Do Stellaris Armies Need A Rework?

A hot topic.. but does it really need to be changed?
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Under siege: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
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Video Description:
Stellaris is a 4X grand strategy video game developed and published by Paradox Interactive. Stellaris' gameplay revolves around space exploration, managing an empire, diplomacy, and space warfare with other space-faring civilizations.
#Ep3o #Stellaris #Armies

[@Ep3o]

What's your thoughts? Be KIND to others, let's have a discussion not an argument :)

[@jamescritchley]

I would love a reewot but don't remove tyrm

[@-Benito_Swagolini-]

I think they should add a lot of what you said but the main things I would like to see is that they should have it rework by making it like the ship editor but for ground forces so you can add different weapons, armor and modifications to your troops. They should also add other types of troops like Air Force and armor divisions. Another thing is to add doctrines to ground combat. and to make the ground combat more interesting they could add pictures like in ck3 sieges to see how the planet under siege is doing. One last thing is to make multiple battles take place during one invasion so there will be multiple battlefields and if you win or lose certain battles that could apply positive or negative multipliers.

[@StarboyXL9]

Aw man. But I come here to argue!

[@elcanaldelargan8575]

I would use a system similar, although a bit more evolved for sure, to what "Master of Orion II" (yes, MoOII is an old game, and im not precisely considered young anymore) had for ground combat, which could be easily implemented in Stellaris, as most of the buildings are already kind of in the game, there would be a bunch of new techs, though, like mech armies and so on, but the battles do not imply any kind of special management by the player, although they are more entertaining to see, and buildings, commandos and special techs can have an impact on them.

[@sharpshots5813]

Perhaps the army can be built automatically/manually for each planet until it reaches the planet's max soldier cap (determined by pop). The player then, when wanting to invade a planet, simply have to click a button and choose which army it wants to send. Combat strength is also affected by the species' habitability type (aquatic species fight bettet in aquatic worlds) and when the army size is insufficient to take over a world, will turn into a defensive stance and the strength of the army will be depleted significantly slower whilst also dealing significantly less damage, waiting for reinforcements (automatically pulled from species that have that habitat preference)

[@americanpride5540]

Rework hands down. If you remove ground combat you kill a core aspect of the SiFi appeal of Stellaris. I want my Space marine drop pod soldiers to have the proper chunky weight to the hitting a planet not be removed!

[@mikabakker1]

I think they need to nerf orbital bombing more or have bombing cost resources or something, right now its barely worth invading when you can just destroy it. Would love to see ground combat be expanded. But idk if that will happen by the dev teams themselves, prob something for the modders to do

[@bizmasterTheSlav]

I think we need something like an army constructor. Like in HOI4. There would be support companies, different army types that could be mixed into your own custom armies (just like divisions in HOI4. This would make armies far more interesting without losing the core game vibes. Also it would be cool to make sieges into something more interesting by adding the resistance mechanic, the less you damaged the planet during a siege, the less resistance there will be. Resistance would also be affected by your ethics or something (xenophobes get more resistance). It would also make sense to actually use lighter bombardment stances. Oh and of course, armies with no "morale" factor would create far more resistance in exchange for better combat performance. And lastly, organic armies should be influenced by their preferable planet type, for example, desert world species army should perform worse while invading arctic world.

[@cyber_engine]

@@bizmasterTheSlav 100% agree

[@The_Meat_Man69]

@@mikabakker1 idk it seems balanced, it takes a long af time to destroy an army from orbit, plus you need to have an assault army to take the planet

[@mikabakker1]

@@The_Meat_Man69 while thats true. You could just bomb it and then send in like 1 troop to take it. Idk I like most ideas but I feel like paradox isnt gonna touch that since it has to work in multiplayer as well. So you cant really have cutscene battles or anything time consuming or like a battle minigame.

[@purerussianvodka_]

Would be cool to see a ship builder interface, but for armies.

[@penis9023]

I want an army manager, like fleet manager, which would make it easier to build large armies for taking out planets

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

technically that's your species list apply some nice traits, pick the species in the army recruitment list and send them into war or you just take the fixed strength "lame" stuff like cybrex warforms, xenomorphs and imperial legions

[@mryellow6918]

just rent the hoi dev team for like a week

[@berryhops]

I would agree, would be awesome to add a RPS element to it and the option to modify your garrison armies as well.

[@elkudos6262]

Had that in early builds, you'd have to outfit each army with swarm drones or commandos, quite fiddly. Army tab in the manager should come first.

[@Kasaaz]

I would definitely enjoy just rolling armies into normal ships, just because managing troop transports isn't fun and is just a giant hassle, even with more recent 'automation' choices. Then they just get killed more often.

[@goreobsessed2308]

That I would like let ships carry troops

[@jamesgrieves2669]

Yeah, I'd keep defensive armies as they are and add a module tradeoff to increase orbital bombardment damage to represent troops being dropped in.

[@JasonWolfeYT]

If the army ships could just join a combat fleet and move with it as a part of the fleet that would be good enough. The army transports wouldn't fight and would flee when all army ships fled, just like now. But you could move them in the same commands with your battle fleet.

[@JaceMorley]

I wonder if Siege events could be mixed with the Archeology mechanic, so you and the defenders generate positive events at rates that scales with your relative army sizes and you are both racing to reach a repel/conquer level. Repel level scales with invaders strength, Conquer level scales with planetary fortifications.

[@joehelland1635]

Laughs in mega warform

[@CorpusCallosum0]

@@joehelland1635 cybrex warform go brrrrrrr

[@N0TYALC]

You’re going to have to do this dozens and dozens of times in a typical game. It would get old very, very quickly.

[@Leo-ok3uj]

Yeah, because we need even more random stuff

[@War_is_cool]

Archeology siege shit is literally just eu4

[@tiredtraveler4536]

Endless space 2 also has an "approach" system like Stellaris has in situations where both the attacker and defender can choose different tactics with very different effects on the combat. For example, the defender can choose "Guerilla warfare" which has a massive debuff on damage dealt but also boosts survivability if the player knows reinforcements are on the way or the attacker can choose between blitzkrieg or bombardment with the earlier allowing you to take planets much quicker at the cost of more of your forces while the latter damages the buildings on the planet.

