Ground unit rebalance is needed...

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have played enough games to feel confident in my findings, which also is very similar to my feelings before the game was released.

Ground units simply is too expensive and also tank AI economy. There is simply no reason to defend fully assimilated planets in any way. Defensive units are too expensive not to mention facilities. This goes for the technologies you simply can avoid in favour of other technologies.

Instead you rely in a decent invasion fleet with only assault troops. These troops are mobile and you can rely on units with only a high offensive capability, defence is pretty much irrelevant.

The only defensive troops you need is to control conquered planets and that would be a relatively small number of units. You also can disband them when you don't need them.

If you compare with the resources an AI put on ground forces and unnecessary ground facilities you probably can get away with around 1/5 or even less in troopship and offensive armies to protect your entire empire. They also double as attacking force when you wish to invade someone else and not just defend.

This then translate into a much bigger fleet that just make it that much less likely an AI can invade your planets and you invading their planets.

When we look at the ground units they simply are too weak on defence for the resources you invest in them. An infantry units need to have at least the strength to beat four or five enemy units in order to make any sense in building them... you have to understand that armies have to be stationed at every planet as so it have to make sense to station them there from a resource perspective. As it is... you are better of investing the same resources in a mobile defence fleet instead.

NO unit in the game should EVER have a offensive value greater than its offensive value... EVER!!!
No matter how you see it a unit should always perform better in defence than offence. Obviously some units should be more resource effective in offensive operation than defensive ones, but they still should perform better in defence than offence.
I also would re-balance the technologies to be less rock paper scissors, so no more pure offence and defence techs for ground units, this makes very little sense and just confuse the AI as well I assume. This just means you will research one area only for units and use them for that one only... again making things worse.

This will obviously make some worlds extremely difficult to invade and that is what bombardment is for or just having a gigantic invasion army. It also will more or less destroy the world economically which also is realistic. This also would make defending worlds to some extent worthwhile as even a modestly defended worlds needs a substantial invasion fleet to subdue. It also will make it very difficult to only have a few military worlds producing your invasion troops, it should be an empire effort and expensive one at that.

There also could be changes to how garrisoning units work. Garrisons could be a separate mechanic in that planets will pay for garrisoned units. Once a unit is garrisoned its cost will transfer to the planet (deducted from the civilian economy) over time until the civilians pay for all it's costs. Once you want to ungarrison the unit that will also take some time before it is available and then the state would have to pay for it maintenance.
I would also make any units embarked on a space ship or in combat on an enemy planet increase the cost of the unit by double. There also should be some rule on when units can be garrisoned on a planet... unhappy planets also should be able to sway some garrisoned units to their side if the rebel.

Another thing you could add is population unhappiness if there is no garrisons depending on population size and proximity to potential hostile aliens or pirate activities. This would be an interesting mechanic in my opinion.

There are many fun things you could do with ground units to make them more interesting and viable in the game.

[currierm]

Interesting post! I agree troops are expensive and it is inefficient to try and defend everything. I set my troop policy for garrisons to low and restrict troops to 10% of my economy, until I'm overflowing with money. Except for strategic planets, I rely on counterattacking to retake planets.

That said, you're taking this farther than I would. My main reasons: attrition and the militia you get from population. If you take out a lot of an attacker's troops you can stall their attack rather quickly. Combined with the planet militia, 10 infantry and 8 PD's make a formidable defense that will eliminate a lot of attackers. That's roughly 4k in maintenance. But if a planet is generating 100k income I find it a worthwhile investment. With good hyperdrive tech, sometimes I'm able to swoop in with my own troop transports before the invasion finishes.

My defense (mid-game and beyond) typically looks like:
1. Strategic planets with ~15-20 defenders
2. Mid-tier planets with ~6 to discourage lone wolf transports
3. The rest, 2-3 to drive off pirates.
I use automation and cap using the economy allocation.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I know that it seems, to some degree worth it... but look at it from a player versus player perspective if necessary. The reason why you feel that it works is because the AI generally are weak and don't field a good enough invasion fleets and fleets in general, because they spend too much resources on bad stuff.

