Detailed Strategic Ground Combat

[Shadowstar]

I know this is probably an impossible feature to add in SEIV, but perhaps it could be considered a kind of wishlist idea for SE5.

The idea is basically the above topic. In some cases (and especially in certain mods - Derek's Mod for one) ground combat can go on for a long time, years even. You have to assume the ground battles that are over in one turn are basically overwhelmings. What if this was embraced so that all ground invasions that weren't overly one-sided would Last, say a year or two? After all, you're talking about taking an entire planet - not just from the troops stationed on the surface, but also from the partisans and para-military civilians who fight after the military has been defeated.

Now, we already have this in SEIV. So what about expanding the game (possibly in SE5) so that every planet in the game has a randomly-generated (when the map is generated) planet surface, complete with continents, islands, and other surface features. Facilities/colonies/cities on the surface would be located in real physical locations across the planet (allow the player to pick where the facility is placed or have an option to have them automatically placed). A rules system could even be implemented that modified the efficency of things based on thier locations on the planet. Technology could be researched that would then modify this factor.

Each turn of ground combat would be spent fighting for territory on the planet. Think about the possibilities for this. You could also use it to coordinate space bombardments. Instead of just shooting the planet, you could decide where you wanted to hit them.

Anyway, it's something to think about. Could be fun to just dream about it, even if it never gets implemented in anything.

[dogscoff]

It has often been discussed, and it would be really cool, but I think it would make the whole game ridiculously complicated. MIcromanagement hell. I suppose if you had a decent AI minister to take over for you if you didn't want to handle it yourself...

The other factor is the storage space. Savegames and maps would take up huge amounts of disk space and take forever to download.

I would like to see a few more variables thrown into ground combat though. I'd like rock planet races to fight at a disadvantage on gas planets, for example. Native breathers should get a combat bonus too, and various other changes that have been discussed, especially concerning orbital bombarment.

Now for SEV.... Imagine this:

How about if SEV was designed as a hugely huge massively-multiplayer Online universe, constantly operating in accelerated realtime whether you're Online or not (ie a fleet might take a real-life week to get from A to B) with campaigns that go on for (RL) years. The game universe would be insanely vast, and empires would eventually become too huge and complex for a player to operate on their own. You'd have "teams" playing each empire, and one team member could dedicate their time to ground combat on a huge, planetary sub game like the one you describe. Maybe even one general per planet, if it were complex enough.

Man, just imagine... that would be sooooo cool.

Of course, we'd all be single inside of a month...

[Gil Hamilton]

The game MANKIND was/is? "Massively Multiplayer Online"-- Four thumbs down!

[Baron Munchausen]

SE is a space game. Adding ground combat in that much detail would be a nightmare to program, and then a micromanagement nightmare to play as already noted. If you want to play a combined space/ground campaign, try Emperor of the Fading Suns. It runs in the DOS box of Win95/98 but it's a fairly advanced game. Last update was 1999, I think? You can get it for free at Home of the Underdogs: www.the-underdogs.org

Warning! You'll learn what micromanagement means with this game! It might be the only game out there which exceeds SE IV for micromanagement.

In SE IV, I think all we need is a few more options like the ability to choose a strategy that our troops use in combat. The effect of planetary bombardment on troops needs to be reduced, too. If troops were protected by the same damage ratio that protects population you'd really have combat for planets because troops would survive to fight the invading troops.

[ June 14, 2002, 15:43: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Shadowstar]

Well of course it would be a nightmare if the game continues to be as micromanaged as it is. Remember, I come from the Stars! community, where you can automate just about everything. You can even have your ships automatically move toward and attack any enemy ships that come within a certain range.

I'm assuming that at some point, hopefully SE5, the game will be much easier to automate so there won't be so much micromanagement. That way, you could have stuff like this with little problem.

Also, universes and saved games wouldn't need to take up that much more space. You could just use a fractal system to generate the planets' surfaces and store facility locations and troop positions each with two extra variables to determine X,Y location on the planet. Then, all you'd be storing in saved games and universe files would be a single planetary seed and, for saved games, locations for all the facilities and deployed troops. Possibly in a huge, overcrowded universe the file might get rather large, but even then, probably not by much.

[Gryphin]

I would love to see Ground Combat reduced to something like the Intel system.
Each planet would spend points to defend it.
The Attacker would build up and spend points to invade
The results would be abstracted.
You could still glass a planet if you wanted to.
If I want tactical combat, I’ll play with micro armor (1/285 lead/pewter) miniatures.