can't be done on account of time / budget issues then cool. But otherwise the current system is too simplistic (albeit tolerable).

Religously, Ethnicity, Culturally, Emotionally...

All play a factor in the fight to the death scenerio. If the last planet before yours and the ones before that were brutally enslaved and slaughtered, with every male child being extinguished (or so everyone in the Underverse thought) wouldn't you fight unconditionally to the bitter sweet end? If not, don't come a crawling into my foxhole, don't bother with requesting to come aboard. You can stay here and keep cranking out grief and spouting rhetoric. Me and the others will gladly defend your rights to do so to the last breath.

Least wise tmho.

W/R (with respect)
Suralle the Straykat

PS: Now if I could just get my Lions to play football the same way I feel on race obliteration!

Barbarian tribes are not actual civs/races? Really?

Go check how many actual Native American civs are still around, compared to the Europeans coming to the New World. The answer is very, very few. Heck, for the matter, check out how many Arabian tribes are still around. Or African tribes. Or South American. Check out how many were wiped out in acts or wars of genocide. It's a good proportion of the now extinct tribes. The history that has survived to us from such events and wars often mention how they fought to the last man, or how the women themselves tried to fight to protect their children. Again, we do have many realiably witnessed accounts from the 19th and 20th century of such things. Whether its a village or a race of millions, once people understand that there is no running and no quarter shall be given, even the most craven of cowards will fight like a beserker of legend and children will try to defend their dying parents. It's a primitive response, and modern military tactics teaches warns against creating the appearance of "no retreat and no quarter given" because it is such a common response in humans.

The truth is that total genocide has been a very good tool for the complete taking of resources from others. It is how the earliest conflicts between homo sapiens were fought over territory, if the victor could secure it. It is only later in the history of human warfare that we see quarter being given, where territory with workers is desired. Now, in inter-species warfare, where the species cannot economically share the same facilities (the standard if we are talking about intelligent life forms other then humans), the truth is that there would be no reason to give quarter. You don't spare the pests infesting some useful structure to you. Well, okay, some people might, but the corporate answer is to get rid of them all, to keep costs down by not having to do it again in the future.

So, you think the Yor fight to the last capable unit. Good, that's progress. Now we only have all the other races to go through. For instance, the Torians have swore to never, ever, ever be another race's slaves. Period. A very hard conviction. I bet they fight to the last warrior. And have "suicide" devices to grant a painless death to those that cannot fight. To prevent any Torian from ever being a slave. This might not grant them 100% resitance, but its probably very high, yes?

As for other major bio races, again, we can easily posit situations where the resitance would be extremely high, if not 100%. Hive mind, insectiods, etc etc etc. So again, for the alien (non-human/altarian) races, we have no reason to believe that in an invasion of these species, their citizenry would fight as poorly as the untrained modern Western man.

No matter how you look at it, race extermination doesn't happen overnight. The stupidest thing about how platet invasion works is that in one turn, billions are killed. So the Yor don't surrender, big F'n deal. Then they will fight over the course of years. How do we propose to kill the population overnight? I suppose we vaporise the atmosphear so they can't breath. But, I'm sure some would be prepared for that. Or we could introduce some horrible disease. Some would definately survive. In fact, the Yor would probably be the most difficult race to kill!!! It doens't matter if we can pull some instance in history where a weak and totaly vulnerable race was absolutely destroyed, because it doesn't translate to the numbers being represented in the game. And the technology available and the gift of hind sight says that they wont be all killed in a week/month/year whatever. I understand the importants for historical reference, I have done it also. But the real point here is that the planet invasion system is very poor. No matter how you slice it, or what your beliefs are about genocide, this aspect of the game needs improvement.

That would require more control I feel of the type of troops I am sending down... mainly armor, high end infantry, mobile vs airborne levels etc... equipments. Do they have the start of the art tanks or the hand me downs. What about missle tech etc etc.

Last, cinematics, like the ship battles. Nothing like seeing some explosions with body part flying all over...

jmho
W/R
Suralle

Actually, we aren't talking genocide for a major race, are we? We are talking about the taking of one world. It's just an island colony, after all. For most instances in the game, there will be other colonies of the same species elsewhere, so that isn't a true genocide. It's "genocidal". However, when you cannot economically use something, then it is worth being "genocidal" and doing a small bit of research into eliminating a problem on your planned new conquest. What would be more economical for the Yor, for instance? Wiping out every single primate (Human) or merely breaking their 5 most significant nests and having the remainder being a pest on your new territory and costing you resources (resources destroyed or being deployed to exterminate the local troublesome primates)?

It's a matter of economics. If spending a month of research and a month manufacturing of your empire's output would secure a world against lasting issues (ie, survivors fighting a high-cost guerilla world), every non-saintly race is going to do it. Now, if the survivors of your planetary invasion are going to run off to the most unusable bits of the planet, dig holes, and live in them forever without ever causing you any trouble, then the economics would not favor researching a way to quickly eliminate the pest, right? To me, except in the most extreme cases, the economics will guide what is done.

On a side note, if the "survivors" of the invasion run away, find a hole, and never leave that spot, then they are just as effectively killed in terms of the game.

As for more detail and more micro-management:
You will find a very significant portion of GalCiv players against more micro-management. We fans of this game are used to micro-management in TBS games, but that doesn't make the MM fun. Oh sure, in the beginning, it can be. But the 1000th time you've done the same activity, it stops being fun. Just go look at the threads on the new tile system. It adds to the MM of the game. There has been considerable work to bring down that MM, but it still gets boring zoning every planet you take, and rezoning all the alien worlds you take over. In GC1, you only set the governor once, and for invaded worlds, you didn't even do that if you wanted it to use the default build queue (in smaller games, I'd review what was already built, but in the largest games, I wouldn't worry about what was "unnecessary" unless it was early into those larger games).

Again, most TBS players will accept more MM if it results in a more fun game. But if it only adds work but no enjoyment, well, that's not fun. That's where all the invasion discussions start getting into trouble. How to create a more engaging invasion system that isn't going to rob us of the fun of the game. When you play a small galaxy and only need to invade 20 worlds, that isn't to much. But the larger maps can have hundreds of worlds that need to be invaded. GC2 has already increased the MM by a large factor as it stands. Adding more MM to it may push the game into serious grognards only territory. A worry of mine, but a realistic one as the game currently stands.