[@TheArklyte]

I've played Endless Space 2 since its release and I refer to those as placebo buttons as choice made doesn't change anything about outcome against AI \/(-_-)\/

[@thomaslacroix6011]

That sounds like something that could be implemented very easily, either as policies, planetary decisions, or as fleet stances, that would just be modifiers applied to armies

[@lucjanl1262]

Also es2 introduces the manpower resource, which turns part of your pop growth into soldiers, at times this manpower will be MAJOR bottleneck if invading many planets quickly so you will need to divert your tech and production to increase the rate at which you turn your food into soldiers.

[@mariomario-dy1kc]

In the end the best way was to simply siege the defending world until its armies were gone and then invade. Have played ES2 plenty, never even bothered upgrading the land forces.

[@lucjanl1262]

@@mariomario-dy1kc that's true, just equip the titanium slugs and you're done, but this can get tedious when invading many planets or when you don't have access to titanium.

[@justinsinke2088]

My general impression of the situation is that the Dev team has ground combat listed as "working as implemented", as I've heard them phrase it. It's functional and it serves it's purpose well enough. As mentioned, even though a lot of people see ground combat as so shallow as to be boring, and I think even the dev team agrees to a point, they've made it clear that it's low priority compared to other things that could be tweaked. Personally, I've love to see armies use the same building systems that ships implement. Ships have auto-designs so that you never have to actually use the designer, and armies could be the same when it comes to automation. But if you want, you can customize armies like you do ships, with weapon and armor tech unlocking in parallel to ship tech for the most part. So for the ground side you have infantry platoons instead of corvettes, light tanks instead of destroyers, artillery instead of cruisers, and heavy tanks instead of battleships, etc. Have classifications of units from infantry to vehicles to mechs pair up in a way reminiscent to how upgrading ship tech works, with the combat math working similarly to how ships work. Then you have a "detachment manager" in a similar way you have a "fleet manager", where you set up armies in an intentional manner (rather than just clicking the biggest number 20-30 times on a planet). During naval combat, once engagement starts, the only real control you have over the battle is typically ordering a retreat, and the same may be done with ground combat, with the graphics working similarly, though maybe with a wider combat zone of units in close, medium, and long range zones, so for instance if one sides front line units are all wiped out, the medium range now moves to close range and gets debuffs, so similarly to how you have to worry about fleet composition, you have to think about army composition a little for maximum effectiveness. It doesn't need to get to HoI4 nitty gritty, but in the same way they reworked ship combat to try and stop make battleship doomstacks the defacto way to play the late game because there really wasn't anything better, I feel they could do the same for ground combat. Give it a little more numerical nuance so that building assault and defense armies feels meaningful.

[@Willow4526]

similar thoughts to what I made in my general overall view comment. But your breakdown of how we would interact with it is pretty much perfect to what I'd imagine.

[@kuzehotarubi6912]

I think the main problem the devs have been trying to solve here is the atrocious degree of micromanagement towards the mid game. Adding another complex system on top of it wouldn’t help. Instead I think we really need an overhaul to integrate everything.

[@excursor4296]

I most fancy the idea of the army carrier ships instead of making armies from planets. Adding situations and events can even be apart of this as the army carrier ships may simply put a “resource” into the situations. Also complexity is never bad; it is making them streamed lined is the key.

[@thesynthpub6511]

Kinda like ES2's manpower system.

[@michaellopate4969]

"complexity is never bad" Wow I could not disagree more. Not that complexity is always bad, but complexity just for complexity's sake is pointless. If it isn't fun, why make it more complex and time consuming?

[@excursor4296]

@@michaellopate4969 “it is making them streamed lined is the key” this was suppose to convey the idea that, even though complex, it would not be time consuming for the player. Example: Minecraft’s world gen is quite complex but for the player it usually only adds enjoyment. Rim World’s “event system” is very complex but the way the player interacts with it is streamed lined to be easy to engage with. To reiterate myself, I find that complexity in of it’s self is never a problem but instead the way it is portrayed or engaged with the player that harbors the problems.

[@erlinuraj2694]

You could divide the planets surface up in tiles and put that overview in the army tab. Make some randomly generated buffs and de buffs for tiles. The armies could be customised like ships and you can give your soldiers different weapons, war vehicles different upgrades and also select certain strategies for all parts of the armies to use. That would get rid of a lot of micromanaging, randomise war a bit more, make planets look better and make armies more interesting. Also add air and water war.

[@felixrowan3740]

Something that I thought would be interesting to improve ground combat is if the planet type that you were invading influenced the effectiveness of the army being used, depending on the preferred biome type of the species in that army. For example, an ocean biome preferring species would be most effective invading an ocean world, but much less so when invading a desert world. That way, you would have to actually think about which species to use for an army and an invasion, and it would give some meaning to the different species one can train in their army, aside from the amount of damage. I think it also makes sense because a species would naturally be familiar and capable in a biome type that more closely resembles that which they prefer. This could then be mitigated later in the game with technologies.

[@JackEverfree]

Late game technology agent orange that removes him enemy environmental bonuses

[@Willow4526]

In this system the adaptive trait would be pretty good bcos it's not only for wanting any species to thrive anywhere but also helps boost that ones use in armys on any planet.

[@cyber_engine]

100% agree

[@tbotalpha8133]

Welp, time for 200% habitability droid armies!

[@felixrowan3740]

@@tbotalpha8133 Heck yeah! :p Well, I generally had the idea that Machine empires wouldn't have such techs, and the 100% habitability and subsequent easier invasions would be a benefit of playing as a Machine empire, similiar to how they are not affected by morale because they have no happiness upkeep.

[@brute3339]

Love what ACOT did with armies, you got tanks, land cruisers and infantry which doesn’t do much but it feels like a good mix up of having land cruiser land then tanks and infantry

[@alchelor1]

looking forward the suggestions i imagine will be in this one (because i don't think there's more than 4 people who don't think armies need a rework)

[@whatever3131]

I think that current system is not bad mechanically, but I would really love to actually see the units in a graphic way. The frontline should be somehow animated so that we can truly see and feel a big event such as devouring swarm invading a huge fortress world, or slave armies defending a penal colony from driven assimilators etc. There are so many fascinating scenarios in stellaris that are currently just a number vs number!

