Hot posts in thread: Ground combat

JG, unfortunately I believe you are mostly correct
The problem becomes even more evident as games become larger and sophisticated and I have thought about ways to address this from a different angle.
It may be easier for the AI to put on a good show if the amount of choices available to it (and the player) are limited.
The problem then becomes how to make it interesting and captivating while at the same time ensuring that a player does not notice the limitations set.
While this in and of itself would not be enough to really create an AI that can rival a human it might actually work well as a first step and allow the AI to put up decent fights both on offence and defence.
(Like chess, the AI is far more effective there as there are a more finite number of choices available)
A quick edit
The basic thinking is that you give a player a fierce fight from the AI, some players would welcome this despite the fact that it is limited in certain key areas such as size of map,number of units and possible moves. It would be very challenging for the player and it does come with a proven concept

 

As for defensive battles I see another big challange. It is way easier to defend vs AI because programming a decent offensive AI is still the Holy Grail of every strategy game. Almost every Panzer General style game is a streak of offensive missions just because lack of competitive offensive AI. AI are quite good in reactions to particular player's offensive actions just because it is one turn calculation task. Offensive operations are rather scripted or conducted in infamous tower defence swarm-like fashion.

Please, honestly, please tell me that I am wrong.

 

An excellent point
If anything, having tactical ground combat would give these types of units a practical reason for being in existence. I too ignored many ground combat buildings in Moo2 as there was really no need for them.
I believe that by fleshing out the ground combat, both certain units and buildings would instantly gain more importance and not be so much of an afterthought.

 

This approach resembles Total War UX when you have to decide if the ground "5 minute battle" is challenging or decisive enough to take part in it. Anyway, ambitious game concept to design.

 

Offtopic since I agree with all from above especially with aReclusiveMind.

They do it to show faces and give characters more agency. In games you don't care so much about individuals as you do for a ship as a whole. Not even in FTL which was quite involving when it came to crew.

The problem with mechs (tanks and battleoids) was that they were purely defensive units. You couldn't deploy them in invasions nor use them while boarding ships. And you are rarely in situation where you see invasion coming, have no space defenses and have finances for otherwise useless armor barracks. I find my self rarely building ordinary marine barrack if they don't improve economy (+20% morale) such as under democracy and unification which is doubly true for armor barracks. Well only sane situation when I'd build extra barracks is to give more targets to Antaran bombs in hopes they'd kill tanks instead of infrastructure. But if they could provide bonus in offense, especially in boarding actions then tanks and battleoids would be much more useful.

 

For me the most important part - the reason why I play 4x games - is decision making. The game should force me as the player to make decisions. Ground combat is no exeption to this. Unfortunately there are only a few 4x games that have ground combat implemented in such a satisfying way. One of them that comes in my mind is Emperor of the Fading Suns. The rest like Stars in Shadow, Stellaris, Galciv or MOO are ok and they work somehow, but in reality they are quite uninteresting and their potential to force the player to make important decisions are limited.

In a potential conflict with aliens, the main combat arena would be surely the ground and not space. Also nearly every important scifi franchise has its focus on ground combat (star wars, starship troopers, wh40k etc.) So should we have a tactical arena for planetary combat? Yes, if the devs have a good idea how to make it fun, full of decision making by the players and short. OTOH I am against it, if it is badly and amateurish implemented as in Stardrive.

For example in MOO2 you have different troop types, but did anyone really use mechs for anything? When these came into play the game was usually already in the end phase and they had not much impact. Additionally you could not even transport them. So while its nice to have different troops types, the implementation of mechs in MOO2 was bad. The devs for this game should avoid such traps.

