Taking enemy homeworlds way too easy?

[the1sean]

Immigration rates is something that I brought up during the ROTS Beta process. It has actually been significantly increased compared to vanilla DW, but could probably use a bit more of a boost.

One thing that (AI designed) defensive starbases and starports need more of is Ion Blast weapons and Ion Cannons to slow invasion forces down. In addition, dramatically lowering the cost of troop upkeep(halved?), and then setting the AI to station tons more troops at the empire capital would make a big difference.

[gmot]

I agree it's too easy to take over planets right now. I play with the house rule that I have to remove the defenses before attempting to invade, but still I can take over lots of planets with fairly minimal troops. The AI should really have more troops defending colonies - I often run into a planet, which has been settled for awhile, with 0 or 1 troop only.

[the1sean]

Yet I feel that the AI defends planets about as well as I usually do. Ground armies are amazingly expensive!

[gmot]

That's a good point - should troops actually be that expensive? How about if there was a defensive troop kind only - militia I guess - that the AI could pump out lots of - but couldn't be used for invasions or loaded onto ships. The maintenance on these would be minimal so the AI could build lots of them. That would then make invading harder as the typical planet would be better defended.

[jalapen0]

Another thing that maybe has been mentioned is that it takes a laughably short period of time to take over a planet. Invading a planet should take a considerable amount of time....which will give the AI and/or player time to pour troops in from neighboring planets with transports while the battle rages, both above and on the planet surface.

[Data]

+1

[hewwo]

ORIGINAL: jalapen0

Another thing that maybe has been mentioned is that it takes a laughably short period of time to take over a planet. Invading a planet should take a considerable amount of time....which will give the AI and/or player time to pour troops in from neighboring planets with transports while the battle rages, both above and on the planet surface.

agreed!

[lancer]

G'day,

I also agree that planetary invasions are too easy.

One suggestion to improve the situation - without involving major game rejigs - is to simply tweak the ground combat algorithim to give the defenders more of an advantage. What this would in effect do is up the number of troops required to successfully carry out an invasion.

At present you can roll into town with roughly a 2:1 advantage and be confident of a win. By 2:1 I'm referring to total combat strengths, not number of units. A couple of experienced Human battalions can be worth more than six Teekan ones due to their low starting base strength. Rodents are cr*p at fighting.

Given that I'm in the dark about what odds are reasonable to successfully carry out a planetary invasion, I'll go out on a limb and say that 2:1 is way too low.

Here's a few wild thoughts on the subject.

From the perspective of the invader you have the advantage of mobility. You can insert ground forces anywhere on the planet at will. I'm assuming you wouldn't bother conducting an invasion if you didn't have space superiority.

The only example of an invasion in recent history that went ahead without clearly defined air superiority, that I can think of, was the Falkland Islands. Very nearly went pear shaped because of that. All other examples such as D-Day, the Pacific Islands, Korea, Desert Storm etc. had effective air superiority as a prerequisite.

So the invader can drop troops anywhere and can be assumed to have orbital bombardment capabilities which could take out any fixed military installations.

The sounds like an overwhelming advantage that would tend to favour success in situation of 2:1 or less odds.

But I think the defender has one key advantage that would go along way towards offsetting most of the above. To capture a planet the invader needs to take and control the main centres of population.

No point taking over vast swathes of jungle or plains. If you want effective control of a planet, its resources and its population then you have no choice but to take and hold the cities.

Nobody is asking but if I was in charge of defending Earth I'd concentrate all my forces inside the big cities. Straight away I've largely negated the invaders orbital bombardment capability. Sure they could bomb the bej*sus out of New York but there would be serious civilian casualities and unrest as a result. Plus a lot of infrastructure damage.

I'm also forcing the invader to fight an urban street battle on ground of my own choosing. Difficult to do and history shows that your force multiplier needs to be significantly above 2:1 in order to prevail. Look how well a small number of insurgents did against the Marines in Fallujah.

The Distant Worlds model of planetary invasion assumes minimal civilian and infrastructure damage. Given this and an urban defence strategy, I reckon 5:1 odds would be more appropriate.

If the DW model was enhanced at some point you could give the invading player a choice immediately prior to invasion. Something like 'Choose you preferred doctrine'.

Fight a standard urban battle for control of the cities while attempting to minimise collateral damage. To win you need roughly 5:1 odds.

Alernatively go in boots and all with orbital bombardment and heavy weapons. Shoot or fry anything that moves.

In this case you may only need a 3:1 advantage but it would be offset by a decrease in population and development levels plus a more antagonistic population once conquered.

A third option could be to lay siege to the cities. Cut off their food supply. Easy to do but it would prolong the invasion and give the defender time to insert off-planet reinforcements.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Puzzlemaker]

Options sounds like a very interesting idea, but it's entirely possible to do it without explicitly choosing.

You have the default assault, just land troops.

