More on Planetary Invasions

I agree with all your points. I was hoping for a more complex planetary populations system, for instance you conquer a star system and then have the option to slaughter them all, bring the people of the world into your empire (You would probably have to station x number of ships for x number of turns to quell resistance) or free the citizens and allow the orginal inhabitants of the world to reclaim it (if the planet had already been conquered by a third race)

I know that for my last point you can give planets to other races but its not really the same (for me anyway)

Well maybe GC3

Although I agree on the principle of not having to slaughter everyone, in the back of my mind I have to wonder if it wouldn't be for the better if you did, I mean if you leave enough folks around of a different morality and mindset from an invasion, your only asking for alot of stabs in the backside while your attention is being diverted by an old friend with a new problem later.

w/r
Suralle

(An A - student of World History about 25 years ago)

Back in the good old GalCiv I days, population figures did not represent the whole population, but rather the number of "taxpayers". Basically, this abstract concept stood for active citizens, rich enough to pay taxes, able to bear arms and to contibute actively to the economy. This is a way to describe the relevant (not raw) demographic power of a planet.

When you invade a planet, you just have to overcome the resistance of those "taxpayers". Casualties do not necessarily mean that they have been killed. They could just be wounded, taken prisoners, unwilling to resist any more, disarmed, ruined by your invasion... whatever is relevant to describe the economic and military losses sustained by the invaded planet.

You could imagine that, when an invasion is successful, many inhabitants have not been killed but those who stay do not count any more. In a military point of view, they are harmless. In an economic point of view, they may be slaves, second-rate citizens, etc. : They are not active and productive citizens any more.

I agree that this is somewhat an oversimplification. But GalCiv is no simulation... This is perfectly OK for a strategy focused game.

More on this topic.

The Planetary Defense Tiles - Should be whacked (deleted), if active on a planet and an invasion has success, for that matter orbital defenses also. Free space can than be utilized for whatever the invader wants. Yes, I know that you can just whack them yerself, however, they shouldn't be there to give you or them a hand, after the invasion is over until rebuilt. Frequently I build up a planet, its invaded and I arrive a turn later with troopers and still have to battle my own defenses I built that should have been destroyed. Which I believe is one of the reason counter attacks can be effective.

W/R
Suralle

(PS) Even on brilliant the Drengin are still woosies when you invade them

In real life this works the same, enemy is using your own weapons. Thi is why 'scorched earth' tactic was born.

heheh,

I was thinking more on the lines of the Maginot Wall (which translates to mean "Marginally Useful" in Kat language" after the French never extended it to the channel.

Although I concede that if I was the invading force I would want to try and save them areas myself. Much like if I was to invade Norfolk, Virginia. I would defintely want to try and leave the ships and associated shipyards intact for my own use.

W/R
Suralle the Kat

Sometimes the thoughts that come out when your eatting left overs.

Espionage... planetary invasions.... electronic surveillance... some cool (or more graphic) shots.

As more money is spent there could be some "keywords" and "tricky phrases" that could be added to the game as well as some Mata Hari cinematics.

Space battles cinematics rock!

Already have footage of the aliens according to what I was listening to.
W/R
Suralle

Much like if I was to invade Norfolk, Virginia. I would defintely want to try and leave the ships and associated shipyards intact for my own use.

Yes. Please do. I am on one of them. USS Iwo Jima.

USS Cincinnati, USS Key West, USS Philadelphia, USS Corpus Christi (City Of), USS HG Rickover. All that in 22 years. And my current job still has me as a baby sitter

Perhaps a simple suggestion for planetary combat is so that when an invasion force lands they will fight as per normal, BUT after a while low morale will creep up on them and they hoist the white flag (or whatever they have).

A TRUE Submariner indeed.

USS Eisenhower CVN 69, USS Enterprise CVN 65, USS Guam LPH 9, USS Roosevelt CVN 71, USS Nimitz CVN 68, USS Iwo Jima LHD 7. All that in 14 years. Plus a recruiting tour.

Check out my last post in the ship upgrade thread. Should sound familer to you.

THE POINT, here, isn't so much brutality - well it is - but also the needless killing of _useful_ workers and taxpayers.

