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[Cruxador]

Yeah I ain't into a siege minigame. Or even a visual representation. It would get stupid repetitive.

If you gave me a mild total war option where I could control some stuff on the ground or opt to auto resolve (ergo use the current system) I'd spring for that.

Total War definitely gets a lot more repetitive than a visual thing you don't even have to look at, though.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah I ain't into a siege minigame. Or even a visual representation. It would get stupid repetitive.

If you gave me a mild total war option where I could control some stuff on the ground or opt to auto resolve (ergo use the current system) I'd spring for that.

Total War definitely gets a lot more repetitive than a visual thing you don't even have to look at, though.

Well yeah, but that's there the "opt to auto-resolve with the current system" comes in.

Point is a minigame is grating after like, 2 goes, but a lil' mini RTS thing would be bearable.

[Rolan7]

I always thought it was weird that the army minigame ignored the tiles.  Would have been a redeeming bit of fluff for all the mind-numbing micro they represented.  Not that zone system is at all free of micro, sigh...  I'm glad we can finally set job priorities... sorta (instead of a button that says priority, but really just disables job slots in a very awkward way).

Speaking of armies though, I was just thinking of a way they could be more than trivial busywork: let them bumrush defenses.  Instead of stopping dead when engaged (sorry, I mean spin in a tight circle), let them keep moving.  Let them even land on planets without asking the starbase for permission first.  In fact, let them board starbases.

I know it's a wild change, but it would give all those completely meaningless ground combat modifiers some relevance.  There are already countermeasures in place, like FTL interdiction in border systems.  It would give the planetary shield a use too!  (Why did they remove its physics research?  Was the planetary shield OP??).  Taking undamaged starbases should be a bloody affair, requiring the shuttles to first make the approach (potentially screened by warships), then fight unevenly.  That combat width mechanic?  Allow 6 defenders to fight 3 attackers (or 2 or 1, with the right starbase modules).  Most species would still just shoot up the starbase until it "surrenders", but it'd be a situationally useful option.

You should also be able to do more things to an occupied world, if your government supports that sort of thing.  Not just extermination, but the raiding "bombardment type" should unlock a much more efficient process if you actually hold the planet.  Assimilation, too.

[Sartain]

What I'd really like is a mini-game much like the archeological one, or EU4 sieges, as I already described but that also keeps on going once you've conquered the planet but the war is still on-going. As your troops conquer more and more of the planet you gain access to more and more of it's resources, production and features until you control it. After taking control you'll still need to manage your occupation by assigning troops and generals, possibly dealing with insurgencies and other events, and also having access to special actions dependent on your species type/ethics/traditions/etc (like assimiliation, enslavement, purges and so on)

[ZeroGravitas]

The problem is that whatever you do it's going to end up being insanely repetitive because the context of 95% of ground invasions is "foregone conclusion because I can just throw a bunch of resources at it."

Total War is a great comparison. You don't want to manually fight out every tiny-ass garrison fight because most of them are guaranteed one way or the other.

And that's with a game where the tactical battles are like, 80% of the draw of the game.

[Sartain]

The problem is that whatever you do it's going to end up being insanely repetitive because the context of 95% of ground invasions is "foregone conclusion because I can just throw a bunch of resources at it."

Total War is a great comparison. You don't want to manually fight out every tiny-ass garrison fight because most of them are guaranteed one way or the other.

And that's with a game where the tactical battles are like, 80% of the draw of the game.

Not sure if that's meant as a reply to me but if it is, this is exactly why I want something that runs mostly by itself (like archeology and EU4 sieges) but with enough features added on that you can choose to interact with it on a deeper level, but simple enough that for the most part you can just throw enough people at it to brute-force it if you don't want to deal with the details of it.

[Dunamisdeos]

Total War has that "I feel like fighting this, so I will, because it's fun" thing going for it.

Keep the same system now for all the piddly little invasions that you'll win anyway, get us some RTS stuff for when we want to go in for it. Doesn't even have to be in-depth, maybe just some starcraft 1 basics or something.

That's probably a huge pain in the ass from a dev standpoint, but hey.