If you don't defend planet there also will be very little environmental damage and pretty much almost no damage. When you counter invade you generally will fight the opponents offensive units that is overall weaker in defence and some defensive units and defeat them very quickly, sometimes the planet even rebel and you join them.

4k maintenance is ALLOT, that is like 20 frigates or so, why not just stop their invasion fleet from reaching the planet with the 100 frigates you now freed up from half a dozen planets you don't need to defend. You also can have more offensive armies if you have no defensive ones. You have to think, what you can do with the combined resources of ALL the planet you have unnecessary units at, this issue just get worse the bigger your empire gets. Defending your capital while it generate 90% of the income is sound, but when even your biggest planets are like less than 5% of the income it actually is not worth it at all. There are much better ways to spend the money like better technology, more ships, offensive troops etc... you stop the invasions from happening in the first place 95% of the time, the other 5% you just counter invade with your massive invasion armies.

You only need to defend one or two planets, usually where you have your offensive troops. These planets usually are so deep inside you empire that they would never get attacked unless you fight a much stronger AI, which I usually does, as I always start my games with AI MUCH more evolved and established in the galaxy than me.

I almost never spend more than roughly 1% of my overall economy on ground troops... this is necessary to field enough fleets to even try and match the AI in my games, this leaves me forced to only counter invade if I can't defend my planets with my fleets.

It is the same reason weapons on immobile structures have the LOWEST priority over primary mission roles and defensive equipment. They only need to survive until rescue arrive. So stations mainly get fighters, point defences, shields and armour etc... and only that after I maximized their primary role to the max first. Many planets have space station with little to no weapons at all on their stations, only defences.

Defence platforms also don't work well, too expensive and not mobile enough... they can't even protect an entire planet. Stations also only work if you have ground forces to protect the planet as otherwise they get transferred to the new owner of the planet when it falls.

As a human player you can decide to protect a key planet close to an enemy, sadly the AI don't really have that capability and simply defend planets based on their economic worth, even if they are not even remotely in the path of danger. Using a few defensive stations and a fortress planet is valid in the face of a strong powerful AI, where you want to stage your offensive fleets and invasion armies etc... or just as a protection. But you only need a very few such places and they are strategic, the planets economic worth is not important for this. The problem is the AI don't understand any of this and spend way too much on defences and suffer their fleets as a result. If we want a more competent AI we need defensive armies to be more worth it. The balance of the game have to play into the hands the way the AI plays it, full stop.

[maggiecow]

When we look at the ground units they simply are too weak on defence for the resources you invest in them. An infantry units need to have at least the strength to beat four or five enemy units in order to make any sense in building them... you have to understand that armies have to be stationed at every planet as so it have to make sense to station them there from a resource perspective.

And that would also apply to the enemy AI's troops. Not seeing how that benefits anyone.

As it is... you are better of investing the same resources in a mobile defence fleet instead.

So... when you lose a planet, you just capture it back. And lose all those facilities you invested in and a few hundred million citizens. Yeah, no thanks.

NO unit in the game should EVER have a offensive value greater than its (defensive) value... EVER!!!
No matter how you see it a unit should always perform better in defence than offence. Obviously some units should be more resource effective in offensive operation than defensive ones, but they still should perform better in defence than offence.

(I corrected what I assumed you meant). Have you heard of artillery?

I also would re-balance the technologies to be less rock paper scissors, so no more pure offence and defence techs for ground units, this makes very little sense and just confuse the AI as well I assume. This just means you will research one area only for units and use them for that one only... again making things worse.

But, you want to take away the choice, so there'll be just one troop research branch. Also, some racial troops are just better. Some researched troops can be built more quickly (I think!). The choice is there. It's as much a roleplay thing. In a Single Player game balance doesn't have to be perfect. Shouldn't be really.

This will obviously make some worlds extremely difficult to invade and that is what bombardment is for or just having a gigantic invasion army. It also will more or less destroy the world economically which also is realistic. This also would make defending worlds to some extent worthwhile as even a modestly defended worlds needs a substantial invasion fleet to subdue. It also will make it very difficult to only have a few military worlds producing your invasion troops, it should be an empire effort and expensive one at that.

