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Planetary invasions - reality check

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Planetary invasions - reality check

Ramblings of a mad man

from GalCiv2 Forums
To wage war is not a challenge to taken lightly.

Ignoring your opponents alliances, or the killing off of trade routes, or the war tax, where is the impact on your nation. It’s all a bit too easy.

It seems wrong that 2 ships can defeat a planet. Or one if undefended.

How can you transport 1 billion soldiers, tanks, ordinance onto a ship instantaneously, yes you built your ship, hit launch, by a miracle they are just there ready to fly.

Lets face it each man would need 4 cubic meters at least in order to sleep, store weapons, personal items (cos it seems they are going there for the rest of their lives, well maybe not). Therefore 1 billion troops takes up 4 billion cubic meters, or 1 cubic mile, pretty big

(try not to laugh too loud) Now if your flying for 10 weeks you’ll need to phone home every so often, take a shower, eat, keep fit, etc so in reality you are looking at 10 times that.

Put them in cryo-stasis I hear you say, sounds good, but research it, put it on a tech tree somewhere probably towards the end of the tree. But its still 1 mile cubed.

Tanks/planes/missiles/transports probably big beasts so were back to 10 times bigger. So we either have a huge spaceport or space shipyards (or even multiple space shipyards), lets face it even the "death star II" in star wars was only 100miles in diameter, no 10 mile wide/long launch bay there.

I propose new starbase type of "shipyard", for building large/huge/"hugecargo" ships, huge cargo being a new transport type. Although in starwars – attack of the clones at the end you see the clone battleships taking off from the surface I would suggest that is not really feasible for a 300 meter multibillion ton ship to take off, such thing as escape velocity to overcome. Tiny/small/medium ships I can come to terms with, bigger than that needs a space based shipyard… Oh yes!!!

In war the enemy will target your ability to wage war and that is likely to be manufacturing facilities/shipyards first, but since you have to conquer a planet to take out the manufacturing plants having the possibility of taking an expensive shipyard out might add to the game play in a war.

If a nation on earth was to build a nuclear silo out of the blue 1000 miles from your capital city, with a nation you know one day you’ll come to blows with. Would you sit back and say, it’s ok, I don’t think he’ll us it. Would you

a) Build a strike team and take it out?
b) Build one yourself.
c) Demand they take it apart and submit to inspections, or it’s war soon
d) Bribe them to take it apart and submit to inspections.

Hmm If you can build one yourself then cool, if you can’t then lock and load cos options c and d is not possible, If you already have one then build another or yep you guessed it lock and load.

What do you think will happen when that country is Iran… kind of true to life really.

North Korea might have been bribed to take theirs apart.

Ok, take a break, and continue in 5 mins LOL

One other thing about troops, a population generally consists of a certain composition, the uk for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kingdom#Age_structure

Has 66% of population between 15 and 64, its fair to say a man can fight on the battle field to say 45, after that it’s probably a command role of some kind. And lets say 17 is the youngest. Were left with 70% of those and most women will be running the planet, I know I’ve seen starship troopers but at most 10% of women will go to war. So maybe were looking at 25% of the whole population will be eligible to be troops.for a 16 billion planet that’s 4 billion troops, but by the same token it’s also 4 billion troops to defend. I can see the devs will have a nightmare integrating that little gem into the gameplay. So I would suggest that for a 16 billion planet only population over the 8 billion mark are allowed to be soldiers for offensive. (yes 50% but makes the maths easier) and over 6 billion can be defensive troops (66%) – (greater than offensive due to knowledge of land and troops dug in etc)

Seriously if you leave 1 man on a planet should that planet be able to pump out 100 research 50 mp and 100 credits?... answer is obviously no, but it can happen in this game (well ok 10 million might be the lowest in this game)

Also can we not commit genocide too often without being expelled from the UN and massive sanctions imposed? Occupy planets, (those manufacturing plants have ceilings 1 foot too low for your super large race…LOL..how can you use those?) and soldiers add to population, of course people won’t be happy but that also allow the planet to revolt should nearby influence be too low. Maybe declare independence.

Binding treaties

Treaties that can’t be broken,

e.g. we’ll stop the war if you give us 100 credits per week for the next year. if the credit cannot be taken/given then the treaty is cancelled.

Or we’ll give you planets x,y,z and 30 per week if you do not enter our current territory for 60 weeks. The territory is taken from the moment it’s signed, any additional territory gained after that is ignored and can be entered.