IMHO If GCII is anything like the first, planitary invasion will be the most lacking aspect of the game. It doesn't seem like it would be to difficult to just come up with something besides deleting a huge number. Perhaps take 10% of the defending population, consider them the defence of the planet and give them the same effectiveness and the entire population in the current system. When the 10% are killed, the rest of the population exists. And it can be taken even further . Like in Civ III where a certain portion of the captured population remained in some kind of active revolt. At this point, the invader could kill off the population by a certain percent every turn if they chose too. This would then make them evil. In the current system, anyone who invades a planet should be considered beyond evil. The problem isn't just the defending planet, it is also the way that transports are just loaded up with numbers that magicaly become troops. perhaps we could even have the option to build "troops". You could use these to attack or defend planets! As a tax payer of Earth, I don't think it would be to hard to create a better system of planetary defence and attack. But then again, I don't write code.

first the dregin didnt invade the Torian using Galciv style. READ PEOPLE. they had to use stargates and the ships were proably alot smaller.

if you did build troops then you'd have to take it out of the pop. or make them mechanic requireing techonolgy or else we'd be having this discussion on where do the troops come from. so no real reason to build them. kort had a point. its the tax payers fighting. ones that are elgible for draft (which is what your doing when you move troops to a ship). when you attack a planet their people are drafted. so it all evens out. as far as being evil for killing. the U.S. nuked japan and we werent considered evil. just really forceful. such is war/ but in Galciv i think (idk for certain) the AI will think twice about you if you go around attacking civs first without them doing anything to you which would make up for the whole evil invaders things. P.S. US always has less causltys than who we invade yet other superpowers arent bearing arms agains us. france would like to... buncha wimps with there half baked only 180 degree mignot line

Theres a difference between using two nuclear weapons as a demostration of power to stop a world war and invading a star system and slaughtering every man woman and child in a population of 35 billion

Nice thing about GC2 is that you do not have to invade to take over. Instead of hostile, try to buy them out with cash/goods or just with your influence and prowess.

Or...

Nuke em and let their own gods sort them out.

W/R
Suralle

Grahamofboro ? Really? Is there any difference?
(and by the way , lol, here in Hungary we don't have a real gunboat, well without Sea shores it is understandable, no? )
Heh, think about having a submarine or carrier in Lake Balaton , it would not fit in

The tax payer thing really makes no sence. Even during a draft a relitively miniscule amout of able bodied men get forced into the service. Not the entire friggin population. How are the infants gong to use their AK-47s? The current system is lacking, that is all there is too it. You can try to justify it all you want with tax payers and stargates etc. But it is just kinda cheesy if you take your blinders off.

I agree I thought the planetary invasions were the weakest part of GC1 and its disappointing that it is the same in GC2 when they have improved so much in other areas

First off, having the tax-payers/land owners/those with something to defend fighting is just very common in human history. They have the most to lose, and are often the ones with the best equipment.

Also, 100% draft is not unusual, historically speaking. When you are fighting for your life, everyone that is able "mans the walls", male and female, regardless of their historic or current social roles. If a community/society is serious about surviving. So that means that the majority of planet's population population that is old enough to be taught to point and click can be fighting ("manning the walls"). Considering how advanced the GC universe is, does it seem odd that human worlds might have everyone over the age of 5 manning every concievable defense? After all, we can now make "video game" controls to allow the average American 10 year old to fly UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles) sorties. So, that means you can squeeze, what? 80% of the living into some form of combat or combat support roles. Very little innocent/non-fighting then. Heck, we have the tech to hook up 18 month olds to brain monitors and can train them to do certain tasks. So you can concievably (with the right tech) have over 90% of all humans alive fighting or supporting the fight. And that's with just what is demonstrable in the lab today. Imagine with the galciv tech levels what could be possible.

Also, it's very reasonable for *alien* species to fight to the last mind. Consider a hive mind species, one very similar to ants. Something attacks an ant colony, and every last ant but the Queen will respond if the threat progresses far enough into the hive. Why expect something different from the aliens? Once we enter in the realm of non-human sentience and biology, there's no reason to think they wouldn't or couldn't fight to the last born/hatched individual. After all, a race that happens to have any significant "racial memory" would only need to master their own basic motor skills before they could "man the walls".

I think thats stretching it a little

What planet are you talking about Star Pilot? There are numerous instances in history where people have been invaded by demonical conqerers. Take for example the Japanese invasion of China, or even the US's systematic destruction of the native americans. Never once, did every last able body die fighting. It just doesn't happen. And if it did, it would take years. But in one month, billions and billions (as Carl Sagan would say) die in the defense of their planet. Sorry, but unless the planet is destroyed by the Death Star, there will be countless survivors. Do you realise, that a population loss of even 1% caused by war is considered a blood bath? Also, war is truthfully a non player in population control.