[@B3RyL]

Add to that sound effects of units reporting their status, asking for reinforcements, panicking, raging and celebrating victory, and you got yourself something I can get behind. I'm not necessarily for having minigames (though I wouldn't mind them if they were optional), but I do want to feel like there's a battle happening. Like millions of lives are being risked and lost and victories are either last-second clutch or absolutely devastating, instead of just watching circles tick away at a steady pace.

[@cyber_engine]

the current system is kinda boring. just spamming armies and that's all. the guy above mentioned about having preferable planet type. something like getting debuff if you invade not preferable planet type. or get buff you your nation kinda hate the target nation(like xenophobes vs xenophile) for me it must be reworked asap

[@darkithnamgedrf9495]

I wish there were flavor events while invading a planet, maybe slow down planet invasion a bit to comensate and leave time between events. I feel like planetary invasion is one of the most common tropes in Sci Fi media and it barely gets any attention mechanically or flavor wise

[@user-yy3wh2uk3w]

I think the notable mention is Starsector Nexerelin mod with its ground battles: different sectors providing boosts, morale (even though it is inplemented in Stellaris) and so on.

[@kmr_tl4509]

There's such a big overlap between starsector and stellaris players.

[@sponTheGam]

@@kmr_tl4509 I actually got into stellaris because of the management and war aspects of nexerelin

[@WeIIwisher]

Siege system sounds most interesting. That would also lead players to make a choice if they want to specialise a planet and make it fold immediately in case of enemy invasion or to make it self-sustaining so it will hold untill reinforcements can arrive to lift the siege.

[@garabic8688]

I personally like the situation and siege ideas. I would add in maybe 2 more things. First, Stellaris already has a Rock Paper Scissors element in ship designs, it would be interesting to implement this in ground combat through army types or army strategies. Second, I would want a way for planets to fire back at a bombardment fleet. It would require set buildings dedicated to planetary defense of course, but I feel like taking a planet should be something potentially costly, and not just something that slows your invasion down a couple of years.

[@tekoimming1943]

I really like this idea!

[@JackEverfree]

I hate how he skipped Distant Worlds 2 because it has the “rock paper scissors” system your looking for. Come to think of it it also has the ground to space weapons too.

[@damonedrington3453]

The best idea of heard is have tanks infantry and artillery. Tanks counter artillery which counters infantry which counters tanks.

[@texnikozero4934]

there is already a mod that adds the ASD system to the game.

[@borsk473]

I recently found a mod called "armies are pops". It spices up this aspect of the game without overcomplicating it

[@El_Presidente_5337]

To use the situations mechanic sounds really good. I would welcome a change like that with battles on planets also taking longer depending on pop count, ethics and planet type. If your empire is essentially populated only by aquatics you would have a hard time to conquer a desert planet for example. I think that the game could also benefit from allowing armies to land on planets which still have their star base in the system. So that you essentially send your armies to a planet without them flying in circles all the time. Your situation log would also display a slower progress because of supply problems due to the hostile star base. Maybe also get some randomness into the system like in EU IV where a battle can suddenly turn 180.

[@nicholasstewart1482]

I would like an army editor and be able to research techs for different army techs. Kinda like HOI4 unit manager, but maybe simplified a bit. That way if an opponent has a really heavy infantry army composition, having a heavy armor focus on your could give you a breakthrough bonus and help you widdle them down faster. Also having artillery units behind the army width still able to damage. stuff like that.

[@genesis101010]

I think armies can be improved. You can make an "army" per pop. There's no planner and if you are big empire you basically have to click thousands of times or use an autoclicker. Also there's a bug where the armies are not in the outliner. When I asked the devs about that they said "Why do you have 1810 armies?". So yeah it could be improved upon.

[@matheusexpedito4577]

Dude have enough men to kill a fallen empire

[@dev2410]

So happy you showed my comment at 6:08!😄 I still think that cosmetic changes may be all that is needed, but the situations idea is really, really neat, especially since it would A make espionage more valuable and B emphasize what battles really are: grinding attrition. The ideas about placing planets under siege or having armies carried in ships is also really neat! I also wonder if stellaris could utilize something from Master of Orion 1 and introduce planetary missile basses (or their equivalent) that allow planets to fight back at enemy fleets. And maybe the system doesn't need any changes at all. Although I talked about cosmetic changes all I (or anyone else) needs to do is use my imagination and the battle unfolding is rendered as a breathtaking scene using the most powerful graphics card ever: the human mind. Something I do NOT want to see though is a ground combat system like what is in Master of Orion 1: your population are your armies, and vice versa. This meant that the only way to occupy a planet was to EXTERMINATE THE ENTIRE POPULATION. That worked great for Master of Orion 1; it made every war an existential struggle for survival in a brutal war of extermination (and also may have had to do with hardware limitations.) What makes stellaris neat to me is that mixed populations can live on a planet; when my friend (who introduced me to stellaris) told me about how during his first playthrough he played as a nation of friendly rock people (lithoids) who took in truckloads of refugees, I was both surprised that mixed populations were possible and also touched by the ability to act as a "Good Samaritan" in a video game. That was not possible in Master of Orion 1, and I want this feature to remain in stellaris (certain it will actually, unless there is a devouring swarm in the galaxy🪲) When it all gets down to it though, I really think that any rework shouldn't make the game more complicated. This is already an EXTREEMLY complicated game, and the last thing that should happen is make it even more beginner un-friendly. What are your thoughts?

[@CrimsonReaper189]

something they could do would be take a page out of endless space where u have 3 types of ground units air foot and armored units then the users select a attack and defence formation. so in stellaris u select ur ground combat policy and u recruit ever air ground or armored units that each have different states

[@DolphinDivePro]

I think that only works because it's turnbased, all combat gets resolved end of each turn. In an RTS situation, the AI will adapt to your tactics immediately and if you miss a pop up while dealing with everything else you could lose a planet/fail an invasion?