There's a ton of defensive upgrade facilities you can research to bolster your militia. I'm not sure why you're arguing troops should be cheaper and more effective ("When we look at the ground units they simply are too weak on defence for the resources you invest in them. An infantry units need to have at least the strength to beat four or five enemy units in order to make any sense in building them" - bearing in mind that they'll be stronger when used either in defence or offence), then change your mind mid-message and decide they should be more expensive to build and less effective. Sounds like someone has investments in the bombardment industry.

There also could be changes to how garrisoning units work. Garrisons could be a separate mechanic in that planets will pay for garrisoned units. Once a unit is garrisoned its cost will transfer to the planet (deducted from the civilian economy) over time until the civilians pay for all it's costs. Once you want to ungarrison the unit that will also take some time before it is available and then the state would have to pay for it maintenance.
I would also make any units embarked on a space ship or in combat on an enemy planet increase the cost of the unit by double. There also should be some rule on when units can be garrisoned on a planet... unhappy planets also should be able to sway some garrisoned units to their side if the rebel.

Another thing you could add is population unhappiness if there is no garrisons depending on population size and proximity to potential hostile aliens or pirate activities. This would be an interesting mechanic in my opinion.

There are many fun things you could do with ground units to make them more interesting and viable in the game.

I think it was Space Empires IV that had a happiness buff if you had troops on a planet. Transferring garrison costs to the civilian side is worth discussing. Increasing upkeep for troops on a ship isn't a bad idea either but, again, do you want cheaper better troops or do you just not like troops at all?

It sorta sounds like you've let your economy get away from you and you're blaming troops.

Personally I think troops are fine. You need a strong economy to support them, and you don't put masses everywhere. Focus on the admin and logistics buffs.

First thing you do is turn off AI control of anything to do with troops and balance it yourself. Have one main invasion fleet at a time. I station 3-4 troops on every planet, and pile them on homeworlds. My current non-civilian income is 1 million credits and about ten percent of that is going on troops. I could definitely trim it but it's manageable.

Having a no troops run would probably be a way to introduce quite a bit of challenge into a game.

[Jorgen_CAB]

What... do you really think I have a problem?!?

The issue is that it is too easy as I don't NEED troops... I get to have a fleet that is massively more powerful instead of useless troops... I have NO issue with my economy... AT ALL!!!

I don't think you really reflected on my arguments...

Artillery for example will always be more beneficial to the defender in the same quality and quantity, so not sure what you are trying to prove. The other thing is that the game is only modelling operational combat neither strategic nor tactical in any way.

Just take your own game and remove all troops except for some offensive units, all defence improvement buildings or anything infantry (unless you use them offensively only) and then translate that into mobile fleets instead. This means the enemy will never get to any important planets and you will be able to overwhelm them in their space instead. You will not even need to build that much more fleets and can use the money for research instead if needed.

My whole reasoning is that ground troops is much worse than an equal amount of more fleets, you probably don't even need that much extra fleet either. This will stop the invasion from happening in the first place. You might not care much about smaller less important planets and those are the ones you counter invade. You might have one, two or three fortress worlds where you have your troops gathered when needed, almost exclusively offensive troops.

[Nightskies]

I also setup against much stronger empires, but I employ troops in small numbers defensively. They serve to raise the bar on invasion and raiding forces for a small investment, which makes it easier to keep colonies safe. Just 4 troops on 30 minor worlds is a mere $23k maintenance with middling tech. That's worth 87 highly affordable frigates ($260/year). Considering said 36-world empire has $1,056,000 allocated to state ship maintenance, it could be fielding about 4,000 frigates, plus troop ships. Those 87 additional frigates won't make a difference, but those 4 troops per planet do.

A much smaller empire example, 1 capital and 6 colonies, runs $4.8k for those small colony garrisons, worth 21 cheap frigates ($220 bottom-barrel price). This young empire could sport 395 cheap frigates with a $108k state ship budget ($21k on bases, construction, exploration, etc). 56 frigates per world. Would those 3 extra frigates per world matter either? Probably not. Again, those 4 troops are likely to make a difference- deterrence works in DW2.