Then you have the orbital bombardment, but all you should really have to do for that is to bombard the planet with troops on the ground (maybe an extra option to do a slight bombardment).  It should target the enemy troops without hurting your own.

Then you have blockades.  If you put a blockade on a planet with your troops on it, it should turn into a siege instead.

So all three options, without the extra option selection, which is always nice.  I dunno, seems like it should fit to me.

[unclean]

ORIGINAL: kenata
1) Planets of a certain size should never simply roll over on an invading force. Ultimately, 16 units of troops should not really be able to hold 16k pop planet. I think that planets should have a huge penalty similar to civ where the people themselves are trying to rejoin their own empire for a time. Maybe something like a year per 1k people of happiness penalty.

3) Transports too close to a planet are immediately considered a foe by all ships in an empire, war or no war. This way you can't just slip a transport real close to a planet then sneak invade.

As someone who likes to play as the lizards or bugs and go for an early troop rush, I think these really hit the mark. 3 especially is a huge one, as others have said, and something like 1 is definitely needed as you just get an instant, imbalancing jump in power the second you take a HW.

With that said, I think suggestions that defense platforms should block invasions entirely are a bad idea. Governments like despotism and feudalism really need to lean on their troops early on as they have a hard time competing economically, and taking that out of the equation would make them pretty useless. It would make a really good mid game tech though, and would probably be the simplest way to make the AI defend against invasions better later on.

[the1sean]

One simple change is to give Homeworlds/Capitals a +100% defense bonus, and Regional Capitals a +50% defense bonus.

Adding this on top of the current +100% bonus fighting on native planet type and +100% from defensive bunkers, it should make Homeworlds/Capitals significantly harder to take. Also, partisans/militia are supposed to aid native troops during invasions of highly populated worlds. If this isnt happening there may be a bug to blame, or the +100% native planet defense bonus isnt being applied.

[sbach2o]

ORIGINAL: the1sean

One simple change is to give Homeworlds/Capitals a +100% defense bonus, and Regional Capitals a +50% defense bonus.

Just make sure that such bonuses are applied after any cap to troop strength. Or all would be in vain.

There already is the Fortified Bunker installation which also should work after any individual troop's cap, and I am a bit worried about how it may be handled right now.

I just made the discovery that it is all too easy to reach the individual troo's cap with freshly recruited armies already. First, the cap is 30.000. A Boskaran army has a strength of 14.000. Build it on the planet with the fortress ruin special (+100% strength) you already get to 28.000 and it is questionable whether having an Academy on that planet is still worth it.

I am not sure about this, but I also have the impression that armies take the longer to produce the stronger they are, so that any recruiting planet adds a more or less constant strength rating over a given time. The planet with the Fortress special should be just twice as fast as the standard. (Take this as a working hypothesis, not as an observation or hard fact.) This is why I think an Military Academy, on the planet with the Fortress may be counter productive. It actually overproduces the strength of its armies, they go above 30K while under recruitment, then drop back to 30K when finished.

I got a bit sidetracked, but the way the Fortress including Academy produces armies lets me fear that the cap of 30K on troop strength is global, affecting also defending troops with the Bunker special. That would be bad indeed.

[gmot]

I think it was GalCiv2 that gave you the option of how to invade a planet - the less destructive options required more troops to be successful. I thought that was good, but still fairly basic .

Personally, I would like a lot more control over my troops - e.g. different kinds of troops with different areas of expertise (equivalent to ship weapon types), battles taking much longer, setting some troops as defensive, while others as invasion specialists (e.g. marines). Invading seems like a bit of an afterthought right now. I know it's a space 4x game so I'm not expecting a RTS each time a planetary invasion happens. (However, anyone remember Space Rangers 2? I've loved the RTS mini-game that had).

But taking over planets is a key component of DW so I'd like to see it enhanced in a future patch/expansion.

[Data]

i totally agree, SR2 and DW are the only ones I play now....remember also the quests in SR2? if something like that could be implemented in DW also it would bring this rich game to an even richer level; from all points of view

[gmot]

Haven't played SR2 in a couple years, but remember having a blast. The quests were great and I loved the quirky humour and translations. I should really give it another go through.

[J HG T]

Even though I love SR2 (Duh! My avatar!) the quest system don't really go well with 4X game where you rule your own empire. You already have enough stuff on your hands. It works in SR2 style games because you are basically a freelancing hero doing what you wan't for profit and fame, not the grand Lyacuzha of the Pelengs. Which made me think: SR2 shipsets would be rad for DW. Pity that I suck at modding.
Sins of the solar empire has mission system, but even though I don't hate it, I really don't wan't to see mission/quest system in DW.

Going a bit off-topic. Sorry.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: lancer

The only example of an invasion in recent history that went ahead without clearly defined air superiority, that I can think of, was the Falkland Islands. Very nearly went pear shaped because of that. All other examples such as D-Day, the Pacific Islands, Korea, Desert Storm etc. had effective air superiority as a prerequisite.