[@CrimsonReaper189]

@@DolphinDivePro well not really its depends on how they have the polices set up for what it does also they cant immediately adapt because it would still take time for them to build a new army and fly it over plus same as other policies they have a cool down so they cant just change it constantly. even if u took the bonuses endless has the ai can adapt but it would not be a case of oh they immediately win because of x. ever way it would still be better because even in the current systme odds are if they are landing on u they are winning anyway

[@MrPainisCupcake]

The one thing it REALLY needs is an army manager, currently recruiting an army efficiently (from multiple worlds at the same times) is a clicking hell.

[@Octavian999]

using tab and zxc keys does make it a lot faster fyi

[@felixrowan3740]

Yeah, if you check Ep3o's shortcuts video, he covers exactly how to recruit multiple armies from different worlds very quickly, using the shortcuts Octavian mentioned.

[@comet.x]

the situation invasions honestly sound amazing. Especially tying in espionage! current armies could be repurposed to be specialized troops that change the situation entirely.

[@Mankorra_Gomorrah]

There is also a mod called “Ground Command” that came out a little bit ago. While it doesn’t rework the army mechanic it is basically a reinterpretation of the mechanic as it stands right now. It shows a way for the developers to add more depth and uniqueness without needing to completely redo the entire mechanic.

[@massey81]

i like the under siege system, once you capture a system all the planets and habitats within that system start to get debuffs. defuff rate depends on the size of the planet and its armies within. after a certain point in time if the planet is not liberated they will eventually surrender. points in tech and traditions can make your pops more resilient.

[@garabic8688]

You could also add a planetary stockpile mechanic if your planet is not a good or consumer good producing planet

[@-Benito_Swagolini-]

@@garabic8688 adding a stockpile system will also rework planets/war in general because if you have and alloy world it will be lacking almost everything so it would surrender quicker than a planet that has all resource in the positives would be very difficult to almost impossible to make them surrender

[@texnikozero4934]

But at the same time, you can build a completely self-supporting fortress planet and arrange an endless siege. But at the same time, you can add a system of influence of bombardments on the besieged planet through events like: "our ships were able to grab their steel shops, now they will not work for them, at least until the siege is over.". You can add spy missions to sabotage the besieged planet by the aggressor or to supply it with resources from the owner of the planet or his allies. Add useful planetary shields that would have "strength" that would need to be pierced in order for the orbital fleet or Colossus to operate. Colossi definitely need to be fixed because they divide by zero any planet that in vanilla is not difficult to rebuild after terraforming.

[@ruukinen]

@@-Benito_Swagolini- A stockpile system would add considerations to not over specializing planets which would be pretty cool cause then if you want maximum efficiency then on the flipside you are also maximally vulnerable.

[@Kjf365]

I have the idea that we can see a map of a city or something with districts and the troops will be able to move to those districts and enemies in the same district will fight. You can move your own troops manually if you want to grant you the ability to strategize in a war and potentially repel a superior force, but of course you could just let it play out and the ai can handle a ground war for you. It can also allow for variety by having dozens of different district map layouts based on a bunch of factors.

[@Stmate03]

while complicated oddly I think how conquest mode in Command and Conquer kane's wrath works could also work here, you'd see your amry and the enemy army on a screen with 2 options, one being quick which is bigger number usually = win, and a real time one where you move troops around like ships which makes it similar to ship combat but also complicated, basically you have a choice of a simple numbers game or an RTS

[@commandoepsilon4664]

Until the auto-resolve decides a single squad of Black Hand can solo a MARV! I will never trust it again!

[@Stmate03]

@@commandoepsilon4664 classic XD

[@RikaRoleplay]

Separate armies into several types, Orbital drop shock troopers, large soldier vessel shuttles (with supplies), small atmospheric fighters, heavy atmospheric gunships, ground tanks / hard point artillery, anti air batteries, etc. Each kinda counters the other, and are used "activated" as they land on planet side, with many being taken out in atmosphere due to defensive missile batteries if not orbital bombarded. Also planet devastation/ hospitality take far longer to recover if you do an orbital bombardment for far too long.

[@Aci_yt]

I've always liked the idea of changing army battles to a "Chess"-like experience, with certain terrain & battlefield layouts depending on the planet, species, buildings, etc. contributing to how the fight plays out, as well as certain army types or species being countered by specific things. You could just let the AI deal with it, which would usually result in the same "bigger number wins" strategy for players who aren't interested in micro-managing armies, but it would be more efficient to actually give them orders yourself and come up with strategies that allow you to win against a bigger army or take a planet faster :)

[@N0TYALC]

This sounds like a great idea! Once or twice. After your first war where you have to do this 10-20 times within a year, you would be begging for the old system back.

[@Aci_yt]

@@N0TYALC Thats why you can always have the AI do it and rely on "larger number wins", like I said

[@MontuPlays]

This Montu guy sounds like he has leaked the coming rework. What a guy!

[@Ep3o]

What a silly guy

[@Antinumeric]

The problem with the current system is that armies exist for when you've failed to adequately defend using fleets. They are backup. Improving your defensive army requires using relatively precious building slots, which could be better spent on your economy -> better fleets -> less likely to need armies. Making planets themselves the high-value target is the real goal. Warp interdictors are a good step in this direction, but maybe if you could make them affect multiple systems you could get around the map gen issues associated with them. Another approach could be making armies work multiple purposes. Perhaps having armies provide construction bonuses or amenities (building roads/utilities). For sure however regular ships should have troop carrier modules so that army transport isn't such a pain.

[@lucastessari650]

It would be very nice to see a new screen when you click on a planet your invading that shows diferent decisions for the invasion, it would still have your army strenght and enemy strenght but you could have diferent decisions like going for an all out strike against enemy fortifications if your army is strong enoght(this would probably work like an auto resolve), or bunkering down to study the enemy defences to bolster your army damage, thus giving you an edge if your army isnt strong enought. This new mechanic could even be implemented for the defending empires too, the new planet under siege ui could show planetary rosource management and operations to repel the attackers.

[@DJSwankyCheese]

I like that first idea of putting armies on ships however, I think it'd be neat to have a special customizable troop transport ship. Then, for defense, planetary defense armies provided by soldier jobs (or from fortresses specifically) could be customizable like the defense platforms on starbases.