From a warfare perspective, a small garrison with a small militia can probably fight off a single troop ship's worth, or at least hold it off long enough to get reinforcements. This means defenses can afford to be considerably weaker, as they don't have to be able to destroy all troop ships before they reach the planet- just 2 or 3.

That aside...

The AI should be weaker than a 1st time player that is just able to make sense of the systems, while being robust enough to give that player something to meaningfully overcome. This should not be viewed through the lens of player vs player. The AI is not meant to be a replacement for one, or as training wheels for new players to challenge experienced players. Nor is the game balanced, at all, for high level playing.

HOWEVER- "The balance of the game have to play into the hands the way the AI plays it," That's spot on.

Regarding troops, I believe the simplest method toward that is to make garrisoned troops cost a fraction of normal maintenance, perhaps 1/10th to FREE, and limit the number of units that can be garrisoned to be proportional to population- perhaps equal to number of militia the planet would generate. Excess troops can still be at the planet. If the (garrison tag) variable is 0 or 1, it would be exceedingly easy to code this in. Of course, the automated ratio of spending would have to be adjusted as well...

The AI is very aggressive with troop/defensive facilities, so perhaps the maintenance for those should be dropped as well. These could be handled just like garrisons- the number the planet can support at a discount, proportional to population. Defense bases might benefit from the same, but it shouldn't be based on population unless the scale for them is similar to how the AI determines where and how many to build.

I believe this to be suffice for the case of this discussion, since the whole reason *not* to have them in general is because they're cost-ineffective. Drastically reducing their maintenance will encourage the player to use them as the AI does, and mitigate the AI's weakness in employing them ubiquitously. That stations and would-be garrisons the player could employ wouldn't benefit from these discounts isn't a concern; the AI is building ubiquitously, where the player need not.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think I would argue the value of a few single ground troops on planets make much difference rather than having more ships and stop them before they arrive. I have done something similar on occasion but not often, only strategically in areas close to an enemy.
The key to fleet protection is recon so you know when and where enemy ships will appear long before they appear so you have time to react properly. Or attack and blockade their most likely staging planets before they act.
Some might find this to micro intensive, but recon is key to defence in this game with good sensors, both with ships and monitoring stations.

Otherwise I agree that it is mainly the maintenance of garrisoned troops that is the issue, they should be much cheaper to maintain and when you use them offensively much more expensive, planets should be able to support a certain amount of troops for cheap based on it's size and economy.

I also would like to remove the pure offensive and defensive nature of the units. An armoured unit should still be better at defending than attacking, but less efficient in defending than an infantry unit in general for the cost of building and maintain them. Size of the units could also be considered for civilian support of units, so a planet can support more infantry on pure size as well as economy versus armoured units.
But after you invade a planet and you defend with the invading army your armoured unit should still have a small defensive advantage over an someone trying to recapture the planet.

No matter what you do, the invader will always have the advantage as they choose when and where to attack and can concentrate their forces accordingly.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I basically decided to try balancing the troops and defensive facilities so they cost less maintenance, to facilitate help for the AI economy. I also reduced all attack values to 1/3 of all units and made sure all units will increase defensive as well as offensive values... only infantry still have two different lines but they are made a bit cheaper to research to compensate.

This will make defences much stronger and even a token force can be quite costly to build an invasion force for. Even if the troops themselves are less expensive the troop transports are not and you will need more of them as well. Will see how the AI handle invasions with the changes, it should be able to see the strength differences so should be able to handle it.

Will be interesting to see how it will change the AI economy situation as well as making it harder and more costly to invade planets... militias also become stronger as well.

[Nightskies]

I think most of us would agree that stopping an invasion before it lands is the prime choice to stop an attack. The real question: is the 2-5% increase in ships of greater value than 4 troops per lesser colony?

I think the troops are the superior choice. Disregard how the AI does it, for now.

