Distant Worlds: Legends Characters

[Haree78]

Hi Stormy Fairweather,
The Defensive Base will act like a massive boost to your troops strength on the ground if it is not taken out, they should be able to take out a lot more than their number.
However it sounds like you didn't have any troops or enough on that planet otherwise the AI wouldn't have been able to do that.

One tip I can give you is that along your borders with a nasty Empire or one you are at war with it is a good idea to have a fleet stick around that has a complement of troops loaded. This way when you get invaded you can quickly unload to defend a planet, then reload from the planet once the invasion has been destroyed.
Defensive bases and Fortified Bunkers help this strategy as long as you have a small number of troops on the planet, otherwise you are just giving a fortified bunker for the invasion forces to come and make themselves at home in

[HectorOfTroy]

Yeah, I was also waiting for some new info on weapons. Maybe some more info on borders ?

[Stormy Fairweather]

Frankly Haree, I don't much like ground combat in space games. Never have. As a result of this I left it up to the AI to garrison troops and such, figuring that so long as I maintained control in the sky it shouldn't matter. The attack in question there were four troops dropped, and two defending with a spaceport in orbit, and I think I had a decent tech advantage. None of the attacking ships survived for more than a few moments, none of them even got away, but they still took the planet.

I simply cannot fathom a realistic way for troops in atmosphere (including jets, tanks, ships, etc) to gain control of an orbital installation, nor any way for such troops to gain control of a planet while being shot from space, as seems most likely to happen in such a situation. Never mind how those troops would even get onto the planet while the troop ship's shields are up. If there is no way to disable troops being dropped while defense bases and starports stand then I will simply remove troops from my game entirely, or at least all the techs required to make them.

Ground combat should be an after thought in such a game, for it to be exploitable to the point of rendering all other aspects non relelvent reduces what should be an expansive and immersive game into building troops and troop ships.

Edit - A compromise might be to require spaceports and defense bases to be invaded themselves separately first, giving them default troops that reflects the crew requried to man such a station, as well as whatever troop quarters you build. Although I would still contend it would be impossible to board while it has shields (excepting special techs that would allow for troops to be moved through shields a few at a time). Might even make for a whole new strategy for enslaving a planet from orbit. Realisticly, it would be easier to do that than conquer a planet, becasue the entire population would essentially become a militia in defense of thier homes. Why isn't that reflected in the current setup? The millions or billions of people on a planet just meekly comply with the enemy when the army is defeated? Highly unlikely.

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: Stormy Fairweather
Frankly Haree, I don't much like ground combat in space games. Never have. As a result of this I left it up to the AI to garrison troops and such, figuring that so long as I maintained control in the sky it shouldn't matter. The attack in question there were four troops dropped, and two defending with a spaceport in orbit, and I think I had a decent tech advantage. None of the attacking ships survived for more than a few moments, none of them even got away, but they still took the planet.

Two troops is not enough on the ground even with a spaceport in orbit. As you can see, a small group of 4 troops got through and you ended up losing the planet. You either need more troops on the ground or do as Haree suggested and have backup troops around to move there if needed.

ORIGINAL: Stormy Fairweather
I simply cannot fathom a realistic way for troops in atmosphere (including jets, tanks, ships, etc) to gain control of an orbital installation, nor any way for such troops to gain control of a planet while being shot from space, as seems most likely to happen in such a situation. Never mind how those troops would even get onto the planet while the troop ship's shields are up.

The first part I totally agree with, the second I totally disagree with. If you take a planet but don't take the base, the base should remain part of the original empire. However, The planet is huge and the space port and defensive base are only on a small part of said planet. It wouldn't be difficult for the troop transports to get by. Although I would like to be able to have the ability to give the stations orders and target certain ships.

ORIGINAL: Stormy Fairweather
Ground combat should be an after thought in such a game, for it to be exploitable to the point of rendering all other aspects non relelvent reduces what should be an expansive and immersive game into building troops and troop ships.

I actually feel the opposite. I'd like to see more ways of assisting the troops on the ground. Things like ways of sending fighters down to assist your troops on the ground, techs to boost ground troops, and ways of targeting troops installations through bombardment.

ORIGINAL: Stormy Fairweather
Realisticly, it would be easier to do that than conquer a planet, becasue the entire population would essentially become a militia in defense of thier homes. Why isn't that reflected in the current setup? The millions or billions of people on a planet just meekly comply with the enemy when the army is defeated? Highly unlikely.

First off, rebellions do occur in this game after a planet has been conquered; it's happened in mine. Second off, what is unlikely is a large group of untrained, unequipped civilians rising up to battle with a group of trained military with advanced weaponry. If you disagree, please quote some times in history where civilians rose up to fight a conquering military force. I'd be interested in hearing it [8D]

[Bingeling]

I think you may find that there is no clear border between civilians and military in the history of the world. Ex soldiers become civilians, for instance.