Anyway, the system is dumb. And why shouldn't it be brought up to the same level as the rest of the game. Encourage the desiners to improve where improvement is needed. I don't think you are earning any browny points by defending it, unless you are just trying to justify it in your own mind.

Anyway, the system is dumb.

Possible. But I feel it is consistent with the way population increases: 200 Millions per week per planet. And your starting planet has 5 billion people at the beginning of the game.

I'm talking about this planet. How about you? You might want to go review human history. History is littered with examples where every capable body gets pressed into fighting for the survival of the village, city, or minor state. All the men, women, and children capable of being taught to do any useful task. Especially when they are facing an opponent that will put them all to death (or that they think will do so).

Heck, we don't have to go past the twentieth century to find examples where whole countries started drafting their women, first to fill non-combat and non-frontline roles, but latter included being in front-line positions and even front-line combat positions. Heck, it's common practice to this day to "draft" (forcibly conscript) boys as young as 6 in parts of Africa.

And that's just us humans. For a non-mammal style race that is born/hatches whole and needs very little time to learn to move, how fast could they be taught skills to support the war, or even fight? Natural carnivore species could have some decent HTH capability or ambushing capability "out of the egg" as it were.

And are you going to argue that the Yor, a completely artificial race, wouldn't fight to the last 'droid if they thought it would suit their greater designs or needs?

However, the point that the planetary invasion system is simple is very true. This does mean that we don't have to worry very much about the micro-managing of armies and such other then building some transports and shovelling people into them, and sending them out to where we want to invade. While that simplicity stands out, I'm not convinced that "improving" it would bring any more joy to the GC players.

Consider, MoO3 had a system where you built a variety of ground units, and would scoop them up on transports, and send them out. Then you'd invade your enemy worlds. That was a simplistic tactical system, and being such, meant you could always maximize/exploit the world invading to make it trivial to take over worlds. And the truth is, that was actually well done in MoO3.

Last night, I was playing a game of GC2 beta where I was invading a technologically superior opponent (with a x3 tech edge over me). My 1000M (1 billion) troopers were still eliminating 2000M (2 billiion) or more of the enemy with each assault. An invading army, versus presumably dug in local defenders. It should have been the other way around (ie, my 1000 should have only eliminated something like 300 at even RNG results, considering the massive tech edge they had over me by the shown fighting stats). So... what's that mean? It means that most of the citizens on the ground aren't actually trained. They must have been charging out with their hoes and skillets against my troopers. Because a prepared army defending their home land that had any time to prepare should have easily wiped out my forces. Of course, that would make for a boring *game* as it would mean that you could never take out an opponent if they got a decent fighting edge on you. Definately not fun if the determined under-tech but massive numbers cannot overcome the tech elite but less numerous force. Don't you agree?

As a final point, during the 15th such assault I had sent in (it was a huge homeworld), as I watched my troopers dwindle in number, it occurred to why the transports are always destroyed when the assault force goes in. To prevent them from jumping back in and running. Those invading troopers are committed to winning, or dieing. That means they will fight a lot more viciously then "normal". That means they will inflict a whole lot more damage and casualties, and not just on the properly uniformed enemy. Such is the way of the one-way drops.

Should the system be changed? Only if it adds to the fun. I can live with it being simplistic, as I am finding that GC2 is already a longer play then GC1. Adding a new layer to the game that lengthens that play further that doesn't add to the fun might tip the game from playable to "too tedious". And once that happens, all the "too tedious" players would be calling for orbital bombardment (so they wouldn't have to deal with the tedious invasions), and orbital bombardment leads to biggest galactic bomber force always wins. Not the aimed for fun of the game, according to Brad.

History has shown that humans certainly wouldn't fight to the last man,because it never happened, even with brutal leaders like Ghengis Khan or even the brutal invasion by the Japanese in WW2, where terrible atrocities where commited.The people would never fight to the last person,not even close.People are generally gutless cowards without leadership or weapons, as you should know with life experience..

I think the system should be changed.There should be lower influence and morale on invaded planets and the population should not come close to being wiped out.I would say 25% with mass drivers tactics should be the most extreme casualty figure.