 

Nice to see the exchange of ideas and opinions here, I live for this kind of stuff.
Just a quick recap of some essentials in case I was not clear enough. (a problem inherent in these type of conversations)

The changes would all be reflected at the moment that combat is actually about to take place, in this instant I would propose that the player be given the option of auto resolve (same combat as in Moo2) or manual combat. (In other words strictly optional)

The reasoning, to allow a player to take a planet more intact and with fewer loses if so desired

some relevant info

A small ground map with limited numbers of units, terrain would play a factor

The length of ground combat would also stay reasonable with a fairly large battle taking only about five minutes to resolve. (This would avoid the mechanic becoming tedious)

Basically the feel of the ground combat would be similar to space combat in Moo2 just quicker, as the number of units would be capped, however, those units would vary in strength proportionate to the effort extended in building them up.

The idea centers around the ground combat being complimentary to the core game in feel, done right, it would not detract from the experience of the game. The key, in my opinion, is not to slap on an entire second game to the existing but rather to enhance a small aspect of it.

Looking at the poll so far, the numbers are still too small for me to draw any conclusion but the opinions expressed so far are quite valuable in and of themselves.

 

Yeah, Polaris Sector had one of the best systems for contesting planets I've seen in a space 4x game. The time and effort it took to conquer a planet made it truly feel like you were engaged in long struggles where either side could change the balance of power by getting reinforcements into play. The military game play in general in Polaris Sector was its strong suit and I hope SpaceSector takes a few queues from that game when it comes to ground combat.

 

IMHO, I don't see tactical turn based ground combat fitting in with 4X games. I personally find ground combat generally takes away from fleet combat (a more fun activity) and can get clunky when it spans over several turns. I think something that resolves itself quickly or some elegant way that spans multiple turns with high usability is good.

 

I generally don't want to see tactical, turn-based combat in my space 4x games. Takes away too much from other game play I would rather focus on. I definitely believe ground combat should take more than a single turn to resolve, with each side getting chances to reinforce their armies if they can win control of the orbit over a colony, but I don't see a need for direct control of the ground battle itself.

I would prefer to influence ground combat indirectly in several ways. Having some rock-paper-scissors ground combat unit types to build would be nice. I could spy on enemies to see what kind of units they favor and design armies to counter them. Specific technologies to boost each of those types would be a nice touch as well. Besides army composition, I'd like to issue broad directives and then let my generals figure things out. Stuff like "conserve troops" for slower but less costly tactics for when I know I'll need those troops later, or "fight to the death" if I need to capture a colony ASAP for some reason and I don't care about taking more casualties.

 

Thinking back, in MoO 2 conquering planet actually took more than one turn (unless attacker was telepathic). First you had to break main army and then you had to constantly keep rebels under control until whole population got converted. Rebellions were mostly hidden behind the curtain but if you didn't prepare for it, freshly occupied planed would flip back and undo all your previous conquest efforts. Simply adding some fanfare to rebellion events would make ground combat more involved. Adding more to rebellions would help too like chance to kill occupation troops or revert portion of assimilated population.

 

Thank you for the kind words JG. I will incorporate another variant into this then reflecting "multi year" ground combat and remember to retain the flavor and continuity with Moo2.
As for scarcity in general, the idea would also benefit the Devs. It would make it far easier for them to dictate the pace and remain plausible.

 

Good point about autoresolving as a facilitator when the outcome of battle is obvious. I've never played IG2, so I cannot refer to this game. Anyway, it is good to see such substantive thoughts like yours ChrisKonstantine.

 

JG, I completely agree with you with one minor qualification. The auto-resolve can still be handy in a situation where the outcome is already certain so I feel it has it's uses. IG2 had no auto-resolve and was perhaps the only exception to the rule. Coincidentally, that game mirrored the approach you described is some ways. A dozen colonies made you a major power there, every rock you found was important because there were so few of them, they were indeed scarce.

 

Every 4x game is a matter of tradeoff between realism and playability. Say, I hate that oversimplification and 1 unit per hex mehanism in the latest installments of Civilization franchise.

On the other hand I do not have any problems with a wisely designed tactical ground combat but such layer should be an integral part of the game flow. If you propose autoresolve as an option, it means that there is probably something shallow/repetitive/bland. There should be a real incentive to play it manually. I think of one factor which is usually neglected in nearly every space 4x game - scarcity. By scarcity in this case I mean planets with rare/unique strategic resource or important strategic position on the map (eg. planet which controls warmhole entry). As I said most of 4x games are about vastness and this is partly a reason of the midgame crisis syndrome when you always have access to many similar sources of minerals etc.

