[Barnacle Bill]

Ragnarok-X said:
Think about it. If earth was invaded by aliens, wouldnt 50 % of the population, excluding chidren and old people help fighting ? I bet so. There is enough weaponry, do doubt about it.

Did the entire population of every country invaded by Germany in WWII turn out in mass to face the German army in open battle with whatever they could scrape up? What's the difference in getting invaded by aliens and getting invaded by Germans. Unless the aliens are bent on extermination rather than conquest, not much. People will do what they did then - whatever the occupation forces tell them, at least as long as the occupation troops are looking. And, no, there won't be enough militarily useful weaponry if there isn't any around - like in just about any European country today. Early in WWII, there was a major program to get American civilians to donate hunting weapons to be shipped to the UK to arm the Home Guard - and if Sea Lion had come out of the blue in 1940 there wouldn't have been time for that.

Q said:
I don't like to talk about realism in a game like SE

"It's just Sci-Fi, it isn't real - anything goes" is what gets us, for example about half the episodes of the original 1970's Battlestar Galactica.

Q said:
(although you could argue about the difficulties the number one military power on earth today has in certain countries against very rudimentery equipped "militias").

There you are talking about insurgents with outside support, in countries where private possession of military small arms is darned near universal - not an ad hoc militia with improvided weapons facing an invading army in open battle. Even then, the kill ratio is something like 10-1 against the "militia" and they don't appear to have any chance of actually militarily driving the occupation force out.

Q said:
I just think that it is not good if you can conquer a homeworld with 20-30 small troops without shields and one louzy depleted uranium cannon.

Depends on what a "small troop" represents. It could be that a small troop is Hammer's Slammers, a medium troop is a regiment of Ogres, and a large troop is a regiment of Bolos. I've certainly never taken them to represent individual vehicles. I mean, it takes up 10 tons of cargo storage - which would hold how many colonists (and colonists have to include all their gear including pre-fab housing)?

Q said:
That makes the first strike option against any encountered empire in the beginning of the game too strong. I like it better if in the early game destroying or conquering a homeworld is almost impossible.

The real problem here is that unless it is the Planet of the Amish there is going to be a defending army of regular troops on the homeworld, so the AI should be programmed to maintain one.

Devnullicus said:

The one that shoots first

Not if the Alien is in Mobile Infantry powered armor a la Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie).