[Discussion] Response to Brads request in the last Crusade stream, asking about invasion balance and suggestions.

I also watched the stream, and heard something different. A general, or a legion is a citizen. You got a citizen every 10 turns. The limitation here is if you lose a citizen you could only get a citizen every ten turns. About generals making legions i will have to take your word on this since i dont remember that. I kind of agree with your militia conversion, because you need some kind of filler unit for battles. 

My idea of conversion would be more like 2 militia would be worth 1 attacker since the transport hints of some training before invading. 1 legion worth 2 attackers. 1 general worth 2 legions. If the defending planet has a legion then it is understood that the militia is trained chamging the above to 1 militia is worth 1 attacker.

If you misunderstood and a legion is just a defender, and a general was an attacker then 1 general would be worth one legion. Here is my question from the stream where was the troop placement. The stream hints of the same thing as before. Resistance is more for resisting culture flipping not invasion. You mean defence. 

Now in your troop placement scenario defence would be multiplied to your soldiers defending. Now what would need to be added is buildings either where you build transports, or where you load troops is not the same place the attackers either way the attackers need to be able to build buildings on this planet.  Weapon, defence, and invasion tech levels should be tacken into account. 

Now as far as researching he was talking about making manufacturing techs cheaper than hull building, weapon, defense techs. He also mentioned changing everything with colony building, because techs with abilities instead of merely adding stats are coming in.

Convert general to invade.

I really don't think that is a solution, on massive galaxy you have thousands of planets... not nearly enough Generals to take over.

I like idea of having buildings on planet which boost (or stores) legions.

Cut and Paste of my post on this topic in other thread:

March 31, 2017 5:49:50 PM from Galactic Civilizations III Forums

Hm, already I cannot exactly remember what the stream showed ...

Anyway, here my thoughts for a basic invasion system (and only that; my thoughts about structures to fend of attacking fleets before invasion starts I wrote elsewhere):

- I agree wholeheartedly with the suggestion to allow the player to place his or her capitol! (much requested by a lot of players for a long time now, or is that just my perception?)

- There should be a logistics value for legions, meaning how many legions a single invasion fleet can hold

- A general is a citizen. He should provide a soldiering bonus to legions and increase the legion logistics value for the fleet he is assigned to. A general is destroyed when the fleet he is assigned to (or more exactly, when the transport he is on) is destroyed in space combat or, with a small chance that is bigger the stronger the defending forces are, conducting an invasion. Leveling up gives a general more soldiering an logistics bonus. A general must be assigned to a distinct transport since an invasion fleet can contain more than one. Invasion fleets can invade without a general (but then naturally without the bonuses). A general can be assigned to a planet to boost the soldiering of defending troops. A defending general is killed when the defenders lose.

- Legions are built from Military Academies on planets as is shown on the stream. Legions stay at the planet where they are produced as defenders until fetched by transports. Legions can level up which increases their soldiering.

- Transports are built as usual, but are empty by default (since it's not sure that there are legions on the planet associated with the shipyard). When starting from a planet or shipyard where legions are present the player is asked whether he or she wants to load a legion (or more, if the transport can hold more than one legion and legion logisitics allow). Transports are not destroyed after unloading the invasion troops.

- Military Academies should also be able to train militia (as opposed to the above expressed ideas of population providing automatic militia units), but militia is much cheaper than legions, cannot be relocated, and is weaker (say, some 33% of default legion strength). And cannot level up. That means a planet without a Military Academy is really undefended when it comes to invasion.

- Now to the invasion itself:

- - The attacker places their legions, the defender does the same for their defending legions and militia units. The defending units are placed first, then invasion orders are processed (see below), then attacker units are placed.

- - I cannot figure out the exact invasion logics now, but as I understood the stream the attacker must take over all cities (and the capitol is one of them, on (pop-wise) small planets the only one). So every round of combat the attacker will move their forces towards the cities and the defender will move theirs to counter the attacker, what not necessarily means that the defender places most of their units on the cities. Whenever two or more opposing units meet on a single hex there is a fight that is calculated by taking into account number of attacking units on hex, number of defending units on hex, soldiering of attackers, soldiering of defenders, defenders' morale modified by population approval ("resistance"), general bonuses and all I forgot to think of now. The structure on the hex is destroyed by the fighting (except cities) and the surviving troops fight on the next round. Units can survive partially what is modelled by decreasing the soldiering of the unit accordingly.

- - Invasion is over when the attacker has a unit on every city (attacker wins) or when that's not possible anymore (attacker has less units left than cities on the planet; defender wins). That also means that an attacker unit is tied to the respective city when they have won a city fight.