There are quite a number of rebellions/resistance stories both during WWII and after. There are some going on just now. Examples of significant uprising? Warzaw? We can of course discuss how civilian it was. Large planets can probably create up to 30 rebel troops, and if it was wanted in game design, those could bolster the 2 defending troops and kick out the 4 attackers easily.

The main issue with troops on colonies is an old wishlist item. Troop transports on "load" orders (or automation) will strip colonies bare of defenders without you noticing. The "minimum troop level" is needed to avoid this. The AI may have built a decent amounts of troop on the planet, and the AI (or you) stripped it down to just two.

During game I force myself to kill orbitals before invading. It would not hurt if this was a game mechanic, but in that case the AI would need some modifications to bust spaceports better. They do kill spaceports, though, once they get some military power.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Stormy,

If your orbital defenses were still operational, then if four troops got to the surface that probably means they tried to land eight. Orbital defenses do make a difference, but they can't stop everyone. A planet is much larger than a space port or an orbital defense base and some troops will get through. Our assumption is that the actual landing consists of multiple drop ships of various kinds, designed to overwhelm ground and space based defenses with a target saturation problem.

If your colony is well developed and has a high population, that will also help your defenses quite a bit. Even if ungarrisoned, if a high population colony is somehow taken by a small number of enemy troops, they'll raise a militia and rebel against the occupation (and often succeed). But having a decent garrison is the best way to prevent a surprise assault.

Really your defense should come in several layers. Long Range Sensors are the first, to give you plenty of warning that an enemy fleet is on the way. That gives you time to gather your fleets and local defense ships as well as start a few extra troops recruiting. The second is hyperspace denial, which forces the enemy to enter real space much further away from your planet, giving them a longer run to the surface while your fleets engage them and your orbital defenses pound them. The third is your orbital defenses, the last is the troops and defense facilities (like shields and ion cannons) you've built on the ground. Some enemies won't even bother invading, they'll just bombard your civilians and military troops from orbit.

Even with all these layers, no defense is completely invulnerable if the enemy has space superiority and enough troops and troop transports, but paying attention to all of these areas makes taking a colony a very expensive proposition.

As far as the orbital facilities switching sides, the rationalization for this is that with such powerful weapons in orbit, there is always some kind of control center or failsafe on the ground and complete control over the planetary surface gives the invader access to that and thus control over the orbital facilities. Outside of the rationalization, it's a fair amount of work we haven't gotten to yet to make other options possible.

Regards,

- Erik

[Nedrear]

Erik I guess you made a mistake. Hyper Deny stops them from fleeing per Hyperspace. The thing that ripes them out of it is a gravity well station or ship.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Nedrear
Erik I guess you made a mistake. Hyper Deny stops them from fleeing per Hyperspace. The thing that ripes them out of it is a gravity well station or ship.

Whoops, thanks Ned, I did mean to say gravity wells!

Regards,

- Erik

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
There are quite a number of rebellions/resistance stories both during WWII and after. There are some going on just now. Examples of significant uprising? Warzaw? We can of course discuss how civilian it was. Large planets can probably create up to 30 rebel troops, and if it was wanted in game design, those could bolster the 2 defending troops and kick out the 4 attackers easily.

Well, my point was, with small forces, this would be reasonable, but not with large ones. For instance, when you mentioned Warsaw, they led the uprising as they were expecting the Russians to help them defeat the Germans. They didn't intend to fight the Germans all by themselves (I looked this up). Very rarely would a civilian-led militia try to attack a large army head on, right?

And I've seen this sort of thing happen in game... I've seen a rebellion force appear when I only have a few armies on a planet that was just conquered. But not when I have 7+ armies there.

30 rebel troops, though. Come on, man, that's ridiculous! I only see that many troops on enemy homeworlds who waste money on massive amounts of ground troops. [:'(]

[Bingeling]

30 rebels? I have not seen quite that many, but...

In the jewel AAR I wrote:

The jewel rebels, but has a good amount of soldiers. About even lines, my troops on the ground there are 12800 strength, the rebels are 8900.

I believe this was about 25 rebels. I did not type the numbers (it is boring to count that many), but in my case I "a good number of troops" would not be 10 at that stage... That would be merely two transports full, or even less.

In an earlier print of the colony list, the place had almost 8000M population. And colonies come bigger than that, which should mean there could be bigger rebellions. And 8900 strength is nothing to scoff at unless you have had the genetic thing going for quite a while.

[Stormy Fairweather]

I have sidetracked this discussion enough (I had already made the decision not to do so further before Haree addressed me). As I understand it Erik, you're the guy. If so, awesome work, really.

I ask that you put in a toggle into the code that with anything in orbit troops cannot be dropped and try it out. You may like the change I propse after some testing. Even if you don't impliment it into the game itself allowing for such a simple toggle via a config file would almost certainly be appreciated by more than just myself. From what I understand that should actually be relatively simple, or at least as simple as anything with code is. The current ground combat mechanics make no sense to me, and suck out much of the fun of the game for me.