Consider that 4 troops per world is just an average- if there is a frontier, they can have 6-12 troops (assuming one has proper scanner coverage). Having a garrison in itself can prevent an invasion in the first place, and if everyone is your enemy, that's worth much more than with one enemy. Then, when an enemy does commit to an attack, it has to commit more. Fewer, bigger attacks are easier to defend against. Often, 'bigger' merely means there are more enemy troops on the transports. Which means your response fleets can destroy more for the same firepower, which gives your defense ships a greater capacity to gain war score. That alone is worth more than 2-5% more ships.

Additionally, it provides the option to slack a bit on space defense. I don't mean to be negligent in defense, but to have the option to commit less to defense fleets and have confidence to succeed. Although fighting on your colonies isn't preferable, troops do contribute to war score if they can fight. Its better than having not been able to destroy the transport or its troops. Having layers of viable defense alone is also worth more than 2-5% bigger fleets.

Then, although frigates are expressly mobile, troops are not immobile. In a pinch, they can provide a closer source of reinforcement to an invasion fleet, or be picked up by a lone transport to come to the aid of nearby threatened colonies. I often employ cheap troop transports to shuffle troops rather than disbanding and rebuilding- considering that building one unit of infantry is worth 10-12 years of maintenance, its worth having a transport for every sector the empire has. Eventually it would be ideal to use chimeras of your most experienced troops across the empire (Space Marines, anyone?), which demands some troop logistics to execute anyway.

To top it off, what the empire's collective fleets are capable of considering a single 2-5% boost isn't different from what it is already able to do. Very rarely, even in multiple plays, is that usually negligible difference in fleet strength going to have a different result. Most often, it'll mean 1 less ship lost in a handful battles, or an extra enemy mining station or two destroyed in a short war. Compared to keeping 1 more colony intact? Its a clear choice.

Commander Lock : I believe I'm going to need every ship we have if we're going to survive this attack.
Councillor Hamann : I understand that, Commander.
Commander Lock : Then why did you allow the Nebuchadnezzer to leave?
Councillor Hamann : Because *I* believe our survival depends on more than how many *ships* we have.

While Hamann is exhibiting belief that Neo can save them, the point is that being able to pursue more roads to victory is superior to having fewer with slightly better chances. And although DW2 doesn't have trigger happy EMP operators that can screw up your fleet to narratively push the point, it remains that the defense fleets might not be best employed to defend a small world, where a small garrison may suffice.

...This is disputing how to optimally spend <1% of an empire's taxes. So, that aside...

Regarding armor (tanks) and pitched planetside battles, I agree. Special forces have the counterpart of planetary defense, but armor and titans are just plain weaker defensively, yet are their own counter. As a game piece, it makes sense that armor is meant to be an assault token, but as it is, it just gives attackers an edge that defenders can't really match. As is, if an attack is inevitable but space control is still present, it could be better to load non-PD troops off a world before an attack and then counterattack with the same forces after, because the attacking force could be half as strong, or even less, just being on the defense.

Armor should be at least twice as strong at defending than they presently are, or there should be a defensive counterpart. While PD is good to have, in a pitched battle where it matters most, Armor > PD. The only viable reinforcements in defense are infantry, as is, since PD only gets its value at the onset of the battle.

*edit post-ninja post*: I think they were expressly trying to avoid invasions being too difficult, which makes sense... invading a lot of worlds is already time-consuming.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I would agree to your analysis to some degree... but it is entirely built on what the AI does not what I would do... that is sort of what I usually try to envision. This is why the current easy mode of invading makes ground forces really weak and expensive rather than just building more ships, especially in the hands of the AI.
My experience is that the AI simply lack fleets as they hamper their economy with a pretty substantial ground and facility maintenance budget rather than military ships. The point being that I would be more challenged if the AI had more fleets rather than a weak dispersed ground force. With my changes the ground force got defensively stronger and the AI get more money over for a bigger fleet.

The AI spread the forces around... sort of like you describe which hamper their overall fleet strength a bit more than your suggestion as the AI generally build more troops and more facilities.

My strategy is generally to disperse invasion army infantry assets on the edges of my empire against my enemy, those are generally occupation forces rather than invasion forces. But they are part of the invasion force and I certainly use them in a manner as you suggest.