- - Buildings should not be destroyed automatically, but only when the attacker and defender meet each other on a hex to fight, because normally the attacker is interested in taking over a mostly intact world.

- - Special orders can be given at the beginning of the invasion:

- - - Destroy every building on your path: legions stop on each hex with a structure for one combat round even if no enemy unit is present to destroy the structure on it. That order can be given in addition to all following orders.

- - - Planetary bombardment: let the player decide how many shots from orbit are fired on the planet between certain limits (e. g. 10 to 50 in steps of 10). The shots randomly hit a single hex and there is a chance to destroy the structure on it, a defending unit on that hex is partially destroyed (soldiering reduced), there is a chance to annihilate the hex (then all units on it are destroyed automatically; capitol is excluded for game mechanics reasons). Every hit on a hex with a structure reduces pop by 5%, if it's a city then by 15%.

- - - Information warfare: soldiering of all defending units is decreased by 10% (communication disruption) and every defending unit is randomly moved one hex away from it's designated starting position.

- - - Tidal disruption: all land hexes adjacent to ocean are impacted as if hit by planetary bombardment (see above).

- - - Core detonation: all hexes are impacted as if hit by planetary bombardment (see above).

- - - Biological Warfare: soldiering of all defending units is reduced by, say, 33%. Pop is also reduced by 33%. Doesn't work against robots or silicoid races.

- - - Plunder: the attacker concentrates on plundering, not on invading the planet. For every research building an attacking unit enters without fight the attacker earns 5 research points multipled with level of structure plus sum of research adjacency bonuses that are deducted from the defenders research points, for every wealth building the attacker earns 5 credits multipled with level of structure plus sum of wealth adjacency bonuses that are deducted from the defenders credits (letting the balance become negative if there are not enough savings), for every manufacturing building the attacker earns 5 credits multipled with level of structure plus sum of manufacturing adjacency bonuses that are *not* deducted from the defenders credits (since manufacturing is not a global resource, manufacturing points cannot be channelled away so that stands for assets stolen and sold for money), for every structure that needs resources there is a chance (say 33%) that the structure is destroyed and the resources needed to build the structure are stolen by the attacker. Approval, influence, tourism, population buildings cannot be plundered, but cities (are there levels?) can provide 10 research points and 20 credits per level, a capitol the double amount, the empire capitol five times this amount. At the beginning of the invasion the player determines how many combat rounds the plundering should last, if after that number of rounds there are still some attacking units alive then those return to the invasion fleet with their booty. If no attacking units survive that many rounds the attacker gains no booty. All numbers are subject to balancing.

- - I agree that ideology should play a role during invasion, but it's getting late and I have no time to figure something out right now. Only thing I can think of right now is an order for malevolent factions to erase the population down to 1 billion to minimize rebellion chance (see below).

- After the invasion damaged units will survive (and get back full strength) with a probability that is equal to (100% - soldiering damage in %). So a unit that got 30% damage during the invasion survives with 70% probability. The winner of the invasion battle is guaranteed to have at least one unit left (which can be a militia unit, even when there were defending legions).

In case of a normal invasion that the attacker has won they can decide how many of the survivng legions stay on the planet as occupation force, but it must be at least one, otherwise the planet instantly reverts back to it's former owner.

- In addition to influence calculation there is a chance that an invaded planet rebels shortly after invasion. The probability for that is something like (1 - 1 / (1 + [remaining pop] / [number of occupation legions] / 10)) * (10 - r/id)*10% with r = number of turns after invasion (starting with 0) and id = ideology difference between attacker and defender (same ideology = 1, maleveolent against benevolent = 3, all other combinations = 2) and is calculated until probability reaches 0 (so if planet is from enemy with same ideology than the chance to rebel is calculated 10 turns, while at max ideology difference the calculation is performed 30 turns).

If the invader adds or removes legions during this period than the calculation is adjusted accordingly.

The planet can otherwise be used as normal (to make things not too complicated).

If planet is taken back by the original owner during the period this calculation is still performed then there is no rebellion chance against the original owner, otherwise the planet is treated as if it belonged to the invader all along.

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Referring to tech research times: the longer, the better. Best: it's player adjustable. But that's just my personal opinion. Although research times should never become so short that a tech isn't used at all because it makes more sense to wait for the next, better tech.

There are many ideas in this post, so I'll put my two cents in...