[HectorOfTroy]

Any news on release date and price?

[ceyan]

First off, rebellions do occur in this game after a planet has been conquered; it's happened in mine. Second off, what is unlikely is a large group of untrained, unequipped civilians rising up to battle with a group of trained military with advanced weaponry. If you disagree, please quote some times in history where civilians rose up to fight a conquering military force. I'd be interested in hearing it [8D]

American Revolution, French Revolution, Palestine/Isreal, the god awful ridiculous number of examples between the 1400-ish and French Revolution in Europe, need I go on? Just because a person isn't in military service doesn't mean they don't maintain their own weaponry or are capable of obtaining something through surprise capture of arms/stores. Hell, if my area got invaded I know enough people in the area who collectively own enough guns to easily cause some seriously hell for a full on military brigade, including a few rifles that fit into the low end of the anti-tank category. You've got people who switch sides, people who served in former wars, surprise, so on and so forth... I know, off-topic, but I had to say something.

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: Stormy Fairweather
I have sidetracked this discussion enough (I had already made the decision not to do so further before Haree addressed me).

My apologies, I actually thought I was looking at the final page of the thread when I responded and realised my mistake after. I left it because I hoped the tip might be useful.

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: ceyan

First off, rebellions do occur in this game after a planet has been conquered; it's happened in mine. Second off, what is unlikely is a large group of untrained, unequipped civilians rising up to battle with a group of trained military with advanced weaponry. If you disagree, please quote some times in history where civilians rose up to fight a conquering military force. I'd be interested in hearing it [8D]

American Revolution, French Revolution, Palestine/Isreal, the god awful ridiculous number of examples between the 1400-ish and French Revolution in Europe, need I go on? Just because a person isn't in military service doesn't mean they don't maintain their own weaponry or are capable of obtaining something through surprise capture of arms/stores. Hell, if my area got invaded I know enough people in the area who collectively own enough guns to easily cause some seriously hell for a full on military brigade, including a few rifles that fit into the low end of the anti-tank category. You've got people who switch sides, people who served in former wars, surprise, so on and so forth... I know, off-topic, but I had to say something.

You make a good point but the ones you listed were not revolts against a large army who had just conquered a nation. The first two were revolutions, which are a completely different story. And, in the last one, it is also a very different situation (since guerrilla tactics are often used by the Palestinians).

I'm talking about a situation where a large armed force has come in, conquered a nation, and the country's civilians immediately, or shortly afterwards, take up arms and attempts to fight them off (not guerrilla tactics). And I'm not talking about the army conquering, moving on, and then the revolt occurring as that is also different.

I'll stop pursuing this now since it is quite off topic. But I have never heard of such a situation and the examples you presented there are of a very different type. If you have an example of the above, though, I'd really like to here it (I'm not saying that as challenge; I'm saying I'd really like to hear of one as I don't recall hearing of one back in high school history class).

[Bingeling]

To pull it back to the game. I think the discussion was started by 4 troops landing through space defenses. Spaceships can be large. But 4 troops fits on a starting tech troop transport (of unknown scale). Colonies can be the size of earth, easily.

This is all nice and abstract, but my gut feeling is that 4 troops on a planet is spread quite thinly. On earth, occupying hostile areas require quite a bit of force. But everything in space is different, the inhabitants are very docile, and 4 troop factors can conquer and hold a huge planet if only 1 factor is defending.

And I am fine with that. But please give me some help in ensuring that not all defending troops on important colonies are transported off by roaming troop transports if I give a fleet the "load troops" order with no target.

[Malevolence]

I'll stick my two rupees in here... there is no way any massed ground forces (or any combatant for that matter) can survive when your adversary can shoot accurately at you with impunity.  If troops managed to get on the ground, their formations would be easily neutralized by aerospace forces from above.

Currently, the choice in DW becomes whether you are willing to use bombardment against your own world or not (which is available to you as the player).

Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
...
Burke: Hold on a second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.

If you don't think you should have to use bombardment (as a game mechanic) then you might as well remove ground forces from the game entirely -- he who controls the space around a planet, controls its surface.  In terms of conventional forces (not guerrillas and insurgents) that's a plausible argument.

DW decided to add ground forces, and in the long run I think it was the correct choice, because it will add more depth to the game... more hard choices to make as the player.

[Bingeling]

Apart from minor details like there being hard to keep garrison in place, troops are just fine in DW. Some more ground combat feedback would be good, but no huge effort should be needed.

Troops in DW are expensive, and you have to prioritize how many to recruit. How many should be on troop transports, and how many should be on the ground? It adds a twist to space combat in that killing troop transports may be of high priority. The AI is less smart about how to deploy troop transports, which hurts it quite a bit, though. As a member in 4 sheep strike fleets roaming the empire on general duty? Really?

[Gelatinous Cube]

lol.. 4 sheep.

[Bingeling]

Sheep, cheap, whatever. My fingers don't obey the mind...