[Sartain]

Total War has that "I feel like fighting this, so I will, because it's fun" thing going for it.

Keep the same system now for all the piddly little invasions that you'll win anyway, get us some RTS stuff for when we want to go in for it. Doesn't even have to be in-depth, maybe just some starcraft 1 basics or something.

That's probably a huge pain in the ass from a dev standpoint, but hey.

That's so not what I want from a grand strategy game and as far I understand Paradox, not really what they want either. The whole point (well one of them) is to divest you from the micro-managing of individual units and instead let you handle the macro-level delegating of forces and commanding officers and whatnot. You're the ruler, you don't tell the squads where to go, you assign generals to armies and tell the generals where to go win your wars for you

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah that's fair. Just trying to think of something they could add to spice up ground combat that people would use more than twice, as it were.

But again, that's why you've got the current system staying in as-is. I just can't think of any other side-content for a ground battle that doesn't get stale after the first few plays.

[Chiefwaffles]

I personally mostly want more differentiation between ground units.
When I get space marines or combat xenomorphs, I want to be able to go "oh AWESOME" not "cool i guess?" -- it's just such a sheer numbers game (based on a small amount of numbers) that different units don't really feel better/different mechanically or thematically. While a minigame would be cool it'd definitely be bad for the game as everyone's said, so even just general "strategy" would be an immense improvement. You wouldn't individually command your legions, but -- like in other space 4xs -- some choice over the overarching strategy of the invasion would be nice.
To take from Galactic Civilizations 2 as an example (since that's the only other space 4x I really have any notable amount of playtime with in the past) when invading a planet you can choose from options like a propaganda-based attack, throwing an asteroid at them, biological warfare, a straight-up attack, and so on. Endless Space (2?) also has some stuff here -- from what I remember defenders can choose essentially to just surrender, offer partial resistance, or wage a complete ground war. Affecting things like how much of your ground forces remain for potential future combat there; having your garrison immediately retreat/surrender so they can help retake the planet. Things like that, though I could be misremembering.
Some fancy visualization would be cool if entirely unecessary, though. I'm a sucker for that. Galactic Civilization 2's visualization? Completely unnecessary but I sure do like watching the guys shoot each other.

So basically in my opinion: make different types of ground units stand out more, give defenders/attackers a choice for how to approach their general strategy to ground invasion/defense, and unnecessary essential cool ground combat visualization, even if short and simple.

[Iceblaster]

Yeah.

Maybe crank up collateral damage for a start. Feels like it's not really making an impact due to battles not really lasting long enough to have it proc even for those with high collateral, like xenomorphs. Make that a factor, basically wreck the planet during your invasion or have a precision attack. Small things, as I don't really want yet another 'we removed an entire system and replaced it with another kinda functional one' situation

[Dunamisdeos]

If you're going to boost collateral damage impact, you ought to have different instances of damage that can occur. Missile hit a residential building, - to housing. Etc. Same general effect, more flavor.

Yeah y'kno I'd happily take a simple visual thing. Hit a button, switch to a different window, watch some dudes running through a little gauntlet or something with attackers and defenders, etc. No player interaction, just eye candy representative of what's happening according to the numbers. It would help different units stand out more, even if it's a placebo, and maybe you could even tie it in to the collateral damage thing by making the missile actually visibly go haywire or whatnot.

[Iceblaster]

Yeah. Hell, even if it'd lead to a 'meta' planet type, I'd really love if they actually had differing bonuses to defense and other non-military things. Ocean worlds should be hell to invade for non-ocean world civs for one, as I'm willing to bet there's a non-zero amount of underwater infrastructure.

[E. Albright]

The big problem with visual reps of combat is that you'd need A LOT of graphics work to make all the race portraits accurately represented. That doesn't seem worth it for a minor aesthetic system.

[JWNoctis]

An example might be found with Distant World's visual representation of ground combat, but it was essentially what Stellaris had on day 1 with a bunch of sprites, and some additional collateral damage mechanics that might have looked good on Stellaris as well.

It certainly did not look out of the line with the rest of that game.