I like that transports are not used to a point.  Transports as the are now have x transport modules, I think this should translate to legions in which a player can load a transport with x legions and head off into space.  When the transport arrives at a planet the player can choose to deploy y transport modules (legions) to the planet.  Those legions are used up transport can continue in tact with z transport modules (legions) left.  Similar to how a constructor works...

As far as legions, I don't think a legion should do anything to a building it's going through if no defending legion is present unless instructed to do so by the type of invasion being used, similar to what lyssailcor stated.  The attacking player should choose battle type and normal should be just wandering through buildings unless defending legion is there and battle them.  On normal invasion if no defending legion present, legion just marches on through.  I'll add though that if defending legion is present I like the idea then of the building being knocked down one notch.  If two or more legions are present it gets knocked down 2 notches until it's a wasteland...  (Maybe gets some type of bonus tile or becomes useless all together depending on destruction).  However, once researched different invasion types one could focus more on destruction of the buildings.

Either way there are many ways to look at the new invasion system and citizens in general and it will be hard to draw great opinions either way until we can get our hands on it.  Waiting now for that day... On a side note I am now a Star Control Founder going to be ending soon better lock up that founders edition asap...

@Lys - some very cool ideas. I very much like the direction.

Special orders could give bonus Ideology points based on what you select. For example information warfare is more Benevolent, while Core destruction is clearly more Malevolent.

I think there has to be somewhere in the planet stats a Military readiness percentage. Let's say that it starts with 10% in any given planet(and up to 100%
), just cause settlers don't know what they shall face in new worlds and thus they are at least aware(and 10% isn't much of a percentage but enough to justify awarenes of dangers "out there")

You can raise that percentage by constructing military buildings and wonders, e.g. Barracks, Military Academy, Elite Soldier Cloning Center, DNA Manipulation Laboratory(to create favorable mutations with interbreeding species DNA that can normally create Augmented strength etc population units and might happen to create monstrocities on occasion which could be random and provide a boost to military in these occasions) etc. Ofcourse it drains some resources in other areas.

This percentage gives you the amount of legions that you get from that planet in case of invasion as "militia legion", and also how easily trained they are(in a case were you use a citizen task to make them an invasion able legion, let us name those "commando legion"). The lesser the percentage, the more units of pop you have to use to build the legion. So if you want invasions, better keep the military readiness high.

In succesful invasions, you get to keep the invasion vehicle, cause it's what happens in war as we know it(and I would be surprised if it changed THAT radically within 2 aeons time, remember we live in an era that even your transport missiles you want to re-use, like they do with Falcon). In failed invasions, it is assumed they fight back, and get in orbit or wherever you landed the vehicle and destroy it. I think an invasion ship should be only be created by General citizens, with the combo of a scientist citizen(say in a 5 year task each where they cannot aid you in other areas), but after it, a citizen is not lost/converted, but can make a new one.

Now as an invasion is played; I don't think you want to destroy every single tile you pass through, no army in the world does that. You should be asked what ever improvements are there and IF you would like to destroy them. Also there should be a random " accidental" parameter that the improvement is still destroyed even if you wanted it retained, either due to "friendly fire" or enemy retaliation(scourched land tactics).

If you win the invasion and the planet. The remaining legions you keep all of them and can reload them in your ships, also there should be a percentage you get to be given more legions(as "defected troops" of the enemy, or found "MiA" troops you were not accounting for while you proceeded and "thought" were dead.

Also it would probably be of value to get a building to retrain citizens if you want to(and it should take 10 turns for each, or depending in the citizen type, I'm assuming a farmer citizen would be easier turned into military than scientist and a scientist easier to farmer or worker than military). Citizens should only be lost if you use them to create a Wonder(Galactic Project) type of building rapidly(in which case we'll assume you squeezed their brains and/or other resources so much, you basically lead them to premature death).

I would like to add to this discussion. 

Brads issues
-It was difficult to build many legions meaning many planets were not defended or under defended~

All planets should have basic defense which is utllimately based on population. Upon invasions all planets should get X legions of the lowest quality based on total planet population. Large populations are going to require many legions and of course special treatment such as obital bombardment, Bio warfare, Nukes, Tidal or Core detonation. All should affect planet quality at the cost of making it being able to invade with fewer legions. 

-With the limit of Generals being the only unit that can invade a planet (defend a planet), this could be an issue.~

Have the invasion line grant you a project at the start of age of war when you research 'invasion' you get a project that takes X turns. Upon completion you get a legion for invading. Other options maybe that you get a fixed general that can only invade. I do not know what the relationship between 'legions' and Generals are and why you cannot invade with just a legion which is what it should be. No frills no special softening just troops trying to take a planet block by block house by house. The most tedious and costly way but should not damage a planet (outside of reducing population)

-Its difficult to build a military improvement on every planet just to defend it.~

See my above. All planets get 'defensive' legions' immediately upon being invaded based on population. Low population planets would and should be easier to conquer. 