[@enigmachinasclass8153]

What if they changed the invasion screen to look similar to a Historia Civilis video where you see a 2D view of the planet with the ground forces of both sides represented with the same icons? Instead of just being static placeholders, the icons are actively pushing into the enemy forces and when they take too many casualties you can see them fall back.

[@mermeoth7178]

Situation idea sounds great. You could also add modules to ships to speed up your siege or you could slow down enemy siege by building fortresses. Edicts and policies and many more could have effect on siege speed too.

[@Genesis8934]

re: that fleet manager for troops QOL idea, it could even be a button on a fleet that lets you request troops rally to that fleet's location and group up.

[@cristiancojocaru9821]

Honestly, the part about automating the process is brilliant. Have the frontline be how it is now, with ships moving and conquering different systems, then you'd have something like the commerce system where you have a route of supply from your planets to the enemy ones within the territory you've occupied, have the strength of those supply lines dictate how fast or slow a planet falls under your complete occupation and is conquered. Have the proximity to the front line, enemy infrastructure and stability, your level of espionage versus their level of espionage, etc. influence the final number of your occupying forces that you're having to supply in order to conquer said planet. The system for it has already been made with trade routes, you can hook up espionage to it, and it would be influenced by how well you do on the front with your ships pushing the enemy further back or the enemy mounting a counter-attack with their fleets and smashing your supply lines. It frees up the player to engage more with ship combat while also making the strategic deployment and gameplay around where you send your fleets and what points you hold matter, it encourages a systematic approach rather than a rush, as you'd need a continuous route from your empire to the territory you want to occupy.

[@CIA_ACE]

I think it would be cool if you could customize amies like you can space ships, still have it down to bigger number better army but make that calculation more complicated. Like a triangle of infantry, armor, and bombardment (in atmosphere air, arty, out of atmosphere air). This and maybe a few more decisisions about the tactics of your armies like what you have with bombardment stances would be cool. Basically more micro in the actual battle would suck, but more choice in the composition of the land forces and more strategy in creating it/ operating it would be good.

[@alejandrovegaalarcon45]

I would like seeing a supply chain needed for armies and fleets, having an occupying army experiment attrition if it doesn't either have a "trade rute" to the capital or the planet can't provide enough resources

[@UnusualOtaku]

I think they should make carrier class ships be where our armies come from. Like typically in sci-fi the troops just deploy from the fleets, like in Halo ODSTs just drop pod from the ships in low orbit not from individual transport specific ships

[@wolfschadow6399]

Endless space 2 has an important distinction for the ground combat. Every single round the attacker and defender choose a different strategy card, which includes orbital bombardment, special operations focus and grand assault. Each of them grants your side a bonus and a malus for the next fight. The defender can hunker down, focus on counteroffensive or actively arm militias, which creates more defending troops by sacrificing a pop for it. Something like that could be interesting to include.

[@peterk7428]

Masters of Orion 2 let you build troops and armor separately and just drop it on a planet after orbital defenses were down. Then it was basically like Stellaris except it was turn-based so you might only make progress instead of capturing a world all in one turn.

[@randombystander5324]

I like the situation solution. To start a siege you park a fleet on top of it. Then you can either a) ignore it and the siege is done automatically using your empires ressources (maybe add manpower or a default army compisition and funding screen) or b) you could interact with the siege and add special units (to keep the gen warriors in the game), generals and envovs for spy missions via the situation screen. Its an easy system that allows for more flavor and depths but also works fine on autopilot.

[@flyinmehkite384]

I think adding different ways to get into combat (drop pod, transport ship, teleportation from orbit) each having pros and cons would add just a little bit to the system to make it feel more like part of your empire. Also I like the ideas of events and situations for attackers and defenders as well as espionage to aid or harm the invasion would be neat. There should also be events / situations for post planetary conquest. Like partisan activity, rise in crime due to poverty / starvation / etc. Lastly, a purging empire should meet a lot more resistance from the planetary populace since they know they are all going to die.

[@lordlard2833]

I'd love to see a way to automatically recruit armies, similar to the fleet manager. Also, being able to outfit your armies with specific weapons would be nice. Give them better shielding and weapons as you unlock techs. In a lot of ways I am thinking they could just mirror the ship designer and fleet manager for armies. In reality, invading a planet when you have plant cracking weapons is like saying a mage that can literally change the weather is no more powerful than a warrior who swings a sword around. imo the ships just matter more in a 4x space game than armies running around on the ground.

[@firstup7461]

Something I wash is that adding admirals or generals would automate the fleet that they are commanding, like how auto survey works, you could tell them to conquer a sector and leave them be, they will defend if they can take a fight and flee otherwise, taking over all of the free outposts, there would be an option to leave them fully on manual mode and maybe a range, for armies, something similar, where they would automatically go from planet to planet, like the aggressive stance but not following a ship, instead traveling on their own.

[@JesseArmando94]

I think armies being a component or ship part would be good, bigger ship = more army strength. Special army units can only go on certain sized ships(no mega warforms on corvettes)

[@Prayingmantis78]

I think there should be an army design screen like the ship design screen and different weapons have different weakness and strengths

[@erubianwarlord8208]

what I think the army system needs is a bit more granularity with army deployment how about a simple grid/region map that you put your army tokens on and allow you to pick which forces get deployed to each sector to either fight or if the sector is empty enact some other operation inline with your civics such as capturing pops or smashing defense buildings with a simple auto select mode for those that wish to skip

[@EvGamerBETA]

I think adding army transports to the fleets and have them as low priority targets could do the trick. Also a screen that allow recruiting from multiple planets at once to reduce busywork

[@graydonproulx8452]

Something that complicates invasions but optionally would be nice I like recruiting armies as we see now. If you wanna be efficient with it a system to do so would be loved by myself

[@getfreur2458]

In my opinion i would love more unit types, with each having disadvantage and advantage against other types and events. Like infantry is good against air, air is good against tanks and tanks are good against infantry and so on, with generals having a greater chance to select a counter against enemy units as more experience he gets. Add some edicts like military service types, planet type modifiers for units and events happening during a invasion, like choosing if you should evacuate a certain amount of pops from the planet and transferring them to another one or conscripting them to fight the enemy, that way adding local defense units.