A human player (for the most part I suppose), attack deliberately based on knowledge of enemy defences and make sure to bring overwhelming force to do so and don't attack piece meal. So defending like you suggest is not really effective against the player with the current system of how easy it is to invade.

If some people think it is too tedious to invade planets because it require some effort from the player that is in general a bad attitude if it means better game balance, in my opinion.

In the game where I now changed things I have simply made ground forces half as expensive and more or less three times stronger in defence. The benefit to the AI will be much less maintenance on ground forces so they will get more over to other stuff, it will also make it much more involved from the player to invade their planets. While the player will need less resources to protect their planets now as well it does not change things that much from the AI perspective as they build really strong ground forces to begin with anyway.

The important thing is to give the AI more resources for fleets as I generally find the AI lacking in fleets big enough. Invading planets the AI should be able to do with bombardment and assault forces eventually no matter the defence value of the units if you fail to defend space.

As I said before I also spend some budget on the ground force, such as perhaps 5% of my entire economy. How I then distribute the forces are generally 90% of the forces on a few select planets and then 10% on the rest, some planets get no troops and some get a few, this depend entirely on the geography and strategical needs.
I then base my entire strategy on force concentration and recon of enemy systems and border space. You can for example intercept enemy ships in places where they need to exit and jump to their final destination. Trapping them and hinder them from jumping again, works with some planning. Just sending forces to blockade planets works great as distractions.

There are many ways you can protect planets from attack that is not having ships in that system in particular.

And yes... with the changes that I did you would always want to defend rather than counterattack no matter what ground units you bring. Even armour will always be better at defending than attacking. Armoured units on the other hand still is more efficient while attacking than other units.

[Nightskies]

You'll have to adjust the budgeting by the AI, too- it'll still try to spend the same amount on troops, I think. Which means it'll have tons of strong planet side defenses, and still not much more fleet.

[maggiecow]

Re: armoured troops having no comparable defence: as I mentioned there are a ton upgrades not just for troops themselves, but specific facility upgrade chains that increase troop defence, provide planetary cannons, beams, fighters and shields. The defending team also has the advantage of numerical superiority against the Forlorn Hope of the first troops thrown onto the meat grinder. The militia of a large planet will destroy a lot of expensive troops before they get overwhelmed.

If you want to step outside the role play and state what is hopefully obvious, troops aren't ACTUALLY intended to make a world harder to take, they're there to make it harder to take the population. You can bombard a world, destroying troops and population until even a single troop can take the planet. The smoking, denuded, barren planet.

I feel like troops are working exactly as intended. Not saying they're perfect but they do what they're supposed to.

Is the AI using them effectively? Is the AI using anything effectively? No and no.

[maggiecow]

You'll have to adjust the budgeting by the AI, too- it'll still try to spend the same amount on troops, I think. Which means it'll have tons of strong planet side defenses, and still not much more fleet.

Let the AI free up spending on troops and they'll be straight to the casino with it. They can't be trusted.

[maggiecow]

Artillery for example will always be more beneficial to the defender in the same quality and quantity, so not sure what you are trying to prove. The other thing is that the game is only modelling operational combat neither strategic nor tactical in any way.

Well, that's disingenuous of you. You said there was no way any unit should have a higher offense rating than defence. The offense and defence ratings aren't, as you correctly point out, some real world equivalent, they're a reflection of how much damage the unit can dish out versus how much it takes to destroy it in the framework of a game.

Just like in the real world (and there's a great example going on right now if you've been paying attention) artillery can cause massive damage, but can be taken out for comparatively little cost. A guy with an RPG can take out a howitzer. High offense, small defence.

Kinda difficult to assign real world strategic value to artillery in the context of a war fought on only one side's territory. It's not that sort of game.

We're not talking Gary Grigsby here.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Artillery for example will always be more beneficial to the defender in the same quality and quantity, so not sure what you are trying to prove. The other thing is that the game is only modelling operational combat neither strategic nor tactical in any way.

Well, that's disingenuous of you. You said there was no way any unit should have a higher offense rating than defence. The offense and defence ratings aren't, as you correctly point out, some real world equivalent, they're a reflection of how much damage the unit can dish out versus how much it takes to destroy it in the framework of a game.