-He wanted to know our thoughts on the idea that when you win an invasion you get to keep the intact invasion ship. ~

This would add to the micro but I am for it. The resource here are legions. However i can see it being easier to have the ai invade the current way rather than separate ships. If you ever played early Civ 5 you would know that the ai does not know how to build ships to embark/disembark for invading. Keep it simple and I guess keep it the way it is if it makes the ai better. 

-How many legions should be on a invasion ship~

2 Legions per ship but if invasion ships are disposable then they should be allowed to stack to add numbers up for attacking.

-Should research time on the first tier weapons techs be lower?~

Yes, 2nd Tier should be a bit higher and 3rd tier should be 10x higher than they are now. 

This is my input. 

Happy Monday! 

Just my 2 cents...

As the Generals are tied to the citizens... there can be a few ways to fix just the generals without breaking the rest of the citizen level things.

A.  But a few focus research areas that grant you x number of Generals    make sure that the other to focus's are also really good to offset this
B.  make it so the Generals can train x many "troop commanders"   Troop Commanders can invade but get no bonuses to the invasion.

C.  Untie the invasions from Generals completely.     Perhaps you need the general to train troops for FILLING your transports... but once trained you don't need them for the invasion at all.

D.  provide additional citizens

My recommendations (I haven't had the chance to see the stream yet, but I've been reading everyone else's comments):

1) Generals AND Legions should be reusable, and gain experience.  Generals would be able to control more legions at once with higher experience, and legions would fight more effectively

2) 1 Transport Module should be able to hold 1 legion, and legions should be transportable between planets (the General's level determines how many legions can actively be on the planet at once for an invader)

3) Militia/Rebels should generate based on population and approval.  High Population/ High Approval means substantial paramilitary resistance.

4) Damage to tiles should only occur when actual combat occurs on a tile.  It is very common for uncontested armies to just roll through without blowing up everything in sight

5) There should be a surface improvement (I've seen military academies referenced) that can have a building queue for legions.  Much like the shipyards.

6) Players really should have the ability to determine what direction legions are moving.  The fact is, with ships in orbit, an invader can absolutely identify fortifications and strategic targets.

7) Invasions can be carried out without a general, but only 1 legion may be deployed at 1 time in these cases.

I have ideas for a deeper dive, but I'd want to know how well these are received first.

-With the limit of Generals being the only unit that can invade a planet (defend a planet), this could be an issue.~

Have the invasion line grant you a project at the start of age of war when you research 'invasion' you get a project that takes X turns. Upon completion you get a legion for invading. Other options maybe that you get a fixed general that can only invade. I do not know what the relationship between 'legions' and Generals are and why you cannot invade with just a legion which is what it should be. No frills no special softening just troops trying to take a planet block by block house by house. The most tedious and costly way but should not damage a planet (outside of reducing population)

The old improvements are tied to the old invasion mechanics. Either they go away or are modified (e. g. Planetary Defense could shoot at invading troops, partially destroying them (lowering their soldering value).

Although I would prefer special defense buildings (even orbital) that do not use up tiles (since you would not implement defense forts on your most fertile plain, rendering it unusable for farming, for example. Or you can reason that a fort is a relatively small structure that won't need thousands of quare kilometres of land, or even more: Earth has about 150,000,000 qkm of land surface, divide that by 15 tiles and you get 10,000,000 qkm per tile ;)).

I think it might be like: either what you said(shoots invading forces and destroys a portion) or that you have to destroy completely, buildings that will impact an invasion in orbit first. Then on, you can deal with ground defensive buildings(eg bunkers) while invading.

I wonder if in addition to some of the other ideas, just a thought, that there should be a military improvement that acts like a Soil Enhancement where you can place it pretty much anywhere on an unusable tile.. BUT if you build this version it takes ALOT of production. Also if you remove the improvement the tile it is on wont turn into a permanent usable tile and reverts back to unusable. (unless it was placed on a previously usable tile)

The reason for this is because it would allow you to build if you choice, a single "one per planet" military improvement on anything from a 4pq planet to a 20 pq planet to give you some defense but wont force you to take a tile on a low pq planet. To me it makes sense from a 'realistic' point of view since military bases seem to be sometimes in the inhospitable places but are still there for strategic reasons.