Some changes are in order.

1. No more than 10 million troops per ship, or maybe 2 million per module
2. Research levels of cryo storage (5 levels big units to tiny units)
3. New starbase type of shipyard, with all new fancy components to aid in the building of large ships
4. Only troops over 50% population capacity mark can load onto transports.
5. Binding treaties

Advanced changes

1. Option to commit genocide, immediatly expelled from UN with trade cancelled and not possible with all UN nations, unless compensation paid (lot of money)

All of the above might be planned for GC3 if they are tell us so we can start dreaming.



34,426 views 47 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Let's hope Stardock is listening then ....
End of quote


oh come on, stardock listening to something about reality? get real.

  
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Let's hope Stardock is listening then ....


oh come on, stardock listening to something about reality? get real.

  
End of quote


Yea that'll never happen. There's an old dev journal about reality in games, I think it was made befor GalcivII came out. Well anyway reality has been around this forum for a while.
Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To the OP: 10 million cubic metres does not require you to build a cubicle with a side-length of 10 kilometres, only around 2 kilometres. Modern day industrial sectors are more or less of that size.
(The cited Death Star could hold around 8000 cubic metres. Effectively, if the Death Star contained around 100.000 troops, they must have been quite lonely. Maybe the situation was like in the Australien outback, were it can take you days to reach your neighbour. )

Just my mathematical two cents.

Apart from that, I go with Gallagher: Transports being used up is a pita. I would appreciate a change in the system.
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you want it real, they all should have to go for a pee. People can't run around for centuries with a full blatter. Moreover, in line with GalCiv TA, every race should pee differently. Some wouldn't, but they can explode.

Most races should cut their toe nails too or they would fall over them, making an invasion pretty difficult. Oh, and they have to get a haircut now and then, or they would accidentally invade the wrong planet.

The Yor on the other hand would need to oil themselves or they get stuck and rusted, and it would be game over all to soon. And they need a update or patch now and then, or get obsolete.

The most lethal attack against the Yor would be a rainstorm. Oh wait, the humans could pee them to dead... Solves two problems at once!

héhéhé!

When aiming for reality, where do you stop before all are Happy?

I need to stop, cause I have to ... you know ... pee.   

I keep my trust in Stardock, if you don't mind.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yeah, just shut down the bathrooms two days before you reach a yor planet!!!
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It seems wrong that 2 ships can defeat a planet.
End of quote


Its no more wrong than 1 ship defending a planet. Read the description of the Planetary Defense technology sometime. The attackers can come from literally any direction. The one ship can't be everywhere at once. The fact that you always have to battle it is just an abstraction.


Put them in cryo-stasis I hear you say, sounds good, but research it, put it on a tech tree somewhere probably towards the end of the tree. But its still 1 mile cubed.
End of quote


Well Planetary Invasion is pretty expensive, especially considering its such a low-tier technology. All the stuff you mention is abstracted as part of the "troop module," which is what you're researching when you research Planetary Invasion.


Tanks/planes/missiles/transports probably big beasts so were back to 10 times bigger. So we either have a huge spaceport or space shipyards (or even multiple space shipyards), lets face it even the "death star II" in star wars was only 100miles in diameter, no 10 mile wide/long launch bay there.
End of quote


The cargo hulls are *enormous* but fragile. The colony ship is essentially a flying city. The constructor carries enough supplies to build a starbase, which means that its mass must be at least equal to that of the starbase.


One other thing about troops, a population generally consists of a certain composition, the uk for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kingdom#Age_structure

Has 66% of population between 15 and 64, its fair to say a man can fight on the battle field to say 45, after that it’s probably a command role of some kind. And lets say 17 is the youngest. Were left with 70% of those and most women will be running the planet, I know I’ve seen starship troopers but at most 10% of women will go to war. So maybe were looking at 25% of the whole population will be eligible to be troops.for a 16 billion planet that’s 4 billion troops, but by the same token it’s also 4 billion troops to defend. I can see the devs will have a nightmare integrating that little gem into the gameplay. So I would suggest that for a 16 billion planet only population over the 8 billion mark are allowed to be soldiers for offensive. (yes 50% but makes the maths easier) and over 6 billion can be defensive troops (66%) – (greater than offensive due to knowledge of land and troops dug in etc)
End of quote


This is another abstraction. That billion population on the transport module includes a lot of support staff: clerks and cooks and analysts and janitors and stuff.