So, IMO scarcity and uniqueness should be taken into account during designing of this game.

 

I've always thought ground combat shouldn't be decided in 2 seconds. WW2 took years, the 2nd Gold War conflict hasn't stop since 2001. How can an entire planet, a whole huge massive planet with billions of people, many continents, thousands of a mega cities. A hundred million small factories all of which would be pumping out armament if their planet was invaded. How could that massive scale combat be over in a near instant.

If planet Earth were invaded right now by aliens and our armies were defeated by some super weapon, i sure as heck wouldn't go back to work tomorrow like nothing happened. I would be worried as all fudge that they were going to eradicate us, and i wouldn't go down with out a fight. Our planet Earth would probably be engulfed in a total war for all time until every human was wiped out, and that would take an eternity even for an advanced alien race when you consider the absolute massiveness of the size of Earth.

So, I would like to see ground combat invasions take many years, and allow for reinforcements from both sides. Thus controlling the space above the planet becomes more important to allow for you to send down reinforcements like the Guadalcanal campaign from WW2 that was mentioned already.

Basically if I want to play Moo2, I already own it and I can just go play it. I want the next Moo to kick this shit up a notch. Give me cool and awesome new things to do and see. Add some more realism where we can and give me some new strategies and strategic options. Dont just make another stupid Moo2 clone.

 

Some excellent points JG yet incongruent with a game based on Moo2 unless core mechanics are altered.
Case in point, Guadalcanal
Two powers fighting over a piece of real-estate in the middle of the sea. A game like HOI can replicate this, Moo2 can't, why?
The answer is fundamental to the game mechanics. In a battle over a planet there are only two possible outcomes, you either control the planet (even if blockaded) or you do not. This is absolute and is achieved in a single turn thereby negating the possibility of engaging in a Guadalcanal type situation.
Can you then have ground combat last several strategic turns where space combat does not and remain plausible?
It can be done easily if one were to abstract a strategic turn as a year and a tactical turn as month. In this case ground combat not resolved in twelve tactical turns would resume at the subsequent strategic turn. Re-enforcements could play a factor, the defender would receive whatever additional forces planetary buildings can generate in a single strategic turn and the attacker whatever additional forces are transported from elsewhere. However, just because it can be done does not mean it should, ground combat should be similar to space combat not for the sake of realism but rather the sake of coherence.
But you are correct, in a game with hundreds of systems to fight over this could become a negative which is why I specifically suggest that the combat must be optional and quick.
SEV didn't need ground combat, much easier to wipe everyone out and start a fresh colony but in Moo2 there was actual benefit from taking a planet largely intact, that is why I recommend a ground combat "mini" game as a way to flesh out the existing core game, not alter it entirely.

 

I am a big admirer of turn based tactical combat. But in this case...

I see the tactical ground combat as a potential cul de sac for any 4x space games. Firstly, oversimplification of this part of the game means inevitable repetitiveness and as a result dead/dull feature. Secondly the ground combat interferes with a natural pace of the game. Every (habitable) planet is an another theatre of war if we take into accunt the scale of ships in comparison to the planet size. I imagine one turn invasion only as a complete demolition/annihilation by bombardment or invading undefended planets. Planets with larger garrisons and fortificatons should be able to defend longer time with serious chances to be supplied or evacuate. It gives some interesting flavours to the strategic layer because you could decide to support your troops as a defender or try to rescue the remnants of your troops/characters. Fine example of this idea was Guadalcanal campaign from WW2. Both sides were trying to supply their forces and in that environment some of the most exciting naval battles occurred.

I see ground combat rather as a process with the more or less detailed reports about casualties, morale condition, destroyed or damaged facilities, dead characters, and a ovarall percentage victory indicator. It could be nice being able to defend your colonies by organize supply convoys or conversely fight the enemy who try to supply their troops or retreat with valuable goods.