I also had the idea of some sort of high tech "nuclear" power planet or some other unstable factory (black hole/antimatter factory) that if a legion destroys it during invasion the tile it was on becomes unusual. But the benefits it gives is high. So its a risk vs reward improvement. Also would be a nice target for spys.

I might be getting off topic of invasions but it came to mind.

Ok the reason brad mentioned military academy is he was terran. This is dependent on the faction  you are, or maybe they are going to give military academy to everyone.

I like the idea of placing capitol.

If military academies are able to train militias then why are we having militias. Are you saying that some planets wont even have a chance to defend themselves. If we are going this route their is no reason for militias. The only reason for militia here is for you to place troops on a defending planet that has no defence. Basically general or legions even if they have improvement defence with no way to use the new troop placement invasion system. Defences will still buff all three. If you don't have militias there will be no defence buff on some planets. If you have to train militias there is really no difference than legion. No point. This will also leave planets with defences, but no gnerals, or legions with no way to defend them causing more micro. If we go that route no point in having militias.

O yah the difference between a legion and general, is that generals are a type of citizen that train legions. Remember you only get one citizen every 10 turns. You could choose something else than a general. Generals are used for invasions while legions are used to defend a planet. You will choose where to place you troops. 

I would like to remind you guys that we use a general for most invasions that is why they are there. The logic on only one legion when there is no general is logical based on heriarchy requiring a boss for more legions.

Sorry, I understand only half of what you say, but referring to militia and legions there are crucial differences that make militia worth while (at least in an invasion system as I would like it):

Militia units can only defend, are tied to the planet they are created at, cannot level up and are weaker than legions, but are much cheaper to produce.

Legions are stronger than militia, can be relocated to serve as attacking force in invasions or to defend other planets, can level up, but are quite expensive to produce.

I think militias are much more organic in their creation, and should "spawn" when an invasion occurs.  They would draw from the existing population, reducing the workforce.  If they invasion is repulsed, they disappear and repopulate the planet's workforce.  Depending on Influences, militia units COULD potentially spawn the SUPPORT the invasion (depending on who the invader is).

Umm...

There are no militias.

It was just an idea.  Some of the posts on this tread just read to me as if militia were already a part of the game and someone needs to decide what to do with them.

I like the idea.  If it's simple.  If the AI can use it.  If it makes GalCiv3 a better game.  I like any idea that can do those.

Some of the above posts are... extensive.  Not so simple.

I'd like what Stardock has expressed they're trying to deliver.  A nice little invasion mini-game that take less than 30 seconds to play.  There has to be a way for them to do that.  Can we help them find it?

Wait, generals are the only way to invade planets in the current build? Can someone confirm this?

Right, because in my last game I invaded 60 planets, at one citizen every 10 turns I would have had to use every one of them as a general and then taken over 600 turns to do that.  So please confirm or deny, thanks.

Currently I believe that is correct. Except unlike now where when you invade you lose your invasion ship, In Crusade you keep the General invasion ship and can then use it on other planets as long as it stays alive. Of course things might change.

The only reason militias were suggested were for planets with no defense for the minigame. To equate this the transport needs invaders. Yes this idea was just a suggestion.

The suggestion to require training only causes a weaker redundancy. Stardock can make as many redudancies as they want. There would still need to be a filler unit where the planet had no defense if militia werent trained there if training was required. 

If you are not terran then your training building might be called something else. Brad was playing terran thats why the general training building was the military academy. 

What brad said the general was a citizen that was an attacker that trained legions. That legions were used for defense.

The reason someone suggested that if there are no generals there is only one legion is that there needs to be a supreme commander o an invasion. Someone needs to be in charge.

I hope this clarifies what i said.

IMO, this would be a huge detriment to the game. Not simply because it would slow warfare to a grind, but that it would make warfare far less dynamic. One of the great things about GalCiv is fighting huge, galaxy wide wars. Different theaters open up, good shipyard placement can help you out maneuver your enemy or vice versa, and points on the map become vital. This causes the player to have to fight on multiple fronts, pushing forward or retreating.

This change would boil warfare down to a game of cat and mouse, where all you have to do is find and destroy the enemy generals and engage their fleets in overly decisive battles. I actually think the idea of generals allowing their transport to "carry over" from invasion to invasion to be a very good one, but not at the expense of turning GalCiv's warfare into a one option island hopping affair. Let the generals be powerful and special transports, not the only ones. 

Just had to get my 2 cents out if any of the devs are listening.