Simulations necessarily involve abstractions, otherwise it would be actually really real and you'd have to invent Hyperdrive and unite Earth under a world government to play. The abstractions in GalCiv2 are generally pretty elegant, actually; I particularly like the idea of the 2D starmap as being a representation of Hyperdrive vectors and distances and so on.

Seriously this is a pretty good 4X game and if you don't like it you probably just don't like 4X games. Complaining about things like this is like complaining about how your new BMW is too shiny. Sometimes its time to just be satisfied with what you have, you know?
Reply #32 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So imagine you had a ship that could handle a billion people...

Just imagine how long it would take to get a billion people on board. Imagine the traffic jam... It would take weeks. Now imagine what a billion people leaving would do to the economy.

The answer is soldiers... And once you claim a planet, you have some sort of cloning facitlity to generate population. Said facility would just be a constant +x to the pop every week. Once the population got high enough, the production of clones would be insignificant compared to the normal pop growth.

Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


It seems wrong that 2 ships can defeat a planet.


Its no more wrong than 1 ship defending a planet. Read the description of the Planetary Defense technology sometime. The attackers can come from literally any direction. The one ship can't be everywhere at once. The fact that you always have to battle it is just an abstraction.


Put them in cryo-stasis I hear you say, sounds good, but research it, put it on a tech tree somewhere probably towards the end of the tree. But its still 1 mile cubed.


Well Planetary Invasion is pretty expensive, especially considering its such a low-tier technology. All the stuff you mention is abstracted as part of the "troop module," which is what you're researching when you research Planetary Invasion.


Tanks/planes/missiles/transports probably big beasts so were back to 10 times bigger. So we either have a huge spaceport or space shipyards (or even multiple space shipyards), lets face it even the "death star II" in star wars was only 100miles in diameter, no 10 mile wide/long launch bay there.


The cargo hulls are *enormous* but fragile. The colony ship is essentially a flying city. The constructor carries enough supplies to build a starbase, which means that its mass must be at least equal to that of the starbase.


One other thing about troops, a population generally consists of a certain composition, the uk for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Kingdom#Age_structure

Has 66% of population between 15 and 64, its fair to say a man can fight on the battle field to say 45, after that it’s probably a command role of some kind. And lets say 17 is the youngest. Were left with 70% of those and most women will be running the planet, I know I’ve seen starship troopers but at most 10% of women will go to war. So maybe were looking at 25% of the whole population will be eligible to be troops.for a 16 billion planet that’s 4 billion troops, but by the same token it’s also 4 billion troops to defend. I can see the devs will have a nightmare integrating that little gem into the gameplay. So I would suggest that for a 16 billion planet only population over the 8 billion mark are allowed to be soldiers for offensive. (yes 50% but makes the maths easier) and over 6 billion can be defensive troops (66%) – (greater than offensive due to knowledge of land and troops dug in etc)


This is another abstraction. That billion population on the transport module includes a lot of support staff: clerks and cooks and analysts and janitors and stuff.


Simulations necessarily involve abstractions, otherwise it would be actually really real and you'd have to invent Hyperdrive and unite Earth under a world government to play. The abstractions in GalCiv2 are generally pretty elegant, actually; I particularly like the idea of the 2D starmap as being a representation of Hyperdrive vectors and distances and so on.

Seriously this is a pretty good 4X game and if you don't like it you probably just don't like 4X games. Complaining about things like this is like complaining about how your new BMW is too shiny. Sometimes its time to just be satisfied with what you have, you know?
End of quote


"Its no more wrong than 1 ship defending a planet. Read the description of the Planetary Defense technology sometime. The attackers can come from literally any direction. The one ship can't be everywhere at once. The fact that you always have to battle it is just an abstraction."

I'm sure it would take a long time for the Transport to revive all the troops from stasis, unpack everything, use invasion tactic, and send in the dropships and aircraft. While it's doing this, I'm sure a defending ship can fly around and shoot it. So you have to get rid of it before you can invade. During this attack, your attacking warship/fleet probably takes out planet-based defenses and enemy aircraft so that your war-in-a-box Transport can unpack. What is unreasonable is how an unarmed scout can prevent an invasion through anything less than ramming the Transport.

"Well Planetary Invasion is pretty expensive, especially considering its such a low-tier technology. All the stuff you mention is abstracted as part of the "troop module," which is what you're researching when you research Planetary Invasion."