Vietnam? Afghanistan? In Vietnam, the USA had air superiority the whole time - and still they lost the war. Afghanistan is another place - and you can use both the Russians and the current USA-led invading force. I'm afraid your historical perspective on warfare needs some research.

ORIGINAL: lancer

No point taking over vast swathes of jungle or plains. If you want effective control of a planet, its resources and its population then you have no choice but to take and hold the cities.

None? How about food, fuel, logistics? How long do you think you can keep your masses of people in the cities fed, without any food coming in from the farms? How long do you think your tanks and troops can operate with no food, fuel, ammunition or supplies?

And to top it off, by retreating to the cities, you've completely given up any ability to manouver. You can't reinforce or otherwise reposition your troops. I point to practically every successful general in history in stating the importance of manouver. Read up on the tactics of Rommell, the Mongols, the Romans - hell, anyone who's fought and won battles. You lose the ability to manouver, you're dead.

ORIGINAL: lancer
Nobody is asking but if I was in charge of defending Earth I'd concentrate all my forces inside the big cities. Straight away I've largely negated the invaders orbital bombardment capability. Sure they could bomb the bej*sus out of New York but there would be serious civilian casualities and unrest as a result. Plus a lot of infrastructure damage.

So, in essence what you're saying is that you'd use your population as human (or otherwise) shields?

ORIGINAL: lancer
I'm also forcing the invader to fight an urban street battle on ground of my own choosing. Difficult to do and history shows that your force multiplier needs to be significantly above 2:1 in order to prevail. Look how well a small number of insurgents did against the Marines in Fallujah.

1350 insurgents killed, 95 US marines KIA. Not very good odds in my book. The marines were extremely restrained in their use of firepower - well, compared to Israelis in Palestine. I highly doubt any professional military commander would support the destruction of a religiously and culturally city as a "fair trade" for 15-1 losses.

ORIGINAL: lancer
The Distant Worlds model of planetary invasion assumes minimal civilian and infrastructure damage. Given this and an urban defence strategy, I reckon 5:1 odds would be more appropriate.

Don't forget the massive reputation hit you'd take for using your own civilians as shields - purposefully dragging the battle into heavily populated areas. Expect your other planets to rebel in short order, once they realize what sort of leader they have.

The DW model is based on current perceptions of civilians in warfare. In WWII, we were happy to fire-bomb Dresden into ash, without batting an eye. However, nowadays a drone missile strike killing 10 kids makes international news. I believe that the DW coders assume that the defenders will try to preserve the planet and the infrastructure, which explains why an attacker takes such a reputation hit for bombing out population. If the defender is allowed to make similar choices (human shields, for example), then they will have to model in that effect (reputation hit, planets rebelling, etc) - it's a level of complexity that I don't think CodeForce would be happy to implement.

[Data]

I'll follow the fayean guy a little bit off-topic also....we have plenty of discoveries in DW, more so than in any other game. A way to controlling the advantage we're getting over the AI with this would be a little secondary story line / quest to go with each discovery. If we fail them we don't get either the money or the research boost or the ships that come with them...or any of them. This will bring more depth to the main story lines as well.

There are a lot of implications to debate over on this, maybe it needs a thread of it's own. But I'm also not so keen on having them in DW so I'll stop here if there is no further interest for it; remains as an ideea that may spark another one.

[caerr]

I agree that minigames do not suit a grand strategy game like DW. It would be so easy to lose focus on the big picture if the game would take you away to do some sort of minigames all the time.

There are some interesting thoughts by Sid Meier on this, he calls it the "Covert Action rule", after the Covert Action game. Focus on what the game is.

I do love Space Rangers 2 though. [:D]

[Shark7]

Enemy homeworld defenses could use an improvement for sure.

Part of the problem is that stations tend to be less robust than they need to be. I was able to send in 2 salvaged Shakturi Cruisers and 2 Shakturi destroyers (IE the derelicts you find...these had Shakturi Firestorm Torpedos), and essentially knock out the AI defending fleet and all 4 bases (3 defense bases and the starport).

Here is a solution I suggest:

For stations and bases, we could allow for the doubling of certain stats such as weapon range and damage, and for defensive stuff, double armor value for armor and double shield value for shields.

For example:

On a ship the Maxos Blaster: Range 190, Damage 5, Size 5
On a base the Moxos Blaster: Range 380, Damage 10, Size 5

Armor slab: Size 1, armor 10 vs Size 1 Armor 20.

Shields: Size 10, Strength 100 vs Size 10, Strength 200

Essentially, it would amount to doubling the defense and power of the bases over the ships...and since bases are stationary and structurally larger, this makes sense (to me at least) in that bases don't have to devote space or power to main engines (only station holding thrusters) allowing for larger weapons and heavier armor/shields.