Just like in the real world (and there's a great example going on right now if you've been paying attention) artillery can cause massive damage, but can be taken out for comparatively little cost. A guy with an RPG can take out a howitzer. High offense, small defence.

Kinda difficult to assign real world strategic value to artillery in the context of a war fought on only one side's territory. It's not that sort of game.

We're not talking Gary Grigsby here.

I will NOT get into real world politics or issues... but nothing in that situation show that artillery is worth more in offense that in defence.

In the real world the defender will always have the benefit no matter what equipment you use, everyone knows that. Defence does not mean you just sit in a trench line or fortress, not at an operational scale?!?

The way it works in the game is just gamey and make no real sense, it is not even good for game balance.

[Jorgen_CAB]

You'll have to adjust the budgeting by the AI, too- it'll still try to spend the same amount on troops, I think. Which means it'll have tons of strong planet side defenses, and still not much more fleet.

Yes... I have done that too... I have manipulated the policies for all the races to incorporate the new changes, everything from their troops budget to how much they assign for garrison duty versus offensive duty and increased the number of transport they will build too etc... that and some other levels to increase the amount of fleets the AI will build to some degree too.

I will run some AI only games and see how it goes...

[maggiecow]

I will NOT get into real world politics or issues... but nothing in that situation show that artillery is worth more in offense that in defence.

In the real world the defender will always have the benefit no matter what equipment you use, everyone knows that. Defence does not mean you just sit in a trench line or fortress, not at an operational scale?!?

In the real world we don't have dropships and space marines. In the real world, with the DW2 units, you would have drop ships crammed with Titans fallings at 5g towards entrenched infantry. Once they hit the infantry the infantry are toast, but to get there their carriers had to get past static defences in orbit and dodge planetary weapons. But what's that? The planet also has units of Titans and now both enemy armoured units are tearing lumps out of each other. But the assaulting ground units are landing now that the Titans have created a beachhead and they're showering the defending Titans with rockets and RPGs!!! Thrilling!

Except it's not real world and it's just numbers with units having different recruiting, upkeep, offence and defence NUMBERS, for a bit of flair to make your space opera inner monologue a bit more interesting.

The way it works in the game is just gamey and make no real sense, it is not even good for game balance.

Again, you're not getting it. It's a game. These are abstracted numbers for the purpose of gameplay. In the same way the game ignores time dilation for space actions, it has abstracted ground combat to a numbers game. You accept that or go mad. It's gamey because it's a game, and nothing you've suggested makes it less gamey just a lot more boring.

As I tried to explain to you, it's working as intended. There isn't supposed to be "game balance" in a single player game. Troops are there to make the job of preserving enemy populations more "interesting" during an invasion, they are NOT there to mirror any actual real life "stuff".

If you want you can probably ignore troops, glass a planet and send some Mortalen to colonise it. Maybe. I dunno never tried it. Must try that. Gonna try that now.

[maggiecow]

I'm gonna leave the mistake in the above message to see who spots it.

And "glassing" a planet, with rail guns doesn't even do that much damage to the quality. Obviously you get a reputation hit but it's viable if you really hate having to raise troops.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I guess you still have not reflected over my actual arguments... it is about game balance which is pretty bad and that ground troops are too expensive and not really worth using. The other is that the AI invest WAY too much into troops for no good reason.

As I said above... I have made some modification to see some results. After just part of one AI game I can see some pretty promising result in terms of how the AI economy improve and build allot more ships.

The actual issue is that the AI have weak fleets and too little ships versus someone that invest very little in their ground force and defences. I can already see big improvements in AI competitiveness so far. So please look at my actual arguments.

As discussed above... having offensive units only... just produce very gamey effects... such as you rather take troops of a planet and counter invade rather than defend with them, which make no sense. It just become a very gamey mechanic. There also is no logic in that a titan would not work better in defence than offence, for the same reason any other unit in the game would not. There is always reasons or ways to make defence to your advantage, no matter what logic you try to spin on it that is just reality. Pure offensive units is a computer game mechanic akin to rock paper scissor. But it does often produce very gamey ways to play.