Spore Weapons is even more expensive now in 1.8 when it doesn't have all those complications. The contact spore is already researched in the prerequisite Germ Warfare tech, so Spore Weapons would just be the method of execution. It's amazing how Spore ships can also be stopped by unarmed scouts in orbit and how they also get destroyed in the attack.

The cargo hulls are *enormous* but fragile. The colony ship is essentially a flying city. The constructor carries enough supplies to build a starbase, which means that its mass must be at least equal to that of the starbase.
End of quote


The core Colony Ship carries 250 million people in stasis and their belongings(cars/personal spacecraft included), so yes, it's quite huge. However, miniaturization techs somehow have the ability to shrink those people and their belongings so that they fit on small and tiny hulls.

The Constructor converts itself into the starbase using a nanotech device(the Constructor Module) to transfer the mass, so yes, it's mass must be at least equal to the starbase. But just as above, you put all this mass in a Hyperion Shrinker and it becomes dense enough to fit on a tiny hull.

Same with Transports. The 'box'(Troops Module) in the 'war-in-a-box' is shrunk, along with all the troops, support staff, aircraft, tanks, lunchbox artillery units, command-and-control, mini-thrusters(for Mass Drivers), Illudium Lite explosives(for Core Detonation), super-dense satellites(for Tidal Disruption), robotic Mini-Soldiers, orbit-to-ground gas bombs(for Gas Warfare) and dropships that are fit inside the Troops Module or Adv Troops Module. Of course, they must all be restored to normal size somehow before the battle or else you'd be fighting with an army of tiny troops wielding tiny equipment.

Cargo hulls are only fragile because they have no subspace field providing them with hitpoints by holding them together against foreign impact. If you manage to generate a subspace field large enough to cover a whole cargo hulls, you've got a Medium Hull. Create a larger field around a larger hull and you've got a Large Hull. Huge hulls don't use subspace fields at all - they get their immense HP from 'Q-fields'.
Reply #35 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't mind most of the abstractions, real war is both boring because of all the logistics and horrible because of the pain and death and such. The only thing I think all games should try to perfect is consistency. The 2d representation for instance is perfect. I never wonder about why my ships don't go down or up, even though they do in the battleviewer. But the battleviewer is kind of a mini-game, so it doesn't interfere to me with the main screen. Of course this feeling of consistency is subjective. I do for one think the 'shrinking' of trade ships and orbiting ships is a little bit strange. Although at the same time I don't mind that I only have 10 trade ships in the entire galaxy..
Reply #36 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Since you can fit an infinate number of ships on one space anyway, lets imagine it this way....

Each transport you build is actually a whole fleet of large ships. So instead of one GIANT transport, you have about ten invasion ships that all have support systems and such. No-shrinking required, just more ships that you will never see.

And the invasion transport shouldn't dissapear, if you have a succesful invasion, if your troops die, then the transport will be destroyed by the planets automatic orbital defenses.

Considering it, it would be pretty hard to get EVERY SINGLE soldier you loaded onto the transports to ACTUALLY land on the planet. Considering that the planet has orbital defensive grids and ground-to-orbit missile systems, and all of the AA fire your troops will recieve after they get through the atmosphere. And also, your troops can't just land everywhere at once, they will have to circle the globe taking over cities and other major structures, which means invasions would last about 2 or 3 weeks.

The game actually has it backwards (thinking in REAL terms), It's much easier to DEFEND a planet then it is to invade it.

To counter their orbital and ground defenses, you will need alot of support fighters. Fighters that will go around and destroy orbital defense satallites and ground-to-orbit missile sites (GOM's). In the game all you need is a defensless planet, and a weaponless troop transporter.

Finally, you will need EVERY SINGLE trooper on the ships to get shots that will stop any diseases that are on the planet targeted for invasion. And if you don't put enough espionage in, you may end up with every troop getting some kind of disease you had no clue about, your population after invading would GO DOWN, no up, until all your people on the planet devolop the proper bodily defenses. It may be a year before your population on that planet starts to rise, so you'd have to send more people there to make sure that there's still people on the planet before the virus is combated.

Considering the paragraph above this one... spore ships wouldn't be needed, just send some sick people from one of your planets hospitals down to the targeted planet secretly and they will spread the virus/disease that THEY have.