[@TheBronzeDog]

I could go for a Situation-based invasion. Maybe have a few events where certain types of armies give you an advantage, encouraging you to pick up those army technologies. Maybe the same could be done with General traits, to make them more worthwhile. Keeping the planet blockaded or under siege to gradually force a surrender would also be a nice option.

[@MstrGalzraVoid]

A rework, add more passive ground defenses you can build to complement armies or as stand alone defenses that would fall under special buildings similar to the strongholds. Such as turrets for example. If armies could be directly attached to fleets in the manager you could just replenish them as you replenish the fleets as you lose ships. Fleets with an attached army have a new icon so you can see at a glance which fleets have an army and which ones don't

[@greygoo6945]

I think the situations mechanic is the way to go. One thing that I'd like for them to do with this is allow for different types of armies to fulfill different situations. A xenomorph army could only have situations to heavily damage armies and take it over quickly at the cost of army health, pops, and deviation. While other armies like psionic armies could have many different situations available to them such as being able to break the enemies moral and take the planet outright with little loss on the planet and army at the cost of speed. It gives certain armies uses, adds flavor, and allows for cheeky strategy while still allowing the player to spam their army of choice if they wish not to deal with that

[@The_Lute777]

So my idea is for an army builder and a terrain system where depending on the species of you’re army and training in the army builder the army will fair better on planets they are normally habitable on or planet they already have training for

[@robertsmith6700]

My brain thinks it would be cool if there were armies for certain planet types like subs and planes and just kinda a rock paper scissor thing because it feels like you just make units until number bigger and planets are bound to fall the moment an army arrives regardless of defenders unless it’s a fort world which is just a time sink

[@coygus4422]

I would like a kind of scaled up Hoi4 system (sort of) as in each army is like a division and can be customised as such so that you could maybe specialise it for the terrain/biome of different planets or add in supporting units/mix up the different types of armies we currently have. For example, imagine you build an army unit made up of say 12 divisions (these are equivalent to battalions in Hoi4) This army is made up of 4 gene warrior divisions, 4 standard assault divisions, 2 robotic Warform divisions and finally 2 armoured divisions all providing different stats, strengths and weaknesses, maybe there could be a rock paper scissors element to these different divisions. I just think this would add a very personal layer to the game and the battles because you can then create as many armies as you want and mix them though I understand the complexity this would add.

[@wesleyeberly228]

This is rather interesting I would personally add support ships for fleets and the armies can be attached to this ship designation and combining putting planets under siege could encourage change in planet buildings. There is also the generals and subterfuge how exactly to incorporate those though…?

[@scottwright1379]

I think that as long as invasions can remain automatic, there is no harm in adding some much neeced added depth. For example having your number bigger than the defender number will work roughly how it does now, but if your invading without a certain multiplier more than the defenders (for defenders advantage), then automatic becomes less likely to be guaranteed win and then you have the option to assign various tasks (maby limited to ethics, admiral skill and perks, army composition) that can help remove the defending advantage and secure victory. So an invasion window with a list of potentially costly actions that will beef up your invasion force. Different tactics for the army on said planet (and/or via policies) that could decrease damage taken, slow down "the advance", but increase chance of a successful counter attack action from the defenders (thematically if your giving them more time by being slower to advance, more time for planning before having to make a do or die attack). The stronghold could give "defensive building slots" for the defender to further specialise the defensive lines which could again open up a much more immersing feel to it, while it could include an auto button to deal with all the planets you don't want to specialise with surface to space missiles or additional shield generators or coms jammers that stop the invading army from changing tactics or retreating without first breaking through the interference - maby all of the information for what's on the planet should increase with your Intel level. You will know there are 4 fortresses on the world, but nothing more. Magically knowing how strong a defending army is makes little sense without some sort of info, either through spy network or a science ship above a planet (or a ship with a certain module ect). Just some thought

[@Raiden_24]

I feel like the planet surrendering if the space station is captured or if the planet is blockaded is a good idea, then they could make it as a diplomatic screen and you can either accept or deny it and determined exterminators and devouring swarms get unique dialog if they accept saying something like we wont end your impending death or we will devour you and your biomass will become part of the hive. I think that mechanic would be a much needed improvement on the war mechanics.

[@kondzic95]

My idea was regular army with adding tanks and air support and special forces wich are included in espionage and they can sabotage the defense or take over the gouverment and annex the planet but with a high risk... But i like also the idea with the recutment laws and how your army operate^^

[@WhenDevilsDuel]

Calamity origin should give you a unique invasion force that works the same as your unique colony ship. Being a devouring swarm hitching rides on meteors that they hurl at planets just makes sense. Doesn't have to kill any armies just hurt em a bit, cause some devastation, kill a pop to add to the chaos, maybe it even hurts your own armies as well.

[@V1489Cygni]

It might have been an april fools from Montu, but I'm all for a small scale HoI4 minigame

[@TheDude50447]

The system as is now is certainly acceptable. The only thing I can really do without is going to each individual planet training armies then combining them or sending them back to the planet fr defense etc. An Army menu on the left screen could really do wonders I feel.

[@username-ru6ul]

I feel like armies should be capped by pops, and the annihilation of an army entails the annihilation of that pop. These pops should be dedicated soldier jobs generated per x amount of pops per planet. Furthermore, the siege mechanic makes sense but it should only be activated if there is a sufficient enough quantity of fleets in orbit around the planet. Its never made sense to me how a conquered and isolated forge world can feed itself. This wouldn’t increase needless complexity with excess Rock Paper Scissors troops, and would create some stakes for losing your transports.

[@sponTheGam]

Maybe adding an orbital bombardment stance that would allow the siege mentioned in the video, depending on the duration of the siege lower amounts of shared resources would be accessible to the colony

[@Comadrejo13]

I'd like to see some implementation to make the types of Army more unique. Like a war situation event that raises your empire exhaustion if you lose a lot of conventional soldiers, but less concern for droid troops.

[@RuinedObelisk]

Totally agree with you! It's just need a bit of extra spice not completely changing

[@aidanmcspadden7617]

If feel like it would be a cool dlc that makes planetary conquering just establishing a blockade, and that you can do an intensive and expensive invasion to heavily boost war score

[@exudeku]

A good ground invasion is from the Nexerelin Mod for Starsector through. Im really having fun in there

[@Boxfortress]

Didnt know the under siege mod existed, but it's something that now justifies why I always try to make every planet as self sufficient as possible. Also that one time when leviathan was new and my agri planet just blew up/became uninhabitable for some reason.

[@littlebigx1106]

Imagine having like a 'battle strategy' tab on every planet that has armies. Where you can select policies that give buffs or debuffs to certain troops and keep the armies as is. Every one of these defences to activate would have you slot in a general to oversee the efforts, and the buff stays active as long as that general is present. This would give generals more to do. (the buff might take some upkeep in form of alloys, minerals, food or energy as well) This would allow for more strategy involved to give players a chance at fighting the overwhelming odds of a 1k army vessel, by giving the planet a chance to hard-counter them.

[@ratking1330]

Back in Stellaris 1.0, armies had access to items that could augment their power. I thought that system was bad, but I think there's something there. I would be interested in seeing perhaps an army designer tab similar to that of the ship designer tab. I would possibly expand the battle width on planets to 3 columns. Lastly, I would have an army research tree or attach army research to a pre-existing tree. In the army designer tab, you would choose a species for the army. After a species is picked, you would then select from either 3-6 (number doesn't matter) different modules for the army along with required tech on the right like ships. There you would set combat tactics (just percentage bonuses), preferred column (like ship ai), and perhaps even which column they should prioritize attacking. Modules would be techs you research, akin to ship modules. Here you could have tanks, infantry, exosuits, artillery, etc. Just dependant on stellaris devs. Things like Psionic Armies, clone armies, robot armies, would be made available as additional species, similar to how they are now as distinct armies

[@Fuscao_Preto]

I would love if i could just throw resources at my armie and have then invade the planets i select, that would be so much easier than having to select each planet after evety invasion and sometimes managing 10-20 armies.

[@eligoldman9200]

It needs to be a lot harder to take planets. There’s should be like air force as well as armies.

[@tommygrnhj1736]

Anthaux idea is great yess and maybe troop(types) and ships involved could impact the possible opportunities for “siege events”.

[@tommygrnhj1736]

We should also be able to launch elite raider frigates towards a titan in a boarding sieze and capture kinda raid.

[@-Benito_Swagolini-]

They should also add the siege progress pictures like in ck3

[@Illegiblescream]

Army Designer screen, and Troop Carrier ship components. Give us a tiny little troop carrier that we can tack on with the engines and jump drive for an extra cost, and a slew of troop carrier components that could replace [A]uxillary and SML components. In this way any combat ship could be assumed to have a Ground Crew, but actual proper army landing would still be reserved for dedicated purpose built ships. Back to the Army screen, we could modify and assign generals, with the general leader being replaced by Commander. This would give extremely violent empires a unity sink that would still strengthen their armies.

[@William0271]

Would be awesome to have an army builder GUI like ships have + HOI4 invasion mechanics (allow your army to automatically do it if you don't want to bother). This would make it feel exactly the same to boring people but add a ton of depth for everyone else. Could even have the option to use either invasion mechanic on startup. Side note, imagine if you could also have control over where on a planet each district/building is built. Could tie in with HOI4 invasion mechanics (even allow building of trenches/turrets), would ofc take radical GUI alterations

[@Beck-pc7ip]

You could add transport ships as a ship type and have an invasion stance for your fleets. Think something similar to the sieges in Star wars. The rest of the ships have to defend the transport ships and try and control the air space.

[@HalIOfFamer]

imo a simple objective based system like in a Mod to a game "Star Sector" called Nexerelin. When you invade a planet or a station you can send your marines to each building and capture it. Each building has different defenability and importance to the war effort. For example forts are not a great target to attack, while attacking food producing buildings or storage will lower the supply level of the station and create attrition for the enemies since they cant get any from outside as you are controlling the space port and probably have a fleet in orbit. Invasions in that mod can have different goals like destroying the enemy economy, capturing slaves, stealing supplies. Imagine you could raid an enemy silo at the start of a war and a huge % of his alloys or jump his food world, steal his food and ruin all the farms, then just look at his empire collapsing. It would also create an incentive to not specialize some worlds, so that some of them make everything and you cant be ruined by 1 planet being taken.

[@maxwelldavis8267]

Have a look at Imperium Galactica II - actual units that you could control or just auto-resolve.

[@TheLumpmachine]

One thing that I'd like to see would be more defensive options for planets. Ground based anti-orbital guns or hanger bays or such. It always seemed weird to me that a fleet could just bombard a world indefinitely without taking any attrition. Have it take up building slots for balance and force them to the "bottom" of the building slots so they're the first ones destroyed by bombardment. (like how fortresses are always at the "top" near the planetary admin.) That way you'd only ever build them on a dedicated fortress world.

[@zen_stef2976]

I think it should be something akin to counters for space combat and the advantages to terrain in ck3. If you send an aquatic army to a desert world to take it over it shouldn't exactly go well unless you get an event to research a tech that would give your troops to help them during the conquest but still leaves them weaker than normal as they are not in the best territory. (Maybe a new army tech system so if they choose rockets you choose shields or something. ) Also, defensive buildings should provide more for on-world conquests, maybe add turret troops or something.

[@Robul96]

They could make it so every planet has some form of basic "Planetary Defence Guns" that have a chance to take down a drop ship that is not engaged in combat yet, meaning doomstacking ur armies would lead to higher losses

[@redfireeverstar2651]

I like the idea where they keep it as is, but add a mechanic were you can directly command the ground battle if you deem it necessary. It shouldn't be something you have to focus too heavily on, but effect your war score unfairly if you lose too many armies in a single engagement. Plus if you take direct control you should be able to tactically maneuver your forces in ways that even if you're out numbered you can still win, especially if defending.