There, thats my 2 cent description of a REAL invasion.
Reply #37 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
HAPPY YET!?!?! I GAVE YOU WHAT YOU WANTED! A REAL INVASION!  
Reply #38 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
lets face it even the "death star II" in star wars was only 100miles in diameter
End of quote


Actualy the second Death Star is about 560 miles across.
Reply #39 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
lets face it even the "death star II" in star wars was only 100miles in diameter


Actualy the second Death Star is about 560 miles across.
End of quote


Keep in mind that star wars is also FICTION!!!

the largest ship humankind has made is an aircraft carrier...
If you've ever seen one, you'll know just how huge something would have to be to do what we're talking about.
Reply #40 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

lets face it even the "death star II" in star wars was only 100miles in diameter


Actualy the second Death Star is about 560 miles across.


Keep in mind that star wars is also FICTION!!!

the largest ship humankind has made is an aircraft carrier...
If you've ever seen one, you'll know just how huge something would have to be to do what we're talking about.
End of quote


Well actually, the earth only has enough resources. Lets say you make 100 armadas of various ships. If the Earth was made entirely of those raw materials needed to make tohse, you wouldn'y have an Earth. In other words, you would eventually deplete the entire Earth of resources, the only way to cope with this is asteroids. (and those never run out either in the game)

Reply #41 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well actually, the earth only has enough resources. Lets say you make 100 armadas of various ships. If the Earth was made entirely of those raw materials needed to make tohse, you wouldn'y have an Earth. In other words, you would eventually deplete the entire Earth of resources, the only way to cope with this is asteroids. (and those never run out either in the game)
End of quote


There is a possible exception to this (I'm not a physicist so someone correct me if I goof this up). We know that matter can be converted into energy, since matter has stored energy (an example being fire converting the stored energy of wood into heat and light). If there was a way devised to convert energy into matter, then one could have virtually infinite resources to produce ships. It might take a while, but with orbital solar collectors you could harvest all the energy you needed, thus producing massive fleets without draining your planet's resources.

Based upon what little research I've done it seems possible, but incredible impractical based upon our current technology and understanding of the science. But, this is science fiction after all... WWW Link
Reply #42 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
weren't we talking about invasions?
Reply #43 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well we were, but we we started talking about making invasion ships and the conflicting ideas in the production of them.
Reply #44 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
did anyone read my post up there!?!? since you can fit an infinate # of ships inside one parsec at any one time, lets just say that when you build one, transport, you build about ten or twelve of them. Like the landing ships in star wars, you never see just one come down and then take over the entire planet!
Reply #45 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Star Wars is fiction? Heretic! Light the torches, let's get him!
And yes, we did read your view of the level of abstraction and a lot of people in here realize that one ship is a symbol for a lot of ships. In fact, maybe you did not read that there already had been another poster, who said that.

Nevertheless converting energy to matter is not very efficient, because you would need an insane amount of matter to store that energy. Remember: A spoon full of water converted into pure energy could provide the energy for small town for one year. (Well, I did not say which type of spoon and which size of town.)
Collecting the energy from orbital solar collectors and instantly transforming them would mean you could have your stuff working after ... well ... some hundred years? And you would need a giant surface of solar collectors, as large as a planet or even larger (depending on the distance to the sun). That weighs a lot and need plenty of matter to be built ... and there you are, right at the beginning again.

(To the poster who said that all of the Earth would be gone after a giant fleet would have been built ... well, Earth is pretty big and ships are mostly hollow. That is because they have to have space for billions of people in them. )

ShadowWorrior: You are damn right, I never saw even one StarWars-Troop-Transporter come down and conquer my home world. For reference: My homeworld still happens to be Earth, so other posters here might have had other experiences.
Reply #46 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's much easier to DEFEND a planet then it is to invade it.
End of quote

This is one thing which I have questioned myself when I started playing the game. Isn't it supposed to be easier to defend than attack?

The interesting thing is that in modern warfare, (static) defensive positions have lost a lot of their value, so no city builds walls anymore. For example, modern technology enables succesful application of Blitzkrieg style tactics defeating static defense positions with relative ease. So in this sense you could support the sci-fi theory that attack in the future is easier than defense. You can see this effect in the game as well with the space battles. Sometimes the attack capabilities have become so strong that defense is almost useless. I think this is a very interesting aspect of the game. On the one hand it seems unrealistic, but on the other hand...

Actualy the second Death Star is about 560 miles across.
End of quote

Isn't the 2nd Death Star actually about 1 meter in diameter and made of cardboard?