[@TiberiusS182]

In stellaris you can fit guns the size of a building on your space ships, sadly we lack the ability to build the exact same weapons on the planet surface. Adding surface weapons opens the possibility to trade shots between the sieged planet and the besieging fleet. Sending troops would have more meaning as they would conquer the planet without risking your ships

[@Loregamorl]

Welll.... maybe have some modules for ships or invading transports for fire support like that one mod and combine it with siege? All I know is that in Distant Worlds (the original one), you could fit weapons on your ships that directly hit the planet (from nuclear warheads to that one empire specific weapon), and maybe it could modify stuff. Prolong planetary invasions (as of rn they arent really invasions, they are more skirmishes at some weird site that decides the outcome), then the ship modules could lets say add morale debuffs, attack debuffs, cause more extreme direct damage to armies but less devastation, etc. Allow specific buildings maybe as counters? Or troops? Then again that makes it overly complicated but perhaps it could be a more in depth rock paper scissors alongside the siege mechanic and army debuffs. It would also lets say give time as a defender to go and run out with a fleet and a counter-invasion army.

[@locustsun]

The idea of making a countdown timer, like we do for events now, makes sense for planet take over. The idea that the opposing empire could use buildings, policies, and espionage to slow or push the timer is a great idea. It might slow down the auto-blitzkrieg that only accomplishes taking over territory and doesn't enable the nuances of actually holding territory. In this scenario, one could enact policies in an expanding branch that enable the population of a planet to auto-action in a specific way. Say, you want rebellious actions, but if you do this it destroys more buildings/districts/pops so if you were to push the invaders out, it could be at a significant cost of re-building the planet. Or, you could just allow the invaders in and limit the destruction if you think you're going to be able to repel them for an easier time to re-gain the planet. But, you have to be forward thinking because you'll be locked out of the policy change and each course of action should have a positive and negative that is significant enough (not like how often army stats buffs/debuffs are pushed on something as a "balancing" act). It's simple, removes requirements for more models/ships lagging the system, and puts emphasis on some more realistic pieces of the game. No one gets excited when they get to push around 20-50 transport ships over a planet and watch the same animation they always do. They could maybe change the armies screen to play a short landing mpg and then you have a few meters to show how the invasion is going for your side, with good encryption showing how you think it's going for the other side.

[@shadowdevil126]

I wish that there were crusader king like little events that could potentially change how the battle goes each one depends on what kind of world it is

[@someguy-oe4ut]

I think that a good idea could be to decrease the power of orbital bombardment and to add a fluid map for planets that you can assign an AI to or micromanage different types of armys

[@SingABrightSong]

If I could only make one singular change to ground combat and armies in Stellaris, it would be to allow the player to recruit armies from a Fleet Manager styled interface, instantly queuing recruitment on any suitable planet and automatically merging the transport groups at a central location. More fine control from such an interface would be nice in addition, say, being able to assign army groups to automatically garrison a "home planet" the way a naval fleet can have a "home station" starbase, or mark them as an expeditionary force to assemble on-orbit somewhere, but that would be icing on the cake of removing tedious micro.

[@DreamWalkerVl]

Add anti-space cannons that would fire on landing capsules and enemy ships in orbit, which would operate until the end of the capture or until the cannon building was destroyed. Add different stages of the battle. So that it is not just come and capture, but so that the planets have several levels of protection, each of which must be completed in the form of an event (as is the case with the scale in other events). Add post-war events with partisans and capture issues.

[@Kags]

Whatever they do, it should have an equivalent to the fleet manager. That way with one click you can queue up armies across all your planets instead of having to go in them all one by one and click troops. Potentially could be a policy setting and then you levy troops based on planet population and policy choice

[@gorovlib]

I think ideally to have army designer like hoi4 devision template designer, where you can include different types of units that you can combine. it’s removes 100500+ kinds of armies in late game (every type for every kind) and add more depth to the game

[@adrianbyrdziak5130]

The problem is not the mechanics, the problem is how poor it is. The idea of two armies hitting each other with sticks in the head and the one who has more HP wins is on the verge of idiocy. It never worked that way. To even start thinking about offensive actions you need about 3 times more EVERYTHING. More troops, ammunition, meds, support, ships, etc. And we're not talking about offensive operations here. We're talking about landing. About D-day on a cosmic scale. The attacker has all the disadvantages, while the defenders have all the advantage. Do you really think the defenders will let the ship land safely and disembark their troops and then fight honorably? NO. They will fire when they are most exposed. We're talking about the Battle of Iwo Jima turned up to the point of absurdity. Where every meter of land will be paid for with liters of blood, sweat and tears. "The planet broke before the guard did". Defenders should have all the motivation and resources to defend themselves, especially if you're fighting exterminators. If you die, it's better to die with a rifle in your hand. Anyway, let's assume that the attacker wins and suddenly the whole planet is ok with it? No points of resistance, rebels? The attacker must have a huge advantage to land, not "I have more HP so I win". Otherwise we have that. Card exchange. The mechanics are not bad. But it is poor. There's nothing in it. Whoever has more HP wins.

[@Ulmaramlu]

If ground invasions functioned similarly to spy actions or archeology that would be good. If only to provide some cool war time events/mini story that could happen. Maybe the agri-world defenders turned to guerrilla warfare and choices on how you respond. Maybe your general levels up mid-combat and suddenly just wants to kill them all without mercy, but you have an event pop-up about that and maybe a choice on if that general should be replaced or not. On the flip-side, the defender is also getting choices based on how the battle is going. This would actually give you a reason beyond RP to hire generals and also make ground battles something more interactive without adding an entirely new combat system.

[@elkudos6262]

More animations! Somehow it was quite engaging watching the armies have a shootout in Master of Orion II. Plus, it would be nice if Scavenger civic gave a chance to capture tech boost on successful, low collateral invasion.

[@elkudos6262]

Infiltration level definitely should give a bonus to the outcome of invasions.

[@elkudos6262]

Pop ethics also should factor into their willingness to defend or defect to the invader.

[@brutator2974]

I know I’m pretty late on it, but. What I wish they did, was keep the old window that would show the troops dropping on the page (the three atmospheres) when you’d see them drop. It was cool and made it exciting even if it was the same thing. Or if anything just a more militeresk view when seeing the planet being taken, such as troops spreading across a board showing whether they are dominating or being pushed back type of stuff. Hell even just simply being able to pull back veteran armies and pushing recruit level armies would feel better than simply watching the veteran troops getting killed instead of even slight support or pulled aggro towards the younger, and more easily targeted recruits.